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ACT A UNIVERSITATIS LODZIENSIS FOLIA GERMANICA 2, 2000 Aleksander Kozłowski MASSENMEDIEN IN DEUTSCHLAND. ALLGEMEINE UBERSICHT Im Alltag der Menschen spielen Presse, H6rfunk und Fernsehen in Deutschland sowie auch in anderen Landern eine erhebliche Rolle. Die statistischen Umfragen geben an, daB die Biirger der Bundesrepublik in Durchschnitt iiber mnf Stunden werktaglich damr widmen, Radio zu h6ren, fernzusehen oder Zeitung zu lesen. Diese Situation entsprieht iibrigens der Welttendenz in diesem Bereieh, denn in heutiger Industriegesellschaft kann sieh niemand den Medien entziehen. Es gibt heute keinen Haushalt, der nieht in irgendeiner Weise an das Informationsnetz aus Kabeln und Anschliissen angebunden ist. Die rasch wachsende Bedeutung der Medien ist nicht nur auf die technische Entwicklung zuriickzufiihren, sondern auch auf die besondere Stellung der Massemedien in den demokratischen Gesellschaften. In der Demokratie werden namlich den Massenmedien drei einander zum Teil stark iiberschneidende Funktionen zugeordnet: 1) Information, 2) Mitwirkung an der Meinungsbildung, 3) Kontrolle und Kritik.1 Diese Funktionen k6nnen aIs positiv aber auch negativ beurteilt werden. Unabhangig von der Bewertung dieser Funktionen wird der Begriff "Massenmedien" zum Schlagwort unserer Epoche. Die Medien sind langst iiberall in Politik und Wirtschaft, Kunst und Bildung, Arbeit und Freizeit, in der Offentlichkeit ebenso wie in Privatleben also in allen Spharen des Lebens anwesend. Menschen in den modernen Industriegesellschaften 1 H. Meyn, Die politischen Funktionen der Massenmedien in der Demokratie, "Informationen zur politischen Bildung" (208/209) 1990, Bonn, S. l. [99] 100 Aleksander Kozłowski wie ich am Anfang erwahnt habe verbringen die meiste Zeit in ihrem Leben neben Schlafen und Arbeiten mit den Angeboten der Massenkommunikation. Aus diesem Grunde werden Gesellschaften unserer Zeit auch unter anderem aIs "Informationsgesellschaften" bezeichnet, was noch zusatzlich die standig wachsende Bedeutung der Medien betont. "Verstarkt worden ist die Wirkung der Massenmedien durch technische Neuerungen, indem Buch, Zeitung und Zeitschrift, Film, Radio und Femsehen erganzt wurden durch sogenannte ,neue Medien' wie Videorecorder, Videotext, Kabel und Satelitenfunk. Der Ubergang zum dualen Rundfunk und Einfiihrung von privaten Radio und Fernsehen sowie die enorme Ausweitung der Programmangebote fUhrten in den letzten lahren (nicht nur in Deutschland) zu einem Umbruch in der Medienlandschaft ...".2 Da das Thema "Medien" sehr umfangreich ist, kann ich mich im folgenden Aufsatz nur auf einige Aspekte dieser Problematik konzentrieren. Somit sollen diese Erwagungen aIs EinfUhrung in die gesamte Thematik verstanden werden. Zu den altesten Massenmedien gehoren, historisch gesehen, Zeitungen. Es dauerte iiber 150 lahre seit der Erfindung des Buchdruckes von lohann Gutenberg, bis die ersten Zeitungen und Zeitschriften entstanden sind. Die ersten gedruckten Zeitungen, die die Merkmale dieser Art Veroffent1ichungen3 hatten, sind "Aviso", die im lahre 1609 in Wolfenbiittel herausgegeben wurde und "Relationen", die in StraBburg im 1605 erschienen worden ist. "Vier lahrzehnte spater kam die erste deutsche Tageszeitung in Lepzig heraus. Ihr Titel war ,Einkommende Zeitungen'. Das bedeutete etwa eingehende N achrichten oder Kunde. Da diese drei die ersten in regelmaBigen Zeitraumen erscheinenden Zeitungen in Europa waren, bezeichnet man Deutschland aIs Ursprungsland der Presse".4 Es folgten weitere Zeitungsgriindungen. Um 1700 gab es bereits 60 bis 70 deutschsprachige Zeitungen. So war der Anfang der gedruckten Massenmedien in Deutschland. In der zweiten Halfte des 17. lahrhunderts kamen zu den Zeitungen noch Zeitschriften hinzu, die im langeren Abstanden erschienen und fUr ein bestimmtes Zie1publikum vorausgesehen waren. Ich muB in dieser allgemeinen Bearbeitung die weitere Geschichte der Presse in Deutschland iiberspringen und hier nur die kurze Skizze der heutigen Zeitungenund Zeitschriften1andschaft in diesem Land darstellen. 2 E. Noelle-Neumann, W. Schulz, J. Wilk e, Fischer Lexikon. Publizistik Massenkomunikation, Fischer Taschenbuch VerIag, Frankfurt a.M. 1994, S. 9. 3 Es werden vier Merkmale der Zeitungen und Zeitschriften in der Medienwissenschaft genannt: Publizitiit, Aktualitiit, Periodizitiit und Universalitiit. 4 L. MaaBen, Massenmedien. Fakten Formen Funktionen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Hiithing Verlag, Heidelberg 1996, S. 20. Massenmedien in Deutscbland łOI "Die heutige Situation der Presse ist durch die Zusammenschliisse von friiher unabhangigen Zeitungsverlagen zu groBeren Gruppen, den Ankauf kleinerer Lokalund Regionalblatter durch groBere Pressekonzerne gekennzeichnet. Die meisten deutschen Zeitungsund Zeitschriftentitel sind in den Handen folgender Pressekonzerne: Axel Springer Verlag AG, Verlagsgruppe WAZ, Verlagsgruppe Siiddeutscher VerlagjFriedmann Erben, Verlag M. DuMont Schauberg, Verlagsgruppe Stuttgarter Zeitung usw. Der deutsche Pressemarkt von heute wird auBerdem durch den intensiven Zuwachs der Frauenzeitschriften und Programmzeitschriften sowie auch durch den stiindigen Riickgang der Tagespresse mit Ausnahme der Boulevardzeitungen gekennzeichnet. Trotzdem wurden fast 30 Millionen Tageszeitungsexemplaren 1996 in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland w6chentlich vertrieben. Rund 20 Millionen davon waren Abonnementzeitungen, die per Post ins Hause gebracht werden, 6 Millionen davon waren Boulevardzeitungen und den Rest bildete der Einzelverkauf'. 5 Die Zeitungen werden meistens in die regionale, iiberregionale Tagespresse, Boulevardzeitungen, Wochenzeitungen und Anzeigenbliittern geteilt. Die regionale Tagespresse ist wegen ihrer Zahl (tiiglich mehre als 1600 Zeitungsausgaben) schwierig zu analysieren. Sie ist auch im Ausland weing bekannt. Eine andere Situation ist im Bereich der iiberregionalen Tagespresse. Zu den groBten und bekanntesten Titeln dieser Presseart, die man auch in Polen gut kennt, gehoren: "Frankfurter AlIgemeine Zeitung", "Die Welt", "Frankfurten Rundschau", "Siiddeutsche Zeitung" u.a. Eine besondere Stellung auf dem deutschen Pressemarkt haben sogenannte "Boulevardzeitungen". Sie orientieren sich bei Themenund Bilderauswahl an Neugier und Sensationshunger des Publikums. Ihre sprachliche Mittel sind: Schlagzeilen in groBen Buchstaben, Themenmischung aus Politik, Klatsch, Sex und Krimigeschichten. Das unterhaltende Element dieser Presseart erfreut sich unter den Lesern immer groBerer Popularitiit. Zu den bekanntesten gehoren hier: "Bild" (Hamburg), "Express" (Koln), "BZ" (Berlin), "Abendzeitung" (Miinchen) u.a. Anzeigenblatter haben in den letzten lahren einen echten Boom erlebt, so daB heute mehre aIs 1000 Titel mit einer Gesamtauflage von iiber 40 Millionen Exemplaren verteilt werden. Neben reinen Geschiiftsanzeigen, die fast 70% des gesamten Umfangs ausmachen, enthalten sie Informationen zur unter anderem Freizeitgestaltung, Kochrezepte usw. "Wahrend die Tagesund Wochenpresse sich seit lahren auf einem recht stabilen Nivau von Auflagen bewegt, zeight der Zeitschriftenmarkt einen beachtlichen und anhaltenden Aufwiirtstrend. Hinzu kommt eine graBe Vielfalt des Zeitschriftenangebots mit rund 660 Bliittern bei einer s Ebd., S. 33. 102 Aleksander Kozłowski Gesamtauflage von iiber 250 Millionen Exemplaren; den Lowenteil daran halten die Frauenzeitschriften und Programmzeitschriften mit allein fast 100 Millionen StUck". 6 Zu den bekanntesten deutschen Zeitschriften gehoren ohne Zweife1: "Stern", "Der Spiegel", "Focus", "Neue Revue", "Bunte" usw. Wie ich friiher erwiihnt habe, werden immer populiirer die Programmzeitschriften, was die wachsende Bedeutung der audiovisuellen Massenmedien widerspiege1t. Zu den bekanntesten gehoren hier: "Bild +Funk", "Hor Zu", "Funk-Uhr" und vie1e andere. Die traditionellen gedruckten Medien werden in unserem Jahrhundert, besonders in der zweiten Hiilfte dieses Jahrhunderts immer mehr durch die audiovisuellen, elektronischen Medien, vor allem H6rfunk und Fernsehen, verdriingt. Wiihrend die Presse in Deutschland privatrechtlich organisiert ist, sind Fernsehen und Rundfunk "Anstalten offentlichen Rechts". Diese rechtliche Stellung des Rundfunks entspricht v6llig der Situation der audiovisuellen Massenmedien in meisten demokratischen Liindern. Auch in DeutscWand ist Rundfunk eine unabhangige offentlich-recht1iche Einrichtung mit eigener Rechtspersonlichkeit. "Erst seit Mitte der 80er Jahre gibt es auch privates Fernsehen und Radio. Das Angebot und die Vielfalt von privatrechtlichorganisierten Medien wird durch marktwirtschaftliche Mehanismen geregelt. Davon unterscheiden sich die ,Anstalten offentlichen Rechts' grundlegend: sie sind weder in Privatbesitz noch gehoren sie dem Staat; sie sind selbstiindige Institutionen, die aber unter offentlicher Kontrolles stehen". 7 Unter dem breiten Begriff "Rundfunk" verstehen wir Horfunk und Fernsehen. Uberblicken wir jetzt kurz die Geschichte des H6rfunks und des Fernsehens. Der Horfunk ist wie das Fernsehen ein Medium des 20. Jahrhunderts, wenng1eich seine technischen Grundlagen schon vor Jahrhundertwende bekannt waren. Zu der Entstehung des Radios haben der deutsche Physiker Heinrich Hertz (1888), der die Existenz elektromagnetischer Welle nachgewiesen hat und Italiener Guglielmo Marconi, der 1897 telegraphische Nachrichten auf draht10se Weg erstmals iibermittelte, beigetragen. Der Bau von Rohrensendern und Rohrenempfanger war aber erst 1914 moglich. Der Erste Weltkrieg hat die weitere Entwicklung des Radios gestort. "Die Geburtsstunde des deutschen Rundfunks schlug am 29. Oktober 1923. Aus dem Studio der Deutschen Radiostunde AG in Berlin ertonte 6 K. Wenger, Kommunikation und Medien in der Bundesrepublik Deutsch/and, Indicium Verlag, Miinchen 1988, S. 31. 7 K. LilI, Medien/andschaft, Max Hueber Verlag, Miinchen 1998, S. 7. Massenmedien in Deutschland 103 die Ansage: "Hier Sendestelle Berlin, Voxhaus, Welle 400". Es folgte ein Konzert mit klassischer Musik".8 Erwahnenswert ist hier, daB in der Schweiz, Osterreich und in Polen die ersten regelmaBigen Radioprogramme schon im Jahre 1922 gesendet wurden. "Das neue Massenmedium entwickelte sich unvorstellbar rasch. Die Zahl der lizenzierten Rundfunkgerate stieg von ungeflihr 500 Geraten im Dezember 1923 iiber 100 000 in Juli 1924 auf iiber eine halb e Million ein Jahr spater. 1926 nahm der einzige iiber ganz Deutschland empfangbare Sender Deutsche Welle seinen Programmdienst auf'.9 Ich muB hier wiederum die h6chst interessante Geschichte des H6rfunks in Deutschland in den Zeiten der Weimarer Republik, des Dritten Reiches, der Nachkriegszeit und der DDR iiberspringen und mich nur auf kurze Darstellung des Rundfunks in der Gegenwart konzentrieren. Nach dem 6ffentlich-rechtlichen Prinzip sind in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 11 Landesrundfunkanstalten organisiert: Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR), Hessischer Rundfunk (HR), Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR, fUr die Bundeslander: Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt und Thiiringen), Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR, fUr die Bundeslander: Bremen, Hamburg, MecklenburgVorpommem, Niedersachsen, Schleswig-Holstein), Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg (aRB), Radio Bremen (RB), Saarlandischer Rundfunk (SR), Sender Freies Berlin (SFB), Siiddeutscher Rundfunk (SDR), Siidwestfunk (SWF, fUr die Bundeslander: Rheinland-Pfalz und Teil von Baden-Wiirttemberg) und Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR, fiir das Bundesland Nordrhein-Westfalen) und die nationalen H6rfunksender Deutsche Welle (DW) und Deutschlandradio. Diese allen Landesrundfunkanstalten sind in der Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (ARD) zusammengeschlossen, die im Juni 1950 gegriindet wurde. Diese Arbeitsgemeinschaft sollte zuerst nur den Austausch und die gemeinsame Herstellung von H6rfunkprogrammen erm6glichen. Anfang der BOer J ahre tielen in vielen europaischen Landem mit der Entwicklung der Kabelund Satelitentechnik die technischen Barrieren, auf denen das Monopol der staatlichen oder 6ffent1ich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten beruhte. "Auch in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland wurden seit Anfang der BOerJahre durch Kabel, Sateliten und terrestrische Restfrequenzen sowie den neuerschlossenen Frequenzbereich zwischen 100 und lOB MHz fUr die Verbreitung von UKW-H6rfunk die iibertragungstechnischen Voraussetzungen geschaffen, auf Grund derer sich private, kommerziell orientierte Programmanbieter etablieren konnten" .10 8 L. MaaBen, Massenmedien, S. 44. 9 Alle Angaben nach: E. Noelle-Neumann, W. Schulz, J. Wilke, Fischer Lexikon, S. 480. 10 K. Wenger, Kommunikation ... , S. 61. 104 Aleksander Kozłowski Deutschland hat sowie iibrigens sonstige Lander Europas in dem Zeitraum 1980-1990 eine wahre Springflut lokaler sogenannter "freier Radios" erlebt. Im Jahre 1995 gab es in Deutschland mehr aIs 200 private H6rfunkanbieter ausgenommen RTL Radio Luxemburg, das schon seit 1957 gesendet hat. Seit dieser Zeit spricht man von Dualen Radiosystem, d.h. von 6ffentlich-rechtlichen und von den privaten Radiosendern. Die rasch steigende Popularitat der privaten Radiosender ist auf das Prinzip zunickzufUhren: "Hunderte private Lokalsender in Deutschland schaffen nach dem Motto: Immer gut gelaunt, immer lebensfroh, think positive! und berieseln sie ihre H6rer mit leichter Musik, Ratespielen und Small talk. Probleme hat sowieso jeder mehr also genug, die miissen nicht auch noch im Radio kommen. [...J Dazu noch eine groBe Portion flotter Werbesendungen aller Art". 11 Gerade in diesen Radiosendern verwirklichen sich die Worte Bertalt Brechts am besten: "Man hatte pl6tzlich die M6glichkeit, allen alles zu sagen, aber man hatte, wenn man es sich iiberlegte, nichts zu sagen". 12 Private Radiosender haben groBe Chancen, sich weiter auf dem kommerziellen Medienmarkt intensiv zu entwickeln. Ein anderes bedeutendes Medium unseres Zeitalters ist das Fernsehen. Noch lange vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg begann in mehreren Landern gleichzeitig die Entwicklung des Fernsehens. Die technischen Voraussetzungen dafUr wurden schon im 19. Jahrhundert durch die Forschungen und Konstruktionen von Paul Nipkaw und Ferdinand Braun geschaffen. Am Ende der 20er Jahre fUhrte die Industrie auf Funkausstellung in Berlin erste 6ffentliche Demonstration des Fernsehens vor. Im Marz 1935 wurde der erste regelmaBige Fernsehprogrammbetrieb der Welt er6ffnet. Die Post richtete in Berlin, Leipzig und Potsdam insgesamt 28 Fernsehstuben ein, in denen Bilder von den Olympischen Spielen 1936 empfangen wurden. Die damaligen Fernsehgerate waren aber sehr teuer und das gesendete Bild war weitgehend unzuHinglich. Auch das Programmangebot war sehr schlicht und fUr das breitere Publikum wenig interessant. Darauf ist wahrscheinlich geringes Interesse an Fernsehen zuriickzufUhren. Es wird geschatzt, daB bis zum Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges in Deutschland ungefahr 500 Fernsehempfanger13 waren. Die elf froher von mir genannten Rundfunkanstalten veranstalteten gemeinsam das erste Fernsehprogramm, daB offiziell im November 1954 er6ffnet wurde. Es wurde eben unter der Bezeichnung "ARD" bekannt. 11 K. Lin, Medienlandschaft, S. 38. 12 B. Brecht, Rede iiber die Funktion des Rundfunks. In: ders., Gesammelte Werke 18, Schriften zur Literatur und Konst, Suhrkamp-Verlag, Frankfurt a.M. 1967, S. 127. 13 Vg!. E. Noene-Neumann, W. Schulz, J. Wilke, Fischer Lexikon, S. 482. Massenmedien in Deutschland 105 Nach vielen politischen und wirtschaftlichen Auseinandersetzungen wurde das Zweite Deutsche Fernsehen (ZDF) mit Sitz in Mainz gegriindet. Die regelmaBigen Sendungen begannen am l.April 1963. Die beiden offentlichen Fernsehsender werden von den Gebiihren der Zuschauer und der Werbung finanziert. ARD und ZDF boten 1994 in Struktur und Profil ahnliche Programme an. Der Informationsanteil betrug iiber ein Drittel, ein weiteres Drittel machten Fernsehspiele und Serien aus. Kinderprogramme kamen auf einen Anteil von 10 Prozent.14 Ahnlich wie im FalI des Horfunks wurden die privaten Fernsehsender fUr die offentlichen eine groBe Konkurrenz. Der Start fUr das privatwirtschaftliche Fernsehen fand in Deutschland im Jahre 1984 statt. Es was der Beginn des elektronischen kommerziellen Medienmarktes, der in folgenden Jahren explodierte. 1995 gab es aIs Konkurrenten der beiden offentlich rechtlichen Fernsehanstelten die Privat-Riesen RTL und SAT 1, daneben die kleineren Fernsehsender wie Pro Sieben, RTL 2 und Vox, die Spartenprogramme wie Deutsches Sportfernsehen, Premiere, Viva I und Viva II, Kabelkanal und viele andere. Das Institut fUr deutsche Wirtschaft zahlte insgesamt 116 Privatsender in Deutschland. Die meisten Fernsehanstalten senden ihre Programme rund um die Uhf. Die privaten Fernsehprogramme setzen auf hohe Unterhaltungsanteile und senden vor allem Filme, Musikprogramme und vie! Werbung. Sie werden ausschlieBlich von der Werbung finanziert. In das private Fernsehen investieren groBe und bedeutende Industriekonzerne, darunter in Deutschland zum Beispiel: Berte!smann, Springer, Burda, Deutsche Bank und andere. Die Entwicklungsmoglichkeiten des privaten Fernsehens sind sehr groB und wie die Fachleute aus dem Bereich der Medienwissenschaft einschatzen, gehort die Zukunft der audiovisuellen Medien eben den privaten Fernsehanbietern, denn die Zahl der Zuschauer dieses Fernsehens wachst vom Jahr zu Jahr im erheblichen Grade. Dovon zeugen zum Beispiel folgende Angaben: "Aufgrund der neuen Angebote hat sich der individuelle Satellitendirektempfang in Deutschland ab 1989 rasant entwickelt. Die Anzahl an Empfangsanlagen ist von 135000 Ende 1989 sprunghaft auf fast 3 Millionen Ende 1992 angestiegen. Weitere ca. 2,8 Millionen Haushalte empfangen Satelitenfernsehen iiber Gemeinschaftsanlagen (Kabel)". 15 In den obigen AusfUhrungen konnte ich nur einige Aspekte der Massenmedien und zwar auf eine sehr allgemeine und kurze Weise besprechen. Ich habe diese gewahlt, die traditionell aIs popularste gelten. Zu den Medien im breiten Sinne dieses Wortes gehoren noch: Biicher, Filme, Comic und auch die letzten elektronischen wie z.B. Internet. 14 Vg}. L. MaaBen, Massenmedien, S. 58. 15 E. Noelle-Neumann, W. Schulz, J. Wilke, Fischer Lexikon, S. 513. 106 Aleksander Kozłowski Viele Probleme, die ich in meiner Bearbeitung nur kurz angedeutet habe, sollen noch breiter und ausfiihrlicher besprochen werden. Sie k6nnen aber zu Themen nachster Aufsatze sein. Parallel zu der raschen Entwicklung der Massenmedien entwickelt sich auch intensiv eine neue Wissenschaftsdisziplin und zwar Medienwissenschaft. Die Aufgabe der Mediaforschung ist unter anderem, die Nutzung und Wirkung der Medien auf die Gesellschaft zu untersuchen. Auch die Aufgaben und Methoden der Medienwissenschaft k6nnten ebenso zum Thema einer gesonderten Bearbeitung sein. Der von mir oben dargestellte Beitrag solI nur aIs eine kurze und allgemeine Einfiihrung in die breite und vielseitige Probiernatik der heutigen Massenmedien betrachtet werden. Aleksander Kozłowski MASS MEDIA W NIEMCZECH. OGÓLNA CHARAKTERYSTYKA Mass media, także i w Republice Federalnej Niemiec, zyskują coraz większe znaczenie w informowaniu i funkcjonowaniu społeczeństw. Najstarszym środkiem masowego przekazu społecznego jest prasa. Pierwsze gazety na świecie zostały wydane na początku XVIIw. w Wolfenbiittel i Strasburgu, a więc na ówczesnych terenach niemieckich. Nosiły one tytuły: "Aviso" i "Relationen". Aktualnie wydaje się w Niemczech 30 milionów egzemplarzy prasy codziennej (w ogólnym nakładzie). Zwiększa się także liczba gazet zawierających programy telewizyjne oraz czasopism kobiecych. Mediami XX w. są niewątpliwie radio i telewizja. Pierwsze audycje radiowe były nadawane w Niemczech w roku 1923. Nowy wynalazek zyskał wkrótce duże uznanie i już w rok później w Niemczech było zarejestrowanych ponad pół miliona odbiorników. Aktualnie w RFN działa ok. 11 radiostacji publicznych i ponad 200 prywatnych. Powstanie prywatnych stacji radiowych i telewizyjnych było możliwe dzięki rozwiązaniom technologicznym lat osiemdziesiątych. Telewizja była znana już przed II wojną światową. W roku 1935 były nadawane regularne audycje telewizyjne w Niemczech. W rok później telewizja niemiecka transmitowała igrzyska olimpijskie, które odbywały się wtedy w Berlinie. Po II wojnie światowej stworzono w RFN dwie publiczne stacje telewizyjne: ARD (1954) i ZDF (1963). Od połowy lat osiemdziesiątych poważną konkurencją dla publicznych stacji telewizyjnych jest telewizja prywatna, która przekazuje swoje programy za pośrednictwem transmisji satelitarnych i łączy kablowych. Do najbardziej znanych niemieckich stacji telewizji prywatnej, odbieranych także i w Polsce należą: RTL i SAT l, a także Pro Sieben, Vox, RTL 2, Premiere, Viva itd. Przyszłość elektronicznych mediów audiowizualnych, nie tylko w RFN, ale także i w innych krajach jest ogromna i rozwija się niezwykle intensywnie i dynamicznie, zaspokajając głównie potrzeby ludyczne społeczeństw. | {
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Endgültige Fassung erschienen in: Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie 37/1 (2012), 115-127. Gerechtigkeit als Erfüllung von Freiheitsversprechen? Axel Honneths Wiederbelebung von Hegels Rechtsphilosophie Lars Leeten Es gehört zu den Eigenarten moderner Moralphilosophie, dass sie eine Bewertung menschlicher Praxis auf der Grundlage von Prinzipien vornehmen will, deren normativer Sinn eine nur noch schwer aufhebbare Differenz zum deskriptiv Zugänglichen bereits vorzeichnet. Kant, der bis heute Pate für diese Option steht, hat vorgeführt, wie die Orientierung wirklichen Handelns an einem Sollen zu denken wäre, das von allen empirischen Voraussetzungen gereinigt ist. In der Gegenwart ist die Kritik an dieser Strategie praktischen Denkens einmal mehr unüberhörbar. Neoaristoteliker und Neohegelianer haben sich zu Wort gemeldet und auf unterschiedlichste Weise eine Wiederversöhnung der Moral mit dem menschlichen Leben angemahnt. Demzufolge führt es in die Irre, wenn man allgemeine Erwägungen darüber anstellt, was sich als moralisch richtig einsichtig machen lässt, ohne das gelebte Ethos im Auge zu behalten. Es sind, mit Hegel, die Verhältnisse der wirklichen Sittlichkeit, von denen alle normative Kraft letztlich herrührt. Normative Vorstellungen – die Standpunkte der Moral, explizite Normen, Begriffe der Gerechtigkeit – sind eingebettet in ethische Wertsetzungen, in Orientierungen zum Guten. Da diese indes partikulare Bedeutung haben, stellt sich die Frage nach der Berechtigung moralischer Forderungen auf neue Weise. Die Sozialphilosophie Axel Honneths lässt sich vor diesem Hintergrund als Bemühung um eine normative Position verstehen, die über eine eng gefasste Moral hinaus auch eine soziale Ethik umfasst – Gelingensbedingungen eines guten Lebens mit einbezieht –, aber ihren lebensformübergreifenden Anspruch gleichwohl aufrechterhält. Schon in Kampf um Anerkennung wird in dieser Absicht ein 2 formales Konzept der Sittlichkeit vorgeschlagen, das mit den Einstellungen der Liebe, des Respekts und der Solidarität die „strukturellen Elemente von Sittlichkeit" angeben will, „die sich unter dem allgemeinen Gesichtspunkt der kommunikativen Ermöglichung von Selbstverwirklichung von der Vielfalt aller besonderen Lebensformen normativ abheben lassen".1 Von diesem Bezugspunkt her wird in der Folge eine Reflexion auf den Weg gebracht, die die gesellschaftliche Praxis auf „Pathologien des Sozialen" hin untersuchen soll.2 Die Diskussion, die dieser Ansatz seit Jahren erfährt, ist ungewöhnlich intensiv.3 Offen ist aber geblieben, was im anerkennungstheoretischen Horizont aus den Problemen wird, die man gewöhnlich unter der Überschrift Gerechtigkeit verhandelt, insbesondere in normativen Gerechtigkeitstheorien seit Rawls. Was vermag das Konzept der formalen Sittlichkeit zu den drängenden Fragen beizutragen, die mit sozialen Verteilungskämpfen um Güter und Chancen zusammenhängen? Will diese allgemeine Ethik die Gerechtigkeitstheorie ergänzen oder ersetzen? In ihrer Auseinandersetzung mit Honneth hat Nancy Fraser für ein Modell plädiert, in dem Fragen der Anerkennung und Fragen der Umverteilung zwar in einen gemeinsamen Rahmen gestellt werden, aber doch getrennt bleiben.4 Honneth hat dem ausdrücklich einen „‚normativen Monismus' der Anerkennung"5 entgegengesetzt. Auch harte Fragen der Gerechtigkeit, so muss man dies verstehen, können auf anerkennungstheore- 1 Axel Honneth, Kampf um Anerkennung. Zur moralischen Grammatik sozialer Konflikte, Frankfurt/M. 1992, 267. 2 Axel Honneth, „Pathologien des Sozialen. Tradition und Aktualität der Sozialphilosophie", in: ders., Das Andere der Gerechtigkeit. Aufsätze zur praktischen Philosophie, Frankfurt/M. 2000, 1169. 3 Vgl. exemplarisch nur Christoph Halbig/Michael Quante (Hrsg.), Axel Honneth: Sozialphilosophie zwischen Kritik und Anerkennung, Münster 2004; Bert van den Brink/David Owen (Hrsg.), Recognition and Power. Axel Honneth and the Tradition of Critical Social Theory, Cambridge, Mass. 2007; Rainer Forst/Martin Hartmann/Rahel Jaeggi/Martin Saar (Hrsg.), Sozialphilosophie und Kritik, Frankfurt/M. 2009. 4 Vgl. Axel Honneth/Nancy Fraser, Umverteilung oder Anerkennung? Eine politisch-philosophische Kontroverse, Frankfurt/M. 2003, z. B. 51-56. 5 Ebd., 9. 3 tischer Grundlage beantwortet werden. In seiner neuen Studie Das Recht der Freiheit scheint Honneth den Beweis dafür antreten zu wollen.6 Die Überzeugung, dass normative Massstäbe nicht herbeikonstruiert werden können, bleibt dabei wiederum bestimmend. Es geht um eine Theorie der Gerechtigkeit, die sich von vornherein an den Stoff der sozialen Wirklichkeit hält. Der Autor legt gleich zu Beginn seinen „recht masslosen Anspruch" offen, der darin bestehe, „die Prinzipien sozialer Gerechtigkeit direkt in Form einer Gesellschaftsanalyse zu entwickeln" (9). Dass der Hauptabstossungspunkt dieses Hegel'schen Unternehmens die von Kant inspirierten Konzeptionen sind, verwundert nicht; in der Argumentation ist die Distanzierung von formalen Theorien der Gerechtigkeit ein oft wiederkehrendes Leitmotiv. „Eine der grössten Beschränkungen, unter denen die politische Philosophie der Gegenwart leidet", so lautet schon der Ausgangsbefund, „ist ihre Abkopplung von der Gesellschaftsanalyse und damit die Fixierung auf rein normative Prinzipien" (14). Verwundern aber könnte, dass es der späte Hegel der Rechtsphilosophie ist, der die Überlegungen leiten soll.7 Wie lässt sich eine auf den bürgerlichen Staat zugeschnittene Sittlichkeitslehre auf spätmoderne Gesellschaften beziehen? Dass sich unsere Gegenwart durch einen zweihundertjährigen Ausdifferenzierungsprozess, durch Erfahrungen des Totalitarismus und durch ihre mehr materialistischen Denkgewohnheiten von derjenigen Hegels unterscheidet, ist Honneth bewusst (10f. und 17). Worauf gründet sich angesichts dessen der Optimismus, dass sich aus der sozialen Realität hinreichend klare Massstäbe herausdestillieren lassen, die zur Lösung der Probleme beitragen, die mit der Konkurrenz von Ansprüchen, Wertsetzungen und Interessen zu tun haben? – Es ist erstens nach dem Zugang zu fragen, den Honneth wählt. Zweitens 6 Axel Honneth, Das Recht der Freiheit. Grundriss einer demokratischen Sittlichkeit, Berlin 2011 (im Folgenden im Text unter Angabe der Seitenzahl zitiert). 7 Vgl. auch bereits Axel Honneth, Leiden an Unbestimmtheit. Eine Reaktualisierung der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie, Stuttgart 2001 oder „Das Reich der verwirklichten Freiheit. Hegels Idee einer ‚Rechtsphilosophie'", in: ders., Das ich im Wir. Studien zur Anerkennungstheorie, Berlin 2010, 33-48. 4 wird man wissen wollen, welche Normen genau vorgeschlagen werden. Drittens stelt sich die Frage, mit welchem Anspruch diese Theorie der Gerechtigkeit sinnvollerweise auftreten kann. 1. Normative Rekonstruktion Hegels Rechtsphilosophie hatte „die Idee des Rechts, den Begriff des Rechts und dessen Verwirklichung"8 zum Thema. Der zweite Teil dieser Formulierung hat erläuternden Sinn und deutet die Überzeugung an, dass die politische Philosophie es weder mit blossen Begriffen noch mit blosser Wirklichkeit zu tun haben kann, sondern nur mit der Vergegenwärtigung der wirklich gewordenen Vernunft in der Sphäre des Politischen. Ihre Aufgabe besteht darin, „den Staat als ein in sich Vernünftiges zu begreifen und darzustellen".9 Allein auf diese Weise, die Hegel auch „begreifendes Erkennen"10 nennt, entgehe man sowohl der Leere des rein Gesollten auf der einen als auch der geistlosen Betrachtung des unmittelbar Vorhandenen auf der anderen Seite. Die normativ-wertende Reflexion und die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Stoff der politischen Wirklichkeit, so der Gedanke, müssen von vornherein in eins fallen. Das Verfahren der normativen Rekonstruktion, auf dessen Basis Honneth seine Gerechtigkeitstheorie entwickeln möchte, versteht sich als Neuauflage dessen, was bei Hegel „begreifendes Erkennen" war. Den Ausgangspunkt bildet die Diagnose, dass die Theoretiker der Gerechtigkeit ihre Normen entweder „unabhängig, freistehend" (15) konstruieren oder in die Falle einer „hermeneutischen Rückanpassung der normativen Prinzipien an existierende Institutionengefüge oder herrschende Moralüberzeugungen" (16) tappen. Für das Phänomen des Formalismus 8 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, Werke Bd. 7, Frankfurt/M. 1986, 29. 9 Ebd., 26. 10 Ebd., 27. 5 dienen Rawls und Habermas als Beispiele, für das der Rückanpassung Walzer, MacIntyre und David Miller. Das Grundproblem der Vermittlung von Norm und Wirklichkeit indes bleibe in all diesen Ansätzen ungelöst – gleichgültig, ob sie sich auf die Seite des Sollens oder auf die Seite des Seins schlagen.11 So ergibt sich folgende Problemlage: Auf der einen Seite können Gerechtigkeitsprinzipien nicht durch blosse Konstruktion gewonnen und erst im zweiten Schritt auf die soziale Realität angewendet werden; eine nachträgliche Vermittlung kommt prinzipiell zu spät. Auf der andere Seite scheint die blosse Rekonstruktion sozialer Praktiken nicht mehr als eine unkritische Bestandsaufnahme zu sein, die sich den Gegebenheiten anverwandelt. Die normative Rekonstruktion will sich von beidem etwas zu eigen machen, indem sie den normativen Impuls der Konstruktion mit dem Sättigungsgrad der Rekonstruktion sozialer Wirklichkeiten versöhnt. Normative Reflexion und inhaltliche Auseinandersetzung fallen, so die Überlegung, gar 11 Dass die Vertreter beider Lager jeweils Strategien zur Vermittlung von Normativität und sozialer Realität vorgeschlagen haben, lässt Honneth nur am Rande anklingen. Zu nennen ist hier Rawls' Figur des reflective equilibrium, deren Sinn es ja ist, konstruktiv gewonnene Prinzipien mit konkreten Urteilen rückzuvermitteln: vgl. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, Mass. 1971, Kap. I.4. Habermas wiederum hatte mit seiner Rekonstruktion des Handlungssystems des modernen Rechts selbst schon eine Überwindung des abstrakten Normativismus beansprucht, den auch er mit Rawls verbindet: vgl. die Bemerkungen zur „Ohnmacht des Sollens" in: Jürgen Habermas, Faktizität und Geltung. Beiträge zur Diskurstheorie des Rechts und des demokratischen Rechtsstaats, Frankfurt/M. 1992, 78-108. – Umgekehrt richten rekonstruktiv gesonnene Autoren ihre Bemühungen darauf, den normativen Mehrwert ihrer Überlegungen zu verdeutlichen: vgl. etwa den Abschnitt „Tyranny and Complex Equality" in Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice. A Defense of Pluralism and Equality, New York 1983, 17-20 oder die Suche nach einer Position zwischen abstrakter Prinzipienethik und gerechtigkeitstheoretischem Skeptizismus bei David Miller, Principles of Social Justice, Cambridge, Mass. 1999, Kap. 2. – Allgemein ist die Schwierigkeit der Vermittlung von Norm und Wirklichkeit regelmässig eine der ersten, die Gerechtigkeitstheoretiker zur Sprache bringen: vgl. exemplarisch die im Übrigen ganz unterschiedlichen Überlegungen von Rainer Forst, Kontexte der Gerechtigkeit. Politische Philosophie jenseits von Liberalismus und Kommunitarismus, Frankfurt/M. 1994, 13ff.; Martha C. Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice. Disability, Nationality, Species Membership, Cambridge, Mass./London 2006, 1; sowie Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice, London 2009, ix. 6 nicht erst auseinander, wenn man die gesellschaftlichen Praktiken unter dem Gesichtspunkt ihrer eigenen Wertsetzungen in den Blick nimmt. Da gemeinsame, praktisch etablierte Werte zu den Reproduktionsbedingungen einer Gesellschaft gehören (18-21), bestehe die Möglichkeit, „die normativen Absichten einer Gerechtigkeitstheorie dadurch gesellschaftstheoretisch umzusetzen", dass die „immanent gerechtfertigten Werte direkt zum Leitfaden der Aufbereitung und Sortierung des empirischen Materials" genommen werden (23). Eine solche Interpretation bestehender sozialer Praktiken hat aber kritischen Sinn; denn im Lichte bereits legitimationswirksamer ethischer Orientierungen treten Abstände zwischen normativen Setzungen und wirklichen Verhältnissen deutlich hervor. Es eröffnet sich eine Perspektive, in der der normative und der rekonstruktive Zugriff so ineinander verschränkt sind, dass man „nur knapp über den Horizont der existierenden Sittlichkeit hinwegschaut" (27). Spannungen zwischen Faktizität und Geltung werden sichtbar und damit gleichzeitig Spielräume zur Entfaltung von bereits verbindlichen Wertsetzungen. Wo die sozialen Verhältnisse an ihren eigenen Massstäben gemessen werden sollen, kommt freilich alles darauf an, wie diese Massstäbe genau bestimmt werden. Für Honneth steht dabei ausser Zweifel, dass nur ein einziger Wert eine Antwort liefern kann: die „Freiheit im Sinne der Autonomie des einzelnen" (35). Vor dem Hintergrund einer Teleologie, die davon ausgeht, dass „der menschliche Geist in der individuellen Selbstbestimmung [...] das Wesen seiner praktisch-normativen Tätigkeit entdeckt" habe (39), muss das Prinzip der Autonomie „aus Gründen, die universelle Geltung beanspruchen" (40), als oberster Orientierungspunkt gelten. Um der Rekonstruktion als Leitfaden dienen zu können, muss dieses Prinzip allerdings weiter in sich differenziert werden (40f.). Honneth hat hier insbesondere im Sinn, dass sich Autonomie nur in intersubjektiven Praktiken realisieren kann: Während die Begriffe der negativen oder reflexiven Freiheit für sich genommen nur Möglichkeitsbedingungen von Freiheit betreffen, treten die Verwirklichungsbedingungen von Freiheit erst zutage, wenn Freiheit als soziale Freiheit begriffen wird. Allein auf diese Weise bleibe präsent, dass Freiheit nur im Rahmen einer 7 intersubjektiven Praxis – indem die gesellschaftlichen Institutionen zum „Element des Freiheitsvollzugs selbst" (81) werden – Objektivität gewinnen kann.12 Damit greift Honneth an dieser zentralen Stelle, an der die Weichen für die normative Rekonstruktion gestellt werden, auf frühere Grundannahmen zurück: Der Begriff der sozialen Freiheit wird dahingehend entfaltet, dass es wirkliche, nicht auf individuelle Erfahrung beschränkte Freiheit ausschliesslich im Rahmen reziproker Anerkennungsverhältnisse geben kann (85ff.). Nicht die formalen Prinzipien der Autonomie, sondern die sozialen Bedingungen der Selbstverwirklichung sind der Bezugspunkt. Diese sollen, so könnte man sagen, das Muster liefern, das sowohl abstrakt genug ist, um allgemein sein zu können, als auch bestimmt genug, um substantielle normative Überlegungen zu leiten.13 Honneth legt dabei eine nicht nur von Hegel, sondern auch von Marx (94-98) und Dewey (113, Fn. 110) inspirierte Interpretation zugrunde, der zufolge der Verwirklichung von Freiheit Prozesse der Verschmelzung von Zielsetzungen vorhergehen, die sich nur in intersubjektiver Kooperation realisieren lassen. Der Gedanke ist: Die in der gesellschaftlichen Praxis verbindlich gewordenen Vorstellungen von wirklicher, kooperativer Freiheit sind die gesuchten substantiellen Gerechtigkeitsprinzipien. Das Interesse der Rekonstruktion richtet sich damit auf die sozialen Praktiken, in denen sich die jeweils spezifische Ausgestaltung der Anerkennungsverhältnisse 12 Die ausführlichen Überlegungen zu den verkürzten Auffassungen von Recht und Moral, die dies ausser Acht lassen, müssen hier leider übersprungen werden. Demzufolge bringen es rein negative Freiheitsdeutungen nicht weiter als bis zu kontraktualistischen Gerechtigkeitskonzeptionen (54-56) und befördern einen auf die Abwehrfunktion des Rechts verengten privatistischen Blickwinkel, der für die positive soziale Funktion des Rechts blind geworden ist (129-172). Wo Freiheit rein reflexiv begriffen wird, legen sich instrumentelle, durch die Prinzipien der gemeinsamen Willensbestimmung und Selbstverwirklichung geleitete Gerechtigkeitskonzeptionen nahe, die allein Möglichkeitsbedingungen von Freiheit sichern (79f.). Der Praxis der Moral, die auf einem solchen Freiheitsverständnis gründet, ist diese Einschränkung insofern eingeschrieben, als sie in verzerrte Formen münden kann, in denen partikulare Grundsätze als universal auftreten, wie im Falle der „Pathologien" des Moralismus oder Terrorismus (206-218). 13 Vgl. auch bereits Honneth, Kampf um Anerkennung (Anm. 1), 279. 8 vollzieht, insbesondere auf die entsprechenden politischen Freiheitskämpfe. Da Honneth diese erstens im privaten, zweitens im ökonomischen sowie drittens im politisch-öffentlichen Bereich lokalisiert, schreitet er diese Bereiche ab: Die Handlungssysteme der persönlichen Beziehungen, des Marktes und der demokratischen Willensbildung werden nacheinander auf diejenigen Anerkennungsmuster durchforstet, die die jeweils eigentümlichen Freiheitsvorstellungen verkörpern und zusammen das Spektrum einer „demokratischen Sittlichkeit" bilden. Die gemeinsame Leitfrage der drei Studien, die nicht nur aufgrund ihres Umfangs (232-624) die eigentliche Substanz der Konzeption ausmachen, könnte man so formulieren: Welche Freiheitsversprechen wurden schon gegeben? 2. Freiheitsversprechen als Gerechtigkeitsprinzipien Freilich macht sich das Hegel'sche Vorbild auch daran bemerkbar, dass sich die Antwort auf diese Frage nur äusserst unzureichend zusammenfassen lässt. Nur um den Preis einer Reformalisierung könnte man die äusserst dichten Detailbetrachtungen auf wenige Normen zurückführen. So bewegt sich der Kommentar zwischen den beiden Unzulänglichkeiten, hoffnungslos kursorisch zu bleiben oder auf abstrakt-allgemeine Formeln zurückzufallen. Doch der Versuch, den gerechtigkeitstheoretischen Gehalt des Werks herauszupräparieren, sieht sich auch noch mit einer zweiten, grundlegenden Schwierigkeit konfrontiert: Der gängigen Lesart zufolge liegt die Problematik der Gerechtigkeit darin, dass liberale Gesellschaften durch Konflikte von ethischen Orientierungen und sozialen Ansprüchen geprägt sind. Für Rawls ist dies der Ausgangspunkt der politischen Philosophie; sein „vernünftiger Pluralismus" will einen Konsens ins Auge fassen, der für unterschiedliche Vorstellungen vom Guten Geltung haben kann.14 Ähnlich antwortet Habermas' normative Rekonstruktion des Rechtssystems auf die Herausforderung, „wie 14 Vgl. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Anm. 11), Kap. I.1 oder auch ders., Justice as Fairness. A Restatement, Cambridge, Mass./London 2001, §§ 1 und 11. 9 ausdifferenzierte, in sich pluralisierte und entzauberte Lebenswelten sozial integriert werden können, wenn gleichzeitig das Dissensrisiko [...] wächst".15 Der Frage nach Gerechtigkeit entspricht die Frage nach Normen für eine politische Praxis, die mit Wertsetzungen, Lebenswelten und Interessen umzugehen hat, die einander widerstreiten. Nun bringt es Honneths Konzeption aber mit sich, dass sie für eine so verstandene Gerechtigkeitsproblematik von vornherein keinen rechten Platz bietet. Zwar wird eingangs die Aufgabe festgehalten, „normative Regeln zu formulieren, an denen sich die moralische Legitimität der gesellschaftlichen Ordnung bemessen liesse" (14). Echte Wertdifferenzen jedoch sieht die Rekonstruktion nicht vor. Wenn Honneth zugrunde legt, dass der Gerechtigkeitsbegriff nur dadurch gefüllt werden kann, dass man ethische Orientierungen in ihn einspeist – ohne besondere Wertsetzungen bleibt das formale suum cuique leer (20f. und 121) –, geht er von einer allgemeinen Wertbestimmung aus, die unterschiedlich ausgestaltet wird. Entsprechend ergeben sich für ihn, anders als für die Autoren, zu denen er sich in Konkurrenz begibt, keine eigentlich pluralistischen Konsequenzen: Alle sozialen Konflikte entzünden sich letztlich am Wert der individuellen Freiheit. Die „Komplikation", dass dieser Wert immer schon „unterschiedliche Interpretationen" hatte (122), gilt dabei als überwindbar: Die anerkennungstheoretische Freiheitsdeutung, so die Überzeugung, liefert den einheitlichen Leitfaden, um die Frage der Gerechtigkeit in der Frage der Selbstverwirklichung aufgehen zu lassen. So ist nicht der Umgang mit konkurrierenden Ansprüchen das Primäre, sondern die Beurteilung der sozialen Realität am Massstab objektiver Freiheit. Auch wenn dieser auf eine Vielfalt von Erfüllungsgestalten hin formuliert ist, so prägt er die Perspektive doch als ein allgemeines, formales Muster, dem die sozialen Gege- 15 Habermas, Faktizität und Geltung (Anm. 11), 43. – Erst recht sind die pluralistischen Verhältnisse für Walzer der Ausgangspunkt; seine Idee einer Sphärengerechtigkeit verfolgt ja den Gedanken, dass die Verteilung von Gütern bereichsspezifisch zu organisieren ist, wenn sie als gerecht gelten soll. Vgl. Walzer, Spheres of Justice (Anm. 11). 10 benheiten näher oder ferner stehen können. Am deutlichsten schlägt sich dieser axiologische Monismus darin nieder, dass die Normrekonstruktion nicht selten ganz hinter die Pathologiediagnose zurücktritt. Das freiheitstheoretische Schema ist für die Explikation der konkreten Sozialpraktiken so bestimmend, dass die Normen jederzeit in diese hineingelesen werden können, wo sie nicht aus ihnen herauszulesen sind. Dies nimmt den Analysen nicht unbedingt ihre kritische Kraft. Es wird aber unweigerlich die Frage aufwerfen, was das Ergebnis der Rekonstruktionen genau zu dem beiträgt, was man normalerweise als Gerechtigkeitsproblematik versteht. Im ersten Fall der persönlichen Beziehungen treten Praktiken ins Blickfeld, die allgemein durch den Zweck bestimmt sind, „die Beteiligten sich durch wechselseitige Bestätigung, Unterstützung und Hilfe in ihren für wesentlich gehaltenen Eigenschaften verwirklichen zu lassen" (235). Dass dieses Freiheitsversprechen, das zunächst aus anerkennungstheoretischem Blickwinkel heraus formuliert ist, tatsächlich normative Wirksamkeit hat, lässt sich anhand der Sozialgeschichte der letzten 200 Jahre vielfach belegen. Ins Zentrum treten dabei Institutionen, die Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts stabil geworden sind: die moderne Form der Freundschaft, die ihre Besonderheit darin hat, dass sich in ihr die „Erfahrung einer zugleich gewollten und umsorgten Selbstartikulation" (249) realisiert findet; die seit dem 18. Jahrhundert immer mehr zur eigenen Form gewordene intime Liebe, die reziproke Anteilnahme auch in eine offene Zukunft hinein vorsieht (261) und „die ganze leibliche Identität in die Wechselseitigkeit" mit einbezieht (270); und schliesslich die Familie, die seit den 60er Jahren als demokratisierte, durch ein „partnerschaftliches Gleichheitsideal" (295) gekennzeichnete Institution begriffen werden kann, in der sich die Beteiligten wechselseitig als „ganze Personen in all der konkreten Bedürftigkeit" begegnen (301) und sich „ein Spiegel für Lebensphasen [sind], die entweder noch vor ihnen oder bereits hinter ihnen liegen" (307). Es liegt in der Logik der normativen Rekonstruktion, dass es in einer Freiheitssphäre keine endogenen Fehlentwicklungen geben kann und jeder Rückschritt auf externe Irritationen zurückgeführt werden muss (230f.). Dabei hängt die Ein11 lösung der Freiheitsversprechen, die das Handlungssystem des Privaten in sich trägt, insbesondere von der ökonomischen Sphäre ab. Der Befund ist: Während der normative Entwicklungstand inbesondere der Familie längst ein durch und durch demokratisches Niveau erreicht hat (314-316), ist die wirkliche Entfaltung dieser Lebensform massiv durch ungünstige sozioökonomische Bedingungen bedroht (310-314). Das „‚Wir' persönlicher Beziehungen", als erste Basis sozialer Freiheit (233), verwirklicht sich nur erst eingeschränkt. Im zweiten Fall der ökonomischen Sphäre schiebt sich die Pathologiediagnose noch weiter in den Vordergrund. Schon um die spezifischen Freiheitsversprechen herauszuarbeiten, muss Honneth etwas ausholen: Der gewöhnlichen Deutung zufolge ist die kapitalistische Gesellschaft von Beginn an durch den von sozialen Bindungen gelösten Austausch im neutralen Medium des Geldes charakterisiert. Diese von den Wirtschaftswissenschaften beförderte (334f.) Lesart lasse sich mit Hegel und Durkheim allerdings dahingehend konterkarieren, dass auch ökonomisches Handeln in den Rahmen einer kooperativen Praxis eingebettet bleibt, in der sich ethische Wertsetzungen sedimentieren. Der Kern dieses moralischen Ökonomismus liegt in dem Gedanken, „dass die für den Markt konstitutive Erlaubnis zu rein individuellen Nutzenorientierungen die normative Bedingung erfüllen können muss, von den Beteiligten als ein geeignetes Mittel zur komplementären Verwirklichung ihrer je eigenen Zwecke verstanden werden zu können" (348). Diese Norm wird für Honneth zum allgemeinen gerechtigkeitstheoretischen Bezugspunkt; und es ist der Kampf um ihre Durchsetzung, den die Rekonstruktion verfolgt. In der zweihundertjährigen Geschichte der Konsumsphäre, die Honneth erzählt, fallen dabei Bestrebungen zur Eindämmung des Konsumismus ins Auge, die in den 1960er Jahren einen Höhepunkt finden, seitdem aber weitgehend zum Erliegen gekommen sind (390-409); für den Arbeitsmarkt ist die im Laufe der industriellen Entwicklung entstehende Einsicht entscheidend, dass eine kapitalistisch organisierten Gesellschaft unweigerlich mit der „sozialen Frage" konfrontiert ist (418-420) – was sich institutionell in der staatlichen Sozialpolitik (420425) und in der Herausbildung der Gewerkschaften (432-434) niederschlägt. An12 gesichts dieser Errungenschaften müssen die Entwicklungen der neuesten Gegenwart dann als Fehlentwicklungen gelten: Honneth stellt das ganze Spektrum der heute als „neoliberal" bekannten Entwicklungen vor Augen wie das Übergreifen der ökonomischen Logik auf andere Sphären, die Entgrenzung der Arbeit, die Lohnschrumpfung, den Flexibilitätsdruck und die prekären Beschäftigungsverhältnisse (454-468). Diese düstere Diagnose freilich bringt die „normative Rekonstruktion in die Verlegenheit [...] auf normative Gegenbewegungen im Augenblick nicht mehr setzen zu können; der demokratischen Sittlichkeit [...] fehlt damit eines ihrer Kernelemente" (468). Um das „‚Wir' des marktwirtschaftlichen Handelns" (317) steht es schlecht: Der soziale und freiheitseröffnende Charakter des Marktes ist im Gegenteil so weit vergessen, dass das ökonomische Handeln überhaupt nicht mehr als kollektives Handeln aufgefasst wird (464f.). Der Verweis auf die transnationale Neuorganisation des Widerstands gegen die entgrenzte Ökonomie (469f.) steht dieser Diagnose nur blass gegenüber. Der dritte Schritt der normativen Rekonstruktion schliesslich besteht im Durchgang durch die politische Sphäre. In dieser Hinsicht könnte man dem Projekt einer Beurteilung der sozialen Realität an einem bestimmten Freiheitsmassstab von vornherein mit Skepsis begegnen: Ein demokratischer Kerngedanke ist ja gerade der, dass eine solche übergeordnete Perspektive nicht verfügbar ist. Die Staatsphilosophie Hegels, die eine öffentliche Willensbildung oder Partizipation nicht vorsieht, scheint sich in diesen Horizont nicht zu fügen.16 Und tatsächlich möchte sich Honneth für dieses „Herzstück" (470) der Überlegungen, das etwa ein Viertel des ganzen Werks ausmacht, vom Vorbild Hegels wieder distanzieren (471, 567). Es sind Habermas, Durkheim und Dewey, die für den entsprechenden Abschnitt die entscheidenden Anhaltspunkte liefern. Wiederum ist die Einsicht massgeblich, dass die rein rechtliche Verankerung von demokratischen Organen nur negative, ermöglichende Funktion haben kann, während der Vollzug öffentlicher Willens- 16 Zu Honneths eigener Problembeschreibung vgl. ders., Leiden an Unbestimmtheit (Anm. 7), 124127. 13 bildung im positiven Sinn von der Ausbildung wirklicher sozialer Praktiken abhängt. Deren Geschichte wird von der bürgerlichen Öffentlichkeit im 19. Jahrhundert, denen Habermas in Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit seine Aufmerksamkeit schenkte (474-476), über die Entwicklung einer proletarischen Öffentlichkeit (476-479), die Prozesse der Parlamentarisierung in Europa (479-483) bis hin zur Praktik diskursiver Willensbildung verfolgt. Im Fokus stehen dabei die medialen Voraussetzungen, auf denen die allmähliche soziale Etablierung dieser Praktik gründet: Die ausführlichen medienethischen Betrachtungen reichen von den Anfängen der Tagespresse (488ff.), über die erste Zeit des Rundfunks (501ff.) und des Fernsehens (522f.) bis hin zum Internet (560-566). Die Deutung von Demokratie als einer Praxis der diskursiven Willensbildung resultiert dabei in der Forderung möglichst grosser kommunikativer Durchlässigkeit: Als Bedingungen hebt Honneth die Inklusivität der Kommunikationsräume, ein geeignetes System von Kommunikationsmedien, die Bereitschaft zur politischen Arbeit und das Vorhandensein einer politischen Kultur heraus (539-547). Die gegenwärtige Lage veranlasst im Lichte dieser Massstäbe wiederum zu pessimistischen Befunden: Stichworte für die entsprechenden Pathologien wären Mediokratie (532, 556), Fiktionalisierung (552f.), „elitäre Abkapselung" (557) oder virtualisierte Öffentlichkeit (565f.). – Auch der Rechtsstaat, dem als „Erfüllungsorgan der demokratischen Freiheit der Selbstgesetzgebung" (567) ein eigener Abschnitt gewidmet ist, kann sich nicht allein rechtsförmig realisieren: Ob sich der Staat als Niederschlag eines in öffentlicher Kommunikation formierten Willens begreifen lässt, wie es die normativ leitende Idee vorsieht, macht sich an Praktiken fest, die durch das Verhalten von Staatsbeamten ebenso geprägt werden wie durch den Zustand des Parteiensystems. Daraus ergibt sich ein weiteres Einfallstor für Fehlentwicklungen: Die Exklusion der Lohnarbeiter im 19. Jahrhundert ist ein Beispiel dafür (574-577), der Lobbyismus der Gegenwart ein anderes (604-607). Abermals stösst die interne Kritik auf reichlich, die Vergegenwärtigung wirklicher Vernunft auf nur wenig Material. So wird auch in dieser Sphäre letztlich die Pathologiediagnose tonangebend: Das „‚Wir' der demokratischen Willensbildung" (470) befindet sich in 14 einem schlechten Zustand; und der Widerstreit zwischen Politik und Ökonomie ist einmal mehr das Hauptproblem (609-611). Es sind regelmässig Übergriffe aus der Marktsphäre, die Fehlentwicklungen in der politischen Willensbildung verursachen – insbesondere durch Übergriffe auf das Mediensystem oder einen überbordenden Korporatismus. Honneth zufolge stellt sich die Frage, wie der kapitalistische Markt wieder in eine sozial eingebettete Form überführt werden kann, in der europäischen Gegenwart nicht zuletzt deswegen besonders dringlich, weil der ökonomischen Freiheit keine solidaritätsstiftende kollektive Identität mehr gegenübersteht. Das Gegenmittel könne nur in der Ausbildung einer demokratischen Tugend liegen, die vor allem mit dem Zusammenspiel der unterschiedlichen Sphären zu tun hat (614-618): Im Prozess der demokratischen Entwicklung müssen die Verhältnisse so zurechtgerückt werden, dass sich die Freiheiten der Sphären gleichzeitig realisieren können. Die abschliessenden Überlegungen kreisen um die Frage, welche Chancen für eine solche politische Kultur in einem vereinigten Europa bestehen. 3. Eine Theorie der Gerechtigkeit? Der Überzeugung, dass die normative Reflexion gesellschaftlicher Verhältnisse aus empirischen Betrachtungen heraus entfaltet werden muss, bleibt Honneth, so dürfte deutlich geworden sein, mit aller Konsequenz treu. Die Vermittlung von Norm und Wirklichkeit vollzieht sich bei ihm vor allem als Versenkung in den Stoff der sozialen Realität. Der Gehalt der detailreichen Ausführungen konnte hier nur angedeutet werden; gerecht werden können wir dieser konkreten Seite der Konzeption an dieser Stelle nicht. Wir werden uns statt dessen auf die andere Seite konzentrieren: Das Recht der Freiheit hegt den Anspruch, eine Theorie der Gerechtigkeit zu sein. Inwiefern wird dieser Anspruch erfüllt? Vielleicht will man zunächst sagen, dass sich das gewöhnliche Profil der Gerechtigkeitstheorie bei Honneth in der Fülle der sozialgeschichtlichen Einzelheiten so weit verliert, dass man sich des allgemeinen normativen Anspruchs erst wieder 15 versichern muss. Wie erläutert wurde, wird dieser Anspruch besonders an dem anerkennungstheoretisch fundierten axiologischen Monismus manifest, der durchgängig leitend bleibt: Die sozialen Bedingungen der Selbstverwirklichung bilden demzufolge ein Muster, das sich formal angeben lässt, dadurch allgemeine Geltung hat, aber doch auch bestimmt genug ist, um eine inhaltlich gefüllte normative Richtungsanzeige zu geben. Die Ausgestaltung dieser anerkennungstheoretischen zu einer gerechtigkeitstheoretischen Konzeption nun muss, so möchte man meinen, den Akzent unweigerlich auf den universalen Anspruch legen; denn dieser ist es, der Aussagen über das Gerechte von bloss ethischen Aussagen unterscheidet. Damit wäre ein Lektürepfad vorgezeichnet, auf dem Honneths sozialgeschichtlichen Rekonstruktionen als normative Grosstheorie gelesen werden müssten: Mit der Verschmelzung von normativer Explikation und empirischer Vergegenwärtigung hätte sich zwar die Methode verändert, nicht jedoch der Geltungsanspruch. Man könnte sogar sagen: Dieser wäre noch unbescheidener geworden, da die axiologische Zurückhaltung, für die der kantische Zugang auch stehen kann, aufgegeben wird. Wollte man die entsprechenden Prinzipien sozialer Gerechtigkeit benennen, so hätte man allerdings eine Reformalisierung vorzunehmen, die eine wesentliche Pointe des rekonstruktiven Zugangs verfehlt: Zwar lässt sich mit der wechselseitigen Bestätigung von Individualität, dem moralischen Ökonomismus und der diskursiven Willensbildung für jede der drei Sphären ein normativer Kerngedanke ausmachen. Abgelöst von ihren geschichtlichen Objektivationen wären diese Gerechtigkeitsprinzipien jedoch nicht mehr das, als was die Rekonstruktion sie darstellen will. Es wäre daher falsch, einen reinen normativen Gehalt aus Honneths Überlegungen herauszudestillieren. Auch die Bemerkungen zum Verhältnis der drei sittlichen Sphären gegen Ende beschränken sich auf wenige Hinweise auf ein „kompliziertes Netzwerk von reziproken Abhängigkeiten, in dem die Verwirklichung der eigensinnigen Freiheit in der einen Handlungssphäre darauf angewiesen ist, dass auch in den anderen Sphären die jeweils zugrundeliegenden Freiheitsprinzipien realisiert werden" (616). Kurzum: Die konkreten Erzählungen der 16 sozialen Freiheit treten bei Honneth ganz an die Stelle der normativen Theorie. Die allgemeine gerechtigkeitstheoretische Thematik löst sich in den besonderen Gestaltungsformen auf. Wie man Honneths eigenwillige Theorie der Gerechtigkeit liest, hängt davon ab, wie man diese Vorgehensweise bewertet. Generell kommt man hier auf einen Lektürepfad, der sich das ebenfalls Hegels Rechtsphilosophie entstammende Motiv zu eigen machen könnte, dass die „Philosophie ihre Zeit in Gedanken gefasst" ist.17 Wenn Honneth an zentraler Stelle schreibt, dass die „Kultur der Freiheit [...] heute eine vollkommen neue Gestalt angenommen [hat], die es erst wieder für den kurzen Moment einer historischen Epoche normativ zu rekonstruieren gilt" (117), so schlägt er in diese Kerbe. Der Gedanke lässt sich auch bereits in Kampf um Anerkennung finden: Die Vorstellungen der sozialen Bedingungen von individueller Selbstverwirklichung werden recht betrachtet „zu einer geschichtlich variablen Grösse, die vom aktuellen Entwicklungsniveau der Anerkennungsmuster bestimmt ist".18 Das heisst aber offenbar, dass der normative Anspruch der Rekonstruktionen mit der Stärke der teleologischen Prämissen steht und fällt, die man zu machen bereit ist. Ein Anspruch auf übergeordnete Normativität wird nur insoweit gedeckt sein, als die Freiheitserzählung als Momentaufnahme in einem grossen sittlichen Entwicklungsprozess gelten darf. Bei Hegel übernimmt die Idee der notwendigen Selbstverwirklichung des Geistes diese Garantie. Honneth freilich will sich bei aller Wertschätzung Hegels von dessen „Vernunft-" und „Geistmetaphysik" (106f.) distanzieren; er gibt seiner Teleologie kantische Züge.19 Von Hegels „geschichtliche[m] Vertrauen" bleibe, wie es heisst, 17 Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (Anm. 8), 26. 18 Honneth, Kampf um Anerkennung (Anm. 1), 280. 19 Vgl. Axel Honneth, „Die Unhintergehbarkeit des Fortschritts. Kants Bestimmung des Verhältnisses von Moral und Geschichte", in: ders., Pathologien der Vernunft. Geschichte und Gegenwart der Kritischen Theorie, Frankfurt/M. 2007, 9-27, auf den Honneth an den entsprechenden Stellen in Das Recht der Freiheit (40, 112) verweist, sowie der dortige Gebrauch von Kants Begriff „Geschichtszeichen" (579, 623). 17 „auch dann noch ein hinreichend grosser Rest, wenn es seiner metaphysischen Grundlagen entkleidet wird und ohne objektive Teleologie auskommen muss" (112). Die Vermittlung von Norm und Wirklichkeit, die Honneth erreichen will, hängt am Ende massgeblich von diesem geschichtlichen Vertrauen ab. Ohne teleologische Prämissen liesse sich eine Explikation besonderer Freiheitspraktiken nicht als Theorie der Gerechtigkeit verstehen. Ist man in dieser Hinsicht jedoch skeptisch – und hält man die Annahme einer „jeweils unüberschreitbaren Gegenwart"20 für weniger unproblematisch –, dann wird man es schwer haben, Honneth in diesem Punkte zu folgen. Man wird seine Rekonstruktionen in diesem Falle unweigerlich als Freiheitgeschichte lesen, die auch anders erzählt werden könnte, als Positionsbestimmung, die in vielerlei Hinsicht überzeugend, aber keinesfalls alternativlos ist. „Wir"-Aussagen können inklusiv oder exklusiv interpretiert werden, je nachdem, ob der Adressat die Selbstcharakterisierung übernehmen will oder nicht. In welchen Hinsichten man sich der ersten Person Plural, die der Autor jeweils verwendet, um das kollektive Subjekt einer Freiheitspraktik zum Ausdruck zu bringen (233, 317, 470), zuordnen wird, und in welchen Hinsichten nicht, dies müsste man für unzählige Details gesondert beantworten. Honneths Rekonstruktionen sind Artikulationen eines besonderen praktischen Standpunkts. Dass der Zugriff dabei normativ und deskriptiv zugleich ist, versteht sich schon allein daraus, dass jede Praxisexplikation auf Massstäbe rekurrieren muss, die angeben, was einen gelungenen Vollzug der betreffenden Praktik ausmacht. Bereits die Form der Erzählung bringt dies mit sich: Das Narrative liegt zwischen dem Normativen und dem Deskriptiven.21 Ohne die Rückbindung an ein „Wir", das sich mit geschichtlicher Notwendigkeit 20 So eine Formulierung in: Honneth, Kampf um Anerkennung (Anm. 1), 280. 21 Alasdair MacIntyre, den Honneth in Das Recht der Freiheit (126, Anm. 117) als wichtige Inspirationsquelle nennt, versteht Hegels Geschichtsschreibung als Erzählung in diesem Sinne: vgl. ders., Der Verlust der Tugend. Zur moralischen Krise der Gegenwart, Frankfurt/M. 1995, 15f. Zu dieser Eigentümlichkeit des Narrativen vgl. auch Paul Ricoeur, Das Selbst als ein Anderer, München 1996, 186-200. 18 entfaltet, bietet das Verfahren der normativen Rekonstruktion keine Perspektive, die gegenüber anderen praktischen Perspektiven, die sich narrativ artikulieren, privilegiert wäre. Der Versuch, die Gerechtigkeitsfrage auf der Basis der Anerkennungstheorie zu beantworten, lässt deren Grenzen deutlich sichtbar werden. Das gewöhnliche Verständnis vorausgesetzt, ist Honneths Das Recht der Freiheit keine Theorie der Gerechtigkeit, sondern eine von vielen möglichen Erzählungen der Freiheit. Um es klar zu sagen: Es ist eine gelungene Erzählung, deren Qualitäten hier kaum zur Sprache kommen konnten. Aber es ist eine Erzählung; und problematisch wird diese dadurch, dass sie mehr sein will als Erzählung. Der Zugang über Hegels Rechtsphilosophie bringt eine Überdehnung mit sich, die die Darstellung zwischen normativer Theorie und Selbstartikulation oszillieren und ihren Geltungsanspruch gleichsam flimmern lässt. Noch die eindringlichste Bestandsaufname wirkt merkwürdig abstrakt, wenn man sie ins Licht der Gesamtkonstruktion stellt. Der konkrete Gehalt des Werks ist mit dem Argumentationsgerüst nicht so innig verschmolzen, wie es die Berufung auf Hegel vorsieht; ja, man kann den Verdacht gewinnen, dass man an der Substanz dieser Studie systematisch vorbeigeht, wenn man dem offiziellen Leitfaden folgt. Die Vermittlung von sozialhistorischer Kleinarbeit und normativer Theorie bleibt am Ende Behauptung: Die Kleinarbeit hat Honneth auf vorbildliche Weise auf sich genommen. Der gerechtigkeitstheoretische Überbau jedoch verleiht ihr keine zusätzliche Kraft; er schwächt sie eher. Dr. Lars Leeten, Universität Hildesheim, Institut für Philosophie, Marienburger Platz 22, 31141 Hildesheim; e-mail: [email protected] | {
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Originally published in: Jones, S. and McGlotten, S. (eds.) Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland. This version © Steve Jones 2014 1 Pretty, Dead: Sociosexuality, Rationality and the Transition into Zom-Being Steve Jones Unlike other horror archetypes, zombies have an established presence in philosophical discussion. Following David Chalmers in particular,i many philosophers have evoked the undead when hypothesizing about consciousness. In recent years, zombies have been utilized to examine phenomenology and mental knowledge (see Furst; Malatesti; Macpherson), visual processing and intentional action (see Mole; Wu), and the relationship between consciousness and cognition (Smithies). These are all variations on the explanatory gap problem, which refers to a rift between psycho-physiological explanations of mental function (deriving from neuroscience, for instance) and the intuitive sense that selfhood, agency, and introspective knowledge are metaphysically significant. Such discussion frequently feels nebulous. Neuroscience is fascinating, but its empirical findings can be difficult to relate to everyday, experiential reality. Indeed, neuroscience habitually seeks to uncover how the mind operates in spite of our intuitions. Abstract philosophical discussions about consciousness are just as intangible. Debates over philosophical zombies (hereafter, p-zombies) are commonly rooted in notions about hypothetical twin worlds, ruminations on the impossibility of imagining what it would be like to lack phenomenal experiences, and semantic discussions regarding whether conceivability equates to possibility. Again, it is often hard to comprehend how such discussion relates to personal experiences. Although p-zombies and movie zombies are regarded as entirely separate entities by key thinkers in the field (for reasons that will become apparent in due course), I propose that movie zombies illuminate these somewhat opaque philosophical debates by offering an accessible route into the issues. Fundamentally, both the p-zombie debates and zombie movies are underpinned by the same focal point: zombies are non-conscious humans. Yet the filmic version of that problem is grounded in an experiential world rather than conceptual theorization. Cinematic storytelling devices – narrative, characterization, dialogue and so forth – allow filmmakers to present characters' experiences in an instinctively accessible manner. Protagonists interact in social worlds that are comparable to our own, and narrative drama is typically driven by social interaction. The characters' interactions are thereby rendered concrete and familiar, regardless of their fictionality. Whereas conjectural debates regarding p-zombies begin with theoretical models of self (seeking to test their legitimacy), zombie movies are rooted in and prioritize an experiential vision of selfhood. This chapter focuses on a particular strand of the subgenre: transition narratives, in which human protagonists gradually turn into zombies. In transition narratives, protagonists are able to articulate their experiences as they undergo their transformation.ii As such, they directly reflect on changes in their mental states, linking those shifts to the physical and Originally published in: Jones, S. and McGlotten, S. (eds.) Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland. This version © Steve Jones 2014 2 social realms they occupy. The specific case study examined in this chapter is Pretty Dead (2013). The film is partially constructed from footage shot by lead protagonist Regina, a 24 year old MD, as she charts her metamorphosis into a zombie. After killing a pizza delivery driver and eventually turning on her fiancé Ryan, Regina is institutionalized. In tandem with Regina's autobiographical footage, Pretty Dead is comprised of videotaped interviews with a clinician (Dr. Romera)iii who is convinced that Regina is suffering from Cotard's syndrome: a delusion in which the patient believes they are dead. The narrative is ambiguous about the legitimacy of Regina's claims throughout, intercutting between her own assertions and Romera's rationalist explanations. The clash between Regina's experiences as a transitional being and Romera' scientific diagnosis is centralized in Pretty Dead. That is, the narrative brings two views on the self – intuitive and empirical – into direct conflict. Pretty Dead thereby encourages the viewer to question the validity of both, and their compatibility. As is common among transition narratives, sociality is emphasized as a defining aspect of Regina's life in Pretty Dead. Transitional protagonists' metamorphoses are conventionally punctuated by turning points at which they attack living counterparts; usually their closest companions. For example, in Harold's Going Stiff (2011) and Return of the Living Dead Part 3 (1993), full-blown zombies are depicted as inarticulate beasts who violently attack the living. Knowing that the same fate awaits them, the transitional protagonists "live" in fear that they will eventually turn on their loved ones. Both Harold's Going Stiff and Return of the Living Dead Part 3 are stories driven by romantic couplings, meaning that the transitional protagonist's loss of rational control – their inability to halt their transfiguration into zombiedom (or zom-being) and the ruination of their bonds with other humans – is accentuated. This theme is ubiquitous in transition narratives, which typically situate metamorphosing protagonists within intimate relationships with living partners. Other examples of this trend include Zombie Honeymoon (2004), Zombie Love (2008), Zombie Love Story (2008), and True Love Zombie (2012).iv Following this convention, when Regina films her transformation in Pretty Dead, she also captures a parallel change in her love life. In particular, the footage charts the detrimental effects her transformation has on her relationship with her fiancé Ryan. As such, Regina's identity and rationality – what she is, how she behaves, even how she experiences the world – are inextricable from her sociality; affiliations and interactions with other beings that give her (human) life meaning. Eventually, Regina loses control. Her romantic attachment to Ryan is replaced by her desire for his flesh. Although both types of desire reach their fullest expression carnally – human love-making or zombie flesh-eating – the former signifies Regina's recognizably human sociality, while the latter denotes Regina's movement into zom-being. From Regina's anthropocentric view, the latter is monstrous. She understands love, in contrast, as a sign of her humanity. In Pretty Dead, Regina's humanity is measured by the self-control she exerts in resisting her urge to harm Ryan. As such, Regina's love for Ryan is characterized as rational agency. Yet that conception of sexual love is counter-intuitive: that kind of passion does not emanate from conscious, rational choice in the first instance. That is not to say that sexual passion is synonymous with complete irrationality. On this point I concur with Nikolay Milkov, although Milkov's subsequent assertion that "sexual experience proceeds in acts of reasoning" (159, emphasis added) does not adequately resolve the Originally published in: Jones, S. and McGlotten, S. (eds.) Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland. This version © Steve Jones 2014 3 problem either. Rather, it should be noted that phenomena such as love and sexual passion can be explained or reflected on via rationality, but the emotional experience of social kinship cannot be captured via such language. Experiencing and rationalizing are ontologically different. Sex thus illustrates that a) there is a troubling disjuncture between rationalist-theoretical conceptions of selfhood and selfhood as it is experienced in the real, social realm, and b) there is a natural bridge between personal, introspective selfknowledge and external social selfhood. Throughout this chapter, I use the term "sociosexual" to denote ways in which sexuality epitomizes the relationship between sociality and selfhood as it is experienced in the real, interdependent world. By emphasizing sociosexuality's role in self-experience, Pretty Dead illuminates aspects of consciousness that are neglected in philosophical debates regarding p-zombies. Consciousness sets apart humans from zombies. Ergo, so too does sociosexuality. Insofar as sociosexuality is measurable via behavior, it can be pinned down in a way that consciousness and qualia cannot. The p-zombie argument is undercut by the notion that pzombies might have conscious experiences, but might not be able to articulate them. Similarly, an articulate zombie may lack qualia, but may lay verbal claims to consciousness that could not be proven false. Consciousness is invisible and intangible because it is introspective and metaphysical. This is not to suggest that all mental states are manifested in behavior.v Rather, when Regina turns on Ryan, that behavior evinces a significant change in her consciousness. The action violates Regina's conscious will to maintain the sociosexual relationship she shares with Ryan, and manifests an ontological shift away from her identity as a human. Although she does not become a full-blown non-conscious zombie before the end credits roll, Regina overtly becomes less human and more akin to a zombie as the text progresses. Killing Ryan is a key indicator that Regina is "pretty dead," but only inasmuch as Regina believes she is a rational being, able to know and control her behaviors via cognition and reflection. Conscious State[ment]s: A Primer in Zom-Being Contributors to the p-zombie debates principally seek to test the legitimacy of physicalism (see Lehrer; Garrett; Horowitz) and/or to understand whether qualia – the essential properties of experiences – can be explained by functionalist accounts of selfhood. These debates hinge on the idea that p-zombies are physically identical to living humans, but have no conscious experiences. Consequently, "there is nothing it is like to be a [p-]zombie" (Chalmers, 249). To put it in concrete terms, although p-zombies are physically identical to any conscious person, they do not have qualia.vi So, a p-zombie can walk hand-in-hand on a beach with another p-zombie, look into their partner's eyes and kiss as the sun sets, but during this interaction neither p-zombie will experience anything. The possibility of pzombies poses a threat to functionalism since it amounts to saying that it is conceivable (and therefore possible)vii that consciousness is separable from our physical capacity for conscious experience. As Chalmers notes in his influential argument, p-zombies are not the same as the filmic undead (95). Rebecca Roman Hanrahan succinctly summates the reason why: "it would be Originally published in: Jones, S. and McGlotten, S. (eds.) Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland. This version © Steve Jones 2014 4 very difficult to make a movie about [p-]zombies, since they behave just as their qualiaridden human counterparts do." Therefore, "[t]here would be no way for the filmmakers to depict any ... difference between [p-zombies] and ordinary humans" (303). However, the pzombie argument's premise – that zombies are identical to living humans but lack phenomenal experience – has become ever more pertinent to zombie fiction over the last thirty years. The lumbering, somnambulistic movie zombies Hanrahan has in mind are relatively uncommon in contemporary zombie narratives. Contemporary movie zombies are beings whose vital organs have ceased to function, and so they externally appear to be different to living humans. To answer Hanrahan, this is how filmmakers distinguish between living and undead individuals. Zombies also engage in behaviors such as flesh-eating, which are frowned upon by their living counterparts. In many contemporary zombie movies, zombies are akin to pale, cannibalistic humans who suffer from a severe skin condition. That is, their conventional behaviors and appearance do not necessarily evince a lack of cerebral acuity or any essential quality of their mental processes. Transition narratives such as Pretty Dead flag this kinship between living and undead by focusing on protagonists who transform from the former into the latter, thereby linking those states. Transitional protagonists have consciousness at the narrative outset: they do not simply exist in the qualia-less twin-worlds of p-zombie argumentation. Because they begin as conscious entities, transitional protagonists can articulate changes they undergo as they experience them, so long as they remain partially human and conscious. In what follows, I am not concerned with casting doubt over physicalism, so for the sake of clarity let us take for granted that full-blown zombies' mental states are different to their living counterparts'.viii This is certainly implied by Pretty Dead's evocation of cordyceps, the fungus Regina cites as the cause of her metamorphosis. Cordyceps is said to "infect" its host's mind, "win[ning] control...compel[ling]" the host's behavior.ix Regina's experiential accounts indicate that her zombified mindset is unlike her conscious experiences. When she kills, she proclaims that the fungus "must have taken over...I don't even remember biting him...I black out or something." Her defensive assertion "[i]t's not me, it's what's inside me" overtly distinguishes between her conscious awareness and the zombie-state the fungus instills. Despite this clear delimitation of human consciousness and zom-being, the transition happens gradually, and the boundary between the two states is fuzzy. Regina does not become a full-blown zombie when she first eats human flesh since she exhibits leanings towards such behavior beforehand. She rejects fresh foods (claiming they smell "rotten") and instead eats raw bacon; she bites Ryan; she sucks the blood from a used tampon. None of these transition behaviors is enough to denote that Regina has stopped living and has become undead. It is also unclear precisely when her body dies. Regina's face starts to rot and she craves human flesh while she still has a pulse. Her heart has stopped by the time she is institutionalized, but she remains lucid. Regina's physiological change is on-going, so there is no definitive break between life and death. These gradual slippages mean that even if we agree that full-blown zombies are nonconscious, it is difficult to measure the difference between human and zombie by referring solely to physical modifications, reported mental experiences, or behavioral changes. Notably, these three elements are indicative of opposing schools within philosophy of self: physicalism/functionalism, phenomenology/consciousness studies, and behaviorism. Originally published in: Jones, S. and McGlotten, S. (eds.) Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland. This version © Steve Jones 2014 5 Regina's transformation reveals that the self cannot be apprehended by just one of these divisive theories, because selfhood is a compound of these elements. For instance, phenomenal experiences are shaped by physical, sensory faculties (see Schechtman). Ergo, without a body, our consciousness would differ in a way that we (as embodied beings) cannot imagine. The reverse is also true: one cannot envision what it would be like to be a conscious-less body, since such imagination a priori requires sentient, self-reflective experience. The p-zombie conceivability debate is founded on that impossibility. However, proponents of the p-zombie argument seldom explain embodiment's impact on consciousness in this way. Neither do they typically account for the connections between selfhood and identity. Regina's mutation into zom-being is a shift away from humanity, but her humanity has meaning as an aspect of Regina's social identity. Zom-body to Love: Sociosexuality of the Living Dead Regina's struggle is grounded in concrete social relationships and structures. Contra to Fiona Macpherson's assurance that introspection is enough to validate phenomenal experience, because "introspective knowledge that I have of my own consciousness does not depend for its existence on conditions external to me" (231-2), in Pretty Dead it is recognized that human self-experience is always-already dependent on external factors. Identity does not tally with solipsistic asociality. Indeed, practical, social circumstances facilitate the individual's ability to form identity (see Werth, 339; Epright, 801; Winter, 235). Entirely asocial selfhood is just as unconceivable as disembodied consciousness, because humans are interdependent from birth. The relationalist proposal that "the well-being of each member [of the populace] is interwoven with the well-being of all other members" (Killmister, 256) may leave little room for independence, but it underlines how significant social relations are in forging the self. In addition, many pragmatic social tenets stem from essential interconnection, including theories of dignity and moral responsibility (see Ober, 832). Thus, sociality impacts directly on how we position ourselves in the world, how we relate to others, how we assess ourselves, and so forth. This cultural-relational account does not supplant physicalism. Indeed, Amy Banks draws on neuroimaging to make an essentialist case that humans are interconnected by default. The cultural-relational paradigm implies that any one exclusory philosophical model (physicalism, behaviorism, functionalism) fails to paint a complete enough picture of selfhood, because these theoretical conceptions of selfhood do not do enough to account for how we actually experience selfhood in the social realm. Although Regina prizes her social bonds, zombies – who routinely kill and devour – do not (or at least zombies do not express sociality in the way humans do). As she undergoes her transition into zom-being, Regina is torn between two incompatible modes of existence. Her auto-biographical accounts are thus conflicted. Even though she does not recall "doing any of the...shit" she is accused of, Regina expresses regret over her actions. For example, she admits liability for those actions as if she were conscious of her behaviors; "I know I did it...I didn't mean to do it." Regina's question "what kind of cure is there for the things I've done?...I don't want to be a monster," is particularly telling in this light. First, she takes Originally published in: Jones, S. and McGlotten, S. (eds.) Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland. This version © Steve Jones 2014 6 ownership over the killings committed ("things I've done"). Second, she assesses those acts according to human values, suggesting that they are incurably monstrous actions. Third, she writes those actions into her identity, dubbing herself "a monster." Regina thereby anchors her liability for the killings in her selfhood. However, this means that she both judges her actions from a human perspective – distancing herself from the perpetrator's monstrosity – and also recognizes that she is the inhuman creature she vilifies. Her discordant assessment is only deepened by her outright denials elsewhere in the film; "I swear I didn't do this...that wasn't me." Regina's conflicting statements reveal not a tug of conscience, but a disjuncture in her being. The onset of zom-being impels Regina towards forsaking the values and social bonds that define her humanity. Zom-being necessitates anti-social activityx – flesh-eating – and so relinquishing social bonds is a necessary part of zom-becoming. Regina's efforts to resist turning into a zombie are expressed as attempts to maintain her established notion of human sociality. For example, Regina declares, "I don't want to hurt people anymore...so I stay away from them." Although "stay[ing] away" means negating sociality, her intent is social in orientation since it recognizes her duty to defend others. Regina's conflict is most notable in her key social relationship: her love for Ryan. Regina wishes to maintain their affiliation, imploring "I need your help," and angrily accusing Ryan of "ditching [her] when [she] needed [him] most." Simultaneously, by keeping Ryan close, Regina poses a threat to his safety. Although Regina longs to maintain her social links in order to evince her humanity then, in doing so she risks eradicating those bonds. Moreover, Regina's transition into zom-being can be charted via her changing relationship with Ryan, because Ryan's presence underscores her loss of humanity-qua-sociality. The earliest point in the plot is Regina's first date with Ryan, and the bulk of Pretty Dead maps their relationship until Ryan's death. Ryan's changing attitudes towards Regina also illuminates her gradual transformation. Ryan initially accepts Regina's behavior. He laughs it off when Regina bites him ("I appreciate your enthusiasm, but Jesus Christ you've got to watch those chompers"), and proclaims that he loves her "despite the fact that [she is] eating raw bacon." Ryan jokingly adapts Kelis' Milkshake, singing "you like to drink human lard, I'm going to blow my chunks" as Regina consumes a glass of liquidized fat. Ryan admits that such jokes help him "cope." As the film progresses however, Ryan's gags articulate his escalating trepidation. Although light-hearted in tone, Ryan's request "don't eat me if I die" expresses a valid fear. As Regina changes and his doubts intensify, Ryan's jokes are replaced by serious requests – "[l]et me take you to the hospital...it's not funny" – and eventually outright terror; "you asked me to shoot you... I'm scared fucking shitless." These shifts chronicle the decline of their relationship. Ryan provides a constant human presence that throws Regina's changes into relief. The disjuncture between Regina's self-as-experienced and the social world that situates her increases as she transforms. Regina attempts to resolve that tension by embracing death: that is, consciously turning her back on her previous life. After a bleach cocktail ("kill juice") fails to cure her, Regina decides to shoot herself. This suicide attempt is shown twice: once at the outset, and again towards the end of the film. This repeated incident bookends Regina's transition into zom-being and the decline of her union with Ryan. The suicide attempt fails, only scarring her face. Regina then immediately kills Ryan. Although her Originally published in: Jones, S. and McGlotten, S. (eds.) Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland. This version © Steve Jones 2014 7 ontological status remains unclear in the remainder of the film, killing Ryan is a significant marker in Regina's movement towards the "end of her life" as a sociosexual being. The second most significant turning point in her transformation is presented at the film's conclusion, and again appears to connote the end of Regina's life. In the final frames before the closing credits, Regina's rotting body is carried away on a gurney. A pulsing double-beat redolent of a heartbeat occupies the soundscape, and is eventually replaced by a highpitched tone reminiscent of a heart-monitor flat-lining. To think of this as a straight-forward physical death is to misread Regina's transformation and the sequence's sociosexual significance. The sound does not indicate that Regina completely "turns" or physiologically dies. Nurse Boyle is unable to find Regina's pulse some time before these closing frames, and so the final soundscape does not denote asystole. Furthermore, Regina already survived flat-lining at a much earlier point in the plot. Before Regina and Ryan are engaged, she overdoses on drugs. In a retrospective voice-over, Regina theorizes that when Ryan resuscitated her, she was brought back as one of the undead; "I died that night, I've been dead ever since." Regina's statement is definitive, as if there was a single moment in which she became a zombie. This distinction is not corroborated by the gradual transition she undergoes. More precisely, when Ryan resuscitated Regina, he started her on the path from humanity to zom-being. The flat-line tone recurs throughout the film. It is heard regularly during Regina's interviews with Dr. Romera, and also sounds in the wake of Ryan's death. The film's closing sequence underscores that Regina's relationship with Ryan is inextricable from her sociosexual identity. The film's final flat-line tone is another phase in her on-going transition rather than a distinct physiological tipping-point. Indeed, visual cues suggest that the flat-line is metaphysical rather than literal. CCTV shots of Regina's decomposing body being carried from a padded cell are intercut with flashes of Regina and Ryan together before the onset of her transformation. The insert shots are edited to the soundscape's pulsing heartbeat. Intercutting between Regina's lost relationship and images of her putrid body (the state in which she caused Ryan's death) suggests that Regina's metaphorical heart – her capacity for love – dies in these climactic moments. Her memories of Ryan pulse like a heartbeat, indicating that Regina's brain functionality (her consciousness) ceases simultaneously. The flat-line tone indicates the death of Regina's humanity-qua-sociality. The cessation of Regina's sociosexuality punctuates the film's closure. Cumulatively, Regina's overdose, suicide attempts, and gradual putrefaction are inseparable from the metaphoric demise of her sociosexuality, her consciousness, and thus her humanity. However, Regina's subsequent state is not fully realized in the film. Her continuing transition into zom-being does not evoke death as an ending. After all, even fullblown zombies continue to exist. The narrative shape corroborates this theme. The film features two post-credit sequences, further underlining that ostensible endings are instead points of continuation. Pretty Dead also opens with Regina's apparent suicide which a) only appears to be an ending, and b) happens more than once: it is repeated later in the film. It is beyond the film's capacity to finally elucidate Regina's experience of full-blown zom-being. Instead, Pretty Dead de-naturalizes Regina's assumptions about the difference between humanity-qua-rationality and "irrational" zom-being. Despite her desire to control (hinder) her transformation, Regina cannot impede the inexorable change. Regina's behavior is thus at odds with her ability to control or rationalize her conduct, leaving Regina torn between Originally published in: Jones, S. and McGlotten, S. (eds.) Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland. This version © Steve Jones 2014 8 two states of being. Pretty Dead thereby flags that rationalizing discourses are unable to capture or wholly explain self-experience. Zom-Beauty/Zom-Beast: Rationality and the Experiential Hierarchy Rationality is premised on the idea that humans ought to be able control their behaviors and desires. In this view, the capacity for rationality separates humans from animals, and animal consciousness is implied to be deficient in comparison to human consciousness. An archetypal version of this argument is John Stuart Mill's valorization of human satisfactions (14). Although he has no insight into what it is to be like a pig, Mill presumes that because a pig lacks the human capacity for understanding, a pig's experiences of the world are inferior to a human's. Mill's partiality towards human consciousness is commonplace. Indeed, it is replicated in and legitimated by the authoritative structures of medical science, psychology, law, economics, and so forth. These vast institutions contribute to the existential grand narrative that human consciousness is the standard against which all other experiential viewpoints are tested and found wanting. Experiences of selfhood that contradict that overwhelming grand narrative are consistently invalidated. Indeed, the specter of mental illness underlines that there are "incorrect" ways of experiencing the world. Those who fail to adhere to established "correct" visions of reality and self-experience are routinely institutionalized, for example. Life-forms that "lack" "full" human consciousness – sentience and/or the capacity for rational reflection – are typically treated with disdain (or even destroyed). On Mill's scale, the zombie would be a lower-life form because the undead lack consciousness. It is clear why zombies are ostensibly incomplete beings: from the living human's perspective, death is the ultimate loss, and so zombies embody deprivation. Yet, undeath does not strictly equate to lifelessness, since zombies continue to exist and remain animate. The zombie's state is incomparable to the human's. As the p-zombie argument elucidates, it is inadequate to think of zombies as sub-humans. Zombies do not have phenomenological consciousness, and therefore occupy the world in a way that is unintelligible to the living because human psychology is rooted in experiential awareness. Although zom-being is a fictional state, as a thought-experiment zombies flag how inadequate Mill's hierarchical stance is. The world may be experienced in numerous ways. Since we have no access to alternative modes of experience, the argument that human sentience supplies the "best" experiences is groundless. Transitional zombie narratives highlight this inadequacy. Regina offers no direct access to what being a zombie is finally like, since full-blown zombies (following the p-zombie paradigm) can no longer verbalize or reflect on their state, since they have no qualia to refer to. However, this does not mean her slippage into zom-being is an experiential "decline." To Regina-qua-human, her relationship with Ryan deteriorates. However, it does not follow that Regina's transition into zom-being is itself degenerative. To Regina-qua-zombie, the relationship is meaningless; sociality is not relevant to the zombie's state. Human inability to conceive of what zom-being would be like denotes that our conceptual capacity is insufficient for understanding other entities' states, and even the world itself. Regina flags Originally published in: Jones, S. and McGlotten, S. (eds.) Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland. This version © Steve Jones 2014 9 that inadequacy. Regina's autobiographical statements are themed around her social bonds, her identity, her capacity for consciousness, and her physicality. These reflections underline how she conceives of herself, what she values about her existence, and what (as a human) Regina fears she will lose as a result of her metamorphosis. Her anxieties stem from the degree of control she has over those changes, and her in/ability to comprehend those changes via an anthropocentric understanding of self-experience. Regina reacts by gripping onto the kind of rationalist view Mill venerates. Yet the scientifically credible actions Regina implements to hinder the process only expedite her transformation; "[e]verything I do to fix myself," Regina observes, "just makes things worse." Eventually, Regina's quest to retain control spirals towards irrationality. For example, she announces that she wishes she could turn her "body inside out and scrub [the fungus] off." Regina's grotesque yearning emphasizes her internal, experiential viewpoint at the point when her rational actions and language fail her. The sovereignty of rational consciousness is bolstered by institutional structures, and Pretty Dead undercuts that ostensibly integral position. The second viewpoint offered on Regina's transition is external: having been institutionalized for murdering Ryan and a pizza delivery driver, Regina is observed by Dr. Romera. Here too she reflects upon her experiences, but her report is contested by Romera's diagnoses. Romera is the mouthpiece for a version of rationalist thought that carries disquieting connotations. Pretty Dead's portrayal of a woman a) whose rationality is called into question, b) whose carnality is deemed monstrous, and c) whose liberty is infringed upon by medico-legal apparatuses, is reminiscent of "hysteria:" diagnostic rhetoric that carries deeply misogynistic overtones. As Julie LokisAdkins observes, "by the end of the [19th Century], half of all women were thought to be hysterics" because they resisted the societal limitations imposed on them; "there were two options for young, unmarried women: enter a convent or marry" (40; see also Greer, 55). That is, gender-biased socio-sexual norms were implemented via two types of institution – medical and matrimonial – legitimating the broad fear that any woman who did not adhere to their "proper" social place would "become a sexual predator: a monster even" (LokisAdkins, 40; see also Mesch, 107). Ironically, such terror itself smacks of hysteria. This overwrought reaction implies that female sexuality is enormously potent, even capable of disturbing the entire patriarchal structure. Neither historically rooted gendered oppression nor contemporary gender politics will be dwelt upon in what follows.xi Of greater pertinence to the discussion in hand are the ways in which a particular view of existence is validated. The legal-medical structure not only confirms but also enforces a vision of reality that stems from scientific rationality. In Pretty Dead, that ethos is embodied by Romera, who seeks to "cure" Regina and return her to "normal." That is, Romera imposes his established rationalist view, ignoring Regina's objections to his diagnosis. Romera talks over Regina's protests rather than considering her purported self-experiences, thereby indicating his belief that his explication is incontestable. Although Regina's and Romera's diagnoses clash, it is not that their appraisals of Regina's situation are entirely dichotomous. Regina's auto-diagnosis shares Romera's judgment that zom-being is unacceptable. Before Regina is arrested, she proclaims "obviously I'm out of control. I'm a monster." Her assessment is directly echoed in Romera's concern that Regina "is out of control." Regina's self-evaluation denotes her devotion to a rational Originally published in: Jones, S. and McGlotten, S. (eds.) Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland. This version © Steve Jones 2014 10 anthropocentric view of existence despite its incongruity with her self-experience. Although Regina apprehends her position via scientific models ("I'm not schizophrenic...[or] delusional"), she documents her experiences during her transition by referring to how she feels ("I can feel it in me," "I feel pretty dead already"). Pretty Dead thereby validates her sensations as a mode of understanding her transition rather than rejecting those expressions of self-experience (as Romera does). The same balance is achieved via Pretty Dead's form. Pretty Dead is characterized as a "true story;" on-screen captions posit that the film is "a collection of...recovered" footage.xii Yet Pretty Dead's viewer is not encouraged to side with Romera's rational, external view and reject Regina's internal-experiential claim that she is undead. Romera's and Regina's clashing diagnoses are reflected in Pretty Dead's dual formal perspectives. In the asylum, Regina is perceived via a sterile observatory stance. These sequences are shot via three cameras that are aligned with Romera's perspective, thereby implying that his diagnosis is accurate. The first camera is situated alongside Romera, and films Regina front-on. No reverse angle is available (no camera captures Romera front-on). Regina is clearly inspected in a way that Romera is not, implying that her version of events requires justification, whereas his is unquestioned. The second is a CCTV camera situated behind Romera. Although much of the room is covered in these shots, the camera faces only Regina: Romera remains anonymous. Additionally, this camera captures other figures (orderlies and nurses) who concur with Romera's diagnosis. Their presence corroborates that his clinical opinion is a majority stance. The third camera is less definitive. Placed side on to Romera and Regina, this camera frames their conversation in a more balanced fashion: Regina on screen-right, Romera on screen-left. Romera is scrutinized on the same level as Regina in these shots. This third camera is more broadly indicative of Pretty Dead's methodology. Approximately 60 per cent of the movie is captured by Regina and Ryan's camcorder. In much of that footage, Regina expounds her experiences. Even where the content is highly personal in nature, depicting Regina and Ryan's relationship for example, the found-footage mode paints these incidents as empirical fact, equal to Romera's observations. Indeed, the camcorder tape's status as evidence is verified firstly by an on-screen caption stating that the video is "all that remains to tell [Regina's] story," and secondly by Romera's declaration that the camcorder footage would authenticate Regina's self-diagnosis. Since Pretty Dead includes Regina's auto-documentation, her seemingly irrational diagnosis is legitimated for the viewer. In contrast, Romera fails to cure Regina, despite his plausible explanation for her condition. Scientific rationality is incapable of capturing what is happening to Regina. For instance, although Romera states that "it would be easy to prove what you say is true if we do a physical," even the most rudimentary medical methods fail. Nurse Boyle deems that her equipment is "broken" when she cannot find Regina's blood pressure. The sedatives Romera prescribes are ineffective. Regina's own reliance on scientific rationalization is just as flawed. Although she perceives her transition as a "big medical breakthrough," her documentation quickly spirals into an autobiographical mode, focusing on her crumbling sociosexual relationship. There are no discoveries, just personal effects. Her self-shot video is not available to evince her case to Romera. Instead, the tapes serve an intimate social function: they are an extended suicide note to Regina's companions. In Regina's final moments of auto-documentation, she apologizes to her loved Originally published in: Jones, S. and McGlotten, S. (eds.) Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland. This version © Steve Jones 2014 11 ones ("sorry Dad, this isn't your fault") and expresses her self-destructive intentions ("I'm already dead already [sic], I just need a little help lying down"). Despite their powerful supporting structures, rationalist medico-scientific understandings of Regina's condition are ultimately subordinate to her personal experiences and social identity in Pretty Dead. So, contrary to the commonplace notion that rationality is a precondition for forming meaningful social bonds (Anderson, 2013: 127-8), Pretty Dead indicates that a) phenomenological experience is the foundation of selfhood, and b) social bonds provide an index for the formation of identity. These are the elements Regina loses during her transition into zom-being. Rationality provides one mode of apprehending self, but here it pales in comparison with experiential understanding of selfhood in the sociosexual realm. Zom-bequeathed: Sociosexual P-Zombies Although Pretty Dead does not answer the question of what it is like to be a zombie, Regina's transition highlights crucial differences between human experience and zom-being. Most notably, Pretty Dead probes the role sociality – here, epitomized as sociosexuality – plays in self-conception. The narrative thereby also undercuts the anthropocentric "experiential hierarchy" on which rationalist notions of human consciousness are founded. Thus, transitional zombie narratives such as Pretty Dead highlight areas in selfhood philosophy that would benefit from greater critical attention. First, intuitive self-experience should not be neglected. Self-reports are typically viewed as problematic because they are prone to bias and error (see Doucet; Hohwy; Whiting). However, dismissing autobiographical accounts entirely risks privileging rationalism and misses what is useful about such accounts: that they reflect how selfhood is experienced in the social realm. Second, we should not be blind to the impact institutional arrangements of power have both on self-experience and on conceptions of selfhood. In Pretty Dead, these structures are embodied by the rationalist medico-legal institution in which Regina is detained. The conflict between Regina and Romera's viewpoints evinces the need for a new discourse that is attuned to Regina's self-experiences rather than one that quashes incompatible reports. To neglect the social world – in which experiences happen, in which behaviors manifest, in which identity of formed – is to hark back to a Cartesian model of selfhood, which separates interior and exterior. As Andrea Nye observes, Rene Descartes' dualistic paradigm is flawed because he envisages consciousness as "solipsistic...removed from passion and imagination," and ultimately drives a wedge "between feeling and knowing" (26). Although dualism is largely rejected in contemporary philosophy, we should take care not to replicate his conceptual flaw: privileging self-experience to the extent that "self" is divorced from social reality. A coherent theory of selfhood must bridge between the personal, internal world of desires, motives, and intentions on one hand and the external social world on the other. Many proponents of the p-zombie debates fail to achieve this balance because they focus on rationalizing paradigms such as "physicalism," and are not attuned to our experiences of self. Originally published in: Jones, S. and McGlotten, S. (eds.) Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland. This version © Steve Jones 2014 12 It is surprising that interdependent sociality has featured so little in discussions regarding zombies and consciousness to date. Sociality is fundamental to self-conception, and so it impacts on self-experience. Transitional zombie narratives offer an avenue into examining consciousness that is sensitive to an intuitive version of selfhood, one that develops the pzombie debates by thinking about selfhood in a pragmatic way. In contrast, p-zombie debates are typically hypothetical in nature, and lead to some outlandish assertions about self-experience. For instance, Philip Goff proposes that he cannot imagine what it is to be a zombie, but can readily conceive of being an equally hypothetical "lonely ghost." It is little wonder that some philosophers have rejected p-zombies altogether. Daniel Dennett, for example, has labeled the p-zombie argument "preposterous," elaborating that it is a "strangely attractive" but "unsupportable hypothesis" that ought to be "dropped ... like a hot potato" (171). Those zombies we can apprehend – those represented in popular culture – are of philosophical value in ways that their p-zombie brethren are not. Contemporary movie zombies are becoming ever more akin to humans, and commonly occupy human social situations. Rather than being denizens of apocalyptic wastelands, the undead are now frequently placed in unexceptional "human" scenarios, as titles such as Zombie Cheerleading Camp (2007), Zombie Beach Party (2003) and Brunch of the Living Dead (2006) evince. As they come to inhabit a broader range of everyday social spheres and become increasingly alive to human experiences, movie zombies are becoming progressively valuable conduits for philosophical reflection on the self and ourselves. As I have argued throughout this chapter, Pretty Dead is a prototypical example of how zombie movies can be utilized for philosophical enquiry into sociosexual existence. Pretty Dead is rooted in reality, both formally (employing found-footage realism), and thematically (focusing on Regina's medico-legal and social conditions). Crucially, Pretty Dead underlines Regina's experience of transition, and this is what viewers engage with. Rationally, we know Regina's story is fictional, that Regina is performed by an actor (Carly Oates), and that zombies do not genuinely exist. Viewers who engage with Pretty Dead as a narrative do so at an intuitive, experiential level. Compared with the cold, dead analysis of p-zombie argumentation, zombie movies are animate and vital. Interaction with Regina's story is closer to a social, emotive experience than it is an intellectual process. That experience is not adequately captured by the rationalist conceptual tools currently at our disposal. Films such as Pretty Dead do not just engage its viewers in an intuitive kind of philosophical thinking. By depicting a form of selfhood that defies rationalist logic (zom-being), these films also challenge their viewers into developing new conceptual (theoretical and imaginative) vocabularies via which to describe and engage with both selfhood and sociosexuality. Originally published in: Jones, S. and McGlotten, S. (eds.) 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Lokis-Adkins, Julie. Deadly Desires: A Psychoanalytic Study of Female Sexual Perversion and Widowhood in Fin-De-Siecle Women's Writing. London: Karnac Books, 2013. Print. Macpherson, Fiona. "A Disjunctive Theory of Introspection: A Reflection on Zombies and Anton's Syndrome." Philosophical Issues 20.1 (2010): 226–65. Print. Majeed, Raamy. "Pleading Ignorance in Response to Experiential Primitivism." Philosophical Studies 163.1 (2013): 251–69. Print. Malatesti, Luca. "Thinking About Phenomenal Concepts." Synthesis Philosophica 52.2 (2011): 391–402. Print. Mesch, Rachel. The Hysteric's Revenge: French Women Writers at the Fin De Siècle. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2006. Print. Milkov, Nikolay. "Sexual Experience." Sex, Love, and Friendship. Ed. Adrianne Leigh McEvoy. New York: Rodopi, 2011. 155–66. Print. Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism. London: Parker, Son and Bourn, 1863. Print. Mole, Christopher. "Illusions, Demonstratives, and the Zombie Action Hypothesis." Mind 118.472 (2009): 995–1011. Print. Nye, Andrea. Feminism and Modern Philosophy. London: Routledge, 2013. Print. Ober, Josiah. "Democracy's Dignity." American Political Science Review 106.4 (2012): 827– 46. Print. Schechtman, Marya. "The Brain/Body Problem." Philosophical Psychology 10.2 (1997): 149– 64. Print. Smithies, Declan. "The Mental Lives of Zombies." Philosophical Perspectives 26.1 (2012): 343–72. Print. Originally published in: Jones, S. and McGlotten, S. (eds.) Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland. This version © Steve Jones 2014 15 Werth, Robert. "I Do What I'm Told, Sort Of: Reformed Subjects, Unruly Citizens, and Parole." Theoretical Criminology 16.3 (2012): 329–46. Print. Whiting, Demian. "Are Emotions Perceptual Experiences of Value?" Ratio 25.1 (2012): 93– 107. Print. Winter, Steven. "Reimagining Democratic Theory for Social Individuals." Zygon 46.1 (2011): 224–45. Print. Wu, Wayne. "The Case for Zombie Agency." Mind (2013). Online. doi: 10.1093/mind/fzt030 Filmography Brunch of the Living Dead (2006, USA, dir. Dan Dujnic) Chip and Bernie's Dating Guide for the Zombie Apocalypse (2011, USA, dir. Pasquale Murena) Dating a Zombie (2012, USA, dir. Jack Abele) Harold's Going Stiff (2011, UK, dir. Keith Wright) Last of Us, The (2013, USA, dir. Bruce Straley) Pretty Dead (2013, USA, dir. Benjamin Wilkins) Return of the Living Dead (1985, USA, dir. Dan O'Bannon) Return of the Living Dead Part 3 (1993, USA/Japan, dir. Brian Yuzna) True Love Zombie (2012, USA, dir. Paul Blevins) Zombie Beach Party (2003, Canada, dir. Stacey Case) Zombie Cheerleading Camp (2007, USA, dir. Jon Fabris) Zombie Honeymoon (2004, USA, dir. David Gebroe) Zombie Love (2007, USA/Netherlands, dir. Yfke Van Berckelaer) Zombie Love (2008, USA, dir. Ken Morris) Zombie Love Song, A (2013, Canada, dir. William Morrison) Zombie Love Story (2008, USA, dir. Marcus Slabine) Originally published in: Jones, S. and McGlotten, S. (eds.) Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland. This version © Steve Jones 2014 16 i The philosophical zombie was evoked earlier by Kripke and Block for example, although Chalmers' contentions have inspired much recent debate. ii A terminological point requires clarification. The term "transition" carries established meanings in the context of sociosexual identity discourse. Individuals experience sociosexual transformations of all kinds, ranging from pubescence to "coming out" to transsexual transition. My use of "transition" does not seek to draw a comparison between any of these particular shifts and becoming undead. iii This play on "Romero" evinces that the narrative is clearly staked as a zombie film, despite the ambiguity over Regina's undeadness. iv There are two notable variations on this theme. First, films such as Zombie Love (2007) and A Zombie Love Song (2013) depict zombies falling in love with living persons. Zombies are limned as having autonomy in these cases, and so they will not be considered here. Second, Dating a Zombie (2012) presents a living protagonist who eschews relationships with the living in favour of partnerships with the undead. In this case, sociality's value is called into question. Anyone interested in the practicalities of sociosexuality in the wake of outbreak may wish to consult Chip and Bernie's Dating Guide for the Zombie Apocalypse (2011), which outlines problems associated with "zomance" and offers advice on handling the "opposite" (undead) sex. v Indeed, zombies exhibit behaviours, but (presumably) have no underlying mental states. vi Qualia, in this view, are indicators of consciousness. vii On the conceivability of p-zombies and epistemic limitations, see Hanrahan; Goff; DiazLeon; Majeed. viii As an aside, some full-blown zombies claim to have experiences and display awareness of their state. One prototypical example is the female zombie torso in Return of the Living Dead (1985) who is able to articulate that being undead "hurts;" she explains that zombies eat brains because it temporarily assuages the agony of being dead. This zombie purports to have at least one kind of phenomenal experience (pain), which signifies self-knowledge: the zombie describes herself as an entity that has undergone an experience. One could argue that the zombie is mistaken and does not really have phenomenal experiences. There is a difference between stating that one has had an experience and actually having an experience. However, the same line of thought would give us reason to doubt the veracity of qualia in general. We have no means of knowing whether other living humans' reports of experiencing are as false as the zombies' are. Moreover, if the zombie believes that they are experiencing, there is every chance that one's own claims to experiencing are also false. Incredulity over the zombies' claim to consciousness leaves the living sceptic with no grounds for demonstrating their own claim to consciousness (on this quandary, see Macpherson, 231-2). Originally published in: Jones, S. and McGlotten, S. (eds.) Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland. This version © Steve Jones 2014 17 ix Cordyceps fungus also causes the zombie plague in the recent videogame The Last of Us (2013). x Flesh eating is anti-social according to Regina's norms. In some cultures cannibalism is a social practice rooted in compassion and interpersonal obligation. For example, see Conklin. xi For discussion of zombies and gender politics, see Jones. xii Moreover, the film-makers have declared that they intended to make a realistic, "scientifically plausible" zombie film. See Ben Wilkins' "Director's Statement," http://www.prettydead.com/about-2/cast-crew/directors-statement/ [accessed 04/07/2013]. | {
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The final publication is available at Oxford University Press via https://academic.oup.com/pq/article/68/272/645/4616799?guestAccessKey=e14712939cc2-403d-ba6e-2b6006329402 Self-Knowledge for Humans. By QUASSIM CASSAM. (Oxford: OUP, 2014. Pp. xiii + 238. Price $50.00.) Quassim Cassam laments the focus that philosophers place on so-called trivial selfknowledge, e.g. knowing that one believes it is raining or knowing that one wants salmon for dinner. 'Substantial' self-knowledge, by contrast, includes knowledge of one's values, character traits, aptitudes, emotions, abilities, etc. Cassam claims that while the latter is of great interest to non-philosophers, contemporary philosophers largely ignore it. A major and admirable aim of the book is to correct this state of affairs. Cassam hypothesizes that the cause of this is the belief that trivial, but not substantial, self-knowledge is epistemically special in that it is not based on evidence. Even granting this alleged asymmetry, Cassam denies that it warrants philosophy's neglect of substantial self-knowledge, for '[t]here is more to philosophy than epistemology' (p. viii). In fact, however, Cassam denies the asymmetry, defending what he calls 'inferentialism'. Inferentialism claims that a key source of knowledge of one's standing (i.e. nonoccurrent) mental states is inference from behavioural evidence, other standing states, and occurrent internal promptings, such as visual imagery, inner speech, feelings, etc. For example, you might come to know that you intend to vote for Candidate A on the basis of your having donated to her campaign (behaviour), your belief that she is the best candidate (standing state), and your visual image of voting for her on the upcoming 2 election day (internal prompting). Such inference is mediated by a background theory of mind and need not be conscious. Cassam claims that one can infer standing states from internal promptings only if one has 'access to' those promptings, and he describes as 'lazy' the inferentialist who is silent regarding how such access is achieved. Cassam's answer is (again) inference: we gain access to internal promptings by inferring them from behaviour, standing states, and other internal promptings. To illustrate, you might infer that a certain unpleasant feeling (internal prompting) is jealousy of a friend (as opposed to, say, anxiety about your future) on the basis of your having just finished talking with your friend about his new house (behaviour), your desire to have much of what he has (standing state), and your expression in inner speech that you wish you were more like him (internal prompting). Because your access to these mental states/occurrences is inferential too, the structure of self-knowledge is highly holistic on Cassam's view. When discussing lazy inferentialism, Cassam writes: '[a] much more serious charge is that lazy inferentialism is incomplete because it presupposes other self-knowledge which it doesn't seek to explain' (p. 168, original emphasis). I worry, however, that Cassam is to some extent guilty of this very charge. Although he claims that our access to internal promptings is inferential and interpretive, he is silent regarding how we gain access to the internal data that is subsequently interpreted. For example, even if one infers that a given feeling is one of jealousy (as opposed to anxiety), this does not explain how one initially gains access to that feeling. Cassam seems to take for granted our access to our visual imagery, inner speech, feelings, and so 3 on, whose precise nature, on his account, we subsequently infer. Moreover, the correct explanation of such access/knowledge might have negative implications regarding inferentialism's plausibility. The negative part of Cassam's book primarily focuses on the 'transparency' approach to self-knowledge (though he also criticizes 'inner sense' in ch. 10). This approach originates with Evans (1982), who claimed (roughly) that one can answer the inwardly directed question 'do I believe that P?' by answering the outwardly directed question 'is P true?' In order for this approach to generalize beyond the attitude of belief, Cassam, following a suggestion by Finkelstein (2012), interprets the transparency theorist as recasting her proposal in terms of rationality: for any given attitude type, φ, when considering the inwardly directed question 'do I φ that P?', one can instead consider the outwardly directed question 'ought I rationally to φ that P?' Cassam calls this version of Evans' proposal 'rationalism'. Rationalism is criticized often and forcefully throughout the book. One criticism alleges that determining whether one has a particular attitude is often easier than determining whether one ought rationally to have that attitude, which suggests that we do not primarily determine the former by determining the latter. Cassam's most significant criticism, though, concerns 'the Disparity', i.e. the alleged significant mismatch between our actual attitudes and the attitudes that we ought rationally to have. He claims that this mismatch-which he supports with a combination of empirical data and folk psychology-prevents us from knowing our attitudes by reflecting on which attitudes we ought rationally to have. This is, in part, why Cassam has written a book on self4 knowledge suited for actual human beings (not homo philosophicus). The Disparity and its relation to rationalism constitute the bulk of the book's first half. Cassam makes a very strong case against rationalism (so understood). I worry, though, that he has overlooked an important nearby view best represented by the work of Alex Byrne (e.g. 2011, 2012), who unfortunately receives little of Cassam's attention. Byrne's view, like rationalism, is outwardly directed. Unlike rationalism, however, it does not concern rationality. Consider Byrne's treatment of knowledge of desire and intention. Oversimplifying a bit, Byrne (2012) claims that we can know what we desire by considering what is desirable (i.e. having the qualities which cause a thing to be desired). Regarding intention, Byrne (2011) claims that we can know what we intend by considering (without relying on evidence) what we will do. He elsewhere offers similar suggestions for knowing what we see and think. Because these outwardly directed considerations do not concern rationality, the Disparity is not obviously relevant. The issues here are of course complex, and so there might ultimately be good reasons to reject Byrne's approach. But Cassam's decision to not engage with it is unfortunate, for neither of the aforementioned objections to rationalism straightforwardly applies to it. First, determining whether P is desirable is not obviously more difficult in general than determining whether one desires that P. Secondly, the Disparity does not make improbable the possibility that one's desires reliably correlate with (or 'match') one's (fallible) judgments of desirability. These points apply, mutatis mutandis, to Byrne's treatment of intention, seeing, and thinking. An important alternative to Cassam's brand of inferentialism thus remains standing. 5 Despite these concerns, I highly recommend Cassam's book. It provides a deep, yet admirably accessible study of self-knowledge and surrounding issues, and is full of helpful and often surprising insights. Finally, although I regret not having the space to say more about Cassam's fascinating discussion of substantial self-knowledge, he certainly succeeds in demonstrating that it merits greater philosophical attention.i REFERENCES Byrne, A. (2011) 'Transparency, Belief, Intention', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 85/1: 201-21. Byrne, A. (2012) 'Knowing What I Want', in J. Liu and J. Perry (eds.) Consciousness and the Self: New Essays, 165-83. Cambridge: CUP. Evans, G. (1982) The Varieties of Reference, J. McDowell (ed.), Oxford: OUP. Finkelstein, D. (2012) 'From Transparency to Expressivism', in J. Conant and G. Abel (eds.) Rethinking Epistemology, volume 2, 101-18. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. Mississippi State University, USA MICHAEL ROCHE i I thank Quassim Cassam for providing helpful comments on a prior draft. | {
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Why tracking theories should allow for clean cases of reliable misrepresentation Angela Mendelovici Disputatio 8 (42):57–92 (2016) Penultimate draft Abstract Reliable misrepresentation is getting things wrong in the same way all the time. In Mendelovici 2013, I argue that tracking theories of mental representation cannot allow for certain kinds of reliable misrepresentation, and that this is a problem for those views. Artiga 2013 defends teleosemantics from this argument. He agrees with Mendelovici 2013 that teleosemantics cannot account for clean cases of reliable misrepresentation, but argues that this is not a problem for the views. This paper clarifies and improves the argument in Mendelovici 2013 and response to Artiga's arguments. Tracking theories, teleosemantics included, really do need to allow for clean cases of reliable misrepresentation. Keywords: teleosemantics, representation, intentionality, misrepresentation, mental content In "Reliable misrepresentation and tracking theories of mental representation" (Mendelovici 2013), I argue that a certain prominent class of theories of mental representation, tracking theories, have trouble allowing for what I call clean cases of reliable misrepresentation, and that this is a serious problem for them. 1 In "Teleosemantics and reliable misrepresentation," Marc Artiga (2013) provides an interesting defense of teleosemantics from this argument. Artiga agrees that teleosemantics cannot allow for the relevant kinds of clean cases of reliable misrepresentation, but argues that this is not a problem for the view. This paper clarifies the argument from reliable misrepresentation (section 1) and addresses Artiga's objections (2). If I am right, then tracking theories really do need to allow for clean cases of reliable misrepresentation. 1 The argument from reliable misrepresentation The argument from reliable misrepresentation against tracking theories proceeds in two steps: Step One argues that tracking theories are incompatible with certain kinds of cases of reliable misrepresentation, clean cases of reliable misrepresentation. Step Two argues that this is a problem for these views. This section explains key notions and presents the two steps of the argument. 1.1 Key notions Mental representation is the aboutness of mental states. A visual experience might represent that there is a cup on the table, a thought might represent that grass is green, and a desire might represent coffee, or that I obtain coffee.1 I will assume that there are mental representations, which are are internal states that are the bearers of representational properties. What a mental representation represents is its content. Tracking theories of mental representation are theories of mental representation that aim to account for mental representation in terms of causal or other 1My favored way of fixing on the phenomenon of mental representation is ostensive. See Mendelovici MS: ch 1 and Mendelovici 2010: ch. 2. See Mendelovici MS: ch 1 for a defense of the claim that other ways of picking out mental representation at least aim to include the ostensively defined phenomenon. 2 tracking relations between mental representations and properties, states of affairs, or other items. My argument is aimed at tracking theories in general, but Artiga is exclusively interested in defending teleosemantic tracking theories (see Millikan 1984, Papineau 1987), and in particular something close to Millikan's (1984, 1989) version of the theory. My main aim is to respond to Artiga's argument, so I will also focus on teleosemantics and a Millikan-esque version of the theory as well. However, much of the discussion applies to tracking theories more broadly. Simplifying considerably, teleosemantics states that a representation R represents a content C if it is a normal condition for the systems that make use of R (R's consumers) to perform their proper functions that R corresponds to C. Let us upack this a bit: Representations have producers (or senders) that produce representations and consumers (or receivers) that respond to representations. Producers and consumers might be systems in a single organism, or they might occur in distinct organisms. An item or system's proper function is what items of its type did in its ancestors that resulted in their being selected for by evolution. For example, although a heart may do many things (pump blood, make noise, suffer certain kinds of blockages), it is its pumping blood that resulted in its being selected, and so its proper function is to pump blood. In order for something to perform its proper function in the way that it did that resulted in its selection, certain conditions have to be in place; these are normal conditions. The normal conditions for a heart performing its proper function include being part of an intact organism and receiving oxygenated blood. Something might perform its proper function while in conditions that are not normal (in other words, in abnormal conditions); in this case, its success at performing its proper function is in some sense accidental. Like hearts, the consumers of representations have proper functions. It is a 3 normal condition for them to perform their proper functions that they correspond to certain states of affairs, which are their contents. Put otherwise, in order for representation consumers to perform their proper functions in the way that was selected for by evolution, a certain correspondence between representations and certain states of affairs had to be in place. Representations represent whatever this correspondence maps them onto.2 A characteristic example discussed by Millikan is that of beaver tail splashes (see, e.g., Millikan 1989). Beavers splash their tails to signal danger, which leads to other beavers taking cover. A tail spash at a location at a time is a representation, with the splashing beaver being the producer of the representation, and the onlooking beavers being the consumers of the representation. If a beaver flees and there is danger, the consumer succeeds in performing its proper function, which might be to avoid danger, in a normal way. If a beaver flees and there is no danger, the consumer does not succeed in performing its proper function in a normal way. The normal condition for the proper functioning of the representation's consumer is that there be a correspondence between the location and time of a tail splash and the location and time of danger. So, a tail splash at location l and at time t represents there is danger at location l and time t. While beaver tail splashes are not examples of mental representations, the same general principles apply to cases of mental representations.3 2A thorough development of Millikan's teleosemantics can be found in Millikan 1984. See also Millikan 1989 for an overview of some of the key ideas, and Shea 2004 for a lucid explanation of the view. 3Millikan, and I assume other advocates of the version of teleosemantics that Artiga aims to defend, rejects the view that propositional representations, representations representing entire putative states of affairs, are built up out of subpropositional representations, representations representing objects, properties, or other subpropositional contents (see, e.g., Millikan 1984: 107). Since normal conditions are entire states of affairs, the contents of mental representations are, in the first instance, propositional. (Millikan rejects a language of thought picture (Fodor 1975). See Rupert 1999 for discussion.) However, she takes propositional representations to have variant aspects and invariant aspects, aspects that do or do not vary, respectively, between different representations in the same system. For example, a beaver tail splash is a representation with a propositional form, representing the propositional content there is danger at location l and time t, for some l and t. The representation is part of a system of representations, a system of possible tail splashes, which have variant and invariant aspects, 4 1.2 Reliable misrepresentation It is generally agreed that a theory of mental representation must allow for misrepresentation, representation that is false or inaccurate. In Mendelovici 2013: 423, I argue that just as we acknowledge hallucination, illusion, and occasional misrepresentation as kinds of misrepresentation, we should also recognize another kind of misrepresentation: reliable misrepresentation. Intuitively, reliable misrepresentation is getting things wrong in the same way all the time (Mendelovici 2013: 422). Reliable misrepresentations are not just wrong; they are systematically wrong. Unlike hallucination and occasional misrepresentation, reliable misrepresentation is reliable; it involves misrepresenting in the same way all the time. Unlike illusion, reliable misrepresentation is not compatible with the overall veridicality of tokens of the representation in question; tokens of the representation in question are never veridical. For example, suppose color anti-realism is true and nothing is colored. Then, color experiences reliably misrepresent. They represent that certain objects have certain colors, are always nonveridical, and occur reliably in the same sets of circumstances (e.g., ripe tomatoes tend to trigger representations of redness, a clear daytime sky tends to trigger representations of blueness). Color experiences get things wrong in the same way all the time. Similarly, suppose moral anti-realism is true and nothing is right or wrong. Then, our representations of rightness and wrongness reliably misrepresent. They represent that certain acts are right or wrong, are always nonveridical, and occur reliably in the same sets of circumstances (e.g., murders tend to be represented as wrong). aspects that do and do not vary, respectively, between different representations in the system. The particular location and time can vary, so the aspects of the representation corresponding to location and time are variant aspects, while the representation of danger cannot vary and so it is an invariant aspect (e.g., beaver tail splashes cannot represent the location of elephants, rather than danger). These variant and invariant aspects play some of the same roles of subpropositional representations, such as that of accounting for productivity. (See Martínez 2013 for discussion.) So, for simplicity of exposition, I will take the term "representation" to cover these aspects. 5 While I think reliable misrepresentation is a natural phenomenon whose precise boundaries we might only hope to discover by empirically investigating its similarities and differences to other nearby phenomena, I will attempt to provide a more precise characterization of the phenomenon. Below is what a take to be an improvement over my characterization in Mendelovici 2013, discussion of which is relegated to a footnote.4 A representation R representing a property P reliably misrepresents for an organism O if and only if (RM1) R represents P . (Representation) (RM2) All of O's propositional representations that use R to ascribe P to something are false. (Nonveridicality) (RM3) Ascriptions of P using R reliably co-occur with the presence of some type of state of affairs. (Reliability) 4In Mendelovici 2013 (p. 423), I characterized reliable misrepresentation as follows: An organism's representation of type R reliably misrepresents some property P if and only if (RM1old) Some tokens of R are involved in attributive mental states that represent objects as having property P , (RM2old) Most or all of the relevant objects do not have P , (RM3old) Tokens of R do or would nonveridically represent objects as having P in the same types of circumstances on separate occasions. The three clauses correspond to the three features of reliable misrepresentation: Representation, nonveridicality, and reliability. My proposed amended characterization impoves upon this characterization as follows: First, as Artiga (2013) rightly points out, (RM2old) is weaker than I intended, since it allows the definition to include kinds of cases I do not want to call cases of reliable misrepresentation. (This has also been suggested to me by Frédéric-Ismaël Banville in conversation.) For example, suppose a representation R represents danger. Since, for many organisms, the cost of failing to flee when there is danger is greater than the cost of fleeing when there is no danger, it would be no surprise if such organisms would be set up so that most of R's tokenings will be false alarms. It might seem, then, that R would satisfy all the conditions for reliable misrepresentation. To avoid this, as Artiga correctly suggests, "most or all" in (RM2old) should be changed to "all" and calls the resulting notion that of "strong reliable misrepresentation." However, it is not clear to me that this case would satisfied the original definition, since it is not clear that the false alarms would occur reliably. Presumably all sorts of things could trigger the false alarms, so tokens of R would not tend to occur in the same circumstances. However, to avoid such worries, I have taken Artiga's friendly amendment on board. Second, (RM3old) can be misread as stating that R is nonveridical in the same kinds of circumstances, rather than as stating that R occurs and is nonveridical in the same kinds of circumstances. My new characterization rules out this potential misreading. 6 In short, a mental representation reliably misrepresents for an organism just in case all its attributive uses in that organism are false and occur in the same kinds of circumstances. There are two points worth noting about this characterization: First, a representation's reliably misrepresenting for one organism is compatible with the same representation not reliably misrepresenting for another organism. Suppose that color anti-realism is true and there are no colored objects on Earth, but there are colored objects on Colorful Earth, which is otherwise just like Earth. In this case, color representations reliably misrepresent for me, but not for my Colorful Earth twin.5 Second, a representation R's reliably misrepresenting is compatible with its occurrence in true propositional representations, so long as these propositional representations do not ascribe the property R represents to anything. For example, suppose again that color anti-realism is true and our color representations reliably misrepresent. Still, a thought that red is more similar to orange than it is to blue or that a particular object is not red might be true. In the color case, reliable misrepresentation is systematic in a way that is not captured by my characterization: Not only does the representation of blue421 misrepresent whenever it is used attributively, but so too do related representations of other colors. The whole system of color representations reliably misrepresents. Whether we want to build this into our characterization of reliable misrepresentation is an interesting question. I take reliable misrepresentation to be a natural phenomenon, but it is unclear whether this kind of systematicity would be a feature of this phenomenon (one reason to think it might be is that it distinguishes reliable misrepresentation from certain kinds of 5I am characterizing reliable misrepresentation as a feature of types of representations that they have relative to organisms that have their tokens. But we might, instead, take reliable misrepresentation to be a feature of an organism's set of tokens of a representation or ability to token a representation. 7 illusions-see fn. 8). In any case, it seems that the prime examples of reliable misrepresentation are systematic in this way too. 1.3 Step One of the argument We are now in a position to overview the argument from reliable misrepresentation against tracking theories. Step One of the argument argues that tracking theories of mental representation cannot allow for clean cases of reliable misrepresentation that are supposed to get their contents from tracking.6 Clean cases of reliable misrepresentation are cases of reliable misrepresentation that exhibit the likely features of reliable misrepresentation (Mendelovici 2013: 429). Since reliable misrepresentations are reliable, they are likely to be useful for their bearers, stable across generations, and such that they are tokened as a result of a robust causal connection, so clean cases of reliable misrepresentation have these features. However, this list of features is not meant to provide a complete characterization of clean cases of reliable misrepresentation. In getting a clearer idea of the notion, it is helpful to keep examples of putative clean cases in mind, such as that of perceptual color representations on the assumption of color anti-realism: Perceptual color representations form a system of representations, all of which misrepresent, occur reliably in the same circumstances on multiple occasions, but are useful for their bearers, stable across generations, and robustly causally connected to surface reflectance profiles. There is nothing "fluky" or contrived about this case. As we will soon see, it does not matter for the argument that the notion of a clean case of reliable misrepresentation is fuzzy, since, as long as there are cases of reliable misrepresentation that a tracking theory inappropriately rules out, the theory is in trouble. So this un6Note that this allows that there can be clean cases of reliable misrepresentation of representations that are not supposed to get their contents from tracking, e.g., representations that are supposed to get their content compositionally. I set aside such cases in what follows. Step One claims that some representations that are supposed to get their contents from tracking are clean cases of reliable misrepresentation. 8 derstanding of clean cases of reliable misrepresentation will suffice for present purposes. While various tracking theories can allow for cases of reliable misrepresentation, the kinds of cases they can allow for are unclean in various ways. In the case of teleosemantics, reliable misrepresentation can occur in cases where our environment has changed from that of our ancestors. Suppose that our ancestors had an internal state, R, that co-occurred with the presence of items having property P and that this was helpful for our ancestors' survival and reproduction, so R represents the presence of P . Suppose, further, that P is part of a system of representations exhibiting variant and invariant aspects, and r is an invariant aspect corresponding to the property P . r would then represent P . But suppose now that our environment has changed since the time of our ancestors and there no longer are any Ps. Suppose also that r's misrepresentation is reliable; representations with aspect r occur regularly in some circumstances, say, in the presence of the property Q. We now have a case of reliable misrepresentation that is compatible with teleosemantics. However, this setup tends to be unstable: selective pressure turns this case of reliable misrepresentation into a case of reliable veridical representation in subsequent generations. Since mere reliability tends to be useful for survival and reproduction (see Mendelovici 2013: 428-9), r's co-occurring with P is likely to be helpful to our survival and reproduction, and so, in subsequent generations, representations involving r will come to represent the instantiation of Q, and r itself with come to represent Q. Which descendants will be affected will depend on when selective pressure kicks in to preserve or change the proper function of the consumers of representations involving r, but as soon as such selection takes place, r comes to represent Q rather than P . The kind of reliable misrepresentation that teleosemantics can allow is unstable, giving way to reliable veridical 9 representation in one's descendants. Thus, although teleosemantics can allow for reliable misrepresentation, it cannot allow for clean cases of reliable misrepresentation. Similar kinds of arguments show that other kinds of tracking theories cannot allow for clean cases of reliable misrepresentation.7 7An anonymous reviewer suggests another way in which teleosemantics can allow for reliable misrepresentation. As noted above, it is possible for something to perform its proper function in abnormal conditions, or "by accident." This involves performing its proper function by doing something other than what its ancestors did that led to its being selected. To borrow an example from Millikan, a chameleon's pigment-changing mechanism might have the proper function of altering the chameleon's skin pattern to match what it sits on. A normal condition for its proper functioning is that it in fact matches what it sits on. But a chameleon's pigment-changing mechanism might still perform its proper function without matching what it sits on; it might cause the chameleon to stand in such stark contrast to its surroundings that a passerby feels sorry for it and moves it to a matching surface. The chameleon's pigment-changing mechanism performed its proper function, but not in the way that its ancestors did. It performed it "by accident." Similarly, a representation's consumer can perform its proper function in abnormal conditions. If the environment changes such that normal conditions no longer ever obtain but abnormal conditions do sometimes obtain, a representation's consumer might continue to perform its proper function in these abnormal conditions. The suggestion is that the representation would then reliably misrepresent-all its instances would be false and occur in the same abnormal conditions. If there is no selective pressure against this setup, future generations might also come to have the same representation that reliably misrepresents. However, in order for this to be a case of reliable misrepresentation, the representation would have to occur in the same abnormal conditions on multiple occasions. While it is possible that it does, it seems more likely that the representation would occur in all sorts of different conditions, and that, while sometimes its consumers will "get lucky" and perform their proper functions "by accident," in most cases they will not perform their proper functions at all. Consider again the lucky chameleon. Suppose the chameleon's environment changes and all the surfaces it can access are colors it cannot match. There are some surfaces it can match, but it can only access them by being placed there by a human being. The chameleon's pigmentchanging mechanism can still perform its proper function, but only in abnormal conditions in which a human being feels pity for it and moves it to a matching surface. But, unless there happen to be sympathetic bystanders attending to it when required, its pigment-changing mechanism will sometimes change colors and not perform its proper function at all. In order for the anonymous reviewer's case to be one of reliable misrepresentation, the representation in question will have to occur regularly in the abnormal conditions. But then if it occurs regularly in the abnormal conditions, and if its occurring regularly in these conditions helps its consumers perform their proper functions, then it is likely that natural selection will favor preserving the consumers' behaviors, and the abnormal conditions will become the normal conditions for proper functioning in future generations. Since representations represent the normal conditions for their consumers' proper functioning, the representation in future generations will no longer reliable misrepresent, but reliably veridically represent these new normal conditions. In short, the setup would be unstable. Returning to the case of the chameleons, suppose that in the new environment, there are in fact sympathetic bystanders constantly attending to the chameleons. The pigment-changing mechanism is now useful to chameleons because it changes their skin to a pity-inducing color, which causes humans to move it to safety. But since the mechanism's behavior is useful, it is likely that selective pressure would help preserving it in future generations. As a result, the present generation's abnormal conditions for the proper functioning of the mechanism will become some future generations' normal conditions. The case is unstable. Finally, even if the case of reliable misrepresentation were stable across generations, it would be unclean in other ways. For one, it requires consumers to perform their proper functions "by 10 The tracking theory's inability to allow for clean cases of reliable misrepresentation arises from the fact that tracking theories peg veridicality to various kinds of nonsemantic success, kinds of success distinct from veridicality. In the case of teleosemantics, a token representation is nonsemantically successful when it occurs in the same conditions that our ancestors found themselves in when the representation was useful for survival and reproduction. This does not mean that failure to be nonsemantically successful requires failure of a representation's consumers to perform their proper functions, but rather that the normal conditions for performing their proper functions do not obtain, so that if they do perform their proper functions, they do so "accidentally." Unfortunately, for representations that are supposed to get their contents directly from tracking, the conditions in which a representation is nonsemantically successful are of the same type as the conditions that fix the content of the representation, so it is impossible to misrepresent in nonsemantically successful conditions. This means that whenever misrepresentation occurs, something nonsemantic has to have gone wrong. Representations are never just nonveridical; they are nonveridical and unsuccessful in some other way as well. The problem with clean cases of reliable misrepresentation is that nothing nonsemantic has gone wrong. Clean cases of reliable misrepresentation are useful, stable, and the result of a robust causal relation. Apart from being false, they are perfectly well-behaved. Since tracking theories require misrepresentation to be accompanied by a nonsemantic defect, and since clean cases of reliable misrepresentations are nonsemantically successful, tracking theories cannot allow for clean cases of reliable misrepresenaccident," which is very unlike the prime example of a clean case of reliable misrepresentation, that of the reliable misrepresentation of colors. Relatedly, we should accept that there are other cases of unclean reliable misrepresentation apart from those described. For example, suppose, for some fluky reason, there is never nectar in a certain direction d of any bee hive. Then bee dances "stating" that there is nectar in direction d will misrepresent. Suppose further that there is an environmental condition that reliably causes bees to dance dances "stating" there is nectar in direction d. Then the bees' representation of d will reliably misrepresent, but this will not be a clean case of reliable misrepresentation. 11 tation. 1.4 Step Two of the argument Step Two of the argument argues that it is a problem for tracking theories that they cannot allow for clean cases of reliable misrepresentation. This is because a theory of mental representation should allow for clean cases of reliable misrepresentation. Reliable misrepresentation is a kind of misrepresentation, just like hallucination, illusion, and occasional misrepresentation. Just as it would be inappropriate for a theory of mental representation to allow for only contrived cases of these other kinds of misrepresentation, it would be inappropriate for such a theory to allow for only unclean cases of reliable misrepresentation. In Mendelovici 2013: 436, I claim that it is clear from a pretheoretical perspective that a theory of mental representation should allow for clean cases of reliable misrepresentation, but I also offer two further considerations that support the claim. The psychological consideration. The first consideration is that allowing for clean cases of reliable misrepresentation offers us the resources needed to make good sense of certain kinds of cases in which a representation helps us perform various tasks involving the discrimination and re-identification of objects, but is also involved in various mistaken inferences. For example, our representations of heaviness allow us to discriminate between objects of different weights and to re-identify objects based on how heavy they feel. However, our representations of heaviness lead to some mistaken inferences, such as that an object that is difficult to lift on Earth will also be difficult to lift on the moon. An appealing explanation of this pattern of reactions and inferences is that our perceptual representations of heaviness reliably misrepresent: they represent an intrinsic property of objects but reliably track a relational property holding be12 tween objects and other objects. It is an open empirical question whether this is the correct story of representations of heaviness; however, it is quite plausible that some representations might warrant such a treatment. This possibility should not be foreclosed on the basis of a theory of mental representation. The metaphysical consideration. The second consideration in favor of allowing for clean cases of reliable misrepresentation is that failure to do so leads to surprising and unwarranted metaphysical conclusions, such as realism about various represented properties. The tracking theory licenses inferences from the fact that we represent P in nonsemantically successful conditions to realism about P , where realism about P is the view that P is instantiated. For example, if we represent colors in nonsemantically successful conditions, then the tracking theory allows us to conclude that color realism is true. In other words, the tracking theory entails the following conditional for any content P that we represent by tracking: (REAL) If P is represented in nonsemantically successful conditions, then realism about P is true. (REAL) is a consequence of any theory of mental representation that doesn't allow for misrepresentation in nonsemantically successful conditions. The problem is that (REAL) is false. Accepting it is incompatible with the normal ways in which we think we should settle questions of realism. In cases where the existence or non-existence of P is contingent, we normally think that in order to decide on realism about P , we should figure out what would count as an P and then check the world for evidence of P . In cases in which the existence of P is supposed to be necessary or a priori, different methods apply; for instance, we might consider whether P plays certain theoretical roles that cannot be played by anything else. But (REAL) allows us to bypass these usual methods. We 13 can tell that the antecedent of (REAL) is satisfied without figuring out what would count as a P is and checking the world for signs of P , or employing other normal methods for finding out about P . All we have to do is check ourselves for experiences of P and check to see if those experiences are nonsemantically successful. But this makes establishing realism too easy. One way to summarize the two considerations is this: Tracking theories inappropriately prejudge certain empirical questions, questions concerning certain psychological and metaphysical facts. This is inappropriate in part because, despite being touted as "naturalistic" and in line with scientific world views, tracking theories are often established without investigating the psychological and metaphysical facts they prejudge. Above, I noted that there is some fuzziness in the notion of a clean case of reliable misrepresentation. But we can now see why this does not affect the argument: The problem is not so much that tracking theories cannot allow any instances of a general category of misrepresentation, but that there are such instances that they should not disallow. 2 Response to objections This section overviews and responds to various objections recently made in Artiga 2013. Artiga mainly agrees with Step One of my argument.8 His dis8Artiga presents the case of the Ebbinghaus illusion as an example of reliable misrepresentation that teleosemantics can account for, although he does not claim this is a clean case of reliable misrepresentation, and so he does not take this to challenge Step One of my argument. While I agree with Artiga that teleosemantics can account for this case, it is not clear to me that it is a case of reliable misrepresentation at all. Artiga writes: [I]n the best-known version of the Ebbinghaus illusion, two circles of identical size are placed near to each other and one is surrounded by large circles while the other is surrounded by small circles; the first central circle then appears smaller than the second central circle. In this case, the selection and existence of a mechanism producing representations of size is explained by the fact that most of the time it produces the right representations. Nevertheless, there is a representation type R (the state that misrepresents the size of [the] inner circle 14 agreements are with Step Two. in the Ebbinghaus scenario) that reliably and systematically misrepresents a certain configuration. This state R, which reliably misrepresents an inexistent size of certain circles, is a by-product of the representational system that has earned its keep in evolution. This is a sort of case involving strong reliable misrepresentation that can be perfectly accommodated within teleosemantics. (2013: 270-1, footnote suppressed) There are two ways of understanding what Artiga takes R to represent. On one interpretation, R represents "the size of [the] inner circle," (271) but on another interpretation, R represents "a certain configuration" (271). On the first reading, R is not a case of reliable misrepresentation, since many occurrence of the representation of the particular size in question are veridical. For example, a circle outside the context of an Ebbinghaus illusion might trigger a representation of a circle as being that size. On the second interpretation, R is a representation of the entire configuration of the inner and outer circles. Now, R should not be a propositional representation to the effect that there is such-and-such arrangement of circles, since the characterization of reliable misrepresentation only applies to representations of properties. Instead, it should represent a property that captures the arrangement of circles. For example, perhaps R represents a property attributed to space, that of containing such and such an arrangement of circles. Or perhaps R represents a property attributed to sets of objects, that of being circles arranged in such and such way. Then, one might argue, R, which represents some such property, misrepresents every time it is tokened in a particular individual and satisfies the other conditions on reliable misrepresentation. However, I don't think it's clear that we have representations that represent such properties. While it is plausible that the representational states we have while viewing the Ebbinghaus illusion involve a representation representing the size of the inner circle, representations representing the size of the outer circles, and a representation that there are such and such circles standing in such and such relations before us, it is not clear that we also count as having a representation corresponding to the composite properties discussed above. This would require that the representations representing the sizes of the inner circle and the outer circles come together in a way that qualifies them as a further representation without thereby representing an entire proposition. This would be analogous to a beaver's tail splash representing danger at location l and time t involving a representation or aspect representing l and t. It is an empirical question whether we have such a representation (or aspect of a representation), but I am doubtful. A better example of a persistent illusion that might be a case of reliable misrepresentation is the experience of the Penrose triangle, since in this case it is more plausible that we have a single representation representing an (impossible) shape property. However, this kind of case is very different from paradigm cases of reliable misrepresentation, and might, at best, point to an inadequacy of the characterization of reliable misrepresentation. In paradigm cases of reliable misrepresentation, such as the case of color, misrepresentation is not merely a special case of a system of representations that might be otherwise generally veridical, but is instead a feature of the core cases of the system of representations. Additionally, if reliable misrepresentation is to be contrasted with illusions, then illusions should not generally qualify as cases of reliable misrepresentation. A further condition that we might add to the characterization of reliable misrepresentation to rule out persistent illusions is the requirement that all representations of properties in a system of representations satisfy the first three conditions of reliable misrepresentation (see p. 7). Alternatively, we could say that this is not a clean case of reliable misrepresentation, perhaps on the basis of the fact that it is an isolated case of misrepresentation in an otherwise generally veridical system. In any case, it does not really matter if persistent illusions are clean cases of reliable misrepresentation, since Artiga and I agree that, regardless of how they are classified, they are cases that teleosemantics can accommodate, and also that there are other cases that teleosemantics cannot accommodate. Our disagreement is over whether it is problematic that teleosemantics cannot accommodate the latter cases, not over whether some other cases that it can accommodate should be classified as the same type of case on some method of classification. 15 That's just what the theory says! Artiga writes: I agree [that the possibility of stable cases of reliable misrepresentation] is certainly ruled out by teleosemantics; according to the theory, R represents Q iff Q causally explains the selection of the mechanism producing R. However, that does not seem to be an unwelcome result, but just a different way of stating the theory. If R represents whatever feature explains its selection, it cannot happen that a feature explains its selection and it is not represented by R. Why should that be a problem? (2013: 273) I'm not sure if the teleosemanticist needs to say that represented properties causally explain the selection of the mechanisms producing the representation in question, but I do agree that she is committed to represented properties playing some causal role in selecting for a representation's producing or consuming systems. I'm also not sure that teleosemantics needs to be committed to providing necessary and sufficient conditions for mental representation, rather than just sufficient conditions that apply to us. But these quibbles are inconsequential to Artiga's point, which is just that the impossibility of clean cases of reliable misrepresentation is part of what teleosemantics says. It's not an objection to a theory that it says what it says. Artiga also puts the point in a different way: Every theory, teleosemantics a fortiori, is such that whatever meets the sufficient conditions for being an F according to a theory is an F according to the theory. . . In teleosemantics, those sufficient conditions involve a process of reliability and stability for a period sufficient for selection of the sender-receiver configuration. Consequently, it is certainly true that teleosemantics rules out a case in which Q is the property that accounts for the selection of R and R 16 does not represent Q. . . (2013: 273) Although Artiga does not put things in quite this way, one way to understand his complaint is as being that the objectionable consequence of teleosemantics (its inability to allow for clean cases of reliable misrepresentation) is an immediate consequence of the theory, and objecting to a theory on the basis of its immediate consequences is question-begging, since it would not convince anyone who accepts the theory. It is true that the failure to allow for clean cases of reliable misrepresentation is a consequence of teleosemantics. It is also true that it is possible to reformulate teleosemantics and the conditions in which the relevant kinds of clean cases of reliable misrepresentation occur such that this consequence can be recognized fairly immediately. Perhaps, on some ways of understanding teleosemantics and on some ways of understanding the allegedly problematic consequence, teleosemantics and the problematic consequence are equivalent. However, this is neither here nor there. A consequence of a theory is a consequence of a theory, no matter how immediate or how obvious it is on various formulations of the theory and the consequence. The question that should concern us is whether the consequence is acceptable. In Step Two of my argument, I offer specific reasons for thinking that the consequence is unacceptable. One reason is that it precludes certain kinds of explanations of certain patterns of reactions and inferences. Another reason is that it warrants certain inappropriate metaphysical conclusions. Another, fairly flat-footed, but I think compelling, reason is that reliable misrepresentation is a type of misrepresentation, just like occasional misrepresentation, hallucination, and illusion, and insofar as a theory should allow for uncontrived cases of any kind of misrepresentation, it should allow for clean cases of reliable misrepresentation. The mere fact that some claim is a consequence, or even a direct consequence, of a theory does not make 17 it immune from criticism. Objection to the psychological consideration. Artiga (2013: 274, fn. 5) addresses the psychological reason for allowing for clean cases of reliable misrepresentation. The claim from Mendelovici 2013 under dispute is that reliable misrepresentation might be the best explanation of certain patterns of reactions and inferences, so we should not rule out the possibility of this sort of explanation on the basis of a metaphysical theory of mental representation. Artiga objects that, since certain (unclean) cases of reliable misrepresentation are allowed by teleosemantics, this form of explanation is not in fact ruled out. All this is true. However, the relevant kind of explanation is only allowed in cases involving instability, that is, cases in which the relevant patterns do not persist over enough generations for there to be the kind of selective pressure that could confer a change in content to the representation in question. In stable cases, cases in which the relevant patterns persist over generations in the relevant way, the patterns cannot be explained in the way I describe. Since the reasons for wanting to allow for the kinds of explanations I describe have nothing to do with instability, it is inappropriate to restrict their application to unstable cases. The allegedly inappropriate metaphysical consequences are just fine if we assume teleosemantics. Artiga takes issue with the metaphysical consideration in favor of allowing for reliable misrepresentation. Recall that my worry is that tracking theories entail (REAL). (REAL) P is represented in nonsemantically successful conditions, then realism about P is true. (From a tracking theory) The problem is that (REAL) licenses inappropriate inferences from claims that we represent P in nonsemantically successful conditions to realism about P , 18 which is in tension with how we generally think we can and cannot settle questions of realism. Artiga agrees that the tracking theory licenses such inferences, but disagrees that this is a problem if we assume teleosemantics. In teleosemantics 'P is represented in non-semantically successful conditions' should be spell[ed] out as the claim that P was the property that accounted for the selection of the sender-receiver system. Hence, the problem should be cashed out as follows: if teleosemantics is right and P is the property that accounts for the existence and selection for the system, then one is committed to the (past) existence of P. Again, this conditional seems true, but also entirely plausible. If a property P accounted for the existence of the representational system, P must have been instantiated somewhere. (2013: 275, footnote suppressed) Artiga offers further reasons for thinking that it is okay to assume that represented properties were instantiated, which I will turn to shortly. But let us consider this argument first. Artiga is claiming that, from the perspective of the teleosemanticist, the allegedly unwarranted inference that is licensed by the tracking theory is in fact entirely warranted. This is because the teleosemanticist understands the antecedent of (REAL) as equivalent to "P was the property that accounted for the selection of my sender-receiver system," which makes (REAL) equivalent to (REAL′).9 (REAL′) If P was the property that accounted for the selection of my senderreceiver system, then realism about P is true.10 9The teleosemanticist has room to deny that "P is represented in non-semantically successful conditions" is equivalent to "P was the property that accounted for the selection of the sender-receiver system" if she claims to only provide sufficient conditions for mental representation and not necessary conditions or if she weakens the modal strength of her theory, but I set this aside for now and assume that the teleosemanticist accepts this equivalence. 10For present purposes, we can assume that the past existence of P is sufficient for realism 19 While (REAL) seems to be in tension with our ordinary ways of finding out whether realism is true, (REAL′) does not. However, this does nothing to show that (REAL) is unproblematic. This is because (REAL′) does not have the objectionable features of (REAL); it does not commit itself to a questionable connection between what we represent in nonsemantically successful conditions and realism. The situation is analogous to the following: Suppose the I'm Psychic Theory claims that I imagine something iff it's true. This theory entails (PSYCH): (PSYCH) If I imagine that P , then P . One might object to (PSYCH) in various ways; for one, it is incompatible with how we normally think we can come to know about future events. Normally, we predict the future on the basis of present events and theories about what kinds of events they might give rise to. But (PSYCH) allows me to bypass such tedious methods and predict the future solely based on what I imagine, which may have no causal connection to the alleged future events I predict. According to the I'm Psychic Theory, however, I imagine something iff it's true. So "I imagine that P" is equivalent to "P ," and (PSYCH) is equivalent to (PSYCH′): (PSYCH′) If P , then P . (PSYCH′) is clearly true and has no objectionable epistemological consequences. But this does nothing to show that (PSYCH) is true and similarly unobjectionable. (REAL) and (PSYCH) serve as bridge premises linking claims about representation and imagination, on the one hand, and claims about realism and truth, on the other. But (REAL′) and (PSYCH′) are not bridge premises; they operate only on one side of the relevant chasm, the realism/truth side. So, about P . However, if the antecedent of (REAL′) is suitably cashed out so as to fully capture the commitments of the antecedents of (REAL) assuming teleosemantics, it would also state or entail that my sender-receiver system is stable in the relevant way and that I have tokens of the internal states tracking P . This would entail the present instantiation of P . 20 (REAL′) and (PSYCH′) do not have the objectionable features of (REAL) and (PSYCH). We can see this clearly by noting that (REAL′) makes no mention of mental representation and (PSYCH′) makes no mention of imagination. Innately represented properties must have been instantiated in the past. In his paper, Artiga argues that the following principle is true: (PAST) If a property P is innately represented, P was instantiated in the past. The argument for (PAST) proceeds by attempting to show that (PAST) receives widespread and legitimate endorsement by scientists and philosophers. If it is unobjectionable to assume (PAST), this might motivate the claim that (REAL) is unobjectionable independently of Artiga's previous argument. The problem, however, is that there is little reason to think that (PAST) receives widespread and legitimate endorsement. As an example of the endorsement of (PAST) in philosophy, Artiga cites an objection to Fodor's (1975) concept nativism: Some people have suggested that human concepts like carburetor or television cannot be innate because if they were, we would have to accept that there were carburetors and televisions at the time our ancestors evolved (Sterelny 1989; Prinz 2002: 229). (p. 275) However, this is not in fact the argument that Sterelny and Prinz make. They argue that concepts like carburetor are not innate as follows: Innate representations have to be selected for. In order for a representation to be selected for, it has to have been useful to our ancestors. But concepts like carburetor would not have been useful to our ancestors. So, they could not have been selected for. So, they are not innate.11 Sterelny and Prinz's line of argument 11Prinz writes: "If prevailing theories of evolution are true, innate representational resources 21 does not assume (PAST). Sterelny and Prinz's argument is more compelling than Artiga's suggested reconstrual. The problem with thinking that carburetor was selected for is not that there were no carburetors in our ancestors' environment, but that the concept carburetor would have been useless for our ancestors. Now, perhaps part of the reason why the concept would have been useless for our ancestors is that there were no carburetors, but this is neither here nor there. The concept could have been useless even if there were carburetors (indeed, it is arguably useless to many people who have it today), and the concept could have been useful even if there were no carburetors (Mendelovici 2013 offers examples of such cases). Usefulness and accuracy can come apart, and it's usefulness that matters for selection, not accuracy (except insofar as accuracy confers usefulness). As an example of the endorsement of (PAST) in science, Artiga presents the debate over the innateness of a fear of spiders. A consideration against the claim that a fear of spiders is innate is that only a small percentage of spiders are poisonous, and so a fear of spiders would not confer a significant selective advantage and would not have been selected for. Thus, it is not innate. Artiga takes this line of argument to assume (PAST). But it clearly does not for the same reason that Sterelny and Prinz's arguments do not assume (PAST). What is required for a fear of spiders to be selected for is that it is useful to our ancestors, not that it represents accurately. A representation's usefulness and accuracy can come apart, allowing for useful inaccurate representations and accurate useless representations. must be either selected for or generated as an accidental by-product of things that were selected for. A concept like spatula could not have been selected for, because it would have conferred no survival advantage in the environments in which humans evolved." (2002: 229) Similarly, Sterelny writes: "innate concepts require a selective explanation; an explanation showing that very concept conferred a reproductive advantage on our ancestors." (1989: 123, emphasis in original) 22 In summary, Artiga's arguments for the claim that (PAST) receives widespread and legitimate endorsement among philosophers and scientists are unsuccessful. As I've argued, considered endorsement of (PAST) is neither widespread nor legitimate.12 We don't know what we represent through introspection. In Mendelovici 2013, I provide a specific example of the kind of argument (REAL) licenses: (P1) I represent redness. (Introspective observation) (P2) My representations of redness occur in nonsemantically successful conditions. (Uncontroversial empirical assumption) (REAL) If P is represented in nonsemantically successful conditions, then realism about P is true. (From a tracking theory) (C) Therefore, realism about redness is true. Importantly, both (P1) and (P2) can be known without examining the world for traces of redness. (P1) can be known through introspection, and (P2) can be known through examination of the usefulness, stability, and robustness of our representation. We can assume that the tracking theorist accepts that we can also know that a tracking theory is true, and hence that (REAL) is true, without 12Although Artiga's paper suggests that the principle he aims to defend is (PAST), in conversation, he has suggested a weaker principle: (PAST-weak) If a property P is innately represented, P is likely to have been instantiated in the past. The claim that (PAST-weak) receives legitimate and widespread endorsement is more plausible. However, this wouldn't help the teleosemanticist, since (PAST-weak) is too weak to legitimize (REAL). (REAL) does not claim that realism about properties represented in nonsemantically successful conditions is likely to be true, but rather that realism about such properties is true. In summary, neither appeal to (PAST) or (PAST-weak) succeed at legitimizing teleosemantics' commitment of (REAL). 23 examining the world for redness.13 The worry, then, is this: The tracking theory allows us to move from an introspective observation and an uncontroversial empirical claim to realism about redness, without even requiring us to examine the world for redness. This is incompatible with our ordinary ways of settling questions of realism. Artiga agrees that teleosemantics allows one to move from (P1) and (P2) to (C), but maintains that this is unobjectionable. He suggests that I think that (P1) and (P2) are a priori and that this is precisely what bothers me.14 But this is not what I think and this is not what bothers me. Nowhere do I say that (P2) or (P2) are a priori.15 (P1) is a posteriori because it is known through experience, even though the relevant experience is introspection.16 (P2) 13David Bourget has suggested to me that the tracking theorist could respond that we are not in a position to know that (REAL) is true without first determining that realism about properties represented in nonsemantically successful conditions is true. If this is right, then it is not problematic that (REAL) licenses a move from (P1), (P2) to (C), since properly justifying (REAL) requires already knowing the truth of (C). This is an interesting line of response on behalf of the tracking theorist, though, as Bourget points out, it comes with unfortunate consequences. It would mean that tracking theories have been accepted on inadequate evidence all along. In order to properly justify a tracking theory, it is not enough to show that it adequately accounts for cases of beavers, frogs, magnetotactic bacteria, and even some cases of beliefs and desires; the tracking theorist must also argue for realism about colors and other represented properties. 14Artiga writes: "Since P1 and P2 seem to be priori and C is clearly a posteriori, if we accept that P1-[(REAL)] entail C, we will be entitled to conclude a substantive and a posteriori claim about the world (color realism) from certain a priori claims and teleosemantics. I think this is precisely what worries Mendelovici. . . " (2013: 277) 15In Mendelovici 2013, I write: "The trouble is not that tracking theories allow us to infer a posteriori truths from a priori truths, but rather that they allow us to make inferences that it seems we should not be able to make, whether or not any of the premises we use are a posteriori." (440) Artiga acknowledges that I deny that my worry concerns moving from a priori premises to a posteriori conclusions, but interprets the following passage from my paper as nonetheless supporting his interpretation: "But if tracking theories are correct, then in order to establish realism about represented property P , we needn't check the world for evidence of instances of P . We can instead check ourselves for nonsemantically successful instances of the representation of P ." (2013: 437-8) It might sound like my claim that, on the tracking theory, "we needn't check the world for evidence of instances of P" in order to draw realist conclusions about P means that the tracking theory allows us to draw realist conclusions about P without checking the world at all, i.e., a priori. But being able to draw realist conclusions about P without checking the world for P is compatible with having to check the world for something in order to drawing realist conclusions about P . What we have to check the world for is the truth of (P1) and (P2), which, as I claim in my paper, does not require checking the world for P . 16Like Millikan, Artiga takes introspective knowledge of our own mental states to count as a priori, so Artiga's disagreement with me over whether such introspective knowledge is a 24 is a posteriori because it is also known through experience; the fact that it is uncontroversial does not make it a priori. The problem is not that a posteriori conclusions can be drawn from a priori premises, but that questions of realism can be settled on the basis of a theory of mental representation and a posteriori but fairly innocuous and easily justified claims like (P1) and (P2). Nevertheless, Artiga's response to his apparent misconstrual of my argument can also be offered as a response to the argument I actually make. His response is that once we appreciate the kind of empirical examination required to establish (P1) and (P2), it should not be surprising or objectionable that a theory of mental representation allows us to conclude from them that color realism is true: Teleosemantics is an externalist theory about content, so P1 and P2 are a posteriori claims through and through. What kind of property I am representing with a red experience and what kind of situations are nonsemantically successful conditions (i.e. what sort of situations accounted for the selection of the mechanism) are hard empirical questions that should be resolved by science. Consequently, even if teleosemantics is right, a considerable amount of empirical knowledge must be gathered before anything like C can be established. (2013: 278) In order for this kind of response to successfully respond to the argument I actually made, it should show that establishing the conjunction of (P1) and (P2) requires establishing that color properties are instantiated through normal, presumably empirical, methods. We should be clear that everyone should grant that there are ways of establishing (P1) and (P2) that would proceed via establishing that color properties are instantiated-for instances, we could establish priori is likely merely terminological. 25 that (P2) is true by establishing that in nonsemantically successful conditions, color properties are instantiated and then establishing that we find ourselves in such nonsemantically successful conditions. But the question is not whether there are ways of establishing either (P1) or (P2) that proceed via first establishing color realism, but rather whether there are ways of establishing (P1) and (P2) that do not require first establishing color realism. I claimed that there are. Let us consider both premises separately to see if there is reason to think that establishing either premise requires establishing color realism. For teleosemantics, a representation's nonsemantically successful conditions are what we might call its design conditions, the type of conditions in which the representation's occurrence in our ancestors helped them survive and reproduce. Now, one way of establishing that we represent colors in design conditions is by first finding out precisely what the relevant design conditions are and then establishing that we represent colors in those conditions. This way of establishing (P2) would indeed involve establishing color realism prior to accepting (P2), since design conditions would have to involve the instantiation of color properties. (This is the way Artiga seems to have in mind when he says in the above quotation that "what kind of situations are nonsemantically successful conditions (i.e. what sort of situations accounted for the selection of the mechanism)" is an empirical question to be settled by science.) However, another way of establishing that we represent colors in design conditions is by first establishing that representing colors aids us in our survival and reproduction in reliable and systematic ways and then inferring from this that being in the same kinds of states helped our ancestors in the same ways. Unlike the way Artiga seems to have in mind, this perfectly good way of establishing (P2) does not require that we first establish color realism. 26 Let us now turn to (P1). Does establishing (P1) require first establishing that color realism is true? There are several ways of establishing what we represent without first having to establish that what we represent is true, exists, or is instantiated. Perhaps the most obvious way comes from introspection: In some cases, introspection affords us access to the contents of our representational states; it tells us which contents we represent. The case of conscious representational states, such as conscious thoughts or perceptual experiences representing redness, seem to be good candidates for states that allow for this kind of introspective access. It is important to note that none of this requires that introspection can reveal the content of all mental representations (perhaps we have non-conscious representations that are introspectively inaccessible), or that introspection is an infallible guide to content. All that is required is that, in some cases, introspection provides us fairly good evidence that we represent certain contents. Assuming the case of color representation is one of those cases, then this is enough to establish (P1), the claim that we represent colors.17 Artiga (and Millikan) reject the claim that introspection provides special access to representational states, so they would not accept this way of establishing (P1).18 I think this position is overly skeptical about introspection. That I rep17This also does not require that introspection can reveal the metaphysical nature of mental representational states or their contents. See Mendelovici forthcoming, MS: ch. 1, where I argue that introspection can at least sometimes tell us which contents we represent without revealing to us their metaphysical nature (e.g., whether they are sets of possible worlds or structured propositions) or the metaphysical nature of mental representation in general (e.g., whether it is a tracking relation, a relation to abstract entities, a relation to sense data, or a non-relational state of subjects). 18As an anonymous reviewer has pointed out, a central part of Millikan's view is the denial of what she calls "meaning rationalism," which includes the view that introspection and intuition provide insight into the contents of our representational states (see especially Millikan 1984: 91-2 and 326-7). However, meaning rationalism involves a commitment to the infallibility of introspection, which I do not need in order to make my argument. Millikan's own view of self-knowledge is, roughly, that knowledge of what our concepts represent is a matter of our (fallible) abilities to tell that two thoughts represent the same content (Millikan 2000: chs. 10 and 13). "Knowing what I am thinking of is being capable of coidentifying . . . various of my thoughts with other thoughts of the same. It is being able to distinguish thinking of a thing again from thinking of a different thing." (Millikan 2000: 184) (See also Shea 2002 for an overview.) Millikan does claim that this picture is only "[t]he closest thing that actually makes some sense . . . to the yearned-for ideal of comparison of a thought with its object bare within thought itself" (2000: 184), but it is not clear that it 27 resent colors is immediately obvious to me. I need not consider my dispositions to make inferences or behave, or my social or physical environment in order to know that I represent colors. That we represent colors is a datum, one that a theory of mental representation has to explain. Further, one might argue, it is through introspection that we get a grip on mental representation in the first place, and this way of getting a grip on mental representation automatically affords us some pre-theoretic access to mental representational states. But this is not the place to argue for these claims.19 Instead, let me turn to another way in which we can find out about the contents of our representational states without introspecting upon them: by observing their psychological roles.20 Mental representational states play certain psychological roles, including roles in inference, behavior, and the formation of higher-order thoughts about comes close at all, since it only seems to deliver knowledge that two concepts represent the same unknown thing, and knowing that two concepts represent the same content does not help you know what that content is if you have no prior access to either thought's content. The kind of knowledge we obtain is analogous to the knowledge we obtain by learning that two words whose meaning we do not know are synonymous. 19See Mendelovici 2010: ch. 2, MS: ch 1. 20Artiga's rejection of introspection involves conceding that externalist views like teleosemantics are in tension with introspective self-knowledge. He suggests that this tension shows there is nothing new about my argument, since we already knew that externalist theories like teleosemantics are in tension with introspective self-knowledge (2013: 278). Of course, that externalism is incompatible with introspective self-knowledge is not what my argument intends to show. My argument assumes a premise that is accepted by most participants on the debates concerning introspective self-knowledge, which is that there is such a thing as introspective self-knowledge, and attempts to show that together with other assumptions, this gives rise to consequences concerning color realism and other forms of realism. My overall argument is meant to show that clean cases of reliable misrepresentation are incompatible with tracking theories of mental representation and that this is a problem for them. So, my argument does not boil down to pointing out the tension between externalism and introspective self-knowledge. More generally, when one responds to an argument by biting a bullet, one cannot conclude that the aim of the argument was to establish the bullet. Artiga also suggests that if the worry boils down to a worry about the compatibility of tracking theories with introspective self-knowledge, then it is a problem for any externalist theory, not just teleosemantics or tracking theories more generally, so "a defense will have to come from externalism, rather than from teleosemantics." (2013: 278) Of course, a problem for everyone is not a problem for no one, so, to the extent to which accommodating introspective self-knowledge is a problem for externalism, it is a problem for tracking theories, including teleosemantics. In any case, tracking theories are the main contenders for externalist theories of meaning, so even if my argument did boil down to pointing out the tension between externalism and self-knowledge, and even if a problem for all versions of a theory is not a problem for any specific version of that theory, the worry would still be a fair one to raise against my target, which is tracking theories in general. 28 them. For example, from representing that some object has a particular color, we are likely to represent that it doesn't have certain other colors, that it is a visible object, and that it is similar to or different from other objects. We might utter certain words, like "This is red," or approach or move away from it. We might form a higher-order thought with the content I am thinking about a red tomato. From these and other facts like them, we can hone in on the content of color representations without requiring us to know whether colors are in fact instantiated. Again, this method does not need to be foolproof in order to provide sufficient evidence for (P1).21 More generally, the tracking theorist should accept that there is a theoryindependent way of finding out what we represent, a way that doesn't require first finding out what we track on their favored tracking theory. As long as this way does not require establishing realism about represented properties, we have a way of establishing (P1) independent of establishing realism about redness, and we have an argument for color realism that bypasses the normal ways of finding out whether realism is true. I will return to this point shortly. We don't know that we represent through introspection. Artiga argues that the rejection of color realism is compatible with teleosemantics and the validity of the argument from (P1), (P2), and (REAL) to (C): [I]f we assume teleosemantics and grant everything I accepted in this paper (including the inference from P1-[REAL] to C), is teleoseman21One might object that knowing that we make inferences with a certain content or have higher-order thoughts requires introspection of that content, so although this method allows us to avoid introspection upon the representational states we want to know about, it does not avoid introspection entirely. I agree that the most natural ways of finding one whether you are making a particular inference is to introspect, and the most natural way of finding out whether someone else is making an inference with a particular content is to ask them whether they are, which will prompt them to introspect and then report on what they find. This dependence on introspection of the most natural way of finding out about what inferences we make illustrates the far-reaching consequences of rejecting introspection. But presumably the skeptic about introspection will allow that there are other ways of finding out about what inferences we make, perhaps through our behaviors. Something similar can be said for how we know about our higher-order states. 29 tics still compatible with color eliminativism? It clearly is. If science discovers that there is nothing our color experiences have been tracking, then teleosemantics has to say that the mechanism that produces our color experiences is not a representational mechanism. That is, it is possible that color experiences are not representational states. (2013: 278) The suggestion is that we could discover that our color experiences don't bear the relevant tracking relation to anything at all, and so, we could discover that we don't represent colors after all. (P1) would then be false, which would block the argument to color realism (which would also be false) in a way that is fully compatible with teleosemantics. However, the same considerations that support the claim that color representations represent colors also support the weaker claim that they represent something. We can know from introspection that our representations of redness are not empty, that they in fact have contents. It is introspectively obvious that we think something when we think about colors. (This is something that Artiga and Millikan would deny. But surely the psychological role of color representations or other considerations that do not require realism about colors can help establish that color representations represent something.) Incidentally, the suggestion that our (pseudo-)representations do not represent anything at all has unwanted consequences for the tracking theorist. While it allows her to deny color realism, it does so at the cost of making color antirealism unthinkable if true. If there are no colors, and if our color "concepts" (or whatever we use to apparently think about colors) are supposed to get their content through tracking, then we would have no concept of color, and the thought color realism is false would not be thinkable.22 We would not be able 22The only way to avoid this consequence would to be to claim that color (pseudo-)concepts are obtained not through tracking, but through composition of other representations that do 30 to represent to ourselves what it is that does not exist. Note that we cannot deny the existence of colors by justing thinking to ourselves that our "color" (pseudo-)representations fail to represent, since there is nothing that makes them pertain to colors, so, again, this thought will fail to tell us what it is that does not exist. One way to see this is to note that the thought that our (pseudo- )representations fail to represent is fully compatible with the existence of colors. Color anti-realism being unstatable if true is clearly absurd and a high price to pay to block the argument from (P1), (P2), and (REAL) to (C).23,24 Artiga's suggestion that teleosemantics can allow us to discover that we don't represent colors comes dangerously close to the claim that what we represent should be settled by theory, a claim that is problematic regardless of what we think about introspective self-knowledge. While some cases of mental representation might have to be settled by theory, many cases are such that we have some kind of theory-independent access to them. Tracking theories are theories of mental representation, not just theories about certain kinds of tracking retrack something. But it does not seem that we represent colors from composition. In any case, we could run the same argument with some other (pseudo-)concept that is supposed to get its content directly from tracking. 23An anonymous reviewer has suggested that empty (pseudo-)representations might be cases of reliable misrepresentation, and so that taking color (pseudo-)representations to be empty would be a way for teleosemantics to allow for the reliable misrepresentation of color. However, empty (pseudo-)representations are not a kind of reliable misrepresentation, since reliable misrepresentation requires representation (by (RM1)), and empty (pseudo-)representations do not represent. Further, reliable misrepresentation requires falsity (by (RM2)), and empty (pseudo-)representations are arguably neither true nor false, since representing falsely requires representing. 24One might suggest that there is a difference between representing and seeming to represent (see Millikan 1984: 326-7). Perhaps all we can conclude from introspection and considerations of psychological role is that our color representations seem to represent colors. I'm not sure how to understand this claim other than as the claim that we represent that we represent colors. But then this suggestion faces the following dilemma: Either representing that we represent P requires representing P or it does not. (Representing that we represent P will require representing P on views of higher-order states on which lower-order states or their contents are embedded or otherwise involved in the higher-order states (see, e.g., Burge 1988), but such views of higher-order states are not mandatory.) If representing that we represent P requires representing P , then we can establish (P1) from the fact that we represent that we represent colors. If it does not, then this is presumably because the content representing P is not composed of other contents. But then we can run an amended the argument from (P1), (P2), and (REAL), to (C) where "redness" is replaced with "representing redness" and "colors" is replaced with "the representing of colors." Since this response accepts that we represent that we represent redness, it should accept that the new version of (P1) is true. 31 lations. This is why they are in competition with one another and with other theories of mental representation. Tracking theories aim at a certain target, mental representation, and attempt to account for it. While there are different ways of fixing reference on our target25, we need to have some sort of theoryindependent grip on it in order for the disagreement between different tracking theories, and different theories of mental representation more generally, to be a genuine disagreement.26 If we had no theory-independent grip on mental representation, then teleosemantics and other kinds of tracking theories would not be in disagreement. They would each be theories of their favored kinds of tracking relations and nothing more. They might disagree on which tracking relations are most important, or which are useful for certain purposes, but they needn't be in competition with one another. All the tracking relations they specify could peacefully co-exist. Since tracking theorists seem to take their theories to be in competition, they should accept that they have a common target, which requires that there is a theory-independent way of fixing on this target. With our theory-independent grip on mental representation come theoryindependent ways of finding out what certain mental states represent. These ways might be based on introspection, intuition, or observations of inferences, brain states, or behaviors. Indeed, tracking theorists seem to accept that we have a theory-independent way of finding out about mental contents. This is clear in their discussions of the disjunction problem. The disjunction problem arises when a theory of mental representation incorrectly assigns disjunctive contents (e.g., horse or skinny-cow-on-a-dark-night) to mental representations that don't have disjunctive contents (e.g., horse) (see Fodor 1987: ch. 4). In order for the disjunction problem to actually be a problem, we need a theory-independent 25See Mendelovici MS: ch. 1 for discussion. 26In my view, our theory-independent grip on mental representation comes from introspection (see Mendelovici 2010: ch. 2, MS: ch. 1, Kriegel 2011: ch. 1). Other views are that it comes from folk psychology or cognitive science (see, e.g.,Fodor 1987). 32 way of knowing that the content of the relevant mental representations is not in fact disjunctive. Otherwise, we could just accept that certain theories claim that certain (or all) contents are disjunctive. That tracking theorists tend not to bite the bullet on the disjunction problem shows that they accept that there are ways of finding out what a mental representation represents independent of a theory of mental representation. Based on discussions of the disjunction problem, these ways seem to be largely based on intuition and introspection; it's supposed to just be obvious that horse doesn't represent horse or skinnycow-on-a-dark-night. All this is relevant to the argument for realism in two ways. First, this means that teleosemantics (or any theory of mental representation) is not free to dictate the contents of our mental states. We have theory-independent ways of finding out what we represent. While some cases of mental representation might have to be settled solely based on our theory, in many cases, pre-theoretical considerations constrain or completely inform us as to what is represented. In the case of perceptual experiences of colors and thoughts about colors, it is pre-theoretically clear that the relevant representations represent something. Suggesting that a tracking theory could inform us that we don't represent anything is no more convincing than suggesting it could inform us that horse represents horse or skinny-cow-on-a-dark-night. Tracking theorists should not bite the bullet on such cases, because biting these bullets is in tension with acknowledging that we have a theory-independent way of finding out what our mental representations represent, and denying that we have a theory-independent way of finding out what our mental representations represent is in tension with taking tracking theories of mental representation to actually be theories of mental representation.27 27It is not clear that the kind of self-knowledge provided by Millikan's theory (see fn. 18) provides us us the kind of theory-independent grip on mental representation required to adjudicate disagreements between different theories of mental representation on independent 33 Second, as long as the theory-independent ways of finding out what a representation represents don't require ascertaining that realism about a candidate represented property is true, tracking theories will license unacceptable arguments from premises like (P1) and (P2) to (C). In other words, even if we don't know (P1) through introspection, as I claim we do, we will still be able to bypass the standard considerations for ascertaining realism about a represented property as long as we are able to establish (P1) without checking the surfaces of objects. So, tracking theories license inappropriate consequences even if we deny introspective self-knowledge. Denying introspective self-knowledge is not enough to make moves licensed by (REAL) palatable; one must also deny other theory-independent ways of finding out what our mental representations represent. But denying that we have theory-independent ways of finding out what our mental representations represent is in tension with taking tracking theories grounds. Millikan's theory of self-knowledge is a theory of how we come to know that two representations track the same thing, so it seems the insight it takes self-knowledge to provide ends up being insights onto what is tracked. If it turned out that her method delivered results that were at odds with her tracking theory, then presumably she would claim that her method delivered a mistake; after all, this method aims to find out whether we track the same thing on multiple occasions, so if its results come apart from what we in fact do track, we can conclude that it has made a mistake. This means that her method does not provide an independent means of validating the predictions of her theory; we could never use it find out that her theory was false. Pietroski 1992 provides an imaginary case aimed at testing Millikan's teleosemantics on independent grounds: He asks us to imagine two species, kimus, and their only predators, snorfs. Kimus were originally color-blind, but by random mutation, one kimu has a representation R that is tokened in the presence of red light. In the morning, red light emanates from the top of a hill. Evolution eventually selected kimus that were fond of red light and hence would climb the hill every morning, thereby avoiding being eaten by snorfs, which happen to not be able to climb hills. Pietroski claims that Millikan's theory delivers the wrong result in this case: Her account predicts that R represents the lack of snorfs, a snorf-free zone, or something else to do with snorfs, but, he claims, whether R is a representation of red light, redness, something nice, or something else, one thing it certainly is not a representation of is anything to do with snorfs. In making this argument, Pietroski assumes that we have an independent way of knowing the contents of representational states (his favored way appeals to the role of mental representation in psychological explanations). Millikan bites the bullet on this objection, claiming that R does indeed represent something to do with snorfs. But if Pietroski's case does not count as evidence against teleosemantics from independent considerations pertaining to the content of representational states, it is not clear does. See also Mendelovici and Bourget 2014, which argues that a naturalistic approach to mental representation requires more than reducing mental representation to the physical; it also requires being compatible with the theory-independent empirical evidence concerning what a representation represents. 34 to actually be theories of mental representation. 3 Conclusion In this paper, I've overviewed, clarified, and improved various aspects of my argument from reliable misrepresentation against tracking theories. I've also presented and responded to certain objections made in Artiga 2013. If my arguments are sound, the argument from reliable misrepresentation escapes Artiga's objections, and tracking theories still need to allow for clean cases of mental representation. I will close by summarizing my complaint against tracking theories, and against teleosemantics in particular, in an intuitive way: There could be cases in which we keep track of some worldly property, A (say, surface reflectance profiles), but we do this by representing "to ourselves" something else, B (say, primitive colors). Perhaps we need to keep track of A, but we do not need to know just what property it is, so it does not matter whether it is A or B that we represent. It might even be easier or more economical for us to represent B rather than A, perhaps because A is highly complex, while B is not. All this could be as it should be by any standard other than veridicality: the setup could be useful for us and our ancestors, and it could result is as strong a connection between our representations and B as we please. It need not be an accident or a byproduct of some other of our useful features. Teleosemantics, and tracking theories in general, inappropriately rule out this possibility on the basis of theory alone. But it is a live empirical possibility, one that should be left open by any theory, especially one claiming to be naturalistic.28 28Thanks to David Bourget, Marc Artiga, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper. 35 References Artiga, M. (2013). Reliable misrepresentation and teleosemantics. Disputatio, (37):265–281. Burge, T. (1988). Individualism and self-knowledge. The Journal of Philosophy, 85:649–663. Fodor, J. A. (1975). The Language of Thought. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Fodor, J. A. (1987). Psychosemantics. MIT Press, Cambridge. Kriegel, U. (2011). The Sources of Intentionality. Oxford University Press. Martínez, M. (2013). Teleosemantics and Productivity. Philosophical Psychology, 26(1):47–68. Mendelovici, A. (2010). Mental Representation and Closely Conflated Topics. PhD thesis, Princeton University. Mendelovici, A. (2013). Reliable misrepresentation and tracking theories of mental representation. Philosophical Studies, 165(2):421–443. Mendelovici, A. (forthcoming-). Propositionalism without propositions, objectualism without objects. In Grzankowski, A. and Montague, M., editors, Non-proposiitonal intentionality. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Mendelovici, A. (MS). Phenomenal intentionality: How to get intentionality from phenomenal consciousness. Mendelovici, A. and Bourget, D. (2014). Naturalizing intentionality: Tracking theories versus phenomenal intentionality theories. Philosophy Compass. Millikan, R. G. (1984). Language, Thought and Other Biological Categories. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Millikan, R. G. (1989). Biosemantics. Journal of Philosophy, 86:281–297. Millikan, R. G. (2000). On Clear and Confused Ideas: An Essay About Substance Concepts. Cambridge University Press. Papineau, D. (1987). Reality and Representation. B. Blackwell. Pietroski, P. M. (1992). Intentionality and teleological error. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 73:267–282. Prinz, J. (2002). Furnishing the Mind: Concepts and their Perceptual Basis. MIT Bradford, Cambridge, MA. Rupert, R. D. (1999). Mental Representations and Millikan's Theory of Intentional Content: Does Biology Chase Causality? Southern Journal of Philosophy, 37(1):113–140. 36 Shea, N. (2002). Getting Clear About Equivocal Concepts. Disputatio, 13:34– 47. Shea, N. (2004). On Millikan. Wadsworth, Belmont. Sterelny, K. (1989). Fodor's nativism. Philosophical Studies, 55(February):119– 41. | {
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In His Name, Exalted A Branched Model for Substantial Motion 1 Hajj Muhammad Legenhausen 0. Abstract The seventeenth century Muslim philosopher Muhammad Sadr al-Din Shirazi, known as Mulla Sadra, introduced the idea of substantial motion in Islamic philosophy. This view is characterized by a continuity criterion for diachronic identity, a four-dimensional view of individual substances, the notion that possibilities change, and the continual creation of all creatures. Modern philosophical logic provides means to model a variety of claims about individuals, substances, modality and time. In this paper, the semantics of formal systems discussed by Carnap, Bressan and Gupta are reviewed with regard to the issue of substance and identity. Next a model introduced by Storrs McCall is described that is able to build upon and yet resolve some of the issues about substance and identity as characterized by Bressan and others. McCall‟s model is also shown to be able to provide an illustration of Mulla Sadra‟s doctrine of substantial motion. Keywords: substantial motion, substance, identity, Carnap, Bressan, Gupta, McCall, Mulla Sadra. 1. Mulla Sadra's Doctrine of Substantial Motion Prior to Mulla Sadra (d. 1641), it was held that motion is confined to the accidents of a thing; in particular, change was said to occur in place, position, quality and 1 A version of this paper has been published in 2 quantity (and there was some controversy about quantity). The categories in which motion takes place are considered to be indicated by the extensions of the changes that occur in them. For example, a change in place occurs when there is distance between a given thing at one time and another. At any given moment the object has its own place, which was construed as a spatial envelope in to which the object fits exactly. As a thing moves, it carries its place with it. Nevertheless, the place changes because there is distance between the place at the beginning and end of the thing‟s motion. Distance is covered, or flows through the place of the object over the course of time. Likewise, a change in quality, e.g., color, occurs in a thing because there is a kind of qualitative distance between the color at the start and end of a change, such as fading. During the fading of an object‟s color, there is a flowing through the colorquality of the object such that there is qualitative difference from start to end. The category of place, position or quality in an object is seen as a channel through which changes flow with time. Ibn Sina (d. 1037) argued that motion was impossible in substance, because it was the substance that remained the same during such changes. The object that changes in quality, position, quantity or place is the substance. Substance remains fixed while its accidents change. To the contrary, Mulla Sadra urged that there could be change in substance just as there could be change in place, position, quality and quantity. Just as a thing retains its own place, and yet changes place because of the distance between the initial and ending locations of its place, Mulla Sadra held that a thing could retain its own substantial kind, e.g., being this man, or this tree, yet change substance because of the difference between the thing at the beginning and end of a change or motion. As a human being or a tree grows, Mulla Sadra held, it gains in perfection as its existence 3 is continually renewed and intensified. It is tempting to use the anachronistic metaphor of frames of a motion picture to illustrate what is meant here. It seems as if a persistent object moves, while what is seen is really a succession of similar images. The metaphor fails, however, because Mulla Sadra held that the succession that underlies the appearance of persistence through change is not one of distinct frames or atoms, but is continuous and flowing. Mulla Sadra responded to Ibn Sina‟s objection to substantial motion that there was no need to posit an unchanging thing to underlie changes, for continuity is sufficient to link one stage of the thing‟s career to another. Mulla Sadra‟s idea of substantial motion appears to have developed from the Sufi concept of constant creation. Nothing remains in existence. God must supply each thing with a new existence at each moment. Mulla Sadra himself claimed that there were precedents for his views, notably in Heraclitus. More recent Islamic philosophy has accepted Mulla Sadra‟s views, although controversy remains. Mulla Sadra held that all substantial motion was in the direction of increasing perfection, because motion is the actualization of what was potential, and the actual is more perfect than the potential. This has led to religious disputes, with accusations that the doctrine is incompatible with the eternity of hell. More vituperative have been charges that the Muslim philosophers‟ beliefs are incompatible with the doctrine of bodily resurrection, since a disembodied state is more perfect than an embodied state, and substantial motion must be toward the more perfect. Resurrection of the body would mean that after being in a disembodied state the soul is reunited with its body. Defenders of substantial motion have responded with 4 modifications of the doctrine that allow substantial motion to go forward or in reverse, and even laterally. 2 My purpose, however, is not to provide an exegesis of Mulla Sadra‟s views, their sources, or the debates about them among Muslim philosophers today. Instead, I would like to consider how the doctrine of substantial motion could be elucidated with the help of formal semantics. These considerations will build upon the groundbreaking work on substance in formal semantics by Aldo Bressan and Storrs McCall. 3 2. Bressan on Substance Bressan‟s work builds on that of Carnap. 4 So, some of the relevant ideas from Carnap should be understood before we consider Bressan. Carnap holds that for every term in a simple language of first-order quantification with modal operators, there is both an extension and an intension. The extension of an individual term is an individual. The extension of a monadic predicate is the set of individuals to which the predicate truly applies. More generally, the extension of an n-place predicate is a set of n-tuples of individuals. Finally, if S is a formula, the extension of S is a truth value, a member of {T,F}. 2 See Ayatullah Muhammad Taqi Misbah Yazdi, Philosophical Instructions (Binghamton: IGCS, 1999), 473-488; „Ali „Abidi Shahrudi, "Goftar dar harakat jawhari va khalq-e jadid," in Sayr-e „irfan va falsafeh dar jahan-e islam, (Tehran: Mu‟assesseh Mutali„at va Tahqiqat Farhangi, 1363/1984), 193235, an English version of which is "Substantial Motion and Perpetual Creation," in Christian Kanzian and Muhammad Legenhausen, eds., Substance and Attribute: Western and Islamic Traditions in Dialogue (Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 2007), 193-214; also in this volume see Mohammad Fanaie Eshkavari, "Mulla Sadra‟s Theory of Substantial Motion," 25-43. 3 Aldo Bressan, A General Interpreted Modal Calculus (New Haven: Yale, 1972); Storrs McCall, A Model of the Universe: Space-Time, Probability, and Decision (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). 4 Rudolf Carnap, Meaning and Necessity, 2 nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1970). The first edition of this book was published in 1947. 5 For intensions, we can depart from Carnap‟s presentation and resort to the popular device of possible worlds. Then we can say that if A is an expression, and Ext(A, w) is the extension of A at possible world w, then the function from possible worlds to extensions of A is the intension of A; in other words, the intension of A is the function Ext(A, w), where w ranges over possible worlds. Hence, if A is a formula, the intension of A is the function from possible worlds to the truth values that are the extensions of A in each possible world. Carnap calls the intension of a formula a proposition. If A is an n-place predicate, e.g. the predicate corresponding to "is red" in English, the intention of A (or property) will be the function from possible worlds to the sets of n-tuples that are the extensions of A in each possible world, the function for the intension of "is red" would take possible worlds as arguments and yield the set of red things in each of these worlds. So, the property of being red, for example, can be considered as a function that for each possible world assigns the set of red things at that world to the predicate "is red." Carnap calls the intention of an individual term an individual concept, which is a function from possible worlds to individuals. Some intensions have the same values for all arguments. Tautologies, for example, necessarily have a value of truth. There are also predicates that necessarily have the same extensions, e.g., the predicate, "is greater than itself," which necessarily has the empty set as its extension. A singular term that necessarily has the same (non-null) extension in all possible worlds could be thought of as denoting a substance, although Carnap stops short of this. Carnap points out that when variables are used in modal contexts, they should take as their values intensions rather than extensions. For example, „p (~Np)‟ should mean that there is a proposition that is not necessary, not that there is a truth value that 6 is not necessary, which makes no sense at all. 5 In non-modal contexts, Carnap holds that the values given to variables will have both extensions and intensions. With regard to individual variables, Carnap strikes a more tentative note. In my view the situation with respect to individual variables is quite analogous, although this is usually not recognized. I think that individual variables in modal sentences, for example, in S2, must be interpreted as referring, not to individuals, but to individual concepts. 6 Here Carnap takes the important step of recognizing that since the truth values of some statements (quantified modal ones) depend on the values of variables in different possible worlds, the variables should be taken as referring not merely to an extension (an individual), but to an intension (an individual concept). Carnap doesn‟t talk about substances, but Aldo Bressan builds upon Carnap‟s work to do so. Bressan notices that some individual concepts will correspond to particular (primary) substances while others will pick out different individuals in different worlds. Then he reinterprets the conditions of predication to allow for predicates that will distinguish among extensionally equivalent expressions and apply only to those with a preferred intension, somewhat in the way that Carnap said modal contexts need not be true of two extensionally equivalent individual terms. What we find in Bressan, however, is predicates that do not contain modal operators but that truly apply only to a specific selection of individual concepts. Bressan holds that substance predicates must be modally constant and modally separated. Modally constant predicates are those that apply necessarily to everything to which they possibly apply. Bressan is able to secure this because he takes the 5 Carnap, 179. 6 Carnap, 180. 7 extension of (at least some) predicates to be intensions rather than extensions (as in Carnap). 7 If we consider, for example, the predicate "is the heaviest object in the room," this will not be a modally constant predicate because that to which the predicate applies in this world is not that to which it applies in other worlds. The predicate, "is human," on the other hand, applies to the same things in all worlds (in which those things exist). 8 A modally separated predicate is one that applies to identical objects a and b only if a and b are necessarily identical. Predicates that are both modally constant and modally separated are called absolute. According to Bressan, common nouns are used in two different ways. Sometimes they are used extensionally, and sometimes as absolute terms. The largest object in the room can be human, in an extensional sense while failing to be human in an absolute sense if the individual concept associated with "the largest object in the room" will be human in one world and non-human in another world. In the extensional sense, human is not modally constant, and hence is not absolute. The absolute concept of human, however, will only apply to individual concepts that pick out the same things in every world in which they refer to an existing object. For an individual concept to fall within the extension of the absolute concept of human, it is not sufficient that it be modally constant, that is, it is not sufficient that the individual concepts to which the absolute concept applies have the same values for all possible worlds-the individual concepts must also be such as to prohibit mere contingent identity. Bressan writes: 7 Bressan, 51. 8 This is a simplification. Carnap and Bressan handle non-existent objects by means of a "chosen object theory" but the details of this are not relevant to the analysis of substance. 8 According to scholastics, particularly Aristotle, bearers of properties, or subjects, are (material or nonmaterial) substances. So on the one hand, (natural) absolute properties are important, even essential in certain situations, to denote things as substances. 9 He also writes: (1) we emphasized that in certain situations in which we pick out individuals as bearers of properties, i.e. substances, it is important that they should be "the same individuals in all possible cases" in the most natural sense of this phrase; and (2) we showed that it is possible to pick out such individuals by means of absolute attributes of the most natural kind. 10 Thus we find the basic idea of intensions that have the same value in all possible worlds (in which they have a non-null value) plays an important role in Carnap and is developed further in Bressan in order to provide a refinement of the idea of a substance. This idea, however, presupposes that there is some way to determine in each possible world the same individual, the so-called problem of cross-world identity. Carnap is explicit in his denial of any metaphysical significance to this question for the system of extensions and intensions that he proposes. We use the term „individual‟ not for one particular kind of entity but , rather, relative to a language system S, for those entities which are taken as the elements of the universe of discourse in S, in other words, the entities of the lowest level (we call it level zero) dealt with in S, no matter 9 Bressan, 88. 10 Bressan, 91. 9 what these entities are. For one system the individuals may be physical things, for another space-time points, or numbers, or anything else. 11 Therefore, there is no theoretical issue of right or wrong between the various conceptions, but only the practical question of the comparative convenience of different methods. 12 Hence for Carnap, when we come to the question of cross-world identity, we are not to imagine that there is a particular substance or individual entity in any metaphysically significant sense that is identified as being the same value of an intension in all possible worlds, rather, some set of terms is taken as standard and intensions that have as their value in each world the extension of the standard term in that world are said to be the individual concepts of specific individuals. 13 In Bressan‟s work, we find a heavy reliance on what is natural in order to determine which properties are the absolute ones, and which predicates apply to individual concepts that have the same value in all cases. This marks a departure from Carnap, who sees such issues as being a matter of stipulation or convention and pragmatic convenience. There is evidence for Bressan‟s reliance on intuitions about what is natural in the previous two quotations from Bressan (1972), as well as the following. The natural concept of body can be intuitively characterized by the condition that if b is a body, then it is "the same body, i.e. the same bearer of (possible) properties, in all possible cases" in the most natural sense. So 11 Carnap, 32. 12 Carnap, 33. 13 Once again, this is a simplification. Carnap introduces standard terms through semantical rules. See Carnap, 168-172. 10 a natural absolute concept is intimately and strongly related to bearers of (possible) properties, i.e., to substances. Furthermore when a common noun of an ordinary language is used in an absolute way it expresses a natural (nonartificial) absolute property. 14 The line of thought about substances that is found in Bressan is further developed in a monograph by Anil Gupta. 15 A substance sort in a model structure A is modally constant and separated intensional property. Substance sorts are sorts that are modally constant. „Number‟, „man‟, and „river‟ express substance sorts, but „number of planets‟ and „man born in Jerusalem‟ do not. Nouns that express substance sorts I call substance nouns.... Some substance nouns express sorts that are natural (e.g., „horse‟, „water‟); some express sorts that are artificial (e.g., „number greater than three‟ and „man identical to Jones‟). 16 With regard to the problems of trans-world identity, Gupta quotes Kripke‟s remarks that trans-world identity is to be stipulated rather than discovered, and remarks that the systems of modal logic he develops there is no need to assume what he calls the Aristotelian thesis, namely, that everything falls under a unique sort that determines its identity across worlds. The degree of essentialism to which Gupta commits himself is only that every sortal (by means of which restricted quantification is introduced) should supply its own principle of identity. Gupta also suggests several 14 Bressan, 88. 15 Anil Gupta, The Logic of Common Nouns: An Investigation in Quantified Modal Logic (New Haven: Yale, 1980). 16 Gupta, 35. 11 further refinements of Bressan‟s system, but an adequate review of these would require a discussion too technical for present purposes. 3. McCall on Substance The line of thought on substance developed from Carnap though Bressan to Gupta does not address the issue of substantial motion, and there is nothing in the sorts of quantified modal logics they propose that would commit one to either an affirmation or denial of substantial motion. Nevertheless, when stipulations are made that result in some individual concepts being said to have the same values in all worlds, this can be taken to model an absence of change in substance, because individual concepts will be interpreted in such a way that in different worlds they may have different qualities or properties, but it is the value of the individual concept in every world that stays the same and individuates the substance in that world, or that functions as the fixed substance that remains through change. Of course, differences in properties of individual substances in different possible worlds do not indicate change, but rather, counterfactual differences. However, most temporal logics have adopted a variation on possible worlds semantics in which temporal moments play the role of possible worlds, with the difference that moments are ordered from earlier to later and the present moment, now, plays a role analogous to that of the actual world. 17 If we add a temporal dimension to the description of substances by means of individual concepts, we may consider a function from times to individual concepts. For an individual term, a, at a given time t, we are to consider not merely a given extension for a, but an individual concept for a that has its own value at every 17 See A. N. Prior and Kit Fine, Worlds, Times and Selves (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1977). 12 possible world. What a substance might possibly be will change through time with the development of the individual. What is possible for a child is not the same as what is possible for the same individual substance when he or she becomes an adult. The extension of an individual term for a given time and world should not be seen as providing the criterion in terms of which an individual concept is taken to correspond to a substance; rather, extensions will merely allow the location of the application of the term at a time and world. 18 If we do not take extensions as the key to determining identity over time and across worlds, we will break with the conventionalism assumed in Carnap, Bressan, Kripke, Gupta, and many other writers. We do not begin with a given substance at a given time in the actual world and construct an individual concept for it by assuming the same thing to be the extension of this concept at different worlds and times. Instead, we can follow the lead of Mulla Sadra by allowing that the existence of a substance is flowing, and that the continuity of this flow determines in which location the substance is to be identified from moment to moment. In this way, we need not posit any underlying element of the individual, i.e., its substance, as the basis for the identity of the thing through change and the criterion of its reidentification. There are a number of different ways in which temporal change and modality can be combined along the lines mentioned above. Various positions may be taken with regard to the existence of not yet present future objects, no longer present past objects, and an object‟s possible pasts and futures. One of the most well worked out of these combinations of modality and temporality, which has also been subject to criticism 18 The idea of extensions as locations is suggested by Carnap‟s own language: "...the extension concerns the location of application of the designator..." Carnap, 157; "Knowing the meaning, we discover by an investigation of facts to which locations, if any, the expression applies in the actual state of the world. This factor is explicated in our method by the technical concept of extension." Carnap, 203. [My italics in both passages.] 13 and refinement over a number of years, is the branched model of Storrs McCall. According to McCall, what takes the place of individual concepts are branched individual histories, or branching four-dimensional individuals, where the branches represent nodes from which alternative possible futures diverge. While proponents of individual concepts take identity of extension in different possible worlds to suffice as a dissolution of the problem of transworld identity, McCall‟s understanding of transworld identity develops from his account of diachronic identity. In order to determine whether a at t1 is the same thing as b at t2, the logical point that the individual designated by a at t1 should be the individual designated by b at t2 will be true but unhelpful, for it leads us to expect that there is a logically prior identifiable substance that remains the same through any changes that might occur from t1 to t2 and that is successively labeled a and b. Instead, McCall advises us to consider whether a at t1 is the same thing as b at t2 by investigating whether a at t1 indicates a stage in the history of an individual that at t2 is b, and to do this we need to review the history of the individual, or the shape of the fourdimensional object. 19 Natural shapes in the four-dimensional world are associated with sortals; thus to the sortal „frog‟ there corresponds one characteristic shape, to the sortal „chair‟ another, etc. Organic shapes exhibit a characteristic temporal developmental pattern... 20 19 McCall argues that the three dimensional and four dimensional descriptions are equivalent in McCall, 214-217; and more recently in Storrs McCall and E. J. Lowe, "The 3D/4D Controversy: A Storm in a Teacup" Nous 40 (2006), pp. 570-578. I will assume in what follows that this thesis is correct without examining the arguments for and against it. 20 McCall, 211. 14 Like Carnap and Bressan, McCall also relies on the notion of what is natural, however, Bressan seeks a natural sense of being the same bearer of (possible) properties, in all possible cases, whereas McCall appeals to natural developmental patterns. In a footnote he cautions: The distinction between a „natural‟ and an „artificial‟ 4-dimensional shape requires much closer examination than it can be given here, but is intended to correspond roughly to the philosophical difference between a substance and a non-substance. Airlines, for example, count „passengers‟ differently from „human beings‟: two connecting flights may together carry 60 „passengers‟, but only 40 „human beings‟. (Flight A has e.g. 30 people on it, 10 of whom leave while 10 new people join for flight B.) Passengers can be represented 4-dimensionally as the temporal segments of humans while traveling with an airline. Such segments are not „natural‟ shapes, and passengers, unlike humans, are not substances. 21 For McCall we are not relying upon linguistic intuitions about what is natural or not to consider the same value of an individual concept, but rather the natural shape associated with a sortal, or, equivalently, the typical developmental history of an individual of the natural kind indicated by the sortal. At this point, one might object that what Carnap and others were discussing was transworld identity and the kind of intuitions or conventions needed to resolve this issue are not comparable to the ways in which one might appeal to continuity to solve the issue of diachronic identity. In response, we need to look further into McCall‟s treatment of transworld identity. 21 McCall, 211, fn. 32. McCall credits Gupta, 23, for the example. 15 For McCall, the temporal extension of an individual is branched, with the branches bending off into non-actual possible worlds and only one complete branch remaining in the actual world. So, for McCall, being in a possible world is considered in a much different way than do those philosophers, who consider possible worlds as maximal consistent sets of proposition (like Carnap) or abstract states of affairs. For Kripke, as for Plantinga and R. M. Adams, non-actual possible worlds do not exist in space and time, nor do they occupy any spatiotemporal volume. In the branched model, on the other hand, possible worlds and the individuals in them are concrete entities, not abstract; and what allows a single individual to exist in many possible future branches is the connectedness and continuity of the branched object which is its fourdimensional representation. 22 4. Substantial Motion Needless to say, Mulla Sadra did not attempt to provide an answer to the problem of transworld identity. The problems he was engaged with come out of a different tradition than those of Carnap and Kripke. Nevertheless, there are striking similarities between the sort of position taken by Mulla Sadra and that described by McCall. First, there is the four-dimensional representation of objects, where time is the fourth dimension. According to McCall, the first group of philosophers to contemplate conceiving of individuals four-dimensionally was the group at Cambridge around 1900, including Russell, McTaggart, Broad and Johnson. 23 However, in the seventeenth century, Mulla Sadra clearly took a four-dimensional 22 McCall, 220. 23 McCall, 209. 16 view of objects in his magnum opus, the Asfar. Mulla Sadra asserts that individuals in nature are extended in two ways, in the three spatial dimensions and in time. So, time consists in the measure of the renewal of the essence of a nature [i.e., a natural physical substance], with regard to what is before and after of the essences, just as the body for instruction is taken to accept three dimensions. So, a nature has two extensions with two measures for them, one of which is gradual and temporal, divisible in the mind into what is temporally prior and later, and the other of which is momentary and spatial, divisible into what is spatially before [nearer] and after [further]. 24 The great reviver of Islamic philosophy in the twentieth century, „Allamah Tabataba‟i, comments on this passage as follows: This is explicit in seeing that there are four dimensions for a corporeal nature: length, width, depth and time. 25 McCall‟s branching model and Mulla Sadra‟s view also share an emphasis on continuity. Both claim that instead of looking for an ineffable haecceity or individual substance to connect the stages of a thing through its changes, we should focus on the continuous nature of the change. While proclaiming the advantages of the fourdimensional view of substances, McCall writes: 24 Mulla Sadra (Sadr al-Din Muhammad Shirazi), Al-hikmat al-muta„aliyah fi al-asfar al-„aqliyyah alarb„ah, vol. 3 (Beirut: Dar Ihya al-tirath al-„arabi, 1410/1990), 140. Also see „Abd al-Rasul „Ubudiyyat, Nezam-e Hikmat Sara‟i, vol. 1 (Qom: Samt and the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute, 1385/2006), 310f. 25 Mulla Sadra, 140, fn. 1. 17 Transtemporal identity derives from the topological connectedness of a „natural‟ four-dimensional object. To adopt this line of thought is ... to make spatio-temporal continuity the basis of identity. 26 In his explanation of Mulla Sadra‟s view, Eshkavari writes: For the moving existence preserves its unity and continuity because of the continuous oneness (wahdat al-ittisaliyyah). Continuous unity is identical with personal unity (wahdat al-shakhsiyyah). Motion in substance, which is only possible on the basis of the fundamentality of existence and its gradation, occurs in the manner of intensity and weakness. The identity of a thing is preserved, but the limits and levels of existence of the thing are in a flow and transformation. With substantial motion, a thing, at every moment, attains a new identity. But because of continuity between the identities, the individual unity of identity is preserved despite the state of motion. 27 McCall and Mulla Sadra also agree that the possibilities for a thing change through time. For most philosophers who discuss modality, the properties of a thing are divided into the essential and non-essential or accidental, but there is no question of this division evolving through time. For Mulla Sadra, however, as a substance develops, it gains powers and perfections that make things possible for it that were not possible at earlier stages. This idea may be graphically illustrated in McCall‟s branching model, if different levels of development are distinguished. We begin with 26 McCall, 213-214. 27 Eshkavari, 31. 18 what McCall calls the life tree of an individual, 28 which includes all the branches that split off from the individual‟s beginning. This life tree is then divided into various levels or stages of development. Then to say that p is possible for individual a at developmental level l means that p is true on some branch of a‟s life tree within level l. Hence, there will be some possibilities that are not realized in some of the branches of a‟s life tree until a achieves some level further than l. A given frog, for example, cannot breathe while it is a tadpole. This may be interpreted to mean that there is no branch of the frog‟s life tree within the tadpole level of its development in which it is true that this individual breathes. However, there is another manner in which possibilities may be said to open up or close off for an individual during the course of its life that is not dependent upon distinguishing specific levels of development. We can say that for a at tn some proposition p is a future possibility if and only if there is some time tm, mn, such that there is a branch that stems from a at tn and extends to a at tm in some branch where p is true. (Of course, this requires us to allow for propositions that have different truth values at different times.) This, however, only allows that what once was possible may no longer be possible because branches that were open to past nodes may not be available at later subsequent nodes. It does not explain, however, how something might be possible for a after a certain point that was not previously possible. One way to explain this was by means of the levels of development mentioned in the previous paragraph. Another way can be described as follows. Suppose that at tn ~Fa, and that at all branches of a that stem from a at tn, if ~Fa then ~p, while there is such a branch where Fa and p. Then we can say that the future possibility of p for a at tn depended 28 McCall, 237f. 19 on the acquisition of the property F; p only becomes possible for a when a becomes F. All of this is compatible with a substance maintaining essential properties throughout its life tree. McCall defines essential properties as follows: An individual‟s essential properties are the ones it possesses on all branches of the branched structure which represents it at the moment when it starts to exist. Its other properties, which it has on some branches but not on others, will be contingent or accidental. 29 Likewise, Mulla Sadra holds that substantial motion does not imply that things can change their essential properties, or that individuals of one substance sort might change to another natural kind. Both Mulla Sadra and McCall would agree that time does not flow through a static substance as change occurs in its accidents. A major difference between McCall and Mulla Sadra, however, is that for Mulla Sadra, it is the existence of the substance that flows through time taking on different forms in constant creation, not merely the apparent continuity of form that McCall relies upon. Another major difference is that McCall‟s ontology is limited to entities that occupy space and time, whereas for Mulla Sadra, substantial motion is limited to corporeal substances, while incorporeal entities are permitted in the Sadrean metaphysics for which there are no changes. Despite these differences, I have tried to show how McCall‟s model of fourdimensional substances with branches in different possible worlds can be used to provide a model for the sort of metaphysics of substantial motion advocated by Mulla Sadra. However, if we use McCall‟s model to understand substantial motion, one 29 McCall, 227. 20 difference that we obtain from Mulla Sadra is that motion can be toward or away from perfection or lateral, while Mulla Sadra apparently assumed that substantial motion would always be in the direction of increasing perfection. But this is an aspect of Mulla Sadra‟s philosophy that has come under criticism within contemporary Islamic philosophy, 30 so that McCall‟s model may provide a better model for more contemporary versions of transcendental wisdom (as Mulla Sadra‟s school of thought is called) than for the view of substantial motion as first elaborated by Mulla Sadra. References Bressan, Aldo (1972) A General Interpreted Modal Calculus. New Haven: Yale. Carnap, Rudolf (1970) Meaning and Necessity, 2 nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago; first edition 1947. Fanaie, Mohammad (2007) "Mulla Sadra‟s Theory of Substantial Motion," in Christian Kanzian and Muhammad Legenhausen, eds., Substance and Attribute: Western and Islamic Traditions in Dialogue. (Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 2007), 25-43. Gupta, Anil (1980) The Logic of Common Nouns: An Investigation in Quantified Modal Logic. New Haven: Yale. McCall, Storrs (1996) A Model of the Universe: Space-Time, Probability, and Decision. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McCall, Storrs and E. J. Lowe (2006) "The 3D/4D Controversy: A Storm in a Teacup" Nous 40, 570-578. Misbah Yazdi, Ayatullah Muhammad Taqi (1999) Philosophical Instructions. Binghamton: IGCS. Prior, A. N. and Kit Fine (1977) Worlds, Times and Selves. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Shahrudi, 'Ali 'Abidi (1984) "Goftar dar harakat jawhari va khalq-e jadid," in Sayr-e „irfan va falsafeh dar jahan-e islam. Tehran: Mu‟assesseh Mutali„at va Tahqiqat Farhangi; translated as "Substantial Motion and Perpetual Creation," in Christian Kanzian and Muhammad Legenhausen, eds., Substance and Attribute: Western and Islamic Traditions in Dialogue. (Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 2007), 193-214. Shirazi, Sadr al-Din Muhammad (1990) Al-hikmat al-muta„aliyah fi al-asfar al-„aqliyyah alarb„ah, vol. 3. Beirut: Dar Ihya al-tirath al-„arabi. 'Ubudiyyat, 'Abd al-Rasul (2006) Nezam-e Hikmat Sara‟i, vol. 1. Qom: Samt and the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute. 30 See Misbah Yazdi, 481-488. | {
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WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? What is Philosophy? Michael Munro dead letter office BABEL Working Group punctum books ¬ brooklyn, ny WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? © Michael Munro, 2012. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0, or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. This work is Open Access, which means that you are free to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work as long as you clearly attribute the work to the authors, that you do not use this work for commercial gain in any form whatsoever, and that you in no way alter, transform, or build upon the work outside of its normal use in academic scholarship without express permission of the author and the publisher of this volume. For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. First published in 2012 by Dead Letter Office, BABEL Working Group an imprint of punctum books Brooklyn, New York The BABEL Working Group is a collective and desiring-assemblage of scholar-gypsies with no leaders or followers, no top and no bottom, and only a middle. BABEL roams and stalks the ruins of the post-historical university as a multiplicity, a pack, looking for other roaming packs and multiplicities with which to cohabit and build temporary shelters for intellectual vagabonds. We also take in strays. ISBN-10: 0615685137 ISBN-13: 978-0615685137 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. to s.o. TABLE OF CONTENTS h What is Philosophy? On Argument On Not Knowing Notes References 1 7 22 33
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? Michael Munro h WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? § THE PLACE OF THE QUESTION: NOTE ON THE DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY What is philosophy? That's a good question- not because there's no answer, but because what's involved in posing it points up something essential to philosophy. In the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, Spinoza sets out what's required by a definition. A circle, a typical definition might run, is a figure in which all lines drawn from the center to the circumference are equal. The problem with this definition, what makes it merely verbal, is that it defines a circle by way of one of its properties, not by way of its 2 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? essence. Definition, for Spinoza, gets at the essence (from which all properties follow): A complete definition demonstrates how what it defines comes about. The definition of a circle as a figure that is described by any line of which one end is fixed and the other movable, as one commentator has pointed out, "literally generates the circle by providing a procedure whereby we 'make' the thing to be defined."1 Philosophy is defined by what takes place in the question of philosophy itself. What Auden said of poetry could also be said of philosophy: it makes nothing happen. Nothing happens, or nothing happens-and in the space of the same few words both can. Philosophy operates that displacement and is defined by it: "what is philosophy?" become "what is philosophy?"-the question persists, but everything has changed. § WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? GLOSS OF A SENTENCE OF GIORGIO AGAMBEN'S "In its deepest intention, philosophy is a firm assertion of potentiality, the construction of an experience of the possible as such." in its deepest intention Philosophy, it is said, begins in wonder. Wonder, 1 Bibliographic references for all citations can be found under "Notes" at the back of the book, keyed to page numbers in the main body of this essay. MICHAEL MUNRO 3 however, is both a noun and a verb. Noun: "A feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable." Verb: "The desire, or curiosity, to know something." philosophy is In that light, philosophy is not so much-or not simply-'the love of wisdom,' but instead marks the passage from wonder as a noun to wonder as a verb. Philosophy is the love of wisdom to the extent that it remains an incitement to it. a firm assertion To philosophize has often been to argue. 'Argument' comes from the Latin arguere, to make clear. To argue might then be said to mean to give an idea of, to clarify. In the very divergence of the arguments used and the positions held, what argument and the recourse to it in philosophy testify to before all else- what they clarify-is, precisely, the nature of the possible. of potentiality Potentiality and possibility alike concern ability or capacity: what may be. 'A firm assertion of potentiality,' is, in the first place, an affirma4 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? tion of the importance of what may be to what is. What is is not what it is without what it may be, or may have been. Likewise, and after its own fashion, what may be is. Wonder enters the picture between potentiality and actuality, and philosophy affirms their articulation: Surprised admiration at what is gives place to what had not yet existed, the desire to know it. the construction of To construct is a transitive verb, which means that to construct is always to construct something. It is to take something that is given and to make of it something that was not, something it was not, something else. It is to take something as it is for something it may be. an experience Experience shares the same root as experiment. of the possible as such Neither this nor that possibility, but possibility in general, what makes the possible what it is: What there is not, yet, beyond the desire, its experience: what it might be to know. § PHILOSOPHY: A LIFE . . . There is a tradition according to which philoMICHAEL MUNRO 5 sophy is known as 'the art of living.' That definition of philosophy only finds its true sense, however, and not coincidentally, in light of a definition of potentiality first elaborated at philosophy's outset. As Giorgio Agamben recounts, Aristotle opposes his definition of potentiality to that of the Megarians. Whereas the Megarians hold that in a given act all potentiality passes into actuality, so that nothing is left over in this passage and potentiality has no independent existence as such, Aristotle holds that potentiality is distinct from actuality and exists on a par with it. At issue between Aristotle and the Megarians is the example of the kithara player. The problem with the Megarians' position, for Aristotle, is that it fails to distinguish someone who can play the kithara from someone who cannot: on their account it is impossible to say why when one person picks up a kithara she can make music with it while another person cannot. If all potentiality passes immediately and without remainder into actuality, there's simply music or there's not. That consideration leads Aristotle to make what at first glance appears to be a counterintuitive observation: The difference between someone who can play the kithara and someone who cannot is that the kithara player is capable of not playing the kithara. The real difference between the two takes place, paradoxically, away from the instrument. The kithara player 6 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? can be said to be capable of not playing the kithara in a way that it would not make sense to say of someone who is simply incapable of playing it: for the latter, away from the kithara, entertains no relation to it and, to him or her, that absence is a matter of indifference. What is essential to the kithara player's potential to play the kithara, and what for Aristotle is essential to potentiality more generally, is that what he calls the impotential to do, or be, something is what remains of potentiality that never passes into actuality and serves to distinguish the former from the latter. In any given instance to be capable of an impotentiality is therefore to be able to be affected by the absence, following cessation, of the activity in question. It is to be one to whom that absence makes a difference. Philosophy is the art of living in that to be a philosopher is to first be capable of the nonphilosophical life. To be a philosopher is to feel the absence of the philosophical life bear on one's own. MICHAEL MUNRO 7 h ON ARGUMENT § PREFACE: NOTE TOWARD AN ART OF IGNORANCE It is very difficult to say why one becomes attached to a particular problem. ~Gilles Deleuze Samuel Taylor Coleridge opens Chapter 12 of the Biographia Literaria with curious resolve. "In the perusal of philosophical works I have been greatly benefited by a resolve, which, in the antithetic form and with the allowed quaintness of an adage or maxim, I have been accustomed to word thus: 'until you understand a writer's ignorance, presume yourself ignorant of his understanding.'" What is the relationship posed here between ignorance and understanding? In Memoirs of the Blind, Jacques Derrida discusses the conditions and status of selfportraiture. According to Derrida, "the status of the self-portrait of the self-portraitist will always retain a hypothetical character." "Even if one were sure," for example, "that FantinLatour were drawing himself drawing, one would never know, observing the work alone, whether he were showing himself drawing himself or something else-or even himself as something else, as other. And he can always, in 8 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? addition, draw this situation: the stealing away of what regards you, of what looks at you, of what fixedly observes you not seeing that with which or with whom you are dealing." None of that can be known for a very general reason: In the instant pen or pencil makes contact with paper, "the inscription of the inscribable is not seen." Further, Whether it be improvised or not, the invention of the trait [trait, feature, line, stroke, mark] does not follow, it does not conform to what is presently visible [...] Even if drawing is, as they say, mimetic, that is, reproductive, figurative, representative, even if the model is presently facing the artist, the trait must proceed in the night. It escapes the field of vision. Not only because it is not yet visible, but because it does not belong to the realm of the spectacle, of spectacular objectivity- and so that which it makes happen or come [advenir] cannot in itself be mimetic. [...] Whether one underscores this with the words of Plato or MerleauPonty, the visibility of the visible cannot, by definition, be seen, no more than what Aristotle speaks of as the diaphanousness of light can be. My hypothesis-remember that we are still within the logic of the hypothesis-is that the draftsman always sees himself to be prey MICHAEL MUNRO 9 to that which is each time universal and singular and would have to be called the unbeseen, as one speaks of the unbeknownst. In order to be read-in order to be worth having read-above all one must unknowingly have preserved for another an ignorance to be understood. One can perhaps paraphrase Benjamin here and speak of an historical index proper to ignorance, that it only attains to legibility as such at a particular time, that of its recognizability. A situation, indeed. To be made to glimpse "what fixedly observes you not seeing that with which or with whom you are dealing": I draw on the ignorance of others in order to have drawn, with my own ignorance, my own self-portrait. § ON ARGUMENT: FRAGMENTS Alfred North Whitehead: "It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. The importance of truth," he goes on to say, "is that it adds to interest." In 1735, with the first appearance of the Systema naturae, Linnaeus assigns Homo to the order of the Anthropomorpha. From the tenth edition of 1758 on, that order will be called Primates. "In truth, Linnaeus' genius consists not so much in the resoluteness with which he 10 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? places man among the primates," Giorgio Agamben has commented, as in the irony with which he does not record-as he does with the other species-any specific identifying characteristic next to the generic name Homo, only the old philosophical adage: nosce te ipsum [know yourself]. Even in the tenth edition, when the complete denomination becomes Homo sapiens, all evidence suggests that the new epithet does not represent a description, but that it is only a simplification of the adage, which, moreover, maintains its position next to the term Homo. It is worth reflecting on this taxonomic anomaly, which assigns not a given, but rather an imperative as a specific difference. An analysis of the Introitus that opens the Systema leaves no doubts about the sense Linnaeus attributed to his maxim: man has no specific identity other than the ability to recognize himself. Yet to define the human not through any nota characteristica, but rather through his self-knowledge, means that man is the being which recognizes itself as such, that man is the animal that must recognize itself as human to be human. MICHAEL MUNRO 11 Amid the backlash, Agamben continues, "the notes for a reply to another critic, Theodor Klein, show how far Linnaeus was willing to push the irony implicit in the formula Homo sapiens. Those who, like Klein, do not recognize themselves in the position that the Systema has assigned to man should apply the nosce te ipsum to themselves; in not knowing how to recognize themselves as man, they have placed themselves among the apes." And yet it is significant that this reply is elaborated only in notes. On his own terms, and in principle, Linnaeus could not make that response. Homo is, again in Agamben's words, "a constitutively 'anthropomorphous' animal": Man only resembles man, and in order to recognize himself for what he is, he must recognize himself as merely one among the Anthropomorpha. Linnaeus could not make that response to his critics, in other words, because he had staked his humanity on recognizing himself in them-in those, precisely, who are unable to. Hume only became who he is because he managed to wake one philosopher from his dogmatic slumber. It's entirely possible he may yet wake more. Should he do so it will be in no small part thanks to the work of Quentin Meillassoux: he has added his voice to Hume's and revived the latter's problem in all its radicality. Hume asks how we know the future will resemble the past, that is, that the usual connections observed between successive events are 12 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? necessary and, in fact, universal. The short answer? We can't. Hume's treatment of the problem presaged its subsequent treatment from his time until today: because we believe in causal necessity on the basis of habit, induction has largely been treated as a practical problem, in other words, and for example, under what conditions and by what means are inductive inferences generally made? In its ontological dimension the problem is taken to be insoluble because where it leads is taken to be absurd. Not so, Meillassoux: On the contrary, the ontological approach I speak of would consist in affirming that it is possible rationally to envisage that the constants could effectively change for no reason whatsoever, and thus with no necessity whatsoever; which, as I will insist, leads us to envisage a contingency so radical that it would incorporate all conceivable futures of the present laws, including that consisting in the absence of their modification. Meillassoux continues, "I would affirm that, indeed, there is no reason for phenomenal constants to be constant. I maintain, then, that these laws could change. One thereby circumvents what, in induction, usually gives rise to the problem: the proof, on MICHAEL MUNRO 13 the basis of past experience, of the future constancy of laws. But one encounters another difficulty, which appears at least as redoubtable: if laws have no reason to be constant, why do they not change at each and every instant? If a law is what it is purely contingently, it could change at any moment. The persistence of the laws of the universe seems consequently to break all laws of probability: for if the laws are effectively contingent, it seems that they must frequently manifest such contingency. If the duration of laws does not rest upon any necessity, it must be a function of successive 'dice rolls', falling each time in favour of their continuation [...]. From this point of view, their manifest perenniality becomes a probabilistic aberration-and it is precisely because we never observe such modifications that such a hypothesis has seemed, to those who tackled the problem of induction, too absurd to be seriously envisaged. If "the persistence of the laws of the universe seems consequently to break all laws of probability," Meillassoux goes on to argue, that's because probability doesn't apply here. To the objection that the uniformity of nature would be tantamount to untold dice throws with the same result, Žižek has pointed out that 14 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? that argument "relies on a possible totalization of possibilities/probabilities, with regard to which the uniformity is improbable: if there is no standard, nothing is more improbable than anything else." And that is very precisely the case here: there can be no standard in principle because the universe, unlike a die or a coin, possesses no denumerable set of possible states, no delimitable set of inherent possibilities. That is to say, the universe is nontotalizable. And it may even be illegitimate for that reason to speak of 'the universe.' Umberto Eco has discussed this point near the end of "The Power of Falsehood." "Does the universe exist? Good question." If the universe does not exist that's because the future does. Argument is by nature a rearguard action. (Nietzsche: "-what have I to do with refutations!-"; "I refute it thus": and thus Dr. Johnson kicks the stone but misses Berkeley.) The emphasis-the interest-is elsewhere: as Deleuze and Guattari put it, lines of flight are primary. First you flee, and only in flight do you fashion a weapon. § ADDENDUM: ON ARGUMENT "Philosophy," Quentin Meillassoux has stated, "is the invention of strange forms of argumentation." A curious claim, it is at the same time a profound intuition. What's at stake for philosophy in the changing forms of argumentation MICHAEL MUNRO 15 employed in it, and according to what necessity does the recourse to invention impose itself there? Alexander Nehamas has staged the divided desire that organizes Nietzsche's work. Nietzsche "wants, on the one hand, to distinguish himself from Socrates and from the philosophical tradition. One way in which he might have achieved this goal would have been to refrain from writing anything that might in any conceivable manner be construed as philosophical-the only certain method of accomplishing this purpose being to refrain from writing altogether. But this is not, and cannot be, Nietzsche's way. Refraining from writing, assuming that this was something he had any choice about, would not simply have distinguished him from the tradition; it would have prevented him from being related to it in any way. But Nietzsche also wants, on the other hand, to criticize that tradition and to offer views of his own which, in their undogmatic manner, will compete with other views. Yet this procedure always involves the risk of falling back into the philosophical tradition after all. We can think of philosophy as a mirror in which those who belong to it are reflected, while those 16 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? who are not reflected are totally irrelevant to it. Argument, above all, and before any explicit contention, registers the effects of a departure-and that nowhere more so than in its form. Formal invention in argumentation obliquely describes, in philosophy, the limit that joins what is relevant to what is irrelevant to philosophy. Wanting, strangely, it will have broached it in reflection. § UNTIMELY MEDITATIONS Without question, philosophy is an activity. One "does" philosophy; one philosophizes. What remains an open question, however, is the character and status of that activity: What is it to philosophize? In other words, what does one do when one does philosophy? 1. In Chapter XV, "The Value of Philosophy," the concluding chapter of The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell observes that, "Philosophy, like all other studies, aims primarily at knowledge." "But," he immediately concedes, "it cannot be maintained that philosophy has had any great measure of success in its attempts to provide definite answers to its questions. If you ask a mathematician, a mineralogist, a historMICHAEL MUNRO 17 ian, or any other man [sic throughout] of learning, what definite body of truths has been ascertained by his science, his answer will last as long as you are willing to listen. But if you put the same question to a philosopher, he will, if he is candid, have to confess that his study has not achieved positive results such as have been achieved by other sciences. It is true that this is partly accounted for by the fact that, as soon as definite knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this subject ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a separate science. The whole study of the heavens, which now belongs to astronomy, was once included in philosophy; Newton's great work was called 'the mathematical principles of natural philosophy.' Similarly, the study of the human mind, which was a part of philosophy, has now been separated from philosophy and has become the science of psychology. Thus, to a great extent, the uncertainty of philosophy is more apparent than real: those questions which are already capable of definite answers are placed in the sciences, while those only to which, at present, no definite answer can be given, remain to form the residue which is called philosophy. 18 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? 2. What remains, at present, to form that "residue which is called philosophy"? Perhaps nothing more, nor less, finally, than what philosophy ever had. Eric Dietrich has claimed that philosophy does not progress, that it "is exactly the same today as it was 3000 years ago; indeed, as it was from the beginning. What it does do," however, he goes on to contend, "is stay current": Imagine that Aristotle, as he's walking around the Lyceum, encounters a timewarp and pops forward to today, on a well-known campus somewhere in some English-speaking country, with the ability to speak English, dressed in modern garb, and that he doesn't become deranged as a result of all this. Curious about the state of knowledge, he finds a physics lecture and sits in. What he hears shocks him. A feather and an iron ball fall at the same rate in a vacuum; being heavier doesn't mean falling faster, something he doesn't understand. Aristotle along with the rest of the class is shown the experimental verification of this from the moon (from the moon?!?!?) performed by Commander David Scott of Apollo 15. The very same equations (equations?!?!?) that explain why an apple falls to the MICHAEL MUNRO 19 ground explain how the moon stays in orbit around Earth and how Earth stays in orbit around the sun (orbits?!?!?). He learns of quantum mechanics' strangenesses. The more he hears, the more shocked he gets. Finally, he just faints away. He faints away again in cosmology class where he learns, for starters, that comets and meteors, and the Milky Way are not atmospheric phenomena, as he concluded. The Big Bang, relativity, the size of the universe, the number of galaxies, dark matter, and dark energy . . . are all too much for him. In biology class, he learns that a living thing's potential, its matter, is not at all explanatory, as he thought, but instead learns of genetics and developmental biology. He also learns that his idea of spontaneous generation is just plain wrong-not even close to being correct. He learns of evolution and the discovery that all of life on Earth is related. As the class continues, he again faints dead away. After he comes to, he soberly concludes that this modern world, this advanced time, has utterly surpassed his knowledge and the knowledge of his time. He feels dwarfed by our epistemic sophistication. Sadly, he trundles off to a philosophy class-a metaphysics class, as it turns out. Here he hears the professor 20 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? lecturing about essences, about being qua being, about the most general structures of our thinking about the world. He knows exactly what the professor is talking about. Aristotle raises his hand to discuss some errors the professor seems to have made, and some important distinctions that he has not drawn. As the discussion proceeds, the metaphysics professor is a bit taken aback but also delighted at this (older) student's acumen and insight. Then Aristotle goes to an ethics class, where he learns of the current importance of what is apparently called "virtue ethics." He recognizes it immediately, but again, the professor seems to have left out some crucial details and failed to see some deeper aspects of the view. Aristotle raises his hand. . . This story of Aristotle's return to philosophy no doubt is somewhat plausible to the reader (excluding, probably, the time-travel part). Perhaps it is no more than that or just barely that. But this is all I need. 3. Gilles Deleuze has developed a theory of the event, of what constitutes an event. In contrast to the classical conception according to which being is opposed to becoming as eternity is to MICHAEL MUNRO 21 time, Deleuze opposes becoming to history: whereas becoming is classically identified with history, it is their difference, their noncoincidence, that pertains to events. As Deleuze has it, "not exactly something that occurs, but something in that which occurs," "the part that eludes its own actualization in everything that happens." An activity that approximates inactivity, an event that to all appearances approaches a nonoccurrence, what one does when one does philosophy is, against history, to become-"that is to say, acting counter to our time and thereby acting on our time and, let us hope, for a time to come." 22 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? h ON NOT KNOWING § A DEFENSE OF THE UNKNOWABLE 1. From a commentary generalizing an argument against Kant's thing-in-itself to include "any theory of an unknowable": What is meant in philosophy by the unknowable is something which, apart from all accidental circumstances, is such that the constitution of our minds is radically incapable of knowing it, something which is totally outside any conceivable human knowledge, some-thing from which we are completely cut off, not by distance or lack of instruments and the like, but by the nature of our mental processes. If anything is unknowable, this means that it is absolutely unknowable. And if we have any knowledge of it, however slight, it is not unknowable. Total ignorance of a thing involves total unawareness of it, and therefore it involves unawareness of our ignorance. MICHAEL MUNRO 23 Let us straightaway concede it all. But in what then does this defense consist? What is there left to save? 2. A first approach to the unknowable may be to take note of the suffix, -able: in English it denotes a capacity, an ability or capability-a potentiality. But what is a capacity? How is one to conceive of its existence? And how does it subsist in its exercise, its realization? A clue can be found in an obscure passage of the De Anima: "To suffer is not a simple term," Aristotle writes. Further, In one sense it is a certain destruction through the opposite principle, and in another sense it is the preservation [sōtēria, salvation] of what is in potentiality by what is in actuality and what is similar to it. . . . For he who possesses science [in potentiality] becomes someone who contemplates in actuality, and either this is not an alteration-since here there is the gift of the self to itself and to actuality [epidosiseis auto]-or this is an alteration of a different kind. "Contrary to the traditional idea of potentiality that is annulled in actuality," Giorgio Agamben has commented, "here we are confronted with a 24 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? potentiality that conserves itself and saves itself in actuality. Here potentiality, so to speak, survives actuality"-and that by way of a "gift," "the gift of the self to itself and to actuality": At the limit, in the instant of passage, that gift is one and the same and potentiality is realized for what it is. Despite tradition, Aristotle is in agreement with Spinoza when the latter maintains that there is no potentiality separate from actuality (as Aristotle had it, between them, either there is not an alteration, or it is an alteration of a different kind). Gilles Deleuze has provided the decisive clarification. "All potentia," for Spinoza, "is act, active and actual. The identity of power and action is explained by the following: all power is inseparable from a capacity for being affected, and this capacity for being affected is constantly and necessarily filled by affections that realize it." Potentiality adheres in actuality, capacity in its exercise, because it is as such ceaselessly active in it, affected by it without reprieve: Potentiality is actual in perpetually separating from itself the passage to actuality in order to preserve, with each instant, the jointure between them. 3. But what of the prefix, un-? How might negation qualify a capacity? Maurice Merleau-Ponty speculates on this MICHAEL MUNRO 25 point in his notes: To touch and to touch oneself (to touch oneself = touching-touched [touchanttouché]). They do not coincide in the body: the touching is never exactly the touched. This does not mean that they coincide 'in the mind' or at the level of 'consciousness.' There must be something other than the body for the junction to be made. It is made in the untouchable. That which belongs to the Other which I will never touch. But that which I will never touch, he too does not touch; no privilege of the self over the other here. It is therefore not consciousness that is untouchable-'consciousness' would be something positive, and then there would be another beginning, there is another beginning, of the duality of the reflecting and the reflected, like that of the touching and the touched. The untouchable is not a touchable that happens to be inaccessible; the unconscious is not a representation that happens to be inaccessible. The negative here is not a positive that is elsewhere (something transcendent). It is a true negative. Daniel Heller-Roazen has provided a beautiful commentary on this passage. It's worth quoting at length: 26 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? This note can be read as a compressed effort to explain a single fact: that however intimately they may be joined in a tactile act committed by one body on itself, the touching and the touched 'do not coincide.' Even when I lay one hand upon the other, the touching member, in other words, 'is never exactly the touched.' A medium, no matter how subtle it may seem, must separate the two tactile terms, even as it grants them the element in which they may meet. Merleau-Ponty names this medium 'the untouchable.' Irreducible both to the felt body and to the mind, conscious or unconscious, it constitutes the indistinct terrain in which the junction between the touching and the touched comes to pass. As Merleau-Ponty defines it in his note, such an 'untouchable' is, quite clearly, withdrawn from tactility not accidentally but essentially. 'It is not a touchable that happens to be inaccessible,' the philosopher therefore specifies with pedagogical precision. It is 'not a positive that is elsewhere (something transcendent)' but 'a true negative.' There can be no doubt: the untouchable, for this reason, retreats from the field of touch in allowing it. But such a summary nevertheless runs the risk of philosophical inadequacy, for the nature of the untouchable medium of MICHAEL MUNRO 27 touch is in fact still more complex. The truth of the matter is that every touching and touched term solicits and encounters this element, precisely as that 'in which' all contact comes to pass; every grasp, be it forceful or gentle, exerts itself upon it and within it. Despite its structural inaccessibility, the medium of touch is therefore not impassive; in MerleauPonty's words, it is not 'something transcendent.' One might even maintain that, since no contact is immediate and 'the touching is never exactly the touched,' one never truly encounters anything but it. The ultimate element of all touch, it remains no less untouchable for being incessantly, always, and already touched. A true negative, the capacity at issue in the untouchable and the unknowable alike finds its exercise in the non-coincidence between touching and touched, knowing and known: The excess of capacity in act, a solicitation and an encounter, it is the contact of the two terms at a remove. 4. As to the root word to know, the unknowable is preserved in it to the extent that it is not known-it remains unclear whether it can be known-what it is, in principle, to know. 28 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? The unknowable is the gift of knowability. In that gift it is saved. § ON NOT KNOWING What moves me to write this is a perplexity. In order to effectively communicate that perplexity, free of confusion, let me attempt to delineate it by way of an example. TWO WAYS OF NOT KNOWING? Perhaps not any example, its classic formulation is to be found in Plato's Meno (80d-e): Socrates: [...] So now I do not know what virtue is; perhaps you knew before you contacted me, but now you are certainly like one who does not know. Nevertheless, I want to examine and seek together with you what it may be. Meno: How will you look for it, Socrates, when you do not know at all what it is? How will you aim to search for something you do not know at all? If you should meet with it, how will you know that this is the thing that you did not know? Socrates: I know what you want to say, Meno. Do you realize what a debater's argument you are bringing up, that a MICHAEL MUNRO 29 man cannot search either for what he knows or for what he does not know? He cannot search for what he knows-since he knows it, there is no need to search- nor for what he does not know, for he does not know what to search for. Is there a way for one not to know that is not simply not knowing? What would it be to become capable of it? Taken to its extreme, what is at issue here is nothing less than the Socratic enterprise: How could Socrates know, as he puts it, that he knows nothing? What is that knowledge such that, for him, it instigates a "search" that is in every respect unprecedented? What, in light of that search, is the "nothing" that he knows? IN PLACE OF CONCLUSION What is an absence? If a given absence can be determined to be relevant to that to which it is nonetheless said to be absent, is it fair to maintain that it is in fact absent to it? And conversely, if an absence does not bear on anything, how can it be an absence? Kant distinguishes between threshold (Grenze) and limit (Schranke). A threshold marks a passage, a delimitation that serves to join to something an outside that alters it, while a limit operates on that which it bounds by remaining, 30 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? with respect to it, invisible. A limit never appears as such. Of what relevance is perplexity? It is perhaps in this instance the sounding of a limit. § FOR THE LOVE OF WISDOM: NOTE It's clear that "philosophy" comes from the Greek philosophia, love of wisdom. What's not at all clear is what that phrase means. In the connection it articulates between love and wisdom, what, precisely, does philosophy name? In Chapter 4 of The Open, "Mysterium disiunctionis," Giorgio Agamben has discussed the manner in which, in the De anima, Aristotle defines "life": It is through life [Aristotle writes] that what has soul in it differs from what has not. Now this term 'to live' has more than one sense, and provided any one of these is found in a thing we say that the thing is living-viz. thinking, sensation, local movement and rest, or movement in the sense of nutrition, decay and growth. Hence we think of all species of plants also as living, for they are observed to possess in themselves a principle and potentiality through which they grow and decay in opposite directions. . . . This principle can be separated from the others, but not they from it-in mortal beings at least. MICHAEL MUNRO 31 The fact is obvious in plants; for it is the only psychic potentiality they possess. Thus, it is through this principle that life belongs to living things. . . . By nutritive power we mean that part of the soul which is common also to plants. It is important to observe that Aristotle in no way defines what life is: he limits himself to breaking it down, by isolating the nutritive function, in order then to rearticulate it in a series of distinct and correlated faculties or potentialities (nutrition, sensation, thought). Here we see at work the principle of foundation which constitutes the strategic device par excellence of Aristotle's thought. It consists in reformulating every question concerning 'what something is' as a question concerning 'through what something belongs to another thing.' To ask why a certain being is called living means to seek out the foundation by which living belongs to this being. That is to say, among the various senses of the term 'to live,' one must be separated from the others and settle to the bottom, becoming the principle by which life can be attributed to a certain being. In other words, what has been separated and divided (in this case nutritive life) is precisely what-in a sort of divide et imperia-allows the unity of life as the 32 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? hierarchical articulation of a series of functional faculties and oppositions. To paraphrase part of the analysis with which Agamben closes the chapter: What would it be to think philosophy not as the conjunction of love with wisdom but rather, following Aristotle's procedure, "as what results from the incongruity of these two elements"? Is it permissible to speculate that philosophy may name a like disjunction, similarly mysterious? What wisdom would there be in that? What love would it betray? NOTES h WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? Pg. 1: What is philosophy? Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, What is Philosophy? trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 41: "The nonphilosophical is perhaps closer to the heart of philosophy than philosophy itself, and this means that philosophy cannot be content to be understood only philosophically or conceptually, but is addressed essentially to nonphilosophers as well." Pg. 2: Definition, for Spinoza, gets at the essence Baruch Spinoza, Ethics, Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, and Selected Letters, ed. Seymour Feldman, trans. Samuel Shirley (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1992), 257–59, pars. 95–97. Pg. 2: as one commentator has pointed out Seymour Feldman, Introduction to Baruch Spinoza, 36 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, in Ethics, Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, and Selected Letters, ed. Feldman, 229. Pg. 2: What Auden said of poetry W.H. Auden, Collected Poems: Auden, ed. Edward Mendelson (New York: Vintage, 1991), 246: "For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives / In the valley of its making [...] it survives, / A way of happening, a mouth." Pg. 2: it makes nothing happen SUSPENSE: NOTE ON TOPOGRAPHY The refutation of utopia, in politics as in philosophy, has proven no more definitive than has its invocation. That it remains an issue, however, affords a better understanding of it: its mode of persistence gives insight into its nature. As Giorgio Agamben has recounted, a technical term of the Skeptics' stakes out a no man's land between affirmation and negation, acceptance and rejection: ou mallon, no more than. It is by way of this phrase that the Skeptics denote-and enact-what Agamben calls "their most characteristic experience," that of epochē, suspension: It is used by them to refute an argument at the same time as the counterargument on offer. "'No more than,'" records Diogenes Laertius, "is no more than it is REFERENCES 37 not." Sextus Empiricus concurs. "Even as the proposition 'every discourse is false' says that it too, like all propositions, is false, so the formula 'no more than' says that it itself is no more than it is not." Utopia exists no more than it does not exist. It has become a commonplace to point out that the word "utopia" originally designated "nowhere." But it is necessary to add what Gilles Deleuze observes of the title of Samuel Butler's utopian novel Erewhon: It is "not only a disguised nowhere but a rearranged now-here." The reversibility of no-where and now-here-by way of a single, finally unlocatable space-makes of utopia the most common place. Giorgio Agamben, Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy, ed. and trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 256; Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 333n7. Pg. 2: In its deepest intention, philosophy is Agamben, Potentialities, 249. Pg. 4: the construction of In a recent interview Quentin Meillassoux has differentiated two senses of the word 'construction': "If I employ this word in connection with the work of an architect, what I mean is that the building thereby 38 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? constructed would not have existed without the architect's plan or the labour of the workers. But let's suppose that by 'construction' I refer instead to the mechanisms by which an archeologist has set up a dig site in order to excavate some ruins without damaging them. In this case the 'constructions' (a complex of winches, sounding lines, scaffolding, spades, brushes, etc.) are not destined to produce an object, as in the case of architecture. On the contrary, they are made with a view to not interfering with the object at which they aim: that is to say, excavating the ruins without damaging them. Included in Graham Harman, Quentin Meillassoux: Philosophy in the Making (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), 167. Pg. 5: As Giorgio Agamben recounts Agamben has recounted Aristotle's definition of potentiality many times, prominent among them in "On Potentiality," in Potentialities, 177–84, and in Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), 44–47. "I could state the subject of my work," Agamben writes near the beginning of the former, "as an attempt to understand the meaning of the verb 'can' [potere]. What do I mean when I say: 'I can, I cannot?'" ("On Potentiality," 177). In a parenREFERENCES 39 thetical interjection among his opening remarks in The Neutral, Roland Barthes proposes an interesting complication of that question when he writes, "(Who can distinguish between inability and the lack of taste?)" Roland Barthes, The Neutral, trans. Rosalind E. Krauss and Denis Hollier (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 10. Stated positively, how is taste implicated in ability? And what would it say of one's own ability, not to mention taste, going forward, to attempt to tease them apart? ON ARGUMENT Pg. 7 ON ARGUMENT APOLOGIA PRO VITA PHILOSOPHICUS, APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA In "Philosophy and Disagreement," Brian Ribeiro takes as his point of departure the question, "Why," in philosophy, "is there all this disagreement?": Philosophy is not only rife with disagreement; one might even say that philosophy is in the business of disagreement. That's who we are, or what we do, qua philosophers: we question, dispute, object, oppose, beg to differ, quibble, and sometimes even cavil. Since this is so, one might expect philosophy would, long ago, have 40 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? worked out a fairly sophisticated account of disagreement-of its nature, origin(s), and its implications for the practice of philosophy-but it seems fairly clear to me that this is not so. I find that very surprising. After all, one of the other things philosophy is in the business of is being a thoroughly and uncompromisingly self-critical enterprise, i.e. being an enterprise that not only thinks about its paradigmatic objects of inquiry but also thinks about itself and its relation to its own inquiries. Thus, one might be surprised to find that philosophy is in the business of doing (at least) two things (viz. disputing and being relentlessly self-critical), but doesn't appear to be in the business of doing them in conjunction (being relentlessly selfcritical about this disputing.) Ribeiro goes on to claim that this is a "problem." A curious problem, indeed: What is the relationship between philosophy and disagreement? Daniel Heller-Roazen has provided an account of what it is, following the Stoic percept, to live according to nature. He notes a distinction that "may seem subtle, but it is, in truth, of prime importance, as the thinkers of Antiquity well knew." Further, A text of uncertain authorship contained REFERENCES 41 in the De anima liber cum mantissa attributed to Alexander of Aphrodisias most clearly illustrates the point. The pertinent passage consists of two sentences, the first of which attributes a doctrine to some Stoics, "but not all of them": the belief, namely, that "that which the animal senses as the first thing that belongs [to prōton oikeion] is nothing other than itself." The second sentence continues: "Others, instead, seeking to give a more elegant and precise definition, say that from the moment of birth we are appropriated to our constitution and to that which preserves it [phasin pros tēn sustasin kai tērēsin ōikeiōsthai euthus genomenous hēmas tēn hēmōn autōn]." The contrast between the two statements could not be more clear. It sets a formulation of some imprecision against the principle repeatedly espoused by Seneca and the masters of the Stoic school. The 'more elegant and precise definition' posits, at the heart of every being, a difference without which it could not come to be itself: the difference between the self and its constitution, that most proper thing to which the animal, in relating itself to the world about it, comes by nature to be appropriated. Not the self but that to which the self perceives itself to be assigned 42 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? and to which it must always adapt itself, the 'constitution' is that element within the animal with which it never altogether coincides, to which, from birth, it continues to 'conciliate' and 'commend' itself. It is that for which every living thing, to be and to preserve itself, must 'care,' that which each being, rational or not, incessantly senses and never knows. Disagreement in philosophy follows from 'the difference,' in each philosopher, 'between the self and its constitution': That 'to which the self perceives itself to be assigned and to which it must always adapt itself,' what a philosopher must 'conciliate' himor herself to before all else, and with every word, is the assignation of that self to inquiry. Mutually delivered over one to the other, mutually inexplicable one in terms of the other, everything in philosophy transpires between a self and the rigors of its inquiries. Investigation in its course, a kind of propitiation, is what comes to make one's inquiries, as it does one's life, as a philosopher, one's own. Informing every unaccountable departure, it is also that according to which philosophy lives. Brian Ribeiro, "Philosophy and Disagreement," Crítica 43 (2011): 3–4; Daniel Heller-Roazen, The Inner Touch: Archaeology of a Sensation (Cambridge, Mass.: Zone Books, 2007), 114–15. REFERENCES 43 Pg. 7: an Art of Ignorance Giorgio Agamben, "The Last Chapter in the History of the World," in Nudities, trans. David Kishik and Stefan Pedatella (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011), 113–14. Pg. 7: It is very difficult to say Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, xv. See also, at 162: "Problems are tests and selections." Pg. 7: In the perusal of philosophical works Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, ed. Nigel Leask (New York: Everyman Paperbacks, 1997), 141. Pg. 7: the status of the self-portrait Jacques Derrida, Memoirs of the Blind: The SelfPortrait and Other Ruins, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 64. Pg. 7: Even if one were sure Derrida, Memoirs of the Blind, 65. Pg. 8: the inscription of the inscribable Derrida, Memoirs of the Blind, 45. Pg. 9: an historical index Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), 462–63. See 463 for 44 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? "the perilous critical moment on which all reading is founded." Pg. 9: It is more important that Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, ed. David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (New York: The Free Press, 1978), 259. Pg. 9: the Systema naturae, Linnaeus assigns Giorgio Agamben, The Open: Man and Animal, trans. Kevin Attell (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), 24. Pg. 9: In truth, Linneaus' genius consists Agamben, The Open, 25. Pg. 11: the notes for a reply Agamben, The Open, 26. Pg. 11: a constitutively 'anthropomorphous' animal Agamben, The Open, 27. Pg. 11: Hume only became who he is Walter Kaufmann, Hegel: A Reinterpretation (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978), 278: "It would seem that the British discovered Hume's philosophical significance by way of Kant and Hegel." And higher up on the same page: "Berkeley and Hume had been prominently mentioned by Kant and could not be ignored. Through Kant they gained a place in the tradition." REFERENCES 45 Pg. 11: Hume asks how we know Quentin Meillassoux, "Potentiality and Virtuality," trans. Robin Mackay, in The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism, eds. Levi Bryant, Nick Srnicek, and Graham Harman (Melbourne: re.press, 2011), 224–36. Pg. 12: On the contrary, the ontological approach Meillassoux, "Potentiality and Virtuality," 226. See also, Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency, trans. Ray Brassier (London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2008), 84: "We all know the old adage according to which there is no absurdity that has not at one time or another been seriously defended by some philosopher. Our objector might acerbically remark that we have just proved this adage false, for there was one absurdity no one had yet proclaimed, and we have just unearthed it." Pg. 12: I would affirm that, indeed Meillassoux, "Potentiality and Virtuality," 227. Pg. 13: Žižek has pointed out Slavoj Žižek, "Is it Still Possible to be a Hegelian Today?" in The Speculative Turn, eds. Bryant, Srnicek, and Harman, 216. Pg. 14: Umberto Eco has discussed this point Umberto Eco, "The Power of Falsehood," 46 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? in On Literature, trans. Martin McLaughlin (New York: Harcourt Brace, 2004), 272–301. See also, 300: "The idea of the universe as the totality of the cosmos is an idea that comes from the most ancient cosmographies, cosmologies, and cosmogonies. But can we possibly describe, as if we could see it from above, something inside which we are con-tained, of which we form a part, and which we cannot leave? Can we provide a descriptive geometry of the universe when there is no space outside it onto which to project it? Can we speak of the beginning of the universe when a temporal notion like that of a beginning must refer to the parameters of a clock whereas at most the universe is its own clock and cannot be referred to anything that is external to it? Can we say with Eddington that 'hundreds of thousands of stars make up a galaxy; hundreds of thousands of galaxies make up the universe,' when, as [Jean-François] Gautier observes [in L'Univers existe-t-il?], although a galaxy is an object that can be observed, the universe is not, and therefore one is establishing an unwarranted analogy between two incommensurate entities? REFERENCES 47 Pg. 14: -what have I to do with refutations!- Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo, ed. Walter Kaufmann, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale (New York: Random House, 1967), 18. Pg. 14: as Deleuze and Guattari put it Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 531: Lines of flight are "primary," they "are not phenomena of resistance or counterattack in an assemblage, but cutting edges of creation and deterritorialization." Pg. 14: First you flee George Jackson, Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1994), 328: "I may run, but all the time that I am, I'll be looking for a stick!" Pg. 14: Philosophy is the invention Meillassoux, After Finitude, 76. Pg. 15: Alexander Nehamas has staged Alexander Nehemas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), 34. 48 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? Pg. 16: Philosophy, like all other studies Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), 154–155. Pg. 18: is exactly the same today Eric Dietrich, "There is No Progress in Philosophy," Essays in Philosophy 12:2 (2011): 332. Pg. 18: Imagine that Aristotle Dietrich, "There is No Progress in Philosophy," 334. Pg. 21: not exactly something that occurs Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, ed. Constantin V. Boundas, trans. Mark Lester with Charles Stivale (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 149 (my emphasis). Pg. 21: the part that eludes Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, What is Philosophy?, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 156. 111: "To think is to experiment, but experimentation is always that which is in the process of coming about-the new, remarkable, and interesting that replace the appearance of truth and are more demanding than it is. What is in the process of coming about is no more what ends than what begins. History is not experimentation, it is only the set of almost negative conditions REFERENCES 49 that make possible the experimentation of something that escapes history. Without history experimentation would remain indeterminate and unconditioned, but experimentation is not historical. It is philosophical. Pg. 22: that is to say, acting counter Friedrich Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations, ed. Daniel Breazeale, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 60. Alfred North Whitehead, The Function of Reason (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958), 80, 76: "The supremacy of fact over thought means that even the utmost flight of speculative thought should have its measure of truth": "Abstract speculation has been the salvation of the world- speculation which made systems and then transcended them, speculations which ventured to the furthest limit of abstraction. To set limits to speculation is treason to the future." ON NOT KNOWING Pg. 22: What is meant in philosophy by the unknowable W.T. Stace, The Philosophy of Hegel: A Systematic Exposition (New York: Dover Publications, 1955), 46. Pg. 22: If anything is unknowable Stace, The Philosophy of Hegel, 47. 50 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? Pg. 22: Total ignorance of a thing Stace, The Philosophy of Hegel, 47. Pg. 23: an obscure passage of the De Anima Agamben, "On Potentiality," 184. Agamben claims of this passage, on the same page, "that it is truly one of the vertices of Aristotle's thought and that [it] fully authorizes the medieval image of a mystical Aristotle." Pg. 24: All potentia, for Spinoza Gilles Deleuze, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, trans. Robert Hurley (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1988), 97. Pg. 24: Potentiality is actual in perpetually separating from itself Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, trans. Mark Lester with Charles Stivale, ed. Constantin V. Boundas (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 151–52: "On one side, there is the part of the event which is realized and accomplished; on the other, there is that 'part of the event which cannot realize its accomplishment.' There are thus two accomplishments, which are like actualization, and counter-actualization." Pg. 24: Maurice Merleau-Ponty speculates Heller-Roazen, The Inner Touch, 295–96. Pg. 25: Heller-Roazen has provided a beautiful commentary Heller-Roazen, The REFERENCES 51 Inner Touch, 296. Pg. 28: found in Plato's Meno Plato, Five Dialogues, trans. G.M.A. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1981), 69. Pg. 28: the Socratic enterprise See Alexander Nehamas, The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). See also Brian Satterfield, "What is the Good of the 'Examined Life'? Some Thoughts on the Apology and Liberal Education," Expositions 3.2 (2009): 183–84: [T]o say that the reason for examining one's life is not to misspend it is to miss the more problematic dimension of Socrates' claim; it is to transform Socrates' practice into an essentially utilitarian activity, good because of its possible benefits or outcomes. It is to trivialize Socratic philosophy by turning it into a species of self-help. Having reflected and come to better views of what one ought to aim at, it implies, we should set aside reflection and examination, and go on with leading our new, more meaningful lives. So seen, reflection may be a necessary preliminary-especially in corrupt places and times-but it is ultimately only a preparation for life, not life itself. 52 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? Socrates' own words are more challenging, and for two reasons. The first is that thinking things over seems to be, for Socrates, not a means to an end, but an end itself. It is, he says-astonishingly- not the practice of virtue that is the greatest good for a human being, but talking about virtue in the course of every day. This proposition is only defensible, I suggest, if talking about virtue is virtue. Virtue, Socrates seems to be suggesting, is necessarily actively self-reflective, the eye seeing itself seeing. Something about this tends to stick in the craw of students. For not only do many of them not see themselves as especially interested in thinking, but the demands that Socrates seems to place on them-that they suspend concerns for advancement, family, and personal lives while they enter upon a course of questioning that will ultimately prove inconclusive-seem extreme, even perverse. The natural tendency is to dismiss by becoming 'reasonable,' temporizing. Sure, some reflection is good; but Socrates takes it too far. 'Shouldn't he be supporting his children?' is a common question. Reinforcing this objection is a second: if Socrates himself is a model of the kind of examination that he urges on others, his lifetime of inquiry appears remarkREFERENCES 53 ably unsuccessful. Having constantly engaged in discussions about virtue, he seems by the time of his trial to have learned nothing. All he has achieved, on his own account, is knowledge of his ignorance. The prospect of spending one's life in unpleasant (as students think) and fruitless inquiry-inquiry which does not even pretend to hold out the possibility of answers-is disheartening. And some, understandably enough, lose interest as soon as it becomes clear that there is no concrete prize or reward at the end. The natural question of the student-'what am I going to get out of this?'-has no answer that the soul disposed to ask it in the first place is going to recognize as satisfactory; reflection and self-knowledge are not products, but processes, or rather activities. One does not, in thinking about Socratic questions, typically get a final answer; one gets-at best- understanding of possibilities. Pg. 29: Kant distinguishes between Agamben, "On Potentiality," 214. See also A 761 / B 789 in Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Werner S. Pluhar (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1996), 703. Pg. 30: Agamben has discussed the manner Agamben, The Open, 13–14. 54 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? Pg. 32: as what results from the incongruity Agamben, The Open, 16. REFERENCES h Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. –––. Nudities. Trans. David Kishik and Stefan Pedatella. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011. –––. The Open: Man and Animal. Trans. Kevin Attell. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004. –––. Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy. Ed. and trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. Auden. W.H. Collected Poems: Auden. Ed. Edward Mendelson. New York: Vintage, 1991. Barthes, Roland. The Neutral. Trans. Rosalind E. Krauss and Denis Hollier. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. 56 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project. Trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999. Bryant, Levi, Nick Srnicek, and Graham Harman, eds. The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism. Melbourne: re. press, 2011. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria. Ed. Nigel Leask. London: Everyman Paperbacks, 1997. Deleuze, Gilles. Difference and Repetition. Trans. Paul Patton. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. –––. The Logic of Sense. Trans. Mark Lester with Charles Stivale. Ed. Constantin V. Boundas. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. –––. Spinoza: Practical Philosophy. Trans. Robert Hurley. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1988. Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. REFERENCES 57 –––. What is Philosophy? Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Derrida, Jacques. Memoirs of the Blind: The SelfPortrait and Other Ruins. Trans. PascaleAnne Brault and Michael Naas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Dietrich, Eric. "There is No Progress in Philosophy." Essays in Philosophy 12:2 (2011): 329-344. Eco, Umberto. On Literature. Trans. Martin McLaughlin. New York: Harcourt Brace, 2004. Harman, Graham. Quentin Meillassoux: Philosophy in the Making. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011. Heller-Roazen, Daniel. The Inner Touch: Archaeology of a Sensation. Cambridge, Mass.: Zone Books, 2007. Jackson, George. Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1994. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. Werner S. Pluhar. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1996. 58 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? Kaufmann, Walter. Hegel: A Reinterpretation. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978. Meillassoux, Quentin. After Finitude: And Essay on the Necessity of Contingency. Trans. Ray Brassier. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2008. Nehemas, Alexander. Nietzsche: Life as Literature. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985. –––. The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo. Ed. Walter Kaufmann. Trans. Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale. New York: Random House, 1967. –––. Untimely Meditations. Ed. Daniel Breazeale. Trans. R. J. Hollingdale. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Plato, Five Dialogues. Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1981. Ribeiro, Brian. "Philosophy and Disagreement." Crítica 43 (2011): 3–25. REFERENCES 59 Russell, Bertrand. The Problems of Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959. Satterfield, Brian. "What is the Good of the 'Examined Life'? Some Thoughts on the Apology and Liberal Education." Expositions 3.2 (2009): 173–184. Spinoza, Baruch. Ethics, Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, and Selected Letters. Ed. Seymour Feldman. Trans. Samuel Shirley. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1992. Stace, W.T. The Philosophy of Hegel: A Systematic Exposition. New York: Dover Publications, 1955. Whitehead, Alfred North. The Function of Reason. Boston: Beacon Press, 1958. –––. Process and Reality. Eds. David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. New York: The Free Press, 1978.
W. dreams, like Phaedrus, of an army of thinker-friends, thinker-lovers. He dreams of a thought-army, a thought-pack, which would storm the philosophical Houses of Parliament.He dreams of Tartars from the philosophical steppes, of thoughtbarbarians, thought-outsiders. What distances would shine in their eyes! ~Lars Iyer www.babelworkinggroup.org
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Reseña de 'I am a Strange Loop' (Soy un Lazo Extraño) de Douglas Hofstadter (2007) (revisión revisada 2019) Michael Starks Abstracto Último sermón de la iglesia del naturalismo fundamentalista por el pastor Hofstadter. Al igual que su mucho más famoso (o infame por sus incesantemente errores filosóficos) trabajo Godel, Escher, Bach, tiene una plausibilidad superficial, pero si se entiende que se trata de un científico rampante que mezcla problemas científicos reales con los filosóficos (es decir, el sólo los problemas reales son los juegos de idiomas que debemos jugar) entonces casi todo su interés desaparece. Proporciono un marco para el análisis basado en la psicología evolutiva y el trabajo de Wittgenstein (ya actualizado en mis escritos más recientes). Aquellos que deseen un marco completo hasta la fecha para el comportamiento humano de la moderna dos sistemas punta de vista puede consultar mi libro 'La estructura lógica de la filosofía, la psicología, la mente y lenguaje En Ludwig Wittgenstein y John Searle ' 2a ED (2019). Los interesados en más de mis escritos pueden ver 'Monos parlantes--filosofía, psicología, ciencia, religión y política en un planeta condenado--artículos y reseñas 2006-2019 3a ED (2019) y Delirios utópicos suicidas en el siglo 21 4a Ed (2019) y otras. "Podría ser justamente preguntado qué importancia tiene la prueba de Gödelpara nuestro trabajo. Para un pedazo de matemáticas no puede resolver problemas del tipo que nos molesten. --La respuesta es que la situación, en la que tal prueba nos trae, es de interés para nosotros. ' ¿Qué vamos a decir ahora? ' --Ese es nuestro tema. Sin embargo, extraña que suene, mi tarea en lo que concierne a la prueba de Gödelparece meramente consistir en aclarar lo que tal proposición como: "Supongamos que esto se puede demostrar" significa en matemáticas. " Wittgenstein "Comentarios sobre los fundamentos de las matemáticas" p337 (1956) (escrito en 1937). "Mis teoremas sólo muestran que la mecanización de las matemáticas, es decir, la eliminación de la mente y de las entidades abstractas, es imposible, si uno quiere tener una base satisfactoria y un sistema de matemáticas. No he probado que haya preguntas matemáticas que sean indescifrables para la mente humana, pero sólo que no hay máquina (o formalismo ciego) que pueda decidir todas las preguntas de la teoría numérica, (incluso de un tipo muy especial) .... No es la estructura misma de los sistemas deductivos que está siendo amenazado con un brakedown, sino sólo una cierta interpretación de la misma, es decir, su interpretación como un formalismo ciego. " Gödel "obras recogidas" VOL 5, p 176-177. (2003) "Toda inferencia tiene lugar a priori. Los acontecimientos del futuro no pueden deducirse de los del presente. La superstición es la creencia en el nexo causal. La libertad de la voluntad consiste en el hecho de que las acciones futuras no se pueden conocer ahora. Sólo podíamos conocerlas si la causalidad fuera una necesidad interna, como la de la deducción lógica. --La conexión del conocimiento y lo que se conoce es la necesidad lógica. ("A sabe que p es el caso" no tiene sentido si p es una tautología.) Si por el hecho de que una proposición es obvia para nosotros, no sigue que es verdad, entonces la evidencia no es ninguna justificación para creer en su verdad. " TLP 5,133--5,1363 "Ahora bien, si no son las conexiones causales que nos preocupan, entonces las actividades de la mente están abiertas ante nosotros." Wittgenstein "el libro azul" P6 (1933) "Sentimos que incluso cuando todas las preguntas científicas posibles han sido contestadas, los problemas de la vida permanecen completamente intactos. Por supuesto, entonces no quedan preguntas, y esto en sí mismo es la respuesta. " Wittgenstein TLP 6,52 (1922) He leído algunos 50 Comentarios de estos libros (que por el físico cuántico David Deutsch era quizás el mejor) y ninguno de ellos proporciona un marco satisfactorio, por lo que intentaré dar comentarios novedosos que serán útiles, no sólo para este libro, sino para cualquier libro en las Ciencias del comportamiento (que puede incluir cualquier libro , si uno agarra las ramificaciones). Como su cclásico Gödel, Escher, Bach: el Eterna trenza dorada, y muchos de sus otros escritos, este libro de Hofstadter (H) trata de encontrar correlaciones o conexiones o analogías que arrojan luz sobre la conciencia y toda la experiencia humana. Como en GEB, pasa una gran cantidad de tiempo explicando y dibujando analogías con los famosos teoremas "incompletos" de Gödel, el arte "recursivo" de Escher y las "paradojas" del lenguaje (aunque, como con la mayoría de la gente, no ve la necesidad para poner estos términos en Comillas, y este es el núcleo del problema). La idea es que sus aparentemente extrañas consecuencias se deben a "bucles extraños" y que tales bucles son de alguna manera operativos en nuestro cerebro. En particular, pueden "dar lugar" a nuestro yo, que parece más o menos equipara con la conciencia y el pensamiento. Al igual que con todos, cuando empieza a hablar de cómo funciona su mente, se va seriamente descarriado. Sugiero que es para encontrar las razones de esto que el interés en este libro, y el comentario más general sobre el comportamiento se encuentra. Voy a contrastar las ideas de ISL con las del filósofo (psicólogo descriptivo del pensamiento de orden superior) Ludwig Wittgenstein (W), cuyos comentarios sobre la psicología, escritos de 1912 a 1951, nunca han sido superados por su profundidad y claridad. Es un pionero sin reconocimiento en la psicología evolutiva (EP) y desarrollador del concepto moderno de intencionalidad. Señaló que el problema fundamental en la filosofía es que no vemos nuestros procesos mentales innatos automáticos y cómo estos generan nuestros juegos de idiomas. Él dio muchas ilustraciones (uno puede considerar las 20.000 páginas enteras de su nachlass como una ilustración), algunos de ellos para palabras como "es" y "esto, y observó que todos los problemas realmente básicos generalmente se deslizan sin comentarios. Un punto importante que desarrolló fue que NeaRLY toda nuestra intencionalidad (más o menos, nuestra Psicología evolutiva (EP), racionalidad o personalidad) es invisible para nosotros y tales partes como entrar en nuestra conciencia son en gran parte epifenomenales (es decir, irrelevante para nuestro comportamiento). El hecho de que nadie pueda describir sus procesos mentales de manera satisfactoria, que esto es universal, que estos procesos son rápidos y automáticos y muy complejos, nos dice que son parte de los módulos cognitivos "ocultos" (plantillas o motores de inferencia) que se han fijado gradualmente en el ADN animal durante más de 500 millones años. Por favor, vea mis otros escritos para más detalles. Como en prácticamente todos los escritos que tratan de explicar el comportamiento (filosofía, psicología, sociología, Antropología, historia, política, teología, e incluso, como con H, matemáticas y física), soy un Strange loop (ISL) comete este tipo de error (olvido de nuestra automaticidad) continuamente y esto produce los puzzles que luego intenta resolver. El título de ISL comprende palabras que todos conocemos, pero como indicó W, los usos de palabras se pueden ver como familias de juegos de idiomas (gramática) que tienen muchos sentidos (usos o significados), cada uno con sus propios contextos. Sabemos lo que estos son en la práctica, pero si tratamos de describirlos o filosofar (tetratación) acerca de ellos, casi siempre nos desviamos y decimos cosas que pueden parecer tener sentido pero carecen del contexto para darles sentido. Nunca cruza La mente de Hofstadter que tanto "extraño" como "loop" están fuera de contexto y carecen de un sentido claro (para no decir nada sobre "I" y "AM"!). Si vas a Wikipedia, encuentras muchos usos (juegos como W decía a menudo) para estas palabras y si miras a tu alrededor en ISL, los encontrarás referidos como si fueran todos uno. de la misma manera, para "consciencia", "realidad", "paradoja", "recursiva", "autorreferencial", etc. Por lo tanto, estamos irremediablemente a la deriva de la primera página, como esperaba del título. Un lazo en una cuerda puede tener un sentido muy claro y también un diagrama de un ciclo de retroalimentación del gobernador del motor de vapor, pero ¿qué pasa con los bucles en las matemáticas y la mente? H no ve el "lazo más extraño" de todos-que utilizamos nuestra conciencia, el yo y la voluntad de negarse a sí mismos! En cuanto a los famosos teoremas de Gödel's, ¿en qué sentido pueden ser bucles? Lo que se supone casi universalmente que muestran es que ciertos tipos básicos de sistemas matemáticos son incompletos en el sentido de que hay teoremas "verdaderos" del sistema cuya "verdad" (la desafortunada palabra matemàticos comúnmente sustituyen a la validez) o " falsedad (invalidez) no puede probarse en el sistema. Aunque H no le dice, estos teoremas son lógicamente equivalentes a la solución "incompleta" de Turing del famoso problema de detención para los equipos que realizan un cálculo arbitrario. Él pasa mucho tiempo explicando la prueba original de Gödel's, pero no menciona que otros posteriormente encontraron pruebas mucho más cortas y más simples de "incompleta" en matemáticas y demostraron muchos conceptos relacionados. El que menciona brevemente es el del matemático contemporáneo Gregory Chaitin, un originador con Kolmogorov y otros de la teoría de la información algorítmica, que ha demostrado que tal "incompleto" o "aleatoriedad" (término de Chaitin--aunque este es otro juego), es mucho más extenso que el pensamiento prolongado, pero no te dice que los resultados de Gödel's y Turing son corolarios del teorema de Chaitin y una instancia de "aleatoriedad algorítmica". Usted debe referirse a Chaitin Más escritos recientes como "el número Omega (2005) ", como la única referencia de Hofstadter a Chaitin es de 20 años de edad (aunque Chaitin no tiene más comprensión de los problemas más grandes aquí-es decir, la intencionalidad innata como la fuente de los juegos de idiomas en matemáticas-que H y comparte la fantasía del ' universo es una computadora ' también). Hofstadter toma este "incompleto" (otra palabra (conceptual) juego fuera de contexto) para significar que el sistema es auto referencial o "Loopy" y "extraño". No está claro por qué tener teoremas que parecen ser (o son) verdaderos (es decir, válido) en el sistema, pero no es proable en él, lo convierte en un bucle ni por qué esto califica como extraño ni por qué esto tiene alguna relación con cualquier otra cosa. Fue mostrado bastante convincente por Wittgenstein en la década de 1930 (es decir, poco después de la prueba de Gödel's) que la mejor manera de mirar esta situación es como un juego de lenguaje típico (aunque uno nuevo para las matemáticas en ese momento) - es decir, los teoremas "verdaderos pero no puede comprobar" son "verdaderos" en un sentido diferente (ya que requieren nuevos axiomas para probarlos). Pertenecen a un sistema diferente, o como deberíamos decir ahora, a un contexto intencional diferente. Sin incompletitud, sin bucles, sin auto referencia y definitivamente no es extraño! W: "la proposición de Gödel, que afirma algo sobre sí misma, no se menciona a sí misma" y "podría decirse: Gödel dice que uno también debe ser capaz de confiar en una prueba matemática cuando uno quiere concebirlo prácticamente, como la prueba de que el patrón proposicional puede construirse de acuerdo con las reglas de la prueba? O: una proposición matemática debe ser capaz de ser concebido como una proposición de una geometría que es realmente aplicable a sí mismo. Y si se hace esto surge que en ciertos casos no es posible confiar en una prueba. " (RFM p336). Estas observaciones apenas dan una pista a la profundidad de la visión de W en la intencionalidad matemática, que comenzó con sus primeros escritos en 1912 pero fue más evidente en sus escritos en los años 30 y 40. W es considerado como un escritor difícil y opaco debido a su estilo aforístico, telegráfico y constante saltando con pocas pocas veces y notar que ha cambiado de tema, ni de hecho lo que el tópico es, pero si uno comienza con su único trabajo de estilo de libro de texto-los libros azul y marrón-y entiende que él está explicando cómo funciona nuestro pensamiento de orden superior evolucionado, todo se hará claro para los persistentes. W dio conferencias sobre estos temas en la década de 1930 y esto ha sido documentado en varios de sus libros. Hay otros comentarios en alemán en su nachlass (algunos de ellos anteriormente disponibles sólo en un $1000 CDROM pero ahora, como casi todas sus obras, en P2P Torrents, libgen, IO y b-OK.org. El filósofo canadiense Victor Rodych ha escrito recientemente dos artículos sobre W y Gödel en la revista Erkenntnis y otros 4 en W y matemáticas, que creo que constituyen un resumen definitivo de W y los fundamentos de las matemáticas. Se pone a descansar la noción anteriormente popular de que W no entendía incompleta (y mucho más concerniente a la psicología de las matemáticas). De hecho, por lo que puedo ver W es uno de muy pocos hasta el día de hoy que hace (¡ y no incluyendo a Gödel! - aunque vea su penetrante comentario citado arriba). Las formas relacionadas de "paradoja" que ejercen H (e innumerables otras) fueron ampliamente discutidas por W con ejemplos en matemáticas y lenguaje y me parece una consecuencia natural de la evolución fragmentaria de nuestras habilidades simbólicas que se extiende también a la música, el arte, juegos, etc. Aquellos que deseen opiniones contrarias los encontrarán en todas partes y con respecto a W y matemáticas, pueden consultar a Chihara en la revisión filosófica V86, p365-81 (1977). Me tienen mucho respeto por Chihara (Soy uno de Pocos que han leído su portada de "una cuenta estructural de matemáticas" para cubrir) pero él fracasa en muchos temas básicos como las explicaciones de W de paradoas como inevitables y casi siempre inofensivas facetas de nuestro EP. Años después de que hice esta revisión original escribí uno en Yanofsky ' más allá de los límites del pensamiento ' y en los siguientes párrafos repito aquí los comentarios sobre la incompleta que hice allí. De hecho, toda la revisión es relevante, especialmente las observaciones sobre Wolpert. En cuanto a Godel y "incompleta", ya que nuestra psicología expresada en sistemas simbólicos como las matemáticas y el lenguaje es "aleatoria" o "incompleto" y está llena de tareas o situaciones ("problemas") que han sido demostradas imposibles (es decir, no tienen solución-ver abajo) o cuya naturaleza no está clara, parece inevitable que todo lo derivado de ella - e. g. física y matemática) también sea "incompleto". AFAIK el primero de ellos en lo que ahora se llama teoría de la elección social o teoría de la decisión (que son continuos con el estudio de la lógica y el razonamiento y la filosofía) fue el famoso teorema de Kenneth Arrow más de 60 años atrás, y ha habido muchos desde entonces. Y señala una imposibilidad reciente o prueba incompleta en dosTeoría de juegos de persona. En estos casos, una prueba muestra que lo que parece una simple opción indicada en inglés simple no tiene solución. Aunque uno no puede escribir un libro sobre todo, me hubiera gustado Yanofsky al menos mencionar esas famosas "paradotas" como la bella durmiente (disuelta por Rupert Read), el problema de Newcomb (disuelto por Wolpert) y Doomsday, donde lo que parece ser un problema muy simple, o bien no tiene una respuesta clara, o resulta excepcionalmente difícil de encontrar uno. Existe una montaña de literatura sobre los dos teoremas "incompletos" de Godel y el trabajo más reciente de Chaitin, pero creo que los escritos de W en los años 30 y 40 son definitivos. Aunque Shanker, Mancosu, Floyd, Marion, Rodych, Gefwert, Wright y otros han hecho un trabajo perspicaz, es sólo recientemente que el análisis de la penetración única de W de los juegos de idiomas que se juegan en matemáticas han sido clarificados por Floyd (por ejemplo, ' El argumento diagonal de Wittgenstein-una variación en cantor y Turing '), Berto (por ejemplo, ' la paradoja de Godel y las razones de Wittgenstein, y ' Wittgenstein en la incompleta hace que el sentido paraconsistente ' y el libro ' hay algo sobre Godel ', y Rodych (por ejemplo, Wittgenstein y Godel: los comentarios recién publicados ', ' malentendido Gödel: nuevos argumentos sobre Wittgenstein ', ' nuevos comentarios de Wittgenstein ' y su artículo en la enciclopedia en línea de Stanford de filosofía ' filosofía de las matemáticas de Wittgenstein '). Berto es uno de los mejores filósofos recientes, y aquellos con el tiempo podrían desear consultar sus muchos otros artículos y libros, incluyendo el volumen que co-editó en paraconsistencia (2013). El trabajo de Rodych es indispensable, pero sólo dos de una docena de documentos son gratuitos en línea con la búsqueda habitual, pero por supuesto todo es gratis en línea si uno sabe dónde buscar (p. ej., libgen.IO y b-OK.org). Berto señala que W también negó la coherencia de metamatemática--es decir, el uso por parte de Godel de un metateorema para probar su teorema, probablemente la contabilización de su interpretación "notoria" del teorema de Godel como una paradoja, y si aceptamos su argumento, creo que nos vemos obligados a negar la inteligibilidad de metangulos, metateorías y meta cualquier otra cosa. ¿Cómo puede ser que tales conceptos (palabras) como metamatemático e incomplecortesía, aceptada por millones (e incluso reclamados por no menos de Penrose, Hawking, Dyson et al para revelar verdades fundamentales sobre nuestro mente o el universo) son simples malentendidos acerca de cómo funciona el lenguaje? ¿No es la prueba en este pudin que, como tantas nociones filosóficas "reveladoras" (por ejemplo, la mente y la voluntad como ilusiones-Dennett, Carruthers, las Churchlands etc.), no tienen ningún impacto práctico en absoluto? Berto lo resume muy bien: "dentro de este marco, no es posible que la misma frase... resulta ser expresable, pero indescifrable, en un sistema formal... y demostrablemente cierto (bajo la hipótesis de coherencia antes mencionada) en un sistema diferente (el meta-sistema). Si, como sostiene Wittgenstein, la prueba establece el significado mismo de la sentencia probada, entonces no es posible que la misma frase (es decir, una frase con el mismo significado) sea indescifrable en un sistema formal, sino que se decida en un sistema diferente (el meta-sistema) ... Wittgenstein tuvo que rechazar tanto la idea de que un sistema formal puede estar incompleto sintácticamente, como la consecuencia platónica de que ningún sistema formal que demuestre sólo verdades aritméticas puede probar todas las verdades aritméticas. Si las pruebas establecen el significado de las oraciones aritméticas, entonces no puede haber sistemas incompletos, así como no puede haber significados incompletos. " Y además "aritméticos incoherentes, es decir, aritméticos no clásicos basados en una lógica paraconsistente, son hoy en día una realidad. Lo que es más importante, las características teóricas de tales teorías coinciden precisamente con algunas de las intuiciones de Wittgensteinian antes mencionadas... Su inconsistencia les permite también escapar del primer teorema de Godel, y del resultado de la indecisión de la iglesia: ely son, es decir, demostrablemente completas y decisibles. Por lo tanto, cumplen precisamente la solicitud de Wittgenstein, según la cual no puede haber problemas matemáticos que puedan formularse de manera significativa en el sistema, pero que las normas del sistema no pueden decidir. Por lo tanto, la decibilidad de la aritmética paraconsistente armoniza con una opinión que Wittgenstein mantuvo durante su carrera filosófica. " W también demostró el error fatal en relación con las matemáticas o el lenguaje o nuestro comportamiento en general como un sistema lógico coherente unitario, en lugar de como un variopinto de piezas ensambladas por los procesos aleatorios de selección natural. "Godel nos muestra un poco de claridad en el concepto de ' matemáticas ', que se indica por el hecho de que las matemáticas se toman como un sistema" y podemos decir (contra casi todo el mundo) que es todo lo que Godel y Chaitin muestran. W comentó muchas veces que la ' verdad ' en matemáticas significa axiomas o teoremas derivados de axiomas, y ' falso ' significa que uno cometió un error en el uso de las definiciones, y esto es completamente diferente de los asuntos empíricos donde uno aplica una prueba. W a menudo señaló que para ser aceptable como matemáticas en el sentido habitual, debe ser utilizable en otras pruebas y debe tener aplicaciones del mundo real, pero tampoco es el caso con la incompletitud de Godel. Puesto que no se puede probar en un sistema consistente (aquí la aritmética de Peano pero una arena mucho más amplia para Chaitin), no se puede utilizar en pruebas y, a diferencia de todo el ' resto ' de PA, tampoco se puede utilizar en el mundo real. Como Rodych notas "... Wittgenstein sostiene que un cálculo formal es sólo un cálculo matemático (es decir, un juego de lenguaje matemático) si tiene una aplicación extra-sistémica en un sistema de proposiciones contingentes (por ejemplo, en el conteo ordinario y la medición o en la física) ..." Otra manera de decir esto es que uno necesita una orden para aplicar nuestro uso normal de palabras como ' prueba ', ' proposición ', ' verdadero ', ' incompleto ', ' número ', y ' matemáticas ' a un resultado en la maraña de juegos creados con ' números ' y ' más ' y ' menos ' signos, etc., y con ' Incompletitud ' esta orden carece. Rodych lo resume admirablemente. "En la cuenta de Wittgenstein, no hay tal cosa como un cálculo matemático incompleto porque ' en matemáticas, todo es algoritmo [y la sintaxis] y nada significa [semántica]... " W tiene mucho lo mismo que decir de la Diagonalización de cantor y la teoría del conjunto. "La consideración del procedimiento diagonal le hace pensar que el concepto de ' número real ' tiene mucho menos analogía con el concepto ' número cardinal ' que nosotros, siendo engañados por ciertas analogías, que se inclinan a creer" y muchos otros comentarios (véase Rodych y Floyd). En cualquier caso, parecería que el hecho de que el resultado de Gödelha tenido cero impacto en las matemáticas (excepto para evitar que la gente intente probar la integridad!) debería haber alertado a H de su trivialidad y de la "extrañeza" de intentar que sea una base para cualquier cosa. Sugiero que sea considerado como otro juego conceptual que nos muestra los límites de nuestra psicología. Por supuesto, todas las matemáticas, la física y el comportamiento humano pueden ser aprovechamente tomadas de esta manera. Mientras que en el tema de W, debemos tener en cuenta que otra obra en la que H pasa mucho tiempo es Whitehead y el clásico de Russell de lógica matemática "Principia Mathematica", principalmente porque fue al menos en parte responsable del trabajo de Gödelque condujo a sus teoremas. W había pasado del estudiante de lógica inicial de Russell a su maestro en aproximadamente un año, y Russell lo había escogido para reescribir los Principia. Pero W tuvo grandes dudas sobre todo el proyecto (y toda la filosofía que resultó) y, cuando regresó a la filosofía en los años 30, demostró que la idea de fundar matemáticas (o racionalidad) en la lógica era un error profundo. W es uno de los filósofos más famosos del mundo e hizo extensos comentarios sobre Gödel y los fundamentos de las matemáticas y la mente; es pionera en EP (aunque nadie parece darse cuenta de esto); el descubridor del esquema básico y el funcionamiento del pensamiento de mayor orden y mucho más, y es asombroso que Dennett & H, después de medio siglo de estudio, son completamente ajenos a los pensamientos de la mayor Intuitiva psicólogo de todos los tiempos (aunque tienen casi 8 mil millones para la compañía). Hay, como algunos han comentado, una amnesia colectiva con respecto a W no sólo en Psicología (para la cual sus obras deberían estar en servicio universal como textos y manuales de laboratorio) sino en todas las ciencias conductuales incluyendo, sorprendentemente, la filosofía. La Asociación de H con Daniel Dennett (D), otro famoso escritor confundido en la mente, ciertamente no ha hecho nada para ayudarle a aprender nuevas perspectivas en los casi 30 años desde GEB. A pesar del hecho de que D ha escrito un libro sobre intencionalidad (un campo que, en su versión moderna, fue creado esencialmente por W), H parece no tener conocimiento de ello en absoluto. Las percepciones que conducen a iluminaes, alimentándose en disposiciones (inclinaciones) (Los términos de W, también utilizados por Searle, pero llamados "actitudes proposicionales por otros) como creer y suponer, que no son Estados mentales y no tienen una duración precisa, etc/, son avances trascendstas en la comprensión de cómo funciona nuestra mente, que W descubrió en los años 20 , pero con hilos volviendo a sus escritos antes de la primera guerra mundial. La trenza dorada eterna no se realiza por H para ser nuestra Psicología evolutiva innata, ahora, 150 años tarder (es decir, desde Darwin), convirtiéndose en un campo floreciente que está fusionando la psicología, la ciencia cognitiva, la economía, la sociología, la antropología, la ciencia política, la religión, la música (por ejemplo, G. Mazzola de "el topos de la música" - topos son sustitutos de los sets, uno de los grandes libros de ciencia (psicología) del siglo 21, aunque no tiene idea sobre W y la mayoría de los puntos en esta revisión), arte, matemáticas, física y literatura. H ha ignorado o rechazado a muchas personas que uno podría considerar como nuestros mejores maestros en el Reino de la mente - W, Buda, John Lilly, John Searle, Osho, ADI da (ver su "la rodilla de la escucha"), Alexander Shulgin y muchos otros. La gran mayoría de los conocimientos de la filosofía, así como los de la física cuántica, la probabilidad, la meditación, el EP, la psicología cognitiva y los psicodélogos no puntuan ni siquiera una referencia pasajera aquí (ni en la mayoría de los escritos filosóficos de los científicos). Aunque hay algunos buenos libros en su bibliografía, hay muchos que consideraría referencias estándar y cientos de obras importantes en ciencias cognitivas, EP, matemáticas y probabilidad, y filosofía de la mente y la ciencia que no están allí (ni en sus otros escritos). Su francotiradores en Searle es mezquino y sin sentido: la frustración de alguien que no tiene comprensión de los problemas reales. En mi opinión, ni H ni nadie más ha proporcionado una razón convincente para rechazar la Argumento de la habitación China (el artículo más famoso en este campo) que las computadoras no piensan (no es que nunca pueden hacer algo que podríamos querer llamar pensar-que Searle admite es posible). Y Searle (en mi opinión) organizó y extendió el trabajo de W en libros como "la construcción de la realidad social" y "racionalidad en acción"--brillantes sumas de la organización de HOT (pensamiento de orden superior - i. e., intencionalidad) - libros de filosofía raros que incluso puede tener un sentido perfecto de una vez que traduzcas una pequeña jerga al inglés! H, D y muchos otros en la ciencia cognitiva y la IA están indignados con Searle porque tenía la temeridad de desafiar (destruir-yo diría) su filosofía básica-la teoría computacional de la mente (CTM) hace casi 30 años y continúa señalarlo (aunque uno puede decir que W lo destruyó antes de que existiera). Claro, ellos (casi) todos rechazan la sala China o simplemente lo ignoran, pero el argumento es, a juicio de muchos, incontante. El reciente artículo de Shani (mentes y máquinas V15, P207-228 (2005)) es un bonito Resumen de la situación con referencias al excelente trabajo de Bickhard sobre este tema. Bickhard también ha desarrollado una teoría de la mente más realista que utiliza la termodinámica de no equilibrio, en lugar de los conceptos de Hofstadter de la psicología intencional utilizado fuera de los contextos necesarios para darles sentido. Pocos se dan cuenta de que W de nuevo anticipó a todos en estos temas con numerosos comentarios sobre lo que ahora llamamos CTM, AI o inteligencia de la máquina, e incluso hizo experimentos con personas haciendo "traducciones" al chino. Me había dado cuenta de esto (e innumerables otros paralelos estrechos con el trabajo de Searle) cuando llegué sobre el papel de Diane Proudfoot en W y la habitación China en el libro "vistas a la habitación China" (2005). También se pueden encontrar muchas gemas relacionadas con estos temas en la edición de Cora Diamond de las notas tomadas en las primeras conferencias de W sobre matemáticas "conferencias de Wittgenstein sobre los fundamentos de las matemáticas, Cambridge 1934 (1976). Los propios "Comentarios sobre los fundamentos de las matemáticas" de W cubren un terreno similar. Uno de los pocos que ha examinado las opiniones de W sobre esto en detalle es Christopher Gefwert, cuyo excelente libro pionero "Wittgenstein en mentes, máquinas y matemáticas" (1995), es Casi ignorados universalmente. A pesar de que estaba escribiendo antes de que hubiera un pensamiento serio sobre los ordenadores electrónicos o robots, W se dio cuenta de que el problema básico aquí es muy simple---las computadoras carecen de una psicología (e incluso 70 años después tenemos apenas una pista de cómo darles una), y es sólo en el contexto de un ser con una intencionalidad totalmente desarrollada que los términos de la disposicional como pensar, creer, etc. tienen sentido (tienen un significado o claro COS), y como de costumbre lo resumió todo en su forma aforística única "Pero una máquina sin duda no puede pensar! --¿Es una declaración empírica? No. Sólo decimos de un ser humano y lo que es como uno que piensa. También lo decimos de muñecas y sin duda de espíritus también. Mira la palabra "pensar" como una herramienta. " (Investigaciones filosóficas P113). Fuera de contexto, muchos de los comentarios de W pueden parecer insípidos o simplemente equivocados, pero los perspicaces encontrarán que usualmente pagan una reflexión prolongada - él no era el tonto de nadie. Hofstadter, en todos sus escritos, sigue la tendencia común y hace gran parte de "paradocas", que considera como auto referencias, recursiones o bucles, pero hay muchas "inconsistencias" en la psicología intencional (matemáticas, lenguaje, percepción, arte, etc.) y tienen ningún efecto, ya que nuestra psicología evolucionó para ignorarlos. Así, "paradozas" como "esta frase es falsa" sólo nos dicen que "esto" no se refiere a sí mismo o si prefieres que este es uno de infinitamente muchos arreglos de palabras que carecen de un sentido claro. Cualquier sistema simbólico que tengamos (es decir, idioma, matemáticas, arte, música, juegos, etc.) siempre tendrán áreas de conflicto, problemas insolubles o contraintuitivos o Confuso Definiciones. Por lo tanto, tenemos los teoremas de Gödel's, el mentiroso'paradoja, inconsistencias en la teoría del conjunto, dilemas del prisionero, gato muerto/vivo de Schrodinger, problema de Newcomb, principios Anthropic, Estadísticas bayesianas, notas que no puedes sonar juntas o colores que no puedes mezclar y reglas que no se pueden usar en el mismo juego. Un conjunto de subindustrias dentro de la teoría de la decisión, la economía conductual, la teoría del juego, la filosofía, la psicología y la sociología, la ley, la ciencia política, etc. e incluso los fundamentos de la física y las matemáticas (donde comúnmente se disfraza como filosofía de la ciencia) ha surgido que trata de variaciones infinitas en "real" (p. ej., mecánica cuántica) o artificio ((por ejemplo, el problema de Newcomb - ver análisis V64, p187-89 (2004)) situaciones donde nuestra psicología – evolucionó sólo para obtener alimentos, encontrar compañeros y evitar convertirse en el almuerzo – da resultados ambivalentes, o simplemente se rompe. Prácticamente ninguno de los que escriben los cientos de artículos e innumerables libros sobre estos temas que aparecen anualmente parecen conscientes de que están estudiando los límites de nuestra psicología innata y que Wittgenstein usualmente los anticipó por más de medio siglo. Típicamente, tomó el tema de la paradoja al límite, señalando la ocurrencia común de la paradoja en nuestro pensamiento, e insistió en que incluso las inconsistencias no eran un problema (aunque Turing, asistiendo a sus clases, discrepó), y predijo la aparición de sistemas lógicos inconsistentes. Décadas más tarde, se inventaron lógicas dialeténicas y sacerdote en su reciente libro sobre ellos ha llamado a las opiniones de W prescient. Si usted quiere una buena revisión reciente de algunos de los muchos tipos de paradojas del lenguaje (aunque sin la conciencia de que W fue pionero en la década de 1930 y en gran parte inocente de cualquier comprensión del contexto intencional) ver Rosenkranz y Sarkohi "Platitudes Against Paradox" en Erkenntnis V65, p319-41 (2006). La aparición de muchos artículos relacionados con W en esta revista es más apropiada ya que fue fundada en los años 30 por positivistas lógicos cuya Biblia era Tractus Logico Philosophicus de W. Por supuesto, también hay un diario dedicado a W y el nombre de su obra más famosa-"Investigaciones filosóficas". H, en línea con la práctica casi universal, se refiere a menudo a nuestras "creencias" para "explicaciones" de comportamiento, pero nuestra psicología compartida no descansa en la creencia, sólo tenemos conciencia y dolores y sabemos desde la infancia que los animales son agentes conscientes, autopropulsados que son diferentes de los árboles y las rocas. ¡ Nuestra madre no nos enseña que más de lo que la madre de un perro hace y no puede enseñarnos! Y, si esto es algo que aprendemos, entonces podríamos enseñarle a un niño (o un perro) que un pájaro y una roca son realmente el mismo tipo de cosa (es decir, ignorar la psicología intencional innata). W señaló clara y repetidamente la infrindeterminación de todos nuestros conceptos (por ejemplo, ver sus comentarios sobre la adición y la finalización de la serie en comentarios sobre los fundamentos de las matemáticas), que ordenó su innato (es decir, la evolución tuvo que resolver este problema por sacrificar innumerables cuadrillones de criaturas cuyos genes no han hecho las elecciones correctas). Hoy en día esto es comúnmente llamado el problema de la explosión combinatoria y a menudo señalado por los psicólogos evolutivos como evidencia convincente de la innación, sin saber que W los anticipó por más de 50 años. Nuestra psicología innata no descansa en "creencias" cuando claramente no está sujeto a prueba o duda o revisión (por ejemplo, tratar de dar un sentido a "Creo que estoy leyendo esta revisión" y la media (es decir, encontrar un uso real en nuestra vida normal para) algo diferente de "estoy leyendo este Review "). Sí, siempre hay usos derivados de cualquier frase incluyendo este, pero estos son parásitos en el uso normal. Antes de cualquier "explicación" (simplemente descripciones claras, como se señaló W) son posibles, tiene que ser claro que los orígenes de nuestro comportamiento se encuentran en los axiomas de nuestra psicología innata, que son la base para todo entendimiento, y que la filosofía, las matemáticas, la literatura, la ciencia y la sociedad son sus extensiones culturales. Dennett (y cualquiera que se sienta tentado a seguirlo - i. e., todo el mundo) se ve obligado a reclamar aún más bizarras por su escepticismo (porque yo reclamo que es un secreto ligeramente velado de todos los reduccionistas que son escépticos en el corazón - i. e., deben negar la "realidad" de todo). En su libro "la postura intencional" y otros escritos trata de eliminar esta molesta psicología que pone a los animales en una clase diferente de las computadoras y el ' física Universo' al incluir nuestra intencionalidad innata evolucionada con la intencionalidad derivada de nuestras creaciones culturales (es decir, termómetros, PC y aviones) señalando que son nuestros genes, y en última instancia la naturaleza (es decir, el universo), y no nosotros que "realmente" ha intencionalidad, por lo que todo es "derivado". ¡ Claramente algo está gravemente mal aquí! Uno piensa inmediatamente que también debe ser cierto que ya que la naturaleza y los genes producen nuestra fisiología, no debe haber ninguna diferencia sustantiva entre nuestro corazón y uno artificial que fabricamos con plástico. Para la comedia reduccionista más grandiosa de los últimos años, vea "un nuevo tipo de ciencia" de Wolfram que nos muestra cómo el universo y todos sus procesos y objetos son realmente sólo "Computadoras" y "computación" (que no se da cuenta son conceptos intencionales que no tienen significado aparte de nuestra psicología y que no tiene ninguna prueba para distinguir un cálculo de un no-cálculo-i. e., elimina la Psicología por definición). Uno ve que Dennett no entiende los temas básicos de la intencionalidad por el título de su libro. Nuestra psicología no es una postura o atribución o postulan sobre nosotros mismos, u otro ser'vidas mentales, más de lo que es una "postura" que poseen cuerpos. Un niño pequeño o un perro no adivina ni supones y no puede aprender que las personas y los animales son agentes con mentes y deseos y que son fundamentalmente diferentes de árboles y rocas y lagos. Ellos conocen (en vivo) estos conceptos (psicología compartida) desde el nacimiento y si se debilitan, la muerte o la locura supervene. Esto nos lleva de nuevo a W, que vio que los intentos reduccionistas de basar la comprensión en la lógica o las matemáticas o la física eran incoherentes. Sólo podemos ver desde el punto de vista de nuestra psicología innata, de la que son todas extensiones. Nuestra Psicología es arbitraria sólo en el sentido de que uno puede imaginar formas en las que podría ser diferente, y este es el punto de W inventando ejemplos extraños de juegos de idiomas (es decir, conceptos alternativos (gramáticas) o formas de vida). Al hacerlo, vemos los límites de nuestra psicología. La mejor discusión que he visto en escenarios imaginarios de W es la de Andrew Peach en PI 24 p299-327 (2004). Me parece que W fue el primero en entender en detalle (con el debido respeto a Kant) que nuestra vida se basa en nuestra psicología evolucionada, que no puede ser desafiada sin perder sentido. Si uno niega los axiomas de las matemáticas, uno no puede jugar el juego. Uno puede colocar un signo de interrogación después de cada axioma y cada teorema derivado de ellos, pero ¿cuál es el punto? Filósofos, teólogos y la persona común pueden jugar en este juego, siempre y cuando no lo tomen en serio. Las lesiones, la muerte, la cárcel o la locura vendrán rápidamente a quienes lo hagan. Trate de negar que está leyendo esta página o que estas son sus dos manos o hay un mundo fuera de su ventana. El intento de entrar en un juego conceptual en el que estas cosas se pueden dudar presupone el juego de conocerlos - y no puede haber una prueba para los axiomas de nuestra psicología - más que para las matemáticas (derivadas, como demostró W, de nuestros conceptos intuitivos) --sólo son lo que son. Para poder saltar debe haber algún lugar para pararse. Este es el hecho más básico de la existencia, y sin embargo, es una notable consecuencia de nuestra psicología ser automatizado que es lo más difícil para nosotros ver. Es una visión divertida ver a la gente (no sólo a los filósofos) tratando de usar su psicología intuitiva (la única herramienta que tenemos) para salir de los límites de nuestra psicología intuitiva. ¿Cómo va a ser posible esto? ¿Cómo encontraremos algún punto de vista que nos permita ver nuestra mente en el trabajo y por qué prueba sabremos que la tenemos? Pensamos que si simplemente pensamos lo suficiente o adquirimos suficientes hechos, podemos obtener una visión de la "realidad" que otros no tienen. Pero hay buenas razones para pensar que tales intentos son incoherentes y sólo nos alejan más de la claridad y la cordura. W dijo muchas veces de muchas maneras que debemos sobrevienen este antojo de "claridad", la idea del pensamiento subyacente por la "lógica cristalina", cuyo descubrimiento "explicará" nuestro comportamiento y nuestro mundo y cambiará nuestra visión de lo que es ser humano. "Cuanto más estrechamente examinamos el lenguaje real, más agudo se convierte en el conflicto entre él y nuestro requisito. (Por supuesto, para la pureza cristalina de la lógica no fue un resultado de la investigación: era un requisito.) " PI 107 A su regreso a la filosofía en 1930 dijo: "La concepción equivocada que quiero objetar en este Connexion es la siguiente, que podemos descubrir algo totalmente nuevo. Eso es un error. La verdad del asunto es que ya lo tenemos todo, y que lo tenemos realmente presente; no necesitamos esperar nada. Hacemos nuestros movimientos en el ámbito de la gramática de nuestro lenguaje ordinario, y esta gramática ya está allí. Por lo tanto, ya tenemos todo y no necesitamos esperar el futuro. " (Waismann "Ludwig Wittgenstein y el círculo de Viena (1979) p183 y en su Zettel P 312-314 "Aquí nos encontramos con un fenómeno notable y característico en la investigación filosófica: la dificultad---podría decir---no es la de encontrar la solución sino más bien la de reconocer como la solución algo que parece ser sólo un preliminares a ella. "Ya hemos dicho todo. ---No hay nada que se desprende de esto, ¡ no es la solución! " "Esto está conectado, creo, con nuestra espera errónea una explicación, mientras que la solución de la dificultad es una descripción, si le damos el lugar correcto en nuestras consideraciones. Si lo moramos, y no tratamos de ir más allá de él. " A algunos también les resulta útil leer "por qué no hay una lógica deductiva de la razón práctica" en la magnífica "racionalidad en acción" de Searle (2001). Sólo tiene que sustituir sus frases infelicitan "imponer condiciones de satisfacción en las condiciones de satisfacción" por "relacionar los Estados mentales con el mundo moviendo los músculos" - es decir, hablar, escribir y hacer, y su "mente a mundo" y "direcciones del mundo a la mente de ajuste" por " causa se origina en el mundo "y" causa se origina en la mente ". Otro defecto básico en H (y a través del discurso científico, que incluye la filosofía, ya que es psicología del sillón) se refiere a las nociones de explicaciones o causas. Tenemos pocos problemas para entender cómo estos conceptos trabajar en sus contextos normales, pero la filosofía no es un contexto normal. Son sólo otras familias de conceptos (a menudo llamados gramática o juegos de idiomas por W y aproximadamente equivalentes a módulos cognitivos, motores de inferencia, plantillas o algoritmos) que componen nuestro EP (aproximadamente, nuestra intencionalidad) pero, fuera de contexto, nos sentimos obligados a proyectarlos en el mundo y ver "causa" como una ley universal de la naturaleza que determina los acontecimientos. Como dijo W, necesitamos reconocer descripciones claras como respuestas que terminan la búsqueda de "explicaciones" definitivas. Esto nos lleva de nuevo a mi comentario sobre por qué la gente se extravía cuando tratan de "explicar" las cosas. Una vez más, esto conecta íntimamente con juicios, la teoría de la decisión, la probabilidad subjetiva, la lógica, la mecánica cuántica, la incertidumbre, la teoría de la información, el razonamiento bayesiano, la prueba de Wason, el principio Anthropic ((Bostrum "el principio Anthropic" (2002)) y la economía conductual, por nombrar algunos. No hay espacio aquí para entrar en este nido de ratas de aspectos estrechamente ligados de nuestra psicología innata, pero uno podría recordar que incluso en sus escritos previos a Tractatus, Wittgenstein comentó que Tidea de la necesidad causal no es a superstición, pero el Fuente de la superstición. Sugiero que este comentario aparentemente trivial es uno de sus más profundos-W no fue dado a la trivialidad ni a la falta de cuidado. ¿Cuál es la "causa" del Big Bang o de un electrón en un "lugar" particular o de "aleatoriedad" o caos o la "ley" de la gravitación? Pero hay descripciones que pueden servir como respuestas. Así, H siente que todas las acciones deben ser causadas y "materiales" y así, con su amigo D y la alegre banda de materialistas reduccionistas, niega la voluntad, el yo y la conciencia. D niega que los niega, pero los hechos hablan por sí mismos. Su libro "la conciencia explicada" es comúnmente referido como "conciencia denegada" y fue revisado por Searle como "la conciencia explicada". Esto es especialmente extraño en el caso de H, ya que comenzó un físico y su padre ganó el Premio Nobel de física, por lo que uno podría pensar que sería consciente de los famosos papeles de Einstein, Podolsky y Rosen y de von Neumann en los años 20 y 30, en el que explicaron cómo la mecánica cuántica no tenía sentido sin la conciencia humana (y una abstracción digital no lo hará en absoluto). En este mismo período, otros incluyendo Jeffreys y de Finetti mostraron que la probabilidad sólo tenía sentido como un método subjetivo (es decir, psicológico) y los amigos cercanos de Wittgenstein, John Maynard Keynes y Frank Ramsey, primero claramente equipararon la lógica con la racionalidad, y Popper y otros señalaron la equivalencia de la lógica y la probabilidad y sus raíces comunes en la racionalidad. Hay una vasta literatura sobre las interrelaciones de estas disciplinas y el crecimiento gradual de la comprensión de que son todas facetas de nuestra psicología innata. Los interesados pueden comenzar con el artículo de ton sales en el manual de lógica filosófica 2o Ed. vol 9 (2002) ya que también les introducirá a esta excelente fuente, que ahora se extiende a unos 20 volúmenes (todos en P2P libgen.IO y b-OK.org). Ramsey fue uno de los pocos de su tiempo que fue capaz de entender las ideas de W y en sus documentos seminales de 192526 no sólo desarrolló las ideas pioneras de Keynes sobre la probabilidad subjetiva, sino que también extendió las ideas de W del Tractatus y las conversaciones y cartas en la primera declaración formal de lo que más tarde se conoció como semántica sustitutiva o la interpretación sustitutiva de los cuantificadores lógicos. (Véase el artículo de LeBlanc en manual de lógica filosófica 2o Ed. V2, p53-131 (2002)). La muerte prematura de Ramsey, como la de W, von Neumann y Turing, fueron grandes tragedias, ya que cada uno de ellos solo y ciertamente juntos habrían alterado el clima intelectual del siglo 20 a un grado aún mayor. Si hubieran vivido, bien podrían haber colaborado, pero como era, sólo W se dio cuenta de que estaba descubriendo facetas de nuestra psicología innata. W y Turing fueron profesores de Cambridge enseñando clases sobre los fundamentos de las matemáticas, aunque W desde la posición que descansaba en axiomas no declarados de nuestra psicología innata y Turing desde la visión convencional de que era una cuestión de lógica que se mantuvo por sí misma . Si estos dos genios homosexuales se involucraban íntimamente, podrían haber surgido cosas asombrosas. Creo que todo el mundo tiene estas tendencias reduccionistas "deflacionarias", por lo que sugiero que esto se debe a los valores predeterminados de los módulos de psicología intuitivos que están sesgados a la asignación de causas en términos de propiedades de los objetos, y los fenómenos culturales que podemos ver y a nuestra necesidad de Generalidad. Nuestros motores de inferencia clasifican y buscan de forma compulsiva la fuente de todos los fenómenos. Cuando nos fijamos en busca de causas o explicaciones, nos inclinamos a mirar hacia el exterior y tomamos el punto de vista de la tercera persona, para lo cual tenemos pruebas empíricas o criterios, ignorando el funcionamiento invisible automático de nuestra propia mente, para lo cual no tenemos tales pruebas (otra arena iniciada por W hace unos 75 años). Como se ha señalado aquí, una de las tomas de W en este problema "filosófico" universal fue que nos falta la capacidad de reconocer nuestras explicaciones intuitivas normales como los límites de nuestra comprensión, confundiendo los axiomas INCOMPROBABLES e indisputables de nuestros Sistema 1 Psicología con hechos del mundo que podemos investigar, diseccionar y explicar a través del sistema 2. Esto no niega la ciencia, sólo la noción de que proporcionará el significado "verdadero" y "real" de la "realidad". Hay una vasta literatura sobre las causas y las explicaciones, por lo que sólo me referiremos al excelente artículo de Jeffrey Hershfield "Cognitivismo y la relatividad explicativa" en el canadiense J. de filosofía V28 P505-26 (1998) y al libro de Garfinkel "formas de explicación" (1981). esta literatura se está fusionó rápidamente con los de la epistemología, la probabilidad, la lógica, la teoría del juego, la economía conductual y la filosofía de la ciencia, que parecen casi completamente desconocidas para H. de los cientos de libros recientes y miles de artículos, uno puede empezar con los libros de Nancy Cartwright, que proporcionan un antídoto parcial a la ilusión de "la regla de la física y la matemática del universo". O, uno puede simplemente seguir los vínculos entre la racionalidad, la causalidad, la probabilidad, la información, las leyes de la naturaleza, la mecánica cuántica, determinismo, etc. en Wikipedia y la enciclopedia de filosofía de Stanford en línea, durante décadas (o, con los comentarios de W en mente, tal vez solo días) antes de que uno se dé cuenta de que lo hizo bien y que no nos aclaramos nuestra "realidad" psicológica estudiando la naturaleza. Una forma de mirar a ISL es que sus fallas nos recuerdan que las leyes y explicaciones científicas son extensiones frágiles y ambiguas de nuestra psicología innata y no, como lo haría H, al revés. Es un hecho curioso y raramente notado que los reduccionistas severos primero niegan la psicología, pero, con el fin de tener en cuenta (ya que hay claramente algo que genera nuestra vida mental y social), se ven obligados a acampar con los listadores en blanco (todos nosotros antes de que educarse), que atribuyen psicología a la cultura o a aspectos muy generales de nuestra inteligencia (es decir, nuestra intencionalidad es aprendida) en contraposición a un conjunto innato de funciones. H y D dicen que el yo, la conciencia, la voluntad, etc. son ilusiones - meramente "patrones abstractos" (el "espíritu" o "alma" de la iglesia del naturalismo fundamentalista). Ellos creen que nuestro "programa" puede ser digitalizado y puesto en computadoras, que por lo tanto adquieren psicología, y que "creer" en "fenómenos mentales" es como creer en la magia (pero nuestra psicología no está compuesta de creencias-que son sólo sus extensiones-y la naturaleza es mágica). Sugiero que es fundamental ver por qué nunca consideran que los "patrones" (otro juego de lenguaje encantador!) en las computadoras son mágicos o ilusorios. Y, incluso si permitimos que el programa reduccionista es realmente coherente y no circular (por ejemplo, somos demasiado educados para señalar-al igual que W y Searle y muchos otros-que no tiene ninguna prueba para sus afirmaciones más críticas y requiere el funcionamiento NORMAL de voluntad , auto, realidad, conciencia, etc., para ser entendido), no podemos razonablemente decir "bien Doug y dan, una rosa por cualquier otro nombre huele como dulce!" No creo que los reduccionistas vean que incluso si fuera cierto que podríamos poner nuestra vida mental en algoritmos que se ejecutan en silicio (o--en el famoso ejemplo de Searle - en una pila de latas de cerveza), todavía tenemos el mismo "problema duro de la conciencia": ¿Cómo surgen los fenómenos mentales de la materia bruta? Casi siempre se pasa por alto que uno podría considerar la existencia de todo como un "problema duro". Esto añadiría otro misterio sin una forma obvia de reconocer una respuesta - ¿qué significa (¿por qué es posible) codificar "propiedades emergentes" como "algoritmos"? Si podemos tener sentido de la idea de que la mente o el universo es una computadora (es decir, puede decir claramente lo que cuenta para y en contra de la idea), ¿qué seguirá si es o no lo es? "Computacional" es una de las palabras de moda más importantes de la ciencia moderna, pero pocas se detienen a pensar lo que realmente significa. Es un clásico juego de lenguaje Wittgensteinian o una familia de conceptos (usos) que tienen poco o nada en común. Hay computadoras analógicas y digitales, algunas hechas de bloques o engranajes mecánicos solamente (Babbedad, etc.), calculamos a mano (como es bien sabido, los primeros comentarios de Turing sobre esto se refieren a los seres humanos que computan y sólo más tarde se piensa en las máquinas que simulan esto), y los físicos hablan de las hojas de la computación "su" trayectoria a medida que caen del árbol, etc. etc. Cada juego tiene su propio uso (significado) pero estamos hipnotizados por la palabra en ignorar estos. W ha analizado los juegos de palabras (módulos psicológicos) con una profundidad y claridad insuperables (ver ESP. la larga discusión de saber cómo continuar un cálculo en el libro marrón), comprensión de los cuales debe poner fin al asombro supersticioso que generalmente rodea esta palabra y todas las palabras, pensamientos, sentimientos, intuiciones, etc. Está chorreando con ironía de que D escribiera un libro en el EP de la religión, pero no puede ver su propio materialismo como una religión (ie., también se debe a sesgos conceptuales innatos). Timothy O'Connor ha escrito (Metaphilosofía V36, p436-448 (2005)) un magnífico artículo sobre el naturalismo fundamentalista de D (aunque en realidad no consigue todo el camino hasta el punto de vista del EP que tomo aquí), señalando que simplemente aceptar el surgimiento de la intencionalidad es la visión más razonable a tomar. Pero Pastores D y H leen de los libros de Churchland y las otras Biblias de la CTM (teoría computacional de la mente) y exhortan a uno y a todos a reconocer sus hornos de PC y tostador como seres sensibles (o al menos pronto lo serán). El pastor Kurzweil hace lo mismo, pero pocos asisten a sus sermones ya que ha llenado las bancos con el reconocimiento de voz de la PC y sistemas de habla y su coro de voces sintéticas idénticas gritan "Bendito sea Turing" después de cada oración. Vea mi reseña de su libro "¿Los hominoides o androides destruirán la tierra? - Una revisión de cómo crear una mente" por Ray Kurzweil (2012) en la siguiente sección. La aparición de "propiedades de orden superior" de "materia inerte" (más juegos de idiomas!) es de hecho desconcertante, pero se aplica a todo en el universo, y no sólo a la psicología. Nuestros cerebros no tenían ninguna razón (es decir, no hay fuerzas selectivas operativas) para evolucionar un nivel avanzado de entendimiento de sí mismos o del universo, y sería demasiado costoso para hacerlo. ¿Qué ventaja selectiva podría haber tenido al ver nuestros propios procesos de pensamiento? El cerebro, como el corazón, fue seleccionado para funcionar rápida y automáticamente y sólo una parte de sus operaciones está disponible para la conciencia y sujeto al control consciente. Muchos piensan que no hay posibilidad de un "entendimiento final" y W nos dice que esta idea es una tontería (y si no, entonces qué prueba nos dirá que lo hemos alcanzado)? Tal vez la última palabra pertenece a Wittgenstein. Aunque sus ideas cambiaron mucho, hay muchos indicios de que comprendió lo esencial de su filosofía madura en sus primeras reflexiones y el Tractatus puede ser considerado como la declaración más poderosa de metafísica reduccionista jamás escrita (aunque pocos se dan cuenta es la última declaración de computacionalismo). También es una tesis defendible que la estructura y los límites de nuestra psicología intencional estaban detrás de su positivismo y atomismo tempranos. Por lo tanto, vamos a terminar con la famosa primera y última frase de su Tractatus, visto como resumir su opinión de que los límites de nuestra psicología innata son los límites de nuestro entendimiento. "El mundo es todo lo que es el caso." "En cuanto a aquello de lo que no podemos hablar, debemos permanecer en silencio." | {
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A TALE OF TWO EPISTEMOLOGIES? Alan Hájek and Hanti Lin Abstract: So-called "traditional epistemology" and "Bayesian epistemology" share a word, but it may often seem that the enterprises hardly share a subject matter. They differ in their central concepts. They differ in their main concerns. They differ in their main theoretical moves. And they often differ in their methodology. However, in the last decade or so, there have been a number of attempts to build bridges between the two epistemologies. Indeed, many would say that there is just one branch of philosophy here-epistemology. There is a common subject matter after all. In this paper, we begin by playing the role of a "bad cop," emphasizing many apparent points of disconnection, and even conflict, between the approaches to epistemology. We then switch role, playing a "good cop" who insists that the approaches are engaged in common projects after all. We look at various ways in which the gaps between them have been bridged, and we consider the prospects for bridging them further. We conclude that this is an exciting time for epistemology, as the two traditions can learn, and have started learning, from each other. 1 Introduction So-called "traditional epistemology" and "Bayesian epistemology" share a word, but it may often seem that the enterprises hardly share a subject matter. They differ in their central concepts. Traditional epistemology puts "knowledge" and "belief" at center stage, while Bayesian epistemology deals especially with "credences." They differ in their main concerns. While traditional epistemology typically focuses on what we humans know and believe, or not, Bayesian epistemology's poster child is an ideally rational agent. Traditional epistemologists' preoccupations have included topics such as the sources and limits of knowledge, skepticism, Gettierology, internalism versus externalism, and so on; meanwhile, Bayesian epistemologists have busied themselves with constraints on rational credences, how Res Philosophica, Vol. 94, No. 2, April 2017, pp. 207–232 http://dx.doi.org/10.11612/resphil.1540 c© 2017 Alan Hájek and Hanti Lin • c© 2017 Res Philosophica 208 Alan Hájek and Hanti Lin credences should be revised, whether they may be imprecise, and their role in decision-making. The two epistemologies differ in their main theoretical moves. Traditional epistemologists offer various forms of foundationalism, reliabilism, contextualism, subject-sensitive invariantism, virtue epistemology, naturalized epistemology, and feminist epistemology, while Bayesian epistemologists offer symmetry constraints, connections between credences and objective chances, connections between credences and future credences, convergence theorems, and so on. And the two camps often differ in their methodology. Traditional epistemology is typically conducted less formally than Bayesian epistemology-less mathematics, fewer symbols, fewer proofs. However, in the last decade or so, there have been a number of attempts to build bridges between the two epistemologies. Indeed, many would say that there is just one branch of philosophy here-epistemology. There is a common subject matter after all. In this paper, we will begin by playing the role of a "bad cop," emphasizing many apparent points of disconnection, and even conflict, between the approaches to epistemology. If one focuses on them, one might think that traditional epistemology and Bayesian epistemology are as disparate as, say, metaphysics and ethics. We will then switch role, playing a "good cop" who insists that the approaches are engaged in common projects after all. We will look at various ways in which the gaps between them have been bridged, and we will consider the prospects for bridging them further. We will see that this is an exciting time for epistemology, as the two traditions can learn, and have started learning, from each other. 2 "Traditional" versus "Bayesian Epistemology" First, let us get some caveats out of the way. We are well aware that "traditional epistemology" and "Bayesian epistemology" are each broad churches. I. J. Good (1971) counted 46,656 varieties of Bayesianism in his census, and many further varieties have sprung up since he wrote. There are fewer varieties of traditional epistemology; yet under the same rubric we find, for example, virtue epistemology and epistemic logic, which are hardly the most natural bedfellows. That said, there are a number of generalizations we can safely make that capture various trends on one side or the other. We will often qualify them with hedge words like "typically" or "mostly," when doing so is not too tedious. But even when we don't, take them as read. Moreover, we will conduct our discussion at a rather high level of generality. This is not the place to detain ourselves with fine points of scholarship, or subtle distinctions between this or that philosopher's view. It should be easy enough to recognize our attributions to one side or the other. A Tale of Two Epistemologies? 209 Until fairly recently, a rather large number of philosophers, and even some philosophy departments, did not recognize Bayesian "epistemology" as worthy of the name. And even today, you will find quite a few departments whose "epistemology" courses make no mention of the Bayesian approach. We might say that they are playing bad cops. And to be fair, there's a lot to be said on their behalf. So let us turn to various ways in which the two epistemologies seem to have bifurcated. 3 Disparities in Central Concepts 3.1 Psychological Reality Versus Idealization and Mutual Suspicion "Belief" and "knowledge" are attitudes entirely familiar to folk psychology. Small children are completely comfortable with them. "Credence," on the other hand, is a semi-technical notion, coined by Bayesians. Moreover, they struggle to analyze or explicate it (see Eriksson and Hájek 2007). Relatedly, traditional epistemologists-and children for that matter-think that we literally have beliefs and knowledge. This is not merely a façon de parler, or a useful model, or an idealization. However, many Bayesians don't think that we literally have credences; rather, they are theoretical posits of an idealized model. To be sure, people have varying degrees of confidence in things. However, credences are supposed to be perfectly precise real numbers, whereas it seems our degrees of confidence are not. Some anti-Bayesians question the point of the idealization-if we want to play that game, why not idealize to an omniscient agent? Other antiBayesians maintain that we do not even understand the model. Meanwhile, some Bayesians claim not to understand talk of "belief." Traditional epistemologists cannot understand this lack of understanding-if small children get it, how can it be so hard? Score a point to the bad cop. So there is a divergence over claims about the psychological reality of the central concepts on each side. To be sure, some Bayesians relax their idealization, allowing imprecise credences. But this only highlights the discrepancy between the two epistemologies-for there is no comparable relaxation on the traditional side. Talk of "imprecise belief" or "imprecise knowledge" would make no sense.1 Another point to the bad cop. Proponents of each approach have accused the other side of trafficking in an inadequate or otiose notion. Regarding belief, Richard Jeffrey (1970) famously wrote, "I am inclined to think Ramsey sucked the marrow out of the ordinary notion [of belief]" (172), replacing it with the graded notion of subjective probability. Notice, though, Jeffrey's tell-tale use of the words "I am inclined to think." That sounds like an ungraded notion, synonymous with "to believe." He was also skeptical, as it were, of the notion of knowledge, saying that "[t]he obvious move is to deny that the notion of 1 Don't confuse this with talk of imprecision in the content of an instance of belief of knowledge, which of course is perfectly parallel to imprecision in the content of a credence. 210 Alan Hájek and Hanti Lin knowledge has the importance generally attributed to it" (Jeffrey 1992, 30). Yet he also was prepared to appeal to the notion.2 This is entirely understandable: even a concept emptied of its marrow, or one whose importance is overrated, can still serve us-perhaps when we talk loosely, or to make a point succinctly. But it does remind us that no matter how firm one's Bayesian commitments are, it is hard to renounce the traditional parlance altogether. Going in the other direction, a number of traditional epistemologists are skeptical about credences (see Harman 1986, Pollock 2006, and Holton 2014). Horgan (2017) goes so far as to say that "'Bayesian formal epistemology' is relevantly similar to past disciplines like alchemy and phlogiston theory: it is not about any real phenomena." (His target is what we are calling Bayesian epistemology.) Bayesians, however, might insist that if phlogiston theory had been half as successful as Bayesianism, we would still be teaching courses about it. 3.2 Representational Attitudes-Or Not Arguably, belief and knowledge represent the world as being a certain way;3 arguably, credences don't. When you believe that St. Louis is in Missouri, you regard something to be the case. You thereby represent the world as being the St.-Louis-is-in-Missouri way. You similarly do so when you know that it is. However, when you assign a credence of 0.7 to it raining in St. Louis tomorrow, you do not do so-you do not thereby represent the world as being the 0.7-way with respect to rain in St. Louis tomorrow.4 Expressivism seems tempting for credences in a way that it is not for beliefs. The representational nature of belief is reflected in an ambiguity in the word "belief." "Joe's belief that p" is ambiguous between two senses. It can denote (1) the content of one of Joe's beliefs or (2) the attitude that Joe has toward the proposition that p. For example: (1) Joe's belief that p is true. It is the content of that belief that is said to be true. 2 For example: "Of course you need not have an exact judgmental probability for life on Mars, or for intelligent life there. Still, we know that any probabilities anyone might think acceptable for those two hypotheses ought to satisfy certain rules" (Jeffrey 2004, 2; our emphasis). 3 However, the lottery and preface paradoxes put some pressure on this representational story about belief, since they involve inconsistent beliefs. 4 To be sure, you may believe that there is a 0.7 chance of rain, and hence assign a credence of 0.7 (via the Principal Principle-more on that shortly); then you represent the world as being the 0.7-way with respect to rain. But you do so in virtue of your belief. And you may arrive at the 0.7 credence without any such belief-for example, by assigning 0.7 credence to the hypothesis that the chance of rain is 1, and 0.3 to its being 0. Then, the 0.7 credence is not itself a representation of how the world is; indeed, by your lights, the world is definitely not the 0.7-way. A Tale of Two Epistemologies? 211 (2) Joe's belief that p is justified. It is a doxastic attitude of Joe's toward a certain proposition that is said to be justified.5 Curiously, in the phrase "justified true belief" that rolls so easily off the traditional epistemologist's tongue, there seems to be no single sense of belief (content versus attitude) that makes both of the adjectives appropriate.6 There is no such ambiguity in credence, nor could there be. "Degree of belief" refers unequivocally to an attitude, not the content of an attitude. When one has credence 0.7 in the proposition that p, one has a particular attitude toward p, and that's that. 3.3 Knowledge and Bayesianism Turning to knowledge: knowledge is often said to be "justified, true belief" that meets some fourth "anti-luck" condition, such as safety or sensitivity. Bayesians seem to be unconcerned with these notions, at least at first blush. • Justification: Bayesian epistemologists hardly speak of justification; rather, they are concerned primarily with rationality. To be sure, Bayesians do talk about confirmation, and Bayesian confirmation theory can be taken as a theory of degrees of evidential support, which sounds like a theory of degrees of justification, assuming something in line with evidentialism about justification.7 But if Bayesian confirmation theorists think so and want to contribute to the literature on justification, they need to defend some version of evidentialism about justification, and reject its rivals such as reliabilism about justification. Very few have done so. • Truth: At first, truth seems to play little or no role for Bayesian epistemologists, again concentrating on the orthogonal notion of rationality. To be sure, the notion of accuracy provides a connection: the accuracy of a credence is defined in terms of its distance from the truth. (See Joyce 1998; 2009.) But in a way this only brings out the disparity more: an intermediate credence can be more or less accurate, but it cannot be true (simpliciter), the way a belief can be true. This brings us to belief. • Belief : There are obstacles to understanding belief in purely Bayesian terms. For example, various objections have been leveled at the simple Lockean Thesis that belief is credence above a threshold: among them, the thought that rational beliefs are closed under conjunction, while credence above a threshold is not; the seeming arbitrariness of where the threshold should be set; and the discomforting discontinuity that allegedly occurs at that threshold. 5 Incidentally, the counterpart words in Mandarin for "belief" and "high confidence" behave the same way. 6 Thanks here to Michael Titelbaum. 7 Thanks here to Michael Titelbaum. 212 Alan Hájek and Hanti Lin (Setting the threshold at 0.9, for example: Is there really such a significant difference in kind between a credence of 0.899 and one of 0.901?) • Anti-luck condition: there has been far less interest in this on the Bayesian side of the tracks. Consider an important candidate for such a condition on your belief that p, safety: if you were to believe that p, it would not be false. Or consider sensitivity: if p were false, you would not believe it. Bayesians mostly seem not to be concerned with counterpart notions. To summarize, traditional epistemology and Bayesian epistemology seem to cleave along at least two lines: psychological realism as opposed to idealization, and with their central concepts, belief as opposed to credence, justification/knowledge as opposed to rationality. 4 Disparities in Central Concerns and Viewpoints The disparities in the central concepts of the two approaches to epistemology flow naturally to disparities in their central concerns. 4.1 The Sources of Knowledge Traditional epistemologists are much exercised by the sources of knowledge: perception, testimony, introspection, reasoning, memory, and what have you. Importantly, they are all sources of knowledge for us. Bayesians hardly mention them. Instead, they typically take for granted that an agent receives some "evidence," and conditionalizes on it, but they rarely interrogate its origins. It is a black box, which they typically symbolize "E"; it might denote the contents of perception, testimony, or what have you, or it might not. They care rather more about evidential relations-notably, confirmation and disconfirmation. Meanwhile, to the extent that Bayesians mention an agent's reasoning and memory at all, it is typically to assume that they are perfect.8 That's just part of the usual idealization. The sources of knowledge lead us swiftly to . . . 4.2 The Limits of Knowledge Williamson's magnum opus in epistemology is entitled Knowledge and Its Limits. Imagine a Bayesian writing a book entitled Credence and Its Limits. The "limits" part of the book would be comparatively short. That's true even of Rational Credence and Its Limits, which might be the more natural counterpart to Williamson's book. To be sure, it seems that a rational agent 8 But not always. Regarding memory loss, witness the large literature on the Sleeping Beauty problem, and some more general treatments, such as Titelbaum 2013. Regarding reasoning, Staffel (2013) takes seriously both our limitations and the fact that much of our reasoning involves degrees of belief rather than outright beliefs. A Tale of Two Epistemologies? 213 cannot assign credences to all propositions, for cardinality reasons (for example, those akin to Kaplan's paradox9). But even restricting ourselves to a privileged set of propositions-perhaps those that are eligible to be the contents of thought10-a rational agent need not assign credences to all of them. Said more technically, the algebra in the probability space that represents her credences need not include all of them. But that is not so much because there are limits to which propositions she may assign credences-credence gaps or "blindspots" that must remain as such. While an agent may not be able to assign credences to everything at once, they may be indefinitely extensible: for any given proposition, her credence assignments may be extended to include it.11 Or to the extent that there are such limits, they are rather more recherché than many of the putative limits of knowledge-perhaps non-measurable sets, and self-referential propositions such as "p and I assign low credence to p."12 In any case, notice that if such propositions are credence gaps, they are immediately knowledge gaps. The limits of credence become limits of knowledge, but knowledge supposedly has many further limits. Williamson's limits of knowledge stem from various related cognitive limitations-for example, one's mental states not being "luminous," one's knowing things only within certain limits of precision, and the associated failures of the "KK" principle. And traditional epistemologists mostly take seriously the limitations of human agents, or at least agents very much like us. Again, Bayesian epistemology typically has no truck with these limitations. 4.3 Skepticism This brings us to one of the most important-perhaps the most important concern-of traditional epistemology: skepticism. Various forms of skepticism are thought to be deeply unsettling. The spectre of skepticism about our knowledge of the external world still hangs over traditional epistemology-Descartes's evil demon, brains-in-vats, and all that. But Bayesians seem to be far less preoccupied by it. This is partly because, again, skepticism is supposed to be a problem for us, with the sources of knowledge that we take ourselves to have. Moreover, it is hard even to 9 See Lewis 1986a for a statement of and response to this paradox. 10 See Lewis 1986a. 11 We are grateful to Yoaav Isaacs for this point. 12 Note that the book that we are imagining is not entitled High Credence and Its Limits. Of course there are some propositions that cannot rationally be assigned high credence-for example, contradictions. There are also more subtle ones-perhaps self-referential propositions again, such as "p and I have no credence in p" (see Egan and Elga 2005; Caie 2013; Cresto 2015 for further candidates) and "this sentence is improbable" (see Campbell-Moore 2015). But the issue here, rather, is whether there are certain propositions to which one cannot rationally assign a credence at all, low or high. 214 Alan Hájek and Hanti Lin state skepticism about our knowledge of the external world in Bayesian terms, given its lack of engagement with knowledge. Bayesians have been more engaged with another skeptical problem-the problem of induction. But that just pushes the problem back to Bayesianism's perennial problem of the priors, which we think has not been solved. There seems to be no parallel to that on the traditional side of the tracks. Nor do we think that appeals to convergence theorems help. Hume challenged us to justify our belief now that the sun will rise tomorrow-not at the limit of an infinite enquiry, when the sun surely will not rise, having been extinguished long beforehand. Moreover, a popular constraint on priors-so-called regularity-does more to exacerbate skeptical problems than to solve them.13 A probability function is regular if it assigns probability 0 only to contradictions/impossibilities. So, far from ruling out evil demon and brain-in-vat hypotheses, regular credences dignify them with positive probability. Yet without any constraints on priors (beyond their obeying the probability calculus), Bayesianism is more friend than foe to skepticism, in stark contrast to the dominant attitude in traditional epistemology. After all, you can stay perfectly probabilistically coherent while assigning high credence to being the victim of an evil demon, or a brain in a vat. Subjective Bayesianism's extreme permissiveness is anathema to the traditional epistemologist's sensibilities. To be sure, objective Bayesianism is less permissive regarding priors, but it is hard to see how their favoured constraints-notably, the principle of indifference and its generalization to maximum entropy-could make any headway on Cartesian or brain-in-vat skepticism. In any event, we have not seen that case made. 4.4 Gettierology Gettier especially energized the industry of pointing out the failure of the "JTB" analysis of knowledge, and the quest to find the elusive "fourth condition." It has been quite an industry. As we write these words, his classic paper has been cited around 3,000 times according to Google Scholar, but that substantially understates its influence. One need only drop Gettier's name in a philosophical discussion, and we immediately understand the reference, with no need for citation. Bayesian epistemology has hardly had any interest in Gettier cases. (Sarah Moss [2013] is a notable exception-so there's one citation!) Still less has there been the huge industry of post-Gettier epicycles. This is related to our point earlier that the conditions for knowledge, especially the anti-luck condition, either are hard to formulate in Bayesian terms or have been given scant attention by Bayesians. 13 Thanks here to Yoaav Isaacs. A Tale of Two Epistemologies? 215 4.5 The Roles of Knowledge and Belief Knowledge and belief are supposed to play particular roles for which there seems to be no parallel on the Bayesian side. For example, according to Williamson (2000) and his followers, knowledge is the norm of assertion. However, those steeped in Bayesian epistemology rarely raise this issue. They might say-perhaps facetiously-that the norm of the speech act of assertion is the same norm that applies to any act: maximize expected utility! But usually they don't say anything at all here. Or Hawthorne and Stanley (2008) offer the norm of practical rationality: "Treat the proposition that p as a reason for acting only if you know that p." Bayesian epistemologists will reply-and not at all facetiously-that you should treat the proposition that p as a reason for acting only if doing so maximizes expected utility. Various philosophers have said related things about belief. For example, Williamson (2000): "one believes p outright when one is willing to use p as a premise in practical reasoning" (99). Fantl and McGrath (2010): if you believe that p, "then you are prepared to put p to work as a basis for what you do, believe, etc." (143). Ross and Schroeder (2014): "believing that p defeasibly disposes the believer to treat p as true in her reasoning" (267–268). But recapping a point above, Bayesian epistemologists have said relatively little about our reasoning. 4.6 Internalism versus Externalism Traditional epistemologists lock horns over whether justification is determined solely by factors said to be internal to an agent, immediately accessible to her in some suitable sense. Bayesian epistemologists rarely talk about this, perhaps because they are almost universally internalists about rationality (to the extent that they think in those terms at all). 4.7 "Knowing How" versus "Knowing That," "Knowing Wh_" Recently on the traditional side there has been a revival of a discussion, going back to Ryle, about "knowing how"-in particular, is it just a kind of "knowing that," or is it something else? Stanley and Williamson (2001) are proponents of the former view. There is nothing analogous on the Bayesian side-there is no such thing as "credence how." Nor is there anything analogous to "knowing who," "knowing what," "knowing when," and other "knowing wh_'s," the targets of Schaffer (2007).14 14 Curiously, some of the counterpart "believe wh_'s" are strained. "You know who the president is" sounds fine, but "you believe who the president is" does not. Likewise, "believe when," "believe what," and "believe whether" are discordant. And yet "certain when" and "certain what" are felicitous again. Even more curiously, "certain whether" seems infelicitous, yet "not certain whether" is fine: / You are certain whether it will rain tomorrow. , You are not certain whether it will rain tomorrow. 216 Alan Hájek and Hanti Lin So much for central concerns in traditional epistemology that lack counterparts, or comparable attention, or corresponding treatment in Bayesian epistemology. Going the other way, Bayesian epistemologists have various concerns that that find no parallels in traditional epistemology. 4.8 Synchronic Norms on Credences Bayesians regard probabilistic coherence to be the synchronic norm on credences, arguably the analogue of deductive consistency as a synchronic norm on beliefs. But we quickly find a divergence again. For example, does probabilistic coherence require merely finite additivity, or also countable additivity?15 4.9 Arguments for Probabilism Various arguments for probabilism have no traditional parallel-notably the Dutch book, calibration, and representation theorem arguments. One can't even state them without the degreed notion of credence. 4.10 Accuracy Accuracy arguments come closest to reflecting traditional epistemologists' interest in truth. But they have it easy: a belief is either true or not. How do we measure the accuracy of a credence, and then that of an entire credence function? By a proper scoring rule? By the Brier score? By some other measure? That's not so easy. 4.11 Diachronic Norms on Credences What are the diachronic norms on credences? We have conditionalization (or perhaps Jeffrey conditionalization) as the Bayesian staple. On the traditional side, the AGM model for belief revision is well known, although it has less of a hegemonic claim. (We suspect that comparatively few traditional epistemologists could even tell you exactly what the model is.) AGM theorists decompose the process of belief revision into two steps: (1) if newly acquired information is incompatible with the set of one's beliefs, retract some beliefs to ensure compatibility; (2) add to one's stock of beliefs the new information and their logical consequences. But Bayesians never talk about retracting or adding credences. And without getting formal, the traditional side has seen some distinctly anti-Bayesian revision policies, starting with Descartes's claim to radically 15 Traditional epistemologists may be interested in an infinitary issue: Should the propositions that one believes be ω-consistent? But this is no parallel to the Bayesians' interest in countable additivity as a putative norm on one's (probabilistic) attitudes to pairwise inconsistent propositions A Tale of Two Epistemologies? 217 suspend all his beliefs that are not clear and distinct. (See also Harman 1986.) 4.12 Imprecise Credences Are imprecise credences rationally permitted, and perhaps even rationally required? This is one of the "hottest" topics in Bayesian epistemology these days. However, we noted earlier that one cannot make sense of imprecision in the attitudes of knowledge and belief. (One can make sense of the absence of those attitudes for various propositions, but that is something else.) 4.13 Rational Decision-Making How do credences enter into rational decision-making? Is the correct decision theory evidential, causal, or something else? (Still another "hot" topic on the Bayesian side!) Here we come to one of the most important differences between the two traditions. Decision theory is intimately intertwined with Bayesian epistemology, in a way that is strikingly absent in traditional epistemology. To be sure, we have mentioned Hawthorne and Stanley's norm about reasons for acting; but we find on the traditional side nothing like the decision rule of "maximize expected utility," a prescription for what one should do in every decision situation. The differences run deeper still. At their heart, arguably, is the primacy, or otherwise, accorded to preferences, and derivatively from that, the actionguiding role of doxastic states. Traditional epistemology pays little heed to preferences; Bayesianism gives them a fundamental status and derives credences from them via representation theorems. And while the Bayesian's favored term of approbation, "rational," clearly applies to preferences, the traditionalist's favored terms do not; it is a category mistake to call preferences "true," and even calling them "justified" is a bit of a stretch. 5 Disparities in Theoretical Moves The disparities in central concerns of the two approaches to epistemology flow naturally to disparities in their theoretical moves. On the traditional side, we have various forms of foundationalism, reliabilism, contextualism, subject-sensitive invariantism, virtue epistemology, naturalized epistemology, feminist epistemology, and so on. Meanwhile, Bayesian epistemologists offer symmetry constraints (à la the Principle of Indifference), connections between credences and objective chances (à la the Principal Principle), connections between credences and future credences (à la the Reflection Principle), convergence theorems, and so on. To take just one of these, consider Bayesian epistemology's preoccupation with objective chance-the literature on the Principal Principle and 218 Alan Hájek and Hanti Lin its variants is huge (starting with Lewis 1980; see also Lewis 1986b). But from the traditionalist's vantage point, this may seem to be a rather odd fixation-why so much attention to this recherché kind of information? After all, we so rarely have it!16 6 Disparities in Methodology A salient difference in methodology between the two camps is the extent to which they employ formal methods. Traditional epistemology is typically conducted discursively, in English prose (or that of other natural languages). Bayesianism, by contrast, is the bastion of formal epistemology. Bayesianism often imports results from mathematics, statistics, and logic. Traditional epistemology rarely does, and when it does, it is usually solely logic. Bayesians also employ causal graphs and results about them; we are not aware of traditional epistemologists doing so. More generally, Bayesian epistemology is inspired by science and practised in science; the same cannot be said of traditional epistemology to nearly the same extent. Such is the case made by the "bad cop." What about the "good cop"? 7 Looking for Bridges Despite what has been presented above, there are bridges between the two epistemologies-existing bridges, bridges under construction, or bridges that need to be built. But where to find these bridges? A good way to proceed is to start with the common ground between the two sides. Both epistemologies are concerned with epistemic evaluations of doxastic states. So epistemologists in either party care about this issue: What would make doxastic states "good" in one sense or another? It is just that one party is concerned with a qualitative kind of doxastic state (belief), and the other with a quantitative kind (credence)-whether or not one of those two kinds is reducible to the other: Traditional Epistemology Bayesian Epistemology What would make beliefs "good" in one sense or another? What would make credences "good" in one sense or another? Then we may proceed to refine this pair of issues in many different ways-as many as the senses in which beliefs or credences can be good. For example: 16 To be sure, the Principal Principle is a constraint on conditional credences. We need not have the information that the chance of some proposition is a particular value; it is just the condition of a conditional credence. But then the traditionalist may find odd the fixation on this recherché kind of condition. When was the last time you formed a conditional belief whose condition was a claim about a chance? A Tale of Two Epistemologies? 219 Traditional Epistemology Bayesian Epistemology Q1. What would make one's belief in p justified? Q1′. What would make one's credence in p justified? Next, we may look at how one of these two issues is addressed on its own side, and examine how the counterpart issue is addressed, or fails to be addressed, on the other side. As mentioned before, Q1 is a central issue in traditional epistemology, while Q1′ has been largely ignored in Bayesian epistemology until very recently. But we can, and should, think about how the progress made on Q1 can be carried over to Q1′. The pair Q1 and Q1′ will be just the first pair to be examined. To anticipate, we will choose (among many) ten ways in which beliefs or credences can be good, and discuss the corresponding ten pairs of issues: Traditional Epistemology Bayesian Epistemology Q1. What would make one's belief in p justified? Q1′. What would make one's credence in p justified? Q2. Do beliefs aim at truth? Q2′. Do credences aim at accuracy? Q3. What would make a system of beliefs rational? Q3′. What would make a system of credences rational? Q4. What would make one's belief in p rational? Q4′. What would make one's credence in p rational? Q5. What would make one's belief in p knowledge? Q5′. What would make one's credence in p knowledge-like? Q6. Which ways of changing beliefs in response to new information/evidence are rational? Q6′. Which ways of changing credences in response to new information/evidence are rational? Q7. Can we give a cogent argument that our belief in the existence of the external world is knowledge, justified, or rational? Q7′. Can we give a cogent argument that our (high) credence in the existence of the external world is knowledge-like, justified, or rational? Q8. Can we give a cogent argument that our beliefs in some general, scientific hypotheses are knowledge, justified, or rational? Q8′. Can we give a cogent argument that our (high) credences in some general, scientific hypotheses are knowledge-like, justified, or rational? 220 Alan Hájek and Hanti Lin Q9. Do some external or pragmatic factors partly determine what counts as justified belief, rational belief, or knowledge? Q9′. Do some external or pragmatic factors partly determine what counts as justified credence, rational credence, or knowledgelike credence? Q10. What is the role of beliefs in rational decision-making? Q10′. What is the role of credences in rational decisionmaking? 7.1 Justification Question Q1-"what would make one's belief in p justified?"-has occupied a central place in traditional epistemology, and there has been a huge literature on it. The counterpart question Q1′-"what would make one's credence in p justified?"-is seldom discussed in Bayesian epistemology, recalling our point that Bayesians speak little about justification. That is a striking asymmetry. The good cop has some work to do. This asymmetry might appear puzzling at first glance, for Bayesians are typically very interested in rationality, and it seems that rationality and justification must be closely connected in one way or another; perhaps they are even synonymous. For example, it sounds very odd to say of someone's belief or credence in p that it is justified and irrational, whether or not this oddity is to be explained in terms of a simple necessary connection or something more complicated. This asymmetry admits of a possible-but unfortunately only partial- explanation. Perhaps Bayesians are not so interested in the justification of an individual credence because they are actually not very interested in the rationality of an individual credence. Instead, they are more interested in the rationality of a system of credences. They would say that, if someone has credence 60% in p and credence 30% in not-p, those two credences are jointly irrational (or incoherent). But is it the case that each of her credences in p and in not-p is irrational? If only one of the two is irrational, which? Bayesians have shown a conspicuous lack of interest in such questions. More on this when we discuss questions Q4 and Q4′. The above explanation is not entirely satisfactory because it is undeniable that Bayesians are at least interested in the rationality of a system of credences. So there is prima facie reason for them to be interested in the justification of a system of credences, given that justification and rationality must be closely related in one way or another. That said, recently we have Dunn (2015) and Tang (2016) developing theories of justified credences by examining the process-reliabilist theory of justified beliefs and exploring its Bayesian counterpart. So a bridge might be established by examining what has been done on one side and developing a counterpart on the other side. A Tale of Two Epistemologies? 221 7.2 Truth/Accuracy There is the issue of whether doxastic states aim at accurate representations of the world. This splits immediately into the following pair of issues: Traditional Epistemology Bayesian Epistemology Q2. Do beliefs aim at truth? Q2′. Do credences aim at accuracy? (Wait-how do we define degrees of accuracy for credences?) Both issues have received much attention on their respective sides. Admittedly, the two sides have been developed in asymmetric ways. Traditional epistemologists tend to care about how we should interpret or understand the putative "aim,"17 while Bayesians tend to care about how the two pillars of Bayesian epistemology-probabilism and conditionalization-could be established on the assumption that credences aim at accuracy (with an appropriate sense of aiming and accuracy).18 But traditional epistemologists' discussion about the proper interpretation of "aim" should be carried over to the Bayesian side, as has been happening recently.19 Furthermore, the attempt to establish epistemic norms from the assumption that doxastic states aim at accurate representations should not be confined to the Bayesian side; in fact, it has recently been carried over to the traditional side (Easwaran and Fitelson 2015). 7.3 Rationality of a System of Doxastic Attitudes Let us now consider questions concerning rationality. Traditional Epistemology Bayesian Epistemology Q3.What would make a system of beliefs rational? Q3′. What would make a system of credences rational? This turns out to be where we find the closest connection between the two epistemologies-the good cop's chief exhibit. The rationality of a system of credences is perhaps the central concern in Bayesian epistemology. Traditional epistemologists are also interested in the counterpart concern, although not taking it as so central. Their interest in the rationality of a system of beliefs is partly due to the Lottery Paradox and the Preface Paradox as potential challenges to the following thesis: 17 See, for example, Wedgwood 2002. 18 See, for example, Joyce 1998; 2009 and Pettigrew 2016. 19 See, for example, Caie 2013, Greaves 2013, Carr Forthcoming, Konek and Levinstein Forthcoming. 222 Alan Hájek and Hanti Lin Consistency Thesis of Rational Beliefs: A system of beliefs is rational only if it is consistent. The denial of this thesis is one of the solutions to these paradoxes; in fact, Kyburg (1961) devised the Lottery Paradox explicitly to defend the negation of the consistency thesis. But the paradoxes are challenges to developing a theory of rational (or coherent) systems of doxastic attitudes that include both beliefs and credences. They urge us to establish bridges between traditional epistemology and Bayesian epistemology. So, thanks to these paradoxes, the present pair of issues is where we can find the closest connection between the two epistemologies. That said, we do not lack philosophers who want to dismiss this connection by ridding us of one of the two sides. When discussing Levi's (1967) solution to the lottery paradox, Jeffrey (1970) suggests eliminating the belief side altogether, leaving only the credence side, and exempting us from any need to build a bridge. We will revisit this at the tenth pair of issues, below. 7.4 Rationality of an Individual Doxastic Attitude Rationality can be attributed not just to a system of doxastic attitudes, but also to a single attitude. Hence, we have the following pair of issues: Traditional Epistemology Bayesian Epistemology Q4. What would make one's belief in p rational? Q4′. What would make one's credence in p rational? Both sides are under-discussed in the literature, which seems surprising. Let us examine the Bayesian side first, and then turn to the traditional side. It is surprising that Bayesian epistemologists' interest in the rationality of a system of credences has not inspired a comparable interest in the rationality of an individual credence-indeed, one might think that the rationality of a system depends, at least partly, on the rationality of the individual credences that constitute it.20 It is remarkably hard to find a clearly formulated thesis in the Bayesian literature of the form: "one's credence in p is rational iff . . . " Now, you might think that Bayesians are interested at least in the rationality of one's credence in an individual proposition in certain special circumstances. For example, you might think that Bayesians are interested in whether it is rationally required to have credence x in p if one is certain that the chance of p is x.21 But Bayesians seem to be interested in a question about wide-scope irrationality: whether it is irrational simultaneously to have credence x in p and credence 1 20 And even if it's the other way round, as a coherentist would have it, still one would expect to see some discussion of the rationality of individual credences. 21 We thank Michael Titelbaum for bringing this possibility to our attention. A Tale of Two Epistemologies? 223 in the proposition that the chance of p is y. But when x and y are not identical, which of the two credences is irrational? Curiously, Bayesians have shown little interest in this. Moreover, Bayesians' concern with such chance-credence relations is driven by their concern with the Principal Principle, which at most is about the rationality of a very special kind of conditional credence: an agent's credence in p given that the chance of p is x (and perhaps given something more). This is not an unconditional credence in an individual proposition.22 Traditional epistemologists have been attentive to the epistemic virtues of an individual attitude, such as a belief that is justified or that counts as knowledge. But it is not clear why they seem not so attentive to the rationality of a belief. We have noted that it is odd to say of someone's belief in p that it is justified and irrational. If justification implies rationality, knowledge does, too (assuming that knowledge implies justification). So it is puzzling that rational beliefs do not receive the same attention as justified beliefs do from traditional epistemologists. Granted, an externalist about knowledge would deny its connection to rationality, if she is an internalist about rationality, holding that rationality is determined by factors internal to an agent. (Most Bayesians are at least tacitly internalists about the rationality of a system of credences, as we have indicated earlier.) But the thesis that knowledge implies rationality is debatable, and this only makes the rationality of an individual belief a more interesting topic. There is some literature in traditional epistemology on the connections from rationality to justification or to knowledge, but it is curiously small and recent.23 Given that neither side is well developed, it is little wonder that there is no bridge at the moment. Epistemologists on both sides: it's time to get to work! 7.5 Knowledge We have mentioned traditional epistemologists' interest in knowledge. Bayesians do not have this interest to nearly the same extent. This might be because it is hard to find a Bayesian counterpart of knowledge. But let us borrow Moss's (2013) term "knowledge-like": 22 What we have just said also applies to Bayesians' interest in peer disagreement and higherorder evidence, except that the propositions to be conditionalized on are not about chances, but about peers' credences or such evidence. 23 See, for example, Sutton 2005, Cohen and Comesaña Forthcoming, and Williamson Forthcoming. Lasonen-Aarnio (2010) proposes a case of unreasonable knowledge from the viewpoint of externalism about knowledge. In light of the above discussion, we want to ask whether a belief is unreasonable iff it is irrational. But, the more we think about this question, the more we think about the rationality of an individual belief. 224 Alan Hájek and Hanti Lin Traditional Epistemology Bayesian Epistemology Q5. What would make one's belief in p knowledge? Q5′. What would make one's credence in p knowledge-like? (Wait-what does it mean for a credence to be knowledge-like?) Moss (2013; Forthcoming) uses examples from natural language to explain what it means for a credence to be knowledge-like. A different approach to establishing a bridge here is to examine existing accounts of knowledge in traditional epistemology and to see if we can work out their Bayesian counterparts. Think about the two candidate necessary conditions for knowledge that we mentioned above: Safety: If you were to believe that p, it would not be false. Sensitivity: If p were false, you would not believe it. It is not hard to guess the Bayesian counterparts of these two conditions: Safety′: If you were to have high credence in p, it would not be false. Sensitivity′: If p were false, you would not have high credence in it. These are meant just to be first stabs, subject to refinements and variations.24 We might also be inspired by this observation: given the graded nature of those candidate necessary conditions, a credence might be more or less knowledge-like, or even knowledge-like to a certain quantitative degree. A research program might thereby emerge. This reiterates a point made earlier: a bridge might be established by examining what has been done on one side and developing a counterpart on the other side. (Are there research programs that proceed in the reverse direction, bringing ideas from Bayesian epistemology to traditional epistemology? Yes, as we will see at the question pair Q10 and Q10′.) 7.6 Revision of Doxastic States Now turn to the revision of doxastic states: Traditional Epistemology Bayesian Epistemology Q6. Which ways of changing beliefs in response to new information/evidence are rational? Q6′. Which ways of changing credences in response to new information/evidence are rational? Both sides are well discussed. The Bayesian side is centered around conditionalization, its add-ons, and/or its alternatives, while the traditional side is centered around the AGM theory of belief revision and its rivals (although belief revision theory was established mostly by, not traditional 24 Cf. Roush 2005 for how she develops a Bayesian counterpart of sensitivity. A Tale of Two Epistemologies? 225 epistemologists, but some formal epistemologists who are more sympathetic than Bayesians to the importance of the concept of beliefs in epistemology). It is not just that both sides are well discussed. Attempts have been made to unify the two sides. If we are interested in the Lottery Paradox and how one's total system of beliefs plus credences can be rational, we should be equally interested in how one can have a coherent system of credence revision procedures plus belief revision procedures. Some answers have been proposed (Arló-Costa and Pedersen 2012; Leitgeb 2013; Lin and Kelly 2012). The right answer is by no means trivial, because there is a dynamic version of the Lottery Paradox that arises with just three tickets (Lin and Kelly 2012), while the original paradox arises only with a large number of tickets. 7.7 Skepticism The Cartesian skeptic poses the following challenges to traditional and Bayesian epistemologists, respectively: Traditional Epistemology Bayesian Epistemology Q7. Can we give a cogent argument that our belief in the existence of the external world is knowledge, justified, or rational? Q7′. Can we give a cogent argument that our (high) credence in the existence of the external world is knowledge-like, justified, or rational? As the bad cop noted earlier, responding to the Cartesian skeptic is of utmost concern in traditional epistemology, but it seems to have been of little interest to Bayesian epistemology. But note that the situation is reversed when it comes to the challenges from the inductive skeptic: Traditional Epistemology Bayesian Epistemology Q8. Can we give a cogent argument that our beliefs in some general, scientific hypotheses are knowledge, justified, or rational? Q8′. Can we give a cogent argument that our (high) credences in some general, scientific hypotheses are knowledge-like, justified, or rational? A good part of Bayesian epistemology has been designed specifically in response to the inductive skeptic. One of the major versions of Bayesian epistemology-objective Bayesianism-was developed by Carnap (1945) as a first step toward a full-fledged response to inductive skepticism. Furthermore, the most significant application of Bayesian epistemology to actual scientific practice is Bayesian statistics, thanks to Savage (1954) and other statisticians, and it is meant to be a theory of how we can come to have rational high credences in some statistical hypotheses. In contrast, although 226 Alan Hájek and Hanti Lin inductive skepticism does interest some traditional epistemologists, it is less taught in a traditional epistemology class than in a philosophy of science class. Perhaps traditional epistemologists have in mind a division of labor. If this is justified, perhaps Bayesian epistemologists are equally justified in leaving the topic of Cartesian epistemology largely to traditional epistemology- with a promissory note to work out a Bayesian counterpart of the best response in traditional epistemology to the Cartesian skeptic. 7.8 Externalism and Pragmatic Encroachment What factors should be taken into account when we epistemically evaluate doxastic states? More specifically: Traditional Epistemology Bayesian Epistemology Q9. Do some external or pragmatic factors partly determine what counts as: justified belief, rational belief, or knowledge? Q9′. Do some external or pragmatic factors partly determine what counts as: justified credence, rational credence, or knowledge-like credence? The traditional side is well discussed, in the huge literature about externalism, and the rapidly growing literature about pragmatic encroachment.25 The Bayesian side is far less discussed, but some initial steps have been taken. We already have some pragmatic factors encroaching on Bayesian epistemology: Armendt (2008) discusses whether rational credences depend partly on what is at stake, and Clarke (2013) and Norby (2015) argue that rational credences depend partly on the coarse-grained partitioning of possibilities that reflects what interests the agent. For a recent development of externalism in Bayesian epistemology, we have mentioned Dunn's (2015) and Tang's (2016) works on the process-reliabilist theory of justified credences. In general, we will be able to formulate an externalist theory in Bayesian epistemology whenever we have an externalist theory in traditional epistemology and work out its Bayesian counterpart. 7.9 Rational Decision-Making Last but not the least, there is a meta-epistemological issue. Epistemology is concerned with, among other things, various epistemic evaluations of doxastic states (as exemplified by the above nine pairs of issues). But what is it to be in a doxastic state (rather than a bouletic, desire-like state)? What is it to have a belief in p? What is it to have credence x in p? These questions concern the natures of some subject matters of epistemology and, hence, belong to meta-epistemology, although they also belong to 25 See, for example, Weatherson 2005, Fantl and McGrath 2010, Ross and Schroeder 2014. A Tale of Two Epistemologies? 227 philosophy of mind. To clarify the nature of a mental state (if not to define it), we need to sort out its relations to other mental states-and we do not have to be functionalists to think so. This should not be surprising, for most philosophically interesting concepts, properties, attitudes, or states cannot be defined explicitly without circularity, but can be clarified only by stating their mutual relations. Many Bayesians would add that belief guides action and, hence, to clarify the nature of a doxastic state, we need to know at least the action-guiding roles that it could play, such as its normative relations to preferences about available courses of action, and to desires about possible outcomes in the future. That is, the nature of a doxastic state must be clarified at least in terms of the role that it could play in rational decision-making, or so many Bayesians think.26 And apart from its bearing on doxastic states, rational decision-making is an important topic in its own right. Hence we have the following issues: Traditional Epistemology Bayesian Epistemology Q10. What is the role of knowledge/beliefs in rational decisionmaking? Q10′. What is the role of credences in rational decisionmaking? Bayesians have done a great deal on their side. In fact, their answer to Q10′, Bayesian decision theory, has become so influential in the social sciences that it is the default theory that psychologists and economists seek to improve upon (Koehler and Harvey 2004). In light of this Bayesian success, some Bayesians (e.g., Jeffrey 1970) even challenge traditional epistemologists to work out plausible answers to Q10 and argue that, if they fail to do so, it is evidence that they do not know what they are talking about. Is there a bridge between these two issues? Most people working on Q10, the traditional side, are almost forced to establish a bridge. Indeed, Bayesian decision theory is so influential that most people working on Q10 find a need to build their answers upon Bayesian decision theory, the default answer to Q10′, in one way or another. For example, Harsanyi (1985), Weatherson (2005), Wedgwood (2012), and Ross and Schroeder (2014) all try to explain the nature of beliefs in terms of, among other things, their role in Bayesian decision-making. Although Lin (2013) gives an account of the role of beliefs in everyday, qualitative (and hence non-Bayesian) practical reasoning, he still emphasizes a virtue of qualitative practical reasoning from the Bayesian perspective. Such reasoning sometimes suffices for achieving the kind of ideal that Bayesian decision-making is meant to 26 Those Bayesians might add that this is so even if we imagine someone who has beliefs but no preferences, like Eriksson and Hájek's monk (2007): the monk's beliefs must still be understood in terms of how they could play a role in rational decision-making if he had preferences. 228 Alan Hájek and Hanti Lin achieve; it can sometimes serve as a manageable means for the Bayesian end. It is worth mentioning that, although traditional epistemologists are typically not so interested in rational decision-making, there is an exceptional tradition that can traced back to Pascal (1670 [1948]), with followers including Levi (1967) and Rinard (2015). They think that we need decision theory to address one of the most central questions in traditional epistemology: What propositions should one believe? It is also worth mentioning that, although decision theorists are typically not so interested in knowledge, Isaacs (2014) uses a knowledge-based probabilistic epistemology (i.e., one employing probabilities conditional on what an agent knows) to construct a decision theory suitable for deontological ethics. 8 Prospects for a More Unified Epistemology So we have seen something of a rapprochement. Some of the primary concerns of traditional epistemology show up, after all, on the Bayesian side-they just appear under somewhat different guises. That said, we think that there is still more rapproching to be done. We have presented two approaches to epistemology, seen through the eyes of our two cops. One portrayed a rather dark picture of a disunified field; the other, a much lighter picture of a somewhat unified field, with the potential for yet more unification. Perhaps the overall picture is neither black nor white, but gray? There are many shades of gray-at least fifty, apparently. We should all agree that the two epistemologies overlap to some degree. But to what degree (as a Bayesian might say)? Let's conclude by briefly reflecting on the extent to which the disparities between them are sociological contingencies, mere accidents of intellectual history. We have emphasized traditional epistemology's focus on what we humans know and believe, contrasting with Bayesian epistemology's focus on ideally rational agents' credences. One can imagine their respective philosophical trajectories having been reversed-the former concentrating instead on the knowledge and beliefs of ideally rational agents,27 the latter instead on human degrees of confidence. Then again, one might regard beliefs as computationally tractable doxastic states for cognitively limited agents such as ourselves, whereas credences require the mental capacity of more ideal agents (cf. Harman 1986). So perhaps it is not such an accident after all that our traditional and Bayesian forefathers took the paths that they did. That said, Bayesians' preoccupation with ideally rational agents does not mean that they do not share with traditionalists their ultimate concern with human beings. Some Bayesians, such as Titelbaum (2013), Staffel (2015), and De Bona and Staffel (Forthcoming), regard the standard 27 This is what belief revision theorists and epistemic logicians have done. A Tale of Two Epistemologies? 229 version of Bayesianism as a first approximation to a realistic normative theory, and they have been trying to make it more realistic. Or consider Bayesian epistemology's spotlight on rational preferences and decision-making, contrasting with traditional epistemology's comparative lack of attention to them. Perhaps without towering figures like Ramsey, de Finetti, and Savage (and even Pascal before them) giving priority to the action-guiding role of credences, Bayesian epistemology could have gone rather differently. After all, one could plausibly maintain that the primary role of credences is to codify uncertainty-a purely doxastic state. To be sure, that uncertainty may be manifested in rational action, but it is arguably more fundamental. And it is also manifested in mental activities that need not have anything to do with action-notably, confirmation, and inductive inference (cf. Christensen 2004). Bayesian epistemology guides and is guided by science, and much science is purely theoretical rather than practical. While Bayesianism has been a very fruitful approach in philosophy of science, it would be strange to characterize the work of Copernicus, Newton, or Einstein in terms of their preferences and decisions. Going in the other direction, traditional epistemology need not have waited until Williamson (2000), and other authors whom we have cited, for making contact with practical reasoning, nor Lin (2013) for a representation theorem for beliefs. It could have been far more engaged with rational decision-making from the outset. Philosophers of mind have seen the connection between belief and action for decades-indeed, various functionalists have long regarded it to be analytic. Again, it is historically contingent that Bayesians have hardly opened their "black box," E, of evidence. In fact, it is surprising, given how central a role evidence plays in their theorising. While they are typically highly permissive about priors, they are entirely rigid about their policy for updating on evidence-it's Bayes' rule or bust! Traditional epistemologists, by contrast, have long been investigating what's inside the black box: the deliverances of perception, testimony, introspection, reasoning, memory, and what have you. That work could easily have been done by Bayesians all along. Their lack of engagement with the internalism/externalism debate is surprising for a related reason. After all, their "black box" is compatible with both internalist and externalist conceptions of evidence.28 We see no good reason why Bayesians cannot probe the nature of evidence more, and they can draw on the vast literature of their traditionalist brethren. So the divergence in attention between the two epistemologies, to these and other topics associated with evidence, is of more sociological than philosophical interest. The rationality of an individual credence or belief seems to represent the most interesting situation among our questions. Neither side has worked 28 Thanks here to Yoaav Isaacs. 230 Alan Hájek and Hanti Lin much on this topic, and so there has been little learning from the other side yet. This seems to be another quirk of the way they happened to develop. We might wait for one side to generate a literature that the other side can learn from. But we propose a better development plan: let both sides sit together right away and discuss how they may have a joint project on the rationality of an individual doxastic attitude, be it a belief in a proposition, a credence in a proposition, or even a comparative attitude of taking one proposition to be more likely than another proposition. So it goes. To the extent that the two approaches' research priorities and thematic differences have been somewhat historically contingent, they need not be entrenched. And to be sure, especially in the last decade, we have seen an increasing two-way traffic of philosophers crossing the tracks between the approaches. May this be a sign of things to come. At the end of the day, despite some differences between so-called "traditional epistemology" and "Bayesian epistemology" that prompted our inner "bad cop," it seems that our "good cop" is on the right track. Perhaps the best way to describe the overall situation is that the one "epistemology" is complementary to the other; they are alternative approaches to a shared subject matter after all. It's little wonder, then, that they share the word. Alan Hájek E-mail : [email protected] Hanti Lin E-mail : [email protected] References: Arló-Costa, Horacio and Arthur Paul Pedersen. 2012. "Belief and Probability: A General Theory of Probability Cores." International Journal of Approximate Reasoning 53 (3): 293–315. Armendt, Brad. 2008. "Stake-Invariant Belief." Acta Analytica 23 (1): 29–43. Caie, Michael. 2013. "Rational Probabilistic Incoherence." The Philosophical Review 122 (4). http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00318108-2315288. Campbell-Moore, Catrin. 2015. 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"Dracula Meets Wolfman: Acceptance vs. Partial Belief." In Induction, Acceptance, and Rational Belief , edited by Marshall Swain, 157–185. Dordrecht: D. Reidel. Jeffrey, Richard. 1992. Probability and the Art of Judgment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jeffrey, Richard. 2004. Subjective Probability: The Real Thing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Joyce, James. 1998. "A Nonpragmatic Vindication of Probabilism." Philosophy of Science 65 (4): 575–603. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/392661. Joyce, James. 2009. "Accuracy and Coherence: Prospects for an Alethic Epistemology of Partial Belief." In Degrees of Belief , edited by Franz Huber and Christoph Schmidt-Petri, 263–297. Dordrecht: Springer. Koehler, Derek and Nigel Harvey. 2004. Blackwell Handbook of Judgment and Decision Making. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Konek, Jason and Ben Levinstein. Forthcoming. "The Foundations of Epistemic Decision Theory." Kyburg, Henry Ely. 1961. Probability and the Logic of Rational Belief. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Lasonen-Aarnio, Maria. 2010. "Unreasonable Knowledge." Philosophical Perspectives 24 (1): 1–21. Leitgeb, Hannes. 2013. "Reducing Belief Simpliciter to Degrees of Belief." Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 164 (12): 1338–1389. Levi, Isaac. 1967. Gambling with Truth. Reprint, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1973. New York: Knopf. Lewis, David. 1980. "A Subjectivist's Guide to Objective Chance." In Studies in Inductive Logic and Probability, Vol. 2. Reprinted in Lewis (1986b). University of California Press. Lewis, David. 1986a. On The Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Blackwell. Lewis, David. 1986b. Philosophical Papers Volume II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 232 Alan Hájek and Hanti Lin Lin, Hanti. 2013. "Foundations of Everyday Practical Reasoning." Journal of Philosophical Logic 42 (6): 831–862. Lin, Hanti and Kevin T. Kelly. 2012. "Propositional Reasoning that Tracks Probabilistic Reasoning." Journal of Philosophical Logic 41 (6): 957–981. Moss, Sarah. 2013. "Epistemology Formalized." Philosophical Review 122 (1): 1–43. Moss, Sarah. Forthcoming. Probabilistic Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Norby, Aaron. 2015. "Uncertainty Without All the Doubt." Mind and Language 30 (1): 70–94. Pascal, Blaise. 1670 [1948]. Pascal's Pensées. Translated by W. F. Trotter. London: J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd. Pettigrew, Richard. 2016. Accuracy and the Laws of Credence. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pollock, John L. 2006. Thinking about Acting: Logical Foundations for Rational Decision Making. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rinard, Susanna. 2015. "A Decision Theory for Imprecise Probabilities." Philosophers' Imprint 15 (7): 1–16. Ross, Jacob and Mark Schroeder. 2014. "Belief, Credence, and Pragmatic Encroachment." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 88 (2): 259–288. http://dx.doi.org/doi:10. 1111/j.1933-1592.2011.00552.x. Roush, Sherrilyn. 2005. Tracking Truth: Knowledge, Evidence, and Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Savage, Leonard J. 1954. The Foundations of Statistics. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Schaffer, Jonathan. 2007. "Knowing the Answer." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (2): 383–403. Staffel, Julia. 2013. "Can There Be Reasoning with Degrees of Belief?" Synthese 190 (16): 3535–3551. http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1007/s11229-012-0209-5. Staffel, Julia. 2015. "Measuring the Overall Incoherence of Credence Functions." Synthese 192 (5): 1467–1493. http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1007/s11229-014-0640-x. Stanley, Jason and Timothy Williamson. 2001. "Knowing How." Journal of Philosophy 98 (8): 411–444. Sutton, Jonathan. 2005. "Stick to What You Know." Noûs 39 (3): 359–396. Tang, Weng Hong. 2016. "Reliability Theories of Justified Credence." Mind 125 (497): 63–94. Titelbaum, Michael G. 2013. Quitting Certainties: A Bayesian Framework Modeling Degrees of Belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weatherson, Brian. 2005. "Can We Do without Pragmatic Encroachment?" Philosophical Perspectives 19 (1): 417–443. Wedgwood, Ralph. 2002. "The Aim of Belief." Philosophical Perspectives 16: 267–297. Wedgwood, Ralph. 2012. "Outright Belief." Dialectica 66 (3): 309–329. http://dx.doi.org/doi: 10.1111/j.1746-8361.2012.01305.x. Williamson, Timothy. 2000. Knowledge and Its Limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williamson, Timothy. Forthcoming. "Justifications, Excuses, and Sceptical Scenarios." In The New Evil Demon, edited by Julien Dutant and Fabian Dorsch. Oxford: Oxford University Press. | {
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Aft er the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, for most militaries in the West the core tasks shift ed from national defence to the handling of international crises, ranging from humanitarian missions to regular warfare. Th ese new operations oft en require a great deal of selfcontrol on the side of Western military personnel, as there is not only an asymmetry regarding the amount of military might of the respective parties, but also in the number of restraints imposed. Most of the civilian casualties in today's confl icts are caused by insurgent forces – around 77 per cent in 2011 in Afghanistan (United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan 2012: 1) – yet these seem to draw considerably less media attention, and to produce much less moral outrage, than those caused by Western soldiers. Although the blind eye turned to atrocities committed by the other side might seems unwarranted, one could also argue that it is partly natural since Western militaries profess to bring good – and sometimes even to be "a force for good". As an inevitable consequence of having to function under the watchful eye of politicians, the media and the general public, ethics education for military personnel today partly comes down to convincing military personnel of the importance of exercising restraint – that is, using minimal force, and behaving in a respectful way – even when their adversaries do not. As incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown, the required moderation does not always come naturally, and militaries try hard to fi nd ways to prevent misconduct by their personnel. To this end, the military traditionally stressed the importance of obedience to rules and codes of conduct, yet these solutions seem to be of limited use today for at least two reasons. First, rules and codes oft en lack the fl exibility needed in the complex operations undertaken today. Second, although we expect military personnel to also do the right thing when that abovementioned watchful eye is not present, rules that try to condition behaviour seem to be largely impotent when no one is around; something that eff ectively reduces good conduct to a matter of not being found out.1 It is for these reasons that a growing number of militaries consider character building superior to rules or codes of conduct imposed from above, and as a result there is at present 32 Virtue ethics in the military Peter Olsthoorn 366 APPLIED ETHICS in the ethics education for military personnel more attention given to virtue ethics and military virtues than there used to be (see, for instance, Bonadonna 1994, Osiel 1999, J. H. Toner 2000, Robinson 2007a, Olsthoorn 2010). Th e idea that virtues, and thus character, can to some extent be developed is, of course, very appealing to military organizations. OLD VIRTUES AND NEW TASKS At the same time, the military view on virtues and virtue ethics might be a bit too straightforward. To begin with, virtues and values are evidently not the same, yet they are sometimes treated by militaries as if they were: many of the good things most militaries list as a value (courage, for instance) are in fact virtues by most accounts. Th at is also the term used in this chapter, as it seems to be closest to what militaries actually mean to say, and is in line with both the emphasis they put on character development and their choice of virtue ethics as the basis for their ethics curricula. One likely reason for the fact that such confusion can arise is that the existing literature on virtues in a military context is not abundant, and that there has in general been little attention to the more problematic sides of the current emphasis on virtues and virtue ethics in the military. Th e literature that is available oft en deals with one specifi c virtue only, such as courage or loyalty, while broader approaches that go into the relations between the diff erent virtues are relatively rare (see J. H. Toner 2000 for an exception). Also, texts normally do not refer to much scholarly literature, and are more oft en apologetic than critical, as they mainly stress the importance of that particular virtue, without going into its intricacies. What is more, the abovementioned shift from traditional tasks to new, more complex missions raises the question of whether some virtues might not have become less relevant. Much depends on whether the actual virtues military personnel aim for are the right ones for a particular job, and one could expect that today the appropriate virtues are not necessarily solely the more bellicose ones. In the existing literature on military virtues, traditional virtues such as courage, discipline, loyalty and obedience will typically be in the foreground, however. Not surprisingly, it is also these virtues that fi gure prominently on the lists of virtues and values of most armed forces (Robinson 2007a). Although there is evidently still a role for such conventional soldierly virtues, the problem is that they, especially in their common interpretation, mainly further military eff ectiveness. Instrumental in attaining the objectives of the military, they are not particularly helpful to the local population of the countries to which military personnel are deployed. Seeing as military personnel today have to deal with more than just opposing forces, this is a cause for some concern. At fi rst sight working out a set of more cosmopolitan virtues and values, more in line with today's new kind of missions, would be a good way of tackling the exclusiveness of the traditional military virtues. Such a fresh set of virtues would most likely be more about exercising restraint (probably giving a place to not so new cardinal virtues such as justice, temperance and prudence) than about demonstrating virtues such as courage, loyalty and discipline. Yet one could also argue that a new set of virtues is probably not only unnecessary but also perhaps asking a bit too much from what is, on the whole, a relatively traditional organization. Instead of devising a new list of virtues from scratch, one could also identify the weaknesses of the existing virtues and see if the way militaries interpret these traditional virtues VIRTUE ETHICS IN THE MILITARY 367 can be improved. Although most militaries today cling to fairly traditional interpretations of their longestablished virtues, other readings are of course possible. So perhaps the question is not which new virtues the military should promote, but in what form the existing ones should best be understood. Especially at a time when armed forces are increasingly used for peacekeeping and humanitarian missions, it seems sensible to see whether the traditional military virtues can be reformulated in a way that makes them more attentive to the interests of outsiders. I will look at two examples of archetypical military virtues: courage and loyalty, and a less archetypical one: respect. COURAGE, LOYALTY AND RESPECT Not surprisingly, most literature on military courage pays tribute to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, famously describing courage as the middle position between rashness and cowardice, to be developed by "habituating ourselves to make light of alarming situations" (1104a), and serving a morally just cause. No doubt this link to a morally just cause was apt at a time when citizensoldiers themselves deliberated on which enemy to march against. However, it seems less than apt for modern militaries, if only because today's soldiers do not have a say in what the political or moral objective of their mission is. One can hardly blame the Aristotelian view on courage for this; it merely suggests that in military ethics Aristotle is sometimes called upon rather routinely. A limitation of more practical consequence is that Aristotle seems to have equated courage with physical courage on the battlefi eld (Nicomachean Ethics 1115a). Now, physical courage is of course important and for a soldier a defi ning virtue, and it is in fact the form of courage militaries like to see most. Yet, as such, physical courage is primarily something the organization, superiors and colleagues benefi t from. For today's soldiers this defi nition is therefore too narrow, as it excludes the just as important virtue of moral courage, which has a much wider reach. Moral courage involves "the capacity to overcome the fear of shame and humiliation in order to admit one's mistakes, to confess a wrong, to reject evil conformity, to denounce injustice, and to defy immoral or imprudent orders" (I. Miller 2000: 254). However pretentious it may sound, this form of courage is not so much about being a more eff ective soldier than about being a better person. Moral courage is not only important to the military because it needs people who blow the whistle if necessary, but also because it needs, and much more frequently so, soldiers who are willing to correct a colleague when they think him wrong, or even report him if necessary. Its benefi ciaries, today, are not so much their fellow soldiers, as is the case with physical courage, but the outsiders the military is there to protect. Th e diff erence between the two forms of courage is not completely straightforward, though: whereas the word "physical" in the term physical courage refers to what is at stake – life and limbs – the word "moral" in the term moral courage refers to the higher end that this form of courage aims at (and not to what is at stake in the case of moral courage: esteem, popularity and so forth). It is by defi nition motivated by a moral cause, at least in the eyes of the agent and those who label his act morally courageous. By defi nition, yet not as a logical necessity, one could imagine someone risking his or her status and reputation for an ignoble end, and the principal distinction between the two forms therefore lies in what is put in harm's way. Th at it is not one's life and limbs that are at stake, but "only" 368 APPLIED ETHICS one's reputation or popularity (see for instance Castro 2006: 69), probably explains why militaries rank moral courage somewhat lower than physical courage. Th e physically courageous soldier, however, is oft en not someone who has succeeded in performing a courageous act in spite of his fears, but, as military sociologists like to point out, someone fearful of what colleagues might think of him. In general, the motivation behind many acts of physical courage performed by military personnel therefore partly boils down to being more afraid of being considered a coward than of dying (see also Dollard 1944: 46; I. Miller 2000: 178). Th ere is a considerable literature stressing the importance of social cohesion, such as the concern for one's reputation among colleagues and the fear of ostracism, as a motivation for military courage. Although most of that research is dated and sometimes methodologically unsound (see also MacCoun et al. 2006, Segal & Kestnbaum 2002), armed forces have adapted their internal organizations on the assumption that the existence of strong bonds between soldiers is the most important factor in combat motivation (Keegan 1976: 53, 72–3). However, there is a drawback to this. Strong social cohesion, setting a premium on bonding over bridging, can lead to the kind of ingroup favouritism that is potentially dangerous to the people the military are supposed to protect. Incidents involving military personnel are, in other words, perhaps not the result of the military structure not working as it should, but the result of something built into the military apparatus when it works as it is supposed to work, with everything geared towards military eff ectiveness on the battlefi eld. What is more, if physical courage is motivated by strong group ties, it is not very likely to be accompanied with the virtue of moral courage just described. Th at militaries promote physical courage at the expense of moral courage is the more to be regretted, as the benefi ciaries of moral courage are, as I have noted, probably more oft en outsiders than colleagues.2 Testimony to the inverse relationship between social cohesion and moral courage is that the more socially cohesive a unit, the more prone to a lack of moral courage it seems to be (Olsthoorn 2010: 52). However, it is militaries in general, and not only their elite units, that tend to breed conformism, and they are for that reason, in general, no bastions of moral courage. Th e emphasis on social cohesion might very well be an important cause of the coverups that follow on incidents at times. Th is tendency to give priority to the interests of one's own group is the defi ning characteristic of a particular form of loyalty, the virtue we turn to next. Militaries oft en include loyalty in their lists of values, and clearly consider it a cardinal virtue. However, loyalty to what? Like courage, loyalty seems to come in two basic varieties: loyalty to a group (which can range from one's primary group to one's country) and loyalty to a principle (such as justice, or respect for human life). Th is is a relevant distinction, since the claims that are made upon a person by group loyalty frequently go against the demands of loyalty to principle. Most philosophers and ethicists have a preference for loyalty to principle, as group loyalty "requires us to suspend our own independent judgment about its object", and "aff ects one's views of who merits what" (Ewin 1992: 403, 406, 411). Some might argue that such unrefl ective loyalty is not loyalty at all, but that seems too easy a way out (see also ibid.: 404). In fact, one might even say that the opposite is more likely to hold true: someone who is cautious with his loyalties, weighing them carefully against other values, is not someone we would in general describe as having loyalty as a paramount attribute (Keller 2007a: 158; see also Ewin 1992: 411). So even if not all group loyalty is blind loyalty, it does presuppose a certain nearsightedness. VIRTUE ETHICS IN THE MILITARY 369 Although oft en treated under one heading, one could even wonder if loyalty to a person, group or nation on the one hand, and loyalty to a principle on the other, are really two manifestations of one phenomenon, or two diff erent things altogether. Suspension of independent judgement, or the "willingness not to follow good judgment" (Ewin 1992: 412), is, in general, not required by loyalty to principle, to name one important diff erence. One could argue that, from this point of view, it is only in so far as loyalty takes the form of loyalty to principle that it can be said to be a laudable trait, while loyalty in its more familiar meaning of loyalty to a group is, because of its inherent bias towards near and dear, in general not a moral quality. Standing behind one's fellow countrymen, colleagues or organization, even when it is clear that they are at fault, for example, seems a rather undesirable form of loyalty, and certainly not virtuous. "Our country, right or wrong" cannot be right from a moral point of view (Primoratz 2008: 208). Armed forces, as we have seen, are less hesitant than most ethicists about the benefi cial qualities of group loyalty; when militaries include loyalty as a value they mean loyalty to country, colleagues and the organization. Loyalty to principle, a type of loyalty that has a wider scope and includes more than just the interests of colleagues or an organization, is hardly ever mentioned in the various value statements of armed forces.3 As is the case with the stressing of physical courage at the cost of moral courage, there are drawbacks here too. Th e fact that most militaries put their own people fi rst, something understandable in itself, has as a consequence that they (and their political leaders) tend to reduce risks for their own personnel in ways that increase the chances of civilian casualties among the local population (Shaw 2005: 79–88). Also, this narrow interpretation of loyalty might be a cause of the coverups that at times follow on incidents involving military personnel, similar to what happens when social cohesion gets too much emphasis. Stressing group loyalty can diminish moral courage. Somewhat worryingly, this narrow interpretation is in line with how other virtues, including respect, are mainly seen as relating to colleagues. Military ethicist Timothy Challans relates, for instance, how: early draft s of the [US] Army's 1999 leadership manual included the notion of respect; in fact, the key feature of respect was that of respecting the enemy on the battlefi eld. Th at idea did not survive the staffi ng process, and even a cursory check of the manual today will reveal that only Americans are mentioned as being recipients of this important value of respect. (2007: 163) At present the US Army describes respect as, among other things, "trusting that all people have done their jobs and fulfi lled their duty", and, emphasizing that the Army is a team, seems to limit respect to colleagues.4 As one author stated, albeit somewhat polemically, "nonsoldiers lie outside the military honour group; as such they are felt to deserve no respect" (Robinson 2007b). Although it might be true that colleagues, not outsiders, are those who suff er most oft en from misconduct in the military, this exclusive attention to their wellbeing seems a bit too onesided. Th is is all the more so given that respect is evidently not a constantsum game, meaning that respect for outsiders does not diminish the amount of respect left to show colleagues. In view of the fact that respect does not always come naturally, it is all the more regrettable that some militaries limit their defi nition of the virtue of respect to 370 APPLIED ETHICS respect for colleagues, and more oft en than not fail to mention in their codes and value lists the need to respect outsiders as well. Th e need to point that out is fairly evident. For instance, only 47 per cent of the American soldiers and 38 per cent of the marines in Iraq were of the opinion that noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect (Mental Health Advisory Team 2006). Although respect costs nothing, it seems to be in short supply nonetheless, and this scarcity is, as Richard Sennett writes, manmade (2003: 3). Why exactly militaries are reluctant to include outsiders is therefore something of a puzzle, especially since respecting outsiders, besides being good in itself, would serve their – and, in the end, our – interests, too. It is likely that, as many have claimed, disrespectful behaviour fuels resentment towards Western military personnel and thus makes recruitment easier for insurgent groups. No doubt, the abovementioned emphasis on strong cohesion and group loyalty play an important role here. Th at marines are less likely than soldiers to believe that noncombatants in Iraq are worthy of respect (Mental Health Advisory Team 2006) is probably due to group ties among marines being stronger than among average military personnel. EDUCATING MILITARY VIRTUES More inclusive interpretations of the traditional military virtues will only work in so far as promoting virtues really contributes something to the chances of military personnel behaving morally in the fi rst place. Although most militaries just assume that virtues can be successfully taught to military personnel, there are at least two potential problems here. First, how can they best be taught? One supposedly develops virtues by practising them, yet is there really much room for practising virtues in, for instance, the academic curriculum for future offi cers? Even if it is true that "the modeling of conduct through the examples of others" and the "literary heritage of culture" can have a positive role in moral education based on virtue ethics (Carr & Steutel 1999: 253; for a diff erent view see Challans 2007: 29–72), one might wonder whether in practice ethics education based on virtue ethics does not oft en consist of teaching about virtues (and virtue ethics) rather than teaching virtues, which is something diff erent altogether. Second, a focus on virtues implies a focus on the agent and his character, and to some observers a virtue ethics approach might suggest that incidents involving military personnel are the result of moral fl aws at the individual level (see also Robinson 2007a: 31), reducing misconduct involving military personnel to a matter of "a few bad apples". Th is dispositional view is oft en too onesided, seeing that unethical behaviour is as oft en the result of what is sometimes called the "ethical climate" as it is shaped by the larger organization and, certainly in the case of the military, the political leadership. In his book on Abu Ghraib, Philip Zimbardo argues that the hopeless situation the reservists involved found themselves in (understaff ed in an overcrowded prison, with daily mortar and rocket attacks, and pressure from above to break prisoners who were said to be responsible for attacks on American troops outside) made disaster close to unavoidable (2007: 324–443; for a diff erent view see Mastroianni 2011). Some of the Abu Ghraib perpetrators had never shown any signs of being morally substandard prior to the scandal, suggesting that a situational view might be more in place (Zimbardo 2007: 6).5 Incidents such as in Abu Ghraib are not necessarily the result of lacking virtues at the individual VIRTUE ETHICS IN THE MILITARY 371 level, and in this specifi c case "the military and civilian chain of command had built a 'bad barrel' in which a bunch of good soldiers became transformed into 'bad apples'" (ibid.: x). If this "situational view" is correct, this essentially means that, even if militaries succeed in teaching their virtues of choice, the infl uence of a virtuous disposition is at times, and probably in particular when needed most, as limited as the infl uence of rules and codes of conduct imposed by the organization. Ethics education should therefore not only aim at promoting virtues, but also at giving insight into the factors that make unethical conduct more likely to take place. Th ese diffi culties bring us to the more general question of how eff ective ethics education for the military is, regardless of its theoretical underpinning. Military ethicist Martin Cook sees at the US Air Force Academy "a fundamentally incoherent and confused welter of programs justifi ed, if at all, by the belief that if ethics is important, throwing lots of resources at the subject from any number of angles and approaches must somehow be doing some good" (2008: 57). Th is seems to be the state of aff airs at many similar institutions too. Th ere is no extensive research on what works and what does not, and little evidence of best practices. Despite this uncertainty, it seems likely that ethics education, based on virtues or otherwise, does increase the moral awareness of military personnel who receive it, but this does not necessarily mean that it also contributes to better behaviour in a very straightforward manner. Possibly, the benefi cial eff ects are not so much to be found in a direct infl uence on conduct, as in an indirect infl uence: providing formal ethics education for all military personnel, or at least for all future offi cers, is likely to improve the ethical climate and, thus, in a roundabout way (and in line with the situational view of the social psychologists), in the long run also the behaviour of military personnel. Th is is mere conjecture, however, and given the amount of time and eff ort spent on ethics education for military personnel, the question of whether it works deserves more consideration. Although most of today's cadets and midshipmen are introduced into, for instance, diff erent moral systems, and some just war theory, it is not clear to what extent elaborate ethics education for military personnel has any tangible benefi cial eff ects. Nor is it always clear what these eff ects should be. Should ethics education in the military be "aspirational, aimed at improving the moral character of military personnel not just because this will lead to more reliable behaviour, but also as an end in itself " (Wolfendale 2008: 164)? Doing so would make soldiers "good people, not just wellbehaved people" (ibid.). Th at is the position most virtue ethicists would take, stressing, for instance, the possible negative eff ect on the soldier's character of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. However, for those at the receiving end, in recent years to be found in, for instance, Iraq and Afghanistan, it probably does not matter much how pure the motive is. For them, soldiers behaving correctly would suffi ce. Which brings us to the following. RULES AND OUTCOMES Undiluted adherence to virtue ethics, dutybased ethics or consequentialist ethics might be common in academic circles both in and outside the military. In real life, however, most people tend to see a role for both virtues and rules, and are also inclined to take the consequences of a course of action into consideration when judging it (see also Nagel 1986: 166). Despite the fact that academics tend to consider this "confused", they are probably quite 372 APPLIED ETHICS right in doing so. Th e traditional military virtues are of themselves already rather inward looking, but there is on a theoretical level also something inherent to virtue ethics that makes it less than comprehensive. Central to most versions of virtue ethics are the agent, his character, the maintaining of his morals, his ability to look at himself in the mirror, and even his "human fl ourishing", and this makes virtue ethics somewhat selfregarding. Virtue ethics is primarily agentcentred, even in situations where an outcomecentred approach might be more in place. However, I have already noted that it is in practice more because of expected good consequences than for building good characters as such that militaries promote their virtues in the fi rst place, and this means that a virtue ethicist would probably hesitate to call it virtue ethics that is practised here. In theory, there is even some resemblance between consequentialism and that which militaries expect from promoting their virtues, namely good outcomes. In practice, however, military virtues aim mainly at good outcomes for the military, whereas consequentialism is all about giving equal weight to the interests of all parties involved. Given this agentneutrality, it is not entirely fair that consequentialism is so oft en rejected out of hand in military ethics, mostly on the grounds that it would make military expedience override all other concerns (see for instance Snow 2009: 560). In reality, the consequentialist tenet that the consequences to all persons should weigh equally would, if taken seriously, have the favourable outcome of eff ectively distributing the right to life (and more generally the protection of individuals' interests) somewhat more evenly. As to rightsbased ethics: despite the popularity of virtue ethics in military ethics, there is still a place for more deontological views. Michael Walzer's works on war, required reading in many a military ethics course, are explicitly based on rights, not on virtues. What is more, the just war tradition Walzer stands in is as a whole primarily founded on an ethic that stresses the importance of universal, categorically binding moral rules (though, at the same time, there are unmistakably some consequentialist elements in both Walzer's thinking and the just war tradition). Not asking anyone to go beyond the call of duty, especially deontological ethics as conceived by Kant, which has quite a following in military ethics (see for example MartinelliFernandez 2006, Ficarrotta 2010), can demand quite a lot from military men and women. On this view, moral duties are to be followed not because they are imposed from the outside and backed by sanctions, but because one accepts them by choice (MartinelliFernandez 2006: 56–7). Most likely, the altruism and universalism this requires makes Kantian ethics in eff ect less suited for the military. However, one could argue in favour of a rather rudimentary form of rulebased ethics that, although the chances of being caught for a war crime might not be high, external rules can have a preventive eff ect when it is generally understood what is and is not allowed (see also Slim 2008: 282–3). Soldiers might have to pay a high price if they fail to adhere to these rules, something perhaps overlooked in the ethics education of military personnel that focuses on character development too exclusively. Th at universal rules lack fl exibility is in fact not a problem in every instance. In the case of torture, for example – at present under every circumstance forbidden by international law – it is probably a good thing, seeing that any fl exibility on this point can bring us onto a slippery slope astonishingly quickly. Likewise, the use of some types of weapons is forbidden, and for good reasons. We do not leave the decision on these matters to the individual soldier, however virtuous he or she might be. VIRTUE ETHICS IN THE MILITARY 373 CONCLUSION Articles and books on military ethics, and especially those written by authors with a background in the armed forces, tend to depict military personnel as possessing a higher calibre of virtue than the average man or woman. Not that these authors perceive soldiers to be morally fl awless, but there is a permanent worry within the military that in larger society virtues and values have rapidly faded away over the past few decades, mainly as a result of individualism and materialism. In the end, some fear, this is bound to have adverse eff ects on the moral fi bre of military personnel (see, for instance, J. H. Toner 2000: 44). At the same time, many of the authors employed outside of the armed forces who write on military ethics seem less convinced of the military's moral eminence. Th ere is, for instance, some concern that troops who are trained for combat in today's missions sometimes experience diffi culties in adjusting to the less aggressive ways of working needed to win the hearts and minds of local populations, and that such diffi culties are bound to impede their mission in the longer run. Th is fear has been fed by incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan (Abu Ghraib and Haditha spring to mind) which, even though involving only a very small percentage of military personnel, might have tarnished the reputation of the military for some time to come. Th e reason for the gap between the positive image of military personnel as a moral enclave in a morally footloose world, on the one hand, and the criticisms of the military by others, on the other hand, might partly be the result of the discrepancy between the more martial virtues that the military has adhered to up till now, and the soft er qualities prized by larger society. Some might argue, in view of this, that today's missions call for virtues that are more inclusive than the traditional virtues such as honour, courage and loyalty, which seem to be mainly about military success in regular warfare. Yet a convincing case can be made that much can already be won by interpreting these traditional virtues in somewhat more comprehensive ways. Traditional as they may be, virtues such as courage and loyalty come in varieties, and although it is clear that in today's militaries there is still a clear need for them, it is just as clear that not all varieties are equally suited to today's circumstances. Recent experiences suggest that the more conventional readings of the timeproven military virtues give too much priority to military eff ectiveness, contain little which regulates the conduct of military personnel towards those they are to protect, and might therefore no longer be adequate. It is therefore necessary to develop more uptodate interpretations of some of these traditional virtues. To revisit one example from the preceding discussion: although loyalty is a fundamental military virtue on most accounts, it is doubtful whether loyalty in the military really is always that benefi cial, since it usually takes the shape of group loyalty, and not that of loyalty to principle which is a type of loyalty that is morally more sound since it has a wider scope and includes more than just the interests of colleagues or an organization. However, whether it is new virtues, or new interpretations of the old ones that we need, they may bring the military somewhat closer to larger society. Such new interpretations might also bring the values of the military somewhat more in alignment with the humanitarian ideals underlying many of today's operations. Unfortunately, it seems that some military personnel tend to see operationsotherthanwar as lesser than "the real thing". Th e proliferation of the term warrior at the expense of the more humble word soldier 374 APPLIED ETHICS probably does not help much (see also Challans 2007, Robinson 2007b). Although it has been said that peacekeeping is not a soldier's job, but that only a soldier can do it, soldiers will defi nitely not do a better job if they see themselves as warriors before anything else. NOTES 1. To cite three examples: in 1993 Canadian airborne soldiers tortured and murdered a Somali teenager who had tried to access the Canadian camp – and kept silent about it. In that same year, a Belgian paratrooper urinated on a dead Somali civilian, and two of his colleagues held a Somali civilian over an open fi re. In both cases there were attempts to conceal the events. In the Haditha in 2005, US Marines shot twentyfour unarmed civilians aft er the death of one of their colleagues. Th e marines involved initially claimed that most victims were killed by the same roadside bomb that killed their colleague, while others were allegedly insurgents killed in the fi refi ght following the bomb attack on their convoy. 2. Th e need for cohesion has been used over the last decades as an argument for closing the military to ethnic minorities, women and homosexuals (Segal & Kestnbaum 2002: 445). Even if this makes sense from a warwinning perspective, it might be detrimental from a winning the hearts and minds objective. Research by Miller and Moskos suggests that nonhomogeneous units, that is, units including women and ethnic diversity, sometimes do a better job at this than homogeneous groups do (1995: 634). 3. Loyalty in the US Army (to be found in its Seven Core Army Values), for example, means: "Bear true faith and allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, the Army, your unit and other Soldiers. Bearing true faith and allegiance is a matter of believing in and devoting yourself to something or someone. A loyal Soldier is one who supports the leadership and stands up for fellow Soldiers." See www.goarmy.com/life/living_ the_army_values.jsp (accessed July 2013). 4. By contrast, in the Values and Standards of the British Army we read that "like loyalty, respect for others goes both up and down the chain of command and sideways among peers". However, "respect for others also extends to the treatment of all human beings", and the document stresses the need to treat all people decently, "including civilians, detainees and captured enemy forces". See www.army.mod.uk/documents/ general/v_s_of_the_british_army.pdf (accessed July 2013). 5. Richard A. Gabriel has remarked that possessing a virtue and behaving ethically are not the same thing: virtues are about character, ethics is about conduct. Th e possession of a virtue is a disposition to behave well, and although Aristotle maintained that there exists no virtue that is only potential, according to Gabriel, this disposition in itself is not suffi cient to guarantee that someone will always behave ethically when most needed (1982: 8–9, 150, 152). | {
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Asia Pacific Mathematics Newsletter July 2012 Volume 2 Number 3 www.asiapacific-mathnews.com A random real plane curve of degree 50 Tony F Chan Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Hong Kong [email protected] Louis Chen Institute for Mathematical Sciences National University of Singapore Singapore [email protected] Chi Tat Chong Department of Mathematics National University of Singapore Singapore [email protected] Kenji Fukaya Department of Mathematics Kyoto University [email protected] Peter Hall Department of Mathematics and Statistics The University of Melbourne, Australia [email protected] Gerard Jennhwa Chang Department of Mathematics National Taiwan University Taiwan [email protected] Michio Jimbo Rikkyo University Japan [email protected] Dohan Kim Department of Mathematics Seoul National University South Korea [email protected] Peng Yee Lee Mathematics and Mathematics Education National Institute of Education Nanyang Technological University Singapore [email protected] Ta-Tsien Li School of Mathematical Sciences Fudan University China [email protected] Ryo Chou 1-34-8 Taito Taitou Mathematical Society Japan [email protected] Fuzhou Gong Institute of Appl. Math. Academy of Math and Systems Science, CAS Zhongguan Village East Road No.55 Beijing 100190, China [email protected] Le Tuan Hoa VIASM (Vien NCCCT) 7th Floor Ta Quang Buu Library in the Campus of Hanoi University of Science and Technology 1 Dai Co Viet, Hanoi, Vietnam [email protected] Derek Holton University of Otago, New Zealand, & University of Melbourne, Australia 605/228 The Avenue Parkville, VIC 3052 Australia [email protected] Chang-Ock Lee Department of Mathematical Sciences KAIST, Daejeon 305-701, South Korea [email protected] Yu Kiang Leong Department of Mathematics National University of Singapore 10 Lower Kent Ridge Rd Singapore 119076 [email protected] Zhiming Ma Academy of Math and Systems Science Institute of Applied Mathematics, CAS China [email protected] Charles Semple Department of Mathematics and Statistics University of Canterbury New Zealand [email protected] Yeneng Sun Department of Economics National University of Singapore Singapore [email protected] Tang Tao Department of Mathematics The Hong Kong Baptist University Hong Kong [email protected] Spenta Wadia Department of Theoretical Physics Tata Institute of Fundamental Research India [email protected] Advisory Board Editorial Board Ramdorai Sujatha School of Mathematics Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Homi Bhabha Road, Colaba Mumbai 400005, India [email protected] Shun-Jen Cheng Institute of Mathematics Academia Sinica 6F, Astronomy-Mathematics Building No. 1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Road Taipei 10617, Taiwan [email protected] Chengbo Zhu Department of Mathematics National University of Singapore 10 Lower Kent Ridge Rd Singapore 119076 [email protected] July 2012 Asia Pacific Mathematics Newsletter • Asia Pacific Mathematics Newsletter is listed in MathSciNet. • For submission of feature articles, news, conference reports and announcements, etc. please send to [email protected]. • For advertisement please contact [email protected]. The views expressed in this Newsletter belong to the authors, and do not necessarily represent those of the publisher or the Advisory Board and Editorial Board. Published by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. 5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224 http://www.asiapacific-mathnews.com/ Volume 2 Number 3 Electronic – ISSN 2010-3492 Editor-in-Chief Phua Kok Khoo Editor S C Lim Production Tan Rok Ting Kwong Lai Fun Zhang Ji He Yue Artist C C Ng Editorial Mathematical Approaches for Analysis of Biochemical Reaction Networks................. 1 Stochastic Games and Dynamic Programming ........................................................................................... 6 Interactions of Statistics and Probability with Algebra and Analysis .................................11 Randomness in Number Theory ...............................................................................................................................15 Beyond Turing: Hypercomputation and Quantum Morphogenesis ..................................20 Interview with Sun-Yung Alice Chang ................................................................................................................25 Interview with Peter Sarnak ...........................................................................................................................................30 Problem Corner ...........................................................................................................................................................................34 Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences 2012 ...................................................................................................36 Book Reviews .................................................................................................................................................................................37 News in Asia Pacific Region .......................................................................................................................................... 40 Conferences in Asia Pacific Region........................................................................................................................54 Mathematical Societies in Asia Pacific Region ...........................................................................................61 Editorial Asia Pacific Mathematics Newsletter welcomes contributions on the following items: • Expository articles on mathematical topics of general interest • Articles on mathematics education • Introducing centres of excellence in mathematical sciences • News of mathematical societies in the Asia Pacific region • Introducing well-known mathematicians from the Asia Pacific region • Book reviews • Conference reports and announcements held in Asia Pacific countries • Letters from readers on relevant topics and issues • Other items of interest to the mathematics community In this issue we feature interviews with two prominent Princeton mathematicians, Professor Sun-Yung Alice Chang and Professor Peter Sarnak. Articles featured in this current issue include "Mathematical Approaches for Analysis of Biochemical Reaction Networks" which first appeared in the Newsletter of Korean Mathematical Society. It is translated by the author Chang Hyeong Lee. Other papers include "Stochastic Games and Dynamic Programming" by Henk Tijms (The Netherlands); "Interactions of Statistics and Probability with Algebra and Analysis" by Odile Pons (France) and Peter Sarnak's "Randomness in Number Theory" which is based on slides from one of the Mahler Lectures 2011 given by the author in Australia. The final paper is by Ignazio Licata which is entitled "Beyond Turing: Hypercomputation and Quantum Morphogenesis". This contribution is a response by the author to our special Turing issue (APMN, Volume 2, Number 1, 2012). Unfortunately, this issue does not have any article featuring mathematical institutes or centres in the Asia Pacific region. It is hoped that there will be at least one such article in the next issue. It is always the wish of APMN to establish closer links and cooperation with more mathematical societies and organisations, especially with those from the Asia Pacific region. Exchange of publications such as bulletins and newsletters will improve the coverage of APMN and enable us to provide a better forum of communication among mathematicians in the region. We look forward to your suggestions and articles for the APMN. Swee Cheng Lim Editor 1. "Purely Mechanical" One of the most innovative areas in contemporary research is the study of the deep conceptual connection between physics, information and the "counting" of information, i.e. a search for a computation model for physical systems. Any physical system can be considered as an information processor in dialogue with the external environment. The initial values are transformed into the final ones by the system's internal dynamics. The Church–Turing Thesis (CTT), in its strong form, states that any processing of syntactic information can be described by means of a suitable Turing Machine (TM). The analogy between a quantum of action and a bit seems very natural (minimum action necessary to cause an observable change in a physical system), and so the CTT, as it is maintained - quite imprecisely - is considered a "statement on the physical world". Here we ask the question: Is this statement really valid? Is the CT thesis so naturally and obviously applicable to physics? In recent years the critical debate on the limit of application of recursive functions in physics has grown and, in this direction, the two most important research areas are hypercomputation and quantum information theory. Some classical works have strengthened the idea that the behaviour of a mechanical discrete system evolving according to local laws is recursive. Such works have shown the relations between the classical computation theory and the physical deterministic systems. In particular, it can be noted a strong analogy between a TM's asymptotic unpredictable behaviours and deterministic chaos; in both cases the local rules do not imply a long-term predictable behaviour, indeed [28, 10, 27, 15]. Different strategies have been proposed to apply such computational scheme to the continuous language of differential equations [22]. The general reasons taken into consideration to justify the use of TM in physics can be summarised as follows: Beyond Turing: Hypercomputation and Quantum Morphogenesis Ignazio Licata (a) A fundamental discretisation of the physical world (for example Beckenstein limit: a system cannot handle more information than that it contains); (b) Relativity: the whole tape is not available in its whole at each computational instant, and, finally: (c) The infinity of the tape lets us suppose that there are no limitations to the possible implementations of the Kleene Theorem (for example: asynchronous and parallel computation, cellular automata and so on). We note, in particular, that the first point refers to a generic discrete structure of the world, but contains no specific information on the proper dynamics of quantum processes, and point (b) is connected to a locality principle. Finally, point (c) stresses the universality of the Turing scheme, with respect to other kinds of computation formally equivalent to the first one, but with a different attitude towards the space-time patterns [40]. In general, the question, if any physical model is Turing computable, collides with a large number of counter examples. These are rather sophisticated questions related to exotic limit-cases of classical, relativistic and gravitational physics (see, for example, [16]), but strong enough to suggest to us that perhaps it would be useful to substitute CT Thesis with a computational paradigm for each specific class of physical problems with the suitable modifications to the (a), (b) and (c) conditions: for example the Friedkin–Toffoli billiard-machine class for mechanical processes, or the class of space time topologies for relativistic computers, or the class of differential equations showing "pathological" boundary conditions with respect to computability. So the TM remains a notion which was born within a classical and mechanistic conception of the physical world and the Hilbertian axiomatic. As Alan Turing himself writes: "TMs can do anything that could be described as a 'rule of thumb' or 'purely mechanical', so that 'calculable by means of a TM' is the correct July 2012, Volume 2 No 320 Asia Pacific Mathematics Newsletter accurate rendering of such phrases" [35]. 2. A "Paradoxical" Quantum Computing Quantum computation is not just a technological promise, but the most challenging test for the conceptual problems in quantum mechanics. Nowadays, the Shimony's Experimental Metaphysics is a well-defined activity that is much more complex than any old contraposition between naïve realism and slippery randomness. We could say that Schrödinger's cat has been tamed and is leading us along the most charming paths of the physical world. It is well-known that (even if all de-coherence problems were solved), quantum computing performances are not qualitatively different from the classical computer ones, except for a few cases when the superposition state makes possible to transform an exponential time of computation in a polynomial time. NP-complete problems appear thus inaccessible even by T-quantum computing. It has been suggested to consider the impossibility to use the known physics' laws to build a computer able to solve NP-complete problems as a new principle - just like thermodynamic ones [1]. A Quantum Turing Machine can be formally defined as an extension of the classical paradigm to qbits (for example, [29]). The results are highly controversial: within such scheme quantum computation does not seem more powerful, but only more effective. And more: in some cases it is possible to demonstrate that the performances of the Turing scheme-based quantum computing can be obtained also by classical systems in polynomial time [2, 7]. All that sounds paradoxical. In fact, the local and classical world emerges from the non-local quantum one. This one permeates any aspect of the physical world. Turing Machine is a computation model strongly connected to classical, local and deterministic physics. So the proper question is: Is the Turing model really the best scheme for quantum information? The idea of qbit expands easily the traditional concepts of algorithm and universality, but on the other hand the great informational resources of quantum correlations are penalised. In particular, with "quantum gates", the constraints of reversibility and unitarity limit the possibility to detect quantum information only to the outputs of superposition states; and so nothing prevents us from thinking of a different approach to quantum systems, based on peculiar experimental arrangements which can provide qualitatively different answers and oracular skills, so turning into a resource all non-locality features, even those which are traditionally regarded as a limit within the classical scheme, such as de-coherence, dissipation and probabilistic responses. In other words, Quantum Turing Machines constrain the quantum system to yes/no answers, whereas the real computational vocation of QM would be to use superposition and non-locality to obtain probabilistic oracles and beyond Turing barrier performances. The recent works on adiabatic quantum computation and quantum neural networks [25, 30] thus suggest that a model for the "Schrödinger Machines" has to be searched in a different direction as well as the classical paradigm appears as a "Turing Cage" for the computational potentialities of quantum physics. Processing information is what all physical systems do. Such intuition first expressed by Rolf Landauer [3] with exemplary clarity has recently risen from the ranks giving birth to extremely interesting and promising developments. The latest computational models have increasingly undermined the privileged position of Turing-Computation model and the role of Church–Turing thesis, as well. The various kinds of unconventional computing focus on either features different from Turing-Machine, such as the greater attention for the spatial and temporal features of computing, or schemes of information processing related to refined forms of non-linearity, fuzziness and infinite or non-computable many values [34]. On the front of biological and cognitive processes, Church–Turing Thesis appears as inadequate, too. Such systems actually show features very far from those required by Turing computability: they are evolutionary, adapting and self-organising, so processes do not "halt", they show intrinsic emergence, are dynamically goal-oriented, modify their codes in relation to the context (semantic appropriation of information), process superposed patterns of continuous information and manage noise. ([21, 8]. For a review on hypercomputation see [33]). 3. There is Plenty of Information at the Quantum Bottom The quantum case is different in many ways. Bohm's interpretation of quantum phenomena has the merit to include non-locality ab initio rather than to come upon it as an a posteriori statistical "mysterious weirdness". The Quantum Potential (QP) contains in July 2012, Volume 2 No 3 21 Asia Pacific Mathematics Newsletter nuce the essential features of QM, individualises an infinite set of phase paths for a quantum object and is responsible for entanglement. In particular, the QP has a contextual nature, i.e. it brings a global information - "active information" - on the quantum process and its environment. The active information is defined as a contextual constraint on the phase paths by the quantum potential. It is noted that such interpretation is absolutely general and can be naturally applied to the Feynman path integrals [12, 9, 13]. Here an "active information" field makes its appearance; it has no equivalence in classical physics and indicates the non-local features of quantum domain (superposition and ERP-Bell Correlation). The essential trait of quantum physics is non-locality, which could naturally perform a hypercomputation's feature: exploring "many worlds" in finite (very short) time by means of superposition and entanglement. The active information described is deeply different from the classical one: it is, in fact, intrinsically not-Shannon computable; if it were so, it would mean to violate the Bell Theorem on the impossibility of a QM with local hidden variables. The QC hyper-computational potentialities thus derive from the "unbounded" active information role in acting as "oracular source", in particular experimental configurations. It is possible to think the process as an "entanglement" between the quantum histories of a system, so overcoming the discretisation and locality limits typical of TM. In short, they are what in semi-classical language are called like-space correlations [17, 18]. The problem is how to use such resources. Here the decisive move is to put aside point (c), i.e. the universality of Turing computation and taking into consideration a specific problem-oriented computation and based on its physical implementation. We proposed the idea of "geometry of effective physical process" as the essentially physical notion of computation [17]. In other words, computation is strongly linked to the very physical nature of the system and its global configuration, and the "algorithm" is the evolution of the system itself in controlled experimental conditions. The notion of geometry also has a significance directly connected to the task: computation - considered as an observer-oriented activity - depends on the adopted experimental configuration, and the hypercomputational potentialities. It is far from being limit situations only occurring in exotic physical environments, depending upon the transformations of the system's geometry. Consequently, the term "programming" takes on a completely new meaning just in relation to the particular geometry the experimental apparatus defines. In the same way as Gödel theorems are considered "limiting" within the Hilbert axiomatic programme. According to Gregory Chaitin vision, they reveal the open logic of mathematics if regarded from a more general viewpoint, the super-Turing possibilities of oracles emerge from a vision which links physics, geometry and information. By now classical example is the use of the Adiabatic Quantum Computation (AQC) [Farhi et al., 2000; 5, 6, 25, 39, 32], where the problem is solved by following the evolution of a Hamiltonian from a ground state to another according to the constraints suggested by the problem under consideration, so as to give an answer by systematically exploring the Hilbert space. Tien Kieu's work on Hilbert's tenth problem has also suggested interesting thematic hints in constructivist and applied mathematics related to the concept of "proof " and probabilistic answer to a problem. As a matter of fact, the value of the Tien Kieu procedure is "universal" for all Diophantine equations. But it is evident that universality it is here connected to the type of adopted physics, and it is meant differently than under classical computation, because it indicates a dynamical quantum system. During the process, either during elaboration or the final reading, the procedure's quantistic nature is never "forced", hence obtaining the outcomes as probability distributions [26, 24, 23]. Recently the author and his collaborators have investigated a new line of attack to the quantum information problem by using a geometrical approach called Quantum Morphogenetic Computing with reference to the last "analogic" Turing [20, 19]. Starting from a geometric approach to Bohm's quantum potential by Fisher information, we describe the action of a quantum potential by the non-Euclidean deformation in the space of the probabilistic parameters. We use a quantum entropy built as a superposition vector of the Boltzmann entropies. It is rather intuitive to understand that ideally if we "switch off " all the quantum effects, entropy would be to the classical one. In the condition of minimum Fisher information, the quantum potential emerges as an information channel associated to the deformation of the geometry of the physical space in the presence of quantum effects. In this way it is possible to re-read in a geometric way many traditional quantum phenomena, from the double-slit experiment to the Aharonov–Bohm effect. With the morphogenetic approach we do a double homage to Einstein's Legacy as for his idea that geometry is at the heart of physics' descriptions [38], July 2012, Volume 2 No 322 Asia Pacific Mathematics Newsletter and to the Turing of the baby machines and morphogenetic processes. Finally, we remind, in this respect, that the etymological meaning of the word "information" is, actually, "giving something a new form". 4. Conclusions and Perspectives The possibility to build a different approach for information is not surprising. The two ways - quantum gates on qbits and author Hamiltonians with constraints - are not in contrast, but complementary. Qbits are more useful when we are interested in individuating a specific state (in Hiley's words: Shannon information will appear only when we consider a source that could be prepared in one of a number of orthogonal wave functions, each of which could be transferred separately [14]), and shows a natural vocation for the problems - for instance - typical of nanotechnologies. On the other hand, a geometrical way to handle quantum information is more fruitful when we mean to study the global evolution of a system without forcing its nonlocal nature in any way. The latter way clearly requires new formal tools based on dissipative quantum field theories [31]. Such aspects could be important not only from a technological point of view - for nonlocal communication, cryptography, and exponentially-fast computation - but they could reveal to us something significant on the universe quantum origin and maybe on quantum physics structure itself. It has been hypothesised that the current arrangement of Quantum Theory (Born Rules) is the fossil of a quantum state far from equilibrium with a strong nonlocal correlation and which has played a fundamental role in primeval universe ([36, 37]; see also [11]). Investigating the possibility to reproduce those conditions in laboratory could be the key to extraordinary and completely new resources, and a new pact between physical systems and computation. References: [1] S. Aaronson, NP-complete problems and physical reality, ACT SIGACT News 36 (1) (2005) 30–52. [2] D. Aharonov, Z. Landau and J. Makowsky, The quantum FFT can be classically simulated (2007) http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0611156. [3] A. Bérut, A. Arakelyan, A. Petrosyan, S. Ciliberto, E. Dillenschneider and E. Lutz, Experimental verification of Landauer's principle linking information and thermodynamics, Nature 483 (2012) 187–189. [4] D. Bohm and B. J. Hiley, The Undivided Universe (Routledge, London, 2005). [5] C. S. Calude, M. J. Dinneen and K. Svozil, Reflections on quantum computing, Complexity 6 (1) (2000) 35–37. [6] C. S. Calude and B. Pavlov, Coins, Quantum measurement and Turing's barrier, Quantum Information Processing 1 (2002) 107–127. [7] C. Calude, De-quantizing the solution of Deutsch's problem, Int. J. Quantum Information 5 (4) (2007) 1–7. [8] P. Cariani, Adaptivity and emergence in organisms and devices, World Futures: Journal of General Evolution 32 (1992) 111–132. [9] R. Carroll, Quantum potential as information. A mathematical survey, in New Trends in Quantum information, eds I. Licata et al. (Aracne, Rome, 2012), pp. 155–189. [10] A. Church, Application of recursive arithmetic to the problem of circuit synthesis, Talks Cornell Summ. Inst. Symb. Logic, Cornell (1957) 3–50. [11] L. Chiatti and I. Licata, The Archaic universe; big bang, cosmological term and the quantum origin of time in projective cosmology, Int. J. Theor. Phys. 48 (2009) 1003–1018, http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.1339 [12] D. Durr and S. Teufel, Bohmian Mechanics: The Physics and Mathematics of Quantum Theory (Springer, 2009). [13] D. Fiscaletti, Bohmian quantum potential and Feynman's path integrals: considerations about the foundations, in Vision of Oneness. A journey in Matter, eds. I. Licata and A. Sakaji (Aracne, Rome, 2012), pp. 99–120. [14] B. Hiley, Active information and teleportation, epistemological and experimental perspectives on quantum physics, eds. D. Greenberger et al. (Springer, 1999). [15] R. Gandy, Church's thesis and principles for mechanisms, in The Kleene Symposium, eds. J. Barwise et al. (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1980), pp. 123–148. [16] R. Geroch and J. B. Hartle, Computability and physical theories, Found. Phys. 16 (6) (1986) 533–550. [17] I. Licata, Effective physical processes and active information in quantum computing, Quantum Biosystems 1 (2007) 51–65, http://arxiv.org/pdf/0705.1173. [18] I. Licata, Emergence and computation at the edge of classical and quantum systems, in Physics of Emergence and Organization, eds. I. Licata and A. Sakaji (World Scientific, 2008) http://arxiv.org/ abs/0711.2973 [19] I. Licata and D. Fiscaletti, Weyl geometries, Fisher information and quantum entropy in quantum mechanics, submitted to Int. J. Theor. Phys. [20] I. Licata and G. Resconi, Information as environment changings. Classical and quantum morphic computation, in Methods, Models, Simulation and Approaches Toward A General Theory of Change, eds. G. Minati, et al. (World Scientific, 2012), pp. 47–81. [21] B. MacLennan, Field computation in natural and artificial intelligence, Information Sciences 119 (1999) 73–89. July 2012, Volume 2 No 3 23 Asia Pacific Mathematics Newsletter [22] R. J. Ord-Smith and J. Stephenson, Computer Simulation of Continuous Systems (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1975). [23] T. Ord and T. D. Kieu, Using biased coins as oracles, Int. J. Unconventional Computing 5 (2009) 253–265. [24] T. D. Kieu, Computing the non-computable, Contemporary Physics 44 (1) (2004) 51–71. [25] T. D. Kieu, A reformulation of Hilbert's tenth problem through quantum mechanics, Proc. Roy. Soc. A 460 (2004) 1535–1545. [26] T. D. Kieu, An anatomy of a quantum adiabatic algorithm that transcends the Turing computability, Int. J. Quantum Information 3 (1) (2005) 177–182. [27] A. Kolmogorov and V. A Uspenskii, On a definition of an algorithm, Usp. Mat. Nauk, 13 (4) (1958) 3–28 [English Translation: A.M.S. Transl. 29 (1963) 217–245]. [28] G. Kreisel, Mathematical logic, in Lectures on Modern Mathematics, ed. T. L. Saaty (Wiley, 1965). [29] S. Perdrix and P. Jorrand, Classically-controlled quantum computation, Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science 135 (33) (2006) 119–128. [30] M. Perus, H. Bishof and C. K. Loo, Quantumimplemented selective reconstruction of highresolution images (2004) http://arxiv.org/abs/ quant-ph/0401016. [31] M. Rasetti and C. Marletto, Quantum information manipulation: Topology, formal languages, groups, in New Trends in Quantum Information, eds. I. Licata et al.), (Aracne, Rome, 2010), pp. 53–80. [32] A. Sicard, J. Ospina and M. Vélez, Quantum hypercomputation based on the dynamical algebra SU(1,1), J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 39 (40) 12539–12558. [33] A. Syropoulos, Hypercomputation. Computing Beyond the Church–Turing Barrier (Springer, 2008). [34] C. Teuscher, I. Nemenman and F. J Alexander, Novel computing paradigms: Quo vadis?, Physica D 237 (2008) v–viii. [35] A. Turing, Intelligent machinery, in Collected Works of A. M. Turing, Vol. I, Mechanical Intelligence, ed. D. C. Ince (North-Holland, 1948). [36] A. Valentini, Subquantum information and computation, Pramana J. Physics 59 (2) (2002) 269–277. [37] A. Valentini, Beyond the quantum, Physics World (2009) 32–37, http://arxiv1.library.cornell.edu/ abs/1001.2758. [38] C. N. Yang, Einstein impact on theoretical physics, Physics Today (1980) 42–49. [39] A. M. Zagoskin, S. Savel'ev and F. Nori, Modeling an adiabatic quantum computer via an exact map to a gas of particles, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007) 120503. [40] S. Wolfram, A New Kind of Science (Wolfram Media, 2002). Ignazio Licata ISEM, Institute for Scientific Methodology, Palermo, Italy [email protected] Ignazio Licata is a full professor and scientific director at ISEM (Institute for Scientific Methodology) for interdisciplinary studies in Palermo. He is also a member of CiE (Computability in Europe). His research areas include foundation of quantum mechanics, group approach in quantum cosmology, dissipative quantum field theories, quantum information, physics of emergence and organisation. July 2012, Volume 2 No 324 Asia Pacific Mathematics Newsletter | {
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Local Priorities, Universal Priorities, and Enabling Harm: Comment on Ignatieff Christian Barry (Australian National University) "National communities," Michael Ignatieff writes in his thoughtful essay on the prospects for a global ethic, "have some good reasons, as well as some not so good ones, to privilege local ahead of universal priorities and interests." And he goes on to explain the clash of local and universal priorities as rooted in a conflict between the values of "justice and democracy." I would rather suggest that the conflict is an internal one-a conflict inherent in our thinking about what justice requires. But in any case, he is surely right that providing a compelling account of how to distinguish good from bad reasons for privileging local priorities, and identifying how weighty the good reasons for local priorities are, is fundamental to developing a plausible global ethic. When a national community privileges local over universal priorities, it gives more weight to the interests of its members than they would have in an impartial ordering. Only a radical nationalist affirms the absolute privileging of local priorities, and only the most radical cosmopolitan denies that local priorities can ever be privileged. At present, there is little agreement about just how local and universal priorities should be balanced as a matter of policy, even though (as I will discus below) there seems to be substantial agreement on some very clear--‐cut cases. Before turning to questions of substance, however, it is important to note that there is just as much heated philosophical disagreement over the best method for determining the appropriate balance between local and universal priorities. Some philosophers, as Ignatieff notes, require that privileging the local be justified from an impartial point of view-the view from nowhere in particular. It may seem puzzling that any meaningful local priority could be justified in this way. If we really recognize that we are but one among many, and that our well--‐being and that of those close to us is of no greater intrinsic importance than the well--‐being of others, how can we hope to justify the moral weight we ascribe to the interests of our co--‐nationals, especially to our near and dear, who may be already pretty well off? With this starting point, it may seem obvious that one will arrive at the radical conclusions reached by such theorists as Peter Singer and Peter Unger, who maintain that we act seriously immorally if we fail to give away most of our financially valuable assets to reduce the severe deprivations of others.i However, this impression may be misleading. Perhaps allowing certain forms of local priority-to family, close friends, and so on-is required if people are to live lives that they can recognize as having any value, given certain facts about human nature that cannot be easily changed, if they can be changed at all.ii And perhaps privileging the local is the best administrative device we currently have for protecting the interests of people throughout the world.iii To take an example from trade policy, having a global order in which each government makes trade policies that enhance the well--‐being of its citizens without taking into account its effects on noncitizens may be better at promoting universal interests than any feasible alternatives. Some have gone so far as to claim that (under current conditions, at least) functioning liberal democracies with welfare systems can only be sustained by national communities- collectives that are constituted first and foremost by their members' beliefs that they "belong" together and that they must give priority to one another's interests over the interests of outsiders.iv There is, however, a great deal of resistance to the claim that prioritizing the local is permissible only if it can be justified impartially. And this resistance comes not only from the "political drivers of state action" that Ignatieff mentions, but from rival camps within philosophy. For many, the problem with any approach to global ethics that demands such justification is not that it fails to motivate or gain traction in the world of politics, but that it fails to take other values sufficiently into account. Bernard Williams, for example, famously mocked the idea that we needed to invoke impartial justification in order to permit us to save our spouse from harm in an instance when we are forced to choose between saving our spouse or saving a stranger.v For Williams, the reasons we give priority to those who are near to us in such cases are not derived from impartial concerns; and even to try to justify them in these terms would be a distortion of practical reasoning. Philosophers such as Susan Wolf have argued that it is a serious mistake to view the reasons that we have for pursuing particular goals, including those that involve giving priority to certain favored individuals, as excuses for not living lives that are maximally morally good from an impartial perspective.vi Some critics of impartial justification also stress that we prioritize the local for positive noninstrumental reasons, and stress the centrality of these reasons to moral thinking, emphasizing the situated nature of practical reasoning. As Samuel Scheffler puts it, "the willingness to make sacrifices for one's family, one's community, one's friends is seen as one of the marks of a good or virtuous person, and the demands of morality, as ordinarily interpreted, have less to do with abstractions like the overall good than with the specific web of roles and relationships that serve to situate a person in social space."vii These critics acknowledge that our well--‐being and that of those close to us is of no greater intrinsic importance than the well--‐being of others, but they nevertheless claim that we unobjectionably view the world from within a web of our own interests, identifications, and commitments, which are given special weight in our practical deliberations. Whatever side one takes in this methodological dispute, it seems important to come to grips with the content of common moral thinking about the nature, scope, and limits of local priority. In referring to common moral thinking, I do not mean to suggest that these are universally held ideas-no ideas are, except empty generalizations. Rather, they are ideas that are shared by a great many people, including a great many readers of this journal, and which are implicit in international practice in some measure. Ignatieff is right when he says that we already have a global ethics. But this ethics is embedded not only in such instruments as the UN Charter and the various human rights conventions, but in international practice and the beliefs of a great many people. Starting (though not necessarily ending) with such ideas seems crucial if we are to achieve "buy--‐in," as he puts it, to any alternative modes of thinking about the appropriate balance of local and universal priorities. The first thing to notice about common moral thinking regarding local priority is that it is complex, and that it resists reduction to any easy formula. There is no fixed exchange rate between the interests of locals and nonlocals. Indeed, when faced with a particular political choice, the degree to which local priorities are privileged seems to depend very much on the context. If, for instance, the issue concerns the mere expenditure of resources, a great deal of permissible local priority is assumed in common moral thinking. A slight but costly improvement of a stretch of road, resulting in a small reduction in the likelihood of serious automobile accidents, is routinely carried out by relatively wealthy nations, even though the funds employed for this purpose could save many hundreds of lives were they instead spent on improving basic sanitation or access to clean water in some poorer nation. The relatively wealthy nation is ordinarily thought to be morally permitted to act in this manner, and arguably even required to do so. In other contexts, however, local priority seems much more sharply limited. For example, it is not commonly thought to be permissible for a national community to dump toxic waste in the water supply of the territory of some other state, even if doing so is necessary to prevent much larger health problems from afflicting its own members. What explains the dramatic difference in the weight granted to local priorities in these two cases? How were the actions of the wealthy nation that spent its resources on road repairs relevant to the suffering of the people in the poorer nation in the first place? The question itself appears odd, since it may seem inappropriate to say that it was relevant in any way whatsoever. A sensible answer, however, would be that the actions of the wealthy nation were relevant because they could have but failed to use those same funds to address or prevent suffering in the poorer nation. Of course, this answer does not refer to any one thing in particular that the wealthy nation did-improving a road is just one of countless examples-but to what this nation did not do, which was not providing those resources to the poorer one. In the case of toxic waste, on the other hand, the relevance of the actions of one nation to the suffering of people in a neighboring state is more straightforward and relates to a particular thing that it did. That is, it initiated a complete causal process by dumping the waste that linked it with the resultant harms. The toxic waste case is a clear--‐cut instance of doing harm, while the road repair case is a clear--‐cut case of failing to prevent harm. So one way of characterizing common moral thinking about local priority is to follow Thomas Pogge, who has argued that moral reasons for local priority can be weighty when what is at stake is failing to prevent harm, but not nearly so weighty when what is at stake is doing harm.viii This characterization seems correct as far as it goes, but it is nevertheless incomplete. It is incomplete because there are many instances in which one national community is connected to harms suffered by nonnationals without it being the case that they have done harm in a clear--‐cut manner, nor that they have merely failed to prevent it. That is, in many cases, nations become relevant to the harms suffered by non--‐nationals because of things that they do, but without it being the case that they have initiated a continuous causal process that results in these harms, as in the example of dumping toxic waste into a neighboring state's water supply. Elsewhere I have argued that these are cases that are most aptly described as instances of enabling harm.ix The international scene is replete with such cases. For example, the drug enforcement policy of one nation may, through its incentive effects, enable substantial human rights violations in neighboring states. Or the implementation of an import tariff or export subsidies by one nation may reduce the export prospects of other states. Or a skills--‐based migration policy may lead to the flight of much--‐ needed health professionals from other states. Significantly, it is with respect to these kinds of issues where thinking about the balance between local and universal priorities seems most shaky. Some think of the manipulation of trade regulations for national benefit as the legitimate prerogative of national communities, while others view such policies as egregious wrongs. For instance, as the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has written: "By inflating farm subsidies even more, Congress [is] impoverishing and occasionally killing Africans whom we claim to be trying to help."x He is implicitly treating enabling harm through trade policy as morally equivalent to a clear--‐cut case of doing harm. And this also seems to be Pogge's view as well. Some philosophers who have written on this topic, on the other hand, consider enabling harm to be morally equivalent with clear--‐cut cases of failing to prevent harm.xi My own view, which I think coincides with the intuitions of many, is that the permissibility of prioritizing local interests seems somewhat more limited with respect to enabling harm than with respect to failing to prevent harm, but broader than with respect to doing harm. But I cannot argue for this position here. In any case, a plausible global ethic will need to develop norms for balancing priorities in these ubiquitous and under--‐theorized cases. And the norms that we develop will likely have significant implications for practice. If we conclude that it is not permissible for states to enable significant harms for others in order to avoid relatively minor costs to themselves, then this provides a strong prima facie case for international regulation of the policy areas where they are most likely to enable harm. If, on the other hand, we conclude that it is permissible for states to enable significant harms for others to avoid relatively minor costs to themselves, then this provides an equally strong prima facie case for leaving the policy area to purely domestic regulation. Indeed, this debate may itself help constitute the idea of a globalethic: one in which, as Ignatieff puts it, "the particular is called to the bar of justification before the universal.... creating the possibility of a process of recurrent adversarial justification." i See Peter Singer, The Life You Can Save (Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2009), p. 19; and Peter Unger, Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 134. ii See Peter Singer, One World, 2nd ed. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003). iii See Robert Goodin, "What Is So Special about Our Fellow Countrymen?" Ethics 98 (1988), pp. 663–86. iv See David Miller, On Nationality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). v See Bernard Williams, "Persons, Character, and Morality," reprinted in his Moral Luck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). vi See Susan Wolf, "Moral Saints," Journal of Philosophy 79 (1982), pp. 419–39. vii Samuel Scheffler, Boundaries and Allegiances (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 36. viii See Thomas Pogge, "Bounds of Nationalism," reprinted as chapter 5 in Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002). ix Christian Barry & Gerhard Øverland, "The Feasible Alternatives Thesis: Kicking Away the Livelihoods of the Global Poor," Philosophy, Politics and Economics (May 10, 2011); doi: 10.1177/1470594X10387273. x Nicholas D. Kristof, "Farm Subsidies That Kill," New York Times, July 5, 2002. xi See Samuel C. Rickless, "The Moral Status of Enabling Harm," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 92 (2011), pp. 66–86; and Matthew Hanser, "Killing, Letting Die and Preventing People from Being Saved," Utilitas 11 (1998), pp. 277–95. | {
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[Accepted version, prior to copy-editing, forthcoming in Economics and Philosophy. Please find the final, revised version at https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/economics-and-philosophy.] Which Values Should Be Built Into Economic Measures? S. Andrew Schroeder Department of Philosophy Claremont McKenna College 850 Columbia Ave Claremont, CA 91711 USA Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.cmc.edu/pages/faculty/ASchroeder/ Abstract. Many economic measures are structured to reflect ethical values. I describe three attitudes towards this: maximalism, according to which we should aim to build all relevant values into measures; minimalism, according to which we should aim to keep values out of measures; and an intermediate view. I argue the intermediate view is likely correct, but existing versions are inadequate. In particular, economists have strong reason to structure measures to reflect fixed, as opposed to user-assessable, values. This implies that, despite disagreement about precisely how to do so, economists should standardly adjust QALYs and DALYs to reflect egalitarian values. Keywords: values in economics, measurement, inequality, DALY, QALY 1 1. Values in economic measures: three positions It is well-known that many economic measures are structured to reflect social, ethical, or political values, or have such values "built in" to them. Take, for example, the unemployment rate. As standardly calculated in the U.S. a number of groups are excluded from the calculation, counting as neither employed nor unemployed: those younger than 16, those not actively looking for work, those in prison, and residents of certain health care facilities. Many of these individuals have a clear employment status, so there is no technical reason for their exclusion. It seems more likely that in at least some of these cases the exclusion is based on the ethical judgment (whether correct or not) that members of these groups in some sense don't deserve jobs, or have no claim on society to provide them with jobs. I suspect, for example, that many people think that those younger than 16 generally ought not work and therefore can have no claim on society for a job, that incarcerated individuals have forfeited any claim to a job for the duration of their incarceration, and that it is so challenging to find a job for full-time residents of health care facilities that society has no obligation to provide employment. Similar claims could be made about 1 how many other economic measures, including GDP, price indices, and health economic measures such as quality-adjusted and disability-adjusted life years (QALYs, DALYs), are structured to reflect ethical or political values.2 What should we think about adjusting or structuring measures for such ethical reasons? There has been a fair amount of discussion on narrow questions questions about specific value choices that structure or could structure measures. There has been debate, for example, about whether incarcerated individuals really should be excluded from unemployment calculations, about whether QALYs should give less weight to infant deaths, and about whether luxury goods should be excluded from price indices. Oftentimes, this debate proceeds by directly evaluating the ethical issue at stake. (Have prisoners really To be clear, I do not mean to be endorsing these claims. I strongly suspect, however, that views like these lie 1 behind at least some exclusions from unemployment calculations. On these points see Reiss (2017: §3.2; 2013: ch.8), Stiglitz, Sen, and Fitoussi (2010), Schroeder (2017a), and Voigt 2 (2012). 2 forfeited any claim to a job? Are infant deaths morally less significant than adolescent deaths?) But it seems to me that before engaging with these narrow questions, we must first address a set of broader questions which may render the narrower ones irrelevant: should the unemployment rate even be adjusted for differential claims to jobs in the first place? Should a putative measure of health like the QALY even try to reflect the moral significance of different types of health losses? These broader questions have received less explicit attention. One way to reject these broader questions would be to argue that they don't really make sense, since any choice we make will reflect some ethical value or other. Just as giving less weight to infant deaths in QALY calculations would reflect the view that infant lives are less important than adolescent lives, assigning them equal weight would reflect the view that they are of equal importance. Elsewhere, I explain why I reject this view: although there may be a sense in which all measures are thoroughly infused with values, there is a distinct and important sense in which choosing to discount infant lives for ethical reasons involves values in a way that simply weighing them equally need not (Schroeder 2017a). In other words, it is possible for a health economist to calculate mortality statistics while remaining agnostic on the relative moral importance of infant vs. adolescent lives. In this essay, I will take for granted that this is correct - that there is an important sense in which some choices, including those mentioned earlier, render an economic measure value-laden in ways it otherwise needn't be. I think this is the standard view amongst economists, and in any case it is presupposed by the authors I will go on to discuss. Given, then, that economists at least sometimes have a choice about whether to adjust measures to reflect ethical values, we can identify three broad stances one could take towards doing so, each of which has some support among economists and philosophers of economics. First, we can imagine a maximalist position, according to which, ideally, every value relevant to the associated policy decision(s) should be built in to an economic measure. If, for example, policy-makers are called upon to minimize unemployment among those with claims to jobs, then they should be provided with unemployment data 3 that excludes those without claims to jobs. And if health ministers should give more weight to adolescent deaths than to infant deaths, QALY calculations should be weighted accordingly. Alan Williams offers a defense of a view like this: If the nature and implications of particular positions are to be clarified in a policy-relevant way, this discussion has to move on to seek quantification of what are otherwise merely vaguely appealing but ambiguous [ethical] slogans... Only with some quantification will it be possible to devise rules that can be applied in a consistent manner with a reasonable chance of checking on performance. (Williams 1997: 120; cf. Menzel et al. 1999; Nord 1999, 2014; Schokkaert 2015) Though a number of economists appear to endorse maximalism or hold views substantially similar to it, it is not very popular. Much more popular has been what I will call minimalism. In some cases, it may not be possible to avoid value judgments when structuring a measure. Calculating any sort of unemployment rate, for example, requires determining what counts as employment, and this will involve value judgments. (Is someone who works one hour a week employed? What about an intern who receives a parking subsidy but no other material compensation?) But, the minimalist says, we should structure our measures to reflect value judgments only when necessary; whenever possible, we should keep ethical values out of economic measures. Economic measures, after all, are supposed to be scientific, and scientific measures are generally expected to be value-free. It would seem incredibly odd to adjust other scientific measures 3 to reflect ethical considerations - to exclude or discount voluntary, informed smokers from lung cancer statistics, for example, on the grounds that their illness should be a lower public health priority. Similarly, perhaps we should let the unemployment rate simply measure unemployment, and QALYs simply measure health. Judgments about whose unemployment matters or about whose health problems are of greater social concern should be left to policy-makers, not made by economists. Christopher Murray and colleagues seem to endorse a minimalist view when they suggest that DALYs should be "viewed as a strict summary measure of population health," and therefore not adjusted to account for certain ethical I think we have clear evidence that scientific measures, and scientific practices more generally, are not and should 3 not be value-free (Douglas 2009; Reiss 2017). But that remains the (mistaken) perception. 4 factors (Murray et al. 2012: 16). And the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics insists that its data "must satisfy a number of criteria, including...impartiality in both subject matter and presentation."4 Having laid out the two extreme positions, we are left with a collection of intermediate views, which hold that some but not all policy-relevant values should be built in to economic measures. Any proponent of an intermediate view, however, faces an obvious question: if some but not all policyrelevant values are to be built in to a given measure, how should economists decide which values to build in and which to leave out? Though in practice intermediate views seem to be fairly common, economists rarely give an explicit answer to this question. Murray, however, offers a proposal which I think is consonant with many economists' practices: If many individuals after deliberation hold a preference or value then this value should be considered seriously. We should investigate...the likely reasons why many individuals hold such a view. If these reasons appear to be persuasive and do not contravene important "ideal-regarding principles," these preferences should be incorporated into the construction of DALYs. (Murray 1996: 5)5 Murray seems to be proposing two criteria. A policy-relevant value should be incorporated into the DALY if and only if that value (1) is widely held among those who have reflected on it, and (2) can be supported by good reasoning (or at least does not conflict with important moral principles). We could, somewhat loosely, sum this up by saying that Murray wants to build uncontroversial values, and only uncontroversial values, into the DALY and, presumably, other economic measures. This, I think, seems like a sensible view, which tries to accommodate the insights lying behind both maximalism and minimalism. In permitting some values to be built in, this view accepts the maximalist's insight that quantifying policy-relevant values and building them into our measures will enable policy-makers to more effectively pursue their goals. But, in restricting those values to See FAQ #1 at https://www.bls.gov/bls/faqs.htm 4 Obviously, this quote offers a a different view from the 2012 passage I cited earlier. Murray's views seem to have 5 evolved in a minimalist direction between 1996 and 2012. 5 uncontroversial ones, the economist doesn't seem to be stepping beyond her expertise in any significant way, or usurping the role of the policy-maker. After all, the only values being built in are ones that are the subject of general agreement and which can be supported by good reasoning. Nevertheless, I think Murray's view is mistaken. In the succeeding sections, I'll argue by way of a case study that Murray's proposal fails because it looks only at properties of the value choice itself - how widely-held it is, and what substantive reasons support it - while failing to look at the way in which the value is built in to the measure. Some value choices are built into measures in what I will call fixed ways, while others are user-assessable. I will argue that economists generally have stronger reason to build fixed value choices into a measure, even if they are more controversial than user-assessable value choices. In the end, I will suggest that while Murray was probably right to endorse an intermediate view over maximalism or minimalism, an adequate version of the intermediate view will be much more complicated than Murray's proposal. I will conclude by briefly weighing in on the ongoing debate about whether measures of health should standardly be adjusted to account for inequality, arguing that they should. 2. Case study: values in the DALY DALYs, a relative of QALYs, are a composite measure of morbidity and mortality designed to measure the amount of health lost to a particular cause or event. Their most prominent use is as the main outcome measure in the influential Global Burden of Disease Study, of which Christopher Murray is one of the lead authors. Though the calculation of DALYs is complicated, for our purposes we need only look at the mortality component, which is fairly straightforward. The health loss attributed to a premature death is calculated based on the years of life lost to that death. Suppose, in a country where life expectancy at birth is stable at 80, a car accident kills a 30-year-old and a 40 year-old. That car accident took roughly 50 and 40 years of life from its victims, respectively, and so 50+40=90 DALYs would be attributed to the accident. Historically, however, many epidemiologists and economists using DALYs 6 have not been content to rest there. The DALYs resulting from some event have typically been adjusted to reflect various ethical values (Schroeder 2017a; Polinder et al. 2012). In the remainder of this section, I will discuss three of those value choices, to see what they can tell us about the intermediate view Murray endorses. The first value choice is that involved in age-weighting. Most people believe that each year of life is not of equal value from a political or ethical perspective. A surgery that would extend the life of a young adult by two years should be a higher policy priority than one that extends the life of an infant by two years. And most people, if forced to choose, prefer to save the life of a teenager before saving the life of an infant, despite the fact that the infant likely has more years left to live. Murray, in an article explaining the methodology behind the DALY, accepts a version of this argument: The well-being of some age groups, we argue, is instrumental in making society flourish; therefore collectively we may be more concerned with improving health status for individuals in these age groups. (Murray and Acharya, 1997: 719) On the basis of empirical investigations of age-preferences among the public, the original DALY assigned extra weight to health losses between the ages of 9 and 54, and reduced weight to health losses outside of that range. Many have criticized this value judgment, some arguing that different age-weights should be considered (Tsuchiya 2000; Barendregt et al. 1996), others arguing that no age-weights should be used (Anand and Hanson 1998; Williams 1999; Bognar 2008). Murray and colleagues eventually accepted these concerns, and in recent updates to the Global Burden of Disease Study have abandoned the use of unequal age-weights (Murray et al. 2012). Second, consider the standard economic practice of discounting. In economic calculations, the value of future costs and benefits is typically discounted by a small percentage per year. Most DALY calculations treat health in the same way, discounting the value of future health. So, a death averted this year counts for more than an otherwise-similar death averted next year. Although a variety of arguments have been offered for discounting, Murray chose an explicitly ethical one in the construction of DALYs: 7 In the construction of DALYs, I have struggled with two options: to use a low positive discount rate to capture the uncertainty that increases with time and, more importantly, to reduce the problems of excessive sacrifice... As with previous versions of this study, the baseline DALY measure incorporates a three per cent discount rate. (1996: 53-54; emphasis added) As with age-weighting, the practice of discounting has been incredibly controversial, and in the most recent iteration of the Global Burden of Disease Study, Murray has abandoned it (Murray et al. 2012) though DALYs are discounted in many other studies (Polinder et al. 2012). A third ethical value built in to the DALY is connected to the way it handles life expectancy. To calculate the years of life lost to a premature death, we need to assign a life expectancy to the victim. The most obvious and natural way to do that is to ask, of the victim, how many more years she would have lived, had she not died of the cause in question (Williams 1999: 4). Call this a counterfactual approach to life expectancy (CLE). Murray, however, points out a problem with CLE: suppose two 40 year-olds, one in Kigali and the other in Paris, die in car accidents. [Using CLE] would lead us to conclude that the death of a 40 year-old woman in Kigali contributes less to the global burden of disease than the death of a 40 year-old woman in Paris because the expectation of life at age 40 is lower in Rwanda than in France. Equivalent health outcomes would be a greater burden in richer communities than in poorer communities. (1996: 14) This seems unfair. Certain populations are already disadvantaged by low life expectancy, and then deaths in those populations register fewer DALYs because of that disadvantage. When measuring the burden of disease on a population, it seems perverse to count a death for less because the victim would otherwise have died of another health problem shortly thereafter. What, then, should we do? Murray proposes that we apply the same life expectancy to all deaths at a given age anywhere in the world, making the death of every 40 year-old woman count the same, regardless of her personal characteristics. This is, clearly, a value choice: this proposal was adopted because the apparently value-free route -to simply count how many years were actually lost due to the 8 death -yielded (by Murray's lights) morally unacceptable results. Murray applies the same life expectancy to all deaths not because all people do live to roughly the same age, but because he believes that they should. Put another way, the DALY does not measure how many more years a victim would have lived; it measures how many more years she should have lived. Call this an aspirational approach to life expectancy (ALE). Murray explicitly says that he chose to use ALE because of its "egalitarian nature" (1996: 15) - a dimension we can highlight by noting that calculating DALYs using ALE is equivalent to calculating them using CLE, while giving extra weight to years of life lost by those disadvantaged with low life expectancy (Williams 1999: 5). Unlike age-weighting and discounting, the use of aspirational life expectancy has been almost entirely uncontroversial. As far as I can tell, since Murray's original discussion (Murray 1996) there has been only one short book chapter dedicated to discussing the life expectancy chosen for the DALY (Vos 2002) -in contrast to the large number of articles written about age-weighting and the nearly limitless number on discounting. A few articles do note the use of aspirational life expectancy, but most either don't recognize it as a value choice or else endorse the value choice. Not surprisingly, current versions 6 of the Global Burden of Disease Study continue to incorporate a version of aspirational life expectancy. If age-weighting and discounting have been so controversial, why has Murray's choice to use an ethically-loaded conception of life expectancy largely escaped criticism? There are several possible explanations. Perhaps the substantive ethical arguments in favor of aspirational life expectancy are stronger than the arguments for age-weighting and discounting. Perhaps those ethical beliefs are more widely accepted among philosophers, policy-makers, and economists. Or perhaps many authors simply The only clear critic of aspirational life expectancy that I know of is Williams (1999). Articles which mention but 6 don't seriously criticize the value choice include (Lyttkens 2003; Anand and Hanson 1997; Arnesen and Kapiriri 2004; and Voigt 2012). Those articles focus on (and sometimes criticize) the use of different life expectancies for each gender, but otherwise accept the use of aspirational life expectancy. 9 haven't noticed the value choice involved in the use of aspirational life expectancy. These explanations 7 may be part of the truth. But I think another factor may also be at work - one that would not merely explain the differential treatment, but would also justify it. 3. What's special about life expectancy? Suppose you are a policy-maker and are given the un-age-weighted DALYs attributable to two diseases, but you think that health losses at different ages should be of different social concern. What information would you need to produce an estimate of age-weighted DALYs? You would need (1) a breakdown of the ages at which DALYs were lost, and (2) your preferred age-weighting function. On most age-weighting proposals, (2) is relatively simple, and the information needed for (1) can often be readily estimated by policy-makers, because the age profiles of many diseases are relatively constant and widely known. (Malaria primarily kills the very young; strokes mostly occur in the elderly; U.S. car accident fatalities strike all ages, with relative spikes among young adults and the elderly; etc.) And, even if (1) isn't previously known to policy-makers, that breakdown is often published in a study like the Global Burden of Disease Study. What all this means is that, given un-age-weighted results, a moderately sophisticated policy-maker can usually produce a reasonable estimate of what age-weighted results would look like, without needing access to the raw data. Much the same, I think, can be said about discounting. Call value choices like this, which can be adjusted for after-the-fact by decision-makers, user-assessable. Now, compare that to the case of life expectancy. Suppose you are given DALYs calculated using counterfactual life expectancy, but, moved by Murray's arguments, you would prefer to base your policy There is probably something to this. Although in many works (e.g. Murray 1996) the architects of the DALY were 7 clear about the value choice involved in life expectancy, they tended to place much greater emphasis on ageweighting and discounting, going so far as to build "modulation factors" into the DALY equation, allowing them to calculate DALYs without age-weighting and with different discount rates. Accordingly, they officially refer to "DALY [r, K]", where r indicates the discount rate used and K is binary variable indicating the presence or absence of unequal age-weights. All of this, I think, has led many to erroneously conclude that DALYs incorporate only three value choices disability weights (not discussed in this article), age-weights, and a discount rate. (See e.g. Anand and Hanson (1998).) 10 decisions on DALYs calculated using aspirational life expectancy. What information do you need? Life expectancy varies significantly by age, gender, and geography (among other factors), so at minimum you need DALYs broken down along all of those dimensions. Then you need data on actual life expectancy 8 for each age-gender-geography triple, so that you can determine the difference between the CLE used in the results you were given and the ALE you prefer. These differences are not always as predictable as one might suspect. (For example, although richer countries typically have higher life expectancy than poorer countries, there are plenty of outliers.) Adjusting life expectancy from CLE to ALE (or vice versa) therefore requires much more data - essentially, the unaggregated data - as well as a much more complex calculation. The value judgments around life expectancy therefore seem much harder for a user to implement on her own, compared to those connected to age-weighting or discounting. Call value choices which can't realistically be applied by a user to a summary measure, e.g. due to high informational requirements or computational complexity, fixed value choices. As further evidence that the values in the DALY connected to age and time are much more easily user-assessable than those connected to life expectancy, consider a well-known 2004 article in Health Policy by Trude Arnesen and Lydia Kapiriri. Arnesen and Kapiriri set out to determine to what extent the final results in the Global Burden of Disease Study were sensitive to the value judgments built in to the DALY. Concerning age-weighting and discounting, they ultimately showed that those value choices "have a decisive impact on the relative distribution of the burden between age groups" (2004: 145). However, they add, "We were not able to assess the effect of alternative life expectancies. We would then have needed access to the details in the epidemiological information, as well as life tables with hypothetical life expectancies in addition to life tables based on observations" (2004: 146). Two trained specialists, then, attempting to assess the impact of value choices on a major study found it relatively easy Depending on how fine-grained life expectancy is to be assessed, we might also want information on race, 8 economic status, insurance status, co-morbidities, etc. I will set aside such considerations in the main text, though, since I think the question of how narrowly to assess life expectancy raises additional issues, beyond those considered in this paper. 11 to recalculate DALYs with alternative age-weighting and discounting functions, but were unable to do the same for life expectancy. That suggests that even a relatively sophisticated policy-maker is going to have 9 trouble taking DALYs calculated using CLE and adjusting them to use ALE (or the reverse), without significant amounts of time and expert assistance, as well as access to the unaggregated data. 4. The importance of user-assessability The distinction between (relatively) user-assessable and (relatively) fixed value choices is a crucial one, ethically. As we saw above, one of the main factors motivating minimalism is the view that value judgments should be made by policy-makers, not scientists. With user-assessable value choices, like age-weighting and discounting, this distinction is tenable. It is at least potentially reasonable for an economist to say, "We have presented you with un-age-weighted results. If you believe health losses at different ages are of different social concern, then adjust these results to reflect your values before making a policy decision." But with fixed value choices, the same division of labor doesn't work. An economist cannot say, "We've presented you with CLE-based results. Apply whatever conception of life expectancy you deem appropriate." The policy-maker will be unable to adjust the resulting measure. What this means is that for values like life expectancy, the policy-maker will be forced to base her policy decisions on whatever form of the measure she is given by the economist. In making a choice about whether to use counterfactual or aspirational life expectancy, the economist is, for practical purposes, deciding which value choice will be embodied in policy decisions. As mentioned above (note 7), Murray and colleagues do supply the equations to calculate DALYs without age-9 weights or with a different discount rate. Though this might seem to have made Arnesen and Kapiriri's task easier, in actuality removing age-weights and changing the discount rate is mathematically extremely simple. Why didn't Murray and colleagues similarly supply equations for calculating DALYs using CLE? Again, mathematically this is extremely simple. There is no simple way, however, to rewrite the standard DALY equation to do so. In the standard DALY equation, years of life lost are calculated by subtracting age at death from ALE. Since ALE is the same for any person of the same age, no additional information is needed. CLE, however, varies based not just on the age of the victim, but also sex, location, and potentially other factors (race, economic status, other morbidities, etc.). It would thus require introducing many new variables not otherwise part of the DALY equation. Indeed, this is precisely the point of this section: switching from ALE to CLE requires lots of additional information which is not readily obtainable. 12 Another way to think about this is to focus on the role a scientist is supposed to play in policymaking. Many scientific bodies take their goal to be to provide relevant information to decision-makers, or to facilitate informed decision-making by policy-makers. Philosophers of science have argued for 10 this view (Elliott 2006), and it coheres with the way many scientists understand their own roles. Now, it might seem that this picture supports minimalism: if a scientist's goal is to provide information (but not to influence values), then it seems natural to think that the best way to do this is to provide information that is as value-free as possible, since it is the policy-maker who should supply the values. With userassessable values, like those connected to age-weighting, this may be correct. Un-age-weighted DALYs can directly inform a policy-maker's decision to minimize total health loss irrespective of age. And they can also indirectly inform a policy-maker's decision to minimize health loss while giving greater weight to young adults, since the policy-maker can estimate age-weighted DALYs from un-age-weighted DALYs. But this stance doesn't work with fixed values. CLE-based DALYs can provide relevant information to a policy-maker who seeks to minimize life years lost in her population. But they can't in any clear way inform the decision of a policy-maker who wants to make decisions in a way that doesn't disadvantage groups with low age-specific life expectancy. And, conversely, ALE-based DALYs can inform the latter decision, but aren't very useful for the former.11 See, for example, statements by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://www.bls.gov/bls/infohome.htm), the 10 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization.shtml), and the American Institute of Biological Sciences (http://www.aibs.org/about-aibs/). In a pair of articles, McKaughan and Elliott (2013; 2018) explore the question, closely related to the question of 11 this paper, of whether and how scientists should "frame" their results. They argue that a balance between objectivity and informativeness can be struck by allowing scientists to frame their results while also promoting "backtracking" on the part of information recipients: helping readers to understand how value judgments have influenced their presentation of results, and "[clarifying] how one could arrive at alternative interpretations based on different value judgments" (2018: 198). If my argument is correct, enabling something like "backtracking" may be an appropriate goal when it comes to user-assessable values, but it won't work well for fixed values. As the Arnesen and Kapiriri paper shows, in such cases it may be difficult or impossible even for other experts to "backtrack," even if the original authors are transparent about their value judgments. If, then, McKaughan and Elliott are correct (as I think they are) that there is a tension between objectivity and informativeness, my argument shows that their solution can only be a partial one. 13 Thus, if an economist takes her goal to be to provide relevant information to policy-makers, or to promote informed decision-making by policy-makers, she can't simply default to CLE on the grounds that in representing actual life expectancy, CLE is value-free. Economists cannot reasonably remain agnostic or neutral concerning fixed value choices. In such cases, whatever decision they make will dictate, or at least significantly constrain, the values which influence downstream policy decisions. This means that a positive choice - between CLE, ALE, and whatever other options there are - must be made and is ethically loaded in a way that the choice not to age-weight or not to discount would not be. All of this suggests the following general principle: • If values of type A cannot easily be adjusted for after-the-fact by decision-makers in some measure, M, (i.e. A-values are fixed for M), there is strong reason for economists to structure M to reflect a preferred position on A, even if they are uncertain about what views on A are widely held, and/or about the correct view on A. If this principle is correct, then minimalism is false, as is Murray's version of the intermediate view. Though I haven't offered an argument for it here, I think those of us who are sympathetic towards the minimalist's preference for a division of labor between economists and policy-makers can comfortably endorse the following parallel principle: • If values of type B can easily be adjusted for after-the-fact by decision makers in some measure, M, (i.e. B-values are user-assessable for M), then in at least many cases there is reason for 12 economists to adopt a value-neutral position on B in M, even if they are relatively confident about what views on B are widely held, and/or about the correct view on B. If this principle is correct, then maximalism is also false. Thus, the correct view to take on values in economic measures will be a version of the intermediate view other than Murray's. Before reflecting on the importance of this result, let me close this section by clarifying one point and then responding to an obvious and important objection. First, the clarification: the above principles suggest that when structuring measures, economists need to (1) think about which policy-relevant values I include this caveat because I don't think that economists should refrain from structuring measures to reflect all 12 user-assessable values. For example, if there is near unanimity about some value, or if policy-makers explicitly request that some value be built into a measure, that might qualify as decisive reason to do so, rendering userassessability irrelevant. 14 will end up being fixed (vs. user-assessable) in the resulting measure, and (2) for fixed values, need to substantively engage with them, making a positive determination. But thus far I have not said anything about how they should make that determination. There are many options. For example, economists could seek to determine (perhaps through empirical study) what position has plurality support among the decision-makers likely to use the study, or among the populations that will be affected by associated policy decisions. Or they could engage in substantive normative reasoning, to try to determine the position on the issue most likely to be objectively correct (or least likely to lead to rights violations, etc.). Or we could give economists free choice to adopt their own preferred position. Etc. Which of these approaches is appropriate is a difficult, important, and probably context-sensitive issue, but in this paper I take no stand on it. The point is that all of these require substantive engagement with the issue, rather 13 than a retreat to a supposedly neutral position. Second, the objection: there is one natural way to seek to lessen the importance of fixed vs. userassessable values, and also to avoid having to address the issue I discussed in the previous paragraph. If users will be unable to translate between DALYs calculated using CLE and DALYs calculated using ALE, the obvious solution is to provide them with both. This could be done in a traditional way (via, for example, two sets of results in a printed paper) or in a more dynamic way (an online tool which can recalculate results based on a user's preferred values). A similar motivation often lies behind "dashboard"-type approaches, where distinct components that might otherwise be aggregated into a summary measure are presented separately, to allow users to aggregate them in whatever way they choose. Strategies like this seem to make fixed values functionally user-assessable, thus relieving 14 economists of the burden of having to make value choices themselves. For a hint of how such arguments might go, see e.g. Elliott (2006) or Schroeder (2017b). I explore the topic more 13 thoroughly in an unpublished work-in-progress. Extended Cost-Effectiveness Analysis provides an example of this strategy (Verguet, Kim, and Jamison 2016).14 15 I think there is certainly a place for providing alternate results and disaggregating components in this way. But, unfortunately, it is not a panacea. First, life expectancy is far from the only fixed value choice built in to DALYs. There are more than a dozen distinct value choices that are commonly built into DALYs, many of which are probably fixed, and plenty more that are not but have been proposed for consideration (Schroeder 2017a). And there exist many different positions on each of these issues. (In this paper, I've made it sound like CLE and ALE are two options, but in fact there are many different forms each could take, and indeed the 2010 Global Burden of Disease Study uses a different version of ALE than did earlier studies (Murray et al. 2012).) It would be impossible to present even a reasonable fraction of the possibilities in a static format, and an online, user-customizable web tool which aspired to comprehensiveness would be hopelessly complicated. At minimum, presentations like this have to be 15 simplified - the economist will need to fix some value choices and significantly constrain others, in order to put the data in a format which will be useful and informative to decision-makers. For those value choices, the argument of this paper applies. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the scientist's job is not simply to present decision-makers with piles of data; it is also to analyze and interpret the results. Even if the online supplement to a scientific paper or policy report includes a spreadsheet which allows users to recalculate results under a range of different value choices, the scientist still needs to choose one (or perhaps two or three) version(s) of the results to be the subject of her analysis and discussion. And as much as we might want decisionmakers to be sophisticated and patient enough to dig into the details of a study to identify methodological choices the scientist made, or at least to scour the online appendix to identify an appropriate set of alternative results, we know that this is not always or even usually the case. For better or worse, it is a See http://climatepolicysimulator.princeton.edu for an example aiming to do something like this for a few value 15 judgments connected to climate policy. GiveWell, a charity evaluator, has created a spreadsheet that permits individuals to vary value judgments in their cost-effectiveness model: https://www.givewell.org/how-we-work/ourcriteria/cost-effectiveness/cost-effectiveness-models. The Global Burden of Disease Study has created a customizable data visualization tool (http://www.healthdata.org/data-visualization/gbd-compare). It does not focus on or permit modifications of value judgments like the ones discussed here, and it is already quite complicated. 16 scientist's top-line or primary results that will garner the bulk of most decision-makers' attention. And so even if the Global Burden of Disease Study published DALYs using four different conceptions of life expectancy, whichever was chosen as the "primary" calculation would, in all likelihood, be the one upon which most associated policy-decisions were made. And so this choice matters. 16 5. Extending the argument My argument has proceeded primarily via a case study concerning value choices which structure the DALY. I chose that case study, in part, because the version of the intermediate view I was considering - according to which values should structure a measure if and only if they are widely held and substantively reasonable - came from Christopher Murray, one of the original architects of the DALY. But I don't think anything I said is specific to Murray's view, to the DALY, or even to health economics as a field. Murray's view reflects, I think, the implicit practice of many economists in a range of subdisciplines, who are often not averse to building in uncontroversial value choices, but who refrain from building in controversial ones unless absolutely necessary. And the distinction between user-assessable and fixed value choices is certainly applicable far beyond the DALY. Any complex summary measure has the potential to include fixed value choices. By definition, information is lost in moving from raw data to a summary measure, and so any value choice which can only be applied to the raw data will run the risk of being a fixed value choice. For these reasons, I think the principle I proposed in the previous section, according to which there is strong reason for an economist to structure measures to reflect preferred Doesn't this also suggest that, even with user-assessable values, economists should be inclined to build a preferred 16 position on them into the primary version of associated measures? To some extent, yes. I think economists should be more inclined than they currently are to structure measures to reflect values. However, I think there are also considerations that can count against incorporating any values, some of which I mention below (note 18). Thus, I don't think fixedness vs. user-assessability determines whether a value should be incorporated into a measure. Rather, to the extent that a value is fixed in a measure, that constitutes a strong reason to incorporate it. 17 positions on fixed value choices (even if there is great disagreement about that value, or significant uncertainty about the correct view on that value), applies to economic measures widely.17 Nothing I've said, however, suggests that Murray's criteria were irrelevant - just that they were sometimes outweighed by a third factor. Indeed, I agree with Murray that, all else equal, that a value choice is widely held should count in favor of incorporating it into economic measures, and that a value can be supported with good normative reasoning also counts in favor of incorporating it into economic measures. Further, nothing I've said implies that the principle I proposed, combined with Murray's, will yield a satisfactory version of the intermediate view. I don't think it does. I suspect there are several additional factors that economists ought to consider when deciding how to structure their measures. 18 And I have said very little about how to handle cases in which the various criteria conflict with one another. As a result, I don't take myself to have come close to answering the question posed in the title of this paper. I hope, though, to have shown that the intermediate view is more attractive than either maximalism or minimalism about values in economic measures, and that finding a plausible version of the intermediate view is a challenging task, one which will result in an account more complex and nuanced than Murray's, and which will call for changes in standard economic practices. 6. A concrete recommendation: egalitarian values in summary measures of health Fortunately, however, I don't think we need to wait until we have found a fully satisfactory version of the intermediate view to make some concrete recommendations. So let me conclude this paper by offering one. There is widespread agreement that when it comes to health, distribution matters. Our goal should not simply be to maximize total or average population health; we should prefer a more equal Indeed, I suspect it applies more broadly than that, to measures in at least some other scientific fields. But I can't 17 pursue that idea in this paper. For example: is the value relevant to many different uses of a measure, or only a few? Is the value already 18 reflected in other aspects/components of the measure? Have competing or complementary studies adjusted for the value in the past? 18 distribution of health, even if that comes at some cost to the total or average. Though this preference can take many different forms - e.g., egalitarian, prioritarian, or sufficientarian - call any view which in practice will tend to give additional weight to improving health among the disadvantaged an egalitarian view. For decades, health economists have discussed how QALYs and DALYs could be adjusted to reflect egalitarian values. To date, however, it remains rare to see a major health economic study that 19 includes a preference for equality in QALYs or DALYs. What is the reason for this, given that the 20 architects of the DALY in particular have obviously not shied away from building many value judgments into that measure? It is because inequality is complex. As has been amply demonstrated (Temkin 1996; Sen 1992), there are many different senses in which a distribution can be more or less equal, and many of these senses are plausibly of moral importance. As a result, no single way of quantifying egalitarian values has gained general acceptance. Since economists have not known how to capture egalitarian values, they have understandably refrained from doing so. (In terms of Murray's version of the 21 intermediate view: there is no specific conception of inequality which is widely-accepted or uncontroversial.) Note, however, that egalitarian values will generally qualify as fixed value choices in QALYs or DALYs. To introduce distribution-sensitivity to distribution-insensitive QALYs or DALYs will require access to the disaggregated raw data, and, depending on one's conception of inequality, may also require additional information - e.g. the socio-economic status of each individual with an adverse health outcome. It seems unlikely that decision-makers will be able to readily estimate this information from the See, for example, Gakidou, Murray, and Frenk (2000), Anand and Diderichsen (2001), Adler (2012), and Eyal et 19 al. (2013). The only example I'm familiar with of a major health economic study, not specifically billed as a study of 20 inequality, to incorporate distribution-sensitivity into its primary results is the WHO's World Health Report 2000 (WHO 2000). The UN's Human Development Reports also include inequality-adjusted measures of life expectancy (though these are not quality-/disability-adjusted). For an expression of this argument, see Murray (1996: 61-63).21 19 summary statistics. This suggests, I think, that health economists should seriously consider adjusting 22 QALYand DALY-based analyses (including cost-effectiveness analyses) to reflect egalitarian values, despite the fact that there are many different ways of doing so, none of which has received general acceptance.23 How should economists go about choosing a single metric for inequality in the face of such disagreement? As above, that goes beyond the scope of this paper. But, briefly, it seems to me that a satisfactory solution will require input from a wide range of groups: economists, epidemiologists, health policy-makers, philosophers, political theorists, and (especially) the public. Perhaps a working group could arrive at a consensus (or, failing that, at least a strong plurality) on a conception of inequality which they all regard as sufficiently close to their own view, to be substantially preferable to distributionneutrality. To address concerns about comparability, distribution-sensitive results could be presented 24 alongside traditional, distribution-neutral results - though I think the above considerations suggest that the distribution-sensitive results should probably be presented as the "primary" or "main" ones. The status quo, according to which QALYs and DALYs are presented in a distribution-insensitive way, has likely led policy-makers to make decisions in a way that embodies distribution-insensitive values, even if the policy-makers themselves hold egalitarian views (Schroeder 2017c: 1492-1493). If, as public I suspect that many of the additional criteria mentioned in note 18, above, will also count in favor of incorporating 22 egalitarian values into DALYs. For example, it seems important that egalitarian values are already built into the DALY's conception of life expectancy (discussed above), and several other aspects of the calculation (Schroeder 2017a; Voigt 2012). In this conclusion I agree with the proponents of Extended Cost Effectiveness Analysis (ECEA), who recommend 23 that data for health policy assessments be presented in a disaggregated form which includes some distributional information (Verguet, Kim, and Jamison 2016). I suspect, however, that even if ECEA caught on, there would still be a demand that it be supplemented by a single summary statistic, e.g. so that a large number of interventions could be quickly compared or ordered on league tables. My argument here, then, would suggest that this summary statistic be distribution-sensitive. The WHO's Consultative Group on Equity and Universal Health Coverage, a group including philosophers, 24 economists, policy experts, and clinicians from a range of countries, settled on a conception of equality which gives (non-absolute) priority to the worse off, in particular to those who are worse off with respect to lifetime health (2014: 15). This provides some evidence that the consensus I suggest could be found, and that perhaps it would be built around a prioritarian approach. 20 discourse suggests, most of us hold egalitarian values when it comes to health, this is a problem and if egalitarian values count as fixed in QALYs and DALYs, a problem that can't reasonably be attributed to or corrected for by policy-makers alone. Acknowledgements For helpful discussion and comments, I thank audiences at UC-San Diego; the Philosophy of Social Sciences Roundtable; the UT-Dallas Conference on Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology; Marc Fleurbaey, Daniel Steel, and two anonymous referees for this journal. This paper was completed while I was a Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Faculty Fellow at Princeton University's Center for Human Values. Works Cited Adler, M. 2012. Well-Being and Fair Distribution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Anand, S., F. Diderichsen, T. Evans, V.M. Shkolnikov, and M. Wirth. 2001. 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Science and Engineering Ethics 12: 637-661. 21 Eyal, N., S.A. Hurst, O.F. Norheim, and D. Wikler, eds. 2013. Inequalities in Health: Concepts, Measures, and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gakidou, E., C.J. Murray, and J. Frenk. 2000. Defining and measuring health inequality: an approach based on the distribution of health expectancy. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 78: 42-54. Lyttkens, C. H. 2003. Time to disable DALYs? European Journal of Health Economics 4: 195-202. McKaughan, D.J. and K.C. Elliott. 2013. Backtracking and the Ethics of Framing: Lessons from Voles and Vasopressin. Accountability in Research 20: 206-226. McKaughan, D.J. and K.C. Elliott. 2018. Just the Facts or Expert Opinion? The Backtracking Approach to Socially Responsible Science Communication. In Ethics and Practice in Science Communication, eds. S. Priest, J. Goodwin, and M.F. Dahlstrom, 197-213. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Menzel, P., M. Gold, E. Nord, J. Pinto-Prades, J. Richardson, and P. Ubel. 1999. Toward a Broader View of Values in Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Health. Hastings Center Report 29: 7-15. Murray, C. 1996. Rethinking DALYs. In The Global Burden of Disease, ed. C. Murray and A. Lopez, 1-98. Geneva: World Health Organization. Murray, C. and A. Acharya. 1997. Understanding DALYs. Journal of Health Economics 16: 703-730. Murray, C. et al. 2012. Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for 291 diseases and injuries in 21 regions, 1990-2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. The Lancet 380: 2197-2223. Nord, E. 1999. Cost-Value Analysis in Health Care. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Polinder, S, J.A. Haagsma, C. Stein, and A.H. Havelaar. 2012. Systematic review of general burden of disease studies using disability-adjusted life years. Population Health Metrics 10:21. Reiss, J. 2017. Fact-value entanglement in positive economics. Journal of Economic Methodology 24: 134-149. Reiss, J. 2013. Philosophy of Economics: A Contemporary Introduction. London: Routledge. Schokkaert, E. 2015. How to introduce more (or better) ethical arguments into HTA? International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care 31: 1-2. Schroeder, S.A. 2017a. Value Choices in Summary Measures of Population Health. Public Health Ethics 10: 176-87. Schroeder, S.A. 2017b. Using Democratic Values in Science: an Objection and (Partial) Response. Philosophy of Science 84: 1044-1054. Schroeder, S.A. 2017c. Consequentializing and its consequences. Philosophical Studies 174: 1475-1497. Stiglitz, J. E., A. Sen, and J.-P. Fitoussi. 2010. Mis-measuring Our Lives: Why GDP Doesn't Add Up. New York: The New Press. Temkin, L. 1996. Inequality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tsuchiya, A. 2000. QALYs and Ageism: Philosophical Theories and Age Weighting. Health Economics 9: 57-68. Verguet, S., J.J. Kim, and D.T. Jamison. 2016. Extended Cost-Effectiveness Analysis for Health Policy Assessment: A Tutorial. PharmacoEconomics 34: 913-923. Voigt, K. 2012. Measuring global health. In Global Justice and Health Inequalities, eds. P. Lenard and C. Straehle, 139-156. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 22 Vos, T. 2002. Shifting the goalpost normative survivorship goals in health gap measures. In Summary measures of population health: concepts, ethics, measurement and applications, ed. C. Murray, J. Salomon, C. Mathers, and A. Lopez, 267-272. Geneva: World Health Organization. World Health Organization. 2000. The World Health Report 2000: Health Systems: Improving Performance. Geneva: World Health Organization. World Health Organization. 2014. Making fair choices on the path to universal health coverage. Geneva: World Health Organization. Williams, A. 1997. Intergenerational equity: An exploration of the 'fair innings' argument. Health Economics 6: 117-132. Williams, A. 1999. Calculating the Global Burden of Disease: Time for a Strategic Reappraisal? Health Economics 8: 1-8. Biographical Information S. Andrew Schroeder is an associate professor of philosophy at Claremont McKenna College. Much of his research lies at the intersection of ethics, political philosophy, and the philosophy of science. He is currently writing a series of papers exploring the ethical norms that ought to guide scientists in choosing between alternative representations of their results. | {
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Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l'Université de Montréal, l'Université Laval et l'Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. Érudit offre des services d'édition numérique de documents scientifiques depuis 1998. Pour communiquer avec les responsables d'Érudit : [email protected] Article Peter J. Spiro Les ateliers de l'éthique / The Ethics Forum, vol. 7, n° 2, 2012, p. 63-70. Pour citer cet article, utiliser l'information suivante : URI: http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1012997ar DOI: 10.7202/1012997ar Note : les règles d'écriture des références bibliographiques peuvent varier selon les différents domaines du savoir. Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d'auteur. L'utilisation des services d'Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d'utilisation que vous pouvez consulter à l'URI http://www.erudit.org/apropos/utilisation.html Document téléchargé le 10 juillet 2014 03:22 "Citizenship as Property, Not So Valuable " CITIZENSHIP AS PROPERTY, NOT SO VALUABLE PETER J. SPIRO TEMPLE UNIVERSITY ABSTRACT With The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality, Ayelet Shachar is the first major scholar to put the rich theory of property law theory to work in the realm of citizenship. Assessed on its own criteria, the book delivers on its promise to shake up our thinking on this question. Nevertheless, I argue in this paper that her account is not ultimately persuasive. First, Shachar takes for granted that citizenship is a valuable resource. I suggest that today legal residency is more highly valued that citizenship. Also her defense of the state and the social advantages of having stable citizenship regimes does nothing to confront its decline as the central organizing principle of political life. Last but not least, themodalities of a birthright citizenship levy calls into question the underlying analysis. For instance, the current proposal looks undistinguishable from foreign aid and it would demandmuchmore robust institutional organs of global governance that now exist.The second prong of her argument works at the domestic level as it tackles the problem of underand over-inclusiveness of birthright citizenship. Here too I have reservations highlighted by modes of implementation. RÉSUMÉ Avec The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality, Ayelet Shachar est la première chercheuse de pointe qui utilise la riche théorie du droit de propriété dans le domaine de la citoyenneté. Jugé à l'aune de ses principes, le livre réussit à secouer nos idées reçues sur cette question. Dans cet article, je soutiens néanmoins que son explication n'est pas aussi convaincante qu'elle en a l'air.D'abord parce qu'elle tend à surévaluer la citoyenneté. La résidence permanente est aujourd'hui plus en demande et a pour cette raison plus de valeur que la citoyenneté. Ensuite, parce que la défense de l'État et des avantages sociaux des régimes de citoyenneté stables ne fait rien pour remédier au déclin de l'État en tant que principe organisateur de la vie politique. Enfin,parce que lesmodalités d'une taxe sur la transmission de la citoyenneté par droit de naissance ne permettent pas de la distinguer la taxe sur la citoyenneté de l'aide étrangère et que sa mise en oeuvre impliquerait des institutions de gouvernance globale plus robustes que celles qui existent actuellement. Le volet domestique de la proposition de Shachar, qui vise à corriger les problèmes de sous-inclusion et de sur-inclusion à l'aide du jus nexi, pose également quelques difficultés. J'émets des réserves qui portent sur la mise enoeuvre de cette proposition. 63 V O L U M E 7 N U M É R O 2 A U T O M N E / F A L L 2 0 1 2 Ayelet Shachar's The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality is an exceptionally important work from one of the leading theorists of citizenship law. It introduces a radical and compelling new framework for confronting the dilemmas of birthright citizenship, one that promises to transform debates in the area. The book frames birthright citizenship as a matter of inherited property. The vast majority of the world's population acquires citizenship by transmission at birth, on the basis of parentage or territorial location at time of birth. To the extent that citizenship is a valuable resource, then, it is secured on the basis of morally irrelevant criteria. Birthright citizenship is not merely inherited property, but an untaxed form of inherited property. Drawing from property theory, the book thus sets up the moral problem of the unburdened intergenerational transmission of citizenship. This is powerful stuff. Shachar is the first major scholar to put the rich theory of property law theory to work in the realm of citizenship. Taken on its premise, it is a highly successful effort. Citizenship theory is ripe for destabilization, and the book delivers on its promise to shake up our thinking on the question. Which is not to say that the account is ultimately persuasive. First, Shachar works from the premise that citizenship is a valuable resource. This is a contestable proposition. Few rights remain distinctively contingent on citizenship status. The book at points conflates the value of legal residency and citizenship status. Legal residents enjoy almost all rights extended to citizens. Even the franchise, which is conventionally conceived as a singular privilege of citizenship, is commonly extended to legal residents, at least in local elections. Other rights of political participation, including the capacity to make campaign contributions, are also available to legal residents. There are otherwise few contexts in which legal residency comprises a disability. Most importantly, legal residency affords the right of entry, which diminishes the costs of transborder mobility (relative to those not enjoying such rights, who may be able to cross borders but at a much higher price). Undocumented status may be a serious disability, but that disability is mostly cured with regularization. Citizenship is more in the way of an afterthought. Legal residency is more highly valued than citizenship. This can be demonstrated in the property frames of The Birthright Lottery. In a hypothetical auction, green cards would fetch a high price from those otherwise ineligible for territorial admission. In some countries, including Canada and the United States, legal residency can be secured through investments; in other words, one can buy residency rights. Even at fairly steep prices (in the U.S., one million dollars) there are takers. Citizenship, by contrast, might well go begging. If decoupled from legal residency, that is, if one could buy citizenship on an a la carte basis discretely from legal residency, the price would be low. In the United States, there is anecdotal evidence that a steep increase in naturalization fees has deterred some otherwise eligible individuals from applying for citizenship. In other words, some individuals do not perceive U.S. citizenship to be worth even a thousand dollars, much less a million. Assume Shachar's birthright 64 V O L U M E 7 N U M É R O 2 A U T O M N E / F A L L 2 0 1 2 citizenship levy was exacted on an individual basis. Many permanent resident aliens would refrain from naturalization, against the prospect of a tax from which they would otherwise be exempted. Depending on the size of the tax, one could imagine some native-born citizens renouncing their nationality. This demonstrates that citizenship is not in fact 'priceless' (as the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren once characterized it). Indeed it may not be worth all that much going forward. The Birthright Lottery thus works from nationalist premises, in the just-liberal sense. That position can no longer be taken as natural, and the book ably defends the state "and the enormous social advantages of having stable citizenship regimes". Shachar concedes the appeal of an unbundling of citizenship, in which territory, authority, and rights (in Saskia Sassen's frame)1 are decoupled, and the accompanying emergence of transnational identities and internationally-protected rights. She sees these as complementing, not replacing, the shelter and solidarity of the state; and she implicitly dismisses those scholars who engage the unbundling as "celebrat[ing] the demise of protected membership in a collective political enterprise" (67-68). But the better postnational thinking is not so much celebrating the decline of the state as the location of identity and governance as confronting the fact of its decline. There is a whiff of both fear and wishful thinking in the liberal nationalist meme. The international system of rights and redistribution remains at best provisional; it is not yet up to the task of substituting for the state in its now refined, justice-advancing capacities. (The riff on Churchill might be: The state is the worst form of community, except for all the alternatives.) We hope that the state will remain stable as the central organizing principle of political life. But that will not make it so. There are powerful material forces on the ground that are working to undermine the state as the locus of community, forces that go largely unexamined in this book. To the extent that there is a legible trajectory away from segmentation among states, that is a shortcoming. Global norms and institutions are far from substituting for state-based equivalents, but the relative importance is hardly static. Long term, the state appears in irreversible decline. The sooner that scholars train their sights on the emerging, unformed institutions (and their shortcomings) of that new order, the better. State-based models are likely to be legacy paradigms, salient today ("tak[ing] the world as we find it") (104), less so tomorrow. Shachar's proposal is inventive nonetheless, seeking to maintain the best of the state as a force for internal community redistribution while confronting issues of inter-community justice. The concept of a birthright citizenship levy is provocative in the best sense of the term. The modalities are another matter. One should not measure a new theoretic by its practicalities (the best academic writing always pushes thinking beyond the policymaking horizon), but in this case the difficulty of implementation raises questions about the underlying analysis. The book proposes that the tax be progressive as extracted within wealthy countries subject to the levy (99). But that again puts the premise of valuable citizenship 65 V O L U M E 7 N U M É R O 2 A U T O M N E / F A L L 2 0 1 2 into question: if it is valuable in itself, why not individually tax the poorest of the rich, as it were? If not, what does that say about the real value of citizenship status? The suggestion that the tax be administered on a state-to-state basis, moreover, makes the proposal look indistinguishable from foreign aid as we have long known it, that is, as a mechanism for correcting inequality on a community-tocommunity basis (which would seem justified on grounds having nothing necessarily to do with citizenship status). The upshot starts to look more like a 'global income tax' than a 'global citizenship tax'. Among other issues here: if the tax is exacted at the level of the state, it will include tax payments made by non-citizens, thus detaching it from the citizenship frame. Shachar's frame does add a distinctive intellectual girder for other justice-based approaches to international redistribution. As with other such proposals, the administration of the scheme would be daunting, to say the least. The book offers some formulas for deciding which countries would get taxed and which would receive the proceeds, but those would obviously be hotly contested. Who would get to decide? The United Nations? Shachar dismisses world government, appropriately, but her scheme would demand much more robust institutional organs of global governance than now exist. The suggestion of in-kind service substitutions, while normatively appealing, would only compound the difficulty of administration. Again, this is not to dismiss the book's powerful theoretical challenge, but it does draw the analytical premises into question. The book's discussion of birthright citizenship in the global context alone makes this an important work. The concluding chapters on the domestic place of birth citizenship add significant extra value. Here Shachar highlights the underand overinclusiveness of birth citizenship: underinclusive to the extent that many who are members of the community as a matter of social fact do not enjoy citizenship, overinclusive to the extent that some emigrants who maintain little connection to the community continue to hold citizenship on the basis of descent ('hollow citizens'). The book calls for a squaring of citizenship with actual community on the basis of 'jus nexi', by extending citizenship to the former group and denying it to the latter. Once again the argument effectively draws from property law concepts. The application of the doctrine of adverse possession to the position of undocumented aliens presents a particularly compelling argument for justifying the extension of citizenship to individuals even where they have entered in violation of law. Here again however I have reservations highlighted by modes of implementation. On the question of hollow citizenship, it is not clear that the proposal would mark much of a change from the existing practice of most states (as Shachar appears to recognize). Nor would it necessarily bolster the meaningful attachment of external citizens. Globalization enables the maintenance of some level of connection, even if not at a level equivalent to those of resident citizens. For instance, external citizens might retain property in the homeland or undertake post-secondary education there, which would appear to satisfy the jus nexi 66 V O L U M E 7 N U M É R O 2 A U T O M N E / F A L L 2 0 1 2 threshold and to evidence a genuine connection. Mechanisms to police attachment inevitably diminish autonomy. Who is to say when a connection has become hollow in any case in which the individual prefers to retain the identity represented by the citizenship tie? Witness the increasing rarity of forced expatriation among liberal democracies. At the same time external citizens will almost always participate in a state-defined society at a lower level of intensity than resident citizens. Any regime to police against lack of attachment could also be gamed for instrumental purposes. To the extent citizenship remains a valuable commodity, at least citizenship in certain states, individuals would act strategically to satisfy the new rules, which would inevitably fall short of actually measuring 'actual membership'. Meanwhile, the trend in state practice is toward greater tolerance for tenuous ties. States are increasingly reaching out to diaspora communities for instrumental purposes, by way of tapping into the economic power they often represent relative to homeland residents2. Among the primary tools for cementing this connection are lowered barriers to the retention or acquisition of citizenship among diaspora populations. There has been a dramatic shift towards acceptance and even embrace of dual citizenship. Emigrants in most cases retain their original citizenship by default even as they naturalize in their new country of residence. More states are allowing non-residents to claim citizenship on the basis of attenuated national lineage, such as single grandparent. Few impose continuing obligations on external citizens; taxes and military service are now mostly contingent on residency3. The result is something like ethnizenship, in Christian Joppke's terms4, a concept at least in tension with Shachar's call to more closely to align citizenship with active engagement. This trend is largely unidirectional. It creates a feedback loop that reinforces the decline of citizenship. Hollow citizens make for hollow citizenship. Shachar may lament the trend, but it will reinforce the erosion of citizenship as an institution. If citizens feel nothing more than a thin ancestral bond with other citizens, it is unlikely to support robust redistributive capacities for the state. Extending citizenship to those who are already members as a matter of social fact, thus correcting the problem of underinclusiveness, is less problematic. Others have called for the extension of citizenship essentially as of right after a certain period of presence5. As with Shachar, these proposals are aimed at achieving a better match between the social boundaries of community and the citizenry, by way of perfecting self-governance values. Under conventional understandings of the society/territory matrix, it is difficult to challenge the logic of these proposals, at least in the frame of liberalism6. But those conventional understandings may no longer hold. Territorial presence no longer necessarily reflects social membership. This is evidenced by the growing population of individuals who fail to naturalize even when eligible. Shachar avoids the autonomy-diminishing aspects of Ruth Rubio-Marin's proposal to automatically extend citizenship to long-term residents7, but that leaves the phenomenon of the persistent denizen - and the challenge it poses to liberal gov67 V O L U M E 7 N U M É R O 2 A U T O M N E / F A L L 2 0 1 2 ernance paradigms - unresolved. At the very least, the refusal to claim membership supplies additional evidence that citizenship is no longer a valuable commodity. Second, there is a growing population that effectively segregates itself notwithstanding long-term residence and who are not as a matter of social fact members of the community, as territory and community become decoupled at home. This is specially enabled among large diaspora concentrations. Within these groups, it may be both literally and metaphorically the case that residents are not "rubbing elbows at country stores" (172) with members of the existing community. Should those residents be eligible for citizenship? Even persistent territorial presence may not correlate with community solidarities; physical presence and the "passage of time" do not necessarily establish "social connectedness" (179). It would be interesting to have Shachar's take on citizenship tests, the liberaldemocratic purpose of which is to measure some form of community integration8. Leaving aside insurmountable problems of design (in multicultural societies, it is increasingly impossible to delineate a common knowledge set shared by members of an existing community), if in theory such a test could measure social connectedness it would seem consistent with the premise of citizenship's social content. But to the extent such tests exclude some residents from citizenship, as with the persistent denizen phenomenon the resulting exclusions detach membership from territory. On the other hand, to the extent Shachar's vision of citizenship has no social content, and jus nexi operates entirely on the basis of territorial location, it begins to look arbitrary, too. If territorial proximity does not establish social solidarity, it is not clear why location should result in membership nor how a community so constituted will sustain the political collective. Finally, it's not clear how the model would confront circular migration. What of the naturalized citizen who returns permanently to her homeland? In the United States, an increasing number of immigrants are naturalizing for the very purpose of permanently returning to their homeland, by way of securing absolute rights of re-entry. Shachar's approach might harken back to long abandoned US nationality regime under which such a citizen would forfeit his citizenship after three years' residence in his country of origin9. Meanwhile, the most effective mechanism for policing against attenuated external citizenship would be to resurrect previous bars to dual citizenship, which would effectively raise the cost of maintaining secondary national ties. Where dual citizenship is prohibited, individuals are forced to choose among citizenships for which they are eligible. The necessary ranking that results would tend to advance Shachar's normative agenda insofar as individuals would be most likely to choose the citizenship of the state in which they have the greater level of social connectedness. But Shachar (albeit in a somewhat cursory fashion, at pp. 66 and 179) appears to accept dual citizenship, as she and other liberal nationalists must, for globalization clearly enables individuals now to establish and to maintain actual members in more than one national society. 68 V O L U M E 7 N U M É R O 2 A U T O M N E / F A L L 2 0 1 2 It is ultimately the binary nature of citizenship that undermines citizenship-based models against the backdrop of deep transnational interpenetrations and scalar national affiliations. In the old world, the one in which state boundaries more closely coincided with community boundaries, citizenship made sense as an organizing principle, reflecting and perfecting social membership on the ground. In that context, Shachar's optic would have had normative traction as a basis for global redistribution. No doubt today there remains an imperative need to devise weapons against global inequality. Highlighting the moral quandaries of birthright citizenship may or may not help advance those efforts. 69 V O L U M E 7 N U M É R O 2 A U T O M N E / F A L L 2 0 1 2 NOTES 1 See Saskia Sassen, Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, Princeton University Press, 2006. 2 See, e.g., the essays collected in a symposium, "The Construction of Citizenship in an Emigration Context", 81 NYU L. Rev. 1 (2006). 3 The imposition of continuing obligations on non-citizens (especially taxes) would supply a tool to police against hollow citizens. To the extent that an individual maintain no continuing affective attachments, she will presumably be unwilling to pay for it. In fact, the leading motivation for the renunciation of U.S. citizenship is tax avoidance. See "More Americans Expatriates Give Up Citizenship", N.Y. Times, April 25, 2010. That most states do not pursue this strategy is evidence of their weak bargaining position vis-à-vis diaspora populations and the defensive nature of efforts to extend citizenship to emigrants. 4 See Christian Joppke, Selecting By Origin: Ethnic Migration in the Liberal State, Harvard University Press, 2005. 5 See, e.g., Joseph Carens, Immigrants and the Right to Stay, MIT Press, 2010. A variant calls for the extension to aliens of constitutional status equivalent to citizenship, in Linda Bosniak's conception, "the citizenship of aliens." See Linda Bosniak, The Citizen and the Alien: Dilemmas of Contemporary Membership, Princeton University Press, 2006. This strategy for expanding the rights of territorially present noncitizens is vulnerable to the same critique as I here apply to Shachar's work. Both overestimate the value of citizenship and the national territorial segmentation of community boundaries. 6 See Christian Joppke, Citizenship and Immigration, Polity Press, 2010, p. 36. 7 See Ruth Rubio-Marin, Immigration as a Democratic Challenge: Citizenship and Inclusion in Germany and the United States, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2000. 8 For one recent collection of short essays on the subject, see Rainer Bauböck & Christian Joppke, "How Liberal Are Citizenship Tests?", Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European Union Institute, Working Paper No. RSCAS 2010/41, 2010 (with contributions from Christian Joppke, Joseph Carens, Randall Hansen, and Dora Kostakopoulou, among others). 9 See Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163 (1964) (striking down statute as unconstitutional discrimination against naturalized citizen). 10 See Peter J. Spiro, "Dual Citizenship: A Postnational View", in Thomas Faist & Peter Kivisto (eds.), Dual Citizenship in Global Perspective, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 70 V O L U M E 7 N U M É R O 2 A U T O M N E / F A L L 2 0 1 | {
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© Dissertatio [45] 209-2332017 EL MÉTODO EN POÉTICA 1-6 DE ARISTÓTELES Manuel Berrón Universidad Nacional del Litoral Resumen: La premisa que guía nuestra investigación es que Poética es un tratado científico, i. e., que la investigación desarrollada en dicha obra se corresponde con el examen de una téchne. Defendemos que el método utilizado se corresponde con el método general de investigación denominado "salvar las apariencias". Tal método es expuesto con más detalle en otras obras del corpus pero lo presuponemos utilizado en Poética. Si bien el método presupone la recolección de datos, no se limita a eso puesto que el paso ulterior consiste en la caracterización de las diferencias y la exposición de las cuatro causas del fenómeno. De este modo, expondremos por un lado la base fenoménica de Poética y, por otro, sus cuatro causas. Palabras clave: Poética; Aristóteles; tratado científico; phainómena; causas. Abstract: Our paper assumes that Poetics is a scientific treatise, i. e., that the developed investigation in Poetics is an examination of a techne. We defend that the method used in Poetics corresponds with the general method so-called "saving the appearances". Aristotle expound such a method in others works of the corpus, but we assume that it is used in Poetics. The method presupposes the recollection of data, buy it does not be limited to this, on the contrary, the next step consist in the characterization of differences and exposition of four causes of phenomena. Thereby, on the one hand we expound Poetics' phenomena and, on the other hand, Poetics' four causes. Keywords: Poetics; Aristotle; scientific treatise; phenomena; causes. Introducción La discusión actual sobre el carácter de la exposición aristotélica en sus tratados científicos sigue siendo materia de polémicas. Por una parte, encontramos la crítica desplegada en la segunda mitad del S. XX a la metodología empleada en aquellos tratados que estableció una presunta incompatibilidad con las prescripciones metodológicas de los Analíticos, tal línea está inspirada por Solmsen (1929) y fue desarrollada con fuerza por Barnes (1969 y 1981)1. En este marco, surgió una línea interpretativa derivada 1 Barnes defiende dos tesis: por un lado, que no se usa la demostración científica en los tratados de ciencia (1969); por otro y en línea con Solmsen (1929), la tesis de que existiría una protoapodíctica en los Segundos analíticos que habría sido trastocada por el descubrimiento aristotélico del silogismo. Según Barnes, la fascinación por el silogismo de parte de Aristóteles habría obturado el desarrollo de una teoría general de la demostración (1981). Manuel Berrón 210 coherentemente de la anterior que buscó revelar cuál fue la metodología realmente utilizada en los diferentes tratados. Entre otros, Owen (1961) desarrolló una interpretación que defiende la tesis de que la herramienta prioritaria habría sido la dialéctica2. Estas dos tesis –la discrepancia entre práctica científica y filosofía de la ciencia más el uso de la dialéctica–, que funcionan de modo articulado han comenzado a ser revisadas en la medida en que se estudió la metodología utilizada en el conjunto de obras biológicas del corpus. Las investigaciones de Lennox (1987 y 2001), Gotthelf (1987 y 1997), Devereux y Pellegrin (1990) -en las obras de biologíay de Bolton (1991) y Detel (1997 y 2006) sobre metodología en biología y física suponen una importante revisión de dichas tesis. Además, en una propuesta de lectura diferente, Cleary (1994) defiende una visión que, antes que escindir las diversas variantes metodológicas elaboradas por Aristóteles, a saber: inducción, dialéctica y doxografía, propone una lectura que deja espacio para la integración de estos diversos métodos. Para ello, recurrió a la conocida metodología de "salvar las apariencias" como una interpretación que permite comprender e integrar estas variantes metodológicas3. En este marco polémico, pretendemos investigar la metodología que Aristóteles utiliza en la exposición desarrollada en Poética. La premisa que guía nuestra investigación es que Poética es un tratado científico, i. e., que la investigación desarrollada en dicha obra se corresponde con el examen científico propio de una téchne. Si bien existe un consenso sobre el carácter de tratado científico de Poética4, no encontramos una lectura que se apropie de este texto para interpretarlo sea en favor de la tesis de la discrepancia o en favor una tesis compatibilista como la que defenderemos. Nuestra perspectiva -como dijimos, de carácter compatibilistaasume que existen una serie de rasgos en la exposición desarrollada a lo largo de Poética que nos permiten aseverar que el examen de 2 La tesis de Owen se sostiene en la asunción de que phainómena equivale a éndoxa y que, entonces, toda investigación, incluida aquella que comienza por los phainómena, parte de las premisas de la dialéctica, i. e., los éndoxa. Owen no se encuentra solo en esta línea: le precede una línea "francesa" donde se encuentra Mansion (1945) al que puede sumarse con desarrollos y perspectivas propias Aubenque (1962) y en Alemania a Wieland (1962). Versiones más actuales y elaboradas en línea con la tesis iniciática de Owen se encuentran en Nussbaum (1986) e Irwin (1988). 3 A decir verdad, la lectura de Cleary defiende que el método de "salvar las apariencias" sirve en el camino del descubrimiento de los principios. De este modo, deja aparte el camino "desde los principios", propio del momento demostrativo dominado por el uso del silogismo. Nosotros consideramos que esta es una carencia de su lectura puesto que consideramos que este camino también forma parte del método, pero en razón del espacio no llegaremos a discutir este punto. Otra posición distinta con la que rivaliza Cleary es la de Irwin (1988), quien argumenta en favor de una división tajante entre dos caminos metodológicos diversos: el empírico y el dialéctico. 4 Son de esta opinión, entre otros, Husain (HUSAIN, 2002, p.17 ss), Barbero (BARBERO, 2004, p.32 ss), Sinnot (SINNOT, 2006, p.XI-XII), y Suñol (SUÑOL, 2012, p.41-2). Dissertatio [45] 209-2332017 211 esta técnica puede encuadrarse bajo la metodología general que brinda el esquema de "salvar las apariencias". Con miras a probar nuestra hipótesis (§1) examinaremos el incipit de Poética para mostrar que allí se alude implícitamente a esta metodología: para explicitar esto conectaremos este pasaje con Partes de los animales A, allí donde, como es bien conocido, Aristóteles establece importante prescripciones empiristas. En ese sentido, uno de nuestros principales objetivos es mostrar cuál es la base empírica o, utilizando el giro que denomina al método, "las apariencias" que deben ser "salvadas". Para alcanzar este objetivo, (§2) expondremos los phainómena que están en la base de la exposición de Poética. Por otra parte, dado que la explicación última del fenómeno de las artes poéticas depende del hallazgo de las causas para dicho fenómeno, (§3) mostraremos la presencia de la doctrina de las cuatro causas en Poética 4 a 6. Finalmente, extraeremos algunas conclusiones sobre lo desarrollado y el alcance del método de "salvar las apariencias". §1. El incipit de Poética y Partes de los animales A No existen en Poética muchas reflexiones metodológicas, sin embargo, en el comienzo de la obra, en el incipit, que reproducimos a continuación, encontramos una serie de detalles sumamente valiosos.5 Dice Aristóteles: Hablemos acerca de la poética en sí y de las especies de la misma, respecto de la potencia/efecto que cada una tiene, y de cómo es preciso estructurar las tramas si se tiene la intención de que la poesía resulte bien/bellamente, además de cuántas y cuáles son sus partes, de igual manera también acerca de las otras cosas que son propias de la misma investigación, comenzando conforme a la naturaleza, primero a partir de las cosas primeras6 (Poética 1447a8-13, traducción de V. Suñol, [cf. SUÑOL, 2012, p.41-2]). El pasaje presenta un estilo típicamente aristotélico en los distintos aspectos en que se proyecta la investigación, a saber: (i) se afirma que se estudiará la "poética en sí" y "sus especies", (ii) las potencias de la poética, (iii) la composición de la trama y su finalidad propia, (iv) sus partes, (v) y, finalmente, se informa que se avanzará conforme a la naturaleza, i. e., según el procedimiento adecuado para esta investigación: comenzando primero por lo 5 Algunos autores han tratado de quitarle relevancia a este pasaje señalando que puede dudarse de su autenticidad. Tal es la tesis de D. de Montmollin (DE MONTMOLLIN, 1951, p.12ss) quien afirma que la mayor parte del pasaje en cuestión podría tratarse de un mero añadido. Coincidimos con Barbero en su crítica a esta opinión (cf. BARBERO, 2004, p.40-1). 6 Περὶ ποιητικῆς αὐτῆς τε καὶ τῶν εἰδῶν αὐτῆς, ἥν τινα δύναμιν ἕκαστον ἔχει, καὶ πῶς δεῖ συνίστασθαι τοὺς μύθους εἰ μέλλει καλῶς ἕξειν ἡ ποίησις, ἔτι δὲ ἐκ πόσων καὶ ποίων ἐστὶ μορίων, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ περὶ τῶν ἄλλων ὅσα τῆς αὐτῆς ἐστι μεθόδου, λέγωμεν ἀρξάμενοι κατὰ φύσιν πρῶτον ἀπὸ τῶν πρώτων. En algunas ocasiones citaré traducciones reconocidas, en otras haré mis propias traducciones, en todos los casos indicaré el proceder. Manuel Berrón 212 primero. Para un examen minucioso de los ítems (i-iv), me remito al análisis que hizo del pasaje S. Barbero (2004, p.32-43). Una peculiaridad del incipit es la ausencia de referencia al estudio de las causas de la poética. Es absolutamente habitual que Aristóteles mencione que abordará el estudio de las causas incluso los principios y elementosdel objeto en cuestión pero aquí no lo hace aunque luego, efectivamente, se ocupa de establecer las causas de la poética7. Resulta de un interés especial considerar el último giro del incipit, el ítem (v), puesto que éste conecta con otros pasajes del corpus metodológicamente importantes. El giro, a saber: "comenzando conforme a la naturaleza, primero a partir de las cosas primeras" es relevante puesto que estas palabras no son exclusivas de Poética sino que el giro aparece en otros pasajes8. Sin embargo, la expresión aquí no tiene una aclaración concreta y su sentido debe ser buscado por su similitud con otros pasajes del corpus. Existe consenso en que la primera parte del giro, "comenzando conforme a la naturaleza", tiene el sentido técnico de remitir al orden expositivo estándar de Aristóteles. Esto es, a partir de la conocida distinción entre lo primero por sí o por naturaleza y lo primero para nosotros9, no se comienza por lo que es primero para nosotros sino, como se afirma, por lo que es primero por sí o por naturaleza. De este modo, lo primero por lo que se comienza desde el punto de vista expositivo conceptual viene dado por lo que es común, un cierto universal, para luego referirse a lo particular, a lo que es primero para nosotros. En el caso de las artes poéticas, lo común es el carácter mimético de la poesía mientras que lo particular se refiere a las características específicas de cada una de estas artes10. Además, entre los pasajes del corpus en donde el giro se repite, hay uno que merece una atención especial: el pasaje paralelo de Partes de los animales A (PA). Entendemos que la conexión es trascendente puesto que en Partes de los animales el giro es utilizado dos veces (646a3-4 y 655b28ss) en el contexto de una serie de aclaraciones metodológicas que le dan un sentido bien específico y rico. Asumimos que aquellas prescripciones que especifican el giro pueden ser trasladadas a Poética puesto que poseen idéntico carácter metodológico- 7 También se puede argumentar que en el proemio de Meteorológicos se utiliza, al igual que en Poetica 1 1447a13, el término πρώτων pero en la afirmación Περὶ μὲν οὖν τῶν πρώτων αἰτίων (A 1 338a20) y allí se conecta la investigación directamente con la búsqueda de las causas (i. e., se podría asumir que en incipit de Poetica, αἰτίων se encuentra elidido). 8 Cfr. Partes de los animales A 1 640a10ss con A 5 646a2ss, Refutaciones sofísitcas 14 164a21, Ética eudemia A 6 1217a18, Generación de los animales B 4 737b25, y otros giros semejantes en Ética a Nicómaco Z 4 1139b16, Física A 7 189b31 y Meteorológicos A 1 338a20. Barbero también reseña estas coincidencias (2004, 36). 9 El tópico aparece en Física A 1, en Acerca del alma B 2, Metafísica Z 3 y Segundos analíticos A 2. 10 En esta dirección los comentarios ad loc de García Yebra (1974), Barbero (2004) y Sinnot (2006). Dissertatio [45] 209-2332017 213 prescriptivo. Destaquemos en primer lugar un conjunto de interrogantes metodológicos presentes en Partes de los animales A 1. Aristóteles introduce dos preguntas íntimamente conectadas: en primer lugar, ¿se debe hacer una observación por géneros y luego las características específicas, o debemos estudiar cada especie por separado? (PA A 1 639b3-5) y a continuación, ¿se deben observar primero los fenómenos relativos a los animales y luego buscar el por qué y las causas o a la inversa? (PA A 639b 7-11). La respuesta11 del segundo interrogante va en línea con el conocido pasaje metodológico de Primeros Analíticos (APr) A 30 46a18-26 en donde se afirma que se debe proceder como los astrónomos: en primer lugar recoger los fenómenos relativos a cada cosa -así se obtiene la experiencia en astronomíay sólo a continuación elaborar las causas y proceder con las demostraciones. Siguiendo esta misma lógica, Aristóteles contesta el primer interrogante -y tácitamente el segundoseñalando que debemos, en primer lugar, partir de la selección y recolección de las características relativas a cada género para, seguidamente, elaborar y proponer las causas y sobre la generación (PA A 1 640a13-15, también en A 4 644a25-6). Balme anota este pasaje señalando que claramente en contra de la crítica que le hiciera BaconAristóteles sostiene que primero se debe contar con toda la información empírica para poder luego realizar afirmaciones generales. En esa dirección va también la crítica que le hiciera a Demócrito en Sobre la generación de los animales (GA) E 8 788b11: según Aristóteles, Demócrito habría dado una explicación general sin examinar todos los casos. Contrariamente, una vez que se cuenta con una base empírica suficiente12, el procedimiento explicativo comienza, como hemos señalado anteriormente, por lo general y a partir de allí, abarcando lo particular. En efecto, la exposición científica debe respetar este orden para, por un lado, evitar las repeticiones innecesarias y, por otro, ayudar a conocer las causas comunes (BALME, 1992, p.72). Estas prescripciones metodológicas van en la dirección de la caracterización del método de salvar las apariencias puesto que, en efecto, el primer paso de dicho método consiste en la recolección de los fenómenos (las apariencias) para proceder luego con el segundo paso, su 11 Esta respuesta la da el hombre culto (a diferencia del que sólo conoce el objeto específico). El hombre culto es quien conoce las reglas y principios que estructuran cualquier objeto (precisamente por tener un conocimiento general). Angioni enfatiza que el hombre culto es el filósofo y cree que esta distinción debe contrastarse con lo afirmado en Metafísica Γ 1 y E 1 sobre la ciencia universal y las ciencias particulares (cf. ANGIONI comm. ad loc). Cleary interpreta este pasaje de Partes de los animales de modo semejante (cf. CLEARY, 1994, p.67). Por otra parte, la discusión sobre los contenidos de la educación del hombre culto y la relación entre ésta y el conocimiento especializado de hechos tiene precedentes en Platón (Gorgias 485a; Protágoras 312b; Carta VII 340b y ss. (cf. MARCOS comm. ad loc). 12 El pasaje de Primero analíticos A 30 es claro: "una vez recogidos suficientemente (ἱκανῶς) los fenómenos, se encontraron las demostraciones astronómicas" (46a20-1). Manuel Berrón 214 explicación13. De este modo, queda explicitado que no se puede proceder conforme a la naturaleza, i. e., de lo general a lo particular, si no se ha procedido en primer lugar de modo inverso, i. e., a partir de lo más conocido para nosotros y hacia lo común o universal. Si, entonces, se afirma que se procederá según el orden natural de la exposición, debemos suponer que existió con anterioridad un momento de selección exhaustiva y suficiente (ἱκανῶς, Primeros analíticos A 46a20), evitando el error de Demócrito, de los fenómenos pertinentes. Esta conclusión es sumamente relevante puesto que si el método es como el prescrito, debemos suponer entonces también para Poética una selección previa de los fenómenos necesarios para las explicaciones ulteriores. La conexión entre Poética y Partes de los animales se termina de sugerir en el último capítulo de Partes de los animales A: el libro cierra con la misma afirmación de Poética: "Y sobre el método de investigación queda dicho esto; tratemos de explicar las causas respecto a las propiedades comunes y a las específicas, empezando (ἀρξάμενοι), como hemos establecido, primero por lo primero" (PA A 5 646a2-5, trad. Sánchez). Es significativo para nuestro fin que el método tenga las características prescritas y que, en el final de Partes de los animales A se afirme lo mismo que en Poética. Si, entonces, como regla metodológica general debemos tratar de explicar las causas comunes para luego ir hacia las específicas, así se afirma y se procede en Partes de los animales B-Δ, podemos inferir un procedimiento semejante en Poética.14 Ahora bien, ¿cuál es la base empírica de Partes de los animales?, ¿cuáles son los φαινόμενα de Partes de los animales? Curiosamente, o quizá no tanto, en Partes de los animales no contamos con un conjunto de φαινόμενα que constituyan base empírica alguna. Sin embargo, hay que destacar que si excluimos Partes de los animales A, el resto de Partes de los animales es un tratado explicativo. Los libros Partes de los animales Β-Δ suponen la Historia animalium (HA) puesto que, en efecto, es opinión común entre los investigadores de las obras biológicas de Aristóteles reconocer que HA es el tratado donde se recoge la información relevante sobre la que luego se llevarán a cabo las explicaciones. Por otra parte, los 13 Sin embargo, Cleary considera plausible la sugerencia de Kullman (1974) de que la distinción entre la recolección de fenómenos y la búsqueda de las causas se corresponde más cercanamente a la distinción en los Segundos Analíticos entre el conocimiento del hecho (τὸ ὅτι) y el conocimiento de la causa (τό διότι) (1994, p.67). 14 Alguien podría dudar y pensar en la legitimidad de traspasar conclusiones de un texto a partir de la mera repetición de unas pocas palabras. El contraargumento es que en ambos casos son contextos de explicitación del proceder metodológico y que la distinción entre lo que es primero por sí/ por naturaleza y primero para nosotros es completamente estándar en Aristóteles. Si se defendiera una interpretación disonante con ésta, habría que brindar un buen argumento a su favor. Dissertatio [45] 209-2332017 215 tratados como Partes de los animales, De generatione animalium, De incessu animalium y De motu animalium son las obras en donde el estagirita se ocupa de construir las explicaciones del caso. De este modo, podemos considerar que lo mismo ocurre en Poética aunque, en este caso, no contamos con ningún texto donde se recojan los φαινόμενα tal como sucede con Historia Animalium. Quizá la explicación sea más simple de lo que se cree -aunque esto lo afirmo en tono meramente hipotético: en el caso de las investigaciones biológicas, la información brindada en Historia Animalium. es mayormente desconocida mientras que, en el caso del objeto de estudio de Poética, las obras mencionadas gozan, en su mayoría, de un amplio conocimiento. Existen otros dos rasgos característicos de orden metodológico que también se destacan en Partes de los animales A y que nos permiten el contraste con Poética, a saber: en primer lugar, la investigación es una búsqueda de las causas (rasgo etiológico del quehacer científico). En los seres vivos, las causas son estudiadas en los distintos tratados ya mencionados. Como es sabido, el esquema de las cuatro causas suele reducirse a sólo dos por la identificación que acaece entre las causas eficiente, formal y final (a diferencia de los entes artificiales, cuyo fin es el producto del diseño de una inteligencia y distinto de ellos). En este sentido, debemos considerar cuál es la naturaleza del objeto de la Poética y, a partir de esto, reflexionar si debemos esperar, o no, que las causas estén claramente diferenciadas. En segundo lugar, en Partes de los animales A 2-3 Aristóteles, si bien acepta en general el método de la división, rechaza que ésta pueda ser realizada por una sola diferencia cada vez. Esta versión de la división, opuesta a la académica, da lugar a que los conjuntos, en razón de la cantidad de diferencias detectadas, puedan ser divididos en dos o más subgrupos.15 Es importante que critique así aquel uso de la división y que luego encontremos ejemplos de un tipo diverso de clasificación (así trabaja, de hecho, en Partes de los animales B, donde expone tres tipos de síntesis). Por ello, tal como vemos ese procedimiento en Partes de los animales Β-Δ, también deberíamos esperar encontrar lo mismo en Poética. En esa dirección continuaremos el examen. Hasta aquí con las conexiones entre Poética y Partes de los animales tendientes a sugerir que subyace un mismo método en ambas obras. Si esta conexión es legítima, deberíamos encontrar, aunque más no de modo sugerido, la base empírica sobre la que está construida Poética. Avancemos en esta 15 En su comentario ad loc, Balme dice que la crítica: "no es necesariamente contra la división en dos clases en cuanto tal, sino a la división de una diferencia por vez (sea en dos clases o más). En cambio, él [Aristóteles] recomienda dividir simultáneamente el conjunto por muchas diferencias, [...] Su método debe ser contrastado con toda clase de división hecha por una sola diferencia, sea dicotómica o politómica" (1972, p.101). Manuel Berrón 216 búsqueda. §2. Phainómena en Poetica 1-3 Expondré ahora lo que podemos considerar los phainómena o la "base empírica" de las principales nociones de Poética a Poética 1-3, reservando Poética 4-6 para mostrar no sólo la "base empírica" sino también el modo en que allí se desarrolla la exposición de las causas de las artes poéticas. La búsqueda de los phainómena en que se asienta el tratado en su totalidad excede los límites de esta presentación. Por otra parte, no debe olvidarse que phainómena es un término que no está exento de ambigüedades16. Sin embargo, para nuestra presentación actual, es suficiente considerar que dentro de dicho término se encuentran no sólo los datos que nos brinda la sensopercepción -que en el marco del teatro viene dado por la música, las voces y los atuendossino también por aspectos relativos a los contenidos expuestos en las actuaciones sobre el escenario y presenciados por los espectadores. Ciertamente, el dato de la sensopercepción forma parte de la experiencia, pero también forma parte de ella el contenido de la actuación desarrollada por los actores. En efecto, un ateniense culto que asistía al teatro regularmente poseía lato sensu una experiencia suficiente, tanto del teatro como del resto de las artes poéticas, como para comprender sin dificultad aquello que Aristóteles expone en Poética. Quizá sea ilustrativa para esta noción de experiencia ampliada, la caracterización del buen discípulo en Ética a Nicómaco I 3 1195a3-5: no es buen discípulo quien no tiene experiencia (ἄπειρος) en las acciones de la vida y, la inversa, es buen discípulo el experimentado17. Así, no se trata sólo de tener opiniones o éndoxai sobre estas acciones sino haber experimentado las acciones mismas. De este modo, así como las acciones son la empeiría adecuada para el conocimiento de los principios de la ética es posible que el conocimiento de las distintas artes poéticas en tanto experiencia vivida constituya la empeiría sobre la que se asienta Poética. Esa experiencia vivida puede darse de dos modos: tanto por escuchar un relato mítico en la tradición oral (que luego puede aparecer en una obra) como por la asistencia al teatro y la visión de las obras allí expuestas. En este sentido consideramos que existe una "base empírica" compartida –y perfectamente explicitable– que sirvió de punto de partida para la elaboración que hizo Aristóteles de su teoría poética. Como hemos señalado, defendemos 16 La polémica se remonta a la ya mencionada tesis de Owen (1961) sobre la identificación entre phainómena y éndoxa. Un examen crítico de Owen en Berrón (2013). 17 También puede ofrecerse como ejemplo la célebre distinción entre el empírico y el técnico de Met A 2. Recordemos que el empírico es el que conoce las cosas por haber tratado con ellas, por haber tratado con lo particular y, así, el empírico conoce los materiales por haber construido. Es lícito elaborar un paralelo entre, de una parte, el obrero y el espectador, y de otra entre el técnico y el dramaturgo. Dissertatio [45] 209-2332017 217 que Poética está construida sobre phainómena a partir de los cuales se realizan las distinciones, se establecen las causas y, como en cualquier otra técnica, se resuelven los posibles problemas.18 Avancemos en esa dirección. Poética 1 presenta variada información que puede ser considerada como la base empírica sobre la que se elabora la explicación teórica. Luego del incipit, nos encontramos con una primera enumeración de seis formas de poesía que tienen como rasgo común ser tipos de mímesis: la (i) epopeya, (ii) la poesía trágica, (iii) la comedia, (iv) la poesía ditirámbica, (v) la aulética y (vi) la citarística son mencionadas y consideradas como la base empírica19 que permite identificar lo común a todas ellas: ser casos particulares de mímesis. Además, esta enumeración ofrece una serie de criterios que permiten encontrar las diferencias, i. e., identificar sus especies: 1) por el medio, 2) por el objeto, y 3) por el modo en que realizan la mímesis20. En 1447a20 se señala también que las imitaciones o representaciones son realizadas por arte o por costumbre (διὰ τέχνης... διὰ συνεθείας): ambos términos se conectan con la distinción de Metafísica A 1 y Ética a Nicómaco Θ 6 1158a14-5 donde se explica que el técnico posee el conocimiento causal mientras que el hombre de experiencia tiene el conocimiento de lo particular. De este modo, se asume que hay un universo de particulares que habilita la posibilidad de personas experimentadas, i. e., que poseen empeiría, y también, que en base a esta experiencia puede haber un conocimiento técnico. Otro elemento a ser destacado en este pasaje es que las dos divisiones que se presentan, a saber: la mímesis en seis tipos de artes poéticas y los tres criterios en que puede ser realizada la mímesis, nos muestran que no se sigue la división dicotómica estándar. Recordemos, en efecto, que la διαίρεσις es criticada en PA A 2-5 y que Aristóteles indica en Segundos analíticos B 13 96b25 ss. qué tipo de διαίρεσις es viable. No es este el espacio para examinar la crítica a la διαίρεσις académica, pero sí podemos observar que en los casos de divisiones presentados se está procediendo de un modo original y propio de 18 Esta última afirmación apunta al resto de Poética (i. e., Poet. 7-22). Por razones de espacio no tratamos todo el texto sino que nos concentramos en Poética 1-6; sin embargo, consideramos que en los capítulos subsiguientes, Aristóteles se vale de los desarrollos previos para, precisamente, resolver las dificultades. El desarrollo de este punto es materia de otro trabajo. 19 Sinnot anota que Aristóteles utiliza la expresión τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι (1447a15-6) y aclara que dicha expresión "connota que se trata de una circunstancia de hecho cuya necesidad no puede aclararse o justificarse". Esto refuerza el carácter de factum que posee el contenido de tal información (cf. SINNOT, 2006, n. ad loc.). 20F. Solmsen sostiene que Aristóteles está utilizando aquí la διαίρεσις platónica pero afirma que apoya esta división en observaciones históricas (o especulaciones históricas) (1935, p.199). Lo relevante de la afirmación de Solmsen no es que Aristóteles siga a Platón en el uso de la διαίρεσις sino que aclare que las diferencias fueron obtenidas a partir de observaciones (aunque por momentos algo especulativas) históricas. Manuel Berrón 218 Aristóteles (particularmente por la posibilidad de dividir cada grupo en más de dos subgrupos). Solmsen presenta un esquema que muestra el proceso de la división donde puede apreciarse el modo no platónico de su procedimiento (1935, 191). El resto de Poética 1 se ocupa de precisar e ilustrar el primer criterio que sirve para distinguir entre las distintas artes miméticas (i. e., el medio por el cual imitan). Así, se afirma que todas lo hacen por el ritmo, el lenguaje y la armonía, de forma separada o mezclada y, a continuación, se ponen los ejemplos que sirven de prueba para la afirmación: (1) la aulética y la citarística (también la siringa) utilizan la armonía y el ritmo; (2) "la de los bailarines" utiliza sólo el ritmo; (3) otra, sin nombre común (dado que abarca los mimos de Sofrón y Jenarco, los diálogos socráticos, los versos trímetros y los versos elegíacos) utiliza sólo la palabra;21 por último, (4) el ditirambo, el nomo, la comedia y la tragedia se valen de los tres medios de imitación (aunque unas lo utilizan al mismo tiempo y otras los usan por separado). Naturalmente, la presentación del criterio se realiza en primer lugar, es decir, primero se propone el criterio para luego "distinguir" entre las distintas artes. Sin embargo, es claro que la elaboración del criterio es el resultado de la consideración de un cierto conjunto de casos que permiten construirlo pero que, en este orden expositivo, aquellos casos que permitieron elaborar el criterio ahora se vuelven ejemplos que lo ilustran. Lo mismo con los criterios ulteriores. Poética 2 se ocupa del segundo criterio: el objeto imitado. Aristóteles defiende que la imitación es de los caracteres (τὰ ἤθη, 1448a2) y éstos se distinguen, según la virtud o el vicio, en buenos o malos. Pero dicha imitación se hace volviendo el objeto imitado mejor o peor, o imitándolo igual. Prueba de ello es que, entre los pintores, Polignoto los representa mejores, Pausón peores y Dionisio semejantes. Se destaca que la división no sea en dos grupos sino en tres.22 Es evidente que (δῆλον δὲ ὅτι, 1448a7) estas diferencias (διαφοράς, 1448a8) también se darán en la danza, en la aulética, en la citarística, en la prosa y en los versos: Homero los representa mejores, 21 Aristóteles aclara que los hombres llaman según el tipo de verso a unos poetas elegíacos y a otros poetas épicos, etc. (1447b14). Aclara luego que son poetas tanto Homero como Empédocles pero que al segundo habría que llamarlo propiamente fisiólogo. 22 Castillo Merlo reseña la dificultad existente entre los interpretes a la hora de resolver esta tercera subdivisión (porque estaría en contra de la división en dos grupos). Es interesante que afirme que "Aristóteles parece verse forzado por las propias prácticas artísticas de su época a introducir una tercera posibilidad (...)" (CASTILLO MERLO, 2016, p.66) porque muestra, una vez más, que Aristóteles estaría tomando en cuenta la preeminencia de la información empírica. Por otro lado, la discusión de fondo sobre si debe dividirse el objeto en dos o en tres está reseñada en el artículo de Castillo Merlo así como también en el libro de Suñol (cf. SUÑOL 2012, p.59). Dissertatio [45] 209-2332017 219 Cleofonte, semejantes, Hegemón y Nicócares, peores.23 Por último, la tragedia imita a los hombres mejores mientras que la comedia a los peores, pero en ambos casos, mejores o peores de lo que son en realidad. Debe notarse que toda la información brindada es conocida: la división de los caracteres en buenos y malos, las representaciones "mejores", "iguales" o "peores", que esto mismo pasa en la danza y el resto de las artes, también lo que hacen Homero, Cleofonte y el resto así como el tipo de imitación de la tragedia y de la comedia, todo, en conjunto, sirve para inferir que hay mímesis de cosas diversas, i. e., de objetos diversos. De este modo surge el criterio, de la observación de las diferencias, pero una vez que contamos con tal criterio, podemos continuar distinguiendo casos nuevos. Sin embargo, el criterio surge de los casos, no al revés; sólo luego, en efecto, servirá para explicarlos24. Poética 3 aborda la tercera diferencia (διαφορά, 1448a19): los diversos modos. El primer modo es el (1) narrativo que se subdivide (a) por el estilo directo, a la manera de Homero, o (b) el indirecto (no hay ejemplo aquí) y (2) la dramática (dice Aristóteles: como si todos obraran y actuaran realmente). No se esfuerza Aristóteles demasiado en justificar estas distinciones pero la razón seguramente radica en que las considera manifiestas.25 Luego se ocupa someramente de mostrar que los criterios (i), (ii) y (iii) pueden utilizarse para clasificar, y así reunir o separar, generando diversas combinaciones. Por ejemplo, Sófocles imita como Homero al imitar hombres buenos, pero imita como Aristófanes al imitar a quienes actúan y obran.26 El capítulo cierra con una disquisición histórica y etimológica sobre el origen del nombre de la comedia. Tal como con el segundo criterio, Aristóteles ilustra el modo en que funciona el criterio, pero es bastante claro que estos mismos casos son los que sirvieron para la elaboración del criterio en cuestión. Continuemos con el tercer momento de nuestra exposición donde veremos tanto la exposición de las cuatro causas de las artes poéticas como su apoyo empírico. 23 Aristóteles menciona también a Argas, Timoteo y Filoxeno, pero no aclara cuál es el modo en que éstos imitan. 24 He utilizado "inferir" y "surgir" para referirme al modo en que se establecen las diferencias. Se podrían estudiar estos pasajes como un ejemplo de lo que Aristóteles consideraría un tipo de inducción (ἐπαγωγή). La gran cantidad de artículos sobre el tema suelen evitar la consideración exhaustiva de pasajes de este tipo los que, sin embargo, podrían ayudar a aclarar la relación entre los particulares y el universal (cf. ENGBER-PEDERSEN, 1979, p.302). 25 Con todo, hay otros modos de distinguir dentro de la poesía imitativa, tal como el mismo Platón lo observa en República X, 603c. Cuando decimos que "las considera manifiestas" asumimos que hay un contexto de discusión en donde Aristóteles ha esclarecido dichas distinciones y que, a la hora de exponerlas, se limita sólo a utilizarlas (sin justificarlas). 26 Recuérdese que Aristófanes es comediógrafo y, como tal, imita a los hombres peores haciéndolos peores. Manuel Berrón 220 §3. Las causas en Poética 4-6 Estos capítulos tienen un valor especial porque asumen el fenómeno según el conocido esquema causal propuesto por el estagirita. En este sentido, no deja de ser sorprendente que tanto García Yebra como Sinnot no comentan nada sobre la presencia de la doctrina de las causas en estos pasajes. No obstante, creemos particularmente valioso examinar estos capítulos bajo la perspectiva de las cuatro causas dado que esto pone en evidencia el cuidado que Aristóteles tiene en su investigación sobre la creación poética por considerar a esta como una genuina técnica. Veamos las causas en la Poética. La causa eficiente. El lugar donde la introduce corresponde a Poética 4 y, aunque evitaremos citar pasajes extensos, consideraremos casi todo el capítulo en lo que sigue. En las primeras líneas de Poética 4 Aristóteles afirma que expondrá dos causas de la poética (τὴν ποιητικὴν αἰτίαι δύο, 1448b4-5). La primera, condición común y propia de las artes poéticas, consiste en la connaturalidad del imitar desde la infancia (μιμεῖσθαι σύνφυτον, b5). La connaturalidad del imitar debe entenderse como formando parte de la naturaleza del hombre y, bajo este supuesto, dado que está en la naturaleza de cada uno, desde el momento de comenzar a vivir, "desde niños" aduce más adelante Aristóteles, esta naturaleza nos impele a imitar. No conviene olvidar que en numerosos lugares se define a la naturaleza como el principio del movimiento (particularmente en Phys B 1 192b20-3)27. Así, podemos asumir que el hecho de esta connaturalidad supone que en los hombres se da la naturaleza en este sentido. De ese modo, Aristóteles aclara que el hombre es el mejor dotado para la imitación y que adquiere sus primeros conocimientos a través de ella (1448b6-8). Se destaca el carácter de potencia que tiene la condición de imitar en el hombre pero, además, su actividad espontánea o natural (y no forzada). Ambos ejemplos confirman que el imitar tiene el carácter de causa motriz puesto que es por su intermedio que, por ejemplo, comienza en los niños el aprendizaje. De modo inverso, se supone que la ausencia de la capacidad de imitar sería un serio problema para el inicio del aprendizaje y, por esta razón, se vería confirmado su rasgo causal. Ciertamente, aunque Aristóteles no lo diga explícitamente, es bastante patente entonces que el imitar es, bajo las consideraciones precedentes, el principio desde donde 27 La definición de Física B 1 dice que la naturaleza es principio en tanto es causa del movimiento o del reposo en la cosa a la que pertenece primariamente y por sí misma, no por accidente. No debe perderse de vista que Aristóteles define naturaleza de distintas maneras, particularmente en Metafísica Δ 4. Allí es definida, entre otras acepciones, no sólo como causa motriz sino también como causa material, como la οὐσία de las cosas naturales (en el sentido de εἰδος y μορφή). No obstante, en el pasaje de Poética, es claro que el sentido aludido es el de causa eficiente. Dissertatio [45] 209-2332017 221 procede el movimiento, i. e., la causa motriz. En lo que concierne a la segunda de las causas mencionadas, existe una polémica. Al comentar las líneas 1448b4-5, Yebra anota que hay dos lecturas sobre la posible segunda causa: unos afirman que se trata del agrado (τὸ χαίρειν, b8) mientras que otros defienden que se trata de la connaturalidad del ritmo y la melodía (b20-1)28. No es éste el espacio para repasar pormenorizadamente los argumentos de unos y otros. Sin embargo, brindaremos algunas razones por las cuales el agrado no puede ser considerado ni causa eficiente en particular ni causa en general. En primer lugar, no puede ser considerado causa eficiente porque, a todas luces, el agrado (o el placer) es un tipo de resultado29. Si esto es correcto, el agrado debería ser considerado antes que como causa eficiente, como un tipo de causa final. Además, si consideramos otras afirmaciones sobre el placer como las que aparecen en EN Z donde éste es definido como una actividad del modo de ser conforme con la naturaleza (1153a14), la caracterización del placer como fin es bastante fuerte30. El trato que recibe el placer entendido éste como un bien en EN Z nos impele a considerarlo un tipo de fin y, dado este examen, es imposible que pueda ser una causa que origine o genere, en tanto causa eficiente, la tragedia. Ahora bien, si descartamos la posibilidad de que sea causa eficiente, ¿se trata entonces de una causa final? Veámoslo. El principal argumento de quienes comprenden al agrado como causa está en el texto aristotélico: tomemos en cuenta que afirma, luego de mencionar la connaturalidad del imitar, que "todos hallan agrado en las imitaciones" (b8-9) y por ello éste sería la segunda causa. A continuación, afirma que tenemos signos de ello (σημείον, b9)31 en lo que ocurre (συμβαῖνον, b9): el agrado es un fenómeno que constatamos como resultado de contemplar imágenes, incluso imágenes de cosas que, de tenerlas presentes 28 Entre los primeros: Ritter, Bywater, Rostagni y Hardy; entre los segundos: Vahlen, Gudeman y Else. Yebra también se inclina por la segunda opción. 29 Aunque el término utilizado es χαίρειν, consideramos que equivale a ἡδύς (y éste a ἡδονή). Lo prueba el hecho de que existe un pasaje paralelo en Retórica A 1371b4-10 donde -utilizando prácticamente los mismos términos que en Poética 4se informa que aprender (μανθάνειν) es placentero (ἡδύς) y asombroso (θαυμάζειν). Al igual que en Poética, se pone el ejemplo de la imitación de las bestias y se informa que en la imitación se da un tipo de razonamiento y se logra aprender algo. Barbero estudia detalladamente la relación entre Poética y Retórica (cf. BARBERO, 2004, p.139-42). 30 Para una discusión de la naturaleza del placer entendida ésta como actividad o perfeccionamiento de la actividad, nos remitimos a Bieda (cf. BIEDA, 2005, sección I. b). 31 En la entrada de Bonitz sobre σημείον se indica que el giro "σημείον δὲ", utilizado en 1448b9, significa que lo presentado es indicio a partir de lo cual algo es reunido (colligatur) (1870, p.677). La conexión con otros pasajes donde lo que se considera indicio tiene una cercanía con la sensopercepción muestra que Aristóteles considera tanto a lo estrictamente sensible como a estos casos como una base adecuada para establecer diferencias. Manuel Berrón 222 directamente, tales como bestias y cadáveres, no tendríamos ninguna satisfacción. Explicando la razón (αἴτιον, b12) del agrado producido en el imitar, Aristóteles afirma que todos los hombres sienten satisfacción al aprender (μανθάνειν, b13) y señala también que al contemplar las imágenes se aprende así como se deduce (συλλογίζεσθαι, b16) qué es cada cosa. Con esta aclaración se establece por qué causa sentimos agrado, pero también queda claro que lo que persiguen los hombres no es el agrado mismo sino el aprender o el deducir y que estas actividades son las que, a la postre, producen el agrado. Por ello, debemos evaluar que Aristóteles considera al placer como un fenómeno que perfecciona la actividad32 y, a partir de esto, podemos pensar que el agrado que acontece con la imitación no es más que una sensación o sentimiento que está unida al imitar, sin ser el propio imitar. Si esto es así, aunque no puede considerárselo separado, no puede ser tomado propiamente como el fin del imitar. Es bastante claro por qué Aristóteles pone en conexión el imitar con el agrado, pero también es claro que esto no implica que el agrado sea el fin por el cual se llegaron a generar (γεννῆσαι, 1448b4) las artes poéticas. Y siendo esto así, el agrado no puede ser tomado como causa final aunque sí como un epifenómeno que sucede luego de realizada la imitación. Un argumento complementario a los anteriores es que Aristóteles se ocupa de establecer con precisión cuál es la causa final de las artes poéticas cuando trabaja particularmente el fin de la tragedia. Si bien lo veremos más adelante, Aristóteles dice expresamente que la trama y el orden de los hechos constituyen la finalidad de la tragedia (cf. Poet. 1450a15-24). Cuando expongamos sobre la causa final volveremos sobre este pasaje, por ahora es suficiente con señalar que el agrado no puede ser fin porque Aristóteles dice explícitamente qué tipo de fin debemos buscar al exponer y presentar el fin propio de la tragedia. Como resultado de este examen, excluimos al agrado como una de las dos causas invocadas y de este modo, nos inclinamos a considerar que la segunda opción debe ser tomada como la correcta. La segunda causa eficiente corresponde, entonces, a la connaturalidad del ritmo y la melodía (b20-1). Dice Aristóteles: "[...] al comienzo los que tenían una disposición natural para esas cosas fueron haciéndolas avanzar de a poco y dieron origen (ἐγέννησαν) a la poesía a partir de las improvisaciones." (b22-4). Los hombres en los que el ritmo y la melodía se presentan como disposiciones naturales espontáneas y para quienes su cultivo resulta fácil son, según se sigue de lo anterior, aquellos que dan origen a las primeras 32 "El placer perfecciona la actividad" (cf. Ética a Nicómaco K 4 1074b30). Sin embargo, se aclara allí mismo que el surgimiento del placer está condicionado a que la facultad que realiza la acción lo haga del modo adecuado y, sólo así, habrá placer. Dissertatio [45] 209-2332017 223 imitaciones y, a fin de cuentas, a las formas más evolucionas de las artes poéticas, particularmente a la poesía y a la música. Al igual que en la consideración de la primera causa eficiente, esta segunda, que de hecho no consiste en otra cosa que en un tipo especial de mímesis, es una condición que debe estar presente en el origen del movimiento y que, ciertamente, lo impulsa. No se trata de una finalidad sino de una peculiaridad de la naturaleza de los hombres que impulsa en estos, que genera en esto, las imitaciones y, así, el origen de las artes miméticas. Una última consideración sobre Poética. 4 que nos permite visualizar el camino hacia el establecimiento de la causa formal. Una vez que se establecen las causas que dan origen a las artes poéticas, lo razonable es exponer cómo fue el desarrollo ulterior. De ese modo, el texto continúa con la historia de la tragedia y todo el pasaje es relevante porque muestra, apoyada en mucha información, la lectura teleológica de esta historia. En tono hipotético se afirma que la poesía tiene su origen remoto en ciertas improvisaciones que luego se orientan a la imitación de los caracteres: las invectivas imitaron el carácter malo y los himnos y encomios los buenos. No se conserva nada anterior a Homero, pero sí el Margites. Estas obras tomaron el metro yámbico y se llamaron por ello, luego, yambos. Hubo así poetas de obras satíricas (yambos) y poetas de obras heroicas. Aristóteles afirma también que Homero, con la escritura de la Ilíada y la Odisea anticipó la tragedia, pero también, con la escritura del Margites anticipó la comedia.33 De este modo, con el advenimiento de la tragedia y de la comedia, los poetas épicos se convirtieron en poetas trágicos y los poetas yámbicos en comediógrafos (1449a2-6). Aristóteles considera que ya se dijo suficiente sobre la especie (εἴδος, 1449a8) y pasa a considerar el grado de evolución del teatro. El origen está, como ya afirmó, en una improvisación: la tragedia nace como improvisación de los exarcontes del ditirambo y la comedia de la improvisación del exarconte del canto fálico y, señala Aristóteles: "la tragedia creció.... y se detuvo, cuando alcanzó la naturaleza que le es propia" (τὴν αὑτῆς φύσιν, 1449a14-15). El pasaje es significativo puesto que introduce el finalismo en clara conexión con la causa formal: la evolución de la tragedia -que se desarrolla a continuaciónculmina con la forma que actualmente tiene y que, como causa formal y final, orientó el desarrollo en esa dirección. Así lo explica Aristóteles: (1) Esquilo elevó el número de actores de uno a dos, (2) redujo el coro y (3) convirtió el diálogo en la parte principal (en desmedro del coro). Sófocles (4) introdujo al tercer actor 33 Dice Aristóteles que las obras de Homero tienen carácter dramático (por ello serían antecedentes de la tragedia) pero también afirma que el Margites habría imitado lo risible (antes que tratarse de una invectiva, que sólo se ocupa de satirizar o maldecir) (cf. Poética 4 1448b34ss). Manuel Berrón 224 y (5) la escenografía. (6) Aumentó de tamaño y calidad en desmedro de la pequeñez y la expresión risible; (7) se trocó el tetrámetro por el verso yámbico.34 Observemos que, aun cuando esta información apunta en general a reconstruir la historia del teatro en un sentido finalista, no debe perderse de vista que esta descripción conforma un importante volumen de información, de apoyo empírico, que más adelante servirá propiamente para elaborar la definición de la tragedia. Es sumamente relevante que se informe todo esto porque vuelve visible lo que Aristóteles tiene en mente a la hora no sólo de definir la poética y sus especies sino también, principalmente, la información sobre la que se apoya. La causa formal. Detengámonos ahora en Poética. 6, particularmente en la célebre definición de tragedia. Antes de exponer la definición Aristóteles dice que a partir de lo que ha desarrollado previamente (1449b22-3), se puede tomar la definición de la sustancia (ὅρον τῆς οὐσίας, 1449b24-5). Es destacable que Aristóteles afirme que la definición se apoya en lo que se dijo previamente puesto que lo anterior sirve, en efecto, de base para la misma. Al anotar este pasaje, Yebra señala los lugares donde se anticipan las características que están recogidas en la definición y, ciertamente, la mayoría de ellas se encuentran presentes. Sinnot sostiene, por su parte, que no todos los elementos de la definición tuvieron su desarrollo explícito (cf. SINNOT, 2009, p.43, n.130). De todos modos, podemos encontrar en los desarrollos ulteriores una prueba de que la definición que se está brindando tiene en cuenta todo el universo fenoménico que gira en torno a la tragedia y que quizá sólo en razón de la exposición actual no encontramos toda la información expuesta antes de la definición. De este modo, el apoyo empírico sobre el que se establece la definición está presente o bien en la exposición precedente o bien en lo que sigue, pero en ningún modo carecemos de dicha base. Hay buenos elementos textuales para suponer que la exposición aristotélica se apoya en información constatable y disponible para el lector estándar. Antes de avanzar en el examen de la definición de tragedia, recordemos cómo se caracteriza la causa formal en Física: [causa formal] es "la forma o el modelo, esto es, la definición del que era ser y sus géneros [...] y las partes de la definición" (Física B 3 194b26-7).35 La forma, o especie si pensamos en una opción para traducir τὸ εἶδος, es la causa que equivale a la 34 Se ha criticado largamente a Aristóteles por la presentación "parcial" y "sesgada", incluso "especulativa", "apriorística" o "metafísica" de los datos. Con todo, debe tenerse en cuenta que Aristóteles no está aquí discutiendo la historia sino desarrollando una exposición sistemática del tópico en cuestión. 35 El texto dice: τὸ εἶδος καὶ τὸ παράδειγμα, τοῦτο δ' ἐστὶν ὁ λόγος ὁ τοῦ τί ἦν εἶναι καὶ τὰ τούτου γένη [...] καὶ τὰ μέρη τὰ ἐν τῷ λόγῳ. Dissertatio [45] 209-2332017 225 definición o el enunciado (ὁ λόγος) del que era ser (ὁ τοῦ τί ἦν εἶναι) y, a su vez, este enunciado debe incluir las partes del enunciado que define (τὰ μέρη τὰ ἐν τῷ λόγῳ)36. Esta caracterización es relevante porque en ella se estipula que una definición debe incluir los distintos géneros dentro de los cuales se incluye el objeto definido; su vez, estos géneros constituyen cada una de las partes de la definición. Si éste es el modelo a seguir para detectar el correcto establecimiento de una definición, podemos tomarlo entonces como criterio y ver si la presunta definición de la tragedia cumple con ellos. Las líneas 1449b24-5 nos aseguran que allí está la definición, considerémosla. La tragedia es, pues, imitación de una acción noble y completa, que tiene extensión, con lenguaje sazonado con cada especie en particular y en las distintas partes; actuando y no a través de un relato; y que por medio de la conmiseración y el temor produce la purificación de esas afecciones.37 (Poet. 6 1449b24-8, mi traducción). Un primer punto a tener es cuenta es que la tragedia es un producto poético que se incluye dentro del género superior y común de las imitaciones. En efecto, en las primeras líneas de Poética Aristóteles afirmó que hay distintos tipos de artes poéticas que tienen como rasgo común el ser todas ellas imitaciones. A continuación, se destaca el tipo específico de objeto imitado: la acción noble y completa (πράξεως σπουδαίας, 1449b24-5) (es lo que la diferencia de la comedia por el objeto, que corresponde al segundo criterio de demarcación entre las especies de mímesis). Este no es un rasgo común sino que constituye el rasgo que caracteriza propiamente a la forma (εἶδος) de la tragedia. De este modo, en esta primera parte de la "definición", tenemos el género superior y la diferencia última que conforman, propiamente, la definición. En adelante, Aristóteles introduce las partes (τὰ μέρη) que conforman el resto de la definición. En efecto, el desarrollo subsiguiente presenta los géneros subordinados dentro del género superior de la mímesis. Así, Aristóteles aclara cuáles son los géneros intermedios, a saber: 1) la completud, 2) la extensión, 3) el lenguaje sazonado, 4) la actuación y el no relato. Queda excluido el efecto producido, la purificación, puesto que esto no es propiamente un género sino un tipo de consecuencia particular. Queda también excluido de la definición la aclaración que le prosigue (allí donde se especifica qué se entiende por lenguaje sazonado). Excluyendo estos aspectos 36 Algo semejante afirma Aristóteles en Metafísica Δ 25 1024b22-24. Angioni comenta ad loc que con este giro se reportan los ingredientes lógicos que están comprendidos en una definición (2013, comm. ad loc). 37 ἔστιν οὖν τραγῳδία μίμησις πράξεως σπουδαίας καὶ τελείας μέγεθος ἐχούσης, ἡδυσμένῳ λόγῳ χωρὶς ἑκάστῳ τῶν εἰδῶν ἐν τοῖς μορίοις, δρώντων καὶ οὐ δι' ἀπαγγελίας, δι' ἐλέου καὶ φόβου περαίνουσα τὴν τῶν τοιούτων παθημάτων κάθαρσιν. Manuel Berrón 226 no esenciales, la definición queda así: la tragedia es una imitación completa y extensa, con lenguaje sazonado y por medio de la actuación de una acción noble. Para visualizarlo más claramente: Género superior: imitación, subgénero 1: completud, subgénero 2: extensión, subgénero 3: lenguaje sazonado, subgénero 4: actuación, género específico: acciones nobles. De este modo, observamos que Aristóteles cumple con su prescripción de exponer los términos (ὅροι) de la sustancia (οὐσία) en cuestión tal como había anticipado en 1449b24-5. A su vez, los términos expuestos dan cuenta de la definición de modo exhaustivo puesto que se incluyen el género superior, la diferencia específica y los géneros intermedios que son, como se afirma en Física B 3 194b24-7, las partes que integran el enunciado de la definición. De este modo, Aristóteles cumple con sus propias exigencias. Hay, sin embargo un ítem más que una definición debe cubrir, que no hemos considerado aquí y que refiere a la capacidad explicativa de una definición. El método de "salvar las apariencias" se completa con la explicación de los fenómenos en cuestión. Nuestro trabajo cubre sólo hasta el establecimiento de las causas, en este caso la formal, y así queda cubierto el fenómeno de la tragedia en cuanto a sus causas, pero si el procedimiento es completo, el paso subsiguiente es explicar apariencias o fenómenos involucrados dentro del marco de la tragedia que resultan, en principio, aporéticos. Este paso es relevante puesto que supone el "uso" de la definición como principio explicativo. En nuestra consideración general del método de "salvar las apariencias" entendemos -y así completamos la visión de Cleary que presentamos en la introducciónque este aspecto no sólo se encuentra incluido dentro del método sino que constituye un paso clave del mismo. Ciertamente, el uso de la definición como principio conforma el momento demostrativo o explicativo en el que la definición se valida como genuina definición. La definición es, primeramente, el resultado de un proceso parcialmente inductivo que se apoya en una base empírica -en sentido amplioy que alcanza legitimidad como principio en la medida en que puede actuar como tal, esto es, siendo premisa de demostraciones (explicaciones). Nuestro examen actual no cubre, en razón del espacio, este aspecto pero defendemos que en el resto de Poética Aristóteles lleva a cabo este trabajo y revalida así las causas establecidas en general y la causa formal en particular. La causa final. Aristóteles caracteriza a la causa final como "aquello Dissertatio [45] 209-2332017 227 para lo cual" (τὸ οὗ ἓνεκα, Física B 3 194b33.) y lo ilustra con el conocido ejemplo de la salud como causa del pasear. También incluye allí al adelgazar, la purgación, los fármacos y los instrumentos quirúrgicos como diseñados y orientados en pos de una finalidad. El científico debe conocer (εἰδέναι, Física B 7 198a22) las cuatro causas para poder construir demostraciones (ἀποδώσει, a24), sin embargo, muchas veces sucede que tres de estas causas se identifican. Como es sabido, las causas eficiente, formal y final vienen a ser, especialmente en los casos de la generación natural, las mismas. En el caso "hombre engendra a hombre" (198a25-6) ocurre una coincidencia en la especie y, del mismo modo, ocurre en el resto de los casos de la generación de los vivientes. Así entonces el que genera es hombre, lo generado es hombre y el fin es hombre. En el caso de la generación de la técnica, como es el caso de la salud, coincide el conocimiento técnico que está en el alma del agente, la salud buscada como fin y la forma alcanzada en el paciente. Algo semejante podemos pensar para el caso de la poesía trágica: hay un conocimiento de la forma o definición presente en el dramaturgo, hay una forma en la obra y una forma buscada en la elaboración de la tragedia. Veamos qué dice Aristóteles en Poética. Para introducirnos en la causa final de la tragedia debemos abordar el concepto de trama (μῦθος): "la trama es la imitación de la acción, pues llamo trama a la composición de los actos".38 La caracterización de la trama en este sentido es relevante porque se estipula que la imitación de la acción (lo que define a la tragedia) está dada en la trama misma. No hay nada más allá de la trama que pueda cumplir con lo que es propiamente una tragedia. Es claro que hay otros aspectos que son condición de la tragedia (más adelante veremos la causa material), pero es la composición de las acciones lo que hace que una obra sea una tragedia, y no otra cosa. Aristóteles distingue en este pasaje entre la trama y los caracteres (τὰ δὲ ἤθη) y establece que la trama es condición sine qua non para la tragedia, mientras que los caracteres no son indispensables. Por otra parte, sugiere que los caracteres son elaborados y representados por los actores a causa de las acciones (διὰ τὰς πράξεις, 1450a22). De este modo, afirma taxativamente: "los actos, es decir, la trama, son el fin de la tragedia, y en todas las cosas el fin es lo más importante".39 Estos primeros argumentos evidencian fielmente que la trama es considerada como el fin que rige la estructura general de la tragedia y, en dicho marco, también la configuración de 38 ἔστιν δὲ τῆς μὲν πράξεως ὁ μῦθος ἡ μίμησις, λέγω γὰρ μῦθον τοῦτον τὴν σύνθεσιν τῶν πραγμάτων, (Poética 6 1450a3-5, mi traducción). 39 ὥστε τὰ πράγματα καὶ ὁ μῦθος τέλος τῆς τραγῳδίας, τὸ δὲ τέλος μέγιστον ἁπάντων, (Poética 6 1450a22-23, mi traducción). Manuel Berrón 228 los caracteres. El bagaje conceptual teleológico de Aristóteles está operando en la caracterización de la tragedia y el lugar del fin está reservado a la trama de modo que el resto de los elementos se convierten en fines intermedios y condicionados en vistas del fin último. Dos aportes más en esta dirección: por un lado, afirma que la causa que produce y conduce la sensibilidad del espectador (ψυχαγωγεῖ, 1450a33) es, precisamente, la trama. Es relevante que la trama "conduzca" al alma en la orientación adecuada, i. e., en dirección al fin último, para que así pueda visualizarse íntegramente la tragedia. Además, si debe haber purgación y el conjunto de emociones involucradas en dicho fenómeno, es necesario que la trama esté adecuadamente constituida. Con esto se vuelve a poner de manifiesto la centralidad de la noción y, especialmente, su condición de fin. A continuación, Aristóteles afirma que la trama es principio (ἀρχὴ) y en cierto modo el alma (ψυχὴ) de la tragedia (cf. 1450a38-9). La comparación de la trama con el alma de la tragedia se ejemplifica con la analogía de la pintura: los colores son los caracteres y la trama es el dibujo (γραφικής, 1450b1). Según esta comparación, el sentido de la pintura sólo existe en el dibujo, tenga o no colores y, correlativamente, si una pintura tiene sólo colores, no produciría el mismo regocijo que conteniendo también el dibujo, i. e., el equivalente a la trama. Además, si tenemos presentes dos caracterizaciones del alma en De anima, a saber: como forma (ὡς εἶδος, 412a20) y como actualidad primera (ἐντελέχεια ἡ πρώτη, 412a27), en ambos casos de un cuerpo natural que en potencia tiene vida, y que la vida de estos cuerpos es posible, desde luego, sólo con la presencia del alma en ellos, podremos inferir por asociación que la trama es la forma que articula y da sentido o vida a un cuerpo de acciones. Con lo cual se vuelve bastante patente el lugar y la primacía que detenta la trama en el fenómeno de la tragedia. Finalmente, como hemos anticipado antes, podemos concluir en que en Poética se produce la identificación entre forma y fin no presentándose como dos cosas distintas y distinguibles a no ser, eso sí, con una finalidad expositiva. La causa material. Aristóteles caracteriza a la causa material en Física B como "aquel constitutivo interno de que algo está hecho"40 (B 3 194b24). La discusión, heredada del Fedón, con la tradición materialista conduce a rechazar la sola explicación por la vía material, pero no a esta causa en términos absolutos. La causa material es condición, así se plantea en Fedón 99a y Aristóteles lo sostiene, para que exista la forma (y con ella también el fin) puesto que es a partir de la materia que la forma llega a ser. Entendemos que la causa material de la tragedia está expresada a 40 τὸ ἐξ οὗ γίγνεταί τι ἐνυπάρχοντος (Trad. De Echandía). Dissertatio [45] 209-2332017 229 continuación de la definición, en el pasaje siguiente: "Y, dado que hacen la imitación actuando, el ordenamiento del espectáculo sería primera y necesariamente parte constitutiva de la tragedia, y además, la melopeya y la elocución, pues con estos medios hacen la imitación".41 El aspecto material del fenómeno está dado por la actuación pero para que haya tal cosa se requiere de tres ítems: el orden del espectáculo, la melopeya y la elocución. El orden (κόσμος) debe incluir no sólo la escenografía sino también el vestuario y todo aquello que aparezca materialmente sobre el escenario. A su vez, hay dos medios "por los cuales se hace" la imitación desde un plano auditivo: 1. la melopeya (μελοποιία), que hace a la dimensión musical de la tragedia (suponemos que se trata de las intervenciones de los coros) y 2. la elocución (λέξις), que se encuentra conformada por los momentos dialogados de la obra. De este modo, consideramos que estos tres elementos son la base sobre la que se edifica materialmente la tragedia, es decir, el constitutivo del que la tragedia está hecho. De este modo concluimos el examen de la presencia de las cuatro causas en la explicación general del fenómeno de la poética pero particularmente del fenómeno de la tragedia. Extraigamos unas conclusiones sobre lo desarrollado. Consideraciones finales El objetivo general del trabajo apunta a defender la idea de que el examen de la técnica poética se encuadra dentro de la metodología -heredada de la astronomía y la biologíaque se conoce con el nombre de "salvar las apariencias". Consideramos que dicha metodología compatibilista brinda un esquema híbrido y complejo que integra la investigación empírica con el establecimiento de las causas. Siguiendo la propuesta sugerida por Cleary aunque con algunas diferencias en cuanto al alcanceapuntamos a superar la dicotomía y la discrepancia planteada por quienes defendieron el carácter preferentemente dialéctico de los tratados científicos. Para ello desarrollamos un apartado (§1) donde pusimos el acento en mostrar que en Poética encontramos el método de "salvar las apariencias". Por un lado, mostramos la conexión que existe entre el incipit de Poética y algunos pasajes de Partes de los animales. Esta conexión nos permitió ver la unidad metodológica existente entre dichas obras y, de ese modo, volver verosímil el uso del "salvar las apariencias", claramente aludido en Partes de los animales (en conexión con Primeros analíticos I 30). Por otra parte, el otro elemento que prueba el uso del 41 ἐπεὶ δὲ πράττοντες ποιοῦνται τὴν μίμησιν, πρῶτον μὲν ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἂν εἴη τι μόριον τραγῳδίας ὁ τῆς ὄψεως κόσμος· εἶτα μελοποιία καὶ λέξις, ἐν τούτοις γὰρ ποιοῦνται τὴν μίμησιν (Poética 6 1449b31-4, mi traducción). Manuel Berrón 230 método de "salvar las apariencias" está en la estructura misma del tratado y en el modo en que Aristóteles expone: en §2 y §3 mostramos la base empírica y la presencia de las causas de la tragedia. Con más detalle, en § 2 expusimos la base empírica o los phainómena que constituyen el punto de partida para la elaboración de las primeras distinciones, los criterios para distinguir entre formas de llevar a cabo la mímesis así como también para el establecimiento de las causas. Tales causas fueron expuestas en § 3: encontramos la causa eficiente en la connaturalidad de la mímesis, la causa material en el soporte visual y auditivo de las tragedias, la causa formal en la definición de la tragedia y, finalmente, la causa final en la trama. Hemos tomado un sentido amplio de phainómena para comprender de qué modo se puede constatar la existencia de una base empírica para el desarrollo de Poética para luego ver de qué modo se establecen las causas de la poética (aunque restringida a la tragedia). Si este trabajo cumplió su propósito, habremos expuesto un argumento en contra de las tesis de la discrepancia y el uso extendido de la dialéctica y a favor de una integración metodológica distinta que se enmarca bajo el título de "salvar las apariencias". Hasta aquí nuestro desarrollo que, sin embargo, dejo un espacio para ser completado. Un tema a indagar es si estas causas continúan operando en el resto de Poética. En efecto, si bien consideramos que es así, el desarrollo de esta hipótesis es motivo de otro trabajo. Con todo, no queremos dejar de mencionarlo porque significaría un nuevo paso que completaría la "salvación de las apariencias". El establecimiento de las causas de la poética, y en particular de la tragedia, no agota el campo técnico del arte poética sino que simplemente lo circunscribe y dota de herramientas, las causas, que deberían ser útiles en desarrollos subsiguientes. Sólo si estas causas funcionan realmente pueden llegar a confirmarse como causas genuinas. Sin embargo, estos temas son materia de otra investigación. Referências ANGIONI, L. "As quatro causas na filosofia da natureza de Aristóteles". In: Anais de Filosofia Clássica, v.V, n.10, 2011, p.1-20. ARISTÓTELES. As partes dos Animais. Livro I. Trad. Lucas Angioni. In: Cadernos de história e filosofia da ciência, Serie 3, v. 9, n.especial. 1999. ______. Física I-II. Introducción, trad. y comm. de L. Angioni. Campinas: Editora Unicamp. 2009. ______. Física. Trad. G. R. Echandía. Madrid: Gredos. 1995. Dissertatio [45] 209-2332017 231 ______. Poética. Introd., trad., notas de Eduardo Sinnot. Buenos Aires: Colihue, 2006. ______. Poética. Introducción, trad. y comm. Valentín García Yebra. Madrid: Gredos. Edición trilingüe (griego, latín, español), 1974. ______. On Poetics. Trans. Seth Benardete & Michael Davis. Introd. by Michael Davis. South Bend (Indiana): St. Augustine's Press, 2002. ______. On the Parts of Animals I-IV. Trad y comm.: James G. Lennox. Clarendon Aristotle Series. 2001. ______. Poetics. Introducción, Trad. y comm. de Joe Sachs. New Buryport: Focus Publishing. 2006. AUBENQUE, P. Le problème de l'etre chez Aristote. Essai sur la problematique aristotélicienne. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. 1962. BALME, D. Aristotle's De Partibus Animalium I and De Generatione Animalium I. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1972. BARBERO, S. La noción de mímesis en Aristóteles. Córdoba: El Copista. 2004. BARNES, J. "Aristotle's Theory of Demonstration". In: BARNES, J. SCHOFIELD, M. y SORABJI, R. Articles on Aristotle. Vol. 1. Science. London: Duckworth, p.65-87, 1975. ______. "Proof and the Syllogism". In: BERTI, E. Aristotle's On Science. The "Posterior Analytics". Padova: Editrice Antenore, p.17-59, 1981. BERRÓN, M. "El rol cognitivo de los phainomena y su uso científico en los tratados de ciencia de Aristóteles". In: Areté. Dpto. de Humanidades. PUCP. Lima: Perú, v.XXV, n.1, p.7-26, 2013. ______. "Aprender a ver: el carácter activo de las facultades de la sensibilidad en Metafísica I 1, Segundos Analíticos II 19 e Investigación sobre los animales VI de Aristóteles". In: CHIALVA, I. y PALACHI, C. "Γλῶσσαι/linguae. Homenaje a Silvia Calosso". Santa Fe: Ediciones UNL, 2015, p.141-156. BIEDA, E. "El placer de ser feliz". In: Nova Tellus, v.23, n.1, 2005, p.99-148. BOLTON, R. "Aristotle's Method in Natural Science: Physics I". In JUDSON, L. Aristotle's Physics: A collection of Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1991, p.1-30. BONITZ, H. Index Aristotelicus. Berlín: Akademische Druck. 1955. CLEARY, J. "Phainómena in Aristotle's Methodology". International Journal of Philosophical Studies. London: Routledge, p.61-97, 1994. Manuel Berrón 232 CASTILLO MERLO, M. "Mímesis y máthesis: acerca de sus conexiones en la Poética de Aristóteles". In: Diánoia, v.LXI, n.77, p.53–81, 2016. DE MONTMOLLIN, D. La poétique d'Aristote: texte primitif et additions ultérieures. Neauchâtel: Messeiller. 1951. DETEL, W. "Why all animals have a stomach: Demonstration and Axiomatization in Aristotle's Parts of Animals". En KULLMANN, W. y FÖLLINGER, S. Aristotelische Biologie, Intentionen, Methoden, Ergebnisse. Stuttgart: Verlag, 1997, p.63-84 DETEL, W. "Aristotle's Logic and Theory of Science". In: GILL, M. L. y PELLEGRIN, P. A Companion to Ancient Philosophy. Malden: Blackwell. 2006, p.245-269. DEVEREUX, D. y PELLEGRIN, P. Biologie, logique et métaphysique chez Aristote. Paris: Editions du CNRS, 1990. ELSE, G. F. Aristotle's Poetics. The Argument. Cambridge. Harvard Unisersity Press, 1957. ENGBERG-PEDERSEN, T. "More on Aristotelian Epagoge". In Phronesis XXIV, p.301-309, 1979. GOTTHELF, A. "First Principles in Aristotle's Parts of Animals". In GOTTHELF, A. y LENNOX, J. Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology. Cambridge: University Press. 1987, p.167-198. ______. "The Elephant's Nose: Further Reflections on the axiomatic structure of biological explanation in Aristotle". In: KULLMANN, W. y FÖLLINGER, S. Aristotelische Biologie, Intentionen, Methoden, Ergebnisse. Stuttgart: Verlag, 1997, p.85-95. HAEFLIGER, H. "La Poétique d'Aristote. Una synthèse et une intégration dans la méthodologie d'Aristote". In: Kairos, n.9, p.97-119, 1997. HALLIWELL, S. The Aesthetics of Mimesis. Ancient Texts and Modern Problems. Princeton/Oxford: PUP. 2002. HUSAIN, M. Ontology and the Art of Tragedy. SUNY: University Press. 2002. IRWIN, T. Aristotle's First Principles. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1988. LENNOX, J. "Aristotle On Norms of Inquiry". En HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, v.1, n.1, p.23-46, 2011. ______. Aristotle's Philosophy of Biology, Studies in the Origins of Life Science, Cambridge: University Press, 2001. Dissertatio [45] 209-2332017 233 MANSION, A. Introduction à la Physique Aristotélicienne. Louvain: Éditions de l' Intitut Supérieur du Philosophie, 1945. MARCOS, A. "Introducción". In: ARISTÓTELES. Partes de los animales, Marcha de los animales, Movimiento de los animales. Madrid: Luarna. 2010. Trad. Rosana Bartolomé. NUSSBAUM, M. C. The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy. Cambidge: Cambridge University Press. 1986. SOLMSEN, F. Die Entwicklung der aristotelischen Logic und Rhetorik. (Neue Philologische Untersuchungen, 4). Berlin: Weidmann. 1929. SOLMSEN, F. "The origins and methods of Aristotle's Poetics". In: Classical Quarterly, 29, p.192-201, 1935. SUÑOL, V. Más allá del arte: mímesis en Aristóteles. La Plata: Universidad Nacional de La Plata. 2012. WIELAND, W. Die aristotelische Physik. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 1962. E-mail: [email protected] Recebido: 06/2017 Aceito: 06/ | {
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Calibrating Generative Models: The Probabilistic Chomsky-Schützenberger Hierarchy∗ Thomas F. Icard Stanford University [email protected] December 14, 2019 1 Introduction and Motivation Probabilistic computation enjoys a central place in psychological modeling and theory, ranging in application from perception (Knill and Pouget, 2004; Orbán et al., 2016), attention (Vul et al., 2009), and decision making (Busemeyer and Diederich, 2002; Wilson et al., 2014) to the analysis of memory (Ratcliff, 1978; Abbott et al., 2015), categorization (Nosofsky and Palmeri, 1997; Sanborn et al., 2010), causal inference (Denison et al., 2013), and various aspects of language processing (Chater and Manning, 2006). Indeed, much of cognition and behavior is usefully modeled as stochastic, whether this is ultimately due to indeterminacy at the neural level or at some higher level (see, e.g., Glimcher 2005). Random behavior may even enhance an agent's cognitive efficiency (see, e.g., Icard 2019). A probabilistic process can be described in two ways. On one hand we can specify a stochastic procedure, which may only implicitly define a distribution on possible outputs of the process. Familiar examples include well known classes of generative models such as finite Markov processes and probabilistic automata (Miller, 1952; Paz, 1971), Boltzmann machines (Hinton and Sejnowski, 1983), Bayesian networks (Pearl, 1988), topic models (Griffiths et al., 2007), and probabilistic programming languages (Tenenbaum et al., 2011; Goodman and Tenenbaum, 2016). On the other hand we can specify an analytical expression explicitly describing the distribution over outputs. Both styles of description are commonly employed, and it is natural to ask about the relationship between them. The question is one of definability or expressiveness: for a given class of generative models, what kinds of distributions (analytically characterized) can those models implicitly define? A prominent way of classifying models of computation, and generative procedures in particular, is in terms of memory usage. In the classical non-probabilistic setting this leads to the well known Chomsky hierarchy-also called the Chomsky-Schützenberger hierarchy-of machines and grammars. At the bottom are finite-state automata (or equivalently, regular grammars), which are limited to a fixed, finite memory; at the top are Turing machines (equivalently, unrestricted grammars or "production systems"), which have unrestricted access to an unbounded memory; and in between are various models of limitedaccess memory such as stack automata and context-free grammars (see Figure 1). Much ∗Preprint. Forthcoming in Journal of Mathematical Psychology. 1 is known about the languages-that is, sets of strings over a finite alphabet-definable at different levels of the hierarchy (see, e.g., Eilenberg 1974; Hopcroft and Ullman 1979). The driving motivation for early theoretical work on formal grammars came from the psychology of language, where the focus was on finding adequate frameworks for describing and explaining human grammatical competence (Chomsky, 1959, 1965; Chomsky and Schützenberger, 1963). With increased emphasis on detailed processing, parsing, and acquisition accounts, in addition to large-scale grammar induction from corpora in computational linguistics, a considerable amount of applied work has explored probabilistic grammars (see, e.g., Klein and Manning 2003; Levy 2008; Kim et al. 2019 for representative examples), the straightforward result of adding probabilistic transitions to classical grammar formalisms. Here again, much of the interest has been to find formalisms that are powerful enough-but not too powerful-to capture relevant linguistic structure. Aside from their prevalence in models of language processing, probabilistic grammars have featured in numerous other psychological domains. For instance, they have recently appeared in characterizations of abstract conceptual knowledge (Tenenbaum et al., 2006, 2011), in computational models of vision (Zhu and Mumford, 2007), and in accounts of how people perceive randomness (Griffiths et al., 2018), among others. However, the psychological interest of probabilistic grammars is not limited to these direct applications. As in the classical setting, there is a systematic correspondence between probabilistic grammar classes and machine models. For example, probabilistic regular grammars can be shown expressively equivalent to hidden Markov models and probabilistic automata (see, e.g., Smith and Johnson 2007) and to classes of artificial neural networks (MacKay, 1996); probabilistic context-free grammars have been shown equivalent to branching processes (Harris, 1963), probabilistic pushdown automata (Abney et al., 1999) and so called recursive Markov chains (Etessami and Yannakakis, 2009), while also being powerful enough to define tools like topic models (Johnson, 2010); and unrestricted probabilistic grammars are equivalent to probabilistic Turing machines and indeed to any other Turing-complete probabilistic programming language (Theorem 2 below). Meanwhile, probabilistic grammars have even been invoked to calibrate and assess the capabilities of recurrent neural networks (Lin and Tegmark, 2017), and they have also been assimilated to causal models (Chater and Oaksford, 2013; Icard, 2017b). Studying the expressive capacity of probabilistic grammars thus promises to illuminate that of many other important model classes. More generally, the resulting probabilistic Chomsky-Schützenberger hierarchy offers a meaningful classification of discrete probabilistic models, and serves as a useful target for understanding the expressiveness of probabilistic models broadly. As running examples, consider the following four common discrete distributions: Example 1 (Poisson). The Poisson distribution, μ(k) = e−λ λ k k! , is ubiquitous in psychological modeling, reaching even to the level of neural firing rates (Faisal et al., 2008). Given an average rate λ of independent occurrences in an interval, μ(k) is the probability of observing exactly k occurrences in the interval. Example 2 (Negative Binomial). Consider a measure μq,t(k) = (t+kk )q t+1(1− q)k, for t ∈N and q ∈ Q ∩ [0, 1], giving the probability that we will make k observations other than our target observation by the time we see the t + 1st target. The negative binomial distribution is often used in place of the Poisson distribution for probabilistic modeling. In fact, μq,t converges to the Poisson distribution as t goes to infinity (Johnson et al., 2005). 2 Example 3 (Random Walk Hitting Time). Various kinds of random walks have appeared in psychological modeling (see, e.g., Townsend and Ashby 1983; Abbott et al. 2015 for very different examples). Consider the simplest symmetric 1/2-random walk on the nonnegative integers, starting at 1. The hitting time for first reaching 0 is given by a distribution μ(2k + 1) = ck2−2k+1, where ck = ( 2k k ) 1 k+1 is the kth Catalan number. Example 4 (Beta-Binomial). Hierarchical probabilistic models have generated a great deal of interest in cognitive science (e.g., Griffiths et al. 2007; Liang et al. 2010; Gershman and Blei 2012; Li et al. 2019). One of the most basic building blocks in these models is the BetaBinomial distribution (and its multidimensional generalization, the Dirichlet-Multinomial), which defines a generative procedure for flipping coins with unknown weight. Consider a measure defined by first drawing p from a Beta(α, β) distribution and then generating a number k with probability (nk)p k(1− p)n−k. The distribution on k is then: μ(k) = ( n k ) B(α + k, β + n− k) B(α, β) In fact, μ approximates a negative binomial as n and β increase (Johnson et al., 2005). Our basic question is this: how high in the hierarchy do we need to ascend before we can (implicitly) define probability distributions like these? The aim of the present contribution is to present a picture, as comprehensive as possible, of the expressive capacity of probabilistic grammar formalisms across the ChomskySchützenberger hierarchy, from probabilistic regular grammars to unrestricted grammars (Figure 1). Our study draws from a wealth of previous work in different research traditions. Most prominently, we employ analytic techniques that date back to the beginning of formal language and automata theory, to the pioneering algebraic approach of Schützenberger (Schützenberger, 1961, 1965; Chomsky and Schützenberger, 1963), which has in turn spawned a rich literature in theoretical computer science and analytic combinatorics (see Eilenberg 1974; Salomaa and Soittola 1978; Kuich and Salomaa 1986; Flajolet 1987; Flajolet and Sedgewick 2001; Droste et al. 2009, among many others). Much of this work is quite abstract, e.g., dealing with generalized notions of rational and algebraic power series. Probabilistic interpretations are often discussed as special cases (for instance, as a possible semi-ring related to a weighted grammar or automaton, see Droste et al. 2009), and some of the literature deals with languages defined by probabilistic automata with "cut-points" (Rabin, 1963; Salomaa and Soittola, 1978). However, extracting lessons for probabilistic grammars specifically often requires further work. Meanwhile, there have been a number of important results dealing with expressivity of probabilistic grammars and machines per se, from mathematical psychology (e.g., Vitányi and Chater 2017), mathematical linguistics (e.g., Chi 1999; Smith and Johnson 2007; Kornai 2008), statistics (e.g., O'Cinneide 1990), and other areas of computer science (e.g., de Leeuw et al. 1956; Yao 1985). We draw on this body of work as well. Our presentation and analysis of the probabilistic Chomsky-Schützenberger hierarchy combines a number of old and new results, and is intended to be as streamlined and selfcontained as possible. Many of the observations are original, but we also aim to bring together techniques and ideas from disparate areas in order to paint an expansive picture of the hierarchy as a whole. We include proofs of all new results, as well as results whose proofs might be difficult to find or reconstruct. 3 After formal preliminaries (§2), we characterize the class of all probabilistic grammars showing that they define exactly the enumerable semi-measures (Theorem 3). An important question pertinent to (especially Bayesian) cognitive modeling is whether a class of distributions is closed under conditioning (a kind of counterpart to the notion of conjugacy in statistics). We show that distributions defined by probabilistic grammars (or machines) are not in general closed, even under conditioning with a finite set (Theorem 6). However, the probabilistic grammars that almost-surely terminate are closed under conditioning on any computable set whatsoever (Theorem 7). Turning to the most restrictive class, the probabilistic regular grammars, we show that they are capable of defining any finite-support rational-valued distribution (Corollary 9), before giving a self-contained proof of the result that the probability generating function for a probabilistic regular grammar is always rational (Theorem 15). We also show that the distributions defined by probabilistic regular grammars are closed under conditioning with arbitrary regular sets (Theorem 17). Probabilistic context-free grammars are shown by several examples (13-17) to define irrational generating functions; however, they are all still algebraic (Theorem 22). The result contrasts with the classical Chomsky-Schützenberger characterization (Chomsky and Schützenberger, 1963), which requires restriction to unambiguous context-free grammars (see §5.1). Perhaps surprisingly, when considering finite-support distributions-often central to applications-probabilistic context-free grammars define no more distributions than the regular grammars (Proposition 18). A consequence of this is that probabilistic contextfree grammars are not closed under conditioning, even with finite sets (Proposition 19). We consider two grammar classes that are not part of the original hierarchy, situated in between context-free and context-sensitive, namely indexed (Aho, 1968) and linear indexed (Duske and Parchmann, 1984) grammars. Both have played a notable role in computational linguistics (e.g., Gazdar 1988; Joshi et al. 1991; Kim et al. 2019). Probabilistic indexed grammars are capable of defining distributions with transcendental generating functions (Proposition 23). Even probabilistic linear indexed grammars-which possess algebraic generating functions and whose (right-linear) restrictions are weakly equivalent to context-free grammars (Aho, 1968)-can define finite-support irrational distributions, thus surpassing the power of context-free in the probabilistic setting (Proposition 24). Finally, it is shown that probabilistic context-sensitive grammars can also define distributions with transcendental generating functions, including some that elude probabilistic indexed grammars (Propositions 27 and 28). We demonstrate that, in some sense, probabilistic context-sensitive grammars come quite close to arbitrary probabilistic grammars (Proposition 29). In other ways, however, these grammars are unnatural from a probabilistic perspective. For finite-support measures they again coincide with the regular grammars, defining only rational-valued distributions; and unlike in the classical hierarchy, they do not even extend context-free (Proposition 30). The resulting hierarchy is summarized in Figure 1. Notably, the picture remains unchanged when restricting attention to a one-letter alphabet, a restriction that is very natural for many applications, viz. unary representations of positive integers (recall Examples 14). It has been observed that Parikh's Theorem (Parikh, 1966)-showing that the contextfree languages are "semi-linear" and thus coextensive with the regular languages for a one-letter alphabet-does not extend to the probabilistic setting (Petre, 1999; Bhattiprolu et al., 2017). We observe that this trend is widespread, applying also to the linear indexed grammars (which are also semi-linear, see Duske et al. 1992). Another emerging theme is that, while finite languages trivialize in the classical setting, finite-support distributions 4 Classical Hierarchy C on text-Free Li ne ar Indexed IndexedC ont ext-Sensitive Unr estricted Regular Probabilistic Hierarchy C on text-Free Li ne ar Indexed Indexed Context-Sensit ive Un restricted Regular Figure 1: The classical and probabilistic hierarchies. The shaded region signifies that these classes collapse into the regular languages when considering a one-element alphabet. No such collapse occurs in the probabilistic hierarchy. Meanwhile, the probabilistic contextsensitive grammars are incomparable with the probabilistic context-free grammars. can reveal subtle and significant distinctions in the probabilistic setting. In the concluding section (§8) we return to consider what repercussions this pattern of results may have for psychology and cognitive science. 2 Formal Preliminaries 2.1 Strings and Distributions Our interest is in distributions over strings from a finite alphabet Σ. We construe strings as lists, depicted by concatenation, and denote the empty string by ε. The length of a string |σ| is defined so that |ε| = 0 and |aσ| = |σ|+ 1. Exponentiation is defined by σ0 = ε and σn+1 = σnσ, so that |σn| = n|σ|. We will make use of a canonical ordering on the set of substrings of a string. Given σ and non-empty substrings σ1, σ2 of σ, we say σ1 has priority over σ2 if either (1) the left-most symbol of σ1 is to the left in σ of the left-most symbol of σ2, or (2) their leftmost symbols are identical, at the same index of σ, but σ2 is a proper substring of σ1. A discrete semi-measure (or simply a distribution) on Σ is a function P : Σ∗ → [0, 1] such that ∑σ∈Σ∗ P(σ) ≤ 1. When this sum is equal to 1 we call P a probability measure. We also consider associated measure functions defined on positive integers μ : Z+ → [0, 1], such that ∑n∈Z+ μ(n) ≤ 1, using the same nomenclature. When dealing with a one-element alphabet we will often think of ak as a unary notation for k, so that each P will correspond to an obvious function μ on integers, namely μ(k) = P(ak). The support of a distribution is the set of strings that receive non-zero measure. We say a distribution has finite support if its support is finite and omits the empty string. Finally, given a set S ⊆ Σ∗, we define the conditional distribution P(σ | S) as follows: P(σ | S) = P(σ) ∑σ′∈S P(σ′) (1) 5 when σ ∈ S, and P(σ | S) = 0 otherwise. As a special case, if S+ = {σ ∈ Σ∗ : P(σ) > 0} is the support of P, then P(σ | S+) is a probability measure, the normalization of P. Given the definition in (1), conditioning on the trivial proposition Σ∗ also produces the normalization: P(σ | Σ∗) = P(σ | S+). More generally, for any S we have P(σ | S) = P(σ | S ∩ S+). Any conditional distribution P( * | S) will be a probability measure, even if P is not. 2.2 Probability Generating Functions From a semi-measure μ we derive a probability generating function (pgf) Gμ defined so that Gμ(z) = ∑∞k=0 μ(k)z k. Gμ essentially summarizes the distribution as a formal power series. We say Gμ is algebraic if y = Gμ(z) is a solution to a polynomial equation 0 = Q(y, z). We call Gμ rational when Q is of degree 1 in y, i.e., when there are polynomials Q0(z) and Q1(z) such that Gμ(z) = Q0(z) Q1(z) . For example, the pgf for a simple geometric function μ(k) = 2−k is rational, equal to 12−z . Finally, a pgf is transcendental if it is not algebraic. For instance, the pgf for a Poisson distribution (Example 1) is eλz−λ, easily shown to be transcendental. For another notable example, consider a semi-measure μ such that μ(2k) = 2−k for k > 0, and μ(n) = 0 for all other n. Let us write the pgf for μ as Gμ(z) = ∑∞k=0 ckz k where ck = k−1 if k is a power of 2, and ck = 0 otherwise. The Hadamard product of two power series ∑∞k=0 ckz k and ∑∞k=0 dkz k is the power series ∑∞k=0(ckdk)z k. One can show that the Hadamard product of a rational and an algebraic power series must be algebraic (Jungen, 1931; Flajolet and Sedgewick, 2001). We thus obtain: Lemma 1. The pgf Gμ(z) is transcendental. Proof. It is known that the "lacunary" power series h(z) = ∑∞k=1 z 2k is transcendental (e.g., Theorem 1.1.2 of Nishioka 1996). The power series g(z) = ∑∞k=0 kz k = z/(z2 − 2z + 1) is patently rational. However, the Hadamard product of Gμ(z) and g(z) gives exactly h(z). Hence Gμ(z) cannot be algebraic. When Σ = {a} we will slightly abuse terminology by speaking of the pgf for a distribution on Σ∗ as being rational, algebraic, or transcendental, under the unary encoding. 2.3 Grammars and Probabilistic Grammars A grammar is a quadruple G = (N , Σ, Π, X0), given by a finite set of non-terminal symbols N , including a start symbol X0, an alphabet Σ, and a finite set Π of productions (α → β) where α, β ∈ (N ∪ Σ)∗. We will refer to elements of Σ∗ as words. The standard hierarchy is defined as in Chomsky (1959) (indexed grammars will be introduced separately in §6): • Regular (Type 3) Grammars: All productions are of the form (X → σY) or (X → σ), with σ ∈ Σ∗, X, Y ∈ N . • Context-Free (Type 2) Grammars: All production rules are of the form (X → α) with X ∈ N and α ∈ (N ∪ Σ)∗. • Context-Sensitive (Type 1) Grammars: Productions are of the form (αXβ → αγβ), where X ∈ N , α, β, γ ∈ (N ∪ Σ)∗, and γ 6= ε; we also allow (X0 → ε) provided X0 does not occur on the right-hand-side of any production. 6 X0 a aX0 aa aaX0 aaa aaaX0 aaaa aaaaX0 aaaaa ... aaaaaX0 ... X0 a aX0X0 aaX0 aaa aaaX0X0 aaaaX0 aaaaa ... aaaaaX0X0 ... aaaaX0X0X0 ... aaX0X0X0 aaaX0X0 aaaaX0 aaaaa ... aaaaaX0X0 ... aaaaX0X0X0 ... aaaX0X0X0X0 ... Figure 2: Partial parse trees for Examples 5 (left) and 6 (right). • Unrestricted (Type 0) Grammars: No restrictions. A probabilistic grammar is one with the following property: for each α ∈ (N ∪ Σ)∗ there may be only 0, 1, or 2 distinct β with (α → β) ∈ Π. If there is 1 we write α 1→ β, with the interpretation that α rewrites to β with probability 1; if there are 2 we will write α 1/2→ β for each, with the interpretation that α rewrites to β with probability 1/2. Intuitively, when rewriting α we imagine randomly choosing from among those productions with α on the left-hand-side. In effect this means we are only considering probabilistic grammars with production probabilities of 1/2. As far as definability is concerned, however, this implies no loss relative to allowing arbitrary rational probabilities (Theorem 8 below). It will often be convenient to refer to production probabilities, which we write as PG(α→ β)-or simply P(α→ β) when G is clear from context-always taking on value 0, 1, or 1/2. A parse of a word σ from a string γ in a grammar G is a finite sequence ρ = 〈ρ0, . . . , ρn〉, where ρ0 = γ, ρn = σ, and for all i < n: ρi+1 is obtained from ρi by replacing the substring α of ρi with β, where (α → β) ∈ Π, and α is the highest priority substring of ρi with an applicable production. The probability of the parse, PG(ρ), is given by the product of probabilities of productions used in ρ. The probability of γ rewriting as a word σ is given by the sum of probabilities of its parses: PγG(σ) = ∑ρ:ρ0=γ,ρn=σ PG(ρ). We will write PG(σ) for the distribution PX0G (σ) from the start symbol X0. Example 5. Consider the following simple probabilistic regular grammar G1: X0 1/2→ aX0 X0 1/2→ a The tree in Figure 2 depicts all parses of the first five strings, showing that PG1(a k) = 2−k. 7 Example 6. The following is a probabilistic context-free grammar G2, only minimally more complex than the regular G1 by allowing two non-terminals on the right: X0 1/2→ aX0X0 X0 1/2→ a As revealed in Figure 2, we have PG2(a) = 2 −1 and PG2(a 3) = 2−3, like in Example 5. However, a5 has two parses, each with probability 2−5. Hence, PG2(a 5) = 2−5 * 2 = 2−4. G1 and G2 are also both context-sensitive grammars. Example 7. Finally, we offer an example of a probabilistic unrestricted grammar G3, which is not regular, context-free, or context-sensitive: X0 1→WYaZ YZ 1/2→ U aV 1→ Va aU 1→ Ua Ya 1→ aaY YZ 1/2→ VZ WV 1→WY WU 1→ ε With probability 1, X0 rewrites to WaaYZ. Then, since YZ randomly rewrites to either U or VZ, we have that WaaYZ rewrites to either WaaU or WaaVZ, each with probability 1/2. Following the sequence of productions, WaaU rewrites with probability 1 to aa, while WaaVZ rewrites with probability 1 to WaaaaYZ. The latter string then again rewrites with probability 1/2 to aaaa and with probability 1/2 to WaaaaaaaaYZ. In other words, this grammar defines the distribution PG3(a 2k ) = 2−k, shown above (Lemma 1) to be transcendental. Example 7 also provides a simple instance of a conditional distribution, since we have PG3(σ) = PG1(σ | {a 2k : k > 0}). 3 Probabilistic Unrestricted Grammars Similar to the classical case, probabilistic grammars in general correspond to probabilistic Turing machines (de Leeuw et al., 1956), conceived as stochastic word generators. Such models have arguably delineated the class of possible psychological models for as long as the mind has been likened to a computing device (Turing, 1950; Putnam, 1967). A probabilistic Turing machine (PTM) comes with an infinite one-way read-only random bit tape with Bernoulli(1/2)-distributed binary variables, as well as a one-way infinite read/write tape initially consisting of a special end symbol B followed by an infinite list of blank symbols t. Given an alphabet Σ, a PTM consists of finitely many states S = {s0, s1 . . . , sn, s#}, with a distinguished start state s0 and a distinguished end state s#, and finitely many rules of the form: 〈si, a1, b, a2, d, sj〉 where si, sj ∈ S, a1, a2 ∈ Σ∪ {B,t}, b ∈ {0, 1}, d ∈ {L, R}. Such a rule is read: if in state si, reading a1 on the read/write tape and b on the random bit tape, rewrite a1 as a2 and go left (if d = L) or right (if d = R), entering state sj. We assume for each triple si, a1, b, there is at most one triple a2, d, sj such that 〈si, a1, b, a2, d, sj〉 is a rule of T . That is, T is deterministic given its random input. We also assume that a1 = B if and only if a2 = B; moreover, in this case d = R. The machine begins reading B and halts upon reaching state s#. By a familiar argument, we can assume that every PTM is in a normal form guaranteeing that, 8 upon halting, following the B symbol is some σ ∈ Σ∗, followed again by an infinite list of blank symbols. The word σ is the official output. We use PT to refer to the distribution effected by T . That is, PT (σ) is the probability that T halts with σ as output on the tape. Clearly PT is a semi-measure. The proof of the next proposition is similar to the non-probabilistic case (e.g., Chomsky 1959; Minsky 1967); we include the details as later results (Propositions 27 and 29) will depend on them. Proposition 2. Probabilistic unrestricted grammars and probabilistic Turing machines define the same distributions. Proof. We need to show that PT for any PTM T can be defined by some grammar G. If T has states s0, s1, . . . , sn, sn+1(=s#), then G will have non-terminals X0, X1, . . . , Xn, Xn+1, in addition to B and t, and one more "loop" non-terminal Λ having 0 productions. Our aim is to mimic the behavior of T , step-by-step, using the non-terminals Xi to keep track of the position of the read/write head. We begin with a rule (X0 → X0B) rewriting X as X0B. Then, for each rule of the form 〈si, a1, b, a2, L, sj〉 of T we add to G production rules for all a ∈ Σ ∪ {B,t}: aXia1 → Xjaa2 If there is no rule for si, a1, 1− b then we also add: aXia1 → Λ For each rule 〈si, a1, b, a2, R, sj〉, we include a production: Xia1 → a2Xj When a1 = t we additionally include: Xi → a2Xj Given our priority order on substrings (§2.1), this production will only be used when Xi occurs at the very end of the string. Again, for both of the previous we include productions leading to Λ if there is no rule appropriate for si, a1, 1− b. Finally, we include "clean-up" productions for the stage when we reach Xn+1, corresponding to s#. For all a ∈ Σ: aXn+1 → Xn+1a BXn+1 → Xn+1 Xn+1a → aXn+1 Xn+1t → Xn+1 Xn+1 → ε That is, (again, due to our priority order on substrings) Xn+1 moves along the string to the left (which, given our PTM normal form, contains no blank symbols) until it hits B. After erasing it, we move along the string to the right until reaching blank symbols, eliminate them, and then Xn+1 rewrites to the empty string, giving us a word from Σ∗. To show that a PTM can simulate any probabilistic grammar is routine (again similar to the classical case, e.g., Minsky 1967). 9 These distributions can be given a precise formulation. Call a semi-measure P (computably) enumerable if it is approximable from below (Zvonkin and Levin, 1970); that is, if for each σ ∈ Σ∗ there is a computably enumerable weakly increasing sequence q0, q1, q2, . . . of rational numbers, such that lim i→∞ qi = P(σ). Enumerable semi-measures have been argued to constitute a useful idealized inductive target for psychological learning models (Vitányi and Chater, 2017). PT and (by Theorem 2) PG are always guaranteed to be enumerable: consider the set Bi of binary strings β with |β| ≤ i, such that T accesses (exactly) the bits of β before terminating with output σ. Letting qi = ∑β∈Bi 2 −|β|, it is then evident that lim i→∞ qi = PT (σ). In fact, we have the converse as well. Theorem 3 (Icard 2017a). Probabilistic grammars (equivalently, probabilistic Turing machines) define exactly the enumerable distributions. Proof. Let P be an enumerable semi-measure on Σ∗. That is, for each word σ ∈ Σ∗, there is a computably enumerable weakly increasing sequence q0, q1, q2, . . . of rational numbers such that lim i→∞ qi = P(σ). Assume without loss that q0 = 0. Note then that P(σ) = ∑∞i=0(qi+1 − qi). Our aim is to show that P = PT for some PTM T . Let 〈 , 〉 : N×N → N be a fixed (computable) bijective pairing function with first projection π1(n) = k when n = 〈k, i〉. Let σ0, σ1, σ2, . . . be a fixed enumeration of Σ∗, each with a fixed enumeration of approximating rationals qk0, q k 1, . . . converging from below to P(σk). We define a sequence of rational (thus computable) numbers as follows: r0 = q00 rn+1 = rn + ( qki+1 − qki ) where we assume 0 = 〈0, 0〉 and n + 1 = 〈k, i〉. Our PTM T works in stages, observing a random sequence of bits b0, . . . , bj−1-which we can think of as ever closer approximations to some random real number-while producing an enumeration r0, . . . , rj−1. At each stage j, we observe a bit bj and add a rational rj, then check whether, for any n with 0 ≤ n < j, the following condition (2) is satisfied: rn < j ∑ i=0 bi2−i − 2−j and rn+1 > j ∑ i=0 bi2−i + 2−j (2) That is, where p = ∑ j i=0 bi2 −i is the rational generated so far, we know our randomly generated real number will lie somewhere in the interval ( p− ε, p + ε), and (2) tells us that this interval sits inside the interval (rn, rn+1). If this holds, output σπ1(n+1). Otherwise, move on to stage j + 1. Each word σ has its mass P(σ) distributed across different intervals in [0, 1]: P(σk) = ∑ n:π1(n+1)=k rn+1 − rn = ∞ ∑ i=0 (qki+1 − qki ). The procedure generates approximations p = ∑ j i=0 bi2 −i to a random real number, and as soon as we are guaranteed that this random number is in one of our intervals between 10 rn and rn+1 = rn + (qki+1 − qki ), i.e., that no further bits will take us out of that interval (condition (2) above), we halt and output the string σk corresponding to the interval, with k = π1(n + 1). The probability of outputting σ is exactly P(σ), and the probability of not halting at all is 1−∑σ P(σ). More restrictive than the class of enumerable semi-measures is the class of computable semi-measures (de Leeuw et al., 1956), namely those for which P(σ) can also be computably approximated from above. To be computable we additionally require a weakly decreasing sequence of rationals converging to P. Lemma 4. Every semi-computable probability measure is also computable. Proof. Since ∑σ∈Σ∗ P(σ) = 1, we can approximate from below the sum ∑σ′ 6=σ P(σ′) by dovetailing through approximating sequences for all strings other than σ. This gives us a sequence q1 ≤ q2 ≤ q3, . . . converging from below to ∑σ′ 6=σ P(σ′). Thus, the sequence 1− q1 ≥ 1− q2 ≥ 1− q3, . . . converges from above to P(σ). Theorem 3, together with Lemma 4, gives us the following known corollary (see, e.g., Dal Lago and Zorzi 2012; Freer et al. 2014): Corollary 5. Almost-surely terminating grammars define the computable probability measures. As in the classical case, determining almost-sure termination is algorithmically undecidable. In fact, in the present setting it is even more difficult than the classical halting problem (Kaminski and Katoen, 2015). So there can obviously be no computably defined subclass of grammars or machines corresponding exactly to the computable distributions. To give a sense of how subtle the boundary between almost-sure termination and possible non-termination can be, consider the following example: Example 8 (Icard 2017a). Imagine a race between a tortoise and a hare. Where flip(1/4) is a procedure that returns 1 with probability 1/4 and Unif(1,7) returns an integer between 1 and 7 uniformly, consider the following simulation pseudocode: t := 1; h := 0 while (h < t) t := t + 1 if flip(1/4) then h := h + Unif(1,7) return t-1 Whereas this program would almost-surely halt, a small change to the program (e.g., incrementing the tortoise's pace by ε) would lead to positive probability of not halting. Theorem 3 tells us, perhaps unsurprisingly, that probabilistic grammars are capable of defining essentially all of the discrete measures that have been considered in the literature (e.g., all of those surveyed in Johnson et al. 2005), and even encompasses procedures producing values with uncomputable (but enumerable) probabilities, such as Chaitin's famous "halting probability" (Chaitin, 1975). Of course, converting an analytical description into an appropriate procedure can be far from trivial, as illustrated by the following example: 11 Example 9 (Flajolet et al. 2011). The following pseudocode, compilable into probabilistic Turing machine code, outputs 1 with probability exactly 1/π: x1, x2 := Geom(1/4) t := x1 + x2 if flip(5/9) then t := t + 1 for j = 1, 2, 3 draw 2t fair coin flips if #Heads 6= #Tails then return 0 return 1 The verification depends on an identity for 1/π due to Ramanujan. Theorem 3 and Corollary 5 delineate our subject matter, giving an upper bound on the types of discrete distributions probabilistic grammars and machines can possibly represent. 3.1 Conditioning probabilistic grammars One of the most important operations on probability distributions is conditioning, typically used to encode the effect of updating the distribution with some observation. Our first result about conditioning is negative (cf. Wood et al. 2011 for a related result in the context of so called Solomonoff induction): Theorem 6. The class of distributions defined by probabilistic grammars (equivalently, probabilistic Turing machines) is not closed under conditioning, even with finite sets. Proof. Take any computably enumerable (but not computable) real number p and rational number r such that p + r < 1. By Theorem 3 there is a grammar G that terminates with probability p + r, such that PG(a) = p and PG(aa) = r. Consider the support S+ = {a, aa} of PG . We claim that the normalization PG(σ | S+) is not computably enumerable. If it were, it would also be computable (Lemma 4). In particular, there would be a computable sequence q1 ≥ q2 ≥ q3 . . . converging from above to PG(a | S+) = p p+r . But from this we can obtain another sequence t1t1+r ≥ t2 t2+r ≥ t3t3+r . . . converging to p p+r , such that the sequence t1, t2, t3 . . . converges from above to p, which by hypothesis is impossible. At the same time, we obtain a positive closure result by restricting attention to those grammars or machines that almost-surely terminate, or slightly more generally to those that define computable distributions. In fact, as Freer et al. (2014) describe, there is a single probabilistic Turing machine that takes as input (the code of) a machine T and (the code of) a computable predicate S, and then produces strings σ with probabilities PT (σ | S). In the present setting, all this machine must do is implement a kind of "rejection sampling" procedure, repeatedly running T until it outputs some σ ∈ S, at that point returning σ. Theorem 7. The computable semi-measures are closed under conditioning with computable sets. 4 Probabilistic Regular Grammars We turn now to the most restrictive class of grammars, the probabilistic regular grammars (PRGs). These grammars have received relatively little direct attention. However, due 12 to their equivalence with probabilistic finite state automata (see, e.g., Smith and Johnson 2007), which are in turn equivalent in expressive power to discrete hidden Markov models (Dupont et al., 2005) as well as so called discrete phase-type distributions (O'Cinneide, 1990), much is already known about them. Such models furthermore have a long history in psychology and cognitive science (Miller, 1952). As above, we deal with the special case of only 1/2 production probabilities, which would correspond to 1/2 transition probabilities in probabilistic automata. 4.1 Expressing Rational Probabilities A first observation is that, had we begun with any real-valued probabilities q and 1− q, we would nonetheless be able to simulate 1/2 productions. In this sense the assumption that we do have 1/2 productions is with no loss. The trick goes back to von Neumann (1951) and can in fact be carried out with PRGs. For example, if we wanted X 1/2→ Y1 and X 1/2→ Y2, we could simply add two new non-terminals, Z1, Z2, and define: X q→ Z1 Z1 q→ X Z2 1−q→ X X 1−q→ Z2 Z1 1−q→ Y1 Z2 q→ Y2 Perhaps more impressively, PRGs are able to produce strings with arbitrary rational probabilities using only 1/2. (This basic idea can be traced back at least to Knuth and Yao 1976.) Example 10. To simulate X 1/3→ Y1, X 1/3→ Y2 and X 1/3→ Y3 we again add just two new nonterminals and define: X 1/2→ Z1 Z1 1/2→ X Z2 1/2→ Y2 X 1/2→ Z2 Z1 1/2→ Y1 Z2 1/2→ Y3 The probability of X rewriting to each is ∑n>0 1/22n = 1/3. Indeed, consider any rational number q, guaranteed to have a periodic binary expansion 0.b1 . . . bkbk+1 . . . bk+m. To simulate productions (X q→ Y1), (X 1−q→ Y0), we use nonterminals X1(= X), X2, . . . , Xk+m and introduce productions: Xi 1/2→ Ybi for each i ≤ k + m Xi 1/2→ Xi+1 for each i < k + m Xk+m 1/2→ Xk+1 X rewrites to Y1 with probability q and to Y0 with probability 1− q. The intuition is similar to the proof of Theorem 3: we are effectively generating ever closer approximations to a random real number, and once we definitively undershoot q (by generating an nth bit 0 when the nth bit of q is 1) or overshoot q (generating 1 when the corresponding bit of q is 0) we know which of Y1 and Y0 to choose. Repeating this procedure finitely many times gives us: Theorem 8. Let P1, . . . , Pn be PRG-definable distributions. For any rational numbers q1, . . . , qn, with ∑i≤n qi ≤ 1, the semi-measure P given by P(σ) = ∑i≤n qiPi(σ) is also PRG-definable. 13 From now on we will freely label rules with rational probabilities, with the understanding that they can be rewritten using only 1/2, perhaps by adding further non-terminals. Corollary 9. Probabilistic regular grammars define all finite-support rational-valued distributions. This already captures an extraordinarily wide variety of distributions, including many that are of central importance in psychological modeling such as (rational parameter valued) Bayesian networks (Pearl, 1988). We also have: Example 11 (Beta-Binomial). Recall Example 4. As long as α, β ∈ Z+, the (finitely many non-zero) probability values will always be rational, which by Corollary 9 means we can define it with a PRG. The more general Dirichlet-Multinomial can likewise be expressed, again provided we restrict to positive-integer-valued parameters. In addition, PRGs can define many important infinite-support distributions, following again from Theorem 8. Recall Example 2: Example 12 (Negative Binomial). Let us introduce t + 1 non-terminals N = {X0, . . . , Xt} with productions for each n < t: Xn 1−q→ aXn Xn q→ Xn+1 Xt 1−q→ aXt Xt q→ ε This easily defines the negative binomial distribution μq,t from Example 2. Any discrete probability can of course be arbitrarily well approximated by rationalvalued distributions, and the same is even true for continuous measures: the finite-support rational-valued distributions are everywhere dense in the space of Borel probability measures (under the weak topology, see Billingsley 1999). Moreover, this extends to the setting of computable probability spaces, where we additionally require approximating sequences to be uniformly computable (Gács, 2005; Ackerman et al., 2019). Thus, concerning pure expressivity, if we accept mere approximation (which we must in the continuous setting anyway), probabilistic regular grammars with 1/2-productions suffice in principle. 4.2 Normal Form and Matrix Representation We would nonetheless like to understand the expressive limitations of PRGs, and in this direction it will be convenient to assume a normal form for them. In the following lemma let us say that a non-terminal Y is transient if either there are are no productions for Y at all, or there is α ∈ Σ∗ such that (Y → α) ∈ Π. In other words, Y fails to be transient just when it rewrites with probability 1 to another non-terminal. Say that Y is reachable from X if either X = Y or there is some sequence (X → Z1), . . . , (Zn → Y). Lemma 10 (PRG normal form). Every PRG-definable distribution can be expressed by a PRG with the following properties: 1. In all productions (X → σY) and (X → σ) we have |σ| ≤ 1, i.e., either σ ∈ Σ or σ = ε. 2. X0 does not appear on the right-hand-side of any production, and there are only productions of the form (X0 → Y) with Y a non-terminal. 3. From every X some transient Y is reachable. 14 Proof. To show 1, it is enough to observe that whenever we have a production (X → abY) where a, b ∈ Σ, we can simply introduce a new non-terminal Z and replace it with two new productions (X → aZ) and (Z → bY). By induction we can always replace any such (X → σY) with |σ| new productions. To guarantee 2, introduce a new non-terminal Z, replace X0 with Z everywhere in the grammar, and add (X0 → Z). For 3, consider the set X of non-terminals reachable from X. If X contains no transient elements, then for every Z ∈ X there are Z1, Z2 ∈ X with (Z → σ1Z1), (Z → σ2Z2) ∈ Π (possibly Z1 = Z2). Since the elements of X thus always rewrite to one another, the distribution on words would not change if we simply removed all productions with elements of X on the left-hand-side. This immediately guarantees all elements of X are transient. If X = ∅ then X itself is transient. From here on let us assume that G is in normal form, satisfying 1-3 of Lemma 10. We can represent G using (substochastic) matrices. WhereN = {X0, . . . , Xm} let L be an m×m matrix (indexed 1, . . . , m), with entries determined by G: L[i, j] = P(Xi → Xj) Similarly for each a ∈ Σ we define an m×m matrix A: A[i, j] = P(Xi → aXj) To summarize the remaining productions we define a (row) vector v and (column) vectors w and a (one for each a ∈ Σ), all of length m, defined so that: v[i] = P(X0 → Xi) w[i] = P(Xi → ε) a[i] = P(Xi → a) The probability of a word σ = a1 . . . an can thus be represented: PG(σ) = ∑ k1,...,kn+1≥0 vLk1 A1 . . . Lkn AnLkn+1 w + ∑ k1,...,kn≥0 vLk1 A1 . . . Lkn an = v ( ∑ k≥0 Lk ) A1 . . . ( ∑ k≥0 Lk ) An ( ∑ k≥0 Lk ) w + v ( ∑ k≥0 Lk ) A1 . . . ( ∑ k≥0 Lk ) an The fact that G is in normal form guarantees that these infinite sums can be eliminated from the equation. Specifically: Lemma 11. lim k→∞ Lk = 0. Proof. The statement is equivalent to the spectral radius of L (largest absolute value of its eigenvalues) being strictly less than 1 (see, e.g., Kress 1998). Because L is a contraction (e.g., with respect to l1 norm) we know the spectral radius is less than or equal to 1, so it remains only to show that it cannot be 1. If 1 were an eigenvalue of L then we would have Lx = x for some non-zero x. Thus, for each index i of x one of the following must hold: (1) x[i] = 0, (2) x[i] = 12 x[j] for some j, (3) x[i] = 12 x[j] + 1 2 x[k] for some j, k, or (4) x[i] = x[j] for some j. Note that those i corresponding to transient non-terminals Xi will never satisfy (3) or (4). Consider the set 15 I = {i : the absolute value of x[i] is maximal}. Since x is non-zero, no i ∈ I can satisfy (1) or (2). Moreover, for no such i do we have x[i] = x[j] with j /∈ I. By condition 3 of Lemma 10 (normal form), for some i we must therefore have x[i] = 12 x[j] + 1 2 x[k] for some j, k, at least one of which must not be in I. But this too is impossible. Lemma 12. ∑k≥0 Lk = (I− L)−1 Proof. The proof is standard, but we give it for completeness. We want to show that the matrix product (I− L)(∑k≥0 Lk) is equal again to the identity matrix I. (I− L)(∑ k≥0 Lk) = lim n→∞ ( (I− L)( ∑ n≥k≥0 Lk) ) = lim n→∞ ( ∑ n≥k≥0 Lk − ∑ n≥k≥0 Lk+1 ) = lim n→∞ ( L0 − Ln+1 ) = lim n→∞ ( I− Ln+1 ) But because lim n→∞ Ln+1 = 0, this limit is in fact equal to I. By Lemma 12, and abbreviating (I− L)−1 as M, we have: PG(σ) = vMA1 . . . MAnMw + vMA1 . . . Man = vMA1 . . . M(AnMw + an) (3) Because multiplying and taking inverses of matrices never leads to irrational numbers, Eq. (3) establishes a sort of converse of Corollary 9: Proposition 13. For any PRG G and any word σ, the probability PG(σ) is a rational number. 4.3 Rational Generating Functions Theorem 8 and Proposition 13 tell us about the kinds of probability values specific words can take. But we would also like to understand the overall structure of the distribution produced by a PRG. In the present section we restrict attention to Σ = {a}, which we interpret as providing unary notations for positive integers. In this case Eq. 3 can be written even more simply. Abbreviating MA by N we have: PG(ak+1) = vNk ( NMw + Ma ) In other words, there are fixed vectors v and u such that: PG(ak+1) = vNku (4) Eq. 4 leads to the following result (cf. Paz 1971): Lemma 14. There are fixed constants c1, . . . , cm, such that for every k ∈N: PG(ak+m+1) = m ∑ i=1 ci PG(ak+i). 16 Proof. By the Cayley-Hamilton Theorem, N satisfies its own characteristic equation, i.e.: Nm = c1I + c2N + * * *+ cmNm−1 for constants c1, . . . , cm. Multiplying each term on the left by vNk and on the right by u: vNk+mu = c1vNku + c2vNk+1u + * * *+ cmvNk+m−1u. In other words, PG(ak+m+1) = c1 PG(ak+1) + c2 PG(ak+2) + * * *+ cm PG(ak+m). A quick, high-level derivation of this next result from Lemma 14 can be found, e.g., in Theorem 4.1.1 of Stanley (2011). We give an explicit proof here. Theorem 15. The probability generating function for any PRG on Σ = {a} is a rational function. Proof. The aim is to show there are polynomials Q0(z) and Q1(z) such that GG(z) = Q0(z) Q1(z) . In other words we want Q0(z)−Q1(z)GG(z) = 0. We leave off the subscript G from GG and from PG . Define Q1(z) to be the m-degree polynomial −c1zm +−c2zm−1 + * * *+−cmz + 1: Q0(z)−Q1(z)G(z) = Q0(z) + c1zmG(z) + * * *+ cmzG(z)−G(z) Setting this equal to 0 we can solve for Q0(z). We would like Q0(z) such that: G(z) = Q0(z) + c1zmG(z) + * * *+ cmzG(z) ∞ ∑ k=0 P(ak)zk = Q0(z) + ∞ ∑ k=0 c1P(ak)zk+m + * * *+ ∞ ∑ k=0 cmP(ak)zk+1 By Lemma 14 we have ∑∞k=m P(a k)zk equal to: ∞ ∑ k=0 c1P(ak)zk+m + * * *+ ∞ ∑ k=m−1 cmP(ak)zk+1. Thus, setting Q0(z) equal to the m− 1-degree polynomial P(ε) + ( P(a)− cmP(ε) ) z + * * *+ ( P(am−1)− ( c2P(ε) + c3P(a) + * * *+ cmP(am−2) )) zm−1 gives us the desired equality. A version of Theorem 15 can be traced back to observations of Schützenberger (1961) (see also Eilenberg 1974; Salomaa and Soittola 1978; Kuich and Salomaa 1986; Flajolet and Sedgewick 2001; Kornai 2008; Bhattiprolu et al. 2017). It is known that probabilistic automata and the closely related discrete phase-type distributions (and therefore also PRGs) do not define all probability distributions with rational pgfs, even if we were to allow arbitrary positive real number weights (Eilenberg, 1974; Soittola, 1976; O'Cinneide, 1990). The reason is that any generating function for one of these devices must be a merge of rational functions possessing unique poles of minimal modulus (i.e., there can only be one zero of the denominator with minimal absolute value). See §VIII Example 6.1 of Eilenberg (1974). Note that it is important for Theorem 15 that positive integers be represented in unary. If we instead used a binary representation, for example, then as 10k is the binary representation of 2k, we could define a distribution whose pgf is transcendental (Lemma 1). 17 4.4 Conditioning with a Regular Set Given the previous results we can show that PRG-definable distributions are closed under conditioning with regular sets of words. In that direction we first show the following useful closure result (cf. Nederhof and Satta 2003): Lemma 16 (Normalization). Given a PRG G, consider the set S+G = {σ ∈ Σ ∗ : PG(σ) > 0} of words with positive probability. There is a PRG G+ such that PG+(σ) = PG(σ | S+G ) for all σ. Proof. Given G, for each non-terminal Xi define: ν(Xi) = ∑ σ∈Σ∗ P Xi G (σ) to be the probability that Xi rewrites to a word. We claim that ν(Xi) is always a rational number. Consider the grammar G now with Xi as the start symbol, and assume without loss that this grammar is in normal form (so in particular Xi satisfies condition (2) of Lemma 10). Define row vector v, matrix T, and column vector f so that: v[j] = PG(Xi → Xj) T[j, k] = ∑ σ∈Σ∪{ε} PG(Xj → σXk) f[j] = ∑ σ∈Σ∪{ε} PG(Xj → σ) Evidently, ν(Xi) = v ( ∑k≥0 Tk ) f, so it remains only to show that ∑k≥0 Tk is rational. As G is in normal form, the same argument as in Lemma 11 establishes that lim k→∞ Tk = 0, and hence that ∑k≥0 Tk = (I− T)−1 (Lemma 12), implying that ν(Xi) is indeed rational. To obtain the "normalized" grammar G+ we simply multiply each rule probability by a certain rational number, with Theorem 8 guaranteeing that we can always construct such a grammar. Specifically, each rule (X → σ) is now in G+ given probability PG(X → σ) ν(X) and each rule (X → σY) is now given probability PG(X → σY) * ν(Y) ν(X) . To show that PG+(σ) = PG(σ | S+G ) we establish a slightly stronger claim, namely that for every non-terminal X and every parse ρ = 〈X, . . . , σ〉, with σ ∈ Σ∗, we have PG+(ρ) = PG(ρ) ν(X) . (5) We show (5) by induction on the length of ρ, with the base case being ρ = 〈X, σ〉 and σ ∈ Σ ∪ {ε}. Then PG+(〈X, σ〉) = PG+(X → σ) = PG(X → σ)/ν(X) = PG(〈X, σ〉)/ν(X). 18 For the inductive case, consider ρ = 〈X, σ0Y, . . . , σ〉, where σ0 ∈ Σ ∪ {ε} and σ = σ0σ1: PG+(〈X, σ0Y, . . . , σ〉) = PG+(X → σ0Y) * PG+(〈Y, . . . , σ1〉) = PG(X → σ0Y) * ν(Y) ν(X) * PG(〈Y, . . . , σ1〉) ν(Y) = PG(X → σ0Y) * PG(〈Y, . . . , σ1〉) ν(X) = PG(ρ) ν(X) . Taking X = X0 and summing over all parses of σ, this establishes the main claim. Recall a non-deterministic finite-state automaton (NFA) is a tuple D = (Q, Σ, ∆, q0, q f ) consisting of a set Q of states, an alphabet Σ, a transition relation ∆ ⊆ Q × Σ × Q, and distinguished start q0 and final q f states (see, e.g., Hopcroft and Ullman 1979). D accepts a word σ ∈ Σ∗ if there is some sequence of transitions starting in state q0, successively reading the symbols of σ, and ending in q f . NFAs accept exactly the regular sets of words. We now show how to construct, from PRG G and some NFA D accepting a regular set R, a grammar G ⊗ D with the property that PG⊗D(σ | S+G⊗D) = P(σ | R). Lemma 16 in turn guarantees that this distribution can itself be defined by a PRG, which will prove: Theorem 17. The class of distributions definable by probabilistic regular grammars is closed under conditioning with regular sets. Proof. The non-terminals of G ⊗ D are all pairs 〈Xi, Q〉, with Xi a non-terminal of G and Q ⊆ Q a non-empty set of states of D. We also include a "loop" non-terminal Λ. The productions of G ⊗D are obtained from G and D. As before assume G is in normal form. 1. For each (Xi → Xj) and Q, add a production (〈Xi, Q〉 → 〈Xj, Q〉). 2. For each (Xi → ε) and Q containing q f , add a production (〈Xi, Q〉 → ε). 3. For each (Xi → a) and Q containing a q with (q, a, q f ) ∈ ∆, add (〈Xi, Q〉 → a). 4. For each (Xi → aXj) and Q, if Q′ = {q′ : (q, a, q′) for some q ∈ Q} is non-empty, then add the production (〈Xi, Q〉 → 〈Xj, Q′〉). Finally, if in G there were two productions with Xi on the left hand side, and for some Q we have added fewer than two productions for 〈Xi, Q〉, add a production (〈Xi, Q〉 → Λ). This guarantees, in the resulting grammar G ⊗D, that every parse of every word has the same probability as it did in G. In other words, PG(σ) = PG⊗D(σ) for every σ. However, the words that receive positive measure in G ⊗D are exactly those in R that received positive measure in G. That is to say, R ∩ S+G = S + G⊗D . In addition, PG(σ | R) = PG(σ | R ∩ S + G ). Hence, PG⊗D(σ | S+G⊗D) = P(σ | R), as desired. 5 Probabilistic Context-Free Grammars Probabilistic context-free grammars (PCFGs) are undoubtedly the most thoroughly studied of probabilistic grammars. Due to their ability to capture hierarchical structure in language, 19 and the existence of good learning models, PCFGs have been ubiquitous in computational approaches to language and grammar (see, e.g., Klein and Manning 2003; Levy 2008; Kim et al. 2019). But they have also seen many applications in other areas of psychology, for example, as encoding a probabilistic hypothesis space for concepts (Tenenbaum et al., 2011). As mentioned above, by results of Abney et al. (1999) and Etessami and Yannakakis (2009), PCFGs express the same class of distributions as pushdown automata and recursive Markov chains. (However, see the discussion below in §5.1 for qualification.) Example 13 (Symmetric Random Walk). Recall the symmetric 1/2-random walk on the nonnegative integers (Example 3). The hitting time for first reaching 0 is a random variable with the same distribution as that defined by the simple grammar G2 in Example 6: X0 1/2→ aX0X0 X0 1/2→ a In the analytic expression from Example 3, the kth Catalan number ck counts the number of parses of a2k+1, while each parse has probability 2−2k+1. The next four examples reveal irrational word probabilities: Example 14. Consider the grammar: X0 1/4→ X0X0 X0 1/4→ a X0 1/2→ ε Then, for instance, P(ε) is a solution to the equation x = 14 x 2 + 12 , equal to 2− √ 2. Example 15 (Olmedo et al. 2016). The following grammar is quite simple: X0 1/2→ X0X0X0 X0 1/2→ ε Yet, P(ε) is a solution to x = 12 x 3 + 12 , equal to 1/φ, where φ is the golden ratio. Example 16 (Etessami and Yannakakis 2009). This grammar is also quite simple. X0 1/6→ X0X0X0X0X0 X0 1/2→ a X0 1/3→ ε However, P(ε) is a solution to x = 16 x 5 + 13 , which is is not even solvable by radicals. The last three examples involve distributions assigning positive probability to the empty string. This is not essential for producing irrational probability values: Example 17. Consider the grammar: X0 1/2→ aY X0 1/2→ a Y 1/4→ YY Y 1/4→ a Y 1/2→ ε Then P(ε) = 0, but, for instance, P(a) = 3− √ 2 2 . However, it might also be noticed that these distributions all maintain infinite support, or assign positive probability to the empty string. It turns out that this is essential: Proposition 18. For distributions with finite support, PCFGs generate all and only the rationalvalued semi-measures. 20 Proof. Suppose a PCFG G has finite support S+G = {a k1 , . . . , akn} with all ki > 0, and let m = max(k1, . . . , kn). If X0 rewrites to some intermediate string α ∈ (N ∪Σ)∗ with positive probability and |α| > m, then |α| −m of the non-terminals in α cannot rewrite to a positivelength word with any positive probability. Otherwise the grammar would assign positive measure to a word longer than m. Revise G by removing each non-terminal Y such that PYG(ε) = 1, and replacing Y with the empty string anywhere it appears on the right-hand side of a rule. Thus, in the revised grammar X0 rewrites with positive probability to only finitely many intermediate strings α that may eventually rewrite to a word. Let A be the set of such α (including X0 itself), and let L be the set of those intermediate strings that loop with probability 1. Define a probabilistic regular grammar G? using a non-terminal Xα for each α ∈ A, in addition to a special non-terminal Λ. For each pair α1, α2 ∈ A, if there is a production in G that would rewrite α1 as α2, add to G? a production (Xα1 → Xα2). Likewise, if G has α rewrite in one step to a string in L, include a production (Xα → Λ). Finally, add a production (Xaki → a ki ) for each aki ∈ S+G . G? clearly generates the same distribution on S+G as the original grammar G. By Proposition 13 we know that every such value PG(aki ) = PG?(aki ) must be rational. Using Proposition 18 we can also show that PCFGs, as we have defined them, are not in general closed under conditioning (though see Nederhof and Satta 2003 for a proof that PCFGs are closed under conditioning with regular sets if we allow irrational weights): Proposition 19. PCFGs are not closed under conditioning, even with finite sets. Proof. Consider the distribution in Example 17 together with the finite set {a, aa}. Evidently, P(a | {a, aa}) = 20−2 √ 2 21 , which is not a rational number. Because this distribution has finite support, Proposition 18 shows it cannot be defined by a PCFG. 5.1 Algebraic Generating Functions The probabilities in Examples 13-17 are all algebraic numbers. This is an instance of a more general result about the pgf for any PCFG G. Assume Σ = {a} and N = {X0, . . . , Xn}. We will define a polynomial equation xi = Qi(z, x0, . . . , xn) in n + 2 variables for each nonterminal Xi. For a string α ∈ (N ∪ Σ)∗ let α be the result of replacing a with z, and Xi with xi for each non-terminal Xi (and let α = 1 if α = ε). Suppose in G we have both Xi 1/2→ α1 and Xi 1/2→ α2. Then our equation for Xi is: xi = 1 2 α1 + 1 2 α2 (6) with concatenation interpreted as multiplication. Likewise, if G has Xi 1→ α, then the equation for Xi is simply xi = α. G thus produces a system of n + 1 polynomial equations:x0... xn = Q0(z, x0, . . . , xn)... Qn(z, x0, . . . , xn) (7) 21 Example 18. Returning to Examples 3, 13, we obtain equation: x = 1 2 x2z + 1 2 z Solving for x gives an expression for the pgf, G(z) = ( 1− √ 1− z2 ) /z. By Theorem 15, even though the distribution in Example 3 only involves rational probability values, we have (see Kornai 2008; Bhattiprolu et al. 2017 for related observations): Proposition 20. The symmetric random walk distribution from Examples 3 and 13 cannot be defined by any probabilistic regular grammar. Toward a similar general limitative result for PCFGs, denote by gi the generating function GXiG (z) = ∑ ∞ k=0 P Xi G (a k)zk corresponding to the probability function PXiG , and let g be the vector (g0, . . . , gn)T . Lemma 21 now follows by a routine verification. (We leave off the subscript G in what follows.) Lemma 21. The vector g is a solution to the system of equations in (7); in other words, gi = Qi(z, g0, . . . , gn) for all i ≤ n. Proof. Suppose there is a single production for Xi, rewriting to a string with j occurrences of a and non-terminals Xj0 , . . . , Xjm (with possible repetitions). First note that: PXi (aj+k) = ∑ (l1+***+lm=k) ∏ t≤m P Xjt (alt) This implies that GXi (z) = ∞ ∑ k=0 PXi (aj+k)zj+k = ∞ ∑ k=0 ( ∑ (l1+***+lm=k) ∏ t≤m P Xjt (alt) ) zj+k = zj ∞ ∑ k=0 ( ∑ (l1+***+lm=k) ∏ t≤m P Xjt (alt) ) zk = zj ∏ t≤m ( ∞ ∑ k=0 P Xjt (ak)zk ) = zj ∏ t≤m GXjt (z) But zjxj0 . . . xjm is the exactly the monomial Qi. Similarly, if Xi has two productions, each with probability 1/2, a very similar argument goes through by appeal to Eq. 6. In particular, the first component g0 = GG(z) is the pgf for G overall. Lemma 21 does not quite show that g0 is an algebraic function in the sense of §2.2. We need to show that there is a polynomial equation 0 = Q(y, z) in variables y and z such that y = g0 is a solution. However, it is known from elimination theory that for any system like (7) there is such a polynomial Q(y, z) such that the first component of any solution to (7) is also a root of Q(y, z). See the Elimination Theorem on p. 16 of Cox et al. (2000). (See also the closely related discussions in Kuich and Salomaa 1986; Flajolet and Sedgewick 2001; Panholzer 2005.) Thus, we have the following result (cf. Booth and Thompson 1973; Yao 1985): 22 Theorem 22. The probability generating function for any PCFG on Σ = {a} is algebraic. In particular this means that there is no PCFG encoding a Poisson distribution (Example 1). The fact that PCFGs cannot represent all algebraic pgfs of course follows from Proposition 18 (cf. Proposition 24 below). Note that Theorem 22 is importantly different from the classic Chomsky-Schützenberger Theorem for non-probabilistic grammars (see Chomsky and Schützenberger 1963; Kuich and Salomaa 1986). The latter concerns word length counts, and states that the associated generating functions are algebraic for unambiguous context-free grammars. Indeed, the fact that context-free languages may possess transcendental generating functions is a useful tool for showing inherent ambiguity of a context-free language (Flajolet, 1987). By contrast, Theorem 22 applies to all PCFGs. At the same time, it has been shown that ambiguity is necessary for PCFGs to go beyond the power of PRGs for a one-letter alphabet: any distribution represented by a PCFG that is merely polynomially ambiguous-meaning that the number of parses for each word is bounded by a fixed polynomial in the word's length-can be represented by a PRG (Bhattiprolu et al., 2017), and hence will possess a rational probability generating function. It of course follows that the distributions in Examples 13-17 are all exponentially ambiguous. Finally, observe that essentially the same method used here to prove Theorem 22 could provide an alternative method of proof for Theorem 15, since for a PRG the system in (7) would be one of linear equations, and Gaussian elimination would produce a polynomial equation of degree 1. 6 Probabilistic Indexed Grammars Many grammar formalisms in between context-free and context-sensitive have been explored in computational linguistics (see, e.g., Kallmeyer 2010 for an overview covering many of them, including probabilistic extensions), and some of these have featured in psychological models of language processing (e.g., Levy 2008; Nelson et al. 2017). Yet there has been almost no study of their expressive capacity for defining probability distributions. Among the most well studied in the non-probabilistic setting are the indexed grammars, due to Aho (1968). The presentation here is a variation on that in Hopcroft and Ullman (1979). To N and Σ we add a finite set I of indices. Non-terminals are associated with a stack of indices and can pass on this stack to other non-terminals, in addition to pushing and popping indices from the stack at each step. Productions apply now to a pair X[l] of non-terminal together with a topmost index l ∈ I ∪ {ε} (which may be empty) on its stack. Productions may be of three types, where the third is relevant only when l 6= ε: 1. X[l]→ α[l] (copy indices to all non-terminals in α) 2. X[l]→ α[kl] (push index k and copy the result) 3. X[l]→ α (pop index l and copy the rest) In a parse, each non-terminal is tagged with a stack of indices, with the start symbol X0 initially carrying the empty index stack. The stack attached to the non-terminal on the left is then copied to all of the non-terminals appearing on the right-hand-side of the production, modulo a pop or push, while elements of Σ do not carry index stacks. 23 As in §2.3, a probabilistic indexed grammar satisfies the restriction that each pair of a nonterminal X and a top index l ∈ I ∪ {ε} appears on the left of 0, 1, or 2 productions, again with the usual probabilistic interpretation. All of the other definitions from §2.3 similarly remain unchanged. The main point about these grammars is the following: Proposition 23. Probabilistic indexed grammars can define distributions with transcendental pgfs. Proof. Here is a grammar defining P(a2 k ) = 2−k: X0[] 1→ Y[l] Y[l] 1/2→ Y[ll] Y[l] 1/2→ Z[l] Z[l] 1→ ZZ Z[] 1→ a We observed in Lemma 1 that its pgf is transcendental. This shows that we have gone beyond the expressive capacity of PCFGs, even for a one-letter alphabet. There are still relatively simple distributions that probabilistic indexed grammars cannot define. For example, the factorial language {ak! : k > 0}, while contextsensitive, has been shown beyond the capability of indexed grammars (Hayashi, 1973). A fortiori no probabilistic indexed grammar can define a distribution with this set as its support. Before moving to probabilistic context-sensitive grammars we first consider a natural and important restriction. 6.1 Probabilistic (Right-)Linear Indexed Grammars A notable proper subclass of the indexed grammars are the linear indexed grammars (Duske and Parchmann, 1984; Gazdar, 1988), where we assume-similar to a regular grammar (§2.3)-that at most one non-terminal appears on the right-hand-side of a production. This is an example of a mildly context-sensitive formalism, weakly equivalent to other well studied grammatical formalisms like tree-adjoining grammar and combinatory categorial grammar (Joshi et al., 1991). Despite the restriction, it is straightforward to show that the these grammars also extend PCFGs (see Duske and Parchmann 1984 for the nonprobabilistic case). That they do so properly is the next result. Proposition 24. Probabilistic linear indexed grammars can represent distributions that cannot be expressed by PCFGs. Proof. The following grammar defines a distribution with finite support, but also with irrational probabilities. X0[] 1/2→ a Y[l] 1/4→ Y[ll] Y[l] 1/2→ Y X0[] 1/2→ aY[l] Y[l] 1/4→ a Y[] 1→ ε With 1/2 probability X0 rewrites to aY[l], while Y[l] in turn rewrites to ε with irrational probability 2− √ 2 (recall Examples 14 and 17). Thus, P(a) = 3− √ 2 2 , while P(aa) = √ 2−1 2 . By Proposition 18, P cannot be defined by any PCFG. In fact, this grammar is not only linear, it is even right-linear, meaning that any nonterminal on the right-hand-side appears to the right of all terminal symbols (as in our definition of regular grammars from §2.3-in that case, right-linearity is not a substantive restriction; see Hopcroft and Ullman 1979). In the non-probabilistic setting, such grammars define exactly the context-free languages (Aho, 1968). But in the probabilistic setting they are evidently more expressive. As another example of a probabilistic right-linear indexed grammar, recall the tortoise and hare program defined earlier in Example 8: 24 Example 19 (Tortoise & Hare). We can mimic this program as follows: X0[] 1→ Y[l] Y[l] 1/6→ aY[l] Y[l] 1/6→ aZ Y[] 1→ ε Y[l] 1/2→ aY[ll] Y[l] 1/6→ aY Z[l] 1→ Y Z[] 1→ ε The probability that X0[] rewrites to ak is exactly the probability that the program in Example 8 returns k, i.e., that the hare catches up in k steps. Although the distribution is rational-valued, we conjecture that it is not PCFG-definable. Given aforementioned results from the literature, Proposition 24 may seem surprising. Right-linear indexed grammars can be seen as grammatical versions of counter or pushdown automata (Duske et al., 1992), and there are several proofs implying that probabilistic pushdown automata and PCFGs are equally expressive (Abney et al. 1999; Chi 1999; see also the discussion in Smith and Johnson 2007). The apparent tension is resolved by observing that the proofs in Abney et al. (1999) and Chi (1999) require solutions to nonlinear equations in order to define the requisite probabilities in the corresponding equivalent PCFG. Proposition 18 simply shows that this cannot always be done if we only have recourse to rational weights. The correspondence thus breaks down in our setting. Probabilistic right-linear indexed grammars may therefore provide a better match to probabilistic pushdown automata or the equivalent ("multi-exit") recursive Markov chains. Linear indexed grammars are unable to define the language {a2k : k > 0} (they define only semi-linear languages in the sense of Parikh 1966; see Duske and Parchmann 1984); a fortiori probabilistic (right-)linear indexed grammars cannot define the distribution P(a2 k ) = 2−k, and thus fall short of general indexed grammars. In fact, following from their correspondence with pushdown automata (Duske et al., 1992), and drawing on existing results for the latter (Kuich and Salomaa, 1986, Theorem 14.15), these grammars can also be associated with algebraic generating functions. 7 Probabilistic Context-Sensitive Grammars Grammars applied to natural language have typically been less powerful than the indexed grammars, and certainly less powerful than context-sensitive. In fact, over the decades there have been numerous explicit arguments that context-sensitive grammars are too complex (Chomsky, 1959; Savitch, 1987; Joshi et al., 1991). Probabilistic context-sensitive grammars (PCSGs) have rarely been considered, although they have occasionally appeared, e.g., in vision (Zhu and Mumford, 2007) and planning (Pynadath and Wellman, 1998). Propositions 29 and 30 below, together offer some further explanation for this relative absence. In the classical hierarchy, context-sensitive grammars properly extend the indexed grammars (Aho, 1968), even in the case of a one-letter alphabet, witness the factorial language {ak! : k > 0} (Hayashi, 1973). Correspondingly, there are distributions definable by PCSGs that elude any probabilistic indexed grammar, as shown below in Proposition 28. To gain a better understanding of PCSGs, a helpful first observation is that, as in the classical case (Hopcroft and Ullman, 1979), the requirement on PCSGs given in §2.3 is equivalent to the intuitive stipulation that |α| ≤ |β|whenever (α→ β) ∈ Π. Such a non-contracting grammar may also include X0 → ε if X0 does not appear on the right-hand-side of any production. Lemma 25. Any distribution defined by a non-contracting probabilistic grammar G1 can also be defined by a PCSG G0. 25 Proof. For each a ∈ Σ include a new non-terminal Xa and add production Xa → a to G0. Replace a throughout G1 with Xa. For each production in G1 of the form (Y1 . . . Yn → Z1 . . . Zm) with 2 ≤ n ≤ m, add n non-terminals W1, . . . , Wn, and 2n productions to G0: Y1Y2 . . . Yn−1Yn → W1Y2 . . . Yn−1Yn W1Y2 . . . Yn−1Yn → W1W2 . . . Yn−1Yn ... W1 . . . Wn−1Yn → W1 . . . Wn−1WnZn+1 . . . Zm W1 . . . WnZn+1 . . . Zm → Z1 . . . Wn−1WnZn+1 . . . Zm ... Z1 . . . WnZn+1 . . . Zm → Z1 . . . ZnZn+1 . . . Zm The PCSG G0 thus defines the same distribution as G1. Lemma 25 suggests a natural class of PTMs corresponding to PCSGs, namely those that never write a blank symbol t, so called non-erasing PTMs. The non-probabilistic version of these machines was studied early on by Wang (1957) (see also Minsky 1967), though the connection to context-sensitive grammars seems not to have been noted in the literature. In this section we allow using one more symbol C, and assume the convention for a PTM to output σ is having BσC on the tape followed by an infinite sequence of blank symbols. It is evident that nothing from §3 will be affected by this. Theorem 26. PCSGs and non-erasing PTMs are equivalent. Proof. The proof of Proposition 2 nearly already shows that any non-erasing PTM can be emulated by a PCSG. Since a non-erasing PTM will never write t, we require only a slight modification of the construction so that Xn+1 moves to the right of the string and finally rewrites to C. All rules in this modified construction are non-contracting. For the other direction, we need to show that a non-erasing PTM can identify the highest priority substring, flip a coin to determine whether to rewrite it and what to rewrite it as, and then finally to rewrite it, possibly moving the remainder of the string to the right in case the rewrite is longer. Identifying the highest priority substring α can be done without changing the string at all, provided we are always writing C at the end. When a rule (α → β) is identified the machine enters a fixed subroutine which involves going to the end of α and checking whether that is also the end of the string. If it is, we move C over |β| − |α| places and then easily perform the fixed rewrite. If it is not the end, then we first replace the last symbol of α with another C; then we start shifting all of the extra symbols to the right |β| − |α| places until we hit C to the left. At that point we know we are |α| places to the right of the start of α, so we return to the beginning of α and simply write out β, finally returning to the beginning of the string. Proposition 27. PCSGs can define transcendental pgfs. Proof. There is a PCSG defining the distribution P(a2 k ) = 2−k, which we know by Lemma 1 has a transcendental pgf. This could be shown in two ways. First, we could explicitly define the PCSG, for instance by massaging the grammar in Example 7 into context-sensitive form (cf. Example 9.5 in Hopcroft and Ullman 1979). Alternatively, we can describe a nonerasing PTM that defines P(a2 k ) = 2−k and appeal to Theorem 26. The machine first writes 26 aa. From this point it iteratively flips a coin and every time we see heads we double the string. This latter operation can be done without ever writing t: rewrite the first a as C and then move to the right until seeing t, rewriting it too as C. Write a to the right of C and then go back until seeing the first a. If the next symbol to the left of that a is also an a, then repeat, rewriting it as C and moving to the end of the string writing another a. But if the next symbol to the left of the a is C, then we know we are done, in which case we rewrite each C as a and move back to the B symbol. Enter s# upon seeing a first tails. Invoking Theorem 26 again, it is also straightforward to show that a Turing machine can copy a sequence of 1s an increasing number of times, continuing again until witnessing a tails, without ever erasing any symbols. This means that there is a PCSG defining the measure P(ak!) = 2−k for k > 0, which implies: Proposition 28. PCSGs can define distributions that elude probabilistic indexed grammars. PCSGs can thus define complex distributions. The following proposition gives a further sense of how complex they can be. The statement is similar to an earlier result on nonprobabilistic context-sensitive grammars due to Savitch (1987): Proposition 29. Consider any computably enumerable semi-measure P : Σ∗ → [0, 1]. There is a PCSG (equivalently, non-erasing PTM) on augmented vocabulary Σ ∪ {C} defining a semimeasure P such that P(σ) = ∑n P(σCn) for all σ ∈ Σ∗. Proof Sketch. In the construction of a probabilistic grammar from a (possibly erasing) PTM in the proof of Theorem 2, whenever the PTM would write a t, instead write a C. That is, the probability that a PTM returns σ is exactly the same as the probability that the PCSG returns σ together with some extra "dummy" symbols tacked on to the end. Despite the fact that PCSGs in some sense encompass all of the complexity of enumerable semi-measures, there is another sense in which they are even weaker than PCFGs. Proposition 30. For every PCSG F and every word σ, the probability PG(σ) is a rational number. Proof. We again invoke Theorem 26 to prove the result. Suppose we are given a non-erasing PTM T . We show that PT (σ) is rational for every σ. The critical observation is that any non-erasing PTM T that produces a string BσC will only ever write to |σ|+ 2 tape cells, on any possible successful execution. So we can consider the finite set C of all possible configurations [s, η, i] leading up to BσC being on the tape in state s# while reading B. Here, s is the current state, η is the string written on the |η| = |σ|+ 2 many tape cells, and i < |σ|+ 2 is the index of the symbol currently being read. From this description we can naturally define a PRG over alphabet {a} as follows. Include a non-terminal Xc for each configuration c ∈ C other than the final one, and let X0 correspond to the initial configuration [s0,Bt|σ|+1, 0]. If configuration c2 follows configuration c1 when T is reading random bit 0, then-unless c2 is the final configuration-include a rule Xc1 → Xc2 ; and likewise when T is reading random bit 1. If in either case c2 is the final configuration, then include a rule Xc1 → a. Evidently, PT (σ) = PG(a), and so the result follows from Proposition 13. Proposition 30 may seem perplexing in light of the fact that the context-sensitive languages properly extend the context-free languages, and even the indexed languages. The crux of the matter is the treatment of the empty string. Going back to Chomsky (1959), 27 the context-sensitive languages only extend the context-free provided we stipulate that we can always add the empty string to a language, e.g., by allowing (X0 → ε) when X0 never occurs on the right-hand-side of any production. Examples 14-17 from §5 and Proposition 30 together show that this maneuver reverberates in a serious way once we turn to the probabilistic setting. Perhaps unintuitively, PCSGs cannot even define the seemingly simple distributions in Examples 14 and 17, for instance. Thus, while it may be that "almost any language one can think of is context-sensitive" (Hopcroft and Ullman, 1979), this is evidently not true of distributions defined by probabilistic context-sensitive grammars. From Corollary 9 and Propositions 13, 18, and 30 we obtain: Corollary 31. PRGs, PCFGs, and PCSGs all define exactly the same finite-support distributions, namely the rational-valued finite-support distributions. By this point we have substantiated all of the qualitative relationships in the probabilistic hierarchy depicted in Figure 1. The fact that there are distributions defined by probabilistic linear indexed grammars but by neither PCSGs nor PCFGs follows from Propositions 24 and 30. Perhaps less obviously, we also now know that there are distributions defined by probabilistic indexed grammars that elude both their linear variant and PCSGs. To see this, let G4 be a probabilistic indexed grammar with PG1(a 2k ) = 2−k for k > 1 (easily definable by a variation on the construction in the proof of Proposition 23), and let G5 be the grammar presented in the proof of Proposition 24. Define a new grammar G6 employing a new start symbol that rewrites to the start symbols of G4 and G5, each with probability 1/2. Evidently PG6 assigns probability 3− √ 2 4 to a, probability √ 2−1 4 to aa, and probability 1/2k+1 to every string a2 k , k > 1. Clearly PG6 cannot be defined using a linear indexed grammar or by any PCSG. Furthermore we require only a one-letter alphabet. 8 Conclusion and Further Issues The hierarchy of expressible distributions that emerges in Figure 1 reveals how much the probabilistic setting can differ from the classical setting of formal language theory. Proper inclusions going up the hierarchy mirroring the classical case might have been expected; yet we reach incomparability already between the context-sensitive and context-free distributions, a pattern that continues through the indexed languages. Furthermore, grammar classes that are classically equivalent-such as the context-free and right-linear indexed grammars-come apart in the probabilistic setting. And unlike in the classical setting, all of these relationships can be observed even with distributions on one-letter alphabets, pace Parikh's theorem. A third theme is the significance of finite-support distributions. Probabilistic context-free grammars define algebraic probability generating functions and probabilistic context-sensitive grammars can define transcendental pgfs; yet when it comes to finite-support distributions they both collapse into the rational-valued measures, already definable by probabilistic regular grammars. Of the grammars studied here, only probabilistic (right-linear) indexed (and of course unrestricted) grammars can define irrationalvalued measures with finite support. 8.1 Outstanding Mathematical Questions Despite clarifying all of the inclusion/exclusion relationships among the classes in Figure 1, and establishing a partial correspondence between the probabilistic grammar hierarchy 28 and the analytical hierarchy (rational, algebraic, transcendental pgfs), a number of fundamental open questions remain. Some of the most significant technical questions include: 1. We have provided a full characterization of the distributions defined by probabilistic grammars and by almost-surely terminating grammars in general. But is it possible to provide full and informative characterizations any of the proper subclasses? 2. In particular, are the distributions defined by PRGs with rational weights exactly the rational-valued distributions with rational pgfs? 3. What (proper) subclass of algebraic pgfs do PCFGs define? 4. Are the distributions defined by probabilistic right-linear indexed grammars exactly the algebraic-number-valued distributions with algebraic pgfs? Or is there another class of grammars that would define this class of distributions? 5. Which subclasses of transcendental pgfs do PCSGs and indexed grammars define? Can we show that distributions like that in Example 8 cannot be defined by PCFGs? 6. What other closure results for conditioning can be obtained, aside from Theorems 6, 7, and 17, and Proposition 19? 7. Do we obtain more interesting distributions by going beyond the indexed languages to higher levels of the so called hierarchy of indexed languages (Maslov, 1976)? 8. How high in the hierarchy do we need to go in order to define a Poisson distribution (Example 1), or the distribution in Example 9, among others? 9. What other natural operations defined on grammars make sense in the context of probabilistic modeling? For instance, suppose we added a special primitive nonterminal P that produces a string ak with probability given by a Poisson distribution? What would be obtain by adding this to the probabilistic regular grammars, or to other grammar classes? 10. Which distributions can be defined by adding probabilities in the so called subregular hierarchy, including classes that do not correspond to any natural grammar notions (Schützenberger, 1965; Jäger and Rogers, 2012)? 11. What can be said about classes between regular and context-free grammars, such as the linear or the "simple" context-free grammars (Hopcroft and Ullman, 1979)? 12. How might the results reported here shed light on questions about how tractably distributions at one level of the hierarchy can be approximated by distributions defined at lower levels? (See, e.g., Mohri and Nederhof 2000 for some results on this.) To be sure, one can imagine many more natural questions still to be answered. 8.2 Generative Models in Psychology Conceptually, what does the pattern of results reported here mean for psychological modeling? Questions about the tradeoff between expressivity and complexity, along various dimensions, of psychological models are quite familiar in the study of natural language, at 29 least since Chomsky (1959, 1965). But they are also of interest in nearly every other psychological domain. A guiding methodological principle is to give special attention to the simplest candidate models-those that require least of the agent being modeled-among those that adequately capture the phenomena of interest (see, e.g., Feldman 2016). Human learning is assumed to abide by a similar maxim, preferring the simplest hypotheses that account for observed patterns (Chater and Vitányi, 2003). The (probabilistic) Chomsky-Schützenberger hierarchy highlights a salient notion of complexity, one that harmonizes well with other independent and potentially relevant notions of complexity (e.g., the computational cost of parsing; see Pratt-Hartmann 2010). Parts of the hierarchy have furthermore been used to explain differences in the processing of quantifier expressions in natural language (Szymanik and Zajenkowski, 2010), and have even been claimed to demarcate a meaningful boundary between human and non-human thought (e.g., Berwick et al. 2011; for a dissenting view see, for instance, Jackendoff 2011). It is often asserted that we essentially know without any further ado that the human mind can at most be a (probabilistic) finite-state machine, if only because the brain itself is finite (see, e.g., Eliasmith 2010; Petersson et al. 2012 for different expressions of this view). On this picture the entire hierarchy collapses into the finite-state/regular. At the other extreme we see claims to the effect that the phenomena force us to the top of the hierarchy: Formalizing the full content of intuitive theories appears to require Turingcomplete compositional representations, such as probabilistic first-order logic and probabilistic programming languages (Tenenbaum et al., 2011, p. 1284). Our study lends support to both of these positions. On the one hand, Theorem 3 shows definitively that the class of all probabilistic grammars-which also express exactly the distributions defined by Turing-complete probabilistic programming languages-can encode virtually any discrete distribution that has ever been used for modeling, including those that strictly elude lower levels in the hierarchy. On the other hand, Corollary 9 shows that the much simpler probabilistic regular grammars can already define a number of prominent distributions, and are capable in principle of providing effective approximations to any distribution whatsoever; this is noteworthy insofar as approximation is inevitable when encoding continuous distributions anyway (recall the discussion in §4.1). Furthermore, both of these classes of distributions are closed under conditioning with the corresponding natural classes of events (Theorems 7 and 17). Needless to say, for many purposes neither extreme may be apt. Feasible finite-state distributions may provide too poor approximations for targets of interest, whereas the enumerable semi-measures-perhaps learnable in theory (Chater and Vitányi, 2003; Vitányi and Chater, 2017)-may form too large a class for tractable learning. In between the two extremes are natural classes capturing useful and intuitive distributions such as those associated with random walks (Examples 3, 8) or those associated with complex but constrained grammatical phenomena in natural language (Chomsky, 1965; Joshi et al., 1991). A recent trend has been to construe much of learning, even outside the domain of language, as a matter of inducing stochastic procedures, formalized as grammars or programs (see, e.g., Lake et al. 2015). Here the tradeoff between expressivity and tractability becomes especially poignant: some bias toward simpler programs is highly desirable, but it should not be so strong that it frustrates discovery of a good enough probabilistic model. Results like those reported here help us understand one side of this essential tradeoff. At the same time, from a skeptical viewpoint, the pattern of results may cast doubt on whether the framework overall is appropriate for capturing the most important computa30 tional distinctions in cognition. As mentioned at the outset, the instantaneous firing rate of cortical neurons is assumed to be approximately Poisson distributed. Thus, in some sense, the Poisson distribution appears at what is plausibly a very basic level of cortical computation. In sharp contrast, this distribution evades expression until only the top level of the probabilistic Chomsky-Schützenberger hierarchy. The source of this discrepancy is not the restriction to rational parameters either, for instance, to be addressed by adding e−λ as a production weight; rather, the issue is structural (Theorem 15, Proposition 22). To be sure, there are a variety of computational frameworks founded on more brainlike temporal and network dynamics (e.g., Maass et al. 2002, among many others). Such frameworks may ultimately carve the space of computational models along different dimensions. However, even within these research programs some of the most pressing questions concern how such frameworks might plausibly encode probabilistic generative models (Buesing et al., 2011) and other combinatorial generative mechanisms (Dehaene et al., 2015; Nelson et al., 2017). For much of psychology and cognitive science, theorizing in terms of generative models is intuitive, simple, and productive. We would like a comprehensive theoretical understanding of the capabilities and limitations of these models. Acknowledgements Part of this work was supported by the Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. The author would like to thank audiences at the Chennai Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Indiana University, Stanford University, and the Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines at MIT. 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Atomism, Monism, and Causation in the Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish KAREN DETLEFSEN I. INTRODUCTION In 1653 Margaret Cavendish published her first book, a book of poems {Poems, and Fancies), the first fifty pages of which are devoted to expounding an atomic theory of nature. Small Atomes of themselves a World may make, As being subde, and of every shape: And as they dance about, fit places finde, Such Formes as best agree, make every kinde. ... Severall Figur'd Atomes well agreeing. When joyn'd, do give another Figure being. For as those Figures ioyned, severall waies. The Fabrick of each severall Creature raise.' Two years later, among the prefetory materials to the first edition of her more traditionally written Philosophical and Physical Opinions (hereafter Opinions) she includes a 'Condemning Treatise of Atomes' in which she abandons this earlier position. 'I have considered that if onely matter were atoms, and that every atome is of the same degree, and the same quantity, as well as of the same matter; then every atom must ' Margaret Cavendish, Poems, and Fancies [Pî (London, 1653; &cs. repr. Menston: Scolar Press, 1972), 5, 9. Other abbreviations of frequently cited primary texts from Cavendish are as follows. GNP: Grounds of Natural Philosophy (London, 1668; &cs. repr. West Cornwall, Conn.: Locust Hill Press, 1996); NBW: New Blazing Worid, 2nd edn. (1668), in Susan James (ed.). Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 1-109; ODS: Orations of a Divers Sort, 2nd edn. (1668), in James (ed.). Political Writings, 111-292; OEP. Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, ed. Eileen O'Neill, 2nd edn. [based on the 1668 edn.] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); PL: Philosophical Letters; or, Modest Reflections upon some Opinions in Natural Philosophy (London, 1664); PPO. Philosophical and Physical Opinions, 2nd edn. (London, 1663). 200 Karen Detlefsen be of a living substance ... for else they could not move, but would be an infinite dull and immoving body.' Furthermore, if atomism were the true accoimt of the nature of matter, then 'there would be an infinite and eternal disorder' (I consider reasons for this latter belief in Sections 4 and 5).^ From 1655 onwards, Cavendish's theory of matter would remain a theory of material plenism, the view that the world is everywhere and only matter which is extended infinitely and which can be internally divided without end. Cavendish rejects the existence of anything immaterial in the natural world (including souls); she believes that matter is ubiquitously sensing, rational, and self-moving (though there are many forms-both human and non-human-of sense and reason given the variety of nature's kinds; GNP 18); and she claims that nature's parts are completely interrelated into a single whole. For these reasons, her mature matter theory has, reasonably, been called 'organicist materialism',' and one essential feature of it is the feet that human and non-human nature are essentially the same sort of thing because composed of matter. Her rejection of atomism in fevour of this latter account of material nature would be repeated with regularity throûout her mature work. Despite Cavendish's own protestations against an atomic theory of matter, some commentators believe that she did not-or, more significantly for her philosophy, could not-drop atomism as the true account of the material world. Stephen Clucas, for example, believes that what Cavendish rejected was merely 'the simple mechanism of "classical mechanism"', according to which inert bits of matter interact by way of a few simple laws. She does not thereby reject aU forms of atomism. Jay Stevenson thinks that she must be disingenuous in her rejections of atomism becaxise one of her own arguments against atomism (Sections 3 to 5) rests upon the premiss of natural harmony, ' Margaret Cavendish, 'A Condemning Treatise of Atomes' Philosophical and Physical Opinions, ['Condemning Treatise'], in ist edn. (London, 1655), A3'. This treatise was excised from the second edition of the Opinions, from which I usually quote in this chapter (see n. i). ' Eileen O'Neill, "Cavendish, Margaret Lucus', in The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 1998), 260-4, 260; and Eileen O'Neill, Introduction ['Introduc- tion'], in OEP, pp. x-xxxvi, at p. xvi. For an account of why Cavendish believes all matter must have perceptive states, see my 'Reason and Freedom: Margaret Cavendish on the Order and Disorder of Nature' ['Reason and Freedom'], Archivfitr Geschichte der Philosophic (forthcoming. Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 201 and yet Cavendish elsewhere repeatedly acknowledges examples of disharmony obtaining in the natural world (specifically in human psychology)-disharmony that one might argue is best explained by atomism.'' I think Cavendish's anti-atomistic account of the natural world can be vindicated against both Clucas's and Stevenson's positions. Cavendish has two main arguments against atomism which I call the 'logico-mathematical' argument and the 'normative' argument. While the former, grounded in the unending divisibility of matter, is the stronger of the two for establishing material plenism, the latter is clearly Cavendish's signature argument, and it is the most interesting for us given what it teUs us about her overall philosophy of nature. According to the normative argument against atomism, atoms, as freely acting beings, would produce disorder in nature, and yet we experience nature as orderly, and this seems to preclude atomism as the correct theory of matter. I deal first (Section 2) with the logico-mathematical argument in order to refiite Clucas's claim that Cavendish actually does retain atomism beyond her early years. The logico-mathematical argument is aU she needs to establish material plenism and to reject atomism as a theory of matter. I deal then (Sections 3 to 5) vdth the normative * Stephen Clucas, 'The Atomism of the Cavendish Circle: A Reappraisal' ['Reappraisal'], The Seventeenth Century, 9/2 (1994), 260. Clucas seems slîdy more swayed by Cavendish's anti-atomism in her Observations given her repudiation of a vacuum and her endorsement of the non-atomic nature of matter's parts in that book. But even here, he notes how material parts' interrelations 'recall atomic interactions' (p. 262). Jay Stevenson, 'The Mechanist-Vitalist Soul of Margaret Cavendish' ['Mechanist-Vitalist'], Studies in English Utemture, 36 (1996), 536. Stevenson's concerns and approach are very different from my own. He believes that the persistir^ atomism in Cavendish's work is a reflection of Cavendish's conception of psychology, and that her disingenuous attempts to disguise her enduring atomism arc in themselves informative of her psychological theories. I appeal to his article because he has identified what I take to be a real difficulty with Cavendish's atomism that (I believe) requires treatment if we are to make sense of her natural philosophy. Moreover, resolving this difficulty is also helpful in dealing with her monism and theory of occasional causation. So, while Stevenson's focus is on human psychology, mine is on her broader natural philosophy, ttoû my conclusions have consequences for any part of nature, including her theory of psychology. In o&ring the following account of Cavendish's natural philosophy, I start from the assumption that Cavendish's philosophy is internally coherent, and I try to fimd tiiat coherence. I take that guiding assimiption to be anathema to Stevenson's overall project Robert Hû Kargon also thinks Cavendish is an atomist, but he seems to hold this belief because he focuses cjcclusively upon the Poems, the only book in which it is clear that Cavemlish endorses atomism. Robert Hugh Kargon, Atomism in England from Hariot to Newton (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 73-6. 202 Karen Detlefsen argument in order to refute Stevenson's claim that Cavendish would like to abandon atomism in her mature thought but cannot do so for reasons internal to her philosophy. The normative argument, I contend, is not directly about matter at all. Rather, it is about the free causal agency of individuals, and the argimient is meant to establish prescriptions about normatively good behaviour among these individuals. They ought not to behave atomistically, distinct from all others as if not bound together by common norms.® Disorders, then, arise from free actions of individiuls, whether those individuals belong to a material world composed of atoms or a plenum. An atomistic theory of matter is not necessary in order to account for disorders; pace Stevenson's claim. Yet, while the normative argument does not lead directly to a conclusion about the nature of matter, Cavendish clearly Unks this argument with a non-atomistic matter theory. So I show how she might use this argument to reach indirectly the conclusion that matter is a plenum and not atomistic. This leads us to a distinctive feature of her overall philosophy-that she often conceives of the non-human lutural world in terms of the human, social world, which is explanatorily primary for her. Understanding Cavendish's normative argument against atomism in this way also allows us to contrast her general philosophy of nature with that of Spinoza (Section 6), a valuable contrast to draw since her system resembles his in many striking ways.® Cavendish endorses a monistic conception of nature, but this is prima fecie at odds vwth ' Anna BittigelB also notes this element of Cavendish's ideas on atomism: 'Cavendish's interest in atomism was less an interest in physical theories of matter than a &scination with a metaphor that served to explain political and psychological conflict ...' (Anna Battigelli, Margaret Cavendish and the Exiles of the Mind [Bxifes], (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998), 49). See also, Emma L. E. Rees, Margaret Cavendish: Gender, Genre, Exik [Gender] (Manchester; Manchester University Press, 2003), 57.1 agree with Battigelli and Rees on the normative element of Cavendish's concern with atomism, but she is also, I «hil1 argue, interested in matter theory and the relation between matter and politics. ' I am not making a historical claim here. Cavendish and Spinoza were rough contem- poraries, but Cavendish would not have been femiliar with any of his work as she read only English, and none of his texts were translated into Engjish during her lifetime. Rather, there are many points of conceptual affinity between the two, an insist made by Susan James. See The Philosophical Iimovations of Margaret Cavendish' ['Itmovations'], British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 7/3 (1999), 2i9- There are crucial differences between the two, and perhaps ie principd one is the 6ct that Cavendish, but not Spinoza, believes that a transcendent, immaterial God exists. While she claims to bracket discussions of God in natural philosophy, leaving considerations of him to the theologians (e.g. PL 3,143; OEP 217), she does occasionally appeal to God in order to make sense of the natural world; see Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 203 her theory of occasional causation. On the one hand, according to an especially robust conception (Spinoza's, for example), monism amounts to a belief that there is just one natural substance-the whole of infmitely extended nature-and this substance acts as the sole principal (and necessitating) cause of all effects. On the other hand. Cavendish's occasional theory of causation seems to require multiple finite individuals, each acting freely as a self-determining principal cause. Understanding the precise character of her normative argument against atomism allows us to see the limits of her monism such that her theory of occasional causation is preserved, and this shows that her philosophy of nature is unique in the seventeenth century, mimicking not even that of Spinoza, concepmally one of her closest contemporaries. 2 . CAVENDISH'S LOGICO-MATHEMATICAL ARGUMENT AGAINST ATOMISM Cavendish provides two key arguments against atomism in her corpus: what I call the normative argument (to be dealt with in the next three sections) and the logico-mathematical argument. The logico- mathematical argument against atomism depends upon Cavendish's a. 37 below. For work on Cavendish's relations with others of her contemporaries, see the growing body of secondary literature on this, including Neil Ankers, 'Paradigms and Politics: Hobbes and Cavendish Contrasted', in Stephen Clucas (ed.), A Princely Brave Woman: Essays on Margaret Cavendish, Duchess cf Newcastle (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 242-54; Battigelli, EWfes; Jacqueline Broad, Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century [Women Philosophers] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), ch. 2; Sarah Hutton, 'In Dialogue with Thomas Hobbes', Women's Writing, 4/3 (1997), 421-32; Sarah Hutton, 'Anne Conway, Margaret Cavendish and Seventeenth-Century Scientific Thought', in Lynette Hunter and Sarah Hutton (eds.). Women, Science and Medicine, 1500-1700: Mothers and Sisters of the Royal Society (Phoenix Mill: Sutton, 1997), 218-34; Sarah Hutton, 'Margaret Cavendish and Henry More', in Clucas (ed.), A Princely Brave Woman, 185-98; James, 'Innovations', 219-44; Eve Keller, 'Producing Petty Gods: Margaret Cavendish's Critique of Experi- mental Science', English Literary History, 64 (1997), 447-71; O'Neill, 'Introduction', pp. x-xlvii; Lisa T. Sarasohn, 'Leviathan and the Lady: Cavendish's Critique of Hobbes in the Philosophical Letters' ['Leviathan and the Lady'], in Line Cottegnies and Nancy Weitz (eds.). Authorial Conquests: Essays on Genre in the Writings of Margaret Cavendish (Madison, Wis.: Fairleig^ Dickinson University Press, 2003), 40-58; Elisabeth Strauss, 'Organismus versus Maschine. Margaret Cavendish' Kritik am mechanistischen Naturmodell', in J. F. Maas (ed.). Das Sichtbare Denken. Modelle und Moddhiftigkat in der Philosophic und den Wissenschafien (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1993), 31-43; anctjo Wallwork, 'Old Worlds and New: Margaret Cavendish's Response to Robert Hooke's Micrographia', Women's Writing 1550-1750, l8/l (2001), 191-200. 204 Karen Detlefsen rejection of a vacuum or empty space as logically inconceivable-what is not anything cannot exist (e.g. PL 452)-together vwth her impUcit mathematical belief in the infinite divisibility of matter. For example; 'there can be no atom, that is, an indivisible body in nature; because whatsoever has body, or is material, has quantity; and what has quantity, is divisible' {OEP 125; cf 263); the 'Nature of a Body ... is, to be divisible.... it is impossible for a Body... to be indivisible' (GNP 239). There cannot exist natural minima, therefore, because no part of matter is physically distinct from the rest of nature owing to empty space separating that part from all others. Furthermore, Cavendish rejects empty space beyond nature too {OEP 130-i). Nature as a whole is not an atom either, therefore, because it is not a material miniTnnm; it is spatially infinite. And within the infinitely extended material plenum, no single part is indivisible, and so no single part is a minimum unit. In spite of the strength of this argument, based on the mathematical premiss that nutter always has quantity and so is always divisible, Clucas maintains that we caimot interpret Cavendish as rejecting atomism. He challenges the anti-atomism interpretation of her later philosophy along at least two fronts. First, Cavendish actually 'accepts, for example, that matter is not infinitely divisible', thus allowing for natural minima, or atoms. Second, atomism in the seventeenth century is not a singje category, and it is really only 'the simple mechanism of "classical atomism"' that Cavendish rejects.' It is true that Cavendish occasionally denies the infinite divisibility of matter: 'one part cannot be either infinitely composed, or infinitely divided' (PL 158). Two things can be said in the face of such passages. First, there are at least as many passages (such as the two cited above) in which Cavendish asserts the divisibility of matter as long as it is extended. This fact, together with the fact that matter is partly defined by quantity of extension, means matter will be divisible no matter how small it gets, and this is tantamount to infinite divisibility. Cavendish herself recognizes that she is not always unequivocal in her writings, but her equivocations seem to be partly due to her actively working through and developing her thoughts on paper. ' Clucas, 'Reappraisal', 259 ff For a historical account of atomism that displaj^ the complexity of the doctrine, see Andrew Pyle, Atomism and its Critics: Problem Areas Associated with the Development ofAtomic Theory of Matterfrom Democritus to Newton (Bristol; Thoemmes Press, 1995). Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 205 'An Argumental Discoiorse' in her Observations upon Experimental Philosophy {OEP 23-42; hereafter Observations), and the weighing of opposing positions against each other in Orations of Divers Sorts, are just two obvious examples of this process transparently at work in her corpus. Most often, however, a settled position on a given topic can be found in Cavendish, often when she herself offers elucidations and corrections of past views in Ught of more careftil thought. 'An Explanation of Some obscure and doubtfiil passages occurring in the Philosophical Works, hitherto published by the Authoresse' included in the early pages of the first edition of the Observations (though excised from the later) is a classic example.® If we take her philosophy to be mattiring, then we should take the infinite divisibility of matter to be her settled position since the passage against this position that Clucas cites, and the only others that I have found, are from her 1664 Philosophical Letters (hereafter Letters) or earlier, while those fevouring infinite divisibility appear in 1666 and later. Second, more substantially, a close study of the passages in the Letters that seem to deny matter's infinite divisibihty shows that it is not clear that this is what Cavendish is actually doing in.those passages. Rather, she seems to be doing two different things. First, she seems to be denying that an actual infinite division can occur if a body also happens to be compounded into a finite unity: 'the Compositions hinder the Divisions in Nature, and the Divisions the Compositions' (PL 51; cf 158). This seems to be a point about what is actual rather than possible, and the tendency of matter to compound into finite beings hinders the tendency of matter to divide vwthout limit, but this does not preclude the infinite divisibility of matter. Second, she is comparing the parts of nature to nature as a whole, and she says that the whole of nature, as infinite, is infinitely divisible, but the parts of nature, as finite, cannot be infmitely divisible.'... for infmite composition and division belong onely to the Infinite body of Nature, which being infinite in substance may also be infinitely divided, but... a finite and single part' cannot be infmitely divided (PL 158). How so? Cavendish seems to think that a body that is infmitely divisible has infmitely many parts, and that this, in turn, means that the body itself is infinitely large. This can be said of nature as a whole only, but not of a finite part within nature. She ® Margaret Cavendisli, Observations upon Experimental Philosophy (London, 1666), 4.5-68. 206 Karen Detlefsen is wrong, of course, that a body with infinite parts must be infinitely large. As the infinitesimal calculus would eventually prove, as long as the infinite parts are infinitely small, the composition will be finite. But Clucas is wrong to believe that what Cavendish denies in these passages is that matter can be divided without end. I think Cavendish does beHeve that matter is divisible without end, and this is in accord with her later claims that 'whatsoever ... is material, has quantity; and what has quantity, is divisible' (OEP 125), together with her belief that 'Nature ... is material; and if material, it has a body; and if a body, it must needs have a bodily dimension; and so every part will be an exten- ded part' (PL 158). And so every part, no matter how small, is divisible. The second reason Clucas gives for endorsing the atomistic inter- pretation of Cavendish's bter philosophy-that Cavendish rejects only mechanical atomism and not aU forms of atomism-also has some textual support. After all, in the 'Condemning Treatise' from which I quoted at the outset of this chapter. Cavendish does seem to imply that if every atom were 'a living substance', at least some of the difficulty with (classical, mechanical) atomism would be alleviated. Thus, Clucas believes that Cavendish retains a residual attachment to the broad principle of atomic structure. Her objections, it seems, are to the idea of mechanical atomism. She cannot accept that the collision and chance motion of atoms 'fleeing about as dust and ashes, that are blown about with winde' can account for the orderly composition of the material fabric of nature, with its 'vindissolvable Laws' and 'fixt decrees'. Chance collisions, she felt, could only produce 'wandring and confijsed figures' and 'etemal disorder'.' Clucas here takes the feet that nature is orderly and harmonious to estabhsh that Cavendish may need a 'vitahst' conception of nature to explain this feet, with vitalism imderstood as a theory that attributes life, sense, and reason to matter. It seems especially crucial that nature be supposed to possess such features given that Cavendish also believes we can make no appeals to God in our natural investigations, and so one obvious source of order is precluded from natural explanations (PL 3, 201-11). Thus, while Cavendish rejects the non-teleological, chance-based mechanical atomism, Clucas beUeves that she is still an ' Clucas, 'Reappraisal', 261. Clucas here quotes Cavendish, 'Condemning Treatise', A3'. Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 207 atomist, and 'Cavendish's atomism is a synthesis of materialism and vitalism.''" Still, given what I believe is a necessary cormnitment to the infinite divisibility of matter. Cavendish's arguments against atomism must be at least rejections of material units as minima naturalia." But since this is a sufficient condition for atdmism, her logico- mathematical argument is decisive in establishing the impossibility of any form of material atomism whatsoever. Thus, we can reasonably conclude that Cavendish's matter theory is one of a living, sensing, reasoning material plenum, rather than perceptive atoms. It seems that the job is done and that the non-atomistic con- clusion is reached. But while Cavendish certainly appeals to the logico-mathematical refutation of atomism, she clearly favours the normative argument which appears with notable frequency. Giv- en this, and given that I think this latter argument tells us a great deal about her philosophy of nature in general, I now consider that argument in order to determine just what role it plays in Cavendish's philosophy. 3. CAVENDISH'S NORMATIVE ARGUMENT AGAINST ATOMISM I call Cavendish's second argument against atomism her normative argument because it is based on the assumption of norms or standards in nature. Specifically, it is premissed on the beHefi that there is a standard of order or harmony, and that perversions from this standard cause true disorders and can rightly be denounced.'^ There are two crucial assumptions in this argviment that must be bome in mind throughout this discussion. First, there are objective norms, distinct from human convention and from our subjective beliefs that there are norms.'^ Qucas, 'Reappraisal', 261-2. " For further scepticism (in light of Cavendish's own texts) about Clucas's claim that she retains atomism, see also Broad, Women Philosophers, 43. " My fiJl reasons for calling this a 'normative' argument will come clear in Sections 4 and 5 below. " I argue elsewhere for how Cavendish might convincingly attribute objective noims and standards to the natxiral world such that we might consider some events (e.g. civil war, disease) to be true perversions and not just apparent perversions, erroneously believed to be true perversions by humans with a particular, subjective, and finite perspective. For the purposes of this chapter, I simply grant that Cavendish is entitled to this assumption. See my 'Reason and Freedom'. 2O8 Karen Detlefsen Second, Cavendish thus recognizes that there are true perversions from these norms. There are real disorders and disharmonies in nature. These are not merely our finite way of perceiving events in the natural world that are, from an mfinite perspective, perfectly orderly. So, for example, she says that there is an overall law of peace and order that nature as a single, principal cause imposes upon her parts: 'I say Nature hath but One Law, which is a wise Law, viz. to keep Infinite matter in order, and to keep so much Peace, as not to disturb the Foundation of her Government: for though Natures actions are various ... yet those active Parts, being united in one Tnfinii-p body, cannot break Natures general Peace' (PL 146)." While this is rather vague, we may reasonably take it as a claim about nature's overall plan to impose order through, for example, laws (or, at least, through regularities). Another example of nature's norms is that nature as a whole dictates what natural kinds or species will be found among her natural parts-natural kinds that are defined by their figure or shape and that (as universals) are etemal {OEP 197, 202-3; GNP 234-5). Perversions from nature's kinds are monsters {OEP 240), natural beings behaving in an 'irregular fashion leads to diseases (PL 408-9), and individuals can sin thus rightfully incurring God's punishment (PL 348-50). These examples presuppose the existence of norms independent of human conventions, and they indicate that finite individuals can diverge from these norms. Here is one textual example of the normative argument: 'were there a vacuum ... a piece of the world would become a single particular world, not joining to any part besides itself; which would make a horrid confiision in nature, contrary to all sense and reason' {OEP 129; cf. 169, 207-8; GNP 4)." Taking a piece of the world that becomes 'a single particular world' as an atom, this argument can, for now, " This is a troublesome passage for Cavendish, and for reasons that become cleat in Section 4. below. See n. 23. " Cavendish here notes the natural confusion that would be spavraed not just if atomism were true, but also if there were vacua. On this point, she is in accord wdth several late medieval and Renaissance commentators on and promulgators of Vyistode, many of whom believe diat the existence of vacua would sunder the love and union found amor^ material bodies in a plenum. Toletus and the Coimbrans are notable examples. See e.g. Charles Schmitt, 'Experimental Evidence for and against a Void: The Srxteenth-Cenwry Âments', Isis, 58 (1967), 352-66; and Edward Grant, Mudi Ado about Nothing: Theories of Space and Vaaumfiom the Middle Ages to the Scientifi: Revohition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981)- Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 209 be concisely stated thus: if atomism were true, then there would be only disorder in the natural world; but experience makes clear that the natural world is orderly; and so atomism cannot be true. The assumption that atomism woxild result in disorder is unfounded, and it is especially suspect in light of the atomism of some of those in her immediate intellectual circle. Gassendi, for example, locates the ultimate source of the motion of atoms in God, thus ensuring order and harmony against the disorder that Cavendish assumes will befell the atomist's picture of nature {Opera, i. 337A).'® Indeed, questioning the first premiss is precisely the second point I attribute to Clucas: Cavendish might refiite her own normative argument against atomism simply by recognizing the viability of forms of atomism other than mechanical atomism together with its premiss of the chance encounter of passive, non-perceptive minimum material units. That is, it is not atomism that causes problems. Rather, the concern is with the chance-ladenness of bits of matter moving through space and aimlessly colliding. Moreover, Cavendish herself seems to concur, for she occasionally seems to believe that atomism would be acceptable as long as the atoms are perceptive: 'there can be no regular motion, without knowledge, sense and reason: and therefore those who are for atoms, had best to beUeve them to be self-moving, living and knowing bodies, for else their opinion is very irrational' {OEP 129). We get a similar suggestion when she challenges Epicurus' natural explanations: 'nor is this visible world, or any part of her, made by chance, or a casual concourse of senseless and irrational atoms' {OEP 264; my emphasis; cf OEP 168-9). Thus, the normative argument would need to be more specific, with the first premiss reflecting Clucas's claim that only certain forms of atomism are inadequate for explaining nature's harmony and order: if nature were comprised of non-rational, non-sensing atoms, then there would be only disorder in the natural world; but experience makes clear that the natural world is orderly; and so this specific form of atomism cannot be true. But then the normative argument does not preclude all forms of atomism. Cavendish, however, also goes fiarther, rejecting even a form of atomism like the one that Clucas suggests. Even on the supposition " Cavendish would reject Gassendi's account on the basis of our ignorance of God's nature and the precise relation between him and the world (e.g. PL 139, 14.1, 186-7; OEP 17), and this might account for the underlying assumption in her argument. 210 Karen Detlefsen of'self-moving, living and knowing' atoms, order would be wanting. Seemingly on any atomist thesis, nature would not be able to rule those wandering and strâJing atoms, because they are not parts of her body, but each is a single body by itself, having no dependence upon each other. Wherefore, if there should be a composition of atoms, it would not be a body made of parts, but of so many whole and entire single' bodies, meeting together as a swarm of bees. The truth is, every atom being single, must be an absolute body by itself, and have an absolute power and knowledge, by which it would become a kind of deity; and the concourse of them would rather caiwe a confiision, than a conformity in nature; because, all atoms being absolute, they would all be govemors, but none would be governed. {OEP 129; my emphasis) As this passage makes clear, there is something about atomism per se that invites disorder. Even a form of atomism in which the atoms have 'power and knowledge'-atoms that are not inert and irrational-cannot avoid this outcome. This brings us to Stevenson's reason for believing Cavendish must be an atomist. He writes: She ... disguise [s] her philosophy, claiming disingenuously to have revised her old views. ... Her retraction [of atomism] should not be taken at fiice value because the problem of [absolute individuals] hardly agreeing [in their actions-which Cavendish recognizes actually happens] is precisely what Cavendish's atomistic philosophy explains so well. In spite of her promise to theorize a more stable cosmic order. ... [the] essential features of her philosophy-the physicality, autonomy, and reflexivity of thinking things ... are preserved.'® According to Stevenson, the second premiss of the normative anti- atomism argument as presented above is denied by Cavendish herself elsewhere in her writings. Cavendish clearly allows that the world seems to be at least partly comprised of absolute individuals acting autonomously and therefore not in accord with stable cosmic norms. Cavendish herself frequently discusses cases of disorders which she " It is unfortunate that Cavendish here chose a swarm of bees as the simile for a material world composed of atoms since a hive of bees when governed by a queen is an ideal natural model of a hierarchically organized society. See e.g. Thomas D. Seeley, TTte Wisdom of the Hive: The Social Physiology of Honey Bee Colonies (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995); and Charles D. Michener, The Social Organization of Bees: A Comparative Study (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974). " Stevenson, 'Mechanist-Vitalist', 536; my emphases. Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 211 takes to be true perversions from objective, human-independent norms; humans' disorderly behaviour in, for example, civil wars {NBW 75; ODS 135-6) and the disharmonious behaviour of various organic parts leading to diseases in living bodies (e.g. PPO 43-4; PL 408-9; GNP 157-8) are two of her fevourite examples. The natural world (both human and non-human) is not orderly and harmonious, or at least, it is not ubiquitously so. But since atomic individuals wiU, according to Cavendish, act in a disorderly fishion, then it is possible that the disorders that we do experience (and that she acknowledges are true of the world) are a result of the fact that atomism obtains. This conclusion holds on either version of atomism currently under consideration: disorder could arise either from non-perceptive atoms moving without an intelligent guide, or from rational atoms moving autonomously according to their own reasons that do not accord with the reasons of other atoms. In sum, we can represent Cavendish's normative argument as follows: (i) if any form of atomism were a true account of matter, even a form according to which atoms are perceptive and self-moving, then disorder in the natural world would" ensue; (2) the natural world is orderly; (3) therefore, no form of atomism is a true account of matter. In the spirit of Clucas's general approach, we can ask why we should accept the first premiss. That is, why would a form of atomism in which atoms have sense and reason result in disorder, while a material plenum of sensing, reasoning, and infinitely divisible matter would not result in disorder? Stevenson explicidy reminds us that the second premiss is denied by Cavendish herself. We can ask how, if at all. Cavendish mît account for the fact that not all natural events are orderly and harmonious while stUl rejecting atomism as a theory of matter (and thus as a plausible explanation for the disharmony). To make sense of Cavendish's normative argument in the fece of these serious criticisms, we need to revisit precisely what it is that she is trying to establish with the normative argument. 4. REINTERPRETING THE NORMATIVE ANTI-ATOMISM ARGUIVIENT: THE SECOND PREMISS I believe that Cavendish's normative argument against atomism is considerably more sophisticated and interesting than presented in 213 Karen Detlefsen the previous section, and, in its sophisticated form, it avoids the criticisms sketched above. I offer an interpretation of this sophisticated argument in this and the following section. Crucially, the following interpretation is not systematically laid out in Cavendish's work itself, but there is textual evidence for many aspects of it, and it makes sense to interpret her philosophy in this light given that it brings disparate parts of her thought together into a conceptually coherent whole. So the following should be taken in the spirit of creative reconstruction of a position that we may feirly attribute to Cavendish (and, moreover, which I believe Cavendish would accept). Cavendish's normative argument against atomism is based upon a specific method. She starts by observing effects, and she then speculates about the causes of them. Specifically, she starts with the observation that the natural world is orderly (these are the empirically known effects), and so the cause that gives rise to that order cannot be atomism (for reasons soon to be made clear). Yet as her own discussion of wars and diseases (for example) indicates, the effects we observe in nature are not all orderly, but there are disorderly perversions of norms, so we must find a cause that is capable of explaining both the fact that nature is, by and large, harmonious and the feet that it is sometimes not so. To identify this cause of both orderly and disorderly natural effects, we must first consider both Cavendish's account of fireedom and her account of natural individuals. Cavendish endorses a libertarian account of fi'eedom, according to which finite material parts of the natural world, having both self- motion and reason, are capable of determining their own actions conforming to their own reasons, rather than being determined to act in a specific way by something extrinsic to them. At the same time, finite material parts do not thereby necessarily act without reference to other material parts, precisely because they are rational Finite parts may consent to the rational suggestions made to them by other parts to behave in certain ways. A great deal can be said about Cavendish's theory of fireedom and its relation to her theory of rational matter, especially in light of the debate between Hobbes and John Bramhall on necessity and fi-eedom of the wOl. Indeed, the initial discussion between Hobbes and BramhaU occurred in the Cavendish household the year Margaret wed William Cavendish (1645), and it is likely that Cavendish knew the general positions of that debate. Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 213 For our purposes, however, we need only recognize that she does attribute such freedom to material parts: 'if man (who is but a single part of nature) hath given him by God the power and a free will of moving himself, why should not God give it to Nature?' (PL 95). Notice, that while Cavendish assimilates the himian and nature {OEP 49), she does not thereby believe that the human is causally necessitated in the way that we generally think nature is, and, on this point, she disengages materialism and determinism, endorsing the former while still rejecting the latter. And so, the converse holds: we assimilate nature to how we think of humans, and no part of nature is necessitated {OEP 109).'' Cavendish's belief that aU parts of nature in and of themselves are free implies that nature as a whole does not causally determine its parts, and Cavendish says explicitly that nature therefore does not have knowledge of the future actions of its parts: 'That by reason every Part [of nature] had Self-motion, and natural Free-wiU, Nature [as a whole] could not foreknow how they would move ...' (GNP 102). This implies that the freedom she attributes to finite parts is a freedom that permits of the ability to act differently from how they actually will act; it implies, to reiterate, a libertarian conception of freedom. This is why nature as a whole with infinite wisdom cannot foreknow the actions of its parts.^" But what are these finite individuals that can act as libertarian free agents on Cavendish's account? Cavendish indicates that finite individuals obtain in nature when a portion of infmite matter takes on a specific figure or material shape, maintains that shape by its parts having a special natural affinity or sympathy for one another (e.g. PL 292), and thus becomes a natural individual within the whole of active matter, an individual whose parts conspire together towards " Lisa T. Sarasohn notes the parity between Cavendish and Hobbes on their likening of human nature to the rest of nature, and Sarasohn also notes Cavendish's exalting of animals in contrasted with Hobbes's lowering of the human. Sarasohn, 'Leviathan and the Lady*, 49-50. It should be noted Aat it is not just animals that Cavendish 'exalts' but all of non-human nature. This is because, as Sarasohn points out. Cavendish asserts 'a principle of fteedom in its [the universe's] very constitution' (p. 45). Sarasohn's article is informative on Cavendish's theory of fireedom, thougji Sarasohn's primary interest is with a comparison and contrast between Cavendish's and Hobbes's political views as opposed to my interest with Cavendish's matter theory and natural philosophy, together with the political background to these aspects of her thought. ^ I deal with Cavendish's position on fireedom and how this relates to her theory of rational matter in my 'Reason and Nature'. 214 Karen Detlefsen the common goal of remaining xonified and rationally reacting to other beings in its envirormient. Each finite individual has its own capacity to move itself owing to the fact that it has its own share of moving matter, and it moves itself according to its own sense and reason (e.g. OEP 207). There is really only one whole-all of infinite nature-and what we think are finite wholes within nature are actually just temporarily stable figures, causally contributing at least in part to their own endurance, unity, and stability. Finite individuals are temporary centres of sense, reason, and self-motion. She writes; for as there is infinite nature, which may be called general nature, or nature in general, which includes and comprehends aU the effects and creatures that lie within her, and belong to her, as being parts of her own self-moving body; so there are also particular natures in every creature, which are the innate, proper and inherent interior and substantial forms and figures of every creature, according to their own kind or species. ... and these particular natures are nothing else but a change of corporeal figurative motions, which make this diversity of figures. {OEP 197) Precisely because these finite individuals are centres of reason and self-motion, they can freely choose to respond rightly to the rational suggestion of other finite parts to behave in accordance vnth nature's overarching order-thus explaining natural order-or they may freely choose to respond in a way that disrupts this order-thus explaining natural disorder. A difficulty comes about when we try to reconcile Cavendish's belief in radically free, finite parts that have the power to act in a disorderly, irregular &shion with passages such as this: it is more easier, in my opinion, to know the various effects in Nature by studying the Prime cause, then by the uncertain study of the inconstant effects to arrive to the true knowledge of the prime cause; truly it is much easier to walk in a Labyrinth without a Guide, then to gain a certain knowledge in any one art or natural effect, without Nature her self be the guide, for Natiure is the onely Mistress and cause of all. {PL 284; my emphasis) That is, precisely because natrure is the one, single whole individual, how does Cavendish preserve the freedom of finite parts against the causal necessitarianism of, for example, Spinoza's account of nature? Help in easing this difficulty can be found by probing further the issue of freedom, and we can turn to the Hobbes-Bramhall debate Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 2 I S for this help. I do not mean to indicate that Cavendish was directly influenced by specific elements-of that debate (though she might w^ell have been-after all, the debate took place in her husband's household around the time he and Cavendish wed), and so I am not making a historical claim.^' Rather, I think that a solution implicit in Cavendish's system is explicit in the Hobbes-Bramhall debate, and examining that solution first in its explicit form is helpful for then locating it in Cavendish's philosophy. In his response to Bramhall's Discourse of Liberty and Necessity, Hobbes confesses a lack of understanding of Bramhall's distinction between moral and natural efficacy (EWiv. 247) when it comes to God's acting upon the human will. Bramhall clarifies: the will is determined naturally when God Almighty ... does ... concur by a special influence, and infiise[s] something into the will... whereby the will is moved and excited and applied to will or choose this or that. Then the will is determined morally when some object is proposed to it with persuasive reasons and arguments to induce it to will. Where the determination is natural, the liberty to suspend its act is taken away from the will; but not so where the determination is moral. In the former case, the will is determined extrinsically, in the latter intrinsically.^ Adjusting this picture to Cavendish's theory of nature, we can think of the causal relation between nature as a whole (as opposed to God, as for Bramhall) and all of nature's sensing, rational parts (as opposed to just human wills, as for Bramhall) as potentially having two aspects: the whole of nature might have natural efiicacy with respect to its Nonetheless, Cavendish had unusual access to the thought of Hobbes, even given the &ct that she could not read any of his work not written in English. She did meet him while they were both in exile in Paris, and her husband and his brother Charles were tutored by Hobbes in the eady 1630s. Margaret herself discussed metaphysics and natural philosophy extensively with her husband and brother-in-law-the conversations widi her brother-in-law taking place primarily while the two were in England during several months in 1651-2 attempting to secure 6mily property. Between her first-hand acquaintance with Hobbes and his work and second-hand knowledge through conversations with those fiiendly to her philosophical ambitions, she may well have been knowledgeable about his ideas on freedom. For details on Cavendish's life and acquaintances, see recent intellectual biographies by Anna Battigelli, Emma Rees, and Katie Whitaker: Battigelli, Exiles; Rees, Gender, and Katie Whitaker, Mad Madge: The Extraordinary Life of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess ofNewcastk, the First Woman to Live by her Pen (New York: Basic Books, 2002). " John Bramhall, A D^ence <f True Liberty from Antecedent and ExtrinsecaU Necessity (London, 1655); fees. repr. with introd. G. A. J. Rogers (London: Thoemmes, 1996), 171, 57-8. 2I6 Karen Detlefsen parts, and nature might have moral efiicacy with respect to its parts. Now, according to a necessitarian interpretation of nature, nature as a single whole exercises both natural and moral efiicacy over its parts which are, to recall, merely effects of the principal cause that is all of nature. To be naturally or physically efficacious over its parts, nature as a whole presumably determines, from the top down, the precise quantity, direction, and so forth, of motion, thus determimng each part's individual actions which would be mere effects and not causes. This sort of determination is precisely the source of Cavendish's problem because, if this were true of nature's relationship to its parts, then the libertarian accoimt of freedom would be impossible, and yet she clearly wants such freedom for finite natural parts. To preserve this freedom, we need to deny that nature is sole principal cause in this natural, physical sense. Rather, we must take finite individuals to be principal causes in the sense of being naturally or physically efficacious of their own actions. Cavendish certainly allows for this given her conception of fimte individuals as rational centres of self-motion-stable, material figures that have consolidated their own motive power and share of reason so as to do physically the bidding of reasons they give to themselves for their action. So, nature as a whole is not the principal natural or physical cause of individual's free actions. There is a second possible way that it can act efficaciously towards its parts: it can act as morally efficacious cause. In exercising moral efficacy over its parts, nature simply proposes 'persuasive reasons' to induce the parts to move themselves in specific ways. Indeed, Cavendish does seem to attribute this sort of efficacy to nature as a whole. Nature has infinite wisdom {GNP 11) by which she knows and orders her parts {PL 8~9)> 3ud this order takes the form of a single, overall law of peace (PL 146), as well as the form of prescribing that certain natural kinds obtain (OEP 197)- But, again learning from Bramhall, nattire as a whole, acting as morally efficacious cause, does not necessitate nature's parts. It simply tries to persuade natural parts to respond in a specific way. Furthermore, nature's finite parts also act as morally efficacious causes (in addition to being physically or naturally efficacious) because they are self-motivated (intrinsically motivated) to act according to their own rational response to the rational suggestion given to them by nature as a whole (or by other parts within nature as a whole) to act in a specific fashion. Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 217 Making this distinction between natural (physical) and moral effic- acy, attributing moral efficacy to the whole of nature, and attributing both moral and natural efficacy to nature's finite parts, thus preserves libertarian fireedom and provides an explanation for the brute, exper- ienced fiicts of disorder amid a general orderliness of nature. Making this distinction accounts for libertarian fireedom by allovwng that finite parts' actions are intrinsically generated and follow from reasons that those finite parts give to themselves, and these reasons may or may not accord with the rational suggestion to act in specific ways made to them by other finite parts or the whole of nature. And the distinction between natural and moral efficacy permits an explanation of disorders by saying that they are the result of finite parts refiising to abide by proper reasons given to them to act in an orderly fashion. Thus (as suggested by Stevenson's concern), Cavendish says repeatedly that nature in general may be orderly and harmonious, but there are still some disorders in nature that come from the parts refiising to abide by nature's overarching order. ... some [various motions in Nature] are Regular, some Irregular: I mean Irregular as to particular Creatures, not as to Nature her self, for Nature caimot be disturbed or discomposed, or else all would run into confusion; Wherefore Irregularities do onely concem particular Creatures, not Infinite Nature; and the Irregularities of some parts may cause the Irregularities of other Parts. ... And thus according as Regularities and Irregularities have power, they cause either Peace or War, Sickness or Health ... to particular Creatures or parts of Nature ... (PL 238-9; cf. 279-80, 344-5; OEP 13, 33-4)^ ^ There is a tension between the implication here that there are irregularities in nature due to the power or actions of parts, and the passage cited near the start of Section 3 which says that the 'active Parts, being united in one Infinite body, cannot break Natures general Peace' (PL 146). The former indicates diat the parts can cause irregularities that violate nature's peace while the latter indicates otherwise. One way of easing the tension is to say that parts may well be irregular and may therefore cause less than peaceful actions within nature, but this does not undermine nature's general order, which, prescriptively, remains the same and which nature as a whole continues to surest to its parts. Moral efficacy works fix>m die top down widi nature suggesting a correct course of action to the parts, and it works from part to part widi one finite part suggesting a course of action to another finite part. But the parts do not determine the whole morally, for nature as a whole continues to prescribe the same general peace to all its parts, orderly and unruly alike. Jacqueline Broad discusses the ideological character of Cavendish's philosophy, and by this. Broad seems to mean an approach that takes the wodd to be orderly and harmonious 2I8 Karen Detlefsen So Stevenson's concerns about the second premiss of the argument can be put to rest without forcing an atomistic account of matter onto Cavendish. Finite individuals as stable figures within a material plenum can be the source of both nature's general order and particular disorders. It is not necessary to call upon atomism to explain the latter. Indeed, when denying the truth of the second premiss in the normative argument (that is, when denying nature's ubiquitous harmony), this merely opens the possibility of atomism. It does not necessitate its truth. And indeed, as just presented, there is another way of accounting for these disorders vwthin a non-atomistic account of matter. Nonetheless, continuing to bracket the decisiveness of the logico- mathematical ailment, atomism is still possible. Moreover, as is implicit in the first premiss of the normative argument. Cavendish herself associates the normative argument with a conclusion about matter theory. So we should probe fiirther by focusing now on that first premiss. Why should we believe that if any form of atomism were a true accoimt of matter, even a form according to which atoms are perceptive and self-moving, disorder in the natural world would ensue? Why would this form of atomism result in disorder, while a material plenum of sensing, reasoning, and infinitely divisible matter would not result in disorder? 5. REINTERPRETING THE NORMATIVE ANTI-ATOMISM ARGUMENT: THE FIRST PREMISS In order to answer this question, we need to see Cavendish's normative anti-atomism as, in fzct, much more significandy normative, indeed (Broad, Women Philosophers, 43). But this does not seem enough to secure a teleological account of nature, for a material world moving in accordance with inviolable laws will also be orderly and harmonious, yet (wimess Hobbes's natural philosophy) not one characterized by teleology. Even a thorougjily perceptive, self-moving natural world would not necessarily be an irredudbly teleological one (witness Spinoza's natural philosophy, especially his appendix following book i of the Ethics). This is the point at issue with the tension noted hrae. If, as the quote at PL 146 indicates, active parts of matter are necessitated to do what they do by the power of tiature's 'general Peace', then the wodd can be one way, and one way only, and it is not clear how Cavendish's philosophy can escape Spinoza's arguments against finality in nature in the &ce of such necessitarianism. My interpretation of Cavendish-that nature exhibits irregularities due to the free choice of its parts, and also eidiibits order due to the same free choice-both explains the source of Cavendish's teleology and alerts us to her divergetice from the non-teleological, yet still ordedy, nature of Spinoza's philosophy. Cavendish's teleology derives from nature's freedom, not its order. Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 219 prescriptively and not merely descriptively normative. That is, above I said that this argument is normative in the sense that it is based on the assumption of norms or standards in nature, but this is merely descript- ive of nature. But perhaps the normative argument might actually be understood as follows: given that nature as a whole is infinitely wise and prescribes, firom the top down, norms and standards of orderly and harmonious behaviour (nature as morally efficacious), an individual acting as if it were an atom-isolated from all others and boimd by no overarching norms-would lead to disorder in its immediate environs at least. Because this violation of norms and standards of order would be bad, one ought not to behave as if one were such a being, even though our freedom permits exactly this sort of disorderly behaviour. This freedom comes about precisely because nature as a whole does not physically determine its parts. Rather, parts can determine their own physical movements. Individuals ought not to behave as if they were atomistic beings distinct from the whole of luture-beings with absolute power (including the power to set one's own norms of beha- viour) that need not refer their actions to other individuals-because this will be potentially harmful to those other individuals. A slightly different way of phrasing the argument is to say that if atomism were true, and if individuals could reasonably behave as if they were free from the constraints of other parts and of the whole of nature, then there would be no sense in saying that it is better to be healthy than to be sick, or to have sight than to lack it, to behave virtuously than to behave sinfiiUy. But it is bad to be sick, to lack sight, or to sin (GNP 157-8, 85; PL348-50)." And so natural parts ought not to behave with absolute freedom or without regard for others and for the whole ofnatiore, since this leads precisely to such perversions. Yet another way of phrasing the argument is to acknowledge (as Cavendish does when employing the normative argument regarding atomism) that atoms are like deities, their behaviour in no way constrained, not even by norms (PL 431; OEP 129), for God produces norms, after aU. He does not abide by extrinsically existing norms. But natural beings are neither like atoms nor like God. They are constrained by norms. It is crucial to bear in mind the contcnt of n. 13. I note there that I assume that, for Cavendish, there are true norms in nature and, thus, true deviations from norms. While I merely assume it here, I do believe that she has a convincing argument for the assimiption, and I deal with this elsewhere. 220 Karen Detlefsen and they do not set norms for themselves by simply acting as they wish. Individuals within nature may act freely, but, in doing so, they may well violate norms, thus proving that they cannot rightly (even if they can literally) behave as if they were not defined in terms of their communities and ultimately in terms of all of nature. Notice that, thus stated, Cavendish's normative anti-atomism says nothing about matter. This is an anti-atomism with atomism con- ceived of in a quasi-social way: one ought not to behave as if one were not part of a normatively guided community with other individuals. But this is stiU perfectly compatible with atomism as a theory about matter. Nature could be comprised of material atoms, but as long as there are overarching norms and standards guiding their behaviour, and as long as they abide by these standards, the prescriptions laid down by this new interpretation of the normative anti-atomism argu- ment are satisfied. The first premiss as a statement about matter theory is still not established. Two options arise at this juncture. First, we may completely dis- engage the two arguments foimd in Cavendish's corpus, laying the entire burden upon the logico-mathematical argument to establish the conclusion that matter is a plenum and not comprised of atoms. Accordingly, the normative argument (now in its normatively stronger form) is not an argument about matter theory at all. It is an argument concerned solely with establishing a conclusion about moral causal agency, most specifically the morally efficacious causal behaviour of finite beings. The normative argument establishes both prescriptive conclusions about how finite individuals with causal agency ought to conduct themselves as parts within the whole, and a descriptive conclusion about how most parts of the natural world seem actually to conduct themselves given that the world is, for the most part, orderly and harmonious. The second option is to say that, while the normative argument surely leads to these prescriptive conclusions about the proper beha- viours of finite beings, it can also lead to a conclusion about matter theory. Trying to show how it might do so has the triple virtues of (a) corresponding with Cavendish's own implicit beHef that the norm- ative argument tells us something about matter theory; (b) alerting us to the explanatory use to which Cavendish puts our experience of the sorts of social interactions we find among humans: Cavendish 'reads'. Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 221 one might argue, the lessons learned from our experience of social rela- tions into how she explains relations among natural material parts; and (c) showing how she differs from Spinoza in her philosophy of nature. Cavendish was aware of Hobbes's De corpore, the first English translation of which appeared in 1656.^^ And so she would have been aware of his division of philosophy: The principal parts of philosophy are two. For two chief kinds of bodies, and very different from one another, offer themselves to such as search after their generation and properties; one whereof being the work of nature, is called a natural body, the other is called a commonwealth, and is made by the wills and agreement of men. And from these spring the two parts of philosophy called natural and dvil. {EWi. 11) She was also clearly aware of the 'body poUtic' analogy that appeared in Westem philosophy from at least Plato and continued to appear through to the seventeenth century if not beyond.^® According to the analogy, poHtical systems (Hobbes's second part of philosophy, with the second kind of body as its subject) behave frmctionaUy as does the human body (Hobbes's first part of philosophy, with the first kind of body as its subject). Just as the human body necessarily has specific structures to allow healthy actions and fiinctions, so too political systems necessarily must have specific structures to fimction appropriately, and both systems tend to be hierarchically organized. So, for example, in the Laws, Plato likens a state that is in peace ^ As Cavendish herself is not shy about admitting, she could read only English (PF A6^; PL Ci*). For various accounts of the reladonship between Hobbes's and Cavendish's thought, see some of die sources in n. 6 above. For a sustained account of Cavendish's use of die body politic analogy, see Oddvar Holmesland, 'Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World: Natural Art and the Body Politic', Studies in Philohgyy 96/4 (1999), 457-79. Catherine Wilson addresses the contrast between nature's orderly hierarchy and society's feilure to exhibit the same degree of order (*Two Opponents of Material Atomism: Cavendish and Leibniz' ['Two Opponents'], in Pauline Phemister and Stuart Brown (eds.), Leibniz and the English-Speaking World (forthcoming)). For a helpful summary of the main tenets and historical moments of the body politic analogy, see David G. Hale, 'Analogy of the Body Politic' [*Analogy'], in Philip P. Weiner (ed.), Dictionary of the History of Ideas (New York: Scribner's, 1973-4). i- 67-70. For uses of the body politic analogy in R.enaissance medicine, see Josep Ouis Barona, 'The Body Republic: Social Order, and Human Body in Renâsance Medical Thougjit', History and Philosophy of the Life ScienceSy 1$ (1993), 165-80. It would be fruitful to pursue an investigation into the historical and conceptual relation between Cavendish's philosophy and Renaissance thought in general. 222 Karen Detlefsen and friendship (rather than in war) to a healthy body," and in the Politics, not only does Aristotle liken the state to a living body, but he follows through with the hierarchical implications of this; 'the state is by nature clearly prior to the femily and to the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part; for example, if the whole body be destroyed, there would be no foot or hand'?® Here is one example that shows Cavendish's use of the analogy; 'the truth is that a pure democracy is all body and no head, and an absolute monarchy is all head and no body, whereas aristocracy is both head and body, it is a select and proportional number for a good government, which number being united, represents and acts as one man' (ODS 276; cf NBW 18).^ Otto Mayr argues that the Renaissance saw the rise of the 'clockwork state' metaphor to join the analogy of the body politic. Whatever sense one makes of it, Hobbes himself seems to draw a parallel between the natural living body and the commonwealth by likening both to a clock or other such human-made (non-natural) mechanisms in both De dve {EW, vol. ii, p. xiv) and the Leviathan (EW, vol. iii, p. ix).^° Cavendish, however, remains firmly committed to the body politic analogy, believing that both political and material bodies have the capacity to be natural, well-fiinctioning wholes on the model of living organic " Plato, Laws 628c ff., in John M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson (eds.), Plato: Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997), 1318-1616, at 1323 ff. " Aristode, Politics I253'i9-2i, in Jonathan Barnes (ed.). The Complete Works of Aristotle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), ii- 1986-2129, at 1988. » This passage is feom Cavendish's Orations <f a Divers Sort, in which she presents many competing opinions on various topics. It is not, therefore, necessarily the case that she supports aristocracy. Rather, I cite this passage to show that she clearly conceives of poUacal states on analogy with organic bodies. » For competing interpretations of what Hobbes intends, methodologically, by these see J. W. N. Watkins, Hobbes's System of Ideas: A Study in the Political Significance of Philosophical Theories (New York; Barnes & Noble, 1965), chs. 3-4: M- M. Goldsmith, Hobbes's Science of Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), chs. 1 and 7; Tom Sorell, Hobbes (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986). Sorell argues gainst both Watkins and Goldsmith that Hobbes does not and cannot study both types of body-natural and dvil-throû parallel methods. Hobbes is not primarily interested, according to Sorell, in explaining how die (clockwork) body politic is functionally organized and dependent upon its parts; such a course of study is appropriate for physical bodies only, not polirical bodies (Hobbes, 16-19). For a discussion of the clockwork sute metaphor, see Otto Mayr, Authority, Liberty, and Automatic Machinery in Early Modern Europe [Authority and Liberty] (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), ch. 4. Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 223 bodies.^' (Political bodies, however, often end up in an artificial state when humans do not rightly recognize the proper relation among their parts (e.g. PL 47-8). The case of democracy is one clear example.) While Cavendish does, I believe, make use of the body politic analogy, there are unique characteristics of her version of it.^^ First, her natural system is non-deterministic. Not only does she reject the clockwork metaphor with its implication of mechanical motion-externally imposed motion necessitating, through inviol- able physical laws, specific movements-but she is also opposed to the idea of forcing natural individuals to consent to a natural, hier- archical social system. There may be a truth about the best social organization, just as there is a truth about the correct religious belief to hold, but liberty of conscience on such matters must be respected precisely because forcing 'consent' undermines our nature as rational, self-moving, and therefore free beings (e.g. GNP 248-9). We must freely consent to our social systems, even if it means we do -not concede to the single best (and, for Cavendish, hierarchical) system. It is better to allow individual freedom and have an iU political body than to have a healthy state without individual freedom. In fact, she Georges Canguilhem remarks upon Descartes's 'Envisioning the body in terms of a clockwork mechanism' thereby replacing 'a political image of command and magical type of causality (involving words or signs) with a technological image of "control" ..." (Georges Canguilhem, La Connaissance de la vie (Paris: J. Vrin, 1992), 114). Cavendish is conversely compelled by the political image of the body, together (as we shall see in the concluding section of this chapter) with the form of causality Caîilhem associates with that image. The, extraordinary ways in which Cavendish uses this political image is sûested in what follows. As Etienne Balibar notes with respect to Spinoza's use of the body politic analogy, "This would seem to place Spinoza squarely in the line of Hobbes (the Leviathan) and, more generally, of a whole tradition which defines the State as an individual and which runs from the ancient Greeks to the present day. However, we must press this point fiirther, since such an assimilation covers in reality a wide range of different views. The individuality of the State may be thought of as either metaphorical or real, and "natural" or "artificial", as a mechanistic or an organic solidarity, as a self-organising principle of the State or an effect of its supernatural finality' (Etienne Balibar, Spinoza and Politics, tr. Peter Snowdon (London: Verso, 1998), 64). Cavendish, too, is in this long tradition, and Balibar's urging that we pay heed to the exact details of a given thinker's use of the analogy is important in Cavendish's case no less than in others'. Locating Cavendish in this tradition, including relating her use of the body politic concept to her underlying metaphysical and physical commitments and to her guiding political concerns, is a large, and fiiture, project for which the present sketch serves as a minimal preliminary. 224 Karen Detlefsen believes that 'it is not impossible to conquer a world. ... but, for the most part, conquerors seldom enjoy their conquest, for they being more feared than loved, most commonly come to an untimely end' Second, in drawing the parallel between state and living body, Cavendish sets up an interesting dialectic between the two. On the one hand, the hierarchy and predominantly orderly behaviour of organic bodies serve as a normative model for human societies. On the other hand, the freedom that humans have as social (rather than as natural) beings is extended to all of non-human nature as- well. So while non-human nature is the normative starting point (e.g. PPO C2'~*; PL 13), Cavendish seems to take himian society as the physically explanatory starting point, making the elements of the state-human beings as social beings-the ejqjlanatory model for the elements of the living body. When writing about disease in organisms, she portrays the errors in blatantly sociopolitical terms. '... diseases are occasioned many several ways; for some are made by a home Rebellion, and others by forreign enemies, and some by natural and regular dissolutions, and their cures are as different; but the chief Magistrate or Govemors of the animal body, which are the regular motions of the parts of the body, want most commonly the assistance of foreign Parts, which are Medicines, Diets, and the like' (PL 409; cf. PPO 307-8; OEP 81; GNP 157-8). But for Cavendish, this need not be-and nor do I think it is-a metaphor only. This is because all finite parts of nature have their own share of a specific form of sense, reason, and self-motion. Consequendy, freedom belongs to all finite parts of the natural world. So all parts may freely disobey the prescribed good of the societies in which they find themselves, be they himian societies or the society of the body. Third, while Cavendish may not be explicit about this, the body politic analogy must apply to all finite individuals. It is not just the politic state and the living (human) body that are drawn into the analogy, but every and all finite beings must be as well. Once again, this " See Hale, 'Analogy', Mayr, Authority and Liberty, and John Rogers, The Matter of Revolution: Sdence, Poetry, and Politics in the Age of Milton [Matter] (Iduca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), chs. i and 6, for discussion of the authoritarian character of both the body polidc analogy and the mechanical, clockwork metaphor. See especially Rogers for Cavendish's break fi:om this tradidon. Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 225 follows firom the fact that every finite individual is sensing, knowing, self-moving-indeed, alive, according to Cavendish (e.g. OEP 38-9). Moreover, aU finite individuals remain unified as individuals because of the special sympathy and love or desire that the parts feel for others within the unified body (e.g. PPO 75; PL 167), and because of the fact that each part thus contributes to the weU-working of the whole. Every individual system continues to survive and endure as long as its parts fimction towards the persistence of the individual. Every finite individual being is analogous to a living body or a commonwealth in this way.^* These unique characteristics of Cavendish's use of the body politic idea may enable one to extract a theory of non-atomistic matter fi'om Cavendish's normative argument regarding atomism. The argument for this conclusion goes beyond anything we actually find in Cav- endish's work, though various elements of this argument are explicit in her work, and it also coheres with her broad philosophy of nature. So I present this as a Cavendishian proposal. In social systems, humans are not atomistic individuals but are fimctionaUy related to one another in a specific way for the weU-naiming (health) of the society. When we behave as if we were atomistic, social disorder ensues. This is demo- cracy's failing. Similarly, within nature, finite individuals, no matter how small, are not atomistic, and when they behave as if they were, disorder (disease in organisms, disintegration of other finite wholes) ensues. But this conclusion turns on finite bits of matter-visible and subvisible-belonging to normatively bound communities. Ulti- mately, aU individuals must belong to a single, normatively bound community that i§ all of nature, for only this can explain the overall order of the natural world. And one might argue that this can obtain only on a theory of material plenism. How so? The normative argument depends upon nature as a whole prescrib- ing appropriate behaviour to its parts, but these standards of behaviour The normative portrayal of atomistic individuals presented here is not, of course, unique to Cavendish. It has become especially prevalent among current-day communitarians intent on exposing both the inaccurate conception of the individual supposedly put forth by liberalism and the danger posed to the thriving of communities by individuals attempting to behave as such beings by, for example, pursuing individual rights to the exclusion of recognition of social groups. See, for example, Chades Taylor, 'Atomism', in AUds Kontos (ed). Powers, Possessions and Freedom (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), 39-62. 226 Karen Detlefsen come firom natiore's infinite wisdom, and its wisdom comes firom its being materially infinite. Since all matter is rational, an mfimte quantity of matter has infinite reason (GNP ii). But if finite material atoms that are distinct and separate firom one another are all that exist in nature-if atomism as a theory of matter were true-then there would be no possible way for overarching standards and norms to obtain for two reasons. First, there would be no infinitely extended matter with its infinite aggregated wisdom to provide those norms. Material atoms, as fmite portions of matter, would have a merely fmite share of reason. This leads to one of the main problems with marprial atoms for Cavendish. Because there is no aggregated, infinite wisdom in finite atoms, there can be no single, universal standard of behaviour. Each atom would therefore have to prescribe its own norms to itself-each would be like a deity in this way, with an 'absolute power and knowledge' (OEP 129). Second, in heu of an infinitely aggregated material wisdom, one might suggest an immater- ial substance existing apart firom nature as the soturce of overarching order. But this is precluded too. A contrast with Leibniz is usefiil here, for he believes in the existence of immaterial atomistic beings which nonetheless behave harmoniously among each other only because God establishes harmony.^® But since Cavendish rejects a role for God in natural explanations (e.g. PL 201-11), that potential source of imiversal standards is precluded too. But, once again. Cavendish believes there are such standards, independent of human convention. Our ability meaningfijUy to condemn certain actions as disorderly presupposes standards that, on Cavendish's theory of matter, require a non-atomistic infinite plenum of infinitely rational wise matter as the only possible source of those standards. This new interpretation of the normative argument regarding atom- ism vindicates the first premiss of that argument. In challenging the truth of that premiss, one asks why Cavendish beUeves that any form of atomism, even one in which atoms have reason, would result in disorder while a theory of rational matter in a plenum would not result in disorder. There are really two parts to this problem. First, why would rational atoms result in disorder? One could answer this For an account of the differences between Cavendish and Leibniz (as well as their similarities), see Wilson» *Two Opponents*. Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 227 by saying that should it be established that the world is comprised of only atoms, each of which is like a deity unto itself with absolute power, including the power to set its own norms given that there is nothing else besides individual atoms dictating norms, then not even atoms with reason (as opposed to irrational, chance-governed atoms) could lead to orderly behaviour. This is because each atom would be setting its own distinct standard of behaviour and acting accordingly. And, moreover, we see exactly this case arising in our world when individual parts within the whole of nature act as if they can rightly set their own standards and norms of behaviour distinct firom those of nature as a whole. That is, individuals that, as a matter of fact, behave as if they were atoms prove, by example, the disorder that would follow from atomism as a thoroughgoing account of matter.^® The second part to the question asks why a plenist accoimt of matter would not give rise to disorder, and there are two ways of answering this question. One answer has it that a plenist theory of matter implies that nature as a whole has infinite rationality and wisdom. So infinite nature acts as a principal, mor- ally efficacious cause encouraging, by rational persuasion, its parts to behave in an orderly feshion, thus giving rise to greater order. A second way of answering this is simply to challenge Cavendish on this claim that a material plenum results in thoroûgoing order because she herself leaves room for disorder, even on her own matter theory. This, of course, is Cavendish's denial of the second premiss dealt with in the previous section in such a way as to allow for the anti-atomism of the plenist view of matter. That plenist conception of matter is decisively established by the logico-mathematical argument and might well follow from the normative argument in the manner just presented. 6. MONISM AND CAUSATION As fer as her conception of nature is concerned. Cavendish is a monist. Depending upon precisely what this means, she might also be read " Strictly speaking, if thoroughgoing atomism were true, there would not be any disharmony because there would be no single norm setting standards of right and good against which behaviour could be measured to determine how orderly (or not) it is. 228 Karen Detlefsen as espousing a broadly Spinozistic conception of the natural world " Indeed, as I shall soon show, there is significant textual evidence to tempt one to this conclusion. It would be incorrect, however, to read Cavendish as holding an especially robust (Spinozistic) form of monism, for this would undermine a central plank of her metaphysics, her theory of occasional causation. In order to ease the tension between her monism and her theory of causation, we must turn to the lessons of her normative argument against atomism to understand the limits of her monism. In the process, we see Cavendish's unique position in the history of seventeenth-century conceptions of nature. There are two compatible ways one might conceive of Cav- endish's monism. First, it might amount to the belief that there is one type of matter. I call this 'type monism', and Cavendish is certainly a type monist. While it is true that there are three aspects of matter-inanimate, sensitive animate, and rational anim- ate-every possible piece of matter is comprised of aU three aspects. This is because of her theory of complete blending (or insepar- able commixture) according to which infinitely divisible matter will always include each of the three aspects of matter, regardless of how small the piece of matter becomes. Indeed, the mfimte divisibility of matter is what permits the complete blending of all aspects of matter. Thus, 'although I make a distinction betwixt " In an unpublished paper ('The Vitalist Natural Philosophies of Margaret Cavendish and Henry More'), Leni Robinson correctly points out that, stricdy speaking. Cavendish is not a monist because she allows for the existence of both nature and God. There are two aspects to Robinson's position that must be heeded. First, Cavendish's philosophy is one of 'radical dualism of matter and spirit', or of nature (the material) and God (the immaterial). I fiiUy grant this, and so specify that my claims about her monism are claims about her theory of nature considered in and of itself This first point alerts us to an essential difference between Cavendish and Spinoza-her, but not his, acknowledgement of a transcendent God (see n. 6 above). The 6ct that Cavendish claims to fiiUy sideline God in a discussion of the natural world which is (like Spinoza's nature) infinitely extended, and both material and perceptive, lends some legitimacy to the likening of their treatments of nature. But, and this is the second and most crucial aspect of Robinson's daim. Cavendish occasionally slips into a more thoroughgoing monism 'where Cavendish adopts ... the doctrines of a Neoplatonic cosmic system based on emanation'. Robinson is also rig^t about this, and it would be an interesting project to investigate Cavendish's suggestion that God creates by emanation, and to pursue (he impact of this suggestion upon her conception of nature, individuals, and laws. When I speak of Cavendish's monism in this chapter, I refer solely to the natural world, acknowled^ng the less than strict usage to which I put the term. My gratitude to Paul Guyer for his very helpfiil line of questioning during a presentation of this chapter in early form which led to my closer consideration of Cavendish's monism. Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 229 animate and inanimate, rational and sensitive matter, yet I do not say that they are three distinct and several matters; for as they do make but one body of nature, so they are also but one matter' (OEP 206; cf. 23-4). Every part of matter has motive, sens- ing, and reasoning capacities, and is also limited in its ability to move by inanimate matter. This is the single type of matter that exists. Second, Cavendish's monism might amount to the belief that there is just one token: there is one single whole-all of nature-with parts within it being merely specific figxores within the whole. I call this 'token monism'. An especially robust form of token monism would include claims about both substance and cause. Taken as a thesis about substance, (Ai) it would maintain that there is only one substantial individual-namely all of nature itself-which is the only whole, albeit with many parts. This contrasts with (Bi) the belief that there are multiple substantial individuals within nature, such that nature is simply a collection of wholes. Taken as a thesis about cause, (Aii) token monism depends upon top-down causal determinism with the whole of namre acting as the principal cause for all effects, parts within nature being mere effects, and natxire as a whole determining the character of the parts. This contrasts with (Bii) a bottom-up conception of causal relations according to which multiple natural individuals (wholes within nature) act as principal causes in their interactions with each other, and these interactions determine the nature of the whole. Taken together, (Ai) and (Aii) would seem to necessitate specific and inviolable interrelations among the parts of nature. Cavendish never carves up the conceptual terrain this carefiiUy, but it is helpfiil to do so in order to see the precise nature of her monism. There is much textual evidence in favour of token monism even in the very strong form presented here. Here is a passage that supports token monism as a thesis about substance (Ai): 'I conceive nature to be an infinite body, bulk or magnitude, which by its ovra self-motion, is divided into infinite parts; not single or indivisible parts, but parts of one continued body, only discernible from each other by their proper figures, caused by the changes of particular motions ...' (OEP 126; cf. 47~8; PL 26). The following passage also supports (Ai) and the implication that necessary and specific relations hold among the parts of the one, single whole that is aU of nature: 230 Karen Detlefsen the Infinite whole is Infinite in substance or bulk, but the parts are Infinite in number, and not in bulk, for each part is circumscribed, and finite in its exterior figure and substance. But mistake me not, when I speak of drcumscribed and finite single parts, for I do not mean, that each part doth subsist single and by it self^ there being no such thing as an absolute sin^e part in Nature, but Infmite Matter being by self-motion divided into an mfimte number of parts, all these parts have so near a relation to eadi other, and to the infinite whole, that one cannot subsist without the other; for the Infimte parts in number do make the Infinite whole, and die Infinite whole consists in the Infinite number of parts. {PL 157-8; my emphasis; cf. PL 243) The following two passages suggest that nature as whole, but no part within nature, acts as cause (Aii): Neither do natural bodies know many prime causes and beguimngs, but there is but one ondy chief and prime cause from which all effects and varieties proceed, which cause is corporeal Nature, or natural self-moving Matter, which forms and produces all natural things; and all the variety and difference of Creatures arises from her various actions, which are the vanous motions in Nature. (PL 238) ... I do not mtend to make particular creatures or figures, the principle of all the infinite effects of nature, as some other philosophers do; for there is no such thing as a prime or principal figure of nature, aU being but effects of one cause. {OEP 17-18; cf. PPO 8; OEP 16, 141) There is also conceptual evidence that sûests token monism best captures Cavendish's philosophy of the natural world, specifically her arguments against atomism. The logico-mathematical argument atomism encourages the theory of type monism because of the feet of the unending divisibihty of matter coupled with Cavendish's theory of complete mixing. Moreover, one might argue that the unlimited divisibihty of matter's parts 'all the way down' finds a similar infinite composition of matter's parts 'all the way up'. This leads to token monism taken as a theory of substance (Ai) because what appear to be distinct individuals are really just parts of larger and larger parts, and so on ad infimtum. There is only one substantial whole: all of infinite nature itself; all of matter makes 'but one body of nature' {OEP 206). Cavendish's normative argument against atomism might suggest that she accepts token monism as a theory of cause (Aii). Since we cannot accept the supposition that finite individuals 'have an absolute power and knowledge' {OEP 129)-since we cannot accept Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 231 atomism-it is perhaps not umreasonable to interpret her rejection of atoms' absolute power as a rejection of whole individuals acting as principal causes of natural effects (Bii). But problems arise for the theory of token monism with a consider- ation of Cavendish's theory of occasional causation.^® It is crucial here to make a distinction between occasional causation and occasionalism, since the latter posits the utter impotence of the natural world and God's wUl as the sole efficacious cause in that world, and Cavendish denies both premisses. This foUows from her insistence that we elim- inate theology and appeals to God from our natural investigations (PL 201 -11). As Steven Nadler shows, occasional causation is a more general theory than occasionalism and does not specify God as the principal source of causal change. In simple terms, a relationship of occasional cansation exists when one thing or state of afiairs brings about an effect by inducing (but not through efficient causation ...) another thing to exercise its own efficient causal power. ... Thus, the term denotes the entire process whereby one thing. A, occasions or elicits another thing, B, to cause e. Even though it is B that A occasions or incites to engage in the activity of efficient causation in producing e, the relation of occasional causation links A not just to B, but also (and especially) to the effect, e, produced by B.®' Cavendish's theory of causation is a theory of occasional causation in this more general sense. In her Letters, Cavendish explains to her fictional interlocutor that her own theory of causation, and not, for example, a theory based on the transfer of motion from one body to another, is the appropriate way to understand many (though not all) instances of causal interaction."" ^ For an outstanding account of Cavendishes dieory of causation and its historical context, see O'Neill, ^Introduction', pp. xxix-xxxv. I deal much more extensively with Cavendî's theory of occasional causation and its relation to fireedom and natural disorders in my 'Reason and Freedom'. Steven Nadler, 'Descartes and Occasional Causation', British Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2/1 (1994), 39. ^ Susan James deals with other forms of causal interaction in Cavendish's work, nodng specifically the contrast between alteration (often accomplished by occasional causation) and generation (accomplished by transfer of inherently modve matter, and thus never by occasional causation) (James, 'Innovations'). O'Neill also stresses that Cavendish allows for transeunt causation (which is distinct from occasional causation) in, for example, respiration ('Introduction', p. xxxv). 232 Karen Detl^sen Madam, give me leave to ask you this question, whether it be the motion of the hand, or the Instrument, or both, that print or carve such or such a body? Perchance you will say, that the motion of the hand moves the Instnunent, and the Instnmient moves the Wood which is to be carved. ... But I pray, Madam, consider rationally, that though the Artificer or Workman be the occasion of the motions of the carved body, yet the motions of the body tliat is carved, are they which put themselves into such or such a figure, or give themselves such or such a print as the Artificer intended; for a Watch, although the Artist or Watch-maker be the occasional cause that the Watch moves in such or such an artificial figure, as the figure of a Watch, yet it is the Watches own motion by which it moves. (PL 77-9) In another example, when a body fells upon the snow, it is not the body that leaves its impression behind in the snow, but rather, 'the snow ... patterns the figure of the body. ... [It] patterns or copies it out in its own substance, just as the sensitive motions in the eye do pattern out the figure of an object' that it sees or perceives (PL 104-5). To 'pattern out' means to frame figures 'according to the patterns of exterior objects' (OEP 169), and most often in her writings. Cavendish seems to mean this very literally. The physical figure of the body falling upon the snow is physically printed out into the snow's matter from within the snow itself; bodies 'put themselves into such or such a figure' as the occasional cause intended (PL 79; cf. 539-40). While the precise mechanism of the interaction between occasional and principal cause is never fully specified, the ubiquitous rationality of matter is essential to this interaction. The occasional cause rationally suggests a course of actions that the principal cause may then rationally respond to by patterning out an appropriate figure. So, according to Cavendish, in changes brought about by occa- sional causation, there is an occasional cause-the body eliciting the effect in another body-and there is a principal cause-the affected body itself bringing forth from within itself (patterning out) the appropriate effect. Cavendish has a nimiber of motivations for believing that at least some causal interactions occur through occa- sional causation. One of these is her belief that motion, as a mode, carmot transfer from body to body, and so the motion of the affected body must come from within the affected body itself (PL 77-8, 445; OEP 200). Another motivation stems from Cavendish's recognition that we often err in our sense perception, and occasional causation Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 233 can explain such errors. Erroneous perceptions (PPO 66-7)-for example, hallucinations when die subject perceives an object as present when it is not-cannot have come about owing to the influence of an immediately present external stimulus; they must have been brought forth firom within the subject of perception herself. An extemal cause is thus unnecessary: 'the Object is not the cause of Perception, but is only the occasion: for, the Sensitive Organs can make such like figurative actions, were there no Object present; which proves, that the Object is not the Cause of the Perception' (GNP 56). Similarly, the feet that we may not feel a pinch when distracted by intense thought, establishes that there can be no direct causal connection between the object of perception (which is clearly not sufficient) and the perception itself (OEP 150). The principal cause may or may not respond to the rational suggestion of the occasional cause.'*' Occasional causation undermines token monism since, under occa- sional causation, individual bodies within nature act as principal causes and are not mere efiects (Bii). In principle, as the examples of perceptu- al errors just cited show, the occasion is neither necessary nor sufficient for the principal cause to act, thus allowing natural individuals as prin- cipal causes a significant degree of independence firom other natural individuals, a degree of independence that goes beyond what would be tolerated by token monism taken in an especially robust sense as a theory both about substance and about cause.'*^ So it seems that Cav- endish is in a bind. There is textual evidence suggesting she endorses token monism, taken as a theory about both cause and substance. There is also conceptual evidence for token monism taking the form of her arguments against atomism. On the other hand, however, occa- sional causation, which seems as central to her metaphysical system as Dreams are a special and interesting case for Cavendish, as ^e herself notes (PPO 67, 280 ff). I shall not deal with this case here. Of course, there are alternative ways of êlaining such perceptual phenomena, including by appeal to mechanical explanations such as Hobbes*s of which Cavendish was aware, having read Leviathan {EW iii. 3 ff,). Her e3q)lanation throû occasional causation for these perceptual phenomena is another possibility, and she has independent reasons for ^vouring her approach, mainly that mechanical causal interaction on the model of motion trans^rring from body to body cannot happen given that motion as a mode cannot transfer from body to body. ^ 0*Neill draws our attendon to this notable degree of independence when she notes that: .. (i) the occasion has no intrinsic connection with the effect; (2) it is not necessary for the production of the effect... (3) it has no direct influence on the production of the effect ...* ('Introduction', p. xxx). 234 Karen Detlefsen does her monism, includes an endorsement of finite individuak acting as principal causes which subverts token monism taken as a theory about cause. She cannot, it seems, retain both token monism and anti-atomism on the one hand, and occasional causation on the other hand. To solve this impasse, we must now draw upon the lessons learned firom reinterpreting her normative theory of atomism. Cavendish links her theory of occasional causation with fireedom; 'the action of self-figuring [patterning] is firee' (PL 24; cf 18). This is not surprising because the theory of occasional causation supports a view of nature in which natural parts themselves act as principal causes and are not necessitated to behave in a certain way. They are neces- sitated neither by nature as a whole imposing, firom the top down, specific interrelations among the parts (which then become mere effects and not causes at all), nor by occasional causes necessitating that the principal cause act in a specific feshion. That is, they are firee firom extrinsic control. There are different degrees of fireedom within nat- ural actions. Some natural events are dubbed 'voluntary' while others are 'occasioned'. Voluntary actions, understood in this new way, are actions that are not dependent upon or constrained by an occasional cause encouraging the principal cause to act in a specific manner. The principal cause acts entirely on its own; these voluntary actions are called actions 'by rote' (OEP 19-20); and they are fireer than occa- sioned events. Principal causes that are encouraged to act in a specific way by occasional causes are firee, of course, for the following reasons: the constraint exercised is neither necessary nor sufficient for the action to occur; the principal cause is self-moved; and the principal cause acts in accordance with its own reasons. But the occasional cause exercises some constraining influence-a moral influence-over the actions of the principal cause.''^ Memories and dreams are examples of percep- tions that fit into the class of rote actions {OEP 33, 97, 272; PPO 280). A hand tossing a bowl is an example of an occasioned action (PL 445). Actions that are constrained by an occasional cause are more regular and less prone to disorder (OEP 33), even if they are less firee than O'Neill also (see n. 42) draws our attention to the notable degree of interdependence between occasional and principal cause when she notes that .. (4) an occasion has an indirect inHuence on the production of the effect by inducing the primary cause to act, and (5) insofer as it exerts this sort of influence, it counts as a partial efficient moral cause of the effect..('Introduction', p. xxx). Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 235 are rote actions. Radically free individual parts in nature-parts that are constrained by nothing, not even the rational persuasion of an occasional cause-tend to non-orderly behaviour. Above I noted that the feet of erroneous perceptions is one motivation for Cavendish's theory of occasional causation. One might wish to argue that we need not take such perceptions as erroneous at aU, but rather that they merely appear so from our finite point of view. This line of reasoning would continue to the conclusion that there is, in feet, no occasional causation at all. Rather (according to this line of argument) nature as a whole causally determines from the top down (Aii) that precise and specific relations hold between so-called occasional and principal 'causes', causes which are, strictly speaking, just effects of the one true cause, namely, all of nature. Thus (the argument continues) aU experienced relations among finite parts hold necessarily (including so- called- 'errors' of perception), even if not directly but rather indirectly (with nature as a whole mediating those relations). This interpretation could then be used to resolve the tension in Cavendish between her monism and anti-atomism on the one hand, and her supposed adherence to occasional causation on the other hand, by simply denying that there is room for the theory of occasional causation in her philosophy. There are two fects taken together that tell against this interpretation of Cavendish. First, natxire as a whole is infinitely wise. 'Nature having Infinite parts of Infinite degrees, must also have an Infinite natural vwsdom to order her natural Infinite parts and actions...' (PL8-9; cf 144, 161; OEP 121, 138, 214). Second, there are true natural errors (and not just events that we interpret as errors), be these perceptual errors or civil wars or disease. If a strict form of token monism were true, and infinitely wise nature were to causally determine relations among its parts to be harmonious and orderly, then there would be no natural disorders because nature's wisdom would necessitate order. But there are true disorders. The feet that Cavendish takes some natural events to be objectively bad because they are opposed to the wise order of nature, and not just subjectively so from a fiqite human point of view, indicates that infinitely wise nature cannot be acting as the single, principal, ordering cause. If it were, it would not permit such deviations. I have shown already the connection between Cavendish's anti- atomism and her embrace of both type and token monism. There 236 Karen Detlefsen is ako, we can now see, a connection-though a much looser one-between her theory of occasional causation and atomism, for both are identified as the source of natural disorders. Finite indi- viduals widiin nature, when they act as principal causes, can act as renegade bodies independendy firom aU others, just as she envisions atoms would do if they existed. So we see the parallel between, on the one hand, Stevenson's belief that Cavendish cannot give up atomism although she wants to do so, and, on the other hand, the tension between monism and occasional causation. Monism and anti- atomism are compatible, and both seem to imply natural order. And occasional causation and atomism are compatible, and both imply disorder. This parallel between Stevenson's concerns and the tension between monism and occasional causation allows us to solve that latter tension precisely by turning to the solution proposed to Stevenson s concem. Recall that token monism can be taken as a theory either about substance or about cause. As a theory about cause, it states that nature is sole principal cause and diat finite parts within nature are mere effects of that cause. But, as we learned firom the Hobbes-Bramhall debate adjusted to suit Cavendish's theory of nature, nature as a whole might act as principal moral or natural (physical) cause. An especially strong form of token monism would say that nature acts as both sorts of cause. Must Cavendish be forced to this conclusion, especially given the texts cited above in favour of token monism taken as a theory about cause? I believe not, and to show this, we need to deny that nature is principal cause in a natviral, physical sense. To do this, we need to reinterpret the passages that urge token monism taken as a theory about cause (Aii). Here they are again: Neither do natviral bodies know many prime causes and beginnings, but there is but one onely chief and prime cause firom which all effects and varieties proceed, which cause is corporeal Nature, or natural self-moving Matter, which forms and produces all natural things; and all the variety and difference of natural Creatures arises firom her various actions, which are the various motions in Nature. (PL 238) ... I do not intend to make particular creatures or figures, the principle of all the infinite effects of nature, as some other philosophers do; for there is no such thing as a prime or principal figure of nature, all being but effects of Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 237 one cause. But my ground is sense and reason, that is, I make self-moving matter, which is sensitive and rational, the only cause and principle of all natural effects. {OEP 17-18). Rather than read these passages as endorsing the view^ that there is a single substantial cause (namely, aU of nature taken as the single principal cause), we could as easily read these passages as endorsing the view that there is a single type of cause (namely, rational and sensitive matter). All effects we experience in the world come about as the result of self-moving matter (rather than, for example, a fmite or infinite incorporeal mind). But that does not mean that the effects we experience come about as the result of the one, single material whole. That is, these passages may be read as an endorsement of type, but not token, monism. This stills allows that nature as a whole acts as some sort of principal cause-specifically, as the principal moral cause, or the ultimate source of natural order. As the locus of infinite wisdom, nature imposes rational order from the top down, but it does so vdthout necessitating that its parts abide by this order. This is because the parts within nature also act as principal causes, both as principal moral causes (giving reasons of their own to themselves) and as principal natural or physical causes (acting or not on those reasons). As principal causes, they can act differently from how they ought to act according to infinite nature's prescriptions. While Cavendish never presents her theory of matter and cause exactly like this, it is a viable interpretation because it can best explain her belief in the freedom of nature's parts, with freedom defined as rational self-activity. There is some textual evidence, too, that this is her intention. In the Grounds of Natural Philosophy (hereafter Grounds), for example, she writes; To treat Infinite Effects, produced from an Infinite Cause, is an endless Work, and impossible to be performed, or effected; only this may be said, That the Effects, though Infinite, are so united to the material Cause, as that not any single effect can be, nor no Effect can be annihilated; by reason all Effects are in the power of the Cause. But this is to be noted, That some Effects producing other Effects, are, in some sort or manner, a Cause. {GNP 15; my emphasis) Until the last sentence, this passage supports strong token monism as a causal theory since finite creatures are taken as mere effects (Aii), but the last sentence allows for the parts to be causes themselves, thus 238 Karen Detlefsen moving her monism (as a thesis about cause) to a weaker form that can accommodate some independent causal activity of finite creatures (Bii). Of course, as principal moral and natural causes, parts within the whole of infinite nature can freely choose to act within or outside of the confines suggested by nature as an infinite whole, and this explains both the variety we see within natural kinds as well as ftiU-out perversions from natural kinds (e.g. PL 173-4. 238-9).** As a theory of substance. Cavendish's token monism can be as robust as (Ai): there is only one substantial individual-namely aU of nature itself-which is the only whole, albeit with many parts. Indeed, the logical anti-atomism argument, together with the concep- tual impossibility of empty space or a vacuum and Cavendish's theory of complete blending, necessitates this conclusion. But this does not result in specific inviolable relations among finite parts holding with necessity; these relations may be merely contingent. This is permitted by the weakening of monism as a causal theory. Precisely because nat- ural individuals can act as free principal causes determining themselves, there are no specific and necessary relations among them, and so it is possible for natural parts to exhibit significant independence from one another. But this does not detract from the fact that individuals are nonetheless in some sort of relation with others, that they ought to recognize this fact of interdependence, and that they ought, therefore, to have specific and necessary relations vwth each other-namely, those that are normatively good because they are in line with the overall natural order. Indeed, when the parts gain greater unity, there is also greater recognition that there is one truth to be pursued, and this is due to the greater consolidation of wisdom; nature as a whole knows itself and its norms and standards with full clarity {GNP 11). While wholly harmonious unity is the ideal towards which parts ought to strive, even if the precise and specific normative relations among ** One might wonder where the line between normal and abnormal variety is drawn for Cavendish, and here the answer would likely be similar to her explanation for how we determine natural kinds. We make likely guesses as to the kinds that nature determines will exist from the infinite kinds that 'only matter' could produce, and we make these guesses owing to the figures and shapes we experience in the natural world. All our suppositions made about nature in this way are merely probable, never certain (PL 507; OEP 214). So too we would need to make likely guesses as to what forms of variety fill within the range of normal variety and what forms &11 into the range of the 'monstrous' on the basis of the normal range of variety we experience in any given natural kind. Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish 239 parts are attained, these would stiU be fuUy voluntary and therefore contingent in the sense that they could have been otherwise had the parts of nature freely chosen otherwise. Cavendish's motivations for holding this form of monism are not entirely grounded in a conception of matter. This should be clear from her two arguments against atomism and their quite distinct primary conclusions. It is true that her rejection of a vacuum and her acceptance of the divisibility of whatever has quantity (implying the infinite divisibility of matter) give her good metaphysical reasons for endorsing monism. But her beUefi that there are norms, standards, and harmony in nature, that individuals (both humans and non-humans) are free, and that this freedom permits dissent from norms, thus leading to disorders, are not beliefi grounded in claims about the nature of matter, motion, and vacua. These are decidedly value-laden claims, and they reflect Cavendish's broader interests and concerns with her society. As a royalist in exile for a decade and a half, and as an opponent of democratically organized political states for the lack of harmony they would breed {NBW 95), Cavendish had sociopoHtical reasons for talcing seriously the capacity of free, rational individuals to disrupt hierarchically imposed order in order to produce disorder and suffering in its stead. What is remarkable about her philosophy is that she extends this depiction of the capacities of human individuals to absolutely all finite natural beings became they are all, in some way, rational. She works her social concerns into the very fabric of her metaphysics of matter. This affords her a unique place in seventeenth-century natural philosophy. Like Spinoza, she is a substance monist in so fer as the natural world is concerned, and, also like Spinoza, she believes that natural substance is infinitely extended and thoroughly perceptive. But, unlike Spinoza, the details of her monism do not lead to a necessitarian conception of all natural beings, including humans. The widespread order we witness in the natural world comes from the freely granted, rational obedience that finite beings give to the rational suggestion of other finite beings. In concert with this explanation for nature's widespread harmony, the occasional disorders we witness in both non-human and human nature arise from the rationality of natural beings that freely dissent from rational command to behave in a specific way. Nature is therefore irreducibly teleological and 240 Karen Detlefien normative, quite unlike Spinoza's conception of nature. But while we may explain the metaphysics of the actions of non-human nature in terms of human actions in our social relations (they are, after all, of the same nature and thus bound by the same forms of interaction), non-human nature, with its superior order and harmony, serves as the normative model for humans in our social interactions. This has significant implications for how Cavendish believes we ought to conduct ourselves socially. But that is a story for another time.*® « I thank the audience at the University of Pennsylvania's colloquium series for questions and discussion on this chapter in its earliest form, and I am especially gratefiil to Steven Gross for his written comments. Likewise, the audience at the University of T oronto's Nature and Necessity Conference was extremdy hdpfiil, especially questions posed by or discussion with Donald Ainslie, Christia Mercer, Lisa Shapiro, Cadierine Wilson (who has also been very generous in sharing her own, forthcoming, work on Cavendish), and Susan James (with whom I also enjoyed inspiring conversation in London). Thanks to Leni Robmson for allowing me to read her wonderfiil work on Cavendish and More, to Michael Ryan at the University of Pennsylvania's Van Pelt Library for so thoûtfuUy sending me literature on Cavendish, to Tan Kok Chor for comments on a later version of this chapter, to Anna Cremaldi for her exacting eye in proofreading the final version, and to an anonymous referee of this volume for useful feedback. For more general discussion of Cavendish and early modem women philosophers in general, and for providing a model to emulate in so many ways, I am gratefiil to Eileen O'Neill. | {
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An EVOLUTIONARY METAPHYSICS of HUMAN ENHANCEMENT TECHNOLOGIES Edited by Valentin T.Cheshko \ Kharkiv, Ukraine, 2019 ˮWelcome to the Anthropoceneˮ. Slavoj Zizek (2010: 327) ˮThe constructing person and the world he constructs constitute a procedural unityˮ. Elena Knyazeva (2014) ˮIn our struggle against its own vulnerability, we create new vulnerabilities and thus transforming the world transform themselvesˮ. Mark Coeckelbergh (2013: 87) TABLE OF CONTENS Foreword V. T. Cheshko List of abbreviations INTRODUCTION. BIOTECHNOLOGY AND REHABILITATION OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. V. T. Cheshko Chapter 1. CONCEPTUAL FIELD, EVOLUTIONARY FOUNDATIONS AND IDEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE THEORY OF STABLE ADAPTIVE STRATEGY OF HOMO SAPIENS. V. T. Cheshko, V.I.Glazko Chapter 2. GENESIS OF STABLE ADAPTIVE STRATEGY OF HOMO SAPIENS.V. T. Cheshko, V.I.Glazko Chapter 3. EVOLUTION RISKS: NATURE, ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE. V. T. Cheshko, V.I.Glazko 3.1 Evolutionary load and evolutionary risk 3.2 Objective and subjective components of the evolutionary risk 3.3 Evolutionary effectiveness 3.4 Evolutionary correctness 3.5 Intraand intermodal co-evolutionary conflicts as a mechanism for generating evolutionary risk Chapter 4. EPISTEMOLOGICAL AND EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTIVE ASPECTS OF POST-ACADEMICIAN SCIENCE. V.T.Cheshko, V.I.Glazko Chapter 5. EVOLUTIONARY SEMANTICS OF TECHNOHUMANITARIAN BALANCE AND DEVELOPMENT OF RISKS (WEB-SOCIOLOGY OF HUMAN ENHANCEMENT). V.T.Cheshko, V.I.Glazko 5.1 Basic settings, features, and limitations of theoretical model 5.2 Structure of BHDT-complex 5.3 Prospects and risks of controlled evolution of human: the intentional structure of post-academician science 5.4 The thematic structure of theoretical science and the predisposition of mass culture on technology-driven evolution 5.5 Mental predisposition of perception attributes of humanization and dehumanization as a factor of the evolutionary risk gene technology 6 8 10 23 123 138 151 170 174 179 211 247 254 258 261 270 273 284 307 327 Chapter 6. CONCLUSION.EVOLUTION AS THE TECHNOLOGICAL REALIZATION OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN. V. T. Cheshko References 354 Foreword The monograph is an English, expanded and revised version of the book Cheshko, V. T., Ivanitskaya, L.V., & Glazko, V.I. (2018). Anthropocene. Philosophy of Biotechnology. Moscow, Course. The manuscript was completed by me on November 15, 2019. It is a study devoted to the development of the concept of a stable evolutionary human strategy as a unique phenomenon of global evolution. The name "An Evolutionary Metaphysics (Cheshko, 2012; Glazko et al., 2016). With equal rights, this study could be entitled "Biotechnology as a result and factor of the evolutionary processˮ. The choice in favor of used "The Evolutionary Metaphysics of Human Enhancement Technologiesˮ was made in accordance with the basic principle of modern post-academician and human-sized science, a classic example of which is biotechnology. The "Metaphysics of Evolution" and "Evolutionary Metaphysics" concepts are used in several ways in modern philosophical discourse. In any case, the values contain a logical or associative reference to the teleological nature of the evolutionary process (Hull, 1967, 1989; Apel, 1995; Faye, 2016; Dupre, 2017; Rose, 2018, etc). In our study, the "evolutionary metaphysics" serves to denote the thesis of the rationalization and technologization of global evolution and anthropogenesis, in particular. At the same time, the postulate of an open future remains relevant in relation to the results of the evolutionary process. The theory of evolution of complex, including the humans system and algorithm for its constructing are а synthesis of evolutionary epistemology, philosophical anthropology and concrete scientific empirical basis in modern science. ln other words, natural philosophy is regaining the status bar element theoretical science in the era of technology-driven evolution. The co-evolutionary concept of 3-modal stable evolutionary strategy of Homo sapiens is developed. The concept based оn the principle of evolutionary complementarity of anthropogenesis: value of evolutionary risk and evolutionary path of human evolution are defined bу descriptive (evolutionary efficiency) and creative-teleological (evolutionary correctness) parameters simultaneously, that cannot bе instrumental reduced to others ones. Resulting volume of both parameters define the vectors of blological, social, cultural and techno-rationalistic human evolution Ьу two gear mechanism genetic and cultural co-evolution and techno-humanitarian balance. The resultant each of them сап estimated Ьу the ratio of socio-psychological predispositions of humanization / dehumanization in mentality. Explanatory model and methodology of evaluation of creatively teleological evolutionary risk component of NBIC technological complex is proposed. Integral part of the model is evolutionary semantics (timevarying semantic code, the compliance of the blological, socio-cultural and techno-rationalist adaptive modules of human stable evolutionary strategy). It is seem necessary to make three clarifications. First, logical construct, "evolutionary metaphysics" contains an internal contradiction, because it unites two alternative explanatory models. "Metaphysics", as a subject, implies deducibility of the process from the initial general abstract principle, and, consequently, the outcome of the development of the object is uniquely determined by the initial conditions. Predicate, "evolutionary", means stochastic mechanism of realizing the same principle by memorizing and replicating random choices in all variants of the post-Darwin paradigm. In philosophy, random choice corresponds to the category of "free will" of a reasonable agent. In evolutionary theory, the same phenomenon is reflected in the concept of "covariant replication". Authors will attempt to synthesize both of these models in a single transdisciplinary theoretical framework. Secondly, the interpretation of the term "evolutionary (adaptive) strategyˮ is different from the classical definition. The difference is that the adaptive strategy in this context is equivalent to the survival, i.e. it includes the adaptation to the environment and the transformation (construction) of the medium in accordance with the objectives of survival. To emphasize this difference authors used verbal construction "adaptiveˮ (rather than "evolutionaryˮ) strategy as more adequate. In all other cases, the two terms may be regarded as synonymous. Thirdly, the initial two essays of this series were published in one book in 2012. Their main goal was the development of the logically consistent methodological concept of stable adaptive (evolutionary) strategy of hominines and the argumentation of its heuristic possibilities as a transdisciplinary scientific paradigm of modern anthropology. The task was to demonstrate the possibilities of the SESH concept in describing and explaining the evolutionary prospects for the interaction of social organization and technology (techno-humanitarian balance) and the associated biological and cultural mechanisms of the genesis of religion (gene-cultural co-evolution). In other words, it was related to the sphere of cultural and philosophical anthropology, i.e. to the axiological component of any theoretical constructions describing the behavior of self-organizing systems with human participation. In contrast, the present work is an attempt to introduce this concept into the sphere of biological anthropology and, consequently, its main goal is to demonstrate the possibility of verification of its main provisions by means of procedures developed by natural science, i.e. refers to the descriptive component of the same theoretical constructions. The result of this in the future should be methods for assessing, calculating and predicting the risk of loss of biological and cultural identity of a person, associated with a permanent and continuously deepening process of development of science and technology. V.T.Cheshko, DS, prof., Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. A professor of department of molecular biology and biotechnology, V.N. Karazin Kharkov National University, Ukraine List of abbreviations BHDT biologic-humanitarian disciplinary and technological complex SESH stable adaptive (evolutionary) strategy of hominines E evolutionary efficiency (inclusive adaptability) High Hume technology of control and enhancement of genetic, sociocultural and cognitive codes, allowing controlling the human biological and socio-cultural evolution, i.e. technologies of controlled evolution in application to Homo sapiens HN a complex of mental-psychological predispositions "human natureˮ HU complex of mental-psychological predispositions of "humanityˮ K evolutionary correctness NBIC Nano-bio-informational-cognitive technologies (technologies of driven evolution) WEIRD Western (transatlantic) version of socio-cultural type of technological civilization Wg adaptability of biological module (genome) of SESH evolving configuration Wc adaptability of socio-cultural module of SESH evolving configuration Wg adaptability of techno-rationalist module of SESH evolving configuration Introduction. Biotechnology and rehabilitation of natural philosophy Valentin T.Cheshko The words of the cult philosopher-postmodernist of modern Western civilization, handed down in the epigraph, intuitively perceived as spiced with obvious irony, if not derision. The way it is. Anthropocene – not formalized unit of geological time scale, the geological epoch, characterized by the transformation of human activity in the primary factor in determining the direction and flow patterns of geological processes. The famous line that ends with "The Divine Comedyˮ by Dante Alighieri (Dante Alighieri. La Divina Comedia. Paradiso, Canto XXXIII) ─ "Love that moves the sun and light (l'amor che move il sole el'a ltrestelle)" Creates emotionally charged image of sensual evolving universe, which can be considered a brand of Western (Atlantic) civilization of the last millennium. The fundamental principle of the image becomes the prime mover. Its substrate is based on the synthesis of reason and faith that together begets love, and, in turn, determines the trajectory and the final goal of evolution of the cosmos. Only the accents in this triad (Will ─ Reason ─ Love) are unstable and change in a regular way. In the era of Dante in Love Will carried through Reason. In the age of Enlightenment, impersonal, objective law was the basis of everything. This socio-cultural transformation has reached its peak in terms of Darwin's theory. As a result, the confidence of Dante into a classical Kantian antinomy: "Evolution (Law of Nature and Reason) versus the Divine Will (and Love) moves the sun and the lightˮ. As scientific and technological progress first fair was "Law and Mind driven by the sun and light" and then (with the advent of technology High Hume) ─"the Sun and light are driven by Laws of Nature and Willˮ. The scenario of the future course of evolution of the biosphere and man became a matter of personal choice and calculation. That is just the Divine Perfection in the interpretation of Alighieri hammered string quietly disappeared. However, the human mind and Love, as it is known, to err or not see obvious facts. The world has entered an era Anthropocene. Anthropocene is usually dated to the 17-th century – the formation of an industrial society. In more advanced interpretation of this data is moved to the beginning of the Neolithic revolution (Zalasiewicz et al.: 835-836). Thus, the concept of the noosphere and the Anthropocene are not equivalent. Noosphere implies a direct effect on the mind during the evolutionary process. Therefore, the noosphere chronologically is later stage Anthropocene. However, these significant differences between the two concepts are not exhausted. Offensive Noospheric era of thought of the author – Vladimir Vernadsky – diagnosed, so to speak, with the help of "socio-humanitarian syndrome"–a complex of symptoms related to the social and spiritual life (see: (Cheshko et al., 2011, 2015)). The latter include, for example, the elimination of war and the establishment of a world government, etc. The core and the backbone of the noosphere is a new feature of the mentality of human civilization, "the dictatorship of the Mind» as the root cause of the subsequent evolution. Thus, the origins of noospherization phenomenon lie in sphere of the ideal and are the responsibility of not only natural sciences but the humanities, too. In our previous works, we have already mentioned that the concept of the noosphere of Vernadsky in terms of the intellectual tradition has a "hybrid" origin. Equally, it was influenced by the ideas of Russian cosmists starting with Nikolai Fyodorov and theoretical understanding of accumulated empirical and scientific facts. Vernadsky and Tsiolkovsky in the youth influenced by Russian cosmism and managed to reduce some of their ideas to scientist research and technological-innovation program. They rationalized the concept of Nikolai Fyodorov and made it acceptable to the scientific and technological mentality. The idea of the Anthropocene was owned by Eugene Stormer, ecologist and Paul Crutzen, Nobel laureate in 2000 (Crutzen, 2002). (Crutzen, 2002). It completes the process of rationalization of the irrational concept that was originally seeking to overcome the hegemony of technocratic determinism. Offensive of Anthropocene – it is not abstract theoretical, let alone ideological and humanitarian problem. It is a matter of empirical verification, i.e. search criteria (symptoms) of a new geochronological period clearly established purely empirically. Management of the evolutionary process includes in the least the man himself as, simultaneously, the object and the subject of manipulation transformations. This gives to the term Anthropocene metaphorical sense by installing it in not free from extra-scientific terminology and emotionality metaphorical associative array, starting with Frankenstein and "Brave New World". This series has obvious signs anti-utopia; color negative perception of the image generated them. Since then, the sequence of diagnostics in a new era once again split into technological and natural science (changing composition of the atmosphere, the mass extinction of species, global warming); and humanistics and anthropology (ecological catastrophe, biogenetic reduction of human beings to the manipulated tools and general information and a digital control of our lives (Zizek, 2010: 327)). The first (natural sciences) series corresponds to a system of technological risks, and can be solved using algorithms established safety procedures. The second, socio-humanitarian series presented anthropological risk. At the end of both series have obvious destination intersection and merge evolutional existential risks. The notorious "human nature" (the substantial basis of human existence) was taken out of brackets into the equations of social and global evolution as a kind of world constant. It was invariant condition during the preceding three or four centuries of the existence of technological civilization and its rationally humanistic ideology. This operation is primarily focused individualism, as a resultant of the genesis of society interests and individual life projects of its members. In the post-Darwin era, it has been reduced to the establishment of the damping of the biological evolution of Homo sapiens and replacement anthropogenesis by socio-culture-genesis. This argumentum made logically consistent concept of human rights and consistent transformation of her naturalistic version (''natural law'') in a purely conventionalist doctrine. The basis of this macro-evolutionary and macro-social transformation of mentality is Kantian rationalistic revolution in the epistemological paradigm: the liberation of Reason from the shackles of its material Substantiality, i.e. from non-rational features of the own material substrate. Intellect was considered as a basic attribute of human substantiality; and was asserted about his inherent ability to transform subjective and objective reality in accordance with ideal image – a goal unrelated to this non-rational reality, too. After more than a century and a half, the desired goal of Teilhard de Chardin called the "Omega Point". The mind does not simply become the ruler of the reality, it becomes over it as a transcendental agent, programming and formats the evolution of the Universe. There were during the first half of the twentieth century two events – (1) the rediscovery of Mendel's laws and the establishment of chromosome theory and (2) the creation of models of DNA and decoding of the genetic code. These mental innovations have made a person by the object of manipulating information technology. They radically had transformed our understanding of the evolution and the universe and of our own nature, and had radically changed the structure of science itself, its social status and, finally, had led us to the threshold of "post-human future" intelligent life. These changes affected all aspects of human life – from the global environment to economic theory. In addition, it turned out that the new of spiritual priorities and guidelines evolutionary "rational model psychologically unrealistic" (Kahneman, 2003:1449). Specifically, it has the evolution of any self-organizing system involving human subjects. It is even more applicable to the evolution – biological, cultural, social – of the human (Homo sapiens). The reverse side of rationalization and technological development of the evolutionary process was the increase in the magnitude of risk as an integral attribute of human nature to the existential (global evolutionary) level (Beck, 1980; Bernstein, 1996; Proske, 2008; Cheshko. 2012 et al.). Existential risk, unlike all the others, has a fateful difference −its magnitude accumulates over time with each crisis and asymptotically tends to one (Turchin, 2008). As a result, either the ideological foundation or the very existence of a modern (technogenic) civilization turns out to be in the zone of next evolutionary singularity. The introduction to the mentality of the two concepts soon became the symbol brands of modern technological civilization. Transhumanism (J. Huxley, the end of the 1950s.) and, in addition, bioethics (Van R. Potter, 1960s.) are a symptom of the deep multi-dimensional reconstruction of the evolutionary landscape in which the socio-culture-genesis process takes place. As one researcher recently wrote, "We do not need to know a lot of human nature, we had to ethical concerns on changed human nature by biotechnology... The concept "human nature" must be related to something real world, if we want to have the moral reasons for this, but we are not necessarily at the same time be able to say exactly, what means "to be a man" " (Kaebnick, 2012). This dimly intuitionist anxiety in specific scientific research and empirical gets, because inevitably fragmentary confirmation. These arguments, however, violate a coherent hierarchy of deductive inferences linking limit abstract principles with individual fragments of human existence, and strengthening alarmist expectations of modern civilization. The mentality of Western civilization characterized by an explosive mixture of absolute individualism, technological strength and humanistic intentions of the human intellect, embodied in the declared Karl Popper (1992:53-54) ideology of "social engineering of partial solutions." In the age of genetic engineering technology and High Hume, this mixture threatens to blow up the line anthropogenesis by astrosphere of existential individual projects, which would mean the end of humanity as a certain integrity of intelligent beings. Because of the global constant, bracketing the equation socio-cultural genesis, the nature of man is transformed into a variable that could eliminate themselves the most. There are a believe in the power of the human mind to overcome the results of its own evolutionary history; the independence of the system of human values from the biological component of human beings; as well as in the absence of the inverse effect on the evolution of human culture of the genome of modern humans. All these predisposition of modern civilization have become increasingly difficult. Positions of philosophical and biological incarnations of anthropological science at this point seem almost mutually exclusive. Even Immanuel Kant argued that, man have gained intelligence, and as result found the ability and the duty to set goals, independent of the laws of nature, and thus moved from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom. Two hundred years later the cult American social philosopher Francis Fukuyama in his sensational turn of the century book "Our Posthuman Future" brought Kantian maxim that even thinking devils in hell will have to adhere to certain rules of morality (Fukuyama, 2004: 35). The obvious interpretation of this saying, the world of moral norms has a transcendent reality, not reducible to the physical reality, and, consequently, the evolutionary-biological ones. Fukuyama, with the interpretation, by the way, does not agree. As the antithesis, Kant and Fukuama strong argument sounded equally compelling considerations of contemporary Italian theoretician and economist Hugo Pagano. The categorical imperative of Immanuel Kant requires that a person belonged to humans is not the means of achieving of goal. It comes indirectly from the inherent human capacity for compassion and empathy, the possibility to put yourself mentally in the place of another human being (Pagano, 2013:52). Its human ability is the result of structural and functional organization of the higher parts of the brain of the hominines, provided the appropriate genetic programs and there in the course of biological evolution. These general philosophical, abstract and theoretical calculations, paradoxically, come to a particular legal practice. As demonstrated in some modern theoretical description of human neurogenesis, the formation of structural and functional organization of the higher parts of the brain and therefore the mental processes in the postnatal period have the so-called "second peak" synchronous with the period of puberty. Inherent in adolescence and early adulthood human plasticity and organization in stability of high brain regions is a manifestation of biological adaptation – a high level of intellectual abilities. The intellectual abilities, as we know, are associated with the process of cephalization (increase the volume and complexity of the structure of the brain), dilated during postnatal development of man up to two decades. However, this system is a biological adaptation entails adapting cultural and social ones – the need to adjust the application of legal rules (in practice double standards adjudication and execution), delayed on the age of the defendants. In the process of development of the human nervous system, a period is observed when an individual experiences an increase in the threshold for satisfying sensory hunger (striving for new sensations) and increased emotional excitability with a relatively low ability to rationally control of impulsive behavioral acts. It leads to a high dependence on the social environment, the propensity to engage in risk behavior, and soon. The social and socio-psychological characteristics of the age group correlated with the structural features of the prefrontal cortex. Correction of jurisprudence in the direction of increasing attention to the psycho-physiological ontogenetic factor is hard trends of Western legal culture, in particular the United States (Steinberg, 2013). The same mutual connotations underlie modern explanatory models of social and historical dynamics of traditional culture and modern society (Turchin et al., 2013). Technological and economic progress is a factor of demographic changes at the stage of demographic evolution as a result of the increase in the quality of life. The youth share of the population (as just mentioned, different high emotionality and activity) greatly increased. It in turn destabilizes the resistance of trends of social development and the stability of social order (Korotayev et al., 2005:288). Developmental dynamics features of the formation of the human nervous system is largely stem from cephalization, which, in turn, stimulated and stimulating socio-cultural genesis. Development of social intelligence as a condition for growth and complexity of the organization of competing societies brought the size of the brain beyond the morpho-physiological norm of prenatal period of gestation of a human being. So, stretched during childhood is predetermined by logic of the process of social development. Then, socio-cultural genesis not only determinate by the biological reaction rate and morpho-physiological limits of human possibilities but also adapted to it. This concept is recently called a "culture– behavior– brain–loop» model and is gaining an increasingly empirical justification (Han, 2017: 190). An obvious example in terms of social statics is the legal practice. From the perspective of social dynamics, such example would be the economic and political algorithms to ensure the stability of social development – without the turmoil and crises, or vice versa, exploiting social instability in the interests of certain social groups. Within this framework the biological (genetic) and the social (economic) models in the sociology and anthropology, turn out to be unacceptable, and based on logical errors simplifications. Therefore, on the one hand, the biological, socio-cultural and ratiotechnological factors are included in the fabric of modern theories and technologies of social and political control and manipulation. On the other hand –the basic philosophical and ideological systems of modern civilization formed mainly in the 17-18 centuries and are experiencing ever-increasing and destabilizing risk-taking pressure from the scientific theories and technological realities. Therefore, we are in a complex interlacing of the conceptual fields of axiology (the theory of values) and epistemology (the theory of knowledge). Let us consider the biotechnological problems in this social and epistemological foreshortening. Natural philosophy and theoretical natural science in classical epistemology, i.e. since the days of L. Wittgeshtein and Karl Popper were considered as antagonists, whose paradigms form incompatible logical constructs and whose methodological principles of constructing explanatory models are incompatible: (1) natural philosophy describes this world as a result of the realization of a certain personified rationalistic project (in theological interpretation − "Intellectual Design"); (2) Positivistic and post-positivist epistemology describes the Universe because of the actions of the objectified impersonal laws of Nature ("Evolutionˮ). In other words, "Evolution versus Reasonable Design" is the basic philosophical antinomy of the theory of cognition of the modern era, and Evolution clearly prevailed in the classical science the first member of this logical opposition. At the same time, classical theoretical science, due to the peculiarities of its conceptual and terminological apparatus and the accepted criteria of validity and reliability, was aimed at finding precisely the "naturalˮ causes of the phenomena and processes that not have an intellectual nature. The researcher did not feel satisfied until he excluded the existence of the Creator (not necessarily transcendental, simply a being with the Reason and the intention to transform his own habitat) as the cause of the observed facts. That is why all attempts to find evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations prove to be ineffective. The logical incompatibility of both paradigmatic concepts stems from the incompatibility of their projective intentions: the first concept (Reasonable Design) is focused on getting an answer to the question "What for? For what purpose? ", i.e. from the goal-setting causality of Aristotle; the second concept (Laws of Nature) as the foundation of reality presupposes the effective causal determination (ˮHow? "). In other words, in the first case, the basis of the conceptual framework is the goal-setting intent realized through the categorical subjectively-projective categorical opposition "Good" versus "Evil", in the second − the instrumental intention realized through the objectively descriptive opposition "Truth" versus "Delusion ". Thus, both paradigmatic concepts are the basis of two independent discourses, equally necessary for the sustainable functioning of technological civilization. In the latter, the first type of discourse dominates in the designation of socially and individually significant activity goals of reality transformation (socio-cultural and sociopolitical public discourse); the second type prevails in the development of means (technique) and methods (technology) for the realization of these goals. In the "hybrid" zone (at the intersection of descriptive and axiological discourses), an activity-technological discourse is formed. Here the subjective goals of human intervention in reality and the objective methods of their attainment are weaved into the Gordian knot. Their demarcation in modern versions of human dimensional theories is possible only situationally. This is the content of the most radical difference between "post-academicianˮ scientific knowledge and its classical and nonclassical options. The triad of science-technology-axiology (it is a question of a person or a self-organizing (evolving) system that includes a person) forms "technoknowledgeˮ−an inseparable amalgam of logical arguments. This interpretation of the category "techno-knowledgeˮ differs from the canonical (actually the technical sciences in the general classification of sciences). It is a matter of fundamental changes in the organization of the social institute of science and the scientific ethos that ensures its functioning (Ziman, 2004:83; Pruzhinin, 2013:110), in the structure of scientific knowledge (Stepin, 2000:408) and in the methodology of scientific research (Gibbons et al., 1994:90; Nowotny, 2003: 179). For the industrial phase of the technological civilization development in its Western (Transatlantic) version, the trend is characterized by a clear demarcation of the conceptual fields of imperative-axiological public and descriptive-epistemological scientific discourses as a prerequisite for its sustainable development. This is the basic attribute of classical scientific rationality (the "principle of ethical neutrality of scientific knowledgeˮ) and the classical (industrial) phase of the development of technological civilization. They both are based on the Kant-Hume methodological dichotomy of "World of Properˮ (ethics) and "World of Entityˮ (cognition), at the same time. According to the modern sociologist and philosopher of science Bruno de Latour, "The two branches of power that Boyle and Hobbes develop each for their part, have power only if they are clearly separated from each other: the state of Hobbes is powerless without the science of technology, Science Boyle is powerless without a clear delimitation of the religious, scientific and political spheresˮ (Latour, 2006, 92). Everything changed with the transition of the technological civilization to the phase of the risk society and the symptom of this was bioethics as a social and epistemological phenomenon. The emergence of the phenomenon of bioethics at first as a social practice (from the mid-1960s) and then as a hybrid (ethic-epistemological) philosophical paradigm (Stepke, 2016) acted simultaneously as a precursor and precondition for civilizational transmutation − the transgression of technological civilization into the "information societyˮ phase. The latter does not accidentally have another name − a "risk societyˮ, since the NBIC technological complex is the technological schemes of controlled evolution of man and eco-social systems, where human is the central element. Along with the biological nucleus of the bioethics disciplinary matrix, the natural-philosophical matrix begins to form their conceptual fields coincide or overlap. A fundamentally important feature of this phenomenon is the clearly expressed trend of transdisciplinarity, the incorporation into it of new and new concepts and spheres of social life −the trend of social and epistemological evolution, noted recently not only by authors but also by many experts (Agazzi, 2015). Another statement, also supported by some experts, though rather as a statement of a concrete empirical fact, is the transformation of bioethics into a factor of evolution, at least, socioenvironment (Valles, 2015). Bioethics with a trail of associated conceptual fields (neuro-sociology, bioeconomics, biohistory, bio-politics, etc.) turned out to be not just the only rationalized regulator of the process of biological and socio-cultural evolution. The effect extends further to all areas of philosophical thought and social life, and becomes the subject of heated debate. Philosophical anthropology and bioethics are becoming the paradigm core of transdisciplinary science, defining the content of the concepts of Good, Evil, Permissible and Unacceptable in relation to the future fate of Man, Civilization and the Noosphere (Agamben, 1998; Kaebnick 2011; Lemke et al. 2011; McDermott, Hatemi, 2014; Stapleton, Byers, 2015; Ojakangas, 2016; Agazzi, 2017; Mills, 2017; Han, Shihui. 2017; Cheshko et al, 2016, 2018; Boyer, 2018; Cavanagh, 2018; Saage, 2018; Hofmann, 2019; etc, etc.). It became part of the methodology and theoretical foundation of natural science, forming an original inseparable amalgam of the concepts of humanitarian and scientific discourse (post-nonclassical or postacademician science). In fact, the nature of this phenomenon cannot be reduced to either ethics or science (biology), it is a social practice and a social institution designed to control the magnitude of the evolutionary and social risk of modern biotechnology. This is one of the main theses argued during this study. In the modern disciplinary matrix of the theory of evolution and systemic ecology (the "theory of designing an ecological nicheˮ) a single conceptual framework is formed, consisting of three independent theoretical constructs −eco-evo-ethics (Bergandi, 2013: 45, next). In the formal logical aspect, the two original members of this triad belong to the descriptive (scientific) discourse, and the latter (ethics) belongs to its socio-humanistic and therefore value antagonist. As a result, of the hybrid nature of this construct between the three autonomous modules and (due to the proliferation of the terminological apparatus into the interior of the module that does not belong to it) and within each module logical contradictions are inevitable. In the content aspect, the members of the complex described above refer to (1) The influence of modern technologies of controlled evolution on the system of ecological links between man and his environment (i.e., the medical and hygienic aspect of self-construction of human and humandimensional eco-systems (biotas); (2) Preserving the self-identity of a reasonable human in the course of any technological manipulation with its genetic code (i.e. evolutionary survival of the biological species Homo sapiens); and (3) the maintenance of the socio-cultural identity of human civilization (i.e., the basic "universal" value norms during the implementation of new technological schemes and their indirect or direct influence on the continuity of the socio-cultural tradition). In any case, such a transdisciplinary concept assumes, first, a projectiveaxiological intent. The initial component of the theory and practice of controlled evolution technologies is the ideal image of the future cultural and ecological niche and the "human" (the mind carrier with its inherent system of value priorities as its system-forming component), which we call the humanitarian paradigm nucleus. The descriptive paradigm nucleus acts as a diagnostic tool for discrepancies between the ideal future and reality. Applied genetic and socio-engineering developments are a means of eliminating these discrepancies (Cheshko et al., 2014, 2015). Ethical-epistemological hybrid logical constructs, by definition, can`t be regarded as fully equivalent to concepts based on epistemological (Truth / Delusion) or ethical (Good / Evil) binary oppositions. More adequate is the evolutionary opposition Adaptiveness / Maladaptivity. Adaptivity in this context is an integral indicator of the "successˮ of the integrity of individuals (in relation to man −the civilization type, humanity). It is empirically diagnosed by increasing the number of individuals who selfidentify their belonging to the population by the presence of basic invariant attributes. In its turn, in humans, a set of such attributes disintegrates genetically deterministic (ˮnaturalˮ) and socio-cultural (ˮartificialˮ) selfdeterminants. The system of value priorities specifies the parameters of the initial siting and the grid of rational / irrational perception of reality, goals and methods of transformational activity. In the information civilization, the central metaphor of modernity (ˮThe World is a Clock Mechanismˮ) was replaced by another one: "The Universe is a Computerˮ (Lloyd, 2006). Accordingly, the classical Aristotelian opposition Matter versus Form was transformed into an opposition Hard versus Soft. Rationality becomes the programming factor of the evolutionary process, building an ideal world of the future by means of the possibilities of material objects (Hard) and in accordance with the a priori intelligent plan-program (Soft). In the disciplinary matrix of bioethics, its axiological core reinterprets facts relating to biological knowledge solely as humanitarian problems and theoretical constructs that need to be solved − as ways to solve them or the limits of permissible application of the same methods. Naturally, hermeneutics in this case precedes epistemology not only methodologically, but also meaningfully. The paradox of the epistemological situation is that the definition of the content of the categories "naturalˮ and "artificialˮ and, accordingly, the definition of the boundaries of our intervention in the natural evolutionary process in application to man is the prerogative not of natural science, but of philosophy and metaphysics. Thus, natural philosophy becomes the meta-theoretical core of the modern theory of anthropogenesis and the conceptual basis of biotechnology. In other words, natural philosophy takes on the status of a basis for the theory of evolution − explicitly, in contrast to the classical attempt of evolutionary synthesis of the XIX-XX centuries (classical and neoDarwinian paradigms). This means that bioethics turns out to be a modern version of natural philosophy and, perhaps, metaphysics in the era of biotechnology and genomics. In the conception an elements of public descriptive scientific discourses merge in the form of an indivisible amalgam, although not without internal logical contradictions. Biotechnology as the most developed technology of controlled evolution becomes the mechanism of the evolutionary process and rehabilitates natural philosophy as an explanatory model of scientific theory. CHAPTER 1. CONCEPTUAL FIELD, EVOLUTIONARY FOUNDATIONS AND IDEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE THEORY OF STABLE ADAPTIVE STRATEGY OF HOMO SAPIENS Valentin T.Cheshko, Valery I.Glazko Any explanation of the above-described phenomena in sociohumanitarian and natural science in planes very quickly brings researchers to the problems that in one way or another connected with the underlying mechanisms of the evolutionary process in general, and with the evolution of intelligent life in particular. Evolutionary-anthropological theorizing always oscillates between the two poles – the Scylla of a biological reductionism and Charybdis of a sociological reductionism. Despite the intentions of the authors of the various natural or natural-philosophical interpretations of socio-culture-anthropogenesis up their reflections on the substantial foundations of human existence ultimately directed to one of these alternatives. In this study, we try to offer third logically consistent solution – the theory of stable adaptive strategy Homo sapiens (SESH) that, in turn, in accordance to the original working hypothesis should serve as Prolegomena to a new conceptual model of the evolutionary risk NBIC-technological complex. The formation of a holistic concept of stable adaptive (evolutionary) strategies humanity has a key, even globally crucial importance. In any way, without claiming to establish a complete theoretical construction, we would like to express the own views on the preliminary starting point of the search. Evolutionary success of Homo achieve through a purposeful transformation of the environmental niche in accordance with the needs of survival and reproduction. The supporting element of this algorithm is ahead reflection of reality based on ideal images in the human psyche. "The means of providingˮ is the hyper-socialness peculiar to hominines and the equally super-cooperativeness of the actions of certain members of the social group in achieving the general group goal (survival). However, this speaks only as a prerequisite for the development of the concept. The initial premise of this concept is the postulate of the co-evolutionary nature of the human essence, consisting of several autonomous, but conjugate modules, ensuring our evolutionary success (Jablonka, Lamb, 2005). The total number of such modules is three (biological, socio-cultural and techno-rational). The basis for selecting a separate module is the availability of its own system of generation, coding, replication, realization and fixing of adaptively relevant information. That is why the epigenetic component of the adaptive evolution is included in the biological module as a subsystem, and not isolated in a special module, since it is also based on one coding system − genetic. The co-adaptive and conjugate-evolving inter-modular relations of the socio-cultural and techno-rationalistic modules with the initial (biological) analogue and with each other boil down to the effects of supplementing, replacing and enhancing the adaptive functions of the elements of the latter. These relations are not static, but procedural, i.e. are realized in the process of evolution and do not arise discretely. However, first, it is necessary to introduce a terminological specification of the concept of "riskˮ from the point of view of the theory of evolution and, the theory of anthropogenesis in particular. This specification will be philosophical ones, if necessary. According to the generally accepted definition, risk is an indicator determined (Flaus, 2013; Hansson. Zalta, 2014; Banks. 2015; Gardoni et al., 2016: 1-7) as a product of the probability of adverse events (Pr) that may occur as a result of certain actions or their absence from relative damage by some vital parameters R = Pr(Eopt −Er) Eopt . (2.1) Here Eopt is the initial value of the parameter at risk; and Er is the value of the parameter after the onset of an adverse event (i.e., the actualization of the risk). In practice, the value of the effective risk is calculated as the ratio of the number of adverse events N over time t; Q is the number of objects exposed to the risk factor f – R = N(t)/Q(f) (2.2) Accordingly, if the emphasis is on the likelihood of damage, the risk should be compared with reliability. If the initial parameter is taken action or inaction, leading to the occurrence of risk, the latter is opposed to the danger. (The risk arises as a result of a certain act; the danger is spontaneous, due to the impossibility of active actions). In his time, Niklas Luhmann (Luhmann, 1993: 5-7, Luhmann, 1994) identified the dilemma of "riskˮ versus "dangerˮ in comparison with the opposition of "riskˮ and "reliabilityˮ as the most heuristic philosophical antinomy. Indeed, the opposition of "danger" (as a spontaneous threat that has an objective external source to a person) and "risk" (as a by-product of purposeful human activity in transforming reality) most clearly reveals the basic attribute of the stable evolutionary strategy of Homo sapiens. The argumentum for this thesis is that the survival of humankind as a biological species consists in the transformation of reality (the habitat and its own body organization and psyche), and not in the reactive adaptive change in the physiological-somatic basis. This conclusion leads us to the thesis about the need for a general theory of SESH creation. If we talk about risks generated by biotechnologies and other varieties of the NBIC-technological complex, it is very significant that they are divided into three components a priori: (1) Biological component, associated with the invasion of foreign genetic information; (2) Social (cultural, legal and political) component, caused by a violation of social stability and /or its ideological foundations, and (3) Evolutionary component, which leads to the loss by humanity of viability or self-identity. This aspect is reflected in the number of our publications on the problem (see: Glazko, Cheshko, 2007, 2009; Glazko, Cheshko et al., 2016). In recent decades, the enormous progress of new technologies in the study of ontogenesis and phylogeny has led researchers to biological reductionism; and awareness of the changes caused by the same humanitarian technological innovations and civilizational crisis leads to approaches of sociological reductionism. Their conflict is a serious challenge for humanity, consisting of the need to overcome the cognitive dissonance between the two components of the holistic nature of Homo sapiens, and created by technological civilization in their natural and social manifestations. At the same time, it is also a powerful risk-taking factor on existential significance level, fraught with the loss of self-identity of human intelligence, beauty and goodness as the supporting structure of human essence. There is the introduction to the book under the symptomatic title "Homo novus − humanity without illusionsˮ, that published in the series "Advanced Frontiers of Scienceˮ (Frey et al., 2010). The editors proclaim their aim to refute six myths rooted in the mentality of the Western (technogenic) civilization as the basic principles of its ideology and contradicted the totality of the data of anthropology and the theory of anthropogenesis (Homo novus, 2010: 1-2): 1. The human is a unique creature in the universe; 2. We depend on our evolutionary-biological history; 3. Biological laws do not determine the development of human society and the individual; 4. Biological past is not reflected in the content of our consciousness; 5. Morality, religion and culture are only social constructs; 6. We are free to moral choice. In order that these theses are illusions and myths we can agree, but with no less validity can be challenged and opposed opinions: 1. Man is a natural result of the laws of biological evolution in particular, the global process of evolution of the universe, in general; 2. We are dependent on our evolutionary-biological history; 3. Biological laws dictate the development of human society and the individual; 4. Biological past determines the content of our consciousness; 5. Morality, religion and culture are solely the result of biological evolution; 6. We are not free in their moral choices. If the first set of myths describes the basic postulates of the philosophical and cultural anthropological disciplinary matrix, the second set characterizes the disciplinary matrix of physical (biological) evolutionary anthropology. In addition, the validity of this conclusion follows from the internal logic of interpreting empirical observations and theoretical concepts in the study of humanities and natural scientists, regardless of the methodological declarations of their authors. We can say that the concept of humanity and human nature, whose content is determined by the said two sets of postulates-myths steel supporting structures antinomy implicit knowledge in the natural sciences and humanistics as fields of theoretical science in general. At the intersection of the objective-scientific and public-ethical discourses the meta-theoretical generalization of both sets of myths leads to the antinomy of two misconceptions − "Naturalistic fallacy" ("Everything natural is equivalent to Good by definition'') versus "Moralistic fallacy" (''Every Evil must be recognized as unnatural by definition''). The antinomy presupposes the primacy of Knowledge (the World of Entity) or Values (the World of Proper) as the imperative criterion of Truth. Meanwhile, the rationalization and technological development of the evolution makes the relations between them a procedural unity. So, out of this antinomy of our understanding of ourselves is, in our opinion, in the postulate of co-evolutionary essence of human nature, consisting of several independent but related modules, providing our evolutionary success. Hence, an empirically established parallelism and coherence of historical reconstructions based on an analysis of the sociocultural, linguistic and genetic phylogeny arises. Such comparisons have been conducted by L. Cavalli-Sforza, since the 1980s (Cavalli-Sforza et al., 1994, 2014), and later became accepted methodological basis of the historical and evolutionary ethno-genetics. The source, based on the empirical data of anthropology postulate is a statement of the complex phenomenology of (socio-techno-culture) anthropogenesis. The emergence of anthropogenesis appears in unpredictable macro-significant results of micro-evolutionary deviations. (There is the famous metaphor of the "butterfly effectˮ from one of the fantastic stories of Ray Bradbury). This emergence of a new macromutation change occurs suddenly, on reaching a certain threshold of complexity, manifested in the appearance of a plurality of threshold micromutationsonsequently, we are dealing not simply with the evolution of man as a biological species, but with the evolution of some complex adaptive system, which has been given the name Homo sapiens. This process is now in the singularity zone, transition through a critical level of complexity. Biological and socio-cultural substrate foundation of rationalist human existence has ceased to be a constant in the world anthropic global evolution equation. As one of the well-known researchers, political scientists, Peter Hatemi said recently, in fact, co-evolution of the nature of the relationship of genetics and culture, "Biology and Genetics, of course very important, but their role is not fixed. We are forming a policy that creates evolutionˮ (McDermott R., Hatemi, 2014). Therefore, as result the juxtaposition of the two disciplinary matrices – biological reductionism (evolutionary anthropology) and sociological reductionism (culture anthropology), a new conceptual framework is empirically unverifiable ideological antinomy. A researcher and his coauthors in another paper referred to the proven, in their view, one-sided and incomplete of "paradigm of socializationˮ (Man Is, 2014:101, next). Therefore, the uniqueness of the human phenomenon is characteristic of a system arising out of the nonlinear interaction of biological and cultural adaptation modules of Homo sapiens. In addition, therefore, it is unpromising to look for a "key evolutionary factor" that initiated the process of anthropogenesis and that determines the evolutionary history, and the evolutionary success of humanity. The role of this factor plays a network of relationships between various factors of anthropogenesis. Such a network can be adequately interpreted in the framework of the macroscopic description of the evolution of hominines and the use of macro-parameters of such process. This macro-parameter can serve as a radical expansion of the adaptive data that generated and replicated mode of genetic inheritance. This idea is not unique. It is almost exactly same as, for example, the ideas of Kim Sterelny, the Australian philosopher and evolutionary scientist. He stated in his lectures given in Paris and dedicated to the memory of Jean Nicot, "In the evolutionary concept of the origin of man has been dominated by the search key innovation modules. It tried to show that the unique features of human life and mind emerge more or less inevitable, as a single critical adaptive innovation ... I am skeptical about all such notions of a certain magical moments (evolutionary history of man), a key innovation of the module; I guess instead, the existence of co-evolutionary, positive feedbacks are responsible for large-scale and rapid phenotypic divergence us and our closest animal relatives" (Sterelny, 2012: 13). As suggested by the author of the above quotation, a measure of the complexity of such a system of progressive inter-module communications is the growing number of adaptive information transmitted by extrabiological (extra-genetical) way. Research and description of the network structure between autonomous units encountered during adaptation genesis of hominines, are the subject of this essay. Self-organizing (evolving) systems are objects that contain a structure, acting as carriers spontaneously replicating and mutating the information necessary for the existence of these objects (a), and the operator providing the process of this information implementation (b). Within the framework of the theory, evolution is a process of change of information fragments into self-organizing objects. Adapting means any information internalizing fragments, whose presence in the system increases stability and replicability of the information contained therein. At the end of the 19th century, James Mark Bollduin first drew attention to the role of epigenetic inheritance as system shaping factor in cultural form of human evolution. It consist not only biological signs, but also a set of social patterns of behavior, values and norms that were essentially passed from one generation to another, and have an equally strong influence on which direction of anthropogenesis will prevail ultimately (Baldwin effect (Baldwin, 1913, reprint 2001). According to modern scholars (Burman, 2013), in the same direction moved Piaget, based on their own sociohumanitarian positions. According to Piaget, the psyche of the child is formed in the course of successive transformations because of integration into the preexisting socio-cultural environment. The general idea of the concepts Baldwin and Piaget is the implicit concept of a self-sustaining cycle of co-evolutionary change: − GENOME – CULTURE − ENVIRONMENTAL NISHE −..., which are the basis for epigenetic transformation of the genetic program (Young, 2013). Obviously, one of the common time trends of evolution process, in general, and adaptation-genesis, in particular is multiplication of systems of generation (or induction), replication and translation (realization) of adaptive information, and accordingly, the multiplication types of such adaptations (Jablonka, Lamb, 2005, 2008; Mesoudi, 2011; Bonduriansky et al., 2012 et al.). Currently, there are, at least in relation to human and hominines such systems: genetic, epigenetic (in turn divided into subsystems methylation, complexation with histones, alternative splicing); cultural (behavioral), symbolic (natural and artificial languages). Etienne Danchin and Matteo Memeli, emphasizing the multidimensionality and poly-substantiality of inheritance information evolving objects, postulated the existence of the phenomenon, inclusive, (a common) inheritance as integrative result of the operation of all systems of heredity in the global process of evolution.(Mameli, 2004; Danchin, 2013). (E.Danchin and other statement (Danchin et al, 2011:484), that it is in the article of the Italian economist Matteo Memeli first formally identified the concept of "non-genetic inheritanceˮ, is equationted, in our view, in the abstract, and because – not correctly. It, incidentally, follows already from the desk review of sources cited in the article Memeli (Mameli, 2004: 3537). So to speak, the concept of "social heredity (inheritance)ˮ in this context is a "remakeˮ of the idea of the 1930s, occupying, for example, an honorable place in the creative legacy of the Russian-Soviet economist Nikolai Kondratyev (see Ivanitskaya et al, 2011). Contribution M.Memeli much more precisely equationted himself, designating as its main objective to show the "reality of relations between non-genetic form of inheritance and non-genetic form of natural selection. "We add, thus, the author associates non-genetic forms of heredity with the general process of adaptation-genesis (Richerson, Boyd, 2005:5) and the problem of organizing a stable adaptive strategy of humanity as a biological species). There is impossible to adaptively significant reduction heritable component of phenotypic variation in molecular genetic variations in the genome. This fact is the empirical basis for the confirmation of the reality of an inclusive system for generating and recording of information. The association of mononucleotide substitutions in the genome can explain no more than 5% of the inherited phenotypic variant, taking into account largescale (over 500 thousand) molecular genetic markers, according to E. Danshin and some other researchers, based on a meta-analysis, of a large number of publications (Zuk O. et al., 2012). The reality of inclusive, integrated in nature, inheritance, adaptive significant features is the real explanation of "phantom inheritanceˮ, and however, is not the only possible one. (This refers to the genome-wide study of statistical association with single nucleotide substitutions heritable phenotypic traits (Genome-Wide Associations Studies, GWAS). The structure of the genome (usually a sequence of nucleotides) certain carriers of hereditary traits and the control group of individuals compare. The method allows identifying a statistically significant correlation between the presences in the genome certain alleles or nucleotide sequences and the presence of a particular phenotypic trait (Bush, Moore, 2012). An important indicator is the ratio of synonymous nucleotides substitutions to not synonymous ones. Prevalence of not synonymous substitutions allows making an educated guess about the selective and, therefore, the adaptive significance of this locus (A Scan, 2005). Based on the data can to calculate the ratio GWAS the heritability trait by taking into account mononucleotide replacements and similar methods of molecular genomics, heritability, and the same feature set in classical genetics. Currently, the calculated values of this magnitude are significantly less than one (Zuk et al., 2012). The assumption of the important role of non-genetic forms of heredity in the formation of these symptoms is not the only possible explanation. An alternative hypothesis is related to the possible role of epistatic gene interactions are not considered in the GWAS technology). In the organization of the inclusive meta-information system of inheritance adaptive implemented in parallel two alternative evolutionary modes of generation, replication, and implementation of adaptive information – Darwin-Weismann modus and Lamarck modus. Darwin-Weismann modus is a stochastic ones, i.e. is not intended to rigidly determinate information structures and / or controlled by signs (a), an unspecified ones, i.e. is not adequate and does not correlate with changes in the external environment (b), not projective and not constructive, i.e. is not capable of directly (intentionally or not intentionally) change the adaptive landscape, in which the evolutionary process (c) and not recursive, i.e. cannot be changed except by re-stochastic events (d); the fixation rate of new adaptations is the higher, the smaller the population size (e); In the dissemination of the newly generated adaptations of horizontal transfer (diffusion contamination as a result of communication) is significantly inferior to its importance to the vertical, i.e., proper inheritance from ancestors to descendants (f). Modus based on the genetic code and provides a so-called Eigen` hypercycle (Eigen, Winkler, 1993) that is binary bonded nucleic acids and proteins with a rigid division of replication (DNA, RNA) and implementing adaptive data (proteins). The adaptive significance of information fragments acquired and recorded during the stochastic selection, not directly related to the generation of functional dependency information. Selection and Replication adaptive data in this case occurs only in a vertical direction. Modus in relatively pure form actualized in the course of biological evolution phase (biogenesis). Lamarck Modus is teleological ones, i.e. –aimed at certain information structures and / or controlled by signs (a), adequate and / or correlated ones with changes in the external environment (b), a projective-constructive ones, i.e. able to direct changes in the adaptive landscape and (cultural) ecological niche where there is an evolutionary process, moreover – to deliberate their reconstruction (c), and recursive ones, i.e. available correction in the course of (d); fixing the rate of new adaptations increases in parallel with the growth of the size and density of the population (e); In the dissemination of the newly generated adaptations of horizontal transfer (diffusion contamination as a result of communication) is comparable in its importance to the vertical transfer generation-to-generation (f). Modus is based on socio-cultural code and provides systems mimesis (cultural inheritance), and oral and / or written language (symbolic heredity). The adaptive significance of information fragments acquired and recorded simultaneously with the generation of information and direct functional relationship with the latter. Selection and Replication of adaptive data occurs in this case both in the vertical and horizontal (diffusion inside and outside simultaneously existing social communities of different rank) directions. Modus in relatively pure form actualized in the phase of social evolution (socio-cultural genesis). All the described differences between the two modes can be generalized by the following integral criterion. Darwin-Weismann Modus provides advanced multiplication of carriers number of adaptive information, Lamarck Modus aims to increase the lifespan of carriers of adaptive information. Consequently, the unit of evolution in the first case is a set of individuals (population), in the second case, the evolving unit becomes a social community as a discrete whole. To substantiate this conclusion, we used the conceptual-terminological apparatus life history theory in the interpretation of evolutionary psichology (Guidice et al., 2015: 88-91). Fig.1.1 – The nomogram of action of Lamarck and Darwin-Weismann modes in relation to the application domain elements of SESH (explanation in the text) As shown in fig.1.1, coverage of three components of SESH overlaps. The areas of application of alternative modes of adaptation genesis overlap too, and Darwin-Weissman and Lamark modes succeed each other continually, but not discretely. In general, the Darwin-Weismann modus dominates on genetic, genomic and individual (organismic) adaptation genesis and it is reflected at the level of the evolution of social groups (group selection). Lamarck Modus begins to manifest itself at the level of individuals and its value progressively increases as one move from group to humankind. The final product of the functioning of human evolutionary strategy is the Human Adaptive Complex. It includes several distinctive life history features a late onset of reproduction, an extended period of vulnerability and dependence during infancy and childhood, and a long lifespan with extended post-reproductive life (menopause). This set of system-forming features is clearly contradictory within the concept of "adaptive valueˮ. This contradiction is an unconditional consequence of the parallel action of the three adaptive modules and the proof of the prevalence of co-evolutionary rather than directly communicative information links between modules. This contradiction arises from the switching of adaptive significance from individual adaptivity to its group analogue. Such switching of life strategies is differentiated in socio-cultural socio-cultural differentiation of adaptive meanings between civilizational types. It leads to a change in the adaptive status of the individual from the realization of individual fitness for the implementation of group adaptive advantage in the post-reproductive period of ontogenesis too. The fuzzy hierarchical system of adaptation genesis is result. This complex gives a higher chances of survival, but at the same time, is fraught with an increased likelihood of conflict between the adaptive elements have arisen due to the existence of different evolutionary modes. Individual (namely biological), group (social) and civilizational (global-evolutionary, inherent in humankind as a species) risk types are generated due to evolutionary conflicts between adaptations (evolutionary risks). The points of its application are the population of biological individuals, the social group and humanity, respectively. (In this interpretation, the "evolutionaryˮ risk is an attribute of a stable evolutionary strategy and an unavoidable form of risk for Homo sapiens) The formation of the Lamarck mode and the stable evolutionary strategy of Homo entailed a radical acceleration of the evolutionary process and, in particular, an adaptive global (beyond the biological process) evolution of Homo sapiens. According to the estimates of S.P. Kapitza if taken as the starting point 1.6∙106 years ago, the number of humankind at the time is 105. Then for 2000 years BC, it has reached 47∙106; by the beginning of AD, population reached 100∙106 as a minimum; by the end of the first millennium AD −275 ∙ 106; during the Napoleonic wars −835∙106, to the beginning of the last century −1.7∙107; and by 2025 will be approximately 7.9∙106 people (Kapitza, 2005:90). Thus, the ratio of our biological species with the environment is far from the equilibrium models and indicates an extremely rapid expansion of the evolutionary niche, i.e. the use of an everwidening set of resources to sustain life. Such an evolutionary trend (adaptive irradiation) is characteristic for macro-evolutionary processes, i.e. evolution of high rank taxa, however, it is observed within a single biological species. Below we will touch on the reasons and mechanisms of this stable evolutionary trend. Now we note that two integrative clusters of the characteristic parameters of the Lamarck Mode cause this kind of acceleration effect of adaptation genesis: Firstly, special mechanisms of adaptively significant innovations (a-d) at the intra-population and intra-group levels and, Secondly, the spread of adaptive innovations in the type of diffusion or contamination (e), whereby intergroup differences in the structure of communicative relationships acquire adaptive value (f). The first of these clusters is concretized as an intensification of the process of the emergence of technological and socio-cultural improvements; the second is realized as a differentiated ability of socio-cultural types for socially determined learning and mastering of these improvements (Henrich, 2016:296). Together, it means simultaneously: (1) the transition of the mechanisms of the evolutionary process to the level of competition between social groups according to the concept of multi-level selection (Traulsen, Nowak, 2006); and (2) transformation of adaptation of a biological species to habitat conditions to adaptation of habitat to biological species according to the concept of constructing a niche (Laland, 2002, Odling-Smee, 2003, 2009). (This thesis will be considered in the future.) The value of the second cluster turns out to be wider than the way in which adaptively relevant information is disseminated, however. (It is J.Henrich's (Henrich, 2016:296) "socially determined way of learningˮ). The communicative structure of a social group is formed and maintained by a certain ethos, and its core is a system of value priorities. The latter within the humanitarian conceptual field can be defined as elements of an ideal image of reality that preform the set generated by the first cluster. Within the humanitarian disciplines, there is the term "meaningˮ as an equivalent to this definition. This, in turn, means the divergence of the adaptive genetic mechanism into two components − selective and semantic. The second component can be called "semantic co-evolution" or "coevolutionary semiosis", which gives to the evolution of systems with a human dimension the teleological nature of movement toward a specific goal (that is the "Omega point" by Teilhard de Chardin). In addition, Lamarck's modus prevails at the group level of evolution and provides an advantage to the members of the group − all or most, albeit to varying degrees. In other words, individuals within the group are more adaptive in the conditions of a given socio-environment niche. Competitive advantage is given to those socio-cultural types that form a more adequate socio-environment for their members in association with other societies and at a sufficient level of its (niche) sustainability. This consideration turns out to be a logical argument, eliminating the discrepancy between the construction of niche and multi-level selection concepts. Those effects that, from the point of view of individual fitness, are described as the retransformation of the conditions of existence (the construction of the niche) at the group level are the result of competition and inter-group selection. It has an extremely important consequence from the point of view of the theory of evolutionary risk. The inevitability of generating evolutionary risk in the above mentioned SESH structure derived from an equation that describes the relationship between group (W) and individual adaptability (w) in systems combining selective inter-individual processes and inter-group levels (Gavrilets, 2015): Wi = (∑ wij 1 α⁄ 0 ) α , (2.1) where α is share of the group acts in the adaptive behavior of the individuals. Since the parameter α refers to the various level characteristics for individual and group adaptability, growth of group adaptability can be accompanied by a fall to a dangerous limit of some individual component. The famous aphorism about the army of suicide bombers, who are able to win the battle but not the war, is the Illustration. Of course, if the latter ones is carried out for quite a long time, but for the adaptive evolution of this condition is satisfied by definition. From what has been said, the principle of complementarity of both evolutionary modes follows: Darwin-Weissman modus is more inertial and reliable with vertical transfer of adaptive information in comparison with Lamarck's modus. Substrate basis of Darwin-Weissman modus (variance of genetic variability) is stored for a longer time and therefore provides a more sustained time trend after the elimination of selection factors. Lamarck Modus is at many orders more efficient in comparison with the DarwinWeissman modus in the process of horizontal transmission (more precisely to say – diffusion) of adaptive information. Thus, the optimal coevolutionary configurations are a combination of both modes, or stretched childhood that provides overlapping periods dissemination of cultural adaptations beyond one generation. The third factor that ensures the speed and reliability of the spread of adaptations is a socially controlled extension of the late stages of ontogenesis beyond the biologically justified norm. Caring for the elderly members of a social group makes them a natural biological "flash drivesˮ of adaptive information useful for the survival of the group. All three adaptive evolutionary solutions seen in hominines. Genetically (in the sense of origin), the most likely terms of the relationship model both modes seems genesis of Lamarck modus as results of autocorrelation spectra of adaptive significance and inherited / diffusing innovation over time a priori (see: Transformations of Lamarckism, 2011). The autocorrelation in the model is determinates by superposition of several autonomous parallel adaptive processes taking place at different levels of self-organizing systems. According to the generally accepted definition (Barton, 2014: 206) complex adaptive system is an evolving entity, characterized by a dynamic transformation of its organization in time and space. Its structure and composition is determined by a built-in mechanism for the transmission and processing of information, which allows adapting to varying external and internal conditions. In addition, we have to enter some teleological parameter, adaptive information organized and structured in the form of strategies. It is resulting from the terms of the behavioral repertoire of solving tasks of survival and auto-reproduction together with the rules of transition from one member of repertory set to another ones. We concluded that the central element of the explanatory model of anthropogenesis concept becomes stable adaptive (evolutionary) strategy. This hypothesis goes back to the evolutionary and epistemological constructions of Donald Campbell (1974), Karl Popper (2002) P. Thomson (1995). Here we did learned, another idea – the deep homology of essential processes of biological evolution, cognition and learning too. In general, the whole history of the formation of the classical (Mendel-Morgan), molecular-genetic and epigenetic paradigms do not contradict this interpretation. The earliest concrete scientific source that the authors were able to discover is the book of the Canadian ecologist and anthropologist of Soviet (Ukrainian) origin Valery Geist. In considering the relationship between human evolution, "life strategyˮ and ecology, the author equations a concept that can be interpreted as follows (Geist, 1979:22): 1. The ecological niche that has evolved during the evolution provides the maximum phenotypic expression of species differences; 2. The process of anthropogenesis is a successive change in life strategies1. Taking into account the results of the subsequent development of the evolutionary theory of anthropogenesis (as will be discussed below), it is necessary to supplement these statements with one more thesis: 3. Features of the mechanism of socio-cultural inheritance (cultural transmission) as one of the leading components of anthropogenesis, give to the latter a certain teleological character and end with the transition to the strategy of creating an artificial (culturally-ecological and culturallytechnological) habitat. Without going into a detailed analysis of the concept of Geist, we note the fact. The interpretation of the problem of anthropogenesis as an evolution of an evolutionary strategy makes it possible to move from the substantial explanatory model to the relativistic model, i.e. from the search for key features of the sapientation to the organization of mutual connotations between them. From contemporary sources are necessary to mention the monograph of Geoffrey Hodgson and Tornbern Knudsen "Darwin's Conjectureˮ in which the idea of superposition is associated with another concept. The authors postulate (Hodgson, 2010: 80) the need to distinguish each member from the binary bundle of autonomous functions of inherited information, 1Life strategy is a term that in V.Geist's interpretation is close in importance to the "stable evolutionary strategy") of our study. namely, replication of its carriers (replicator) and implementation (implementation) of this information itself (interactor). In fact, this autonomy enables the binary transmission mechanism of adaptively important information: replication by itself and by epigenetic contagion (infection). A further argument in this study will be based on these two principles as the basic postulates of the whole concept. Another concept that describes the evolution of human as a complex bundle of parallel co-evolutionary processes of biological and socio-cultural evolution is called hypothesis of socio-cognitive niche (Whiten, Erdal, 2012). This concept goes back to the ideas of the theory of niche construction, according to which epigenetic changes of adaptive genetic information change the conditions of its implementation, and therefore evolutionary landscape of selective processes. In the original version of the concept of anthropogenesis, three main system-forming factors of sapientation (so-called hominines triad) exist. More precisely one should speak of two triads – morphological set (bipedalism; hand tools able to manufacture; and highly brain – the neocortex and frontal lobes) and psychophysiological set (abstract thinking; the second signal system – the language; deliberate and purposeful labor activity). It is easy to notice that the first triad refers the biological component and the second triad is adjacent to the socio-cultural anthropogenesis. The concept of socio-cognitive niche expands the list of ligaments due to signs under common (genetic and socio-cultural) control. The main attributes of socio-cognitive niche, in this concept, are the ability to abstract thinking, empathy, language, cultural transmission, combined into a single adaptive complex and turns social group of its owners in the unit of group selection. As a result, (1) there is a gradual drift of the parameters of the ecological niche, have the opposite effect on the direction of adaptation genesis; (2) an additional cycle of co-evolutionary interactions "evolving environmental – evolutionary objects – evolutionary system of objectsˮ; (3) initiated the genesis of two parallel systems of generation and fixation of adaptive data (genetic and socio-cultural inheritance), and. therefore, – two autonomous "databaseˮ (Genome and Culture). In general, this configuration generates emergent evolutionary effect – the trend in the progressive change in the cultural and ecological environment as a direct result of adaptation genesis of Homo sapiens. We add, the prerequisite of an emergent cultural jump acts constructivism predisposition, i.e. directed outward desire to transform the surrounding reality, making it more comfortable for himself and his social group. In philosophy, this item is commonly referred to as the emergence of self-awareness, the separation of perception of reality on the "Iˮ and "Worldˮ. Even closer to the stated views of the concept presented in the monograph of the British sociologist Walter Runciman (2009). Like our own model, according to his ideas adaptive human evolution involves emitting biological, cultural and social components. The authors shaped these views independently. The difference also lies in the fact that from the point of view of Runciman all three components evolve exclusively in accordance with the mode of Darwin, that is, by selection. In addition, a third (social) component of adaptation genesis is heterogeneous, and can be attributed in part to cultural and partly to the rational-technological adaptations. More, we consider this issue below. We assume that (Cheshko, 2012, Cheshko et al., 2015) a. biological adaptations is encoded in the genome peculiarities of structural-functional organization of the individual that increase the probability of fixation and replication of fragments of genetic information which determine their appearance; b. cultural adaptation is behavioral stereotype prevalent in concrete social group as the result of imitation and communication between the individuals and increasing the probability of group survival and growth of number of commits and replication of fragments of information that determine their emergence by means of emotional and symbolic communication; c. rationalist or technological adaptation (innovation) is the material means and methods of purposeful and efficient conversion, cognitive-projective activity and pieces of information common for this social group as a result of symbolic communication between individuals through written and oral language, using natural and artificial languages and increasing the probability of group survival and growth of fixation and replication determining the appearance of their means and methods of transformation As applied to the technology we are talking about originally projective (deliberate and rationalist) form of adaptation genesis. Thus, concepts "adaptationˮ and "innovation' are interchangeable. On the other hand, the name "adaptation processˮ indicates the mode of implementation and "rationalistic adaptation" indicates the way of generating of this class adaptations. Therefore, both terms in the context of the study will be used interchangeably. Within the framework of the SESH concept, biological adaptations, cultural stereotypes and techno-rationalist innovations should be regarded as equivalent to the "evolutionary adaptationˮ, at least in functional terms as phenomena that evolved during evolution and increase the chances of their carriers to survive. If, for culture, the synonymy of biological adaptivity and culture is already quite widespread, then this point of view has only begun to spread with regard to technological innovation. It is characteristic that the identification of adaptation and technology arises in such areas as the theory of the origin of language and music, in which these phenomena are considered as a communicative technology or / and simultaneously as an adaptation facilitating situational and intergroup communication (Lawson, 2004; Huron, 2001; Killin, 2017 et al.). On the other hand, the name "technological adaptationsˮ refers to the way of realization, and rationalistic ones refers to the way of generation of this class of adaptations. Therefore, both terms in the context of this study will be used as equivalent. In our previous publications, the preference was given to the term "technological adaptationsˮ. Outside, coming into contact with other individuals, the stimulus generating act of the adaptive information (cases b, c), as far as can be judged, involves the induction of a specific sequence of epigenetic modifications caused selectively specific external stimulus. If the latter is the contact with a carrier of a certain type epigenetically modified trait, it is a heritable cultural adaptation. If this incentive is the result of the perception of a data message transmitted through artificial code, we are dealing with a rationalistic adaptation. One of the most difficult and controversial aspects of the concept of Homo sapiens adaptation genesis as a superposition of three autonomous units arises from the functional dependence of the integral adaptive effect of interdependence influences of all modules of the process adaptation genesis. In other words, the establishment of such a system involves initial coordination of all its modules. Thus, the use of tools as a means of group adapting (it is one of the key elements of the rationalist adaptive module now) provides simultaneous implementation of several prerequisites (Biro et al., 2012): 1. Reliable and correct integration of tool use in the human behavioral repertoire, including the existence of the trigger mechanism on / off patterns that provide such activities and its situational transformation; 2. . Adequate physiological and morphological organization (grasping hand, bipedalism, brain development); 3. Sufficient level and direction of cognitive mental processes to solve adaptive routine tasks in this way; 4. Synergistic pressure of environment and social structure to evolutionary success, achieved through using of the above-mentioned traits. From this list of conditions, 1 and 3 ones provide for the existence of biological and 2 and 4 – socio-cultural adaptive modules. Each of the three types of adaptations has its own substrate and substantial basis – the mechanism of heredity, i.e. generation, replication, implementation (translation) and selection of potential or actual adaptive information. At the same time, the functional organization of all three mechanisms of heredity from the standpoint of relations between their elementary functions includes the same elements (Lewis, Laland, 2012:2171): • Mutations (innovation) that are the appearance of qualitatively new features, imply the existence of a new fragment of heritable information; • Modifications that are quantitative parameters varying of existing signs with regard to the conditions of the information fragment translation; • Recombination that are combining several features in a single complex, while maintaining the specificity and integrity of their information coding fragments. Our conception is based on the classification scheme and the general model of the hierarchical organization of the mechanisms of inheritance described in the Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb monograph (Jablonka, Lamb, 2008). We have already mentioned it. From the analysis we excluded epigenetic inheritance, since it is due to genetic inheritance not only evolutionary, but also functionally, taking part only of biological form of adaptation genesis. The difference between genetic and cultural adaptive modes of obvious lies in the different ways of adaptive information replication – by biological and / or socio-cultural inheritance. The difference between the cultural and technological (rationalist) adaptive modules due not only and not so much to differences in the ways of replication (symbolic inheritance plays there, and there is quite important), but also in the nature of the relationship with the biological (genetic) component adaptation genesis. The chain of cultural behavioral transformations can be very long, but it always has a point of initiating biologically determined emotional response, and this substantial foundation supports the entire chain of socio-cultural adaptation. The final link in the chain can be virtually autonomous from this basis in the form and in the content, but the destruction of the biological substrate like trigger off the whole chain. Truism, social stress in a person "too easily turns into an animalˮ. This process hampered by secondary connotation between different branches of socio-culture-anthropogenesis, servants to stabilize cultural module as a whole. Fundamental important conclusion is that the addition of a third (rationalist) element in the original co-evolutionary genome-culture bunch was the latest in turns SESH in a triple helix – autonomous self-sustaining cycle generation of system complexity. This cycle is organized by type of evolutionary fractal. Let`s take a look at the main features of its constituent elements. The biological (actually genetic) mechanism of inheritance is basedon the Eigen hyper cycle and on mostly unambiguous clear relations of correspondence between the nucleotide and amino acid sequence in the molecules of biopolymers (the genetic code). The genesis of cultural adaptation is associated to characteristic to hominines (and not only them) capasity of empathy, mimesis (imitation of behavioral of other individuals and other species), and imprinting (fixation in the memory of emotive images that cause the implementation of a specific sequence of behavioral acts). This neuro-psychological complex may be transform into a sequence of verbal constructs (language) and thereby create new coding system of adaptively important information, and it is one of the most likely evolutionary trajectories of the genesis of art (Trimble, 2012:96). In other words, technogenesis as a form of adaptation mechanism implies cognitive (semantic or symbolic) code. Its special feature is the hegemony of an arbitrary system of correlative correspondence between thought-forms (interpretants) that are employee's promoters of adaptive significance of behavioral acts, and appropriate symbols. Therefore, the interpreters unite the mechanisms of the functioning of the sociocultural and rationalistic components of SESH. The difference between them is precisely in the arbitrary coding system of adaptive behavioral acts capable of altering the physical, social and mental reality, increasing or reducing the individual and / or group adaptability of their carriers. This is the process of "coevolutionary semiosis" as mechanism of evolution and socio-cultureanthropogenesis. This idea is not something entirely new (see Barbieri, 2007 et al.). Back in 1987, for example, in an article claiming that the basis for the uniqueness of human evolution is the ability to conceptually abstract from the situation of modeling of the actions necessary to achieve the objectives that have been correlated with fitness. The ability to create realities is called a "cognitive" niche in the language of the theory of knowledge (Tooby, DeVore, 1987: 2009). The above argument of specificity (not to say – unique) of SESH can be equationted as a postulate of the rationalization of adaptation genesis of Homo sapiens, as well as other hominines. The origin of rationalistic forms of adaptation genesis linked the emergence of another theoretical and methodological paradox, the question of the relationship between adaptability and validity of cognitive constructs. The emergence of this problem is connected with the second evolutionary dichotomy. As a result of the first dichotomy in the evolving reality became possible to allocate a bunch of co-evolution of the two self-organizing systems – ecological niche (environment, decisive phase of space trends of selection) and organisms. The latter is a self-organizing evolving systems using ecological niche as a resource to ensure its own existence (subject to selection). It was assumed that a result of information exchange between the members of this ligament is concordance of the organization evolving system and the parameters of the evolving environment. This correspondence provides an increase in the number of evolving systems – carriers of information. The appearance of adaptations some way connected with the cognitive processes (psyche) is equivalent to the creation of the new contour of information exchange – between a reality and its ideal image. If this image is adequate to reality, it is regarded as a "true" in the theory of knowledge and "adaptation" in the theory of evolution at the same time. The central postulate of Karl Popper's evolutionary epistemological concept is a thesis that sounds like this: "Every true (weaker reliable) concept is always adaptive information". However, the reverse thesis, "all the adaptive information is trueˮ in general, is not always true (McKay, Dennett, 2009: 493). The selection criteria and the criteria of adaptability fit into a multidimensional adaptive (evolutionary) landscape. In this landscape adaptability is the projection onto time-survival of some set of factors including socio-cultural ones. A situation that the selection criteria based on axiological system of priorities will be biologically adaptive for several parameters and, not adaptive for others parameters, may arise. Meanwhile, for elements of mental life in general and for spiritual culture in particular, there is only one dimension, when the relations between two sets are uniquely defined the adequacy of reality (truth). However, socio-cultural types and their specific forms of ideology and worldview are numerous, and they are durable. In other words, it is not always the truth of adaptability and self-replicating elements of culture are identical or synonymous. There are special classes of cultural innovations that are adaptive and are not true. They named a "positive illusionsˮ or an "adaptive misbelieves" by McKay and Dennett (McKay, Dennett, 2009). The reason for their fixation during adaptation genesis is the regular adaptive changes observed because of their implementation. The positive effect was observed on the more important parameters of adaptive misbelieves; overlapping maladaptive changes to the elements occupy lower positions in the adaptive priority. In other words, the integral balance of the adaptive error is positive, despite the fall in certain indicators of fitness. Mathematical modeling confirms this philosophical concept in the framework of game theory. Adaptability and truth cannot be considered coherent to each other values in a general form (Mark, Marion, Hoffman, 2010). In fact, in this respect, socio-cultural adaptive misbelieves quite similar to items subsystem biological adaptation. The modular principle of the structural organization of ontogenesis, not excludes, but assumes the appearance of conflicts between the individual functional elements of adaptation genesis – by virtue autonomy of the evolutionary origin. The conclusion applies to relations between elements of the same SESH module as well as module-to-module co-evolutionary functional and semantic relationships. On one side the conflict between individual self-replicating elements of the genome is a universal attribute of life (Burt, Trivers, 2006: 3). On other side genetic conflicts reflect local differences in male and female SESH (Kappeler et al., 2009) that in hominines are initiating element of social differentiation. Therefore, it reflects conflicts between the pools of biological and socio-cultural adaptations, too. The basis for fixing individual adaptations is their partial impact on the spread in the population of their carriers. For this reason, the selection of individual items within certain limits of SESH involves multidirectional evolutionary trends in multidimensional adaptive landscape. The same principle applies within each of the three main modules of SESH. Inside each of them, there is a sub-modular organization, which elements occur in parallel in the course of evolution. As applied to the biological type of adaptations, modular organization is justified by a set of experimental data on the simultaneous autonomous genesis of several systemic adaptive complexes of anthropogenesis features presented in the works of J.C.K. Wells, B.Crespi and others modern evolutionary anthropologists (Crespi, 2010; Wells, 2012; Applied Evolutionary, 2014). Value of "adaptive misbelievesˮ and the intra-genomic adaptive conflicts should decline, while the value of the system (inter-modular) conflict – increase in parallel to growth of the proportion of Rationalist (Lamarckian) module in the general process of mankind's adaptation genesis. Indeed, different kinds of adaptive technological innovation only with very large distortion can be compared with the "adaptive errorˮ. It is intuitively obvious, however, that the social and biological risks associated with the development and integration of high-tech innovations involve significant adjustment in the socio-cultural component of the adaptive complex. Consequently, at the level of meta-system adaptations manifestations of "adaptive illusionsˮ will be more important on frequency and scale effects. If we continue this line of reasoning, the validity of the thesis of adaptability certainly true concepts circulating in cultural tradition must be imposed limitation: it is valid only in the dynamic sense, as in this case, the adaptability largely determined by the system properties of the whole complex of social and cultural innovation. Knowing even true, destroying the already existing system of "adaptive misbelieves" can reduce the adaptability of the carrier – an individual or a social group. This item will also serve as the subject of analysis in the future. Difference between adaptability and truth of socio-cultural and rationalist concepts must be taken into account when determining the origin of religious belief mechanisms in both the bio-anthropological and philosophical-anthropological aspects. The rationale for this thesis is devoted to our previous publication (Cheshko, 2012:286-543). So, the mechanisms for the emergence of cultural adaptations and technological adaptive innovations are no longer clear among all three types of adaptations that ensure the survival and evolutionary progress of Homo sapiens. In general, it is impossible to say about any form of adaptation genesis (biological, sociocultural, and rationalistic) that there are no fundamental gaps in the theories explaining it. Even the following assumption looks not so much a scientific hypothesis as a natural philosophy, despite the fact that modern cognitive science, neurophysiology and evolutionary psychology provide us with a large array of experimental data, among which most confirm it, and there is none that is categorically incompatible with it. According to the hypothesis, there is a continuous series of transformations whose initiating point is the occurrence of a specific configuration of neural networks. They are the reasons for updating certain behavioral stereotypes and, at the same time, hypothetical emotional thought forms (definition, by necessity, rather vague) to ensure the stability of these stereotypes. These thought forms probably include a complex of emotional states in association with certain sensations, adequate to the external and internal environment. In any case, we accept that • Between the biological, socio-cultural and rationalistic forms of adaptation genesis, there are an evolutionary continuity and a certain transfer mechanism; • The same mechanism and continuity exist between the biological, socio-cultural and symbolic forms of inheritance that provide them; • This transmission mechanism has a co-evolutionary nature, i.e. implies the mutual agreement of autonomous in its origin series of adaptively significant features −socio-cultural and biological, for example; • A necessary condition for the emergence of such mechanism is the existence of processes of epigenetic modification of adaptive information, the flow of which is an object of external regulation by alternative systems of inheritance. For example, the main differences in the structure of the human genome and other primates are associated primarily with the non-coding sector of nucleotide sequences, which are supposedly mainly regulatory elements (enhancers, etc.) These elements can radically change the pattern of activity of structural genes, which leads to equally radical systemic changes in the phenotype, equivalent in its expression to mutations in the structural sector of the genome. The non-coding nucleotide sequences evolved during anthropogenesis with the greatest speed. For more details, this model of the molecular genetic processes of anthropogenesis is presented in (Many, 2013). In accordance with our hypothesis, the socio-cultural module of SESH reformats the distribution of the activity of individual elements of the biological module through epigenetic regulators to ensure the expression of its own (socio-cultural) adaptations. Next, we analyze the empirical and theoretical arguments in favor of this working hypothesis and conclusions in terms of methodology and technique of calculation and prediction of the amount of risk of NBIC-technological complex. ("NBIC-technological complex" we consider how the term identical terms "technology controlled evolution" and "High Hume".) Meynard Smith introduced to the academic community the concept of evolutionary stable strategy as species-specific set of modes of solves emerging problems of adaptation. The Maynard Smith concept is a special case of axiomatized game theory in general and the so-called "Nash equilibriumˮ in particular One of the most difficult problems of the modern theory of anthropogenesis is the origin and organization of the stable adaptive (evolutionary) strategy of hominids (SESH). The solution to this problem is all the more important that now we are approaching the point of regular global bifurcation of transition to controlled evolution phase, and the cause of latter is global evolutionary and ecological implications of a SESH. The initial methodological postulates of explanatory model-underlying hypothesis developed below, offered by N. Vavilov, V. Vernadsky J. Huxley at various times. N.I. Vavilov was authored metaphor "human directed evolutionˮ (Vavilov, 1966). The metaphor was the starting point, which semantic connotations gradually filled by verbal-logical constructs available for comparison with an array of empirical data and theoretical constructions of developed evolutionary and philosophical anthropology. Holistic "ideologyˮ (the original system of theoretical postulates) is the theoretical core of this concept. It is known as the triple helix model. The latter provides that a self-organized and able to progressive evolutionary development system include the structure of the three autonomous but interdependent (co-evolving) and overlapping elements. The generation of new adaptive information is carried out in these hybrid zones, where the interpenetration of autonomous social institutions takes place in parallel with the formation of the hybrid structures themselves. "Hybridˮ nature of the generator of new knowledge is reflected in the "hybridˮ structure of the theory itself – appears in its composition that we have previously designated as "ethical and epistemological hybrid constructsˮ. Each of the elements capable of autonomous adaptive evolutionary changes in a particular context, but in general, their evolutionary trajectory invariably tends to the point of stable equilibrium. Similarly, binary bundles of these elements oscillate around the equilibrium points described Volterra-Lotka equation. As a result of the superposition of three separate objects co-evolving as a team, where each part is associated with any other cycle forward and backward linkages generated different dynamic structure. In this case, in the phase space of the parameters of system complexity arises adaptive evolution curve (the "triple helixˮ), which is applied to the society and is known as the scientific and technological, and social and human progress (in spite of the ideological loading of the term, in which the authors give full aware). In terms of information theory, the Shannon, this process can be represented by the equation I(ABC) = H(A) + H(B) + H(C) − H(AB) − H(AC) − H(BC)H(ABC) (2.4) where I (ABC) – information generated by the interaction of individual members of the co-evolve triad (ABC – in this case, science and technology, state power and business, respectively), H – entropy of a single element and their interactions. Thus, there may be situations where the total entropy decreases (correspondingly increasing the amount of information). However, the reverse is also possible – additional feedback loop causes the destruction of at least one of the members of the triad, which ultimately becomes the general crisis – degradation socioinstitutional organizations. Such information interpretation nonlinear model of co-evolution (triple helix), developed in articles L.Ledersdorf and others since 2008 (Leydesdorff, Franse, 2009) and is valid to selforganized evolutionary complex system in general. The presence of a third element complicates the interaction of a binary co-evolving systems ligament and leads to an additional feedback loop, bearing either positive or negative. Accordingly, there are either the generation of the organized complexity of each element of the ternary system and itself as a kind of integrity, or their degradation (increase in total entropy). Therefore, stable adaptive strategy Homo sapiens includes original superposition of three main types of adaptations – biological, cultural and rationalistic. Functionally three components of SESH form a hierarchical system of information cycles. Each loop provides a consistent generation, replication, selection and fixation or elimination of adaptively significant information. However, in parallel there is a stochastic process of loss of information because of random replication errors. The tendency to reduce the amount of information is overcome because of further acts of generation. As stated by one of the founders of modern ecological paradigm Howard Odum from the point of view of thermodynamics, the above information cycle is more "profitableˮ in terms of energy (Odum, 2007: 224-237). In other words, adaptive data replication is associated with high-energy consumption, compared with its generation and selection at a time. Thus, SESH in this aspect can be seen as a hierarchy of three-member information cycles composed of biological, cultural and rationalist adaptation. The overlying loop acts as an "ecological niche" for the previous loop, filtering and transforming signals from the actual ecological environment and, thereby, stabilizing the evolutionarily more ancient information loop. Thus, the evolutionary cost of maintaining each component of SESH reduced, that appears in reduce the rate of evolution of the relevant components. (The rate of biological evolution of Homo sapiens, for example, is markedly reduced in comparison to the development of socio-cultural and rational technological components of anthropogenesis). The slowest evolving biological module defines the boundaries of the repertoire set of evolutionary transformations of the socio-cultural module, and the technorational module reformats the configuration of possible scenarios of sociocultural anthropogenesis towards expanding these boundaries. The thought is not new; see, for example, the recent publications-bestsellers of Yuval Noah Harari (Harari, 2015, 2016). The idea of a hierarchical organization of SESH borrowed from some publications of Thomas Abel (Abel, 2014:44). He apply it to the organization of culture exclusively. In accordance with his concept of culture (cultural adaptation to our terminology) is a hierarchy of information cycles described above. The author does not regard the problems of organization of biological adaptation, because of a multi-level process of realization of genetic information. However, judging by the currently available concepts of post-transcriptional and post-translational transform genetic information (epigenetic inheritance), it can be assumed that a similar hierarchical scheme of the adaptation genesis applies to biological components of SESH. Therefore, even without a detailed analysis of specific mechanisms technogenesis there are good arguments to suppose that SESH is a three-tier system of information adaptive cycles (bio-, culture-, technological). At the same time within each level sub-passages, ending a phase transition to the next elementary found. The border between the levels determined by the appearance of an alternative stand-alone module of generation – replication – selection – fixation of adaptive information. Thus, each of these subsystems is autonomous from the rest of the origin and way of implementation, but dependent on their functional significance and direction of the subsequent evolution. This feature can be stated as follows: for major evolutionary transformation trends, each subsystem (module) of the adaptive strategy depends on both the other two elements of the evolutionary landscape and, in turn, acts against them as part of the landscape. Therefore, • First, the landscape of evolution of hominines becomes significantly more multidimensional in comparison with the evolution of other biological taxa; • Secondly, the share of environmental factors in the evolution of human and including human (socio-) ecological systems generally declining; • Third, there is an imbalance in conjunction adaptive strategy – ecological environment periodically reaches a critical value and allowed environmental crisis. Since the outcome of such a crisis in each case is uncertain and includes changes in individual elements of the adaptive strategy, habitat, or a combination of them, such a point should be called an evolutionary singularity. As a result, the general vector and the specific trajectory of sociocultural anthropogenesis during the inter-singularity period of its development is less and less determined by ecological dynamics and becomes more and more spontaneous (intentional). In other words, the trajectory of anthropogenesis is increasingly determined by the nature and parameters of the internal organization of a stable evolutionary strategy, and not by stochastic or directed changes in the external environment. The Russian anthropologist A.A.Zubovcalls this phenomenon by term "adaptive inversionˮ (Zubov, 2011: 7), in our opinion successfully. In our own publications, without using this term, we wrote about the fact that man, unlike all other creatures, does not adapt to the environment, but adapts it to himself, more precisely, to the organization of his own biosocial substratum − the body and psychic organization. Adaptive inversion is necessary to be considered as a powerful system adaptation, the point of coincidence of the trajectories of biological, sociocultural and techno-rational evolution, ensuring the survival of Homo sapiens in the conditions of the evolutionary-ecological crisis. However, this premise of the subsequent evolutionary history has its opposite side. Mark Coeckelbergh, in one of his publications, asks, "Why, in fact, mass consciousness ("public opinion"), has quite extensive knowledge about the manifestations and potential risks of the global environmental crisis, but is limited in its practical activities to purely conservative and protective measures" (Coeckelbergh, 2015)? Without going into the analysis of the content of his research and the main provisions of the "non-romantic" (i.e., non-emotional-rationalistic) version of environmental ethics, developed by him as an alternative to this inconsistency, we note the following. Adaptive inversion has established itself, in our opinion, as a supporting structure of human evolutionary strategy, embodied and maintained as an irresistible cultural and psychological intention to transform reality. This intention, albeit in different ideological and cultural forms, is present in different types of civilization, but the most pronounced is in the transatlantic (ˮWesternˮ) variant of technological civilization. The latter circumstance is connected with the individualism inherent in this civilizational type. Therefore, the rejection from this intention and the replacement of the desire to slow down and introduce into the framework of an acceptable risk the transformation of our environment by something less radical, seems incompatible with "human nature". In principle, these arguments have become trivial for the neo-Darwinian ("syntheticˮ) theory of evolution. However, in recent decades, they have been revised within the framework of the new epigenetic disciplinary matrix. Hypothetically, it may be offered an evolutionary algorithm that can lead and probably led to the genesis of adaptive inversion. A priori possible to postulate the existence of three different mechanisms of generation and fixation of adaptive information: 1. Random statistical information frequency drift of population fragments; 2. Stochastic process of the emergence of new fragments (mutation) in combination with selective reproduction (selection); 3. Purposeful design based on rationalist outlook of the future. During most of the biological and socio-cultural evolutionary phases of human history dominated by the first and second mechanisms (Chudek, Henrich, 2011: 221). A radical change occurred as the internal law of cultural genesis. First, we note that behavioral (proto-cultural) adaptations can ensure strict compliance of behavioral stereotypes with a specific set of environmental factors, and in this case, a narrow range of response rate characterizes this kind of adaptive innovation. The relative constancy of the parameters of a new ecological niche is the condition for the effectiveness of such adaptation. An alternative is the generation of a complex, highly plastic behavioral stereotype with a broadband plastic response rate. Such a stereotype may have the potential to change over time in accordance with changes in the external environment. This type of adaptation is effective in the regularly changing cyclically or directionally ecological niche. Consequently, this property can be interpreted as the ability to predict the future environmental situation. However, if there are largely stochastic or too fast changes in the ecological niche, proto-cultural adaptations of the second type can acquire a property that should be called "creativity". This property of the human psyche is evolutionarily associated with the social way of life of hominines and non-biological ways of maintaining functional differentiation within the group, if the biological individuality of its members is preserved. It is clear that within the framework of the social community of hominines, each individual knows (is able to know) all that other members of the group know. This postulate is called the "theory of mind" (Dubyaga, Meshcheryakov, 2010). The presence of a common pool of knowledge implies the ability of the individual to be included in the overall communicative structure of the group and the ability to modify actively it. As far as can be judged, it was the emergence of social intelligence in primates that served as the starting point for the development of Reason, if by the latter we understand the ability to predict and purposefully manage our own ecological niche. The first segment of the ecological niche that was accessible to individual control and manipulation was the structure of interindividual and inter-group communications, which then expanded to the process of "communicationˮ with other species and with reality in general. Therefore, the evolutionary strategy of hominines can be defined as a strategy for the acceleration and proliferation of co-evolutionary links with elements of the habitat. The latter, thus, is transformed into reality in the philosophical meaning of this term. The category reality implies, in particular, the emergence of methods of cognition as ways of creating ideal models of what happens outside the human psyche. It follows from the above that the original method of knowledge should have been hermeneutics, i.e. the ability to understand and predict the behavior of individuals based on empathy. This way of creating explanatory models is obviously the oldest, closely related to the social intelligence proper. The main element of the hermeneutic method is the binary bundle of cultural communication and innate emotional mimic stereotypes. The information about it is encoded in the so-called "mirror neuronsˮ of the associative zone of the parietal and temporal lobe of the cerebral hemispheres (Rizzolatti, Sinigallia, 2012), and acts as a supporting element in hermeneutic method. Their activity is induced both because of the performance of certain behavioral acts, and because of the observation of analogous acts committed by other individuals. In other words, the cognitive correspondence of the behavioral act and its ideal image is established. This gave rise to the discovery of these neurons by Italian neurophysiologists to consider these neurons as a material substratum of empathy and social intelligence (and, consequently, hermeneutics). For all the speculative nature of this hypothesis, it does not contradict the totality of the data of evolutionary anthropology and agrees with the last of them in time (Waal de, 2016; Sodian, 2016; Martin, Santos, 2016 et al.). Anticipating future changes in the environment and behavioral acts aimed at survival in new, yet unsuccessful conditions, merge into a single cognitive-activity link. The result of this association is a phase transition to the teleological formation of an ecological niche − at first spontaneous, then rational. To implement this (prognostic) adaptive function in the human psyche, there are several standard cognitive models − the algorithms for interpreting sensitive-empirical information (McKay, Dennett, 2009, with additions Cheshko, 2012). The reason for this phenomenon is the autonomy of the systems of genetic and socio-cultural inheritance and the different speed of their functioning. Therefore, the same biological element of this association corresponds to a certain set of cognitive elements (in this case, "cognitive algorithmsˮ) that are socially and culturally determined. As its integral attribute, the mechanism of generation of cognitive algorithms and adaptive conflicts is used. This is the formation of intermodule associations between its elements as a product of combining the cognitive mechanisms of neural modules designed to solve adaptively significant cognitive problems of various types. Among them, there are social intelligence as optimization of the communicative structure and physical intelligence as optimization of the ecological environment, biological reproduction, etc. The term "cognitive moduleˮ in accordance with the theory of modular organization of Reason, most fully developed by Peter Carruthers (Carruthers et al., 2005, 2007, 2008, 2015), denotes a set of cognitive mechanisms for solving certain types of adaptation problems. Each module is associated with certain loci of neural networks. It is clear that in the course of cognitive activity, algorithms for solving adaptive problems in one area, created within the framework of the functioning of one module, are transferred to another module. (This transfer is called the cognitive association). As a result, a set of cognitive algorithms for solving such problems is formed. Later, within the framework of the SESH technorationalistic module, these modules correspond to the cognitive modules as logical "explanatory modelsˮ of the theory of knowledge. A set of such algorithms includes the following types. Intentional algorithm based on the decoding of behavior of the object in accordance to the analogy of own behavior in the same specific situation. The behavior of an object (person, animal, artifact, etc.), is interpreted as a behavior of rational agent, i.e. its "choiceˮ of "actionˮ is guided by their "beliefsˮ and "desiresˮ. In simplified form, this algorithm provides for compliance with a few simple criteria of reliability of the forecast: Evaluation of reliability of the forecast corresponds to the following list of actual or potential underlying causes of behavioral acts or events (each successive member is less likely compared to the previous ones) artifact → volitional action → objective reason of a certain phenomenon, event or situation (1); It is assumed that inanimate objects have goals and intentions similar to the actions of the members of a social group (2); External factors (for example, the force of gravity) are regarded as the internal characteristics of the object, i.e., its attributes (3); The cause of motion or change is always some kind of action needs serving motive beginning of change. If such a motivator cannot be found, it is assumed that it is rooted in the internal needs of the object (4) (Homo Novus, 2010:233). Constructive (functional) algorithm considers a fragment of reality as an artifact created in order to implement certain specific functions in the implementation of the project or program. Magic algorithm is a combination of intentional and mechanical algorithms. On the one hand, the reality is the result of purposeful activity of transcendental rational agents, on the other – the agents themselves open to rationalist control and manipulation by rational action agent. The mechanistic component (scientific and technological innovation) of the algorithm provides psychological "substrateˮ for meaningful interpretations in the mass consciousness (Davis, 2008). In other words, the image of the discoverer of objective connection of fragments of reality merges and / or transformed in the image of the creator of this reality. In this case, a statement of the possibility or impossibility of achieving the desired state transforms to the willingness or unwillingness of the same state in conscious. In retrospect, the science is evolutionary homologous (derived from) to magic, as "effectiveˮ its variant. As he wrote in 20th century E. Garin (1986), "Magic is a practical activity that transforms nature, including the game of its lawsˮ. In the long term "Science" as social institution evolutionary increasingly uses its own cognitive codes of other social institutions. Science and technology in the structure of mentality increasingly overlap with magic (Jaspers, 1994: 370-371; Berdyaev, 1992:116). The objects of scientific research, including human-dimensional (genome, the psyche, and so on) ones, originally considered as an aim of technologized transformation; and the boundary between the "trueˮ science and "falseˮ magic again becoming illusory as in the Renaissance (Cheshko, 2012:384). Theistic (religious) algorithm (synthesis intentional and constructive ones) is considering all of reality as a whole as the embodiment of a certain initially selected program, its predictive component is so absolute and temporal and spatial aspects of what is empirically improvable but irrefutable (trivial), no was subject to immediate selection. An evolutionary algorithm is the result of combining constructive and physical algorithms and leader in this bundle is the last. In this way, the generated predictions are made available to direct selection for adaptability. Among all the anthropological hypotheses that have as their goal the explanation of the mechanisms of the emergence of spiritual culture and consciousness, at present, the most reasoned seems to be the concept that connects these phenomena with the development of social (macavelian) intelligence. This term refers to the ability to establish semantic communication with other individuals within their own social group, population, species and beyond (Smith, 2011). Its purpose is the anticipating behavioral acts of individuals that will be implemented in the future or to reconstruct actions committed by these individuals in the past in certain circumstances and, therefore, manage or manipulate them for own purposes (safety and reproductive success). The point of an evolutionary jump, i.e. the genesis of out biological cultural inheritance and, accordingly, of socio-cultural module of SESH, might formed by the gender selection in social groups. By assumption of S.Saveliev (2012: 35-40) the fiercest competition could arise in the area of the opportunity to enter into sexual-reproductive contact with the opposite sex under the conditions of a developed social organization of hominines i.e. a favorable ecological resource-rich ecological niche. In this case, communicative abilities become a means of achievement, and the morphological basis of adaptive advantage is the development of the forebrain, which in amphibians and reptiles had provided the hormonally emotional basis for sexual behavior, and then had served as the morphological foundation for the hominid neocortex (new cortex). The function of the latter are complex forms of social behavior and thinking, as is well known. Despite a certain share of shocking, this hypothesis is logical explains general trend of early stages of socio-culture-anthropogenesis −environmental degradation (replacement of tropical African forests to savanna due to climate aridity) established socio-cultural adaptation, based on a new diet and a new distribution of social roles between the sexes. It was starting the process of formation of a complex socio-cultural adaptation, leading eventually to the Neolithic revolution. It is obvious that the evolutionary association between social intelligence and the intentional algorithm is most easily formeed, if the intentional algorithm is interpreted in the framework of the theory of adaptation genesis. It can be seen as a progressive adaptation of the original, while the physical algorithm for forecast the future served as added, safety ones only. Machiavellian intelligence consists of two parallel proceedings cores – emotional and cognitive, according to the latest neuropsychological views (Shamay-Tsoory, 2011: 18). Apparently, it was an adaptation of the system, to initiate or support trail secondary adaptations that originally served as an enhancer of its predictive function, and subsequently more autonomized from his biosocial substrate. The empirical argument in favor of this hypothesis is the recent psychological research data. In accordance with them, a reading of fictional works improves test scores on the cognitive ability to adequately interpret individual emotional state and interpersonal social relations (Kidd, Castano, 2011). Fig. 1.2 – Hypothetical pattern of the evolutionary origin of adaptive inversion because of the evolution of adaptively prognostic cognitive algorithms. This conclusion seems trivial only for humanitarian knowledge and everyday consciousness. In philosophical studies, it serves as an initial premise, which is implemented implicitly or explicitly. However, this premise is a prerequisite for the reliability of logical constructions. It is a test of the reliability of logical constructions of the analysis of the phenomenon of consciousness and cognition. "We think of mental states, that is, desires, beliefs, images, etc., in other people, as well as in other physical objects; they are not given directly. This speculation is universal in nature for a certain type of situationˮ, the Russian philosopher V.Vasiliev (2009:15) writes. The paradox is that such "speculationˮ is initially able to rely solely on an introspective comparison with one's own mental-emotional (actual or potential) states. In other words, a person projects own spiritualistic (in humanitarian knowledge) or mental (in natural sciences) experience on the world around him. To adapt to this world, we must first become like him. For the natural sciences, this same premise is one of the first technologies that allow one to approach the objectification of the reflection of the evolutionary role of art (at least some of its aspects) in the theory of hominines adaptation. If this logical-empirical construction is not questioned by subsequent studies, there are extremely vague prospects for finding a bifurcation point in anthropogenesis that delineates the isolation of the complex of introverted social (religion and art) and extrovert environmental (science and technology) adaptations and SESH innovation. The general scheme for the evolution of the predictive cognitive function as a socio-cultural adaptation can be represented in the following form (fig. 1.2). As it can be assumed, the initial algorithm was an intentional algorithm for creating comprehensible models of behavior of other individuals within the social group and beyond it as the basis of makiavellist (social) intelligence in conjunction with the tool activity that creates the foundation for the formation of a constructive algorithm. Thus, the constructive algorithm was originally used as an auxiliary tool for understanding the behavior of other individuals. The need for survival stimulated the formation of the integration of the initial social groups of hominenes into the overgroup social formations and the differentiation of social roles within the group, initially on a gender basis. Finally, the increasing importance of the constructive algorithm in conjunction with the lability of nervous activity (psychotics) of our ancestors led to its spread to the completely objective world, which began to be viewed as a product of some super-natural agents. There was a theistic algorithm and, accordingly, the need for explanatory models of the behavior of these agents (Gods) for their own purposes. The traces of such a transition from theistic to magical and mechanistic algorithms were preserved in the sustainable intentions of the proto-technological civilization to understand and decipher the "divine projectˮ of the creation of the world, which through medievalism and the deistic philosophy of the early stages of the Modern Age came to modern science. In this interpretation, religion as an element of the socio-cultural adaptive module acted simultaneously as a stabilizer and controller of social communities of various levels (Cheshko, 2012) and as a bridge for the emergence of a techno-rationalistic module (Henrich, 2016). Thus, a new, synthetic algorithm was merged into a single system of constructive, intentional and mechanistic cognitive components of the psyche. This event can be regarded as phenomenon identical to "adaptive inversionˮ– socio-cultural adaptation that the genesis culminated in the phenomenon of technological civilization. In the first stage of this process, constructive algorithm associated with the intentional and functional ones and tool use in the "substrateˮ relationship incorporated or replaced mechanical algorithm as a cognitive mechanism for forecasting changes in reality. Then this role back to the original mechanistic algorithm, but the adaptive transformation of modes of behavior has been developing for a constructive pattern. In other words, a change of behavior in accordance with the predictable changes in the environment are replaced by changes in the environment respectively the new behavior patterns. The scheme as a whole brings us back to the triad of conjugate evolving elements that provide a progressive increase in the complexity of the "triple helixˮ system model. Thus, the general scheme of the conjugate evolution of biological (G) and socio-cultural elements of SESH is an alternation of direct (Ci → Ci + 1, Gi → Gi + 1), recursive (Ci + 1 → Gi) and inter-module (Gi → Ci) communication junctions of co-evolutionary process (fig.1.3). Fig. 1.3 The block diagram of gene-culture co-evolution and technohumanitarian balance. We now clarify in the proposed scheme. Certain conditions of each module SESH (Gi, Ci, Ti) is not a single adaptation, innovation, but a set of adaptive evolutionary solutions (ΣGni, ΣCni, ΣTni). Feature of adaptive evolution (evolutionary-adaptive window) of each such set is determined by its composition and structure of relations between its members and the patterns of inter-module connections. There are relations between pools of elements that make up each of the three modules SESH, and they consist in a restrictions placed upon each of them by the two remaining. There are relationships between a dynamic evolving techno-rationalist and socio-cultural modules and more conservative biological ones, and they have the substrate-substantial character. In other words, a set of genetically determinates and suported traits serves as material for the formation of socio-cultural adaptation. Reverse impact of socio-cultural and techno-rationalist biological adaptations is functional in nature. Adaptability or maladaptive appropriate biological trait is determined by its use as an element in the socio-cultural and techno-rationalist complexes. Possible areas for further evolution of each module can be represented as a certain set of potentially admissible trends of varying magnitude and direction. The value of the individual elementary evolution vectors is determined by interaction with other modules. It can be ranked in descending order to the supported, neutral, radical (repressive) and blockable (not allowed) ones. Thus, the potential implementation of a set of possible rationaltechnological innovation (techno-rational adaptive window) is limited to a subset of admissible ones under the current socio-cultural composition of the module. In other words, there are currently many social and cultural value priorities sets of limits on the development and implementation of new technological solutions, regardless of their adaptive value. In a metaphorical sense, the current moral predisposition determines not only the results of the implementation of new technologies, but also the possibility of their occurrence. However, new elements and enrichment pool of technological innovation, in turn, modifies the composition of the socio-cultural module so that those scientific and technological developments that were previously considered moral (cultural) unacceptable, go to the category of radical, but acceptable ones. The fate of traditional technologies, which in this case are close to the borders of socio-cultural determinate norms, can develop in two ways: • They are stored in the form of a kind of rudimentary within a narrow "technological and adaptive nicheˮ or saved as a "basisˮ because of its reliability in providing vital life-support functions (equivalent to an increase of volume technological module of SESH); or • They are no longer supported by the existing socio-cultural configuration of the module and are no longer in use. It is equivalent to the evolutionary "driftˮ – changing the composition of the pool of technological module of SESH. The first scenarios correspond to an increase of technological pool of SESH in the volume or complexity. Intuitively, it appears that the first possibility is realized more frequently and, therefore, the composition and structure of socio-cultural module expands and becomes more complicated as well. If all of the above translate into the language of ontology, "environmentˮ is split into "the world objectively existential (the World of Entity)ˮ and "projective ideal world (the world of proper)" and thus becomes a "realityˮ, as a result of adaptive inversion. Therefore, the binary opposition of the subject (the World of Proper) and the object (the World of Entity) is a distinctive feature of "reality" from the "environment". Traces of intentional-design algorithms ligament in the "evolutionary historyˮ of technological civilization are clearly seen in the philosophical and ideological traditions of deism 17-18 centuries. In principle, the same construction (fig. 1.3) is practically unchanged applicable to the second co-evolutionary combination of SESH – the techno-humanitarian balance. Under this model, the adaptive evolution of humanity is represented as oscillation of size and orientation relative to each other of three adaptive windows, while maintaining the integrity of the entire structure. Quantitatively, the evolutionary process is described as a projection of the areas of all three windows on three-dimensional coordinate system: BIOLOGICAL SURVIVAL – SOCIO-CULTURAL – COMPLEXITY – TECHNOLOGICAL POWER. Evolutionary risk is an equivalent to the progressive narrowing of the absolute and relative magnitude of at least one of the windows. At the same time, technological innovations have external contextual independence as the most important difference from their biological-genetic and socio-cultural counterparts. In other words, the adaptive effect of technological innovation does not depend on the ecological component of the socio-environment niche. However, the internal contextual dependence on the composition of the socio-cultural and biological module remains and in a number of cases increases. The reason is that the adaptive effect depends to a great extent on the capabilities of the biological substrate of their carrier and the sociocultural conditions for their realization. With the formation of the three-modular structure of SESH, the level of evolutionary risk substantially increases and the technogenic component takes on increasing importance in it. It, of course, is a purely speculative scheme, that, however, does not contradict the data of paleoanthropology and allows us to explain how the cognitive and transformative components of behavior gradually acquired such importance in anthropogenesis. Note that this process, which arose in the evolutionary history of humankind once, could not stop at the first stage. The first adaptive inversion spawned inversion of the second and third level. Adaptive inversion radically changes the criteria for selection of evolutionary innovations. The evolutionary success or failure of social and cultural, and then rationalist innovations determined by the dynamics of transformation of individual elements of the environment in the resource life support of an individuals and social groups. Adaptability of these innovations stem from the ability to transform the components of the environment into a source of life support and expand the number of carriers of the same innovations. Fig. 1.4 – The hierarchical pattern of g generation adaptive information in accordance with the model of the "triple helixˮ. From the point of view of evolutionary theory, there is a progressive multiplication of ecological niches accessible by Homo sapiens. Thus, biological nature of adaptive innovation carriers remains unchanged, at least – in the latter stages anthropogenesis. In other words, evolutionary divergence changes own nature, from genetic (biological speciation) it becomes socioeconomic ones; ecology gives way to economics. The dynamics of the process of fixing the socio-cultural and technological innovations (as the conversion of the latter into adaptation) clearly describes by the S-shaped curve. The initial linear increase in the number of carriers of arisen innovations in time gives way to an asymptotic approximation to the constant level, after that it becomes possible to progressive decline in innovations numbers. This form of the evolutionary curve is determined by two factors (O'Brien, Bentley, 2011). The first of them is entirely similar to population-genetic factor in the case of biological evolution: speed ratio of innovations generation and their distribution in the "populationˮ (society). The damping growth in the number of carriers in this case, there is a simple saturation effect (Bentley, O'Brien, 2012: 5). The second factor corresponds to environmental parameters is the capacity of newly established "ecologicalˮ niches potentially available for using volume of resources. In this case, the phase of the linear or exponential growth occurs when the amount of resources used by the potential well below the affordable volume. The transition to the phase of the logistic growth occurs when these values are comparable. Next, SESH included in hierarchically structured evolutionary fractal. Each fractal level is a system capable to generating adaptive complexity (fig.1.4). In this scheme, each level acts as a superstructure to the previous and provides the genesis of the most dynamic element overlying the triad. In the triad of civilizational level, rationalist adaptation is such element that ensures the functioning of the social level of the triad (more precisely, the level of social institutions). In the course of anthropogenesis, there are a permanent acceleration and an increase in the efficiency of the process of adaptation genesis because of an increase in the proportion of socio-cultural and technological adaptations. In other words, there is a gradual replacement of the Mode of Darwin-Weismann with the Mode of Lamarck, as being able to actualize the higher rates of evolution and / or adaptation genesis. From the point of view of the external observer, this process looks like the inhibition and stopping of the components of the adaptation evolutionary, determined by slower SESH modules, as a result of the action of more rapidly developing modules. In parallel to advent socio-cultural and then techno-rationalist form of adaptation genesis, there is a "virtualˮ braking and stopping of evolutionary transformations of the structure and composition of the genome, and subsequently, the unification of culture. Latter transform to mass culture. (As is known, unification of social organization and culture is the essence of the phenomenon of globalization.) In our model, the evolution of SESH, this impression is an illusion that does not correspond to the internal mechanisms of integral human evolution (socio-culture-anthropogenesis). Intra-modular conflicts between elementary adaptations previously overcome in the course of subsequent evolution. Now, with the emergence of three-modal SESH, they do not just "preservedˮ, but also supplemented by conflicts between modules. There are gaps and expand the network of functional connections between the individual adaptations within a given adaptive windows, which are perceived as growth of evolution load. "Fillingˮ of these gaps is sudden acceleration of internally module evolution: spontaneous, induced by socio-cultural module and then externally managed and determinated by techno-rationalistic module. External determination in this context means that adaptation genesis proceeds in accordance to characteristics of more rapidly evolving module. With reference to the biological evolution, "external determinationˮ means that it is carried out by technological innovation, not selection or genetic drift. Here the leading role in co-evolutionary bundle plays an element with a higher speed of (adaptation) evolution (1); separation autonomous system complexes of encoding-replication-generation-broadcasting of new adaptive information is precondition of existing of co-evolutionary triad (2) (Jantsch, 1985; Karpinskaya et al., 1995; Ogurtzov, 2011:154). In general, these two thesis adequately describe the basic characteristics of evolutionary systems of objects (or sequence of processes) that is HUMAN (biogenesis) – CULTURE AND SOCIETY (socio-cultural genesis) – TECHNOLOGY (technogenesis). The emergence of this system presumably happened at that stage of our evolutionary history, the essence of which comes down to the evolutionary divergence of phylogenetic lineages primates and hominines – direct human ancestors. There is a modern hypothetical explanation (cited in Markov, 2011) of driving forces and mechanisms of the passage of this stage. I tsynthesizes postulates explanatory models put forward in the 19th century by Friedrich Engels and Charles Darwin. Engels as a main sapientation factor (the emergence of modern human species) offers a collective labor activity (production and use of tools); and Darwin offers sex selection. A modern researcher O.Lavjoy believes that the change in the ecological situation has forced the ancient hominids living in the lower forest tier to switch to a new adaptive strategy. The latter was based on a clear distribution of social roles between the male sex (getting food) and the female sex (childbearing and nursing of children), and the behavioral mechanism of its implementation ("sex in exchange for food" subject to the stability of the parents). Indeed, as shown by current research, male sex shows a greater propensity for risk behavior and fosters this feature serves as an attractor for the female sexual activity. In other words, the tendency of males to risk behavioral acts have quite a strong positive incentive for women sexual choice; men, at least in the Western cultural type are more risk-oriented than women, and the latter focused on the more positive perception of the risk behavior of male (Greitemeyer, 2013:36). All these facts and conclusions are still within own biological evolution. Individual elements of the SESH were found among living organisms belonging to species that are very distant in a systematic respect. There were a relatively long period of childhood and lifestyle, which was based on garbage collection and / or hunting; and they were features of the adaptive landscape that contributed to the emergence of a new strategy. This contributed to the liberation of the forelimbs (to transporting food) and to manufacturing tools (initially – to break up prey, as well as hunting, defense and attack on the competitors). Another concomitant adaptation was the development of the language as a means of communication, ensuring overall success in obtaining food, and its neurophysiological basis. (Cephalization is increase in the relative size of the evolutionarily younger parts of the brain.) A number of other trends of hominines evolution changed too. There are reducing aggression within the social group, the weakening of the external manifestations of the reproductive cycle and the seasonality in the female, etc.among them. Thus, the initial behavioral adaptations over time more and more were based on not biological, but socio-cultural inheritance; and they led to a complex biological (morphological and physiological) adaptive traits. It is the so-called hominines triad: • A bipedalism – 6 million years ago; • A hand tools capable of manufacturing – 1.8 million years ago; • A highly developed brain (neocortex and frontal lobes) – 2.5-1.8 million years ago. On the other hand, the same behavioral adaptations initiated the development of tool use, which was later transformed into phenomenon that we now call technology and technological progress. The whole process of constituting the new adaptive strategy completed 25 thousand years ago. Since then, the further evolution of SESH becomes self-sustaining process of co-evolution of the genome, culture and technology, accompanied by a continuous and spontaneous increase in system complexity. Another, very important postulate of the disciplinary matrix of modern genetics and evolutionary theory flows because of the presence of several (at least two – genetic and socio-cultural) autonomous systems of generation, replication, and implementation of adaptive information. Along with natural selection of individual genetic determinants (genes) and organisms, essential role in the evolutionary process has the selection of social groups. The selection itself, in this case, has a multi-level hierarchical organization. There is a periodically growing and periodically calming debate between supporters of gene-centric and organism-centric methodological approaches to the interpretation of the concept of natural selection that began with the advent of Charles Darwin's "Origin of Speciesˮ in 1859 and the emergence of population genetics (S.Chetverikoff, S.Wright, Th.Dobrzhansky etc.). The essence of the disagreement comes down to whether you can be considered a single point of application of the selection of the genetic determinants (gene) or a single individual (organism). Accordingly, can the equation of the evolutionary process to reduce a change in gene frequency (gene-centrism, the most famous representative of this methodology is Richard Dawkins) or frequencies of the individual phenotypes (organismcentric, that brightest advocates at various times have been I.F.Shmalgauzen, M.Lerner, R.Levontin). Since the beginning of the 1960s, this dispute arouses additional caveat – group selection. In accordance with the hypothesis of group selection, expression of adaptability of definite social groups (Hamilton equation) has the form rb + be>c. Here r is the degree of relation between the subject of altruistic act and object of altruistic act; b is an evolutionary advantage of individual objects of altruistic behavior; be is total adaptive gain of the entire group, independent of the degree of relationship; c is individual damage of altruistic subject incurred by altruistic act. In accordance with the equation altruistic, aimed at the benefit of group behavior is genetically determined and consists of two components that aims at the immediate families and promotes altruism genes in the population (rb), and that does not depend from the genotype (be). The author, William Hamilton believes that the second term of the equation be = 0. In other words, any act of altruism can be reduced to the action of a single "predisposition to altruismˮ gene and the existence of human social behavior can easily be explained by a change in the relevant gene frequencies (Laland, 2002; Odling-Smee, 2003, 2009). As the term that designates this process, the "construction of nichesˮ is a modification of an evolving system (the organism, in this case) through metabolic products, behavioral acts − innate or acquired parameters of an ecological niche − not necessarily its own. Over time, this "epigenetic driftˮ and / or "epigenetic optimizationˮ of the original genotype changes the vector of natural selection and initiates the transition of the population to a new ecological niche. The evolution of organisms under the influence of natural selection contributes to an increase in their adaptation to the conditions of the external environment, and the evolution of the environment itself under the influence of organisms adapting to it, too. So, the evolution of environment and evolution of organisms become conjugately evolving bundle. Introducing the mechanism of adaptation genesis for this bundle, we thereby change the general conceptual model of the evolutionary process, complicating the scheme of cause-effect relations between its individual components. Determination of changes in the external environment and natural selection of the process of biological and behavioral adaptation is counterbalanced by the determination of new behavioral stereotypes (within the existing norm of the reaction of available genotypes), directions of selective pressure and environmental conditions. The described mechanism has recently been increasingly called environmental inheritance. It should, however, be taken into account that the construction of niches in this case is not connected with specific elements of replicating fragments of adaptive information. In the evolution of hominines, the significance and power of epigenetic transformations as a factor of evolution has passed a certain threshold value. The reason was the autonomy of the behavioral epigenetic transformation of the phenotype from the actual genetic (DNA-RNA-protein) mode of generation, replication, and fixation of adaptive information to the new, socio-cultural mode of implementation of the same set of functions of adaptation genesis. Unlike environmental inheritance, cultural heredity can be correlated with specific replicators − carriers of the corresponding adaptive / maladaptive information. The appearance of the new system of inheritance is associated with the occurrence of cumulative mechanism of behavioral adaptations in anthropogenesis by phenomenological way. Their numbers began to increase rapidly. As result the total amount of cultural and technological innovations that have adaptive significance, became more than can provide individual physiological capabilities of the human brain. Evolution of biological components of SESH lags behind rates of generation and fixing the socio-cultural innovation. In other words, the process of socio-cultural adaptation genesis is becoming so quick and successful, that becomes problem for next adaptive evolution. The solution to this evolutionary task is achieved through the separation of social and cultural components of adaptation genesis on an individual and group levels. In other words, the efficiency of exist pool of socio-cultural, and then rationalistic adaptations provided by social differentiation within the group and the transformation of communication structure to the economic structure. A single function of communication system to ensure the cooperative interaction between group members split into cooperation and exchange. The first function provides large-scale adaptations requiring the participation of the whole group, the second one brings together the results of highly specialized adaptations implemented by intragroup clusters of individuals. The scheme of fixing a consistent series of sociocultural adaptations no longer required conversion (replacement) of the previous socio-cultural adaptation to its genetic and biological analogue, as well as corresponding form of compulsory "genetic contextˮ (contrary to the requirements of the Baldwin effect) as a mandatory link. The role of such context, providing adaptability appropriate (cultural or technological) innovation, in some cases can take on elements of the same (cultural and rationalist) subsystems of SESH. In other words, a dynamic equilibrium mode of Darwin and Lamarck modus radically shifted towards Lamarck one. The existence of sociocultural inheritance creates the possibility of differentiating the functions of individuals within a social group. It opens the possibility of a significant intensification of the formation of supraindividual adaptations and competition between groups. A necessary condition for it is a system of information communication between group members. By the same logic, the existence of epigenetic inheritance – posttranslational modification, chromosomal and gene imprinting, and so on – leads to a higher adaptability of cells and multicellular organisms with relatively isolated genes or gene complexes. These two assumptions form the core of multilevel selection hypothesis, created as a result of cooperation of two American evolutionists with the same name – the founder of sociobiology, Edward Wilson and interested in the problems of evolutionary psychology of religion David Sloan Wilson. Because of this thesis, adaptability is an integral derivative of a few potentially divergent (genetic, organismic and group) acts of selection in parallel. Therefore, the frequency of individuals within a social group or cells within the body, providing a higher level of adaptability, can grow significantly faster than allowed Hamilton. As D.S. Wilson wrote several years earlier, selection of cultural types changes the parameters of the evolutionary process by increasing the potential of intergroup selection and reducing the potential of selection within a social group, compared to what one would expect if the mechanisms of evolution on the basis of proper genetic patterns (Wilson, 2002:34-35). In their joint article, David and Edward Wilson cited the famous rule of ethics (Wilson, 2007: 345), present as an initial, fundamental postulate in any culture and in one form or another, in any common religion. The Judaic interpretation (I century BC Rabbi Hillel) it reads: "Do unto others as you want to be done unto you. In this is the entire Torah, the rest is just a commentˮ. This dogma, in their view, could not become a species-specific characteristic of Homo sapiens exclusively due to biological mechanisms of generation and fixation of adaptive information, which are based on genetic and / or individual forms of natural selection (Wilson, 2007: 345: "Selfish beats altruism within the (social) groups. Altruistic groups supersede selfish groups. All the rest is commentaryˮ). There are a number of phenotypes that are within the structural complexity of the adaptive value of the higher brain regions and the corresponding set of genotypes that control this complexity, and both sets together formed during sapientation. Gradually multiple phenotypes in the evolutionary landscape shifted toward the maximum values of fitness. The accumulation of average values of complexity and lability of nervous and mental organization close to the maximum possible level of adaptive led to excision during sexual reproduction of genotypic variants beyond the adaptive norm. These limits are set adaptive balance between creativity and resistance to psycho-physiological stress. The duality of the cognitive mechanisms of the formation of behavioral stereotypes of man is no longer questioned not only in the natural sciences, but also in the socioeconomic and sociological methodological paradigms (Aronson, Pratkanis, 2003). Moreover, in the most radically oriented exploratory theoretical constructions of the market theory (neuroeconomics), this thesis is one of the fundamental initial postulates. The possibilities of effective progressive genetic adaptation as further complications of organization − the "social brainˮ and the growth of the number of social groups were exhausted, and the role of the leader shifted to the socio-cultural component of the adaptive strategy of Homo sapiens. In this case, the material of the new phase of the evolutionary process is socio-cultural types that were formed precisely based on extreme variants of genotypes and phenotypes near the fore mentioned border of adaptation and maladaptation. In this way, a mechanism for changing functions arises, and psychophysiological maladaptation / pathology is transformed into socio-cultural adaptations that increase the chances of survival of social groups by this way. As the Russian evolutionist and neuroscientist S. Saveliev wrote (2012: 29-30), "all the additional properties of the brain that are artificially overestimated in imitation-social associations of hominines are accidental consequences of biological adaptationsˮ. The next bifurcation point is the "change of the dominant goalˮ of sociocultural adaptation from the transformation of individual and group behavior in a changing habitat to a change in the environment itself, in accordance with the already existing system of behavioral stereotypes (genetically and socio-culturally generated and reproduced). The data of no longer physical, but actually cultural anthropology (in conjunction with evolutionary psychology and civilization theory) allows us to identify this second point of the fracture as the birth of technological civilization, i.e. approximately 17-18 century. Like the previous transformation − the transition of the role of the leader of the adaptation of hominines from the genetic (biological) to the sociocultural heredity, it required the achievement of a certain threshold value of the specific weight of the corresponding adaptation component in its integral meaning. The transition of this threshold in the process of bio-socioculture-genesis meant the replacement of spontaneous "construction of an environmental niche" by "ecological engineeringˮ inherent only in Homo sapiens (Laland, 2006: 306). The latter term denotes the already rational (purposeful) transformation of reality on the basis of the initial knowledge and the forecast of the future. Such a methodological intention is closer to the traditional paradigm of socio-humanitarian than natural sciences. This is the essence of the first adaptive inversion that occurred during the genesis of SESH. Outside the opposition, spontaneous / rational (Odling-Smee et al., 2010: 306), or, if you like, the antinomy "natural process versus intelligent design", the difference between these classes of evolutionary phenomena has no content. Overlay multiple processes of generation, replication and fixing of adaptive information and three systems of adaptations leads to the genesis of hierarchically organized structure of multi-level selection. Each adaptation genesis level functions as a modulator for underlying level and generator of substrate blocks for higher level. Integral adaptability is derived from the number of potentially divergent acts of selection in genetic, organismic and group its forms. Animated structure of generation-replication-fixing information is both a cause and a consequence of adaptation genesis, i.e. it forms a loop with positive feedback. A new level of adaptation genesis is built like epiboly over existing repertoire by extending the modulation of individual members of a set of adaptations / maladaptations. This set is used as a substrate for a set of emerging adaptive elements on upstream level. Therefore, the variation of elements of the underlying level fixing and expanding as a result of the formation of a new level of adaptation genesis system. "Attributionˮ of adaptations / maladaptations of the elements of the source level is controlling by next level of selection. Phenomenologically, it manifested in increasing the scale and speed of evolution "pseudo-driftˮ of the previous level and these changes are not adequate to meet the structural transformation of adaptive data underlying level. The "pseudo-driftˮ term used here because actually one level of adaptive selection projects on downstream levels own adaptive-evolutionary trends. Selectively neutral or even harmful elements of the biological module may be prerequisites for social and cultural adaptations, for example. The greater the functional distance between the levels, the more autonomous they are from each other, and it is to diagnose the connection between them more difficult. An observer inside the system perceives the situation of bifurcation in this case as an act of free choice (free will); and the outcome of the choice depends solely on formed his system of values. This perception can`t be destroyed as a result of uniquely identifying the mechanisms and causal relationships that have led to this situation and influencing its outcome, so far as may be possible to integrate new knowledge to the original system of values. Thus, epigenetic modulation of genetic information serves as a transfer mechanism for co-evolution of Darwin-Weismann modus and Lamarck modus, remaining themselves within the boundaries of the sphere of influence of the genetic code itself. The culture played until recently similar role of transfer mechanism from (techno)rationalist adaptations (innovation) to the biological (genetic in the biological sense of the term) adaptations. As can be assumed, a key role in the transfer mechanism between sociocultural and biological adaptations is played by positive and negative emotions and the so-called general adaptation syndrome (stress). Emotions are a trigger that is activated or inhibited by the magnitude of cognitive dissonance − the discrepancy between the real situation and the ideal pattern of the optimal situation that has formed in culture; and the result is a progressive intervention in reality by humans and under the influence of permanent transformations of ideal meanings given by culture. In this case, there is a clear shift towards a negative perception of the current reality. The manifestation of these discrepancies and perception of reality is the thought form of "progressˮ. It combines emotional-figurative and verbal-rational elements, and the stable state of living conditions, in contrast to the evolutionary strategies of other kinds of living beings that are not related to the genus Homo, serves as a source of negative emotions. Positive emotions are caused only by dynamics, constant movement to a certain ideal of what in this work is called a socio-(culture)-ecological niche. For techno-rationalistic adaptations (innovations), the analogous function of the transfer mechanism with respect to biological (genetic in the biological sense of the term) adaptations has been, until recently, the dominant system of value priorities. Specific examples and features of the functioning of both branches of the co-evolutionary transmission mechanism will be considered below. The autonomy of each of the three elements of a SESH led to different speed of operation cycle generation-replication-fixing adaptive information in each of them. Integrity of the system provides two co-evolutionary ligaments of its elements – gene-cultural co-evolution and techno-cultural balance. The general scheme in relation to adaptation genesis of hominines provides regular change of phases of adaptive plasticity and stability in the transition from the individual to the population-ontogenetic and phylogenetic levels of fixation of adaptive changes. As say in a recent paper (Kuzawa, Bragg, 2012), the original adaptive response to environmental challenges affecting primarily the structure, that call biological component of SESH, i.e. phenotypic modification homeostatic processes within the existing rules of the genetic response. By virtue of the latter, such adaptive changes are highly labile and easily reversed to its original state. (According to the authors, an increase in heart rate and blood volume observed in contact with a person in a high-altitude oxygen deficiency can serve as example.) If you have a long, beyond the lifetime of one generation ecological time-trend, the initial adaptive response, reducing the capacity of homeostatic systems of the organisms to further changes in living conditions, is replaced by more resilient adaptive transformations (in the above example – the increase in lung volume, etc.). While maintaining the trend of adapting the level become irreversible. In general, in the evolution of hominines (Shinobu Kitayama, Park, 2010), phenotypic plasticity "paves the wayˮ and contributes to the genetic (add – rationalist and socio-cultural) evolution in accordance with the following algorithm: (1) Population is introduced into new environment spatially or temporally; (2) Adaptive phenotypic plasticity provides a "fitˮ phenotype and the environment; (3) Changes in the genotype replace phenotypic modification, opening the way for the subsequent phylogenetic development. It should be noted that the described presentation actually repeated I.I.Shmalgauzen, M.Lerner et al. ideas expressed in 1940-1950 on a new empirical data and new theoretical context. If we extend this idea to other types of biological adaptations (metabolic, primarily), it takes the following form. Initial adaptive phenotypic and epigenetic transformation moving to the level of the socio-cultural component of SESH, and then initiate the technological innovations that are already causing secondary changes of ecological and cultural environment. Thus, the phenotypic plasticity of biological component of SESH unlike traditional neo-Darwinian point of view plays a role not brake, but the trigger mechanism and enhancer of macroand global evolutionary process. It also confirms the above conjecture that the biological components of the substrate serves as a basis for socio-, cultureand technogenesis. However, from our point of view, it is true the converse too. There is a back-and-recursive branch from the technological and socio-cultural innovations to biological ones. It is carried out by the same epigenetic gear. At this point, we are forced to move from the sphere of natural science in the field of humanistics (axiology). We need to find a correspondence between the phenomenological theory of the stable evolutionary strategy and the theory of values, because it is from the latter depends on the possibility of an evolutionary transition from the potential risk to the actual form and move it across the threshold of existential risk level. First, the system by definition relates to the field of culture, which actually detects and evaluates the difference between reality and ideal reflection. In philosophy, this discrepancy constituted in two ways – as a compliance / noncompliance between the ideal cognitive model (knowledge) and reality (the object of knowledge), and between reality (existence) and its conversion project (world proper). The first binary opposition is the content of a theory of truth, the second ones is the theory of values. Both are members of the projective-activity binary bundles, because knowledge is regarded as a tool for updating values. It is necessary, however, to determine the nature and composition of the "valuesˮ within the concept developed. In modern axiology it is accepted to allocate two alternative concepts that reflect some evolutionary dichotomy. In accordance with the naturalistic concept, activities intention determined by multidimensional space of the interests of individualized mental subjective reflections of objective parameters of the most favorable environmental objective reality. In terms of ontology, the World of Entity and the World of Proper associates by network of causal although not necessarily uniquely relations. Projective-activity system of intentions is determined by objective values in dating back to the writings of Immanuel Kant and David Hume transcendental concept. Thus, there is discrepancy between reality as it is and the world as it should be, and the last image (world as it should be) can`t be derived logically from the existence. As result, the values are inherent in the culture as a counterweight and antithesis of biological and economic factors of life. Suppose that the concept "interestsˮ (needs) and "valueˮ reflect the real alternative aspects of evolution of SESH, in general, and its cultural components, in particular. Then, with respect to the interests culture act as externalities caused genetic; and rationalist components and values act as internalities, cultural factors caused the definition of the optimal evolutionary scenarios. Interests and values are equally equivalent to term "selective factorsˮ in evolutionary theory, but correspond to different (ecological and cultural-spiritual) aspects of socio-ecological niches of Homo sapiens. In this concept, the system of value priorities and norms act as specific for each socio-cultural type, but overlapping in its content in all types of socio-cultural predispositions that affect the final evolutionary trajectory of socio-cultural-technological anthropogenesis. The interests and needs are reflected in the genesis and differentiation of social institutions, while the value providing internal integration mentality and continuity of cultural types. The continuity of cultural types implies that each subsequent member of the series can be inferred from the previous member by converting its elements. Value priorities, are, rather evolutionary settings that are specificated a particular socio-ecological niche of Homo sapiens. They define the period of existence of the taxon. Consequently, the continuity of cultural evolution or the survival of Homo sapiens is not inevitable. The problem, however, lies in the fact that the determination of the direction of evolutionary adaptive variability (interests → value or values → interests, culture → gene or gene → culture, etc.) are too ambivalent for unambiguous interpretation in theoretical and / or empirical verification. As recently wrote a well-known researcher of gene-cultural co-evolution A. Norenzayan, the first question that arises here is the following (Norenzayan, 2011: 1041): "What are the causal relationships between different variables (environmental, historical and psychological) and how do they interact? Determine whether the institutional structures of certain values and preferences of the individual? Or values and preferences lead to certain types of social institutions? Or is it both?ˮ The only thing that cannot be doubted: there is a phenomenological correlation between the phenomena of social heredity, biological heredity and socio-ecological environment, of course. At the same time, within the framework of this correlation, its adaptive nature is relatively unambiguous, partial or general. Rigidity or plasticity of socio-cultural standards and rigid or weak penalties for their violations, as recent extensive studies (33 ethno cultural types) have shown, clearly vary depending on ecological and sociohistorical history. Societies that have undergone or are currently exposed to stress factors of different nature (territorial or interethnic conflicts, resource shortages, epidemics, etc.), more strictly regulate the norms of social behavior and are more severely punished for their non-compliance. It is curious that both types of socio-cultural adaptations to ensure social stability are mobilized in this case simultaneously and in parallel: • A higher status and scale of influence of social institutions regulating these norms (determined by interests and needs) and • A higher level of self-control and greater intolerance towards dissidents. Thus, in the evolution of the socio-cultural component of SESH, selective factors have both an external and an internal nature that is actually reflected in the concepts of genetic-cultural co-evolution and the technohumanitarian balance. Even more interesting is that the importance of interval culturological factors is ambivalent in the formation of the techno-humanitarian balance as well as genetic-cultural co-evolution. It can catalyze and inhibit both the growth / decrease in overall adaptivity, and the growth / decrease in evolutionary risk. The general methodological conceptual analysis cannot have been completed in anything other than antinomic conclusions, precisely because of its abstract nature. Let us try, however, to consider this problem in an alternative positivistic aspect, so to speak. According to the ecological niche theory, this means that culture should be a powerful selective factor influencing the organization of biological adaptations. If this thesis is taken as the initial premise of a theoretical analysis, then the existence of a transmission mechanism by which culture influences the morpho-physiological constitution of a person and adapts the latter to itself. If so, a correlation between socio-cultural types and a variety of physiological, primarily neuropsychiatric patterns must exist. The Russian neuro-morphologist N. Saveliev goes even further. He suggests that these differences should be structurally morphological (interneuronal patterns of synaptic contacts), not functional-physiological ones, since the latters provides predisposition to absorption of certain social stereotypes. While such predispositions polymorphism in his opinion serves as material for very intense selective pressure, displacing the "classicalˮ Darwin's selection as the primary mechanism for the further evolution of human. This judgment can already serve as a verifiable judgment, making our arguments available to empirical verification. In this area in recent years, there are works that show that such correlation can indeed be detected. An interesting observation by the author of this study: the most direct empirical data on their interrelationship of cultural and biological differentiation, including those published in European and North American scientific journals, made by researchers of "eastern" origin (China, Japan) origin (see: Shinobu Kitayama, 2010: 111;Culture, 2010, etc). We can assume that we are dealing with the peculiarities of the particular techno-humanitarian balance. This refers to the effect of the programming of concept of the scientific research field by basic system of values and socio-cultural type of ideology and the mechanisms that will be described later. For Western researchers, belonging to the individualist-humanist cultural tradition, the judgment on the correlation between cultural diversity and neurophysiologic ones and (even more so) the genetic polymorphism is associated with significant disturbances in the system of value priorities; and such hypothesis is displaced to the borders of theoretically and empirically valid and the "politically correctˮ scientific research therefore. So, let us remember that, first, it will continue on hypothetical reasoning, based on a rather poor experimental base now, and secondly, the theoretical basis of this hypothesis is quite vulnerable in terms of the external (extrascientific) view criticism and ideological and political speculations. Nevertheless, the very existence of technologies for the manipulation and management of genetic, socio-cultural and cognitive codes (High Hume) makes prospects for such research inevitable epistemologically and in demand socially (Cheshko, 2009). Obviously, the initial phase of the transfer of the original socio-cultural adaptive pattern to the phenotypic modification of the adaptive response and then to the coding part of the genome presupposes the epigenetic transformations of the functional organization of mental processes and the structural organization of the brain. The influence of culture on brain activity is mediated by regular long-term participation of certain clusters of neural networks in the implementation of a specific set of cultural tasks that are behavioral scenarios intended to achieve "primary cultural value". Primary cultural values in this context determine the position of the individual in the system of intra-group social communication. in other words, serve for personal self-determination, consistent in the system of coordinating individual and group interests adopted in a given culture. Such a coordination system, firstly, provides a stable adaptive configuration of individual and group selection forms, and, secondly, is specific for different cultural types. So, in the Western socio-cultural type, the autonomy (independence) of the individual, and in the eastern (Chinese) cultural type − the integration (interdependence) of the individual into the system of social relations are the dominant elements. Activated of neural clusters (specific for the culture) provide cultural adaptations, allowing a person to organically fit into the performance of "cultural tasksˮ (Shinobu Kitayama, Park, 2010: 111; Chudek, Henrich, 2011: 221). This term refers to individual elements of the cultural tradition that perform discrete functions within a given socio-cultural type and, thereby, ensure the implementation of this system of value priorities. In a weaker form this judgment comes down to the determination of a system of value priorities together elements of cultural tradition, considered as a means of updating them. As such, this judgment seems more uncertain in a logical and more are realistic in the historical and empirical aspects. For carriers of Western culture activation of the medial prefrontal cortex areas of the brain and for the representatives of the Eastern, culture ventral area are diagnosed. Researchers associated with this functional divergence cross-cultural psychological characteristics: the intention of representatives of individualistic Western culture on positioning in the zone of personal psychological communication of individuals and the intention of oriental culture to the definition of communication space by socially determined personal limitations. This psychological difference defines behavioral and perceptions stereotypes that shape the relationship of the individual and society. Clustered differences of neural networks relate to communication structures linking neural domains, of course. Genetic reaction norm of transport and reception of neurotransmitters (serotonin, oxytocin, dopamine) separate neural networks, ensuring the development of emotional reactions changes are also. As is known, these neurotransmitters are involved, in particular, in the formation of social communication (Kuzawa, Bragg, 2012: The Evolution and, 2015; Culture, 2010). This anatomical structure of the brain remains constant. There are results of a study specific expression of individual structural units of the human genome in the brain during development of alcohol dependence that serve as indirect proof of the principal possibility of the existence of epigenetic transmission mechanism of socio-cultural influences on expressiveness of individual gene clusters. (Unless, of course, the postulate of a significant proportion of socio-cultural environment factors in incidence of alcoholism in the population is correct.) It is shown a decrease the activity of DNA methylation and, therefore, significant changes in the expression of functional gene clusters in the human brain because of regular intake of alcohol. These changes correlated with progressive alcohol dependence. Thus, per sonal behavioral traits do reflect on the specific patterns of gene expression and functional status of the local regions of neural networks. (The question of a possible deterministic nature of the relationship remains open.) In parallel, this hypothesis is reinforced by a line of arguments in cultural anthropology proper. One of the classics of evolutionary culturology, Leslie White defined culture as the ability to generate symbols that matter to their bearers (White, 2004: 22). In this conceptual and terminological space, symbols can also be defined as sensory complexes or their collections that activate differentiated genetically determined patterns of dynamic behavioral stereotypes. The latter must have adaptive significance, and the adaptive meaning of each behavioral pattern determines the fixation or elimination of the corresponding symbols in socio-cultural evolution. In other words, individual symbols or their complexes represent generated adaptively significant fragments of information that play the role of a transfer mechanism between genetic and socio-cultural inheritance. As we can see, the structure of explanatory models in biological and cultural anthropology surprisingly organically coincide, and able to fit into the performance of "cultural tasksˮ (Shinobu Kitayama, Park, 2010: 111; Chudek, Henrich, 2011: 221). Fig. 1.5. A block diagram of the transmission mechanism of the descending branch of genetic and cultural co-evolution. Culturally specific social norms serve, or can serve as an important selective factor in relation to the functional elements, and, possibly, structural organization of the genome. ˮSocio-ecological processes regulate the expression of human genes by activation of the central nervous system, which subsequently affect the activity of hormones and neurotransmitters in the peripheryˮ, – this hypothetical thesis expressed in publication on 2009 (Cole, 2009:133), over time is consistent with the increasingly numerous empirical data. Thus, a vicious co-evolutionary loop, and it is far from (biological or sociological) reductionist linear approximations. The authors of the cited studies (Shinobu Kitayama, Park, 2010: 111) it consider the following assumption to be quite reasonable. Members of polymorphic genetic series that are unevenly distributed in populations and are belonging to different socio-cultural types. They interact with a specific ecological and cultural environment. The result of this interaction is a single set of relevant cultural and psychological practices and psychological processes patterns and clusters of neural networks adequate to them. The organization of mental processes in the brain and the associated with them neural pathways are hidden behind cultural changes and form, possibly, a basic set of mechanisms for mutually influence of culture, ecology and genetics each other. This conclusion follows from the cited research (Shinobu Kitayama, Park, 2010: 125-126). Thus, the organization of each link of the transmission mechanism between socio-cultural and biological adaptations can be represented in the form of a parallel-sequential three-stage scheme that described here (fig. 1.5). Another variant of the transmission mechanism between culture and adaptability draws the Czech-Canadian research group (Chudek, Henrich, 2011). However, in terms of its basic system of organization, this scheme is similar to the above. There is also the same three-cascade co-evolutionary bundle; at this time it is the psychophysiological (individual), intraand intergroup communication components. The output of this co-evolutionary cascade of three parallel processes of adaptation genesis is, according to the authors' terminology, positive or negative "psychological standards". Positive norms are benchmarks that guide the activity of the group towards a common goal (functional analogue of directional selection). Negativerestrictive regulations, taboos and rituals of their support are implement the function of stabilizing selection in biological evolution. Under the scheme, the initial stage of gene-cultural co-evolution was presence of socio-cultural and environmental preconditions of the process. Rapid changes in the environment and group life and their means of software (biological pre-adaptation or exaptation) are among them. A process of accumulation and integration of specific cultural means of survival and inter-group competition is initiated because of the embryonic forms of social heredity. Latters can be considered as the beginnings of modern techniques and technologies – tools, construction of dwellings, and use of fire, livestock and crop production. All of this requires the formation of a specific environment to operate and maintain – a means of communication, psychological norms and mythological explanatory model. In his book "Bonobo and atheism: in search of the origins of humanity among primatesˮ famous evolutionary ethologist, F. de Waal defends the hypothesis that the mythology, religion, morality is a socio-cultural amplifiers of "pre-createdˮ by biological evolution behavioral patterns, whose impact on cumulative adaptability proved to be insufficient in the new circumstances. As a sequence of evolutionary phases of the functioning of the transmission mechanism between bioand culture evolution should be interpreted "morality precedes religionˮ, de Waal statement (Waal, 2013:5). This position shared by other proponents of evolutionary adaptability of religion (Norenzayan A., 2013) and is close to the authors (Glazko, 2013). But in our view, it is more correct to speak about the autonomy of social and cultural components of the original coadaptive ligament. This algorithm of the relationships between genome, culture and rationality can`t called reductionist ones. Rather, we are talking about the ascending branch of building a hierarchical, self-complicating system, which subsequently closes as a result of the downward flow of adaptive transformations from technology to genome. We see classic Hegelian (more precisely – a triple) helix rather than a linear inductive or deductive syllogistic structure. So, in the general system of complex cultural adaptations, new, verballogical elements are emerging and rapidly expanding. It constituted over time as mythology and religion. This element requires the development of relevant departments and structures of the brain and patterns of neural networks and their components as its substrate material. Functional differentiation of the cerebral hemispheres on the left, verbal and logical and right, emotionally-image hemispheres stimulating the development of socio-cultural component of human adaptation genesis (see: Cheshko, 2012). As we note, the "psychological normˮ remarkably correspond to "cultural problemsˮ of the previous model. Probably the difference between them is explained by different angles, under which all these phenomena are projected on abstract theoretical constructs of evolutionary theory – social and neurological in one case and socio-psychological in the second ones. Surprisingly, the socio-cultural adaptation and socio-cultural inheritance provides both: • High rate of generation and dissemination of cultural innovation as vertically (between generations), and horizontally (between the members of the social groups and between social groups); • Conservative and high resistance to destructive factors of sociocultural types over time, often regardless of the area and preserve the integrity of the communication structure. Examples of conservation of cultural self-identity in the diaspora are sufficiently numerous and for all diversity "actorsˮ very striking (Jews, Chinese, Gypsies, etc.). At the same time, socio-cultural and rationalist adaptation do not fully fit into preexisting systems of biological adaptation. An emerging differences between them varies in magnitude, but in general are permanently expanding, as noticed already on the 19 century by Friedrich Nietzsche. As a result, a problem of harmonization and integration into complete system components of SESH arises. On the one hand, epigenetic processes provide the substrate basis for sociocultural adaptations, serving them as building material suitable for transformation into cultural innovations. However, they also allow to culture to play the role of trigger reformatted genetic response from one mode of another in accordance to exist cultural and environmental context. Thus, between biological and socio-cultural level of adaptation genesis, a cycle positive and negative feedbacks (gene-culture co-evolution) arises. A similar system (the techno-humanitarian balance) arises between culture and technological innovation. In this case, the cultural inheritance, first, forms repertoire modules of socially demanded scientific and technological developments; second, changes the probability of spontaneous actualization of specific epigenetic module; and, thirdly, actually performs the individual selection of biological adaptation. The process is induced by culture selection of genetic information; and it is equivalent to the replacement of cultural adaptation by their biological counterparts. The autonomy of each of the three system-forming elements of the SESH entails different speed operations in different cycles of generation − replication −fixing of adaptive information. In particular, the socio-cultural component of the evolutionary process takes place at a much higher rate compared with the biological component. As a result, there are such elements of culture that do not correspond to the condition of an increase in the frequency of genes providing the greatest possible biological fitness; and they can be spread. The above argument is also valid for the other binary bundles of culturetechnology. In the context of significant reserves of resources that could be used as a means of survival, dominance of rationalist adaptation provides better survival of society appropriate types. However, technological innovations entail a mismatch between the behavioral patterns that have developed in the type of culture, and the terms of technologized environment. This imbalance is potentially more and more intensified and is transmitted further, to the peculiarities of the biological constitution, the genome clusters controlling them, etc. The peculiarities of this imbalance were analyzed at the beginning of the last century by famous RussianUkrainian-French biologist Ilya Mechnikov in his famous dilogy "Etudes of human natureˮ – "Etudes of optimismˮ: ˮThe human descended from some ape inherited an organization adapted to the conditions of life very different than those in which he has to live. Gifted with a much more developed brain than its ancestors of animals, people discovered a new way to the evolution of higher creatures. Such a rapid change in the nature has led to a variety of organic disharmonies which gave the more feel that people have become smarter and more sensitive. Hence – a whole string of misfortunes that poor humanity is trying to eliminate all the means available to him (Mechnikoff, 1988: 233). However, the source and mechanism of this imbalance had be presented as unambiguous and linear, and in linear model its individual manifestations are not interdependent and relatively easy to solve by technology: ˮMorality, therefore, should not be based on a perverted human nature what it is now, but on an ideal, i.e. such what it should be in the future. First of all, you should try to restore the proper evolution of human life, i.e., disharmony turn into harmony (orthobiosis)" (Mechnikoff, 1988: 236). Since that time, it becomes clear that the mechanism of adaptation genesis of Homo sapiens is constant, and that the occurrence and elimination of local imbalances is "internally integratedˮ into a stable adaptive strategy of our species. Consequently, the possibility of developing progressive loss of adaptability is imminent ones. The integrity of the organization of SESH should be considered in two time dimensions – evolutionarry (populational, social) and ontogenetic (individual). Let's start with the second (ontogenetic) aspect. Any information system must include an operator – a specific structure that implements and regulates the decoding process of stored and newly generated information. In relation to the genome, this system is represented by a set of processes for the implementation and epigenetic modification of the expression of genetic information. The system of direct and feedback interaction of cultures and genome comprises some elements. Firstly, there is the influence of ecological and cultural environment on the epigenetic processes and selection of genetic information. If the mechanism of cultural selection is obvious, the cultural effects of epigenetic information began to accumulate only in the last decades. For example, it is known that epigenetic modifications of parental behavior, diet, etc. can be transmitted to future generations (Shatalkin, 2009). Secondly, there are the mental processes and phenomena that contributes to the formation and spread of certain images, which can be converted to a different extent in the verbal and logical form. These images are in the form of intentions and predisposition to guide the development and channelizing of techno-rationalistic adaptations Let us turn to the evolutionary aspect of the integrity of SESH. It is saving from disintegration by embedded in her generalized mechanism of co-evolutionary interactions – gene-cultural co-evolution (E.Wilson, R.Doucins) and techno-cultural balance (John Naisbitt, A.Nazaretyan). The finished paradigmatic concept of techno-cultural (technohumanitarian) balance established at the turn of 20-21th centuries by Russian sociologists A.P.Nazaretyan (2013). However, prototypes of this idea have been expressed for many years as an alternative to the paradigm of technological determinism. (The author of this term is Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), an American sociologist.) The concept of technological determinism was particularly popular in the early twentieth century and had a marked effect on a certain part of the researchers belonging to the Marxist philosophical tradition. One of the most prominent Marxists who tried to introduce the concept in the conceptual framework of the Marxist version of sociological theory was Karl Kautsky (1910). Among other megatrends of the emerging information civilization, J.Naisbit pointed out the following. "The world moves towards dualism technical progress spiritual comfort, when each new technology is accompanied by a compensatory humanitarian reaction" (Naisbitt, 1984, 2013:8). The technical progress provides the coordination and harmonization of the binary bundles of biological and socio-cultural components of the integrated adaptation of Homo sapiens, the peace of mind provides the same role with respect to the culture and technology. The concept of co-evolution as a conjugate evolutionary development of biological (and not only) objects of varying degrees of complexity turned out to be applicable to phenomena of several levels of life organization, from molecular genetic structures2 to population and eco-systems3 and socio-genesis (Rodin, 1991). However, the genesis of the phenomenon of co-evolution associated with the formation of interdependent evolved systems. Direct exchange of information is impossible or at least difficult and rare between them. In this case, there is a mechanism for mutual adaptation of these systems and their integration into a new holistic unit. Such a mechanism is realized in the form of biological evolutionary process of natural selection. This co-evolution is a necessary condition of origin of holistic systems of various levels of complexity and of different nature, with their own specific forms of homeostasis. Such systems include genomes, eco-system biosphere, societies and so on. Recently, some researchers prefer a clarification to the theory of geneculture co-evolution to emphasize the leading role of cultural evolution in the binary sequence of "biological adaptation" – "socio-cultural adaptationˮ. To this end, they propose to use the concept of "culture-driven gene-cultural co-evolution" (Richerson, 2010). The authors of the modern version of the theory of "evolutionary niche construction" K.Laland and J. Odling-Smee reformulated this thesis in a stronger form (et al., 2010:137) – "cultural practices shaped the human genomeˮ. In their opinion, in perspective, gene-cultural co-evolution: 1. Provides opportunities for synthesizing the results obtained by human genetics and evolutionary theory, with data from anthropology and archeology; 2. Require the creation of new hypotheses; 3. Lead to a broader understanding of the human evolution ultimately. Thus, a bio-reductionist interpretation of the concept of gene-cultural co-evolution is removed. The latter initially replaced "genetic-cultural coevolution" with genetic reductionism in the understanding of both its 2 Evolution of coding and regulatory molecular genetic structures, during which the genome is formed as a concertedly acting set functionally differentiated genetic determinants 3 Interaction of a species that are members of the same the same eco-system supporters and almost all opponents. In fact, everything is much more complicated. Equally, and as incorrectly, we could say on cultural, cultural and ecological, social reductionisms with respect to epigenetic paradigm. In an extreme variant, it degenerates into vulgar Marxist economic reductionism, which reduces all the features of the cultural and ecological environment to its economic component. If there exists a "cultural-directed gene-culture co-evolution", then there must be a "genome-directed gene-culture co-evolution, i.e. the influence of the genetic context on the formation of a cultural type and the diversity of its elements. In this case, the culture, so far as it contributes to survival, is forced to "take into account" the effects of the genotypic environment in which it is formed. Obviously, the same can be said for the other components of the co-evolutionary ligament – techno-humanitarian balance. As one can assume, the connection of generation and selection of technological innovations is mediated by the cultural environment, therefore the transformation of the genome into an object of technological manipulation is uncompensated by feedback biological adaptation → technological innovation. Let us give a popular and an impressive example of "directed by genome gene-culture co-evolutionˮthat is use features of our visual analyzer in painting (Livingstone, 2000). A priori it seems obvious that the prevalence and success of an artist is determined by a combination of three components, namely, The correspondence of the design of the images he creates to the socio-cultural context, The use of the peculiarities of the organization of perception of new visual information for achieving the maximum aesthetic and emotional response and The technological innovations in the technique of painting with for the same purpose. Relative autonomy of each of the elements of this triad excludes the possibility of an adequate reduction of the artistic significance of the work of art exclusively to the action of cultural-aesthetic, technological and biological factors. However, within the framework of the concept we are developing, the "evolutionary successˮ of the artistic direction can be described by the cumulative effect of two integral parameters: 1) A combinations of physiology of perception and technology of painting and 2) A possibilities of integration into the common system of value priorities and cultural meanings. As Margaret Livingstone, in particular, claims, "La Giacondaˮ of Leonardo creates an emotional association with a deeply rooted in culture a mysterious female soul's image. Leonardo uses the colors of the part of the spectrum that is perceived primarily by the peripheral receptors of the eye. Therefore, it seems to the viewer that the expression of a woman's face disappears under close observation. Similarly, for a long time, the tendency to depict a human face at a certain angle dominated in portrait painting, as a result of which the image of one of two eyes appeared in the center of the canvas, while the image of the second eye was slightly shifted to the side (bimodal display). It is supposed to achieve several simultaneous effects at the same time: fixing the viewer's attention on the facial triangle most relevant to the individual's identification (binocular vision serves as a sign of biological species in which hunting and attack play an important role in behavior); activation of non-stereoscopic vision systems for assessing spatial depth (muscle accommodation); the selection of the most contrasting areas of the human face. It is even possible that the propagation and integration of painting into culture gave adaptive "meaningˮ to the anomalies of the development of the visual analyzer. According to Livingstone, there is the violation of the parallelism of the optical axes of both eyes that should facilitate the artist's ability to transfer the depth of the image on a flat surface of the canvas using muscle accommodation (muscle memory). The investigator assumes that this particular feature was characteristic of Rembrandt van Rein and is found on most of his self-portraits. If this is the case (the hypothesis is rather controversial), then this anomaly (strabismus) could make a definite contribution to the formation of the skill of the painter and his technique of painting; had to be even more common among prominent artists than in the average population (Conway, 2007). In case of confirmation, this guess will serve as one of the falsifiers of the concept of the bio-semantic component of anthropogenesis, i.e. coevolutionary semiosis. Finally, the estimation of spatial depth by the magnitude of muscular accommodation is associated with the constant movement of the eyeball and could serve as a physiological stimulus for the development of the technology of impressionism painting with a characteristic shift of perspective for different areas of artistic image. According to some experts, for the course of anthropogenesis, the key adaptively significant behavioral stereotypes and models are (Laland et al., 2010:140): 1) A training as the transfer and dissemination of socially significant experiences and elements of culture and learning abilities and ways of its implementation (strategies); 2) A mode of nutrition, in particular, the consumption of milk during the whole life cycle; 3) An evolution of language and symbolic systems of coding and communication; 4) A ability to intellectual activity, personality features; 5) Culture-supported preferred use of the right or left hand and associated functional asymmetry of the nervous system; 6) Development of cooperation and altruism as behavioral modus and forms of activity; 7) A formation of markers of social and ethnic identification and selfidentification, and system of formation of emotions, which promote maintenance and observance of norms of social life; 8) A repertoire of admissible and inadmissible norms and stereotypes of sexual and reproductive behavior, in particular the relation to incest, bisexual asexual, homosexual and heterosexual methods of its (behavior) realization; and 9) A system of sexual preferences that direct or limit the boundaries of the formation of sex couples and the prevailing vector of sexual selection (see for more details Butovskaya, 2013); 10) Behavioral norms that determine the frequency and expression of signs of infanticide and / or parental care. The evolutionary history of all these behavioral modes originates in cultural innovations that are distributed in the population through sociocultural inheritance. In all of these spheres, genetic (biological) signs and determinants act as prerequisites for the genesis and the result of the evolution of the corresponding cultural or behavioral elements simultaneously. At present, the induction by the cultural and techno-genesis of fixation in the human gene pool of human genetic, monogenic or oligogenic determinants seems to be quite reasonable and reasoned for some phenotypes. It has demonstrated for the constant lactase and amylase activity in human ontogenesis (The evolution, 2012), sickle cell anemia and other hematopathies, absence alcohol dependence (Dudley, 2014), homosexual male behavioral activity (Barthes, 2013), intention to reduce emotional tension in interpersonal relationships conflict, development center of speech and so on. Evidence of such cultural induction of genetic determinants selection in human populations has been obtained in the last two decades and their number is multiplied with each passing day. A priori one can assume only two evolutionary mechanisms by which the socio-cultural module implies the propagation of genetic adaptations in human populations: The acquisition of pathological signs of group adaptive value due to the culture-induced changes in lifestyle (sickle cell anemia and other hematopathies in areas of tropical irrigated agriculture as a consequence of an increase in incidence malaria), and The transformation of highly adaptive biological signs into pathological ones for the same reasons. As examples, Crohn's disease, psoriasis, are the result of hyperactivity of the immune system (The Evolution, 2015). Let's take a look at some examples of the "co-evolution of a culturedriven gene culture" in more detail. The development of molecular genomic technologies made it possible to revise the thesis on the termination or inhibition of biological selection as a result of the genesis of sociocultural and technorationalistic components of anthropogenesis, starting from the Pleistocene. With the help of these techniques, traces of selective pressure show human biological signs. Since 2009 (Cochran, Harpending, 2009) the alternative thesis of a sharp acceleration of the evolutionary biological process is becoming increasingly popular and justified (Fieder, Huber.2016). There is a need for the logical compatibility of this statement and the unconditional lag in the rates of evolution of the biological module from the speed of transformations of socio-cultural and techno-rationalist modules. This fact made the very existence of the process of genetic-cultural co-evolution extremely elusive. In the future, we are able to find a satisfactory explanation by the evolutionary dichotomy of evolution into selective and semantic components. According to paleogenetic data, there are the gene-determinate changes induced by culture and they have become tangible during the so-called Neolithic revolution − the transition to agriculture and cattle breeding (O'Brien, 2012). As a result of the Neolithic revolution, two new fundamental attributes prevailed in the evolutionary mechanisms of anthropogenesis. These new evolutionary trends are the "consciousˮ (techno-rationalist) components of adaptation genesis and the adaptively significant increase in the size of social communities due to not only demographic growth but to intergroup integration processes also (Grinin, 2007:65-67). Creation of agro-eco-systems as a new ecological niche of Homo sapiens initiated changes in the course of socio-cultural development, creating prerequisites for the formation of early forms of the state. It was a systemic adaptation, the significance of which was to ensure the coordination of individual forms of activity in a technologically determined, more pronounced correlation between the size of the social group and the group's adaptability. The cumulative effect of technological and socio-cultural evolutionary factors triggered a cycle of triple helix. The initial change in the behavioral complex created a new structure and a new vector of evolution of interspecies contacts, and a new physical environment of human habitation. In turn, it changed the vectors of selective pressure with respect to individual genes. The resulting biological adaptations required the inclusion of new elements in the technological scheme of agriculture. The formation of the new techno-cultural and environmental niche of Homo sapiens has become a self-sustaining process. The same scheme can be interpreted in a different aspect as a mechanism of the trigger switching of adaptive evolution vectors from the sphere of culture-genesis to the sphere of biogenesis or technogenesis. Cultural innovation creates a new ecological niche, which forms a provocative background for generating and fixing secondary cultural transformations. If the latter prove to be ineffective, the cycle of searching for technological solutions that modify the habitat is included. (In the subsequent stages of the evolution of SESH, the sequence is reversed, and attempts to find a technological solution precede a change in culture.) If this also turns out to be inadequate, the turn of the reorganization of the genetic constitution comes, bringing it into conformity with the new environment in the expanded metaphorical meaning of this term . Paleoanthropological data allow us to isolate several core load-bearing elements of the biological component of this process. There are adaptation to a diet with a predominance of carbohydrates, milk as the main source of protein components in the diet, formation of immunity to new parasites and pests, weakening the complex of means of protection from species that, on the contrary, came out of areas of frequent human contact. However, these transformations involved not only changes in the frequency of genetic determinants of lactose metabolism and its regulation in ontogenesis in parallel to the development of dairy cattle breeding, on the one hand, and carbohydrate metabolism in parallel to the development of agriculture, in general, and hematopathies in parallel to the development of irrigated agriculture and, as a consequence, the expansion of the range the spread of malaria, on the other hand. Equally important was the increase in the frequency of the FOXP2 gene associated with the development of speech abilities. Let's recall that a Russian mathematician and philosopher N.N. Moiseeff (2000) proposed a hypothesis that during the Neolithic revolution the direction of the genetic component of anthropogenesis split up. Pastoral tribes needed constant movement in space, the search for new pastures, and the conquest of new territories. Adaptive strategy of similar tribes was unlimited expansion. Agricultural civilizations accumulated in the valleys of the rivers, while the existence of society presupposed tight restrictions of aggressiveness and the ability to unconditionally submit to those who occupy a higher position in the social hierarchy of individuals in conditions of high population density. An adaptive strategy in this case meant harmonizing relations with the natural and socio-cultural environment. The socio-cultural transformation of biological aggression will be conservative in this case, i.e. there is conservation of the created agricultural infrastructure from the external threat. In any case, "military force" as a component of an adaptive strategy should arise at relatively late stages of the formation of SESH. According to archaeological data, mass graves appear with traces of violent death from various types of weapons in the era of the Neolithic technological revolution (Waal, 2012:874). Thus, "risk genes (genes of adventurism)ˮ and "passionateˮ genotypes should have accumulated in cattle-breeders, and alternative alleles should have accumulated in agricultural ethnos. For example, the features of the Japanese national character − emotional restraint and the desire to weaken emotional tension in interpersonal contacts − are due, probably, to the high incidence of one of the alleles of the gene controlling the reception of serotonin. This particular feature of the Japanese gene pool has a sociocultural explanation − the rigid pressure of selection for the integration of an individual into a rigid system of social connections (Chiao Joan, 2010). a Prerequisite and an element of adaptation of the ancestors of modern man to socialization were changes in the structure of the genome, which contributed to the reduction of conflict within the group. It occurred approximately 40 million years ago.) However, genomic studies of behavioral moduses in modern human populations have made significant updates to the scheme of N.N.Moiseyeff. One of the most likely contenders for the role of the gene of adventurism or risk gene is DRD-4 (Schinka, 2012), which is related to the dopamine receptor in the brain cells. It turned out that this genetic element at one and the same time carriers in one of its variants is able to ensure the aspiration for obtaining new sensory information, while others are the cause of the development of the syndrome of diffused attention in children. This gene is fairly widespread in populations of primates (Bailey et al, 2007: 23-27). The initial, provided by biological heredity signs (hazardous stereotypes) were subsequently "redistributedˮ to new, already socio-cultural adaptive elements, which also played the role of "romanticˮ stimuli of female reproductive choice. Evolution with the change of functions could continue further into a sphere further remote from the initial biological units of adaptive transformations. An analysis of the individual variability of market strategies is evidenced by the researchers (Cesarini D. et al., 2009; Benjamin et al., 2012) that the predominance of risk aversion or reliability in modern society obviously correlates with the presence in the genome of numerous genetic elements with a weak effect. The ratio of behavioral modes is determined by the additive mechanism, in this case. How powerful and ambiguous is the epigenetic transformation of the expression of genetic adaptation under the influence of the socio-cultural component of SESH is evidenced by relatively recent attempts to find the correlation between the presence of the DRD-4 element and the "predispositionˮ to liberal political ideology (Settle et al., 2010). In fact, such a straightforward reductionist interpretation is unlikely to be substantiated. Rather, we can talk about the relationship of ease of social adaptation to a specific social context and the presence in the genome of certain elements. In other words, the given data speaks about the dynamics of the realization of free choice, and do not determine the results, but only the probability of political self-identification. In the framework of our proposed concept, such interpretation indicates the mutual conjugation of various components of SESH. Cultural traditions of collectivism, hierarchy, obedience and cultural secrecy for external influences in the social group are potentially related to the prevalence of the "shortˮ 5-HTT allele that provides transport of the neurotransmitter serotonin through the synaptic gap. In all likelihood, the selective advantage of this allele is the biological adaptation induced by the culture, which in turn ensures the social stability of society, which is in conditions of social or environmental stress a long historical time. The reason for this is the increase in the development of manifestations of depression in individuals "dropped outˮ from the system of social communication, as a result of violations of accepted social norms, migration, etc. It can be said metaphorically (and this is confirmed by direct observations) that within the framework of an individualist-oriented cultural tradition, the frequency of such alleles that impede personal initiative should be lower than in socio-cultural types, oriented to the prevalence of collectivist interests over individual (Mrazek et al., 2013; Norenzayan, 2011). An alternative hypothesis does not contradict the data described above. It generally relates the socio-cultural balance of egocentric (individualist) and cooperative (collectivist) cognitive intentions with the "bindingˮ of each of them to the neurophysiologic complex of testosteroneand oxytocin-ergic processes. In accordance with this concept, the cascade of psychophysiological reactions determines alternative types of social behavior of an individual (Crespi, 2015). Manifestations and strength, as well as adaptive meaning, each of these cascades depends on the sociocultural context. The obvious conclusion from the above is, that socio- cultural adaptations "usesˮ the biological features which are present in the population, as a substrate and the mechanism of its own implementation. This thesis is fully fits into the concept of a three-module SESH. Thus, N. Moiseyeff's hypothesis fits into the general scheme of anthropogenesis, as well as the existing database of molecular genomics. The hypothetical constructions, starting with the idea of N. Moiseev, do not contradict, but rather complement and deepen data on the connection of the peculiarities of the mentality of Eastern and Western cultures with systemic technological innovations. One of the most important sociopsychological differences between Western and Eastern civilizationі is the dominance of analytic rationalism and individualism in the Western mentality, and holism and communitarianism (collectivism) in the Eastern (Chinese, Japanese) mentality. At phenomenological aspects, Oriental thinking focuses on the study of relationships and communications between objects of reality, which more closely corresponds to the module of social intelligence. In Western thinking, a substantive approach as the search for specific "entitiesˮ of the same objects dominates. These features are clearly diagnosed during psychological tests. In particular, the composition of a certain set of objects (for example, a rabbit, a dog, carrots) into separate groups by carriers of Western culture by the criterion of similarity between them (rabbit, dog), and the eastern one by the presence of links between them (rabbit, carrot) is made predominatly. According to the data of the international group of researchers, the same patterns are observed within each type of culture. The "holisticˮ type of responses predominates in areas where rice is the main crop, which seems quite understandable, given the above. The "analyticˮ type of response is dominated by immigrants from those areas of China where, wheat was used as basic crop culture, with the proximity of the ethnic composition of the population. In this case, the minimum necessary degree of social coordination of efforts and, accordingly, the minimum size of an effectively functioning (competitive) "production teamˮ was significantly smaller (Talhelmet et al., 2014; Henrich, 2014). Probably less attention and effort could be spent on maintaining the agro-ecological system of growing wheat in comparison with rice. So, there is a mutual conjugation between the social structure and the cognitive processes occurring in the psyche of its members, and this idea receives a rather broad empirical confirmation. The consequence is the emergence of socio-cognitive homeostatic systems (Nisbett et al, 2001). The basic parameter and, at the same time, the adaptive-evolutionary function of them we will denote the term techno-humanitarian balance in the present study. The subsequent techno-cultural innovations were layered on the initial impulse of the gene-cultural and techno-cultural co-evolution, initiated, in turn, by the Neolithic revolution, which was a systematic culturaltechnological innovation. One of the adaptive divergence lines of sociocultural and rationalist adaptations led to the emergence of technological civilization. This systemic adaptation within the evolutionary-psychological paradigm is characterized by several basic value priorities (Henrich J., 2010: 61): 1. Western (analytical-holistic) type of mentality; 2. High social status of theoretical and vocational Education; 3. Industrialism; 4. High level of individual Riches in population; 5. Democratic political system. Thus, all the listed socio-psychological intentions (WEIRD as the first letters of the English names of these attributes) dominate in the West civilization, which is an insignificant part of the original pool of cultural types and, indeed, "weird", rare. But with the growth of its influence, it becomes the owner of a sufficiently high contagious part of the sociocultural inheritance. In other words, this cultural type can spread to other cultures as a result of "contagion when in contactˮ with other types of societies. However, in the high "infectiousnessˮ of technological civilization, there is also economic, political and military coercion, since it by the fact of its supremacy compels competing socio-cultural types "to accept the rules of the gameˮ, which are inherent to WEIRD-sociocultural (civilizational) type. These considerations, however, do not exclude alternative scenarios of sociocultural or civilizational evolution, and the result of competition between them is not inevitable from the very beginning. The formation of a multicultural system and the adaptive radiation of its constituent sociocultural types can be such alternative outcome in the presence of complex "ecological" relations among civilizations. An example of this is the current configuration of the macroeconomic relations of the East-West. Technological innovations as ideas and their material incarnations are produced, mainly by the West, assimilated by the East and returned to the West in the form of end products of consumption. This configuration itself is subject to global evolutionary changes as a result of the exhaustion of the possibilities of extensive economic growth that is being devised by the resources of the biosphere. In addition, the contagious modification and, as a consequence, evolutionary convergence and parallelism in socio-cultural adaptation genesis does not mean, however, the necessity of the emergence of twin cultures. There are new socio-cultural types, characterized by incomplete analogy with the type while maintaining systemic originality. Quite often, this occurs as a result of the combination of individual elements of Western and autochronic cultural heredity (for example, Confucianism and Marxism) with an additional modification adapted to the local conditions. We have reason to suppose that culture is based on already existing genotypes in the population, forming in the simplest case a binary adaptive bundle, and, in the future, they become a substrate basis that provides replication and distribution of adaptive elements of culture. An example is the depletion of the genome by genes that provide the ability to cleave potentially dangerous physiologically active substances of plant origin. This phenomenon arose as a by-product of the Neolithic revolution. The transition to agriculture brought many plant species from among the foods consumed and significantly reduced the adaptability of the detoxification genes, and, as result, number of their copies in the genome. Thus, the sensitivity to the effects of these substances on the human body became more pronounced and productive. Later, these very similar genotypes "opened the wayˮ to the means of folk phytotherapy and scientific pharmacology. Otherwise, these complex sociocultural and technological adaptations would be less effective, their fixation in social groups would either be impossible, or it would be mainly due to the exclusively biological module of SESH much slower (Wade, 2016:337340). The same can be said about the binary bundle of a genetically determined decline in the sensitivity of olfactory receptors, which took place at the same time, and subsequent development of perfumery. The latter turned out to be an adaptive response of culture to social evolution. There is regulation of the emotional state of an individual through the persistence of psychophysiological reactions to smells, and it lies at the heart of this co-evolutionary bond. Without a combination of these two features (the low sensitivity of the olfactory analyzer and the differential psychophysiological response to its irritation with specific odors) perfumery would hardly have received wide development without having a physiological foundation. Thus, the developments of culture is based on the already existing features of the biological module of SESH and, so to speak, "useˮ them for own "survivalˮ. For example, in the cultural development concept of Oliver Morin (Morin, 2015), cultural traditions are supported and disseminated not because of their adaptive superiority, which is rational perceived and transmitted through mimesis in the course of communication, but due to a connection with congenital cognitive predispositions. In evolutionary psychology, the formation of co-evolutionary links between the sociocultural and biological modules is exploited through a model of the motivational mechanism (Schaller et al.. 2017). From this thesis several conclusions follow, namely, The genes that define contemporary human populations are the product of a long history of evolution by natural selection; The human nervous system typically develops according to a recipe encoded in those genes, and "Human natureˮ can be characterized as comprising psychological mechanisms that exist because they facilitated genetic reproduction. In our opinion, it is a simplified explanatory model. First, the evolution of the structure of SESH obviously plays the role of both mechanisms – The spontaneous emergence of further propagating by imitation of the elements of culture, that "appealingˮ to pre-existing in the population of cognitive preferences (socio-cultural module), and The construction of new elements of reality based on rationalistic cognition of reality (techno-industrialist module). Secondly, there is a link between genetic (and epigenetic) controlled traits and cultural innovations in the set of "cognitive preferences", which is more important for the evolutionary process at the stage of generating these innovations; and then, its co-evolutionary function is transformed in the direction from initiation to stabilization of cultural elements that have acquired adaptive significance. If the spread of cultural innovations is determined not by their adaptive value, but only by the biological component of human nature, then we have the phenomenon of sociocultural drift, similar to genetic drift. Finally, socio-cultural innovations can form complex adaptive associations around the elements of the biological module. (We call them "co-evolution nodesˮ.) An example is the system of "social hormonesˮ (oxytocin, vasopressin, prolactin, etc.), acting as regulators of various physiological and biochemical functions in the body, but directly or indirectly "tiedˮ to the provision of a whole range of behavioral responses that regulate communication at various (from individual to interspecies) levels of social organization (Shalev, Ebstein, 2013; Zhukov, 2014, Vol. 2:60-88). Each of the social hormones is associated with providing the most diverse elements of the socio-cultural module of SESH, and, currently, the most well-known of them is oxytocin. Characteristically, most of them evolutionarily were associated with the regulation of the sexualreproductive sphere of mental processes. Thus, the motivational model is adequate only for the first phase of the formation of a human evolutionary strategy. As the network of elements of the socio-cultural and techno-rationalistic modules becomes more complex and the inter-modular communications become more complicated, the role of the system-forming element has shifted to the socio-cultural module, and now it moves on to the techno-rationalist one. Adaptive nodes, because of their complexity, are sources of coevolutionary conflicts and evolutionary risk caused by the diversity of the elements of the socio-cultural module associated with them. Because of this, adaptation genesis can impose constantly tightening demands to the biological adaptive element located in the center of such a node. Indirectly, this is evidenced by numerous pathologies and dysfunctional disorders, and its main causes are associated with social hormones. Throughout this research, we have repeatedly touched this topic as illustrations of our explanatory model. As recent computer simulations show (Stern, 2010), the accumulation of risk genes is unlikely exclusively as genetically controlled adaptation through biological selection. The situation is changing in the case of a parallel system of socio-cultural inheritance and socio-cultural (group) adaptations. The reason is the inclusion of this mechanism of generation of adaptive information to the Lamarck modus. In this case the adaptive effect cumulatively accumulates in a number of generations, "pulling" the genes that support it. A necessary condition is the existence of a socio-cultural mechanism that redistributes the positive effect of a vulgar risk behavior on the whole group. Sociocultural in origin population dimorphism by genes and phenotypes of risk superimposed on older sexual dimorphism on the same signs. Above all, the risk genes were supposed to have adaptive significance for the male. It is due to the functional differentiation that the hominines had created within the social group. The transfer mechanism, which provides for the growth of group adaptation, can consist, for example, in the structure of family and marital relations. It is possible that such genetic-cultural bonds act as factors of ethnic differentiation and social mobility. The "Genghis Khan haplotypeˮ (Zerjal et al., 2003:5) is one of the most impressive, though not undisputed in terms of the reliability of the above interpretation. An international team of researchers (Britain, Italy, China, and others) published in 2003 data of analysis of mononucleotide replacements in the Y-chromosome of people living in the vast area of Asia, once part of the Mongol Empire of Genghis. According to the results of at least 8% (approx. 16 million people) of the population of these areas has a haplotype, which goes back to a very small group of founders of male sex. The study authors have identified this group as the namely Genghis Khan and his immediate family, although this attribution is conditional one, of course. From the point of view of classical Neo-Darwinism, this phenomenon can be attempted to be explained by the action of genetic drift, i.e. stochastic oscillations of gene frequencies in populations. In accordance with this explanatory model, the personal characteristics of Chingiz Khan and the peculiarities of society can`t be the reasons for such significant contribution to the gene pool of subsequent generations. The most adequate analogue in such an interpretation would be a "founder effectˮ ("bottleneckˮ). It is defined as a pronounced drop in the level of genetic variability or its shift (asymmetry of the distribution of gene frequencies) as a result of a marked reduction in the population size. Then the gene pool of the new population is formed by a very small group of individuals and the probability of accidental fixation increases dramatically of someone specific genotype in the population. With such an explanation, two circumstances do not coincide and do not allow to accept it unconditionally reliable or at least "in the first approximation" as a working hypothesis. Firstly, we are not dealing with pure population wave numbers, but with the geopolitical and socio-ecological determinate long process of growing and proliferation the initial population in the other ones to form a new megapopulation (miksodem), which occupies a huge area and has a very complex genetic structure. In particular, such mega-population consisted of a system of local populations strongly expressed asortative mating. "The descendants of Genghis Khanˮ had in the mega-population reproductive advantage, determined by more and longer as not so much genetically but socially, or culturally. Therefore, to talk about the effect of the founder, as well as an over-the adaptability of the genome of Genghis Khan, at least is not correctly. Secondly, the progenitor (ancestors) of this haplotype was obviously some inherent characteristics or personality traits, consisting in the ability to subordinate their influence masses of other people, the charisma, and the ability to withstand severe physical and emotional stress to achieve this goal (passionarity). These features cannot be considered indifferent to selective pressure. Within the framework of the SESH concept, the interpretation of the obtained data is reduced to the fact that the totality of the personality traits of the progenitor of this haplotype was associated with the co-evolution inherent in the social organization of the Mongols. These personality features were genetically, epigenetic and socially constructed traits. They were the so-called "social elevatorˮ, whereby owners of this haplotype got an incredible in terms of classical evolutionary theory adaptive superiority. Adaptive advantage in this case is absolutely does not match the purely biological adaptability of the individual without regard to the gene-cultural co-evolutional tandem. In fact, because of the SESH structure, we are witnessing a phenomenon that looks similar to the founder effect or genetic revolution, but it is an example of genetic evolution guided by culture. That is how we must understand the conclusion reached in a recent article that Genghis Khan Haplotype is a prime example of social selection, moreover, it is no longer unique (Chuan-Chao Wang, 2013:7; Balaresque P. et al., 2015). Evidence of a sharp imbalance in the level of genetic variability of the female and male in the period 4-8 thousand years ago was obtained in another study (Karmin et al, 2015) by the analysis of samples of nucleotide sequences of mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome. During this period, the effective number of the male population is sharply reduced, which indicates a significant decrease in the number of men actively participating in the breeding process. "Failureˮ in the level of variation and effective size of the male population was synchronous to Neolithic revolution. According to the authors of the observation, the most probable cause is the cultural changes in the demographic structure, family-marriage communications, the social status of individuals due to their economic situation, and so on. All of them, according to the authors of the study, led to the spread of reproductive success beyond the limits of one generation, by reconstruction of the main trends of genetic evolution as a result of the mechanisms and laws of socio-cultural inheritance. The haplotype of Genghis Khan is only the most impressive particular manifestation of this general pattern Thus, the selective space of evolution of the biological module of SESH becomes a derivative of the evolution of the socio-cultural module. The meaning of this thesis is that socio-cultural heredity acts as an "amplifier and signal modulatorˮ, enormously increasing the magnitude of the initial variations of selective differences of a particular genotype and extending the time of the adaptive advantage far beyond the physical existence of this genotype. A "calmerˮ example of the socio-cultural enhancer of the evolution of the SESH biological module can be gleaned from the works of the American anthropologist Napoleon Chignon. He found that the great "sociabilityˮ of the men of one of the Amazonian Indian tribes, cultivating a high degree of male aggression towards the tribal neighbors in the formation of killer coalitions, increases their reproductive success and promotes the spread of the corresponding genes (Chagnon, 1988, 2000). In this case too, the nature and mechanism of biological selection varies considerably according to the "socio-cultural contextˮ. It leads to a remarkable conclusion. There are sociocultural module of SESH and sociocultural inheritance as a means of ensuring it, which change the meaning of the biological interpretations of the concepts of "adaptability" and "selection". Both concepts become derivatives of the sociocultural context not only in the humanistic, but also in the objectivelyevolutionary meaning. Thus, there is a translation of a complex adaptive significance of information fragments from biological sphere to the sphere of socio-cultural inheritance. Cultural inheritance transforms acts of selection and extends it beyond a time frame of existence of selected genotypes and beyond their biological fitness. Saved in the cultural traditions, the "avatarˮ of individuals determines the trend of evolution of the population in the biological and genetic sense of the term, or when the biological adaptability or maladaptive of concrete individual genotype are no longer essential. This thesis has long been considered a true in humanitarian conception of human nature. In recent fundamental research on history of human corporeality claimed that "fakeˮ phenomena of consciousness, representation, beliefs, psychosomatic effects, change the meaning and direction of the historical process. Designed culture model becomes the internal laws subordinating himself corporeality and its evolution (Korbin et al.,2012:5-6). But it is not always easy to transmit these humanitarian influences on the language of the biological component of anthropogenesis. However, it does not mean that there are no such influences. Ultimately, they become a reality. This becomes evident as paid to the subject of technological progress. Let's return to the theme of our investigation. Obviously, Western civilization appeared as a result of the collision and integration into a single bio-social system of agrarian and pastoral cultures. As a result of this evolutionary transformation, a qualitatively new adaptive strategy could emerge. It can be called "strategy of sustainable expansion". The combination of the conservative protective elements of agricultural civilization with aggressively assimilatory "memsˮ of pastoral tribes formed a socio-cultural homeostasis system, based on harmonization of opposite effects. Fig. 1.6 – Formation of gene-culture-technology complex adaptive process of livestock (I) and agricultural (II) types as a result of the Neolithic (cultural) technology revolution. This was the germ of the modern technological civilization. The logic of relations with other tribes and habitats in general became an invariant ensuring the survival of Western man in an environment where natural resources and opportunities for self-healing biosphere far surpass human needs. Under these conditions, natural hazards and social risks overcome because of the further expansion and deepening of cognitive-reform human activities in time and space. There is new version of the adaptive system dichotomy, which combines ideas N.Moiseeff and modern adherents of theories of niche construction and gene-cultural co-evolution (fig. 1.6). We note that this scheme is diachronic in nature and some of its elements formed and fixed at different times and in different regions. However, a common feature of the mechanism of formation of an integral complex adaptive marked rather clearly. Namely, macro-evolution transformation as combination of cultural, behavioral and rationalist elements stand the source of initiation of the impetus for the formation of this complex. Then a cascade of gene, cultural, and techno-cultural innovationsadaptations of lower rank develops. (Strictly speaking, we are talking about several cascades that are parallel in time, but not in the multidimensional space of the adaptive landscape.) Thus a number of functional modules is formed. The system of interconnected modules in their organization and structure is holistic nonlinear complex of specific "programmedˮ by original macro-evolutionary transformation of adaptations The conclusion follows from the mathematical model of the process (O'Brien, Bentley, 2011: 9). The evolutionary trend is strictly deterministic and predictable in the period between such macro-evolutionary innovations. At the same time, the initial macro-evolutionary innovation is a quantum leap between adjacent vertices of the adaptive landscape (accordingly to the concept of punctuated equilibrium of S. Gould). In other words, the mechanism of functioning of SESH corresponds to more emergent model of evolution (Lamarck Modus) than the additive accumulation of various micro-evolutionary adaptations (Darwin-Weismann modus). The following output appears unavoidable. Relatively long evolutionary trends are forming to reduce the adaptability of one such module due to the growth of adaptability of another, as result of the parallel and hierarchical modular organization of SESH in combination with several autonomous systems for the generation and replication of adaptive information. Such trend in the present study will be called the "evolutionary risk". The conclusion is supported by the arguments of the theory of programming and computer science (Banzhaf, 2014; Leier, 2014). Presented here scheme (fig. 1.6) is broadly consistent with the concept (Lucock et al., 2014:78) of "Darwinian evolutionary medicineˮ of Australian group of researchers. In their scheme, the parallel development of several cultural and technological innovations (cattle, farming, traditional and modern way of life) led to conflict between individual genetic clusters of biological module of SESH and, as a consequence, to the evolutionary risk formation. We note in passing that these schemes provide for the possibility of alternative adaptive anthropogenesis trends at the expense of the elements of the various modules of SESH. For example, the genesis of dairy farming (by the complex of sociocultural and technological adaptations) creates a potential dichotomy in the subsequent course of adaptation genesis. The first possibility was connected with the fixation in the population of lactase enzyme variants with a constant level of activity in ontogenesis (genetic adaptation). Alternative adaptive trend consisted in the implementation of technological innovations, involving, in one form or another, the use of lactose fermentation products, especially cheese-making (technological innovation). Both evolutionary trend turned milk into a food resource and both were realized in the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens – with a time lag in the 4.000 years (cheese-making appeared earlier), and 5.000 years after the "livestock variantˮ of Neolithic revolution (Gamba et al., 2014). Long-term effects of genetic conflicts within the biological module of SESH and between biological module on one hand, and the technological and socio-cultural module on the other hand stretched out on the millenniums. For example, change the usual way of eating (diet), typical for the man to Neolithic revolution, caused modifications in the metabolism of lipids, proteins, carbohydrates. These modifications manifest in late and postproductive age. Therefore, they are closed to the biological form of natural selection. As it is considered now, an increase in the frequency of cardiovascular (strokes, heart attacks, atherosclerosis), oncological pathologies, diabetes II, etc., are linked to it. In addition, there is also an imbalance of sexual sphere, reflected in the divergence of the timing of the menstrual cycle and other components of puberty women. All of that is the apparent magnitude of the evolutionary trends of inherent in the type of Western industrial civilization risks. Details of these issues are set out in a recent book by the Swedish nutritionist, adept evolutionary medicine S.Lindeberg (2010); the genesis of "diseases of civilizationˮ as general result of co-evolution of the human genome and culture investigate in the book of Daniel Lieberman (2013) too. Both researchers consider the transition to a non-fruit diet determined by sociocultural heredity as a systemic factor reformatting the structure and meaning of the relationship between biological, behavioral, and, consequently, extragenetic adaptations. As involves the last of these authors (D.Liberman), most common in human populations currently pathologies is the consequence of "evolutionary errorsˮ, i.e. discrepancy between posed by socio-cultural and technological adaptations to habitats and pool of biological adaptations to not by culture has formed ecological environment. Added to this, in our opinion, culture-ecological ethnic differentiation is obvious, too. The importance of this differentiation repeatedly increases with respect to the consistency of co-evolution links between biological, socio-cultural and techno-rationalist modules of SESH as result of the emergence of "hybridˮ socio-ethnic formations, the integration of immigrants in the new socio-cultural adaptive complex, etc. The adaptive value of biological, socio-cultural and technological elements in their complex determines by the "communicative code" that changes significantly, as a result. Positive adaptive correlation within specific constellations of elements of culture, technology and genetics are replaced by negative and vice versa. With certain reservations, we can talk about the evolution of "semanticsˮ, and "senseˮ of gene-cultural co-evolution and technohumanitarian balance. In the future, we will try using argumentation of these researchers to justify semantic concept co-evolution as an explanatory model of gear mechanism between modules of SESH. There are a rating of reduction in adaptability of some elements of SESH upon reaching a certain threshold zone of values or a passing a similar threshold of changes in the ecological-cultural environment. These parameters are capable of spasmodic growth requiring an immediate adaptive response as the solution to the problems of survival. Such jump, in fact, is the actualization of evolutionary risk. One symptom of this actualization becomes systemic effect, i.e. spread beyond the initial module to the other components of SESH. So, the above-mentioned diseases of Western civilization transformed from a purely medical (i.e., related directly to biological module) problem to the sphere to guide the evolution of the socio-cultural module including the area of the economy. So, sociocultural transformations are reflected in the frequency of the corresponding genes; and the numerical predominance of certain genetic determinants is an additional condition for the stabilization or instability of the general direction of historical development. Initially, social and cultural heredity provide ecological and biological balance of the genus Homo. The separation of technological innovations as independent forms of adaptation has seriously transformed this function beyond the initial level of adaptive response. Actually, technological innovation creates many potential and actually existing socio-cultural adaptive complexes. First, the impact of technological innovation reflected in the progressive "filiationsˮ of social structure. The Neolithic technological revolution violated the "normal" sexual dimorphism, in addition to the biological effects, leading, above all, to a change in the daily diet (the appearance of milk, carbohydrates, etc.). The male sex provided greater access to resources (Foley, Gamble, 2009).Thus, the dominant trend of social and cultural evolution of the relations between the sexes was permanently predefined. More complex, but especially prominent examples of the functioning of this evolutionary mechanism are the evolutionary origins of symbolic speech and religion. The conditions and mechanisms of its genesis have become apparent in recent decades thanks to the synthesis of achievements of science and the humanities. Thus, the researches of D. Bickerton of (2012), M.Tomacello (2011) and S.Bourlak (2011) were devoted to the origin of language and speech in 2011-2012 only. The trigger mechanism for initialization of the development of modern symbolic speech became proto-cultural (behavioral) adaptation to reducing the area of tropical forests and, as a result, the food supply base, according to a widespread hypothesis. The adaptive response of our ancestors had be the change nutrition sources, and more specifically, the transition to eating the remains of hunting of large carnivores and, then, the transition to a new ecological niche. The evolution of repertoires of morphological signs and behavioral stereotypes that were pre-existing in populations of hominines given a new direction associated with the activation of inter-individual and social communication progress. Hominins have double potential and, in particular, a projective competitive advantage in a new ecological niche as the realization of a long evolutionary trend. First, it consisted of the ability to feed itself freshly killed prey of predators, bypassing the stage of "ripeningˮ (a softening of the skin of the bodies of dead animals). Secondly, hominines were able to use as a source of nutrition bone marrow, poorly available to most scavengers. Both possibilities opened thanks to the tool activities. Update of the potential of adaptability has been caused by the social organization and the ability to communicate effectively within the social group, i.e. the ability to "mobilizeˮ and coordinate the actions of the members of the group for the safeguard and "utilizationˮ of prey. So, a symbolic communication played the role of socio-cultural adaptation along with science and technology afterwards. All of it started branching cascade of adaptations within the same component of SESH, one branch of which led to the replacement of the initially dominant, facial and gestural communication system by initially marginal, sound communication. Features of the latest communication system contributed to the acquisition of the properties, which N. Chomsky, known American linguist called the movable reference. This term means the absence of a rigid binding of the objective situation to the emotional state of the individual reporting this information (Barulin, 2012). N. Chomsky idea of binary structural and functional organization of the human voice becomes dominant in the modern theory of anthropogenesis. As suggested in one of the hypotheses (Jablonka, 2008: 2153), language is a communicator, which generates a code, the plan, outline the basic coordinates of sensual image used by the interlocutor as an armature for the construction of a parallel mental image in their own psyche. If you follow this assumption, the initial stage of cultural development was initiating or "provokingˮ imagery that correlated with certain behavioral acts or their complexes in the psyche of the hominines. The source of such images (thought forms) could be genetically and epigenetically programmed psychophysiological processes (Pinker, 2004:3). For example, it may be imprinting, impressing (Efroimson, 1995:79-81); communication with other individuals (Christiansen, 2008:489) and their combinations. The other hypothesis (Dor, 2011; 149: 2153), and, more precisely, its original postulate, is the third explanatory opportunity. A language is arbitrary conventionalist innovation as an example of the systemic rationalist adaptations itself in the same line with tools of labor, the use of fire, plant growing and animal husbandry. In this case, the adaptive value of the symbolic-syntactic organization of human languages, with its inherent ability to recursion, is manifested in conjunction with the effectiveness of gun activity, the social organization of socio-cultural inheritance (the role of grandparents as custodians and translators of cultural tradition), interindividual intraand inter-species communication, etc. Obviously, hominines are characterized by a rather "softˮ ability selfidentification as members of the social group or biological species. This contributed to the expansion of communication links to individuals beyond their own social groups and own species. The semantic component of adaptation genesis thus created a specific adaptive landscape or socially organized species occupying similar ecological niches. In such a landscape, with the similarity of intra-group communication, a trend arose for the formation of stable co-evolutionary relationships with representatives of the genus Homo (self-domestication). In this case, the semantic component was transformed into a classical selection form with the passage of time. The proof of the co-evolutionary-semantic nature of this trend is a sharp increase in genetic variability. This phenomenon the Russian researcher D.K. Belyaev called a "destabilizing selection" at one time (Markel, Trut, 2011). The reason for destabilizing selection is the acquisition of a high status of a "friendlyˮ attitude by individuals of the domesticated species in the system of human value priorities. This attribute receives phenotypic expression only in the case of destruction of a genetically determined complex of adaptations oriented to its own, rather than co-evolutionary survival. Their basis is "self-strangerˮ recognition (Hare, Woods, 2013). When contacting representatives of a foreign group, and even more so, individuals of other biological species, a complex of stereotypical reactions of avoidance or aggression develops. The destruction of this system of "social immunityˮ is results in the absence of a protective reaction in contact with such individuals. Hyper social behavior is the main symptom of the socalled domicile syndrome, or Williams-Beuren syndrome (Shuldiner et al., 2017). This created the basis for the domestication of animals (the Neolithic revolution). In principle, the same co-evolutionary communicative mechanism acted also for relations between the sexes within the group, since the latter inherited rather different reproductive strategies. Thus, Homo sapiens can also be considered a result of self-domestication (Theofanopoulou et al., 2017)4. In general, this idea is surprisingly consonant with the general conceptualistic scheme of the investigation. Of course, it's just a suggestion, its possible rebuttal will not affect the verification of our own theoretical constructs at the moment, although in the case of the confirmation may be seen as a beautiful argument in their favor. Thus, the subsequent evolution of the described causes the formation of thought forms of cultural inheritance, rationalist thought and language. In the process of anthropogenesis, conditions could arise for transcoding of initial outside-verbal emotional complex in verbal-logical form. As a result of rationalization of the adaptive significance of thought-forms, the latter becomes a proper interpretant which is both a means of transferring adaptively significant information and mental (ideal) model of reality, an instrument for forecasting and transformation of not behavioral acts only but reality itself too. This model doubles the contour of co-evolutionary interactions body-environment, generating adaptive innovation. Thus, it becomes part of our concept of a key prerequisite for the genesis of SESH rationalist component. In the development of this concept, it is postulates the existence of two, expressive and linguistic systems of coding voice information, in one of the last works of Japanese-American research team (Shigeru Miyagawa, 2013: 1-6). Like the singing of birds, expressive system creating a holistic image of the emotional state of the individual and can`t be divided into separate fragments of information. 4 On the role of inter-species communication in the process of domestication of animals as a system-forming factor of sapientation, see: (Shipman, 2010). Linguistic system is complex of relating to the type of subject − predicate combinable elements. Their combination creates human language, which is based on such a way is a binary bunch / opposition of two ways of encoding and perception. In accordance with the quite plausible hypothesis, two-system module in the neurological organization of mental processes should exist too. They may manifest themselves in the organization of cognitive and structural-adaptive stereotypes. The opposition of linguistic and expressive co-evolutionary subsystems is related to the process of SESH becoming. As already mentioned, the sociocultural component plays a leading role in the mechanism of adaptation genesis, which is associated with the appearance of the prediction of the future by individuals and social groups. The latter involves the generation of new knowledge about the world. In principle, the source of such knowledge can have a threefold evolutionary origin: 1. The instinct, i.e. genetically programmed behavioral response to an external stimulus; 2. Reflex, i.e., the occurrence of acquired behavioral response, formed on the basis of recurring situational associations in accordance with the "post hoc, ergo propter hocˮ simplest cognitive algorithm; 3. Explanation, i.e. cognitive model acquired by a verbal and logical abstract thinking. This scheme reveals the fundamental, rather even substantial dichotomy, which led to the final separation of the genetic-biological and sociocultural component of SESH and the corresponding mechanisms of the adaptation process of Homo sapiens, very clearly. This dichotomy has biological roots, preserved within the socio-cultural component, and served as a necessary and sufficient condition for the emergence of technological innovation as a fundamentally new in the latest mode of adaptation genesis. The essence of this dichotomy is the division of the original generation of adaptive type information into two, spontaneous (attribute of Darwin-Weismann module) and teleological (attribute of Lamarck module) ones. The reason for the dichotomy in this aspect is rationalization (implementation of verbal and logical form) of adaptation genesis of hominines. In neurology, the dissociation of psycho-physiological mechanisms between the loss of musical abilities (amusia) and the loss of already formed (aphasia) or congenital (alalia) speech abilities has been diagnosed. The differences between them reach the level of anatomical structures that are responsible for their occurrence. As result, it quite reasonable assumption that the perception and reproduction of speech and music is associated with the existence of two alternative ways of perceiving and processing information (Peretz, 2006; Dediu, 2013:7). The idea on the inheritance by Homo sapiens speech and language from Neanderthals (Chuan-Chao Wang, Hui Li, 2013:7) seem as extreme controversial one. As the authors themselves note, most researchers are inclined to believe that the mutation that served as the genetic basis for the formation of modern linguistic diversity took place 50-100 thousand years ago. Having moved this date back to 1⁄2 million years ago, we thereby add speech to the list of sociocultural adaptations that have crossed the species reproductive barrier. However, the very appearance and subsequent discussion such hypotheses are symptomatic phenomenon in the scientific discourse. The ancient concept of innate ideas of Plato and Descartes was not so much contradicted to experimental data and theoretical constructions on our time. Anyway, in modern theoretical cognitive science, as in the modern technological training scheme, there are enough successful concepts emanating from the recognition of the existence of two forms of knowledge of objective reality, make possible the survival of the media in this reality (Sweller, 2011: 3) – the primary, ideas biologically inherited by an individuals as a result of earlier evolution, and secondary, knowledge acquired because of rational organized and controlled cognitive activity of a person. Obviously, it is the latter form of the organization of knowledge, so to speak, in its pure form, that determines the way to implement technological innovations, as the third component of SESH. However, the adaptive value of knowledge a priori involves the elimination of all possible behavioral acts, except one in each standard problem of survival. The existence of a greater number of potentially behavioral acts with equal opportunity for realization creates a situation known in the logic under the name "Buridan's Assˮ. Additionally, the behavioral adaptive stereotypes fixed as a result of such selection should not contradict to already accumulated stereotypes that form a pool of adaptive reactions within the SESH framework. Thus, there is a need for a neuropsychic mechanism for the for removing of such conflicts by eliminating of the elements if they are not compatible with existing ones. In cognitive psychology, such a mechanism is called "cognitive dissonance" (Festinger, 1999:3). It means the feeling of emotional discomfort in the event of a conflict between two parts of knowledge that simultaneously present in consciousness. A priori, new elements of explanation and prediction may relate either to the "innate ideas" of Plato and Rene Descartes, which are a genetic in origin, or to "empirical and spiritualistic experience" that is socio-cultural in origin. In any case, if these elements of mentality contradict a certain set fragments of adaptively significant knowledge, arising cognitive discomfort is enough psychological stimulus for their elimination or suppression. Elimination of such elements of culture and psyche occurs up to the possibility of their selection for adaptability (Perlovsky, 2013). On the other hand, the very fact of socio-techno-anthropogenesis, (scientific and technological progress, growth in volume of scientific knowledge, quality of life, human longevity, etc.), testifies that the progressive evolution of culture and science is still possible. Moreover, consequently, there is a mechanism of "survivingˮ of cultural and cognitive innovations. It make possible a fixation them as new elements of the adaptive complex. A possible explanation is that such mental innovations are preserved as elements of an expressive speech subsystem based on the emotional brain that is evolutionarily older structures of the central nervous system. Information complexes of this system are not capable of linguistic division and reconstruction, which allows them to act as an information repository of potential socio-cultural adaptations. Recessively, cohesion and similar genetic phenomena play such a role in the biological module of SESH. Similarly, religiosity is a consequence of the structural and functional organization of the human psyche and, in parallel, the basis of sociocultural adaptation, which ensured along with speech progressive sapientation of human ancestors. In the human mind, there are a number of concepts (ideas of God, including) whose genesis is associated with the interaction of two information systems. In the humanities and in philosophy, these systems are called spiritualism (spiritual culture) and rationalism. They act for each other as complementary, figurative-emotional and verbal-logical (discursive) substrata. The evolution of mentality forms trajectory having two nodal points corresponding to the domination of religion or rationalism in spiritual culture (Cheshko, 2012: 439). The problem of the rationalistic justification of religion in modern science is represented by two alternative, evolutionary-epistemological and metaphysical-ontological methodologies. Both methodologies are inconsistent in a logical aspect. In the evolutionary-epistemological aspect, religion and science turn out to be equal and alternative supporting structures of the stable evolutionary strategy of humankind. Their balance provides stability and adaptive plasticity of the evolutionary anthropogenesis vector. To both socio-cultural adaptations (speech and religiosity) equally belong to the comments of D. Bickerton (Bickerton, 2012:117): "Initially being a behavior5, which led to changes in genes, it turned into a series of genetic changes triggering new behavioral changes.ˮ Ultimately, these behavioral transformations are freed from direct dependence on the evolution of the genome and acquire their own replicators and their own evolutionary modes. 5We add genetically determined and evolutionarily conditioned behavior − Auth. CHAPTER 2. GENESIS of STABLE ADAPTIVE STRATEGY of HOMO SAPIENS Valentin T.Cheshko, Valery I.Glazko "The history of our species is a stream of discoveries – major and minor – which have allowed us to progress and direct, to some extent, the course of our evolution". Sarah Chan (Grimm et al., 2013: 49) The general scheme of the genesis and development of structural organization fits well with SESH, in "Tektologyˮ o A.A. Bogdanov (Malinovsky) and the "triple helixˮ as two variants of general systems theory, separated in time 3⁄4 century. In accordance with the tectological concept (Bogdanov, 1989, vol. 2:208) evolution of self-organizing systems is a regular alternation of two phases – conjugation (C) and demarcation (D). First, conjugation phase is a cycle of disintegration – integrating external to the system or its component connections and relationships. The result is the expansion of the evolving system, and this system is expanding the scope of its influence on the new elements and the complexity of the structure of the newly formed metasystem. Demarcation phase is a process of internal structuring of the evolving system, accompanied by the differentiation of the functions of its constituent elements and the complexity of the connections between them. In fact, as already noted, we are dealing with the description of macroevolutionary process involving complex systems, regardless of the substantial nature. So, here it is well within the Thomas Kuhn scheme of theoretical scientific knowledge, where there are two successive phases in the development of science: evolution phase that is the actual expansion of the pool of objects that serve as the application of this paradigm (disciplinary matrix); revolution phase that is potential expansion of the application pool object of scientific theory as a result of the change of scientific paradigm. The result of this process will be pulsating expansion of the applicability of successive scientific theories, that is to say, the expansion of "environment niche" of theoretical discipline. Actually, in anthropology, the same patterns we observe in the genesis of SESH. The chain of successive ecological and evolutionary crises has resulted in pulsating expanding the limits of ecological niches and areal of Homo sapiens. The transition from one expansion cycle of ecological niche to another was associated with the transformation of the internal structure of SESH that is transfer of a leading member of the adaptive strategy in the direction of biological adaptation to socio-cultural adaptation and after to rationalist innovation. The amplitude of the expansion of the boundaries of the human ecological niche is determined by the efficiency (i.e. speed of adaptation genesis) corresponding component of SESH. The separation of each from the existing members of the triad of SESH began with the expansion of controlled contact to the environment of hominines (complication of ecological niche (S-phase) and ends with a change in the internal structure (D-phase). Most modern scholars, anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists believe that individuals belonging to the biological species Homo sapiens are born with a built-in system of gene modules that provide the ability to assimilate the reproduction of social and cultural components of the adaptive information. In other words, every human being has an innate ability to learning to tools and ways of inter-individual and intergroup communication. Within the framework of SESH theory, social and cultural heredity uses as elements of the maintenance and reproduction of their own organization "building blocks", that are biological components of SESH. An alternative view, there is postulates that the genesis of social and cultural inheritance is provided by exclusively own internal mechanisms6. In this case, the absorption of the encoding system and "instrumental supportˮ (language, reading, writing) of a communication are accompanied and, at least – in part, provided by biological component of epigenetic transformations of SESH. Fig.2.1 Four phase structure evolution of hominines stable adaptive strategy and mechanism of the genesis of the phenomenon of evolutionary risk There is a second (socio-cultural) in parallel to biological (genetic itself) system of the generation-replication-implementation of adaptive information; and time of occurrence of it is a complex problem for theory of anthropogenesis now. In scientific publications, circulate the three most commonly used hypothesis about the place and time of this event (Powell, 2009: 1298; D'Errico, 2011: 1060). First, attention is drawn to the synchronicity appearance of anatomically modern human constitution and the explosive spread of the techno-cultural 6 More two hypotheses set out in article of Cecilia Heyes (Heyes, 2012) artifacts, suggesting major changes in the cognitive mechanisms. This refers to the clear and recurring symptoms of symbolic thinking – works of art, musical instruments, various decorations (beads and necklaces), means for applying the paint on the skin and tattoos; stone tools, including committing ritual acts, etc. etc. In accordance with the first hypothesis, which focuses on the biological component of SESH, the reason for this phenomenon is a certain macromutation of the genome, essentially on the functional organization of the nervous system and the human psyche of an anatomically modern type. This event dates back to 50 thousand years ago and "tiedˮ to the African region of modern areal of Homo sapiens. The second hypothesis is based on the socio-cultural determination of cognitive processes, tying them with cultural innovations occurred 60-80 thousand years ago. Finally, the third hypothesis suggests that in fact the process is stochastic and cumulative in nature. The emergence and spread of the same cultural innovation happened many times, and repeatedly interrupted. As expected, the proto-cultural and technological innovations were distributed within their social group at this stage. The fixation of these innovations is carried out through intergroup competition and selection, which leads to an increase in the number and range of the most adapted social groups. "Transferˮ of innovation and intergroup communication has little effect on the course of adaptation genesis. The initiating factor, to change this situation, was the demographic (Mellars, 2006). As modeling shown, on reaching the population size at 105 individuals intergroup exchange and cross-group communication begins to take shape. A process of adaptation is still further moving away from the mechanism inherent in the Darwin-Weismann module. Under these conditions, efficiency as a sociocultural inheritance proper that ensures the transmission of sociocultural adaptive innovations "vertically" from ancestors to descendants is complemented by the diffusion of the same adaptations along the "horizontal" during inter-individual and intergroup communication. In any case, the ability to perceive and ability to active disseminate of relevant information through adaptive communication (learning and pedagogy) are an initial comprehensive adaptations during human evolution (Csibra, 2011). It led to the transition to the exponential growth in the number of socio-cultural adaptation and, accordingly, the adaptive capacity of hominines. "Germsˮ forms of over-group social communities become the unit of evolution. Increase in the share of horizontal intergroup diffusion of social and cultural adaptation may have become the main reason for the differentiation of intra-system communication (speaking and writing language) too. It initiated the genesis of intergroup exchange of products means rationalistic adaptations (proto-commerce, proto-market). Both factors in this interpretation acted as system group adaptations of "2-nd queuesˮ, initiated a total restructuring of the bio-, and techno-rational and culture sets of their adaptations in the integral anthropogenesis of hominines toward Homo neandertalicus and H. sapiens. The first of these adaptations (conventionalist linguistic diversity intergroup) in accordance with this hypothesis (Pagel, 2013) served as the immune system, i.e., safeguard of cultural and technological adaptations pool from "leakageˮ outside the group. Thus, the adaptive advantage of each group is relatively protected from erosion and leveling relative to other groups. The second adaptation (ancestral form of the modern market) provides the appearance over-group adaptive communications and formation of overgroup social structures. Thereby, while maintaining inter-group differences in the specific adaptations of the value of adaptability of each of them increased in the framework of inter-group associations. Based on the Peter Jordan conception, we can assume the following sequence of events. If the socio-cultural SESH component is the result of a meta-system evolutionary transition within the biological module, the techno-rationalistic module originated within its predecessor (socio-cultural module) and was based also initially on the mechanism of a socio-cultural transmission (inheritance) of its "ancestorˮ. Technological traditions are interpreted as a complex system of cultural inheritance, with information passed between individuals through the sophisticated human capacity for mimesis and social learning. This transmission system enables particular combinations of cultural information to persist from one generation to the next and from the social group to another group. The separation and autonomization of the technorationalistic module resulted from the emergence of a conventionalist language in a similar mechanism (Jordan, 2014: 341-344) The key and irreversible point of the genesis of SESH was the Neolithic revolution, when, strictly speaking, the prerequisites arose for the idea of man's assuming the role of the Creator and the threat emanating from the knowledge acquired by man. ("One of Usˮ (Genesis, 3:22) – God says about Adam, eat fruit from the tree of knowledge). Likewise, the first global technological revolution doomed man to tireless efforts to transform this world: ˮ... Cursed is the ground because of you in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns and thistles forth it to you; and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till you return to the ground from which you were taken; for dust you are and dust you shall return" (Genesis, 3:17 – 21). Since the inception of SESH, the main principle of its functioning and, therefore, the survival of its carriers (hominines) is the construction of an evolutionary-ecological niche, i.e. its transformation into a cultural and ecological niche. The main globalecological attribute of anthropogenesis is the radical reformatting of ecological systems as a result of socio-culture-anthropogenesis. Four main trends of the reformatting of eco-systems of various levels of complexity are highlighted as a result of the SESH implementation (Boivin et al., 2017). There are global expansion of man in the Late Pleistocene (1); the spread of agro-eco-systems in the Neolithic (2); island colonization (3); and the emergence of early urban societies and the network trade routes (4). A common distinguishing feature of these trends is the establishment of a close coevolutionary association between biological evolution, the structure of eco-systems on the one hand, and social evolution, the historical process, on the other. As a result, SESH has become a systemic factor in the global evolution of the biosphere, the value of which continuously increases with time, parallel to the increase in the proportion of the technocratic module in an adaptation of Homo sapiens. The role of SESH as an evolutionary factor reached its maximum with the emergence of technological civilization (17-18th centuries AD). During this period, a two-tier homeostatic system of balanced co-evolutionary relations was finally formed. Here, the role of the balancer controller is still played by culture (phase III). SESH at this time is a dynamic homeostat of genetic-cultural co-evolution and the technohumanitarian balance, closing on the socio-cultural component of the adaptive complex. Practically identical scheme of this phase (if not to take into account the replacement of the techno-rationalist social module offered W.Runcimen (2009:224). Now it becomes apparent already prospect in the near future to the last transition (IVth) phase of the cycle. Action of externalities of the evolution of culture (ecological environment, biological and ratio-technological modules of SESH) is equivalent to the displacement of techno-humanitarian balance towards predominance of technological component. Ultimately, it leads to the socio-cultural gap, the transition from Phase III to phase IV configuration of SESH. It determined the technologization of evolution of biological (genetic engineering), and socio-cultural components of SESH. Adaptive fractal of SESH forms uncompensated loop forward and backward linkages between the individual modules. The loop of direct and inverse links between culture and biological adaptations (genome) disappears, which is fraught with a global socio-cultural rupture, i.e. violation of the continuity of evolutionary transformations of cultural types of Homo sapiens. This, in turn, means the destruction of both geneticallycultural co-evolution and the techno-humanitarian balance. Thus, coherent continuum series of conjugate evolutionary transformations of the genome (the system of biological adaptations), cultures and technologies are transformed by a sequence of discrete configurations of the triad of the same elements. The transition from one configuration to another will be determined solely by the laws of technogenesis, outside the co-evolutionary relations with bioand cultural genesis. A characteristic of this is the initial reaction of the cultural elements of SESH, which can be reduced firstly, to finding objective perspectives for completion of evolutionary history of Homo sapiens as the concept of transand post humanism of Julian Huxley, 1957 (Huxley, 1957: 13-17) predicts; secondly, to the development of conceptual foundations and social institutions of sociocultural management (more precisely, sewage) of the process of implementation of new technological innovations as ("technoself" ) conception of Ronseller Van Potter postulate (Potter , 2002); thirdly, to the statement of the role of modern High Hume as a leading system-determining factor of formation of self-identification and structuring of interpersonal relationships (Lippinchini, 2013: 25). We have descripted the transformation of the contemporary sociocultural module of SESH in chronological order to identify the main trends of these changes. The problem of technological predetermination of human identity, its belonging to the subject-object community is the key here. The sentence "subject-object communityˮ underlines the fact that the identity of a person means to relate to (1) The set of subjects as persons endowed with reason and system of values, and also (2) The set of homogeneous objects as individuals of the same biological species. In the first aspect of this community is allocated based on subjectiveideal uniformity in the second it is allocated based on objectively-substrate uniformity. Thus, content analysis of philosophical and humanitarian knowledge allows to confirm the conclusion of the transition SESH to IVth phase previously made exclusively within the framework of the theoretical constructs of formalized evolutionary models of SESH. We have already mentioned that the genesis of SESH include adaptive inversion as a key component. It resulted to the transformation of the habitat from the cause of the evolutionary process to product of the evolutionary process. Representatives of the genus Homo emerged from an object to a subject of adaptation genesis. This inversion is only the first link of the transformations that have begun. In accordance with our scheme, it can be further called "direct adaptive inversionˮ (adaptive inverse 1). The instability of the modern phase of evolution of SESH is associated with the genesis of "recursive adaptive inversionˮ (adaptive inversion 2). As a result, it initiated a new cycle of adaptive (and not just adaptive) changes of the actual genetic component of SESH. At this time, the changes have not stochastic and spontaneous, but the teleological, technological – rationally organized and constructive character, and they are determined by culture (or rather by the mentality as a component of culture). It should only take into account that culture itself is also under the direct and indirect influence of technology. That is why the term recursion in this case will be more accurate than the reverse. It is not a reversal of the evolutionary vector. The acquisition of an evolutionary landscape by a new dimension is implied. In the projection to the original topos, the change looks like a return to the previous trend of global evolution. The bases of both adaptive inversions are two alternative psychological predispositions that can be called "introversive-projective" and "extroversive-projective" inversions according to their influence on the dominant values in the culture's priorities. The source of the adaptive inversion 2 can be recurrent cycles of relationships within the contours of gene-culture co-evolution and the techno-humanitarian balance. In cultural module, it manifested in increased reflexive components with respect to environmental and cultural components of adaptation genesis. This refers to the periodic amplification targeting the mentality of the spiritual life, i.e. the process of "spiritual selfimprovement", as compared with the projective-activity intension to transform the material world. Previous historical development cycle of this trend was observed in the history of Western civilization in the Middle Ages. The factor limiting the sustainability of middle ages predecessor of adaptive inversion 2 was, in our view, the lack of efficiency in translation and replication of group social and cultural adaptations through purely pedagogical tools. For this reason, there was the gradual weakening of the introversive branch that was aimed at transforming the mentality of the techno-humanitarian balance, and then its replacement extroversive that was aimed at transforming the material reality. This led to the creation of the technological prerequisites for the formation of the mature form of adaptive inversion 2. As a result of recursiveness, number of newly generated evolutionary innovation no longer limited to the original set of most slow, genetic and biological co-evolutionary component of the SESH triad in this cycle of adaptation genesis. Until now, this transition has been realized only within the culture and implied a multiplication of the "World of Proper", its separation into many potential, but not necessarily technologically feasible, future scenarios that relied on a fixed "World of Existence", i.e. genetic and biological substrate basis of sociocultural genesis. This discrepancy occurred due to the peculiarities of the psychophysiological support of the epigenetic plasticity of the cognitive processes of the psyche and the recursiveness of the linguistic organization of human speech, probably. The human language served as a tool for mental description, prediction and transformation of reality. Therefore, the language should have been freed from direct determination of the original emotional image. (As already mentioned, the latter serve to express the subjective state of the individuals, and not to the objective situation of reality.) Modern evolutionary linguist clearly noted that due to the recursiveness of human speech communication, the psyche acquires the ability to create an infinite number of thoughts, phrases and expressions as models of cognitive reality. This ability is based on fixing and combining a limited set of "Inborn Ideas" as emotionally colored images, due to evolution, one way or another (quoted by Bentley, O'Brien, 2012: 5). The evolution of culture has gone through three key points, according R.A.Bentley and M.J. O'Brien (Bentley, O'Brien, 2012: 1-14). Each key point radically reduced culture dependence on the genetic mode of generation – replication – realization – fixation of adaptive information. The new coding system for communication between individuals (language) provides the exchange of information, which has an objective value that is independent of the emotional and physical state of the source and destination information. Additionally, techno-cultural ability to store such information was created, and specific "information drivesˮ (the elderly) was created too. The establishment of such living "information drivesˮ was initiated by forming the first morality as "socio-cultural ensuring their functioningˮ (care of the elderly and the weak members of the social group). The emergence of written records and systems, storage and retrieval of cultural and technological information, do not require biological media was the next stage formation of SESH. Further, creation of computer information systems capable of managing the information flow to generate and implement a lot of information without the biological media happened. As a result, new evolutionary landscape formed. Evolution of culture and reasonable life in general was reassigned from biological substrate to technological ones accordingly to the already apparent evolutionary trend. There is a long-standing tradition in Western civilization of selfreflection by the culture of its own substrate basis (genome) as something external, and not forming binary system integrity. It reaches the logical finality with Rene Descartes. The possibility of technological manipulation by genetic and mental processes transforms the human biosocial substantiality into another sphere of the external environment accessible to rational control and management. There is the active-system-forming function of culture as a factor of coordination and "lapping" of the three components of the adaptive strategy; and its importance entered the mentality of a technological civilization for a long time. However, it happened only indirectly. "Liberationˮ of sociocultural organizations from the power of human biological constitution is considered as a measure of social progress. The classic example is the famous saying of Charles Fourier. According to him, a basic principle of social justice is "freedom of womenˮ to go beyond the boundaries of the "naturalˮ division of social roles by genetically determinate sexual dimorphism. From 19th century, the reason for this specific character of Western mentality lies in the very organization of the adaptive complex known as the technological civilization, whose appearance was identical to the next global evolutionary bifurcation. Its evolutionary potential was determined precisely by setting the "liberationˮ of culture and habitat from the pressure of the biological substrate, and this liberation was "embedded in mythological thinking and practice" as background and foreground of scientific and technological developments [Grant, Moses, 2017: 25]. Thus, rational "values and interests" and irrational "myths and metaphors" coincide in their content as the determinant and channeling factor of evolution, in general, and the social and biological evolution of the humankind, in particular. At the same time, the intention to objectify S&T stimulates a time drift of socio-cultural prerequisites for development and the implementation of scientific knowledge and technological innovations in the direction of greater rationalization. This trend is constrained by the growing influence of axiological discourse. The autonomy of the socio-cultural component of SESH from the biological foundation can occur not only as a result of the direct influence of the rationalistic component, but also spontaneously. (At the same time, the culture as a whole retains its adaptive significance.) In this case, the initiating or catalyzing factor is the ambivalence of the role of biological adaptations with respect to the adaptive effect of specific socio-cultural adaptations. So, for example, the statistical norm of the ratio of the social, emotional predominantly intelligence and rationalistic intelligence is shifted somewhat in the direction of the social and emotional components for the female, and the rational for the male, according to the latest data. The physiological basis of this pattern is a shift in the balance between neural connections within each cerebral hemisphere and between them (Sex differences, 2014:823-828). Inter-hemispheric connections facilitate emotional intuitive-figurative understanding of the behavior of members of numerous social groups, but it makes difficult behavioral acts goal-intention-action that based on clear unambiguous logical modeling. The initial distribution of the social roles of hominines between male (hunting and protection) and female ("guardians of the hearthˮ) sexes was most probably connected with the equilibrium of these two conflicting trends. However, the adaptive value of social intelligence increased as the social structure and differentiation of relations between individual members of society increased as a result of the growth of social groups. Consequently, the ratio of the relative contribution of the male and female to the performance functions of production, protection and management began to change in the opposite direction. This process was initiated and supported by socio-cultural transmutation, i.e. the above-mentioned release of biologically deterministic dictate of distribution of social roles in conjunction with the process to separate sexual and reproductive functions. The intention to free man from external coercion by objective reasons was embodied in the search for technological tools for transforming nature. As a result, humanity significantly reduced the magnitude of the danger resulting from the action of natural disasters and the unforeseen effects of natural forces outside the sociocultural sphere of the habitat controlled by humanity. The modern evolutionary theory calls a human nature and its substratum by term "stable evolutionary (adaptive) strategyˮ, and human nature can no longer be accepted as a world constant that can be "taken out of the bracketsˮ of the equations of the future evolution of civilization, as result. On the one hand, directed (controlled) evolution is the natural result of the implementation of a SESH as the factor that determines the main direction of evolution of the universe. On the other hand, the "naturalˮ, not subject to human intervention for the global evolutionary process suddenly finds signs of intelligent design. Similar to the well-known optical illusion "Face or Cup", the objective facts available to our observation and cognition turn into artifacts that acquire a teleological meaning. Adaptive Inversion 1 and adaptive inversion 2 integrated with each other and form the evolutionary cycle. The latter operating until are not self-destroyed culture as the central element of gene-culture co-evolution and technohumanitarian balance as functional basis of SESH configuration in phase III. This event will mark the transition from phase III to phase IV of the evolutionary history and de facto before the self-destruction of SESH. Already from the above, it is clear that we are talking about the exit of the evolutionary risk to the existential level. Now, evolutionary risk is an invariant of SESH organization, and SESH is on the verge of irreversible evolutionary teleological transformation. The essence of this transformation is the transition to the directed evolution, and in particular, to managed socio-culture-anthropogenesis. From point of view of SESH development, and in accordance with our scheme, phase IV is characterized by the dominance of technological innovations in the common organization of coevolutionary interactions. Thus, at the stage IV, the technical-rational module combines the functions of the coordinator and manager of the two remaining modules with great difficulty, but the transition to the stage of destruction of the SESH organization is already underway. This conclusion follows from the technologization of the biological and socio-cultural components of the evolutionary process. This is equivalent to losing the autonomy of two of the three SESH modules and turning them into derivative elements of the techno-rational module. This transition through the evolutionary bifurcation point of will mean a radical transformation of the actual economic organization of technological civilization too. In accordance with our concept, which is partly the development of A.V. Chayanov's philosophical and economic studies, technological civilization is based on the homeostatic interaction of industrial and agricultural sub-civilizations. Each of them is based on the alternative evolutionary-economic mechanisms to searching and production of resources (Glazko, 2010). A prerequisite for this dichotomy is the dichotomy of civilization process, namely, the specificity of the economic functioning of the subjects of economic activity in the agricultural and industrial sectors, Both sub-structures performing the necessary and complimentary functions in ensuring the viability of society. The essence of t Neolithic revolution can be reduced to alternative variants of the first high-tech innovation of the production of organic matter by photosynthesis and solar energy. So, there are actually agricultural civilization version as direct innovation or pastoral civilization version as indirect its variant. There are two fundamental characteristics of the agrarian type of civilization, generated by dependence on solar energy and by the nature of the used "bioreactors" (plant organisms): spatial constraints imposed on the specific efficiency of agricultural production in this technological context and the cyclical nature of the production cycle. Both these features are not applicable to the industrial segment of the industrial civilization. The above dichotomy is also subject to radical and irreversible erosion and deconstruction as result of the biotechnological revolution. So, in a general way , the result of simultaneous or sequential occurrence of several evolutionary trends is the evolutionary landscape that formed SESH. There are 1. Extraversively projective-activity behavioral intention (adaptive inversion of 1); 2. Group mimesis, marked an opportunity to generation and distribution within the social group of adaptive behavioral and tools innovation (socio-cultural heredity); 3. Social (Machiavellian) intelligence expressed in the ability to predict and manipulate by communicative structure of social groups and the behavior of its members; 4. Expansion of inter-individual communication outside own social group and biological species (Crespi, 2010); 5. Symbolic system of communication through mimetic / gestures and sound code and then written language (symbolic heredity); 6. Spiritualistic transformation of emotionally-imaging components of thinking, leading to the interiolization of social control functions and the development of religiosity; 7. The dominance of rationalist components of thought to catalyze the development of science and technology (enhancer adaptive inversion 1). During the formation phase IV of SESH evolution them to add some more. 8. Recursive distribution of projective-activity intention to human genome, mentality and culture (Adaptive Inversion 2). 9. Introversive reorientation of the trend of cognitive activity with a scientific explanation of the world in the scientific knowledge. It led to the stratification of the knowledge on the dangerous (classical) and warns science and socio-cultural initiation of internal controls to realization of projective activity-behavioral intentions (adaptive inversion of 3). A manifestations of the mentioned control mechanisms development are initialization and integration in the life of society and political sphere, in particular, of social institutes (bioethics and biopolitics, especially) that carry out humanitarian control for S&T development. In this list the largest share have four points 1, 8, 9 and 7. The first three points (adaptive inversions) play the role of Driver of macro-mutations and determine the direction of common future evolutionary trends of a Homo sapiens (i.e. trend of socio-culture-anthropogenesis). The the rationalization of mentality accelerates dramatically the globally evolutionary transformations, and extremely rapidly expanding the boundaries of the ecological niche of humans, and raising the risk to evolutionary existential level. (This thesis will have to go back.) CHAPTER 3. EVOLUTION RISKS: NATURE, ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE Valentin T.Cheshko, Valery I.Glazko "If scientific and technological progress will continue and will not happen improvement of human morality, the probability of survival of civilization not only in the modern era, but also the next century will steadily diminishˮ Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu (, 2012: 126). "Moral codes, like any other cultural system, depend on the existence of human biological nature. Discrepancies between accepted moral rules and biological survival are, however, necessarily limited in scope or they would otherwise lead to the extinction of the groups accepting such discrepant rulesˮ Francisco Ayala (2016: 245). The term "evolutionary riskˮ has become one of the key in the disciplinary matrix of the general theory of systems and areas that examine specific types of such systems in medicine, genetics, economics, management, sociology, etc. recently only. However, as history shows, most modern examples of anthropological and technological risks are associated with collisions of biological adaptation, socio-cultural norms and living conditions and technological innovation. This thesis is in accordance with the concept outlined here and according to the life theory as one of its sources and predecessors. "Individuals face genetic and physiological trade-offs to optimize investment in reproductive and other priorities at different stages of the life course. Trade-offs can be reflected in variation in nutritional and social status, fertility, disease risk, mortality and other parameters conventionally thought of as "health variablesˮ (Jasienska et al., 2017: 9). Theere is a dynamic balance points of participants in these coevolutionary trade-offs, and its position is shifted as a result of mutual autonomy and partial overlapping of Darwin-Weissmann and Lamark coevolutionary modes during the life cycle. The process of transition from one configuration of adaptive features trade-offs to the next is risk due to the phenomenon of so-called phenotypic inertia. "Phenotypic inertiaˮ is the preceding state of the phenotype for the subsequent state. An example is the remote influence of the prenatal nutrition on the development and behavior of an adult (Jasienska et al., 2017: 15). In an extensive, numbering 746 pages, the report of European Environment Agency, 27 specific events are analyzed. They are related to the sharp jumps of magnitude of environment, evolutionary in its phenomenology risk that's just cover almost all aspects of social and anthropological reality. These include, in particular, parameters such as • bodily health; • human environment; • human-made (technological) threats: • economic and social stability; • scientific and technological development policy. t is significant that there were observed long-term effects that suddenly reached a value comparable to the existential risk level with poorly expressed (although observable) early diagnostic "harbingers" of the catastrophe, in all analyzed in this study examples (EEA, 2001; EEA, 2013). This is what allows us to say that in all these cases we are talking about evolutionary risk, which becomes the basic parameter and key element of the mentality of modern civilization, reflected in the structure and composition of modern discourse (Slovic, et al., 2004). The last point made by us as a starting postulate subsequent research of methodology for technohumanitarian balance of risk-taking technological complex. The emergence of technological civilization is equivalent to the transformation of SESH, and, more precisely, its socio-cultural component. It is characterized by the dominance of technological innovation in adaptation genesis, and then in socio-anthropogenesis, in general. Such a homines evolution trend implies an escalation of evolutionary risk as a side result . As a result, an important milestone was reached for 350-400 years of existence of this type of civilization. With the advent of gene and information technologies, the level of evolutionary risk reaches an existential level, since both co-evolutionary bundles are replaced by a system where the status of technological innovation uniquely determines the status of the genome and the culture of the carrier of intelligent life. The conjugation of the processes of sociocultural evolution and technological development occurs under conditions of partial overlapping of the mechanisms for generating and fixing new information, as well as coding systems of adaptively meaning information. In other words, along with the actual co-evolution cultural and technological innovation, a priori may be a direct exchange of information between them. Mainly for this reason, we believe that the concept of techno-humanitarian balance proposed A.P.Nazaretyan, in this case is more correct. So, high enough level of "techno-humanitarian balanceˮ is it necessary to the survival of humankind, in general, and technological civilization, especially. The higher the energy capacity of technology, the more effective use of their socio-cultural adjustments needed (Nazaretyan, 2013:39). Societies that are characterized by low values of this parameter, can`t exist for a long time "by definitionˮ, so to speak. In this sense, the technohumanitarian balance appears unavoidable logical tautology as the Darwinian "survival of the fittestˮ. However, the hypothesis of techno-humanitarian balance can still lean on some empirical evidence. For example, the level of uncontrolled violence, defined, on the relative number of violent deaths and (relative) level of military losses remains approximately constant from century to century and even tends to some reduction. These facts are described in the publications of A.P. Nazaretyan (Nazaretyan, 2013: 39) and are supported by independent calculations of the American psycholinguist S. Pinker (Pinker. 2011:1026). Indeed, there is an amazing contrast between the continuously increasing ability of Homo sapiens to kill representatives of its own biological species and the proportional capacity of the SESH socio-cultural module to prevent the scale of individual use of murder technology from going beyond the adaptive norm. It sounds cynical, but social control of tremendously increased intra-specific (inter-individual and intergroup) competition technological tools inspires some evolutionary optimism. However, the humanistic component of described tendency should not be exaggerated, and the essence of the process will not interpret in terms of ideological bias. (Steven Pinker himself is not free from the pressure of ideology in our opinion.) We are talking about adaptive evolutional (ensures the survival of the society), and not on humanitarian (increasing the value of individual human life as such) progress. This conclusion is confirmed by the increase in the absolute values of casualties in the same period. Reducing the relative magnitude of violence in society is explained rather by a progressive increase in the size and differentiation of society. Threshold of the obvious adaptive value parameters has gone beyond biologically determinate norms, and maintenance of techno-humanitarian balance, ensuring further improvement of organization of society, took over the socio-cultural module of SESH. It is characteristic that, in S.Pinker analysis, major role is given to socio-cultural and economic transformation in reducing the level of aggressiveness. Those he considers 1. Appeasement that is the emergence of agriculture, requiring of numerous, living together and agreed operating people and therefore reduce their mutual aggressiveness (biologically driven norm of groups volume does not exceed a few tens of individuals). 2. Civilization that is the formation of large national or supra-national states in place of the previously fragmented collections of ethno-tribal or feudal territories. 3. Enlightenment and Humanism that are uphold the principles of individualism and self-worth of individual human life. 4. Lasting peace between the great powers (from 1945 to the beginning of the XXI century at least) that is a result of the creation and dissemination of nuclear missile weapons, increase the value of the risk of global military conflicts to the existential level. Subsequently, these elements serve as a basis for reducing the role of violence. They migrate to the sphere of competence of socio-cultural, rather than biological evolution, in our opinion. These tendencies are its infancy now, and an assessment of their reality is unnecessarily and ineradicably ideologically loaded. The entire list is presented either by factors that ensure greater stability of large societies or serve as a manifestation of this stability. It would be necessary to include not only the ideology of humanism and the Enlightenment, but also most religious systems, including all three world religions, as real macro-cultural mutations of this kind. There is another observation. Accordance to the hypothesis of Pinker balance of violence and non-violence are based on the behavioral stereotype inherited from the biological stage of evolution of hominines. The biological evolution support the algorithm of social behavior of hominines that is "Do unto others as they do unto youˮ. Biological algorithm social behavior of hominines is opposed to the ethical rule "Do unto others as you wish them to do unto youˮ that maintain a culture. According to Pinker, these two imperatives reveal the distinction of individualistic, "demonic" elements of human nature that developed primarily in the course of biological evolution and "angelic", socially oriented elements, supported by culture. S. Pinker uses the metaphor of Abraham Lincoln ("Demons" and "angels" of human nature), but expression "better angel'' in the same context is found in the works of Shakespeare. The author refers the physical aggressiveness during extraction and safeguard of resources, the intention to hold the highest possible status in the group (dominance), and the ability to remember and to eliminate hostile individuals, the ability to get positive emotions from suffering such individuals, etc. to the "demonsˮ of human nature promoting violence as a manifestation of aggression human attributes. Accordingly, the "angelic" behavioral stereotypes include empathy and Machiavellian intelligence developed on its basis, as well as consciousness and self-control of behavior depending on circumstances and value priorities, altruism, rationality (Efroimson, 1995:631-639). However, this fact is not clear, and its manifestation depends on group ("angelˮ) and individualistic ("demonicˮ) adaptive components. Once again, all these manifestations have origins in the evolution of hominines and meet at close of systematically of primates (see the review de Waal, 2014). So, techno-humanitarian balance and reducing violence as its particular manifestation are an integrative system characteristic of SESH, dependent on the interaction of all three of its modules. Similar to described model of SESH made recently denoted by the term "System of Systemsˮ (SoS) in systems theory and computer structures (Lock, 2012). Such systems consist of relatively independent modules. Its communication provides a mechanism of evolutionary risk management to ensure overall stability of inclusive adaptability. The co-evolutionary interactions of the individual modules are basis of this stability. However, the rate of evolutionary transformations (or rather, generation, replication, and fixation / elimination of adaptive value information) does not match in different modules; and imbalances and inconsistencies are not excluded between them. They, in turn, entail the possibility of a general reduction of adaptability (evolutionary risk). Thus, the risk is an attribute of the evolutionary multi-level self-organizing SoS, arising from escalating into a conflict imbalance between the adaptations of different levels of the organization of such systems. Let us reformulate this thesis as applied to the theory of stable human adaptive strategy. An evolutionary risk is the system characteristic of SESH and values of risk periodically reaches existential level. The evolutionary path of the biological and socio-cultural forms of adaptation, as it is commonly believed (El Mouden et al., 2014), described by equation of Price Δź = cov(v; z) + Ev (Δz) (3.1), where v is adaptive value of traits, Δź is the average change in the trait values in population in one generation; the first term of equation cov(v; z) reflects the change in trait due to its influence on the adaptive value of its carrier, the second term Ev (Δz) is altered distribution characteristic in the process of communication between individuals. Obviously, the first term describes the process of selecting (removing) individuals with different characteristics. The meaning of magnitude Ev (Δz) comes down to the impact of specific variants of trait on the distribution of carriers on the various traits in the population. For example, the genes of altruism, increase reproductive success of individuals related by reducing its own adaptability. Thus, cov(v; z) describes the process of selection, Ev(Δz) is direct or indirect communication between individuals. As mentioned above, the effect of communication (socio-cultural inheritance) is growing in parallel with the growth in the density and size of social groups. In other words, socio-cultural and technological evolution is faster in large heterogeneous populations. This acceleration has selectively adaptive nature, since the effect of communication spreads available to the action of natural selection innovations, we emphasize. In the case of cultural inheritance (Lamarck module) the effect of communication significantly increases its share, and takes the form of direct infection (contagion). The rate adaptive (and also non-adaptive) evolution increases unconditionally with the size and population density. In the case of genetic inheritance of adaptively significant characteristic, the same effect is mediated by kinship participants of communication. It is another difference between the socio-cultural inheritance (Lamarck modus) from biological Weismann-Darwin modus. For biological inheritance, the evolutionary significance of the effect of communication (i.e. mating system in this case) is due to the genetic drift, especially. In other words, the adaptive evolution of the biological component is defined by adaptability and population size at a fixed value of adaptability / maladaptive of any genetic element. With the population growth a specific weight of adaptive selection grows, but its speed drops. With a decrease in the size of the population increases the proportion of non-adaptive components (genetic drift) and the total rate of evolution can be carried out with greater speed. Thus, the first conclusion from the above is the growing importance of the Lamarck modus in adaptive evolution as result of different speeds and a close correlation between the value of the coefficient of selection, population size and relative contribution of each mode of adaptation genesis in the process. To the same conclusion reached by the American specialist in evolutionary genomics E.Kunin (2014: 312). According to him the Lamarck modus (the term he does not using) or quasi-Lamarckian inheritance is possible because of epigenetic canalization / genetic modification programs. However, his approval feature of Lamarckian evolution model is a postulate about the reality of a mechanism of direction of the generation adaptive information process (Derex et al., 2014:297). "Fortunatelyˮ, in the case of socio-cultural and technological modules of SESH, nature of such a mechanisms combination of intentionality (goal-setting) of human consciousness and the ability for objective ideal modeling of reality (epistemology). It allows for a purposeful design of adaptive innovation, and excludes or at least restricts the role of the selection from from which the pool of mutations originated in the process of adaptation genesis. The imbalance of gene-cultural coevolution is another risk factor for evolution of SESH. Below we look at this issue in more detail. So, the Price equation, in relation to the socio-cultural component adaptation genesis takes the form (Derex et al., 2014) Δź = cov(c; z) + Ec(Δz) , (3.2) where c is socio-cultural component of adaptability. The authors of the cited article does not consider the rational (t) component SESH, but by analogy it can be represented as Δź = cov(t; z) + Et(Δz) (3.3). Note, due to the indivisibility of the system of generation and replication of adaptive information, in the Lamarck module component E(Δz) plays a much more significant role in adaptation genesis compared with the biological component of SESH. At the individual level E(Δz) nonselective trends reflect biological, technological and socio-cultural components respectively. However, at level of competition and selection of social groups, they become a factor evolutionary success or failure of the respective groups, i.e. anyhow, have adaptive value. In this interpretation, communication between individuals leads to change of the adaptive significance of the trait as a result of its inclusion in the adaptive landscape of other modules. This is the most correct interpretation of recent data (Derex, 2004: 89) on the high value of the selective propagation velocity of technological and cultural information in terms of intergroup competition from our point of view. So, in the Price equation, cov(v; z), cov(c; z), and cov(t; z) corresponds to the amount of adaptive information and E(Δz) describes semantics adaptive changes as a consequence of integration in holistic SESH system. As result, some researchers have proposed to divide it into constitutional and induced sub-components (Heywood J.S., 2005). The first subcomponent corresponds to the "innateˮ ability culture to self-replicated by imitation and learning (the phenomenon of cognitive preferences). As a result, the dominant cultural stereotypes are reproduced with greater efficiency compared to their minor forms in society. Second subcomponent is the ability of individual cultural or rationalist innovations serve as attractors for the behavior in a social group due to correlation between social status and the carriage of certain cultural stereotypes. In essence, the same two sub-components, and for the same reasons also is present in rationalist (technological) component of SESH. A priori seems obvious that a stable evolutionary curve is based on the positive correlation between the components (modules) of SESH. It is this conclusion in relation to socio-cultural co-evolution is done in the publication of a group of European researchers (Derex et al., 2014:236). However, just as intuitively obvious, conclusion is that such a configuration is a relatively rare event caused by an introduction to the third (technological and rationalistic) component. There are an increase in stochastic fluctuations or a stably high trend of changes in the ecological situation in relation to the source of life support resources, and they acts as an amplifier of rationalistic adaptations, first of all, the use of various tools. This assumption explains the evolutionary dynamics of the development of the instrument activity, and it is referred to in modern anthropology as the "environmental risk hypothesis" (Collard et al., 2013). The prerequisite for the high efficiency of the rationalistic module of SESH serves high number and density of the population, providing a sufficient intensity and reliability of social inheritance and a relatively high intensity of the process of generation of adaptive significance of culture and technology innovations (Henrich, 2004; Kline, 2010). Combined with each other, they create a delayed risk effect associated with a risk factor that goes beyond an already existing cultural and environmental niche. Eliminating potential (delayed) forms of evolutionary risks associated with "pullingˮ more slowly evolving biodiversity module to a new evolutionary landscape (fig. 1.3, a branch of Tn-1 → Tn → Cn-1 → Cn → Gn-1 → Gn). Gn-1 → Gn stage falls out or is greatly delayed when a certain threshold value is reached by stochastic fluctuations or a steady trend of changes in the environmental conditions and the rate of adaptive evolution of the rational and socio-cultural modules. As a result, the stage is replaced by adaptive changes of the other participants of adaptation, T n-1→T n→C n-1→Cn → Tn→Tn+1→ C n→Cn+1 →... (3.4) An example would be later (for four thousand years comparatively with the appearance of cheese-making) fixing a permanent level of enzymes milk sugar digestion in populations of tribes of Central Europe (Gamba et al., 2014). However, upon further technogenesis speed growth, loss of stage adaptive cultural transformation also occurs. In this case because of the smaller difference between the rate of evolution of technology and culture evolution compared with the biogenesis, general scheme of evolution SESH is dualistic ones: T n-1→ Tn→Tn+1→ C n→Cn+1 →... (3.5) or T n-1→T n→C n-k→Cn-k+1 → Tn→Tn+1→ C n→Cn+1 →... (3.6) The connection between the modules is broken. There is a redistribution of balance deterministic, functional and limiting the composition of exist adaptive repertoire linkages as a result of the "great divideˮ of triple structure of SESH, i.e. breach of system integrity, supported by closed-loop forward and backward linkages between all modules. Balance of more slowly evolving modules and faster modules changes in favor of the latter ones. A very difficult problem is the dating of the transition leading role in adaptive evolution from the biogenesis to socio-cultural genesis and loss of communication between them. It is solved only ad hoc to each of the adaptive phenomenon. Allow only one assumption. With regard to interindividual communication and social organization, this transition occurred at the moment when the formation of the over-group, social structure began, since the origins of intra-group cooperation can be traced within the framework of biological behavioral adaptations of higher primates. This is evidenced, for example, by data and discourses on the biological sources of morality of F. de Waal. Within the limits of intragroup relations, the evolution of morality goes "from bottom to top," from elementary genetically programmed behavioral stereotypes to culturally reproducible norms of relations between individuals within a group, and even more so, to verbally-logically based moral systems (de Waal, 2014: 317). If individual members of the group are related by kinship, at the stage of integration of groups of individuals into a single society, the ability to maintain social structures and ensure the viability of the group as a whole is supported by classical sibs-selection and similar models of micro-evolution. This mechanism is no longer effective when combining groups that are not linked by a common gene pool initially. Sociocultural innovations (religion, ethics, etc.) are formed "from top to bottom", from general rationally coordinated postulates to specific norms of behavior. They "work" as an enhancer in this case. There is a network or cloud emotive images (thought forms) associated with the initial logicalverbal design and with each other. At least some of them can overlap with thought forms that initiate genetically determined behavioral stereotypes, which are not necessarily uniquely defined and single. Then themselves culturally determined images and the original verbal-logical constructs, transformed into significant socio-cultural or rational adaptation. This is the first gear, which may explain the appearance and fixation of the rationalist and socio-cultural adaptations, especially religion and morality. Alternative transmission between rationalistic, cultural and biological SESH modules can be initiated by the culture and technological innovations, affecting the survival of Homo sapiens. These innovations are a network of co-evolutionary connections arises between the adaptive windows of individual modules of SESH in any case. Its structure and composition are variable and not always unambiguous. By this surface three adaptive windows are displaced relative to each other and do not coincide completely. As a result, the value of the delayed risk is equivalent to evolutionary risk. It tends to be a permanent increase over time, since the above technological development becomes autocatalytic process, stimulated not only culture, but also by the cognition and technogenesis. Accelerated development of socio-cultural and rationalist modules of SESH leads to increased stress at gene-culture co-evolutionary ligaments and techno-humanitarian balance. (This refers to the growing discrepancy between the techno-cultural environment and the psychophysiological adaptive norm.) The situation of delayed evolutionary risk allowed a sharp increase in all kinds of elements of biological variability of adaptive module, which in turn is accompanied by an increase in the frequency of genetic and epigenetic violations ("diseases of civilizationˮ). Delayed environmental risk becomes relevant, evolutionary form. In the future, we understand the term "evolutionary riskˮ as "existential evolutionary riskˮ. Thus, this term will be denoted as a first approximation of following meanings: In terms of the disciplinary matrix of biological (physical) anthropology, it is the likelihood of long-term evolutionary trend, ending an extinction, i.e. an irreversible decline in the number of biological carriers of stable adaptive strategy (in this case – SESH); In terms of culture (philosophical) anthropology, it is equivalent to a judgment about the loss of cultural self-identity of the bearer of the mind; Finally, from the viewpoint of technology (anthropology of technique), this point is recorded as offensive Posthuman future. If the technogenesis process continues, we may to speak an era of post-humanism in the technological or noospheric evolution, depending on the original system of values and attitudes of the researcher. Explicitly or implicitly, all three aspects appeal to the ineradicable and cumulatively accumulating imbalance of individual and group adaptability, which makes them incompatible upon reaching a certain threshold value. Upon reaching this bifurcation point, there is a sudden catastrophic disintegration as result irreversible decline adaptability of the SoS. Further evolution can develop in accordance with one of the three mutually exclusive scenarios that we present below. The extinction of Homo sapiens is complete elimination of the carriers of SESH – (SoS) → 0. Posthumanity is replacement of one strategy by another strategy, with the elimination of one or more components – N1 (SoS1) → N2 (SoS2). "Eliminationˮ of SESH component in this context refers to the inability of evolutionary transition between the component SESH-predecessor and the newly formed adaptively strategy. In a sense, this feature corresponds to the known model of "irreducible complexity of the systemˮ according to which the object can`t arise through incremental evolution of the original building. Divergence (irradiation) of intelligent life is the division of the original set of carriers of the SESH into several ones – SoS1 → Σ (SoSi). In terms of design niches and evolutionary ecology theories, this case is equivalent to the fragmentation of the original ecological niche. If at least one of the newly emerging forms of intelligent life carriers remain actual or potential intention to unlimited expansion, evolutionary reduction of the third to the second scenarios inevitable. Technology makes our genetic constitution and the content of our consciousness by the subject of rational control and management. The result of the development of both types of information technology is the same: technology of mind control (change of socio-cultural code) and technology of controlled the genetic code are both technology of driven evolution (Cheshko, 2009:337). By reducing the degree of evolutionary risk posed by uncontrolled (stochastic) microevolution, the rationalistic component of SESH raises the level of risk to the next, macroevolutionary level. This is equivalent to the possibility of destroying the organization of an ensemble of SoS homeostasis. Let consider the general mechanism of evolutionary risk in relation to the possibility of disintegration and destruction of coevolutionary relationships and communication between the components of SESH. Probably, the most obvious example of an actualization of evolutionary risk is the process of carcinogenesis in accordance to one of the most reasonable hypothesis (Gilles, 2012). The development of all cancers, regardless of hereditary, infectious, or sporadic origin, is subject to the dynamics of Darwinian selection in a heterogeneous cell population. The necessary conditions for a self-sustaining process of carcinogenesis are the instability of the genome of the cell in combination with the heterogeneity of physiological parameters such as hypoxia, acidosis and presence of active molecular oxygen. All of them together form a cycle with positive feedback, and provide progressive tumor growth, very quickly adapt to the selective action of the environmental factors that can potentially slow down the multiplication of cells (cytotoxic substances, ionizing radiation, and so on). It is assumed that such a system is the complex of cellular anti-stress adaptation to environmental stress of very ancient origin. The effect of this system becomes a source of risk to the evolution of cell populations in a multicellular organism, because ultimately destroys the conditions for their existence (the death of an individual). By the same scenario developed any evolutionary process of actualization of risk. 3.1. Evolutionary load and evolutionary risk Thus, the source of evolutionary risk is any inherent contradiction between the elements of a stable adaptive strategy that may lead to its destruction and, consequently, extinction of SESH carriers. The sources of evolutionary risk are the multi-vector nature of the process of adaptation genesis, which simultaneously involves a certain set of elementary adaptations that affect more than one adaptive significant trait simultaneously, and evolving in different directions and at different speeds. The social adaptive nature of longevity and aging is just as obvious (Mitteldorf, 2017). The initial adaptive value was due to the implementation of two functions of the competitive advantage of social groups with a fairly high number of older people. It are the upbringing of children and the storage of accumulated adaptive information that is compressed by a sociocultural transmission. Later this feature was included in the general network of the adaptive complex as one of the central bearing elements. Equally clear are The leading role of the socio-cultural module in the mechanism of maintaining a sufficiently long individual life outside the reproductive period, and The techno-rationalistic module as the main provision of security in comparison with the actual genetic substrate. \As a result, the study of socio-psychological and socio-cultural aspects of aging and longevity becomes extremely multi-dimensional in theory and in practice. Partial empirical manifestations of evolutionary risk are growth of evolutionary load and an increase in the scope and depth of the environmental crisis of civilization. Evolutionary load will be denoted by the accumulation of elements that reduce the general adaptability within each of the three modules and the in entire SESH. Thus, the components of the evolution load are follows. 1. Genetic Load is accumulation of reduce adaptability mutations in population, whose action is compensated by other elements of the genetic module of SESH; 2. Socio-Cultural Load is the accumulation of cultural elements, reduces the stability and viability of this type of culture or its competitiveness in relation to other socio-cultural types (anti-humanism). Textbook examples are human sacrifice in Aztec civilization, Khlysts and Skoptsy in Christianity, etc. All of them were either side and / or excessive results of socio-cultural adaptation, or adapting to no longer valid sociocultural or environmental conditions; 3. Techno-Rationalistic Load is the accumulation of elements of theoretical and technological knowledge, if society can`t currently control their possible negative consequences (risk knowledge); 4. The System Load is a general accumulation of imbalance between of self-replicating environments and Homo sapiens as a result of a spontaneous evolution of SESH. In other words, evolution of SESH increases energy, material and informational cost to artificial maintenance of original ecological niche of hominines (global environmental crisis and post-humanism). As you can see, the systemic evolutionary risk of SESH means the output of the hominenes evolutionary trajectory beyond the effective functioning zone. Also, SESH may be in conditions inevitably lead to the extinction of their carriers not only as a result of a catastrophic change in living conditions, but also due to internal system restrictions, like any evolutionary strategy of a different taxon. n both scenarios, the ecological system will become incompatible with the existence of this evolutionary strategy. The ecological niche will disappear (ecological crisis) or the adaptive strategy will be replaced by a new one (post-humanism). However, the linear approximation implies acceptance one of alternative risk components (environmental crisis versus post-humanism) equal to a constant. It is not possible to adequately assess the evolutionary risk value in these conditions. In addition, integral population adaptability is determined not by one, but by two parameters that are individual (genetic load) and group (ecological crisis) adaptability due to the mechanisms of realization of the biological and sociocultural component of SESH. Finally, genetic load of individual adaptability is result of genetic heredity and socio-cultural transmission that controls the lifestyle too. Due to these considerations, it is necessary to introduce an adaptive differential (Da) as new concept to designate the influence of the evolutionary innovation on the adaptability of other ones, already existing and recorded in the innovation population. Adaptive differential of individual adaptations can have different signs and different values in relation to other adaptations, regardless of their nature. So, Da = |∑Ak−Ai| N , (3.7) where Ak, Ai is relative adaptability of the inherited (biological, cultural or rationalist) innovations and other innovations from their totality N. The value Da lie from zero to one with the approach of Da unity, it makes a relatively larger contribution to the final value of adaptability. Taking into account the hierarchy of speeds of individual components of SESH, adaptive differential of rapidly evolving (socio-cultural and technological) innovations increases. However, the more slowly evolving components deliver the substrates for more rapidly evolving components. Consequently, the tensions in the overall system of SESH grow, and this process continues until a disintegration of the meta-structure of adaptive complex. This complex provides operation and the possibility of further transformation of sociocultural and technological components. Obviously, the risk is an evolutionary feature of any self-organizing (evolving) systems. For example, according to the theory of "cognitive loadˮ in cognitive science and to the evolutionary epistemology, assimilation of new non-hereditary by biological way informational fragments is only possible, if their number does not exceed seven elements. With all the differences of these situations, we are talking about similar information processes, because the acquisition of new adequate reality knowledge is equivalent to the generation of adaptive information by living organisms. As a consequence, an avalanche-like elimination or replacement of elements of an adaptive strategy takes place. The end result will be either a complete elimination of the carriers of this SESH, or the emergence of a new SESH. Explanatory model of inclusive inheritance of adaptively relevant information found in the scientific literature are based on the principle of the validity of the linear approximation of this process (see Danchin, Pujol, et al, 2013). Accordingly, the total phenotypic variance can be decomposed into individual components that in this case both are separate systems of heredity (genetic, socio-cultural, and so on), and various forms of Homo sapiens adaptations σp 2 = σg 2 + σc 2 + σm 2 + σs 2 + σt 2 + σe 2 + σr 2, (3.8) where is an "extendedˮ phenotypic variance. Extended phenotype includes all stable transformation of morphological, physiological, biochemical, psychological and other signs caused not only genotypic factors, but also the culture and technological interventions. For example, the technological interventions category includes such diverse phenomena as surgery, pharmaceuticals, prosthetics and technical correction of hearing and vision, the results of pedagogical and psychological adjustments, etc. Components σg 2; σc 2; σm 2 ; σs 2; σt 2; σe 2; σr 2 are parts of the general variation, caused by genetic factors, cultural inheritance, the parent effect, social environment, technological interventions and environmental factors, respectively. Components σm 2 ; σs 2 (nfluence of parents and the social environment) can be seen as the result of cultural and genetic factors, and σt 2as mediated by cultural inheritance of technological modification of the phenotype. (It is defined by culture modification of phenotype that initiated and / or supported by the system of value priorities; and latter determinate the status of dignity and self-esteem of carriers of certain traits in the population.) The latter statement is true, at least in respect of the IIIrd phase of evolution of SESH. Component σr 2 is "residualˮ that determined solely by currently unknown factors. The relative contribution of individual types of inheritance of adaptively significant attributes to the "extended" (inclusive) phenotype corresponds to the equation σg 2 σp 2 + σc 2 σp 2 + σm 2 σp 2 + σs 2 σp 2 + σt 2 σp 2 + σe 2 σp 2 + σr 2 σp 2 = 1 (3.9) As already mentioned, components σm 2 σp 2 ; σs 2 σp 2 can be distributed between genotypic and socio-cultural variance. Technological component is autonomous by mechanisms of generation, and the way of realization of adaptive information. Therefore, with respect to SESH, the above equation can be simplified by the way σg 2 σp 2 + σc 2 σp 2 + σm 2 σp 2 + σt 2 σp 2 + σe 2 σp 2 + σr 2 σp 2 = 1 (3.10) From our point of view, component σr 2 is heterogeneous in its composition, since it involves a fairly significant result of the nonlinear interaction of co-evolutionary elements of different levels of complexity. Then, when it comes to adaptability, the linear approximation is no longer correct, due to the systemic nature of the interaction of components of SESH. For an external observer, this is manifested in the gradual growth of the relative fraction of the "residual" component, σr 2 σp 2 → 1 . For this reason, the evolutionary risk phenomenon occurs, as well as the need for a transition from micro-parameters (selective advantage, adaptability etc.) of separate fragments of adaptive information (genes, memes, culture-genes, etc.) to the system of macro-parameters. Below you will find the data and arguments that suggest: 1. During socio-culture-anthropogenesis, parameter σr 2 σp 2 increases with acceleration. Initiation and compensation of this increase carried out to date, primarily due to further technological innovation of High Hume (NBIC) complex; 2. An evolutionary risk iss the projected growth of the parameter and its relation with the technological innovation process in this equation, and its magnitude becomes a critical factor in assessing system-forming problems both biological and social safety and security in the course of the IVth phase of SESH evolution. The concept of "risk" is the subject of "warning of scienceˮ. Therefore, it is key category of concept field of post-academician science in general. In the instrumental aspect, the transformation of the social institution of science into the modern, post-academician phase of its development is due to the cooperative action of qualitative and quantitative factors of evolution. This thesis is based on a systematic assessment of the materials of the previous sections of the study. 1. First, quality system-evolutionary factor of socio-cultureanthropogenesis is evolutionary dominance of risk in the overall structure of the hominines evolutionary landscape. 2. The second, metric or ranked evolutionary factor is the transition of the integral risk value across the existential threshold. The concept of evolutionary risk in this study suggests the need for synthetic model; and theses (1) and (2) will be present in the equations as a definite two initial parameters of the conceptual model, and subsequently, as the algorithm and the general scheme of risk assessment of NBIC technological innovation. The concept of "evolutionary risk" originally came into use in the sociohumanitarian disciplines. The first time it has used by Niklas Luhmann. It is also necessary to mention the name of the Italian philosopher and sociologist Danila Zolo. In his book "Democracy and complexity: a realistic approachˮ (1992), he argues quite convincingly that the main source of increase in potential instability of modern Western democracies is their excessive complexity of the structural and functional organization. Suddenly turning into the actual form of potential instability diagnosed him as "an evolutionary riskˮ (Zolo, 2010: 179). There is an inversion of the causal relationships between the subjects of the political process. New political actors no longer are a party but the narrow circle of elite entrepreneurs from election campaigns that come with each other in advertising competition. They appeal to the masses of citizens-consumers, offering them under the revised strategy of television marketing its symbolic products, he says further (Zolo, 2010: 10-11). If this tirade is cleared of emotionally-axiological coloring, then the following conclusion remains in the "dry residue" accessible by verification with empirical data. One of the leading causes of the stability of the sociocultural module of SESH (in his West-technological variety) has been the emergence of political and social engineering technologies (varieties of technology of managed evolution). Inversion of explanatory links and functional dependencies of self-organizing social systems and violation of the integrity and autonomy of its separate elements occur. There are an inversion of the causal relationships and functional dependencies of selforganizing social system and a violation of integrity and autonomy of its individual elements. The reason for this is imbalance in favor of rational-technological and other modules SESH. In fact, this definition is consistent with Niklas Luhmann concept (see Cheshko, 2012:52-53), and with our interpretation of the phenomenon of evolutionary risk. We considered a similar example of the inversion of the loop of direct and feedback as a manifestation and mechanism of the mismatch of adaptive processes between the SESH modules. The object of the research was the development of a crisis in relations between the state and the social institute of science (genetics in concrete) in the former USSR in 1920-1965 (Cheshko, 1997; Glazko, Cheshko, 2009). The evolutionary mechanism of these social phenomena genesis demonstrates an amazing analogy, more precisely even homology, with all the differences between them. Once again, we emphasize that any interpretation of the concepts of "evolutionary risk" and "system complexity" postulated correlative, causal and functional bilateral relationships between adaptively significant elements within the adaptive module and between modules. Between the individual elements within the module can be observed conflicts as their adaptability / maladaptability defined with respect to various environmental complexes or to provide oppositely directed survival functions. Maladaptation within the module can be used as a substrate for formation of adaptation in another module. With the increasing complexity of internal structural and functional organization and external ecological niches such conflicts are becoming more and more significant and largescale; and the magnitude of the risk of evolution is growing as result. After reaching the threshold of existential risk (R = 1), returning to acceptable risk values (R << 1) will mean complete destruction of SESH and the birth of a new structure of the evolutionary strategy, which cannot be obtained by changing the configuration of its previous stage. Paradoxically, the removal of evolutionary risk in this case would be tantamount to its actualization. Conceptual-terms apparatus to create the concept of evolutionary risk can be virtually unchanged borrowed from studies on the economic theory of innovation processes. Structure of evolutionary risk can is assessed on the following parameters: • The probability of success / failure of adaptive evolutionary innovations that amounted to the ability to solve the key problem of survival of Homo sapiens and expansion of his ecological niche; • The probability of generating the evolutionary innovations that can potentially solve / aggravate the imbalance of SESH with the environment and gene-cultural co-evolution and the techno-cultural balance; • The presence / absence of sufficient environmental and cultural resources that are necessary for the implementation of evolutionary scenario, which is actualized by evolutionary innovation; • Projected decrease / increase the probability of generating and recording new evolutionary innovation, i.e. plasticity / sustainability of SESH and all its components. As we can assume, there is the controller, capable of ensuring maintenance of the parameter SESH plasticity / stability within adaptive norm; and this role playing member of adaptively intermodular complex with an intermediate evolution speed. (Its speed of evolutionary transformations lies between the fastest and slowest modules of the SESH triad.) In doing so, the range of possible rates of at least two such modules overlaps with the third module. As is clear from the above, at present the only contender for this role is culture. This implies the following option: • The compliance / noncompliance of predictable evolutionary scenario `to some basic system options. These options are recognized not subject to review under the system of human values. Once again we will quote the book by Ilya Mechnikov, which was published on the beginning of the 20th century. "To change human nature, first of all, one should be aware of the ideal to which one should strive, and then use all the means presented by science for its existence" (Mechnikoff, 1988:245). On the one hand, the last criterion looks subjective in comparison with the rest criterions, since it corresponds to the reflection of the "human natureˮ to the moment in time and to the type of culture. On the other hand, its assessment looks the most labile and prone to extraneous manipulation by social groups that are carriers of marginal value systems. However, with more careful analysis, it turns out that in the post-academician science, it is this indicator that can influence the evaluation of other criteria to the strongest extent. It determines the evolutionary landscape that decides the fate of adaptive / maladaptive innovations. Moreover, it is for calculating the integral macro-parameters of the evolutionary risk assessment − evolutionary correctness and evolutionary efficiency (see below). There is a stable intention of Western (technogenic) socio-cultural type focuses the individual and the society on a constant search for means of improving the environment and psychological comfort; and it is true for all (Judaic, Christian and Islamic) cultures that belong to the same branch of the evolutionary tree. Achieving this goal it is accompanied with strengthening the adaptive capacity of human nature. Technical artifacts complement and enhance human physiological abilities, and technological artifacts perform the same function in relation to mental and cognitive abilities. Technical artifacts in this context consider various adaptations that increase physical abilities of the human body, i.e. replace the morphological and physiological biological adaptation. Verbal expression of this intention can be represented as a technological imperative. In its simplest form, it is as follows: All that can be changed to a common or individual gain must be changed (Harris, 2007: 9). This ensures a permanent process of generation of adaptive technology innovations. There is potential evolutionary risk as reverse side of this intention that is counterbalanced by the opposition intention. Phenomenological consequence of its existence is the well-known in cognitive science "Knobe Effectˮ. In accordance with it, the perception of the positive and negative consequences of new knowledge and technology is asymmetric: the evaluation of the first is underestimated, and the second is overestimated. Or, as the well-known in Russia vaccinologist Mikhail Favorov put it (Favorov, 2013), "We do not have good newsˮ. This creates a certain socio-cultural effect of inhibiting the growth of evolutionary risk. Latter, as the mathematical analysis shows (Turchin, 2008), tends monotonically to 1 in the region of the existential threshold of its values, as a whole. In general, the binary opposition of the mentioned alternative intentions acts as a homeostat, preventing the disruption of SESH until now. Let us turn to the results of research on the evolutionary mechanisms of genesis and the adaptive role of psychological prejudices of technological and socio-cultural innovations. The prejudices are tendentiousness of assessing the possible evolutionary risk and adaptive advantages. The hypothesis of J. Johnson and J. Fowler (Johnson, 2011; Johnson et al., 2013; Marshall et al., 2013) is most interesting. Their concept is known as the "Management Error Theoryˮ. It asserts that the mechanisms of perception, decision-making and assimilation / elimination of adaptive innovations are fundamentally asymmetric. This is different from the classical Bayesian scheme of a step-by-step decision-making strategy, in which the overall assessment and the path of innovation are continuously adjusted in accordance with previous results. This scheme, in general, corresponds to the model resulting from the Darwin-Weisman mode: in each generation, natural selection performs an independent act of comparing the adaptive value of competing innovations, as a result, the frequency of evolutionary innovations in the next generation changes to increasing the adaptability of each individual innovation in the general adaptive landscape. The existence of a hierarchy of autonomous mechanisms for generating and replicating of adaptive information changes this scheme, and bringing it closer to the Lamarckian mode. In general, these transformations boil down to "memorizing" and generalizing the results of previous acts of selection of adaptive innovations. Thus, the act of selection is the fixation or elimination of innovation that ceases to be entirely autonomous, and turns out to be integrated into the hypercycle of "adapting of adaptations". A prerequisite is the asymmetric distribution of evolutionary risk as the product of the error probability by the magnitude of the possible damage. The implementation mechanism of the evolutionary risk management process is embedded in SESH and, obviously, has a sociocultural character, since it includes a quantitative correction of statistical choice in stereotypical problem situations (optimism, pessimism, self-confidence, caution, etc.). However, it is based on the features of individual and group perception of the dynamics of changes in reality. In other words, the outcome of the innovation process in this case is influenced not only by the system of sociocultural value priorities, but also by the psychophysiological features of human perception and thinking that were formed in the course of the previous evolution of the biological (genetic) component of SESH. Then. Knobe Effect represents a particular case from the set of decision strategies that arose within the SESH, depending on the macro characteristics of the problem situation (primarily resource availability, benefit-risk relations, etc.). The reason for its activation is the passage of the upper permissible threshold for the rate of evolutionary transformations, since, in the evolutionary history of hominines, excessively rapid changes in the parameters of the ecological niche were potentially dangerous for the survival of populations and social groups and required the presence of adaptive instruments for excessive stabilization too. The speed of the innovation process correlates here with the complementarily of the morphological and physiological organization, spiritual culture and Homo sapiens socio-ecological habitat of this set of excessive adaptive means. Obviously, there is bottom barrier too: in resources ensuring individual and group survival, the fall is below the threshold, followed by a sharp activation of social (hardly technological) innovation processes ("there is nothing to lose"). All these arguments introduce a subjective component into the theory of evolution, but, simultaneously, objectify some parameters of the spontaneous evolutionary process. However, oddly enough, both aspects suggest evolutionary risk as their common consequence. The categories "evolutionary load" and "evolutionary risk" associates by deterministic attitude in the case of the linear reduction: evolutionary risk represents the potential (projected) form of evolutionary load; evolutionary load is the actualization of evolutionary risk. The asymmetry of the relationship between them is determined implicitly, by presence of a rational subject in the definition of "evolutionary risk". In fact, the very existence of the phenomenon of evolutionary risk already needs in accordance with any version of the theory of evolution, if the latter is based solely on genetic mechanisms of adaption genesis. The category of "evolutionary risk" means rationalization of the evolutionary process and, therefore, the existence of technological control over it (technology-driven evolution). Generalizational evolutionary risk corresponds to a predictable drop of SESH effectiveness as an integrated system of survival of Homo sapiens. Specific evolutionary risk corresponds to a predictable drop in adaptability of the individual components of SESH, if the drop normally is compensated and / or assimilated by other components. (The term "assimilation of risk" in this context means the transformation of maladaptation generated by one of the SESH components, to a substrate base of adaptive innovation of SESH. During this study, we look at a few genetic on nature examples of this kind). By far namely, biological component of SESH was the most risk-taking ones. Let us to compare the evolutionary risk and two fundamental postulates of Neo-Darwinism – Fisher's fundamental theorem (Fisher, 1930:22) on one hand, and the principle of minimal genetic load (Kimura Moto, 1985:171) –on other. In accordance with the Fisher theorem, adaptability of non-equilibrium population will continue to grow with a speed proportional to the variance of the individual adaptability. In the absence of complicating circumstances, this process should result in a stable equilibrium genetic structure of the population with the maximum adaptability. The principle of minimum genetic load can be derived from this thesis: The end result of evolution is always the structure, which is characterized by the minimal value of the genetic load, i.e. minimal discrepancy between the average value of population adaptability and the maximum adaptability under given environmental conditions. When the value of the evolutionary load and evolutionary risk are determined by biological components of SESH only, evolutionary risk is defined as the number of acts of genetic elimination that are needed to achieve the highest possible level of population adaptability ("pay for the selection"). In this case, exclusively the speed and regularity of environmental changes on the one hand, and efficiency of selective transformation on the other determine the existential magnitude of evolutionary risk. The latter factor is determined by the complex of such parameters as adaaptional genetic variation, the reserve of genetic variability, speed selection, wide norm of reaction and so on. It is intuitively obvious that the existential risk (extinction) occurs after reaching by a speed of environmental change threshold that equal to the rate of selection in a given population. This threshold in the case of Darwin-Weismann module is relatively small. According to the long-standing calculations of Moto Kimura, selection is effective if the number of alleles under its action does not exceed 10-12. Although a variety of amendments, strictly speaking, this conclusion has not refuted in the classical theory of evolution. Meanwhile, in the mid-1960s R. Lewontin et al. had drafted the socalled paradox balancing genetic load, and then the extremely high level of genetic variability in human and not only populations repeatedly was discovered and confirmed. The most recent data (Lévesque, 2012) argue the level of genetic load in populations of hominines of the order of 2 mutations per genome per generation. As mathematical calculations show, compensation of the fall in adaptability is equal to about 16 children for each pair of parents during the reproductive period in this case. A period between successive births in women approaching to 3 years. Thus, given the characteristics of the ecological niche and physiological organization of the reproductive system of hominines, it seems quite unacceptable. Possible explanations are the interaction of individual mutations on the level of the genome and the interaction of different carriers of mutations in a social group. Potentially, such a mechanism of adaptive compensation can significantly change the value of evolutionary risk or even invert the process of falling adaptability. In particular, consideration of epigenetic mechanisms and socio-cultural inheritance (adaptive inversion 1) increases significantly adaption genesis rate and raises the threshold of admissible values of the speed changes of habitat. In fact, talking about change of environment becomes incorrect in the old sense of this word. Now, the source of risk is only those environmental factors that are unavailable for rationalistic forecasting, control and management. Adaptation genesis speed is limited by the rate of constructing socio-ecological niches (i.e. noosphere or the techno-sphere). However, this process already is controlled by two or even three systems of generate of adaptive information, and the relationship between them is supported by co-evolution rather than a direct exchange of information. Thus, there are several components of the system evolution risk as opposed to purely biological form of evolutionary risk. The substantial genetic load occurs because of the mismatch between the direction and magnitude of selective pressure caused by the influence of environmental and socio-cultural factors of selection. Sociocultural form of adaption genesis has a much higher rate compared to the biological form. As a result of this discrepancy in the selection vectors, the genetic structure of the population does not adapt to the socio-cultural environment. Instead, most often there is a fixation of a new adaptive cultural innovation, which compensates for some element of biological maladaptivity, but generates a new maladaptivity. So-called epigenetic or genetic "diseases of civilization" are an external manifestation of this component of the evolutionary risk actualization. Actually, substantive load will take accumulation in populations of maladaptive genoand phenotypes. The reason is the accumulation of socio-cultural and technological adaptive innovations, leading to a change in the socio-cultural environment, and makes possible the social adaptation (survival) of relevant biological defects carriers. The existence of substantial load stems directly from the concept of "disharmony of human nature" by Ilya Mechnikoff. The first sketches of this concept were expressed as early as 1871 and articulated in its final form in his classic publication "The etudes of Human Natureˮ and "Etudes of optimismˮ in the early twentieth century (Mechnikoff, 1961: 8-9). Epigenetic loads. Socio-cultural innovations increase general adaptability, but will affect the biological reaction rate and as result creates an increasing stress on the system of mental physiological homeostasis of human body. Thereby frequency of various pathologies significantly increasing. Perhaps there is increase in the number of cancer and cardiovascular disease, mental illness, etc. that attests to mainstream this evolutionary form of risk. Typically, epigenetic mechanisms modified negative manifestations of pleiotropic gene in the way that their phenotypic expression moves beyond childbearing age or outside the parameters of the ecological environment. Socio-cultural determination of the quality of life can return to these genes phenotypic expression. Thus, an epigenetic load is represented pool of adaptively neutral or beneficial genes, transforming to maladaptive elements in the genome. Any well-known diseases of civilization are the actualization of one of these two trends of evolutionary biological risk. Cultural and technological development of components made possible huge increase in the value of genetic and epigenetic load (biological evolutionary risk), the main trends of which were already outlined by composition of the hominines triad. Its biological adaptation advanced in conflict with existing basic biological functions, and overcoming of conflict occurs within the other two component of SESH only. Balancing genetic load (in the broadest sense of the word). Genetic compensation of negative manifestations of pleiotropic genetic adaptations, and systemic sociocultural adaptation is achieved at the population level. It is accompanied by decrease in the number and genetic death of some the individuals in population (sickle cell anemia, diabetes and so on). The growing imbalance in the biological and socio-cultural adaptation as a result of different forms of evolutionary risk actualization has been seen since the 1860's. But the conceptualization of the idea of such imbalance was carried out primarily in an ideological and philosophical or socio-humanitarian form (Nietzsche, Freud). The share of natural knowledge was negligible. An influence the actual evolutionary theory and the creation of its explanatory models of this phenomenon can be traced at Ilya Mechnikoff works most strongly. Translate his theorizing in the empirically verifiable constructs has become possible only in recent decades. An example is the publication has repeatedly cited herein Bernard Crespi (2010). Socio-cultural load. The elimination from the gene pool of individual genetic factors reduce the general adaptability of Homo sapiens; at the same time, it can deprive the culture system of biological (genetic) substrate of its system-forming elements. Their maintenance and replication will be further ensured by the systemic nature of the culture itself and the sustainability of the cultural tradition exclusively. Technology (anthropological) load. Erosion of the biological adaptations complex, which provides the basic system of biological reproduction of Homo sapiens, can be a secondary result of the accumulation of cultural load. The elements of this set largely supported by culture and adopted previously cultivated expressions now. In other words, there is expressions of biological adaptations that formalized by culture now. It has clearly realized the anthropological aspect of human selfidentification only. Currently, this form is so far largely a potential, but not actual yet. Some example of this kind of technological (anthropological) load is a determination of sexual and reproductive functions that provided and supported by culture. The origins of this trend go back to the Middle Ages. Now, thanks to the development of reproductive technologies, it has become a system-formatting factor of SESH. This kind of evolutionary risks reflects, especially in the philosophical tradition of existentialism. It did not become the subject of theoretical-experimental natural-science analysis as well. The same can be said in another way: "adaptationˮ, "survival" and "humanity" are not always compatible concepts not only on an individual level, but at the level of the whole of humankind too. As a conclusion, Homo sapiens existence as an evolutionary phenomenon cannot invariably occupy space at the top of the pyramid of values priorities. ("There are things that are more important than life," even if "Life" means "Life on Earth" – It is a slightly modified statement by Ronald Reagan.) "His watchword is always duty; and he never forgets that the nation which lets its duty get on the opposite side to its interest is lost" (Shaw, 1979: 512). Bernard Shaw put these words in Napoleon's mouth in one of his plays. It was written long before humanity acquired a degree of technological power such that a necessary and sufficient condition for human existence would become the imperative of unconditional provision of meaningful coincidence of fitness ("interests") and humanity ("values") as two instrumentally independent concepts. There is thesis of the integration of intraand extra-scientific factors into a single set of parameters that determine both the form and content of the scientific theory in theoretical epistemology and sociology of science. It becomes the basic principle of the pragmatic methodology of scientific research and theoretical socioand biopolitics at last decades. First of all, it concerns those areas of scientific and technological development that directly create a real or mythological possibility of managing the evolutionary process, and, therefore, are a source of evolutionary risk. At present, biotechnology is such in the form of genetic engineering. It creates the evolutionary risk of the existential level of significance in all of the above manifestations. At the same time, the problems of the genetic and ecological aspects of evolutionary risk became the most significant ones, as the most obvious and easily diagnosed empirically. "They face significant difficulties in assessing the risks of genetically modified (GM) crops for biodiversity. These problems arise, first of all, not because of the lack of scientific data (the data are abundant), but, rather, because there are no clear criteria for determining what environmental damage represents. Establishing the criteria that determine evolutionary risk is not a process of scientific cognition, but the process of analyzing and implementing political requirements, and it is for politicians and administrative authorities to determine what should be considered a harm based on the current legislation ... It is incorrect to believe that when a sufficiently large number scientific data will be collected, the choice of policy goals will become apparent. Scientific analysis of data in assessing risks cannot determine political goals (in other words, scientific analysis cannot answer the question "What should be considered harmful?ˮ). Because political goals should be determined by politicians before determining the magnitude of the risk. Although science cannot determine what is good or bad, science can determine whether a particular activity is good or bad, as just what is "goodˮ and what is "badˮ will be determinedˮ. We outlined the initial premise (Sanvido et al., 2012: 82) of the EU research project on the creation of a scientifically sound, i.e., the objective concept of the model for calculating the magnitude of the risk of genetic technologies (VERDI, 2013). The general scheme for integrating scientific and technological innovations is presented in the following form. De facto, social control applies exclusively to risks from their implementation, while benefits remain exclusively in the sphere of spontaneous market regulation. Sociocultural, legal and political institutions define the general contours of the risk-provoking landscape and the ultimate configuration of social organization as a result of innovation. From the political and ethical ideal of the future created in this way, the research and commercial sectors of the society proceed, developing socially acceptable means of actualizing this image. So, the spheres of competence of the socio-cultural and rationalistic component of SESH are clearly delineated; and the dominance (rather, hegemony) of the cultural and humanitarian normative "basisˮ over the technological "super-structureˮ is ensured. However, this seemingly logical and non-contradictory scheme is collapsing in the transition from a static section of the relationship between culture (ethics, politics) and science to the evolutionary dynamics of the same social institutions. There are definition of goals and the choice of means to achieve them and to the evaluation of results that occurs in a complex (i.e.interdependent from each other). However, its individual phases and components are not synchronized with each other. As result, the functioning of co-evolutionary ligament "socio-cultural adaptation scientific and technological innovation" describes fairly tortuous, far from linear trajectory in time. In other words, there are number and composition of the base of empirical scientific data and theoretical concepts, as well as the socio-cultural landscape that influences these parameters. All of them drift, making forward and return movements relative to each other. When, due to scientific and technological development, the sociocultural complex undergoes correction, this correction becomes a powerful stimulus, changing the direction of subsequent scientific theoretical and applied developments. A reverse phenomenon is also possible. The development of a scientific field can acquire such powerful inertia that no tendency to revise axiological priorities will long remain marginal members of the pool of cultural innovations. In this sense, the quotation given above is most interesting from the point of view of estimating the comparative rates of evolutionary changes of different components of SESH. In our opinion, it most testifies to a sharp jump in the rate of change in the socio-cultural, and, consequently, political and ethical subsystems, components and the corresponding effect of sociocultural inhibition of the rational component of SESH. We view this process as a systemic adaptation, which reduces the level of evolutionary risk. Until now, this mechanism has provided an acceptable balance of adaptability and sustainability of our species. In this sense, the result of the implementation of this innovation can be considered adequate within a relatively narrow zone of socio-anthropogenesis in the vicinity of the approaching evolutionary singularity. This stage of SESH functioning corresponds to the transition Ti+1→Ci→Ci+1 on the scheme of geneticcultural co-evolution and the techno-humanitarian balance (Fig. 1.3). The VERDI project was mainly devoted to the methodology and technique for calculating environmental risk components, but its scheme, is applicable to the calculation of all forms of risk in general. In any algorithm for calculating the risk, it is necessary to determine the possible damage, i.e. (VERDI, 2013: 83): The resource necessary to ensure the existence of man and mankind, since the availability of latter can significantly reduce or disappear; The limits of changes in the availability of this factor, which should be higher than the natural stochastic fluctuations and not approach the existential threshold; Predicted probability and amount of damages. The adaptability of Homo sapiens is such resource in the coordinate system of the natural science nucleus of the transdisciplinary concept of evolutionary risk; The maintenance of anthropological self-identity becomes such resource in the coordinate system of the axiological component of the same concept of evolutionary risk of humanity. Moreover, self-identity has to determine such a subjective intentional and poorly controlled by quantificational interpretation indicator as identity category "humanity" in different generations. The main problem of evolutionary risk and is to find unambiguous connotations between the two criterions of evolutionary risk. On one side, the criterion compliance / noncompliance the human evolution trend to certain system of values priorities appears compared to the other systems of values, since it reflects perception of "human natureˮ by human own at this time and at the culture type. On the other side, its valuation looks more labile and prone to manipulation by the carriers of marginal value systems. However, as closer analysis shows in post academic science this indicator in the strongest degree able to influence the evaluation of the remaining criteria of evolutionary risk. It determines the evolutionary landscape; decide the fate of the adaptive / maladaptive innovations. Moreover, it is the key in terms of the calculation of integral parameters of the evolutionary risk assessment that are an evolutionary correctness and an evolutionary effectiveness. 3.2 Objective and subjective components of the evolutionary risk The theory of risks assumed the possibility of strict demarcation objective assessment and subjective perception of risk (Kosterev, 2008:86). The second methodological postulate of the theory of risk is the possibility of operational separating the content of these two categories and, accordingly, the parameters of the transfer of risk from the potential in the current form. In accordance with our model, on the contrary, the objective and subjective risk components belong to different SESH modules. • The objective component of technological risk is the assessment of the magnitude of the risk stemming from the results of the scientific discourse that is equivalent to the "system of interests" in the social and humanitarian terminology. It is represented by elements of a techno-rational adaptive module; • The subjective component is socio-cultural predispositions that is equivalent to "the system of value priorities". It belongs to the socio-cultural adaptive module. The genesis of both components of risk is based on autonomous systems of generation, coding and "inheritance" of information, the connection between them is co-evolutionary and, therefore, nonlinear ones. The effects of each of them can be divided at each moment of time with certain difficulties, and cannot be demarcated in dynamics. Especially it concerns the direct reduction of the subjective risk component to the objective one in the dynamics of the evolutionary process. It is impossible to directly modify the system of socio-cultural predispositions by directly transmitting information contained in scientific knowledge. In turn, these predispositions are linked by a similar dependence with the biological module. The cause of the braking effect is the semantic gap between the modules, i.e. differences between socio-cultural and rational-symbolic codes. At least such influences have significant, albeit unclear, limitations. Since the mid-1990s and up to the present time, the totality of data from the field of practical sociology is fully consistent with this statement of the theoretical SESH model (Slavic, 2016; Anderson, 2013; Micic, 2016; Fabiansson, Fabiansson, 2016, and others). t is especially necessary to note a completely unequivocal negative predisposition with respect to the same descriptions of the benefits and risks of specific products of technological development, depending on the context of the mention of gene technologies (Siegrist et al., 2016). To overcome this socio-cultural effect of inhibition of certain scenarios of subsequent evolution is difficult. Unfortunately, SESH represents the most obvious subject of postacademician science: the subject and object of research form a coherent system, and its evolution is a series of direct and inverse mutual influence of objective and subjective components. The perception of evolutionary risk at a great extent affects the frequency distribution of possible evolutionary scenarios. There is human-dimension of transdisciplinary scientific knowledge because of the presence of the dual, descriptive and axiological structure of the central nucleus of the disciplinary matrix. In sociology and political science, this phenomenon is manifested in the simultaneous existence of two parallel systems of argumentation – the objective interests and ideal, subjective values. Ideal and spiritual component is equally necessary for the existence of the species Homo sapiens as affiliation of socio-cultural module of SESH. It ensures its viability as the effects of biological and technoraationalistic modules at the same time. At the time, Pitirim Sorokin argued that each type of civilization based and supported by a system of values. The values complex creates, develops and embody civilization throughout its life cycle; values and civilization becomes a cause-and-semantic unity (cited by Kuzyk, 2006:54). Thus, the optimal level of techno-humanitarian balance and balance of gene-cultural co-evolution is achieved only by the coincidence of subjective and objective criteria for the evolutionary risk. But the relationship of values and perceptions is rather complicated social and psychological process whereby the subjective component of risk is not constant. In turn, implementation of specific evolutionary scenario affects in the strongest measure not only the distribution of individual risk perception, but also their composition. Probably, the assessment and prediction of the evolutionary risk dynamics serves as a borderline example of the threshold magnitude of the complexity of a self-organizing system in relation to the subject of our study. When passing through this threshold, the accuracy and meaning of the description become mutually complementary and mutually exclusive parameters. It is so-called principle of the incompatibility (Kosterev, 2008:230). It makes the forecast of further evolution of SESH extremely difficult, situational short-term for the socio-cultural type, and requiring offsetting of objective mental components of evolutionary risk in their systemic unity. Perception of risk is reflected in the parameter "evolutionary correctnessˮ and is just as important as the objective value at risk. In other words, the presence of epistemological duality in explanatory model to streamline the process of human evolution implies ontological duality. In culture-techno-anthropogenesis, the evolutionary trajectory and the magnitude of the evolutionary risk are determined not by one objectively spontaneous parameter (adaptation, adaptive value), but by two spontaneously descriptive (evolutionary efficiency) and creativeteleological (evolutionary correctness) ones. Combined both options cannot reduce to each other. This thesis we propose to call the principle of evolutionary complementarity. We will try to substantiate this assertion. Size evolutionary efficiency by definition lies in the range 0 <E <1. However, we can confine ourselves to three characteristic values: -1 (ethical inadmissibility), 0 (ethical neutrality) and +1 (optimality) for preliminary assessment of evolutionary risk. But in the case K > 0, the evolutionary trajectory will be defined solely by the technological feasibility only. So, the virtual value of evolutionary risk corresponding evolutionary correctness equals R = 1K. The range of values R < 0 means the irreversible passage of the evolutionary singularity point, and advent Posthuman era of global evolution, when alternative will replace the existing humanistic value system. A new system of values priorities as a foundation of evolutionary correctness is referred as "posthumanism". Passage of the point of singularity would mean an end to the existence of Homo sapiens in the framework of the paradigm of physical and socio-cultural anthropology, Thus, the value of the objective component of the evolutionary risk (Robj) is determinate by evolutionary efficiency, subjective component (Rideal) is determinate by parameter of evolutionary correctness, and the resultant evolutionary risk components (Rint) is determinate by the system of equations Robj = 1 – E (3.17) Rideal = 1− K (3.18) Rint = 1 – EK, (3.19) Rint is characteristic value of the evolutionary risk, EK corresponds to a change amount of risk parameters evolutionary interaction efficiency and correctness. The objective component of evolutionary risk can be determined by decomposing of a contribution of each SESH module into total evolutionary efficiency to components. The connections between the modules are coevolutionary in nature and are based on autonomous mechanisms for generating and transforming adaptive information. Therefore, this contribution can be divided into the contribution created by the module itself and the contribution that has arisen due to the direct action of the other two modules. The first,actually modular component owes its origin to the direct adaptation of the module to the ecological environment (Wec). The adaptability created by the second component arises from the transforming action of other modules that transform adaptively neutral or maladaptive elements of this module into adaptations. The survival of carriers of hereditary pathologies and the so-called "diseases of civilization" associated with mutation (sickle cells anemia, diabetes, constant activity of lactase in ontogenesis); and epigenetic modifications of genetic determinants (nearsightedness, flat feet) is determined by the technological and sociocultural possibilities of their compensation. Thus, the adaptability of the SESH biological module can be divided into ecological (Wec), cultural (Wcult), and techno-rational (Wtech) components. In this case, the contribution of the biological module consists of a relatively stable (Wec), internal and labile "externally-inducedˮ components. As the technologies of controlled evolution develop, the value of the stable component progressively decreases. Taking into account the ranked sequence of evolutionary rates Techno-genesis >> socio-culture genesis >> biogenesis > cosmogenesis, the magnitude of evolutionary risk is equal to: R = 1 Wec = Wcult + Wtech for the biological module; R = 1 Wec ≈ Wtech for the sociocultural module; R = 1 Wec ≈ Wcult for an rationalist module. (In modern conditions, dWbio / dt << dWcult / dt << dWtech / dt.) 3.3. Evolutionary effectiveness Evolutionary efficiency E is defined as the geometric mean of the relative adaptivibility W of all the members of the evolving configuration, in our case – of the genome (g), the culture (s) and technology (st): E = √WgWcWst 3 , (3.11) The definition of this parameter contains a latent logical paradox. As we know, adaptability is a relative value, defined as the proportion of homogeneous self-replicating objects that are carriers of a given trait or a stable complex of traits transmitted to the next generation. It, therefore, lies in the range 0<W<1. Thus, in the case of stable existence of a set of objects that participating in the evolutionary process, their average adaptability must be 1. Any other result means their progressive elimination. This conclusion applies to the evolutionary efficiency: its value as a derivative of the three components of adaptability may not fall below the unit. But if the deviation evolutionary efficiency magnitude of any components from unit must be compensated (and, obviously, really compensated) by excessive quantities remain components of SESH. In other words, the virtual component values of the parameter E must exceed the unit, that contradicts the definition of W. The solution to this paradox is as follows. Adaptability of biological module is calculated for individual genes and individuals in the population, adaptability of socio-cultural module is calculated for individuals and social groups, and adaptability of techno-rational module is calculated for social groups mainly. Since at equation of the evolutionary efficiency this fact is not reflected, the value of E → 1, but does not reach the latter. In Neo-Darwinism, biological (gene) additivity is related to the selection coefficient s by the relation W = 1-s. However, in the three-modular structure of the SESH, adaptability is determined not only by the selective factor, but also by the influence of the socio-cultural and technological context, i.e. by adaptive significance of specific features and genes that are created by culture and technogenic modifications of living conditions. The content of these influences can be identified with meaning as a category of semantics. Meaning is attached to the elements of adaptability by the system of value priorities (i.e. by co-evolutionary semantics). In their direction and size, theyare not identical to selective pressure, as a rule. As a result, the total value of adaptability is determined as the resultant of the selective (s1) and semantic (s2) factors, W=1-s1+ s2. In other words, the virtual values of the components of the parameter E should exceed unity, which contradicts the definition of the value of W. For importing and implementing technological innovations, the "successˮ or "failureˮ of integrating technological innovations is determined both by their own effectiveness and the relationship with the system values and priorities of a socio-cultural type. There are many hereditary pathologies, such as diabetes, phenylketonuria, congenital dislocation of the hip, which had an adaptability of zero and s1 = 1 in traditional society. In modern civilization, these pathologies are characterized by survival and reproductive potential, which practically indistinguishable from the norm (E = 1, s2 → + 1). This corresponds to the values of socio-cultural and techno-rationalistic components above one. Then, it becomes possible to eliminate those elements of the biological component, the negative occurrences of which are observed outside the reproductive age (Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's chorea, some forms of diabetes). This phase of development of the techno-rationalistic module is equivalent to the decline of biological adaptability on these grounds to zero and s2 – s1→ 1. And finally, a moment comes when the biological module is subjected to genetic manipulation and some of its elements are eliminated or are replaced by technological designs (Human Genome Enhancement). In all these cases, the value of E changes abruptly, both in general and within the modular components, and the selection factor of adaptation genesis does not have time to "noticeˮ it. Such quantum transitions are equivalent to changes in the communicative semantic code of inter-modular communication. (It refers to the change of the adaptive significance of the elements of the module under the influence of the other modules.) As a result, the evolutionary process undergoes a dichotomy and is divided into two evolutionary mechanisms, the classical Darwinian selection and the evolutionary semantics provided by the socio-cultural module. The existence of co-evolutionary semantics (Cheshko et al., 2015:256) indicates on the existence of spontaneously objective and subjective-axiological parameters of the evolution of reality in parallel. The above arguments forced us to ultimately abandon the use of the puzzling term "inclusive (integral) adaptivityˮ in favor of "evolutionary efficiencyˮ, although both of these expressions can be found in the text as equivalent ones. The evolutionary meaning of these mathematical calculations reduces to the following. Socio-cultural and techno-rationalistic adaptations translate biological maladaptation into a state concealed from the action of selective factors of evolution, which manifests itself suddenly upon reaching the boundary Wg = 0. After reaching this point in the evolutionary trajectory, only two variants of the same evolutionary scenario are possible: direct extinction of the biological species Homo sapiens (1), or technological reconstruction of its genome (2). Both ones are equivalent to the destruction of the three-member structure of SESH. The same arguments apply to the co-evolutionary bundle of the sociocultural and rationalist module. In this case, the boundary condition is defined as reaching the point Wc = 0. At this stage, the compensation of biological maladaptations is replaced by their replacement through technological innovations. Given the 4-phase evolutionary history of SESH, the consequence of this will be the elimination of the genetic foundation of co-evolutionary relationships between the SESH modules. As an illustration, we give an approximate and incomplete example. Of necessity, it is not a basis for an accurate forecast or estimate. In the literature, the following calculations circulate. It is attributed to Norman Borlaug, one of the "founding fathersˮ of the green revolution. According to them, selection methods based on knowledge of the laws of classical genetics and chromosome theory provided food for 6 billion people (Glazko, 2002: 43). Since the population of the Earth at that time was about 2-2.5 billion people, the possibility of hunger in the developed countries of the world, to which these technological innovations were available, was excluded, i.e. their "adaptability" was equal to 1 (Wt = 1). On the other hand, if we recalculate to a potential opportunity to feed 3.5 billion more, then the "virtualˮ, uncompensated by biological and socio-cultural factors, individual adaptability of the technological sector would be 6.0/2.5=2.4. But even in the period of the greatest success of the Green Revolution, the death from hunger in many countries was not ruled out. Thus, the compensatory effect of the techno-humanitarian balance reduced the evolutionary efficiency of technological innovation by almost 2.5-3 times. Similarly, the development of medicine and improving the quality of life saves lives, but it contributes to the accumulation of genetic load, which in this work is considered as a consequence of an imbalance of gene-cultural coevolution. However, at the same time, this difference illustrates the magnitude of the evolutionary risk, if the possibilities of the corresponding adaptive innovations are exhausted. Thus, if evolutionary success is achieved by eliminating at least one SESH component, it is equivalent to reducing evolutionary efficiency to zero. In other words, in the biological evolutionary aspect, this parameter turns out to be relative to the evolutionary risk equal to Rgen = 1 ─ E. The justification of this thesis connects the indicator E with the integrative parameter − the system integrity (cohesion) S. It is the presence of mutual conjugation (co-evolution) 1. Between the three (biological, cultural and technological) "megacomponentsˮ of SESH and 2. Between elements within each component. The first type of connectivity is called the integrative systemic effect; the second one is the internal systemic effect. Both types are provided by pleiotropy and partial overlapping of the functions of the set of single adaptations. Thus, the drop in evolutionary efficiency to zero can be due to integrity, when some SESH component induces the disintegration of the bond system within the remaining components. The disintegration extends to the co-evolutionary relationship between individual types of adaptations. At the same time, if the adaptability of individual parameters is controlled by elementary adaptations, it can continue to grow, although outside the channelizing influence of others ones. SESH turns into a set of independent adaptively significant parameters, and their evolutionary trajectories are completely autonomous from each other. Selective impact on each of them occurs on the principle of ad hoc (zugzwang or slippery slope). This process, having begun, concludes with the elimination or loss of the specific characteristics of the genome of Homo sapiens. This megatrend of the anthropogenesis course is very clearly and metaphorically described by Russian publicists N.Yutanov and S.Pereslegin who consider it not only a natural and inevitable law of the internally contradictory evolution of intelligent species (Yutanov, 2003: 335): "Natural development of the species Homo leads this species to the rejection of a number (if not all) of mammal traits. (...) Anthropogenesis is the first example of natural sapientation leading to the creation of beings with external pregnancy, a social form of life organization, polymorphic, capable of creating their own habitat. It seems natural to attribute such creatures to a new biological class − the class of Reasonableˮ. However, if the process of "natural sapientation" 7 is spontaneous, then the inhibiting and channeling "innovative resistance" 8 of culture will be just as objectively spontaneous due to the SESH's systemic nature. Therefore, the tirades about the irrationality of the movement of the green and other alarmist anti-technological social movements looks illogical in comparison with the previous fragment (Yutanov, 2003: 292): "Mass appearances of the "green" public have lost their seemingly hysterical character, and a steel political technology calculation has been seen behind their wall. Concerned governments and obedient parliaments are stamping out decrees aimed at protecting the environment. Lawyers defend the interests of "wildlife" in the Supreme Courts. A whole industry emerged to satisfy the needs of the environmental movement; its turnover is now billions of dollars. With these dollars, you cannot correlate any real produced values. We are talking about administrative control over financial flows, the possibility of redistributing the money earned by other actors." Emotionally described by the authors for post-Soviet readers, the "Innovative Resistance of Culture" is a completely explainable adaptive response of SESH. It is aimed at preserving a rational person as a biological species, in particular, its material embodiment, not civilization, intelligent life, etc. This conclusion follows from our model, which, of course, needs empirical verification. 3.4 Evolutionary correctness At the socio-cultural (humanistic) aspect of evolutionary risk is initiated by the discrepancy between the most effective (Eeff) and optimal (Eopt) evolutionary scenarios (trends): dRhum dt = d(Eeff−Eopt) dt (3.12) So, unlike the evolutionary strategies of other biological organisms, it proves necessary to incorporate in the descriptive model evolution of SESH a subjective parameter. Evolutionary correctness (K) will be considered as 7 We following the terminology of the authors. 8 We following the author's terminology again K = (1 − dV dt ), (3.13) where V is the temporary difference between the real evolutionary scenario and the recognized best (i.e. correct) evolutionary scenario under a certain set of criteria. Its value can be defined as the sum of the parameters (fi) for (self-) identification of person. Identification in this context means the assignment of an individual to humanity (fhuman) or refusal of such identification (fdehuman). With the purpose of transferring this quantity to a dimensionless form, it correlates with the total number of factors of humanization / dehumanization, N V = ∑ (fhuman – fdehuman)/N (3.14) Within the framework of the statistical concept of risk (Kosterev, 2008:70) this difference can be expressed as a function of generation frequency (pi) of some evolutionary innovations spontaneous or / and initiated by technological modules of SESH and their implications (d), evaluated in terms of identifying their bearers as belonging to humanity (human versus dehuman) V = ∑ pi(fhuman − fdehuman) N ⁄ (3.15) For techno-rationalistic interventions in the biological and socio-cultural modules, this value can be calculated by the difference of the validity and reliability of their scientific justification and emotional perception by "public opinionˮ (mentality). The first indicator corresponds to the number and content of scientific publications, the second indicator is the number and content of (positive / negative) reviews in the media, web, opinion polls, etc. A similar idea of "Socio-technical Imaginariesˮ as factors of human biosocial evolution was independently and simultaneously represented by Sheila Jasanoff (2015, 2016; Hurlbut, Tirosh-Samuelson, 2016: 73-103). With reference to the techno-rationalistic component of SESH, the ideological precursor of both hypotheses is the concept of the episteme created by Michel Foucault (Foucault, 1996). In his opinion, an episteme is an aggregate of hidden, historically determined cultural-cognitive a priori preconditions that determine the form of mental processes for the formation of the content and limits of scientific knowledge, in particular. The integration of the idea of the episteme into the general construction of Karl Popper's evolutionary epistemology leads to our interpretation. We propose the initial metaphysical premise that the teleological essence of anthropogenesis has become completely compatible with the concept of the objective nature of the evolutionary process in parallel with the development of technologies of controlled evolution. Moreover, there is simultaneous existence of several conjugately evolving systems for the generation and inheritance of adaptive traits that makes teleology quite "natural" one under the condition that the rates of adaptability genesis in each of them are unequal. The mechanism of influence of each module on the evolution of the two remaining modules of SESH a priori can be ambiguous: 1. Direct selective pressure, i.e., adaptive changes in the values of individual controlled or maintained by genetically, technologically, or by training traitsinnovations; 2.Semantic co-evolution, i.e. epigenetic change in qualitative or quantitative expression of a particular trait in the course of its implementation as a result of contact with adaptive elements of other modules of SESH. As follows from the above, biosemantic communication is understood as the presence of a certain system of rules of compliance (semantic code) between the adaptive significance of the elements belonging to different modules of SESH and reproducible using independent systems of inheritance. The value of this form of co-evolutionary interactions increases as the difference of adaption genesis rates between autonomous members of the communicative pairs. In this case, more rapidly evolving element becomes sense-factor for your partner. Therefore, the semantics of the dual evolution of the socio-cultural and biological modules (gene-culture coevolution), on the one hand, and socio-cultural and techno-rationalistic (techno-humanitarian balance) modules, on the other hand, are the most essential. There are examples of changes in gene frequencies in a population as a result of the selective pressure of changes in the sociocultural environment; and they have been cited several times in this study. In this case, semantic coevolution includes epigenetic modification of realization of genetic information under the influence of sociocultural factors, such as ethical imperatives, rituals, beliefs, behavioral acts, etc. All these factors can potentially cause a psychosomatic reaction and over time become selfpreserving cycles. The mechanisms of interaction of genes and culture are similar to the placebo effect in this context. As we know, the placebo effect is the psychosomatic therapeutic action of a certain kind of acts of communication, rituals, physical operations, not directly pharmaceutical value. According to the latest, yet hypothetical constructions, the placebo effect may be due to changes in the activity of the nerve centers of the brain activation and various neurotransmitters synthesis. As result, the synthesis of specific information molecules (RNA, proteins) is activated or inhibited too (Hall, 2015). It established a functional link between the behavioral act and physiological response, which is based on the original psychological predisposition. Introduced by the authors of the cited work the concept of "placebomeˮ, in our opinion, may be a more general description of the special case of epigenetic transmission mechanism; a latter establishes an adaptive interaction between biological and socio-cultural module of SESH. It is important to note that co-evolutionary connection between genes and elements of culture is formed in this way, and specific adaptive value "assignedˮ to each of them. Thus, semantic, co-evolution captures not the frequency of specific genetic determinants, but a pattern of epigenetic variability. This pattern resulting from the establishment of evolutionary correspondences between systemic adaptations (for example, the socio-cultural) of SESH module and the individual elements of the other modules. If the selective value of such elements and the lifetime of systemic adaptations are long enough, semantic co-evolution becomes informational co-evolution, and the frequencies of adaptively significant individual elements are fixed in the population. As examples, such phenomena occurred in cases of fixation of sickle cell anemia determinants in parallel with the development of civilizations of tropical irrigated agriculture, as well as the growth of population frequencies of genes of lactase constant level in ontogenesis after the establishment of dairy cattle in a relatively cold climate of European regions. The implementation mechanism here is the Baldwin effect as a gradual replacement of culture-induced epigenetic variations by genetic mutations. If the selective pressure is not enough and the system adaptations of the more rapidly evolving (socio-cultural) module often replace each other, the patterns of the semantic association of the socio-cultural and biological modules overlap. As a result, a variability of slow (biological) module increases in parallel socio-cultural genesis. DNA structure variations, maintained by extant cultural types, coexist along with newly emerging genetic and epigenetic variations as relics. The increase of genetic variability in culture evolution and in technogenesis is next accessible empirical falsification argument of the concept of three-modal SESH. At the same time, it must be observed both in relation to Homo sapiens itself and in respect of domesticated animals and plants that were drawn into the scope of socio-cultural predispositions. Actually, a similar phenomenon should be observed in the evolution of techno-humanitarian balance. A "semantic gap" category is used to denote the incompatibility between the semantic codes of information systems of different levels. Typically, there is a conflict between the organization of the software and the operator (Hein, 2010). We denote a semantic code discrepancies by "semantic gaps", which serve as the source of the semantic component of evolutionary risk. Due to significant differences in the rates of evolutionary transformations of individual SESH modules, semantic gaps should appear between them. Their external manifestations are examples of co-evolutionary intermodular conflicts such as growth of the relative number of homosexuals in the population, inhibition of the Flynn effect etc. We will discuss them in more detail in the following sections Due to the differences in the evolution rates of each adaptive module and to the systemic nature of the relationships between the intra-modular elements, inter-modular conflicts between adaptations are the cause of the emergence of a potential evolutionary risk, and its latent accumulation and sudden actualization too. The transition from the semantic phase of the coevolutionary interaction to the selective form acts as a key point of actualization of risk. The process can be called "inflating of adaptive bubbleˮ by analogy with "asset bubbleˮ and by a similar mechanism of formation, development and solution of economic risk, perhaps. The causes of this phenomenon are depletion of reserves of bio-diversity as a "building materialˮ for the maintenance of socio-cultural innovations and the environment for updating their technological analogues. The effectiveness of selection, as is known, decreases as the number of selectable elements increases, since their individual phenotypic manifestations decrease and the pleiotropy of each of them increases. Consequently, the transition from semantic inter-modular co-evolution to its selective form turns out to be limited, especially with a significant difference in the evolution rates of each module. Adaptive innovations of the more rapidly evolving socio-cultural and techno-rationalist modules give the semantic significance to an increasing number of elements of the biological module due to systemic effects. In this case, the pool of genetically and epigenetically determined members of the co-evolutionary ligaments increases permanently in many directions and approaches to limits of the adaptive population norm. It can be said, the number of points of application of selective pressure grows too, and one puncture (going beyond the adaptive norm for a single vector) is enough to collapse of entire bubble. The number of elements that are simultaneously controlled efficiently by selective pressure (inclusive adaptability parameter) is limited. The number of elements controlled by the semantic evolutionary mechanism (evolutionary correctness parameter) is limited too. As a result, the boundaries of the multidimensional window of adaptability expand teleological way by most important features and stochastically converging to a dangerous limit for others. Despite the periodically adjusted ratings of same, "not particularly important features" in the scale of value priorities in the direction of increasing, the instability of inclusive adaptability over time should tend to increase. As alternative, the transition to the selective phase can be replaced by gene technological innovations, but the process of inflation of the adaptive bubble in techno-cultural co-evolutionary bonds is included. The collapse means the loss of socio-cultural self-identity (the destruction of the system of values of a given socio-cultural type), in this case. In the phase IV of the evolution of SESH, the system of value priorities as an element of a sociocultural module performs the function of an interpreter and sets the adaptive significance of the elements of the biological and techno-rationalistic modules. These elements play the role of operators, respectively. An "intermodal co-evolutionary conflict: is the divergence of trends in the transformation of evolutionary efficiency and evolutionary correctness; and it may end by a semantic discontinuity, i.e. transition of evolutionary risk into an actual form. Phenomenological sign that diagnoses this event is the intersection of the evolutionary correctness of the boundaries of the biological adaptive norm (Wg = 0) or the disappearance of the civilizational type (Wc = 0). Evolutionary correctness allows to translate into the plane of empirical verifiable concept of semantic co-evolution, in our opinion,. According to the ideas of Steven D. Cousins (2014: 160–191), the integrity of the coevolutionary binary opposition "Genes – Culture" supported by informational correlations and semantic correspondences. At information aspect, the co-evolutionary relationships between the two arrays of adaptive information is provided by the correspondences between adaptations supported by biological and socio-cultural inheritance; and at semantic aspect, we are talking about the rules of such correspondence. Depending on the magnitude of the binding vector, the nature of the relationships between the elements of different adaptive windows can be divided into two sets. The first set of communicative connections arises when there is a powerful system-forming adaptation within one module and its adaptive window that gives individual elements of another module a high selective advantage. Then the elements of such informational connection of different modules form a co-adaptive self-support link. In the second case, communication between modules is created by intermodular links of a certain system-forming adaptation with a high absolute value of adaptivity w or selection coefficient s (1> w = 1-s >> 0), and the set of elements of the other module. Each of these elements has poorly expressed adaptability, which correlates with systemic adaptation. When the adaptation is eliminated, this set becomes adaptively neutral and lasts for a long time or accumulates. Such communication can, unlike the first, be called a semantic connotation link. Within the framework of the three-module SESH model, coevolutionary semantics is interpreted as an analysis of the information code that changes during the course of human evolution, providing inter-modular interactions within the entire SESH system. Therefore, it is the evolution of double mutual connotations between the elements of the biological and socio-cultural, socio-cultural and techno-rationalist modules. As a result of such interactions that changing in the course of evolution, a specific pattern of substantial relationships is established: the elements of the biological module serve as the substrate base for a pool of socio-cultural adaptations; elements of the socio-cultural module serve as a selective filter that accelerates or retards the development of technological innovation. In this interpretation, the point of application of selection is not genes, not memes (culture-genes), and not technological innovations, but their coevolutionary inter-modular complexes. In the simplest case, such complexes are binary opposition such as gene-meme, mem-technoinnovation. The aggregate pool of such co-evolutionary links (oppositions) is a unit of a discrete evolving unit in the process of socio-cultural anthropogenesis in a separate socio-cultural type, by analogy with the genetic structure of the population in Neo-Darwinism. In general, co-evolutionary complexes are network structures with a single center: MEMEJ − (GENE1,.. GENEI,..GENEN) − (TECH1,.. TECHI,.. TECHN). In this scheme, an adaptive inter-modular complex is formed around a single center. Such center is a behavioral stereotype that self-replicates through socio-cultural transmission. (Strictly speaking, the most accurate name for such objects is the term "cultural replicatorˮ. However, following Richard Dawkins (Dawkins, 1999: 109), we will designate such structures as mems or culture-genes). This element of the socio-cultural module is associated with elements of the biological and techno-rationalistic modules that act as conditions for stabilizers of its existence and for effective functioning as inclusive adaptation. Such a system does not need additional techno-rational amplifiers and stabilizers, if the co-evolutionary correspondence (evolutionary efficiency) is sufficiently pronounced between the elements of the socio-cultural and biological modules. Otherwise, if socio-cultural innovations cannot rely on existing geneticbiological preadaptation, socio-cultural evolution will stimulate a search for techno-rationalist innovations that support it. The latter do not necessarily create biotechnological analogues of existing biological innovations, i.e. belong to the class High Hume. They can create a favorable social and natural (ecological) environment for the implementation of appropriate socio-cultural stereotypes that belong to High Tech class. Through this transfer mechanism, the adaptation system of one module preforms the selective space of the others ones. S.Cousins calls him an "intendant", because his attention is focused on culture as a set of psychological intentions and predispositions (Cousins, 2012). From our point of view, the term operator would be more appropriate and lexically neutral in a different linguistic context. In any case, the content of this term is revealed through the arising spontaneously or rationally ideal image of the set of target settings, which predetermines the self-reproducing structure of the adaptivity / maladaptivity relations of the individual elements of each module. This structure further determinates the direction of the evolution of SESH as a whole and its individual elements in particular. So refined three-modal model of SESH organization includes Three information module (bio-, cultureand techno-rational ones), each with its own system of generating, encoding and inheritance of adaptive information; Three semantic operator (transmission mechanism) connecting the modules to each other, and the semantic connotations of the members of coevolutionary bundles vary in time. Such links are concentrated around the elements of the socio-cultural module. Their combined structure is multidimensional in time and in space. There is a temporal sequence of group socio-cultural predispositions and the consequent replacement of socially demanded social roles that performed by each individual in different phases of his ontogenesis are superimposed on the spatial differentiation of socio-cultural types. (Trivial statements of social psychology are the passage by the individual of a certain sequence of psychophysiological stages during the life cycle, as well as heterogeneity in the predisposition to the performance of a particular social role.) There is a sphere of biosocial conditioning and changing of the psychological state, behavioral stereotypes and social roles in human ontogenesis that is extremely interesting for the study of the semantic component of the evolutionary process. Due to the relative constancy of the qualitative composition of genetic information in the course of individual development, any modifications of the psyche and consciousness are either caused by the action of the socio-ecological environment or are epigenetic in nature. ("Epigeneticˮ in this context is not a strict term, but a metaphor for any processes of modification of the expression of genetic information without changing its content.) In other words, they are caused by changes in the social and natural environment, directly or indirectly. Thus, the group selection of the adaptive elements of the socio-cultural module "choosesˮ (imparts an adaptive meaning) the available phenotypic expressions of the biological module. Phenotypic modifications in subsequent generations and under the condition of a long-running rather powerful "social demandˮ can be replaced by genetic mutations. A possible illustration of the above considerations is the so-called Malthusian trap (Korotayev et al., 2005: 288; Korotayev et al., 2019; Sadovnichy et al., 2012; Tisdell, Svizzero, 2015). It is the wave-like dependence of macro-dynamics of social evolution on the demographic structure of the population. This dependence is manifested, in particular, as a regular alternation of the periods of the revolutionary and evolutionary development of preindustrial society. In the course of social evolution, the improvement in the quality of life entails a rise in the birth rate and a corresponding increase in the proportion of a relatively young population more prone to risk-taking behavior. As a result, the rate of social change increases, and the intensity of depopulation processes increases too. In parallel to economic development, these fluctuations are mitigated by fertility decline (that deterministic by cultural transformations) and by the increase in lifetime and the aging of the population that deterministic by techno-rationalistic module. With age, "revolutionaryˮ behavioral patterns are forced out in the psyche by intention to stabilize the parameters of the socio-environment niche. In this sense (and only in this sense), the thesis of aging as a group systemic adaptation (Mitteldorf, 2016: 9) seems to be sufficiently substantiated, on our opinion. A Russian-American group of researchers carried out a mathematical study of the model presented here (Friedkin et al., 2016). In contrast to the model presented here, they were interested in complexes of associations of elements of socio-psychological beliefs (predispositions). In accordance with their conception, a new element of the socio-cultural module is spreading in the population as a result of the formation of an association with already fixed "memesˮ. The destruction of this complex as a result of elimination of its central elements led to evolutionary divergence and the disintegration of a single social community into independent social groups that adhere to the remaining socio-cultural predispositions. In other words, it serves to the actualization of the potential evolutionary risk. (It is interesting to note that it can explain the evolutionary trajectory of the US foreign policy and military activity in the Middle East in 1992-2003, in the opinion of the cited researchers (Friedkin et al., 2016). The role of nodal socio-cultural predisposition in this case was played by the thesis of possessing a regional political leader with weapons of mass destruction. The discrediting of this thesis proves to be the initiating factor for the geoand socio-political crisis of the interregional level.) Regardless of the validity of concrete examples, the stated mathematical general scheme is quite phenomenological one. It applicable to the subject of the technogenic evolutionary risk of SESH: the destruction of the central element of the intermodular adaptive complex should initiate an avalanchelike process of evolutionary divergence and destruction of the biosocial substrate of human civilization. As we have repeatedly pointed out, the existing configuration of SESH forms a closed cycle, and its integrity is supported by co-evolutionarysemantic link between biological and socio-cultural modules, on the one hand, and between socio-cultural and techno-rational ones, on the other hand. This configuration is extremely unstable due to advancing technology development at the present time. Its destruction will have extremely serious consequences for the evolutionary fate of Homo sapiens too. The magnitude of the evolutionary risk will jump to 1, in this case. This will mean the completion of the evolutionary and civilizational history of humankind. Let us consider this thesis in more detail. A meta-semantic correspondence is established between paradigmrelevant categories in the socio-humanitarian and natural-science conceptual-categorical framework of evolutionary theory. In its logical structure, the system of objective interests corresponds to evolutionary efficiency and evolutionary correctness corresponds to adequate system of values priorities. Thus, two pair categories series provide the intersection of social-imperative and descriptive parts of trans-disciplinary theory matrix of anthropogenesis due to the overlap of their content. The configuration of the semantic code is determined by the system of value priorities (socio-culture module) and the by system of rationally grounded interests (techno-rationalistic module). As we can assume a priori, the semantic code of inter-modular interaction passes through periods of relative stability and periods of discontinuous restructuring. Periods of active restructuring of the semantic code are initiated by the reconstruction of the value system in the socio-cultural module or by the revolutionary transformation of objective knowledge and its practical applications in the technical-rationalistic module9. Such a reorganization of semantic connotations is fraught with a sharp intensification of adaptive conflicts and with an increase in the magnitude of evolutionary load and evolutionary risk. Semantic analysis, therefore, is applicable equally to all co-evolutionary cycles (operators) in SESH. There are gene-cultural co-evolution, and techno-humanitarian balance, and any forms of a techno-biological transformations among the cycles. The study of semantic differences between the elements of binary techno-cultural and gene-cultural ligaments serves as the basis for determining the current value of the evolutionary trend and current evolutionary risk of Homo sapiens. Phenomenological changes of evolutionary correctness determined by the dynamics of humanization / dehumanization. Dehumanization defined as intuitive or rational comparison of individuals with a self-identifying 9 By definition, changes in semantic code determine the correspondence between the states of individual modules; and they are initiated by a module whose evolution rate is greater. itself as "humansˮ community. "Weakeningˮ phenomenon of dehumanization is the infra-humanization, i.e. perception of members of a wider social community ("outgroup") as holders of an incomplete or insufficiently quantitative expressed set of human traits. Significant importance is the following fact. The act of humanization or dehumanization is realized intuitively, unconsciously for most of humanity, and it is supported by emotional reactions. We can assume that the mechanism of biosocial human / nonhuman recognition integrated into SESH, more precisely, in its biological and socio-cultural modules. This mechanism is certainly available for rationalistic modification, however, the limits of such intervention are not clear now. As the findings of social psychology, dehumanization is a common social phenomenon. There are factors that initiates and supports dehumanization, and they are quite varied and may have different (ethnic, cultural, economic, etc.) nature. One of the major factors causing infrahumanization, and dehumanization is the own belonging to the social elite, i.e., to the "in-group" with high social status on any criteria as power, civilization, education, welfare and so on (Haslam, 2014). For our study, it is important that de(infra)humanization is a two-way process and related terms have dual content: • On the one hand, dehumanization is determined by the existing system of criteria of humanity that is innate to in-group; • On the other hand, dehumanization stimulated by the emergence in outgroup of new attributes that may be regarded as signs of humanity loss. Thus, there is the complementarity of a binary system of alternative criteria of belonging to a certain multitude of reasonable beings (humankind). Consequently, a dehumanization becomes self-sustaining evolutionary process that leads in perspective to the divergence of the species into two or more taxa. A prerequisite of this scenario becomes fixing of accumulated within social groups changes. Thus inand out-groups transformed into evolving in different directions populations. Otherwise, if the technology of controlled evolution is absent or in the embryonic state, there is a different balance between opposing intentions and predispositions in the mentality on human essence. It stabilizes the structure of SESH in general and its sociocultural and biological module in particular. Thus, evolutionary correctness depends on the specific criteria of "optimal" evolutionary process. This system is equivalent to the abovementioned basic system irrevocable parameters within the system of human values. Under this system, there is an ensemble of parameters of the evolutionary process that in fact is or only looks as uniquely identified set. This belief may turn out to be inadequate, but only in retrospect, post hoc. In other words, a distinctive feature of the SESH is the presence of rational component in generation of adaptive information, in particular. Rationality implies the bundle of the ideal model of reality in the "World of Entity" and "World Proper". There is an entails of an objective (evolutionary efficiency) and axiological criterions (evolutionary correctness) that can`t be reduced to a purely objective parameters of the evolutionary process. Therefore, the process of evolution is introduced an additional parameter that is free choice of selection criteria or criterion of adaptability within the culture. In this context, the selection criteria and the criteria of adaptability are a conceptual field of the humanities and science in parallel. In this context, the selection criteria and the criteria for adaptability are the conceptual field of the humanities and sciences, since they are not always identical. Indeed, if they become equivalent concepts, the equation 3.13 takes the form that fits into the neo-Darwinian mathematical theory of natural selection ("survive at any cost"): K = (1 − dL dt ), (3.16) where L = ∑( Z − Zopt γ⁄ ) is evolutionary load, defined as the difference between the average value of the adaptability of the population (ẑ) and its optimal value (zopt), γ is rate of adaptability distribution (associated with the responsiveness of the fitness of the population on the selective pressure parameter – the higher γ, the less adaptation changes in time under the influence of selection). Wcult is present here, explicitly (for a biological and techno-rationalistic module) or implicitly when calculating components of evolutionary risk. The latter includes, as an integral component, a system of value priorities, i.e. parameter of evolutionary correctness. The characteristic points of the last equation are given in Table 3.1. Table 1.1 − Characteristic points of interaction of parameters of evolutionary efficiency (E), evolutionary correctness (K) and evolutionary risk (Rgen). E K Rint Characteristic 1 2 3 4 0 -1 1 Singularity (existential risk) -0,5 1 0 1 0,5 1 +1 1 0,5 -1 1,5 Post-human -0,5 1,25 0 1 Singularity 0,5 0,75 high evolutionary risk +1 0,5 the average evolutionary risk 1 -1 2 Post-human 0 1 Singularity ь +1 0 no risk As can be seen from the table, existential risk represents situations when the dynamics of evolutionary efficiency and evolutionary correctness are anti-parallel, i.e. they change in opposite directions. Similar conclusions can be obtained in a different way. "Quality of Lifeˮ (QoL) is used in sociology as an integral, including objective and subjective components measure of individual and group satisfaction by socio-ecological conditions of the existence of human beings. David Wilson, repeatedly quoted in the present study, regards this category as logically related to the explanatory model of niche construction (Wilson, 2016). We can agree with the thesis by specifying that the quality of life in this case can be defined as a measure of the synergy of evolutionary efficiency (inclusive adaptability) and evolutionary correctness as integral factors of evolution. In turn, the degree of synergy is defined as the product of both specified parameters – QoL = EK (3.20) The co-evolutionary interpretation of the content of this concept allows, in our opinion, to remove the antinomic contradiction between three hundred-year-old philosophical interpretations of this concept that noted by experts. Traditionally, philosophers have and are still focusing on either subjectivist ("satisfaction") or objectivist ("living conditions") attributes of the quality of life (Fleury-Bahi et al, 2017:10-12). It is necessary, however, to take into account the following considerations. 1. Both these parameters (E and K) are themselves derived from autonomously changing components (for example, inclusive adaptability is a resultant adaptability created by the biological, socio-cultural and technorationalistic SESH modules, each of which is the result of interaction of elementary adaptively significant features). As a result, 2. Evolutionary efficiency and evolutionary correctness should be considered as vector quantities in the multidimensional space of elementary adaptations; 3. Inclusive adaptability, and evolutionary correctness are in coevolutionary relations with each other; and their values are changed by a partner's change abruptly; 4. Accordingly, the dynamics of the change in the quality of life in time is described by the two-way functional dependence of two vectors dQoL dt = d[?⃗? (K)?⃗? (E)] dt (3.21) In the case of the anti-parallel orientation of vectors of evolutionary efficiency and evolutionary correctness, the characteristic value of risk crosses the boundaries of the "physical" meaning very quickly (Rint > 1). Achieving this point means the irreversible destruction of the system of value priorities, the central core of which is the concepts of humanity and human nature. This interpretation demonstrates the potential and actual risk of both genetic and sociological reductionism in the biopolitics of modern society. A genetic reductionism hopes for the possibility of solving all evolutionary conflicts by genetic engineering purely. These conflicts arise as a result of the dysfunctionality of the human genome the socio-ecological niche occupied and created by Homo sapiens. The danger of this approach is obvious and socially demanded. A statement of genetic engineering risks meets the most positive feedback among humanities experts and in the mass consciousness, which forms the electorate of modern Western democracies. In our opinion, the danger of sociological and cultural reductionism meets primarily the support of natural scientists, although its consequences can be as anti-humane as the uncontrollable (bio) technological imperative. As D.S. Wilson recently ironically wrote (Wilson, 2016:335), happiness and satisfaction are merely adaptive mechanisms that provide short-term reproductive success, like the rest of human emotions. In the three-module SESH, this emotion "happinessˮ and corresponding psychophysiological state of euphoria are a means of psychological motivation (Grinde, 2012:20), which is part of the complex ensuring the evolutionary success of human beings. This complex includes active and passive self-maintenance, life support and reproduction. In other words, the state of happiness and euphoria are the transfer mechanism that provides communication between socio-cultural and biological adaptive modules of SESH. It can explain, for example, the paradoxical, at first glance, sense of spiritual uplift, the euphoric state experienced by an individual in moments of active struggle for survival, requiring mental stress and / or prolonged physical effort (the so-called "runner euphoria" in sports physiology). Russian poet Alexander Pushkin described it in 19th century10: There is an ecstasy in battle, And at the of edge of darkest chasm, And in the enraged ocean Amidst furious waves and turbulent night, And in the Arabian sandstorm, And in a breathing of the Plague All, all, that is frightening with destruction, To the mortal's heart covertly holds The inexplicable pleasures, The immortality's promise, perhaps! And happy is the one who amidst the turmoil Can find and feel them The mobilization of the body's resources in the course of the competitive struggle for survival is starting point in the concept of the general adaptation syndrome (stress) of Hans Selye (2013). According to Selye, there is a complex of nonspecific adaptive reactions of the organism to the influence of various unfavorable factors-stressors, which disturbs its homeostasis, and also the corresponding state of the nervous system of the organism in our case. Due to adaptive inversion 1, stressors are usually factors of a socioecological niche that are specific to different sociocultural types and, accordingly, determine differentiated sociocultural adaptations. Equally, this refers to factors that cause a positive emotional response in general. In other words, the feeling of satisfaction and the more so the state of euphoria in different cultures forms complex network structures with different elements (memes) of the socio-cultural module. The composition and situation of the activation of clusters of similar cultural species 10Quote taken from the tragedy "A Feast in Time of Plague" (Pushkin, 1960). Formally, this piece is a loose poetic translation of the works of John Wilson. However, this quote is absent in the source. Return English version by M. KorsakovKreyn was taken from https:harpers.org/blog/2008/01/pushkin-a -feast-in-the-timeof -plague/ associated with a sense of satisfaction, moreover, are historically conditioned. Therefore, as a basis for a long-term practical policy, the measurement of the value of subjective satisfaction of people is a source of evolutionary social risk. Its value is quite comparable to the risk of a policy that is based solely on the economic criteria. The empirical evidence of this thesis is superfluous, obviously. Suffice it to refer to the use of drugs, alcoholism and other "hedonistic social practices" that generate the state of euphoria (Wilson, 2016:335). At this point, D. Wilson and the authors of this study disagree with Bjorn Grinde, the author of the most fundamental study of the evolutionary meaning of the emotion "happiness" in socio-cultural anthropogenesis. Grinde believes that the level of "happiness", satisfaction should be the main criterion for an adequate trend in the development of the biopolitical situation and, accordingly, the progress of biosocial evolution. The necessary prerequisites in his opinion are (Grinde, 2012:95-101): • Formation of habitat adequate to the human biological constitution; • Ensuring the level of production necessary to meet vital needs, and • Developing social practices for generating positive emotions in the brain. The main drawback of this algorithm is its orientation on providing the organization of the biological module only, whereas the results of our study follows the homeostatic nature of the triple structure of SESH and the maintenance of cultural identity (i.e. evolutionary correctness) as civilizational and global evolutionary development criteria. Let us add that the triad "quality of life – inclusive adaptivity – evolutionary correctnessˮ in Equation 3.21 form a homeostat that balances biological and technological evolutionary trends. The latter functions due to the presence of an appropriate value system, produced by the socio-cultural module (Fig. 7, phase III of the evolution of SESH). It seems quite logical to make two clarificationsThe first of these concerns the epistemological origins of the concept of "evolutionary correctness," whose attachment to humanities, and in particular to axiology and ethics, is beyond doubt. Indeed, the thesis of overcoming the biological-genetic substrate of human nature was formed within the framework of philosophical anthropology and epistemology, above all. At the same time, the thesis is based on an analysis of the transformations of characteristic of thinking, mentality peculiar to the technological civilization. By the end of the twentieth century, it has become a common statement of parallelism between the dominant mentality in the technological civilization and, for example, system-anthropological characteristics of cultural type. Civilization transformations here were considered as associated with the distribution of social roles of male and female inherited from biogenesis, etc. "Today, we are experiencing something very similar to the death of the modern, Western man. Maybe the end of "man" is near. But the man did not have a goal. Human is something that must be overcome and complete reunion with femininityˮ, R.Tarnas wrote in the early 1990s (1995). The radical transformation of the Western civilization, is linked not only to the transformation of the world, but also to the transformation of human nature in general whatever is meant by this term. There is actualizing the possibility of an expanded interpretation of the "human nature"; an it is equivalent to changing of the perspective of the vision of socioanthropogenesis from the epistemological to the ontological and anthropological aspects, as we see. As a result, the narrative theory of evolution included uniquely compelling axiological elements that reflected in the term "evolutionary correctness". The second clarification is a consequence of the first one. It comes down to the acquisition by the evolutionary process, since its object is a human, rational and teleological orientation, cyclically updated and implemented through the technological component of SESH. This idea arose earlier in humanities and philosophy also. Mark Coeckelbergh approached to the developed here concept of evolutionary risk most close in his recent monograph (Coeckelbergh, 2013: 203-205) . On notions Coeckelbergh human continuously produces rational technological tools for actualization of some evolutionary scenario that corresponding to the dominant system of value priorities (and, simultaneously, the system-objectified interests on our opinion). The purpose of this scenario is elimination of exist evolutionary factors of risk, i.e. increase adaptability. (M. Coeckelbergh uses the term "eliminating of vulnerability".) Thus, Homo sapiens produces new maladaptations (vulnerability) as a side effect immanent to the technological schemes used; and a cycle of Risk 1 – Removal Risk 1 – Risk 2 closes. (M. Coeckelbergh uses the myth of Achilles as a successful modelmetaphor for the relationship between technology, adaptation and evolutionary risk (Coeckelbergh, 2013: 203-205). The invulnerability of the hero was due to apply the magical "technology", but each such technology creates potentially making a new vulnerability new factor, own Achilles' heel. Replacing a technology other just changes one such vulnerability to another, but absolute invulnerability (as absolute adaptability) does not exist, they always have meaning only in comparison with other ones.) Each phase of this cycle is initiated as a result to the prevailing value priorities. As long as they are powerful enough, the subjective determination of the objective of the process of human evolution persists. In short, the process of anthropogenesis is the artifact. However, the concept remains outside the intent to establish a system of formalized empirically verificated risk criteria, and is in the framework of a purely philosophical and anthropological interpretations. In our study, it is proposed to achieve the target and using the criterion of evolutionary correctness. It is assumed that criterion of evolutionary correctness is proportional to the divergence between the thematic composition of scientific publications and patents and publications of mass media, because scientific publications more correlated with the disciplinary matrix of knowledge of the relevant field, and publications of mass media more correlated with the emotional and value perception of same scientific and technological innovation. If both these arguments are justified, the magnitude of the evolutionary correctness can be approximated and predicted based on the content analysis of the corresponding data sets. Thus, the problem arises of comparing the subjective and objective components of the SESH evolutionary risk. The situation of choosing the optimal (correct) the evolutionary scenario is a moral in nature. In reality, the system of value priorities itself has some heterogeneity and situational non-uniqueness. Therefore, a chain of logical paradoxes arises as a natural result of the "subjective rationalization" of the evolutionary process in general and human evolution as a subject of evolution, in particular. There is a translation of this uncertainty of evolutionary process from the humanitarian sphere to the sphere of scientific (objectified) knowledge that carried out by means of the parameter "evolutionary correctness". However, it's impossible to achieve absolutely unambiguous results by the way. Of course, the divergence between the circulating in the scientific community views and images of the mentality of the mass consciousness can be considered as a trivial truth. However, in recent social and psychological studies, convincing empirical evidence has been obtained that this discrepancy cannot be overcome simply by enlightenment. Thus, in a series of studies of Australian psychologists S.G.Wilson and N. Haslam (Wilson, 2013: 375) it shows that the mentality of the modern civilization of the Western type is characterized by the existence of two mutually exclusive basic predisposition or intentions regarding the prospects of improvement of the biological and socio-cultural modules of SESH. The authors come to this conclusion on the basis of a sociopsychological analysis of the three main components of human behavior, namely, emotional, mental and characterological ones. In the experiment, respondents asked to assess the significance of signs, which determines the range of self-identification and the identification of other individuals as belonging to the categories of "Humanˮ, "Humankindˮ. As it turned out, these attributes in the minds of recipients clearly fall into two clusters. The last translated into two conceptual designs, and its central categories have the concept of "human natureˮ (HN) and "humanityˮ (HU). Human nature (HN) emphasizes the understanding of the essence of human as a complex set of fundamental genetically determinate signs of Homo sapiens, partially shared with other species. These symptoms are seen as imperative innate, universal for all types of cultures and positive valued by society. Cluster features HN respectively estimated the parameters of a positive emotional response to the possibility of extending certain signs among humankind: (1) Positivity ("How desirable or positive is the presence of this feature in human beings?"); (2) Prevalence ("How common is this feature among human beings?"); (3) Universality ("How universal is this feature in human beings, belonging to different cultural and social communities?"). The correlation coefficients of these parameters human nature of the respondents ranged from 0.66 (Universality) to 0.90 (Prevalence). According to the authors, in the mass consciousness, this complex is characterized by a holistic, systemic effect and its selective or mosaic technological modification will entail dehumanization, i.e. growing evolutionary risk. The risk is diagnosed upon violation of the criterion of evolutionary correctness. Dehumanization as the actualization of evolutionary risk manifests itself as a weakening of the manifestations of emotional life, replacing them with rational manifestations of mental processes in such perception and such interpretation. A person within the framework of such a model risks losing its essence, turning into an automaton, a machine, whose behavior is entirely determined by external circumstances. (We consider the structure of the images of the intentions of the mass consciousness, and not the logically consistent scientific or philosophical concept here.) "Humanity" emphasizes the uniqueness of humans, the occurrence of its features and attributes can`t be explained by evolution of biological module, but are fixed by social heredity. Judging by the results of the same test, cluster HU positively correlated with evidence of ability to learn (r = 0.65, p <0.01), age (r = 0.34, p <0.01) and learning disabilities (r = 0 81, p <0.01), but, strangely, not a morality (r = -0.04). Dehumanization (updated evolutionary risk) in this perception and this interpretation appears as a weakening of the "high" emotional manifestations of life, such as love (in all its forms), conscience, patriotism, etc. Dehumanization in this model is equivalent to increase of animal origin. Further analysis of the results of these observations in the context of our study can be carried out in two complementary aspects: Particularly psychological aspect is process of formation and modification of identification / self-identification of individuals by their belonging to the human race), and Globally-evolutional aspect as elements of the technohumanitarian balance and gene-culture co-evolution affecting the outcome of macro-evolution of Homo sapiens. Socio-psychological perspective allows us to estimate not only the reliability and significance of the binary opposition intentions HN and HU as factors Of the perception of the prospects of High Hume technologies and, consequently, the prospects of the evolutionary destiny of our species, as bearers of a certain type of evolutionary strategy, and Of humanity as a carrier of a certain system of values defined as humanism (in the philosophical sense of the word). The type characters are components of the describe personality in diagnostic system of coordinates within the framework of psychological concepts (McWilliams, 2001). D. Shapiro describes so-called "neurotic styles." This term combines the styles of thinking, perception and emotional response that are ways of psychological activity characteristic to neurotic states. They are formed as a result of decompensation of adaptive abilities and, therefore, are outside the normal range (Shapiro, 2000). Affiliation of the person to a particular type determines the combination of drives, affects and temperament, the repertoire of psychological defenses and the specificity of the course of adaptation processes. It can significantly affect the assessment of the signs presented as "animalistic" and "robotlike" in the experiment of S.Wilson and N.Haselam. Answers of obsessive, compulsive, or schizoid individuals can reveal the greatest probability of deviations from the average indicator in the direction of reducing the proportion of characteristics rated as robot-like. Psychopathic and hysterical individuals may exhibit similar deviations for traits assessed as animal-like. Thus, it can be assumed that the results of the study may differ depending on the distribution of types of personality in the sample due to the prevalence of one type or another in the population. There is apparent adaptive advantage of the obsessive-compulsive style at the present stage of civilization development, for example. The conditioned "demand" for a certain cognitive style contributes both 1. To an increase in the prevalence of obsessive-compulsive disorders, and 2. To an assessment of its obvious deficiency characteristics (rigidity of thinking, attention to detail at the expense of perception of the whole, a violation of the sense of autonomy, etc.) as advantages over less productive in the field of achievements, but more harmonious and full perception and experience of reality. There is process of rejecting another person for recognizing him as a person that depends largely on the level of empathy and projectiveintrojective balance; it can change toward the predominance of projection or introjection depending on the actual state of the mind. Obviously, there are external causes that facilitate its course. In all likelihood, the scenario of the "dehumanizingˮ process must be individual in each particular case. However, we take into account the worldwide trend towards the growth of narcissistic and borderline personality disorders, and an increase in the level of depressions related to the disturbance of maintenance of affective homeostasis too. According to some experts (Rudnev, 2001), depression is the closest to the animalistic state. Therefore, we can assume some of the vectors of dehumanization is predominant. Due to the lack of personality development, inability to subjectivity leads to a specific violation of interpersonal relations. Another individual is perceived more as a regulator of narcissistic homeostasis, and not as an independent person. Such a state of personality can contribute to the distortion of perception and the refusal of another to recognize its unique characteristics belonging to the HU cluster, first of all. The enhancer is a combination of the characteristic depression of the actualization of primitive sensations with the reduction of the ability to semiosis and the loss of the ability to experience human feelings. In other words, there is a formation o chain of causal connections and evolutionary conflicts as their consequences in the socio-psychological sphere: (1) cognitive dissonance caused by a gene-sociocultural intermodular conflict – (2) depression – (3) narcissism – (4) xenophobia – (5)exaggerated negative perception of targeted intervention in the somatic norm. If our short-term socio-psychological forecast covering a maximum of several decades proves to be reasonable, there will be an increase in the social inhibition of the biotechnological sector of the NBIC-complex (management and manipulation by the genetic code) in Western societies. There is a relatively smaller, but also increasing mental resistance in relation to various "humanitarian" technological schemes (management and manipulation by cognitive and socio-cultural codes) too. The forecast is based on the spontaneous properties of the mentality. It does not take into account the influence of the elements of the technorationalistic module that are external with respect to the mentality, which are "humanitarian" technologies in themselves. The collision of various patterns of behavior modification of the electorate can significantly affect the previous conclusion. The theoretical foundation of the described model is the concept of primary and secondary emotions (Smith, 2014: 817). In accordance with it, the HN cluster is based on the so-called primary emotions that determine the initial adaptive behavioral programs, the cluster HU is based on secondary emotions derived from primary ones. Secondary emotions are emotional complexes necessary to provide social adaptive programs. Binary bundles of adaptive reactions and primary emotions includes (Izard, 1977:33-35): Acceptance and Incorporation-ingestion of food and water; Disgust and Rejection-riddance reaction, excretion, vomiting; Anger and Destruction-removal of barrier to satisfaction; Fear and Protection-primarily the response to pain or threats of pain or harm; Joy and Reproduction-responses associated with sexual behavior; Sorrow and Deprivation-loss of pleasurable object; Startle and Orientation-response to contact with new or strange object; Expectation and Exploration-more or less random activities in exploring environment. The dynamics of the process of humanization / dehumanization is determined by the perception of signs that activate the primary emotions and are transmitted through biological inheritance. So, secondary emotions are emotional complexes of primary ones. In response to the emotional stimulus, several adaptive programs are activated at once, and as a result, a qualitatively new adaptive response is formed. The basis for the formation of secondary emotional complexes is socio-culturally supported association (Cheshko, 2012). If there is a minimal discrepancy of efficiency, it is equivalent to the absence of differences between attribution of signs as members of the corresponding cluster in the system of sociocultural predispositions and within the framework of a proven disciplinary matrix. Another word, this discrepancy is equivalent to minimum value of evolutionary risk. Let's note one more complicating circumstance. There is overlapping of the spheres of application of various adaptations related to the clusters "Humanityˮ and "Human Natureˮ, which leads to an evolutionary conflict. So, explicit group of socio-cultural adaptive predispositions are mostly confronted with hidden individual adaptations. An interesting example is the so-called "dark triad" of personality traits (narcissism, manipulativity and psychopathy). In mentality, they are usually perceived as dysfunctional, i.e. unconditionally related to the diagnostic complex of dehumanization within the framework of the considered scheme. However, direct studies have demonstrated that from the point of view of personal success, they can play a positive role, acting as side effects of separate attributes of humanity, and this effect positively correlates with living conditions and individual challenges posed by modern technological civilization (Jonason, 2014; Jonason et al., 2015). If we integrate S. Wilson's and N.Haslem's arguments into the logicalterminological scheme of the SESH concept, their adaptive-evolutionary significance seems obvious. The psychological signs and intentions integrated in first concept ("human nature") are a systemic adaptations stabilizing the biological module, while the components of second concept ("humanity") stabilizes the socio-cultural module of SESH. In general, they represent a homeostatic bundle of oppositely directed intentions, stabilizing the level of the techno-humanitarian balance and, consequently, the organization of SESH. In the socio-humanitarian interpretation they represent a means of ensuring the self-identity of a person in the process of technogenesis. In other words, the adaptive value of both concepts reaches a maximum during the development of controlled evolution in its biological (genetic engineering) and socio-cultural (social engineering) variants. However, there is the paradox of using of the technologies of controlled evolution for the improvement of the psycho-emotional and mental-moral spheres. It consists in trans-module character of these technologies. The technological fixation or strengthening transfers the attributes of humanity from the socio-cultural to the biological module SESH; it makes such signs by a species characteristics of Homo sapiens, and not a socio-cultural characteristics of humankind. There is a transfer of the attributes of humanity to the attributes of human nature in terms of social psychology. This paradox was revealed by Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu. They formulate it from the position of transhumanism and use it to substantiate the admissibility of a person's moral bio-improvement with arguments to the contrary (Persson, 2010). However, in fact this paradox will not be resolved logically, since its logical core represents an ideological antinomy HUMAN NATURE versus HUMANITY. This logical antinomy is not unique as a representation of the corresponding binary opposition of socio-cultural pre-dispositions within the module. Besides it, there are other antinomies. For example,Brian Terner indicates the antinomy "biologically reducible NEEDS versus "cultural reducible DESIRES" in his classic study of the sociology of human physicality. It is rightly, in our view. This antinomy stabilizes the socioeconomic evolution of modern society, acting in this context as a consumer society (Terner, 2008:31-32). Both sectors of technology-driven evolution are interconnected cycle with positive feedback. As a result, in the presence of economic stimulus , the advanced development of humanitarian technologies will cause a secondary wave, in which biotech schemes are perceived as being more appropriate to the cultural and ethical point of view. In turn, genetic engineering "improvement" opens more opportunities and improves the efficiency of "humanitarian" technological sector. A priori, there should be an overlay of sociocultural and technical-rational cycles (bio-and humanitarian technologies of human design), which creates a selfoscillating, tuned autoresonance circuit. A result of its functioning is the probability of transition potential evolutionary risk in actual form; and it is equivalent to SESH destruction and the loss of the basis for the identity of humankind in time. Even more striking example is found antinomy "SEX versus GENDERˮ. The first term is corresponding to biological component, and the second member matches socio-cultural counterpart of antinomy. Michel Foucault argues the rupture of a biological phenomenon by its socio-cultural counterpart and the subsequent autonomy of gender as follows: "The concept of "sex" allowed, firstly, to regroup, in accordance with some artificial unity of anatomical elements, biological functions, behavior, senses and pleasure, and secondly, allowed this fictitious unity to function as a causal principle, omnipresent meaning everywhere requiring detection secrets: sex, thus, could function as the only signifier and as the universal significance" (Foucault, 1996:261-262). Finally, we note another interesting, but so far exist only as a hypothesis fact. There are results of psychological tests, constructed in the form of gaming economic behavior, which suggests that there are two predisposition and, accordingly, the two behavioral stereotypes in the human psyche at the same time. First stereotype provides for the extraction of maximum personal benefit (individual adaptability), and the other stereotype provides for the a group benefit (i.e. group adaptability). In the latter case, the effect extends beyond one generation. As far as can be judged, the decision-making mechanism plays the role of a trigger that ensures the implementation of individual or group priorities. This mechanism is realized either by the individual himself or in the process of communication with other individuals (Rand, 2014). There is ability to spread beyond the life of an individual carrier of an adaptive genotype as one of the hallmarks of the association between inherited as polygenic-biological and socio-cultural signs, as we believe. In the description of the phenomenon of "Genghis Khan haplotype", we have already talked about this phenomenon. In other words, such an association is an attribute of gene-cultural co-evolution at all. Generalizing examples, we can obtain the following chain of logical arguments and conclusions. In anthropology, there has been an evolutionary split of initial adaptive complexes of biological module on the proper biological and socio-cultural counterparts. This co-evolutionary binary bunch performs identical or overlapping adaptive function and represents a common pattern of SESH evolution. The reason it can be considered the emergence of a number of parallel coding systems for generation and inheritance adaptively significant traits. Since both HN and HU concepts established in mentality long before the creation of the technology of controlled evolution, they have the preadaptive origin, and their mechanism remains unclear. Perhaps, of course, that in their totality they originally were in the internal homeostatic system of integrity of socio-cultural module, and prevent the spread of destructive innovation. By "destructiveness" we denote a gap in the co-evolutionary correspondence between a culture and a biological modules of SESH. Examples of such destructive innovations can serve the spread of extreme versions of "mortification of the flesh", or, on the contrary, a cynicism as a complete denial of independence and self-worth of the spiritual life. In this regard, we recall that the religious concept of the carnal and a spiritual duality of human nature has a very ancient history. (There is great Russian poet Derzhavin's famous aphorism "I am King, I am slave, I am worm, I am Godˮ.) It is easy to see that the effectiveness of the evolutionary scenario as a result of social choice cannot exceed the maximum possible for this type of SESH and this ecological and cultural landscape, Eeff ≥Eopt. The total value of the evolutionary risk is defined as the sum of the biological and cultural components, R = Rgen + Rhum. The technology adaptive innovations (Rtech) enter into this equation in a hidden form as third component of the adaptive strategy, because they are derived from the social order (i.e. social and cultural adaptations), and the latter, in turn, formed a divergence of techno-humanitarian balance through dysgenesis of genetic and cultural co-evolution. Thus, the technological evolutionary risk is the derivative function of its biological and socio-cultural components. The above equation assumes the risk of the value of the evolutionary final appearance R = Rgen(Rhum)+ Rhum(Rgen)+ Rtech(RgenRhum) (3.22) The system integrity of SESH is determined both by the connectivity of each of its components, and the continuity of the configurations of the direct and inverse connections between the components. However, transformations flows within the socio-cultural component of SESH are the key processes here. The organization and composition of value priorities will determine the future vectors of spontaneously irrational, biological and technorationalistic evolution of humanity. The formation of value priorities occurs within the culture itself by definition; it is self-reflected by culture as a "moral choice" of the attributes of "humanity". The resolution of the situation of moral choice can go in accordance with one of three alternative scenarios for the subsequent course of anthropogenesis: 1. Genetic reductionism (biocentrism) is maintenance of the genetic constitution of Homo sapiens ("the human genome is the heritage of humanity") as a substrate of continuity of humanistic foundations of culture evolution; 2. Culture-centrism is direct conservation of the system of humanistic values, ensured by rationalization and technologization of culture autoreplication; 3. Technological imperative (techno-centrism) is priority technologies as a means of solving all problems of existence (survival) of intelligent life. The set of these options is itself an invariant of the evolution of SESH. The first two alternatives accentuate the conservative-protective (bioethical) trends of anthropogenesis; third alternative is progressism, transhumanistic trend leading to the inevitable disintegration SESH. Actually this scenario means the achievement existential evolutionary risk, as in this case, the elimination of the two components of risk (Rgen and Rhum ) depends entirely on the technological potential (Rtech). "Visualization" of the third (technology) component of evolution would mean the risk of destruction of the integrated organization of SESH, and its total reduction to technological innovation and optimizing the environment in terms of adaptation of intelligence carriers to support the effective implementation of the same technologies. (As stated in the commentary to the Russian translation of the book Forrester's "World Dynamics" (Forrester, 2003), "only a post-industrial person corresponds to a post-industrial society. There is no reason to believe that it is easier to train and educate a carrier of post-industrial culture than the notorious builder of communism" (Jutanov, Pereslegin, 2003:355). It is obviously due to a conflict between the complex biological, cultural and rationalistic adaptations.) In this case, the equation radically simplified since only includes technology components: R = Rtech = 1. The remaining components in Equation 3.22 cease to influence each other and the integral value of the evolutionary risk, and can be equated to zero, since these components reflect the mutual conjugation of the biological and socio-cultural components of SESH. Thus, the coevolutionary triad of SESH ceases to exist and can be reduced to a "Posthuman future" or technogenesis. The same conclusion we made on the basis of purely conceptual analysis of the role of socio-cultural component in the structural transformation of SESH earlier. The potential for such evolutionary scenario is determined by the relative autonomy of cognitive subsystem (that is theoretical science) and the projective-activity ones (actual technology) of techno-rationalistic module. Technological subsystem and not theoretical science directly affected by changes in lifestyle and social environment to socio-cultural component of SESH. In the first half of the 20th century, there was occurred first attempt to implementation of the transition of the organization of SESH from homeostatic relatively stable structure of the third phase of evolution to the uncompensated contour direct links and feedbacks of fourth phase. However, eugenics scheme of technologizing biological human evolution did not pass the sieve of selection. The main reason for this "failure" was not the incompatibility with the basic value priorities of the humanistic Western culture, but it was rather the low efficiency of technologies based on the laws of classical genetics. Activation of the resistance of culture to technological innovations of this kind came later, as a result of the geopolitical and ideological confrontation with Nazi Germany. In this case, the initiating impetus was evolutionary transformations within culture and mentality, using technological schemes as a factor of expanding their influence in the society, nevertheless. There was actualization of schemes for the evolutionary transformation of the human gene pool in Nazi Germany, but also in a number of democratic countries (Scandinavia, the United States, etc.). This tendency was associated with the parallel progress of the "formation of a new man" and "Michurin genetics" in the former USSR as antagonistic to the eugenic political doctrine. At the same time, both of them are surprisingly similar in their organization. Elimination of both these nominees for cultural adaptation was predetermined by insufficient values of the balance of efficiency and maladaptive effects associated with the already existing socio-cultural adaptations. Modern gene therapy and genetic engineering schemes have a much greater potential efficiency, which significantly increases their chances of integration into existing systems of the socio-cultural adaptive complex. The results of such integration will be destructive for the internal connectivity of the existing system of value priorities and will extend also to the genetic component of SESH. Thus, in the 1900-1970, two competing innovations were formed within the sociocultural sphere, and the differences between them did not concern the actual technologization of the evolutionary process; but now the situation is different. In today's society, a clearly delineated systemic innovation of the priority of the socio-cultural component of SESH in comparison with technology. In the field of mental rationalism, this innovation was constituted as a concept of bioethics. Bioethics actually introduced the maintenance of the biological substratum basis of human existence as a general human right. Thus, the biosocial nature of man was included in the system of universal human values of the humanistic worldview, subject to protection and maintenance in the "optimal" scenario of the future course of anthropogenesis. In the sphere of social organization, a formally relatively effective biopolitical mechanism has emerged for the actualization of these values. In other words, in recent decades, the final trajectory of global evolution has focused on maintaining the continuity of the existing cultural tradition as a basic value, which is more in line with the culture-centric rather than the technocratic scenario. The next factors of the possible destruction are the mechanism of generation of elementary adaptations and their integration into the overall system of adaption genesis. For the most part, as the emergence and selection of a new "nominee" place of the mosaic type i.e. solving evolutionarily adaptive problem ad hoc. The integration of the individual adaptations in a unified system is realized only a posteriori, by further adjustment, selection and differential modification of the original, usually pleiotropic effects. Not so long ago, American psychologist, cognitive scientist and popularizer G.Markus wrote that there are adaptive products of evolution in general and organizations of the human brain in particular, which are a set of sequences for relatively ineffective individually adaptive or technical solutions; but the latter combine to form an extremely efficient adaptive complex. (Markus , 2011: 5). This conclusion the author refers to the biological (genetic) adaptation only, but in the same way, it applies to the socio-cultural adaptations too. In both cases, adaptations or maladaptions formed as an attribute of the discrete pieces of information. However, it occurs only in conjunction with other similar fragments in the context of particular environments. Therefore, in our opinion, the obvious interchange of the mentioned evolutionarypsychological ideas of G. Marcus and, let's say, the key points of B. Malinovsky's functional theory of culture (Malinovsky, 2005) should not be surprising. It is a consequence of the internal mechanism of evolutionary process, in general, and of progressive evolution as increasing system complexity, in particular. Elementary adaptive transformations are formed on the basis of the available pool of information fragments. The latter are formed not only by existing socio-ecological environment, but by previous evolutionary history (by genetic drift in the case of biogenesis) too. In turn, specific adaptive "innovations" can be based on the magnitude of ecological and ontogenetic plasticity and population variability of individual traits. Finally, the point of application of specific adaptations can be either an individual or a social group. To this must be added the pleiotropic manifestations of individual structural genes, further increased due to various epigenetic modifications (Sih, 2011:368). In the gene-cultural co-evolution and techno-humanitarian balance, i.e. in both co-evolutionary bundles, a more slowly evolving member of the binary opposition initiates an adaptive-innovation process in a more dynamic partner. The latter either returns the evolutionary impulse back after the generation of a single adaptive innovation, or turns into a selfsustaining generation cycle of secondary, tertiary, etc. intra-modular innovation. It is important to note, in this cycle of conjugate acts of adaptation genesis, direct links pass between synchronous phases of the partners, and the reverse effects are recursive, i.e. are carried out by some delay. Such a system has as its main attribute a property that can be enunciated as "imperfect coordination and relative order" (Nazaretyan, 2013:39). Maladaptations are constantly overcome by some parameters and is generated by others. In this way, a transmission mechanism is formed that extends from the sphere of proper biological (genetic) adaptations to the field of SESH's socio-cultural and technological modules. According to the laws of feedback, adaptive and non-adaptive evolutionary history outlines the boundaries of sensory and cognitive processes and behavior, and other signs that have an adaptive value in potentio, as well as their genetic variations in the future. It opens a new cycle of reverse influences on the future evolution of individual and group (social) adaptivity. 3.5. Intraand intermodal co-evolutionary conflicts as a mechanism for generating of evolutionary risk So, adaptation in each particular case solves the local evolutionary problem by optimizing the interaction parameters of some evolving, selforganizing system with the habitat, if these parameters are priority for the future existence of the system at a given time and place. Both the "problem situations" themselves and the evolutionary solves are autonomous and relate to autonomous, often mutually exclusive or conflicting system parameters. Thus, the generation and fixation of adaptive innovations is built on the fractal-modular principle. The same applies to their cumulative at this time result. As we remember, the very organization of the stable adaptive strategy of Homo sapiens is an example of such a modular organization. Clearly, the same principle applies within each element of SESH. There is the emergence of binary oppositions "actual adaptation − potential maladaptation" as the simplest case of the generation of evolutionary risk. Also, there is a fixation in a population of a self-replicating element that optimizes integrative adaptability in one of the parameters of fitness / survival. In a parameter that was previously insignificant, it may become a causal factor for reducing integrative adaptability. For example, occurred in the genome of primates about 3.5 million years ago point mutation resulted in the replacement of arginine on glutamine at position 332 in polypeptide chain protein TRIM5α. Carriers of this mutation were immune to the PtERV1 virus, which now leads to the development of leukemia in mice and, most likely, was a serious threat to human ancestors at that time. Apparently, the protein TRIM5α functions on the principle of a trigger that provides resistance to only one type of so-called retro-virus, either HIV or PtERV1. Over time, the PtERV1 virus has lost its virulence and now exists as an element of the genome of individual primate taxa (Kaiser, 2007). Now, there are formed radically modification of the genetic components of the evolutionary risk of SESH as result of changes in the epidemiological situation and its socio-environmental "context". An adaptive triple fractal clusters are presented more sophisticated and capable to increase the amount of risk development. Thus, the resistance to HIV infection in primates is controlled by three groups of related genes (Ortiz et al., 2009: 2870). A triple modular structure arises at the basis of the genome as a biological adaptive module of SESH. The latter includes three sets of functionally independent but overlapping in the software and information aspect genetic clusters. These clusters serving to development of intelligence, the sexual process and feeding of juvenile age individuals. The latter feature is even more significant in comparison with other species of mammals due to the extremely long period of childhood and puberty. In turn, the importance of the latter factor stems from the combination of adaptive cephalization on the one hand and difficulties of reproduction in conditions of bipedalism, on the other hand. This conflict forms increase the likelihood of developing cancer tissue degeneration versus accelerated aging and loss of regenerative capacity as one of the main gradient of evolutionary risk in biological module of SESH. It is "Genetic axis of Evil" in the terminology of some modern evolutionists (Crespi, 2010: 96). This option may be called "Cultural axis of Evil" with respect to sociocultural adaptation module, if we adopt the metaphor. It is formed along the gradient of social stability versus progressionism / expansionism, or closed society versus open society for "phenotypic" expression, in accordance with the described algorithm of evolutionary risk genesis. "Technological Axis of Evil" is formed by the existing imbalance between the power of technology and the ability of society to control their consequences by not strong enough techno-humanitarian balance. However, "social control ability" Is determined by the imbalance between individual and group behavioral adaptability. This imbalance is determined by the conflict of socio-cultural and genetic-biological modules of SESH. During the first phase of the evolution of SESH, dominant behavioral stereotypes were formed as biological adaptations to the survival of small social groups in conditions of low or low level of technology. Subsequently, behavioral adaptations were provided by the adaptation of the sociocultural module and contributed to the survival of steadily increasing in size and structurally complicating social groups in the context of technological progress. This trend dominated throughout phases II-III of SESH evolution At his time, N.Moiseeff found very successful in our opinion the metaphor for non-compliance of attitude and genetic heritage of hunters tribes , non-compliance of power of modern civilization and common sense of society, non-compliance of infinitely growing human material needs and the planet's limited resources, and "the lack of understanding of the responsibilities of each person for the fate of the planetary community". He called this contradictory complex "Pithecanthropus generic labels". All these features are adaptive only under relatively small groups and weak technological capacity. This fact is so obvious that it can be considered trivial. It is equally obvious that the overcoming of the "Pithecanthropus generic labels" was carried out within the framework of the socio-cultural module of SESH. However, socio-cultural adaptations were developed through the system of epigenetic transfer mechanisms of the genetically determined individual or small group behavioral stereotypes as regulators of social and sociotechnological development (morals), providing a large group adaptive advantages. Thus, the "System axis of Evilˮ emerges as the main source of the evolutionary risk of the phase IV of the evolution of SESH. The system axis includes a three-component co-evolutionary node in the composition of the individual behavior, group morality, and technological capabilities. In fact, it is the result of a discrepancy between gene-cultural co-evolution and the techno-humanitarian balance. The inevitability of this discrepancy arises from the different rates of adaptation of the biological, socio-cultural and rational SESH modules. On the part of the mass media and the public, keen interest is attracted by inconsistencies and conflicts between various adaptations belonging to the same and, especially, different SESH modules. The public feels in them a source of potential danger for themselves and other representatives of our biological species, obviously unconsciously. As a result, there are nonfiction books and other publications affecting or directly devoted to external manifestations of SESH systemic inter-module conflicts. These publications use rather outrageous forms of presenting information designed to exploit this feature of social psychology, which carries signs of systemic anti-risk adaptation, in turn. (However, this thesis itself needs an empirical justification and theoretical reasoning.) Suffice it to mention only two such publications in recent years. There are already cited book of Marcus and the work of "the neurophysiologist and comedian" by Dene Barnett under the pretentious title "The Idiot Brainˮ (Burnett, 2016) as described in the Guardian and in the annotation. The examples are rather demonstrative and do not serve as indicators of the evolutionary risk associated with the existential level of danger. The most striking of them are the effect of motion sickness that occurs in certain individuals when using vehicles and is characterized by the worst ability of almost everyone to memorize names compared to the visual memory of their owners. In the first case, the cause is a conflict between vestibular and visual systems, orientation in space, and the second phenomenon is due to the different efficacy of the neurophysiological "support systems" of the participants of social communications. However, in both cases, the origin of adaptive conflicts is associated with incomplete compliance of the requirements imposed by the newly emerging adaptive innovations of the socio-cultural and techno-rationalistic modules and the elements of the biological module they use. As a result, the parameters of the human body approach the boundaries of the biological adaptive zone by individual indicators. There are many such examples. In our previous publications (Cheshko, 2012: 288) has argued the hypothesis that in a history, this conflict is associated with adaptive interaction in the mental life of two information systems. They act for each other as figurative-emotional (images) and verbal-logical (discourse) information substrates. As a result, the evolution of a mental image of a trajectory having two assemblies points. These assemblies corresponding to the dominance of religion or rationalism in the spiritual culture. Pleiotropic effects form a wave of adaptive evolutionary transformations in multidimensional space of adaption genesis. These transformations apply to all components of adaptive strategy, as well as on socio-cultural and ecological environment. Number of dimensions in the case of evolutionary landscape of Homo sapiens proportional NgenNhumNtech in first approximation only. Result is a two-dimensional diagram of the evolution of a single innovation that not fit fully into the binary bundle of moving and stabilizing selection. Vice versa, it takes the form of an extremely complicated path on trajectory projections on a multidimensional graph of frequency distribution of a set of an innovation. In practice, elementary adaptations are relative to each other in a state of constantly generated and overcome conflict. In contrast to the elementary acts of adaptation to changes in the ecological environment, such inter-adaptive conflicts evolve according to a co-evolutionary mechanism; their outcome is initially open and lasts a considerable time on an evolutionary scale (Crespi, 2010: 85). Similarly, autism is the result of such an adaptive conflict between social intelligence and cognitive-systematization ability in the case. Intermodular adaptation conflicts should be even more stable and unpredictable in their trajectory and dynamics due to the significant difference in the pace of development between the individual modelsules. Conflicts between the elements of one module generate inter-modular conflicts. An example is the conflict of adaptations between biological adaptations to cyclically or stochastically changing each other's hunger and the abundance of food. Such intra-biological conflicts make the biological module of SESH sensitive to factors that have a socio-cultural origin to the economic and political characteristics of the given society, in particular. As a result, the population passing through the period of modernization of societies has an increased genetic and metabolic risk of accumulation of excess weight in mature and old age, and not enough rapid weight gain during childhood and adolescence. This double risk has a single socio-cultural determination caused by adaptive changes in the quality and mode of life of a modern society. The present stage of evolution of SESH is determined by the appearance of technology-driven evolution or more precisely, a proto-technology of this type, and these technologies capable carrying out the rationalistic management or manipulation by genetic, socio-cultural and cognitive codes. Before it, the Gordian knot was formed by co-evolutionary oppositions: gene versus culture, culture versus technology, gene versus technology; and it was resolved through cultural transformations. Now "superposition" of biological, cultural and technological adaptive SESH modules may use only in a metaphorical sense, since the possibility of independent linear transformation of individual elements of superposition is lost. By linear extrapolation of the evolutionary imbalance of the risk of the SESH socio-cultural and biological module, the causes of the risk can be reduced to differences in the rates of adaptation genesis in each module only. The occurrence of "diseases of civilization" is considered as a permanent adaptation genesis incompleteness in its biological form because significantly higher rate of socio-cultural evolution within linear aproxymational model. Then the speed of accumulating genetic load in a population is a measure of evolutionary risk. Removal solution is achieved automatically by the emergence of created by genetic engineering additional feedback loops of "technology−genome". In fact, thus the linear model becomes invalid, and the risk level of evolutionary approaches close to the existential level as we will try to argue in the future. Moreover, this conclusion is not only concerned with a particular adaptive module, but the entire system of SESH in general. It can be extended to any anthropogenic ecological systems of any complexity level, including technological and noosphere. Or, as is written in a review of the global economy evolution in the journal "Natureˮ ( Helbing, 2013: 51), "Today's strongly connected, global networks have produced highly interdependent systems that we do not understand and cannot control well. These systems are vulnerable to failure at all scales, posing serious threats to society, even when external shocks are absent. As the complexity and interaction strengths in our networked world increase, man-made systems can become unstable, creating uncontrollable situations even when decisionmakers are well-skilled, have all data and technology at their disposal, and do their best. To make these systems manageable, a fundamental redesign is needed. A 'Global Systems Science' might create the required knowledge and paradigm shift in thinking". From the point of view of the author of the cited article, a member of the Risk Center of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Dirk Hedling, the new configuration of the network environment of mankind is characterized by a high probability of cascade processes. Such processes have the fundamental feature that initiates an impetus is not comparable in magnitude with the value and duration of the process. It is only necessary to add that from the perspective of evolutionary theory, the core of this network of interconnected technological, anthropological or noosphere systems are stable evolutionary strategy of its "information carrierˮ and, at the same time, the "operator" – a person. Therefore, the discrepancy between elementary effects on the resulting value of adaptive efficiency means growth, and convergence means a reduction in evolutionary risk. In other words, the risk is an evolutionary byproduct of adaption genesis. It arises from co-evolutionary and stochastic but not functional and causal relationships between its autonomous elements. There are the association between the individual elements of the genome, culture and technology, which have a clear tendency to increase in the number of carriers and / or strengthening of expressiveness in such systems. It is the argument for the existence of these phenomena: 1. Intra-genomic co-evolution and intragenomic conflicts as a result of the stochastic mechanism of generating of adaptive / maladaptive genetic information between the individual pleiotropic fragments in accordance with the Darwin-Weismann modus; 2. Gene-cultural co-evolution, during which elementary fragments of genetic information are used as a substrate for the socio-cultural adaptation, regardless of their own biological adaptive values; 3. Inter-cultural co-evolution between the elements of culture, whose occurrence is due to the different aspects of bio-social life, or appeared in a different ecological and cultural environment, but is retained as a result of semantic association with the supporting elements of the adaptive overall system of cultural values and mental stereotypes; 4. Techno-humanitarian balance that is equivalent to culturetechnology co-evolution, and based on the spontaneously occurring associations between new technological developments and socio-cultural resources to support them; 5. Inter-technological conflicts (technological traps) caused by mutually exclusive or hardly compatible requirements of individual technological innovations to the socio-cultural environment or by imbalance of the demands of various social communities to such developments. All these five types of destructive co-evolution (evolutionary risk) are reduced to a conflict between adaptation reactions to the effects of different factors, or between adaption genesis trends genetic and socio-cultural structures of undifferentiated population. Assessments of integral indicators of evolutionary risk for all the above components are not found in modern publications. It is understandable, taking into account the undeveloped concept of evolutionary risk in general. However, there are some indirect data to assess the particular manifestations of the evolutionary risk in relation to the genetic (biological) component of SESH. These data are an increase in the frequencies of various molecular genetic pathologies. There are calculations by a Canadian-American researcher in the field of evolutionary biology Bernard Crespi. According to him, there are hereditary diseases associated with structural genes or individual haplotypes that have a positive selection pressure diagnosed. Over the past 10 thousand years of human evolution, their relative values are 17-21% for neurological disorders and 15-21% for other etiological diseases. In the control group analogous index fluctuated between 21-25%. (Gene pool whose positive selection during the relevant period of anthropogenesis was not observed.) Crespi comes to an obvious conclusion that evidence of accumulation of genes determining the development of hereditary pathologies has not been obtained to date (Crespi, 2010). However, in the same way as quoted, researcher argues that among the genes that have been accumulating for the past periods of evolution of Homo sapiens, found more often than usual determinants associated with neuropsychiatric disorders. These include such pathologies as schizophrenia, manic-depressive psychosis, depression, dyslexia, autism, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, epilepsy (Crespi, 2010:300). The impression is created that there is expression of specific "human" traits involved in the development of speech, symbolic thinking and social and emotional intelligence, and these traits are excessive in relation to the biological norm. Many "sapiens" human signs largely overlap with a plurality of psychotic affective symptoms. If this conclusion is not to be reviewed in the course of further research, it is quite adequately fit into our concept of stable adaptive evolutionary strategy and evolutionary risk. In essence, an association between genetic maladaptation and cultural adaptation should be observed more often than binary bundles of genetic and socio-cultural adaptation, and this hypothesis is directly corresponds to the to our conception. The conclusion follows from the foregoing. There is the transformation of culture into a selective factor that determines the fixation or elimination of specific fragments of genetic information according to their adaptability or non-adaptability in the socio-cultural environment; and the significance of it far exceeds even very strong selective incentives from the actual ecological evolutionary landscape. This thesis creates the impression of an "attenuation" of the biological form of adaptation genesis in human evolution. However, the set of possible mechanisms of gene-cultural co-evolution is not exhausted. In addition to selective pressure on the human gene pool, two more effects appear (Milbrath, 2013:406). This refers to the transformation of existing functional significance of genetic variation in the population or in social group in accordance with the new adaptive socio-cultural landscape. The essence of this phenomenon is determined as the evolution by the change of function. Sometimes it is call exaptation with a view to distinguishing this phenomenon from classical adaptation. Exaptation (genetic evolutionary correctness of our terminology) becomes an adaptive significance in the genetically adaptive cultural complex only. Potentially selective advantage given to those genetic and cultural co-adaptations, and latter then converted biological maladaptation to basic adaptation as part of the integrated gene-cultural complex. At phenomenological aspect, the effect creates the impression of a direct genetic pressure on the general trends of cultural evolution and its elementary components. In other words, it provides empirical material for genetic reductionist interpretations of anthropogenesis and ethnogenesis. For example, there is a correlation between phonetic features of the Italian and some African tribe's languages and genotypic variability in the structure of the vocal apparatus respective ethnic groups that serve as curious, although highly controversial example. A hypothetical explanation is the pressure of the previous population genetic differences in the general direction of a particular language phonetics (Dediu, 2013:153-154). An alternative hypothesis is the selective pressure on the population structure of linguistics11. But last assumptions faced with some difficulties. It seems unlikely that minor differences in pronunciation can have a marked selective value. There is third mechanism of the evolutionary cultural-biological and, obviously, cultural-technological interfaces of the SESH components. It is associated with cultural inhibition of adaptive modular differentiation of the genome. More rapid cultural and technological adaptive response to problems of survival makes redundant development of a similar adaptive evolutionary transformation within the genomic cluster. Although biological adaptation would have been possible to solve the same problem. As result, firstly, adaptive evolution of genome is replaced by stochastic processes, i.e. by genetic drift and, secondly, there is a gradual erosion of adaptive components of SESH, i.e. increase of genetic load. So, three original type of culture and genome co-evolutionary relationship can be reduced to two types: coadaptation (Darwinian adaptation and exaptation) and disintegration. A priori the same types of convolution relations apply to a pair of culture – technology. Thus, the organization of SESH always admits either an increase in systemic complexity or disintegration as two possible scenarios for future evolution. The second scenario implies the fallout of individual elements of the SESH co-evolutionary triad. The ratio of the probability of actualization of both evolutionary scenarios is changing with the emergence of each particular genetic, cultural and technological innovation. The magnitude of the resulting effect determined for the total amount of SESH adaptability by the configuration and ranges from 0 to 1, and therefore requires constant monitoring. 11 Genetically drived co-evolutionary semantics in the "pure'' – Auth. Therefore, equivalent concepts are the establishment of an association of biological maladaptation and sociocultural adaptation and the establishment of co-evolutionary relations between them. Compensation occurs of maladaptive manifestation of the individual elements of the genome and its derivatives (proteinom, metabulom, etc.) by the associated elements of culture. As result, these genomic factors become elements of culture themselves. On the next phase of development of co-evolutionary relationship, the integration becomes of genetic-biological component in the overall system of socio-cultural adaptation as its biological prerequisites. However, a coevolutionary ligament appears of cultural elements with biologically non-adaptive characters and genes, which can be established without going through the first (compensatory) phase of its genesis. In this phase, the negative individual selection is replaced by positive selection at the group level. As has been repeatedly mentioned here, an example is the spread of sickle cell anemia and other hematopathy genes in irrigated tropical areas of agriculture. Selective factor in this case is the spread of the pathogen and malaria vectors. The resulting adaptive efficiency is determined by the aggregate balance of the two maladaptive, but antagonistic effects of sickle cell allele on one side and adaptability of the techno-cultural balance in the ricegrowing areas on the other. (It should be noted that the presence of a cultural and technological complex associated with the development of irrigated agriculture and the choice of rice as the main grain crop became not the root cause, but only an enhancements of the accumulation of genetic load associated with sickle cell anemia.). Recently discovered examples of this kind are high concentrations of genes that increase the likelihood of excessive accumulation of cholesterol and cardiovascular diseases in populations of northern Siberia (Clemente et al, 2014). The transition to existence in the conditions of the North was associated with an almost complete replacement of crop products by meat diet. This process was determined and replicated by culture. It led to the replacement of the previously dominant "glucose-centric" metabolic type by "lipids-centric" metabolic type. This metabolic type led to the accumulation in the organism of ketone bodies as the assimilation products of lipids and lipoproteins. Distribution of the mutations in the population served to neutralize harmful consequences of this process. It was secondary effect of the biological coadaptation to socio-cultural coadaptation. In the 20th century, there was initiation of a new set of social, cultural and techno-rationalist transformations, which led to a revival of the original lifestyle and "glucose-centric" diet and returned described mutation in the category maladaptive ones. There is a cycle of mutual coadaptation of three elements of SESH, and the gene-cultural conflict is initiated and evolutionary risk is updated but is not reached the existential level. Similarly, the elimination of lactase deficiency genes in adulthood develops in the population of European countriesations. The inability to ferment lactose occurs at no more than 2% of the Dutch and other Western Europeans and at 98% of Chinese and Japanese after the end of breastfeeding period in children (Vogel, 1990: 41-43). Obviously, the inverse relationship must be seen in the ability to absorb the soy protein and neutralize оf saponins contained in soy. In this case, genetic differences are initiated by the choice of a diet option that can solve the problem of protein nutrition in areas of rice cultivation as sociocultural transformations of lifestyle. Another example is currently a hypothetical evolutionary mechanism (Benner, 2013) of fixing and geographical distribution of genetic variants of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase's key element in the metabolism of ethanol (alcohol) in the body. Initially, this enzyme catalyzes the metabolism of terpene alcohols. With the transition of hominines to terrestrial lifestyle and bipedalism, sociocultural adaptation has changed the direction of selection. The spread in the population received the variants of structural genes that enable the consumption of fruit, in which the fermentation has already begun (Dudley, 2014; Benner, 2014). Probably, the initiating and stimulating factors were the reduction of the area of tropical forests and the related transition to a terrestrial lifestyle and a new diet. The physiological significance of alcohol is multiple and includes the energy, psycho-physiological and toxicological effects on the physiological and metabolic processes. Each of the components is caused not only by ethanol itself, but also by the products of its metabolism, acetaldehyde, first of all. Accordingly, a complex set of genetic facts was formed in the biological module of SESH, which optimizes this complex of processes and attributes. There are stress relieving, communication simplification, increasing aggressiveness in case of intergroup conflict, etc. as a side effects of alcohol on the psyche, which is not related to participation in energy metabolism. It became dominant in adaptation genesis gradually. On the other hand, the activity of enzymes (alcohol dehydrogenase, primarily) is determined by socio-cultural inheritance for metabolism, utilization and neutralization of the toxic effect of alcohol and the frequency of the corresponding genes in the population. First of all, the cultural practices of drinking have influenced the selection of genetic determinants affecting psychotropic substances and their effects. As a result, the use or non-use of alcohol and alcoholism drifted from the sphere of the biological module to the area of the socio-cultural component of SESH. This process was intensified by the involvement of the technological module in the distribution of alcohol consumption. A change of SESH configuration was the consequence of the invention and implementation in the culture of winemaking, brewing, etc. Due to its availability, alcohol consumption has been transformed into a self-catalyzed process and has approached the boundaries of the "window of socio-cultural adaptability", the emergence of a compensatory complex of socio-cultural adaptations, the socio-cultural differentiation of different societies on this basis, etc. Later, a similar phenomenon occurred with tobacco smoking, according to the latest theoretical investigations of evolutionary genomics (Wrangham, 2009; Aarts et al., 2016) . The approval of smoking occurred after Columbus as a general cultural innovation. The physiological consequences of tobacco smoking are quite complex, although, of course, long-term negative effects significantly exceed the weak short-term positive, mainly psychophysiological and anti-stress manifestations. In conditions of low average human life expectancy, the overall negative balance was masked until the beginning of the 20th century. However, the ground for this socio-cultural innovation was laid by a mastery of fire as global socio-cultural and techno-rationalistic adaptation. It created immediate evolutionary-semantic and then selective consequences for the SESH biological module. A high adaptive status received the genetic determinants that reduce the pathological effect of gasdispersed combustion products. A priori, it can be assumed that this process was accompanied by the accumulation of genetic factors that, first, postponed the negative effects of combustion products until the end of reproductive age, and, secondly, integrated the metabolic derivatives of these products into the general system of adaptive metabolism. As a consequence, there are secondary adaptive effects of smoking in mature age and maladaptive and pathological ones in the final phases of human ontogenesis. The hypothesis has not yet received definitive empirical evidence: "detoxification genes" are noted in the genomes of chimpanzees and Neanderthals, that are much earlier than the appearance of mastery of fire in the evolutionary history (Aarts et al., 2016:13). Along with it, there is an assumption that the accumulation of "detoxification genesˮ for substances of plant origin is the result of a more general pattern. The latter was arised from the expansion of their set, not directly related to the use of fire, but, for example, with diet changes, habitat transformation and so on. But even if the described phenomena are caused simply by the expansion of the diet during anthropogenesis, the thesis of the primacy of the co-evolutionary-semantic component in the evolution of SESH will not be refuted: the presence of genetic diversity is a necessary prerequisite for the development of a socio-cultural adaptive module that uses it. At the same time, the socio-cultural environment serves as a powerful epigenetic factor that influences the formation of phenotypes in genes associated with the metabolism of food products. The "diet" chosen by the cultural module, therefore, is both a prerequisite and reason for the configuration of this type of civilization (Nabhan, 2013). Another interesting example of this kind is the relatively high frequency in human populations of the sign of male homosexuality. As mentioned much higher, sexual selection could become the leading form of evolution in conditions of primate populations environment that was rich in food resources. The male reproductive strategy of r-type has been formed. It focused on the largest number of descendants with a weak parental behavior. As result, each male individual maintained reproductive contacts with a significant number of female individuals. Such communicative structure is corresponded to so-called polygyny as one of the varieties of polygamy. It implied a rather complex system of inter-personal contacts within the social group and, consequently, a positive selective pressure on the development of social intelligence; and it is confirmed in a whole complex of biological characteristics of hominines, including anatomical ones (Dixson, 2009, 2012). On the other hand, the same set of factors contributed to the presence in the population of a fairly significant reserve of genetic and epigenetic variability in the factors affecting sexual attraction. After the change in the ecological situation, a new distribution of social roles arose, and latter provides for a much greater adaptive significance of the male's parental behavior. In adaptive inversion 1, the leading role was played not by biological heritability but by cultural transmission with the corresponding change in the relationship between the biological and sociocultural modules of SESH. The maintenance of newly emerging social adaptive functions required the association of new socio-cultural elements with those already present in the population. The cultural transmission has given an adaptive significance to pre-existing signs that does not directly correlate with its previous genetically and epigenetically determined values. The most adaptive significance was acquired by those genetically determined characteristics, including marginal ones, which were involved by the socio-cultural module in the mechanism of providing socio-cultural transmission and the regulation of the demographic structure by nonbiological adaptations. At least modern reference books (Leca, Vasey, 2016) indicate the mutual complementarity of the connection with pleiotropic biological determinants and / or their cohesion (1), and involvement and subsequent integration in the implementation of non-reproductive social functions (2) as two explanatory models and mechanisms for the emergence and maintenance of the "third sex" in population of primate. The elements of the bio-semantic associations between reproductive-sexual and social subsystems are: • Firstly, extending the life span of at least a female beyond reproductive age and, • Secondly, the presence in the population of homoand asexual marginal sexual orientations. It confirms the special role of the sexual-reproductive behavioral subsystem of the biological module and sexual selection in the formation of a complex of behavioral stereotypes of purely social communication. The social institution of grandmothers provided social components of group reproduction, storage and efficient transmission of socio-cultural adaptively relevant information; the second sign participated primarily in the regulation of the demographic situation, although their importance as "enhancers" and stabilizers of the process of socio-cultural transmission is significant in all world cultures in certain periods of their existence too. (It is enough to recall the role of monasteries as custodians of cultural selfidentity and scientific and humanitarian knowledge.) There is a clear intention to consider homosexuality as one of the variants of the genetic-population and cultural norm in modern Western society. In cultural history and in modern cultural diversity, such behavior often either is recognized as openly normal and not contrary to moral standards (Ancient Greece, modern USA and EU); either is an essential part preformed by existing system of culture and therefore a relatively widespread interpersonal relationship system actually (Victorian England). This phenomenon does not occur in any species of mammals and other animals on such a scale; and all attempts were unsuccessful to explain in the framework of the classical theory of natural selection. In general, homoand asexuality is found in populations of certain species of primates and dolphins living in social groups. The same can be said of "social institute of grandmothers". This is another confirmation of the above explanatory models. Therefore, it received the name "Darwinian paradox" among some researchers. This is already a necessary but not sufficient argument in the framework of the concept of SESH to suggest that we are dealing with one of the examples of genetic-cultural co-evolution drived by the culture. The well-grounded, though controversial, hypothesis (Barthes, 2013) assumes the following. A combination of some genetic and socio-cultural factors is initial mechanism of fixation at society of genetic determinants of homosexual behavior. The factors resulting co-evolutionary interactions turned into a single coadaptaptional complex. It include • A human bisexual mechanism for determining the sex traits complex, in which the development of the behavioral stereotypes of male or female pattern determined by the action of regulatory triggers during critical periods of ontogenesis; • Incompletely limited by sex action of genetic determinants of increased sexual attraction in women, and these genetic determinants are localized in autosomes; • Rigid social stratification of social structure coupled with the ability for women to achieve a rapid increase of their own sexual-reproductive pairs with the higher social strata. In the case of a complete confirmation of the social status, as well as the status of the next of kin ("social elevator") by forming stable hypothesis, there is the mechanism of sexual and reproductive behavior in population that appropriate to a certain stage of socio-genesis and to socio-cultural type. A "genes of homosexuality" are an autosomal genes of female sexual attraction. They are supplemented, replaced or eliminated as elements of culture and elements of the transformation of the social and ecological environment after establishing the initial population equilibrium of gene frequencies. A priori, for example, it seems likely that the growth of tolerance or intolerance to manifestations of homosexuality, let alone integration or exclusion included in the complex socio-cultural demographics regulators. An ancient Greek civilization was a system of city-states with the main part of the population living in a relatively small territory. These features were co-evolutionary prerequisite for the spread of above kind of relations, and, especially, among the aristocracy. The idea is probably trivial to those, for example, who are familiar with the biographies of ancient Greek philosophers by Diogenes Laertius, the classical Greek poetry, etc. In his classic study, Werner Jaeger (Jaeger, 2001:242) in the early twentieth century wrote: "The love of a men for a boy or young men was a significant historic element in the early Greek aristocratic society inextricably linked with its moral and class ideals... Athenian poets and legislators in Athens mention or praise it as a matter of course. They have a particularly noble origin, since Solon. In his poems, the love of boys is mentioned among the higher living blessings". Modern researchers claim that the fundamental differences between sexual mores in ancient Greece and our society makes it difficult to compare two cultures (Mondimor, 2002: 20). This confirms the conclusion about the spread of the phenomenon of homosexuality in a given human population as a result of socio-cultural transmitted relatively autonomously from biological mechanism of the phenomenon. The basis of modern Western culture become the cultural constructivism concept of sexual behavior and sexual roles. Its initial postulate is the assertion that sexual behavior determined or constructed by the culture in which human lives (Lev-Starovich 1991:20). At the same time, gender is acquired through a process of socialization or enculturation. An individual learns, sometimes overtly and at other times more subtly, how to behave, dress, labor, couple, emote, speak, etc. in socially appropriate ways (Geller, 2017: 5). As result, occurrence of the trait in population is explains by "grasping" of cultural inheritance and is adaptively significant, so to speak, "by definition". Michel Foucault draws this hypothetical process (see: Geller, 2017: 7) by the way: "A task that consists of not...treating discourses as groups of signs (signifying elements referring to contents of representations) but as practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak. Of course, discourses are composed of signs; but what they do is more than use these signs to designate things. It is this more that renders them irreducible to the language (langue) and to speech. It is this 'more' that we must reveal and describe", However, sexual orientation is accountable by many biological rules and because homosexuality cannot be considered a purely social "construct". Everything indicates that there is a biological basis of sexual orientation (Lev-Starovich, 1991:213). To encompass the relationship between gender, sex and sexuality, the modern researcher (Geller, 2017: 8) uses the term "socio-sexual". It refers to (self) identity as complex, situationally, and intersecting in different variables, such as gender and sexuality, age, race, ethnicity, class, etc. Indeed, modern methods of analyzing large databases lead researchers to the conclusion that there is a multidimensional complex of genetic, epigenetic, socio-environmental factors that together form a sexual-gender orientation and behavior (Ganna et al, 2019: 882). It is symptomatic that the commentary on this study focuses on the socio-political consequences of this conclusion, and indicates the need for a "socio-genomic approach" to the problem (Mills, (2019: 870). Let us emphasize the logical derivability of this sociological thesis from our evolutionary metaphysical concept of SESH. According to the Geller (2017: 17-18), "There is a need to deliberate about emic body scapes, those of the cultures under study, which could feasibly derail a priori and naturalized notions about sex, gender, and sexuality". To demonstrate that socio-sexual diversity has existed through time and space, we could look for those individuals whose identities were defined by a queer status according to our contemporary understanding of the concept, individuals with intersex conditions, homosexuals, transsexuals, etc. Hellenistic culture can be traced apparent discrepancy reproductive and sexual behavior stereotypes, and it stated by historians of culture for a long time. At the time, this feature did not receive further development due to natural limitations associated with the biological component of SESH. In the Middle Ages, there was a combination of socio-economic conditions with specific demographics. It contributed to the stratification of the original system of socio-cultural regulation of the sexually reproductive sphere. There was a noticeable increase in the influence of the social institution of monasticism in social organization. In parallel, there was the approval of a categorical rejection of sexual behavior that does not ensure the realization of reproductive function in ethics. According to the modern researcher, "Any sexual relationship, not take to the conceiving a child, were considered as illegal and "unnatural". Gradually rejected by various forms of sexual intercourse have a general definition of "sodomy" (Lev-Starovich, 1991: 41). A gene-culture co-evolutionary trend of tolerance is formed in modern Western (trans-Atlantic) culture that is similar to the ancient Greek. This trend supported by the new configuration of the techno-humanitarian balance. It is implemented in the dichotomy of a common complex of sexual and reproductive functions into two independent components of SESH (Cohn, 2001:34). In a sense, the reproductive technologies are substrate support of sexual revolution. It can be seen as the final stage of evolutionary splitting of sexual and reproductive behavioral complex directed by culture. The main trend of the process is the progressive erosion of an unambiguous correspondence between the genome as set of genetic determinants and phenome as set of phenotypic traits of Homo sapiens in a sphere of behavioral stereotypes. In particular, sexual and reproductive emotional complex is one of the three core elements supporting the proto-hominines culture. As Friedrich Schiller written over 200 years ago, ˮHunger und Liebe regieren die Weltˮ ─ "Hunger and Love rule the worldˮ. (He did not mention a Power as the third element). In the social and cultural transformation, it diverged to five alternative cultural models (LevStarovich, 1991: 25-26), namely, platonic, sensual, integrated psychophysical, antagonistic, negative "Loves". Each of them provides an association of physiological functions and adequate emotional response in their own design. As we assume, the basis of such behavioral multiplication is more complex and plastic system of structural and functional association of individual self-replicating cultural elements ("memes", "culture-genes") in comparison with genes. These relationships can be built as purely conscious or unconscious emotional ones, and may have verbal and logical nature too. As a result, the cultural component loses a formal similarity with initial basic biological adaptation or maladaptation without losing their evolutionary continuity with it. This feature distinguishes the social groups of hominines and human societies from social insects, whose evolution is based on the functional differentiation provided by biological (genetic and epigenetic) mechanisms. It is the type of sociality that Edward Wilson called "trueˮ (eu) sociality. The type of sociality peculiar to Homo sapiens is based on sociocultural mechanisms and consists in the differentiation of social roles played by individuals, beyond the unambiguous direct connection with their genetic characteristics. It implies the possibility of increasing separation of individual biological functions and the increasing intervention of the technological module in maintaining not only individual viability, but also the human survival. As a result of (bio) technological reconstruction of the sexual and reproductive adaptive complex, extreme trends of possible evolutionary divergence can be either (1) severe social stratification by the type of "eusocialˮ families of social insects as unlikely scenario, or (2) the technologization of humanity's self-reproduction following the example of "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. At present, both scenarios of the future human evolution seem to be marginal in the ethical aspect and, ultimately, question the principle of free will as a natural human right. In turn, the last statement comes from the highest priority of the uniqueness of the human beings in the system of values. Note that this argument implicitly considers "human nature" as a starting point and a factor that sets the moral limits of subsequent social evolution. In other words, the results of biological evolution acquire ethical significance, confirming our proposed concept of dichotomy of objectivelydescriptive and subjectively-axiological components of the evolutionary process. As some empirical evidence of the potentiality of both evolutionary scenarios, there is the fact. Among the social insects, some species are with organization of intra-family communications that is based on selforganization of the links between homogeneous individuals. It correspond to the type of hominines social groups and to the general dominance of the evolutionary trend of eusociality described above. In these cases, the process of socio-cultural transmission of the basic elements of the adaptive complex "technological civilizationˮ is preserved. If both described scenarios prove to be unrealized, the evolutionary trajectory of this civilizational type breaks off due to the exhaustion of the potential for further adaptive transformations in the socio-cultural module. As example of an evolutionary conflict from another sphere, there is the growth of two positively correlated parameters of the value of the intellectual coefficient and the level of education in modern technologically developed countries. The development of science and technology is a systemic adaptation that ensures the vital activity and vitality of a modern civilization of technological type. The volume of scientific knowledge is growing exponentially in the last centuries (Price, 1965). In addition, this volume reached the limits of the physiological possibilities of assimilation by an individual more than two hundred years ago. The time of encyclopaedists mastered almost all accessible to mankind knowledge was held at the end of the 18th century. As a result of the progressive differentiation of the growing in the scope of scientific knowledge and the complexity of the problems solved by it, there was an increase in the educational attainment (EA) and the intellectual coefficient (IQ) in the 20th century. The latter phenomenon is called the "Flynn effectˮ (Herrnstein, Murray, 1994, 2007: 307-309; Flynn, 2007) by the name of the researcher who discovered him. But after 1978, the increase in the "reasonablenessˮ of the population has slowed noticeably, the Flynn effect fades (Teasdale, Owen, 2005). Both parameters are linked by a positive correlation; and the coefficient of intelligence increases significantly with the increase in the level of education. The increase in these interrelated indicators is potentially influenced by the factors of all three SESH modules. The more interesting, that modern studies using molecular genetic technologies, revealed simultaneously: A high degree of biological heritability (h> 30-40%) of the level of education; A large number of genetic determinants, the presence of which in the genome of the individual positively correlates with its level of education (more precisely, with the ability of the individual to long-term learning); Obvious signs of negative selection of the same genetic determinants in the modern population. Observation means that there is a decrease in the biological, mainly individual adaptability of the carriers of these "intelligence genes" with an increase in the number of such genes. At the same time, group adaptation increases with the number of carriers of "educational genes," since the adaptability of society is determined by the ability of its members to learn new knowledge and learn new technologies.There are signs of coevolutionary conflict between elements of the biological and socio-cultural modules, which serves as a source of evolutionary risk. This conclusion was first obtained by studying a large sample of the US population (Beauchamp, 2016) and, naturally, needed verification and confirmation, but several months later similar results were published by Icelandic researchers (Kong et al., 2017). Further analysis revealed the causes of this conflict (see Lee J. J. et al. 2018 and others). The ability to assimilate and generate new knowledge as a socioculturally determined adaptation, according to our model, should form coevolutionary links with biologically deterministic traits, giving them a system-adaptive significance. Obviously, the performance of the cognitive function is associated with the switching of individual resources, previously directed to other processes of life, including reproduction. Socially demanded creativity as the ability to purposefully transform reality and biologically deterministic reproduction form a binary opposition, linked by a cycle of direct and reverse competitive and synergistic connections. The antagonistic component of this cycle was noted by researchers of a wide variety of disciplines. In particular, Sigmund Freud introduced the term "sublimation" as the switching of sexual activity to the achievement of acceptable, above all, primarily creative and cognitive socio-cultural goals. The solution of this co-evolutionary contradiction lies in the shift in the reproductive activity of individuals for a later period. "Genes of education"12 concentrate activity on the search and assimilation of information and, therefore, can affect the magnitude of other indicators of biological adaptability, such as 1. The total number of descendants of the individual throughout the life cycle; 2. The age at which the first child is born; 3. The average reproductive age of the parent, in which he leaves descendants. As follows from the cited studies, with increasing genetic predisposition to continuing education (POLYEDU), the first parameter (the number of offspring of the individual) falls, and the second and third grow. At the same time, beginning at about the age of 30 years, the curve of dependence of reproductive indicators on the level of POLYEDU is changing, and a male with a high level of education begins to leave a greater number of offspring compared with the rest. In the framework of the SESH model proposed by us, the interpretation of the genesis of evolutionary conflict and evolutionary risk looks obvious. The development of the evolutionary efficiency of technological civilization gives adaptive significance to a certain set of pre-existing biological adaptations and gradually "pulls" the meaning of the relevant traits to the boundaries of the biological adaptive norm. The Flynn effect is due not to the expansion of the genetic basis of the ability for long-term learning, but to the progressive optimization of socio-cultural factors that predispose preexisting individual liabilities. Obviously, one of the most powerful sociocultural "enhancers" here is the high status of self-realization of personal characteristics in the scale of value priorities of the Western variant of technological civilization. But we can offer a more generalized explanatory model. A very interesting consequence entails the co-evolutionary interaction of technorationalist and socio-cultural modules within the framework of the same Lamarck mode: techno-rationalistic innovations are adaptations of the group level of expression by definition. They are represented in the sociocultural module in the form of sociocultural stereotypes of life activity and behavior, out of direct connection with the replication of scientific knowledge, which is information fragments of a techno-rationalistic module. The reason for this lies in the various systems for generating and replicating the adaptive information of both modules. 12 "Genes of education" is a metaphorical name used solely for convenience of presentation. As a result, the amount of such information accumulated in the technical and rational module significantly exceeds that in the individual. Thus, for of the selective factor, the point of application is a social community, and not a separate individual. In the epistemological context, this pattern is reflected as a progressive disciplinary differentiation of scientific knowledge. In the aspect of biological evolution, the same phenomenon manifests itself in the form of a recent decrease in the size of the brain in representatives of our biological species (Henrich, 2016). In such case, the maintenance and expansion of adaptively relevant information is ensured by the incorporation of new members in the relevant sector of the scientific community based on socio-cultural inheritance. The innovations generated by them are disseminated and integrated through the system of repetition of the techno-rationalistic and socio-cultural modules in parallel. Accordingly, individuals who are outside the set of the carriers of innovation receive adaptive benefits. As soon as it was said, it is implemented by the assimilation of the corresponding socio-cultural standards. So, there is an inhibition of the processes underlying the Flynn effect; which indicates an increase in the magnitude of the potential evolutionary risk and the approach of the point of risk transition to the actual form. There is a need for a purely biological or (bio) technological adjustment of cognitive abilities as a condition for the maintenance of technological civilization. There is another example of the initiation and development of evolutionary risk due to the semantic gap between the SESH modules. It is associated with the approach of lifetime to the limits of the adaptive capabilities of a Homo sapiens as biological species, which has been discovered in recent years. All indicators of the phenomenon are integral and defined as the resultant of the effects of all SESH modules already by definition (Cheshko, 2016). Therefore, here you can only give a sketch of this problem. During the late Middle Ages and Renaissance in the Western mentality, there was occurred a whole complex of evolutionary transformations. These innovations were associated with the genesis of technological civilization. One of them was the desire to achieve a much longevity. With all fluctuations, a life span remained relatively constant in the preceding centuries (20-30 years). Over the past centuries, the average lifetime in Europe and North America has increased from about 30 years in 1500-1600; up to 35-38 in 1700-1800, 45-50 in the 1900's. and now in industrialized countries is no less than 78-80 years. In Russia and the USSR, since 1896, the average lifetime has increased from 30 to 70 years by the end of the twentieth century, but then again began to lag behind those of Western Europe and other developed countries (World Health Organization, 2001). Further improvement in living conditions no longer increases the maximum possible life expectancy, or at least reduces the effectiveness of social and technological efforts in this area in recent decades. Based on these data, the expert evaluation of the species lifetime of Homo sapiens lies between 115-125 years. In other words, now the possibilities of extending the average life expectancy are close to exhaustion, if we are talking about the introduction of cultural and technological innovations that optimize the functioning of the biological module (Dong et al, 2016; Olshansky, 2016; Marck et al., 2017). In all these examples, there is a set of possible scenarios for the evolutionary development of the SESH structure; and it is reduced to the possibility of technological transformation of the biological module or to the elimination of that variant of the SESH structure, which is called technological civilization. The latter script will be a result of the loss by SESH socio-cultural module of the potential for further adaptive transformations. As we see, the trans-module genetic-cultural and cultural-technological interrelations are carried out according to the type of a chain of overlapping cycles of direct and inverse co-adaptive influences. In our opinion, this explains the complex and, as a result, difficultly recognizable picture of such dependencies. So, functional and adaptive connections are maintained between social behavioral acts of an individual and genetic factors, mediated by the socio-cultural context, initiated or repressed by epigenetic signals, which are social representations and cultural. As the next step (Settle et al., 2010), the post-transmodular epigenetic transmission mechanism postulated: Political preferences as elements of a rationalistic module are likely to find a correlation with the presence of certain genes in a biological module; It happens only in the conditions of a certain communicative structure, in which The carrier of such preferences is included in a certain period of ontogenesis that controlled by the sociocultural module. This scheme has a rather complex and nonlinear structure. Therefore, it is a substrate for the formation of "free will" as a basic value priority. Similarly, there is a tendency to accumulate excess body weight depending on the expression of certain genes; and the nature of this dependence changes depending on the historical era when a person "was lucky to live" (Rosenquista et al., 2015). Expression of "risk genes", which we also talked about, is more pronounced in individuals belonging to a "cattlebreeding" cultural type, etc. The empirical data of scientific publications are selected relatively arbitrarily, as we recognize. Nevertheless, these data serve as falsifiers, confirming the original postulate of our concept. As we recall, this postulate is reduced to the existence of a special three-modular stable evolutionary strategy, representing discrete system integrity, as a unique species characteristic of hominines. Individual modules of this system cannot evolve beyond adequate dependencies with the evolution of other modules. This dependency can be either dynamic or static. Dynamic dependence implies a change in the composition and frequency of the elements of the module. Static dependence is a change in the correlative value of individual elements of the module while maintaining its composition. Ultimately, the interaction of genetic and cultural adaptations plays a significant role in the epidemiology as a way to assess differential structure of the risk of development of pathological processes in ontogenesis (Cederroth, 2009: 34). Historical infectious epidemiology represents one of the most striking and indisputable examples confirming the above elementary processes of the genesis of evolutionary risk in its system integrity. The origin of most infectious epidemics periodically ravaged human populations, and put civilization on the verge of ruin due to the Neolithic revolution. It was first global technological innovation that played the largest role of progressive system adaptation in techno-culture-anthropogenesis. Unexpectedly, but logically, by its nature, it can be attributed to the biotechnological component of the modern NBIC technological complex. Animal husbandry and plant breeding tied the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens in the Gordian knot with an evolutionary fate of domesticated plants and animal, but with other species as members of the same ecological system too. A significant increase in the number of a social groups became an additional factor to catalyze progressive complexity of the Homo sapiens adaptive system. It was a necessary condition for the effectiveness of this type of technological innovation. The previous links in the chain of causes are the direct dependence of the production of the agrarian and pastoral economy on the area of the earth's surface used, solar energy and photosynthesis. One of the direct consequences was the change in the structure of ecological relations within anthropogenic ecological systems. First adaptive changes to the new environmental conditions have affected the genomes of organisms whose life cycles were associated with the animals involved in the process of domestication. Pathological microorganisms and other parasites joined to the environmental contact with people whose ability to resist infection was very low. As a result, they have implemented relatively rapid evolutionary process of the transition to a new ecological niche. Traces of this process have preserved in the complex life cycles of parasites. The cycles involve a complicated sequence of life forms and, in parallel, vectors (Wolfe, 2007; Thomas, 2012). In addition to this, eight of the fifteen human infectious diseases is likely to have passed to humans from animals (diphtheria, influenza, measles, mumps, whooping cough, smallpox, tuberculosis); three probably were originally agents of infectious pathologies of primates (hepatitis B) and rodents (plague, typhus), four (rubella, syphilis, tetanus, typhoid fever) have yet unknown origin. Thus, agro-bio-eco-system was "constructed" by Homo sapiens 11-15 ths years ago as a new ecological niche, and it does not completely fit into the already existing human adaptive complex. There are a significantly increases the integrated adaptability as a significant weakening of the problem of resources supplies, primarily in Neolithic revolution. But some of the innovational features had a side maladaptive effect. Importance of side effect permanently increased in conjunction with the accompanying socio-cultural and biological adaptations and at integrated evolutionary dynamics. These secondary maladaptive manifestation and evolution have become a source of risk in the future. Low innate immunity Homo sapiens has led to imbalance of hostparasite co-evolutionary ligaments. In other words, stochastic oscillations acquired a significant scale in the Volterra-Lotka cycle with the participation of humans and pathological organisms compared with those usually observed in nature. As a result, severe and protracted epidemics have become for several millennia a powerful factor in human evolution in the broadest sense of the word, including human genetics, cultural and social order, etc. They determined the global evolutionary landscape to a large extent, and the vectors of development of the gene pool, mental and behavioral traditions and scientific and technological developments in historical time and the multi-cultural space in particular. The result of these systemic innovation outside biological components of SESH was the destruction of the VolterraLotka cycle for most new infectious pathologies whose evolutionary strategies providing high virulence and short latency period of infection. This result would be unattainable in terms slow or insufficiently pronounced immune response in the human population. The implementation of this evolutionary scenario is achieved as a by-product of socio-cultural adaptation. The alternative adaptive strategy of the causative agents of other infectious diseases (first of all, tuberculosis, AIDS, etc.) proved to be more advantageous. These pathogens have moved to a strategy of chronic infections characterized by prolonged and less acute course of pathogenesis. As a rule, in this case they are also associated with certain elements of the biological or socio-cultural component of SESH as their adverse manifestations. Such infectious diseases (Comas et al., 2013) become socially determined "civilization diseases" that cannot be cured without a complete reconstruction of the integrity of the complex adaptive system of a given civilization type. These include AIDS, venereal diseases, tuberculosis As result, technological innovation remain the most effective means to control the evolutionary risk but not complete elimination of its components. Non-excludable logical assumption is integration during further evolution of such pathogens in the overall structure of the adaptive complex created by SESH. The hypothesis of an infectious origin of cancer, ulcers, mental pathologies, etc., at recent years, receive some empirical support, although far from a decisive confirmation or refutation (Wolfe, 2007, Thomas et al., 2012; Comas et al., 2013). In any case, however, the genesis an evolution of any diseases of civilization is a quite understandable side effect of internally conflicting evolution of SESH, its modules and intra-modular elements. Certainly, plague is the most striking example of the mass infections effect on the evolution of SESH. There is a description of the significance of the plague as an evolutionary risk factor in the history of Western civilization and a mechanism for overcoming it in the scientific literature (Suntsov, Suntsova, 2006; Supotnitsky, Supotnitskaya, 2006; Cheshko, 2012: 500, etc.). Here we repeat this description in thesis form. Perhaps not by accident, the point of radical change in the history of Western civilization was the 14th century, so rich in events and processes in various spheres of public life. The totality of these phenomena is considered by modern researchers as a system-forming factor in the chain of social evolutionary transformations "Medieval Renaissance Enlightenment". All of them, however, have an unusually powerful emotional response as common distinctive feature. In this sense, probably, the champion is a plague that penetrated into Europe from the Mongol-Tatar invasion across Cafu (now Feodosia) in 1346 and then took away a quarter of Europe's population. (Her impressive description left Boccaccio in his "Decameron".) Plague has generated strong social and psychological stress, and manifestation of this stress was the expectation of the Second Coming, the Last Judgment and the related series of disasters and catastrophes. That is when the emotional intensity of social reaction has gained the most extreme, is clearly beyond the socio-adaptive response, and therefore destructive manifestations. In 13th century, a flagellant sect ("self-blaming") emerges, which becomes a massive social movement in parallel with the intensification of the epidemic. The number of some groups migrating throughout Europe has reached 100, and, despite the opposition of secular and spiritual authorities, including the pope, the sect has proven to be very viable and numerous, at least for several decades. Often the actions of the desperate and those who asked for salvation took on the character of mass psychosis. It was manifested in the form of local foci of convulsive dances and then covered the whole crowd. In psychiatry, these symptoms are considered a kind of so-called chorea. According to historians, there was a complex of reasons for the decline of the Middle Ages and the transition to the Renaissance, and then to the Modern era. Some of them were the powerlessness of secular authorities and the Church in the face of death, together with subsequent emotional depression. A mental hegemony of Mind over blind Faith was characteristic to new social order (Herlihy, 1997). Thus, the plague caused a number of adaptive changes in biological (changes in the frequency of blood groups A and B, having immune significance), sociocultural and technological modules of SESH, along with other socio-environmental factors of the late Middle Ages. The evolutionary transformations of the sociocultural and technological-rationalistic components of adaptation genesis led to a decrease in the level of the evolutionary risk of pandemics of infectious diseases, practically to zero later. But even more importantly, they have become an epoch-making systemforming innovation that has significantly increased the importance of the integral adaptability of mankind. The evolutionary potential of this adaptation has not yet been exhausted. Usually, this system adaptation is called "technological civilization". The configuration of the first, gene-cultural co-evolve ligament serves as a criterion for fixation / elimination of specific configurations of technohumanitarian balance and its components. A synergetic mental aspect of the same civilization is the growth of gene-cultural component of the evolutionary risk of technological civilization. The content of this affirmation in its weaker form is reduced to the priority of the degree of "freedom" for an individual to choose a specific social role from the available repertoire as a criterion of social and humanitarian progress (Cheshko, 2012: 337). This consideration is the most adequate interpretation of the thesis that goes back to Fourier. According to him, the overcoming of the biological determination of the gender roles in public life serves as a measure of women's emancipation, in particular, and social progress, in general (Beauvoir. 1997: 11). Thus, a basic element of the modern liberalhumanistic worldview becomes the association of overcoming the biological predetermination of the "individual existential project" and the equality of the sexes as two cultural and psychological attitudes. (A gender equality includes the equality of all sexual orientations in modern neoliberal interpretation.) An example is the theological-philosophical essay of Walter Mead (Mead, 2016). He starts by stating the conflict between the biological and socio-cultural modules of the adaptive strategy (if we use the terminological apparatus of our study): "The libraries in the world are filled with books that contain wise and profound advice. They also contain stories that document our inability as a kind to follow them". The next member of the proposed syllogism points to the biblical idea of overcoming the dominance of the biological, somatic component and the prevalence of the spiritual-cultural principle in human nature: "Jesus is unique, and women are free and equal in the representation of God". Perhaps imperceptibly for the author himself, but this is no less logical conclusion about the divine justification of technological intervention in ensuring the triumph of the spiritual beginning over the bodily: "When Christians say that Jesus was born of a virgin, these people emphasize that Jesus is the son God, he is connected with the Creator of the universe in a unique and special way" This logical exercise is historically too ambiguous and represents only one possible way of interpreting the dogma of the immaculate conception in the history of Christianity and the civilization based on Christianity as a whole. However, Mead's reasoning is quite symptomatic. It reveals the systematic evolutionary-semantic tendency of the development of Western culture in the interpretation of historical facts in general and about the motivation of the first Christians in particular. The technological way of changing the biological foundation to ensure rational-ethical postulates turns out to belong to the deep semantic layers of the adaptive strategy of technological civilization in its Western variant. Characteristically, the empirical basis for this interpretation is precisely the sex-reproductive sphere of being of Homo sapiens. Already in ancient Greece (Agamben, 1998; Lemke et al, 2011; Ojakangas, 2016), the ontology of human existence has undergone a dichotomy of Bios and Zoe as two verbal symbol-concepts. Here, Bios is social life, which is humanity in modern anthropology; and Zoe is animal being, which is human nature in modern anthropology. In the Middle Ages, this antinomy was transformed to an opposition between the spiritual and carnal (animal) principle of the human essence. This opposition was interpreted as an antagonism between virtue and sin and was resolved as an imperative of the "victory of the spirit over the flesh", the Divine over the Devil in the human essence. In fact, this meant not just the primacy of the Spirit over Matter, but the ignoring of the Zoe and its unconditional submission to the dictatorship of Bios as "sovereign power". Through the Renaissance and Modernity, there is an implicit up to 20th century trend on the establishment of certain rules of correspondence between the socio-political and biological life of human beings. The beginning of this trend was laid by the concept of "natural human rights". The primacy of culture (socio-cultural module in our model) has been preserved in relation to the biological needs (biological module) of Homo sapiens, however. Exceptions in the history of philosophy of the 19-20th centuries are few and they are internally contradictory. (An example is the "Übermensch, Beyond-Man" of Friedrich Nietzsche). Technology and science provide tools for the restructuring of Zoe, that is, for the reorganization of human nature in accordance with the parameters of the niche of the social environment. The latter is formed because of the evolution of Bios. In other words, the human socio-cultural existence is provided by scientific and technological development. To strive for the liberation of the Spirit from the needs of the Flesh, Freedom turns into a technological dependence; the "Biopower" becomes the mechanism for the realization and proliferation of this dependence (i.e. "biopolitics"). Accordingly, the evolution of culture becomes the object of technological manipulation; in response, bioethics appears as an adaptive response of a sociocultural module. Genetic-reproductive technologies belong to the systemic features of this civilization that is predetermined by the dominance of the sociocultural module over the biological one through the transformation of the elements of the techno-rationalist component of SESH. So, the basic concepts of the theory of evolution in the Anthropocene age take the form of socio-cultural constructs, but this judgment means only the rationalization and technological development of evolutionary processes, applied to humankind and to eco-systems involving human beings. As most obvious conclusion, it applies to categories of sex, gender, race, health, norm, equality and so on. All of them are united by extremely high and growing political urgency. It creates an equally rapidly growing social demand for the development of technological controls and arbitrary modifications, i.e. acts that determined by the subjective choice of a personal existential project. "Existential project" as the humanitarian hypostasis of this attribute finds its natural-technological equivalent in the concept of "life history". The cultural diversity of human beings in the past was provided by two factors: First, by the presence of several alternative behavioral strategies within the framework of the genetically determined behavior of the hominines, and, Secondly, the possibility of epigenetic, rigidly deterministic or situational re-engraving between them in time (i.e. depending on the stage of the life history) and in space (i.e. according to local social and environmental parameters). The evolution of the techno-rational adaptive module closes the evolutionary cycle of positive feedback between the socio-cultural and biological modules of a SESH, and creates conditions for biological and socio-cultural evolutionary transformation and / or divergence. This trend is also manifested in the interpretation of data about the evolutionary relationships of Sex as the biological component of sexuality and Gender as its social counterpart. The data are accumulated and interpreted in physical and cultural anthropologies intensively; and its totality is quite ambiguous. In most publications clearly traced the following argument. If the distribution of roles between the various sexes was determined earlier by genetic inheritance, then this causally link was overcome. The typical name of a recent article can serve as an example. It is "Stepping Out of the Caveman's Shadow: Nations' Gender Gap Predicts Degree of Sex Differentiation in Mate Preferences" (Zentner, 2012). Based on their own research, the authors argue that the statistical distribution of gender roles correlates primarily with the statistical distribution of the economic status of male and female, and not with the distribution of social roles between the sexes within the social group formed during the early stages of anthropogenesis. Within our concept, these data show only that the adaptive windows of the biological and socio-cultural modules for this indicator overlap enough to eliminate the irreversible gap between sex and gender now. This situation may change dramatically as the border of the adaptability of the sociocultural module approaches the limits set by border of the analogous window of the biological module. In the latter case, the vector of evolutionary changes of the technorationalistic module will be reoriented to the correction of the two remaining ones. At the same time, technological correction is currently the most developed with respect to the biological module. Such an outcome seems more likely also because it is adequate to the intention to "liberate" the western version of the technological civilization described above. From this perspective, it becomes clear an unusually wide range of emotional motivation to modification of the own corporeality. This predisposition widespread in all socio-cultural types, seemingly, outside the direct connection with the adaptability (Wohlrab, 2007). Indeed, this is an adaptation of the system of not direct action, which provides the ability to overcome the inhibitory effect of biological (slower) components in SESH adaptation genesis. "The victory of spirit over the body" is the guarantee of a high adaptive individual plasticity, group adaptability, but a higher level of evolutionary risk too. A sustainable development is provided by balance this predisposition by other evolutionary trend with opposite expression. Paradoxically, the liberation from the "dictatorship of the flesh" introduces biological deviations of individual existential projects into the adaptive space of the socio-ecological niche through technological innovations. This statement is true both in social and in demographic aspects. The above conclusion can be interpreted in the framework of the described concept in this way: the non-linear interaction of the two links of the coevolutionary bundles of SESH determines the spectrum of normal and pathological phenotypes found in ethno-genetic, ecological and cultural contexts. The secondary result is the unification of socially demanded technological developments with the aim of their normalization. So, the "norm" is a function of somatic genetic basis of human existence not only, but of differentiated socio-cultural life, in which somatic human corporeality "fits" too. There are the facts that serve by indirect confirmation of the leading role of gene-cultural co-evolution imbalance as the main source of evolutionary risk, at least until modern phase of SESH evolution. A "paradoxical" vector of positive selection is noted during the last phases of anthropogenesis for most genes that are somehow associated with neurophysiological pathologies and considered as source of intra-genomic conflicts for this reason (Crespi, 2010). As contemporary sociology of human biological corporeality concluded, it is impossible in the framework of Cartesian rationalism. As Chris Schiller, one of the founders of this research sphere, declared (Shilling, 2003:3), "We now have the means to exert an unprecedented degree of control over bodies, yet we are also living in an age which has thrown into radical doubt our knowledge of what bodies are and how we should control them. As a result of developments in spheres as diverse as biological reproduction, genetic engineering, plastic surgery and sports science, the body is becoming increasingly a phenomenon of options and choices. These developments have advanced the potential many people have to control their own bodies, and to have them controlled by others. As science facilitates greater degrees of intervention into the body, it destabilizes our knowledge of what bodies are, and runs ahead of our ability to make moral judgments about how far science should be allowed to reconstruct the body. Indeed, it would not be too much of an oversimplification to argue that the more we have been able to control and alter the limits of the body, the greater has been our uncertainty about what constitutes an individual's body, and what is 'natural' about a body." There is a decline of the religious shackles, which are built on a stable ontological and existential certainty having its source outside the person, and there is transformation of our somatic organization in the central element of the mass consumer culture as a symbolic value in parallel. As result, a modern human led to increasingly give bodily organization value as only foundation of self-expression. As a result of the elimination or weakening in Western culture of religion as a factor of evolutionary, trans-individual and trans-personal semantic stabilization, only your own body is the material basis of your individual, but not a group, to a much lesser degree of universal self-realization. "My body is my affairˮ, the slogan goes far beyond the scope of the feminist movement, and it is the nominee for the title of the main brand High Hume technologies age (Cheshko, 2012). Very relief typical for the West (Atlantic) version of technological civilization predisposition of "self-identification liberation" from biological basis diktat is expressed in a newspaper quote: ˮ... Jenner says that she is a woman, then so it is. This is the only the logical conclusion that can make a tolerant and civilized society. However, racial dysphoria exists solely in the brain. There is good and reasonable argument: men feel like a woman, "womenˮ who feel men and ever-increasing army of doubters – all this for me is quite acceptable, and there are no problems. It is clear that sexual identity – is something more than having a penis or vagina. Who can deny the existence of the hidden feelings of people? We can`t bring to life Jenner, except medical devices that would smooth her gender transitionˮ13. Note several circumstances. There are a separation of sexual and gender identity on the one hand and ethnicity and race, on the other hand; and it seems unjustified and avoidable in the subsequent course of the technoculture-anthropogenesis. In the end, there is conversion of any type of personal identity in the subject of individual choice that is determined exclusively by plasticity of biological module in the variable context of the culture and manipulative possibilities of technological module with respect to the attributes of identity. In this sense, racial and ethnic identification are for the individual much less of a problem than with the sex-gender counterpart. There is a number of empirical evidence in the history of any ethnic group. (These are Ethiopian roots of Pushkin, Lermontov Scottish ancestry, ethnic roots of Mendeleev, Vernadsky, Mechnikoff, Tolstoy family clan and other representatives of culture of the Russian ethnos.) And indeed the above quotation is taken from the reports of a white woman, Rachel Dolezal, which for many years posed as the representative of African Americans and served in Washington as the regional branch 13 http:www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/man-becomes-woman-and-whitebecomes-black-in-this-age-of-transition-10321779.htm President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the oldest and most prestigious human rights organization14. There are plentiful similar examples of full integration into social commonality other race, which served as the basis for the storyline of classic literary stories of Mark Twain, Sinclair Lewis and others. In contrast to the gender / sexual orientation, such transformation can be achieved within the framework of socio-cultural module of SESH, technological innovation affect only race determinants which reinforce this process of ethnic (self) identification of persons. The adaptive value of biological ethnic or racial determinants is caused by the dominant evolutionary semantic of social group. The semantics system allows to group identity by comparing the communicative relationship between sociocultural qualifiers belonging to "own" or "foreign" race and individual biological characteristics as race determinants. There are among them epicanthus of Mongoloids and dark skin of Negroids, blue eyes and blonde hair of Europeans, etc. Obviously, in the race's "diagnostic symtoms", the significance of the actual biological traits decreased and the importance of social and cultural determinants increased in the Western mentality over several centuries. Top position eventually took the presence of the representatives of the respective race in the genealogy in the ranking of such attributes "outsiders". Thus, in the mentality, there is an older predisposition to objective criteria of the race, which usually coincides with the paradigm of physical anthropology, and there is a new predisposition to the "unnatural", sociocultural character of racial identification, which is a key moment in the sociological paradigm of the concept of race. The second predisposition established itself as an element of the central conceptual core of the Western Civilization viewpoint. This consideration makes it possible to interpret the discrepancy between the arbitrariness of "gender choice" and the objectivity of racial (self) identification. The rank of biological determinants of sex has not been overcome now. Paradoxically, this fact places an axiological emphasis on the cultural and psychological components of gender (self) identification. However, in accordance with predispositions of the socio-cultural origin racial identity genetic determinants play no role in the formation of cultural elements of the module; but according to predispositions of objective existence of racial differences, racial identity is objective cultural and social phenomenon. Racial identity is usually regarded in the modern Western mentality as having social and ethical values. Therefore, the socio-cultural 14http:inosmi.ru/world/20150619/228677116.html#ixzz3dVmCUGrp motivation to change "racial profiling" seems meaningless in terms of personal social status. Resolution of the conflict between biological and socio-cultural components of racial differentiation is seen as solvable solely by means of socio-cultural module of SESH in the Western mentality and culture. This is not to say about gender identity related to the satisfaction of basic vital needs. There is conflict between the biological and socio-cultural components as well as between individual elements of biological adaptive complex that is essential to the social situation and the individual psychophysiological comfort. There is a social need for technological innovations that provide for overcoming co-evolutionary conflict. Personal selfdetermination becomes extremely significant for lifestyle, position in society, membership in a social group, sub-cultural type ("one of us!"), etc. We go back to the original thesis. At the absence of socio-cultural norms and constraints, humans will be transformed in the future into a product of self-design and self-manipulation in a technological civilization; and this evolutionary trend is limited solely by the composition and power of the techno-rational module of SESH extremely. These delimiters themselves allow sharp stochastic or deliberate deviations, as we shall see. The value system stabilizes the result of the previous stages of bio-sociocultural genesis that is not subject to revision without destroying biosocial identity. This determines the evolutionary role of this factor in the global evolutionary process. In the terms of Homo sapiens, the set of optimal scenarios of the subsequent evolution is protected by the existential meaning of the notorious, mundane, but necessary system of universal human values. Its existence puts limits just described conflicts between supra-individual group adaptations; and it channels the group selection at a genetic and sociocultural level too. Sociological studies provide rich empirical material for the subsequent analysis of semantic cultural components of society differentiation in accordance with biological markers. According to the estimates of Mark Penn, an American sociologist, developed Western society has approximately 75 marginal but very rapidly increasing social groups at the beginning of the 21st century. The conclusion was made according to the social monitoring of the US population (Penn, Zalesne, 2007). At least 1⁄4 of them are diagnosed by genetically or epigenically dependent trait or signs directly affecting the psychophysiology of human beings according to our calculations. Such markers include, for example, sexual orientation, the age of parents at the time of the birth of the first child, the parental age ratio, obesity, the length of the sleep and hibernation period, and their ratio, rightand left-handedness, corporal images and anatomic features through tattoos, plastic surgery, pharmaceutics, etc., etc. However, in themselves these data for our research are useless without clarifying the genetic and epigenetic links with changes in the socio-cultural landscape. It is for this reason that in the present study they are extremely rarely used in pure form, although they are certainly taken into account. As general conclusions from the contents of the two preceding chapters, we can suggest postulates concerning the mechanisms of actualization of evolutionary risk. These postulates are deductively justified by the threemodular model of the stable evolutionary strategy of hominines and by the totality of the experimental data of modern natural science and empirical sociology. 1. The intermodal co-evolutionary conflicts are the source of the evolutionary risk of the existential level of significance; 2. There is the complex of a fragmentation of the adaptive complexes of the biological module and a dissociation of the links of the biological module with the elements of the socio-cultural module as a result of the individualism of the technological civilization and the high priority value of the free choice of a personal existential project; 3. The presence of technological innovations act as a tool for implementing the free premise of an existential project and turn the splitting of intra-and inter-modular co-adaptive links into an autocatalytic process; 4. The external expression of such dissociation is progressive social differentiation based or connected on characteristics related to systemic biological adaptations or complex signs. This potentially destructive cycle for the SESH is caused by the interaction of the socio-cultural and techno-rationalistic modulesIts effect can be compensated by the development of a compensatory mechanism in the gray zone between these modules. Such a stabilizer is simultaneously a spontaneous socio-cultural adaptation guiding technological development and a rationalistic innovation that Based on the currently available knowledge about the consequences of such innovations and Forming a theoretical system of ethical norms for ensuring biological and socio-cultural identity. To analyze the possible nominees for this role, we will proceed now. CHAPTER 4. EPISTEMOLOGICAL AND EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTIVE ASPECTS OF POST-ACADEMICIAN SCIENCE Valentin T.Cheshko, Valery I.Glazko Adaptive response of SESH aims to restore the optimum techno-cultural (the techno-humanitarian, in another terminology) balance. This balance is developed in technological civilization, and it is based on rigid autonomy of actually scientific research. "Science" seen by us as a key element of techno-rationalist module of SESH. Today it perceived as excessively dangerous component of SESH. Within the framework of SESH concept, the evolution of scientific rationality is the result of the action of a homeostatic mechanism ensuring coevolutional integrity. The three successive phases of this evolutionary trend are the classical, non-classical and, subsequently, the post-non-classical (human-dimensional, postacademician) types of rationality. In other words, the genesis and evolution of bioethics, and the organization of its co-evolutionary links with science is a socio-cultural adaptation to the new landscape of socio-culture-anthropogenesis. A technological innovation rates can return to available to socio-cultural control magnitude by this way. The emergence of a trans-disciplinary, human-dimensional modern scientific rationality was the last system adaptation of the technorationalistic module that was initiated by the transformation of the evolutionary process and human beings into an object of technological manipulation and control. Previous socio-cultural transmutation of Western mentality, made the principle of social autonomy of science institution supporting rods of technological civilization. In parallel, bioethics is one of the main structures of the new mentality, which is formed by a socio-cultural module, since this civilization is in the phase of a society of global evolutionary existential risk. This conclusion may seem paradoxical from the point of view of classical epistemology, where the main criterion for evaluating a scientific concept is its empirical verifiability and freedom from evaluative and imperative judgments. Within the framework of a new evolutionary epistemology, it seems quite correct, since verifiability place is taken by adaptability that is the efficiency from the point of view of survival of the self-organizing system. (Above we gave this process the name of adaptive inversion 3, emphasizing its recursive nature.) There is general outline of the genesis of this social phenomenon, which is as follows. 1. After the end of the Second World War in the socio-cultural discourse of the West as a result of mental transmutation realization in the scale of value predispositions, the highest status is occupied by the right and the possibility of personal self-realization. This priority entailed a chain of secondary appraisal concept-parameters, such as an individual existential project, self-determination of personal social status, image and lifestyle, etc. 2. The paradigmatic concept of the biological species changes in parallel. In the natural-scientific discourse and in evolutionary theory, especially, a typological concept was replaced by a relativistic population concept. According to typological concept, each species is associated with a prototype as a system of basic attributes of species identity. Population concept argues that the species is a collection of individuals with a common gene pool. 3. The synergistic information interaction of both discourses leads to the crisis of the concept of natural human rights, based on the typological paradigm. According to the concept, human rights are the species determinants of Homo sapiens. The categories of "socio-cultural and genetic diversity" and "individual existential project" are affirmed as the basic attributes of humanity and the socio-cultural plasticity in the scientific and public types of discourses. The great American geneticist and evolutionist of Ukrainian-Russian origin, Th. Dobzhansky played a significant role in incorporating a new conceptual and categorical framework into the socio-political theory of human rights in the 1950s, (Dobzhansky, 1956). 4. In connection with the development of biomedical technology in the early 1960s, ethical committees were established in the hospitals (Seattle USA). Their composition should reflect the social composition of the population on ethnic, property and religious grounds. Committees must address issues related to patient access to limited biomedical resources (Tishchenko, 2011:45-48); 5. In a series of works, and then a book in 1970, american oncologist Ronceler Van Potter developed the philosophical foundations of ethical and global humanitarian problems of technological civilization associated with the implementation of biotechnologies, he first used the term "bioethics" in the modern sense of the word. The term was used by Fritz Jahr as far back as 1926, but as applied to problems of use animals in biological research. 6. A beginning of the development of the genetic engineering toolkit led in 1975 to a voluntary moratorium on genetic engineering research and improvement of recombinant DNA technologies and to the subsequent development of clear biosafety rules by the Asilomar Conference (USA, California). Since this year, bioethical issues have reached the level of awareness of the existential risk of modern technologies. This turning point in the development of the bioethical paradigm is reflected in the emergence of the concepts of "global bioethics" by Potter or "ethics of Homo Sapiens species" by J. Habermas (2003); 7. New epoch comes with beginning of the third millennium. The theoretical research of biotechnologists came very close to the so-called evolutionary singularity, i.e. to Human Enhancement as applied development of the reconstruction and improvement of human nature. The publication of two UNESCO Declarations has become a frontier; its intersection has been initiated by an awareness of the global evolutionary implications of the development of genetic engineering and other High Hume technologies. The first of these, the "Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rightsˮ (November 11, 1997) proclaims by its Article 1 (United Nations Educational, 1998:41): The human genome underlies the fundamental unity of all members the human family, as well as the recognition of their inherent dignity and diversity. Thus for the first time consciously recognized the interdependence of cultural and biological forms of self-identification of a person. The content of the declaration leaves no doubt that technological interference in genetic information needs to be controlled by the basic norms of the system of human rights and social institutions. It is implicitly believed that such an intervention is potentially capable of destroying human values as the spiritual basis of human civilization. To denote the admissibility of a technologically controlled change in the course of the evolutionary process in relation to man, the term "dignityˮ is used with difficulty in translating into the language of the natural science description. Subsequently, this trend towards a subjective-humanistic assessment of the results of the objective process of evolution was developed in the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (October 19, 2005) (United Nations Educational, 2005:74). Thus, culture became a factor of evolution, giving the latter a clear integral teleological nature in accordance with value priorities and despite the initial objective spontaneity. Fig. 4.1. Block diagram of the disciplinary matrix of bioethics and other interpretive ("Centaur") theories of post-academician science By the end of the twentieth century, two seemingly mutually exclusive, methodological trends clearly appeared in the evolution of the theoretical foundation of bioethics (Winkler, 1996). There are 1. Empirical approach (Kon, 2009), which is based on the interpretation and specific historical studies of the development of the theoretical and global foundations of medicine in the concept of "bio-power" by Michel Foucault (1996). There is need to "contextualization" of the solution of emerging ethical more precisely, social problems arising (1) in the implementation of biomedical and biomedical technologies and (2) in relation to a particular socio-cultural type. This approach means that the proposed solutions are necessarily ad hoc, and cannot be generalized. In our model, this corresponds to the socio-cultural adaptations of the society, which ensures its maintenance in the course of "scientific and technological progress". 2. Search for a common meta-theoretical paradigm. The prospects for the creation of the Global bioethics of R. Van Potter are now perceived by many as unrealizable (Engelhardt, 2006). In our interpretation, this concept is equivalent to a systemic socio-cultural adaptation that ensures the maintenance of the biological and / or socio-cultural self-identity of humanity in the implementation of technological schemes of moral and material "Human Enhancement". The contradiction between the two approaches is removed within the framework of the "natural-philosophical bioethical project" proposed here. Indeed, the adaptive function of bioethics is a maintenance of self-identity in the process of technological evolution; and the function is divided to an individual and group and universal ones. The first "daughter" function corresponds to the level of evolutionary risk of a substantially lower existential level; the second one comes to the forefront near the evolutionary singularity, with a risk level close to unity. At binary conjunction of Bioethics and Transhumanism, Bioethics was constituted quickly as a typical example of a new, post-academician organization of scientific research and scientific theory as its product (Cheshko, 2011; Cheshko, 2012). Features of the new organization of scientific theory can convey by a transdisciplinarity as very capacious category (Interdisciplinary in biotechnology, 2012; Cockell et al., 2011). It is related to the so-called interpretive scientific knowledge in other scientific concepts. The Bioethics explanatory model has not one but two, scientifical and socio-humanitarian systems of initial postulates and principles that are compatible with one another only partially. The relationship between them carried out through application-projective exits of theoretical concepts. Accordingly, the "disciplinary matrix" of bioethics has two central core and overlapping zones of projective-applied developments, and the latters are theoretically possible to empirically verified / falsified. The general scheme of such paradigm structure is follows (fig. 4.1). As you can see, represented scheme combines the individual elements of the paradigm concept of T.Kuhn (Kuhn, 1977), research program of I.Lakatos (Lakatos, 1978) and the network organization of theoretical science of L.Laudan (Laudan, 1994). A case-study on the sociology of diverse concepts can serve as an empirical basis of the dual-core model of paradigm structure in postacademician science. A direct analysis of the logical structure of theoretical concepts is no less important. For example, there is fundamental monograph on the logical analysis of the concept of "biodiversity" that is key in modern socio-environment and biopolitical constructions. The author, Donald Mayer argues that the objective component of the argument inevitably contains logical and empirical contradictions. As he concludes by no means academic in form (Maier, 2012:3), "When it comes to biodiversity and a range of arguments that are protected and built on its possible significance, it is difficult to get rid of the impression of cultural conditioning, uncritical acceptance on faith and incorrect disciplinary correlation. Cyclicality, confusion, insufficient justification, normative prejudices, and dubious empirical evidence go unnoticed and are not eliminated. Worse, these unfortunate arguments are often repeated − mistake after mistake, detail for detail − one disputing side after another. Perhaps out of fear that there is no other for the salvation of wildlife, there is a tacit agreement among colleagues not to rock the boat of bad reasoning. Biased judgments are a natural tendency for a person to actively seek out and interpret information in a way that confirms deeply rooted beliefs, and the corresponding ability to ignore or underestimate everything that is contrary to this", With regard to the unconditional priority of the postulate of biodiversity conservation, the only conclusion is follows. The normative assessment precedes, but does not follow empirical accuracy and theoretical reasoning. In other words, the need to preserve biodiversity does not follow from the laws of nature, but from the moral choice made by person, and the choice is determined by the dominant system of value priorities, and not by objective interests. It is a choice between conservation of biodiversity and existing eco-systems and development of technological schemes for their replacement as two scenarios of future evolution. The derivative parameter of biodiversity is not evolutionary efficiency, but evolutionary correctness. Initially and irretrievably, the concepts of post-academic science are loaded and intertwined with ideology, ethics and politics. To be fair, it should be noted that other researchers came to the same conclusion a few decades earlier. For example, the Russian ecologist wrote (Gilyarov, 2001: 20) "The investigation undertaken by the author showed the unrestrained growth in the number of publications using (I want to say exploiters) term "Biodiversityˮ. It is not associated with any breakthrough in the relevant field of ecology. It is not a matter of science but politicsˮ. In modern risk society, new attributes of science appear on the basis of these considerations, namely Ideologization (management of priority research tasks) that is direct and, often, decisive participation of political and business structures in the initiation of research projects; Commercialization of research that is the acquisition by scientific concepts of the attributes of a marketable commodity, and Politization (reporting) of science that is noticeable control by extra-scientific social structures and institutions of all aspects of the flow and, especially, the results of all stages of scientific research including subject, concept, methodology directly and openly (de jure), and not indirectly and implicitly (de facto); the result is Stratification of a single process of scientific cognition into two streams that are autonomous in terms of their social functions. Two streams represent a dangerous (risk) science as the transformation of the world according to the ideal image of a desirable future and warning science as identifying and calculating risks arising from scientific and technological development. The importance of the latter factor is all the greater, since it acts as an agent that catalyzes and directs the course of the three previous ones, which in themselves look extremely alien to the classical concept of science of the 18th and 19th centuries. CHAPTER 5. EVOLUTIONARY SEMANTICS OF TECHNO-HUMANITARIAN BALANCE AND DEVELOPMENT OF RISKS (WEBSOCIOLOGY OF HUMAN ENHANCEMENT) Valentin T.Cheshko, Valery I.Glazko The following postulates are derived from the conceptual model of postacademic science as a binary ligament of "risk science" and "warning science", which is set out in the previous section. (Cheshko, 2008). There is triggering factor for the transformation of socio-cultural component of the adaptive strategy in the direction of the origin and formation of ligaments between "risk science" and "warning science". This is the approach of the evolutionary risk of scientific and technological development to the existential level and the emergence of High Hume technologies, in particular. The distinctive feature of High Hume is the development of effective control or manipulation schemes capable to creating the possibility of unauthorized random modification of the genetic, socio-cultural and cognitive codes of Homo sapiens. In relation to the link between bioethics and transhumanism, the role of this factor was played by individual existential risk from the use of the same technological complex. The two components of scientific knowledge forms an asymmetric, uncompensated circuit (fig. 5.1) with positive and negative feedback (Cheshko, 2012: 179). An increase in "dangerous knowledge" is necessary for the development of "warning knowledge", but the latter cannot exist autonomously, because the partner provides the actual material for scientific progress in this area. "Dangerous knowledge" stands as auto-catalyst for own progress, and a catalyst for "warning of knowledge". Last inhibiting the ongoing development of "dangerous knowledge" deprives itself of own base for the increment. Overcapacity of "dangerous knowledge" facing the crisis, and then the self-destruction of industrial civilization, excessive development of "warning of knowledge" will lead to a stagnation of industrial civilization, deprives it of adaptive plasticity. A so-called Knobe effect is essential to establish parity between the two trends of post-academician science and to the formation of a temporary evolutionary trend of technological civilization in the future. According to J. Knobe, a higher status in consciousness manifests an emotional perception and a rational assessment of the potential negative effects of any innovation compared with positive consequences for the same innovation. (Knobe, 2003; Beebe, 2010). As a result, the initial social assessment of any technological innovation tends to overstate the level of risk from its implementation, especially if innovation is related to the substantiality or the self-identity of the human being. Obviously, this phenomenon is the mechanism for "future shock" (Toffler, 1970) and "future-phobia" (Bestuzhev-Lada, 2002), but on the other hand, it is included manipulation in factors set providing relative stability of SESH too. These calculations have empirical confirmation in sociological studies of the perception of the benefits and risks of the latest biotechnologies of recent times (Connor, Siegrist, 2016). According to them, the perception of possible benefits is significantly more stable compared with the estimated risk values of the same technological schemes. The latter is much more subject to fluctuations. There is a coefficient of autocorrelation of the results of a series of consecutive public opinion polls. It serve as an indicator of stability. It is also symptomatic that the instability of the attitude to biotechnological innovations exceeds that of nuclear power and other similar technologies. Attitude towards the latter has already been formed and has become part of the mentality. In such a system, there is no need to talk about the standard procedure of verification / falsification of the reliability of a scientific concept, adopted in classical science. Its place is taken by a more or less pronounced social verification. In theory of socio-psychological mechanisms of manipulation by consciousness (Aronson, Pratkanis, 2003: 384), Elliot Aronson postulated the existence of the verbal-logical, emotional and associative sociopsychological mechanisms of perception, processing new information and decision-making as two alternative cognitive modes of cognition. The first mechanism involves a relatively lengthy analysis and the creation of an explanatory model, the second mechanism is the search for emotional association with pre-existing thought stereotypes. As recent empirical studies (Cacciatore, 2011: 385) suggest, risk perceptions of nanotechnologies and other really depend from (1) the logical relationships between innovation and developing the social consequences of their implementation, and (2) from the emergence of various kinds of psychological associations between different concepts. Based on these facts, we have assumed that there is socio-cultural landscape of evolution of rational-technological component SESH that includes the direction and strength of its reverse effect on the biological and socio-cultural components. It is determined by emotional reactions of mentality, above all. Only secondarily, this effect is determined by the by the direct result of rational study of the social consequences of technological innovation. In other words, modern, 4-th phase of SESH evolution characterized by a balance of internal, rational-deterministic and external, social and psychological factors of science and technological developments. Fig. 5.1 Functional divergence risk and warning sciences The task of forecasting the evolution of socio-anthropogenesis is to ascertain the specific magnitude of this balance in relation to the most riskbased technologies. The second thesis lies in the possibility of determining the balance of the rational-technological and socio-cultural factors based on comparative content analysis of scientific research and mass-media communications. In other words, we assume the following initial postulates and principles. 1. There is a pronounced correlation between mental emotional images and verbal lexical elements associated with the impact of evolution based on technology; 2. In messages of key elements of the conceptual and terminological apparatus of two different concepts, the frequency of "lexical / semantic association" are comparable with the influence of one paradigm / research program on another research program and the influence of socio-cultural discourse on the evolution of the scientific theory in this model; 3. The higher semantic association of lexical units corresponds to a more pronounced personal and social group association between the value ratings of the concepts denoted by them. First of all, we were interested in the terms of semantic association (keywords), somehow related to the lexical structures of the evolutionary paradigm, among themselves and with various aspects of its application15. The development of these fields of study and disciplines takes place in a social context and a certain evolutionary landscape. The exact path of this development is determined by a balance of perceptions of the potential benefits, risks and the possibility of monitoring and control in society. As we assume, the key elements of such a balance are the parameters of the frequency distribution of the terms "biological risk", "bio-security" and "biological safeguard" in associations with specific scientific developments and theoretical concepts. In accordance with the initial working hypothesis, there is a structure and significance of semantic associations of basic constructs of separate concepts of post-academic science, which are formed as a network of nodes connecting specific pairs of lexical elements. The latter are represented by theoretical concepts. This system reflects the structure of the scientific paradigm. Thus, "risk" and "safety" are transdisciplinary concepts, and contain elements of both natural scientific, nominative and socio-humanitarian, imperative and axiological knowledge. As a result, the matrix of semantic association can be considered as a kind of meta-construction of overparadigm level of association. 15 The source database in this topic, see (Chheshko et al., 2015; 2017: 242). The study was carried out in 2012-2014. Let us denote this structural integrity, supported by elements of logical relations and semantic associations, as "biological and humanitariandisciplinary-technological complex" (BHDTC or BHDT-complex). Its distinguishing features are a general natural-scientific paradigmatic core goes back to the theory of biological evolution (1) and similar technological applications (2). The subject of the latter serves the control and management of biological and mainly socio-humanitarian and socio-economic component of anthropogenesis. The complex consists of bioethics, biopolitics, bioeconomics and other transdisciplinary research areas. Their emergence has occurred in recent decades (from 1970). The number of publications in scientific journals and mass–media, can calculate their presence in the comparative research. 5.1 Basic settings, features, and limitations of theoretical model Accordingly, content analysis (Shalak, 2006; Krippendorf, 2004) is the primary technique used for searching, collecting and interpreting data, including using Web-sources. The number of semantic units are defined by the conjunctions equation N = "I" AND "J". Factor semantic association can serve as measure of the interconnectedness of the various areas of dangerous and warning sciences. It calculated by the equation Fij=Nij/Nj, where Nj is population number of publications containing semantic unit "J"; Nij is populations containing semantic units "I" and "J" simultaneously. Thus, the value of F is not commutative, Fij ≠ Fji (Cheshko V.T., 2012: 215). The level of sociopolitical pressure is determined by the dynamics and static differences between the corresponding representations (for example, "risk" versus "profit") in scientific publications and in the media on specific conceptual or research areas. Similarly, crisscross correlative influence of risk and warning science defined as the presence of lexical units (concepts) of "risk", "safety", "security" in the pools (populations) of publications in the field. A comparison of individual values Fij was carried out too in populations of reports in the local segment of the Web, operated by the scientific community, or by groups of experts in the conceptual fields and in the global network as a whole. By this way, it will determine the possible coincidence or divergence of theoretical constructs, circulating within the scientific community, and of expectations of mass consciousness. The coefficient of association is formed by the logical deducibility as the availability of the deductive or inductive links between the concepts, and by the actual semantic association, based on a holistic intuitive and emotional assessment. The first component is dominant in the theoretical constructs of science, the second one is dominant in the stereotypes of culture and mentality. Accordingly, the first (logical) component is detected during the standard procedure of verification / falsification of scientific concepts; the second (emotional) component is implemented in the course of social verification amounting to integration / exclusion by mass consciousness. A magnitude of ΔFij= Fij1-Fij2 is recorded, where Fij1 and Fij2 are population ratios of semantic association in scientific publications and in a global search (by Google in our study), respectively. Therefore, positive values ΔFij correspond to higher association of terms in the communications world network. It according to the original working hypothesis reflect the general characteristics of the mentality of modern society compared with scientific publications. Negative values ΔFij reflect the increased interest to the pairs of terms in the scientific community, compared with expectations of mass consciousness that is equivalent to "public opinion", and it is reflected in the composition of the relevant messages circulating on the Web. Mismatch association criterion ΔFma= (Fij1−Fij2)/Fij1 (5.1) more sharply reveals the greatest possible external influence, which can provide a social and cultural context for the development of this concept. In pool publications, negative values for this indicator, ΔFma show incentives for growth of association coefficient by second alternative pool and a deceleration of association coefficient growth in the second alternative pool by first member of the ligament. Thus, the value ΔFma = -4.919 for a lexical unit "talking" in a common pool of publications for cluster "human nature" corresponds to the similar parameters ΔFma = +0.831 for pool of scientific publications on this lexical unit. Thus, we can talk about encouraging by scientific research of association "talking" and "human nature" in the mass consciousness and braking similar associations in topics of research pressure from the general cultural predisposition. The smaller the absolute value of ΔFma, the lower the external pressure experienced when developing the corresponding pool of online publications and the mental structure that it reflects. Meta-description of these data leads us to the conclusion that the decline in the absolute value ΔFma diagnoses the decrease of conceptual overlap for imperatively-axiological and descriptive-epistemic (scientific) discourses. The latter is a basic attribute of the classical scientific rationality as a "principle of ethical neutrality of scientific knowledge" and classical (industrial) phase of industrial civilization (Latour, 2006), that based on the Kantian-Hume methodological dichotomy "World of Proper" as subject of ethics and "World of Entity" as subject of science. A resolution of the method is limited by "contextualization" of keywords search resulting from the features of the software related sites. A priory the effect of "contextualization" becoming a significant with the values of the association index approaches 1. In this case, the quantitative interpretation compared with lower values Fij is difficult, although the increase in Fij > 1 shows the integration of the respective semantic units in the wider cultural or general scientific conceptualization discourse Fgen= |Ni−Nj| Ni+Nj − Fij , (5.2) Fgen magnitude equal to the difference between the highest possible relative amount of text fragments (messages), in which the terms "I" and "J" not occur together, and the relative amount of fragment, where they are in association. This value reduces the coefficient of association to Fij< 1. Fij > 1 reflects the rating of involvement terms in general semantic structure of the test pool of publications. In other words, it corresponds to the rating of lexical structures (context) in which the studied pairs of terms can occur. Due to the uncertainty values Fgen is possible only qualitative interpretation. Within the theoretical explanatory constructs of the modern transdisciplinary science, the structure of the transdisciplinary matrix of theory can be seen as the reason for exceeding the threshold Fij <1 by the semantic association coefficient. The transdisciplinary matrix includes the descriptive and normative cores, as we assume. Within each paradigmatic core and between them, there is a system of deductive-inductive connections between descriptors, which includes semantic units coinciding in both cores. It contributes to "jump" of the search algorithm from one branch of the logical arguments to other branch with a similar semantic structure. These "jump" occur between axiological and descriptive constructs as well. As a result, recorded Fij magnitude is overpriced. On the other hand, the relationship between descriptive and imperative components of the transdisciplinary theory is actually an associative based on partial overlapping of semantic fields of humanitarian and scientific conceptual nuclei. The result is a multiplication values Fij. Thus, the connections between the semantic units within each conceptual nucleus are deductive predominantly, and the connections between the cores are associative in general. Another restriction is associated with semantic ambivalence results of content analysis. Fij-index does not indicate a specific meaningful communication between members of the associative pairs. For example, the association of the terms "optics' on one side and "bioethics' and "bio-risk' on the other hand indicates only on the use of optical tools in biotechnological research, and does not indicate the existence of a logical links between theoretical concepts. Because, the results of content analysis must be constantly compared with the analysis of the semantic content of the texts. Especially, it concerns as the results, which are paradoxical or difficult explanation within the framework of a scientific theory or "common sense". The mean square error is calculated by the equation of association for alternative sample SF = Fij(1−Fij) √N (5.3) 5.2 Structure of BHDT-complex Using the search engine of the Web portal ScienceDaily.com, a list of elements of the BHDT complex was ranked by frequency of occurrence. As already mentioned, the distinguishing feature of BHDTC is the integration of natural scientific, socio-economic and humanitarian elements. Based on these considerations, it is possible to attribute the BHDT-complex to the systems and constructs of the so-called post-academic science, more specifically, to its "warning" type (Cheshko, 2012). The next step involved the detailed visualization of association schemes of individual elements of a complex with specific research themes and associated lexical units (keywords). A matches of keywords and topics of BGDTK informational messages were found on the ScienceDaily.com portal for this purpose. Common semantic constructs associated with specific elements of BHDT were then selected in publications in 2000 – 2012 in www.Nature.com and www.Sciencemag.org websites. The structures of semantic associations on both sites are broadly similar. There are, however, significant differences in the social consequences of the use of BHDT technology. The index of semantic association in this case is much higher at online publications populations at www.Nature.com. Three distinct clusters are formed by semantic associations of lexical units of the BGDT complex, in this case. The first cluster includes terms related to the system conceptual framework of technological civilization and civil society, which is in a phase of risk society. This system is fundamental system of priorities for threat and risk control of modern civilization. Cluster make up terms on general problems of diagnostics and treatment of the most common, severe, and limiting the duration of life, first and foremost, oncological pathologies. Fij in this case is in the range 0.2-0.5, but for some couples terms reaches extreme values (15 ≤ Fij<66), that are beyond the "physical senseЭ of this indicator. Such high value index Fij testifies to the integration of concepts cluster in the content of the basic philosophical and / or ideological systems of modern society. In other words, the concept BHDT develop within the of logical constructs, that are dominant in mentality and are not marginal for this type of society. An indirect confirmation of this hypothesis is "exorbitant" value of semantic association index of "biodiversity" and "psychiatry" concepts (Fij = 3747). This fact is likely to be interpreted in connection with the revision of the criteria for mental health and disease. In mentality and worldview, these conceptual and methodological shifts is consistent psychologically and follows logically the doctrine of individualism and to the right of a person to self-determination that is mentality basis of the western type of technological civilization. In this context, an increasing number of pathologies of mild to moderate severity pass into the category of "individual existential projects". In the same context can be interpreted revised attitude of society towards sexual minorities, suffering from the effects of chromosomal diseases (Down's syndrome, first of all), etc. too. Representatives of the antipsychiatry movement from 1960-1970s. consider schizophrenia and related mental not as anomalies, but as an alternative basis for the substantial existential projects. Concepts of "mental norm" and "mental pathology" considered as a purely socio-culturally conditioned and equivalent to personal behavioral modes. The existential projects, in turn, determinate specific forms of an adequate interaction of the subject with the surrounding physical and socio-cultural reality. There is a network of semantic and logical connections between the BHDT basic elements. This network determines internal organization of the complex. The central core of this organization is quaternary conjunction of (bio-) "risk" – (bio-) "safety"– (bio-) "safeguard" – "bioethics" concepts. All these elements have almost identical composition of the first associative cluster, as well as similar values of the pairs of associations that it contains. The structure of the cluster includes associations with lexical units "Cancer", "Disease and Treatment" ("Viruses"), "Stem Cells", "Ecology" ("New species", "Tropical forests"). The second cluster of semantic associations brings together concepts that are regulators and descriptors of the basic directions of scientific and technological developments with the greatest significance. These include the terms "infectious diseases", "public health", "psychiatry" and "scientific behavior" in the case of the mentioned tetrad of basic concepts. Coefficient of association of "biological risk" concept with these terms is relatively stable and varies between 0.06-0.08. The composition of the second cluster is identical, and the Fij magnitudes lie in the same range of values and concepts of biosafety and biosecurity. According to the initial assumption on the distribution of functions among the members of the transdisciplinary core BHDT-complex, the above-mentioned four concepts are related to the provision of natural aspects risk-taking problems of scientific and technological development. The "bioethics" is central concept to understanding the socio-cultural and economic risks. It would expect the prevalence in the second part of the cluster of terms that reflect exactly the value-normative aspect of science and High Hume technology. Indeed, in the second part of the cluster in conjunction with the "bioethics" presented A terms reflecting unfavorable development or degradation of the human environment and having a very high social status in the system of values of modern civilization such as "endangered animal", "avian flu", etc.; A terms associated with the development of acute social conflicts or perceived as acute ones such as "racial inequality", "social problems", etc. It should be noted a higher ranking of social aspects in comparison with the natural science aspects of technological progress (0.27 ≤ Fij<0.71 and 0.06 ≤ Fij<0.08, respectively). In our opinion, have a clear tendency to prevail over rationalist expectations of additional benefits and improve the quality of life due to the application of scientific knowledge in the mentality of modern human alarmist emotional responses. Features of the structure of the second cluster of the concept of biopolitics, we have considered above. Second cluster "Biodiversity" concept was the most diverse. Judging from the data analysis, the highest priority are directions relating to the development environment, an individually-oriented medical technology and space exploration. The degree of involvement of biological biodiversity in all of these areas of research is very large (0.85 ≤ Fij<0.94). Finally, in relation to science components of the transdisciplinary matrix "risk"– "safety"– "safeguard", the third cluster reflects precisely crisscross association of these concepts with potential and current socio-political consequences of the implementation and use of BHDT-complex. The structure of the third cluster includes terms such as "consumer behavior", "education policy", "privacy issues", "endangered species" (0.005 ≤ Fij<0.01). In the case of the concept of "bioethics", the same cluster includes extremely heterogeneous in content group term, Among them are such as "biochemical research" and "environmental research", "Diseases of malnutrition", but "transport" and "land policy or land managed" with a very low value of the coefficient of association (0 01 ≤ Fij<0.05). Rather, it demonstrates the incipient expansion of the associative field of bioethics at the new fields of knowledge and culture. As already mentioned, the concept of Bioethics was able to integration in the general mentality of technological civilization, especially its Western type. Probably, structure a third cluster of associations of "biopolitics" can be interpreted by similar way. It consists of terms associated with acquiring or have already acquired the social importance of political issues as "infectious disease", "health", "depression", "conduct research". These terms are "attracted" to the biopolitical conceptual field and are perceived by the scientific community and society as the names of biopolitical issues that cannot be fully reduced to sections of traditional political science. The third cluster of "biodiversity" concept practically includes "biochemical research", "developmental biology" only, with significant values of the coefficient of association, Fij = 0.06. Obviously, this result reduces to the statement of the two most common methods of assessment of this indicator and the greatest importance of the individual parameters of biodiversity assessment. As already mentioned, the composition and specific values of the association coefficients at different sites differ significantly when comparing a common 3-cluster scheme. This fact can be explained by a combination of individual differences in the policies of the site and regional differences in the social context. Further consideration should be given in light of these facts. This significantly reduces the reliability of the results. However, some conclusions can be made. In particular, the concept of "biological risk" on the site www.Sciencemag.org detected predominate socio-political perspective in the first cluster. The structure of the first cluster includes terms "Political Science", "stem cells", "child development", "conduct research", "rights of the individual" in decreasing order of magnitude Fij. This feature characterizes the structure of the association to all the above concepts BHDT-complex on the site. In this case, the cluster of the concepts of the BHDT-complex include terms relating to the field of population control, ensuring the rights of the individual and ensure individual freedoms, and political processes. Magnitudes of Fij reaches extreme values, beyond the "physical sense" of the indicator. Such high values of the Fij show integration of these concepts in the content of the basic philosophical and ideological systems of modern society. The second cluster combines the concepts that are regulators and descriptors of social conflicts and conflicts between different social communities, 10≤Fij<20. Among them are racial differences, consumer behavior, political problems of education, etc. Finally, the third cluster refers to the specific issues of the use of risktaking technological innovations, 0 ≤ Fij< 1. The concepts of "stem cells", "child development", and "health" are here. These lexical units represent topics with high conflict status as associated with acute ethical and legal dilemmas and alternative ideological and political interpretations. The maximum values of the association observed for the first cluster "bioethics' (over 200) and "biopolitics" (over 300 for the term "political science"). It can be said that in this case there is a marked politicization of the conceptual field of the BHDT-complex. More precisely, we should talk about larger conceptual overlapping of science and socio-humanitarian fields of transdisciplinary conceptual matrix of the BHDT-complex. In other words, the concepts of BHDTC develop within the logical constructs that dominate the mentality, and they are not marginal for this type of society. This conclusion takes into account the more pronounced orientation of the journal "Science" on the social aspects of the development of science and technology, the functions of the social institution of science in technological civilization and civil society. It is a powerful, although indirect evidence of the politicization and ideologization of the modern, post-academic stage of development of science. In turn, it confirms the transition of the social institution of science from Mode 1 to Mode 2. In these arguments, Mode 1 corresponds to the disciplinary-paradigm organization of science, and Mode 2 is a problem-transdisciplinary organization in the terminology of H.Nowotny (see: Gibbons et al., 1994:90; Nowotny, 2003: 179). It is interesting to note that there are three policy sections that have a basic meaning within the interdisciplinary matrix of the BHDT-complex, namely, "public health", "financing policy", and "environmental policy". The first two members of this set, "public health" and "financing policy" are in the second cluster of the "biopolitics" concept (Fij <0.25). However, the political aspects of the environment are included in the third cluster of the "bioethics" concept (Fij <0.1). The last concept focuses primarily on the safeguard of individual rights and freedoms, while protecting the environment initially appealed to the needs and interests of society as a whole. In addition, a variety of environmental political issues historically had been much earlier. In the interaction of these two factors, you can find the cause of this phenomenon. Bioethical aspects of ecology seen as derivatives rather than underlying problems of bioethics. In other words, they have not as methodological as pragmatic meaning. Next Research Series solves two main tasks: Firstly, identify differences between the structure of semantic associations of scientific discourse and mass consciousness and mentality; Secondly, clarification of the relative roles of the regional context, and other factors affecting the differences in the structure of the semantic associations of research topics related to the concept of BHDT-complex risk. In general, the composition of the common Web-sector clusters was similar to those in the scientific discourse. The greatest similarity reaches first cluster "biological risk" concept. However, the "bioethics" and "biopolitics" are socio-humanitarian kernel of BHDT transdisciplinary matrix, and impression arises that its evolution is stimulated by extrascientific factors of scientific theory development primarily. In other words, the proliferation of this topic to scientific discourse determined by external pressure of the dominant ideological and philosophical doctrines and systems value priorities. This thesis does not contradict the active participation of members of the scientific community with a high scientific status at all stages of the genesis of bioethical and bio-political science concepts. The reason for the apparent discrepancy lies in the conflict of interests and the multiplicity of social roles of individuals at the same time and at modern society. In support of the above considerations can lead structure of the first cluster of associations of "biopolitics" concept at general sector. In the general sector of the Network, which is associated with the concept of biopolitics, the terms clearly affect specific social problems, which causes an increase in social resonance. There are "health", "children's health", "education", "biology" and "developmental biology". In contrast to the pool of scientific publications, there is a clear pragmatic shift towards everyday social specifics, rather than abstract models of the prospects for further social evolution. The same can be said about the structure of the first cluster of "bioethics" concept in common sector. There are the associative connections with "social problems", "developmental biology", "psychology", "health" here. The value of the coefficient of the association is in the range 0.53≤Fij<0.82 for the bioethical issues, and 1.85 ≤ Fij<2.0 for the biopolitical problems. If our baseline model representations are true, bioethics has already emerged in the segment mass consciousness that is the system of associative links with the problems of social life. At the same time similar connections of "biopolitics" currently has already won high-ranking public attention. However, the structure of semantic associations ("that we from this wait?ˮ) still quite ambivalent and tends to be interpreted very broadly. If may so express, biopolitics has proved its value, but has not yet determined the boundaries of their applicability in the consciousness of society. The next issue is the impact of mental and general cultural "landscape" on the configuration and growth rates of the individual components of theoretical and applied science. We determined the coincidence or divergence of the theoretical structures circulating in the scientific community and the expectations of the mass consciousness by comparing the individual Fij in the informational messages of the population in the information engines. The study was conducted using Nature, Science, Google portals. Somewhat surprisingly, the structure of the semantic associations of biological risks concept differs very little between populations of scientific publications in the portal Nature and search engine Google as wide area network. The only statistically significant difference is due to a marked predominance of the semantic field of the term "health" in the global network as compared to the population of scientific publications (ΔFij = 0.92, ΔFma = -14.2). In a population of online publications of the journal "Scienceˮ the difference between them is even higher (ΔFij = -0.94, ΔFma <20), and it suggests the obvious socio-political orientation and, consequently, the financial pressure on the development of the subjects of scientific research. Except for these data, socio-psychological and cultural-psychological factors have little impact on the development prospects of this theoretical concept. In other words, the associative structures of scientific and extrascientific discourse within the semantic field of the concept bio-hazard / biorisk practically coincide. However, the same factors stimulate the study of biological safety associated with a very wide range of research topics (ΔFij<0). The highest absolute values are achieved by ΔFij of the "biological safety" and "health", "public health" and related terms, "disease and treatment", "psychology", "conflicts", "scientific conduct" (latter concept is interpreted in context of "social responsibility" ). In itself, there is increased public attention to the pragmatic topics of human health as well as social development of the appropriate determinate subjects of research that looks quite predictable, if not trivial. It reflected in the volumes of priority financing, obviously. However, the last part of the list is very symptomatic. It includes concepts related to conflict resolution and the social responsibility of researchers. In our view, this fact demonstrates an integration by a public consciousness of security problems in the sphere of post-academician science, involving a joint view of the natural sciences and the humanitarian aspects of experimental sciences and theoretical constructs. It is obvious that security issues are integrated in popular culture as an unrecoverable essential attribute of modern scientific knowledge, rather than purely applied problem of safety due to implementation of new knowledge in a mentality and new technologies in social life. Mismatch association criterion reveals a somewhat different picture, and allow to more accurately assessing of the possibility of social and cultural (extra-scientific) influences to the evolution of the theoretical concepts. A magnitude of the criterion for association between "biological safeguard" and "education policy" is the maximum absolute value in this set (ΔFma = 355). It suggests a very high degree of social determination of formation of educational programs in this area in comparison with the internal needs of the development of science. Magnitudes for "Land Management" (ΔFma = 271.9) and "pollution" (ΔFma = -262.7) are just below. In the next place on these criteria are "psychology" and "confidentiality" (-166<ΔFma<-171). It is followed by "consumer behaviorˮ as a term referring to the regulation of the market and to ensure optimal conditions (ΔFma = 130). And only then in the ranked list follows the "health" (ΔFma = 100). However, a special group of semantic associations constitute the terms reflecting the extremely large absolute values of social pressure on research subjects (ΔFma<-900). This group includes "political science", "labor safeguard (safety)", "environmental researches", "nutritional diseases". Obviously, these lexical items are the distinctive brands and areas with the highest social inquiry. As you can see, the conceptual field of the inquiry may be defined as the intersection of the political problems and quality of life. On the subject of scientific publications, the range of social context effects is different in the journal "Science" in this regard. It have pragmatic orientation, so to speak. Here, the issues of political control of research activities are at the center of attention and can or should be taken into account by the scientific community. Now we pass to "bioethics" and "biopolitics" as kernel elements of socio-humanitarian transdisciplinary matrix. The range of ΔFij lies mainly in the positive areas of magnitudes for "bioethicsˮ, and the range is in the negative values for "biopolitics". This is probably due to the more advanced stage of the institutionalization of bioethics as result of its consistency with verbal constructions and emotional intentions, which assumed the role of system-forming factors of public opinion. In conjunction "Society – Science", last member of binary bundles dictates the "rules of the game" in the formation of topics and areas of research, development, regulatory framework, etc in this case. Moreover, there is a rather narrow range of variations in differences of association coefficient magnitudes in the scientific and general sectors of the global Web-sectors for bioethics concept. For any associated terms, ΔFma of this concept is approximately 0.8-0.9. A set of terms is very broad and heterogeneous. It seems that bioethics has become a powerful ideological element in the worldview of modern civilization. It affects most areas of mental, spiritual culture and public opinion in one way or another. The concept of biopolitics is experiencing the greatest influence of "educational policy", "social problems", "labor safety", which are included in the socio-humanitarian segment of public consciousness and "biology", which belongs to the natural sciences segment. In general, it was predictable. 5.3 Prospects and risks of controlled evolution of human: the intentional structure of post-academician science At a pools of scientific publications and websites www.Nature.com and www.Sciencemag.org concepts "(bio)improvement of humanˮ ("Human Enhancementˮ and "bioenhancementˮ) are extremely rare. This construct, however, it is extremely clearly denotes a positive intention of technologydriven evolution application to human beings. (Social sciences and humanities in the same intention coded lexical construct "High Humeˮ). In this sense, construct united emotionally negativistic "biological riskˮ and neutrality or implicit positive "biosecurityˮ, "biosecurityˮ allows you to define more clearly the mental and socio-cultural evolution of technology landscape of High Hume. In this regard, we searched the incidence of related terms on database www.Scopus.com. As follows from the data, the frequency of the lexical unit "(bio) enhancementˮ significantly inferior to the absolute value of the rest of them, but is characterized by the highest growth rates. The greatest surge of interest in this subject is recorded in 2002-2008. The curve of occurrence of a lexical unit "biological risk" has a more dense form and is more extended in time. The growing number of publications has been celebrated since the 1994-1995. In our view this reflects not only the surge of interest in the topic of driven human evolution, but also on projected (perhaps intuitively) the transition from its philosophical and theoretical considerations into practice. We emphasize, however, Firstly, the coefficients of lexical association of concept "human (bio) enhancementˮ and biotechnological terms can`t be determined due to their smallness; Secondly, the concept "human (bio) enhancementˮ is found almost exclusively in the socio-humanitarian, primarily medical ethical and bioethical periodicals. Thus, of perspective of technologizing evolution within the scientific community discussed within the socio-humanitarian knowledge, without penetrating even into the theoretical and empirical discourse of sciences and technological advances. This concept "human (bio) enhancementˮ is radically different from the "genetic engineeringˮ, to the extent the latter does not go beyond evolutionarily formed biological norm. Therefore, as the totality of the available data suggests, the evolution of the SESH and its holders (Homo sapiens beings) is located near the evolutionary singularity, i.e., irreversible transition to phase 4 (directed evolution), but has not yet overcome the brink. With regard to the prospects of management, the system-forming role played by the humanitarian consequences of the use of the relevant expertise of technological schemes, rather than their fundamental technological feasibility. In other words, in the mentality, the absolute hegemony of technological imperative of modern civilization limited significantly in the of risk society (the 4th phase of SESH evolution). It does not mean the loss by the technological imperative of its position as one of the most important intentions of socio-cultural adaptive complex of SESH in its Western kind of technological civilization. We are talking about comparative upgrading humanitarian components in the scale of values and priorities. Characteristically, described a surge of publications, including the concept of "bio-enhancementˮ explained the holding of two panel discussions. These topics concern firstly, the possibility of using the High Hume technologies to bring the moral and emotional aspects of human psyche (Persson I., 2013) in line with the realities of modern techno-cultural environment (i.e., on the admissibility of the regulatory process techno-humanitarian balance itself) and secondly, the "optimizationˮ of emotional and rationalistic balance of mental processes, above all, reduces the proportion of uncontrolled by emotional and logical intellect mental states. (Such conditions are amorousness are related primarily with sexual and reproductive sphere of human behavior). This intention is concentrated thus in the correction of psychophysiological sexual dimorphism, in particular, a possible female embryos "bioenhancementˮ (because of the greater adequacy of the female psyche to the same civilizational realities) and the gradual elimination of sexual dimorphism of Homo sapiens (Sparrow, 2010; Casal, 2013; Douglas, 2014; Earp et al., 2013; Koch, 2010). This observation is well illustrated and empirically proves the thesis of dissociation of individual elements of a biological adaptive module as a result of the influence of techno-rationalist module and under the control of the socio-cultural module. Within the framework of the concept of 3modular SESH, there are an examples of formation of co-evolutionary techno-cultural ligament. A spread opinion about the possibility of controlled technology to overcome the sexual dimorphism is one of them. The substrate basis of this phenomenon constitute the initial mental predisposition of Western civilization on the highest priority of individual freedom and, as a consequence of ideological pluralism of rights standard of different social communities; the formal teleological basis constitute the needs of progressive development of the technological module. It has been said on amplifying permanently from the middle of the 20th century trend on providing semantic technology to overcome the biological conditionality of gender social roles. As a consequence there is a gradual replacement of biosocial adaptations of reproductive and (increasingly) ─ demographic features by techno-rationalist innovation. Limit point of this trend of Homo sapiens evolution is complete loss of functional dependencies between the two functions. Ability to save "sexualˮ (not reproductive function) component among anti-stress and maintaining of individual psycho-physiological norm mechanisms. Technologization of the sphere will then progressively increase. In our opinion, this assumption is fully justified, at least in relation to the Western (Atlantic) variant of technological civilization, and while preserving the development trends in relation to global civilization also.. Because of combining the technological imperative and individualistic humanism in the mentality of Western civilization, point of application of modern High Hume is the SESH as a whole, rather than individual modules. That humanism becomes technologized first and then actually technologized humanism will become a necessary and sufficient basis for practical transhumanism. "We claim that human beings now have at their disposal means of wiping out life on Earth and those traditional methods of moral education are probably insufficient to achieve the moral enhancement required to ensure that this will not happen. Hence, moral bioenhancement should be sought and appliedˮ, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu (Persson, Savulescu, 2013: 124) suggest this thesis. In this example, it is obvious, there are two parameters, and these parameters of human evolution are irreducible to each other – at least phenomenologically as two system-forming evolutionary factors. Accordingly, the magnitude of the risk of evolution will be determined by the ratio of the evolutionary correctness and evolutionary efficiency under the leadership of the first of them. Recall that in accordance with our ideas trend correctness of evolutionary divergence diagnosed by the structure of associative links between theoretical science and popular culture. To this question we now turn. 5.4 The thematic structure of theoretical science and the predisposition of mass culture on technology-driven evolution Most pronounced association observed in relation to "genomicsˮ, followed by "GMOsˮ and "genetic engineeringˮ at spectrum of research preferences (set by coefficients of direct associations of the title term) of biotech online publications at www.Nature.com. "Gene engineeringˮ and "GMOsˮ is leading a similar range of site www.Sciencemag.org. The spectrum of genetic engineering research associations demonstrates leadership topics "GMOsˮ (in the natural high coefficient of association with the term "biotechnologyˮ) at site www.Sciencemag.org. Scopus database has lower coefficients of semantic association. Rating associated terms of a sequence of "genomeˮ, "biotechnologyˮ, "genetic engineeringˮ, "GMOˮ. In general, patterns of association coefficients are clearly site-specific, which obviously reflect differences in the structure pool of publications. There has been a steady increase in the number of publications related to "biosafety", launched a little later, from the beginning of the 2000s. This difference seems to reflect a different emotional meaning of the terms "riskˮ and "safetyˮ, and demonstrates a certain parity of risk-taking and warning science, translated into the plane of practical measures to ensure the effective use of biotechnological innovation. Note also that the starting positions of concepts "Bio-riskˮ and "biosecurityˮ also vary greatly: in the latter case, the increase in the number of publications started from scratch, whereas the "riskˮ (probably due to ambiguity of the term biological risk) occurs in appreciable number of publications already in the early 1960s. We noted the magnitudes of coefficient of association (Fij) of the concept of "biological riskˮ to the concept of "biotechnologyˮ, "genetic engineeringˮ and "GMOˮ. These parameters reflect the representation of relevant areas of research in the warning science and, consequently, the value priorities of the scientific community with regard to the subject matter. (In this context the term "conceptˮ and "semantic unitˮ are regarded as identical.) According to our data, for 2000-2013 the Fij is 0.48 (complex and lexical units "benefitˮ and "products" ("goods") is quite comparable with the value for the terms "Bioriskˮ and "biosecurityˮ. This is particularly evident for the pool of publications database Scopus. In this case, the value is in the range 0.9-0.95 for Nature.com site. For Scopus measure Fij for the term "benefitˮ is somewhat lower and varies between 0.25 ("GMOˮ) – 0.16 ("biotechnologyˮ). This applies to all terms associated with positive perception of economic predispositions of all aspects of the development of NBIC-complex. This fact demonstrates the positive economic intention of such subjects, stimulation of the evolution of the business area (and, consequently, the scope of policy and law) in the triple helix of evolution of technological civilization. We can assume that the described pattern has a basic attribute of technological civilization. (For comparison, the same indicator of the involvement of the relevant terms in the interpretation of risk-taking, for the site Nature.com 0.32-0.10 and 0.13-0.03 for Scopus). Of course, there is reason to link the activity of the total publications containing the results of research in this area, with a set of subjective and objective factors characterizing the research activity. These include, first of all, the system predisposition, i.e. epistemological value and priorities of the thematic structure of the social inquiry and the commercial demand for the results of relevant studies, the structure of the disciplinary matrix, and so on. All of this requires further analysis. Nevertheless, the theme of "risk scienceˮ covers just under 50% of general pool of scientific publications in relation to the biotechnology sector of NBIC-technological complex, and this fact is eloquent enough. Obviously, the attention of researchers expressed reorienting to the study of side effects of scientific and technological development, forecasting and risk analysis and fight against them. In other words, the future path of scientific progress is largely determined by risk than it was during the period of the classical type of scientific rationality and the corresponding social status of science. It should be noted, in the public mind and in the media attention given to the problem is much higher, making the fields more vulnerable to biopolitical and ideological pressure. According to the conclusions of a meta-analysis (Frewera et al., 2013: 142) of scientific publications in the Western sources 1990-2010th, rating perceptions of risk of genetic engineering research is slightly higher than the rating of perception of the benefits and advantages derived from their use (46 points against 30). At the same time trend found in the regression coefficients for this indicator shows a marked increase in the attention of society to the risk-taking components of genetic engineering (0.45) at a relatively constant level, focusing on the benefits of the same technology (0.08). For twenty years, we have formed a clear geographic differentiation of the adaptive landscape, which takes place the formation of the biotechnology segment of the SESH technological component. Risk perception of biotechnology is more pronounced in the EU and elsewhere in Europe than North America. This fact is confirmed not only by almost all studies (The Role of Biotechnology, 2012: 17), including our own. It has become trivial to stating, politicians and business scope to be reckoned it. This is stipulated in the legal field of the respective regions and geopolitical configuration. Several European experts led by Oliver Sanvido indifferently stated that although the European Commission intends to extend the schema of the risk assessment of GMOs, the decisions is currently focused on the risk assessment. Estimates of the potential benefits explicitly not taken into account in the implementation of GMOs in Europe in accordance with the EU Directive 2001/18/EC. In other legal acts of the decisions on the use of GMOs could take into account both the potential benefits of growing GM crops, as risks associated to technology alternatives (Evaluating environmental, 2012: 84). Another researcher also notes the tightening of the regulatory and restrictive measures are no noticeable effect on the overall negative predisposition Western European mentality with respect to genetically engineered foods (Einsele, 2007). Dominic Brassard (Einsele, 2007: 17) made a very important observation. The positions of the supporters and opponents of this confrontation are initially antinomic in the Kantian sense of the word, since the outcome of mutually exclusive initial settings – "GM technology are the goodˮ versus "GM technology lead to dangerˮ. The arguments of the other side are not considered because they are outside of their own conceptual field. In other words, there is a formation of two alternative mental and socio-cultural types and each has a center of crystallization estimate evolutionary consequences of technology-driven evolution. As part of the mentality and ethos of the scientific community there is a predictable result of delay on the internal dichotomy and the community into two priority system associated with the "risk-taking and "warningˮ science. The latter conclusion is confirmed by the case study of social history dynamics of biotechnology, in particular genetically modified organisms of the last decade. An example is the reaction of public opinion and, therefore, the political elite at a contradictory in methodical outline studies of I.V.Ermakova (Russia, 2009) and Seralini (France, 2012) of the biological risk of long-term effects of genetically modified food products. As authors believed, they have received credible evidence of high-risk GMOs-products (GM soybeans,2007; EFSA, 2012). These publications have generated enough contradictory and bordering the unequivocal rejection reaction from the scientific community, and order more business whose interests were associated to GMOs. The answer of social movements and many political figures was certainly negative about the prospects of further practical use of GMOs and other genetically engineered innovation. In principle, this distribution of opinions and assessments could be predicted based on the already quoted Knobe effect. So, a sharp reaction of public opinion arose in connection with the biopolitical significance not only of the scientific results themselves, but of the prospects of their use as a tool of political technology for reformatting the electoral structure and mentality of society. As a result, these publications were consistently brought highly rigid scientific expertise. In particular, the results of the group of Seralini tested were experts of six European countries and have been collected and compiled in a special report European Food Safety Authority, totaling 157 pages (EFSA, 2012: 1). The experts concluded that the scheme of experiments and statistical processing technique of the results contain a sufficiently large number of errors. As a result, the conclusions are not based on reliable empirical basis and are, if we may say so, to a much greater degree of "politically motivatedˮ. Political motivation here refers to the predominant influence of the initial ethical and social (extra-scientific) value priorities, and not the internal scientific criteria adopted by the scientific community. Earlier equally close police subjected the Ermakova data. However, political and commercial components are inevitable and, if desired, can be applied to the cited documents. It is interesting to note that further discourse was translated in the judicial field, in particular, and not verification and analysis of the findings of scientific research. At least this applies to the media and alarmist public organizations. So, there are materials from the site "GMO Review"16, the content and conclusions are clearly negative in relation to their topic (GMO). From the report on the outcome of the trial in the Philippine court on the termination of field tests of GMO varieties of eggplant states, it follows: "Seven experts in the last trial really tried, but were unable to refute the study of Seralini (2012) in respect of serious effects in rats fed a long time GM maize NK603 and a small amount of the herbicide Roundupˮ. The court's decision, according to the same report, said that 16 https://gmoobzor.com/stati/popytka-oprovergnut-issledovanie-seralini-terpitneudachu-v-sude.html "the testing or introduction of Bt-eggplant in the Philippines by the nature and intentions of a serious and direct threat to a balanced ecology because no single document nor what criteria it is not an environmentally friendly eventˮ. In the absence of the original, we continue to rely on the same electronic publication. Output in the title, gives the impression that it is the court proved the accuracy of the data Seralini: "The attempt to refute studies Seralini fails in courtˮ. Meanwhile, even in the above quotation it comes to social and environmental risks and not about the reliability of the scientific concept. The same decision focuses on the social and political aspects of the implementation of the results of genetic engineering research: "There is no scientific consensus on the safety and effects of Bt-eggplant; there is no law passed by Congress that regulates the Bt-eggplant as the GMOs; the precautionary principle is applicable in the light of uncertainty and failure (ineffectiveness) of the current system of regulation; Bt-eggplant with its social, economic and environmental impacts on the surrounding environment not may charging only scientists who adhere to the interests of the parties concernedˮ. The conclusion of the intensification of the process of combining scientific and social discourse became particularly evident after the "withdrawalˮ by the magazine of the fact of publication of the article of Seralini group. The cases of disavowal from published article content by scientific journal are not rare in modern science and, as a rule, only increase the politization of evaluating the reliability of previously published data. There is combination of strictly scientific, moral, political and legal conceptual fields, and this complex becomes unavoidable (by virtue of the ambiguities of individual social roles and conflict of interest) common place of postacademician scientific discourse and practice of the research process. Judging by the reaction of the scientific community, the next similar investigation (Carman et al., 2013) equally contributed to a negative perception of the prospects of genetic engineering and caused an equally acute socio-political resonance. However, this report was more substantiated from the point of view of the canons of classical epistemology, and its conclusions were more balanced. Subsequently, there were reports about the initiation by the National Russian genetic association so-called "Rat reality Showˮ, in which different groups of laboratory rats will get or not containing GMO diet (Johnaton, 2013).They shall be checked by using different methods, and video protocols are broadcast on television. Thus the (quasi-) scientific experiment is translated into show business and manipulation technologies, and the conclusion of data accuracy and validity of the findings will be made not by the scientific community, and social and political movements based on considerations of the ethical choices and political correctness. The other dominant motive of discussion linked to sociological and socio-psychological predispositions of adhering to alternative interpretations of experimental data participants. The main factor here is a conflict of interest related to the polysemy of social roles of modern researchers. At the same time, each researcher is interested in improving his status in the scientific community, as well as in securing financing, implementing business plans for technological innovations, etc. At the same time, the basic elements of the study and its theoretical interpretation remain relatively constant. These include substantive arguments of the parties regarding the methodology and interpretation of empirical data, the validity of the experimental design and theoretical conclusions. Actually, the scientific arguments of the discourse participants currently have weaknesses both among supporters and opponents of genetic engineering and biotechnological innovations. F.W.Engdahl article (2012 et al.) is most striking example of this "sociologicalˮ bias of modern biotechnology. General methodological problem of post-academician science is a key term "long-term consequencesˮ. Scientific publications to justify the original risk GMOs have a characteristic detail of the planning and research methodology. For example, Seralini group used genetic line rats, originally created for cancer research and, in particular, modeling oncological diseases. This line is used in the standardized three-month study of possible carcinogenic effects of GM foods. However, during the implementation of the research program has been revised. The probable cause could serve as the inability to clearly negative interpretation of the results. Expanding beyond the observation period, the original terms of the limited makes methodological diagram Seralini experiments not justified in terms of reliability and validity of the results. Research group of Seralini and arguments of his critics both contain propositions and facts that are open to subsequent revision or refutation of both the logical and empirical aspects. The position of Seralini's and Ermakova's opponents is more reasoned. However, the decisive factor becomes the lack of absolute reliability to any scientific-theoretical construct. If the risk level reaches the existential level, and in the structure of risk evolutionary component dominates, the classical methodology of scientific research and the generation of technological innovation itself becomes a source of risk. The classical scheme of the cycle of generation of scientific concept and its subsequent verification provides the adaptation of new knowledge to new data made by falsifiers as new scientific paradigm. In this scheme, each discovered error even inaccuracy of the scientific concept turns into a generator of new scientific knowledge. This is the essence of Karl Popper's evolutionary epistemological scheme. However, the features of the existential risks have asymptotic approximation of the probability (P) of its realization (actualization) to the unit over time: dP(R)/dt → 1. Translated into the language of the sociopolitical pragmatists, this means that the researcher loses the right to make a mistake. Long-term consequences of imprecise objective scientific knowledge and, accordingly, created on its basis technologies, cannot always be predicted, eliminated or neutralized. A striking example of the potential of such a scenario is the story of the now banned to use of the pesticide DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane). The discoverer of its insecticide activity, Swiss chemist Paul Muller got in 1948 Nobel Prize "for the discovery of the high efficiency of DDT as a contact poisonˮ. It is known that DDT was widely used as a pesticide, but was almost universally banned for use in the early 1970s due to the longterm consequences of its harmful effects. However, the immediate aim of the use of DDT was the fight against insect-vectors of infectious diseases, primarily malaria, and it has been achieved by this time in the United States and other countries. According to some estimates, the technology the use of DDT has prevented about 500 million deaths from malaria. Currently, DDT is recommended by the World Health Organization, among others, the use of insecticides, although not on such a scale (Bouwman et al., 2013:272; Zubrin, 2012; Tren, 2001). Such ambiguity of results of the use of technological innovations can be considered a general law of development of industrial civilization and all mechanisms of adaption genesis by SESH. With the approach of the evolutionary risk to the existential threshold risk itself becomes dominant component of adaptability. The effectiveness of management for achieving evolutionary existential threshold risk is system-forming parameter at adaptive landscape of Homo sapiens. As a general conclusion, we observe distinct adaptive reconstruction of components of SESH that is initiated by culture. An adaptive reconstruction of techno-rationalist module is in the deployment of the so-called "warning scienceˮ ("warning scientific knowledgeˮ); and in contrast to the classical ("dangerouslyˮ, "riskˮ) science, "warning scienceˮ is oriented on the selfreflective analysis of the consequences of scientific and technological development. There are additional arguments to socio-evolutionary value of the studies and an extremely high spike in attention not only outside, but also within the science community. For classical science and purely descriptive empirical research, such a stir would seem strange to the extent that it does not affect the own structure of the disciplinary matrix. For modern postacademic science, that is oriented toward solving social problems, rather than solving logical puzzles (Thomas Kun), this reaction is quite natural and explainable. However, in accordance with the scheme of functioning of coevolutionary binary links between the elements of SASN (Fig. 1.2), the adaptive reaction of the slower component to the innovation of the faster component is initially phase-lagging. Thus, the reaction of the spontaneous cultural component to technological innovation "focuses" on those risk elements that coincide with the already established phase of technogenesis. In the examples described, public attention was focuses on the possible negative effects of genetic engineering techniques that are common to chemical, breeding, pharmaceutical innovation at mid-twentieth century (allergies, oncology, various remote physiological pathology, etc.). However, the modern stage of SESH evolution is characterized by the ability to deconstruction or erosion of genomic and cultural component. As results, the most serious and difficult to calculate risks of the existential level of significance remains out of sight of socio-cultural adaptation at this stage. Only after the formation of the "inhibition effect" of technogenesis, will those areas of warning scientific knowledge be activated that actually allow us to identify, evaluate and predict the objective distribution of risk factors; and only then comes the turn to develop a system of risk neutralization measures that are adequate to this distribution. In other words, we really are dealing with an adaptive reaction of culture and society, which reformats the evolutionary landscape of the science development, and inhibit the rate of scientific and technological development of certain areas and speeding up the progress of others. Let's also assume that, in relation to the scientific community, this finding would have been not quite correct. The value system within the scientific community is much more focused on the features of the organization of disciplinary matrix ("objectively verifiableˮ) than on mentality of society as a whole. Typically, "riskˮ and "safetyˮ appear together in most publications. The first of these focuses on the perception of the danger of scientific and technological developments, and the second one focuses on the development of innovations to overcome risk. It is clear, at least at level of interpretation of empirical data and theoretical concepts, potentials of risk science and warning science in scientific research are relative balanced in the professional mentality of the scientific community. Reciprocal association coefficient (Fji), reflecting the representation of the theme of risk and, consequently, the level of proliferation of warning science in the relevant research areas, giving significantly different results. In this case, the leaders are genome (0.306-0.312), biotechnology (0.200.22) and genetic engineering (0.10-0.11). Surprisingly few publications where association are formed by the lexical units "riskˮ, "securityˮ on one side and "GMOˮ on the other. A comparison of data from different servers allows for several different interpretations, since it depends on some not related factors (the composition of the population of publications, software search engine server, guidelines for the selection of material, and so on.). Yet we note one indisputable fact. We determined the correlation coefficient for the term "biological risk" with various lexical units of the conceptual field of biotechnology and genetic engineering from the technology-based evolution sector, and the parameter is greater for the Google search engine than for Scopus.com and Nature. com. This is especially true for the term "biosecurityˮ. The value Fij in this case is much higher than that for the other terms. For the terms "benefitˮ and "profitˮ such pattern not detected. The values of lexical association for all three servers are quite close, if not identical to each other. Any of these terms in a pool of mass publications associated, primarily, with the concept of "securityˮ. Of special note is a lexical unit "goods" / "productsˮ. It is specifically pragmatic (obviously positive) shade of perception (as opposed to ethically-oriented perception of the terms "benefitˮ and "profitˮ). In addition, it is in this case that the intention to connect the term "biosafety" and "biorisk" is much less expressed in public consciousness. On the contrary, the possibility is more powerful in transforming the achievements of genomics and biotechnology into goods. In the Russian-speaking (and other Cyrillic languages) sector of the Web, require the most attention in relation to biosecurity measures is research topics in which there are terms (in order of decreasing coefficient of association), "biotechnologyˮ, "gene(tic) engineeringˮ and "genomeˮ. Note parallel to the association biorisk and biosafety is extremely high. Its particular value in this case goes beyond the resolution of the technique used (Fij≥ 3.0). In the sector of professional publications, this association several orders of magnitude lower. In our opinion, this is a very interesting observation, because the more frequent use of the term "riskˮ and "safetyˮ, respectively can be a direct indicator of the orientation of the individual researcher to risk or warning science. The direct Fij, reflecting the perceptions of the negative aspects of this type of scientific and technological developments, in the mass consciousness, are very high. In the Russian-speaking sector of the Web, almost every publication refers to security issues in the field of biotechnology and genome research (Fij≈ 1). For publications dealing with GMOs, the parameter is 1⁄4, and for genetic engineering – almost 40%. Thus, the risk assessment of the evolution the society exceeds that of the scientific community, although it is possible to note a clear difference between Fij, registered in the pool of North American and Western European scientific publications. There is a very strict opposite examples when high levels of the evolutionary risks associated with technological activity, meets with a very low level of anxiety of public opinion. For example, among experts there is almost complete unanimity regarding the causes of the phenomenon of global warming as a result of the process of human activity. This is what the results of a survey and content analysis of scientific publications say (11 944 articles from 29 083 authors in 1980 scientific journals for the period 1991-2011). 97.2% of publications and authors support the anthropogenic origin of this phenomenon in one way or another. At the same time, the respondentslaypersons showed striking immunity to this type of information. How to write the authors of the cited study, there is a bottomless chasm between the actual consensus of experts and public perception. It is striking, especially given the evidence of the expert consensus that just less than half of the US population believes that scientists agree with the statement that it is people who are responsible for global warming (Cook et al., 2013:6; EEA, 2002). This happens not only because of the nature of the human psyche and the mass perception. Global changes in the environment are regarded as independent kind of human reality, perhaps as a product design activities of transcendental (personalized or impersonal) subjects. This subconscious intention is complemented by another one – about the dangers of direct (not mediated by-objectives) human intrusion into the sphere of influence of these forces. The role of such subjects is not necessarily initially playing transcendent beings (gods, spirits, and so on). Perhaps the source of the formation of such psyche stereotypes could be linked to contacts with competitors on general ecological niche. Equally, if not more important is another factor that is auto programmable technogenesis effect, i.e., separation technology component of the co-evolutionary cycle from other two components of SESH and the subordination of bioand cultural evolution to technologies development. This mechanism is realized through the implementation of the technology by the mind control those systems of perception and behavior that are adaptive within a proper technological (but not humanitarian) evolution. The research team cited here states (Maran, Kleisner, 2010:6-7): a clear image is formed in the mass consciousness through advertising technologies and taking into account the prevailing value priorities and norms. The core element of the image is the "loss of confidence" in the validity of the concept of anthropogenic and technogenic origin of global climate change in the scientific community. These data, in our view, show: Firstly, the fact of a significant divergence of priorities in risk assessment between the intentions of the mass consciousness (culture) and those within the scientific community. This fact reflecting internal trends of development of science in general and of warning knowledge in particular; Secondly, the obvious and a proportional to divergence of mass mentality and scientific knowledge techno-humanitarian imbalance. This imbalance in itself represents a significant threat to the subsequent evolution of adaptive technological innovations. As J.Ziman wrote (Ziman, 2004: 84), "What might be called "post-industrial scienceˮ differs from the earlier stereotype of industrial science by substituting "marketˮ competition (of conceptual populations and research schools of their carriers – Auth.) for "commandˮ managementˮ. Research groups are working, carrying out commands like a small company that produces a competitive product on the market. Commercial enterprise and personal mobility replaces the professional responsibility and career stability as principles of research and development activities. Further, Ziman not without justification declares that the survival of academic, fundamental science in a new social context is very "niceˮ. The transition from classical to post-academician science is coherent transformation of industrial civilization to a phase of information culture, and transformation of the market economy in the knowledge economy. It is accompanied by the appearance in semantic code of the scientific community brands (management, contract administration and control, responsibility, training, employment), unknown here, borrowed from the outside – from a culture of civil society that emerged in the West in the last few centuries (Cheshko, 2012: 329). Thus, the perception of the potential and actual possibilities of transformation of reality through technology-driven evolution is generally positive. While ensuring an adequate level of safety, reducing the evolutionary and other forms of social risk of technological innovation has an absolute priority in the value system. In other words, the question of the benefits and improving the quality of life is important, but it takes only second place in the list of values. The first is the problem of eliminating the risk. So, the first important conclusion from the data is as follows. Sociocultural adaptation of the Industrial Form of Technological Civilization is consisted in the absolute dominance of the representation of the technological module in the cultural module of SESH, but it is no longer an absolute attribute of mentality of Information Society. The second conclusion follows from the parity of the positive ("profitˮ, "benefitsˮ, etc.) and negative ("riskˮ) intentions of perception of technological module. There was also a return to the value system of the socalled traditional society, based on the priority of stability and emphasis on the dangers and the undesirability of any technological innovation. Sociocultural SESH module is currently undergoing bifurcation zone and its condition upon completion of this process, hardly predictable, at least for now. 5.5 Mental predisposition of perception of attributes of humanization and dehumanization as an evolutionary risk factor of gene technologies The next series of studies was devoted to the study of the influence of the socio-cultural evolutionary landscape on the perception of risks to human self-identification. The described techniques were used. The totality of the studied terms was divided into 6 groups involved in the formation of associative links that were taken in account. In accordance with the Wilson-Haslam conceptual model of the psychological predispositions (Wilson, Haslam, 2013), the basis for including in group was the functional adaptive significance of the trait that is denoted by the term for the formation of clusters "HUMAN NATURE" and "HUMANITY". In accordance with the mentality of modern civilization, a sets of traits / signs of each cluster are the criteria for identifying a particular person to "humanity". Conventionally, these groups can be described as follows: 1. Language and thought. 2. Social characteristics I (means of providing communication within the family and with close members of the social environment). 3. Social characteristics II (a means of maintaining the hierarchical structure and activity relationship). 4. Manipulation by fragments of the physical and social environment. 5. Social characteristics III (means of symbolic communication and coordination of actions of individuals). 6. Antisocial symptoms (causing harm to themselves and to other members of the social group). As we assume, there are relatively stable patterns of semantic associations in the populations of scientific online publications and general online publications. Respectively, the patterns reflect the characteristics of the scientific paradigm and mass consciousness. If this premise is true, then the specified pattern can be described in two ways: In terms of the internal structure of verbal and logical relations and socio-cultural and psychological predisposition within the common and scientific pools that is estimated by Fij; In terms of mutual connotations between members of different scientific sub-populations and common mega-population, i.e. as the mutual influences of socio-cultural and psychological predisposition and verbal and logical constructs of the scientific disciplinary matrix. These influences are measured by the relative magnitude of difference association coefficient Fma and correlation r between populations. There are terms with a great frequency that serve to designate mainly human characters and relationships in the pool of Web publications, where there is an association of semantic units "gene technologies" and "humanity". This applies to both the mass mentality, and theoretical constructs of modern disciplinary matrix of anthropology. However, the greatest interest is the rating of the symptoms of affiliation to the humankind. In accordance with our model, it would be expected that the cluster of the "humanity" reflects the deterministic by culture changes only. In this case, the source of the existential evolutionary risk is gene engineered interventions into the substrate basis of the traits included in this cluster. Such interventions may destroy the integrity of the epigenetic processes of providing co-evolutionary bundles of elements of the biological and socio-cultural modules. In addition, gene-technological manipulations with such signs are equivalent to the transfer of the functions of determination and control of their development from the socio-cultural to the biological module. On the contrary, regulation or maintenance within the normal range is desirable and justified in relation to attributes associated with the "human nature". Unconditional demand is the constant composition and frequency distribution of elements within "humanity" cluster in the course of such manipulations. The modern mentality considers attributes that are part of "human nature" cluster as determined by biological heredity only. ˮIn this regard, the frequency distribution of semantic associations is interesting. In the cluster of "humanity", the highest rating are characteristic terms referring to the groups to ensure social structure (the 3rd group of attributes), means of communication and coordination (5th group) and means of rational thinking (1st group). There are "Helping strangers", "Working", "Serving others", "Making things", "Reading", "Writing", "Studying" among them. Their changes have to be considered as the main members of the diagnostic complex of signs of the humanization / dehumanization process controlled by the socio-cultural module of SESH under the influence of technology-driven evolution. Technological manipulation that affecting their material and the substrate, genetic basis should be considered at the mentality of Western civilization as extremely risk. Thus, the absolute priority of maintaining the attributes of the human self-identity have different parameters of social behavior, mainly, and social intelligence, to a lesser extent. Further in this list, as the strength of association with the concept of humanity decreases, there are physiological, morphological features and means of social survival / viability (2nd group) and manipulation with ecological and socio-cultural environment (4th group). Finally, the list closes the signs relating or contributing to antisocial manifestations of behavior, that are destructive for social organization (6th and partially 4th groups). This shift of the spectrum of semantic association represents of particular interest. The sequence of this fragment of the frequency spectrum as follows: "grasping", "drinking", "negotiating", "suicide", "non-vocal communication", "torturing". Immediately struck by several circumstances. Lexical unit "Grasp ing" is multi-valued metaphor. Its contents can be interpreted in three ways. 1. In the term of a morphology and motility, there is the appearance of grasping hand. 2. In the term of a sensorics, there is understanding difficult to interpret the facts or their complexes by separating the essential parameters of the object that in this context can be neglected. 3. In the term of a cognitivistics, there is the development of abstract thinking. In modern psychology, the term "Grasping" is defined as the ability to move together two or more facing each other surfaces in three-dimensional space while maintaining the possibility of free movement of the remaining fragments of held surfaces. The acquisition of this ability stimulated transformations in the sensorimotor system that made possible the development of abstract thinking. Therefore, among the other attributes of human, the highest rating of this trait is quite understandable. The same applies to the ability to achieve a compromise of conflicting interests and the ability to understand and manage their neighbors without the aid of verbal communication. Thus, the grasping term is a member of the group 4 of features, which includes the manipulation by external funds of natural and socio-cultural environment. But it is equally interesting that the other attributes of humanity in this part of the frequency spectrum are more negative than positive emotional, and belong to a group of 6 of self-identification attributes. Moreover, among the terms of this cluster there are few terms related to the provision of basic factors of sapientation in accordance with modern theories of anthropogenesis. We proceed from the assumption that the initial working hypotheses are correct, and the composition and characteristics of the information fragments populations of the Web are really connected with the structure of mental predispositions. Moreover, in the mentality, the unique attributes of the identity of Homo sapiens are associated primarily with the signs that are able to go beyond adaptive norm and detected just by its extreme manifestations. The paradox is that these characteristics are determined by evolutionary semantics of culture, and their optimization by means of gene technology on the same concepts should not be admissible and effective. The shape of the frequency distribution of lexical associations generally monotonic, and shows no abrupt fracture. As we can assume, a structure and composition of mental complex "humanity" not strictly differentiated and its reconstruction in the future is possible. There is a number of concepts associated with "humanity" pool in mentality, and they overlaps with the identical constructs in "human nature" pool. These facts are an additional argument in favor of the high ductility of socio-psychological predisposition on the basis of "humanity". The lexical associations nomogram of the concept "human nature" have a turning point that can be easily detected even visually. It separates the 5 features with the highest rating values from the rest of them. The strongest association found for semantic concepts "Studying", "Sex", "Carrying", "Helping family members", "Solving problems". This set of concepts and designated by them attributes is a mixture of members of the 1st, 2nd and 4th attribute groups. In totality, they provide cognitive processes, and the abilities to reconstruct the habitat and to organize the closest social relations. As to be expected, it is the improvement of cognitive abilities and the reconstruction of sexual behavior that are the most desirable for the objects of technological manipulation in the modern mentality. There are "carrying", "greeting gestures", "impulsive aggression", "numerical reasoning", "paternal care of young" among the attributes of weakly associated with the "humanity" and genetic engineering. Obviously, these signs are not considered as significant in terms of the uniqueness of the human being. Does this mean that these signs of the modern mentality refer to those features of Homo sapiens, which have an animal origin? Let's turn to the cluster of "human nature". Composition of constructs with the lowest frequency of occurrence of the cluster does not coincide with the composition of the previous cluster, in general. So, there are a "gray" area of the frequency spectrum as a set of signs with intermediate frequencies in cluster "humanity", and the area is a wide. Perhaps the possibility of genetically engineering optimization in strong measure will depend on the efficiency of use of the social engineering technology. (Another name is mind control technology.) For the controlled evolution of these traits, the balance of influences of competing influence groups on public opinion will be a significant factor. At least, this thesis is valid for the initial stage of implementation of the relevant technological protocols. Among the semantic constructs with the greatest frequency in both clusters, there are a significant number of names negatively perceived traits. This fact may indicate a significant attention of public opinion to the possibility of technological correction of negative deviations from the norm already established during anthropogenesis, although it does not allow us to reveal the exact dominant attitude towards this possibility. First of all, the mentality fixes the possibility of technological intervention with the aim of maintaining the already established norm, but not with the goal of optimizing the norm as going beyond the already established limits. Even the use of technology to improve the attributes of humanity in the direction of the mental ideal is considered doubtful. It can be expected that the value of this factor will be more significant for concepts with a larger value of association. The mentality more preferably perceived optimization "humanity" attributes through socio-cultural engineering, instead of using the gene and biotechnologies. In other words, the maintenance of human uniqueness should be provided subject to the constancy of the human genome, or that part of the genome that is responsible for these traits. It concerns, first of all, the complex providing individual behavioral adaptation and reconstruction of the socio-cultural environment. Therefore, such optimization should be carried out by individual behavioral and social adaptation and reconstruction of the social and cultural environment, but does not by improve the genome. At least, this thesis is corresponds to a system of value priorities of the modern West (Atlantic) variant of technological civilization. An example of such a reconstruction and its ideological base can serve paradigms of "valeology" in the former Soviet Union and the antipsychiatry at the West. However, this trend weakens or fluctuates over time. As the semantic association of these attributes decreases with the humanity cluster and the association with the human nature cluster increases, the possibilities of using genetic engineering will meet an increasingly favorable social context. The system-forming factor here is the accumulation of relevant scientific data and their proliferation into the mentality of modern society. It is possible to make clearer conclusions by using the relative rather than absolute meanings of the semantic association of the concepts "humanity" and "human nature" in combination with the term "genetic technology". The total frequency distribution pattern of associative links preserved. However, it becomes possible to take into account the significant differences in the frequency of use in the pool of on-line publications these concepts and, accordingly, the size of "humanity" (Nij = 18.3 ∙ 103) and "human nature" (Nij = 6.42 ∙ 106) associative clusters. At least partially, such a significant difference can be explained by the natural focus of this sector of the NBIC-technological complex on the manipulations with the genetic code, not cognitive and sociocultural codes. First, it should note that between the volume of "humanity" and "human nature" clusters and the value of the semantic associations of their constituent terms there is an inverse relationship. At the more numerous cluster value of the coefficient of association is much lower as compared to the alternative ones as in the whole group, and on separate lexical units. Probably, the topics of messages related to global ethical and social problems dissolve here among the mass of technical and pragmatic details. In other words, according to our interpretation, the mentality of modern civilization does not attach great importance to the problem of the evolutionary risk of gene technologies, if the latter do not relate to personal uniqueness. (Uniqueness, we recall, is associated with "humanity", not with "human nature".) In general, this indicates a more favorable perception of the process modifications of genetic and biological module compared with the development of technology control and individual choice as "free willˮ. Mind control of the individual and the social group is filled with more negative attention than the reconstruction of the body organization . A second series of studies was carried out on the pool of scientific publications at site scholar.google.com. In accordance with the initial working hypothesis, it should reflect the structure of the predispositions with respect to the socio-cultural and biological components of the anthropological status of Homo sapiens that actually or potentially subjected to Human Enhancement interventions. In other words, the results should reflect the circulating within the scientific community representation of the relationship between biological and socio-cultural inheritance in the definition of specific traits. Naturally, some differences were between frequency spectra of this indicator in the overall pool of online publications that reflects "public opinion" in general, and a pool of scientific publications that reflects the structure of the disciplinary matrix and predisposition of specialists. The pool of scientific publications, most associated with the concept of "humanity" that reflecting the uniqueness of Homo sapiens, and is provided by socio-cultural module of SESH, proved to the terms "Studying"; "Making things"; "Serving others"; "Helping strangers"; "Speaking"; "Working"; "Practicing" in descending order of frequency values and coefficient of association. At the cluster of "human nature", there is a similar sequence of frequently used terms, and, accordingly, there exist a sequence of most strongly associated with the same concept terms. At the pool of scientific publications, there is a large numbers of lexical units represent sequence with a very near and close to 1 value of semantic of association coefficient (Fij) and some lexical units substantially exceed this value. These points note output of analyzed reports from the area mainly associative links between semantic units in the sphere of primarily verbal and logical links. The latter, in turn, reflect the causal relationship between the designated objects. Thus, the using of a of semantic association criterion becomes incorrect in this case. The most striking example is the frequency of lexical unit "Playing thinking games" of cluster of "human nature" in a pool of scientific publications online. Frequency of the concept are outside the range of values of other concepts (Nij = 4730000; Fij = 268.75). So, this attribute and denoting concept is key parameter of the anthropological characteristics of Homo sapiens, and it is biologically determined ones, in the framework of the existing disciplinary matrix. Note, in the same way, this parameter changed in the case of associations with the concept of "human nature" in the total pool of publications. However, the values of this indicator is lower in the total pool of publications by several orders of magnitude than this parameter in pool of scientific publications. As it should be taken into account, there are substantial, verbal-logical connections established in abstract theoretical structures of the disciplinary matrix, and these connections are more stable and powerful in comparison with associative links. On the other hand, as the same data show the distribution of mental association currently represents a fuzzy projection of scientific and theoretical logical connections within a single logical structure. Thus, according to our researchcomplex the disciplinary matrix of genetechnological complex is focused on the specific features of biological module of SESH. These signs serve as anthropological attributes obviously related to the genome, and the mechanisms of their formation are common in Homo sapiens and other biological organisms. Therefore, quantitative modification of this cluster bears little evidence of an evolutionary risk correlates with the loss of self-identity of culture and media intelligence. The main sources of risk from technological interventions are, Firstly, the directly humanitarian technological schemes for modifying the axiological component of a sociocultural module; and, Secondly, the disintegration of bio-semantic coevolutionary links between the elements of the biological and socio-cultural modules. In both cases, technological interventions violate the integrity of the socio-cultural module. In contrast, according to the same data, the mass consciousness emphasizes precisely those signs that are formed by socio-cultural module of SESH, and reflect the features of the biological module not directly, but as a result of co-evolutionary interaction with biological module or through an additional circuits with the participation of a techno-rationalistic module. Thus, their modification is associated with the higher evolutionary risk of loss of self-identity by Homo sapiens. If there is a discrepancy between the cultural prerequisites and the real organization of "humanity" and "human nature" clusters, the technology can provide ways to actualization of the culture-drived evolutionary scenario. Prerequisites are the availability of technical means for the implementation of such a scenario of the future, powerful pressure of extra-scientific factors on the development of scientific research and the incompleteness of scientific knowledge of the consequences. Thus, the achievement of an existential level of technological risk may arise as a result of both a civilizational crisis and the possibility of extinction or evolutionary divergence of our biological species. In both cases, the reasons are related to interventions in the system of attributes of humanity, determined by biological or socio-cultural inheritance. There are: 1. A direct action of the technological module, which is associated with an increase in the value of evolutionary risk as a result of civilization crisis induced by the destruction of the system of universal human values, induced by the destruction of the system of universal human values; 2. An indirect action of technological module that mediated by the system of mental predispositions, which is associated with an increase in the magnitude of evolutionary risk as a consequence of the deviation of the system of biological species determinants of Homo sapiens. This discrepancy between the socio-cultural and techno-rationalistic spheres of adaptive socio-culture-anthropogenesis fraught with serious conflicts in the future. However, now the intensity of internal conflicts in mentality of modern civilization have not yet reached the threshold of the hard social conflict between its socio-humanitarian, scientific and technological sectors. As already mentioned, evidence of this is insignificant coefficient semantic association of public and scientific research sectors online publications. At the same time, there are sufficiently high coefficients of semantic association of the cluster of "humanity" that suggests considerable research activity of so-called humanitarian technologies that can significantly effect on the associative structure of mentality in the future. So, the result of the implementation of combined social and biotechnological innovations have to extend and improve the quality of life and physical organization of Homo sapiens, and will be determined by the resultant of HN/HU. The current configuration of the Western mentality is characterized by prevalence of HU-component of the Western mentality (from the 1950s) with the continuous growing specific weight of HNcomponent as a reaction to the development of medical biotechnology and genomics. Next, we investigated the structure of semantic associations equivalent forms of East Slavic sector of online publications related to the use of gene technology. In accordance with the initial hypothesis, common pool of Web publications should reflect the characteristics of the mass consciousness and mentality, with their inherent system of evaluation priorities for the various aspects of the topics associated to a particular lexical units (concepts). For this purpose, the matrix was composed of semantic associations studied concepts and terms in the Cyrillic, Russian / Ukrainian, par excellence sector of Google search engines. First of all, we note that the trend to strengthen the association of categorical terminological apparatus of biotechnology with the process of humanization / dehumanization traced here too. The number of references to the concepts of "humanity" and "human nature" is quite significant and increasing over the past 10-15 years here. This trend applies to all considered in this study terms of the conceptual field of biotechnology and genetic engineering. At the same time, both in the scientific online publications, as well as in the total pool, the association of genetic engineering technologies with the concept "humanity" (Nij = 95.000) is much lower in absolute and relative terms compared with the concept of "human natureˮ (Nij = 248.700). In the English-language sector as we can remember, such frequency distribution is characteristic only for scientific publications. Concept "humanity" most strongly associated with the semantic units of "biological safety" (Fij = 0.255), "genome" (Fij = 0.145), "biological risk" (Fij = 0.127) in the total pool of Web publications. In the pool of scientific research publications there is somewhat different rating the most powerful semantic associations: "biological safety" (Fij = 0.315), "biological risk" (Fij = 0.233), "genome" (Fij = 0.164). There are the coefficient of association magnitudes (Fij) of "human nature" with the "biosecurity" and "bio-risk" terms in the total pool of publications that show a sharp jump to 1.91 and 1.141, respectively. So, the magnitudes are beyond the "physical sense". The third and fourth place in the ranking is occupied by a "genome" (Fij = 0.71) and "GMOs" (Fij = 0.85). In the East Slavic sector, there is no two-cluster associative structure of the totality of symptoms, which must be taken into account when assessing the consequences of introducing genetic technologies. Unlike the Englishlanguage sector of the Network, this model did not work or could not be detected by content analysis methods. Indeed, there is the ranking of semantic units most associated with the concept of humanity in the general pool of web publications on gene technologies17: "Fighting" (Nij = 1620); "Game" (Nij = 1370); "Speaking, Talking" (Nij=1210); "Eating" (Nij = 1110); "Writing" (Nij = 974); "Killing" (Nij = 915); "Making Rules"(Nij = 910); "Triumph" (Nij = 795). 17 The English equivalents of the corresponding Eastern Slavonic lexical units are given A similar sequence for the "human nature" is "Fighting" (Nij = 19300); "Game" (Nij = 17500); "Eating" (Nij = 17400); "Making Rules" (Nij = 16800); "Killing" (Nij = 14900); "Speaking, Talking" (Nij = 13300); "Writing" (Nij = 11100); "Triumph" (Nij = 8300) The composition of the two sequences is the same at 87%, and in 3 symptoms ("Fighting", "Game", and "Triumph") their positions in are the same in the frequency spectrum too. Such a coincidence indicates ambivalence attributing most symptoms as belonging to one of the two clusters, and, therefore, and the lack of a clear differentiation between "humanity" and "human nature" in East Slavic Web Sector. In turn, it could be evidence of geopolitical differentiation of Western and Eastern Slavic (post-Soviet) mentality on the impact of modern genetic technologies in the process of humanization / dehumanization of humankind. More precise, we should speak about targeting Latin and Cyrillic cultures. There are noticeable differences between the structure of associative connections, the total volume of "human nature" or "humanity" in the East Slavic sector of the Network. These facts indirectly cast doubt on the hypothesis of the shortcomings of the method as an alternative explanation of the above results. Our methodology made it possible to reveal that the value of Fij in the "humanity" cluster is lower in the general pool of publications, and exceeds it in the pool of scientific publications compared to the "human nature" cluster. For the English-speaking sector, there are reverse relations. The average values of the association coefficient, Fij are ranked sequences in each group of characters. This series can be presented in the general pool of publications as follows. Cluster "humanity": 1. Group 4 – The manipulation by fragments of the physical and social environment, Fij = 0.00245 ± 0.0029. 2. Group 1 – Language and thought, Fij = 0.00240 ± 0.0025. 3. Group 6 – Antisocial symptoms (causing harm to themselves and to other members of the social group), Fij = 0.0017 ± 0.0017. 4. Group 3 – Social signs II (a means of maintaining the hierarchical structure and activity relationship), Fij = 0.00106 ± 0.0014. 5. Group 2 – Social characteristics I (means of providing communication within the family and with close members of the social environment), Fij = 0.0007 ± 0.00084. 6. Group 5 – Social characteristics III (means of symbolic communication and coordination of actions of individuals), Fij = 0.00048 ± 0.00041. A cluster "human nature": 1. Group 4 – The manipulation by fragments of the physical and social environment, Fij = 0.155 ± 0.186. 2. Group 1 – Language and thought, Fij = 0.146 ± 0.168. 3. Group 3 – Social characteristics II (a means of maintaining the hierarchical structure and activity relationship), Fij = 0.062 ± 0.126. 4. Group 6 – Antisocial symptoms (causing harm to themselves and to other members of the social group) Fij = 0.0523 ± 0.0622. 5. Group 2 – Social characteristics I (means of providing communication within the family and with close members of the social environment), Fij = 0.049 ± 0.053. 6. Group 5 – Social characteristics III (means of symbolic communication and coordination of actions of individuals), Fij = 0.0196 ± 0.0178. The pool of scientific publications ranked similar sequence as follows. Cluster "humanity: 1. Group 1 – Language and thought, Fij = 0.229 ± 0.204. 2. Group 4 – The manipulation by fragments of the physical and social environment, Fij = 0.220 ± 0.234. 3. Group 3 – Social characteristics II (a means of maintaining the hierarchical structure and activity relationship), Fij = 0.159 ± 0.224. 4. Group 6 – Antisocial symptoms (causing harm to themselves and to other members of the social group), Fij = 0.158 ± 0.146. 5. Group 2 – Social characteristics I (means of providing communication within the family and with close members of the social environment), Fij = 0.076 ± 0.075. 6. Group 5 – Social characteristics III (means of symbolic communication and coordination of actions of individuals), Fij = 0.067 ± 0.045. A cluster of "human nature": 1. Group 1 – Language and thought, Fij = 0.171 ± 0.163. 2. Group 4 – The manipulation by fragments of the physical and social environment, Fij = 0.165 ± 0.191. 3. Group 3 – Social characteristics II (a means of maintaining the hierarchical structure and activity relationship), Fij = 0.110 ± 0.18. 4. Group 6 – Antisocial symptoms (causing harm to themselves and to other members of the social group), Fij = 0.080 ± 0.085. 5. Group 2 – Social characteristics I (means of providing communication within the family and with close members of the social environment), Fij = 0.059 ± 0.059. 6. Group 5 – Social characteristics III (means of symbolic communication and coordination of actions of individuals), Fij = 0.039 ± 0.026. This data can be compared with earlier English-language sector of the Network. The total pool of English sector of the Web publication of the average value of each group of signs Fij has following ranked order. Cluster "humanity": 1. Group 1 – Language and thought, Fij = 0.285 ± 0.171. 2. Group 5 – Social signs III (means of symbolic communication and coordination of actions of individuals), Fij = 0.246 ± 0.00137. 3. Group 2 – Social characteristics I (means of providing communication within the family and with close members of the social environment), Fij = 0.211 ± 0.0012. 4. Group 6 – Antisocial symptoms (causing harm to themselves and to other members of the social group), Fij = 0.143 ± 0.159. 5. Group 4 – The manipulation by fragments of the physical and social environment, Fij = 0.128 ± 0.0002. 6. Group 3 – Social signs II (a means of maintaining the hierarchical structures and activity relationships), Fij = 0.0232 ± 0.00017. A cluster of "human nature": 1. Group 1 – Language and thought, Fij = 0.0008 ± 0.00049. 2. Group 2 – Social characteristics I (means of providing communication within the family and with close members of the social environment), Fij = 0.0006 ± 0.00000024. 3. Group 5 – Social characteristics III (means of symbolic communication and coordination of actions of individuals), Fij = 0.00056 ± 0.00000022. 4. Group 6 – Antisocial symptoms (causing harm to themselves and to other members of the social group), Fij = 0.00041 ± 0.00045. 5. Group 4 – The manipulation by fragments of the physical and social environment, Fij = 0.00037 ± 0.00000014. 6. Group 3 – Social characteristics II (a means of maintaining the hierarchical structure and activity relationship), Fij = 0.000066 ± 0.000000026. The pool of scientific publications of English sector of the Web publication. These sequences are as follows. Cluster "humanity": 1. Group 1 – Language and thought, Fij = 0.713 ± 0.365. 2. Group 3 – Social signs II (a means of maintaining the hierarchical structure and activity relationship), Fij = 0.712 ± 0.261. 3. Group 4 – The manipulation by fragments of the physical and social environment, Fij = 0.541 ± 0.0029. 4. Group 5 – Social characteristics III (means of symbolic communication and coordination of actions of individuals), Fij = 0.485 ± 0.329. 5. Group 2 – Social characteristics I (means of providing communication within the family and with close members of the social environment), Fij = 0.448 ± 0.305. 6. Group 6 – Antisocial symptoms (causing harm to themselves and to other members of the social group), Fij = 0.314 ± 0.304. A cluster of "human nature": 1. Group 4 – The manipulation by fragments of the physical and social environment, Fij = 1.142 ± 0.0012. 2. Group 6 – Antisocial symptoms (causing harm to themselves and to other members of the social group), Fij = 1.0625 ± 0.0005006. 3. Group 3 – Social signs II (a means of maintaining the hierarchical structure and activity relationship), Fij = 1.051 ± 0.067. 4. Group 5 – Social signs III (means of symbolic communication and coordination of actions of individuals), Fij = 1.036 ± 0.0003. 5. Group 1 – Language and thought, Fij = 1.029 ± 0.042. 6. Group 2 – Social characteristics I (means of providing communication within the family and with close members of the social environment), Fij = 1.016 ± 0.338. The sequence of the ranks of the attributes of "humanity" in a cluster can be clearly presented as follows. GENERAL (TOTAL) POOL 4 1 6 3 2 5 (Cyrillic) 1 5 2 6 4 3 (Latin) POOL OF SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS 1 3 4 5 2 6 (Cyrillic) 1 5 2 6 4 3 (Latin) in a cluster of "human natureˮ the same scheme is follows GENERAL (TOTAL) POOL 4 1 3 6 2 5(Cyrillic) 1 2 5 6 4 3 (Latin) POOL OF SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS 1 4 3 6 2 5(Cyrillic) 4 6 3 5 1 2 (Latin) There are obvious difference in the structure of semantic associations of text fragments in the Englishand Russian-Ukrainian segment of the Network. The same can be said of the relationship between sectorial structures of common pool of publications and a pool of scientific publications. At the Cyrillic sector of the Network, there are the most significant associations between attributes of humanity and the attributes of human as a biosocial being that marked according to ability to abstract thinking, language and purposeful reconstruction of material and spiritual reality. It appears necessary to use a fuzzy expression, perhaps even a metaphor, "affiliation to humankind" in view of the lack of a clear differentiation of mental predisposition to "human nature" that is provided by the biological inheritance, and to the "humanity" that is provided by socio-cultural inheritance. However, even more important is another circumstance. 2rd and 3rd positions in the ranked list of signs of humanity and human nature take indications of the ability to maintain a hierarchical social organization, and a social behavior. Characteristically, the largest association coefficient (Fij = 0.6795 ± 0.0123 for the first cluster and Fij = 0.5791 ± 0.00366 for the second ones) has a lexical unit "Fighting" (group 4) among scientific publications. This lexical design has a constructive / destructive emotion coloring. High values Fij are also lexical units "Bullying others, Rape" (Fij = 0.385 ± 0.0134 for the 1st cluster) and "Torturing" (Fij = 0.3077 ± 0.0120 and Fij = 0.1414 ± 0.00182 for the 11st and 2nd clusters, respectively), "Drinking" (Fij = 0.221 ± 0.0097 and Fij = 0.1549 ± 0.00196), "Killing" (Fij = 0.28525 ± 0.0115 and Fij = 0.1418 ± 0.00183). In the 3th group, there are the "Following Rulesˮ (Fij = 0.7404 ± 0.0108 and Fij = 0.6221 ± 0.00353), "Organizingˮ (Fij = 0.4615 ± 0.0140 and Fij = 0.276 ± 0.003), "Workingˮ (Fij = 0.157 ± 0.0074 and Fij = 0.1371 ± 0.00177), " Helping strangersˮ (Fij = 0.128 ± 0.0063 and Fij = 0.0466 ± 0.00066), " Compassion, Empathyˮ (Fij = 0.138 ± 0.0067 and Fij = 0, 0585 ± 0.00082), " Criticism, Judging othersˮ (Fij = 0.186 ± 0.0085 and Fij = 0.1214 ± 0.0016). They are a lexical structure with high values Fij too. The lowest rank in the sequence have symptoms related to the provision of basic communication links within the social group and ensuring coordinated the activities of individuals, primarily with the use of various forms of symbolic communication. We can come to the following conclusion as it reflects the above results content analysis of Web publications. The structure of the East Slavic mentality is characterized by elements with a higher association of technological transformation possibilities in relation to • Ability to strengthen the vertical of social communication in society (i.e. proto-power); and • The ability of some people to resist the norms of social behavior, even if it implies the destruction of society and the self-destruction of the individual (that is, incompatibility, rebellion, revolutionism). These predisposition contradictory mental prepositions exist in the evolving post-Soviet mentality in parallel. Is this trend invariant sociocultural type; or it is the result of stochastic fluctuations of the last few decades or centuries of historical development? It can be found only as a result of further study of the system. Unlike, a higher association observed for the attributes of linguistics and thinking, symbolic communication and maintenance of structures in small social groups as family, closest social environment at the English Websector. Along with this, the high rank has an association of gene technologies with asocial behavior in the pool of scientific online publications. As can be assumed too, cross-sectorial differences reflect specificities of the correlative value priorities of individualistic and communitarian intentions. In this case, the content analysis revealed a specific orientation towards a high positive or negative priority of technological modifications of the micro-social environment in the Western mentality. In parallel, this reflected a specific focus on changing the macro-parameters of the social system in the East Slavic mentality. Finally, there is an obvious similarity between the patterns of the associative structure of the general and scientific pools of publications in the English-speaking sector of the Network, in contrast to the East Slavic sector. It is also an essential factor for calculating the possible civilizational and anthropological stability of evolutionary trends. The high association coefficients in the pool of scientific publications speak of an adequate conceptualization of the elements of clusters of high humanity and human nature in the general transdisciplinary paradigm of the biomedical and genetic technologies of the high hume segment. There is a power of the mutual influence of the mental context and theoretical constructs of modern biotechnology paradigm that we evaluated by the ratio of the correlation coefficient of associative complexes and the mismatch association criterion (ΔFma). Both the Englishand in the Eastern Slavic Web-sector correlation coefficient of associative structures of scientific and mass media publications is much higher than in the cluster of "humanity", reaching a value of r = +0.791. Range of values of the correlation coefficient in the interval from 0.636 to 0.929. There are high positive values of the correlation coefficient in the express negative values of ΔFma for the general pool publications and positive values of the same indicator in the pool of scientific Web-publications. This indicates a significant influence of scientific and theoretical structures on the formation of mass consciousness. In general, average ΔFma are not extremely high in absolute value. Alternative pattern would indicate strong instability of techno-humanitarian balance and, accordingly, confirm the significant magnitude of the sociocultural and technological components of the evolutionary risk. In fact, the value of ΔFma at different groups of signs is concentrated in -2.0 to -2.8 to a common pool of publications and + 0.6 to +0.7 at scientific publications. There are only three points a high risk value, at least in the future. This is diagnosed by the magnitude of the divergence of associative patterns in the general and scientific pools of the Network. These points are the differences in the assessment of the significance of "non-voice communications" (ΔFma = 0.986 for the general pool, and ΔFma = -68.31 for the pool of scientific publications) "self-harm" (ΔFma = 0.95 and ΔFma = -19.0) and "Carrying" (ΔFma = -1679 and ΔFma = 0.92). The combination of indicators Fij and ΔFma suggests a stimulation of interest to scientific research by the social and cultural context, in the first case and deceleration in the rest. The relatively low values of the association coefficients do not allow us to conclude that the evolutionary risk is critical in terms of its technical and humanitarian components. In the general pool of publications of the English sector, there are third group of attributes (a means of maintaining the hierarchical social communication and activity) and fourth group of attributes (manipulation by fragments of the physical and social environment) that falls out from the total series of publications (r = 0.645 and r = 0.636 respectively). In a "human nature" cluster, there are correlations of associative patterns of the general pool of Web publications and pool of scientific publications significantly that are lower and in some cases has the opposite orientation (r = 0.002 with a range of -0.387 to +0.393). Negative correlation of associative patterns observed in third group (r = -0.387) and sixth group (r = -0.165). The last group represents various manifestations of antisocial behavior. Therefore, contradictory picture of the techno-humanitarian balance develops in a "human nature" cluster of English Web sector of publications. This conclusion is supported by prominent negative average magnitude of the difference of semantic associations between pools of publications (ΔFma). The range of values is between -3.2 ± 0.07 (group 1 – the attributes of language and thought) to 178.9 ± 167.1 (Group 6 – antisocial features). Within the group, values of ΔFma change from negative to positive magnitudes. In accordance to the working model, it corresponds to the predominance of scientific discourse to mass consciousness at technohumanitarian balance formation. The highest positive correlations observed at 4th group (r = + 0.387) of this cluster. It can be explained by of detection of contradictions between the scientific paradigm and system of social and psychological predisposition about the environmental prospects of technological transformation. In other words, co-evolutionary bunch of opposing elements (interests and values) is formed. Superposed conceptual fields of axiological and epistemological discourses is the reason for this. In the classical phase of industrial civilization, these forms of discourse do not overlap. In our opinion, the scan results are even more interesting in the East Slavic sector of the network based on Cyrillic. There are the extremely high values of ΔFma at associative patterns of "humanity" cluster; the correlation is also extremely high, r = 0.927; and, in the group, the range of r magnitudes is not lower 0,877. In a cluster of "human nature", a magnitudes of these parameters are much lower. General correlation between pools of mass media and scientific publications is absent almost, and mean group values are in the negative side of the scale and fluctuate from 0 to -0.539 of this index. In other words, this area has currently the most potential and actual available for technological manipulation; and mentalities of the population and the scientific community are evolving in almost opposite directions. Most likely, the associative structure of scientific communications determined by the actual verbal and logical connections within the scientific paradigm to a much greater extent than by the scale of value priorities of post-Soviet society. (A paradigmatic matrix, of course, is the same in English and Cyrillic sectors of network.) In the Cyrillic sector, there is a predominance of elements of scientific (descriptive), rather than social and ethical (imperative) discourses in the formation of the techno-humanitarian balance on the following points: 1. "Suicide" (ΔFma = 1591.6 and ΔFma = -1.57 respectively; 6th Group). 2. "Fighting" (ΔFma = -95.52 in a scientific pool, the ΔFma value is not statistically significant in the total pool; 4th group), "Navigating obstacles" (ΔFma = -86.47; 4th group) "Following Rules" (ΔFma = -84.219 and ΔFma = 3.158; 3rd group). 3. "Triumph" (ΔFma = -75.83; 4th group), "Judging others" (ΔFma = 36.938; 3rd group), "Acting Pretending" (ΔFma = -18.381; 5th Group), "Forming social groups" (ΔFma = -16.44 and ΔFma = -11.07; 2nd group). 4. "Scanning and Exploring the environment" (ΔFma = -10.35 and ΔFma = -15.85; 2nd group), "intellectual playsˮ (ΔFma = -8.769; 1st group). 5. "Torturing" (ΔFma = -7.034; 6th Group). 6. "Ingenuity" (ΔFma = -5.833; 1st group), "Maternal care for young" (ΔFma = -4.14; 2nd Group). 7. "Working" (ΔFma = -3.663; 3rd group), " Playing physical games" (ΔFma = -2.117; 4th group), "Practicing" (ΔFma = -1.571; 3rd group). (Lexical units are listed in the English translation.) In this rating, the first place of suicidal behavior is probably explained by the following way. At a low magnitude of semantic association in the public mind (5,4 ∙ 10-5), suicide is considers a consequence of personal choices and social conditions. The genetic background of this phenomenon have been identified and the possibility of its modifications by genetic engineering technology has been widely discussed in science. There are the following members of this series, which are defined by or related to social status. The specificity of these features consists in the inseparability of anthropological (substantive) and social (functional) semantic connotations. However, this disadvantage cannot be eliminated using the content analysis methodology. The prevalence of the problems of social and legal regulation is quite understandable in the problems of scientific publications on medical and technological innovations There is a correlation of these social behavioral traits with genetic and epigenetic factors that have been discovered in the past decade. It creates a rather noticeable trend for reductionist scientific publications. The sociopsychological predisposition of West civilization is quite strongly opposed to this process due to cognitive dissonance with basic mental predispositions. Manifestations of antisocial behavior are the next part of the sequence of attributes. They are represented by symptoms that in different degrees characterize various signs of a person's mental and physical condition. These attributes are distributed across all six groups, and the average group parameters is as follows in the total pool of "human nature" of East Slavic sector. Group 1 – ΔFma = -3.2 ± 0.07 r = -0.07 Group 2 – ΔFma = -4.7 ± 0.14 r = -0.539 Group 3 – ΔFma = -10.7 ± 0.65 r = -0.240 Group 4 – ΔFma = 0.155 ± 0.186 r = -0.340 Group 5 – ΔFma = -5.1 ± 0.16 r = -0.358 The pool of scientific publications has its own outsiders. Possibility of technological reconstruction of these features attracted much less attention of professionals compared to the total pool of publication. (The latter reflect the structure of preferences of the mass consciousness.) The set of these signs include: "Making artˮ (ΔFma = -85.85), "Impulsive aggression" (-35.844), "Sex" (-20.30), "Eating" (-17.36), "Manipulating objects" (-11.224), "Performing calculations", (-5.12), "Negotiating" (4.72), "Verbal communication" (-4.136) and "Performing repetitive tasks" (-3.424). For these attributes, there are significantly higher expectations and assessments of the technological manipulation possibilities within the framework of predisposition and intentions of the mass consciousness in comparison with the scientific community. Obviously, the sociocultural psychological predispositions of the East Slavic mentality expect that gene technology has already gone out or will soon go beyond the scope of methods for correcting purely biologically determined pathological behavior. At the same time, the significance of the biological factor is considered in the East Slavic mentality somewhat higher than is allowed by scientific theories with regard to the abilities of artistic creativity, sexual behavior and irrational social behavior. In this connection, the high mismatch association index of impulsive aggression is particularly interesting (ΔFma = -35.844). On the contrary, calculated, deliberate aggression or hostility is evaluated equally, the association coefficients are very close in both pools. Obviously, instrumentalism may be a key differentiator to unequal perception of the importance of changes in the process of humanization / dehumanization of aggressiveness, and the same applies to the prospects of technological control of aggressiveness. Rational forms of aggressiveness are instrumentalistic by definition, since they imply intellectual modeling of the situation and the calculation of the effectiveness of possible ways to achieve the goals. Presumably, that confidence in the high specific gravity of irrational, "animalˮ motivation in the origin and development of social conflicts is the dominant psychological and socio-cultural predisposition here. Based on the comparison of characterize our model parameters of potential (ΔFma) and current (r) violations of techno-humanitarian balance, the conflicts are detected in a large number of points of associative structures patterns. However, the critical (existential) level was achieved in no item by the imbalance of scientific and theoretical constructions and the predisposition of the East Slavic mentality. Moreover, the magnitude of the imbalance is essential to verify the results of the concepts of social studies in no item. The exceptions are 2nd Group and 6th Group , perhaps. (In the latter case, it concerns the individual socially important features.) Such a big difference patterns of semantic association of English and Eastern Slavic sectors of Network is reflected in the magnitude of the correlation between clusters and between pools publications. Eastern Slavic and English sectors demonstrate significant correlation only in the "humanity" cluster of scientific publications pool (r = 0.67). In all other cases, it varies between 0.02 – 0.03 in magnitude. It seems that the structure of associative and logical connections in comparable sectors in clusters of "humanity" and "human nature" based on a completely different system of values and priorities and predispositions on the possibilities of technological reconstruction. Most likely, two conclusions can be made from the data of the East Slavic Web sector and, in particular, on the low coefficients of correlation of parameters of the general and scientific pools of online publications: There is a more stable balance between the components of technohumanitarian balance and, consequently, There is a smaller relative importance of extra-scientific factors of gene technology developments in the West, compared to the post-Soviet geopolitical space. These conclusions may seem paradoxical, given the intensity and scope of the various alarmist movements opposing gene technologies in the West. The contradiction is resolved by taking into account 1. An extensive and influential system of social, judicial and administrative control over the implementation of new technologies through bioethics committees, government bodies, etc. and 2. A relatively high level of development of the associative structure of the predispositions of mass consciousness and mentality. At the same time, the balance between the public and the administrative control is clearly shifted toward administrative control measures, and as follows from extremely low values of Fij, public opinion is potentially capable to sharp fluctuations in the post-Soviet geopolitical space. In a political and social crisis, such instability could potentially lead to significant pressure on the implementation of technological innovations in the field of controlled evolution. However, it is necessary to take into account the priority of maintaining macro-social stability inherent in the post-Soviet mentality, which was also revealed according to our analysis. In this case, the administrative control is able to provide the high level of stability of the evolutionary trend of technohumanitarian and techno-biological ligaments of SESH. As the necessary conditions of stability, there are • Low magnitudes of the association of basic values and gene technological topics in the general system of mentality that manifested as "public opinionˮ; • Consistently high magnitudes of this parameter in the scientific community; • The coincidence of the original predispositions of the scientific community and the political elite. Based on our data, the first two conditions are present, and the third one is in an uncertain state. With regard to the thesis sustained high values Fij within the scientific community, we note that Fij in Cyrillic sector inferior to these parameters in the English sector. In the English sector, the average group values of the association coefficient are higher than 1 for the first members of the ranked sequence in the "human nature" cluster. Given the nature of the search engine, this means that the attributes of the cluster integrated into the logical-semantic structure of the text. Thus, there are leaders of "human nature" cluster, and these attributes have already been identified as the most promising objects for gene manipulation technology of Human Enhancement. This conclusion relates primarily to adjustment of pathological (antisocial) attributes: a 6th group in a cluster of "human natureˮ is ranked second in the order of English scientific publications. In the sector of scientific publications based on the Cyrillic alphabet, these values are lower by several orders of magnitude and patterns rated sequences differ significantly from the English pool. A 6th Group is shifted significantly towards the end of the scale. Perhaps, biomedical technologies evaluate the idea of genetic correction of social pathologies with greater caution in the post-Soviet geopolitical space at the present time. So, the impact east-Slavic historical experience of the twentieth century is obvious in our view. Over the past 100 years the thesis of social conditioning of human nature was in the mentality of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union part of the official or semi-official ideological doctrine. The history of "racial hygiene" in Nazi Germany and the "genetic discussions" in the former Soviet Union had a strong influence on the predispositions structure of intellectual and scientific elites in post-Soviet countries in contradiction to the influence of the latest scientific research and technological innovations. 306 CHAPTER 6. CONCLUSION. EVOLUTION AS THE TECHNOLOGICAL REALIZATION OF REASONABLE CREATION Valentin T.Cheshko In the study, the organization of SESH has consistently been considered from three perspectives. There are: 1. The nature of the carrier as the substrate of adaptive information in biological, socio-cultural and techno-rationalistic SESH modules. This aspect turns out to be equivalent to different ways of replication of adaptive information as genetic, socio-cultural and symbolic inheritance; 2. The nature of the connection between generation and adaptivity of the information as the Darwin-Weisman mode and the Lamarck mode; 3. The nature of communication of various adaptations, the result of which is their integration into a single stable evolutionary strategy as coevolutionary informatics and co-evolutionary semantics. This aspect turns out to be equivalent to the mechanism of repayment of evolutionary conflicts between different adaptations. So, the stable adaptive strategy of Homo sapiens is a superposition of three different adaptive information arrays or modules that are biological, socio-cultural and techno-rationalistic ones. They are based on three autonomous processes of generation, replication and implementation of adaptive information. In this case, the third component of SESH is 307 directed equally to the adaptive transformation of the habitat and the carrier itself that are a hominines. This aspect of the SESH implementation can thus be called an informational one. As another aspect of implementing SESH functions, a co-evolutionary semantics is a time-varying code of correspondence between members of pair wise co-evolutionary connectives. Some researchers use the term semiotic co-optation to refer to this phenomenon (Maran, 2010) that is equivalent to the "co-evolutionary semantics used in our study. Accordingly, we consider that the terms coevolutionary informatics and semiotic selection are equal, since the correspondence of biological and sociocultural modules is achieved by means of mutual selective pressure in the latter case. Thus, there should be an operator defining the rules of pairwise comparison of information arrays of the three modules, and this comparison is carried out either by the system of objectified interests as praxeologically oriented knowledge, or by a system of subjective values as psychological predispositions. Replication of interests is carried out within the rational-technological module by mechanisms of symbolic inheritance. Replication of value priorities is carried out within the framework of the socio-cultural module and, accordingly, by socio-cultural inheritance (i.e. cultural tradition). If the main "purpose" of interests is evolutionary efficiency as the material survival of SESH carriers, then the content of evolutionary correctness as a similar parameter to values is determined by their ability to ensure the maintenance of self-identity. There are an influences of culture and the pool of technological schemes of the High Hume class on the structure and composition of Homo sapiens populations that can be divided into two separate types in accordance with the selection / semantics dichotomy of the mechanisms of inter-modular co-evolution by phenomenologically. The first type is changes in the frequencies of individual genes and the prevalence of specific technologies and their applications. It is an information coevolution. The second type is increase in the level of genetic and technological polymorphism because of the complexity of the network structure of links between elements of different modules. It is a semantic co-evolution. Note, the semantic mechanism of communication between modules proceeds very quickly and immediately affects a complex of biological features in the biological time scale. As result, the change in the structure 308 of communicative-co-evolutionary links can be considered as discrete phenomena, i.e. genetic-cultural co-evolution and techno-humanitarian balance. For example, the genetic polymorphism of a specific nucleotide DNA sequence is preserved even after the elimination of the selective pressure of the corresponding socio-cultural type. With the change of one set of sociocultural predispositions by others, the total variability of the genome should accumulate. Indeed, if the examples of fixation or elimination of certain structural genes are relatively few in a population under the influence of socio-cultural factors, the correlation between the levels and structure of genetic polymorphism and socio-cultural types will not be questioned (Borinskaya, 2015). Even more interestingly, the latest pattern of cultural influence on the organization of the genome extends from the human genome itself to the genomes of "cultivated" biological species, whose existence and evolution now depend on humans. In the genome of such species is formed by the sub-genome, which ensures the communication of biological evolution with the evolving system of socio-cultural predispositions (Glazko, 2014: 30). Thus, the comparison of the results of the definition of adaptability by the methods of biological and cultural anthropology can serve as another empirical counterfeiter of the SESH concept presented. The evolutionary correctness is a main parameter connecting the two data sets. Like the system of value-semantic priorities and predispositions, evolutionary correctness is capable to discrete fluctuations in the biological time scale in the instrumental plane. Thus, the evolutionary risk may increase abruptly to the existential level not only as a result of anthropogenic catastrophe, but also because of changes in the system of value priorities and semantic connotations associated with technological progress. On the other hand, such organization is capable to a spontaneous increase of systemic complexity, and its various components assume the role of leader at different stages of socio-anthropogenesis. Approximately 350-400 years ago, a technological civilization emerged, and its feature is the permanent expansion of the "socio-environment niche" as sphere of control by Homo sapiens and in parallel to escalation of the risks of anthropogenic impact. It seems quite logical to make two clarifications. 309 The adaptability of SESH as a whole is determined not only by the reproduction of the corresponding information arrays, but also by the corresponding semantics of co-evolutionary inter-modular relations. For this reason, the spread of new systemic socio-cultural innovations cannot be carried out as simple contact infection or diffusion. It requires the inflow of biological carriers of the corresponding co-evolutionary semantics. This conclusion was confirmed by empirical observations of the relationship between the spread of dairy cattle and the invasion of ethnic groups that were carriers of the gene for the constant activity of lactase. Previously it was believed that this process was of the type of simple technological borrowing and socio-cultural imitation (Allentoft et al., 2014). Obviously, there is some consistency between periods of a sharp increase in the magnitude of evolutionary risk with periods of the "scientific and technological revolution" and periods of radical reconstructions of the dominant value systems in society. As a result, there are destabilization and potential unpredictable stochastic fluctuations of the structure of co-evolutionary connections between the elementary adaptations of different modules and of actual adaptive meaning of each element. The system of prevailing in society value priorities has a structure including several levels. There are personal unconditional interests, group conventional standards, abstract and theoretical universal values (Kohlberg, 1969; Prehn et al., 2015)18. Above all, there is possibility of relatively rapid reconstruction, that radically changing the semantics of the cultural module and biological or techno-rationalistic ones in the area of group norms and predispositions on specific attributes humanization / dehumanization. As a result, the adaptive landscape may be reformatted quickly. An example is a radical revision of value priorities with respect to traditional and non-traditional sexual orientation in the Western mentality from 1970 to 2015. Universal values are practically unrelated to the transformation of sociocultural and psychological predisposition, and the results of these 18Two publications cited; first item is classical publication on social ethics of Lawrence Kohlberg, the second ones is study on experimental neuroscience that after half-century by neuro-morphology methods empirically substantiated biological substrate base of L.Kolberg philosophical constructs. 310 changes are interpretative in relation to the scope of the right of individual choice and, accordingly, the diagnosis of norms and deviations. This process is not completed now. However, the result will be of systemic importance for the trends of the future human development. As it can be concluded, group standards are most subject to evolutionary transformations in three levels of value priorities and corresponding sociocultural predispositions. A more stable elements of this set are individual interests as most closely associated with the living requirements of biological module and universal values as the most abstract, distant from the objective reality and close to rationalistic module. However, the perturbations effect of group relations and attributes of humanization / dehumanization, in particular, is extended by means of evolutionary-semantic transmission to the biological module and, in turn, destroys the rules of semantic matching of a module with the two remaining modules. By virtue of this secondary impact, the elements of the SESH biological module are extended to a system of objective "interests", and then to the remaining levels of the socio-cultural module. There is a fixation of a certain set of group norms and, therefore, there is a revision of universal values, since the latter are a reflection of projective group norms and individual interests. Therefore, a certain part of biological adaptations in the new sociocultural context becomes elements of the genetic load, i.e. they are either adaptive or selectively neutral. On the contrary, part of the selectively harmful or neutral components of the genome acquire adaptive meaning. With regard to technological innovation, in their totality, they are clearly aimed at fragmentation of biological adaptive complex and separation of its constituent interlocking adaptations such as sexual and reproductive functions on independent cultivated patterns. Thomas Kuhn explored scientific and technological revolutions as a paradigm shift some time ago in the classic monograph of 1962, but the evolutionary significance of sociocultural transformations is beginning to become clear only now. Meanwhile, socio-cultural inheritance is also capable to a radical overhaul of its structure and composition. An additional complicating circumstance is the relative independence of each module. For example, the "macro-mutation" of cultural and psychological predispositions is aimed, first of all, at preserving the structural distribution of subcultures within this type of civilization. Only 311 later can it spread to the composition of elements of the biological module of SESH. However, in the relative balance of gene-cultural and techno-cultural co-evolutionary semantics, the configuration of the entire system does not allow an uncontrolled transition to an existential risk level. A prerequisite is the absence of a direct impact of the SESH techno-rationalistic module on biological and sociocultural modules. Earlier, we formulated the conditions for such semantic stability from the point of view of social and humanitarian knowledge. The basic mentality of the West serves a person's desire to achieve the ultimate ideal or as metaphor, "Per aspera ad astra – Through thorns to the stars". It is complemented by the second intention of the sacred and at the same time, putting limits to this ideal, "Ad imaginem suam ad imaginem Dei –The image and likeness of God"; And by the third intention that emphasis on the absolute priority of the uniqueness of the human person, "Unus ex nobis – One of Usˮ, God says about Adam. Thus, the actualization of the desire to bring together the "World of Entity" and the "World of Proper" receive the nature of the movement to the Absolute, ultimate goal or "Omega Pointˮ, as Teilhard de Chardin called it (Cheshko, 2012:11, 506). In an objectified, freed from metaphor form, the same thesis is reduced to the statement, that one of the basic predispositions of the mentality of technological civilization is the trend towards the liberation of the social role and social status of the individual from the conditioning by biological substrate (by genome, especially) as the criterion of social and evolutionary progress. In the semantic theory of the culture genesis by the Russian investigator Andrei Pelipenko (2016), human civilization passes through two macro-stages of evolution. The time line between them takes place in the 5th century BC. We will call them mythological or traditional and technological civilizations. In turn, the evolution of the technological macro-stage has one more point of divergence. At this point, two cultural formations diverge to 312 1. The so-called logocentric phase of the evolutionary stage of the technological civilization that is characterized by axiological interpretation of objective reality and by value priority of the transformation of the external habitat in accordance with some ideal image; and 2. The personal phase that is characterized by the realization of personified existential projects and by the value priority of selfexpression, not only in the spiritual and in the bodily meaning. The author of this concept believes that the personal phase is more progressive, which displaces the logoocentric socio-cultural type. Following the logic of this model, the trajectory of cultural evolution is a combination of two evolutionary trends. These are macro-cultural transformations leading to the expansion of socio-cultural habitat as a vertical trend and local adaptation to the conditions of existence as horizontal trend. However, identification of the personal phase is difficult. The technological realization of individual existential projects implies the local adaptation of the individual to a personal socio-cultural niche based on free choice, and the disintegration of humanity into biologically different communities. This trend, in turn, is balanced by an irrational fear of a possible intervention in the human psyche from the outside, violating the free will of the individual and causes him to act contrary to his "human nature". It can be traced at least since biblical times and legends about werewolves and vampires, through gothic novels of 18th century to modern thrillers and science fiction at most recent years. The system of socio-cultural balances to ensure the identity of Homo sapiens has been very stable, but only until the birth of technology-driven evolution. At this point, the ontological antinomy of evolution versus intelligent design has been completely overcome by West civilization. As a result, there were restrictions due to limited technical means of transforming reality, but they are surmountable, at least in potentio. The semantic code of humanization / dehumanization remains the only stabilizer of the current SESH configuration in the global evolutionary process. However, in itself, it is subject to significant stochastic oscillations and is open to technological interventions and, therefore, requires permanent monitoring. With the advent of High Hume technology, the risk level approached the existential level of significance. At the existential level of 313 technological risk is an evolutionary risk since leads to the genesis of disappearance of humanity as a species, by definition, but leads to disappearance of intelligent life and the techno-sphere not necessarily. Now the actual evolution is the object of the rationalistic management and / or manipulation, and it becomes necessary to calculate the features of the social reaction to scientific and technological development in compiling a forecast and determining the magnitude of innovative risk. These factors stem from the substantial foundations of human consciousness and culture, and are the result of the previous biosocial evolution. This change in the techno-cultural balance was an adaptive response of the SESH socio-cultural component to the above processes, and it led to the transformation of classical science into a post-academic science. The emergence of bioethics has to consider as a form of modern transdisciplinary scientific concept humanities, classical scientific theory and social utopia. It is a part of the same global-evolutionary transformation that caused by development of technology of controlled evolution. Not so long ago E.Coonin diagnosed curious feature of explanatory models of modern evolutionary biology very observant. These concepts are narratives with more or less teleological component. Consciously or not, logical constructs "arise for ..." are present in them, either explicitly or implicitly. A language of these narratives is best suited to describe the evolutionary processes and phenomena, and to create verifiable hypotheses, although it is contrary to the classical methodology of science and not is contrary to modern, transdisciplinary theories (Cheshko, Glazko, 2009:273). This is even truer for that phase of the human evolution and evolution of mind, which we called "phase IV of SESH evolution". In our investigation, the phase IV is characterized as a universal rationalization and technologization of evolutionary process. An example of such explanatory model is an evolutionary model of risk genesis that proposed here. It is combined in accordance with the principle of complementarity of objective-scientific and subjective humanitarian criteria for the magnitude of evolutionary risk. The names for these criteria are evolutionary efficiency or inqlusive adaptivity and evolutionary correctness, we proposed. The proposed concept is largely methodological. In other words, it is a meta-theory. We hope that it will become a heuristic stimulus for the 314 formation of specific scientific hypotheses that will be available for empirical and social verification. This total consideration determines the civilizational and evolutionary function of bioethics, in turn. As a priori it is clear, the each of the three modules of SESH should to have its own system of self-maintenance. In the biological module it is the most well studied and is referred to as immunity. In techno-rationalistic module such system is the concept of verification and falsification of reliability of scientific knowledge. At socio-cultural module the system of pre-dispositions regulate human identity in the global-evolutionary transformation and performs the function of self-maintenance. There is an asymmetry of semantic communication between the designated object and the designating symbol. This feature determines the disparity of the composition of the socio-cultural module. It is due to the process of socio-cultural self-identification and implies the relation to each other causal (cause effect) and semantic (object sign) binary oppositions. In this case, there are elements that have intracultural determination. In total, they are called "humanity", which is the object of socio-cultural self-identification of Homo sapiens and, as such, is protected by ethical and legal norms. On the contrary, there are elements that are basically culturally-stimulated developments of the biological elements of SESH. They can be considered symbols of human attributes that are open to technological manipulation and control. The totality of such elements is called "human nature". Naturally, the most stable and evolutionarily plastic organization of the human evolutionary strategy will be the option when the system of self-identification of a sociocultural module basically coincides with objective knowledge about the essence of anthropogenesis and the structure of the biological module. This knowledge generated by technorationalistic module. At the highest level of analysis, the problem of evolutionary risk and its components come into conceptual field of the anthropic principle. There is "Doomsday equationˮ as the mathematical model of population growth. One of the parameters of this equation is identical to the universal constant of human genesis in the Universe, which is determined by the characteristics of sociocultural and biological evolution. Brandon Carter, one of the pioneers of the anthropic principle, drew attention to this (Carter, 2012). Let us analyze the interpretation and arguments linking the 315 epistemological and axiological aspects of the technologies of guided evolution and the metaphysical anthropic principle. In 1960, the Heinz von Foerster articulated the law of hyperbolic demographic growth of Homo sapiens, also known as non-academic title "Equation of the Doomsdayˮ (Von Foerster, 1960) dN N dt = n T∗ (6.1) where N is volume of Homo sapiens population on Earth, t is time, T* is constant, which is, probably, species-specific. Its physical meaning of will be discussed below. In accordance with the Foerster's equation, population growth governed by the equation hyperbole in the last 10 thousand years. In other words, volume of global human population growing with the increasing acceleration and about 2025 will become infinite, and lose the physical meaning. This will mean the end of the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens, although it does not necessarily mean the death of intelligent life in general. Rather, it involves the passage of a certain evolutionary singularity point, that is the achievement of the magnitude of the evolutionary risk of a value close to 1. In Foerster's equation present parameter T*, which the author has been calculated empirically that, in his estimation, is 2.1011 approximately. Brandon Carter considers this option as a member of a pool of world constants. This constant determines the appearance of the humans and the formation of their capacity for reflection of natural laws and civilization development. In his interpretation, the T* value is a function of the amount of information contained in the human genome (1010 bits) and the length of a generation (20 years). The transition from the biological to the socio-cultural, and then technological phases of anthropogenesis (Phase II-III in our model of the evolution of SESH) becomes impossible by reducing this parameter is below this threshold T*=2.1011. Both phenomenological interpretation and explanatory model of Foerster's "equation of Doomsday "are in full agreement with the views of the organization and formation evolutionary risk of SESH in our study. On the one hand, population growth increases the frequency of technorationalistic and sociocultural innovations / adaptations and the speed of their spread in the population, which proceeds by the contagious mechanism in accordance with the Lamarck module. As a result, the conditions are created to further accelerate the demographic growth and 316 ecological niche of Homo sapiens is expanding (Korotaev, 2005; Kapitza, 2005). On the other hand, the integrity of the structure of the three-modal SESH implies co-evolutionary semantics as some kind of inter-module communication correspondence between the elements of the biological and socio-cultural modules. The effectiveness of adaptive evolution drops sharply after exceeding a certain threshold of the number of adaptive socio-cultural elements as compared with the pool associated with them biologically determined traits. (This conclusion is still valid even under condition ambiguity of semantic connections between the modules). It is manifested in the accumulation of genetic and cultural imbalances and inconsistencies in the sociocultural environment and psychophysiological characteristics of the organism, that is, in increasing evolutionary load. With the growth of the volume of adaptive information replicated by cultural inheritance, there comes a time when this value becomes equal to the amount of genetic information contained in the genome, and then exceeds it. It is this moment that serves as an indicator of reaching the threshold value, after which the rate of adaptive evolution of culture drops sharply. This situation has two fundamental, but alternative evolutionary solutions. The first, "hard" solution means technologization of biological human evolution, i.e., "enhancement" of Homo sapiens using genetic engineering, etc. technology. As already mentioned, this decision is fraught with the completion of the evolutionary history of mankind, which is equivalent to the loss of self-identification by the next generations of mind carriers. "Soft" solution involves creating a radically transformed version of evolutionary semantics for regulating gene-cultural co-evolution and techno-humanitarian balance. The future co-evolutionary semantics will have to ensure a better fit of the biological and techno-rational modules to the so-called universal human value priorities that preserve the selfidentity of the carriers of the mind. Let us summarize our excursion into the study of the evolutionarynatural philosophical transdisciplinary paradigm of biotechnology and synthetic biology. Unlike the classical, disciplinary matrix, this paradigm represents a binary bundle of the descriptive and axiological nuclei as a result of the intersection of epistemological (scientific) and axiological (public) discourses. 317 The descriptive abstract-theoretical core is the three-modular model of the stable evolutionary strategy of Homo sapiens. A distinctive feature of this model is the thesis of the rationalization of the global evolutionary process and the generation of an increasing evolutionary risk as the main attributes of SESH. Bioethics is largely a methodological concept. In other words, it is a meta-theory, which, we hope, can serve as a stabilizer of the system of attributes-identifiers of human self-identification, as well as systems of cultural-mental predispositions that are formed on their basis. Such a system ensures the maintenance of the current version of the evolutionary semantics of the NBIC-technological complex within the "universal human values". It ensures the maintenance of humankind in the process of permanent development of technologies facing the subject of the evolutionary process. Thus, bioethics serves as the axiological core of the transdisciplinary matrix of synthetic biology and biotechnology. The essence of the unique phenomenon of a stable evolutionary strategy of our biological species, evidently, most adequately expressed by Elena Knyazeva (Knyazeva, 2014:16) a phrase put forward by us in the epigraph to the monograph: "The constructing person and the world he constructs constitute a procedural unityˮ. The logical connection between the two paradigm nuclei of bioethics and biotechnology simultaneously implements the anthropic principle on the expression J. A. Wheeler, which is most adequate to the problem of technology-driven evolution: "Observers are necessary to bring the Universe into beingˮ (Wheeler, 1977). Taking into account the realities created by nano-bio-technologies, the anthropic principle should be expressed as follows (Cheshko et al., 2017, 264): Only that Universe acquires the status of Reality, in which there is an active agent endowed with the mind. A person turns from a subject and an observer, knowing the laws of nature, into a subject of activity, an accomplice and co-creator of reality; and, as a result, Nature and God become an identity in the process of evolution. 318 In philosophy, "Human nature" is the essence of the carrier of the rational principle in the Universe. As result of its cosmological-existential content, the participatory anthropic principle of Wheeler is the central initial principle of any ontology of human nature in the philosophical meaning of this word. The second metaphysical principle throws a bridge to the anthropology of the genes and other technologies of controlled evolution. It affirms the three-module organization of the evolutionary strategy of Homo sapiens as the carrier of Reason and the cause and mechanism for the realization of the anthropic principle of participation. There is a direct consequence of the anthropic principle of participation in conjunction with the three-module organization of SESH. It is the adaptive evolutionary inversion inherent in the Mind, i.e. a trend to rational reorganization of reality in accordance with some intellectual design. This is what makes the splitting of reality into World of Entity and the World of Proper. At the same time, this makes rational and purposeful, and not spontaneous as it was before the appearance of hominines the construction of an ecological niche in the dominant trend of the evolutionary process and the expansion of our ecological niche to indefinite limits. These limits are established by somatic adaptive capabilities of Homo sapiens (Human Nature) and compatibility with the socio-cultural system of universal human values (Humanity) only; and both of these parameters cease to be world constants as the technorationalistic module unfolds. The above metaphysical reasoning serves as a meta-theoretical justification for the conclusion that "Our species has developed a new ecological niche, that of the 'generalist specialist'. Not only did it occupy and utilize a variety of environments, but also in its adaptation to some of these environmental extremes" (Roberts, Stewart, 2018). This thesis is still speculative, but already belongs to the sphere of scientific theoretical hypotheses, accessible to empirical verification in the future. So, there are of discrepancies in the speed of biological, socio-cultural and techno-rationalist evolution and the presence of co-evolutionary relations between them. As result, evolution process splits into an objectively spontaneous and subjective-teleological components. For the same reasons, periods of relatively quiet development are replaced by 319 evolutionary crises in due to the accumulation of conflicts between sets of elements of the biological, socio-cultural and techno-rationalist modules. The solution of these conflicts is achieved either through the fixation of biological mutations, or by reformatting the socio-cultural niche, or through technological interventions in the psychosomatic constitution and cultural stereotypes of human. Using both of these principles as premises of deductive conclusion, we get the thesis about the global evolution of the systems with human dimension as a sequence of recursive adaptive inversions, during which the object and subject of reality transformations change their places. In this case, each subsequent projectively-activity inversion does not cancel the previous one, but embed into it. It imparts nonlinear and open character of the evolutionary trajectory. From this metaphysical triad, as you can see, it is possible to construct an ontological conceptual-terminological framework at the output of which we obtain logically consistent theories of constructing a socioenvironment niche, multi-level selection and the concept of evolutionary technogenic risk, evolutionary efficiency, evolutionary correctness and quality of life. With the help of these logical constructs, it becomes possible to create verifiable explanatory models of socio-cultural anthropogenesis and, in particular, a description of the evolutionary consequences of scientific and technological development. Concept of evolution means an objective and spontaneous separation of reality into a retrospective realm of the current values of the adaptability of each evolving object and the prospective realm of the maximum possible values of adaptability in evolutionary metaphysical interpretation. The common trend of this binary opposition is the constant movement of adaptivity in the direction of maximum values, in accordance with Fisher's theorem. With the appearance of man, this dichotomy and this trend become a rational antinomy of the World of Entity and the World of Proper, being in constant interaction and mutual transformations with each other. There are means of pull-up an objectively existing reality to its ideal image. They are a technology, and the means of transforming the system of value priorities as a phenomenological expression of the World of the Due, according to the current state of the World of Entity are a biopolitics and biopower. 320 The evolutionary process turns out to be a double epicycle, and each of its components continuously finds expression in the resulting vectors of development of axiological discourse (bioethics) and descriptivetechnological ones (biotechnology). Evolution and intelligent design are integrated into one construct, and the Intelligent Design ceases to be a world constant in the metaphysical meaning of the category. As recently wrote by A. Kaczmarczyk (2018: 125), "The Creator [God or Human Technologist, indefinitely now Auth.] carries out the work of creation using intelligenttools with built-in self-organization processes and with feedbacksas teleological mechanisms enabling purposiveness... Creation is accomplished according to the laws of creation expressing metarules of the technology of our Universe". The co-evolutionary interpretation of the anthropic principle becomes apparent whenthe second branch of a Subject-Subject transformations, appears. Thus, a kind of evolutionary hypercycle arises, where a purposeful transformation of the World is realized in parallel and interdependent with self-construction and self-manipulation by a rationally operating Subject. This double hypercycle is the phenomenological description of the current Reality as such. Equally, one can use the expression self-description, since the objective hypostasis of reality is the emergence of NBIC, which is also a consequence of the anthropic principle. From this point of view, the global evolutionary process acquires a humanistic meaning, implying the risk generated by man as an inevitable attribute of reality. Risk monotonously approaches unit in magnitude and becomes an evolutionary risk in form. Science and technology are not only means of surviving of humanity and a source of power over the "raging" reality, but lead to the deviations that violate the anthropic principle as the correspondence of the parameters of the socio-natural habitat to the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of intelligent life in the Universe. This operator of human duty and responsibility in the face of reality logically follows from Wheeler's equation. It cannot be traced explicitly in the canonical, "strong" and "weak: variants of B.Carter. From the anthropic principle of participation the need follows for a transdisciplinary review of the three aspects of the problem of reality: 321 1. Ontological aspect that is the reconstruction of the categorical apparatus by means of which the cognitive-projective image (Design) of the Reality is formed; 2. Epistemological aspect that is creation of the conceptual field of the problem of communication Macro- (ˮobject") and Microcosm ("subject") as two attributes of reality, mutually conditioning and mutually determining each other; 3. Anthropological aspect that is disclosure of internal nature and temporal trends of the genesis of binary communication of Microand Macrocosm. In the process of transition from ontology to anthropology and further to the actual scientific theories, we move from the philosophical worldview level through evolutionary anthropology (meta-theoretical level) into the sphere of specifically scientific theoretical studies. So, there are ontological enactivism, evolutionary epistemology and the theory of co-evolution as the "three whales" of the new, transdisciplinary theory of scientific knowledge. In their totality, they all proceed from the intention of overcoming Cartesian dualism (more precisely, Cartesian antinomy) of the object and subject of cognitive activity. As enactivism claims (Varela et al., 1992 (2017): 185; Knyazeva, 2014: 5, 53), the process of cognition is not a process of forming an objectified reflection of material reality in the human mind, but represents the creation of reality due to the co-evolutionary interaction of the organism with their habitat. Accordingly, the object and the subject are an inseparable whole, the product of knowledge is mutual adaptation of the world and the organism to each other. In other words, a cycle of information and communication links is established in the course of cognition, and a bilateral correspondence of the corporeal organization and environment is established during its implementation. In this interpretation, firstly, "knowledge" and "activity" correspond to two aspects of adaptation genesis. Secondly, the mind is somatically determined; its form follows from the body organization. In addition, thirdly, there are differences between the physical (the "world as it is") and the virtual ("the world of it must be" and the "world of the possible") realities, and they are imaginary, i.e. a set of scenarios of global evolution. Similarly, evolutionary epistemology (Popper, 1972: 121 et al; Popper, 2002; Campbel, 1974: 141; Thomson, 1995: 165 concludes that 322 the process of adaptive evolution and cognition is identical. The homology between them follows from the same functional scheme: where EEi is data obtained empirically; PPi is problem situations, i.e. discrepancy between existing data and its theoretical explanation (TTi-1); ННi is suggested explanatory models; FFi is falsifiers, they deductively predict consequences which give possibility for empirical verification; TTi is hypotheses that passed the falsification test and obtained the status of reliable theories; EEi+1, and PPi+1 is new data and new problem situations, discovered as a result of development of TTi. There is analogy between the process of cognition and adaptive evolution, and it becomes apparent as a result of the comparison of (1) sets of data and gene collections, (2) a multitude of hypotheses and a multitude of mutations, (3) problematic situations and transformations of the ecological environment, (4) theories and biological populations / species, (5) procedures of falsification and natural selection. Thus, the identification of evolutionary adaptation and reliable knowledge seems logical. The growth of knowledge and the growth of adaptive complexity turn out to be entirely equivalent and stemming from the evolutionary strategy of Homo sapiens. Two conceptual constructs are "nominees" for the paradigm status of modern evolutionary theory in analyzing the evolutionary aspects of social verification of the implementation of all varieties of NBIC technologies, namely, "Constructing a Socio-Ecological Niche" and "Triple Helix". The first model regards an evolutionary process with an emphasis a static organization, the second regards an dynamic trends in the formation of the adaptive complexity of self-organizing systems. The concept of extended evolution represents the attempt of a metaphysical generalization of evolutionary theory by extending the classical Darwinian triad "heredity − variability − selection" (Pigliucci, Muller, 2010). Thus, a conceptual field is created. The homologous 323 methods of research and the conceptual apparatus are created too. They can be taken simultaneously and with the same efficiency not only in the theory of biological evolution and evolutionary epistemology, but also in socio-humanitarian knowledge in general, because the object of research is complex adaptive systems as regulatory network structures capable to self-learning in all these cases (Renn, Laubichler, 2017:109). This philosophical idea is concretized in several directions and in two, already verified concepts, above all. According to the conceptual model of "niche construction" (OdlingSmee et al., 2003: 246; Laland et al., 2016: 191-202), living organisms change not only their own somatic and behavioral organization, but conditions of its own existence spontaneously or, in the case of Homo sapiens purposefully in the process of adaptation to the environmental conditions. Thus, evolutionary process is considered within the framework of this explanatory model as co-evolution of living organisms and socio-ecological niche. It is resulted in mutual adaptation, "fitting-in" of the niche conditions and the population of organisms that exploit the niche. The consequence is the famous competitive exclusion principle (other name is "Law of Gause"). According to the principle, the same ecological niche occupies by no more than one ecological species. In the alternative, we can observe either the extinction of other species or the division of the niche into several ones. A special feature of anthropogenesis is two branches co-evolutionary cycle, and the ascending branch, organism → habitat in its rationalistic form prevails over the specific gravity of the spontaneous-descending branch, habitat → organism. The general vector and specific trajectory of socio-cultural anthropogenesis in less degree are determined by environmental dynamics and becomes increasingly spontaneous and intentional. In our works this feature is called the "evolutionary adaptive inversion" (Zubov, 2011). As a result, the ecological niche itself as applied to man turns into a cultural-ecological niche, and its borders are constantly expanding to the borders of the biosphere. The next phase of expansion of the socio-ecological niche is "the invasion" of artificial, including humans, micro-techno-ecological systems into the near-Earth space. The next concept explores the mechanisms of this co-evolutionary interaction. It is the so-called "triple helixˮ concept (Lewontin, 2002; Leydesdorff, Franse, 2009: 109). According to the logical organization, it is a post-Hegelian and post-Marxist interpretation of dialectics. As was 324 shown at the beginning of the 20th century, binary Hegelian scheme cannot explain the phenomenon of increasing adaptive complexity with respect to co-evolutionary systems. As an example of "Struggle of opposites", the evolution of "predator-prey" system ends with the formation of a stable binary opposition oscillating around an equilibrium position for indefinitely long period of time according to the VolterraLotka model. Before the emergence of humans, systemic complexity was formed because of the functioning of the co-evolving triad genotype-phenotypeenvironment. The totality of the elements of the genome undergoes epigenetic modifications in the process of realization of genetic information and produces the phenotype of organisms. In turn, the survival of organisms is determined by their adaptation to the biotic conditions and abiotic parameters of the ecological niche and to the transformations of the same parameters that are determined by the vital activity of living beings. All three elements of the triad are interdependent and connected by a complex network of direct and inverse influences, and an essential role is played by informational communication between individuals (sociality) in these links. There are a fundamentally important conclusions from conjunction of the anthropic principle and the three-module model of the stable evolutionary strategy of Homo sapiens into a single deductive logical construction. First, in the implementation of technologies of controlled evolution, the most potentially beneficial effect ("Benefit") will be observed in the area of non-intersecting action of evolutionary efficiency and evolutionary correctness. In other words, the greatest benefit of Human Enhancement can come from technological manipulations with the attributes of human somatic and psychophysiological organization associated with the highest positions in a the system of human values priorities and "not noticed" by the biological adaptive evolution. These priorities correspond to the "ethics of the Homo speciesˮ of Habermas. The second condition implies the presence in the genome of genetic determinants of such features and the lack of selective pressure on the determinants in the conditions of modern civilization. For example, this area includesall gerontological problems caused by the specific features of the ontogenetic development of the human body after 30-40 years. Phenotypic manifestations of age-related problems and senescence, 325 especially, go beyond genetically determined reproductive period. Therefore, these problems are not "visible" for selection. Secondly, the greatest technogenic evolutionary risk is formed in the areas of overlapping of the evolutionary correctness and evolutionary efficiency competencies. Here, the attributes of the human selfidentification form a complex network of co-evolutionary semantic nodes of biologically and socio-culturally determined features; and the magnitude of the nonlinear evolutionary risk of technological intervention is approaching the existential level. It is determinates particularly great importance of bioethics as mechanism, process and social institution to control technological risk for the future evolutionary fate of civilization. Not fully aware of the fruits of the knowledge of good and evil, we have already turned to the branches of the tree of life if we use the biblical metaphor. Most likely, it is a standard and unavoidable situation of the advanced development of the cognitive function of a technological civilization in comparison with its humanitarian normative analogue. 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www.jsser.org Journal of Social Studies Education Research SosyalBilgilerEğitimiAraştırmalarıDergisi 2020:11 (1),163-191 163 Social and Cultural Capital and Learners' Cognitive Ability: Issues and Prospects for Educational Relevance, Access and Equity Towards Digital Communication in Indonesia Binti Maunah1 Abstract In the educational context, the necessity of recognizing the structure of relations among social and educational institutions by examining how individuals' different social and cultural experiences affect the educational learning outcomes towards global digital communication. The current study examined the interplay of Social and Cultural Capital orientation, cognitive learning ability, and family background. The descriptive correlational research design was employed. It adopted two research instruments, namely the Social and Cultural Capital Questionnaire (SCCQ) and the Otis-Lennon Scholastic Ability tests (OLSAT), to a total of 377 undergraduate college students of select universities in Indonesia. The results of the study showed that the respondents manifest a high level of social and cultural capital orientation, with literacy having the highest factor. Likewise, the respondents have an average cognitive level of ability. Test of difference showed that respondents whose parents with high educational achievement exhibit high social competence, social solidarity, cultural competence, and extraversion, social solidity, and extraversion. Similarly, fathers' education is the single variable which spelled difference on the student's cognitive ability implying students whose fathers have high academic qualification exhibit high cognitive ability. Test of relationship showed that literacy practices and global-cultural competence are correlated to students' cognitive ability. Finally, family income is a predictor of students' high level of cognitive ability and social and cultural capital orientation. The implications of the results were discussed within, and suggestions were made for future research. Keywords: Cognitive Ability, Educational Opportunity, Social and Cultural Capital, Sociology of Education Introduction Education is a venue for social transformation, social mobility, and the vanguard of growth and development for the emerging world's economies. Without access to the relevant and quality 1Dr. State Islamic Institute (IAIN) of Tulungagung, Indonesia, [email protected] Journal of Social Studies Education Research 2020: 11(1), 163-191 educational system, the efforts of countries for development will be futile. The direct relationship between economics and education has been emphasized by various scholars (Budiharso & Arbain, 2019; Camilleri & Camilleri, 2020; Chabbott, 2013; Fägerlind & Saha, 2016; Green, 2013; Kruss, McGrath, Petersen, & Gastrow, 2015; Shephard, 2010) where literacy is associated to the wellbeing of the people and the nations' economic development. One of the essential functions of education is the production and development of human resources who will be the agents of change and societal transformation. No less than the United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization (Tang, 2015) outlines the fundamental principles of Education 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) to promote the rights of every individual to have full access and enjoyment to education as mechanism to achieve the sustainable development since millions of children around the around are still deprived of the educational opportunities. This can only be achieved with the concerted effort and commitment of nations around the world to tackle down the educational challenges and form systems of education that are relevant, inclusive, and equitable to all learners. At present, educational institutions of the world are challenged to promote equitable learning outcomes to students since achievement gap is still an issue (Ainscow, 2016; Buckley, 2010; Clark, 2014; Darling-Hammond & Friedlaender, 2008; Fatimah & Santiana, 2017; Nadelson et al., 2020; Ohlin, 2019; Perry, 2009; Speed, Pair, Zargham, Yao, & Franco, 2019). They are advocating educational equity calls to address inequity in student learning, which is attributed to issues on gender, race, family income, and cognitive disability. Embracing educational equity in the schools is a way of supporting transformative education (Godhe, Lilja & Selwyn, 2019; Vossoughi, Hooper & Escudé, 2016). Meanwhile, cognitive ability of students plays a crucial role in the development of countries' workforce for they will become the leaders of the next generation, hence investment to their development should start in examining the interplay of their socio-economic status and how they relate to their social and cultural capital and cognitive ability is highlighted in this present study. The necessity of recognizing the structure of relations among social and educational institutions by examining how individuals' different social and cultural experiences affect the educational learning outcomes should be considered. The need for education practitioners and sociologists to address the issues and gaps affecting access and equity in higher education is a way of transforming institutional culture and effectiveness. Maunah. Social Capital and Cultural Capital This study promotes understanding of the prevailing social and cultural capital of higher education institutions, which will provide necessary actions on how to adequately address the gaps and disparities existing in the educational system. Social and cultural capital has been espoused by Bourdieu,(1977) which prompted studies concerning aspects of individual interaction and habitus. The theory is influential in understanding social class advantage, which is also essential to study the social context of educational institution contexts on how individual's social and cultural exposure and experiences relate to their educational learning outcomes -considering that educational institutions as one of the educative agencies are a significant site of social and cultural reproduction where inequalities are prevailing. Students gathered in school come from various families that differ in terms of family income, language, ethnic identity, economic class, geographical locations, and the like. They show differences in school and serve as the basis of their interaction and participation in learning activities. For Bourdieu, family influences are the strongest predictor of students' cognitive ability, where success in education fundamentally depends on one's exposure to social and cultural capital. As a result, knowledge leads to the domination and advantage of those upper class, leaving the poor at a marginalized position. Research Gap and Relevance to Literature This study situates its claims to Bourdieu's social and cultural capital relative to the cognitive ability of students in the context of the Indonesian educational system. In such a way, a deeper understanding of the unequal educational outcomes may be appropriately addressed. This study provides direct evidence in which social and cultural capital shape the educational system of modern Indonesia. This study also hopes to strengthen the empirical findings on the positive relationship between social and cultural capital to students' cognitive ability. However, as the research gap, there are still inconsistencies in the influences of social and cultural capital on educational inequality. Hence, it remains unconfirmed. In countries such as the United Nations, Brazil and some other European countries, it was revealed that no relationship has been found between cultural capital and academic achievement of students (Burger, 2016; Edgerton & Roberts, 2014; Gaddis, 2013; Hu & Wu, 2019; Jaeger, 2011; Marteleto & Andrade, 2014). Similarly, among Asian countries such as Japan and Korea, the negative relationship has been found between cultural capital and students' academic achievement (Byun, Schofer, & Kim, 2012; Journal of Social Studies Education Research 2020: 11(1), 163-191 Lee & Shouse, 2011; Yamamoto & Brinton, 2010). In the previous studies in the Indonesian context have exemplified that social and cultural capital positively correlates with students' educational attainment (Wu, 2008; Xie & Ma, 2019; Xu & Hampden-Thompson, 2012). Such inconsistencies prompted the researcher to re-examine the interplay of social and cultural capital to Indonesian students' cognitive ability. The result of the present study hopes to address the shortage of studies regarding the variables being explored. Like any other developed country, Indonesia puts prime importance on education as a vehicle of social transformation and development (Lee, Huang & Law, 2016). The Central Government of Indonesia initiated the development of Indonesia's national strategy as a response to the United Nations 2030 Agenda called Indonesia's education modernization 2035. It encapsulates eight fundamental principles, rooted and anchored in the Indonesian context (Zhu, 2019). Increasing access to education by addressing the educational gaps and inequality is one crucial component of the modernization of education in Indonesia. Purposes of the Study This study examined the interplay of select socio-economic profile, social and cultural capital, and students' cognitive ability among Indonesian college students. It specifically sought to answer the following research questions: 1) What the students' level of social and cultural capital orientations is? 2) Is there a difference between the social and cultural capital orientations when grouped according to selected variables? 3) What is the students' level of cognitive ability? 4) Is there a difference between the respondents' cognitive level when grouped according to selected variables? 5) Is there a significant relationship between social and cultural capital orientation and the respondents' cognitive ability? 6) What predicts the social and cultural capital orientation and cognitive ability of the students? Maunah. Methods Research Design The study used a descriptive survey correlational research design to investigate the relationship between social and cultural capital orientations and the cognitive ability of Indonesian learners. The survey component ascertains the prevailing social and cultural capital orientations of the respondents and relates it to their cognitive ability. The use of correlational research design measures the association between two variables under study to find out whether a positive or negative relationship exists (Grimes & Schulz, 2002; Williams, 2007). Research Participants, Sampling Procedure and Ethical Considerations A total of 377 respondents systematically sampled from a total population of 2000 students from five universities in Indonesia. Determination of sampling size was based on the use of a free online software Raosoft http://www.raosoft.com/samplesize.html (Arora, 1994; Wilson, 2016) set with the margin of error of 5%, confidence level of 95%, and response distribution of 50%. Using a systematic non-random probability sampling technique, the complete list of respondents was requested from the university registrars of the participating universities with the three as the select random start number. Table 1 below presents the personal background of the respondents. It can be seen in that table that the major contributors of the study females (61%) compared to males (39%), whose mothers are mostly college level (45%) followed by high school/ senior high school graduates (30%), their fathers mainly were college level (47%) succeeded by college graduates (43%). As a whole, the majority of the respondents are earning USD 3001 and above (49%). Table 1. Background of the Samples Category Frequency Distribution (n=377) Percentage Distribution (%) Gender Male 148 39 Female 229 61 Mothers Education Elementary Level 4 1 High School Level 22 6 High School/ Senior High 112 30 College Level 171 45 College Graduate 68 18 Fathers Education Elementary Level 0 0 High School Level 10 3 Journal of Social Studies Education Research 2020: 11(1), 163-191 High School/ Senior High Graduate 27 7 College Level 178 47 College Graduate 162 43 Family Monthly Income Below USD 10000 27 7 USD 1001-2000 56 15 USD 2001-3000 109 29 USD 3001-above 184 49 This study was guided by the following research ethics considerations. First, data privacy and informed consent forms were approved by the university ethics committee to be signed by the respondents of the study. Second, orientation on the purposes of the study was done by the researcher prior to the administration of the instruments. Thirdly, the anonymity of the respondents and the institution was observed by not mentioning names. Research Instruments The study used two adopted research questionnaires, namely the Social and Cultural Capital Questionnaire (SCCQ) and the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test (OLSAT). Pishghadam & Zabihi, (2011) developed the SCCQ consisted of 42 items with five dimensions, namely social competence (r=.84), social solidarity (r=.73), literacy (r=.78), global-cultural competence(r=.76), and extraversion (r=.86). The instrument has a reliability of is 0.87. Meanwhile, to measure the cognitive learning ability, the OLSAT was used. It is a test of abstract thinking and reasoning ability among college students. The test yielded verbal and verbal scores having 21 subtests, organized into five areas, namely verbal comprehension, verbal reasoning, pictorial reasoning, figural reasoning, and quantitative reason (Ahmann, 1985; Otis, 1988). Procedure This study was conducted within a four-month time period. The data-gathering period lasted for one month. Before the formal gathering period, the university authority's approval and permission to do the study was initiated in the first week. Notice to proceed for the conduct of the research was issued during the second week. After securing the appropriate permit, the researcher identified the respondents using the inclusion criteria set in this study. Likewise, proper and appointment with the students were conducted for the formal gathering for another one week. The orientation of the research's purposes and objectives was done to the participants. The administration of the Maunah. two research instruments was done by the researcher with the appropriate permit and proper coordination to avoid conflict of schedule. The research ethics considerations were strictly followed by the researcher. After gathering the students' responses, they were coded and subjected to data cleaning and statistical analyses for one month. The gathered data were analyzed using SPSS version 25.0. Finally, results analysis, interpretation, and report writing were done for one month. Data Analysis To analyze the quantitative data gathered, descriptive and inferential statistics were used. Descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, frequency, and percentage were used to present the profile, social and capital orientations of the respondents, and their level of cognitive ability as well as the normality of the responses. The inferential statistics, it made use of t-test, ANOVA, and Pearson r determine the differences and relationship between the selected profile, social and cultural orientations, and the level of students' cognitive ability. Moreover, multiple regression analysis was used to determine the predictor of Social and Cultural Capital orientations. To interpret the SCCO of the students, the five-point Likert scale was used: Strongly Agree/ Very High (4.20-5.00); Agree/ High (3.40-4.19); Undecided/ Moderate (2.60-3.39); Disagree/ Low (1.80-2.59); strongly Disagree/ Very Low (1.00-1.79). Consequently, the interpretation of the result from the OLSAT was based on its standard scales and description from Superior to Low cognitive ability level. Results and Discussion Research Question 1. What is the Students' Level of Social and Cultural Capital Orientations? Table 2 presents the respondents' level of social and cultural orientations. Results revealed that the respondents have a high level of social and cultural capital orientation (M=3.96, SD= 0.46). Interestingly, literacy obtained the highest mean (M=4.24, SD= 0.90) interpreted very high, followed by global-cultural competence (M=4.17, SD=0.88), social competence as also scored high (M=4.07, SD=0.88) succeeded by social solidarity (M=3.71, SD=1.20), and extraversion (M=3.96, SD=1.31) obtained the lowest mean. The general finding implies that the respondents manifest a high social and cultural capital. This part of the study described the social and cultural Journal of Social Studies Education Research 2020: 11(1), 163-191 capital orientations of the respondents. Results showed that the respondents had assessed themselves to have a high level of social and cultural capital orientations. It suggests that the respondents have adequate orientation, access, networks, and group membership. The necessity of recognizing the relationships and structures among the educational system will help in initiating effective delivery of the educational system to achieve relevance, access, and equity. The effect of social and cultural experiences of the students affect their learning outcomes (Börjesson, Broady, Le Roux, Lidegran & Palme, 2016; Cheng & Kaplowitz, 2016; Dejaeghere, Wiger & Willemsen, 2016; Harju-Luukkainen & Tarnanen, 2017; Peng, 2019). Table 2. Social and Cultural Capital Orientations of the Respondents Domains Mean (n=377) SD Descriptive Interpretation Social Competence 4.07 0.88 High Social Solidarity 3.71 1.20 High Literacy 4.24 0.90 Very High Global-cultural competence 4.17 0.88 High Extraversion 3.61 1.31 High Grand Mean 3.96 0.46 High Legend: Strongly Agree/ Very High a (4.20-5.00); Agree/ High b (3.40-4.19); Undecided/ Moderate c (2.60-3.39); Disagree/ Low d (1.80-2.59); strongly Disagree/ Very Low e (1.00-1.79) The very high assessment of literacy as a dimension of social and cultural capital indicates that the respondents have very favorable home literacy practices as they were exposed to different reading materials at home. They were influenced by their parents to read books on literature and general sciences. It indicates that most of the respondents are exposed to a home literacy environment. Numerous studies have confirmed the effect of home literacy practices, parental education to learners' academic achievement, oral language acquisition and learners' motivation (Chow, Chui, Lai, & Kwok, 2017; Davis et al., 2016; Ip et al., 2016; C. Liu, Georgiou & Manolitsis, 2018; T. Liu, Zhang & Jiang, 2020; Meyer, Meissel & McNaughton, 2017; Napoli & Purpura, 2018; Park, Pan & Ahn, 2020; Rowe, Ramani & Pomerantz, 2016; Saçkes, Işıtan, Avci & Justice, 2016). As the implication of this finding, encouragement of parents to their children to do intensive reading a home may help in improving students' social and cultural capital. Maunah. Consequently, the high self-assessment of the respondents on their global-cultural competence indicates that they have favorable exposure to arts and cultural appreciation. They are capable of seeing the values of arts and culture as well as their principles and history, which form part the societal development and preservation. Hence, they manifest an understanding of arts, their practical, philosophical, and social relevance. This high level of arts and aesthetic appreciation among Indonesian is a manifestation of their rich cultural heritage which until this time is being promoted and preserved (Howard, 2016; Law & Ho, 2015; T. Liu et al., 2020; Ning, 2015; C. Tan, 2015; M. Wang, 2015). The competency to value arts is to prepare students to understand the world where they live and make them critically engage in developing their skills of achieving a pillar of education which is learning to live together in harmony (de Eça, Milbrandt, Shin, & Hsieh, 2017; Joncheere, 2015; Potter, 2018). Social competence as a dimension of social and cultural capital was favorable assessed high by the Indonesian respondents. It indicates that their parents have high involvement in their learning activities. Their parents are also involved as essential stakeholders of the schools. They also manifest high commitment to extracurricular activities, and they see themselves to have established a positive network to get along with others in the performance of their academic and extracurricular activities. Social competence has been defined as one's ability to handle positive social interaction (Orpinas, 2010). It is how an individual gets along with others to form and establish connection and relationship, which is a product of cognitive, affective, and psychomotor abilities relating to interpersonal relationships. Studies confirmed that social competence or social skill is an essential attribute of a student to establish success in schooling and education (Jr, 2019; Morrow, Hubbard, & Sharp, 2019; Tuononen, Parpala, & Lindblom-Ylänne, 2019; Tynjälä, Virtanen, Klemola, Kostiainen, & Rasku-Puttonen, 2016; Virtanen & Tynjälä, 2019). Studies in the Indonesian context showed that parental support influences the social competence and social desirability of adolescents (Ma & Wang, 2019; Meng, Zhu & Cao, 2018). In like manner, the high assessment of social solidarity implies that they have perceived themselves to have a strong sense of belongingness to their families, universities, and societies as they are capable of fulfilling their social obligations and commitment. It allows them to establish a gluing factor towards others. They emphasize open dialogue with their parents, teachers, and peers regarding their education and future jobs as an indication of strong environmental ties. Hence, students must be able to have an empathizing personality to increase solidarity among schools. Journal of Social Studies Education Research 2020: 11(1), 163-191 Studies showed that the role of solidarity among students allows them to establish a positive attitude towards indifference as they will create an organization of unity, support and equality (Hargreaves & O'Connor, 2018; Langenkamp, 2016; Z. Li, Gan & Jia, 2017; Ridley-Duff, 2016; Stråth, 2017). Lastly, extraversion was also rated high, indicating that they enjoyed having around with their family members and friends. Extraversion is defined as one's ability to showcase social visibility and promote interest in social engagement (Avinun, Israel, Knodt & Hariri, 2019; Costa Jr & McCrae, 2008). Studies showed that extraversion as a personality trait is a predictor of English achievement among Indonesian university students (Cao & Meng, 2020). Likewise, it is seen as a factor of proactive behavior that plays a vital role in determining life and work opportunities (Backmann, Weiss, Schippers & Hoegl, 2019; Y. Wang, Ang, Jiang & Wu, 2019). Further, for language learning, extraversion is shown to predict oral language performance (Kelsen, 2019). Research Question 2. Is there a difference between the Social and Cultural Capital Orientations when grouped according to selected variables? As shown in Table 3, it shows that there is a significant difference on the social and cultural capital orientation of the respondents when grouped according to their select profile variables. Hence, the hypothesis of the study is accepted. The table shows that parent's education and family income spelled significant differences the social and cultural capital orientation. The significant differences are seen on mothers' education on the following dimensions, social competence (p=0.00**), social solidarity (p=0.00**), global-cultural competence (0.019*), and extraversion (p=0.00*). Congruently, when fathers' education is taken, the significant differences are seen on social solidity (p=0.00**), and extraversion (p=0.00**). Finally, when family income is explored, literacy (p=0.00**) and global-cultural competence(p=0.00**) showed significant differences. Table 3. Test of Difference between the Social and Cultural Capital Orientation when grouped according to select profile variables Gender p-value Mothers Education Fathers Education Family Income Social Competence 0.682 ns 0.000** 0.142 ns 0.934 ns Social Solidarity 0.914 ns 0.000** 0.000 ** 0.269 ns Literacy 0.757 ns 0.273 ns 0.655 ns 0.000 ** Global-cultural competence 0.088 ns 0.019 * 0.476 ns 0.000 ** Maunah. Extraversion 0.229 ns 0.000** 0.000** 0.191 ns Note: * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.00 ns= not significant Test of difference using Post Hoc Tukey HSD Test revealed that those students whose mothers have a high level of education tend to exhibit high social competence, social solidarity, cultural competence, and extraversion. It can be practically explained that mother's education has an influence on social and cultural capital orientations of their children, considering that professional mothers have a stronger preference and desire to educate their children, the better exposure they provide to them. Educated women tend to see their children have good learning exposure and opportunities, which is linked to higher network and involvement of their children towards education. The finding corroborates with several studies showcasing the role of maternal education and social and cultural competence, and well-being of children (Ansari & Gershoff, 2016; Crosnoe, Ansari, Purtell & Wu, 2016; Pérez‐Escamilla & Moran, 2017; Strange, Bremner, Fisher, Howat & Wood, 2016). Other studies also reported that mothers have strongly influenced the completion of degree programs in higher education as they influenced their children's cognitive performance (Erola, Jalonen & Lehti, 2016; Font & Potter, 2019; Monaghan, 2017). Meanwhile, paternal education spelled a significant difference in the students' high orientation to social solidarity and the extraversion of the students. It can be explained that fathers' education and their role in the Indonesian family is crucial in the context of social and cultural capital among children. The high adherence to social solidarity shows the position of traditional Indonesian fathers who are reliable, responsible, and disciplinarian tend to promote strong family ties and social cohesion among other people (X. Li & Lamb, 2015; Seward & Stanley-Stevens, 2014; S. Zhang, Georgiou & Shu, 2019). Likewise, in this study, educated fathers expected to see their children be more extravert. It implicates that a higher level of education provides a higher level of civic and social engagement. Studies showed that the level of education influences selfconfidence and social engagement (Campbell, 2006; Erdoğdu, 2019; Filippin & Paccagnella, 2012). When family income is taken into consideration, significant differences are seen on the level of literacy and global-cultural competence of the respondents. It can be inferred that those students who belong in the higher income brackets tend to have a high level of self-assessment on their exposure to literacy and cultural orientations. This study shows that family income is a factor that Journal of Social Studies Education Research 2020: 11(1), 163-191 defines students' learning access to reading materials and exposure to art appreciation activities. Hence, family income determines children's academic achievement, cultural learning exposure, and children's' well-being (Chaudry & Wimer, 2016; Durber et al., 2017; Moote, Archer, DeWitt & MacLeod, 2019; Vuong, La, Ho, & Hoang Phuong, 2019). Further, studies in the Indonesian context also affirmed the role of home-learning environment, family income, and learning opportunities (Ciping, Silinskas, Wei & Georgiou, 2015; C. Liu & Georgiou, 2017). Research Question 3. What is the Students' Level of Cognitive Ability? Generally, in Table 4, the result of the OLSAT, showed that the respondents have an average level of cognitive ability (M=103.13, SD=10.16). As the table reveals, the majority (56.50%) are on the average level of 96-103.99, followed by those students with above-average scores of 112-119.99 (35.81%). The least contributors are those who have superior (0.27%) and above-average scores (0.27%). The data also presents that no students have below average and low cognitive ability. The finding generally indicates that the respondents of the study have an average or fair cognitive learning level, which finds it logical being already at the collegiate level. Table 4. Students' Level of Academic Achievement Domains Descriptive Interpretation Frequency (N=37 Percentage 128 and Above Superior 1 0.27 120-127.99 Above Average 1 0.27 112-119.99 Above Average 135 35.81 104-111.99 Average 19 5.04 96-103.99 Average 213 56.50 88-95.99 Average 8 2.12 80-87.99 Below average 0 0.00 7279.99 Below Average 0 0.00 71 and below Low 0 0.00 Level of Cognitive Ability = 103.14 (SD= 10.16) – Average Note: Ottis-Lennon School Ability Scale In this part of the study, finding reveals that sampled students' level of cognitive ability is on the average. It implies that the students manifest a reasonable level of cognitive capacity towards abstract thinking and reasoning abilities. As an implication, on the average level of cognitive ability displayed by the Indonesian respondents, the university may strengthen their curricular programs by enhancing more the learning opportunities being offered to the students, which will promote students' performance on diverse learning tasks. Cognitive ability is the general mental Maunah. structure involving critical thing, reasoning, abstract thinking, comprehension, and application of learning (K. Bergman, Sarkar, Glover, & O'Connor, 2010). Studies confirmed that students' cognitive ability is a predictor of academic success (Grass, Strobel & Strobel, 2017; Rammstedt, Danner & Martin, 2016). Studies in the Indonesian context of students' cognitive ability showed that urban students have better cognitive ability compared to rural students (Y. Wang et al., 2019; Zhao, Ye, Li & Xue, 2017). Research Question 4. Is there a difference between the Respondents' Cognitive Level when grouped according to selected variables? The test of the difference between the respondents' cognitive ability when grouped according to their profile variables, is presented in Table 5. Results showed that the hypothesis of the study is accepted. The single variable which spelled significant difference is when grouped according to fathers' education (p=0.026**). At the same time, gender, family income, and mother education showed no significant difference in terms of the students' cognitive level. Table 5. Test of Difference between the Respondents Cognitive Ability when grouped according to select profile variables Gender p-value Mothers Education Fathers Education Family Income Cognitive Level 0.475 ns 0.026 * 0.445 ns 0.083 ns Note: * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.00 ns= not significant The study revealed that mothers' education is generally associated with cognitive ability in the case of the Indonesian respondents. It implies that maternal education is positively linked to the student's cognitive ability. It can be explained that the role of Indonesian mothers in the education of their children is significant. It is implying that educated mothers tend to see their children have good learning exposure and opportunities, which is linked to higher network and involvement of their children towards education. This finding confirms decade studies regarding the influence of mothers to their children' cognitive development (Baker & Milligan, 2015; O. Bergman, Ellingsen, Johannesson & Svensson, 2010; Borra, Iacovou & Sevilla, 2012; Carneiro, Meghir & Parey, 2013; Duncan & Magnuson, 2012; Figlio, Guryan, Karbownik & Roth, 2014; Hess & Shipman, 2017; Obradović, Yousafzai, Finch & Rasheed, 2016; Quittner et al., 2013). Likewise, in the Indonesian Journal of Social Studies Education Research 2020: 11(1), 163-191 context, this finding corroborates with the previous studies that level of mothers education and health practices significantly impact Indonesian learners' cognitive ability and language development (Chiu & Lau, 2018; S. Li, Tao, Joshi & Xu, 2018; Lin et al., 2017; Long & Pang, 2016; J. Wu & Zhang, 2017; H. Zhang & Whitebread, 2017). Research Question 5. Is there a significant relationship between Social and Cultural Capital Orientation and the respondents' cognitive ability? Table 6 shows the correlation between students' cognitive ability and their social and cultural capital orientation. It was revealed that there is a significant correlation between students' cognitive ability and their social and cultural capital orientation on the domains of literacy (0.000*) and global-cultural competence (p=0.002*). The positive relationship suggests that literacy and globalcultural competence as domains of SCC is positively correlated to the students' cognitive ability. Hence, the hypothesis of the study is accepted. The finding generally shows that when students have a high level of literacy and cultural competence, the higher cognitive ability. No significant relationship found on social competence, social solidarity, and extraversion. Table 6. Test of relationship between Social and Cultural Capital Orientation and the respondents' cognitive ability Social Competence Social Solidarity Literacy Global-cultural competence Extraversion Cognitive Ability r= .0066 r=0.044 r=0.250 r=0.105 r=0.049 p= 0.899 ns p=.241 ns p= 0.000** p= 0.002* p=0.339 ns Note: * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.00 ns= not significant Literacy and global-cultural competence are positively associated with Indonesian students' cognitive ability. The positive relationship among the variables implies that high level of home literacy practices and global-cultural competence relate to the level of students cognitive ability. It further suggests that both literacy and cultural competence, when enhanced, it will improve students' cognitive ability. A similar finding has been found affirming that students' academic achievement is correlated to literacy and global-cultural competence (Pishghadam & Zabihi, 2011). Likewise, studies also concluded the positive association between social and cultural capital to students learning outcomes (Ahmadi, Ansarifar & Ansarifar, 2015; Andersen & Jaeger, 2015; Ghaffari & Khani, 2013; Gracia, 2015; Hernández, Cascallar & Kyndt, 2019; Mikus, Tieben, & Maunah. Schober, 2019; Møllegaard & Jaeger, 2015; O'Connell, 2019; Rogošić & Baranović, 2016; C. Y. Tan, Peng & Lyu, 2019). Studies in the Indonesian context also espoused that home literacy practices promote cognitive language development (Chow et al., 2017; G. Li & Ma, 2016; J. Wang, Li & Wang, 2018; Yeung & King, 2016; S. Zhang et al., 2019). Moreover, studies also showed that arts and cultural involvement of students benefit their academic achievement (Alfita, Kadiyono, Nguyen, Firdaus & Wekke, 2019; Pinto & He, 2019; C. Tan & Tan, 2016; C. Y. Tan et al., 2019). Research Question 5. What predicts the Social and Cultural Capital orientation and Cognitive Ability of the Respondents? Table 7 shows that family income predicts the Social and cultural orientation of the respondents. With the predictor variables selected, family income is the single predictor of social and cultural capital obtained the p-value of 0.000, which is lower than the alpha level of 0.01. The finding generally shows that family income significantly predicted the Social and Cultural capital orientations of the respondents. Table 7. Regression Analysis of the Social and Cultural Capital, Cognitive Learning Ability, and select Family Background Variables â* Un Std. Error of â â Std. Err. â t (371) p value Mothers Education 0.055 0.051 0.029 0.027 1.086 0.278 ns Fathers Education -0.015 0.050 -0.009 0.032 -0.302 0.762 ns Family Income 0.229 0.051 0.112 0.025 4.467 0.000** Note: * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.00 ns= not significant The result of the regression analysis found out that family income is a predictor of high social and cultural capital orientations among the students. It implies that those students in the Indonesian context who are on the higher income bracket tend to exhibit high social and cultural capital. This finding supports earlier studies that family income and social class predict more top access to learning opportunities, experiences, and educational resources (Bodovski, 2010; Fan, 2014; Fismen, Samdal & Torsheim, 2012). Moreover, the finding further implies that in the Indonesian educational setting, families may find advantage in providing quality education to their children Journal of Social Studies Education Research 2020: 11(1), 163-191 by offering them the highlight that family income promotes learning achievement and social and cultural capital advantage of their children which will ultimately help them achieve success in their future careers. As an implication of this finding, the provision for equal and equitable access to quality education is one of the top priorities of the Indonesian government at present. The human capital flourishing can be attained through quality education, which is an essential component of social justice. Hence, government initiative through proper allocation of educational resources is sought to narrow down the educational gap between the learning opportunities of the rich and the poor. The increase of educational funding is necessary for the government to fulfill so that higher education institutions can adequately provide the best learning resources for the students who come from underprivileged families. Conclusion The current study examined the interplay of Social and Cultural Capital orientation, cognitive learning ability, and family background. The results of the study showed that the respondents manifest a high level of social and cultural capital orientation, with literacy having the highest factor. Likewise, the respondents have an average cognitive level of ability. Test of difference showed that respondents whose parents having high educational achievement exhibit high social competence, social solidarity, cultural competence, and extraversion, social solidity, and extraversion. Similarly, fathers' education is the single variable which spelled difference on the student's cognitive ability implying students whose fathers have high academic qualification exhibit high cognitive ability. Test of relationship showed that literacy practices and globalcultural competence are correlated to students' cognitive ability. Finally, family income is a predictor of students' high level of social and cultural capital orientation and cognitive ability. These findings of the present study will present theoretical and practical implications. Theoretical and Practical Implications The findings of the present study provide significant theoretical and practical implications. The quest to improve students' learning outcomes is one of the essential tasks of institutions around the world. This study showcased that economic capital is a predictor of social and cultural capital for Indonesian college students' cognitive ability. As to theoretical implication, this study strengthens the Bourdieu's Theory of Capital (Bourdieu, 1977) highlighting the direct relationship Maunah. between economic opportunities to learning opportunities. Influence of family background to college education is still pervasive, where secure family financial status contributes to improving learning performance and interest (W. Li, 2007; Matherly, Amin, & Al Nahyan, 2017; M. Zhang & Li, 2019; H. Zhang & Whitebread, 2017). The central thesis of Bourdieu is that an individual's educational success is closely related to social class background and class bias, which are present in school. The present finding of the study bears significant implications to close the gap and indifference of student cognitive ability to promote educational relevance, access, and equity in modern Indonesian society, considering that college education is the gateway for better opportunities. Therefore, the following practical implications are offered. First, the support of learning institutions to students who come from low-income families may be strengthened by intensifying the effort of providing scholarships grants. Second, the support of parents towards the education of their children is still encouraged through financial and non-financial aspects. Third, awareness of parents on parenting behavior, as well as educational support, is always encouraged. Fourth, Exploration of the other factors relating to better learning access of students to education is still sought. Fifth, provided that literacy as the dimension of social and cultural capital, which is associated with cognitive ability, universities are encouraged to provide more reading and learning materials to students in such a way this will improve their cognitive ability. Likewise, mobile learning is also encouraged to promote better access and relevance of education in the industrial revolution 4.0. Sixth, finally, global-cultural competencies also related to the cognitive ability of the students; universities should initiate socio-cultural activities that will support the cultural appreciation of students. Limitations and Future Research Direction This study is subject to limitations which will provide future research directions. First, to further ascertain and close the gap of this study, a national survey may be initiated with lager samples, which will offer a more in-depth analysis and understanding of the influence of family income and parents' education to capture its effect on the cognitive ability of the students. Questions and gaps are presented in this study, which can help future researchers chart their research problems. Second, the use of a mixed-method research design is encouraged since this study is only limited to the descriptive correlational survey. 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Locke Studies Offprint An Annual Journal of Locke Research Vol. 16 2016 3 THE ROLE OF APPROPRIATION IN LOCKE'S ACCOUNT OF PERSONS AND PERSONAL IDENTITY RUTH BOEKER Abstract According to Locke, appropriation is a precondition for moral responsibility and thus we can expect that it plays a distinctive role in his theory. Yet it is rare to find an interpretation of Locke's account of appropriation that does not associate it with serious problems. To make room for a more satisfying understanding of Locke's account of appropriation we have to analyse why it was so widely misunderstood. The aim of this paper is fourfold: First, I will show that Mackie's and Winkler's interpretations that have shaped the subsequent discussion contain serious flaws. Second, I will argue that the so-called appropriation interpretation -that is the view that appropriation is meant to provide alternative persistence conditions for persons-lacks support. Third, I will re-examine Locke's texts and argue that we can come to a better understanding of his notion of appropriation in the Essay if we interpret it in analogy to his account of appropriation in Two Treatises. Fourth, I will offer a more fine-grained interpretation of the role of appropriation in relation to persistence conditions for persons. I conclude by showing that the advantage of this proposal is that it reconciles interpretations that have commonly been thought to be inconsistent. Keywords: John Locke, appropriation, person, personal identity, consciousness §1. Introduction Locke's theory of personal identity aims to answer questions of moral accountability. For Locke it is important that a person understands why he or she is held accountable for an action and this involves that he or she understands the moral laws and appropriates the action, or acknowledges it as his or her own. This means that, according to Locke, appropriation is a precondition for moral accountability and we can therefore expect that appropriation plays a distinctive role in Locke's theory (see II.xxvii.16, 26). 1 1 All references to John Locke, An Essay concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidditch (Oxford, 1975), will appear by book number, chapter number, and section number. For further discussion see Antonia LoLordo, Locke's Moral Man (Oxford, 2012), ch. 2; J. L. Mackie, Problems from Locke (Oxford, 1976), 176–77, 183; Galen Strawson, Locke on Personal Identity: Consciousness and Concernment 4 Despite the significance of appropriation, the reception of it in the literature is predominantly dismissive or negative, and it is rare to find an interpretation that does not associate appropriation with serious problems for Locke's theory. 2 In this paper I will argue that a satisfying interpretation of Locke's account of appropriation is missing and that the arguments that are meant to present problems for Locke's account of appropriation are seriously flawed. By analyzing why Locke's account of appropriation has been so widely misunderstood, I want to urge all those interpreters who tend to assume that Locke's notion of appropriation is well explored and understood in the literature to re-examine Locke's actual views. 3 In the literature J. L. Mackie and Kenneth Winkler are often given credit for drawing attention to appropriation. 4 However, Mackie associates appropriation with 'perhaps the most damaging objection' 5 against Locke's theory of personal identity, and Winkler ends his interpretation by acknowledging a tension between Locke's account of appropriation and divine (Princeton, NJ, 2011), ch. 3, especially 17–18; Kenneth P. Winkler, 'Locke on Personal Identity', Journal of the History of Philosophy 29 (1991): 223; Gideon Yaffe, 'Locke on Ideas of Identity and Diversity', in The Cambridge Companion to Locke's "Essay concerning Human Understanding", ed. Lex Newman (Cambridge, 2007), 220–23. 2 See Mackie, Problems from Locke, 183; Shelley Weinberg, 'Locke on Personal Identity', Philosophy Compass 6 (2011): 401–2 and 'The Metaphysical Fact of Consciousness in Locke's Theory of Personal Identity', Journal of the History of Philosophy 50 (2012): 388–90; Winkler, 'Locke on Personal Identity'; Yaffe, 'Locke on Ideas of Identity and Diversity', 221–23. LoLordo, Locke's Moral Man, ch. 2, does not follow the negative trend and endorses an appropriation interpretation. Other interpreters, who acknowledge appropriation in Locke's theory, but who are less often cited, include Michael Ayers, Locke: Epistemology and Ontology (2 vols., London, 1991), ii, 266–68; David P. Behan, 'Locke on Persons and Personal Identity', Canadian Journal of Philosophy 9 (1979): 53–75; Eric Matthews, 'Descartes and Locke on the Concept of a Person', The Locke Newsletter 8 (1977): 26–28, 32–33; Strawson, Locke on Personal Identity, 17–18; Udo Thiel, Lockes Theorie der personalen Identität (Bonn, 1983), 116–17. 3 For example, LoLordo, Locke's Moral Man, maintains that '[t]he appropriation interpretation is relatively familiar' (66). 4 See Mackie, Problems from Locke, 183; Winkler, 'Locke on Personal Identity'. 5 Mackie, Problems from Locke, 183. 5 rectification. In the recent literature there has been a revival of this discussion, and Gideon Yaffe, Shelley Weinberg, and Antonia LoLordo have coined the term 'appropriation interpretation.' 6 While they all ascribe this interpretation to Winkler-and in some degree to Mackie-they tend to assume that appropriation is meant to provide alternative persistence conditions for persons that avoid problems that arise for memory interpretations, namely, the view that (direct or indirect) memory relations are necessary and sufficient for personal identity. 7 This means the appropriation interpretation is the view that the necessary and sufficient conditions of what makes a person the same over time are to be understood in terms of appropriation. It is not obvious that Winkler's original interpretation actually supports this view and thus I will use the term 'appropriation interpretation' to refer to the view that appropriation is meant to 6 See LoLordo, 'Author Meets Critics on Antonia LoLordo's "Locke's Moral Man": LoLordo's Reply to Weinberg', The Mod Squad: A Group Blog in Modern Philosophy, June 25, 2014, http://philosophymodsquad.wordpress.com/2013/07/07/amc-lmmlolordos-reply-to-weinberg/, Locke's Moral Man, ch. 2, especially 65–66, 70–74, 82 (n 30), 98–99, 102; Shelley Weinberg, 'Author Meets Critics on Antonia LoLordo's "Locke's Moral Man": Shelley Weinberg', The Mod Squad, June 25, 2014, http://philosophymodsquad.wordpress.com/2013/07/06/amc-lmm-shelley-weinberg/ 'Locke on Personal Identity', 401–2, 'The Metaphysical Fact', 388–90; Yaffe, 'Locke on Ideas of Identity and Diversity', 221–23. 7 Yaffe argues that, according to Locke, personal identity consists in sameness of consciousness and so the real question is what Locke means by sameness of consciousness. Yaffe discusses different meanings of sameness of consciousness. After he has outlined the problems for the view that consciousness is to be understood in terms of memory, he turns to the proposal that '"consciousness" is to be understood as "appropriation" or "subjective constitution"' ('Locke on Ideas of Identity and Diversity', 221). This set-up makes clear that he assumes appropriation is meant to provide alternative persistence conditions for persons. Similarly Weinberg considers problems concerning the memory and appropriation interpretations to motivate her own interpretation of Locke's persistence conditions for persons. See 'Locke on Personal Identity', 401–2, 'The Metaphysical Fact', 388–90. LoLordo asks how consciousness extends itself backwards. She rejects the view that consciousness extends itself by memory in favour of her view that it extends itself by appropriation (see Locke's Moral Man, 65, 70, 73). LoLordo argues 'that consciousnesses extend themselves into the past and future by appropriation' (Locke's Moral Man, 65). The phrase 'consciousness extends itself by appropriation' is vague, but because LoLordo contrasts her view with the memory interpretation she seems to treat appropriation as analogous to memory relations. 6 provide persistence conditions for persons, but, contrary to Yaffe, Weinberg, and LoLordo, I will examine whether, rather than assume that, Winkler endorses it. Moreover, it is not obvious that Locke would endorse it either. If this was his view, why did he not simply say that personal identity consists in appropriation, rather than claiming that it consists in sameness of consciousness? Yaffe and Weinberg acknowledge the appropriation interpretation as an important interpretation, but argue that their own respective interpretations of the persistence conditions for persons are to be preferred and not subject to the problems associated with the appropriation interpretation. All those who follow the trend and associate persistence conditions in terms of appropriation with serious problems tend to dismiss the possibility that appropriation can play a different role in Locke's theory. 8 In contrast to Yaffe and Weinberg, LoLordo endorses the appropriation interpretation. The aim of this paper is fourfold: First, I will carefully examine Mackie's and Winkler's influential interpretations and show that their arguments, which are meant to present problems for Locke's account of appropriation, are seriously flawed. Second, I will argue that the so-called appropriation interpretation lacks support, because it cannot be ascribed to Mackie and Winkler as is assumed by Yaffe, Weinberg, and LoLordo and that the problems that Yaffe and Weinberg associate with it dissolve under closer scrutiny. Third, I will re-examine Locke's texts and argue that we can come to a better understanding of his account of appropriation in the Essay if we interpret it in analogy to his account of appropriation in Two Treatises. Fourth, I will offer a more fine-grained interpretation of the role of appropriation in relation to persistence conditions for persons. I will propose that we can make progress by considering separately the relations and the relata that compose persistence conditions. Given this distinction, I argue that it is plausible that the relevant relata are 8 I admit that it is not the central task of Yaffe's and Weinberg's papers to offer a theory of appropriation, but the predominantly negative treatment of appropriation in the literature may explain why so few interpreters offer positive interpretations of it. 7 appropriated actions or thoughts, 9 but that it is hard to make sense of the view that appropriation provides alternative relations that constitute the persistence conditions. These distinctions enable me to show that it is misleading to present the appropriation interpretation as an alternative to the memory interpretation, but rather, if we accept my proposed distinctions, appropriation can be reconciled with psychological interpretations as well as with interpretations such as Weinberg's that argue for a more robust metaphysical fact of consciousness. 10 The advantage of my proposal is that it does not dismiss appropriation as the critics of the appropriation interpretation do, but instead acknowledges that appropriation plays a distinctive role in Locke's theory and takes seriously the questions of moral accountability that are at the heart of Locke's theory. 11 §2. Mackie on Appropriation Let us turn to J. L. Mackie's influential discussion in Problems from Locke. He emphasizes that Locke's theory is a theory of action appropriation, but regards this to be an objection against Locke's theory: [P]erhaps the most damaging objection is this. Since a man at t2 commonly remembers only some of his experiences and actions at t1, whereas what constituted a person at t1 was all the experiences and actions that were then co-conscious, Locke's view fails to equate a person identified at t2 with any person identifiable at t1. It is only a theory of how some items which belonged to a person identifiable at t1 are appropriated by a person who can 9 It is worth noting that Locke's term 'thought' is broader than it is in present-day usage and includes any conscious mental state. He adopts this broad notion from his predecessors Descartes and Cudworth. See Keith Allen, 'Cudworth on Mind, Body, and Plastic Nature', Philosophy Compass 8 (2013): 337–47, 343. 10 See Weinberg, 'The Metaphysical Fact'. 11 For further discussion see Ruth Boeker, 'The Moral Dimension in Locke's Account of Persons and Personal Identity', History of Philosophy Quarterly 31 (2014): 229–47; Edmund Law, 'A Defence of Mr. Locke's Opinion Concerning Personal Identity', in vol. 2 of The Works of John Locke, 12th ed. (London, 1824); Jessica Spector, 'The Grounds of Moral Agency: Locke's Account of Personal Identity', Journal of Moral Philosophy 5 (2008): 256–81. 8 be identified as such only at t2. It is therefore hardly a theory of personal identity at all, but might be better described as a theory of action appropriation. Locke seems to be forgetting that 'person' is not only 'a forensic term, appropriating actions and their merit', but also the noun corresponding to all the personal pronouns. (Problems from Locke, 183) Mackie distinguishes a theory of personal identity from a theory of action appropriation. In order to explain his argument, it is worth specifying what he means by each of them respectively. A theory of personal identity offers necessary and sufficient conditions for a person P1 existing at t1 to be the same person as a person P2 existing at t2. The important point for Mackie's argument is that a theory of personal identity concerns individuals existing at different times. In contrast to this, according to Mackie, a theory of action appropriation offers an account of the actions that a being 12 ascribes, or appropriates, to himor herself at a particular time. 13 On this basis, we can analyze Mackie's argument for the claim that a theory of action appropriation does not qualify as a theory of personal identity. His argument has the following structure: (1) A person at a time t is constituted by all the experiences and actions of which he or she is co-conscious at t. (2) A person P2 at t2 appropriates only some experiences and actions of a person P1 existing at an earlier time t1. (3) In order for action appropriation to provide a suitable account of personal identity, P2 has to appropriate all of P1's experiences and actions. (4) Action appropriation does not provide a suitable account of the identity of P1 with P2. 12 I use the term 'being' to be neutral with respect to the question whether a person exists prior to the act of action appropriation or whether action appropriation is a constitutive element of a person's existence. 13 The textual evidence is not decisive whether Locke intends to offer a theory of action appropriation or a theory of personal identity over time. Support for the former can be found in II.xxvii.16 and 26. However, other passages such as II.xxvii.25 suggest that, according to Locke, a person exists over time. 9 The textual support makes it plausible to assume (1), and (2) is confirmed by experience. However, the question arises as to why Mackie endorses (3) and whether (3) should be accepted. First, it is worth noting that (3) assumes that action appropriation is intended to provide persistence conditions for persons without providing any argument for this assumption. Second, Mackie equates the appropriation of a past action with remembering the past action as one's own. There are three different ways to interpret what is meant by appropriation of past actions by remembrance. 14 First, to appropriate a past action could be understood simply as remembering that action. This reading reduces appropriation of past actions to memory. However, if this was correct, then appropriation would not play any distinctive role in Locke's theory and Mackie's interpretation would be a version of a psychological account of personal identity. 15 Second, appropriation of past actions by remembrance could be a special kind of remembering that differs intrinsically from other kinds of memory. However, it is unlikely that Mackie understands appropriation in this sense, because it undermines his argument. Mackie assumes that in order for action appropriation to provide persistence conditions for persons, P2 has to appropriate all the experiences and actions that P1 was coconscious at t1 and not merely those that one remembers in a special way. On a third reading, appropriation of past actions could be distinguished from remembrance simpliciter, by proposing that appropriation does not only involve remembrance, but additionally a further component that cannot be reduced to 14 Note that I here focus on the appropriation of past actions, since they are the focus of Mackie's argument. It is plausible that not only past actions are appropriated, but also present actions and the appropriation of present actions will involve consciousness, rather than memory. The considerations given here can be extended to the appropriation of present actions by replacing 'memory' with 'consciousness'. 15 I use the term 'psychological account of personal identity' to refer to any theory that accounts for the persistence conditions for persons in terms of psychological relations such as consciousness or memory. 10 memory. For instance, it can be suggested that appropriation of past actions, does not merely require that I remember the action, but, additionally, I must have performed the action. This proposal provides a means to distinguish my actions from the actions of others that I can remember or be aware of. While I can remember the actions that my sister did, I do not appropriate them. In other words, I only appropriate actions that I performed myself. Again, it is unlikely that Mackie considered this meaning, because it renders his argument inconsistent. Given his assumption that in order for action appropriation to provide persistence conditions for persons, P2 has to appropriate all the experiences and actions that P1 was co-conscious at t1, Mackie seems committed to the view that P1 appropriates the actions that he or she perceived others doing at that time-yet this is exactly what this reading rejects. Consequently, each reading undermines the force of Mackie's argument. A further deficiency of Mackie's argument is that he fails to properly motivate the strong and questionable assumption that all past experiences and actions have to be appropriated in order for action appropriation to provide a suitable account of personal identity. This is a pressing question, because there are alternative, and at least equally plausible, accounts of the persistence conditions for persons. For example, one might argue instead- inspired by certain Neo-Lockean views-that a sufficient number of past experiences and actions have to be appropriated. 16 Mackie may respond that such a proposal is a revision of Locke's view and does not properly accommodate Locke's aim to answer questions of moral accountability with his theory. At this stage, it is worth drawing attention to the fact that I am conscious of more 16 For instance, according to Derek Parfit, '[f]or X and Y to be the same person, there must be over every day enough direct psychological connections' (Reasons and Persons (Oxford, 1984), 206). If Neo-Lockean theories succeed in offering an account of personal identity then it is unclear why Mackie claims that an account of personal identity in terms of action appropriation requires that all past experiences and actions are appropriated rather than a sufficient number of past experiences and actions. Note that this comparison with Neo-Lockean views is merely meant to challenge Mackie's assumption and is not intended to be an endorsement of Neo-Lockean interpretations of Locke. 11 than morally significant experiences and actions, since many thoughts and actions are morally neutral in the sense that one neither deserves reward nor punishment for having done or doing them. This observation invites a distinction between morally significant experiences and actions and those that are not morally significant. Since Locke-as Mackie acknowledges-is particularly interested in questions of moral accountability throughout his discussion of personal identity, it is plausible that he may have given morally significant experiences and actions different weight than other experiences and actions. 17 On this basis, we can now contrast Mackie's premise (3) with two alternative accounts of the persistence conditions for persons and distinguish the three following positions: (PI1) A person P1 existing at t1 is the same person as a person P2 existing at t2 if and only if P2 is able to be conscious of all of the morally significant experiences and actions that P1 was co-conscious. (PI2) A person P1 existing at t1 is the same person as a person P2 existing at t2 if and only if P2 is able to be conscious of all of the morally significant experiences and actions which P1 was co-conscious and of a sufficient number of other experiences and actions that P1 was co-conscious. (PI3) A person P1 existing at t1 is the same person as a person P2 existing at t2 if and only if P2 is able to be conscious of all of the experiences and actions that P1 was co-conscious. In support of (PI1) it can be argued that the restriction to morally significant thoughts and actions is in accordance with Locke's aim to address questions of accountability. Locke introduces the notion of a person in addition to the notions of a human organism, or 'man' to use Locke's term, and a substance in order to trace the continued existence of a subject of 17 Since for Locke appropriation is a necessary condition for moral accountability, morally significant actions will be actions that a self is able to appropriate. However, it is an open question whether there are appropriated thoughts or actions that are not morally significant. I want to be neutral on this issue and for this reason I do not formulate the following positions in terms of appropriation. 12 accountability over time. 18 According to Locke, if we want to decide whether an individual now is the same person, or subject of accountability, as an individual that committed a crime, bodily continuity will neither be sufficient nor necessary. It is not sufficient, because an individual may have irretrievably forgotten a past crime and yet the body continues to exist (see II.xxvii.20). Locke's prince-cobbler example is meant to show that bodily continuity is not necessary (see II.xxvii.15). Similarly, Locke argues that sameness of substance is neither necessary nor sufficient for the continued existence of a person, or subject of accountability. Thus, Locke believes that it is important to introduce the term 'person' to properly address questions of accountability. Given that Locke's account of personal identity is intended to track accountability, it seems pointless to include morally neutral experiences and actions into the persistence conditions for persons. However, one can defend (PI2) against (PI1) by arguing that including consciousness of some morally neutral experiences and actions will help a person to trace the morally significant actions within his or her past, because (PI1) may be too thin for a person to realize how an action was connected with other past experiences. Locke argues in II.xxvii.22 that in the Great Day one's conscience will accuse or excuse oneself. This provides support for the view that an individual shall understand the justice of reward and punishment from a first personal perspective. Let us turn to (PI3)-the view that underlies Mackie's argument. Due to forgetfulness (PI3) will be less often satisfied than (PI1) and (PI2). This calls into question the plausibility of (PI3), because it is problematic to accept that one ceases to be the same person as a past self by forgetting morally insignificant experiences or actions of the past self. For example, it follows that one ceases to be the same person merely by forgetting morally insignificant experiences such as the colour of the shirt that one's mother was wearing a week ago. This result is 18 For further discussion why it is plausible to regard Lockean persons as subjects of accountability see Boeker, 'The Moral Dimension of Locke's Account of Persons and Personal Identity'. 13 particularly unmotivated if we take seriously Locke's aim to address questions of accountability. Consequently, (PI1) and (PI2) are more plausible candidates than (PI3). On this basis we can conclude that Mackie's premise (3), which assumes (PI3) and does not acknowledge the possibility of (PI1) or (PI2), is not well supported. Since Mackie emphasizes that moral accountability is at the heart of Locke's theory, Mackie could welcome (PI1) and (PI2) as more sympathetic interpretations of Locke. There is no need to take a stance on whether (PI1) or (PI2) provides the better account of personal identity, as long as a person will be accountable for the same actions. 19 To sum up, Mackie argues that Locke's theory is a theory of action appropriation, but he takes this to be an objection, because appropriation is not suitable to provide proper persistence conditions for persons. However, as I argued, Mackie's argument can be criticized on several grounds: First, it assumes without further argument that appropriation is meant to provide persistence conditions for persons. Second, Mackie either equates appropriation with consciousness or memory in general and so does not leave room for appropriation to play a distinctive role in Locke's theory, or appropriation will have to be understood in a sense that is inconsistent with Mackie's argument. Furthermore, I argued that his assumptions concerning the persistence conditions for persons are very demanding and lack motivation in light of alternative accounts that are more sympathetic to Locke's view. We can conclude that Mackie's argument, due to its flaws, is not a reliable source to support an interpretation of Locke's account of appropriation, and, in particular, it does not provide adequate support for the appropriation interpretation. Next, let us turn to Winkler's interpretation to see whether his view is more promising. 19 One may argue that all experiences and actions are morally significant and that, consequently, (PI1) collapses into (PI3). I do not have an argument to rule out this possibility in principle. However, my main point still holds, namely, that Mackie owes us a further justification for why he endorses the very demanding condition (PI3). Note further that the options discussed here are not meant to be exhaustive. 14 §3. Winkler on Subjective Constitution and The Problem of Reconciling Appropriation and the Possibility of Divine Adjustments Winkler's main contribution, as we will see in a moment, consists in his claim that appropriation plays an important role with respect to a person's or self's subjective constitution. We will have to examine whether, according to him, appropriation is merely involved in the constitution of a person at a time, or whether it additionally provides alternative persistence conditions for persons-as is assumed by the so-called appropriation interpretation in the more recent literature. He ends the paper by acknowledging that appropriation, or the subjective constitution of a person, is hard to reconcile with the possibility of objective divine adjustments. Yaffe and Weinberg argue that the appropriation interpretation is to be rejected due to this problem and, hence, it is worth examining it closely. Let us turn to the details of Winkler's view. According to Winkler, a self's or person's own constitution provides the basis of Locke's account of persons and personal identity: I am proposing that Locke is interested in a sense of the word self according to which what the self includes depends on what it appropriates. I think we can all imagine finding a place for such a notion. "Perhaps soand-so did commit the crime, but if he is not aware of having done it, then there is a sense in which the action is not his own." ('Locke on Personal Identity', 205) As §26 makes clear, the self has a certain authority over its constitution. It is important to realize that this authority is not consciously exerted. I do not wilfully disown one act and appropriate another, instead I accept what my consciousness reveals to me. ('Locke on Personal Identity', 206) Winkler emphasizes the authoritative role that a self has over his or her own constitution. He also calls this the 'subjective 15 constitution' of a self. 20 By this he means that any criticism must be based on the self's own appropriations. 21 As before, we can ask whether appropriation plays a distinctive role or whether it reduces to consciousness. According to Winkler, consciousness is clearly a necessary condition for appropriation, but does he also regard it to be sufficient? He does not engage with this question, yet it can be argued that I am aware of more actions than those that I appropriate. For example, I can be aware of my sister's actions by observing her, but I would not appropriate her actions as my own actions. Since Winkler argues that one must be aware of having committed a crime in order to appropriate it, I believe that he would be happy to acknowledge a difference between mere conscious awareness and action appropriation or, at least, he would be happy to regard appropriation as a special kind of conscious awareness. 22 Hence consciousness is necessary for appropriation but appropriation cannot be equated with consciousness in general. This creates scope for appropriation to play a distinctive role in Locke's theory. Winkler's claims so far establish that appropriation plays an important role with respect to a person's constitution at a time, but we have not yet encountered an argument for the further claim that appropriation provides alternative persistence conditions for persons. He does not explicitly distinguish these two questions and remains vague on the latter. Nevertheless, he maintains that 'the constitution of the self takes place over time' (207) and that the self over time cannot be constituted by consciousness alone due to the problem of transitivity that Berkeley and Reid raised for Locke's theory. 23 In response to this 20 Winkler, 'Locke on Personal Identity', 201, 204, 208, 209, 220, 222, 223, 225. 21 See Winkler, 'Locke on Personal Identity', 208. 22 See Winkler, 'Locke on Personal Identity', 205. 23 See Winkler, 'Locke on Personal Identity', 206–8. See George Berkeley, Alciphron, or The Minute Philosopher, in The Works of George Berkeley Bishop of Cloyne, ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop (9 vols., London, 1950), iii, 299; Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, ed. Derek R. Brookes (Edinburgh, 2002), III.vi, 276. 16 problem Winkler proposes that Locke could easily accept that personal identity over time is constituted by the ancestral of the co-consciousness or memory relation. For present purposes, I will not further engage with the question whether replacing the coconsciousness or memory relation with the ancestral of that relation provides a satisfying solution to the problem of transitivity, because it leads astray from the actual topic of this paper. 24 The more important question here is whether Winkler's view that personal identity is constituted by the ancestral of the co-consciousness or memory relation leaves room for appropriation to provide alternative persistence conditions for persons. He does not give any indication that he intends his interpretation of Locke's account of personal identity to provide an alternative account, but rather he presents it as a version of a psychological account of personal identity. Otherwise he would and should have made explicit that he intended to offer an alternative account. In the absence of such clarification, we have reason to conclude that, according to Winkler, appropriation is relevant for the constitution of a self at a time, but is not intended to replace psychological accounts of personal identity. Having argued that appropriation or subjective constitution plays an important role in Locke's account of persons, Winkler ends his paper by raising a tension between the subjective constitution of a person and objective third-personal criticism and adjustments. 25 It is important for Locke to leave room for the possibility of objective adjustments or criticisms, because he takes seriously the possibility of divine rectification at the Last Judgement (see II.xxvii.13, 15, 21–22, 26; IV.iii.6; IV.xvviii). 26 24 For further discussion see Nicholas Jolley, Locke: His Philosophical Thought (Oxford, 1999), 120–21; E. J. Lowe, Locke on Human Understanding (Abingdon, 1995), 112–14; Mackie, Problems from Locke, 178–83; Harold W. Noonan, Personal Identity, 2 nd edn. (Abingdon, 2003), 55–56; Strawson, Locke on Personal Identity, 53– 57, chs. 10–11; Matthew Stuart, Locke's Metaphysics (Oxford, 2013), ch. 8, especially 353–59, 378–85. 25 See Winkler, 'Locke on Personal Identity', 209–11, 220–23. 26 See also John Locke, Writings on Religion, ed. Victor Nuovo (Oxford, 2002), especially 'Resurrectio et quae sequuntur', 232–37. 17 The doctrine of divine rectification says that God at the Great Day will reward and punish persons for their doings in this life, and, if necessary, correct human injustice. 27 In order for God to justly reward or punish people at the Great Day an objective standard will be needed that guarantees, or enables God to make adequate adjustments such that, resurrected persons acknowledge all their past thoughts and actions and only their past thoughts and actions. 28 However, is there room for such objective divine adjustments if the self is subjectively constituted? Winkler argues that it is difficult to reconcile appropriation with the possibility of divine adjustment. He connects the difficulty to a dilemma that Flew raised many years ago for Locke's theory. 29 Flew distinguishes phenomenal or seeming memory from genuine memory and argues that Locke's theory collapses on either understanding of memory: 30 On the one hand, 27 See Weinberg, 'Author Meets Critics on Antonia LoLordo's "Locke's Moral Man": Shelley Weinberg'; 'The Metaphysical Fact', 389. 28 See Winkler, 'Locke on Personal Identity', 220. Winkler's and Weinberg's views concerning the possibility of divine rectification are similar. LoLordo agrees that the theory must provide scope for divine rectification, but denies the need for divine adjustments, because, according to her, there will be no misappropriations. See LoLordo, 'Author Meets Critics on Antonia LoLordo's "Locke's Moral Man": LoLordo's Reply to Weinberg'; Locke's Moral Man, 70–74. LoLordo's arguments against misappropriations depend on a non-transitive interpretation of Locke's account of personal identity. Although such interpretations have been defended by Mackie, Problems from Locke, 178–83, Strawson, Locke on Personal Identity, 53–57, chs. 10– 11, and Stuart, Locke's Metaphysics, ch. 8, especially 353–59, 378–85, the debate is not settled. I prefer to be neutral on whether Locke's account of personal identity is transitive or not and hence I do not follow LoLordo in assuming that misappropriation is impossible; rather I believe that a theory that can incorporate misappropriations has broader scope. 29 See Anthony Flew, 'Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity', Philosophy 26 (1951): 58. 30 I will follow Flew in presenting the dilemma in terms of memory. However, it is worth noting that Locke's notion of consciousness is not to be reduced to memory, because it includes consciousness of the present and extends into the future (see Margaret Atherton, 'Locke's Theory of Personal Identity', Midwest Studies in Philosophy 8 (1983): 273–93; Matthews, 'Descartes and Locke on the Concept of a Person', 28–30; Marya Schechtman, The Constitution of Selves (Ithaca, NY, 1996), 105–12, especially 107; Strawson, Locke on Personal Identity, ch. 9; Udo Thiel, Lockes Theorie der personalen Identität, 129–31, and his The Early Modern Subject (Oxford, 18 if memory is understood in terms of phenomenal memory, then whatever I seem to remember was done by me. As a consequence Locke's theory would not leave room for error. However, Locke mentions in II.xxvii.13 the possibility of 'fatal Error' and this conflicts with the phenomenal memory reading. On the other hand, if memory is understood in terms of genuine memory, Flew argues that Locke has to give up his view that personal identity consists in sameness of consciousness, admitting, according to Flew, that 'same person' has to be defined at least partially in terms of 'same thinking substance' ('Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity', 58). Winkler engages with the problem raised by Flew, and acknowledges: The problem is that if we respond by saying that any thought or action appropriated by my present self is in fact mine, we lose (as Flew in effect insists) the possibility of divine criticism ('Locke on Personal Identity', 221) At the very least, Flew's objection shows that the dominant themes in Chapter 27-the subjective constitution of the self, and the possibility of objective criticism and adjustment-cannot easily be combined ('Locke on Personal Identity', 222) It is right that if memory can be reduced to phenomenal memory, then the view will not leave room for divine criticism. However, the problem with Winkler's analysis of the tension is that he follows Flew in understanding Locke's account of memory in terms of phenomenal memory. Yet there is no good textual support for understanding Locke's account of memory in this way. Memory, according to Locke, requires previous awareness of the thought or action remembered (see I.iv.20, II.x.2, 7): 31 2011), 109, 122–26). However, consciousness of past thoughts and actions involves memory (see I.iv.20, II.x). 31 See Don Garrett, 'Locke on Personal Identity, Consciousness, and "Fatal Errors"', Philosophical Topics 31 (2003): 100–2. 19 this laying up of our Ideas in the Repository of the Memory, signifies no more but this, that the Mind has a Power, in many cases, to revive Perceptions, which it has once had, with this additional Perception annexed to them, that it has had them before. (II.x.2) The previous awareness condition of memory makes it possible to distinguish imaginary memories from genuine memories, at least from a divine perspective, because in the case of imaginary memories there has never been a previous perception of the thing or event that one now seems to remember. Although Winkler presents the problem as a tension between appropriation and the possibility of divine rectification, closer inspection shows that it concerns a tension between phenomenal memory and the possibility of divine rectification. Since Locke does not understand memory in terms of phenomenal memory, the problem can be avoided. Given the previous analysis, namely, that appropriation is relevant for the constitution of a person at a time but is not intended to provide alternative persistence conditions for persons, this result is not surprising. The objective standard that is needed for divine adjustments has to be built into the relation that constitutes personal identity over time. Since appropriation on Winkler's view does not provide alternative persistence conditions, there is no specific problem concerning appropriation. If there is a tension, then it has broader scope and concerns psychological accounts of personal identity more generally. §4. Revisiting the So-Called Appropriation Interpretation In the more recent literature the so-called appropriation interpretation is often ascribed to Winkler. However, in light of the previous critical discussion of Mackie's and Winkler's interpretations, we have to revisit whether the appropriation interpretation is subject to the same problems and whether there is support for such a view. To begin, let me put aside Yaffe's and Weinberg's criticism of the appropriation interpretation. Both reject it due to the apparent problem that appropriation does not leave room for objective 20 criticism. 32 However, as the discussion above has shown, this problem is merely apparent and arises because Winkler follows Flew in interpreting memory in terms of phenomenal memory. Since this reading is not supported by Locke's text, Yaffe's and Weinberg's criticisms are undermined too. It remains to consider whether appropriation can provide alternative persistence conditions, as Yaffe, Weinberg, and LoLordo assume when they introduce the appropriation as an alternative to the memory interpretation. They do not offer a detailed argument, but rather they ascribe the view to Winkler, and sometimes more remotely to Mackie. However, as we have seen, neither Mackie nor Winkler offer arguments in support of the claim that appropriation is meant to provide alternative persistence conditions. Consequently, the view is unsupported in the absence of another argument. I will return to these issues in the final section. However, first it is important to re-examine Locke's texts closely. This is the task to which I turn now. §5. The Role of Appropriation in Locke's Texts In light of the problems that arise for Mackie's and Winkler's discussion of appropriation, and the subsequent lack of support for the so-called 'appropriation interpretation', it is fair to say that a satisfying understanding of the role that appropriation plays in Locke's account of persons and personal identity is missing. This makes it worth returning to Locke's texts and to re-examine his own understanding of appropriation. The problems identified in the previous considerations make it interesting to draw particular attention to the following questions: First, is appropriation relevant for the constitution of a person at a time? Second, is appropriation meant to provide a new self-standing account of the persistence conditions for persons? While Winkler puts emphasis on the former and is vague with regard to the latter, the problem with Mackie's view is that he believes the latter. 32 See Weinberg, 'Author Meets Critics on Antonia LoLordo's "Locke's Moral Man": Shelley Weinberg'; 'The Metaphysical Fact', 389–90; 'Locke on Personal Identity', 401–2; Yaffe, 'Locke on Ideas of Identity and Diversity', 223. 21 Since Locke mentions appropriation in his chapter 'Of Identity and Diversity' explicitly only in II.xxvii.16 and 26, it will be helpful to consider whether his other writings help to provide a fuller understanding of his account of appropriation and its role in his discussion of persons and personal identity. Besides the Essay, the second of Locke's Two Treatises of Government is an important source, because appropriation is relevant in the chapter 'Of Property' (Two Treatises, II.v). 33 I will therefore briefly turn to Locke's Two Treatises to consider whether Locke's understanding of appropriation there helps to illuminate his discussion in Essay II.xxvii. There are interesting terminological parallels between Locke's discussion of persons and personal identity in Essay II.xxvii and his discussion of property in Two Treatises II.v, though we have, of course, to be cautious not to stretch the parallels too far, because the Essay is a philosophical work in which Locke aims for terminological precision, while in Two Treatises he follows ordinary language use and does not distinguish the terms 'person' and 'man'. 34 While in the Essay Locke speaks of the appropriation of actions by consciousness, in Two Treatises he discusses appropriation of external objects by labour. He argues in Two Treatises that by mixing one's labour with common goods such as fruits, animals or land they become one's property or one 33 References to Locke, Two Treatises are to John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge, 1988). See Ayers, Locke, ii, 266–68; Thomas Mautner, 'Locke's Own', The Locke Newsletter 22 (1991): 73–80; Thiel, Lockes Theorie der personalen Identität, 116–17, especially note 28; John W. Yolton, Locke: An Introduction (Oxford, 1985); Naomi Zack, 'Locke's Identity Meaning of Ownership', The Locke Newsletter 23 (1992): 105–13, for discussion of the role of appropriation in II.xxvii in relation to Locke's Second Treatise and natural law theory. Further literature on appropriation and ownership which focuses on the Second Treatise includes Stephen Buckle, Natural Law and the Theory of Property: Grotius to Hume (Oxford, 1991), 149–90; J. P. Day, 'Self-Ownership', The Locke Newsletter 20 (1989): 77–85; Karl Olivecrona, 'Appropriation in the State of Nature: Locke on the Origin of Property', Journal of the History of Ideas 35 (1974): 211–30, 'Locke's Theory of Appropriation', The Philosophical Quarterly 24 (1974): 220–34; James Tully, A Discourse on Property: Locke and his Adversaries (Cambridge, 1980). 34 For further discussion see Ayers, Locke, ii, 266–68; Timothy Stanton, 'Christian Foundations; or Some Loose Stones? Toleration and the Philosophy of Locke's Politics'; Thiel, Lockes Theorie der Personalen Identität, 116–17, especially note 28. 22 makes them one's own (see Two Treatises, II.v.26–39). Hence, in this context 'to appropriate something' means 'to make it one's own'. The following passages further illustrate this point: God, who has given the World to Men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of Life, and convenience... yet being given for the use of Men, there must of necessity be a means to appropriate them [i.e. the fruits and beasts] some way or other before they can be of any use, or at all beneficial to any particular Man. The Fruit, or Venison, which nourishes the wild Indian, who knows no Inclosure, and is still a Tenant in common, must be his, i.e. a part of him, that another can no longer have any right to it, before it can do him any good for the support of his Life. Though the Earth, and all inferior Creatures be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left in it, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property. It being by him removed from the common state Nature placed it in, it hath by his labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other Men. For this Labour being the unquestionable property of the Labourer, no Man but he can have a right to what that is once joyned to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others. (Two Treatises, II.v.26–27) How can we understand Locke's claim that common goods become part of oneself by appropriation? Locke stands in the natural law tradition, and in natural law theory it was common to describe what belongs to a person with the term suum-one's own. 35 Grotius, for example, argues that "[b]y nature, a man's life is his own, not indeed to destroy, but to safeguard; also his own are his body, limbs, reputation, honour, and the acts of his will." (On the Law of War and Peace, 2.17.2.1). 36 The suum can be 35 See Buckle, Natural Law and the Theory of Property; Olivecrona, 'Locke's Theory of Appropriation'; Zack, 'Locke's Identity Meaning of Ownership'. 36 References to On the Law of War and Peace are to Hugo Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace, ed. Stephen C. Neff (Cambridge, 2012). Similarly as Grotius, Samuel Pufendorf lists 'our Life, our Bodies, our Members, our Chastity, our Reputation, and our Liberty' as 'Things which we receive from the immediate Hand of Nature' (Of the Law of Nature and Nations, ed. Jean Barbeyrac (London, 1729), 3.1.1). 23 regarded as the sphere of personality and it is often thought to extend to external objects. By making something one's own one gains a special right to use the things one appropriated and one is entitled to expect reparation if others damage the things belonging to the suum. 37 The term suum was translated by 'propriety' and 'property' into seventeenth-century English. 38 In Two Treatises II.v.27, Locke argues that property includes not only external objects, but also that everyone 'has a Property in his own Person' and that labour is the property of the labourer. Thus Locke's notion of property has its origin in the notion of the suum. 39 By investing labour we appropriate something, or make it our own. It is now time to turn to the relevant passages in Locke's Essay. Within his discussion of persons and personal identity Locke mentions appropriation only in II.xxvii.16 and 26 explicitly: For as to this point of being the same self, it matters not whether this present self be made up of the same or other Substances, I being as much concern'd, and as justly accountable for any Action was done a thousand Years since, appropriated to me now by this self-consciousness, as I am, for what I did the last moment. (II.xxvii.16) Person...is a Forensick Term appropriating Actions and their Merit; and so belongs to intelligent Agents capable of a Law, and Happiness and Misery. This personality extends it self beyond present Existence to what is past, only by consciousness, whereby it becomes concerned and accountable, owns and imputes to it self past Actions, just upon the same ground, and for the same reason, that it does the present. All which is founded in a concern for Happiness the unavoidable concomitant of consciousness, that which is conscious of Pleasure and Pain, desiring, that 37 See Pufendorf, Of the Law of Nature and Nations, 4.4. 38 The terms 'propriety' and 'property' were often used interchangeably in the seventeenth century. Locke tended to use 'propriety' and changed it into 'property' in later versions of his work. See Buckle, Natural Law and the Theory of Property, 172– 73. 39 For further discussion see Buckle, Natural Law and the Theory of Property, 169– 73; Olivecrona, 'Locke's Theory of Appropriation'. 24 that self, that is conscious, should be happy. And therefore whatever past Actions it cannot reconcile or appropriate to that present self by consciousness, it can be no more concerned in, than if they had never been done (II.xxvii.26). In these passages Locke speaks explicitly of the appropriation of past actions by consciousness, but his claim in II.xxvii.26 that a person 'owns and imputes to it self past Actions, just upon the same ground, and for the same reason, that it does the present' suggests that appropriation extends also to present actions. By appropriating something one owns it. 40 However, does 'to appropriate something' mean 'to make something one's own' in the Essay as well as in Two Treatises? 41 We find support for this reading in II.xxvii.24 where Locke states that I make thoughts and actions my own by my consciousness. Furthermore, the proposal that Locke continues to use appropriation in the sense of 'making one's own' fits squarely with Locke's aim to offer an account of persons and personal identity that addresses questions of moral accountability. In order to hold a person accountable for an action, there has to be a way to decide whether the action is his or her own, because a person is not held accountable for the actions of others, at least if he or she is ignorant of them. This means just accountability presupposes a way of distinguishing the actions of one person from the actions of all other persons. If appropriation is understood as a means of making something 40 In addition to II.xxvii.26, this reading is suggested by II.xxvii.17: 'That with which the consciousness of this present thinking thing can join it self, makes the same Person, and is one self with it, and with nothing else; and so attributes to it self, and owns all the Actions of that thing, as its own, as far as that consciousness reaches, and no farther; as every one who reflects will perceive.' See also II.xxvii.14, 18, 24, 26. 41 This reading has been questioned by Mautner, 'Locke's Own', who argues that there are two senses of own: One is the familiar possessive sense, and the other is an older usage, according to which 'to own' means 'to state, declare, admit, confess, acknowledge it' (74). According to Mautner, Locke's notion of own in the Essay is to be understood in the declarative sense. For a critical response see Zack, 'Locke's Identity Meaning of Ownership'. I believe that it is difficult to understand Locke's use of 'own' in II.xxvii in a purely declarative sense. For example, the expression 'as its own', which is part of the statement 'and owns all the Actions of that thing, as its own, as far as that consciousness reaches' (II.xxvii.17), can hardly be interpreted in the purely declarative sense, but rather introduces a reflexive, if not possessive, element. 25 one's own, then appropriation distinguishes my actions from the actions of others and plays an interesting role in Locke's theory. As already mentioned it is plausible to suppose that Locke's account of appropriation in the Essay involves action appropriation both at a time when an action is initially performed and at a later time when we acknowledge a previously performed action as our own. I will call the former 'appropriation of present actions' and the latter 'appropriation of past actions'. It is worth asking separately how the appropriation of present and past actions is to be understood. To begin with the appropriation of present actions, at the present moment I can be conscious of many actions. However, this awareness by itself does not make an action my own action, because I can also observe the actions of others. The difference between my actions and the actions of others is that I perform my actions and that I am aware of performing them. Since I can also perceive other people performing actions, this difference cannot be exclusively explained with reference to the content of the perception, namely my representation of the performance of the action, but rather when I perceive an action as my own I have an intimate experience of doing the action, namely, an experience of the physical and/or cognitive labour that I invest. It is worth noting that purely physical movements of one's body such as those of a sleepwalker will not be sufficient for action appropriation, because in such cases one lacks awareness of performing the action. Since all present actions that one appropriates involve awareness of one's performance of the action, action appropriation will be accompanied by a distinctive inner experience of the physical and/or cognitive labour. To further support why I believe that the appropriation of present actions is accompanied by a distinctive inner experience of the labour that one invests, I want to draw attention to Locke's remarks about sensitive knowledge: But yet here, I think, we are provided with an Evidence, that puts us past doubting: For I ask any one, Whether he be not invincibly conscious to himself of a different Perception, when he looks on the Sun by day, and thinks of it by night; when he actually tastes Wormwood, or smells a Rose, 26 or only thinks on that Savour, or Odour? We as plainly find the difference there is between an Idea revived in our Minds by our own Memory, and actually coming into our Minds by our Senses, as we do between any two distinct Ideas (IV.ii.14). For he that sees a Candle burning, and hath experimented the force of its Flame, by putting his Finger in it, will little doubt, that this is something existing without him, which does him harm, and puts him to great pain: which is assurance enough, when no Man requires greater certainty to govern his Actions by, than what is as certain as his Actions themselves (IV.xi.8). These passages support that, according to Locke, performing an action, such as eating pineapple, running a mile, or moving one's arm, involves a distinctive experience which is not present when one merely thinks about an action, remembers an action, dreams about an action, or perceives the actions of others. This suggests that the initial performance of an action is accompanied by a distinctive inner experience, which provides a means for distinguishing my present actions from the actions of others, because when I am merely aware of actions of others I do not invest physical or cognitive labour and they lack the distinctive inner experience that accompanies my own actions. To sum up, neither the performance of an action nor the awareness of action performance is by itself sufficient for action appropriation. In order for appropriation of present actions to take place, an individual needs to perform an action and be aware of performing the action and this awareness will be accompanied by an intimate experience that is distinctive of the physical and/or cognitive labour that one invests. 42 This means that appropriation 42 Locke's statement in II.xxvii.16 that I am accountable 'for what I did the last moment' supports the proposal the appropriation of present actions involves the performance of the action, because Locke does not merely claim that I am accountable for what I was conscious of the last moment. Similarly, he claims in II.xxvii.26 that a person that committed actions shall deserve punishment. The view defended here differs from Ayers's claim that '[o]ur actions themselves...are 'appropriated' to us by an entirely natural and given principle of unity, namely consciousness, rather than by some acquisitive act of acknowledgement or 'owning' on our part.' (Locke, ii, 268). I believe that my interpretation can be defended against Ayers's, because he does not carefully distinguish between the appropriation of present and past actions and generalizes the claim that past actions are appropriated by consciousness. 27 of present actions is not explained exclusively in terms of consciousness, because it additionally involves the performance of the action. Moreover, the conscious awareness that accompanies the performance of the action is intrinsically different from other conscious experiences that are not appropriated. Let us turn to the appropriation of past actions. According to Locke, we appropriate past actions by consciousness (see II.xxvii.16, 26). The question to consider is whether and how appropriation of past actions by consciousness is sufficient to distinguish my past actions from the past actions of others. To answer this question we have to look deeper into Locke's account of consciousness and memory. According to Locke, to be conscious of a past action is to remember the past action. As stated above, for Locke memory of a past action requires previous awareness of the action (see I.iv.20, II.x.2, 7). 43 This means that when I remember a past action I remember having done or having perceived a past action rather than merely remembering that a past action took place. 44 Given Locke's understanding of memory and the proposed account of the appropriation of present actions, I want to suggest that a past action is appropriated on the basis of remembering the previous performance of the action, which includes remembering the distinctive inner experience that accompanied the performance of the action. If this is correct, then it is possible to distinguish my past actions from the past actions of others: My past actions are the actions that I appropriated previously by performing them and experiencing the performance of them. It follows that the appropriation of past actions is to be understood in terms of the initial appropriation and memory. This means that the appropriation of past actions is not another type of action appropriation, but rather it can be explained in terms of remembrance of the initial act of appropriation, which took place at the time when the action was performed. 43 See also Garrett, 'Locke on Personal Identity, Consciousness, and "Fatal Errors"'. 44 Locke's account of memory can be classified as episodic memory. For further details concerning different varieties of memory see Rebecca Copenhaver, 'Thomas Reid's Theory of Memory', History of Philosophy Quarterly 23 (2006): 175–79. 28 As a consequence of this proposal one has to accept that subjects do not have a choice whether or not to appropriate a past action, but rather, if their memory presents a past action as performed by them, they have to acknowledge the action as their action. 45 As soon as one's memory revives the initial act of appropriation and makes one aware again or the physical and/or cognitive labour that one invested, one acknowledges that one did the action and thereby appropriates it. However, it is a further question whether by appropriating a past action one acknowledges that one deserves reward or punishment for this action. For instance, let us assume someone stole figs regularly from a fig tree in the neighbourhood. If we assume further that the person confessed the deed a few years later and properly repaid his or her neighbours for the damage, then this is a case where the person still acknowledges that he or she stole the figs and appropriates the action as his or her own, but does not any longer regard himor herself as blameworthy. Locke might have anticipated such examples in II.xxvii.26 where he not only speaks of the appropriation of actions, but also of the appropriation of merit for them. This means that although when my memory presents a past action as done by me I cannot deny that I did the action, I may, nevertheless, have a choice as to whether I accept merit for the action. Unfortunately, Locke says very little concerning the appropriation of merit for actions and whether or not the appropriation of actions has to be considered separately from the appropriation of merit for actions will ultimately depend on the particular understanding of merit or reward and punishment. So far I proposed an interpretation of the appropriation of present and past actions. Although Locke speaks explicitly only of the appropriation of actions (see II.xxvii.16, 26), it is worth considering whether and how this interpretation extends to the 45 Winkler makes a similar remark: 'I do not wilfully disown one act and appropriate another; instead I accept what my consciousness reveals to me' ('Locke on Personal Identity', 206). 29 appropriation of thoughts. 46 Any reader who is convinced that Locke's account of appropriation is restricted to action appropriation can skip this part, because it is an additional component which supplements the account that I have given of action appropriation, but the account of action appropriation does not require it. According to my proposed interpretation, appropriation is a prerequisite for accountability and since some of our thoughts are morally significant it is plausible that one will not only be accountable and rewarded or punished for actions, but also for certain thoughts. In these cases it will be important to have a means of distinguishing my thoughts from the thoughts of others. Let me begin with an example. The demonstration of a significant proposition can be a thought that deserves reward. Demonstrating a proposition will involve several individual steps and in each step of the proof one will invest cognitive labour and be aware of the cognitive labour one invests. Thus it can be said that by investing cognitive labour I make the demonstration my own. This suggests that the appropriation of a present demonstration can be understood by means of the cognitive effort one invests and one's awareness of that effort. In analogy to the appropriation of actions, it is plausible that a demonstration will be appropriated at a later time by remembering the previous act of appropriation. 47 To turn to another example, let us consider the invention of new things. According to Locke, ideas of modes are created in the mind. In contrast to ideas of substances, which are meant to represent real things in the world and capture the way the world is 46 Locke claims in various passages that a person is conscious of thoughts and actions (see II.xxvii.9–10, 14–15, 19, 21, 24). Here and in the following I follow Locke and use 'thought' in a broad sense, interchangeably with Locke's equally broad term 'perception'. 47 In IV.i.9 Locke observes that our memory of demonstrations often does not retain all the individual steps of a demonstration, but rather the memory merely retains a conviction of the proof. On this basis, in order to appropriate a past demonstration it may be sufficient that one is still aware that one demonstrated a proposition by one's own cognitive efforts even if one does not recall all the individual steps of the demonstration. 30 independent of us, it is up to the creative mind to combine any ideas into the idea of a complex mode (see II.xxx, III.v, III.vi.46). Ideas of substances can be said to have a world-mind direction of fit, while ideas of modes have the opposite direction of fit. 'We do not pick out something in the world and then design a mode idea to correspond to it. Rather, we design a mode idea to serve certain purposes and then use it to refer to anything out in the world that happens to answer to it'. 48 Some ideas of modes exist in the mind, before any object corresponding to them exists in reality. Printing is an example of such a mode, because the idea of printing had to be formed in the mind of the inventor before any printing machines were built (see II.xxii.9). People who invent new things invest cognitive labour when they combine several simple ideas into a new complex idea and as part of this process they consider mental images of the things they aim to invent. Inventions of new things are further examples that make it plausible to say that certain thoughts are appropriated by investing cognitive labour. The examples of thoughts considered so far both involve activity of the person who has them. In such cases it is plausible that appropriation of present thoughts takes place by investing cognitive labour. However, not all thoughts are active. Many are passive. For example, I perceive many things passively. This raises the question whether and how passive thoughts are candidates for appropriation. Passive thoughts provide information and access to information, or the lack thereof, can be morally significant. For example, if I perceive that a child is in danger, then I will receive morally significant information. The content that the child is in danger is not sufficient to make the perception my own, because it can in principle be shared by other people. The appropriation of passive perceptions such as this can be explained in one of the following two ways: First, it can be 48 Antonia LoLordo, 'Three Problems in Locke's Ontology of Substance and Mode', in Contemporary Perspectives on Early Modern Philosophy: Nature and Norms in Thought, ed. Martin Lenz and Anik Waldow (Dordrecht, 2013), 53. For a detailed discussion of Locke's distinction between modes and substances see also LoLordo, Locke's Moral Man, 74–82. 31 suggested that the passive perception provides input that I then actively process, for instance, by actively reflecting on the situation and identifying ways to help. My active processing involves cognitive labour and as in the examples above appropriation can be said to consist in the cognitive labour that one invests. Alternatively, one could draw attention to the inherent reflexivity of every perception. Locke argues in II.xxvii.9 that internal to the perception there is the perception that one has the perception. 49 This internal reflexive element is a distinctive inner experience that makes the perception my perception. The suggestion is that perceptions are appropriated by having them, which builds on Locke's claim that perceiving involves perceiving that one perceives (see II.xxvii.9). If I remember at a later time the previous perception, I will not merely remember that the child was in danger, but rather I will also remember my perceiving that the child was in danger. Thus, I will appropriate a past perception by remembering the previous appropriation of the perception. This second model of appropriation is not restricted to passive thoughts. It can be extended to all thoughts. The view would be that all present thoughts are appropriated by having them and all past thoughts are appropriated by remembering the previous act of appropriation. While I believe that Locke's text leaves room for this interpretation, I want to offer a reason in favour of the first proposal. The first model offers an account of appropriation of thoughts that is analogous to Locke's account of appropriation in Two Treatises. The view has the advantage that it can, in analogy to the account in Two Treatises, provide a basis for gaining particular rights with regard to appropriated thoughts, for instance, intellectual property rights. The cognitive labour that one invested can be seen as the basis for special rights with regard to the thoughts and thereby serve as a basis for reward or 49 For further discussion see Thiel, The Early Modern Subject, 114–16; Shelley Weinberg, 'The Coherence of Consciousness in Locke's Essay', History of Philosophy Quarterly 25 (2008): 26. 32 punishment. If we adopted the second proposal, appropriation would not be a prerequisite for accountability and reward and punishment in any meaningful way. On the contrary, if active cognitive labour that a person invested is taken into consideration and if appropriation of thoughts is explained in terms of the cognitive labour that one invests, then we have a means to single out thoughts that are likely to have greater significance than others and be worthy of reward and punishment. Thereby the first model is suitable to offer an account of appropriation that is a prerequisite for accountability and reward and punishment, while the second is not. My proposed interpretation of Locke's account of appropriation in the Essay is analogous to Locke's account of appropriation in Two Treatises. I believe that this is a strong feature of the interpretation and makes room for appropriation to play a distinctive role in Locke's theory, because in the Essay appropriation distinguishes my thoughts and actions from the thoughts and actions of others and this is a prerequisite for moral accountability. §6. Appropriation and Persistence Conditions for Persons If we accept the interpretation of appropriation that I have given, then it follows that appropriation is relevant for the constitution of a person at a time. That means at a time when a person initially appropriates a thought or action that thought or action becomes a constitutive part of the person he or she is. Since the appropriation of past thoughts or actions is to be explained in terms of the initial appropriation and memory, no new additional act of appropriation takes place at that later time or during the intermittent period. Of course, Locke accepts that we appropriate past thoughts and actions, but the important point is that appropriation of past thoughts or actions can be traced back to the initial act of appropriation at the time when the action was performed or the thought was initially had and for this reason it is best understood as the revival of a previous appropriation, rather than a new appropriation. This is an important result, because it undermines the view that Locke's account of the persistence 33 conditions is to be understood solely in terms of appropriation. The relations that explain why the earlier person is identical with the later person will be consciousness or memory relations, rather than self-standing relations of appropriation. Since this point is crucial for distancing my interpretation from the so-called appropriation interpretation, let us look at the issues more closely. We can advance the debate by acknowledging the following distinctions: Persistence conditions are commonly expressed in terms of relations and we can distinguish the relation proper from the relata that stand in said relation. Psychological accounts of personal identity, including the memory interpretation, maintain that the relevant relations are psychological such as memory relations and that the relata are any thoughts, experiences, or actions one is or can be aware of. In principle, if appropriation provides the persistence conditions for persons, it can constitute or be part of the relation and/or the relata. The discussion above has shown that the proposal that appropriation is supposed to provide alternative self-standing relations over time lacks support. Locke emphasizes that personal identity consists in sameness of consciousness. This itself is a strong reason to accept that the relevant relations are consciousness relations rather than relations of appropriation. 50 Although Mackie presents Locke's theory as a theory of action appropriation he falls back to explaining the view in terms of psychological relations. Similarly Winkler argues that personal identity consists in co-consciousness or memory relations. However, the second option is more promising, that is the view that appropriation helps to identify the relevant relata. While traditional psychological accounts of personal identity include any thoughts, experiences, or actions one is, or can be, aware of as potential relata, it can be argued that those thoughts, experiences, and actions that one acknowledges as one's own, or appropriates, should be given special weight. For instance, the relevant relata could be restricted to appropriated thoughts and 50 There is wide interpretive scope to spell out what exactly Locke means by sameness of consciousness. 34 actions. On this view, the relevant relata are a subset of those that traditional psychological interpretations take into consideration. Alternatively, appropriated thoughts and actions could be given more weight so that one's identity as a person does not cease when one continues to be aware of formerly appropriated thoughts and actions, but has irretrievably forgotten other thoughts and actions that one observed and never appropriated. This view differs from traditional psychological accounts, because it introduces a qualitative component in addition to the quantitative counting of the number of existing of psychological connections. The advantage of these proposals is that they focus on candidates for morally significant thoughts and actions 51 and take seriously Locke's claim that 'person' is a forensic term (see II.xxvii.26), because, according to Locke, it is important that one acknowledges an action as one's own in order to be held accountable for it (see II.xxvii.22, 26). 52 In this sense it can be said that appropriation is integrated into the persistence conditions for persons, but it is important to realize that it is built into the relata rather than the relations. LoLordo is one of the few interpreters who endorses an appropriation interpretation, and it is worth commenting on how my proposal differs from her view. I believe that a main advantage of my proposal is that it achieves a new level of specificity that is lacking in LoLordo's interpretation. According to her, 'to extend your consciousness backward to an action is simply to appropriate it as your own or to impute it to yourself'. 53 This formulation is vague and can in principle be reconciled with either reading. However, had LoLordo intended to argue for the 51 I use the expression 'candidates for morally significant thoughts and actions', because all morally significant thoughts and actions will be among the appropriated thoughts and actions, but not all appropriated thoughts and actions need to be morally significant. 52 Yaffe acknowledges that the appropriation interpretation can better accommodate Locke's claim that 'person' is a forensic term than the memory interpretation. See Yaffe, 'Locke on Ideas of Identity and Diversity', 222–23. 53 LoLordo, Locke's Moral Man, 70. 35 view that the proper place for appropriation is in the relata, then her initial characterization of the view should be refined to make this explicit. One further point of difference is worth noting. LoLordo systematically rules out that there is misappropriation. If we adopt my distinctions, I prefer to rephrase the issue as the question of whether misrepresentations of one's past thoughts or actions are possible. On my interpretation this depends on the relations that connect the originally appropriated action with one's current revival of the original action appropriation. Since my account of appropriation is consistent with different views regarding the relations that constitute the persistence conditions- for example, the relevant relations could be memory relations, psychological relations, causal relations, or a metaphysical fact of consciousness-the possibility of misrepresentation should not be systematically excluded, but rather it will depend on one's account of the relevant relations. The important point for present purposes is that the question whether Locke's theory leaves room for misrepresentation is independent from Locke's account of appropriation. Consequently, there is no reason to dismiss the importance of appropriation in Locke's theory due to the possibility of misrepresentation. 54 The discussion so far has shown that the so-called appropriation interpretation lacks support, or, at least, it is vague. In contrast to this, the view that appropriation is to be located within the relata is more precise and has the further advantage that it does not regard appropriation as a rival to the different interpretations of Locke's persistence conditions for persons such as memory interpretations, psychological interpretations, or Weinberg's metaphysical fact account of consciousness. 55 While, 54 It follows that the dispute between LoLordo and Weinberg concerning the possibility of misappropriation does not directly concern appropriation. See LoLordo, Locke's Moral Man, 72–74. Weinberg responds to these passages in 'Author Meets Critics on Antonia LoLordo's "Locke's Moral Man": Shelley Weinberg'. See also LoLordo's response in 'Author Meets Critics on Antonia LoLordo's "Locke's Moral Man": LoLordo's Reply to Weinberg'. 55 Weinberg argues in her work that Locke's account of personal identity involves an objective metaphysical fact of consciousness. According to her, God needs to be able 36 for example, memory interpretations (or psychological interpretations more generally) and Weinberg's metaphysical fact interpretation are commonly presented as exclusive interpretations, appropriation, understood as proposed above, can be reconciled with either view. Regarding the former view, it can be said that memory relations connect appropriated thoughts actions at different times. Regarding the latter, a metaphysical fact of consciousness can be said to connect appropriated thoughts and actions. This is a promising result, because my interpretation provides a distinctive place for appropriation in Locke's theory and offers an explanation of why others who rejected or neglected appropriation were mistaken to do so. 56 University College Dublin to look at an objective fact when he rectifies failures of human justice at the Great Day. She maintains that the advantage of her interpretation is that it takes Locke's religious commitments seriously and that it is not subject to the problems that arise for memory interpretations. See Weinberg, "Locke on Personal Identity," "The Metaphysical Fact." 56 I am grateful to Martha Brandt Bolton, Michael Della Rocca, James Harris, Antonia LoLordo, Kathryn Tabb, Shelley Weinberg, Kenneth Winkler, Joshua Wood and my anonymous referees of this and other journals for helpful comments on earlier version of this paper. 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Soc Choice Welf (2010) 34:497–501 DOI 10.1007/s00355-009-0414-4 BOOK REVIEW Hugh LaFollette: The Practice of Ethics Blackwell, viii, 300 p. ISBN: 0-631-21945-5 Alex Voorhoeve Received: 28 June 2009 / Published online: 18 August 2009 © Springer-Verlag 2009 The Practice of Ethics is an introduction to moral philosophy. It starts from a series of practical questions, which range from the personal and picayune ('If a friend has had an awful haircut and asks your opinion of his new hairdo, should you lie to avoid hurting his feelings?') to political, life-and-death issues ('Is the death penalty justified?'). The book uses these questions as routes into discussions of more general, theoretical moral questions, such as whether the rightness or wrongness of our conduct is determined solely by the goodness or badness of its consequences, and what reasons we have to be moral. Theoretical reflection is followed by a return to the practical questions that prompted it. The purpose of this back-and-forth between practice and theory is twofold. First, to show that everyday questions about how to live and which policies to favor can only be adequately addressed by theoretical moral reflection. Second, to persuade its audience of the value of a life informed and guided by such reflection. LaFollette is certainly well-placed to write a book of this kind. He has written widely, and insightfully, on issues in personal morality and on policy issues, including the justifiability of gun control and our duties in the face of widespread deprivation. He has also edited several key anthologies, including Ethics in Practice (3rd edition, Blackwell, 2007) and the Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory (2001). Nonetheless, the book is not an unqualified success-or so I will argue. The 19 chapters of The Practice of Ethics can, roughly, be organized along three themes: theory, policy, and the moral life. Moral theory is introduced in chapters 1 through 4, which present the contrast between consequentialism and nonconsequentialism, and discuss the question of moral relativism. Policy questions dominate chapters 5 through 12, in which analyses of the justifiability of affirmative action, A. Voorhoeve (B) Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, UK e-mail: [email protected] 123 498 A. Voorhoeve physician-assisted suicide, paternalism, punishment, and gun control are paired with discussions of more general moral questions relevant to the issue at hand- for example, the discussion of affirmative action follows a chapter that analyzes what racism is and what is wrong with it, and the discussion of assisted suicide is followed by a chapter on slippery-slope arguments. The moral life is the focus of chapters 13 through 19, which analyze the demands of a minimally morally decent life, and argue for the value of doing more than minimal decency requires. I will briefly comment on material belonging to each theme. 1 Theory The initial chapters focus on consequentialism and nonconsequentialism (or deontology). (Late in the book, amidst the chapters dealing with the moral life, LaFollette includes a brief discussion of virtue ethics.) Because of its historical importance and its relatively simple structure, the discussion of consequentialism understandably focuses on utilitarianism. Though a student who encountered this theory for the first time would come away with a decent grasp of the main idea, LaFollette's analysis is unsatisfactory in several respects. First, he does not do enough to motivate utilitarianism. He explains (on p. 29) that a utilitarian must be impartial and benevolent, but he fails to give the arguments employed by utilitarians to establish that impartiality and benevolence exhaust the fundamental moral sentiments of an ideal moral agent. He also does not explain why utilitarians believe that someone guided by these sentiments alone will aim at maximizing total utility in a given population (rather than, say, displaying a special concern for the worst off). Second, crucial aspects of the theory are discussed rather too quickly. For example, LaFollette defines rule utilitarianism as a theory that demands that we act on rules which, "if followed by most people, would promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number" (p. 28), but he fails to mention the familiar problem with this definition, viz. how such a theory can rightly be characterized as aiming at promoting the balance of good over evil, given that the rules that would maximally promote this balance if everyone followed them might not lead to optimific consequences when followed by fewer people. The discussion of nonconsequentialism similarly fails to explain what makes this family of views attractive to some of the best philosophers of our times. LaFollette introduces nonconsequentialism by registering "two marks in its favour" (p. 31). First, he claims it corresponds to the way we were taught morality-as a set of (typically negative) rules: 'Don't lie', 'Don't cheat on your tax return', 'Don't speed'. Second, he maintains it captures something that "most people think", namely, that "there are things we morally ought not to do, regardless of the consequences". It seems to me that neither of these remarks captures any of the core motivations for being a nonconsequentialist. The first is, at best, a candidate for a psychological explanation of why some people might naively see morality as primarily involving a set of prohibitions. The second claim is merely a description of most people's beliefs. Besides being quite possibly an incorrect description, it does not capture what many nonconsequentialists think, since many of them believe that core restrictions on the promotion of the good 123 Hugh LaFollette: The Practice of Ethics 499 (like not using someone harmfully and against his will as a means for the greater good of others) can permissibly be overridden when the consequences of respecting these restrictions are sufficiently awful. I would have expected a discussion of at least a few of the core nonconsequentialist notions, such as the fruitful notion of the separateness of persons, which figures so prominently in work by John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Thomas Nagel, and Frances Kamm, among others. One of the thoughts expressed with reference to this notion is that when we take up the moral point of view, we do not straightforwardly amalgamate all the good and evil that befalls separate individuals-we do not, for example, always take a smaller harm to one person to be outweighed by a greater benefit to another. In this respect, these nonconsequentialists claim, we treat the well-being of separate people differently from the well-being of a single person, in whose interests we might permissibly allow a smaller harm to be outweighed by a somewhat greater benefit. (For example, Nozick famously pointed out that while it would be permissible to ensure that a young child gets a painful dental treatment for the sake of the somewhat greater benefit to that same child of enjoying better teeth, it would not be permissible to subject one child to similarly significant harm if this somehow led to somewhat greater benefits to a different child-something that utilitarians would, of course, have to deny.) This difference between the way we should weigh benefits and burdens to separate individuals from the way should we weigh benefits and burdens to a single individual lies at the heart of many nonconsequentialists' concerns with the distribution of harms and benefits in a given population, and contrasts with the utilitarian's indifference towards anything but the sum-total of utility in that population. Another idea often expressed with reference to the separateness of persons is that individuals have a claim to a realm of personal sovereignty-that they, and they alone, are entitled to control some of those things that make them into separate people, and should therefore be free from interference of others in this realm. This idea figures in nonconsequentialist accounts of the distinction between killing and letting die, for example, and in the explanation of the prerogative that nonconsequentialists believe each of us has to pursue some goals that are nonoptimific from the point of view of the total balance of good over evil. Some of these ideas are admirably discussed in LaFollette's edited collections (see, for example, Kamm's contribution to the Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory). Moreover, they are not too abstruse for undergraduates to grasp. It is therefore something of a mystery why he does not adequately engage with them. 2 Policy Many of the chapters organized around discussions of social issues and policy are, by contrast, successful. For example, the chapter on racism illuminatingly lays out and criticizes the view that racism should primarily be understood as (1) inappropriate discrimination on the basis of racial characteristics; (2) that principally harms the individuals that suffer directly from such discrimination; and (3) that principally involves unwarranted negative attitudes. LaFollette persuasively argues that this view needs revising to do justice to the fact that racism is a habitual pattern of unwarrantedly 123 500 A. Voorhoeve negative perception and response that harms all members of the group who are subjected to it. He also discusses how such habits are shaped by social institutions and economic circumstances that disadvantage some racial minorities, like AfricanAmericans in the United States, even when these institutions and circumstances are not intentionally 'engineered' to cause such disadvantage. This nicely sets up an accessible and careful chapter on some familiar arguments for and against affirmative action, which comes down in favor of it, in part because of what LaFollette argues is its central role in changing racist habits. The discussions in subsequent chapters of paternalism, gun control, punishment, and assisted suicide are generally equally good. One of the strong features of these chapters is LaFollette's use of findings from social science to inform his assessment of the arguments for various policies. For example, in his discussion of forward-looking justifications of punishment, he cites interesting findings to the effect that the severity of punishment has no deterrent effect on rates of recidivism, and the chapter on gun control makes good use of data on the number of crimes caused and prevented by the availability of guns in the United States. 3 The moral life The final seven chapters discuss a variety of issues relating to the attitudes and habits of a moral person, the extent and stringency of morality's demands, and the costs and rewards of being moral. Some passages devoted to relatively inconsequential questions display what is, to my ears at least, a rather preachy tone while arguing the obvious. (Several paragraphs are devoted to instructing us that being aggressive to functionaries, such as call-centre employees, is generally "unproductive, unnecessary, and does not treat them with the appropriate respect" (p. 205). Vicious gossip is also sternly condemned.) Fortunately, however, most of the attention is directed towards two pressing moral issues that may well demand a radical change in the way many of us conceive of a minimally decent life: our treatment of non-human animals and our response to widespread severe deprivation around the globe. LaFollette has been at the forefront of philosophical discussion of these issues, and he treats them in a balanced and careful way. For example, he discusses both the consequentialist argument in favor of a demanding duty to aid people in desperate need simply because we can often prevent great harm to others at relatively little cost to ourselves and the deontological arguments for the conclusion that we have a more stringent duty to cease acting in ways that (wittingly or unwittingly) contribute to others' impoverishment. He also analyzes our duties to agitate for a reshaping of global institutions (like the borrowing and resource-control privileges that the international order grants to grasping and illegitimate governments) that incentivize and empower rulers to oppress their people and exploit their country's resources. Realizing that the conclusions in these chapters place demands on us that many readers may not be accustomed to, LaFollette discusses in subsequent chapters the demandingness of morality and our reasons to act rightly even when doing so comes at a cost. Though I agree that this is a good topic on which to conclude, the discussion is, in places, unsatisfactory. An example is LaFollette's analysis of the doing/allowing distinction, which is sometimes invoked by those who wish to resist a very demanding 123 Hugh LaFollette: The Practice of Ethics 501 duty to aid. LaFollette attempts to cast doubt on the validity of this distinction, but his arguments are often unpersuasive. For example, he seeks to undermine the support that this distinction seems to get from our judgments about particular cases by citing the fact that in order to protect ourselves from harm "we establish systems of punishment knowing that at least some innocent people will be harmed. ...We [therefore] do precisely what the doing/allowing distinction presumably forbids: we undertake a policy we know will harm some innocent people to prevent harm to others." He concludes from this that "[s]ince virtually everyone thinks this is a satisfactory tradeoff, it seems people do not think there is a fundamental moral difference between doing and allowing" (p. 267, emphasis in original). But LaFollette's conclusion is of course unwarranted, since a proponent of the doing/allowing distinction may well maintain that this distinction plays a role in determining the permissible tradeoff between harm inflicted and harm prevented, with the latter having to be far greater than the former to justify a criminal justice system. 4 Conclusion In sum, The Practice of Ethics is a partial success. Its best chapters provide accessible, balanced, informative, and provocative analyses of pressing moral issues in personal life and politics. These chapters could profitably be used in an undergraduate course in moral and political philosophy. But I would turn elsewhere for an introduction to general moral theories like consequentialism and nonconsequentialism. | {
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Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd Edition Michael Starks The saddest day in US history. President Johnson, with 2 Kennedy's and ex-President Hoover, gives America to Mexico Oct 3rd 1965 Reality Press Las Vegas, Nevada Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd revised Edition Michael Starks Copyright © 2019 by Michael Starks All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted without the express consent of the author. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Third revised Edition January 2019 ISBN-13: 978-1545490624 "At what point is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide." Abraham Lincoln (1838) "I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. ... Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never." John Adams (1814) The Letters of John and Abigail Adams TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE .............................................................................. I THE DESCRIPTION OF BEHAVIOR WITHOUT DELUSION 1. The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in the Writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle ................................ 2 2. Review of Making the Social World by John Searle (2010) 114 3. Review of 'Philosophy in a New Century' by John Searle (2008) 139 4. Review of Wittgenstein's Metaphilosophy by Paul Horwich 248p (2013) 160 5. Review of The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker (2008) 185 6. Review of "Are We Hardwired? by Clark & Grunstein Oxford (2000) 199 THE DIGITAL DELUSION --COMPUTERS ARE PEOPLE AND LANGUAGE IS MATH AND HITECH WILL SAVE US 7. Is JK Rowling more evil than me? ................................... 202 8. Review of Freedom Evolves by Daniel Dennett (2003) 208 9. Review of I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter (2007) 224 10. Another cartoon portrait of the mind from the reductionist metaphysicians--a Review of Peter Carruthers 'The Opacity of Mind' (2011) ........................................... 240 11. Will Hominoids or Androids Destroy the Earth? -A Review of How to Create a Mind by Ray Kurzweil (2012) ................................................................................... 270 12. What Do Paraconsistent, Undecidable, Random, Computable and Incomplete mean? A Review of Godel's Way: Exploits into an undecidable world by Gregory Chaitin, Francisco A Doria, Newton C.A. da Costa 160p (2012) ................................................................................... 283 13. Wolpert, Chaitin and Wittgenstein on impossibility, incompleteness, the liar paradox, theism, the limits of computation, a non-quantum mechanical uncertainty principle and the universe as computer-the ultimate theorem in Turing Machine Theory ............................... 299 14. Review of 'The Outer Limits of Reason' by Noson Yanofsky 403p (2013) 305 THE RELIGIOUS DELUSION – A BENEVOLENT UNIVERSE WILL SAVE US 15. Review of Religion Explained-The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought by Pascal Boyer (2002) ............................................................................................. 323 16. Review of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality by Ken Wilber 2nd ed 851p (2001) 337 17. The most profound spiritual autobiography of all time? a review of "The Knee of Listening" by Adi Da (Franklin Jones) (1995) ...................................................... 355 18. Do our automated unconscious behaviors reveal our real selves and hidden truths about the universe? -A review of David Hawkins 'Power vs Force--the hidden determinants of human behavior –author's official authoritative edition' 412p(2012)(original edition 1995).359 THE ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY DELUSION-DEMOCRACY, DIVERSITY AND EQUALITY WILL SAVE US 19. The Transient Suppression of the Worst Devils of our Nature-a review of Steven Pinker's 'The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined'(2012) 364 20. The Dead Hands of Group Selection and Phenomenology -A Review of Individuality and Entanglement by Herbert Gintis 357p (2017) ............................................... 370 21. Altruism, Jesus and the End of the World-how the Templeton Foundation bought a Harvard Professorship and attacked Evolution, Rationality and Civilization. A review of E.O. Wilson 'The Social Conquest of Earth' (2012) and Nowak and Highfield 'SuperCooperators'(2012) 383 22. A Review of The Murderer Next Door by David Buss (2005) 398 23. Suicide by Democracy-an Obituary for America and the World 410 (2019) I PREFACE This collection of articles was written over the last 10 years and edited to bring them up to date (2018). All the articles are about human behavior (as are all articles by anyone about anything), and so about the limitations of having a recent monkey ancestry (8 million years or much less depending on viewpoint) and manifest words and deeds within the framework of our innate psychology as presented in the table of intentionality. As famous evolutionist Richard Leakey says, it is critical to keep in mind not that we evolved from apes, but that in every important way, we are apes. If everyone was given a real understanding of this (i.e., of human ecology and psychology to actually give them some control over themselves), maybe civilization would have a chance. As things are however the leaders of society have no more grasp of things than their constituents and so collapse into anarchy is inevitable. The first group of articles attempt to give some insight into how we behave that is reasonably free of theoretical delusions. In the next three groups, I comment on three of the principal delusions preventing a sustainable world- technology, religion and politics (cooperative groups). People believe that society can be saved by them, so I provide some suggestions in the rest of the book as to why this is unlikely via short articles and reviews of recent books by well-known writers. It is critical to understand why we behave as we do and so the first section presents articles that try to describe (not explain as Wittgenstein insisted) behavior. I start with a brief review of the logical structure of rationality, which provides some heuristics for the description of language (mind, rationality, personality) and gives some suggestions as to how this relates to the evolution of social behavior. This centers around the two writers I have found the most important in this regard, Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle, whose ideas I combine and extend within the dual system (two systems of thought) framework that has proven so useful in recent thinking and reasoning research. As I note, there is in my view essentially complete overlap between philosophy, in the strict sense of the enduring questions that concern the academic discipline, and the descriptive psychology of higher order thought (behavior). Once one has grasped Wittgenstein's insight that there is only the issue of how the language game is to be played, one determines the Conditions of Satisfaction (what makes a statement true or satisfied etc.) and that is the end of the discussion. No neurophysiology, no metaphysics, no postmodernism, no theology. Since philosophical problems are the result of our innate psychology, or as Wittgenstein put it, due to the lack of perspicuity of language, they run throughout human discourse and behavior, so there is endless need for philosophical analysis, not only in the 'human sciences' of philosophy, sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, history, literature, religion, etc., but in the 'hard sciences' of physics, mathematics, and biology. It is universal to mix the language game questions with the real scientific ones as to what the empirical facts are. Scientism is ever present and the master has laid it before us long ago, i.e., Wittgenstein (hereafter W) beginning with the Blue and Brown Books in the early 1930's. "Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics and leads the philosopher into complete darkness." (BBB p18) The key to everything about us is biology, and it is obliviousness to it that leads millions of smart educated people like Obama, Chomsky, Clinton and the Pope to espouse suicidal utopian ideals that inexorably lead straight to Hell on Earth. As W noted, it is what is always before our eyes that is the hardest to see. We live in the world of conscious deliberative linguistic System 2, but it is unconscious, automatic reflexive System 1 that rules. This is the source of the universal blindness described by Searle's The Phenomenological Illusion (TPI), Pinker's Blank Slate and Tooby and Cosmides' Standard Social Science Model. The astute may wonder why we cannot see System 1 at work, but it is clearly counterproductive for an animal to be II thinking about or second guessing every action, and in any case, there is no time for the slow, massively integrated System 2 to be involved in the constant stream of split second 'decisions' we must make. As W noted, our 'thoughts' (T1 or the 'thoughts' of System 1) must lead directly to actions. It is my contention that the table of intentionality (rationality, mind, thought, language, personality etc.) that features prominently here describes more or less accurately, or at least serves as an heuristic for, how we think and behave, and so it encompasses not merely philosophy and psychology, but everything else (history, literature, mathematics, politics etc.). Note especially that intentionality and rationality as I (along with Searle, Wittgenstein and others) view it, includes both conscious deliberative System 2 and unconscious automated System 1 actions or reflexes. Thus all the articles, like all behavior, are intimately connected if one knows how to look at them. As I note, The Phenomenological Illusion (oblivion to our automated System 1) is universal and extends not merely throughout philosophy but throughout life. I am sure that Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg and the Pope would be incredulous if told that they suffer from the same problem as Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger, (or that that they differ only in degree from drug and sex addicts in being motivated by stimulation of their frontal cortices by the delivery of dopamine (and over 100 other chemicals) via the ventral tegmentum and the nucleus accumbens), but it's clearly true. While the phenomenologists only wasted a lot of people's time, they are wasting the earth and their descendant's futures. The next section describes the digital delusions, which confuse the language games of System 2 with the automatisms of System one, and so cannot distinguish biological machines (i.e., people) from other kinds of machines (i.e., computers). The 'reductionist' claim is that one can 'explain' behavior at a 'lower' level, but what actually happens is that one does not explain human behavior but a 'stand in' for it. Hence the title of Searle's classic review of Dennett's book ("Consciousness Explained")- "Consciousness Explained Away". In most contexts 'reduction' of higher level emergent behavior to brain functions, biochemistry, or physics is incoherent. Even for 'reduction' of chemistry or physics, the path is blocked by chaos and uncertainty. Anything can be 'represented' by equations, but when they 'represent' higher order behavior, it is not clear (and cannot be made clear) what the 'results' mean. Reductionist metaphysics is a joke, but most scientists and philosophers lack the appropriate sense of humor. Other digital delusions are that we will be saved from the pure evil (selfishness) of System 1 by computers/AI/robotics/nanotech/genetic engineering created by System 2. The No Free Lunch principal tells us there will be serious and possibly fatal consequences. The adventurous may regard this principle as a higher order emergent expression of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Hi-tech enthusiasts hugely underestimate the problems resulting from unrestrained motherhood and dysgenics, and of course it is neither profitable nor politically correct (and now with third world supremacism dominant, not even possible) to be honest about it. They also gloss over the fact that AI is reaching the point where it will be impossible for us to understand how it works or to control or fix it and to prevent catastrophic failures in communications, power, police, military, agricultural, medical and financial systems. The last section describes The One Big Happy Family Delusion, i.e., that we are selected for cooperation with everyone, and that the euphonious ideals of Democracy, Diversity and Equality will lead us into utopia, if we just manage things correctly (the possibility of politics). Again, the No Free Lunch Principle ought to warn us it cannot be true, and we see throughout history and all over the contemporary world, that without strict controls, selfishness and stupidity gain the upper hand and soon destroy any nation that embraces these delusions. In addition, the monkey mind steeply discounts the future, and so we cooperate in selling our descendant's heritage for temporary comforts, greatly exacerbating the problems. The only major change in this 3rd edition is the addition in the last article of a short discussion of China, a threat to peace and freedom as great as overpopulation and climate change and one to which even most professional scholars and politicians are oblivious so I regarded it as sufficiently important to warrant a new edition. I describe versions of this delusion (i.e., that we are basically 'friendly' if just given a chance) as it appears in some recent books on sociology/biology/economics. Even Sapolsky's otherwise excellent "Behave"(2017) embraces leftist III politics and group selection and gives space to a discussion of whether humans are innately violent. I end with an essay on the great tragedy playing out in America and the world, which can be seen as a direct result of our evolved psychology manifested as the inexorable machinations of System 1. Our psychology, eminently adaptive and eugenic on the plains of Africa from ca. 6 million years ago, when we split from chimpanzees, to ca. 50,000 years ago, when many of our ancestors left Africa (i.e., in the EEA or Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation), is now maladaptive and dysgenic and the source of our Suicidal Utopian Delusions. So, like all discussions of behavior (philosophy, psychology, sociology, biology, anthropology, politics, law, literature, history, economics, soccer strategies, business meetings, etc.), this book is about evolutionary strategies, selfish genes and inclusive fitness (kin selection, natural selection). One thing rarely mentioned by the group selectionists is the fact that, even were 'group selection' possible, selfishness is at least as likely (probably far more likely in most contexts) to be group selected for as altruism. Just try to find examples of true altruism in nature –the fact that we can't (which we know is not possible if we understand evolution) tells us that its apparent presence in humans is an artefact of modern life, concealing the facts, and that it can no more be selected for than the tendency to suicide (which in fact it is). One might also benefit from considering a phenomenon never (in my experience) mentioned by groupies--cancer. No group has as much in common as the (originally) genetically identical cells in our own bodies-a 50 trillion cell clone-but we all born with thousands and perhaps millions of cells that have already taken the first step on the path to cancer, and generate millions to billions of cancer cells in our life. If we did not die of other things first, we (and perhaps all multicellular organisms) would all die of cancer. Only a massive and hugely complex mechanism built into our genome that represses or derepresses trillions of genes in trillions of cells, and kills and creates billions of cells a second, keeps the majority of us alive long enough to reproduce. One might take this to imply that a just, democratic and enduring society for any kind of entity on any planet in any universe is only a dream, and that no being or power could make it otherwise. It is not only 'the laws' of physics that are universal and inescapable, or perhaps we should say that inclusive fitness is a law of physics. The great mystic Osho said that the separation of God and Heaven from Earth and Humankind was the most evil idea that ever entered the Human mind. In the 20th century an even more evil notion arose, or at least became popular with leftists-that humans are born with rights, rather than having to earn privileges. The idea of human rights is an evil fantasy created by leftists to draw attention away from the merciless destruction of the earth by unrestrained 3rd world motherhood. Thus, every day the population increases by 200,000, who must be provided with resources to grow and space to live, and who soon produce another 200,000 etc. And one almost never hears it noted that what they receive must be taken from those already alive, and their descendants. Their lives diminish those already here in both major obvious and countless subtle ways. Every new baby destroys the earth from the moment of conception. In a horrifically overcrowded world with vanishing resources, there cannot be human rights without destroying the earth and our descendents futures. It could not be more obvious, but it is rarely mentioned in a clear and direct way, and one will never see the streets full of protesters against motherhood. The most basic facts, almost never mentioned, are that there are not enough resources in America or the world to lift a significant percentage of the poor out of poverty and keep them there. The attempt to do this is already bankrupting America and destroying the world. The earth's capacity to produce food decreases daily, as does our genetic quality. And now, as always, by far the greatest enemy of the poor is other poor and not the rich. America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century, and now all of it, due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources and the addition of 4 billion more ca. 2100 will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. The earth loses at least 1% of its topsoil every year, so as it nears 2100, most of its food growing capacity will be gone. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America, this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a nightmare of crime and poverty. China will continue to overwhelm America and the world, as long as it maintains the dictatorship which limits selfishness. The root cause of collapse is IV the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests (which I suggest may be regarded as an unrecognized -but the commonest and most serious-psychological problem -Inclusive Fitness Disorder). This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else-there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently, social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. Hence my concluding essay "Suicide by Democracy". I had hoped to weld my comments into a unified whole, but I came to realize, as Wittgenstein and AI researchers did, that the mind (roughly the same as language as Wittgenstein showed us) is a motley of disparate pieces evolved for many contexts, and there is no such whole or theory except inclusive fitness, i.e., evolution by natural selection. Finally, as with my other writings 3DTV and 3D Movie Technology-Selected Articles 1996-2017 2nd Edition (2017), Psychoactive Drugs-Four Classic Texts (1976-1982) (2016), Talking Monkeys (2017), The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Pychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle (2017), and in all my letters and email and conversations for over 50 years, I have always used 'they' or 'them' instead of 'his/her', 'she/he', or the idiotic reverse sexism of 'she' or 'her', being perhaps the only one in this part of the galaxy to do so. The slavish use of these universally applied egregious vocables is of course intimately connected with the defects in our psychology which generate academic philosophy, democracy and the collapse of industrial civilization, and I leave the further description of these connections as an exercise for the reader. Those who wish a more detailed exposition of the use of Wittgenstein and Searle in the description of behavior may consult my book The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle (2017), while a more complete edition of all my other writings can be found in Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017). I am aware of many imperfections and limitations of my work and continually revise it, but I took up philosophy 12 years ago at 65, so it is miraculous, and an eloquent testimonial to the power of System 1 automatisms, that I have been able to do anything at all. It was ten years of incessant struggle and I hope readers find it of some use. [email protected] THE DESCRIPTION OF BEHAVIOR WITHOUT DELUSION 2 The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in the Writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle Michael Starks ABSTRACT I provide a critical survey of some of the major findings of Wittgenstein and Searle on the logical structure of intentionality(mind, language, behavior), taking as my starting point Wittgenstein's fundamental discovery –that all truly 'philosophical' problems are the same- confusions about how to use language in a particular context, and so all solutions are the same-looking at how language can be used in the context at issue so that its truth conditions (Conditions of Satisfaction or COS) are clear. The basic problem is that one can say anything but one cannot mean (state clear COS for) any arbitrary utterance and meaning is only possible in a very specific context. I begin with 'On Certainty' and continue the analysis of recent writings by and about them from the perspective of the two systems of thought, employing a new table of intentionality and new dual systems nomenclature. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book 'The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017' (2017). "If I wanted to doubt whether this was my hand, how could I avoid doubting whether the word 'hand' has any meaning? So that is something I seem to know, after all." Wittgenstein 'On Certainty' p48 "What sort of progress is this-the fascinating mystery has been removed-yet no depths have been plumbed in consolation; nothing has been explained or discovered or reconceived. How tame and uninspiring one might think. But perhaps, as Wittgenstein suggests, the virtues of clarity, demystification and truth should be found satisfying enough" --Horwich 'Wittgenstein's Metaphilosophy'. 3 First, let us remind ourselves of Wittgenstein's (W) fundamental discovery – that all truly 'philosophical' problems (i.e., those not solved by experiments or data gathering) are the same-confusions about how to use language in a particular context, and so all solutions are the same-looking at how language can be used in the context at issue so that its truth conditions (Conditions of Satisfaction or COS) are clear. The basic problem is that one can say anything but one cannot mean (state clear COS for) any arbitrary utterance and meaning is only possible in a very specific context. Thus, W in his last masterpiece 'On Certainty' (OC) looks at perspicuous examples of the varying uses of the words 'know', 'doubt' and 'certain', often from his 3 typical perspectives of narrator, interlocutor and commentator, leaving the reader to decide the best use (clearest COS) of the sentences in each context. One can only describe the uses of related sentences and that's the end of it- no hidden depths, no metaphysical insights. There are no 'problems' of 'consciousness', 'will', 'space', 'time' etc., but only the need to keep the use (COS) of these words clear. It is truly sad that most philosophers continue to waste their time on the linguistic confusions peculiar to academic philosophy rather than turning their attention to those of the other behavioral disciplines and to physics, biology and mathematics, where it is desperately needed. What has W really achieved? Here is how a leading Wittgenstein scholar summarized his work: "Wittgenstein resolved many of the deep problems that have dogged our subject for centuries, sometimes indeed for more than two millennia, problems about the nature of linguistic representation, about the relationship between thought and language, about solipsism and idealism, self-knowledge and knowledge of other minds, and about the nature of necessary truth and of mathematical propositions. He ploughed up the soil of European philosophy of logic and language. He gave us a novel and immensely fruitful array of insights into philosophy of psychology. He attempted to overturn centuries of reflection on the nature of mathematics and mathematical truth. He undermined foundationalist epistemology. And he bequeathed us a vision of philosophy as a contribution not to human knowledge, but to human understanding – understanding of the forms of our thought and of the conceptual confusions into which we are liable to fall."- Peter Hacker-- 'Gordon Baker's late interpretation of Wittgenstein' To this I would add that W was the first to clearly and extensively describe the two systems of thought--fast automatic prelinguistic S1 and the slow reflective linguistic dispositional S2. He explained how behavior only is possible with a vast inherited background that is the axiomatic basis for judging and cannot be doubted or judged, so will (choice), consciousness, self, 4 time and space are innate true-only axioms. He noted in thousands of pages and hundreds of examples how our inner mental experiences are not describable in language, this being possible only for behavior with a public language (the impossibility of private language). He predicted the utility of paraconsistent logic which only emerged much later. Incidentally he patented helicopter designs which anticipated by three decades the use of blade-tip jets to drive the rotors, and which had the seeds of the centrifugal-flow gas turbine engine, designed a heart-beat monitor, designed and supervised the building of a modernist house, and sketched a proof of Euler's Theorem, subsequently completed by others. He laid out the psychological foundations of mathematics, logic, incompleteness, and infinity. And Paul Horwich gives a beautiful summary of where an understanding of Wittgenstein leaves us. "There must be no attempt to explain our linguistic/conceptual activity (PI 126) as in Frege's reduction of arithmetic to logic; no attempt to give it epistemological foundations (PI 124) as in meaning based accounts of a priori knowledge; no attempt to characterize idealized forms of it (PI 130) as in sense logics; no attempt to reform it (PI 124,132) as in Mackie's error theory or Dummett's intuitionism; no attempt to streamline it (PI 133) as in Quine's account of existence; no attempt to make it more consistent (PI 132) as in Tarski's response to the liar paradoxes; and no attempt to make it more complete (PI 133) as in the settling of questions of personal identity for bizarre hypothetical 'teleportation' scenarios." He can be viewed as the first evolutionary psychologist, since he constantly explained the necessity of the innate background and demonstrated how it generates behavior. Though nobody seems aware of it, he described the psychology behind what later became the Wason test--a fundamental measure used in Evolutionary Psychology (EP) decades later. He noted the indeterminate or underdetermined nature of language and the game-like nature of social interaction. He described and refuted the notions of the mind as machine and the computational theory of mind, long before practical computers or the famous writings of Searle. He invented truth tables for use in logic and philosophy. He decisively laid to rest skepticism and metaphysics. He showed that, far from being inscrutable, the activities of the mind lie open before us, a lesson few have learned since. When thinking about Wittgenstein, I often recall the comment attributed to 5 Cambridge Philosophy professor C.D. Broad (who did not understand nor like him). "Not offering the chair of philosophy to Wittgenstein would be like not offering the chair of physics to Einstein!" I think of him as the Einstein of intuitive psychology. Though born ten years later, he was likewise hatching ideas about the nature of reality at nearly the same time and in the same part of the world, and, like Einstein, nearly died in WW1. Now suppose Einstein was a suicidal homosexual recluse with a difficult personality who published only one early version of his ideas that were confused and often mistaken, but became world famous; completely changed his ideas but for the next 30 years published nothing more, and knowledge of his new work, in mostly garbled form, diffused slowly from occasional lectures and students notes; that he died in 1951 leaving behind over 20,000 pages of mostly handwritten scribblings in German, composed of sentences or short paragraphs with, often, no clear relationship to sentences before or after; that these were cut and pasted from other notebooks written years earlier with notes in the margins, underlinings and crossed out words, so that many sentences have multiple variants; that his literary executives cut this indigestible mass into pieces, leaving out what they wished and struggling with the monstrous task of capturing the correct meaning of sentences which were conveying utterly novel views of how the universe works and that they then published this material with agonizing slowness (not finished after half a century) with prefaces that contained no real explanation of what it was about; that he became as much notorious as famous due to many statements that all previous physics was a mistake and even nonsense, and that virtually nobody understood his work, in spite of hundreds of books and tens of thousands of papers discussing it; that many physicists knew only his early work in which he had made a definitive summation of Newtonian physics stated in such extremely abstract and condensed form that it was difficult to decide what was being said; that he was then virtually forgotten and that most books and articles on the nature of the world and the diverse topics of modern physics had only passing and usually erroneous references to him, and that many omitted him entirely; that to this day, over half a century after his death, there were only a handful of people who really grasped the monumental consequences of what he had done. This, I claim, is precisely the situation with Wittgenstein. Had W lived into his 80's he would have been able to directly influence Searle (another modern genius of descriptive psychology), Symons, and countless other students of behavior. If his brilliant friend Frank Ramsey had not died in his youth, a highly fruitful collaboration would almost certainly have 6 ensued. If his student and colleague Alan Turing had become his lover, one of the most amazing collaborations of all time would likely have evolved. In any one case the intellectual landscape of the 20th century would have been different and if all 3 had occurred it would almost certainly have been very different. Instead he lived in relative intellectual isolation, few knew him well or had an inkling of his ideas while he lived, and only a handful have any real grasp of his work even today. He could have shined as an engineer, a mathematician, a psychologist, a physiologist (he did wartime research in it), a musician (he played instruments and had a renowned talent for whistling), an architect (the house he designed and constructed for his sister still stands), or an entrepreneur (he inherited one of the largest fortunes in the world but gave it all away). It is a miracle he survived the trenches and prison camps and repeated volunteering for the most dangerous duty (while writing the Tractatus) in WW1, many years of suicidal depressions (3 brothers succumbed to them), avoided being trapped in Austria and executed by the Nazis (he was partly Jewish and probably only the Nazi's desire to lay hands on their money saved the family), and that he was not persecuted for his homosexuality and driven to suicide like his friend Turing. He realized nobody understood what he was doing and might never (not surprising as he was half a century –or a whole century depending on your point of viewahead of psychology and philosophy, which only recently have started accepting that our brain is an evolved organ like our heart.) I will first offer some comments on philosophy and its relationship to contemporary psychological research as exemplified in the works of Searle (S), Wittgenstein (W), Hacker (H) et al. It will help to see my reviews of TLP, PI, OC by W, and PNC (Philosophy in a New Century), Making the Social World (MSW), Seeing Things As They Are (STATA), Searle's Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy (SPCP), John R Searle – Thinking About the Real World (TARW), and other books by and about these geniuses, who provide a clear description of higher order behavior, not found in psychology books, that I will refer to as the WS framework. I begin with some penetrating quotes from W and S. "The confusion and barrenness of psychology is not to be explained by calling it a "young science"; its state is not comparable with that of physics, for instance, in its beginnings. (Rather with that of certain branches of mathematics. Set theory.) For in psychology there are experimental methods and conceptual confusion. (As in the other case, conceptual confusion and methods of proof). The existence of the experimental method makes us think 7 we have the means of solving the problems that trouble us; though problem and method pass one another by." Wittgenstein (PI p.232) "Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics and leads the philosopher into complete darkness."(BBB p18). "But I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness: nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false." Wittgenstein OC 94 "The aim of philosophy is to erect a wall at the point where language stops anyway." Wittgenstein Philosophical Occasions p187 "The limit of language is shown by its being impossible to describe a fact which corresponds to (is the translation of) a sentence without simply repeating the sentence ..." Wittgenstein CV p10 "Many words then in this sense then don't have a strict meaning. But this is not a defect. To think it is would be like saying that the light of my reading lamp is no real light at all because it has no sharp boundary." BBB p27 "Every sign is capable of interpretation but the meaning mustn't be capable of interpretation. It is the last interpretation" BBB p34 "There is a kind of general disease of thinking which always looks for (and finds) what would be called a mental state from which all our acts spring, as from a reservoir." BBB p143 "And the mistake which we here and in a thousand similar cases are inclined to make is labeled by the word "to make" as we have used it in the sentence "It is no act of insight which makes us use the rule as we do", because there is an idea that "something must make us" do what we do. And this again joins onto the confusion between cause and reason. We need have no reason to follow the rule as we do. The chain of reasons has an end." BBB p143 "If we keep in mind the possibility of a picture which, though correct, has no similarity with its object, the interpolation of a shadow between the sentence 8 and reality loses all point. For now, the sentence itself can serve as such a shadow. The sentence is just such a picture, which hasn't the slightest similarity with what it represents." BBBp37 "Thus, we may say of some philosophizing mathematicians that they are obviously not aware of the many different usages of the word "proof"; and that they are not clear about the differences between the uses of the word "kind", when they talk of kinds of numbers, kinds of proof, as though the word "kind" here meant the same thing as in the context "kinds of apples." Or, we may say, they are not aware of the different meanings of the word "discovery" when in one case we talk of the discovery of the construction of the pentagon and in the other case of the discovery of the South Pole." BBB p29 "Some of the most important logical features of intentionality are beyond the reach of phenomenology because they have no immediate phenomenological reality... Because the creation of meaningfulness out of meaninglessness is not consciously experienced...it does not exist...This is... the phenomenological illusion." Searle PNC p115-117 "...the basic intentional relation between the mind and the world has to do with conditions of satisfaction. And a proposition is anything at all that can stand in an intentional relation to the world, and since those intentional relations always determine conditions of satisfaction, and a proposition is defined as anything sufficient to determine conditions of satisfaction, it turns out that all intentionality is a matter of propositions." Searle PNC p193 "The intentional state represents its conditions of satisfaction...people erroneously suppose that every mental representation must be consciously thought...but the notion of a representation as I am using it is a functional and not an ontological notion. Anything that has conditions of satisfaction, that can succeed or fail in a way that is characteristic of intentionality, is by definition a representation of its conditions of satisfaction...we can analyze the structure of the intentionality of social phenomena by analyzing their conditions of satisfaction." Searle MSW p28-32 "Superstition is nothing but belief in the causal nexus." TLP 5.1361 "Now if it is not the causal connections which we are concerned with, then 9 the activities of the mind lie open before us." BBB p6 "We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched. Of course, there are then no questions left, and this itself is the answer." TLP 6.52 "Nonsense, Nonsense, because you are making assumptions instead of simply describing. If your head is haunted by explanations here, you are neglecting to remind yourself of the most important facts." Z 220 "Philosophy simply puts everything before us and neither explains nor deduces anything...One might give the name `philosophy' to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions." PI 126 "The more narrowly we examine actual language, the sharper becomes the conflict between it and our requirement. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not a result of investigation: it was a requirement.)"PI 107 "The wrong conception which I want to object to in this connexion is the following, that we can discover something wholly new. That is a mistake. The truth of the matter is that we have already got everything, and that we have got it actually present; we need not wait for anything. We make our moves in the realm of the grammar of our ordinary language, and this grammar is already there. Thus, we have already got everything and need not wait for the future." (said in 1930) Waismann "Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle (1979) p183 "Here we come up against a remarkable and characteristic phenomenon in philosophical investigation: the difficulty---I might say---is not that of finding the solution but rather that of recognizing as the solution something that looks as if it were only a preliminary to it. We have already said everything. --Not anything that follows from this, no this itself is the solution! .... This is connected, I believe, with our wrongly expecting an explanation, whereas the solution of the difficulty is a description, if we give it the right place in our considerations. If we dwell upon it, and do not try to get beyond it." Zettel p312-314 "Our method is purely descriptive, the descriptions we give are not hints of explanations." BBB p125 10 These quotes are not chosen at random but (along with the others in my reviews) are an outline of behavior (human nature) from two of our greatest descriptive psychologists. In considering these matters we must keep in mind that philosophy (in the strict sense I consider here) is the descriptive psychology of higher order thought (HOT), which is another of the obvious facts that are totally overlooked -i.e., I have never seen it clearly stated anywhere. In addition to failing to make it clear that what they are doing is descriptive psychology, philosophers rarely specify exactly what it is that they expect to contribute to this topic that other students of behavior (i.e., scientists) do not, so after noting W's above remark on science envy, I will quote again from Hacker who gives a good start on it. "Traditional epistemologists want to know whether knowledge is true belief and a further condition ..., or whether knowledge does not even imply belief ... We want to know when knowledge does and when it does not require justification. We need to be clear what is ascribed to a person when it is said that he knows something. Is it a distinctive mental state, an achievement, a performance, a disposition or an ability? Could knowing or believing that p be identical with a state of the brain? Why can one say `he believes that p, but it is not the case that p', whereas one cannot say `I believe that p, but it is not the case that p'? Why are there ways, methods and means of achieving, attaining or receiving knowledge, but not belief (as opposed to faith)? Why can one know, but not believe who, what, which, when, whether and how? Why can one believe, but not know, wholeheartedly, passionately, hesitantly, foolishly, thoughtlessly, fanatically, dogmatically or reasonably? Why can one know, but not believe, something perfectly well, thoroughly or in detail? And so on through many hundreds of similar questions pertaining not only to knowledge and belief, but also to doubt, certainty, remembering, forgetting, observing, noticing, recognizing, attending, being aware of, being conscious of, not to mention the numerous verbs of perception and their cognates. What needs to be clarified if these questions are to be answered is the web of our epistemic concepts, the ways in which the various concepts hang together, the various forms of their compatibilities and incompatibilities, their point and purpose, their presuppositions and different forms of context dependency. To this venerable exercise in connective analysis, scientific knowledge, psychology, neuroscience and selfstyled cognitive science can contribute nothing whatsoever." (Passing by the naturalistic turn: on Quine's cul-de-sacp15-2005). 11 On his death in 1951 W left behind a scattered collection of some 20,000 pages. Apart from the Tractatus, they were unpublished and largely unknown, although some were widely circulated and read (as were notes taken in his classes), leading to extensive but largely unacknowledged influences. Some works are known to have been lost and many others W had destroyed. Most of this Nachlass was microfilmed in 1968 by Cornell University and copies were bought by a very few libraries. Budd, like most W commentators of the period, does not reference the microfilm. Although much of the Nachlass is repetitive and appears in some form in his subsequently published works (which are referenced by Budd), many variant texts are of great interest and there is substantial material that has never been translated from the original German nor published in book form. Even now (2016) we are awaiting a book of unpublished writings to be called 'Dictating Philosophy', and a new edition of the Brown Book, left with his lover Francis Skinner. In 1998, the Bergen CD of the complete Nachlass appeared -Wittgenstein's Nachlass: Text and Facsimile Version: The Bergen Electronic Edition $2500 ISBN 10: 0192686917. It is available through interlibrary loan and apparently free on the net as well. Like the other CDs of W's work, it is available from Intelex (www.nlx.com). It is indexed and searchable and the prime W resource. However, my extensive readings of the W literature show that very few people have bothered to consult it and thus their works are lacking a critical element. One can see Victor Rodych's papers on W's remarks on Godel for one notable exception. One major work dating from W's middle period (1933) that was published as a book in 2000 is the famous Big Typescript. Budd's 'Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology (1991) is one of the better treatments of W (see my review) but since he finished this book in 1989, neither the Big Typescript nor the Bergen CD was available to him and he neglected the Cornell microfilm. Nevertheless, by far the most important works date from W's 3rd period (ca. 1935 to 1951) and these were all used by Budd. In addition, there are huge problems with translation of his early 20th century Viennese German into modern English. One must be a master of English, German, and W in order to do this and very few are up to it. All of his works suffer from clear translation errors and there are more subtle questions where one has to understand the whole thrust of his later philosophy in order to translate. Since, in my view, nobody except Daniele Moyal-Sharrock (DMS) has grasped the full import of his later works, one can see why W has yet to be fully appreciated. Even the more or less well-known critical difference between understanding 'Satz' as 'sentence' (i.e., an S1 utterance) vs 12 'proposition' (i.e., an S2 utterance) in various contexts has usually escaped notice. Few notice (Budd p29-32, Stern and DMS in a recent article are rare exceptions) that W presciently (decades before chaos and complexity science came into being) suggested that some mental phenomena may originate in chaotic processes in the brain-that e.g., there is not anything corresponding to a memory trace. He also suggested several times that the causal chain has an end, and this could mean both that it is just not possible (regardless of the state of science) to trace it any further and that the concept of `cause' ceases to be applicable beyond a certain point (p34). Subsequently, many have made similar suggestions without any idea that W anticipated them by decades (in fact over a century now in a few instances). With DMS I regard W's last book 'On Certainty' (OC) as the foundation stone of philosophy and psychology. It is not really a book but notes he made during the last two years of his life while dying of prostate cancer and barely able to work. He seems to have been principally motivated by the realization that G.E. Moore's simple efforts had focused attention on the very core of all philosophy--how it's possible to mean, to believe, to know anything at all, and not to be able to doubt it. All anyone can do is to examine minutely the working of the language games of 'know' and 'certain' and 'doubt' as they are used to describe the primitive automated prelinguistic system one (S1) functions of our brain (my K1, C1 and D1) and the advanced deliberative linguistic system two (S2) functions (my K2, C2 and D2). Of course, W does not use the two systems terminology, which only came to the fore in psychology some half century after his death, and has yet to penetrate philosophy, but he clearly grasped the two systems framework (the 'grammar') in all of his work from the early 30's on, and one can see clear foreshadowings in his very earliest writings. Much has been written on Moore and W and On Certainty (OC) recently, after half a century in relative oblivion. See e.g., Annalisa Coliva's "Moore and Wittgenstein" (2010), "Extended Rationality" (2015), The Varieties of SelfKnowledge '(2016), Brice's 'Exploring Certainty'(2014) and Andy Hamilton's 'Routledge Philosophy Guide Book to Wittgenstein and On Certainty' (which I will review soon) and the many books and papers of Daniele MoyalSharrock (DMS) and Peter Hacker (PH), including Hacker's recent 3 volumes on Human Nature. DMS and PH have been the leading scholars of the later W, each writing or editing half a dozen books (many reviewed by me) and 13 many papers in the last decade. However, the difficulties of coming to grips with the basics of our higher order psychology, i.e., of how language (approximately the same as the mind, as W showed us) works are evidenced by Coliva, one of the most brilliant and prolific contemporary philosophers, who made remarks in a very recent article which show that after years of intensive work on the later W, she does not seem to get that he has solved the most basic problems of the description of human behavior. As DMS makes clear, one cannot even coherently state misgivings about the operations of our basic psychology (W's 'Hinges' which I equate with S1) without lapsing into incoherence. DMS has noted the limitations of both of these workers (limitations shared by all students of behavior) in her recent articles, which (like those of Coliva and Hacker) are freely available on the net. As DMS puts it: "...the notes that make up On Certainty revolutionize the concept of basic beliefs and dissolve scepticism, making them a corrective, not only to Moore but also to Descartes, Hume, and all of epistemology. On Certainty shows Wittgenstein to have solved the problem he set out to solve – the problem that occupied Moore and plagued epistemology – that of the foundation of knowledge. Wittgenstein's revolutionary insight in On Certainty is that what philosophers have traditionally called 'basic beliefs' – those beliefs that all knowledge must ultimately be based on – cannot, on pain of infinite regress, themselves be based on further propositional beliefs. He comes to see that basic beliefs are really animal or unreflective ways of acting which, once formulated (e.g. by philosophers), look like (empirical) propositions. It is this misleading appearance that leads philosophers to believe that at the foundation of thought is yet more thought. Yet though they may often look like empirical conclusions, our basic certainties constitute the ungrounded, nonpropositional underpinning of knowledge, not its object. In thus situating the foundation of knowledge in nonreflective certainties that manifest themselves as ways of acting, Wittgenstein has found the place where justification comes to an end, and solved the regress problem of basic beliefs – and, in passing, shown the logical impossibility of hyperbolic scepticism. I believe that this is a groundbreaking achievement for philosophy – worthy of calling On Certainty Wittgenstein's 'third masterpiece'." I reached the same general conclusions myself some years ago and stated it in my book reviews. She continues:" ... this is precisely how Wittgenstein describes Moore-type hinge certainties in On Certainty: they'have the form of empirical 14 propositions', but are not empirical propositions. Granted, these certainties are not putative metaphysical propositions that appear to describe the necessary features of the world, but they are putative empirical propositions that appear to describe the contingent features of the world. And therein lies some of the novelty of On Certainty. On Certainty is continuous with all of Wittgenstein's earlier writings – including the Tractatus – in that it comes at the end of a long, unbroken attempt to elucidate the grammar of our language-games, to demarcate grammar from language in use. Baker and Hacker have superbly elucidated the second Wittgenstein's unmasking of the grammatical nature of metaphysical or super-empirical propositions; what sets On Certainty apart is its further perspicuous distinction between some 'empirical' propositions and others ('Our "empirical propositions" do not form a homogenous mass' (OC 213)): some apparently empirical and contingent propositions being in fact nothing but expressions of grammatical rules. The importance of this realization is that it leads to the unprecedented insight that basic beliefs – though they look like humdrum empirical and contingent propositions – are in fact ways of acting which, when conceptually elucidated, can be seen to function as rules of grammar: they underlie all thinking (OC 401). So that the hinge certainty 'The earth has existed for many years' underpins all thought and action, but not as a proposition that strikes us immediately as true; rather as a way of acting that underpins what we do (e.g., we research the age of the earth) and what we say (e.g., we speak of the earth in the past tense): 'Giving grounds, however, justifying the evidence, comes to an end; – but the end is not certain propositions striking us immediately as true, i.e. it is not a kind of seeing on our part; it is our acting, which lies at the bottom of the language-game.' (OC 204)" "The non-propositional nature of basic beliefs puts a stop to the regress that has plagued epistemology: we no longer need to posit untenable selfjustifying propositions at the basis of knowledge. In taking hinges to be true empirical propositions, Peter Hacker fails to acknowledge the groundbreaking insight that our basic certainties are ways of acting, and not 'certain propositions striking us... as true' (OC 204). If all Wittgenstein were doing in OC was to claim that our basic beliefs are true empirical propositions, why bother? He would be merely repeating what philosophers before him have been saying for centuries, all the while deploring an unsolvable infinite regress. Why not rather appreciate that Wittgenstein has stopped the regress?" ("Beyond Hacker's Wittgenstein" -(2013))." It is amazing (and a sign of how deep the divide remains between philosophy 15 and psychology) that (as I have noted many times) in a decade of intensive reading, I have not seen one person make the obvious connection between W's 'grammar' and the automatic reflexive functions of our brain which constitute System 1, and its extensions into the linguistic functions of System 2. For anyone familiar with the two systems framework for understanding behavior that has dominated various areas of psychology such as decision theory for the last several decades, it should be glaringly obvious that 'basic beliefs' (or as I call them B1) are the inherited automated true-only structure of S1 and that their extension with experience into true or false sentences (or as I call them B2) are what non-philosophers call 'beliefs'. This may strike some as a mere terminological trifle, but I have used the two systems view and its tabulation below as the logical structure of rationality for a decade and regard it as the single biggest advance in understanding higher order behavior, and hence of W or any philosophical or behavioral writing. In my view, the failure to grasp the fundamental importance of the automaticity of our behavior due to S1 and the consequent attribution of all social interaction (e.g., politics) to the superficialities of S2 can be seen as responsible for the inexorable collapse of industrial civilization. The almost universal oblivion to basic biology and psychology leads to endless fruitless attempts fix the world's problems via politics, but only a drastic restructuring of society with understanding of the fundamental role of inclusive fitness as manifested via the automaticities of S1 has any chance to save the world. The oblivion to S1 has been called by Searle 'The phenomenological Illusion', by Pinker 'The Blank Slate' and by Tooby and Cosmides 'The Standard Social Science Model'. OC shows W's unique super-Socratic trialogue (narrator, interlocutor, commentator) in full bloom and better than anywhere else in his works. He realized by the late 20's that the only way to make any progress was to look at how language actually works-otherwise one gets lost in the labyrinth of language from the very first sentences and there is not the slightest hope of finding one's way out. The entire book looks at various uses of the word 'know' which separate themselves out into 'know' as an intuitive 'perceptual' certainty that cannot meaningfully be questioned (my K1) and 'know' as a disposition to act (my K2), which functions the same as think, hope, judge, understand, imagine, remember, believe and many other dispositional words. As I have suggested in my various reviews of W and S, these two uses correspond to the modern two systems of thought framework that is so powerful in understanding behavior (mind, language), and this (and his other work) is the first significant effort to show how our fast, prelinguistic 16 automatic 'mental states' are the unquestionable axiomatic basis ('hinges') for our later-evolved, slow, linguistic, deliberative dispositional psychology. As I have noted many times, neither W, nor anyone else to my knowledge, has ever stated this clearly. Undoubtedly, most who read OC go away with no clear idea of what he has done, which is the normal result of reading any of his work. On Certainty (OC) was not published until 1969, 18 years after Wittgenstein's death and has only recently begun to draw serious attention. There are few references to it in Searle (along with Hacker, W's heir apparent and the most famous living philosopher) and one sees whole books on W with barely a mention. There are however reasonably good books on it by Stroll, Svensson, Coliva, McGinn and others and parts of many other books and articles, but the best is that of Daniele Moyal-Sharrock (DMS) whose 2004 volume "Understanding Wittgenstein's On Certainty" is mandatory for every educated person, and perhaps the best starting point for understanding Wittgenstein (W), psychology, philosophy and life. However (in my view) all analysis of W falls short of fully grasping his unique and revolutionary advances by failing to put behavior in its broad evolutionary and contemporary scientific context, which I will attempt here. I will not give a page by page explanation since (as with any other book dealing with behavior-i.e., philosophy, psychology, anthropology, sociology, history, law, politics, religion, literature etc.) we would not get past the first few pages, as all the issues discussed here arise immediately in any discussion of behavior. The table below summarizing the Logical Structure of Rationality (Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought) provides a framework for this and all discussion of behavior. In the course of many years reading extensively in W, other philosophers, and psychology, it has become clear that what he laid out in his final period (and throughout his earlier work in a less clear way) are the foundations of what is now known as evolutionary psychology (EP), or if you prefer, cognitive psychology, cognitive linguistics, intentionality, higher order thought or just animal behavior. Sadly, few realize that his works are a vast and unique textbook of descriptive psychology that is as relevant now as the day it was written. He is almost universally ignored by psychology and other behavioral sciences and humanities, and even those few who have understood him have not realized the extent of his anticipation of the latest work on EP and cognitive illusions (e.g., the two selves of fast and slow thinking-see below). John Searle (S), refers to him infrequently, but his work can be seen as a 17 straightforward extension of W's, though he does not seem to see this. W analysts such as Baker and Hacker (B&H), Read, Harre, Horwich, Stern, Hutto and Moyal-Sharrock do marvelously but mostly stop short of putting him in the center of current psychology, where he certainly belongs. It should also be clear that insofar as they are coherent and correct, all accounts of higher order behavior are describing the same phenomena and ought to translate easily into one another. Thus, the recently fashionable themes of "Embodied Mind" and "Radical Enactivism" should flow directly from and into W's work (and they do). The failure of most to fully grasp W's significance is partly due to the limited attention On Certainty (0C) and his other 3rd period works have received until recently, but even more to the inability of many philosophers and others to understand how profoundly our view of behavior alters once we embrace the evolutionary framework. I call the framework the descriptive psychology of higher order thoughtDPHOTor more precisely the study of the language used in DPHOT --which Searle calls the logical structure of rationality-LSR), which grounds anthropology, sociology, politics, law, morals, ethics, religion, aesthetics, literature and history. The "Theory" of Evolution ceased to be a theory for any normal, rational, intelligent person before the end of the 19th century and for Darwin at least half a century earlier. One cannot help but incorporate T. rex and all that is relevant to it into our true-only axiomatic background via the inexorable workings of EP. Once one gets the logical (psychological) necessity of this it is truly stupefying that even the brightest and the best seem not to grasp this most basic fact of human life (with a tip of the hat to Kant, Searle and a few others) which was laid out in great detail in "On Certainty". Incidentally, the equation of logic and our axiomatic psychology is essential to understanding W and human nature (as Daniele Moyal-Sharrock (DMS), but afaik nobody else, points out). So, most of our shared public experience (culture) becomes a true-only extension of our axiomatic EP and cannot be found mistaken without threatening our sanity. Football or Britney Spears cannot just vanish from my or our memory and vocabulary as these concepts, ideas, events, developed out of and are tied to countless others in the true-only network that begins with birth and extends in all directions to encompass much of our awareness and memory. A corollary, nicely explained by DMS and elucidated in his own unique manner by Searle, is that the skeptical view of the world and other 18 minds (and a mountain of other nonsense including the Blank Slate) cannot really get a foothold, as "reality" is the result of involuntary fast thinking axioms and not testable true or false propositions. The dead hand of the blank slate view of behavior still rests heavily and is the default of the 'second self' of slow thinking conscious system 2, which (without education) is oblivious to the fact that the groundwork for all behavior lies in the unconscious, fast thinking axiomatic structure of system 1 (Searle's 'Phenomenological Illusion'). Searle summed this up in a very insightful recent article by noting that many logical features of intentionality are beyond the reach of phenomenology because the creation of meaningfulness (i.e., the COS of S2) out of meaninglessness (i.e., the reflexes of S1) is not consciously experienced. See Philosophy in a New Century (PNC) p115-117 and my review of it. It is essential to grasp the W/S (Wittgenstein/Searle) framework so I will first offer some comments on philosophy and its relationship to contemporary psychological research as exemplified in the works of Searle (S), Wittgenstein (W), Baker and Hacker (B&H), Read, Hutto, Daniele Moyal-Sharrock(DMS) et. al. To grasp my simple two systems terminology and perspective, it will help to see my reviews of W/S and other books about these geniuses, who provide a clear description of higher order behavior not found in psychology books. To say that Searle has extended W's work is not necessarily to imply that it is a direct result of W study (and he is clearly not a Wittgensteinian), but rather that because there is only ONE human psychology (for the same reason there is only ONE human cardiology), that anyone accurately describing behavior must be enunciating some variant or extension of what W said. However, S seldom mentions W and even then, often in a critical way but in my view his criticisms (like everyone's) nearly always miss the mark and he makes many dubious assertions for which he is often criticized. In present context, I find the recent criticisms of DMS, Coliva and Hacker most relevant. Nevertheless, he is the prime candidate for the best since W and I recommend downloading the over 100 lectures he has on the net. Unlike nearly all other philosophy lectures they are quite entertaining and informative and I have heard them all at least twice. A major theme in all discussion of human behavior is the need to separate the genetically programmed automatisms of S1 (which I equate with W's 19 'hinges') from the less mechanical linguistic dispositional behavior of S2. To rephrase: all study of higher order behavior is an effort to tease apart fast System 1 (S1) and slow System 2 (S2) thinking --e.g., perceptions and other automatisms vs. dispositions. Searle's work as a whole provides a stunning description of higher order S2 social behavior including 'we intentionality', while the later W shows how S2 is based on true-only unconscious axioms of S1, which in evolution and in each of our personal histories developed into conscious dispositional propositional thinking (acting) of S2. Wittgenstein famously remarked that the confusion and barrenness of psychology is not to be explained by calling it a young science and that philosophers are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. He noted that this tendency is the real source of metaphysics and leads the philosopher into complete darkness. See BBB p18. Another notable comment was that if we are not concerned with "causes" the activities of the mind lie open before us –see BB p6 (1933). Likewise, the 20,000 pages of his nachlass demonstrated his famous dictum that the problem is not to find the solution but to recognize as the solution what appears to be only a preliminary. See his Zettel p312-314. And again, he noted 80 years ago that we ought to realize that we can only give descriptions of behavior and that these are not hints of explanations (BBB p125). See the full quotes at other places in this article. The common ideas (e.g., the subtitle of one of Pinker's books "The Stuff of Thought: language as a window into human nature") that language (mind, speech) is a window on or some sort of translation of our thinking or even (Fodor's LOT, Carruthers' ISA, etc.) that there must be some other "Language of Thought" of which it is a translation, were rejected by W, who tried to show, with hundreds of continually reanalyzed perspicuous examples of language in action, that language is not a picture of but is itself thinking or the mind, and his whole corpus can be regarded as the development of this idea. Many have deconstructed the idea of a 'language of thought' but in my view none better than W in BBB p37 - "if we keep in mind the possibility of a picture which, though correct, has no similarity with its object, the interpolation of a shadow between the sentence and reality loses all point. For now, the sentence itself can serve as such a shadow. The sentence is just such a picture, which hasn't the slightest similarity with what it represents." So, language issues direct from the brain and what could count as evidence for 20 an intermediary? W rejected the idea that the Bottom Up approaches of physiology, psychology and computation could reveal what his Top Down analysis of Language Games (LG's) did. The difficulties he noted are to understand what is always in front of our eyes and to capture vagueness –i.e., "the greatest difficulty in these investigations is to find a way of representing vagueness" (LWPP1, 347). And so, speech (i.e., oral muscle contractions, the principal way we interact) is not a window into the mind but is the mind itself, which is expressed by acoustic blasts about past, present and future acts (i.e., our speech using the later evolved Language Games (LG's) of the Second Self-the dispositions such as imagining, knowing, meaning, believing, intending etc.). Some of W's favorite topics in his later second and his third periods are the interdigitating mechanisms of fast and slow thinking (System 1 and 2), the irrelevance of our subjective 'mental life' to the functioning of language, and the impossibility of private language. The bedrock of our behavior is our involuntary, System 1, fast thinking, true-only, mental statesour perceptions and memories and involuntary acts, while the evolutionarily later LG's are voluntary, System 2, slow thinking, testable true or false dispositional (and often counterfactual) imagining, supposing, intending, thinking, knowing, believing etc. He recognized that 'Nothing is Hidden'-i.e., our whole psychology and all the answers to all philosophical questions are here in our language (our life) and that the difficulty is not to find the answers but to recognize them as always here in front of us-we just have to stop trying to look deeper (e.g., in LWPP1 "the greatest danger here is wanting to observe oneself"). W is not legislating the boundaries of science but pointing out the fact that our behavior (mostly speech) is the clearest picture possible of our psychology. FMRI, PET, TCMS, iRNA, computational analogs, AI and all the rest are fascinating and powerful ways to describe and extend our innate axiomatic psychology, but all they can do is provide the physical basis for our behavior, multiply our language games, and extend S2. The true-only axioms of ''On Certainty'' are W's (and later Searle's) "bedrock" or "background", which we now call evolutionary psychology (EP), and which is traceable to the automated true-only reactions of bacteria, which evolved and operate by the mechanism of inclusive fitness (IF). See the recent works of Trivers for a popular intro to IF or Bourke's superb "Principles of Social Evolution" for a pro intro. The recent travesty of 21 evolutionary thought by Nowak and Wilson in no way impacts the fact that IF is the prime mechanism of evolution by natural selection (see my review of 'The Social Conquest of Earth' (2012)). As W develops in OC, most of our shared public experience (culture) becomes a true-only extension (i.e., S2 Hinges or S2H) of our axiomatic EP (i.e., S1 Hinges or S1H) and cannot be found 'mistaken' without threatening our sanity-as he noted a 'mistake' in S1 (no test) has profoundly different consequences from one in S2 (testable). A corollary, nicely explained by DMS and elucidated in his own unique manner by Searle, is that the skeptical view of the world and other minds (and a mountain of other nonsense) cannot get a foothold, as "reality" is the result of involuntary 'fast thinking' axioms and not testable propositions (as I would put it). It is clear to me that the innate true-only axioms W is occupied with throughout his work, and especially in OC, are equivalent to the fast thinking or System 1 that is at the center of current research (e.g., see Kahneman-- "Thinking Fast and Slow", but neither he, nor anyone afaik, has any idea W laid out the framework over 50 years ago), which is involuntary and automatic and which corresponds to the mental states of perception, emotion and memory, as W notes over and over. One might call these "intracerebral reflexes" (maybe 99% of all our cerebration if measured by energy use in the brain). Our slow or reflective, more or less "conscious" (beware another network of language games!) second self brain activity corresponds to what W characterized as "dispositions" or "inclinations", which refer to abilities or possible actions, are not mental states, are conscious, deliberate and propositional (true or false), and do not have any definite time of occurrence. As W notes, disposition words have at least two basic uses. One is a peculiar mostly philosophical use (but graduating into everyday uses) which refers to the true-only sentences resulting from direct perceptions and memory, i.e., our innate axiomatic S1 psychology (`I know these are my hands'), originally termed Causally Self Referential (CSR) by Searle (but now Causally SelfReflexive) or reflexive or intransitive in W's Blue and Brown Books (BBB), and the S2 use, which is their normal use as dispositions, which can be acted out, and which can become true or false (`I know my way home')--i.e., they have Conditions of Satisfaction (COS) in the strict sense, and are not CSR (called transitive in BBB). The equation of these terms from modern psychology with those used by W and S (and much else here) is my idea, so don't expect to find it in the literature (except my articles and reviews on 22 Amazon, viXra.org, philpapers.org, researchgate.net, academia.edu). Though seldom touched upon by philosophers, the investigation of involuntary fast thinking has revolutionized psychology, economics (e.g., Kahneman's Nobel prize) and other disciplines under names like "cognitive illusions", "priming", "framing", "heuristics" and "biases". Of course these too are language games, so there will be more and less useful ways to use these words, and studies and discussions will vary from "pure" System 1 to combinations of 1 and 2 (the norm as W made clear, but of course he did not use this terminology), but presumably not ever of slow S2 dispositional thinking only, since any thought (intentional action) cannot occur without involving much of the intricate S1 network of the "cognitive modules", "inference engines", "intracerebral reflexes", "automatisms", "cognitive axioms", "background" or "bedrock" (as W and Searle call our EP) which must also use S1 to move muscles (action). It follows both from W's 3rd period work and from contemporary psychology, that `will', `self' and `consciousness' (which as Searle notes are presupposed by all discussion of intentionality) are axiomatic true-only elements of S1, composed of perceptions, memories and reflexes., and there is no possibility (intelligibility) of demonstrating (of giving sense to) their falsehood. As W made clear numerous times, they are the basis for judgment and so cannot be judged. The true-only axioms of our psychology are not evidential. As he famously said in OC p94- "but I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness: nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. -no: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false." A sentence expresses a thought (has a meaning), when it has clear Conditions of Satisfaction (COS), i.e., public truth conditions. Hence the comment from W: " When I think in language, there aren't `meanings' going through my mind in addition to the verbal expressions: the language is itself the vehicle of thought." And, if I think with or without words, the thought is whatever I (honestly) say it is, as there is no other possible criterion (COS). Thus W's aphorisms (p132 in Budd's lovely book on W) – "It is in language that wish and fulfillment meet and like everything metaphysical, the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language." And one might note here that `grammar' in W can usually be translated as EP or LSR (DPHOT-see table) and that, in spite of his frequent warnings against theorizing and generalizing (for which he is often incorrectly criticized by 23 Searle), this is about as broad a characterization of higher order descriptive psychology (philosophy) as one can find (as DMS also notes). W is correct that there is no mental state that constitutes meaning, and Searle notes that there is a general way to characterize the act of meaning "speaker meaning... is the imposition of conditions of satisfaction on conditions of satisfaction" -which means to speak or write a well-formed sentence expressing COS in a context that can be true or false, and this is an act and not a mental state. i.e., as Searle notes in Philosophy in a New Century p193 - "the basic intentional relation between the mind and the world has to do with conditions of satisfaction. And a proposition is anything at all that can stand in an intentional relation to the world, and since those intentional relations always determine conditions of satisfaction, and a proposition is defined as anything sufficient to determine conditions of satisfaction, it turns out that all intentionality is a matter of propositions." -propositions being public events that can be true or false –contra the perverse use of the word for the true-only axioms of S by Searle, Coliva and others. Hence, the famous comment by W from PI p217- "If God had looked into our minds he would not have been able to see there whom we were speaking of", and his comments that the whole problem of representation is contained in "that's Him" and "what gives the image its interpretation is the path on which it lies," or as S says its COS. Hence W's summation (p140 Budd) –"what it always comes to in the end is that without any further meaning, he calls what happened the wish that that should happen-andthe question whether I know what I wish before my wish is fulfilled cannot arise at all. And the fact that some event stops my wishing does not mean that it fulfills it. Perhaps I should not have been satisfied if my wish had been satisfied. Suppose it were asked -do I know what I long for before I get it? If I have learned to talk, then I do know." One of W's recurring themes is now called Theory of Mind, or as I prefer, Understanding of Agency (UA). Ian Apperly, who is carefully analyzing UA1 and UA2 (i.e., UA of S1 and S2) in experiments, has become aware of the work of Daniel Hutto, who has characterized UA1 as a fantasy (i.e., no 'Theory' nor representation can be involved in UA1-that being reserved for UA2-see my review of his book with Myin). However, like other psychologists, Apperly has no idea W laid the groundwork for this 80 years ago. It is an easily defensible view that the core of the burgeoning literature on cognitive illusions, automatisms and higher order thought is compatible with and straightforwardly deducible from W. In spite of the fact that most of the above 24 has been known to many for decades (and even 3⁄4 of a century in the case of some of W's teachings), I have rarely seen anything approaching an adequate discussion in philosophy or other behavioral science texts, and commonly there is barely a mention. After half a century in oblivion, the nature of consciousness is now the hottest topic in the behavioral sciences and philosophy. Beginning with the pioneering work of Ludwig Wittgenstein in the 1930's (the Blue and Brown Books) to 1951, and from the 50's to the present by his successors Searle, Moyal-Sharrock, Read, Hacker, Stern, Horwich, Winch, Finkelstein etc., I have created the following table as an heuristic for furthering this study. The rows show various aspects or ways of studying and the columns show the involuntary processes and voluntary behaviors comprising the two systems (dual processes) of the Logical Structure of Consciousness (LSC), which can also be regarded as the Logical Structure of Rationality (LSR-Searle), of behavior (LSB), of personality (LSP), of Mind (LSM), of language (LSL), of reality (LSOR), of Intentionality (LSI) -the classical philosophical term, the Descriptive Psychology of Consciousness (DPC) , the Descriptive Psychology of Thought (DPT) –or better, the Language of the Descriptive Psychology of Thought (LDPT), terms introduced here and in my other very recent writings. The ideas for this table originated in the work by Wittgenstein, a much simpler table by Searle, and correlates with extensive tables and graphs in the three recent books on Human Nature by P.M.S Hacker. The last 9 rows come principally from decision research by Johnathan St. B.T. Evans and colleagues as revised by myself. System 1 is involuntary, reflexive or automated "Rules" R1 while Thinking (Cognition) has no gaps and is voluntary or deliberative "Rules" R2 and Willing (Volition) has 3 gaps (see Searle) 25 Disposition * Emotion Memory Perception Desire PI** IA*** Action/ Word Cause Originates From**** World World World World Mind Mind Mind Mind Causes Changes In***** None Mind Mind Mind None World World World Causally Self Reflexive****** No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes True or False (Testable) Yes T only T only T only Yes Yes Yes Yes Public Conditions of Satisfaction Yes Yes/No Yes/No No Yes/No Yes No Yes Describe A Mental State No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes/No Yes Evolutionary Priority 5 4 2,3 1 5 3 2 2 Voluntary Content Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes Voluntary Initiation Yes/No No Yes No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive System ******* 2 1 2/1 1 2 / 1 2 1 2 Change Intensity No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Precise Duration No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Time, Place (H+N, T+T) ******** TT HN HN HN TT TT HN HN Special Quality No Yes No Yes No No No No Localized in Body No No No Yes No No No Yes Bodily Expressions Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Self Contradictions No Yes No No Yes No No No Needs a Self Yes Yes/No No No Yes No No No Needs Language Yes No No No No No No Yes/No 26 FROM DECISION RESEARCH Disposition * Emotion Memory Perception Desire PI** IA*** Action/ Word Subliminal Effects No Yes/No Yes Yes No No No Yes/No Associative/ Rule Based RB A/RB A A A/RB RB RB RB Context Dependent/ Abstract A CD/A CD CD CD/A A CD/A CD/A Serial/Parallel S S/P P P S/P S S S Heuristic/ Analytic A H/A H H H/A A A A Needs Working Memory Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes General Intelligence Dependent Yes No No No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive Loading Inhibits Yes Yes/No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Arousal Facilitates or Inhibits I F/I F F I I I I Public Conditions of Satisfaction of S2 are often referred to by Searle and others as COS, Representations, truthmakers or meanings (or COS2 by myself), while the automatic results of S1 are designated as presentations by others (or COS1 by myself). * Aka Inclinations, Capabilities, Preferences, Representations, possible actions etc. ** Searle's PriorIntentions *** Searle's Intention In Action **** Searle's Direction of Fit ***** Searle's Direction of Causation ****** (Mental State instantiates--Causes or Fulfills Itself). Searle formerly called this causally selfreferential. *******Tversky/Kahneman/Frederick/Evans/Stanovich defined cognitive systems. ******** Here and Now or There and Then 27 It is of interest to compare this with the various tables and charts in Peter Hacker's recent 3 volumes on Human Nature. One should always keep in mind Wittgenstein's discovery that after we have described the possible uses (meanings, truthmakers, Conditions of Satisfaction) of language in a particular context, we have exhausted its interest, and attempts at explanation (i.e., philosophy) only get us further away from the truth. He showed us that there is only one philosophical problem-the use of sentences (language games) in an inappropriate context, and hence only one solution- showing the correct context. EXPLANATION OF THE TABLE System 1 (i.e., emotions, memory, perceptions, reflexes) which parts of the brain present to consciousness, are automated and generally happen in less than 500msec, while System 2 is abilities to perform slow deliberative actions that are represented in conscious deliberation (S2D-my terminology) requiring over 500msec, but frequently repeated S2 actions can also become automated (S2A-my terminology). There is a gradation of consciousness from coma through the stages of sleep to full awareness. Memory includes short term memory (working memory) of system 2 and long term memory of System 1. For volitions one would usually say they are successful or not, rather than true or false. S1 is causally selfreflexive since the description of our perceptual experience-the presentation of our senses to consciousness, can only be described in the same words (as the same COS Searle) as we describe the world, which I prefer to call the percept or COS1 to distinguish it from the representation or public COS2 of S2. Of course, the various rows and columns are logically and psychologically connected. E.g., Emotion, Memory and Perception in the True or False row will be True-Only, will describe a mental state, belong to cognitive system 1, will not generally be initiated voluntarily, are causally self-reflexive, cause originates in the world and causes changes in the mind, have a precise duration, change in intensity, occur here and now, commonly have a special quality, do not need language, are independent of general intelligence and working memory, are not inhibited by cognitive loading, will not have voluntary content, and will not have public conditions of satisfaction etc. There will always be ambiguities because the words (concepts, language games) cannot precisely match the actual complex functions of the brain (behavior), that is, there is a combinatorial explosion of contexts (in sentences 28 and in the world), and in the infinite variations of 'brain states' ('mental states or the pattern of activations of billions of neurons that can correspond to 'seeing a red apple') and this is one reason why it's not possible to 'reduce' higher order behavior to a 'system of laws' which would have to state all the possible contexts –hence Wittgenstein's warnings against theories. And what counts as 'reducing' and as a 'law' and a 'system' (see e.g., Nancy Cartwright). This is a special case of the irreducibility of higher level descriptions to lower level ones that has been explained many times by Searle, DMS, Hacker, W and others. About a million years ago primates evolved the ability to use their throat muscles to make complex series of noises (i.e., primitive speech) to describe present events (perceptions, memory, reflexive actions) with some Primary or Primitive Language Games (PLG's). System 1 is comprised of fast, automated, subcortical, nonrepresentational, causally self-reflexive, intransitive, informationless, true-only mental states with a precise time and location, and over time there evolved in higher cortical centers S2 with the further ability to describe displacements in space and time of events (the past and future and often hypothetical, counterfactual, conditional or fictional preferences, inclinations or dispositions-the Secondary or Sophisticated Language Games (SLG's) of System 2 that are slow, cortical, conscious, information containing, transitive (having public Conditions of SatisfactionSearle 's term for truthmakers or meaning which I divide into COS1 and COS2 for private S1 and public S2), representational (which I again divide into R1 for S1 representations and R2 for S2) , true or false propositional thinking, with all S2 functions having no precise time and being abilities and not mental states. Preferences are Intuitions, Tendencies, Automatic Ontological Rules, Behaviors, Abilities, Cognitive Modules, Personality Traits, Templates, Inference Engines, Inclinations, Emotions (described by Searle as agitated desires), Propositional Attitudes (correct only if used to refer to events in the world and not to propositions), Appraisals, Capacities, Hypotheses. Some Emotions are slowly developing and changing results of S2 dispositions (W- 'Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology' V2 p148) while others are typical S1- automatic and fast to appear and disappear. "I believe", "he loves", "they think" are descriptions of possible public acts typically displaced in spacetime. My first-person statements about myself are true-only (excluding lying) –i.e. S1, while third person statements about others are true or false – i.e., S2 (see my reviews of Johnston 'Wittgenstein: Rethinking the Inner' and of Budd 'Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology'). "Preferences" as a class of intentional states --opposed to perceptions, 29 reflexive acts and memories-were first clearly described by Wittgenstein (W) in the 1930's and termed "inclinations" or "dispositions". They have commonly been termed "propositional attitudes" since Russell but it has often been noted that this is an incorrect or misleading phrase since believing, intending, knowing, remembering etc., are often not propositional nor attitudes, as has been shown e.g., by W and by Searle (e.g., cf Consciousness and Language p118). Preferences are intrinsic, observer independent public representations (as opposed to presentations or representations of System 1 to System 2 – Searle-Consciousness and Language p53). They are potential acts displaced in time or space, while the evolutionarily more primitive S1 perceptions memories and reflexive actions are always here and now. This is one way to characterize System 2 -the second major advance in vertebrate psychology after System 1-the ability to represent (state public COS for) events and to think of them as occurring in another place or time (Searle's third faculty of counterfactual imagination supplementing cognition and volition). S1 'thoughts' (my T1-i.e., the use of "thinking" to refer to automatic brain processes of System One) are potential or unconscious mental states of S1 --Searle-Phil Issues 1:45-66(1991). Perceptions, memories and reflexive (automatic) actions can be described by primary LG's (PLG's -e.g., I see the dog) and there are, in the normal case, NO TESTS possible so they can be True-Onlyi.e., axiomatic as I prefer or animal reflexes as W and DMS describe. Dispositions can be described as secondary LG's (SLG's –e.g. I believe I see the dog) and must also be acted out, even for me in my own case (i.e., how do I KNOW what I believe, think, feel until I act or some event occurs-see my reviews of the well known books on W by Johnston and Budd. Note that Dispositions become Actions when spoken or written as well as being acted out in other ways, and these ideas are all due to Wittgenstein (mid 1930's) and are NOT Behaviorism (Hintikka & Hintikka 1981, Searle, Hacker, Hutto etc.,). Wittgenstein can be regarded as the founder of evolutionary psychology and his work a unique investigation of the functioning of our axiomatic System 1 psychology and its interaction with System 2. After Wittgenstein laid the groundwork for the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought in the Blue and Brown Books in the early 30's, it was extended by John Searle, who made a simpler version of this table in his classic book Rationality in Action (2001). It expands on W's survey of the axiomatic structure of evolutionary psychology developed from his very first comments in 1911 and so beautifully laid out in his last work 'On Certainty' (OC) (written in 1950-51). OC is the foundation stone of behavior or epistemology and ontology (arguably the same as are semantics and 30 pragmatics), cognitive linguistics or Higher Order Thought, and in my view (shared e.g., by DMS) the single most important work in philosophy (descriptive psychology) and thus in the study of behavior. Perception, Memory, Reflexive actions and Emotion are primitive partly Subcortical Involuntary Mental States, in which the mind automatically fits (presents) the world (is Causally Self Reflexive--Searle) -the unquestionable, true-only, axiomatic basis of rationality over which no control is possible. Preferences, Desires, and Intentions are descriptions of slow thinking conscious Voluntary Abilities- that can be described in SLG's-in which the mind tries to fit (represent) the world. Behaviorism and all the other confusions of our default descriptive psychology (philosophy) arise because we cannot see S1 working and describe all actions as the conscious deliberate actions of S2(The Phenomenological Illusion-TPI-Searle). W understood this and described it with unequalled clarity with hundreds of examples of language (the mind) in action throughout his works. Reason has access to memory and so we use consciously apparent but often incorrect reasons to explain behavior (the Two Selves or Systems or Processes of current research). Beliefs and other Dispositions can be described as thoughts which try to match the facts of the world (mind to world direction of fit), while Volitions are intentions to act (Prior Intentions-PI, or Intentions In Action-IA-Searle) plus acts which try to match the world to the thoughts-world to mind direction of fit-cf. Searle e.g., Consciousness and Language p145, 190). Sometimes there are gaps in reasoning to arrive at belief and other dispositions. Disposition words can be used as nouns which seem to describe mental states ('my thought is...') or as verbs or adjectives to describe abilities (agents as they act or might act -'I think that...) and are often incorrectly called "Propositional Attitudes". Perceptions become Memories and our innate programs (cognitive modules, templates, inference engines of S1) use these to produce Dispositions - (believing, knowing, understanding, thinking, etc., -actual or potential public acts such as language (thought, mind) also called Inclinations, Preferences, Capabilities, Representations of S2) and Volition -and there is no language (concept, thought) of private mental states for thinking or willing (i.e.,no private language, thought or mind). Higher animals can think and will acts and to that extent they have a public psychology. Perceptions: (X is True): Hear, See, Smell, Pain, Touch, Temperature Memories: Remembering (X was true) Preferences, Inclinations, Dispositions 31 (X might become True): CLASS 1: Propositional (True or False) public acts of Believing, Judging, Thinking, Representing, Understanding, Choosing, Deciding, Preferring, Interpreting, Knowing (including skills and abilities), Attending (Learning), Experiencing, Meaning, Remembering, Intending, Considering, Desiring, Expecting, Wishing, Wanting, Hoping (a special class), Seeing As (Aspects), CLASS 2: DECOUPLED MODE-(as if, conditional, hypothetical, fictional) Dreaming , Imagining, Lying, Predicting, Doubting. CLASS 3: EMOTIONS: Loving, Hating, Fearing, Sorrow, Joy, Jealousy, Depression. Their function is to modulate Preferences to increase inclusive fitness (expected maximum utility) by facilitating information processing of perceptions and memories for rapid action. There is some separation between S1 emotions such as rage and fear and S2 such as love, hate, disgust and anger. We can think of them as strongly felt or acted out desires. DESIRES: (I want X to be True-I want to change the world to fit my thoughts): Longing, Hoping, Expecting, Awaiting, Needing, Requiring, obliged to do. INTENTIONS: (I will make X True) Intending. ACTIONS: (I am making X True) : Acting, Speaking , Reading, Writing, Calculating, Persuading, Showing, Demonstrating, Convincing, Doing Trying, Attempting, Laughing, Playing, Eating, Drinking, Crying, Asserting (Describing, Teaching, Predicting, Reporting), Promising , Making or Using Maps, Books, Drawings, Computer Programs–these are Public and Voluntary and transfer Information to others so they dominate over the Unconscious, Involuntary and Informationless S1 reflexes in explanations of behavior (The Phenomenological Illusion (TPI), The Blank Slate (BS)or the Standard Social Science Model (SSSM). Words express actions having various functions in our life and are not the names of objects, nor of a single type of event. The social interactions of humans are governed by cognitive modules-roughly equivalent to the scripts or schemata of social psychology (groups of neurons organized into inference engines), which, with perceptions and memories, lead to the formation of preferences which lead to intentions and then to actions. Intentionality or intentional psychology can be taken to be all these processes or only preferences leading to actions and in the broader sense is the subject 32 of cognitive psychology or cognitive neurosciences when including neurophysiology, neurochemistry and neurogenetics. Evolutionary psychology can be regarded as the study of all the preceding functions or of the operation of the modules which produce behavior, and is then coextensive in evolution, development and individual action with preferences, intentions and actions. Since the axioms (algorithms or cognitive modules) of our psychology are in our genes, we can enlarge our understanding and increase our power by giving clear descriptions of how they work and can extend them (culture) via biology, psychology, philosophy (descriptive psychology), math, logic, physics, and computer programs, thus making them faster and more efficient. Hajek (2003) gives an analysis of dispositions as conditional probabilities which are algorithmatized by Rott (1999), Spohn etc. Intentionality (cognitive or evolutionary psychology) consists of various aspects of behavior which are innately programmed into cognitive modules which create and require consciousness, will and self, and in normal human adults nearly all except perceptions and some memories are purposive, require public acts (e.g., language), and commit us to relationships in order to increase our inclusive fitness (maximum expected utility or Bayesian utility maximization). However, Bayesianism is highly questionable due to severe underdetermination-i.e., it can 'explain' anything and hence nothing. This occurs via dominance and reciprocal altruism, often resulting in Desire Independent Reasons for Action (Searle)which I divide into DIRA1 and DIRA2 for S1 and S2) and imposes Conditions of Satisfaction on Conditions of Satisfaction (Searle)-(i.e., relates thoughts to the world via public acts (muscle movements), producing math, language, art, music, sex, sports etc. The basics of this were figured out by our greatest natural psychologist Ludwig Wittgenstein from the 1930's to 1951 but with clear foreshadowings back to 1911, and with refinements by many, but above all by John Searle beginning in the 1960's. "The general tree of psychological phenomena. I strive not for exactness but for a view of the whole." RPP Vol 1 p895 cf Z p464. Much of intentionality (e.g., our language games) admits of degrees. As W noted, inclinations are sometimes conscious and deliberative. All our templates (functions, concepts, language games) have fuzzy edges in some contexts as they must to be useful. There are at least two types of thinking (i.e., two language games or ways of using the dispositional verb 'thinking')-nonrational without awareness and rational with partial awareness(W), now described as the fast and slow 33 thinking of S1 and S2. It is useful to regard these as language games and not as mere phenomena (W RPP Vol2 p129). Mental phenomena (our subjective or internal "experiences") are epiphenomenal, lack criteria, hence lack info even for oneself and thus can play no role in communication, thinking or mind. Thinking like all dispositions lacks any test, is not a mental state (unlike perceptions of S1), and contains no information until it becomes a public act or event such as in speech, writing or other muscular contractions. Our perceptions and memories can have information (meaning-i.e., a public COS) only when they are manifested in public actions, for only then do thinking, feeling etc. have any meaning (consequences) even for ourselves. Memory and perception are integrated by modules into dispositions which become psychologically effective when they are acted upon-i.e., S1 generates S2. Developing language means manifesting the innate ability of advanced humans to substitute words (fine contractions of oral or manual muscles) for acts (gross contractions of arm and leg muscles). TOM (Theory of Mind) is much better called UA-Understanding of Agency (my term) and UA1 and UA2 for such functions in S1 and S2 –and can also be called Evolutionary Psychology or Intentionality--the innate genetically programmed production of consciousness, self, and thought which leads to intentions and then to actions by contracting muscles-i.e., Understanding is a Disposition like Thinking and Knowing. Thus, "propositional attitude" is an incorrect term for normal intuitive deliberative S2D (i.e., the slow deliberative functioning of System 2) or automated S2A (i.e., the conversion of frequently practiced System 2 functions of speech and action into automatic fast functions). We see that the efforts of cognitive science to understand thinking, emotions etc. by studying neurophysiology is not going to tell us anything more about how the mind (thought, language) works (as opposed to how the brain works) than we already know, because "mind" (thought, language) is already in full public view (W). Any 'phenomena' that are hidden in neurophysiology, biochemistry, genetics, quantum mechanics, or string theory, are as irrelevant to our social life as the fact that a table is composed of atoms which "obey" (can be described by) the laws of physics and chemistry is to having lunch on it. As W so famously said "Nothing is hidden". Everything of interest about the mind (thought, language) is open to view if we only examine carefully the workings of language. Language (mind, public speech connected to potential actions) was evolved to facilitate social interaction and thus the gathering of resources, survival and reproduction. Its grammar (i.e., evolutionary psychology, intentionality) functions automatically and is extremely confusing when we try to analyze 34 it. This has been explained frequently by Hacker, DMS and many others. As W noted with countless carefully stated examples, words and sentences have multiple uses depending on context. I believe and I eat have profoundly different roles as do I believe and I believed or I believe and he believes. The present tense first person use of inclinational verbs such as "I believe" normally describe my ability to predict my probable acts based on knowledge (i.e., S2) but can also seem (in philosophical contexts) to be descriptive of my mental state and so not based on knowledge or information (W and see my review of the book by Hutto and Myin). In the former S1 sense, it does not describe a truth but makes itself true in the act of saying it --i.e., "I believe it's raining" makes itself true. That is, disposition verbs used in first person present tense can be causally self-reflexive--they instantiate themselves but then they are not testable (i.e., not T or F, not S2). However past or future tense or third person use--"I believed" or "he believes" or "he will believe' contain or can be resolved by information that is true or false, as they describe public acts that are or can become verifiable. Likewise, "I believe it's raining" has no information apart from subsequent actions, even for me, but "I believe it will rain" or "he will think it's raining" are potentially verifiable public acts displaced in spacetime that intend to convey information (or misinformation). Nonreflective or Nonrational (automatic) words spoken without Prior Intent (which I call S2A-i.e., S2D automated by practice) have been called Words as Deeds by W & then by Daniele Moyal-Sharrock in her paper in Philosophical Psychology in 2000). Many so-called Inclinations/Dispositions/Preferences/Tendencies/Capacities/Abilities are Non-Propositional (NonReflective) Attitudes (far more useful to call them functions or abilities) of System 1 (Tversky Kahneman). Prior Intentions are stated by Searle to be Mental States and hence S1, but again I think one must separate PI1 and PI2 since in our normal language our prior intentions are the conscious deliberations of S2. Perceptions, Memories, type 2 Dispositions (e.g., some emotions) and many Type 1 Dispositions are better called Reflexes of S1 and are automatic, nonreflective, NON-Propositional and NONAttitudinal functioning of the hinges (axioms, algorithms) of our Evolutionary Psychology (Moyal-Sharrock after Wittgenstein). Some of the leading exponents of W's ideas whom I consider essential 35 reading for an understanding of the descriptive psychology of higher order thought are Coliva, Hutto, DMS, Stern, Horwich, Finkelstein and Read, who, like many scholars now, have posted most of their work (often in preprint form) free online at academia.edu, philpapers.org and other sites and of course the diligent can find everything free online. Baker & Hacker are found in their many joint works and on his personal page. The late Baker went overboard with a bizarre psychoanalytic and rather nihilistic interpretation that was ably refuted by Hacker whose "Gordon Baker's Late Interpretation of Wittgenstein" is a must read for any student of behavior. One can find endless metaphysical reductionist cartoon views of life due to the attempt to explain higher order thought of S2 in terms of the causal framework of S1 which Carruthers (C), Dennett, the Churchlands (3 of the current leaders of scientism, computationalism or materialist reductionism -hereafter CDC-my acronym for the Centers for (Philosophical) Disease Control) and many others pursue. Scientism has been debunked frequently beginning with W in the BBB in the 30's when he noted that –"philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics and leads the philosopher into complete darkness"and by Searle, Read, Hutto, Hacker and countless others since. The attempt to 'explain' (really only to describe as W made clear) S2 in causal terms is incoherent and even for S1 it is extremely complex and it is not clear that the highly diverse language games of "causality" can ever be made to apply (as has been noted many times)-even their application in physics and chemistry is variable and often obscure (was it gravity or the abscission layer or hormones or the wind or all of them that made the apple fall and when did the causes start and end)? But as W said-"now if it is not the causal connections which we are concerned with, then the activities of the mind lie open before us". However, I suggest it is a major mistake to see W as taking either side, as usually stated, as his views are much more subtle, more often than not leaving his trialogues unresolved. One might find it useful to start with my reviews of W, S etc., and then study as much of Read, Hutto, Horwich, Coliva, Hacker, Glock, DMS, Stern, etc. as feasible before digging into the literature of causality and the philosophy of science, and if one finds it uninteresting to do so then W has hit the mark. In spite of the efforts of W and others, it appears to me that most philosophers 36 have little grasp of the subtlety of language games (e.g., the drastically different uses of 'I know what I mean' and 'I know what time it is'), or of the nature of dispositions, and many (e.g., CDC) still base their ideas on such notions as private language, introspection of 'inner speech' and computationalism, which W laid to rest 3⁄4 of a century ago. Before I read any book, I go to the index and bibliography to see whom they cite. Often the authors most remarkable achievement is the complete or nearly complete omission of all the authors I cite here. W is easily the most widely discussed modern philosopher with about one new book and dozens of articles largely or wholely devoted to him every month. He has his own journal "Philosophical Investigations" and I expect his bibliography exceeds that of the next top 4 or 5 philosophers combined. Searle is perhaps next among moderns (and the only one with many lectures on YouTube, Vimeo, University sites etc.-over 100, which, unlike almost all other philosophy lectures, are a delight to listen to) and Hutto, Coliva, DMS, Hacker, Read, etc., are very prominent with dozens of books and hundreds of articles, talks and reviews. But CDC and other metaphysicians ignore them and the thousands who regard their work as critically important. Consequently, the powerful W/S framework (as well by and large of that of modern research in thinking) is totally absent and all the confusions it has cleared away are abundant. If you read my reviews and the works themselves, perhaps your view of most writing in this arena may be quite different. But as W insisted, one has to work the examples through oneself. As often noted, his super-Socratic trialogues had a therapeutic intent. W's definitive arguments against introspection and private language are noted in my other reviews and are extremely well known. Basically, they are as simple as pie-we must have a test to differentiate between A and B and tests can only be external and public. He famously illustrated this with the 'Beetle in the Box'. If we all have a box that cannot be opened nor x-rayed etc. and call what is inside a 'beetle' then 'beetle' cannot have any role in language, for every box could contain a different thing or even be empty. So, there is no private language that only I can know and no introspection of 'inner speech'. If X is not publicly demonstrable it cannot be a word in our language. This shoots down Carruther's ISA theory of mind, as well as all the other 'inner sense' theories which he references. I have explained W's dismantling of the notion of introspection and the functioning of dispositional language ('propositional attitudes') above and in my reviews of 37 Budd, Johnston and several of Searle's books. See Stern's "Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations" (2004) for a nice explanation of Private Language and everything by Read et al for getting to the roots of these issues as few do. CDC eschew the use of 'I' since it assumes the existence of a 'higher self'. But, the very act of writing, reading and all language and concepts (language games) presuppose self, consciousness and will, so such accounts are selfcontradictory cartoons of life without any value whatsoever (and zero impact on the daily life of anyone). W/S and others have long noted that the first person point of view is just not intelligibly eliminable or reducible to a 3rd person one, but absence of coherence is no problem for the cartoon views of life. Likewise, with the description of brain function or behavior as 'computational', 'information processing' etc., -well debunked countless times by W/S, Hutto, Read, Hacker and many others. Writing that attempts to combine science with philosophy, with the meaning of many key terms varying almost at random without awareness, is schizoid and hopeless, but there are thousands of science and philosophy books like this. There is the description (not explanation as W made clear) of our behavior and then the experiments of cognitive psychology. Many of these dealing with human behavior combine the conscious thinking of S2 with the unconscious automatisms of S1 (absorb psychology into physiology). We are often told that self, will, and consciousness are illusions, since they think they are showing us the 'real' meaning of these terms, and that the cartoon use is the valid one. That is, S2 is 'unreal' and must be subsumed by the scientific causal descriptions of S1. Hence, the reason for the shift from the philosophy of language to the philosophy of mind. See e.g., my review of Carruther's recent 'The Opacity of Mind'. Even Searle is a frequent offender here as noted by Hacker, Bennet and Hacker, DMS, Coliva etc. If someone says that I can't choose what to have for lunch he is plainly mistaken, or if by choice he means something else such as that 'choice' can be described as having a 'cause' or that it's not clear how to reduce 'choice' to 'cause' so we must regard it as illusory, then that is trivially true (or incoherent), but irrelevant to how we use language and how we live, which should be regarded as the point from which to begin and end such discussions. Perhaps one might regard it as relevant that it was W, along with Kant and 38 Nietzsche (great intellects, but neither of them doing much to dissolve the problems of philosophy), who were voted the best of all time by philosophers-not Quine, Dummett, Putnam, Kripke or CDC. One can see the similarity in all philosophical questions (in the strict sense I consider here, keeping in mind W's comment that not everything with the appearance of a question is one). We want to understand how the brain (or the universe) does it but S2 is not up to it. It's all (or mostly) in the unconscious machinations of S1 via DNA. We don't 'know' but our DNA does, courtesy of the death of countless trillions of organisms over some 3 billion years. We can describe the world easily but often cannot agree on what an 'explanation' should look like. So, we struggle with science and ever so slowly describe the mechanisms of mind. Even if we should arrive at "complete" knowledge of the brain, we would still just have a description of what neuronal pattern corresponds to seeing red, but it is not clear what it would mean (COS) to have an "explanation" of why it's red (i.e., why qualia exist). As W said, explanations come to an end somewhere. For those who grasp the above, the philosophical parts of Carruther's "Opacity of Mind" (a major recent work of the CDC school) are comprised largely of the standard confusions that result from ignoring the work of W, S and hundreds of others. It can be called Scientism or Reductionism and denies the 'reality' of our higher order thought, will, self and consciousness, except as these are given a quite different and wholly incompatible use in science. We have e.g., no reasons for action, only a brain that causes action etc. They create imaginary problems by trying to answer questions that have no clear sense. It should strike us that these views have absolutely no impact on the daily life of those who spend most of their adult life promoting them. This situation is nicely summed up by Rupert Read in his article 'The Hard Problem of Consciousness' - "the hardcore problem becomes more and more remote, the more we dehumanize aspects of the mind, such as information and perception and intentionality. The problem will only really be being faced if we face up to it as a 'problem' that has to do with whole human beings, embodied in a context (inextricably natural and social) at a given time, etc...then it can become perspicuous to one that there is no problem. Only when one starts, say, to 'theorize' information across human and non-human domains (supposedly using the non-human-the animal {usually thought of as mechanical} or the machine-as one's paradigm, and thus getting things back to front), does it begin to look as if there is a 39 problem...that all the 'isms' (cognitivism, reductionism (to the brain), behaviorism and so on)...push further and further from our reach...the very conceptualization of the problem is the very thing which ensures that the 'hard problem' remains insoluble...no good reason has ever been given for us to think that there must be a science of something if it is to be regarded as real. There is no good reason to think that there should be a science of consciousness, or of mind or of society, any more than there need be a science of numbers, or of universes or of capital cities or of games or of constellations or of objects whose names start with the letter 'b'.... We need to start with the idea of ourselves as embodied persons acting in a world, not with the idea of ourselves as brains with minds 'located' in them or 'attached' to them... There is no way that science can help us bootstrap into an 'external'/'objective' account of what consciousness really is and when it is really present. For it cannot help us when there is a conflict of criteria, when our machines come into conflict with ourselves, into conflict with us. For our machines are only calibrated by our reports in the first place. There can be no such thing as getting an external point of view... that isn't because... the hard problem is insoluble, ...Rather, we need not admit that a problem has even been defined...'transcendental naturalism' ...guarantees... the keeping alive indefinitely of the problem. It offers the extraordinary psychological satisfaction of both a humble (yet privileged) 'scientific' statement of limits to the understanding and, the knowingness of being part of a privileged elite, that in stating those limits, can see beyond them. It fails to see what Wittgenstein made clear in the preface to the Tractatus. The limit can... only be drawn in language and what lies on the other side of the limit will be simply nonsense." Many of W's comments come to mind. He noted 85 years ago that 'mysteries' satisfy a longing for the transcendent, and because we think we can see the 'limits of human understanding', we think we can also see beyond them, and that we should dwell on the fact that we see the limits of language (mind) in the fact that we cannot describe the facts which correspond to a sentence except by repeating the sentence (see p10 etc. in his Culture and Value, written in 1931). I also find it useful to repeat frequently his remark that "superstition is nothing but belief in the causal nexus" --written a century ago in TLP 5.1361. Also, apropos is his famous comment (PI p308) about the origin of the philosophical problems about mental processes (and all philosophical problems). "How does the philosophical problem about mental processes and 40 states and about behaviorism arise? The first step is the one that altogether escapes notice. We talk of processes and states and leave their nature undecided. Sometime perhaps we shall know more about them -we think. But that is just what commits us to a particular way of looking at the matter. For we have a definite concept of what it means to learn to know a process better. (The decisive movement in the conjuring trick has been made, and it was the very one that we thought quite innocent.) -And now the analogy which was to make us understand our thoughts falls to pieces. So we have to deny the yet uncomprehended process in the yet unexplored medium. And now it looks as if we had denied mental processes. And naturally we don't want to deny them." Another seemingly trivial comment by W (PI p271) asked us to imagine a person who forgot what the word 'pain' meant but used it correctly –i.e., he used it as we do! Also relevant is W's comment (TLP 6.52) that when all scientific questions have been answered, nothing is left to question, and that is itself the answer. And central to understanding the scientistic (i.e., due to scientism, not science) failures of CDC et al is his observation that it is a very common mistake to think that something must make us do what we do, which leads to the confusion between cause and reason. "And the mistake which we here and in a thousand similar cases are inclined to make is labeled by the word "to make" as we have used it in the sentence "It is no act of insight which makes us use the rule as we do", because there is an idea that "something must make us" do what we do. And this again joins onto the confusion between cause and reason. We need have no reason to follow the rule as we do. The chain of reasons has an end." BBB p143 He has also commented that the chain of causes has an end and that there is no reason in the general case for it to be meaningful to specify a cause. W saw in his own decades-long struggle the necessity of clarifying 'grammar' oneself by working out 'perspicuous examples' and the futility for many of being told the answers. Hence his famous comments about philosophy as therapy and 'working on oneself'. Another striking thing about so many philosophy books (and the disguised philosophy throughout the behavioral sciences, physics and math) is that there is often no hint that there are other points of view- that many of the most prominent philosophers regard the scientistic view as incoherent. There is also the fact (seldom mentioned) that, provided of course we ignore its incoherence, reduction does not stop at the level of neurophysiology, but can 41 easily be extended (and has often been) to the level of chemistry, physics, quantum mechanics, 'mathematics' or just 'ideas'. What exactly should make neurophysiology privileged? The ancient Greeks generated the idea that nothing exists but ideas and Leibniz famously described the universe as a giant machine. Most recently Stephan Wolfram became a legend in the history of pseudoscience for his description of the universe as a computer automaton in 'A New Kind of Science'. Materialism, mechanism, idealism, reductionism, behaviorism and dualism in their many guises are hardly news and, to a Wittgensteinian, quite dead horses since W dictated the Blue and Brown books in the 30's, or at least since the subsequent publication and extensive commentary on his nachlass. But convincing someone is a hopeless task. W realized one has to work on oneself-self therapy via long hard working through of 'perspicuous examples' of language (mind) in action. An (unknowing) expression of how axiomatic psychology rules, and how easy it is to change a word's use without knowing it, was given by physicist Sir James Jeans long ago: "The Universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine." But 'thought', 'machine', 'time', 'space', 'cause', 'event','happen', 'occur', 'continue', etc. do not have the same meanings (uses) in science or philosophy as in daily life, or rather they have the old uses mixed in at random with many new ones so there is the appearance of sense without sense. Much of academic discussion of behavior, life and the universe is high comedy (as opposed to the low comedy of most politics, religion and mass media): i.e., "comedy dealing with polite society, characterized by sophisticated, witty dialogue and an intricate plot"- (Dictionary.com). But philosophy is not a waste of time--done rightly, it is the best way to spend time. How else can we dispel the chaos in the behavioral sciences or describe our mental life and the higher order thought of System 2--the most intricate, wonderful and mysterious thing there is? Given this framework it should be easy to understand OC, to follow W's examples describing how our innate psychology uses the reality testing of System 2 to build on the certainties of System 1, so that we as individuals and as societies acquire a world view of irrefutable interlocking experiences that build on the bedrock of our axiomatic genetically programmed reflexive perception and action to the amazing edifice of science and culture. The theory of evolution and the theory of relativity passed long ago from something that could be challenged to certainties that can only be modified, and at the other end of the spectrum, there is no possibility of finding out that there are no such things as Paris or Brontosaurs. The skeptical view is 42 incoherent. We can say anything but we cannot mean anything. Thus, with DMS, I regard OC as a description of the foundation stone of human understanding and the most basic document on our psychology. Though written when in his 60's, mentally and physically devastated by cancer, it is as brilliant as his other work and transforms our understanding of philosophy (the descriptive psychology of higher order thought), bringing it at last into the light, after three thousand years in the cave. Metaphysics has been swept away from philosophy and from physics. "What sort of progress is this-the fascinating mystery has been removed-yet no depths have been plumbed in consolation; nothing has been explained or discovered or reconceived. How tame and uninspiring one might think. But perhaps, as Wittgenstein suggests, the virtues of clarity, demystification and truth should be found satisfying enough" --Horwich 'Wittgenstein's Metaphilosophy'. Let me suggest that with the perspective I have encouraged here, W is at the center of contemporary philosophy and psychology and is not obscure, difficult or irrelevant, but scintillating, profound and crystal clear and that to miss him is to miss one of the greatest intellectual adventures possible. An excellent recent work that displays many of the philosophical confusions in a book putatively about science and mathematics is Yanofsky's 'The Outer Limits of Reason: What Science, Mathematics and Logic Cannot Tell Us'(2013). W noted that when we reach the end of scientific commentary, the problem becomes a philosophical one-i.e., one of how language can be used intelligibly. Yanofsky, like virtually all scientists and most philosophers, does not get that there are two distinct kinds of "questions" or "assertions" (i.e., Language Games or LG's) here. There are those that are matters of fact about how the world is-that is, they are publicly observable propositional (True or False) states of affairs having clear meanings (Conditions of Satisfaction -COS) in Searle's terminology-i.e., scientific statements, and then there are those that are issues about how language can coherently be used to describe these states of affairs, and these can be answered by any sane, intelligent, literate person with little or no resort to the facts of science. Another poorly understood but critical fact is that, although the thinking, representing, inferring, understanding, intuiting etc. (i.e., the dispositional psychology) of 43 a true or false statement is a function of the higher order cognition of our slow, conscious System 2 (S2), the decision as to whether "particles" are entangled, the star shows a red shift, a theorem has been proven (i.e., the part that involves seeing that the symbols are used correctly in each line of the proof), is always made by the fast, automatic, unconscious System 1 (S1) via seeing, hearing, touching etc. in which there is no information processing, no representation (i.e., no COS) and no decisions in the sense in which these happen in S2 ( which receives its inputs from S1). This two systems approach is now the standard way to view reasoning or rationality and is a crucial heuristic in the description of behavior, of which science, math and philosophy are special cases. There is a huge and rapidly growing literature on reasoning that is indispensable to the study of behavior or science. A recent book that digs into the details of how we actually reason (i.e., use language to carry out actions-see W, DMS, Hacker, S etc.) is 'Human Reasoning and Cognitive Science' by Stenning and Van Lambalgen (2008), which, in spite of its limitations (e.g., limited understanding of W/S and the broad structure of intentional psychology), is (as of 2016) the best single source I know. W wrote a great deal on the philosophy of mathematics since it clearly illustrated many of the types of confusions generated by 'scientific' language games, and there have been countless commentaries, many quite poor. I will comment on some of the best recent work as it is brought up by Yanofsky. Francisco Berto has made some penetrating comments recently. He notes that W denied the coherence of metamathematics-i.e., the use by Godel of a metatheorem to prove his theorem, likely accounting for his "notorious" interpretation of Godel's theorem as a paradox, and if we accept his argument, I think we are forced to deny the intelligibility of metalanguages, metatheories and meta anything else. How can it be that such concepts (words, language games) as metamathematics and incompleteness, accepted by millions (and even claimed by no less than Penrose, Hawking, Dyson et al to reveal fundamental truths about our mind or the universe) are just simple misunderstandings about how language works? Isn't the proof in this pudding that, like so many "revelatory" philosophical notions (e.g., mind and will as illusions –Dennett, Carruthers, the Churchlands etc.), they have no practical impact whatsoever? Berto sums it up nicely: "Within this framework, it is not possible that the very same sentence...turns out to be expressible, but undecidable, in a formal 44 system... and demonstrably true (under the aforementioned consistency hypothesis) in a different system (the metasystem). If, as Wittgenstein maintained, the proof establishes the very meaning of the proved sentence, then it is not possible for the same sentence (that is, for a sentence with the same meaning) to be undecidable in a formal system, but decided in a different system (the meta-system) ... Wittgenstein had to reject both the idea that a formal system can be syntactically incomplete, and the Platonic consequence that no formal system proving only arithmetical truths can prove all arithmetical truths. If proofs establish the meaning of arithmetical sentences, then there cannot be incomplete systems, just as there cannot be incomplete meanings." And further "Inconsistent arithmetics, i.e., nonclassical arithmetics based on a paraconsistent logic, are nowadays a reality. What is more important, the theoretical features of such theories match precisely with some of the aforementioned Wittgensteinian intuitions...Their inconsistency allows them also to escape from Godel's First Theorem, and from Church's undecidability result: they are, that is, demonstrably complete and decidable. They therefore fulfil precisely Wittgenstein's request, according to which there cannot be mathematical problems that can be meaningfully formulated within the system, but which the rules of the system cannot decide. Hence, the decidability of paraconsistent arithmatics harmonizes with an opinion Wittgenstein maintained thoughout his philosophical career." W also demonstrated the fatal error in regarding mathematics or language or our behavior in general as a unitary coherent logical 'system,' rather than as a motley of pieces assembled by the random processes of natural selection. "Godel shows us an unclarity in the concept of 'mathematics', which is indicated by the fact that mathematics is taken to be a system" and we can say (contra nearly everyone) that is all that Godel and Gregory Chaitin show. W commented many times that 'truth' in math means axioms or the theorems derived from axioms, and 'false' means that one made a mistake in using the definitions, and this is utterly different from empirical matters where one applies a test. W often noted that to be acceptable as mathematics in the usual sense, it must be useable in other proofs and it must have real world applications, but neither is the case with Godel's Incompleteness. Since it cannot be proved in a consistent system (here Peano Arithmetic but a much wider arena for Chaitin), it cannot be used in proofs and, unlike all the 'rest' of PA it cannot be used in the real world either. As Victor Rodych notes "...Wittgenstein holds that a formal calculus is only a mathematical calculus (i.e., a mathematical language-game) if it has an extra-systemic application in 45 a system of contingent propositions (e.g., in ordinary counting and measuring or in physics) ..." Another way to say this is that one needs a warrant to apply our normal use of words like 'proof', 'proposition', 'true', 'incomplete', 'number', and 'mathematics' to a result in the tangle of games created with 'numbers' and 'plus' and 'minus' signs etc., and with 'Incompleteness' this warrant is lacking. Rodych sums it up admirably. "On Wittgenstein's account, there is no such thing as an incomplete mathematical calculus because 'in mathematics, everything is algorithm [and syntax] and nothing is meaning [semantics]..." W has much the same to say of Cantor's diagonalization and set theory. "Consideration of the diagonal procedure shews you that the concept of 'real number' has much less analogy with the concept 'cardinal number' than we, being misled by certain analogies, are inclined to believe" and many other comments (see Rodych and Floyd). One of the major omissions from all such books is the amazing work of polymath physicist and decision theorist David Wolpert, who proved some stunning impossibility or incompleteness theorems (1992 to 2008-see arxiv.org) on the limits to inference (computation) that are so general they are independent of the device doing the computation, and even independent of the laws of physics, so they apply across computers, physics, and human behavior, which he summarized thusly: "One cannot build a physical computer that can be assured of correctly processing information faster than the universe does. The results also mean that there cannot exist an infallible, general-purpose observation apparatus, and that there cannot be an infallible, general-purpose control apparatus. These results do not rely on systems that are infinite, and/or non-classical, and/or obey chaotic dynamics. They also hold even if one uses an infinitely fast, infinitely dense computer, with computational powers greater than that of a Turing Machine." He also published what seems to be the first serious work on team or collective intelligence (COIN) which he says puts this subject on a sound scientific footing. Although he has published various versions of these over two decades in some of the most prestigious peer reviewed physics journals (e.g., Physica D 237: 257-81(2008)) as well as in NASA journals and has gotten news items in major science journals, few seem to have noticed and I have looked in dozens of recent books on physics, math, decision theory and computation without finding a reference. It is most unfortunate that Yanofsky and others have no awareness of 46 Wolpert, since his work is the ultimate extension of computing, thinking, inference, incompleteness, and undecidability, which he achieves (like many proofs in Turing machine theory) by extending the liar paradox and Cantor's diagonalization to include all possible universes and all beings or mechanisms and thus may be seen as the last word not only on computation, but on cosmology or even deities. He achieves this extreme generality by partitioning the inferring universe using worldlines (i.e., in terms of what it does and not how it does it) so that his mathematical proofs are independent of any particular physical laws or computational structures in establishing the physical limits of inference for past, present and future and all possible calculation, observation and control. He notes that even in a classical universe Laplace was wrong about being able to perfectly predict the future (or even perfectly depict the past or present) and that his impossibility results can be viewed as a "non-quantum mechanical uncertainty principle" (i.e., there cannot be an infallible observation or control device). Any universal physical device must be infinite, it can only be so at one moment in time, and no reality can have more than one (the "monotheism theorem"). Since space and time do not appear in the definition, the device can even be the entire universe across all time. It can be viewed as a physical analog of incompleteness with two inference devices rather than one self-referential device. As he says, "either the Hamiltonian of our universe proscribes a certain type of computation, or prediction complexity is unique (unlike algorithmic information complexity) in that there is one and only one version of it that can be applicable throughout our universe." Another way to say this is that one cannot have two physical inference devices (computers) both capable of being asked arbitrary questions about the output of the other, or that the universe cannot contain a computer to which one can pose any arbitrary computational task, or that for any pair of physical inference engines, there are always binary valued questions about the state of the universe that cannot even be posed to at least one of them. One cannot build a computer that can predict an arbitrary future condition of a physical system before it occurs, even if the condition is from a restricted set of tasks that can be posed to it-that is, it cannot process information (though this is a vexed phrase as S and Read and others note) faster than the universe. The computer and the arbitrary physical system it is computing do not have to be physically coupled and it holds regardless of the laws of physics, chaos, quantum mechanics, causality or light cones and even for an infinite speed of light. The inference device does not have to be spatially localized but can be nonlocal dynamical processes occurring across the entire 47 universe. He is well aware that this puts the speculations of Wolfram, Landauer, Fredkin, Lloyd etc., concerning the universe as computer or the limits of "information processing", in a new light (though the indices of their writings make no reference to him and another remarkable omission is that none of the above are mentioned by Yanofsky either). Wolpert says it shows that the universe cannot contain an inference device that can process information as fast as it can, and since he shows you cannot have a perfect memory nor perfect control, its past, present or future state can never be perfectly or completely depicted, characterized, known or copied. He also proved that no combination of computers with error correcting codes can overcome these limitations. Wolpert also notes the critical importance of the observer ("the liar") and this connects us to the familiar conundrums of physics, math and language that concern Yanofsky. Again cf. Floyd on W: "He is articulating in other words a generalized form of diagonalization. The argument is thus generally applicable, not only to decimal expansions, but to any purported listing or rule-governed expression of them; it does not rely on any particular notational device or preferred spatial arrangements of signs. In that sense, Wittgenstein's argument appeals to no picture and it is not essentially diagrammatical or representational, though it may be diagrammed and insofar as it is a logical argument, its logic may be represented formally). Like Turing's arguments, it is free of a direct tie to any particular formalism. [The parallels to Wolpert are obvious.] Unlike Turing's arguments, it explicitly invokes the notion of a language-game and applies to (and presupposes) an everyday conception of the notions of rules and of the humans who follow them. Every line in the diagonal presentation above is conceived as an instruction or command, analogous to an order given to a human being..." It should be obvious how Wolpert's work is a perfect illustration of W's ideas of the separate issues of science or mathematics and those of philosophy (language games). Yanofsky also does not make clear the major overlap that now exists (and is expanding rapidly) between game theorists, physicists, economists, mathematicians, philosophers, decision theorists and others, all of whom have been publishing for decades closely related proofs of undecidability, impossibility, uncomputability, and incompleteness. One of the more bizarre is the recent proof by Armando Assis that in the relative state formulation of quantum mechanics one can setup a zero-sum game between the universe and an observer using the Nash Equilibrium, from which follow the Born rule and the collapse of the wave function. Godel was first to demonstrate an 48 impossibility result, and (until the remarkable papers of David Wolpert-see below and my review article) it is the most far reaching (or just trivial/incoherent), but there have been an avalanche of others. One of the earliest in decision theory was the famous General Impossibility Theorem (GIT) discovered by Kenneth Arrow in 1951 (for which he got the Nobel Prize in economics in 1972-and five of his students are now Nobel laureates so this is not fringe science). It states roughly that no reasonably consistent and fair voting system (i.e., no method of aggregating individuals' preferences into group preferences) can give sensible results. The group is either dominated by one person, and so GIT is often called the "dictator theorem", or there are intransitive preferences. Arrow's original paper was titled "A Difficulty in the Concept of Social Welfare" and can be stated like this:" It is impossible to formulate a social preference ordering that satisfies all of the following conditions: Nondictatorship; Individual Sovereignty; Unanimity; Freedom From Irrelevant Alternatives; Uniqueness of Group Rank." Those familiar with modern decision theory accept this and the many related constraining theorems as their starting points. Those who are not may find it (and all these theorems) incredible and in that case, they need to find a career path that has nothing to do with any of the above disciplines. See "The Arrow Impossibility Theorem"(2014) or "Decision Making and Imperfection"(2013) among legions of publications. Yanofsky mentions the famous impossibility result of Brandenburger and Keisler (2006) for two person games (but of course not limited to "games" and like all these impossibility results it applies broadly to decisions of any kind) which shows that any belief model of a certain kind leads to contradictions. One interpretation of the result is that if the decision analyst's tools (basically just logic) are available to the players in a game, then there are statements or beliefs that the players can write down or 'think about' but cannot actually hold (i.e., no clear COS). "Ann believes that Bob assumes that Ann believes that Bob's assumption is wrong" seems unexceptionable and 'recursion' (another LG) has been assumed in argumentation, linguistics, philosophy etc., for a century at least, but they showed that it is impossible for Ann and Bob to assume these beliefs. And there is a rapidly growing body of such impossibility results for 1 or multiplayer decision situations (e.g., it grades into Arrow, Wolpert, Koppel and Rosser etc). For a good technical paper from among the avalanche on the B&K paradox, get Abramsky and Zvesper's paper from arXiv.org, which takes us back to the liar paradox and Cantor's infinity (as its title notes it is about "interactive forms of diagonalization and self-reference") and thus to Floyd, Rodych, Berto, W and Godel. Many of 49 these papers quote Yanofksy's paper "A universal approach to selfreferential paradoxes and fixed points. Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, 9(3):362– 386, 2003. Abramsky (a polymath who is among other things a pioneer in quantum computing) is a friend, and so Yanofsky contributes a paper to the recent Festschrift to him 'Computation, Logic, Games and Quantum Foundations' (2013). For maybe the best recent (2013) commentary on the BK and related paradoxes see the 165p powerpoint lecture free on the net by Wes Holliday and Eric Pacuit 'Ten Puzzles and Paradoxes about Knowledge and Belief'. For a good multi-author survey see 'Collective Decision Making (2010). Since Godel's famous theorems are corollaries of Chaitin's theorem showing algorithmic 'randomness' ('incompleteness') throughout math (which is just another of our symbolic systems), it seems inescapable that thinking (behavior, language, mind) is full of impossible, random or incomplete statements and situations. Since we can view each of these domains as symbolic systems evolved by chance to make our psychology work, perhaps it should be regarded as unsurprising that they are not "complete". For math, Chaitin says this 'randomness' (again a group of LG's) shows there are limitless theorems that are true but unprovable- i.e., true for no reason. One should then be able to say that there are limitless statements that make perfect "grammatical" sense that do not describe actual situations attainable in that domain. I suggest these puzzles go away if one considers W's views. He wrote many notes on the issue of Godel's Theorems, and the whole of his work concerns the plasticity, "incompleteness" and extreme context sensitivity of language, math and logic. The recent papers of Rodych, Floyd and Berto are the best introduction I know of to W's remarks on the foundations of mathematics and so to philosophy. As noted, David Wolpert has derived some amazing theorems in Turing Machine Theory and the limits of computation that are very apropros here. They have been almost universally ignored but not by well known econometricians Koppl and Rosser, who, in their famous 2002 paper "All that I have to say has already crossed your mind", give three theorems on the limits to rationality, prediction and control in economics. The first uses Wolpert's theorem on the limits to computability to show some logical limits to forecasting the future. Wolpert notes that it can be viewed as the physical analog of Godel's incompleteness theorem and K and R say that their variant can be viewed as its social science analog, though Wolpert is well aware of the social implications. K and R's second theorem shows possible 50 nonconvergence for Bayesian (probabilistic) forecasting in infinitedimensional space. The third shows the impossibility of a computer perfectly forecasting an economy with agents knowing its forecasting program. The astute will notice that these theorems can be seen as versions of the liar paradox and the fact that we are caught in impossibilities when we try to calculate a system that includes ourselves has been noted by Wolpert, Koppl, Rosser and others in these contexts and again we have circled back to the puzzles of physics when the observer is involved. K&R conclude "Thus, economic order is partly the product of something other than calculative rationality". Bounded rationality is now a major field in itself, the subject of thousands of papers and hundreds of books. Reasoning is another word for thinking, which is a disposition like knowing, understanding, judging etc. As Wittgenstein was the first to explain, these dispositional verbs describe propositions (sentences which can be true or false) and thus have what Searle calls Conditions of Satisfaction (COS). That is, there are public states of affairs that we recognize as showing their truth or falsity. "Beyond reason" would mean a sentence whose truth conditions are not clear and the reason would be that it does not have a clear context. It is a matter of fact if we have clear COS (i.e., meaning) but we just cannot make the observation--this is not beyond reason but beyond our ability to achieve, but it's a philosophical (linguistic) matter if we don't know the COS. "Are the mind and the universe computers?" sounds like it needs scientific or mathematical investigation, but it is only necessary to clarify the context in which this language will be used since these are ordinary and unproblematic terms and it is only their context which is puzzling. As always, the first thing to keep in mind is W's dictum that there are no new discoveries to be made in philosophy nor explanations to be given, but only clear descriptions of behavior (language). Once one understands that all the problems are confusions about how language works, we are at peace and philosophy in their sense has achieved its purpose. As W/S have noted, there is only one reality, so there are not multiple versions of the mind or life or the world that can meaningfully be given, and we can only communicate in our one public language. There cannot be a private language and any "private inner" thoughts cannot be communicated and cannot have any role in our social life. It should also be very straightforward to solve philosophical problems in this sense. "Now if it is not the causal connections which we are concerned with, then the activities of the mind lie open before us." Wittgenstein "The Blue Book" p6 (1933) 51 We have only one set of genes and hence one language (mind), one behavior (human nature or evolutionary psychology), which W and S refer to as the bedrock or background and reflecting upon this we generate philosophy which S calls the logical structure of rationality and I call the descriptive psychology of Higher Order Thought (HOT) or, taking the cue from W, the study of the language describing HOT. The only interest in reading anyone's comments on philosophical aspects of human behavior (HOT) is to see if its translation into the W/S framework gives some clear descriptions which illuminate the use of language. If not, then showing how they have been bewitched by language dispels the confusion. I repeat what Horwich has noted on the last page of his superb 'Wittgenstein's Metaphilosophy' (see my review): "What sort of progress is this-the fascinating mystery has been removed--yet no depths have been plumbed in consolation; nothing has been explained or discovered or reconceived. How tame and uninspiring one might think. But perhaps, as Wittgenstein suggests, the virtues of clarity, demystification and truth should be found satisfying enough." Nevertheless, W/S do much explaining (or as W suggested we ought to say "describing") and S states that the logical structure of rationality constitutes various theories, and there is no harm in it, provided one realizes they are comprised of a series of examples that let us get a general idea of how language (the mind) works and that as his "theories" are explicated via examples they become more like W's perspicuous descriptions. "A rose by any other name..." When there is a question one has to go back to the examples or consider new ones. As W noted, language (life) is limitlessly complex and context sensitive (W being the unacknowledged father of Contextualism), and so it is utterly unlike physics where one can often derive a formula and dispense with the need for further examples. Scientism (the use of scientific language and the causal framework) leads us astray in describing HOT. Once again: "Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics and leads the philosopher into complete darkness."(BBB p18). Unlike so many others, S has largely avoided and often demolished scientism, but there is a residue which evinces itself when he insists on using dispositional S2 terms which describe public behavior (thinking, knowing believing etc.) to describe S1 'processes' in the brain, that e.g., we can understand consciousness by studying the brain, 52 and that he is prepared to give up causality, will or mind. W made it abundantly clear that such words are the hinges or basic language games and giving them up or even changing them is not a coherent concept. As noted in my other reviews, I think the residue of scientism results from the major tragedy of S's (and nearly all other philosopher's) philosophical life --his failure to take the later W seriously enough (W died a few years before S went to England to study) and making the common fatal mistake of thinking he is smarter than W. "Here we come up against a remarkable and characteristic phenomenon in philosophical investigation: the difficulty-- -I might say---is not that of finding the solution but rather that of recognizing as the solution something that looks as if it were only a preliminary to it. We have already said everything. --Not anything that follows from this, no this itself is the solution! .... This is connected, I believe, with our wrongly expecting an explanation, whereas the solution of the difficulty is a description, if we give it the right place in our considerations. If we dwell upon it, and do not try to get beyond it." Zettelp312-314 "Our method is purely descriptive, the descriptions we give are not hints of explanations." BBB p125 It follows both from W's 3rd period work and contemporary psychology, that `will', `self' and `consciousness' are axiomatic true-only elements of the reptilian subcortical System One (S1) composed of perceptions, memories and reflexes, and there is no possibility (intelligibility) of demonstrating (of giving sense to) their falsehood. As W made so wonderfully clear, they are the basis for judgment and so cannot be judged. The trueonly axioms of our psychology are not evidential. Philosophers are rarely clear about exactly what it is that they expect to contribute that other students of behavior (i.e., scientists) do not, so, noting W's above remark on science envy, I will quote from P.M.S Hacker (the leading expert on W for many years) who gives a good start on it and a counterblast to scientism. "Traditional epistemologists want to know whether knowledge is true belief and a further condition ..., or whether knowledge does not even imply belief ...What needs to be clarified if these questions are to be answered is the web of our epistemic concepts, the ways in which the various concepts hang 53 together, the various forms of their compatibilities and incompatibilities, their point and purpose, their presuppositions and different forms of context dependency. To this venerable exercise in connective analysis, scientific knowledge, psychology, neuroscience and self-styled cognitive science can contribute nothing whatsoever." (Passing by the naturalistic turn: on Quine's cul-desacp15-2005) The deontic structures or `social glue' are the automatic fast actions of S1 producing the slow dispositions of S2 which are inexorably expanded during personal development into a wide array of automatic universal cultural deontic relationships so well described by Searle. I expect this fairly well abstracts the basic structure of social behavior. Several comments bear repeating. So, recognizing that S1 is only upwardly causal (world to mind) and contentless (lacking representations or information) while S2 has content (i.e. is representational) and is downwardly causal (mind to world) (e.g., see my review of Hutto and Myin's `Radical Enactivism'), I would translate the paragraphs from S's MSW p39 beginning "In sum" and ending on pg 40 with "conditions of satisfaction" as follows. In sum, perception, memory and reflexive prior intentions and actions (`will') are caused by the automatic functioning of our S1 true-only axiomatic EP as modified by S2 ('free will'). We try to match how we desire things to be with how we think they are. We should see that belief, desire and imagination-desires time shifted and decoupled from intention-and other S2 propositional dispositions of our slow thinking later evolved second self, are totally dependent upon (have their Conditions of Satisfaction (COS) originating in) the Causally Self Reflexive (CSR) rapid automatic primitive trueonly reflexive S1. In language and neurophysiology there are intermediate or blended cases such as intending (prior intentions) or remembering, where the causal connection of the COS with S1 is time shifted, as they represent the past or the future, unlike S1 which is always in the present. S1 and S2 feed into each other and are often orchestrated seamlessly by learned deontic cultural relations, so that our normal experience is that we consciously control everything that we do. This vast arena of cognitive illusions that dominate our life Searle has described as `The Phenomenological Illusion' (TPI). "Some of the most important logical features of intentionality are beyond the reach of phenomenology because they have no immediate phenomenological 54 reality... Because the creation of meaningfulness out of meaninglessness is not consciously experienced...it does not exist...This is... the phenomenological illusion." Searle PNC p115-117 Disposition words (Preferences--see above table) have at least two basic uses. One refers to the trueonly sentences describing our direct perceptions, reflexes (including basic speech) and memory, i.e., our innate axiomatic S1 psychology which are Causally Self Reflexive (CSR)-(called reflexive or intransitive in W's BBB), and the S2 use as disposition words (thinking, understanding, knowing etc.) which can be acted out, and which can become true or false (`I know my way home')--i.e., they have Conditions of Satisfaction (COS) and are not CSR (called transitive in BBB). "How does the philosophical problem about mental processes and states and about behaviorism arise? – The first step is the one that altogether escapes notice. We talk about processes and states and leave their nature undecided. Sometime perhaps we shall know more about them-we think. But that is just what commits us to a particular way of looking at the matter. For we have a definite concept of what it means to learn to know a process better. (The decisive movement in the conjuring trick has been made, and it was the very one we thought quite innocent). -And now the analogy which was to make us understand our thoughts falls to pieces. So, we have to deny the yet uncomprehended process in the yet unexplored medium. And now it looks as though we had denied mental processes. And naturally we don't want to deny them. W's PI p308 "...the basic intentional relation between the mind and the world has to do with conditions of satisfaction. And a proposition is anything at all that can stand in an intentional relation to the world, and since those intentional relations always determine conditions of satisfaction, and a proposition is defined as anything sufficient to determine conditions of satisfaction, it turns out that all intentionality is a matter of propositions." Searle PNCp193 "The intentional state represents its conditions of satisfaction...people erroneously suppose that every mental representation must be consciously thought...but the notion of a representation as I am using it is a functional and not an ontological notion. Anything that has conditions of satisfaction, that can succeed or fail in a way that is characteristic of intentionality, is by definition a representation of its conditions of satisfaction...we can analyze the structure of the intentionality of social phenomena by analyzing their 55 conditions of satisfaction." Searle MSW p28-32 Like Carruthers, Coliva, S and others sometime state (e.g., p66-67 MSW) that S1 (i.e., memories, perceptions, reflex acts) has a propositional (i.e., true-false) structure. As I have noted above, and many times in my reviews, it seems crystal clear that W is correct, and it is basic to understanding behavior, that only S2 is propositional and S1 is axiomatic and true-only. However, since what S and various authors here call the background (S1) gives rise to S2 and is in turn partly controlled by S2, there has to be a sense in which S1 is able to become propositional and they and Searle note that the unconscious or conscious but automated activities of S1 must be able to become the conscious or deliberative ones of S2. They both have COS and Directions of Fit (DOF) because the genetic, axiomatic intentionality of S1 generates that of S2, but if S1 were propositional in the same sense it would mean that skepticism is intelligible, the chaos that was philosophy before W would return, and in fact if true, life would not be possible. It would e.g., mean that truth and falsity and the facts of the world could be decided without consciousness. As W stated often and showed so brilliantly in his last book 'On Certainty', life must be based on certainty-automated unconscious rapid reactions. Organisms that always have a doubt and pause to reflect will die--no evolution, no people, no philosophy. Again, I will repeat some crucial notions. Another idea clarified by S is the Desire Independent Reasons for Action (DIRA). I would translate S's summary of practical reason on p127 of MSW as follows: "We yield to our desires (need to alter brain chemistry), which typically include Desire Independent Reasons for Action (DIRA--i.e., desires displaced in space and time), which produce dispositions to behavior that commonly result sooner or later in muscle movements that serve our inclusive fitness (increased survival for genes in ourselves and those closely related)." And I would restate his description on p129 of how we carry out DIRA2 as "The resolution of the paradox is that the unconscious DIRA1 serving long term inclusive fitness generate the conscious DIRA2 which often override the short term personal immediate desires." Agents do indeed consciously create the proximate reasons of DIRA2, but these are very restricted extensions of unconscious DIRA1 (the ultimate cause). Obama and the Pope wish to help the poor because it is "right" but the ultimate cause is a change in their brain chemistry that increased the inclusive fitness of their distant ancestors. Evolution by inclusive fitness has programmed the unconscious rapid reflexive causal actions of S1 which often give rise to the conscious slow 56 thinking of S2, which produces reasons for action that often result in activation of body and/or speech muscles by S1 causing actions. The general mechanism is via both neurotransmission and by changes in neuromodulators in targeted areas of the brain. The overall cognitive illusion (called by S `The Phenomenological Illusion', by Pinker `The Blank Slate' and by Tooby and Cosmides `The Standard Social Science Model') is that S2 has generated the action consciously for reasons of which we are fully aware and in control of, but anyone familiar with modern biology and psychology can see that this view is not credible. A sentence expresses a thought (has a meaning), when it has clear COS, i.e., public truth conditions. Hence the comment from W: " When I think in language, there aren't `meanings' going through my mind in addition to the verbal expressions: the language is itself the vehicle of thought." And, if I think with or without words, the thought is whatever I (honestly) say it is as there is no other possible criterion (COS). Thus, W's lovely aphorisms (p132 BuddWittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology) "It is in language that wish and fulfillment meet" and "Like everything metaphysical, the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language." And one might note here that `grammar' in W can usually be translated as Evolutionary Psychology (EP) and that in spite of his frequent warnings against theorizing and generalizing, this is about as broad a characterization of higher order descriptive psychology (philosophy) as one can find-beyond even Searle's 'theories' (who often criticizes W for his famous anti-theoretical stance). "Every sign is capable of interpretation but the meaning mustn't be capable of interpretation. It is the last interpretation" W BBB p34 "Searle's Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy" (2008) is a superb and unique book, but so totally ignored that my 2015 review is the only one! It should be obvious that philosophical issues are always about mistakes in language used to describe our universal innate psychology and there is no useful sense in which there can be a Chinese, French, Christian, Feminist etc. view of them. Such views can exist of philosophy in the broad sense but that is not what philosophy of mind (or to W, S or me what any interesting and substantive philosophy) is about. It could take a whole book to discuss this and S does an excellent job, so I will just comment here that re p35 propositions are S2 and not mental states which are S1 as W made quite clear over 3⁄4 of a century ago 57 and that both Quine and Davidson were equally confused about the basic issues involved (both Searle and Hacker have done excellent demolitions of Quine). As often, S's discussion is marred by his failure to carry his understanding of W's "background" to its logical conclusion and so he suggests (as he has frequently) that he might have to give up the concept of free will-a notion I find (with W) is incoherent. What are the COS (the truthmaking event, the test or proof) that could show the truth vs the falsity of our not having a choice to lift our arm? Likewise (p62) nobody can give arguments for the background (i.e., our axiomatic EP) as our being able to talk at all presupposes it (as W noted frequently). It's also true that "reduction" along with "monism", "reality", etc. are complex language games and they do not carry meaning along in little backpacks! One must dissect ONE usage in detail to get clear and then see how another useage (context) differs. Philosophers (and would-be philosophers) create imaginary problems by trying to answer questions that have no clear sense. This situation is nicely analyzed by Finkelstein in 'Holism and Animal Minds' and so admirably summed up by Read in 'The Hard Problem of Consciousness' quoted above. Wittgenstein's ``Culture and Valuè`(published in 1980), but written decades earlier), though it s perhaps his least interesting book, has much that is pertinent to this discussion, and of course to a large part of modern intellectual life. ``There is no religious denomination in which the misuse of metaphysical expressions has been responsible for so much sin as it has in mathematics.`` ``People say again and again that philosophy doesn t really progress, that we are still occupied with the same philosophical problems as were the Greeks. But the people who say this don t understand why is has to be so. It is because our language has remained the same and keeps seducing us into asking the same questions. As long as there continues to be a verb 'to be' that looks as if it functions in the same way as to eat and to drink , as long as we still have the adjectives identical , true , false , possible , as long as we continue to talk of a river of time, of an expanse of space, etc., etc., people will keep stumbling over the same puzzling difficulties and find themselves staring at something which no explanation seems capable of clearing up. And what s more, this satisfies a longing for the transcendent, because, insofar as people 58 think they can see the limits of human understanding , they believe of course that they can see beyond these.`` Likewise let us try to distill the essence from two of Searle's recent works. "Can there be reasons for action which are binding on a rational agent just in virtue of the nature of the fact reported in the reason statement, and independently of the agent's desires, values, attitudes and evaluations? ...The real paradox of the traditional discussion is that it tries to pose Hume's guillotine, the rigid fact-value distinction, in a vocabulary, the use of which already presupposes the falsity of the distinction." Searle PNC p165-171 "...all status functions and hence all of institutional reality, with the exception of language, are created by speech acts that have the logical form of Declarations...the forms of the status function in question are almost invariably matters of deontic powers...to recognize something as a right, duty, obligation, requirement and so on is to recognize a reason for action...these deontic structures make possible desire-independent reasons for action...The general point is very clear: the creation of the general field of desire-based reasons for action presupposed the acceptance of a system of desire-independent reasons for action." Searle PNC p34-49 That is, the functioning of our linguistic System 2 presupposes that of our prelinguistic System 1. "Some of the most important logical features of intentionality are beyond the reach of phenomenology because they have no immediate phenomenological reality... Because the creation of meaningfulness out of meaninglessness is not consciously experienced...it does not exist...This is... the phenomenological illusion." Searle PNC p115-117 That is, our mental functioning is usually so preoccupied with system 2 as to be oblivious to system 1. "...the basic intentional relation between the mind and the world has to do with conditions of satisfaction. And a proposition is anything at all that can stand in an intentional relation to the world, and since those intentional relations always determine conditions of satisfaction, and a proposition is defined as anything sufficient to determine conditions of satisfaction, it turns out that all intentionality is a matter of propositions." Searle PNCp193 59 "So, status functions are the glue that hold society together. They are created by collective intentionality and they function by carrying deontic powers...With the important exception of language itself, all of institutional reality and therefor in a sense all of human civilization is created by speech acts that have the logical form of Declarations...all of human institutional reality is created and maintained in existence by (representations that have the same logical form as) Status Function Declarations, including the cases that are not speech acts in the explicit form of Declarations." Searle MSW p11-13 "Beliefs, like statements, have the downward or mind (or word)-to-world direction of fit. And desires and intentions, like orders and promises, have the upward or world-to-mind (or word) direction of fit. Beliefs or perceptions, like statements, are supposed to represent how things are in the world, and in that sense, they are supposed to fit the world; they have the mind-to-world direction of fit. The conativevolitional states such as desires, prior intentions and intentions-in-action, like orders and promises, have the world-to-mind direction of fit. They are not supposed to represent how things are but how we would like them to be or how we intend to make them be...In addition to these two faculties, there is a third, imagination, in which the propositional content is not supposed to fit reality in the way that the propositional contents of cognition and volition are supposed to fit...the world-relating commitment is abandoned and we have a propositional content without any commitment that it represent with either direction of fit." Searle MSWp15 "The intentional state represents its conditions of satisfaction...people erroneously suppose that every mental representation must be consciously thought...but the notion of a representation as I am using it is a functional and not an ontological notion. Anything that has conditions of satisfaction, that can succeed or fail in a way that is characteristic of intentionality, is by definition a representation of its conditions of satisfaction...we can analyze the structure of the intentionality of social phenomena by analyzing their conditions of satisfaction." Searle MSW p28-32 "But there is no prelinguistic analog for the Declarations. Prelinguistic intentional states cannot create facts in the world by representing those facts as already existing. This remarkable feat requires a language" MSW p69 "...once you have language, it is inevitable that you will have deontology 60 because there is no way you can make explicit speech acts performed according to the conventions of a language without creating commitments. This is true not just for statements but for all speech acts" MSW p82 A critical notion introduced by S many years ago is Conditions of Satisfaction (COS) on our thoughts (propositions of S2) which W called inclinations or dispositions to act--still called by the inappropriate term `propositional attitudes' by many. COS are explained by S in many places such as on p169 of PNC: "Thus saying something and meaning it involves two conditions of satisfaction. First, the condition of satisfaction that the utterance will be produced, and second, that the utterance itself shall have conditions of satisfaction." As S states it in PNC, "A proposition is anything at all that can determine a condition of satisfaction...and a condition of satisfaction... is that such and such is the case." Or, one needs to add, that might be or might have been or might be imagined to be the case, as he makes clear in MSW. Regarding intentions, "In order to be satisfied, the intention itself must function causally in the production of the action."(MSWp34). "Speaker meaning... is the imposition of conditions of satisfaction on conditions of satisfaction. The capacity to do this is a crucial element of human cognitive capacities. It requires the ability to think on two levels at once, in a way that is essential for the use of language. At one level, the speaker intentionally produces a physical utterance, but at another level the utterance represents something. And the same duality infects the symbol itself. At one level, it is a physical object like any other. At another level, it has a meaning: it represents a type of a state of affairs" MSW p74 One way of regarding this is that the unconscious automatic System 1 activates the higher cortical conscious personality of System 2, bringing about throat muscle contractions which inform others that it sees the world in certain ways, which commit it to potential actions. A huge advance over prelinguistic or protolinguistic interactions in which gross muscle movements were able to convey very limited information about intentions. Most people will benefit greatly from reading W's "On Certainty" or "RPP1 and 2" or DMS's two books on OC (see my reviews) as they make clear the difference between true-only sentences describing S1 and true or false propositions describing S2. This strikes me as a far superior approach to Searle's taking S1 perceptions as propositional (at least in some places in his work) since they can only become T or F (aspectual as S calls them in MSW) 61 after one begins thinking about them in S2. Searle often describes the critical need to note the various levels of description of one event so for Intention in Action (IA) "We have different levels of description where one level is constituted by the behavior at the lower level...in addition to the constitutive by way of relation, we also have the causal by means of relation."(p37 MSW). "The crucial proof that we need a distinction between prior intentions and intentions-in-action is that the conditions of satisfaction in the two cases are strikingly different."(p35 MSW). The COS of PI need a whole action while those of IA only a partial one. He makes clear (e.g., p34) that prior intentions (PI) are mental states (i.e., unconscious S1) while they result in intentions-inaction (IA) which are conscious acts (i.e., S2) but both are causally selfreflexive (CSR). The critical argument that both are CSR is that (unlike beliefs and desires) it is essential that they figure in bringing about their COS. These descriptions of cognition and volition are summarized in Table 2.1 (p38 MSW), which Searle has used for many years and is the basis for the much extended one I present here and in my many articles. In my view, it helps enormously to relate this to modern psychological research by using my S1, S2 terminology and W's true-only vs propositional (dispositional) description. Thus, CSR references S1 true-only perception, memory and intention, while S2 refers to dispositions such as belief and desire. It follows in a very straightforward and inexorable fashion, both from W's 3rd period work and from the observations of contemporary psychology, that `will', `self' and `consciousness' are axiomatic true-only elements of System 1 just like seeing, hearing, etc., and there is no possibility (intelligibility) of demonstrating (of giving sense to) their falsehood. As W made so wonderfully clear numerous times, they are the basis for judgment and so cannot be judged. The true-only axioms of our psychology are not evidential. It is critical to understand the notion of `function' that is relevant here. "A function is a cause that serves a purpose...In this sense functions are intentionality-relative and therefore mind dependent...status functions... require... collective imposition and recognition of a status"(p59 MSW). I suggest, the translation of "The intentionality of language is created by the intrinsic, or mindindependent intentionality of human beings" (p66 62 MSW) as "The linguistic, conscious dispositionality of S2 is generated by the unconscious axiomatic reflexive functions of S1". That is, one must keep in mind that behavior is programmed by biology. Once again, Searle states (e.g., p66-67 MSW) that S1 (i.e., memories, perceptions, reflex acts) has a propositional (i.e., true-false) structure. As I have noted above, and many times in other reviews, it seems crystal clear that W is correct, and it is basic to understanding behavior, that only S2 is propositional and S1 is axiomatic and true-only. They both have COS and Directions of Fit (DOF) because the genetic, axiomatic intentionality of S1 generates that of S2 but if S1 were propositional in the same sense it would mean that skepticism is intelligible, the chaos that was philosophy before W would return, and in fact if true, life would not be possible. As W showed countless times and biology shows so clearly, life must be based on certainty- -automated unconscious rapid reactions. Organisms that always have a doubt and pause to reflect will die-no evolution, no people, no philosophy. Language and writing are special because the short wavelength of vibrations of vocal muscles enable much higher bandwidth information transfer than contractions of other muscles and this is on average several orders of magnitude higher for visual information. S1 and S2 are critical parts of human EP and are the results, respectively of billions and hundreds of millions of years of natural selections by inclusive fitness. They facilitated survival and reproduction in the EEA (Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation). Everything about us physically and mentally bottoms out in genetics. All the vague talk in S's MSW (e.g., p114) about `extra-linguistic conventions' and `extra semantical semantics' is in fact referring to EP and especially to the unconscious automatisms of S1 which are the basis for all behavior. As W said many times, the most familiar is for that reason invisible. Here again is my summary (following S in MSW) of how practical reason operates: We yield to our desires (need to alter brain chemistry), which typically include Desire -Independent Reasons for Action (DIRA-i.e., desires displaced in space and time, often for reciprocal altruism--RA), which produce dispositions to behavior that commonly result sooner or later in muscle movements that serve our inclusive fitnessIF (increased survival for genes in ourselves and those closely related). 63 I think if suitably defined, DIRA are universal in higher animals and not at all unique to humans (think mother hen defending her brood from a fox) if we include the automated prelinguistic reflexes of S1 (i.e., DIRA1), but certainly the higher order DIRA of S2 (DIRA2) that require language are uniquely human. The paradox of how we can voluntarily carry out DIRA2 (i.e., the S2 acts and their cultural extensions that are desire independent) is that the unconscious DIRA1, serving long term inclusive fitness, generate the conscious DIRA2 which often override the short term personal immediate desires. Agents do indeed consciously create the proximate reasons of DIRA2, but these are very restricted extensions of unconscious or merely automated DIRA1 (the ultimate cause). Following W, it is quite clear that choice is part of our axiomatic S1 true-only reflexive actions and cannot be questioned without contradiction as S1 is the basis for questioning. You cannot doubt you are reading this page as your awareness of it is the basis for doubting. Inevitably, W's famous demonstrations of the uselessness of introspection and the impossibility of a truly private language pop up repeatedly ("...introspection can never lead to a definition..." p8). The basics of this argument are extremely simple-no test, no language and a test can only be public. If I grow up alone on a desert island with no books and one day decide to call the round things on the trees 'coconut' and then next day I see one and say 'coconut' it seems like I have started on a language. But suppose what I say (since there is no person or dictionary to correct me) is 'coca' or even 'apple' and the next day something else? Memory is notoriously fallible and we have great trouble keeping things straight even with constant correction from others and with incessant input from media. This may seem like a trivial point but it is central to the whole issue of the Inner and the Outer-i.e., our true-only untestable statements of our experience vs the true or false testable statements regarding everything in the world, including our own behavior. Though W explained this with many examples beginning over 3⁄4 of a century ago, it has rarely been understood and it is impossible to go very far with any discussion of behavior unless one does. As W, S, Hutto, Budd, Hacker, DMS, Johnston and others have explained, anyone who thinks W has an affinity with Skinner, Quine, Dennett, Functionalism or any other behaviorist excretions that deny our inner life needs to go back to the beginning. Budd's 'Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology'(1991) is one of the better works for gaining insight so I discuss it in detail (see my review for more). 64 On p21 he begins discussing dispositions (i.e., S2 abilities such as thinking, knowing, believing) which seem like they refer to mental states (i.e., to S1 automatisms), another major confusion which W was the first to set straight. Thus, on p28 'reading' must be understood as another dispositional ability that is not a mental state and has no definite duration like thinking, understanding, believing etc. Few notice (Budd p29-32, Stern, Johnston and Moyal-Sharrock are exceptions) that W presciently (decades before chaos and complexity science came into being) suggested that some mental phenomena may originate in chaotic processes in the brain-that e.g., there is not anything corresponding to a memory trace. He also suggested several times that the causal chain has an end and this could mean both that it is just not possible (regardless of the state of science) to trace it any further or that the concept of `cause' ceases to be applicable beyond a certain point (p34). Subsequently, many have made similar suggestions without any idea that W anticipated them by decades (in fact over a century now in a few instances). On p32 the "counter-factual conditionals" refer again to dispositions such as "may think it's raining" which are possible states of affairs (or potential actions-Searle's conditions of satisfaction) which may arise in chaos. It may be useful to tie this to Searle's 3 gaps of intentionality, which he finds critically necessary. Budd notes W's famous comment on p33 -- "The mistake is to say that there is anything that meaning something consists in." Though W is correct that there is no mental state that constitutes meaning, S notes (as quoted above) that there is a general way to characterize the act of meaning-- "Speaker meaning... is the imposition of conditions of satisfaction on conditions of satisfaction" which is an act and not a mental state. As Budd notes on p35 this can be seen as another statement of his argument against private language (personal interpretations vs publicly testable ones). Likewise, with rule following and interpretation on p36 -41-they can only be publicly checkable acts--no private rules or private interpretations either. And one must note that many (most famously Kripke) miss the boat here, being misled by W's frequent referrals to community practice into thinking it's just arbitrary public practice that underlies language and social conventions. W makes clear many times that such conventions are only possible given an innate shared psychology which he often calls the background. Budd correctly rejects this misinterpretation several times (e.g., p58). 65 In Budd's next chapter he deals with sensations which in my terms (and in modern psychology) is S1 and in W's terms the true-only undoubtable and untestable background. His comment (p47) ..." that our beliefs about our present sensations rest upon an absolutely secure foundationthe 'myth of the given' is one of the principal objects of Wittgenstein's attack..." can easily be misunderstood. Firstly, he makes the universal mistake of calling these 'beliefs', but it is better to reserve this word for S2 true or false dispositions. As W made very clear, the sensations, memories and reflexive acts of S1 are axiomatic and not subject to belief in the usual sense but are better called understandings (my U1). Unlike our S2 beliefs (including those about other peoples S1 experiences), there is no mechanism for doubt. Budd explains this well, as on p52 where he notes that there is no possible justification for saying one is in pain. That is, justifying means testing and that is possible with S2 dispositional slow conscious thinking, not S1 reflexive fast unconscious processing. His discussion of this on p52-56 is excellent but in my view, like everyone who discusses W on rules, private language and the inner, all he needs to do is say that in S1 there is no possible test and this is the meaning of W's famous the 'inner process' stands in need of outward criteria'. That is, introspection is vacuous. Budd's footnote 21 confuses the true-only causal experiences of S1 and the reasoned dispositions of S2. The point of the next few pages on names for 'internal objects' (pains, beliefs, thoughts etc.) is again that they have their use (meaning) and it is the designation of dispositions to act, or in Searle's terms, the specification of Conditions of Satisfaction, which make the utterance true. Again, Budd's discussion of "Sensations and Causation" is wrong in stating that we 'self-ascribe' or 'believe' in our sensations or 'take a stance' (Dennett) that we have a pain or see a horse, but rather we have no choice-S1 is trueonly and a mistake is a rare and bizarre occurrence and of an entirely different kind than a mistake in S2. And S1 is causal as opposed to S2, which concerns reasons, and that is why seeing the horse or feeling the pain or jumping out of the way of a speeding car is not subject to judgments or mistakes. But he gets in right again - "So the infallibility of non-inferential self-ascriptions of pain is compatible with the thesis that a true self-ascription of pain must be caused by a physical event in the subject's body, which is identical with the pain he experiences (p67)." I do not accept his following statement that W would not accept this based on one or two comments in his entire corpus, 66 since in his later work (notably OC) he spends hundreds of pages describing the causal automated nature of S1 and how it feeds into (causes) S2 which then feeds back to S1 to cause muscle movements (including speech). Animals survive only because their life is totally directed by the phenomena around them which are highly predictable (dogs may jump but they never fly). The next chapter on Seeing Aspects describes W's extensive comments on how S1 and S2 interact and where our language is ambiguous in what we may mean by 'seeing'. In general, it's clear that 'seeing as' or aspectual seeing is part of the slow S2 brain actions while just seeing is the true-only S1 automatisms, but they are so well integrated that it is often possible to describe a situation in multiple ways which explains W's comment on p97.He notes that W is exclusively interested in what I have elsewhere called 'Seeing2' or 'Concepts2'-i.e., aspectual or S2 higher order processing of images. Here, as throughout this book and indeed in any discussion of W or of behavior, it is of great value to refer to Johnston's 'Wittgenstein: Rethinking the Inner' (1993) and especially to his discussions of the indeterminate nature of language. In Budd's chapter 5 we again deal with a major preoccupation of W's later work-the relations between S1 and S2. As I have noted in my other reviews, few have fully understood the later W and, lacking the S1, S2 framework it is not surprising. Thus, Budd's discussion of seeing (automatic S1) vs visualizing (conscious S2 which is subject to the will) is severely hampered. Thus, one can understand why one cannot imagine an object while seeing it as the domination of S2 by S1 (p110). And on p115 it is the familiar issue of there being no test for my inner experiences, so whatever I say comes to mind when I imagine Jack's face counts as the image of Jack. Similarly, with reading and calculation which can refer to S1, S2 or a combination and there is the constant temptation to apply S2 terms to S1 processes where that lack of any test makes them inapplicable. See Bennet and Hacker's 'Neurophilosophy', DMS, etc. for discussions. On p120 et seq. Budd mentions two of W's famous examples used for combatting this temptation-playing tennis without a ball ('S1 tennis'), and a tribe that had only S2 calculation so 'calculating in the head ('S1 calculating') was not possible. 'Playing' and 'calculating' describe actual or potential acts-i.e., they are disposition words but with plausible reflexive S1 uses so as I have said before one really ought to keep them straight by 67 writing 'playing1' and 'playing2' etc. But we are not taught to do this and so we want to either dismiss 'calculating1' as a fantasy, or we think we can leave its nature undecided until later. Hence W's famous comment (p120)-"The decisive movement in the conjuring trick has been made, and it was the very one we thought quite innocent." Chapter 6 explains another frequent topic of W's-that when we speak, the speech itself is our thought and there is not some other prior mental process and this can be seen as another version of the private language argument -there are no such things as 'inner criteria' which enable us to tell what we thought before we act (speak). The point of W's comments (p125) about other imaginable ways to use the verb 'intend' is that they would not be the same as our 'intend'-i.e., the name of a potential event (PE) and in fact it is not clear what it would mean. "I intend to eat" has the COS of eating but if it meant (COS is) eating then it wouldn't describe an intention but an action and if it meant saying the words (COS is speech) then it wouldn't have any further COS and how could it function in either case? To the question on p127 as to when a sentence expresses a thought (has a meaning), we can say 'When it has clear COS' and this means has public truth conditions. Hence the quote from W: "When I think in language, there aren't 'meanings' going through my mind in addition to the verbal expressions: the language is itself the vehicle of thought." And, if I think with or without words, the thought is whatever I (honestly) say it is as there is no other possible criterion (COS). Thus, W's lovely aphorisms (p132) "It is in language that wish and fulfillment meet" and "Like everything metaphysical, the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language." And one might note here that 'grammar' in W can usually be translated as 'EP' and that in spite of his frequent warnings against theorizing and generalizing, this is about as broad a characterization of philosophy and higher order descriptive psychology as one can find. Again, this quashes Searle's frequent criticism of W as antitheoretical-it all depends on the nature of the generalization. It helps greatly in this section of Budd on the harmony of thought with reality (i.e., of how dispositions like expecting, thinking, imagining work-what it 68 means to utter them) to state them in terms of S's COS which are the PE (possible events) which make them true. If I say I expect Jack to come then the COS (PE) which makes it true is that Jack arrives and my mental states or physical behavior (pacing the room, imagining Jack) are irrelevant. The harmony of thought and reality is that jack arrives regardless of my prior or subsequent behavior or any mental states I may have and Budd is confused or at least confusing when he states (p132 bottom) that there must be an internal description of a mental state that can agree with reality and that this is the content of a thought, as these terms should be restricted to the automatisms of S1 only and never used for the conscious functions of S2. The content (meaning) of the thought that Jack will come is the outer (public) event that he comes and not any inner mental event or state, which the private language argument shows is impossible to connect to the outer events. We have very clear verification for the outer event but none at all for 'inner events'. And as W and S have beautifully demonstrated many times, the speech act of uttering the sentence 'I expect Jack to come' just is the thought that Jack will come and the COS is the same-that Jack does come. And so the answer to the two questions on p133 and the import of W's comment on p 135 should now be crystal clear - "In virtue of what is it true that my expectation does have that content?" and "What has become now of the hollow space and the corresponding solid?" as well as "...the interpolation of a shadow between the sentence and reality loses all point. For now, the sentence itself can serve as such a shadow." And thus, it should also be quite clear what Budd is referring to as to what makes it "possible for there to be the required harmony (or lack of harmony) with reality." Likewise, with the question in the next section-what makes it true that my image of Jack is an image of him? Imagining is another disposition and the COS is that the image I have in my head is Jack and that's why I will say 'YES' if shown his picture and 'NO' if shown one of someone else. The test here is not that the photo matches the vague image I had but that I intended it (had the COS that) to be an image of him. Hence the famous quote from W: "If God had looked into our minds he would not have been able to see there whom we were speaking of (PI p217)" and his comments that the whole problem of representation is contained in "that's Him" and "...what gives the image its interpretation is the path on which it lies." Hence W's summation (p140) that "What it always comes to in the end is that without any further meaning, he calls what happened the wish that that should happen" ... the question whether I know what I wish before my wish is fulfilled cannot arise at all. And the fact that some event stops my wishing does not mean that it fulfills 69 it. Perhaps I should not have been satisfied if my wish had been satisfied" ... Suppose it were asked 'Do I know what I long for before I get it? If I have learned to talk, then I do know." Disposition words refer to PE's which I accept as fulfilling the COS and my mental states, emotions, change of interest etc. have no bearing on the way dispositions function. As Budd rightly notes, I am hoping, wishing, expecting, thinking, intending, desiring etc. depending on the state I take myself to be in-on the COS that I express. Thinking and intending are S2 dispositions which can only be expressed by reflexive S1 muscle contractions, especially those of speech. W never devoted as much time to emotions as he did to dispositions so there is less substance to chapter 7. He notes that typically the object and cause are the same-i.e., they are causally selfreferential (or self reflexive as Searle now prefers)-a concept further developed by S. If one looks at my table, it is clear emotions have much more in common with the fast, true-only automatisms of S1 than with the slow, true or false thinking of S2, but of course S1 feeds S2 and in turn is often fed by it. Budd's summary is a fitting end to the book (p165). "The repudiation of the model of 'object and designation' for everyday psychological words-the denial that the picture of the inner process provides a correct representation of the grammar of such words, is not the only reason for Wittgenstein's hostility to the use of introspection in the philosophy of psychology. But it is its ultimate foundation." Now let us take another dose of Searle. "But you cannot explain a physical system such as a typewriter or a brain by identifying a pattern which it shares with its computational simulation, because the existence of the pattern does not explain how the system actually works as a physical system. ...In sum, the fact that the attribution of syntax identifies no further causal powers is fatal to the claim that programs provide causal explanations of cognition ... There is just a physical mechanism, the brain, with its various real physical and physical/mental causal levels of description." Searle Philosophy in a New Century (PNC) p101-103 "In short, the sense of `information processing' that is used in cognitive science is at much too high a level of abstraction to capture the concrete biological reality of intrinsic intentionality...We are blinded to this difference 70 by the fact that the same sentence `I see a car coming toward me,' can be used to record both the visual intentionality and the output of the computational model of vision...in the sense of `information' used in cognitive science, it is simply false to say that the brain is an information processing device." Searle PNC p104-105 "The intentional state represents its conditions of satisfaction...people erroneously suppose that every mental representation must be consciously thought...but the notion of a representation as I am using it is a functional and not an ontological notion. Anything that has conditions of satisfaction, that can succeed or fail in a way that is characteristic of intentionality, is by definition a representation of its conditions of satisfaction...we can analyze the structure of the intentionality of social phenomena by analyzing their conditions of satisfaction." Searle MSW p28-32 And another shot of Wittgenstein. "Philosophy simply puts everything before us and neither explains nor deduces anything...One might give the name `philosophy' to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions." PI 126 "The more narrowly we examine actual language, the sharper becomes the conflict between it and our requirement. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not a result of investigation: it was a requirement.)"PI 107 "Here we come up against a remarkable and characteristic phenomenon in philosophical investigation: the difficulty---I might say---is not that of finding the solution but rather that of recognizing as the solution something that looks as if it were only a preliminary to it. We have already said everything. --Not anything that follows from this, no this itself is the solution! .... This is connected, I believe, with our wrongly expecting an explanation, whereas the solution of the difficulty is a description, if we give it the right place in our considerations. If we dwell upon it, and do not try to get beyond it." Zettel p312-314 A major theme in all discussion of human behavior is the need to separate the genetically programmed automatisms from the effects of culture. All study of higher order behavior is an effort to tease apart not only fast S1 and slow S2 thinking (e.g., perceptions and other automatisms vs. dispositions), but the 71 logical extensions of S2 into culture. Searle's work as a whole provides a stunning description of higher order S2 social behavior due to the recent evolution of genes for dispositional psychology, while the later W shows how it is based on trueonly unconscious axioms of S1 which evolved into conscious dispositional propositional thinking of S2. One thing to keep in mind is that philosophy has no practical impact whatsoever except to clear up confusions about how language is being used in particular cases. Like various 'physical theories' but unlike other cartoon views of life (religious, political, psychological, sociological, anthropological), it is too cerebral and esoteric to be grasped by more than a tiny fringe and it is so unrealistic that even its adherents totally ignore it in their everyday life. Likewise, with other academic 'theories of life' such as the Standard Social Science Model widely shared by sociology, anthropology, pop psychology, history and literature. However, religions big and small, political movements, and sometimes economics often generate or embrace already existing cartoons that ignore physics and biology (human nature), posit forces terrestrial or cosmic that reinforce our superstitions (EP defaults), and help to lay waste to the earth (the real purpose of nearly every social practice and institution, which are there to facilitate replication of genes and consumption of resources). The point is to realize that these are on a continuum with philosophical cartoons and have the same source (our evolved psychology). All of us could be said to generate/absorb various cartoon views of life when young and only a few ever grow out of them. Also note that, as W remarked long ago, the prefix "meta" is unnecessary and confusing in most (maybe all) contexts, so for 'metacognition' anywhere substitute 'cognition' or 'thinking', since thinking about what we or others believe or know is thinking like any other and does not have to be seen as 'mindreading' (Understanding of Agency or UA in my terminology) either. In S's terms, the COS are the test of what is being thought and they are identical for 'it's raining', I believe it's raining', 'I believe I believe it's raining' and 'he believes it's raining' (likewise for 'knows', wishes, judges, understands, etc.), namely that it's raining. This is the critical fact to keep in mind regarding 'metacognition' and 'mindreading' of dispositions ('propositional attitudes'). Now for a few extracts from my review of Carruthers' (C) 'The Opacity of 72 Mind' (2013) which is replete with the classical confusions dressed up as science. It was the subject of a precis in Brain and Behavioral Sciences (BBS) that is not to be missed. One of the responses in BBS was by Dennett (who shares most of C's illusions), who seems to find these ideas quite good, except that C should eliminate the use of 'I' since it assumes the existence of a higher self (the aim being hard reduction of S2 to S1). Of course, the very act of writing, reading and all the language and concepts of anything whatsoever presuppose self, consciousness and will (as S often notes), so such an account would be just a cartoon of life without any value whatsoever, which one could say of most philosophical and many 'scientific' disquisitions on behavior. The W/S framework has long noted that the first person point of view is not eliminable or reducible to a 3rd person one, but this is no problem for the cartoon view of life. Likewise, with the description of brain function or behavior as 'computational', 'information processing' etc., -all well debunked countless times by W/S, Hutto, Read, Hacker and many others. Worst of all is the crucial but utterly unclear "representation", for which I think S's use as a condition of satisfaction (COS) is by far the best. That is, the 'representation' of 'I think it's raining' is the COS that it's raining. Saddest of all is that C (like Dennett and Searle) thinks he is an expert on W, having studied him early in his career and decided that the private language argument is to be rejected as 'behaviorism'! W famously rejected behaviorism and much of his work is devoted to describing why it cannot serve as a description of behavior. "Are you not really a behaviourist in disguise? Aren't you at bottom really saying that everything except human behavior is a fiction? If I do speak of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction." (PI p307) And one can also point to real behaviorism in C in its modern 'computationalist' form. W/S insist on the indispensability of the first person point of view while C apologizes to D in the BBS article for using "I" or "self". Hutto has shown the vast gulf between W and Dennett (D) which will serve to characterize C as well, since I take D and C (along with the Churchland's and many others) to be on the same page. S is one of many who have deconstructed D in various writings and these can all be read in opposition to C. And let us recall that W sticks to examples of language in action, and once one gets the point he is mostly very easy to follow, while C is captivated by 'theorizing' (i.e., chaining numerous sentences with no clear COS) and rarely bothers with specific language games, preferring experiments and 73 observations that are quite difficult to interpret in any definitive way (see the BBS responses), and which in any case have no relevance to higher level descriptions of behavior (e.g., exactly how do they fit into the Intentionality Table). One book he praises as definitive (Memory and the Computational Brain) presents the brain as a computational information processor-a sophomoric view thoroughly and repeatedly annihilated by S and others, including W in the 1930's. In the last decade, I have read thousands of pages by and about W and it is quite clear that C does not have a clue. In this he joins a long line of distinguished philosophers whose reading of W was fruitless-Russell, Quine, Dummett, Kripke, Dennett, Putnam, Chomsky etc. (though Putnam began to see the light later). They just cannot grasp the message that most philosophy is grammatical jokes and impossible vignettes-a cartoon view of life. Books like 'The Opacity of Mind' that attempt to bridge two sciences or two levels of description are really two books and not one. There is the description (not explanation, as W made clear) of our language and nonverbal behavior and then the experiments of cognitive psychology. "The existence of the experimental method makes us think we have the means of solving the problems that trouble us; though problem and method pass one another by."(W PI p232), Cet al are enthralled by science and just assume that it is a great advance to wed high-level descriptive psychology to neuroscience and experimental psychology, but W/S and many others have shown this is a mistake. Far from making the description of behavior scientific and clear, it makes it incoherent. And it must have been by the grace of God that Locke, Kant, Nietzsche, Hume, Wittgenstein, Searle et al were able to give such memorable accounts of behavior without any experimental science whatsoever. Of course, like politicians, philosophers rarely admit mistakes or shut up, so this will go on and on for reasons W diagnosed perfectly. The bottom line has to be what is useful and what makes sense in our everyday life. I suggest the philosophical views of CDC (Carruthers, Dennett, Churchland), as opposed to those of W/S, are not useful and their ultimate conclusions that will, self and consciousness are illusions make no sense at all-i.e., they are meaningless, having no clear COS. Whether the CDC comments on cognitive science have any heuristic value remains to be determined. This book (like a huge body of other writing) tries to discount the HOT of other animals and to reduce behavior to brain functions (to absorb psychology into physiology). The philosophy is a disaster but, provided one 74 first reads the many criticisms in the BBS, the commentary on recent psychology and physiology may be of interest. Like Dennett, Churchland and so many others often do, C does not reveal his real gems til the end, when we are told that self, will, consciousness are illusions (supposedly in the normal senses of this words). Dennett had to be unmasked by S, Hutto et al for explaining away these 'superstitions' (i.e., doing the usual philosophical move of not explaining at all and in fact not even describing) but amazingly C admits it at the beginning, though of course he thinks he is showing us these words do not mean what we think and that his cartoon use is the valid one. One should also see Bennett and Hacker's criticisms of cognitive science in 'Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience' (2003) and their debate with S and Dennett in 'Neuroscience and Philosophy' (2009-and don't miss the final essay by Daniel Robinson). It is also well explored in Hacker's three recent books on "Human Nature". There have long been books on chemical physics and physical chemistry but there is no sign that the two will merge (nor is it a coherent idea) nor that chemistry will absorb biochemistry nor it in turn will absorb physiology or genetics, nor that biology will disappear nor that it will eliminate psychology, sociology, etc. This is not due to the 'youth' of these disciplines but to the fact that they are different levels of description with entirely different concepts, data and explanatory mechanisms. But physics envy is powerful and we just cannot resist the 'precision' of physics, math, information, and computation vs the vagueness of higher levels. It 'must' be possible. Reductionism thrives in spite of the incomprehensibility of quantum mechanics, uncertainty, wave/particles, live/dead cats, quantum entanglement, and the incompleteness and randomness of math (Godel/Chaitin-see my full review of Yanofsky's 'The Outer Limits of Reason' and the excerpts here) and its irresistible pull tells us it is due to EP defaults. Again, a breath of badly needed fresh air from W: "For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not a result of investigation: it was a requirement." PI p107. It is hard to resist throwing down most books on behavior and rereading W and S. Just jump from anything trying to 'explain' higher order behavior to e.g. these quotes from PI http://topologicalmedialab.net/xinwei/classes/readings/Wittgenstein/pi_94138_239-309.html. It is clear to me after reading ten thousand pages of philosophy in the last 75 decade that the attempt to do higher level descriptive psychology of this kind, where ordinary language morphs into special uses both deliberately and inadvertently, is essentially impossible (i.e., the normal situation in philosophy and other behavioral disciplines).Using special jargon words (e.g., intensionality, realism etc.) does not work either as there are no philosophy police to enforce a narrow definition and the arguments on what they mean are interminable. Hacker is good but his writing so precious and dense it's often painful. Searle is very good but requires some effort to embrace his terminology and makes some egregious mistakes, while W is hands down the clearest and most insightful, once you grasp what he is doing, and nobody has ever been able to emulate him. His TLP remains the ultimate statement of the mechanical reductionist view of life, but he later saw his mistake and diagnosed and cured the 'cartoon disease', but few get the point and most simply ignore him and biology as well, and so there are tens of thousands of books and millions of articles and most religious and political organizations (and until recently most of economics) and almost all people with cartoon views of life. But the world is not a cartoon, so a great tragedy is being played out as the cartoon views of life collide with reality and universal blindness and selfishness bring about the collapse of civilization. It seems quite obvious to me (as it was to W) that the mechanical view of mind exists for the same reason as all basic behavior-it is the default operation of our EP which seeks explanations in terms of what we can deliberately think through slowly, rather than in the automated S1, of which we mostly remain oblivious. However, it is true that most of behavior is mechanical and that The Phenomenological Illusion is of vastly greater reach than Searle describes. It is most striking to me when driving a car on the freeway and suddenly snapping back to S2 awareness startled to realize I have just driven for several minutes with no conscious awareness at all. On reflection, this automatism can be seen to account for almost all of our behavior with just minimal supervision and awareness from S2. I am writing this page and have to think about what to say, but then it just flows out into my hands which type it and by and large it's a surprise to me except when I think of changing a specific sentence. And you read it giving commands to your body to sit still and look at this part of the page but the words just flow into you and some kind of understanding and memory happen but unless you concentrate on a sentence there is only a vague sense of doing anything. A soccer player runs down the 76 field and kicks the ball and thousands of nerve impulses and muscle contractions deftly coordinated with eye movements, and feedback from proprioceptive and balance organs have occurred, but there is only a vague feeling of control and high level awareness of the results. S2 is the Chief of Police who sits in his office while S1 has thousands of officers doing the actual work according to laws that he mostly does not even know. Reading, writing or soccer are voluntary acts A2 seen from above but composed of thousands of automatic acts A1 seen from below. Much of contemporary behavioral science is concerned with these automatisms. It is a good idea to read at least Chapter 6 of Searle's PNC, "The Phenomenological Illusion" (TPI). It is clear as crystal that TPI is due to obliviousness to the automatisms of S1 and to taking the slow conscious thinking of S2 as not only primary but as all there is. This is classic Blank Slate blindness. It is also clear that W showed this some 60 years earlier and gave the reason for it in the primacy of the true-only unconscious automatic axiomatic network of our innate System 1 which is the source of the Inner. Very roughly, regarding 'observer independent' features of the world as S1 or The Inner, and 'observer dependent' features as S2 or The Outer should prove very revealing. As Searle notes, the Phenomenologists have the ontology exactly backwards, but of course so does almost everyone due to the defaults of their EP. Another excellent work on W that deserves close study is Johnston's 'Wittgenstein: Rethinking the Inner' (1993). He notes that some will object that if our reports and memories are really untestable they would have no value but "This objection misses the whole point of W's argument, for it assumes that what actually happened, and what the individual says happened, are two distinct things. As we have seen, however, the grammar of psychological statements means that the latter constitutes the criteria for the former. If we see someone with a concentrated expression on her face and want to know 'what is going on inside her', then her sincerely telling us that she is trying to work out the answer to a complicated sum tells us exactly what we want to know. The question of whether, despite her sincerity, her statement might be an inaccurate description of what she is (or was) doing does not arise. The source of confusion here is the failure to recognize that psychological concepts have a different grammar from that of concepts used to describe outer events. What makes the inner seem so mysterious is the misguided attempt to understand one concept in terms of another. In fact our concept of the Inner, what we mean when we talk of 'what was going on 77 inside her' is linked not to mysterious inner processes, but to the account which the individual offers of her experience...As processes or events, what goes on inside the individual is of no interest, or rather is of a purely medical or scientific interest" (p13-14). "W's attack on the notion of inner processes does not imply that only the Outer matters, on the contrary; by bringing out the true nature of utterances, he underlines the fact that we aren't just interested in behavior. We don't just want to know that the person's body was in such and such a position and that her features arranged in such and such a way. Rather we are interested in her account of what lay behind this behavior..." (p16-17) In laying out W's reasoning on the impossibility of private rules or a private language, he notes that "The real problem however is not simply that she fails to lay down rules, but that in principle she could not do so...The point is that without publicly checkable procedures, she could not distinguish between following the rule and merely thinking she is following the rule." On p55 Johnston makes the point with respect to vision (which has been made many times by W and S in this and other contexts) that the discussion of the Outer is entirely dependent for its very intelligibility on the unchallengeable nature of our direct first person experience of the Inner. The System 2 sceptical doubts concerning mind, will, senses, world, cannot get a foothold without the true-only certainties of System 1 and the certainty that you are reading these words now is the basis for judgment, not a thing that can itself be judged. This mistake is one of the most basic and common in all philosophy. On p81 he makes the point that the impossibility, in the normal case, of checking your statements concerning your dispositions (often but confusingly called 'propositional attitudes') such as what you thought or are feeling, far from being a defect of our psychology, is exactly what gives these statements interest. "I am tired" tells us how you are feeling rather than giving us another bit of data about the Outer such as your slow movements or the shadows under your eyes. Johnston then does an excellent job of explaining W's debunking of the idea that meaning or understanding (and all dispositions) are experiences that accompany speech. As W pointed out, just consider the case where you think you understand, and then find out you did not, to see the irrelevance of any 78 inner experience to meaning, understanding, thinking, believing, knowing etc. The experience which counts is the awareness of the public language game we participate in. Similar considerations dissolve the problem of the 'lightning speed of thought'. "The key is to recognize that thinking is not a process or a succession of experiences but an aspect of the lives of conscious beings. What corresponds to the lightning speed of thought is the individual's ability to explain at any point what she is doing or saying." (p86). And as W says "Or, if one calls the beginning and the end of the sentence the beginning and end of the thought, then it is not clear whether one should say of the experience of thinking that it is uniform during this time or whether it is a process like speaking the sentence itself" (RPP2p237). Again: "The individuals account of what she thought has the same grammar as her account of what she intended and of what she meant. What we are interested in is the account of the past she is inclined to give and the assumption that she will be able to give an account is part of what is involved in seeing her as conscious" (p 91). That is, all these disposition verbs are part of our conscious, voluntary S2 psychology. In "The Complexity of the Inner", he notes that it is ironic that our best way to communicate the Inner is to refer to the Outer but I would say it is both natural and unavoidable. Since there is no private language and no telepathy, we can only contract muscles and by far the most efficient and deep communication is by contracting oral muscles (speech). As W commented in several contexts, it is in plays (or now in TV and films) that we see language (thought) in its purest form. Dispositions like intending continue as long as we don't change or forget them and thus lack a precise duration as well as levels of intensity and the content is a decision and so is not a precise mental state, so in all these respects they are quite different from S1 perceptions, memories and reflexive responses like S1 emotions. The difference between S1 and S2 (as I put itthis was not a terminology available to J or W) also is seen in the asymmetry of the disposition verbs, with the first person use of 'I believe' etc., being (in the normal case of sincere utterance) true-only sentences vs the third person use 'he believes' etc., being true or false evidence-based propositions. One cannot say "I believe it is raining and it isn't" but other tenses such as "I believed it was raining and it wasn't" or the third person "He believes it is raining and it isn't" are OK. As 79 J says: "The general issue at the heart of the problem here is whether the individual can observe her own dispositions...The key to clarifying this paradox is to note that the individuals description of her own state of mind is also indirectly the description of a state of affairs...In other words, someone who says she believes P is thereby committed to asserting P itself...The reason therefor that the individual cannot observe her belief is that by adopting a neutral or evaluatory stance towards it, she undermines it. Someone who said "I believe it's raining but it isn't" would thereby undermine her own assertion. As W notes, there can be no first person equivalent of the third person use of the verb for the same reason that a verb meaning to believe falsely would lack a first person present indicative...the two propositions are not independent, for 'the assertion that this is going on inside me asserts: this is going on outside me' (RPP1 p490)" (p154-56). Though not commented on by W or J, the fact that children never make such mistakes as "I want the candy but I don't believe I want it" etc., shows that such constructions are built into our grammar (into our genes) and not cultural add-ons. He then looks at this from another viewpoint by citing W "What would be the point of my drawing conclusions from my own words to my behavior, when in any case I know what I believe? And what is the manifestation of my knowing what I believe? Is it not manifested precisely in this-that I do not infer my behaviour from my words? That is the fact." (RPP1 p744). Another way to say this is that S1 is the axiomatic true-only basis for cognition, and as the nonpropositional substrate for determining truth and falsity, cannot be intelligibly judged. He ends the chapter with important comments on the variability within the LG's (within our psychology) and I suggest it be read carefully. Johnston continues the discussion in "The Inner/Outer Picture" much of which is summed up in his quote from W. "The inner is hidden from us means that it is hidden from us in a sense that it is not hidden from him. And it is not hidden from the owner in the sense that he gives expression to it, and we, under certain conditions, believe his expression and there, error has no place. And this asymmetry in the game is expressed in the sentence that the Inner is hidden from other people." (LWPP2 p36). J goes on: "The problem is not that inner is hidden but that the language game it involves is very different from those where we normally talk about knowledge." And then he enters into one of W's major themes throughout his life-the difference 80 between man and machine. "But with a human being the assumption is that it is impossible to gain an insight into the mechanism. Thus, indeterminacy is postulated...I believe unpredictability must be an essential characteristic of the Inner. As also is the endless diversity of expressions." (RPP2 p645 and LWPP2 p65). Again, W probes the difference between animals and computers. J notes that the uncertainties in our LG's are not defects but critical to our humanity. Again W: "[What matters is] not that the evidence makes the feeling (and so the Inner) merely probable, but that we treat this as evidence for something important, that we base a judgement on this involved sort of evidence, and so that such evidence has a special importance in our lives and is made prominent by a concept." (Z p554). J sees three aspects of this uncertainty as the lack of fixed criteria or fine shades of meaning, the absence of rigid determination of the consequences of inner states and the lack of fixed relationships between our concepts and experience. W: "One can't say what the essential observable consequences of an inner state are. When, for example, he really is pleased, what is then to be expected of him, and what not? There are of course such characteristic consequences, but they can't be described in the same way as reactions which characterize the state of a physical object." (LWPP2 p90). J "Here her inner state is not something we cannot know because we cannot penetrate the veil of the Outer. Rather there is nothing determinate to know." (p195). In his final chapter, he notes that our LG's are not likely to change regardless of scientific progress. "Although it is conceivable that the study of brain activity might turn out to be a more reliable predictor of human behavior, the sort of understanding of human action it gave would not be the same as that involved in the language game on intentions. Whatever the value of the scientist's discovery, it could not be said to have revealed what intentions really are." (p213). This indeterminateness leads to the notion that correlation of brain states with dispositions seems unlikely. "The difficulty here is that the notion of one thought is a highly artificial concept. How many thoughts are there in the Tractatus? And when the basic idea for it struck W, was that one thought or a rash of them? The notion of intentions creates similar problems...These subsequent statements can all be seen as amplifications or explanations of the original thought, but how are we to suppose this relates to the brain state? 81 Are we to imagine that it too will contain the answer to every possible question about the thought? ..we would have to allow that two significantly different thoughts are correlated with the same brain state...words may in one sense be interchangeable and in another sense not. This creates problems for the attempt to correlate brain states and thoughts...two thoughts may be the same in one sense and different in another...Thus the notion of one thought is a fragile and artificial one and for that reason it is hard to see what sense it could make to talk of a one to one correlation with brain states." (p218-219). That is, the same thought (COS) "it's raining" expresses an infinite number of brain states in one or many people. Likewise, the 'same' brain state might express different thoughts (COS) in different contexts. Likewise, W denies that memory consists of traces in the nervous system. "Here the postulated trace is like the inner clock, for we no more infer what happened from a trace than we consult an inner clock to guess the time." He then notes an example from W (RPP1 p908) of a man jotting marks while he reads and who cannot repeat the text without the marks but they don't relate to the text by rules ... "The text would not be stored up in the jottings. And why should it be stored up in our nervous system?" and also "...nothing seems more plausible to me than that people will someday come to the definite opinion that there is no copy in either the physiological or the nervous systems which corresponds to a particular thought or a particular idea of memory" (LWPP1 p504). This implies that there can be psychological regularities to which no physiological regularities correspond; and as W provocatively adds 'If this upsets our concepts of causality, then it is high time they were upset.'" (RPP1 p905) ...'Why should not the initial and the terminal states of a system be connected by a natural law which does not cover the intermediary state? (RPP1 p909) ... [It is quite likely that] there is no process in the brain correlated with associating or with thinking, so that it would be impossible to read off thought processes from brain processes...Why should this order, so to speak, not proceed out of chaos? ...as it were, causelessly; and there is no reason why this should not really hold for our thoughts, and hence for our talking and writing.'(RPP1 p903)...But must there be a physiological explanation here? Why don't we just leave explaining alone? -but you would never talk like that if you were examining the behavior of a machine! – Well who says that a living creature, an animal body, is a machine in this sense?'" (RPPI p918) (p 22021). Of course, one can take these comments variously, but one way is that W anticipates the rise of chaos theory, embodied mind and self organization in 82 biology. Since uncertainty, chaos and unpredictability are standard doctrine now, from subatomic to molecular scale, and in planetary dynamics (weather etc.,) and cosmology, why should the brain be an exception? The only detailed comments on these remarks I have seen are in a recent paper by Daniele Moyal-Sharrock (DMS). It is quite striking that although W's observations are fundamental to all study of behavior-linguistics, philosophy, psychology, history, anthropology, politics, sociology, and art, he is not even mentioned in most books and articles, with even the exceptions having little to say, and most of that distorted or flat wrong. There is a flurry of recent interest, at least in philosophy, and possibly this preposterous situation will change, but probably not much. The discussion of the logical (psychological) difference between the S1 causes and the S2 reasons in Chapter 7 of Hacker's recent book 'Human Nature' (2011), especially p226-32, is critical for any student of behavior. It is a nearly universal delusion that "cause" is a precise logically exact term while "reason" is not but W exposed this many times. Of course, the same issue arises with all scientific and mathematical concepts. And of course, one must keep constantly in mind that 'action', 'condition', 'satisfaction', 'intention', and even 'and', 'or', 'prior', 'true' etc. are all complex language games able to trip us up as W so beautifully described in BBB in the early 30's. Searle make many interesting remarks in one of his most recent books 'Thinking About the Real World' (TARW)(2013),and I seem to have written the only review, so I will discuss it in detail here. On p21 of TARW we again run into what I regard as the most glaring flaw in S's work and one that should have been obviated long ago had he only read the later W and his commentators more carefully. He refers to free will as an "assumption" that we may have to give up! It is crystal clear from W that will, self, world, and all the phenomena of our lives are the basis for judging-the axiomatic bedrock of our behavior and there is no possibility of judging them. Can we "assume" we have two hands or live on the surface of the earth or that Madonna is a singer etc.? Perhaps this huge mistake is connected with his blending of true only S1 and propositional S2 which I have noted. Amazing that he can get nearly everything else right and stumble on this! On p22 and elsewhere he uses the notion of unconscious intentionality, which 83 he first discussed in his 1991 paper in Phil. Issues, noting that these are the sorts of things that could become conscious (e.g., dreams). W was I think the first to comment on this noting that if you can't speak of unconscious thoughts you can't speak of conscious ones either (BBB). Here and throughout his work it is unfortunate that he does not use the S1/S2 concepts as it makes it so much easier to keep things straight and he still finds it necessary to indulge in very un-Wittgensteinian jargon. E.g., "Once you have manipulable syntactical elements, you can detach intentionality from its immediate causes in the form of perceptions and memories, in a way that it is not possible to make detachments of unsyntactically structured representational elements." (p31) just says that with language came the dispositional intentionality of S2 where conscious thought and reason became possible. Regarding reasons and desires (p39) see elsewhere here and my reviews of his other works. S's continued reference to dispositions as mental states, and his reference to mental states as representations (actually 'presentations' here) with COS, is (in my view) counterproductive. On p25 e.g., it seems he wants to say that the apple we see is the COS of the CSR – (Causally Self Reflexive--i.e., cause is built in) perception of the apple and the reflexive unconscious scratching of an itch has the same status (i.e., a COS) as the deliberate planned movement of the arm. Thus, the mental states of S1 are to be included with the actions of S2 as COS. Though I accept most of S's ontology and epistemology I don't see the advantage of this, but I have the greatest respect for him so I will work on it. I have noted his tendency (normal for others but a flaw in Searle) to mix S1 and S2 which he does on p29 where he seems to be referring to beliefs as mental states. It seems to me quite basic and clear since W's BBB in the 30's that S2 are not mental states in anything like the sense ofS1. The paragraph beginning "Because" on p25 is discussing the true-only unconscious percepts, memories and reflexive acts of S1-i.e., our axiomatic EP. As noted, one can read Hutto and Myin's book 'Radicalizing Enactivism: Basic Minds Without Content' (2012) for a very different recent account of the nonrepresentational or enactive nature of S1. The table of intentionality on p26 updates one he has used for decades and which I have used as the basis for my extended table above. 84 Nearly half a century ago S wrote "How to derive ought from is" which was a revolutionary advance in our understanding of behavior. He has continued to develop the naturalistic description of behavior and on p39 he shows how ethics originates in our innate social behavior and language. A basic concept is the Desire Independent Reasons for Action (DIRA) which is explained in his various books. For an outline see my reviews of his MSW and other works. He tends to use the proximate reasons of S2 (i.e., dispositional psychology and culture) to frame his analysis but as with all behavior I regard it as superficial unless it includes the ultimate causes in S1 and so I break his DIRA into DIRA1 and DIRA2. This enables the description in terms of the unconscious mechanisms of reciprocal altruism and inclusive fitness. Thus, I would restate the last sentence on p39 "...people are asked to override their natural inclinations by making ethical considerations prevail" as "...people are compelled to override their immediate personal benefits to secure long term genetic benefits via reciprocal altruism and inclusive fitness." S's obliviousness (which he shares with most philosophers) to the modern two systems framework, and to the full implications of W's "radical" epistemology as stated most dramatically in his last work 'On Certainty', is most unfortunate (as I have noted in many reviews). It was W who did the first and best job of describing the two systems (though nobody else has noticed) and OC represents a major event in intellectual history. Not only is S unaware of the fact that his framework is a straightforward continuation of W, but everyone else is too, which accounts for the lack of any significant reference to W in this book. As usual one also notes no apparent acquaintance with EP, which can enlighten all discussions of behavior by providing the real ultimate evolutionary and biological explanations rather than the superficial proximate cultural ones. Thus, S's discussion of the two ways to describe sensations ('experiences') on p202 is in my view vastly clearer if one realizes that seeing red or feeling pain is automatic true-only S1, but as soon as we attend to it consciously (ca. 500 msec or more) it becomes 'seeing as' and a propositional (true or false) S2 function that can be expressed publicly in language (and other bodily muscle contractions as well). Thus, the S1 'experience' that is identical with red or the pain vs the S2 'experience' of red or pain, once we begin to reflect on it, normally are blended together into one 'experience'. For me by far the best place to get an understanding of these issues is still in W's writings beginning with the BBB and ending with OC. Nobody else has ever described the subtleties of the language games with such clarity. One must keep constantly 85 in mind the vagueness and multiple meanings of 'mistake', 'true', 'experience', 'understand', 'know', 'see', 'same' etc., but only W was able to do it-even S stumbles frequently. And it is not a trivial issue-unless one can clearly restate all of p202 separating the true-only non-judgeable S1 from the propositional S2 then nothing about behavior can be said without confusion. And of course, very often (i.e., normally) words are used without a clear meaning-one has to specify how 'true' or 'follows from' or 'see' is to be used in this context and W is the only one I know of who consistently gets this right. Again, on p203-206, the discussion of intrinsically intentional automatic causal dispositionality only makes sense to me because I look at it as just another way to describe S1 states which provide the raw material for deliberate conscious S2 dispositionality which, from a biological evolutionary point of view (and what other can there be?) has to be the case. Thus, his comment on p212 is right on the money- the ultimate explanation (or as W insists the description) can only be a naturalized one which describes how mind, will, self and intention work and cannot meaningfully eliminate them as 'real' phenomena. Recall S's famous review of Dennett's 'Consciousness Explained' entitled "Consciousness explained away". And this makes it all the more bizarre that S should repeatedly state that we don't know for sure if we have free will and that we have to 'postulate' a self (p218-219). Also, I once again think S is on the wrong track (p214) when he suggests that the confusions are due to historical mistakes in philosophy such as dualism, idealism, materialism, epiphenomenalism etc., rather than in universal susceptibility to the defaults of our psychology - 'The Phenomenological Illusion' (TPI) as he has termed it, and bewitchment by language as beautifully described by W. As he notes, "The neurobiological processes and the mental phenomena are the same event, described at different levels" and "How can conscious intentions cause bodily movement? ...How can the hammer move the nail in virtue of being solid? ...If you analyze what solidity is causally...if you analyze what intention-in-action is causally, you see analogously there is no philosophical problem left over." I would translate his comment (p220) "A speaker can use an expression to refer only if in the utterance of the referring expressions the speaker introduces a condition that the object referred to satisfies; and reference is achieved in virtue of the satisfaction of that condition." as "Meaning is achieved by stating a publicly verifiable condition of satisfaction (truth 86 condition)." "I think it is raining" is true if it is raining and false otherwise. Also, I would state "The heart of my argument is that our linguistic practices, as commonly understood, presuppose a reality that exists independently of our representations." (p223) as "Our life shows a world that does not depend on our existence and cannot be intelligibly challenged." Time for some more quotes and a discussion of his recent book of reprints 'Philosophy in a New Century' (2008) and as elsewhere I will repeat some comments to place them in a different context. "Could a machine process cause a thought process? The answer is: yes. Indeed, only a machine process can cause a thought process, and 'computation' does not name a machine process; it names a process that can be, and typically is, implemented on a machine." Searle PNC p73 "...the characterization of a process as computational is a characterization of a physical system from outside; and the identification of the process as computational does not identify an intrinsic feature of the physics, it is essentially an observer relative characterization." Searle PNC p95 "The Chinese Room Argument showed that semantics is not intrinsic to syntax. I am now making the separate and different point that syntax is not intrinsic to physics." Searle PNC p94 "The attempt to eliminate the homunculus fallacy through recursive decomposition fails, because the only way to get the syntax intrinsic to the physics is to put a homunculus in the physics." Searle PNC p97 "But you cannot explain a physical system such as a typewriter or a brain by identifying a pattern which it shares with its computational simulation, because the existence of the pattern does not explain how the system actually works as a physical system. ...In sum, the fact that the attribution of syntax identifies no further causal powers is fatal to the claim that programs provide causal explanations of cognition... There is just a physical mechanism, the brain, with its various real physical and physical/mental causal levels of description." Searle PNC p101-103 "In short, the sense of 'information processing' that is used in cognitive science is at much too high a level of abstraction to capture the concrete 87 biological reality of intrinsic intentionality...We are blinded to this difference by the fact that the same sentence 'I see a car coming toward me,' can be used to record both the visual intentionality and the output of the computational model of vision...in the sense of 'information' used in cognitive science, it is simply false to say that the brain is an information processing device." Searle PNC p104-105 "Can there be reasons for action which are binding on a rational agent just in virtue of the nature of the fact reported in the reason statement, and independently of the agent's desires, values, attitudes and evaluations? ...The real paradox of the traditional discussion is that it tries to pose Hume's guillotine, the rigid fact-value distinction, in a vocabulary, the use of which already presupposes the falsity of the distinction." Searle PNC p165-171 "...all status functions and hence all of institutional reality, with the exception of language, are created by speech acts that have the logical form of Declarations...the forms of the status function in question are almost invariably matters of deontic powers...to recognize something as a right, duty, obligation, requirement and so on is to recognize a reason for action...these deontic structures make possible desire-independent reasons for action...The general point is very clear: the creation of the general field of desire-based reasons for action presupposed the acceptance of a system of desire-independent reasons for action." Searle PNC p34-49 "Some of the most important logical features of intentionality are beyond the reach of phenomenology because they have no immediate phenomenological reality... Because the creation of meaningfulness out of meaninglessness is not consciously experienced...it does not exist...This is... the phenomenological illusion." Searle PNC p115-117 "Consciousness is causally reducible to brain processes...and consciousness has no causal powers of its own in addition to the causal powers of the underlying neurobiology...But causal reducibility does not lead to ontological reducibility...consciousness only exists as experienced...and therefore it cannot be reduced to something that has a third person ontology, something that exists independently of experiences." Searle PNC 155-6 "...the basic intentional relation between the mind and the world has to do with conditions of satisfaction. And a proposition is anything at all that can stand in an intentional relation to the world, and since those intentional 88 relations always determine conditions of satisfaction, and a proposition is defined as anything sufficient to determine conditions of satisfaction, it turns out that all intentionality is a matter of propositions." Searle PNC p193 Though S does not say and seems to be largely unaware, the bulk of his work follows directly from that of W, even though he often criticizes him. To say that Searle has carried on W's work is not to say that it is a direct result of W study, but rather that because there is only ONE human psychology (for the same reason there is only ONE human cardiology), that anyone accurately describing behavior must be voicing some variant or extension of what W said (as they must if they are both giving correct descriptions of behavior). I find most of S foreshadowed in W, including versions of the famous Chinese room argument against Strong AI and related issues which are the subjects of Chaps 3-5. Incidentally, if the Chinese Room interests you then you should read Victor Rodych's excellent, but virtually unknown, supplement on the CR--"Searle Freed of Every Flaw". Rodych has also written a series of superb papers on W's philosophy of mathematics --i.e., the EP (Evolutionary Psychology) of the axiomatic System 1 ability of counting up to 3, as extended into the endless System 2 SLG's (Secondary Language Games) of math. W's insights into the psychology of math provide an excellent entry into intentionality. I will also note that nobody who promotes Strong AI, the multifarious versions of behaviorism, computer functionalism, CTM (Computational Theory of Mind) and Dynamic Systems Theory (DST), seems to be aware that W's Tractatus can be viewed as the most striking and powerful statement of their viewpoint ever penned (i.e., behavior (thinking) as the logical processing of facts--i.e., information processing). Of course, later (but before the digital computer was a gleam in Turing's eye) W described in great detail why these were incoherent descriptions of mind that must be replaced by psychology (or you can say this is all he did for the rest of his life). S however makes little reference to W's prescient statement of mind as mechanism, and his destruction of it in his later work. Since W, S has become the principal deconstructor of these mechanical views of behavior, and perhaps the most important descriptive psychologist (philosopher), but does not realize how completely W anticipated him nor, by and large, do others (but see the many papers and books of Proudfoot and Copeland on W, Turing and AI). S's work is vastly easier to follow than W's, and though there is some jargon, it is mostly spectacularly clear if you approach it from the right direction. See my articles for more details. 89 Like W, Searle is regarded as the best standup philosopher of his time and his written work is solid as a rock and groundbreaking throughout. However, his failure to take the later W seriously enough leads to some mistakes and confusions. On p7 of PNC he twice notes that our certainty about basic facts is due to the overwhelming weight of reason supporting our claims, but as Coliva, DMS et al have noted, W showed definitively in 'On Certainty' that there is no possibility of doubting the true-only axiomatic structure of our System 1 perceptions, memories and thoughts, since it is the basis for judgment and cannot itself be judged. In the first sentence on p8 he tells us that certainty is revisable, but this kind of 'certainty', which we might call Certainty2, is the result of extending our axiomatic and nonrevisable certainty (Certainty1) via experience and is utterly different as it is propositional (true or false). This is of course a classic example of the "battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by language" which W demonstrated over and over again. One word-two (or many) distinct uses. On p10 he chastises W for his antipathy to theorizing but as I noted above, 'theorizing' is another language game (LG) and there is a vast gulf between a general description of behavior with few well worked out examples and one that emerges from a large number of such that is not subject to many counterexamples. Evolution in its early days was a theory with limited clear examples but soon became just a summary of a vast body of examples and a theory in a quite different sense. Likewise, with a theory one might make as a summary of a thousand pages of W's examples and one resulting from ten pages. Again, on p12, 'consciousness' is the result of automated System 1 functioning that is 'subjective' in several quite different senses, and not, in the normal case, a matter of evidence but a true-only understanding in our own case and a true-only perception in the case of others. As I read p13 I thought: "Can I be feeling excruciating pain and go on as if nothing is wrong?" No! -this would not be 'pain' in the same sense. "The inner experience stands in need of outer criteria" (W) and Searle seems to miss this. See W or Johnston. As I read the next few pages I felt that W has a much better grasp of the mind/language connection, as he regards them as synonymous in many contexts, and his work is a brilliant exposition of mind as exemplified in 90 numerous perspicuous examples of language use. As quoted above, "Now if it is not the causal connections which we are concerned with, then the activities of the mind lie open before us." And as explained above I feel the questions with which S ends section 3 are largely answered by considering W's OC from the standpoint of the two systems. Likewise, for section 6 on the philosophy of science. Rodych has done an article on Popper vs W which I thought superb at the time but I will have to reread it to make sure. Finally, on p25, one can deny that any revision of our concepts (language games) of causation or free will are necessary or even possible. You can read just about any page of W and much of DMS, Coliva, Hacker etc. for the reasons. It's one thing to say bizarre things about the world using examples from quantum mechanics, uncertainty etc., but it is another to say anything relevant to our normal use of words. On p31, 36 etc., we again encounter the incessant problems (in philosophy and life) of identical words glossing over the huge differences in LG's of 'belief', 'seeing' etc., as applied to S1 which is composed of mental states in the present only, and S2 which is not. The rest of the chapter summarizes his work on 'social glue' which, from an EP, Wittgensteinian perspective, is the automatic fast actions of S1 producing the slow dispositions of S2 which are inexorably and universally expanded during personal development into a wide array of automatic unconscious deontic relationships with others, and arbitrarily into cultural variations on them. Chapters 3 to 5 contain his well-known arguments against the mechanical view of mind which seem to me definitive. I have read whole books of responses to them and I agree with S that they all miss the very simple logical (psychological) points he makes (and which, by and large, W made half a century earlier before there were computers). To put it in my terms, S1 is composed of unconscious, fast, physical, causal, automatic, nonpropositional , true-only mental states, while slow S2 can only coherently be described in terms of reasons for actions that are more or less conscious dispositions to behavior (potential actions) that are or can become propositional (T or F). Computers and the rest of nature have only derived (ascribed) intentionality that is dependent on our perspective while higher animals have primary intentionality that is independent of perspective. As S and W appreciate, the great irony is that these materialistic or mechanical reductions of psychology masquerade as cutting edge science, but in fact they are utterly anti-scientific. Philosophy (descriptive psychology) and cognitive 91 psychology (freed of superstition) are becoming hand in glove and it is Hofstadter, Dennett, Carruthers, Kurzweil etc., who are left out in the cold. Page 62 nicely summarizes one of his arguments but p63 shows that he has still not quite let go of the blank slate as he tries to explain trends in society in terms of the cultural extensions of S2. As he does in many other places in his writings, he gives cultural, historical reasons for behaviorism, but it seems quite obvious to me (as it was to W) that the mechanical view of mind exists for the same reason as nearly all behavior-it is the default operation of our EP which seeks explanations in terms of what we can deliberately think through slowly, rather than in the automated S1, of which we mostly remain oblivious. As noted above, Searle has described this as TPI. Again, on p65 I find W's description of our axiomatic inherited psychology and its extensions in his OC and other works to be deeper than S's (or anyone's), and so we are NOT 'confident' that dogs are conscious, but rather it is not open to doubt. See the earlier section of this article dealing with OC and DMS. Chapter 5 nicely demolishes CTM, LOT etc., noting that 'computation', 'information', 'syntax', 'algorithm', 'logic', 'program', etc., are observer relative (i.e., psychological) terms and have no physical or mathematical meaning(COS) in this psychological sense, but of course there are other senses they have been given recently as science has developed. Again, people are bewitched by the use of the same word into ignoring that vast difference in its use (meaning). These comments are all extensions of classic Wittgenstein and in this connection, I recommend Hutto's and Read's papers too. Chapter 6 "The Phenomenological Illusion" (TPI) is by far my favorite, and, while demolishing that field, it shows both his supreme logical abilities and his failure to grasp the full power of both the later W, and the great heuristic value of recent psychological research on the two selves. It is clear as crystal that TPI is due to obliviousness to the automatisms of S1 and to taking the slow conscious thinking of S2 as not only primary but as all there is. This is classic Blank Slate blindness. It is clear that W showed this some 60 years earlier and also gave the reason for it in the primacy of the true-only unconscious automatic axiomatic network of our innate System 1. Like so many others, Searle dances all around it but never quite gets there. Very roughly, regarding 'observer independent' features of the world as S1 and 'observer dependent' features as S2 should prove very revealing. As S notes, Heidegger and the others have the ontology exactly backwards, but of course 92 so does almost everyone due to the defaults of their EP. But the really important thing is that S does not take the next step to realizing that TPI is not just a failing of a few philosophers, but a universal blindness to our EP that is itself built into EP. He actually states this in almost these words at one point, but if he really got it how could he fail to point out its immense implications for the world. With rare exceptions (e.g., the Jaina Tirthankaras going back over 5000 years to the beginnings of the Indus civilization and most recently and remarkably Osho, Buddha, Jesus, Bodhidharma, Da Free John etc.), we are all meat puppets stumbling through life on our genetically programmed mission to destroy the earth. Our almost total preoccupation with using the second self S2 personality to indulge the infantile gratifications of S1 is creating Hell On Earth. As with all organisms, it's only about reproduction and accumulating resources therefor. Yes, much noise about Global Warming and the imminent collapse of industrial civilization in the next century, but nothing is likely to stop it. S1 writes the play and S2 acts it out. Dick and Jane just want to play house-this is mommy and this is daddy and this and this and this is baby. Perhaps one could say that TPI is that we are humans and not just another primate. Chapter 7 on the nature of the self is good but nothing really struck me as new. Chapter 8 on property dualism is much more interesting even though mostly a rehash of his previous work. The last of his opening quotes above sums this up, and of course the insistence on the critical nature of first person ontology is totally Wittgensteinian. The only big blunder I see is his blank slate or (cultural) type of explanation on p 158 for the errors of dualism, when in my view, it is clearly another instance of TPI-a mistake which he (and nearly everyone else) has made many times, and repeats on p177 etc., in the otherwise superb Chapter 9. The genes program S1 which (mostly) pulls the strings (contracts the muscles) of the meat puppets via S2. End of story. Again, he needs to read my comments or those of DMS on W's OC so he changes the "good reason to believe" at the bottom of p171 and the top of p172 to "knows" (in the true-only sense). A critical point is made again on p169. "Thus, saying something and meaning it involves two conditions of satisfaction. First, the condition of satisfaction that the utterance will be produced, and second, that the utterance itself shall have conditions of satisfaction." One way of regarding this is that the unconscious automatic System 1 activates the higher cortical conscious personality of System 2, bringing about throat muscle contractions which 93 inform others that it sees the world in certain ways, which commit it to potential actions. A huge advance over prelinguistic or protolinguistic interactions in which only gross muscle movements were able to convey very limited information about intentions and S makes a similar point in Chapter10. The genes program S1 which (mostly) pulls the strings (contracts the muscles) of the meat puppets via S2. End of story. Again, he needs to read my comments and those of DMS, Coliva, Andy Hamilton etc., on W's OC so he changes the "good reason to believe" at the bottom of p171 and the top of p172 to "knows" (in the true-only sense). His last chapter "The Unity of the Proposition" (previously unpublished) would also benefit greatly from reading W's "On Certainty" or DMS's various books and papers, as they make clear the difference between true only sentences describing S1 and true or false propositions describing S2. This strikes me as a far superior approach to S's taking S1 perceptions as propositional since they only become T or F after one begins thinking about them in S2. However, his point that propositions permit statements of actual or potential truth and falsity, of past and future and fantasy, and thus provide a huge advance over pre or protolinguistic society, is cogent. As he states it "A proposition is anything at all that can determine a condition of satisfaction...and a condition of satisfaction... is that such and such is the case." Or, one needs to add, that might be or might have been or might be imagined to be the case. Overall, PNC is a good summary of the many substantial advances over Wittgenstein resulting from S's half century of work, but in my view, W still is unequaled once you grasp what he is saying. Ideally, they should be read together: Searle for the clear coherent prose and generalizations, illustrated with W's perspicacious examples and brilliant aphorisms. If I were much younger I would write a book doing exactly that. "So, status functions are the glue that hold society together. They are created by collective intentionality and they function by carrying deontic powers...With the important exception of language itself, all of institutional reality and therefor in a sense all of human civilization is created by speech acts that have the logical form of Declarations...all of human institutional reality is created and maintained in existence by (representations that have the same logical form as) Status Function Declarations, including the cases that are not speech acts in the explicit form of Declarations." Searle MSWp11-13 94 "Beliefs, like statements, have the downward or mind (or word)-to-world direction of fit. And desires and intentions, like orders and promises, have the upward or world-to-mind (or word) direction of fit. Beliefs or perceptions, like statements, are supposed to represent how things are in the world, and in that sense, they are supposed to fit the world; they have the mind-to-world direction of fit. The conativevolitional states such as desires, prior intentions and intentions-in-action, like orders and promises, have the world-to-mind direction of fit. They are not supposed to represent how things are but how we would like them to be or how we intend to make them be...In addition to these two faculties, there is a third, imagination, in which the propositional content is not supposed to fit reality in the way that the propositional contents of cognition and volition are supposed to fit...the world-relating commitment is abandoned and we have a propositional content without any commitment that it represent with either direction of fit." Searle MSWp15 "Just as in intentional states we can make a distinction between the type of state ...and the content of the state...so in the theory of language we can make a distinction between the type of speech act it is...and the propositional content...we have the same propositional content with different psychological mode in the case of the intentional states, and different illocutionary force or type in the case of the speech acts. Furthermore, just as my beliefs can be true or false and thus have the mind-to-world direction of fit, so my statements can be true or false and thus have the word-to-world direction of fit. And just as my desires or intentions cannot be true or false but can be in various ways satisfied or unsatisfied, so my orders and promises cannot be true or false but can be in various ways satisfied or unsatisfied- we can think of all the intentional states that have a whole propositional content and a direction of fit as representations of their conditions of satisfaction. A belief represents its truth conditions, a desire represents its fulfillment conditions, an intention represents its carrying out conditions...The intentional state represents its conditions of satisfaction...people erroneously suppose that every mental representation must be consciously thought...but the notion of a representation as I am using it is a functional and not an ontological notion. Anything that has conditions of satisfaction, that can succeed or fail in a way that is characteristic of intentionality, is by definition a representation of its conditions of satisfaction...we can analyze the structure of the intentionality of social phenomena by analyzing their conditions of satisfaction." Searle MSW p2832 95 "The first four types of speech acts have exact analogues in intentional states: corresponding to Assertives are beliefs, corresponding to Directives are desires, corresponding to Commissives are intentions and corresponding to Expressives is the whole range of emotions and other intentional states where the Presup fit is taken for granted. But there is no prelinguistic analog for the Declarations.Prelinguistic intentional states cannot create facts in the world by representing those facts as already existing. This remarkable feat requires a language" MSW p69 "Speaker meaning... is the imposition of conditions of satisfaction on conditions of satisfaction. The capacity to do this is a crucial element of human cognitive capacities. It requires the ability to think on two levels at once, in a way that is essential for the use of language. At one level, the speaker intentionally produces a physical utterance, but at another level the utterance represents something. And the same duality infects the symbol itself. At one level, it is a physical object like any other. At another level, it has a meaning: it represents a type of a state of affairs" MSW p74 "...once you have language, it is inevitable that you will have deontology because there is no way you can make explicit speech acts performed according to the conventions of a language without creating commitments. This is true not just for statements but for all speech acts" MSW p82 This brings up another point that is prominent in W but denied by S, that all we can do is give descriptions and not a theory. S insists he is providing theories but of course "theory" and "description" are language games too and it seems to me S's theory is usually W's description-a rose by any other name.... W's point was that by sticking to perspicacious examples that we all know to be true accounts of our behavior, we avoid the quicksand of theories that try to account for ALL behavior (ALL language games), while S wants to generalize and inevitably goes astray (he gives several examples of his own mistakes in PNC). As S and others endlessly modify their theories to account for the multifarious language games they get closer and closer to describing behavior by way of numerous examples as did W. The Primary Language Games (PLG's) are the simple automated utterances by our involuntary, System 1, fast thinking, mirror neuron, true only, nonpropositional, mental statesour perceptions and memories and reflexive acts ('will') including System 1 Truths and UA1 --Understanding of Agency 1-- 96 and Emotions1such as joy, love, anger, which can be described causally, while the evolutionarily later Secondary Language Games (SLG's) are expressions or descriptions of voluntary, System 2, slow thinking, mentalizing neurons, testable true or false, propositional, Truth2 and UA2 and Emotions2joyfulness, loving, hating, the dispositional (and often counterfactual) imagining, supposing, intending, thinking, knowing, believing, etc., which can only be described in terms of reasons (i.e., it's a fact that attempts to describe System 2 in terms of neurochemistry, atomic physics, mathematics, just make no sense--see W for many examples and Searle for good disquisitions on this). It is not possible to describe the automatisms of System 1 in terms of reasons (e.g., `I see that as an apple because...') unless you want to give a reason in terms of EP, genetics, physiology, and as W has demonstrated repeatedly it is meaningless to give "explanations" with the proviso that they will make sense in the future--`Nothing is hidden'--they make sense now or never. A powerful heuristic is to separate behavior and experience into Intentionality 1 and Intentionality 2 (e.g., Thinking 1 and Thinking 2, Emotions 1 and Emotions 2 etc.) and even into Truths 1 (T only axioms) and Truths 2 (empirical extensions or "Theorems" which result from the logical extension of Truths 1). W recognized that Nothing is Hidden'--i.e., our whole psychology and all the answers to all philosophical questions are here in our language (our life) and that the difficulty is not to find the answers but to recognize them as always here in front of us--we just have to stop trying to look deeper. The ideas here are already published and nothing will come as a surprise to those who have kept up with Searle's work. I feel that W has a better grasp of the mind/language connection, as he regards them as synonymous in many contexts, and his work is a brilliant exposition of mind as exemplified in numerous perspicacious examples of language use. As quoted above, "Now if it is not the causal connections which we are concerned with, then the activities of the mind lie open before us." One can deny that any revision of our concepts (language games) of causation or free will are necessary or even possible. You can read just about any page of W for the reasons. It's one thing to say bizarre things about the world using examples from quantum mechanics, uncertainty etc., but it is another to say anything relevant to our normal use of words. 97 The deontic structures or 'social glue' are the automatic fast actions of S1 producing the slow dispositions of S2 which are inexorably expanded during personal development into a wide array of automatic unconscious universal cultural deontic relationships with others (S3). Though this is my précis of behavior I expect it fairly describes S's work. It seems quite obvious to me (as it was to W) that the mechanical view of mind exists for the same reason as nearly all behavior-it is the default operation of our EP which seeks explanations in terms of what we can deliberately think through slowly, rather than in the automated S1, of which we mostly remain oblivious (TPI). I find W's description of our axiomatic inherited psychology and its extensions in his OC and other 3rd period works to be deeper than S's (or anyone's), and so we are NOT 'confident' that dogs are conscious, but rather it is not open to (not possible to) doubt. Now let us review Searle's brilliant summary of his many years of work on the logical structure of the 'social glue' that holds society together as set forth is his 'Making the Social World' (2010). A critical notion introduced by S many years ago is Conditions of Satisfaction (COS) on our thoughts (propositions of S2) which W called inclinations or dispositions to act--still called by the inappropriate term 'propositional attitudes' by many. COS are explained by S in many places such as on p169 of PNC: "Thus saying something and meaning it involves two conditions of satisfaction. First, the condition of satisfaction that the utterance will be produced, and second, that the utterance itself shall have conditions of satisfaction." As S states it in PNC, "A proposition is anything at all that can determine a condition of satisfaction...and a condition of satisfaction... is that such and such is the case." Or, one needs to add, that might be or might have been or might be imagined to be the case, as he makes clear in MSW. Regarding intentions, "In order to be satisfied, the intention itself must function causally in the production of the action." (MSWp34). Most will benefit greatly from reading W's "On Certainty" or "RPP1 and 2" or DMS's two books on OC (see my reviews) as they make clear the difference between true-only sentences describing S1 and true or false propositions describing S2. This strikes me as a far superior approach to S's taking S1 perceptions as propositional (at least in some places in his work) since they can only become T or F (aspectual as S calls them here) after one begins thinking about them in S2. However, his point in PNC that propositions 98 permit statements of actual or potential truth and falsity, of past and future and fantasy, and thus provide a huge advance over pre or protolinguistic society, is cogent. S often describes the critical need to note the various levels of description of one event so for IA (Intention in Action) "We have different levels of description where one level is constituted by the behavior at the lower level...in addition to the constitutive by way of relation, we also have the causal by means of relation." (p37). So, recognizing the S1 is only upwardly causal and contentless (lacking representations or information) while S2 has content and is downwardly causal (e.g., see Hutto and Myin's 'Radical Enactivism') I would change the paragraphs from p39 beginning "In sum" and ending on pg 40 with "conditions of satisfaction" as follows. In sum, perception, memory and reflexive intentions and actions ('will') are caused by the automatic functioning of our S1 true-only axiomatic EP. Via prior intentions and intentions-in-action, we try to match how we desire things to be with how we think they are. We should see that belief, desire (and imagination-desires time shifted and so decoupled from intention) and other S2 propositional dispositions of our slow thinking later evolved second self, are totally dependent upon (have their COS in) the CSR rapid automatic primitive true only reflexive S1. In language and perhaps in neurophysiology there are intermediate or blended cases such as intending (prior intentions) or remembering, where the causal connection with COS (i.e., with S1) is time shifted, as they represent the past or the future, unlike S1 which is always in the present. The two systems feed into each other and are often orchestrated by the learned deontic cultural relations seamlessly, so that our normal experience is that we consciously control everything that we do. This vast arena of cognitive illusions that dominate our life S has described as 'The Phenomenological Illusion.' He ends this amazing chapter by repeating for maybe the 10th time in his writings, what I regard as a very basic mistake that he shares with nearly everyone-the notion that the experience of 'free will' may be 'illusory'. It follows in a very straightforward and inexorable fashion, both from W's 3rd period work and from the observations of contemporary psychology, that 'will', 'self' and 'consciousness' are axiomatic true-only elements of System 1 just like seeing, hearing, etc., and there is no possibility (intelligibility) of 99 demonstrating (of giving sense to) their falsehood. As W made so wonderfully clear numerous times, they are the basis for judgment and so cannot be judged. S understands and uses basically this same argument in other contexts (e.g., skepticism, solipsism) many times, so it is quite surprising he can't see this analogy. He makes this mistake frequently when he says such things as that we have "good evidence" that our dog is a dog etc. The true-only axioms of our psychology are not evidential. Here you have the best descriptive psychologist since W so this is not a stupid mistake. His summary of deontics on p50 needs translation. Thus "You have to have a prelinguistic form of collective intentionality, on which the linguistic forms are built, and you have to have the collective intentionality of the conversation in order to make the commitment" is much clearer if supplemented with "The prelinguistic axiomatics of S1 underlie the linguistic dispositions of S2 (i.e., our EP) which evolve during our maturation into their cultural manifestations." Since status function declarations play a central role in deontics it is critical to understand them and so he explains the notion of 'function' that is relevant here. "A function is a cause that serves a purpose...In this sense functions are intentionality-relative and therefore mind dependent...status functions... require... collective imposition and recognition of a status" (p59). Again, I suggest the translation of "The intentionality of language is created by the intrinsic, or mindindependent intentionality of human beings" (p66) as "The linguistic, conscious dispositionality of S2 is generated by the unconscious axiomatic reflexive functions of S1" (p68). That is, one must keep in mind that behavior is programmed by biology. However, I strongly object to his statements on p66-67 and elsewhere in his writings that S1 (i.e., memories, perceptions, reflex acts) has a propositional (i.e., true-false) structure. As I have noted above, and many times in other reviews, it seems crystal clear that W is correct, and it is basic to understanding behavior, that only S2 is propositional and S1 is axiomatic and true-only. They both have COS and Directions of Fit (DOF) because the genetic, axiomatic intentionality of S1 generates that of S2 but if S1 were propositional in the same sense it would mean that skepticism is intelligible, the chaos that was philosophy before W would return and in fact life would not be possible (no this is not a joke). As W showed countless times and biology shows so clearly, life must be based on certainty- automated 100 unconscious rapid reactions. Organisms that always have a doubt and pause to reflect will die. Contrary to his comments (p70) I cannot imagine a language lacking words for material objects any more than I can imagine a visual system that cannot see them, because it is the first and most basic task of vision to segment the world into objects and so that of language to describe them. Likewise, I cannot see any problem with objects being salient in the conscious field nor with sentences being segmented into words. How could it be otherwise for beings with our evolutionary history? On p72 and elsewhere, it will help to remember that expressions are the primitive reflexive PLG's of S1 while representations are the dispositional SLG's of S2. Another translation from Philosophese into English is needed for the second paragraph on p79 beginning 'So far' and ending 'heard before'. "We convey meaning by speaking a public language composed of words in sentences with a syntax." To his questions 4 and 5 on p105 as to the special nature of language and writing, I would answer: 'They are special because the short wavelength of vibrations of vocal muscles enable much higher bandwidth information transfer than contractions of other muscles and this is on average several orders of magnitude higher for visual information.' On p106, a general answer to question 2 (How do we get away with it-i.e., why does it work) is EP and S1 and his statement that "My main strategy of exposition in this book is to try to make the familiar seem strange and striking" is of course classic Wittgenstein. His claim on the next page that there is no general answer to why people accept institutions is clearly wrong. They accept them for the same reason they do everything-their EP is the result of inclusive fitness. It facilitated survival and reproduction in the EEA (Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation). Everything about us physically and mentally bottoms out in genetics. All the vague talk here (e.g., p114) about 'extralinguistic conventions' and 'extra semantical semantics' is in fact referring to EP and especially to the unconscious automatisms of S1 which are the basis for all behavior. Yes, as W said many times, the most familiar is for that reason invisible. 101 S's suggestion (p115) that language is essential to games is surely mistaken. Totally illiterate deaf-mutes could play cards, soccer and even chess but of course a minimal counting ability would be necessary. I agree (p121) that the ability to pretend and imagine (e.g., the counterfactual or as-if notions involved in time and space shifting) are, in full form, uniquely human abilities and critical to higher order thought. But even here there are many animal precursors (as there must be), such as the posturing of ritual combats and mating dances, the decoration of mating sites by bower birds, the broken wing pretense of mother birds, fake alarm calls of monkeys, 'cleaner' fish that take a bite out of their prey and simulation of hawk and dove strategies (cheaters) in many animals. More translation is needed for his discussion of rationality (p126 et seq.). Saying that thinking is propositional and deals with true or false 'factitive entities' means that it is a typical S2 disposition which can be tested, as opposed to the true-only automatic cognitive functions of S1. In 'Free Will, Rationality and Institutional Facts' he updates parts of his classic book 'Rationality in Action' and creates some new terminology for describing the formal apparatus of practical reasons which I do not find felicitous. "Factitive Entities' do not seem different from dispositions and 'motivator' (desire or obligation), 'effector' (body muscles), 'constitutor' (speech muscles) and 'total reason' (all relevant dispositions) do not, at least here seem to add to clarity (p126-132). We should do something here that rarely happens in discussions of human behavior and remind ourselves of its biology. Evolution by inclusive fitness has programmed the unconscious rapid reflexive causal actions of S1 which often give rise to the conscious slow thinking of S2 (often modified by the cultural extensions of S3), which produces reasons for action that often result in activation of body and/or speech muscles by S1 causing actions. The general mechanism is via both neurotransmission and by changes in various neuromodulators in targeted areas of the brain. This may seem infelicitous as well, but has the virtue that it is based on fact, and given the complexity of our higher order thought, I don't think a general description is going to get much simpler. The overall cognitive illusion (called by S 'The Phenomenological Illusion') is that S2 has generated the action consciously for reasons of which we are fully aware and in control of, but anyone familiar with modern biology and psychology knows this view is not credible. 102 Again, I will repeat some crucial notions. Another idea clarified by S is the Desire Independent Reasons for Action (DIRA). I would translate S's summary of practical reason on p127 of MSW as follows: "We yield to our desires (need to alter brain chemistry), which typically include Desire Independent Reasons for Action (DIRA--i.e., desires displaced in space and time), which produce dispositions to behavior that commonly result sooner or later in muscle movements that serve our inclusive fitness (increased survival for genes in ourselves and those closely related)." And I would restate his description on p129 of how we carry out DIRA2 as "The resolution of the paradox is that the unconscious DIRA1 serving long term inclusive fitness generate the conscious DIRA2 which often override the short term personal immediate desires." Agents do indeed consciously create the proximate reasons of DIRA2, but these are very restricted extensions of unconscious DIRA1 (the ultimate cause). Obama and the Pope wish to help the poor because it is "right" but the ultimate cause is a change in their brain chemistry that increased the inclusive fitness of their distant ancestors. Evolution by inclusive fitness has programmed the unconscious rapid reflexive causal actions of S1 which often give rise to the conscious slow thinking of S2, which produces reasons for action that often result in activation of body and/or speech muscles by S1 causing actions. The general mechanism is via both neurotransmission and by changes in neuromodulators in targeted areas of the brain. The overall cognitive illusion (called by S `The Phenomenological Illusion', by Pinker `The Blank Slate' and by Tooby and Cosmides `The Standard Social Science Model') is that S2 has generated the action consciously for reasons of which we are fully aware and in control of, but anyone familiar with modern biology and psychology can see that this view is not credible. Thus, I would translate his summary of practical reason on p127 as follows: "We yield to our desires (need to alter brain chemistry), which typically include Desire –Independent Reasons for Action (DIRA- i.e., desires displaced in space and time, most often for reciprocal altruism), which produce dispositions to behavior that commonly result sooner or later in muscle movements that serve our inclusive fitness (increased survival for genes in ourselves and those closely related)." Contrary to S's comment on p128 I think if suitably defined, DIRA are universal in higher animals and not at all unique to humans (think mother hen defending her brood from a fox) if we include the automated 103 prelinguistic reflexes of S1 (i.e., DIRA1), but certainly the higher order DIRA of S2 or DIRA2 that require language are uniquely human. This seems to me an alternative and clearer description of his "explanation" (as W suggested these are much better called 'description') on the bottom of p129 of the paradox of how we can voluntarily carry out DIRA2 (i.e., the S2 desires and their cultural extensions). That is, "The resolution of the paradox is that the recognition of desire-independent reasons can ground the desire and thus cause the desire, even though it is not logically inevitable that they do and not empirically universal that they do" can be translated as "The resolution of the paradox is that the unconscious DIRA1 serving long term inclusive fitness generate the conscious DIRA2 which often override the short term personal immediate desires." Likewise, for his discussion of this issue on p130-31-it is EP, RA, IF, S1 (Evolutionary Psychology, Reciprocal Altruism, Inclusive Fitness, System 1) which ground the dispositions and ensuing actions ofS2. On p140 he asks why we can't get deontics from biology but of course we must get them from biology as there is no other option and the above description shows how this happens. Contrary to his statement, the strongest inclinations DO always prevail (by definition, otherwise it is not the strongest), but deontics works because the innate programming of RA and IF override immediate personal short term desires. His confusion of nature and nurture, of S1 and S2, extends to conclusions 2 and 3 on p143. Agents do indeed create the proximate reasons of DIRA2, but these are not just anything but, with few if any exceptions, very restricted extensions of DIRA1 (the ultimate cause). If he really means to ascribe deontics to our conscious decisions alone then he is prey to 'The Phenomenological Illusion'(TPI) which he so beautifully demolished in his classic paper of that name (see my review of PNC). As I have noted above, there is a huge body of recent research exposing cognitive illusions which comprise our personality. TPI is not merely a harmless philosophical error but a universal obliviousness to our biology which produces the illusion that we control our life and our society and the world and the consequences are almost certain collapse of industrial civilization during the next 150 years. He notes correctly that human rationality makes no sense without the 'gap' (actually 3 gaps which he has discussed many times). That is, without free will (i.e., choice) in some non-trivial sense it would all be pointless, and he has rightly noted that it is inconceivable that evolution could create and maintain an unnecessary genetically and energetically expensive charade. 104 But, like nearly everyone else, he cannot see his way out and so once again he suggests (p133) that choice may be an illusion. On the contrary, following W, it is quite clear that choice is part of our axiomatic S1 true-only reflexive actions and cannot be questioned without contradiction as S1 is the basis for questioning. You cannot doubt you are reading this page as your awareness of it is the basis for doubting. Now lets us briefly review Searle's most recent book, 'Seeing Things As They Are' (STATA-2015). See the full review for further comments. As one expects from any philosophy, we are in deep trouble immediately, for on page 4 we have the terms 'perception' and 'object' as though they were used is some normal sense but we are doing philosophy so we are going to be undulating back and forth between language games have no chance of keeping our day to day games distinct from the various philosophical ones. Again, you can read some of Bennett and Hacker's 'Neuroscience and Philosophy' or 'Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience' to get a feel for this. Sadly, like nearly all philosophers, Searle (S) has still not adopted the two systems framework, so it's much harder to keep things straight than it needs to be. On p6, Believing and Asserting are part of system 2 which is linguistic, deliberative, slow, with no precise time of occurrence and 'it is raining' is their public Condition of Satisfaction (COS2) (Wittgenstein's transitive) –i.e., it is propositional and representational and not a mental state and we can only intelligibly describe it in terms of reasons , while Visual Experience (VisExp) is system 1 and so requires (for intelligibility, for sanity) that it be raining (it's COS1) and has a determinate time of occurrence, is fast (typically under 500msec ), nontestable (Wittgenstein's true-only), and nonpublic, automatic and not linguistic i.e., not propositional and presentational and only describable in terms of causes of a mental state. In spite of this on p7 after crushing the horrific (but still quite popular) term 'propositional attitude', he says that perception has propositional content, but I agree with W that S1 is true-only and hence cannot be propositional in anything like the sense of S2 where propositions are public statements (COS) that are true or false. On p12 keep in mind that he is describing the automaticity of System 1 (S1), and then he notes that to describe the world we can only repeat the description which W noted as showing the limits of language. The last sentence on to the end of the paragraph middle of p13 needs translating (like 105 most of philosophy!) so for "The subjective experience has a content, which philosophers call an intentional content and the specification of the intentional content is the same as the description of the state of affairs that the intentional content presents you with etc." I would say 'Perceptions are System 1 mental states that can only be described in the public language of System 2." And when he ends by noting again the equivalence of a description of believing with that of a description of our perception, he is repeating what W noted long ago and which is due to the fact that S1 is nonlinguistic and that describing, believing, knowing, expecting, etc. are all different psychological or intentional modes or language games played with the same words. On p23 he refers to private 'experiences' but words are S2 and describe public events, so what warrants our use of the word for 'private experiences' (i.e., S1) can only be their public manifestations (S2) -i.e., language we all use to describe public acts as even for myself I cannot have any way to attach language to something internal. This is of course W's argument against the possibility of a private language. He also mentions several times that hallucinations of X are the same as seeing X but what can be the test for this except that we are inclined to use the same words? In this case, they are the same by definition so this argument rings hollow. On p35 top he again correctly attacks the use of 'propositional attitude' which is not an attitude to a sentence but an attitude (disposition) to its public COS, i.e., to the fact or truthmaker. Then he says "For example, if I see a man in front of me, the content is that there is a man in front of me. The object is the man himself. If I am having a corresponding hallucination, the perceptual experience has a content, but no object. The content can be exactly the same in the two cases, but the presence of a content does not imply the presence of an object." The way I see this is that the 'object' is normally in the world and creates the mental state (S1) and if we put this in words it becomes S2 with COS2 (i.e., a public truthmaker) and this does entail the public object, but for an hallucination (or direct brain stimulation etc.) the 'object' is only the similar mental state resulting from brain activation. As W showed us, the big mistake is not about understanding perception but about understanding language-all the problems of philosophy proper are exactly the same-failure to look carefully at how the language works in a particular context so as to yield clear COS. 106 Middle of p61 we see the confusions that arise here and everywhere when we fail to keep S1 and S2 separate. Either we must not refer to representations in S1 or we must at least call them R1 and realize they have no public COS-i.e., no COS2. On p63 nondetachability only means that it is a caused automatic function of S1 and not a reasoned, voluntary function of S2. This discussion continues onto the next page, but of course is relevant to the whole book and to all of philosophy, and it is so unfortunate that Searle, and nearly all in the behavioral sciences, cannot get into the 21st century and use the two systems terminology which renders so many opaque issues very clear. Likewise with the failure to grasp that it's always just a matter of whether it's a scientific issue or a philosophical one and if philosophical then which language game is going to be played and what the COS are in the context in question. On p64 he says the 'experience' is in his head but that is just the issue-as W made so clear there is no private language and as Bennett and Hacker take the whole neuroscience community to task for, in normal use 'experience' can only be a public phenomenon for which we share criteria, but what is the test for my having an experience in my head? At the least, there is an ambiguity here which will lead to others. Many think these don't matter, many think they do. Something happens in the brain but that's a scientific neurophysiological issue and certainly by 'experience' or by 'I saw a rabbit' one never means the neurophysiology. Clearly this is not a matter for investigation but one of using words intelligibly. On p65 indexical, nondetachable, and presentational are just more philosophical jargon used instead of System 1 by people who have not adopted the two systems framework for describing behavior (i.e., nearly everyone). Likewise, for the following pages if we realize that 'objects and states of affairs', 'visual experiences', 'fully determinate' etc., are just language games where we have to decide what the COS are and that if we just keep in mind the properties of S1 and S2 all of this becomes quite clear and Searle and everyone else could stop 'struggling to express' it. Thus (p69) 'reality is determinate' only means that perceptions are S1 and so mental states, here and now, automatic, causal, untestable (true-only) etc. while beliefs, like all dispositions are S2 and so not mental states, do not have a definite time, have reasons and not causes, are testable with COS etc. On p70 he notes that intentions in action of perception (IA1 in my terms) are 107 part of the reflexive acts of S1 (A1 in my terms) which may originate in S2 acts which have become reflexive (S2A in my terminology). On the bottom of p74 onto p75, 500 msec is often taken as the approximate dividing line between seeing (S1) and seeing as (S2) which means S1 passes the percept to higher cortical centers of S2 where they can be deliberated upon and expressed in language. On p100-101 the 'subjective visual field' is S2 and 'objective visual field' is S1 and 'nothing is seen' in S2 means we don't play the language game of seeing in the same sense as for S1 and indeed philosophy and a good chunk of science (e.g., physics) would be different if people realized they were playing language games and not doing science. On p107 'perception is transparent' because language is S2 and S1 has no language as it's automatic and reflexive so when saying what I saw or to describe what I saw I can only say "I saw a cat". Once again W pointed this out long ago as showing the limits of language. P110 middle needs to be translated from SearleSpeak into TwoSystemsSpeak so that "Because presentational visual intentionality is a subspecies of representation, and because all representation is under aspects, the visual presentations will always present their conditions of satisfaction under some aspects and not others." becomes "Because the percepts of S1 present their data to S2, which has public COS, we can speak of S1 as though it also has public COS". On p111 the 'condition' refers to the public COS of S2, i.e., the events which make the statement true or false and 'lower order' and 'higher order' refer to S1 and S2. On p112 the basic action and basic perception are isomorphic because S1 feeds its data to S2, which can only generate actions by feeding back to S1 to contract muscles, and lower level perception and higher level perception can only be described in the same terms due to there being only one language to describe S1 and S2. On p117 bottom it would be much less mysterious if he would adopt the two systems framework, so that instead of "internal connection" with conditions of satisfaction (my COS1), a perception would just be noted as the automaticity of S1 which causes a mental state. On p120 the point is that 'causal chains' have no explanatory power because the language games of 'cause' only make sense in S1 or other non- 108 psychological phenomena of nature, whereas semantics is S2 and we can only intelligibly speak of reasons for higher order human behavior. One way this manifests is 'meaning is not in the head' which enmeshes us in other language games. On p121 to say it's essential to a perception (S1) that it has COS1 ('the experience') merely describes the conditions of the language game of perception-it is an automatic causal mental state. On p 122 I think "First, for something to be red in the ontologically objective world is for it to be capable of causing ontologically subjective visual experiences like this." is not coherent as there is nothing to which we can refer 'this' so it should be stated as "First, for something to be red is just for it to incline me to call it 'red' "-as usual, the jargon does not help at all and the rest of the paragraph is unnecessary as well. On p123 the 'background disposition" is the automatic, causal, mental state of S1 and as I, in agreement with W, DMS and others have said many times these cannot intelligibly be called 'presuppositions' as they are unconsciously activated 'hinges' that are the basis for presuppositions. Section VII and VIII (or the whole book or most of higher order behavior or most of philosophy in the narrow sense ) could be titled "The language games describing the interaction of the causal, automatic, nonlinguistic transient mental states of S1 with the reasoned, conscious, persistent linguistic thinking of S2" and the background is not suppositional nor can it be taken for granted but it is our axiomatic true-only psychology (the 'hinges" or 'ways of acting' of W's 'On Certainty') that underlie all suppositions. As is evident from my comments I think the whole section, lacking the two systems framework and W's insights in OC is confused in supposing it presents an "explanation" of perception where it can at best only describe how the language of perception works in various contexts. We can only describe how the word 'red' is used and that's the end of it and for the last sentence of this section we might say that for something to be a 'red apple' is only for it to normally result in the same words being used by everyone. Speaking of hinges, it is sad and a bit strange that Searle has not incorporated what many (e.g., DMS an eminent contemporary philosopher and leading W expert) regard as maybe the greatest discovery in modern philosophy-W's revolutionizing of epistemology in his 'On Certainty' as nobody can do 109 philosophy or psychology in the old way anymore without looking antiquated. And though Searle almost entirely ignored 'On Certainty' his whole career, in 2009 (i.e., 6 years before publication of this book) he spoke at a symposium on it held by the British Wittgenstein Society and hosted by DMS, so he is certainly aware of the view that has revolutionized the very topics he is discussing here. I don't think this meeting was published, but his lecture can be downloaded from Vimeo. It seems to be a case of an old dog who can't learn new tricks. Though he has probably pioneered more new territory in the descriptive psychology of higher order behavior than anyone since Wittgenstein, once he has learned a path he tends to stay on it, as we all do. Like everyone, he uses the French word repertoire when there is an easier to pronounce and spell English word 'repertory' and the awkward 'he/she' or reverse sexist 'she' when one can always use 'they' or 'them'. In spite of their higher intelligence and education, academics are sheep too. Section IX to the end of the chapter shows again the very opaque and awkward language games one is forced into when trying to describe (not explain as W made clear) the properties of S1 (i.e., to play the language games used to describe 'primary qualities') and how these feed data into S2 (i.e., secondary qualities'), which then has to feed back to S1 to generate actions. It also shows the errors one commits by failing to grasp Wittgenstein's unique view of 'hinge epistemology' presented in "On Certainty". To show how much clearer this is with the dual system terminology I would have to rewrite the whole chapter (and much of the book). Since I have rewritten sections here several times, and often in my reviews of Searle's other books, I will only give a couple brief examples. The sentence on p129 "Reality is not dependent on experience, but conversely. The concept of the reality in question already involves the causal capacity to produce certain sorts of experiences. So, the reason that these experiences present red objects is that the very fact of being a red object involves a capacity to produce this sort of experience. Being a straight line involves the capacity to produce this other sort of experience. The upshot is that organisms cannot have these experiences without it seeming to them that they are seeing a red object or a straight line, and that "seeming to them" marks the intrinsic intentionality of the perceptual experience." Can be rendered as "S1 provides the input for S2 and the way we use the word 'red' mandates it's COS in each context, so using these words in a particular way is what it means to see red. In the normal case, it does not 'seem' to us that we see red, we just see red and we use 'seem to" to describe cases where we 110 are in doubt." On p130 "Our question now is: Is there an essential connection between the character of things in the world and the character of our experience?" can be translated as "Are our public language games (S2) useful (consistent) in the description of perception (S1)?" The first paragraph of Section X 'The Backward Road' is perhaps the most important one in the book, as it is critical for all of philosophy to understand that there cannot be a precise 1:1 connection between or reduction of S2 to S1 due to the many ways of describing in language a given event (mental state, i.e., percept, memory etc.). Hence the apparent impossibility of capturing behavior in algorithms (the hopelessness of 'strong AI') or of extrapolating from a given neuronal pattern in the brain to the multitudinous acts (language games) we use to describe it. The 'Backward Road' is the language (COS) of S2 used to describe S1. Again, I think his failure to use the two systems framework renders this quite confusing if not opaque. Of course, he shares this failing with nearly everyone. Searle has commented on this before and so have others (e.g., Hacker) but it seems to have escaped most philosophers and almost all scientists. Again, Searle misses the point in Sect XI and X12 –we do not and cannot 'seem to see' red or 'seem' to have a memory or 'assume' a relation between the experience and the word, but as with all the perceptions and memories that constitute the innate axiomatic true-only mental states of System 1, we just have the experience and "it" only becomes 'red' etc., when described in public language with this word in this context by System 2. We know it's red as this is a hinge-an axiom of our psychology that is our automatic action and is the basis for assumptions or judgements or presuppositions and cannot intelligibly be judged, tested or altered. As W pointed out so many times, a mistake in S1 is of an entirely different kind than one in S2. No explanations are possible-we can only describe how it works and so there is no possibility of getting a nontrivial "explanation" of our psychology. As he always has, Searle makes the common and fatal mistake of thinking he understands behavior (language) better than Wittgenstein. After a decade reading W, S and many others I find that W's 'perspicuous examples' , aphorisms and trialogues usually provide greater illumination than the wordy disquisitions of anyone else. "We may not advance any kind of theory, there must not be anything 111 hypothetical in our considerations. We must do away with all explanation, and description alone must take it's place." (PI 109). On p135, one way to describe perception is that the event or object causes a pattern of neuronal activation (mental state) whose self-reflexive COS1 is that we see a red rose in front of us, and in appropriate contexts for a normal English speaking person, this leads us to activate muscle contractions which produces the words 'I see a red rose' whose COS2 is that there is a red rose there. Or simply, S1 produces S2 in appropriate contexts. So, on p136 we can say S1 leads to S2 which we express in this context by the word 'smooth' which describes (but never 'explains') how the language game of 'smooth' works in this context and we can translate "For basic actions and basic perceptions the intentional content is internally related to the conditions of satisfaction, even though it is characterized nonintentionalistically, because being the feature F perceived consists in the ability to cause experiences of that type. And in the case of action, experiences of that type consist in their ability to cause that sort of bodily movement." as "Basic perceptions (S1) can lead automatically (internally) to basic reflex actions (A1) (i.e., burning a finger leads to withdrawing the arm) which only then enters awareness so that it can be reflected upon and described in language (S2). On p150, the point is that inferring, like knowing, judging, thinking, is an S2 disposition expressed in language with public COS that are informational (true or false) while percepts are non-informational (see my review of Hutto and Myin's book) automated responses of S1 and there is no meaningful way to play a language game of inferring in S1. Trees and everything we see is S1 for a few hundred msec or so and then normally enter S2 where they get language attached (aspectual shape or seeing as). Regarding p151 et seq., it is sad that Searle, as part of his lack of attention to the later W, never seems to refer to what is probably the most penetrating analysis of color words in W's "Remarks on Colour', which is missing from nearly every discussion of the subject I have seen. The only issue is how do we play the game with color words and with 'same', 'different', 'experience 'etc. in this public linguistic context (true or false statements-COS2) because there is no language and no meaning in a private one (S1). So, it does not matter (except to neuroscientists) what happens in the mental states of S1 but only what we say about them when they enter S2. It's clear as day that all 7.6 billion on earth have a slightly different pattern of neural activation every time they see red and that there is no possibility for a perfect correlation 112 between S1 and S2. As I noted above it is absolutely critical for every philosopher and scientist to get this clear. Regarding the brain in a vat (p157), insofar as we disrupt or eliminate the normal relations of S1 and S2, we lose the language games of intentionality. The same applies to intelligent machines and W described this situation definitively over 80 years ago. "Only of a living being and what resembles (behaves like) a living human being can one say: it has sensations; it sees; is blind; hears; is deaf; is conscious or unconscious." (PI 281) Chapter 6: yes disjunctivism (like nearly all philosophical theses) is incoherent and the fact that this and other absurdities flourish in his own department and even among some of his former students who got top marks in his Philosophy of Mind classes shows perhaps that, like most, he stopped too soon in his Wittgenstein studies. On p188, yes veridical seeing and 'knowing' (i.e., K1) are the same since S1 is true-onlyi.e., it is the fast, axiomatic, causally self-reflexive, automatic mental states which can only be described with the slow, deliberative public language games of S2. On p204 -5,,representation is always under an aspect since, like thinking, knowing etc., it is a disposition of S2 with public COS, which is infinitely variable. Once again, I think the use of the two systems framework greatly simplifies the discussion. If one insists to use 'representation' for 'presentations' of S1 then one should say that R1 have COS1 which are transient neurophysiological mental states, and so totally different from R2, which have COS2 (aspectual shapes) that are public, linguistically expressible states of affairs, and the notion of unconscious mental states is illegitimate since such language games lack any clear sense. Sadly, on p211 Searle for maybe the tenth time in his writings (and endlessly in his lectures) says that 'free will' may be illusory, but as W from the 30's on noted, one cannot coherently deny or judge the 'hinges' such as our having choice, nor that we see, hear, sleep, have hands etc., as these words express the true-only axioms of our psychology, our automatic behaviors that are the basis for action 113 On p219 bottom and 222 top-it was W in his work, culminating in 'On Certainty' who pointed out that behavior cannot have an evidentiary basis and that its foundation is our animal certainty or way of behaving that is the basis of doubt and certainty and cannot be doubted (the hinges of S1). He also noted many times that a 'mistake' in our basic perceptions (S1) which has no public COS and cannot be tested (unlike those of S2), if it is major or persists, leads not to further testing but to insanity. Phenomenalism p227 top: See my extensive comments on Searle's excellent essay 'The Phenomenological Illusion' in my review of 'Philosophy in a New Century'. There is not even any warrant for referring to one's private experiences as 'phenomena', 'seeing' or anything else. As W famously showed us, language can only be a public testable activity (no private language). And on p230 the problem is not that the 'theory' 'seems' to be inadequate, but that (like most if not all philosophical theories) it is incoherent. It uses language that has no clear COS. As W insisted all we can do is describe-it is the scientists who can make theories. The bottom line is that this is classic Searle-superb and probably at least as good as anyone else can produce, but lacking understanding of the fundamental insights of the later Wittgenstein, and with no grasp of the two systems of thought framework, which could have made it brilliant. Finally, permit me to again note that W posed an interesting resolution to some of these 'puzzles' by suggesting that some 'mental phenomena' (i.e., words for dispositions leading to public acts) may originate in chaotic processes in the brain and that there is not anything corresponding to a memory trace, nor to a single brain process identifiable as a single intention or action--that the causal chain ends without a trace, and that 'cause', 'event' and 'time' cease to be applicable (useful-having clear COS). Subsequently, many have made similar suggestions based on physics and the sciences of complexity and chaos. One must however recall that 'chaotic' in the modern sense means determined by laws, but not predictable, and that the science of chaos did not exist until long after his death. 114 Review of Making the Social World by John Searle (2010) Michael Starks ABSTRACT Before commenting in detail on making the Social World (MSW) I will first offer some comments on philosophy (descriptive psychology) and its relationship to contemporary psychological research as exemplified in the works of Searle (S) and Wittgenstein (W), since I feel that this is the best way to place Searle or any commentator on behavior, in proper perspective. It will help greatly to see my reviews of PNC, TLP, PI, OC, TARW and other books by these two geniuses of descriptive psychology. S makes no reference to W's prescient statement of mind as mechanism in TLP, and his destruction of it in his later work. Since W, S has become the principal deconstructor of these mechanical views of behavior, and the most important descriptive psychologist (philosopher), but does not realize how completely W anticipated him nor, by and large, do others (but see the many papers and books of Proudfoot and Copeland on W, Turing and AI). S's work is vastly easier to follow than W's, and though there is some jargon, it is mostly spectacularly clear if you approach it from the right direction. See my reviews of W S and other books for more details. Overall, MSW is a good summary of the many substantial advances over Wittgenstein resulting from S's half century of work, but in my view, W still is unequaled for basic psychology once you grasp what he is saying (see my reviews). Ideally, they should be read together: Searle for the clear coherent prose and generalizations on the operation of S2/S3, illustrated with W's perspicacious examples of the operation of S1/S2, and his brilliant aphorisms. If I were much younger I would write a book doing exactly that. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book 'The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017' (2017). 115 "But I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness: nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false." Wittgenstein OC 94 "Now if it is not the causal connections which we are concerned with, then the activities of the mind lie open before us." Wittgenstein "The Blue Book" p6 (1933) "Nonsense, Nonsense, because you are making assumptions instead of simply describing. If your head is haunted by explanations here, you are neglecting to remind yourself of the most important facts." Wittgenstein Z 220 "Philosophy simply puts everything before us and neither explains nor deduces anything...One might give the name `philosophy' to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions." Wittgenstein PI 126 "What we are supplying are really remarks on the natural history of man, not curiosities; however, but rather observations on facts which no one has doubted and which have only gone unremarked because they are always before our eyes." Wittgenstein RFM I p142 "The aim of philosophy is to erect a wall at the point where language stops anyway."Wittgenstein Philosophical Occasions p187 "The greatest danger here is wanting to observe oneself." LWPP1, 459 "The limit of language is shown by its being impossible to describe a fact which corresponds to (is the translation of) a sentence without simply repeating the sentence (this has to do with the Kantian solution to the problem of philosophy)." Wittgenstein CV p10 (1931) "But you cannot explain a physical system such as a typewriter or a brain by identifying a pattern which it shares with its computational simulation, because the existence of the pattern does not explain how the system actually works as a physical system. ...In sum, the fact that the attribution of syntax identifies no further causal powers is fatal to the claim that programs provide causal explanations of cognition... There is just a physical mechanism, the brain, with its various real physical and physical/mental causal levels of description." Searle Philosophy in a New Century (PNC) p101-103 "Can there be reasons for action which are binding on a rational agent just in 116 virtue of the nature of the fact reported in the reason statement, and independently of the agent's desires, values, attitudes and evaluations? ...The real paradox of the traditional discussion is that it tries to pose Hume's guillotine, the rigid fact-value distinction, in a vocabulary, the use of which already presupposes the falsity of the distinction." Searle PNC p165171 "...all status functions and hence all of institutional reality, with the exception of language, are created by speech acts that have the logical form of Declarations...the forms of the status function in question are almost invariably matters of deontic powers...to recognize something as a right, duty, obligation, requirement and so on is to recognize a reason for action...these deontic structures make possible desire-independent reasons for action...The general point is very clear: the creation of the general field of desire-based reasons for action presupposed the acceptance of a system of desire-independent reasons for action." Searle PNC p34-49 "Some of the most important logical features of intentionality are beyond the reach of phenomenology because they have no immediate phenomenological reality... Because the creation of meaningfulness out of meaninglessness is not consciously experienced...it does not exist...This is... the phenomenological illusion." Searle PNC p115-117 "Consciousness is causally reducible to brain processes...and consciousness has no causal powers of its own in addition to the causal powers of the underlying neurobiology...But causal reducibility does not lead to ontological reducibility...consciousness only exists as experienced...and therefore it cannot be reduced to something that has a third person ontology, something that exists independently of experiences." Searle PNC 155-6 "...the basic intentional relation between the mind and the world has to do with conditions of satisfaction. And a proposition is anything at all that can stand in an intentional relation to the world, and since those intentional relations always determine conditions of satisfaction, and a proposition is defined as anything sufficient to determine conditions of satisfactions, it turns out that all intentionality is a matter of propositions." Searle PNC p193 "So, status functions are the glue that hold society together. They are created by collective intentionality and they function by carrying deontic powers...With the important exception of language itself, all of institutional 117 reality and therefor in a sense all of human civilization is created by speech acts that have the logical form of Declarations...all of human institutional reality is created and maintained in existence by (representations that have the same logical form as) Status Function Declarations, including the cases that are not speech acts in the explicit form of Declarations." Searle MSW p11-13 "Beliefs, like statements, have the downward or mind (or word)-to-world direction of fit. And desires and intentions, like orders and promises, have the upward or world-to-mind (or word) direction of fit. Beliefs or perceptions, like statements, are supposed to represent how things are in the world, and in that sense, they are supposed to fit the world; they have the mind-to-world direction of fit. The conative-volitional states such as desires, prior intentions and intentions-in-action, like orders and promises, have the world-to-mind direction of fit. They are not supposed to represent how things are but how we would like them to be or how we intend to make them be...In addition to these two faculties, there is a third, imagination, in which the propositional content is not supposed to fit reality in the way that the propositional contents of cognition and volition are supposed to fit...the world-relating commitment is abandoned and we have a propositional content without any commitment that it represent with either direction of fit." Searle MSW p15 "Just as in intentional states we can make a distinction between the type of state ...and the content of the state...so in the theory of language we can make a distinction between the type of speech act it is...and the propositional content...we have the same propositional content with different psychological mode in the case of the intentional states, and different illocutionary force or type in the case of the speech acts. Furthermore, just as my beliefs can be true or false and thus have the mind-to-world direction of fit, so my statements can be true or false and thus have the word-to-world direction of fit. And just as my desires or intentions cannot be true or false but can be in various ways satisfied or unsatisfied, so my orders and promises cannot be true or false but can be in various ways satisfied or unsatisfied- we can think of all the intentional states that have a whole propositional content and a direction of fit as representations of their conditions of satisfaction. A belief represents its truth conditions, a desire represents its fulfillment conditions, an intention represents its carrying out conditions...The intentional state represents its conditions of satisfaction...people erroneously suppose that every mental representation 118 must be consciously thought...but the notion of a representation as I am using it is a functional and not an ontological notion. Anything that has conditions of satisfaction, that can succeed or fail in a way that is characteristic of intentionality, is by definition a representation of its conditions of satisfaction...we can analyze the structure of the intentionality of social phenomena by analyzing their conditions of satisfaction." Searle MSW p2832 "The first four types of speech acts have exact analogues in intentional states: corresponding to Assertives are beliefs, corresponding to Directives are desires, corresponding to Commissives are intentions and corresponding to Expressives is the whole range of emotions and other intentional states where the Presup fit is taken for granted. But there is no prelinguistic analog for the Declarations. Prelinguistic intentional states cannot create facts in the world by representing those facts as already existing. This remarkable feat requires a language" MSW p69 "Speaker meaning... is the imposition of conditions of satisfaction on conditions of satisfaction. The capacity to do this is a crucial element of human cognitive capacities. It requires the ability to think on two levels at once, in a way that is essential for the use of language. At one level, the speaker intentionally produces a physical utterance, but at another level the utterance represents something. And the same duality infects the symbol itself. At one level, it is a physical object like any other. At another level, it has a meaning: it represents a type of a state of affairs" MSW p74 "...once you have language, it is inevitable that you will have deontology because there is no way you can make explicit speech acts performed according to the conventions of a language without creating commitments. This is true not just for statements but for all speech acts" MSW p82 These quotes are not chosen at random but (along with the others in my reviews of books by these two geniuses) are a précis of behavior from our two greatest descriptive psychologists. Before commenting in detail on Making the Social World (MSW) I will first offer some comments on philosophy (descriptive psychology) and its relationship to contemporary psychological research as exemplified in the works of Searle (S) and Wittgenstein (W), since I feel that this is the best way to place Searle or any commentator on behavior, in proper perspective. It will 119 help greatly to see my reviews of PNC, TLP, PI, OC,TARW and other books by these two geniuses of descriptive psychology,To say that Searle has carried on W's work is not to say that it is a direct result of W study, but rather that because there is only ONE human psychology (for the same reason there is only ONE human cardiology), that anyone accurately describing behavior must be voicing some variant or extension of what W said (as they must if they are both giving correct descriptions of behavior). I find most of S foreshadowed in W, including versions of the famous Chinese room argument against Strong AI and related issues which are the subjects of Chaps 3-5. Incidentally, if the Chinese Room interests you then you should read Victor Rodych's xlnt, but virtually unknown, supplement on the CR-- "Searle Freed of Every Flaw." S makes no reference to W's prescient statement of mind as mechanism in TLP, and his destruction of it in his later work. Since W, S has become the principal deconstructor of these mechanical views of behavior, and the most important descriptive psychologist (philosopher), but does not realize how completely W anticipated him nor, by and large, do others (but see the many papers and books of Proudfoot and Copeland on W, Turing and AI). S's work is vastly easier to follow than W's, and though there is some jargon, it is mostly spectacularly clear if you approach it from the right direction. See my reviews of W S and other books for more details. Wittgenstein is for me easily the most brilliant thinker on human behavior. His work as a whole shows that all behavior is an extension of innate trueonly axioms and that our conscious ratiocination (System 2) (S2) emerges from unconscious machinations (System 1) (S1) and is extended logically into culture (System 3(S3). See "On Certainty"(OC) for his final extended treatment of this idea-and my review thereof for preparation. His corpus can be seen as the foundation for all description of animal behavior, revealing how the mind works and indeed must work. The "must" is entailed by the fact that all brains share a common ancestry and common genes and so there is only one basic way they work, that this necessarily has an axiomatic structure, that all higher animals share the same evolved psychology based on inclusive fitness, and that in humans this is extended into a personality (a cognitive or phenomenological illusion) based on throat muscle contractions (language) that evolved to manipulate others (with variations that can be regarded as trivial). Arguably, all of W's and S's work is a development of or variation on these ideas. Another major theme here, and of course in all discussion of human 120 behavior, is the need to separate the genetically programmed automatisms, which underlie all behavior, from the effects of culture. Though few philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists etc., explicitly discuss this in a comprehensive way, it can be seen as the major problem they are dealing with. I suggest it will prove of the greatest value to consider all study of higher order behavior as an effort to tease apart not only fast and slow thinking (e.g., perceptions and other automatisms vs. dispositionsS1 and S2--see below), but the logical extensions of S2 into culture (S3). What W laid out in his final period (and throughout his earlier work in a less clear way) are the foundations of evolutionary psychology (EP), or if you prefer, psychology, cognitive linguistics, intentionality, higher order thought or just animal behavior. Sadly, almost nobody seems to realize that his works are a unique textbook of descriptive psychology that is as relevant now as the day it was written. He is almost universally ignored by psychology and other behavioral sciences and humanities, and even those few who have more or less understood him, have not realized the extent of his anticipation of the latest work on EP and cognitive illusions (Theory of Mind, framing, the two selves of fast and slow thinking etc., -see below). Searle's work as a whole provides a stunning description of higher order social behavior that is possible because of the recent evolution of genes for dispositional psychology, while the later W shows how it is based on true only unconscious axioms of S1 which evolved into conscious dispositional propositional thinking of S2. Long before Searle, W rejected the idea that the Bottom Up approaches of physiology, experimental psychology and computation (e.g., Behaviorism, Functionalism, Strong AI, Dynamic Systems Theory, Computational Theory of Mind, etc.) could reveal what his Top Down deconstructions of Language Games (LG's) did. The principal difficulties he noted are to understand what is always in front of our eyes (we can now see this as obliviousness to System 1 (roughly what S calls 'the phenomenological illusion') and to capture vagueness ("The greatest difficulty in these investigations is to find a way of representing vagueness" LWPP1, 347). As with his other aphorisms, I suggest one should take seriously W's comment that even if God could look into our mind he could not see what we are thinking--this should be the motto of the Embodied Mind and, as S makes clear, of Cognitive Psychology. But God could see what we are perceiving and remembering and our reflexive thinking, since these S1 functions are always causal mental states while S2 dispositions are only potentially CMS. 121 This is not a theory but a fact about our grammar and our physiology. S muddies the waters here because he refers to dispositions as mental states as well, but as W did long ago, he shows that the language of causality just does not apply to the higher order emergent S2 descriptions-again not a theory but a description about how language (thinking) works. This brings up another point that is prominent in W but denied by S, that all we can do is give descriptions and not a theory. S insists he is providing theories but of course "theory" and "description" are language games too and it seems to me S's theory is usually W's description-a rose by any other name.... W's point was that by sticking to perspicacious examples that we all know to be true accounts of our behavior, we avoid the quicksand of theories that try to account for ALL behavior (ALL language games), while S wants to generalize and inevitably goes astray (he gives several examples of his own mistakes in PNC). As S and others endlessly modify their theories to account for the multifarious language games they get closer and closer to describing behavior by way of numerous examples as did W. Some of W's favorite topics in his later second and his third periods are the different (but interdigitating) LG's of fast and slow thinking (System 1 and 2 or roughly Primary Language Games (PLG's) and Secondary Language Games (SLG's) of the Inner and the Outer--see e.g., Johnston- 'Wittgenstein: Rethinking the Inner' on how confusing the two is a major industry in philosophy and psychology), the impossibility of private language and the axiomatic structure of all behavior. Verbs like 'thinking', 'seeing' first described S1 functions but as S2 evolved they came to be applied to it as well, leading to the whole mythology of inner resulting from e.g., trying to refer to imagining as if it were seeing pictures inside the brain. The PLG's are the simple automated utterances by our involuntary, System 1, fast thinking, mirror neuron, true only, non-propositional, mental statesour perceptions and memories and reflexive acts ('will') including System 1 Truths and UOA1 --Understanding of Agency 1-and Emotions1such as joy, love, anger) which can be described causally, while the evolutionarily later SLG's are expressions or descriptions of voluntary, System 2, slow thinking, mentalizing neurons, testable true or false, propositional, Truth2 and UOA2 and Emotions2joyfulness, loving, hating, the dispositional (and often counterfactual) imagining, supposing, intending, thinking, knowing, believing, etc. which can only be described in terms of reasons (i.e., it's just a fact that attempts to describe System 2 in terms of neurochemistry, atomic physics, mathematics, just make no sense--see W for many examples and Searle for good disquisitions on this). 122 It is not possible to describe the automatisms of System 1 in terms of reasons (e.g., `I see that as an apple because...') unless you want to give a reason in terms of EP, genetics, physiology, and as W has demonstrated repeatedly it is meaningless to give "explanations" with the proviso that they will make sense in the future--`Nothing is hidden'--they make sense now or never. A powerful heuristic is to separate behavior and experience into Intentionality 1 and Intentionality 2 (e.g., Thinking 1 and Thinking 2, Emotions 1 and Emotions 2 etc.) and even into Truths 1 (T only axioms) and Truths 2 (empirical extensions or "Theorems" which result from the logical extension of Truths 1). W recognized that Nothing is Hidden'--i.e., our whole psychology and all the answers to all philosophical questions are here in our language (our life) and that the difficulty is not to find the answers but to recognize them as always here in front of us--we just have to stop trying to look deeper. FMRI, PET, TCMS, iRNA, computational analogs, AI and all the rest are fascinating and powerful ways to extend our innate axiomatic psychology, to provide the physical basis for our behavior and facilitate our analysis of language games which nevertheless remain unexplainable--EP just is this way-and unchanged. The true-only axioms, most thoroughly explored in 'On Certainty', are W's (and later Searle's) "bedrock" or "background" i.e., evolutionary psychology, which are traceable to the automated true-only reactions of bacteria and their descendants (e.g., humans), which evolved and operate by the mechanism of inclusive fitness (IF)--see Bourke's superb "Principles of Social Evolution". W insisted that we should regard our analysis of behavior as descriptions rather than explanations, but of course these too are complex language games and one person's description is another's explanation. Beginning with their innate true-only, nonempirical (automated and nonchangeable) responses to the world, animals extend their axiomatic understanding via deductions into further true only understandings ("theorems" as we might call them, but this is a complex language game even in the context of mathematics). Tyrannosaurs and mesons become as unchallengeable as the existence of our two hands or our breathing. This dramatically changes one's view of human nature. Theory of Mind (TOM) is not a theory at all but a group of true-only Understandings of Agency (UOA a term I devised 10 years ago) which newborn animals (including flies and worms if UOA is suitably defined) have 123 and subsequently extend greatly (in higher eukaryotes). However, as I note here, W made it very clear that for much of intentionality there are System 1 and System 2 versions (language games)-the fast unconscious UOA1 and the Slow conscious UOA2 and of course these are heuristics for multifaceted phenomena. Although the raw material for S2 is S1, S2 also feeds back into S1- higher cortical feedback to the lowest levels of perception, memory, reflexive thinking that is a fundamental of psychology. Many of W's examples explore this two way street (e.g., see the discussions of the duck/rabbit and 'seeing as' in Johnston). I think it is clear that the innate true-only axioms W is occupied with throughout his work, and almost exclusively in OC (his last work `On Certainty'), are equivalent to the fast thinking or System 1 that is at the center of current research (e.g., see Kahneman-- "Thinking Fast and Slow", but he has no idea W laid out the framework some 75 years ago), which is involuntary and unconscious and which corresponds to the mental states of perception (including UOA1) and memory and involuntary acts, as W notes over and over in endless examples. One might call these "intracerebral reflexes"(maybe 99% of all our cerebration if measured by energy use in the brain). Our slow or reflective, more or less "conscious" (beware another network of language games!) second-self brain activity corresponds to what W characterized as "dispositions" or "inclinations", which refer to abilities or possible actions, are not mental states (or not in the same sense), and do not have any definite time of occurrence and/or duration. But disposition words like "knowing", "understanding", "thinking", "believing", which W discussed extensively, have at least two basic uses. One is a peculiar philosophical use (but graduating into everyday uses) exemplified by Moore (whose papers inspired W to write OC), which refers to the true-only sentences resulting from direct perceptions and memory, i.e., our innate axiomatic S1 psychology (`I know these are my hands'), and the S2 one, which is their normal use as dispositions, which can be acted out, and which can become true or false (`I know my way home'). The investigation of involuntary fast thinking has revolutionized psychology, economics (e.g., Kahneman's Nobel prize) and other disciplines under names like "cognitive illusions", "priming", "framing", "heuristics" and "biases". Of course these too are language games so there will be more and less useful ways to use these words, and studies and discussions will vary from "pure" System 1 to combinations of 1 and 2 (the norm as W made clear), but 124 presumably not ever of slow System 2 dispositional thinking only, since any System 2 thought or intentional action cannot occur without involving much of the intricate network of "cognitive modules", "inference engines", "intracerebral reflexes", "automatisms", "cognitive axioms", "background" or "bedrock" (as W and later Searle call our EP). Though W warned frequently against theorizing and produced more and better examples of language in action than anyone, one might say that his aggregate aphorisms illustrated by examples constitute the most comprehensive "theory" of behavior ("reality") ever penned. Finally, let me suggest that with this perspective, W is not obscure, difficult or irrelevant but scintillating, profound and crystal clear, that he writes aphoristically and telegraphically because we think and behave that way, and that to miss him is to miss one of the greatest intellectual adventures possible. Now that we have a reasonable start on the Logical Structure of Rationality (the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought) laid out we can look at the table of Intentionality that results from this work, which I have constructed over the last few years. It is based on a much simpler one from Searle, which in turn owes much to Wittgenstein. I have also incorporated in modified form tables being used by current researchers in the psychology of thinking processes which are evidenced in the last 9 rows. It should prove interesting to compare it with those in Peter Hacker's 3 recent volumes on Human Nature. I offer this table as an heuristic for describing behavior that I find more complete and useful than any other framework I have seen and not as a final or complete analysis, which would have to be three dimensional with hundreds (at least) of arrows going in many directions with many (perhaps all) pathways between S1 and S2 being bidirectional. Also, the very distinction between S1 and S2, cognition and willing, perception and memory, between feeling, knowing, believing and expecting etc. are arbitrary--that is, as W demonstrated, all words are contextually sensitive and most have several utterly different uses (meanings or COS). Many complex charts have been published by scientists but I find them of minimal utility when thinking about behavior (as opposed to thinking about brain function). Each level of description may be useful in certain contexts but I find that being coarser or finer limits usefulness. The Logical Structure of Rationality (LSR), or the Logical Structure of Mind (LSM), the Logical Structure of Behavior (LSB), the Logical Structure of 125 Thought (LST), the Logical Structure of Consciousness (LSC), the Logical Structure of Personality (LSP), the Descriptive Psychology of Consciousness (DSC), the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought (DPHOT), Intentionality-the classical philosophical term. System 1 is involuntary, reflexive or automated "Rules" R1 while Thinking (Cognition) has no gaps and is voluntary or deliberative "Rules" R2 and Willing (Volition) has 3 gaps (see Searle) 126 Disposition* Emotion Memory Perception Desire PI** IA*** Action/ Word Cause Originates From**** World World World World Mind Mind Mind Mind Causes Changes In***** None Mind Mind Mind None World World World Causally Self Reflexive****** No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes True or False (Testable) Yes T only T only T only Yes Yes Yes Yes Public Conditions of Satisfaction Yes Yes/No Yes/No No Yes/No Yes No Yes Describe A Mental State No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes/No Yes Evolutionary Priority 5 4 2,3 1 5 3 2 2 Voluntary Content Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes Voluntary Initiation Yes/No No Yes No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive System ******* 2 1 2/1 1 2 / 1 2 1 2 Change Intensity No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Precise Duration No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Time, Place (H+N, T+T) ******** TT HN HN HN TT TT HN HN Special Quality No Yes No Yes No No No No Localized in Body No No No Yes No No No Yes Bodily Expressions Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Self Contradictions No Yes No No Yes No No No Needs a Self Yes Yes/No No No Yes No No No Needs Language Yes No No No No No No Yes/No 127 FROM DECISION RESEARCH Disposition* Emotion Memory Perception Desire PI** IA*** Action/ Word Subliminal Effects No Yes/No Yes Yes No No No Yes/No Associative/ Rule Based RB A/RB A A A/RB RB RB RB Context Dependent/ Abstract A CD/A CD CD CD/A A CD/A CD/A Serial/Parallel S S/P P P S/P S S S Heuristic/ Analytic A H/A H H H/A A A A Needs Working Memory Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes General Intelligence Dependent Yes No No No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive Loading Inhibits Yes Yes/No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Arousal Facilitates or Inhibits I F/I F F I I I I Public Conditions of Satisfaction of S2 are often referred to by Searle and others as COS, Representations, truthmakers or meanings (or COS2 by myself), while the automatic results of S1 are designated as presentations by others ( or COS1 by myself). * Aka Inclinations, Capabilities, Preferences, Representations, possible actions etc. ** Searle's Prior Intentions *** Searle's Intention In Action **** Searle's Direction of Fit ***** Searle's Direction of Causation ****** (Mental State instantiates--Causes or Fulfills Itself). Searle formerly called this causally selfreferential. ******* Tversky/Kahneman/Frederick/Evans/Stanovich defined cognitive systems. ******** Here and Now or There and Then 128 One should always keep in mind Wittgenstein's discovery that after we have described the possible uses (meanings, truthmakers, Conditions of Satisfaction) of language in a particular context, we have exhausted its interest, and attempts at explanation (i.e., philosophy) only get us further away from the truth. It is critical to note that this table is only a highly simplified context-free heuristic and each use of a word must be examined in its context. The best examination of context variation is in Peter Hacker's recent 3 volumes on Human Nature, which provide numerous tables and charts that should be compared with this one. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date account of Wittgenstein, Searle and their analysis of behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my article The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Wittgenstein and Searle (2016). Now for some comments on Searle's MSW. I will make some references to another of his recent works which I have reviewedPhilosophy in a New Century (PNC). The ideas here are already published and nothing will come as a surprise to those who have kept up with his work. Like W, he is regarded as the best standup philosopher of his time and his written work is solid as a rock and groundbreaking throughout. However, his failure to take the later W seriously enough leads to some mistakes and confusions. In various places in his work (e.g., p7 of PNC) he twice notes that our certainty about basic facts is due to the overwhelming weight of reason supporting our claims, but W showed definitively in 'On Certainty' that there is no possibility of doubting the true-only axiomatic structure of our System 1 perceptions, memories and thoughts, since it is itself the basis for judgment (reason) and cannot itself be judged. In the first sentence on p8 of PNC he tells us that certainty is revisable, but this kind of 'certainty', which we might call Certainty2, is the result of extending our axiomatic and non-revisable certainty (Certainty1 of S1) via experience and is utterly different as it is propositional (true or false). This is of course a classic example of the "battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by language" which W demonstrated over and over again. One wordtwo (or many) distinct uses. On p12 of PNC, 'consciousness' is described as the result of automated System 1 functioning that is 'subjective' in several quite different senses, and not, in the normal case, a matter of evidence but a true-only understanding in our own case and a true-only perception in the case of others. 129 I feel that W has a better grasp of the mind/language connection, as he regards them as synonymous in many contexts, and his work is a brilliant exposition of mind as exemplified in numerous perspicacious examples of language use. As quoted above, "Now if it is not the causal connections which we are concerned with, then the activities of the mind lie open before us." One can deny that any revision of our concepts (language games) of causation or free will are necessary or even possible. You can read just about any page of W for the reasons. It's one thing to say bizarre things about the world using examples from quantum mechanics, uncertainty etc., but it is another to say anything relevant to our normal use of words. The deontic structures or 'social glue' are the automatic fast actions of S1 producing the slow dispositions of S2 which are inexorably expanded during personal development into a wide array of automatic unconscious universal cultural deontic relationships with others (S3). Though this is my précis of behavior I expect it fairly describes S's work. Those who wish to become acquainted with S's well-known arguments against the mechanical view of mind, which seem to me definitive, may consult Chaps 3-5 of his PNC. I have read whole books of responses to them and I agree with S that they all miss the very simple logical (psychological) points he makes (and which, by and large, W made half acentury earlier). To put it in my terms, S1 is composed of unconscious, fast, physical, causal, automatic, non-propositional, true only mental states, while slow S2 can only coherently be described in terms of reasons for actions that are more or less conscious dispositions to behavior (potential actions) that are or can become propositional (T or F). Computers and the rest of nature have only derived intentionality that is dependent on our perspective while higher animals have primary intentionality that is independent of perspective. As S and W appreciate, the great irony is that these materialistic or mechanical reductions of psychology masquerade as cutting edge science, but in fact they are utterly anti-scientific. Philosophy (descriptive psychology) and cognitive psychology (freed of superstition) are becoming hand in glove and it is Hofstadter, Dennett, Kurzweil etc., who are left out in the cold. It seems quite obvious to me (as it was to W) that the mechanical view of mind exists for the same reason as nearly all behavior-it is the default operation of our EP which seeks explanations in terms of what we can deliberately think through slowly, rather than in the automated S1, of which we mostly remain oblivious (TPI). I find W's description of our axiomatic inherited psychology and its extensions in his OC and other 3rd period works to be deeper than S's 130 (or anyone's), and so we are NOT 'confident' that dogs are conscious, but rather it is not open to (not possible to) doubt. Chapter 5 of S's PNC nicely demolishes Computational Theory of Mind, Language of Thought etc., noting that 'computation', 'information', 'syntax', 'algorithm', 'logic', 'program', etc., are observer relative (i.e., psychological) terms and have no physical or mathematical meaning in this psychological sense, but of course there are other senses they have been given recently as science has developed. Again, people are bewitched by the use of the same word into ignoring the vast difference in its use (meaning). And of course, this is all an extension of classic Wittgenstein. Every thinking person should read Chapter 6 of S's PNC "The Phenomenological Illusion" (TPI) as it shows his supreme logical abilities and his failure to appreciate the full power of the later W, and the great heuristic value of recent psychological research on the two selves. It is clear as crystal that TPI is due to obliviousness to the automatisms of S1 and to taking the slow conscious thinking of S2 as not only primary but as all there is. This is classic Blank Slate blindness. It is also clear that W showed this some 60 years earlier and also gave the reason for it in the primacy of the true-only unconscious automatic axiomatic network of our innate System 1 (though of course he did not use these terms). But the really important thing is that TPI is not just a failing of a few philosophers, but a universal blindness to our Evolutionary Psychology (EP) that is itself built into EP and which has immense (and fatal) implications for the world. We are all meat puppets stumbling through life on our genetically programmed mission to destroy the earth. Our almost total preoccupation with using the second self S2 personality to indulge the infantile gratifications of S1 is creating Hell On Earth. As with all organisms, it's only about reproduction and accumulating resources therefor. S1 writes the play and S2 acts it out. Dick and Jane just want to play house-this is mommy and this is daddy and this and this and this is baby. Perhaps one could say that TPI is that we are humans and not just another primate-a fatal cognitive illusion. The genes program S1 which (mostly) pulls the strings (contracts the muscles) of the meat puppets via S2. End of story. Again, he needs to read my comments on W's OC so he changes the "good reason to believe" at the bottom of p171 and the top of p172 to "knows" (in the true-only sense). 131 A critical notion introduced by S many years ago is Conditions of Satisfaction (COS) on our thoughts (propositions of S2) which W called inclinations or dispositions to act--still called by the inappropriate term 'propositional attitudes' by many. COS are explained by S in many places such as on p169 of PNC: "Thus saying something and meaning it involves two conditions of satisfaction. First, the condition of satisfaction that the utterance will be produced, and second, that the utterance itself shall have conditions of satisfaction." As S states it in PNC, "A proposition is anything at all that can determine a condition of satisfaction...and a condition of satisfaction... is that such and such is the case." Or, one needs to add, that might be or might have been or might be imagined to be the case, as he makes clear in MSW. Regarding intentions, "In order to be satisfied, the intention itself must function causally in the production of the action." (MSWp34). One way of regarding this is that the unconscious automatic System 1 activates the higher cortical conscious personality of System 2, bringing about throat muscle contractions which inform others that it sees the world in certain ways, which commit it to potential actions. A huge advance over prelinguistic or protolinguistic interactions in which only gross muscle movements were able to convey very limited information about intentions. Most will benefit greatly from reading W's "On Certainty" or "RPP1 and 2" or DMS's two books on OC (see my reviews) as they make clear the difference between true-only sentences describing S1 and true or false propositions describing S2. This strikes me as a far superior approach to S's taking S1 perceptions as propositional (at least in some places in his work) since they can only become T or F (aspectual as S calls them here) after one begins thinking about them in S2. However, his point in PNC that propositions permit statements of actual or potential truth and falsity, of past and future and fantasy, and thus provide a huge advance over pre or protolinguistic society, is cogent. S often describes the critical need to note the various levels of description of one event so for IAA "We have different levels of description where one level is constituted by the behavior at the lower level...in addition to the constitutive by way of relation, we also have the causal by means of relation." (p37). "The crucial proof that we need a distinction between prior intentions and intentions-inaction is that the conditions of satisfaction in the two cases are strikingly different." (p35). The COS of PI need a whole action while those of 132 IAA only a partial one. He makes clear (e.g., p34) that prior intentions(PI) are mental states (i.e., unconscious S1) while they result in intentions-inaction(IAA) which are conscious acts (i.e., S2) but both are causally selfreferential (CSR). The critical argument that both are CSR is that (unlike beliefs and desires) it is essential that they figure in bringing about their COS. These descriptions of cognition and volition are summarized in Table 2.1, which Searle has used for many years and is the basis for an extended one I have created. In my view, it helps enormously to relate this to modern psychological research by using my S1, S2, S3 terminology and W's true-only vs propositional (dispositional) description. Thus, CSR references S1 trueonly perception, memory and intention, while S2 refers to dispositions such as belief and desire. So, recognizing the S1 is only upwardly causal and contentless (lacking representations or information) while S2 has content and is downwardly causal (e.g., see Hutto and Myin's 'Radical Enactivism') I would change the paragraphs from p39 beginning "In sum" and ending on pg 40 with "conditions of satisfaction" as follows. In sum, perception, memory and reflexive intentions and actions ('will') are caused by the automatic functioning of our S1 true-only axiomatic EP. Via prior intentions and intentionsin-action, we try to match how we desire things to be with how we think they are. We should see that belief, desire (and imagination-desires time shifted and so decoupled from intention) and other S2 propositional dispositions of our slow thinking later evolved second self, are totally dependent upon (have their COS in) the CSR rapid automatic primitive true only reflexive S1. In language and perhaps in neurophysiology there are intermediate or blended cases such as intending (prior intentions) or remembering, where the causal connection with COS (i.e., with S1) is time shifted, as they represent the past or the future, unlike S1 which is always in the present. The two systems feed into each other and are often orchestrated by the learned deontic cultural relations of S3 seamlessly, so that our normal experience is that we consciously control everything that we do. This vast arena of cognitive illusions that dominate our life S has described as 'The Phenomenological Illusion.' He ends this amazing chapter by repeating for maybe the 10th time in his writings, what I regard as a very basic mistake that he shares with nearly everyone-the notion that the experience of 'free will' may be 'illusory'. It follows in a very straightforward and inexorable fashion, both from W's 3rd period work and from the observations of contemporary psychology, that 133 'will', 'self' and 'consciousness' are axiomatic true-only elements of System 1 just like seeing, hearing, etc., and there is no possibility (intelligibility) of demonstrating (of giving sense to) their falsehood. As W made so wonderfully clear numerous times, they are the basis for judgment and so cannot be judged. S understands and uses basically this same argument in other contexts (e.g., skepticism, solipsism) many times, so it is quite surprising he can't see this analogy. He makes this mistake frequently when he says such things as that we have "good evidence" that our dog is a dog etc. The true-only axioms of our psychology are not evidential. Here you have the best descriptive psychologist since W so this is not a stupid mistake. His summary of deontics on p50 needs translation. Thus "You have to have a prelinguistic form of collective intentionality, on which the linguistic forms are built, and you have to have the collective intentionality of the conversation in order to make the commitment" is much clearer if supplemented with "The prelinguistic axiomatics of S1 underlie the linguistic dispositions of S2 (i.e., our EP) which evolve during our maturation into their cultural manifestations in S3." Since status function declarations play a central role in deontics it is critical to understand them and so he explains the notion of 'function' that is relevant here. "A function is a cause that serves a purpose...In this sense functions are intentionality-relative and therefore mind dependent...status functions... require... collective imposition and recognition of a status" (p59). Again, I suggest the translation of "The intentionality of language is created by the intrinsic, or mind-independent intentionality of human beings" (p66) as "The linguistic, conscious dispositionality of S2 is generated by the unconscious axiomatic reflexive functions of S1" (p68). That is, one must keep in mind that behavior is programmed by biology. However, I strongly object to his statements on p66-67 and elsewhere in his writings that S1 (i.e., memories, perceptions, reflex acts) has a propositional (i.e., true-false) structure. As I have noted above, and many times in other reviews, it seems crystal clear that W is correct, and it is basic to understanding behavior, that only S2 is propositional and S1 is axiomatic and true-only. They both have COS and Directions of Fit (DOF) because the genetic, axiomatic intentionality of S1 generates that of S2 but if S1 were propositional in the same sense it would mean that skepticism is intelligible, the chaos that was philosophy before W would return and in fact life would not be possible (no this is not a joke). As W showed countless times and 134 biology shows so clearly, life must be based on certainty-automated unconscious rapid reactions. Organisms that always have a doubt and pause to reflect will die. Contrary to his comments (p70) I cannot imagine a language lacking words for material objects any more than I can imagine a visual system that cannot see them, because it is the first and most basic task of vision to segment the world into objects and so that of language to describe them. Likewise, I cannot see any problem with objects being salient in the conscious field nor with sentences being segmented into words. How could it be otherwise for beings with our evolutionary history? On p72 and elsewhere, it will help to remember that expressions are the primitive reflexive PLG's of S1 while representations are the dispositional SLG's of S2. Another translation from Philosophese into English is needed for the second paragraph on p79 beginning 'So far' and ending 'heard before'. "We convey meaning by speaking a public language composed of words in sentences with a syntax." To his questions 4 and 5 on p105 as to the special nature of language and writing, I would answer: 'They are special because the short wavelength of vibrations of vocal muscles enable much higher bandwidth information transfer than contractions of other muscles and this is on average several orders of magnitude higher for visual information.' On p106, a general answer to question 2 (How do we get away with it-i.e., why does it work) is EP and S1 and his statement that "My main strategy of exposition in this book is to try to make the familiar seem strange and striking" is of course classic Wittgenstein. His claim on the next page that there is no general answer to why people accept institutions is clear wrong. They accept them for the same reason they do everything-their EP is the result of inclusive fitness. It facilitated survival and reproduction in the EEA (Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation). Everything about us physically and mentally bottoms out in genetics. All the vague talk here (e.g., p114) about 'extra-linguistic conventions' and 'extra semantical semantics' is in fact referring to EP and especially to the unconscious automatisms of S1 which are the basis for all behavior. Yes, as W said many times, the most familiar is for that reason invisible. 135 S's suggestion (p115) that language is essential to games is surely mistaken. Totally illiterate deaf-mutes could play cards, soccer and even chess but of course a minimal counting ability would be necessary. I agree (p121) that the ability to pretend and imagine (e.g., the counterfactual or as-if notions involved in time and space shifting) are, in full form, uniquely human abilities and critical to higher order thought. But even here there are many animal precursors (as there must be), such as the posturing of ritual combats and mating dances, the decoration of mating sites by bower birds, the broken wing pretense of mother birds, fake alarm calls of monkeys, 'cleaner' fish that take a bite out of their prey and simulation of hawk and dove strategies (cheaters) in many animals. More translation is needed for his discussion of rationality (p126 et seq). Saying that thinking is propositional and deals with true or false 'factitive entities' means that it is a typical S2 disposition which can be tested, as opposed to the true-only automatic cognitive functions of S1. In 'Free Will, Rationality and Institutional Facts' he updates parts of his classic book 'Rationality in Action' and creates some new terminology for describing the formal apparatus of practical reasons which I do not find felicitous. "Factitive Entities' do not seem different from dispositions and 'motivator' (desire or obligation), 'effector' (body muscles),'constitutor' (speech muscles) and 'total reason' (all relevant dispositions) do not, at least here seem to add to clarity (p126-132). We should do something here that rarely happens in discussions of human behavior and remind ourselves of its biology. Evolution by inclusive fitness has programmed the unconscious rapid reflexive causal actions of S1 which often give rise to the conscious slow thinking of S2 (often modified by the cultural extensions of S3), which produces reasons for action that often result in activation of body and/or speech muscles by S1 causing actions. The general mechanism is via both neurotransmission and by changes in various neuromodulators in targeted areas of the brain. This may seem infelicitous as well, but has the virtue that it is based on fact, and given the complexity of our higher order thought, I don't think a general description is going to get much simpler. The overall cognitive illusion (called by S 'The Phenomenological Illusion') is that S2/S3 has generated the action consciously for reasons of which we are fully aware and in control of, but anyone familiar with modern biology and psychology knows this view is not credible. Thus, I would translate his summary of practical reason on p127 as follows: 136 "We yield to our desires (need to alter brain chemistry), which typically include Desire –Independent Reasons for Action (DIRA-i.e., desires displaced in space and time, most often for reciprocal altruism), which produce dispositions to behavior that commonly result sooner or later in muscle movements that serve our inclusive fitness (increased survival for genes in ourselves and those closely related)." Contrary to S's comment on p128 I think if suitably defined, DIRA are universal in higher animals and not at all unique to humans (think mother hen defending her brood from a fox) if we include the automated prelinguistic reflexes of S1 (i.e., DIRA1), but certainly the higher order DIRA of S2/3 or DIRA2 that require language are uniquely human. This seems to me an alternative and clearer description of his "explanation" (as W suggested these are much better called 'description') on the bottom of p129 of the paradox of how we can voluntarily carry out DIRA2/3 (i.e., the S2 desires and their cultural S3 extensions). That is, "The resolution of the paradox is that the recognition of desire-independent reasons can ground the desire and thus cause the desire, even though it is not logically inevitable that they do and not empirically universal that they do" can be translated as "The resolution of the paradox is that the unconscious DIRA1 serving long term inclusive fitness generate the conscious DIRA2 which often override the short term personal immediate desires." Likewise, for his discussion of this issue on p130-31-it is EP, RA, IF, S1 which ground the dispositions and ensuing actions of S2/3. On p140 he asks why we can't get deontics from biology but of course we must get them from biology as there is no other option and the above description shows how this happens. Contrary to his statement, the strongest inclinations DO always prevail (by definition, otherwise it is not the strongest), but deontics works because the innate programming of RA and IF override immediate personal short term desires. His confusion of nature and nurture, of S1 and S2, extends to conclusions 2 and 3 on p143. Agents do indeed create the proximate reasons of DIRA2/3, but these are not just anything but, with few if any exceptions, very restricted extensions of DIRA1 (the ultimate cause). If he really means to ascribe deontics to our conscious decisions alone then he is prey to 'The Phenomenological Illusion'(TPI) which he so beautifully demolished in his classic paper of that name (see my review of PNC). As I have noted above, there is a huge body of recent research exposing cognitive illusions which comprise our personality. TPI is not merely a harmless philosophical error but a universal obliviousness to our biology which produces the illusion that we control our life and our society 137 and the world and the consequences are almost certain collapse of civilization during the next 150 years. He notes correctly that human rationality makes no sense without the 'gap' (actually 3 gaps which he has discussed many times). That is, without free will (i.e., choice) in some nontrivial sense it would all be a pointless, and he has rightly noted that it is inconceivable that evolution could create and maintain an unnecessary genetically and energetically expensive charade. But, like nearly everyone else, he cannot see his way out and so once again he suggests (p133) that choice may be an illusion. On the contrary, following W, it is quite clear that choice is part of our axiomatic S1 true-only reflexive actions and cannot be questioned without contradiction as S1 is the basis for questioning. You cannot doubt you are reading this page as your awareness of it is the basis for doubting. Few notice (Budd in his superb book on W is one exception) that W posed an interesting resolution to this by suggesting that some mental phenomena may originate in chaotic processes in the brain-that e.g., there is not anything corresponding to a memory trace. He also suggested several times that the causal chain has an end and this could mean both that it is just not possible (regardless of the state of science) to trace it any further and that the concept of 'cause' ceases to be applicable beyond a certain point. Subsequently, many have made similar suggestions based on physics and the sciences of complexity and chaos. On p155 one should note that the Background/Network is our EP and its cultural extensions of S1, S2, S3. Given the above I don't feel it necessary to comment on his discussion of Power and Politics but I will say a few words about human rights. I agree completely with his comment on p185 that the UN Declaration of Human Rights is an irresponsible document. The rapid and probably inexorable collapse of society is due to people having too many rights and too few responsibilities. The only tiny ray of hope for the world is that somehow people can be forced (few will ever do it voluntarily) to place the earth first and themselves second. Consuming resources and producing children must be regulated as privileges or the tragedy of the commons will soon end the game. Overall, MSW is a good summary of the many substantial advances over Wittgenstein resulting from S's half century of work, but in my view, W still 138 is unequaled for basic psychology once you grasp what he is saying (see my reviews). Ideally, they should be read together: Searle for the clear coherent prose and generalizations on the operation of S2/S3, illustrated with W's perspicacious examples of the operation of S1/S2, and his brilliant aphorisms. If I were much younger I would write a book doing exactly that. 139 Review of 'Philosophy in a New Century' by John Searle (2008) Michael Starks ABSTRACT Before commenting on the book, I offer comments on Wittgenstein and Searle and the logical structure of rationality. The essays here are mostly already published during the last decade (though some have been updated), along with one unpublished item, and nothing here will come as a surprise to those who have kept up with his work. Like W, he is regarded as the best standup philosopher of his time and his written work is solid as a rock and groundbreaking throughout. However, his failure to take the later W seriously enough leads to some mistakes and confusions. Just a few examples: on p7 he twice notes that our certainty about basic facts is due to the overwhelming weight of reason supporting our claims, but W showed definitively in 'On Certainty' that there is no possibility of doubting the trueonly axiomatic structure of our System 1 perceptions, memories and thoughts, since it is itself the basis for judgment and cannot itself be judged. In the first sentence on p8 he tells us that certainty is revisable, but this kind of 'certainty', which we might call Certainty2, is the result of extending our axiomatic and nonrevisable certainty (Certainty1) via experience and is utterly different as it is propositional (true or false). This is of course a classic example of the "battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by language" which W demonstrated over and over again. One wordtwo (or many) distinct uses. His last chapter "The Unity of the Proposition" (previously unpublished) would also benefit greatly from reading W's "On Certainty" or DMS's two books on OC (see my reviews) as they make clear the difference between true only sentences describing S1 and true or false propositions describing S2. This strikes me as a far superior approach to S's taking S1 perceptions as propositional since they only become T or F after one begins thinking about them in S2. However, his point that propositions permit statements of actual or potential truth and falsity, of past and future and fantasy, and thus provide a huge advance over pre or protolinguistic society, is cogent. As he states it "A proposition is anything at all that can determine a condition of satisfaction...and a condition of satisfaction... is that such and such is the case." Or, one needs to add, that might be or might have been or might be 140 imagined to be the case. Overall, PNC is a good summary of the many substantial advances over Wittgenstein resulting from S's half century of work, but in my view, W still is unequaled once you grasp what he is saying. Ideally, they should be read together: Searle for the clear coherent prose and generalizations, illustrated with W's perspicacious examples and brilliant aphorisms. If I were much younger I would write a book doing exactly that. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book 'The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017' (2017). " But I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness: nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false." Wittgenstein OC 94 "Now if it is not the causal connections which we are concerned with, then the activities of the mind lie open before us." Wittgenstein "The Blue Book" p6 (1933) "Nonsense, Nonsense, because you are making assumptions instead of simply describing. If your head is haunted by explanations here, you are neglecting to remind yourself of the most important facts." Wittgenstein Z 220 "Philosophy simply puts everything before us and neither explains nor deduces anything...One might give the name `philosophy' to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions." Wittgenstein PI 126 "What we are supplying are really remarks on the natural history of man, not curiosities; however, but rather observations on facts which no one has doubted and which have only gone unremarked because they are always before our eyes." Wittgenstein RFM I p142 "The aim of philosophy is to erect a wall at the point where language stops anyway." Wittgenstein Philosophical Occasions p187 141 "The limit of language is shown by its being impossible to describe a fact which corresponds to (is the translation of) a sentence without simply repeating the sentence (this has to do with the Kantian solution to the problem of philosophy)." Wittgenstein CV p10 (1931) "The greatest danger here is wanting to observe oneself." LWPP1, 459 "Could a machine process cause a thought process? The answer is: yes. Indeed, only a machine process can cause a thought process, and 'computation' does not name a machine process; it names a process that can be, and typically is, implemented on a machine." Searle PNC p73 "...the characterization of a process as computational is a characterization of a physical system from outside; and the identification of the process as computational does not identify an intrinsic feature of the physics, it is essentially an observer relative characterization." Searle PNC p95 "The Chinese Room Argument showed that semantics is not intrinsic to syntax. I am now making the separate and different point that syntax is not intrinsic to physics." Searle PNC p94 "The attempt to eliminate the homunculus fallacy through recursive decomposition fails, because the only way to get the syntax intrinsic to the physics is to put a homunculus in the physics." Searle PNC p97 "But you cannot explain a physical system such as a typewriter or a brain by identifying a pattern which it shares with its computational simulation, because the existence of the pattern does not explain how the system actually works as a physical system. ...In sum, the fact that the attribution of syntax identifies no further causal powers is fatal to the claim that programs provide causal explanations of cognition... There is just a physical mechanism, the brain, with its various real physical and physical/mental causal levels of description." Searle PNC p101-103 "In short, the sense of 'information processing' that is used in cognitive science is at much too high a level of abstraction to capture the concrete biological reality of intrinsic intentionality...We are blinded to this difference by the fact that the same sentence 'I see a car coming toward me,' can be used to record both the visual intentionality and the output of the computational model of vision...in the sense of 'information' used in cognitive science, it is 142 simply false to say that the brain is an information processing device." Searle PNC p104-105 "Can there be reasons for action which are binding on a rational agent just in virtue of the nature of the fact reported in the reason statement, and independently of the agent's desires, values, attitudes and evaluations? ...The real paradox of the traditional discussion is that it tries to pose Hume's guillotine, the rigid factvalue distinction, in a vocabulary, the use of which already presupposes the falsity of the distinction." Searle PNC p165-171 "...all status functions and hence all of institutional reality, with the exception of language, are created by speech acts that have the logical form of Declarations...the forms of the status function in question are almost invariably matters of deontic powers...to recognize something as a right, duty, obligation, requirement and so on is to recognize a reason for action...these deontic structures make possible desire-independent reasons for action...The general point is very clear: the creation of the general field of desire-based reasons for action presupposed the acceptance of a system of desire-independent reasons for action." Searle PNC p34-49 "Some of the most important logical features of intentionality are beyond the reach of phenomenology because they have no immediate phenomenological reality... Because the creation of meaningfulness out of meaninglessness is not consciously experienced...it does not exist...This is... the phenomenological illusion." Searle PNC p115-117 "Consciousness is causally reducible to brain processes...and consciousness has no causal powers of its own in addition to the causal powers of the underlying neurobiology...But causal reducibility does not lead to ontological reducibility...consciousness only exists as experienced...and therefore it cannot be reduced to something that has a third person ontology, something that exists independently of experiences." Searle PNC 155-6 "...the basic intentional relation between the mind and the world has to do with conditions of satisfaction. And a proposition is anything at all that can stand in an intentional relation to the world, and since those intentional relations always determine conditions of satisfaction, and a proposition is defined as anything sufficient to determine conditions of satisfactions, it turns out that all intentionality is a matter of propositions." Searle PNC p193 143 Before commenting in detail on Philosophy in a New Century (PNC) I will first offer some comments on philosophy (descriptive psychology) and its relationship to contemporary psychological research as exemplified in the works of Searle (S) and Wittgenstein (W), since I feel that this is the best way to place Searle or any commentator on behavior, in proper perspective. Though S does not say and seems to be largely unaware, the bulk of his work follows directly from that of W, even though he often criticizes him. To say that Searle has carried on W's work is not to say that it is a direct result of W study, but rather that because there is only ONE human psychology (for the same reason there is only ONE human cardiology), that anyone accurately describing behavior must be voicing some variant or extension of what W said (as they must if they are both giving correct descriptions of behavior). I find most of S foreshadowed in W, including versions of the famous Chinese room argument against Strong AI and related issues which are the subjects of Chaps 3-5. Incidentally, if the Chinese Room interests you then you should read Victor Rodych's xlnt, but virtually unknown, supplement on the CR-- "Searle Freed of Every Flaw". Rodych has also written a series of superb papers on W's philosophy of mathematics --i.e., the EP (Evolutionary Psychology) of the axiomatic System 1 ability of counting up to 3, as extended into the endless System 2 SLG's (Secondary Language Games) of math. W's insights into the psychology of math provide an excellent entry into intentionality. I will also note that nobody who promotes Strong AI, the multifarious versions of behaviorism, computer functionalism, CTM (Computational Theory of Mind) and Dynamic Systems Theory (DST), seems to be aware that W's Tractatus can be viewed as the most striking and powerful statement of their viewpoint ever penned (i.e., behavior (thinking) as the logical processing of facts--i.e., information processing). Of course, later (but before the digital computer was a gleam in Turing's eye) W described in great detail why these were incoherent descriptions of mind that must be replaced by psychology (or you can say this is all he did for the rest of his life). S however makes little reference to W's prescient statement of mind as mechanism, and his destruction of it in his later work. Since W, S has become the principal deconstructor of these mechanical views of behavior, and the most important descriptive psychologist (philosopher), but does not realize how completely W anticipated him nor, by and large, do others (but see the many papers and books of Proudfoot and Copeland on W, Turing and AI). S's work is vastly easier to follow than W's, and though there is some jargon, it is mostly spectacularly clear if you approach it from the right direction. See my reviews of W and other books for more details. 144 Wittgenstein is for me easily the most brilliant thinker on human behavior. His work as a whole shows that all behavior is an extension of innate trueonly axioms and that our conscious ratiocination (System 2) (S2) emerges from unconscious machinations (System 1) (S1). See "On Certainty"(OC) for his final extended treatment of this idea-and my review thereof for preparation. His corpus can be seen as the foundation for all description of animal behavior, revealing how the mind works and indeed must work. The "must" is entailed by the fact that all brains share a common ancestry and common genes and so there is only one basic way they work, that this necessarily has an axiomatic structure, that all higher animals share the same evolved psychology based on inclusive fitness, and that in humans this is extended into a personality (a cognitive or phenomenological illusion) based on throat muscle contractions (language) that evolved to manipulate others (with variations that can be regarded as trivial). Arguably, all of W's and S's work is a development of or variation on these ideas. Another major theme here, and of course in all discussion of human behavior, is the need to separate the genetically programmed automatisms, which underlie all behavior, from the effects of culture. Though few philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists etc., explicitly discuss this in a comprehensive way, it can be seen as the major problem they are dealing with. I suggest it will prove of the greatest value to consider all study of higher order behavior as an effort to tease apart not only fast and slow thinking (e.g., perceptions and other automatisms vs. dispositionsS1 and S2--see below), but nature and nurture. What W laid out in his final period (and throughout his earlier work in a less clear way) are the foundations of evolutionary psychology (EP), or if you prefer, psychology, cognitive linguistics, intentionality, higher order thought or just animal behavior. Sadly, almost nobody seems to realize that his works are a unique textbook of descriptive psychology that is as relevant now as the day it was written. He is almost universally ignored by psychology and other behavioral sciences and humanities, and even those few who have more or less understood him, have not realized the extent of his anticipation of the latest work on EP and cognitive illusions (Theory of Mind, framing, the two selves of fast and slow thinking etc., -see below). Searle's work as a whole provides a stunning description of higher order social behavior that is possible because of the recent evolution of genes for dispositional psychology, while the later W shows how it is based on true only unconscious axioms of S1 which evolved into conscious dispositional propositional 145 thinking of S2. I suggest the key to W is to regard his corpus as the pioneering effort in deciphering our EP, seeing that he was describing the two selves of S1 and S2 and the multifarious language games of fast and slow thinking, and by starting from his 3rd period works and reading backwards to the ProtoTractatus. It should also be clear that insofar as they are coherent and correct, all accounts of behavior are describing the same phenomena and ought to translate easily into one another. Thus, the recently fashionable themes of "Embodied Mind" and "Radical Enactivism" should flow directly from and into W's work (and they do). However, almost nobody is able to follow his example of avoiding jargon and sticking to perspicuous examples, so even the redoubtable Searle has to be filtered and translated to see that this is true, and even he does not get how completely W has anticipated the latest work in fast and slow, two-self embodied thinking (writing, speaking, acting). W can also be regarded as a pioneer in evolutionary cognitive linguistics- which can be regarded as the Top Down analysis of the mind and its evolution via the careful analysis of examples of language use in context. He exposes the many varieties of language games and the relationships between the primary games of the true-only unconscious, pre or protolinguistic axiomatic fast thinking of perception, memory and reflexive thinking, emotions and acts (often described as the subcortical and primitive cortical reptilian brain first-self, mirror neuron functions), and the later evolved higher cortical dispositional linguistic conscious abilities of believing, knowing, thinking etc. that constitute the true or false propositional secondary language games of slow thinking that are the network of cognitive illusions that constitute the second-self personality of which we are so enamored. W dissects hundreds of language games showing how the trueonly perceptions, memories and reflexive actions of S1 grade into the thinking, remembering, and understanding of S2 dispositions, and many of his examples also address the nature/nurture issue explicitly. With this evolutionary perspective, his later works are a breathtaking revelation of human nature that is entirely current and has never been equaled. Many perspectives have heuristic value, but I find that this evolutionary two systems perspective illuminates all higher behavior. Dobzhansky famously commented: "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." And nothing in philosophy makes sense except in the light of evolutionary psychology. The common ideas (e.g., the subtitle of one of Pinker's books "The Stuff of 146 Thought: language as a window into human nature") that language is a window on or some sort of translation of our thinking or even (Fodor) that there must be some other "Language of Thought" of which it is a translation, were rejected by W (and likewise by S), who tried to show, with hundreds of continually reanalyzed perspicacious examples of language in action, that language is the best picture we can ever get of thinking, the mind and human nature, and W's whole corpus can be regarded as the development of this idea. Long before Searle, he rejected the idea that the Bottom Up approaches of physiology, experimental psychology and computation (e.g., Behaviorism, Functionalism, Strong AI, DST, CTM, etc.) could reveal what his Top Down deconstructions of Language Games (LG's) did. The principal difficulties he noted are to understand what is always in front of our eyes (we can now see this as obliviousness to System 1 (roughly what S calls 'the phenomenological illusion') and to capture vagueness ("The greatest difficulty in these investigations is to find a way of representing vagueness" LWPP1, 347). And so, speech (i.e., oral muscle contractions, the principal way we interact) is not a window into the mind but is the mind itself, which is expressed by acoustic blasts about past, present and future acts (i.e., our speech using the later evolved Secondary Language Games (SLG's) of the Second Self--the dispositions --imagining, knowing, meaning, believing, intending etc.). As with his other aphorisms, I suggest one should take seriously W's comment that even if God could look into our mind he could not see what we are thinking--this should be the motto of the Embodied Mind and, as S makes clear, of Cognitive Psychology. But God could see what we are perceiving and remembering and our reflexive thinking, since these S1 functions are always causal mental states while S2 dispositions are only potentially CMS. This is not a theory but a fact about our grammar and our physiology. S muddies the waters here because he refers to dispositions as mental states as well, but as W did long ago, he shows that the language of causality just does not apply to the higher order emergent S2 descriptions-again not a theory but a description about how language (thinking) works. This brings up another point that is prominent in W but denied by S, that all we can do is give descriptions and not a theory. S insists he is providing theories but of course "theory" and "description" are language games too and it seems to me S's theory is usually W's description-a rose by any other name.... W's point was that by sticking to perspicacious examples that we all know to be true accounts of our behavior, we avoid the quicksand of theories that try to account for ALL behavior (ALL language games), while S wants to generalize and inevitably goes astray (he gives several examples of his own mistakes in PNC). As S and others endlessly modify their theories to account for the 147 multifarious language games they get closer and closer to describing behavior by way of numerous examples as did W. Some of W's favorite topics in his later second and his third periods are the different (but interdigitating) LG's of fast and slow thinking (System 1 and 2 or roughly Primary Language Games (PLG's) and Secondary Language Games (SLG's) of the Inner and the Outer--see e.g., Johnston-'Wittgenstein: Rethinking the Inner' on how confusing the two is a major industry in philosophy and psychology), the impossibility of private language and the axiomatic structure of all behavior. Verbs like 'thinking', 'seeing' first described S1 functions but as S2 evolved they came to be applied to it as well, leading to the whole mythology of inner resulting from e.g., trying to refer to imagining as if it were seeing pictures inside the brain. The PLG's are utterances by and descriptions of our involuntary, System 1, fast thinking, mirror neuron, true only, nonpropositional, mental statesour perceptions and memories and involuntary acts (including System 1 Truths and UOA1 (Understanding of Agency 1) and Emotions1such as joy, love, anger) which can be described causally, while the evolutionarily later SLG's are expressions or descriptions of voluntary, System 2, slow thinking, mentalizing neurons, testable true or false, propositional, Truth2 and UOA2 and Emotions2joyfulness , loving, hating, the dispositional (and often counterfactual) imagining, supposing, intending, thinking, knowing, believing, etc. which can only be described in terms of reasons (i.e., it's just a fact that attempts to describe System 2 in terms of neurochemistry, atomic physics, mathematics, just make no sense--see W for many examples and Searle for good disquisitions on this). It is not possible to describe the automatisms of System 1 in terms of reasons (e.g., `I see that as an apple because...') unless you want to give a reason in terms of EP, genetics, physiology, and as W has demonstrated repeatedly it is meaningless to give "explanations" with the proviso that they will make sense in the future--`Nothing is hidden'--they make sense now or never--(e.g., "The greatest danger here is wanting to observe oneself." LWPP1, 459). A powerful heuristic is to separate behavior and experience into Intentionality 1 and Intentionality 2 (e.g., Thinking 1 and Thinking 2, Emotions 1 and Emotions 2 etc.) and even into Truths 1 (T only axioms) and Truths 2 (empirical extensions or "Theorems" which result from the logical extension of Truths 1). W recognized that Nothing is Hidden'--i.e., our whole psychology and all the answers to all philosophical questions are here in our language (our life) and that the difficulty is not to find the answers but to 148 recognize them as always here in front of us--we just have to stop trying to look deeper. Once we understand W, we realize the absurdity of regarding "language philosophy" as a separate study apart from other areas of behavior, since language is just another name for the mind. And, when W says that understanding behavior is in no way dependent on the progress of psychology (e.g., his oft-quoted assertion "The confusion and barrenness of psychology is not to be explained by calling it a `young science' --but cf. another comment that I have never seen quoted-- "Is scientific progress useful to philosophy? Certainly. The realities that are discovered lighten the philosophers task. Imagining possibilities." (LWPP1,807). So, he is not legislating the boundaries of science but pointing out that our behavior (mostly speech) is the clearest picture possible of our psychology and that all discussions of higher order behavior are plagued by conceptual confusions. FMRI, PET, TCMS, iRNA, computational analogs, AI and all the rest are fascinating and powerful ways to extend our innate axiomatic psychology, to provide the physical basis for our behavior and facilitate our analysis of language games which nevertheless remain unexplainable--EP just is this way-and unchanged. The true-only axioms, most thoroughly explored in 'On Certainty', are W's (and later Searle's) "bedrock" or "background" i.e., evolutionary psychology, which are traceable to the automated true-only reactions of bacteria and their descendants (e.g., humans), which evolved and operate by the mechanism of inclusive fitness (IF)--see Bourke's superb "Principles of Social Evolution". W insisted that we should regard our analysis of behavior as descriptions rather than explanations, but of course these too are complex language games and one person's description is another's explanation. Beginning with their innate true-only, nonempirical (automated and nonchangeable) responses to the world, animals extend their axiomatic understanding via deductions into further true only understandings ("theorems" as we might call them, but this is a complex language game even in the context of mathematics). Tyrannosaurs and mesons become as unchallengeable as the existence of our two hands or our breathing. This dramatically changes one's view of human nature. Theory of Mind (TOM) is not a theory at all but a group of trueonly Understandings of Agency (UOA a term I devised 10 years ago) which newborn animals (including flies and worms if UOA is suitably defined) have and subsequently extend greatly (in higher eukaryotes). However, as I note 149 here, W made it very clear that for much of intentionality there are System 1 and System 2 versions (language games)-the fast unconscious UOA1 and the Slow conscious UOA2 and of course these are heuristics for multifaceted phenomena. Although the raw material for S2 is S1, S2 also feeds back into S1- higher cortical feedback to the lowest levels of perception, memory, reflexive thinking that is a fundamental of psychology. Many of W's examples explore this two way street (e.g., see the discussions of the duck/rabbit and 'seeing as' in Johnston). The "Theory" of Evolution ceased to be a theory for any normal, rational, intelligent person before the end of the 19th century and for Darwin at least half a century earlier. One CANNOT help but incorporate T. rex and all that is relevant to it into our true only background via the inexorable workings of EP. Once one gets the logical (psychological) necessity of this it is truly stupefying that even the brightest and the best seem not to grasp this most basic fact of human life (with a tip of the hat to Kant, Searle and a few others) which was laid out in great detail in "On Certainty". Incidentally, the equation of logic and our axiomatic psychology is essential to understanding W and human nature (as Daniele Moyal-Sharrock (DMS), but afaik nobody else, points out). So, most of our shared public experience (culture) becomes a true-only extension of our axiomatic EP and cannot be found mistaken without threatening our sanity. Football or Britney Spears cannot just vanish from my or our memory and vocabulary as these concepts, ideas, events, developed out of and are tied to countless others in the true only network that begins with birth and extends in all directions to encompass much of our awareness and memory. A corollary, nicely explained by DMS and elucidated in his own unique manner by Searle, is that the skeptical view of the world and other minds (and a mountain of other nonsense including the Blank Slate) cannot really get a foothold, as "reality" is the result of involuntary fast thinking axioms and not testable true or false propositions. I think it is clear that the innate true-only axioms W is occupied with throughout his work, and almost exclusively in OC (his last work `On Certainty'), are equivalent to the fast thinking or System 1 that is at the center of current research (e.g., see Kahneman--"Thinking Fast and Slow", but he has no idea W laid out the framework some 75 years ago), which is involuntary and unconscious and which corresponds to the mental states of perception (including UOA1) and memory and involuntary acts, as W notes over and over in endless examples. One might call these "intracerebral reflexes"(maybe 150 99% of all our cerebration if measured by energy use in the brain). Our slow or reflective, more or less "conscious" (beware another network of language games!) second-self brain activity corresponds to what W characterized as "dispositions" or "inclinations", which refer to abilities or possible actions, are not mental states (or not in the same sense), and do not have any definite time of occurrence and/or duration. But disposition words like "knowing", "understanding", "thinking", "believing", which W discussed extensively, have at least two basic uses. One is a peculiar philosophical use (but graduating into everyday uses) exemplified by Moore (whose papers inspired W to write OC), which refers to the true-only sentences resulting from direct perceptions and memory, i.e., our innate axiomatic S1 psychology (`I know these are my hands'), and the S2 one, which is their normal use as dispositions, which can be acted out, and which can become true or false (`I know my way home'). The investigation of involuntary fast thinking has revolutionized psychology, economics (e.g., Kahneman's Nobel prize) and other disciplines under names like "cognitive illusions", "priming", "framing", "heuristics" and "biases". Of course these too are language games so there will be more and less useful ways to use these words, and studies and discussions will vary from "pure" System 1 to combinations of 1 and 2 (the norm as W made clear), but presumably not ever of slow System 2 dispositional thinking only, since any System 2 thought or intentional action cannot occur without involving much of the intricate network of "cognitive modules", "inference engines", "intracerebral reflexes", "automatisms", "cognitive axioms", "background" or "bedrock" (as W and later Searle call our EP). One of W's recurring themes was what is now called Theory of Mind (TOM), or as I prefer Understanding of Agency (UOA), but of course he did not use these terms, which is the subject of major research efforts now. I recommend consulting the work of Ian Apperly, who is carefully dissecting UOA1 and 2 and who has recently become aware of one of the leading Wittgensteinian philosophers Daniel Hutto, since Hutto has now characterized UOA1 as a fantasy (or rather insists that there is no `Theory' nor representation involved in UOA1--that being reserved for UOA2). However, like other psychologists, Apperly has no idea W laid the groundwork for this between 60 and 80 years ago. Another point made countless times by W was that our conscious mental life is epiphenomenal in the sense that it does not accurately describe nor 151 determine how we act-now a pillar of the behavioral sciences. See 'The Phenomenological Illusion' in PNC for a grand example from philosophy. It is an obvious corollary of W's and S's descriptive psychology that it is the unconscious automatisms of System 1 that dominate and describe behavior and that the later evolved conscious dispositions (thinking, remembering, loving, desiring, regretting etc.) are mere icing on the cake. This is most strikingly borne out by the latest experimental psychology, some of which is nicely summarized by Kahneman in the book cited (see e.g., the chapter `Two Selves', but of course there is a huge volume of recent work he does not cite and an endless stream of pop and pro books issuing). It is an easily defensible view that most of the burgeoning literature on cognitive illusions, automatisms and higher order thought is wholly compatible with and straightforwardly deducible from W. Regarding my view of W as the major pioneer in EP, it seems nobody has noticed that he very clearly explained several times specifically and many times in passing, the psychology behind what later became known as the Wason Test--long a mainstay of EP research. Finally, let me suggest that with this perspective, W is not obscure, difficult or irrelevant but scintillating, profound and crystal clear, that he writes aphoristically and telegraphically because we think and behave that way, and that to miss him is to miss one of the greatest intellectual adventures possible. Now that we have a reasonable start on the Logical Structure of Rationality (the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought) laid out we can look at the table of Intentionality that results from this work, which I have constructed over the last few years. It is based on a much simpler one from Searle, which in turn owes much to Wittgenstein. I have also incorporated in modified form tables being used by current researchers in the psychology of thinking processes which are evidenced in the last 9 rows. It should prove interesting to compare it with those in Peter Hacker's 3 recent volumes on Human Nature. I offer this table as an heuristic for describing behavior that I find more complete and useful than any other framework I have seen and not as a final or complete analysis, which would have to be three dimensional with hundreds (at least) of arrows going in many directions with many (perhaps all) pathways between S1 and S2 being bidirectional. Also, the very distinction between S1 and S2, cognition and willing, perception and memory, between feeling, knowing, believing and expecting etc. are arbitrary--that is, as W demonstrated, all words are contextually sensitive and most have several utterly different uses (meanings or COS). Many complex 152 charts have been published by scientists but I find them of minimal utility when thinking about behavior (as opposed to thinking about brain function). Each level of description may be useful in certain contexts but I find that being coarser or finer limits usefulness. The Logical Structure of Rationality (LSR), or the Logical Structure of Mind (LSM), the Logical Structure of Behavior (LSB), the Logical Structure of Thought (LST), the Logical Structure of Consciousness (LSC), the Logical Structure of Personality (LSP), the Descriptive Psychology of Consciousness (DSC), the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought (DPHOT), Intentionality-the classical philosophical term. System 1 is involuntary, reflexive or automated "Rules" R1 while Thinking (Cognition) has no gaps and is voluntary or deliberative "Rules" R2 and Willing (Volition) has 3 gaps (see Searle) 153 Disposition* Emotion Memory Perception Desire PI** IA*** Action/ Word Cause Originates From**** World World World World Mind Mind Mind Mind Causes Changes In***** None Mind Mind Mind None World World World Causally Self Reflexive****** No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes True or False (Testable) Yes T only T only T only Yes Yes Yes Yes Public Conditions of Satisfaction Yes Yes/No Yes/No No Yes/No Yes No Yes Describe A Mental State No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes/No Yes Evolutionary Priority 5 4 2,3 1 5 3 2 2 Voluntary Content Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes Voluntary Initiation Yes/No No Yes No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive System ******* 2 1 2/1 1 2 / 1 2 1 2 Change Intensity No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Precise Duration No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Time, Place (H+N, T+T) ******** TT HN HN HN TT TT HN HN Special Quality No Yes No Yes No No No No Localized in Body No No No Yes No No No Yes Bodily Expressions Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Self Contradictions No Yes No No Yes No No No Needs a Self Yes Yes/No No No Yes No No No Needs Language Yes No No No No No No Yes/No 154 FROM DECISION RESEARCH Disposition* Emotion Memory Perception Desire PI** IA*** Action/ Word Subliminal Effects No Yes/No Yes Yes No No No Yes/No Associative/ Rule Based RB A/RB A A A/RB RB RB RB Context Dependent/ Abstract A CD/A CD CD CD/A A CD/A CD/A Serial/Parallel S S/P P P S/P S S S Heuristic/ Analytic A H/A H H H/A A A A Needs Working Memory Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes General Intelligence Dependent Yes No No No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive Loading Inhibits Yes Yes/No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Arousal Facilitates or Inhibits I F/I F F I I I I Public Conditions of Satisfaction of S2 are often referred to by Searle and others as COS, Representations, truthmakers or meanings (or COS2 by myself), while the automatic results of S1 are designated as presentations by others ( or COS1 by myself). * Aka Inclinations, Capabilities, Preferences, Representations, possible actions etc. ** Searle's Prior Intentions *** Searle's Intention In Action **** Searle's Direction of Fit ***** Searle's Direction of Causation ****** (Mental State instantiates--Causes or Fulfills Itself). Searle formerly called this causally selfreferential. ******* Tversky/Kahneman/Frederick/Evans/Stanovich defined cognitive systems. ******** Here and Now or There and Then One should always keep in mind Wittgenstein's discovery that after we have 155 described the possible uses (meanings, truthmakers, Conditions of Satisfaction) of language in a particular context, we have exhausted its interest, and attempts at explanation (i.e., philosophy) only get us further away from the truth. It is critical to note that this table is only a highly simplified context-free heuristic and each use of a word must be examined in its context. The best examination of context variation is in Peter Hacker's recent 3 volumes on Human Nature, which provide numerous tables and charts that should be compared with this one. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date account of Wittgenstein, Searle and their analysis of behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my article The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Wittgenstein and Searle (2016). Now for some comments on Searle's PNC. The essays here are mostly already published during the last decade (though some have been updated), along with one unpublished item, and nothing here will come as a surprise to those who have kept up with his work. Like W, he is regarded as the best standup philosopher of his time and his written work is solid as a rock and groundbreaking throughout. However, his failure to take the later W seriously enough leads to some mistakes and confusions. On p7 he twice notes that our certainty about basic facts is due to the overwhelming weight of reason supporting our claims, but W showed definitively in 'On Certainty' that there is no possibility of doubting the trueonly axiomatic structure of our System 1 perceptions, memories and thoughts, since it is itself the basis for judgment and cannot itself be judged. In the first sentence on p8 he tells us that certainty is revisable, but this kind of 'certainty', which we might call Certainty2, is the result of extending our axiomatic and nonrevisable certainty (Certainty1) via experience and is utterly different as it is propositional (true or false). This is of course a classic example of the "battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by language" which W demonstrated over and over again. One wordtwo (or many) distinct uses. On p10 he chastises W for his antipathy to theorizing but as I noted above, 'theorizing' is another language game (LG) and there is a vast gulf between a general description of behavior with few well worked out examples and one that emerges from a large number of such that is not subject to many counterexamples. Evolution in its early days was a theory with limited clear examples but soon became just a summary of a vast body of examples and a 156 theory in a quite different sense. Likewise, with a theory one might make as a summary of a thousand pages of W's examples and one resulting from ten pages. Again, on p12, 'consciousness' is the result of automated System 1 functioning that is 'subjective' in several quite different senses, and not, in the normal case, a matter of evidence but a true-only understanding in our own case and a true-only perception in the case of others. As I read p13 I thought: "Can I be feeling excruciating pain and go on as if nothing is wrong?" No! -this would not be 'pain' in the same sense. "The inner experience stands in need of outer criteria" (W) and Searle seems to miss this. See W or Johnston. As I read the next few pages I felt that W has a much better grasp of the mind/language connection, as he regards them as synonymous in many contexts, and his work is a brilliant exposition of mind as exemplified in numerous perspicacious examples of language use. As quoted above, "Now if it is not the causal connections which we are concerned with, then the activities of the mind lie open before us." And as explained above I feel the questions with which S ends section 3 are largely answered by considering W's OC from the standpoint of the two systems. Likewise, for section 6 on the philosophy of science. Rodych has done an article on Popper vs W which I thought superb at the time but I will have to reread it to make sure. Finally, on p25, one can deny that any revision of our concepts (language games) of causation or free will are necessary or even possible. You can read just about any page of W for the reasons. It's one thing to say bizarre things about the world using examples from quantum mechanics, uncertainty etc., but it is another to say anything relevant to our normal use of words. On p31, 36 etc., we again encounter the incessant problems (in philosophy and life) of identical words glossing over the huge differences in LG's of 'belief', 'seeing' etc., as applied to S1 which is composed of mental states in the present only, and S2 which is not. The rest of the chapter summarizes his work on 'social glue' which, from an EP, Wittgensteinian perspective, is the automatic fast actions of S1 producing the slow dispositions of S2 which are inexorably and universally expanded during personal development into a wide array of automatic unconscious deontic relationships with others, and arbitrarily into cultural variations on them. Chapters 3 to 5 contain his well-known arguments against the mechanical 157 view of mind which seem to me definitive. I have read whole books of responses to them and I agree with S that they all miss the very simple logical (psychological) points he makes (and which, by and large, W made half a century earlier before there were computers). To put it in my terms, S1 is composed of unconscious, fast, physical, causal, automatic, nonpropositional, true only mental states, while slow S2 can only coherently be described in terms of reasons for actions that are more or less conscious dispositions to behavior (potential actions) that are or can become propositional (T or F). Computers and the rest of nature have only derived intentionality that is dependent on our perspective while higher animals have primary intentionality that is independent of perspective. As S and W appreciate, the great irony is that these materialistic or mechanical reductions of psychology masquerade as cutting edge science, but in fact they are utterly anti-scientific. Philosophy (descriptive psychology) and cognitive psychology (freed of superstition) are becoming hand in glove and it is Hofstadter, Dennett, Kurzweil etc., who are left out in the cold. Page 62 nicely summarizes one of his arguments but p63 shows that he has still not quite let go of the blank slate as he tries to explain trends in society in terms of the cultural extensions of S2. As he does in many other places in his writings, he gives cultural, historical reasons for behaviorism, but it seems quite obvious to me (as it was to W) that the mechanical view of mind exists for the same reason as nearly all behavior-it is the default operation of our EP which seeks explanations in terms of what we can deliberately think through slowly, rather than in the automated S1, of which we mostly remain oblivious. Again, on p65 I find W's description of our axiomatic inherited psychology and its extensions in his OC and other works to be deeper than S's (or anyone's), and so we are NOT 'confident' that dogs are conscious, but rather it is not open to doubt. Chapter 5 nicely demolishes CTM, LOT etc., noting that 'computation', 'information', 'syntax', 'algorithm', 'logic', 'program', etc., are observer relative (i.e., psychological) terms and have no physical or mathematical meaning in this psychological sense, but of course there are other senses they have been given recently as science has developed. Again, people are bewitched by the use of the same word into ignoring that vast difference in its use (meaning). All extensions of classic Wittgenstein and I recommend Hutto's papers too. Chapter 6 "The Phenomenological Illusion" (TPI) is by far my favorite, and, while demolishing that field, it shows both his supreme logical abilities and 158 his failure to grasp the full power of both the later W, and the great heuristic value of recent psychological research on the two selves. It is clear as crystal that TPI is due to obliviousness to the automatisms of S1 and to taking the slow conscious thinking of S2 as not only primary but as all there is. This is classic Blank Slate blindness. It is also clear that W showed this some 60 years earlier and also gave the reason for it in the primacy of the true-only unconscious automatic axiomatic network of our innate System 1. Like so many others, Searle dances all around it but never quite gets there. Very roughly, regarding 'observer independent' features of the world as S1 and 'observer dependent' features as S2 should prove very revealing. As S notes, Heidegger and the others have the ontology exactly backwards, but of course so does almost everyone due to the defaults of their EP. But the really important thing is that S does not take the next step to realizing that TPI is not just a failing of a few philosophers, but a universal blindness to our EP that is itself built into EP. He actually states this in almost these words at one point, but if he really got it how could he fail to point out its immense implications for the world. With rare exceptions (e.g., the Jaina Tirthankaras going back over 5000 years to the beginnings of the Indus civilization and most recently and remarkably Osho, Buddha, Jesus, Bodhidharma, Da Free John etc., we are all meat puppets stumbling through life on our genetically programmed mission to destroy the earth. Our almost total preoccupation with using the second self S2 personality to indulge the infantile gratifications of S1 is creating Hell On Earth. As with all organisms, it's only about reproduction and accumulating resources therefor. Yes, much noise about Global Warming and the imminent collapse of industrial civilization in the next century, but nothing is likely to stop it. S1 writes the play and S2 acts it out. Dick and Jane just want to play house-this is mommy and this is daddy and this and this and this is baby. Perhaps one could say that TPI is that we are humans and not just another primate. Chapter 7 on the nature of the self is good but nothing really struck me as new. Chapter 8 on property dualism is much more interesting even though mostly a rehash of his previous work. The last of his opening quotes above sums this up, and of course the insistence on the critical nature of first person ontology is totally Wittgensteinian. The only big blunder I see is his blank slate or (cultural) type of explanation on p 158 for the errors of dualism, when in my view, it is clearly another instance of TPI-a mistake which he (and nearly everyone else) has made many times, and repeats on p177 etc., in the 159 otherwise superb Chapter 9. The genes program S1 which (mostly) pulls the strings (contracts the muscles) of the meat puppets via S2. End of story. Again, he needs to read my comments on W's OC so he changes the "good reason to believe" at the bottom of p171 and the top of p172 to "knows" (in the true-only sense). A critical point is made again on p169. "Thus, saying something and meaning it involves two conditions of satisfaction. First, the condition of satisfaction that the utterance will be produced, and second, that the utterance itself shall have conditions of satisfaction." One way of regarding this is that the unconscious automatic System 1 activates the higher cortical conscious personality of System 2, bringing about throat muscle contractions which inform others that it sees the world in certain ways, which commit it to potential actions. A huge advance over prelinguistic or protolinguistic interactions in which only gross muscle movements were able to convey very limited information about intentions and S makes a similar point in Chapter 10. His last chapter "The Unity of the Proposition" (previously unpublished) would also benefit greatly from reading W's "On Certainty" or DMS's two books on OC (see my reviews) as they make clear the difference between true only sentences describing S1 and true or false propositions describing S2. This strikes me as a far superior approach to S's taking S1 perceptions as propositional since they only become T or F after one begins thinking about them in S2. However, his point that propositions permit statements of actual or potential truth and falsity, of past and future and fantasy, and thus provide a huge advance over pre or protolinguistic society, is cogent. As he states it "A proposition is anything at all that can determine a condition of satisfaction...and a condition of satisfaction... is that such and such is the case." Or, one needs to add, that might be or might have been or might be imagined to be the case. Overall, PNC is a good summary of the many substantial advances over Wittgenstein resulting from S's half century of work, but in my view, W still is unequaled once you grasp what he is saying. Ideally, they should be read together: Searle for the clear coherent prose and generalizations, illustrated with W's perspicacious examples and brilliant aphorisms. If I were much younger I would write a book doing exactly that. 160 Review of Wittgenstein's Metaphilosophy by Paul Horwich 248p (2013) Michael Starks ABSTRACT Horwich gives a fine analysis of Wittgenstein (W) and is a leading W scholar, but in my view, they all fall short of a full appreciation, as I explain at length in this review and many others. If one does not understand W (and preferably Searle also) then I don't see how one could have more than a superficial understanding of philosophy and of higher order thought and thus of all complex behavior (psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, literature, society). In a nutshell, W demonstrated that when you have shown how a sentence is used in the context of interest, there is nothing more to say. I will start with a few notable quotes and then give what I think are the minimum considerations necessary to understand Wittgenstein, philosophy and human behavior. First one might note that putting "meta" in front of any word should be suspect. W remarked e.g., that metamathematics is mathematics like any other. The notion that we can step outside philosophy (i.e., the descriptive psychology of higher order thought) is itself a profound confusion. Another irritation here (and throughout academic writing for the last 4 decades) is the constant reverse linguistic sexism of "her" and "hers" and "she" or "he/she" etc., where "they" and "theirs" and "them" would do nicely. Likewise, the use of the French word 'repertoire' where the English 'repertory' will do quite well. The major deficiency is the complete failure (though very common) to employ what I see as the hugely powerful and intuitive two systems view of HOT and Searle's framework which I have outlined above. This is especially poignant in the chapter on meaning p111 et seq. (especially in footnotes 2-7), where we swim in very muddy water without the framework of automated true only S1, propositional dispositional S2, COS etc. One can also get a better view of the inner and the outer by reading e.g., Johnston or Budd (see my reviews). Horwich however makes many incisive comments. I especially liked his summary of the import of W's anti-theoretical stance on p65. He needs to give more emphasis to 'On Certainty', recently the subject of much effort by Daniele MoyalSharrock, Coliva and others and summarized in my recent articles. 161 Horwich is first rate and his work well worth the effort. One hopes that he (and everyone) will study Searle and some modern psychology as well as Hutto, Read, Hutchinson, Stern, Moyal-Sharrock, Stroll, Hacker and Baker etc. to attain a broad modern view of behavior. Most of their papers are on academia.edu and philpapers.org, but for PMS Hacker see http://info.sjc.ox.ac.uk/scr/hacker/DownloadPapers.html. He gives one of the most beautiful summaries of where an understanding of Wittgenstein leaves us that I have ever seen. "There must be no attempt to explain our linguistic/conceptual activity (PI 126) as in Frege's reduction of arithmetic to logic; no attempt to give it epistemological foundations (PI 124) as in meaning based accounts of a priori knowledge; no attempt to characterize idealized forms of it (PI 130) as in sense logics; no attempt to reform it (PI 124, 132) as in Mackie's error theory or Dummett's intuitionism; no attempt to streamline it (PI 133) as in Quine's account of existence; no attempt to make it more consistent (PI 132) as in Tarski's response to the liar paradoxes; and no attempt to make it more complete (PI 133) as in the settling of questions of personal identity for bizarre hypothetical 'teleportation' scenarios." Finally, let me suggest that with the perspective I have encouraged here, W is at the center of contemporary philosophy and psychology and is not obscure, difficult or irrelevant, but scintillating, profound and crystal clear and that to miss him is to miss one of the greatest intellectual adventures possible. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book 'The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017' (2017). Horwich gives a fine analysis of Wittgenstein (W) and is a leading W scholar, but in my view, they all fall short of a full appreciation, as I explain at length in this review and many others. If one does not understand W (and preferably Searle also) then I don't see how one could have more than a superficial understanding of philosophy and of higher order thought and thus of all complex behavior (psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, literature, society). In a nutshell, W demonstrated that when you have shown how a 162 sentence is used in the context of interest, there is nothing more to say. I will start with a few notable quotes and then give what I think are the minimum considerations necessary to understand Wittgenstein, philosophy and human behavior. "The confusion and barrenness of psychology is not to be explained by calling it a "young science"; its state is not comparable with that of physics, for instance, in its beginnings. (Rather with that of certain branches of mathematics. Set theory.) For in psychology there are experimental methods and conceptual confusion. (As in the other case, conceptual confusion and methods of proof). The existence of the experimental method makes us think we have the means of solving the problems that trouble us; though problem and method pass one another by." Wittgenstein (PI p.232) "Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics and leads the philosopher into complete darkness." (BBB p18). "But I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness: nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false." Wittgenstein OC 94 "The aim of philosophy is to erect a wall at the point where language stops anyway." Wittgenstein Philosophical Occasions p187 "The limit of language is shown by its being impossible to describe a fact which corresponds to (is the translation of) a sentence without simply repeating the sentence ..." Wittgenstein CV p10 "If we keep in mind the possibility of a picture which, though correct, has no similarity with its object, the interpolation of a shadow between the sentence and reality loses all point. For now, the sentence itself can serve as such a shadow. The sentence is just such a picture, which hasn't the slightest similarity with what it represents." BBB p37 "Thus, we may say of some philosophizing mathematicians that they are obviously not aware of the many different usages of the word "proof; and that they are not clear about the differences between the uses of the word "kind", when they talk of kinds of numbers, kinds of proof, as though the 163 word "kind" here meant the same thing as in the context "kinds of apples." Or, we may say, they are not aware of the different meanings of the word "discovery" when in one case we talk of the discovery of the construction of the pentagon and in the other case of the discovery of the South Pole." BBB p29 These quotes are not chosen at random but (along with the others in my reviews) are an outline of behavior (human nature) from our two greatest descriptive psychologists. In considering these matters we must keep in mind that philosophy is the descriptive psychology of higher order thought (HOT), which is another of the obvious facts that are totally overlooked –i.e., I have never seen it clearly stated anywhere. Here is how the leading Wittgenstein scholar summarized his work: "Wittgenstein resolved many of the deep problems that have dogged our subject for centuries, sometimes indeed for more than two millennia, problems about the nature of linguistic representation, about the relationship between thought and language, about solipsism and idealism, selfknowledge and knowledge of other minds, and about the nature of necessary truth and of mathematical propositions. He ploughed up the soil of European philosophy of logic and language. He gave us a novel and immensely fruitful array of insights into philosophy of psychology. He attempted to overturn centuries of reflection on the nature of mathematics and mathematical truth. He undermined foundationalist epistemology. And he bequeathed us a vision of philosophy as a contribution not to human knowledge, but to human understanding – understanding of the forms of our thought and of the conceptual confusions into which we are liable to fall."-Peter Hacker-- 'Gordon Baker's late interpretation of Wittgenstein' I would add that W was the first (by 40 years) to clearly and extensively describe the two systems of thought -fast automatic prelinguistic S1 and the slow reflective linguistic dispositional S2. He explained how behavior only is possible with a vast inherited background that is the axiomatic basis for judging and cannot be doubted or judged, so will (choice), consciousness, self, time and space are innate true-only axioms. He discussed many times what is now known as Theory of Mind, Framing and cognitive illusions. He frequently explained the necessity of the innate background and demonstrated how it generates behavior. He described the psychology behind what later became the Wason test--a fundamental measure used in EP research decades later. He noted the indeterminate nature of language and the game-like nature of social interaction. He examined in thousands of pages 164 and hundreds of examples how our inner mental experiences are not describable in language, this being possible only for public behavior with a public language (the impossibility of private language). Thus, he can be viewed as the first evolutionary psychologist. When thinking about Wittgenstein, I often recall the comment attributed to Cambridge Philosophy professor C.D. Broad (who did not understand nor like him). "Not offering the chair of philosophy to Wittgenstein would be like not offering the chair of physics to Einstein!" I think of him as the Einstein of intuitive psychology. Though born ten years later, he was likewise hatching ideas about the nature of reality at nearly the same time and in the same part of the world and like Einstein nearly died in WW1. Now suppose Einstein was a suicidal homosexual recluse with a difficult personality who published only one early version of his ideas that were confused and often mistaken, but became world famous; completely changed his ideas but for the next 30 years published nothing more, and knowledge of his new work, in mostly garbled form, diffused slowly from occasional lectures and students notes; that he died in 1951 leaving behind over 20,000 pages of mostly handwritten scribblings in German, composed of sentences or short paragraphs with, often, no clear relationship to sentences before or after; that he wrote in a Socratic style with 3 distinct persons in the dialog-the narrator, the interlocutor and the commentator (usually W's view) whose comments were blended together by most readers, thus completely vitiating the whole elucidatory and therapeutic thrust, that these were cut and pasted from other notebooks written years earlier with notes in the margins, under linings and crossed out words, so that many sentences have multiple variants; that his literary executives cut this indigestible mass into pieces, leaving out what they wished and struggling with the monstrous task of capturing the correct meaning of sentences which were conveying utterly novel views of how the universe works and that they then published this material with agonizing slowness (not finished after half a century) with prefaces that contained no real explanation of what it was about; that he became as much notorious as famous due to many statements that all previous physics was a mistake and even nonsense, and that virtually nobody understood his work, in spite of hundreds of books and tens of thousands of papers discussing it; that many physicists knew only his early work in which he had made a definitive summation of Newtonian physics stated in such extremely abstract and condensed form that it was difficult to decide what was being said; that he was then virtually forgotten and that most books and articles on the nature of the world and the diverse topics of modern physics had only passing and usually erroneous references to him, and that many omitted him entirely; that 165 to this day, over half a century after his death, there were only a handful of people who really grasped the monumental consequences of what he had done. This, I claim, is precisely the situation with Wittgenstein. Before remarking on this book, I will first offer some comments on philosophy and its relationship to contemporary psychological research as exemplified in the works of Searle (S), Wittgenstein (W), Hacker (H) et al. It will help to see my reviews of PNC (Philosophy in a New Century), TLP, PI, OC, Making the Social World (MSW) and other books by and about these geniuses, who provide a clear description of higher order behavior not found in psychology books, that I will refer to as the WS framework. A major theme in all discussion of human behavior is the need to separate the genetically programmed automatisms from the effects of culture. All study of higher order behavior is an effort to tease apart not only fast S1 and slow S2 thinking --e.g., perceptions and other automatisms vs. dispositions, but the extensions of S2 into culture (S3). Searle's work as a whole provides a stunning description of higher order S2/S3 social behavior, while the later W shows how it is based on true-only unconscious axioms of S1 which evolved into conscious dispositional propositional thinking of S2. S1 is the simple automated functions of our involuntary, System 1, fast thinking, mirror neuron, true-only, non-propositional, prelinguistic mental statesour perceptions and memories and reflexive acts including System 1 Truths and UA1 --Understanding of Agency 1-and Emotions1such as joy, love, anger) which can be described causally, while the evolutionarily later linguistic functions are expressions or descriptions of voluntary, System 2, slow thinking, mentalizing neurons. That is, of testable true or false, propositional, Truth2 and UA2 and Emotions2 (joyfulness, loving, hating) -the dispositional (and often counterfactual) imagining, supposing, intending, thinking, knowing, believing, etc. which can only be described in terms of reasons (i.e., it's just a fact that attempts to describe System 2 in terms of neurochemistry, atomic physics, mathematics, make no sense--see W, S, Hacker etc.). "Many words then in this sense then don't have a strict meaning. But this is not a defect. To think it is would be like saying that the light of my reading lamp is no real light at all because it has no sharp boundary." BBB p27 "The origin and the primitive form of the language game is a reaction; only from this can more complicated forms develop. Language--I want to say--is a refinement. 'In the beginning was the deed.'" CV p31 166 "Imagine a person whose memory could not retain what the word 'pain' meant-so that he constantly called different things by that name-but nevertheless used the word in a way fitting in with the usual symptoms and presuppositions of the word 'pain'-in short he used it as we all do." PI p271 "Every sign is capable of interpretation but the meaning mustn't be capable of interpretation. Is is the last interpretation" BBB p34 "There is a kind of general disease of thinking which always looks for (and finds) what would be called a mental state from which all our acts spring, as from a reservoir." BBB p143 "And the mistake which we here and in a thousand similar cases are inclined to make is labeled by the word "to make" as we have used it in the sentence "It is no act of insight which makes us use the rule as we do", because there is an idea that "something must make us" do what we do. And this again joins onto the confusion between cause and reason. We need have no reason to follow the rule as we do. The chain of reasons has an end." BBB p143 Disposition words have at least two basic uses. One is a peculiar philosophical use (but graduating into everyday uses) which refers to the true-only sentences resulting from direct perceptions and memory, i.e., our innate axiomatic S1 psychology (`I know these are my hands')--i.e., they are Causally Self Referential (CSR)-called reflexive or intransitive in BBB), and the S2 use, which is their normal use as dispositions, which can be acted out, and which can become true or false (`I know my way home')--i.e., they have Conditions of Satisfaction (COS) and are not CSR(called transitive in BBB). It follows both from W's 3rd period work and from contemporary psychology, that `will', `self' and `consciousness' are axiomatic true-only elements of S1 composed of perceptions and reflexes., and there is no possibility (intelligibility) of demonstrating (of giving sense to) their falsehood. As W made so wonderfully clear numerous times, they are the basis for judgment and so cannot be judged. The true-only axioms of our psychology are not evidential. Evolution by inclusive fitness has programmed the unconscious rapid reflexive causal actions of S1 which often give rise to the conscious slow thinking of S2 (often modified into the cultural extensions of S3), which produces reasons for action that often result in activation of body and/or 167 speech muscles by S1 causing actions. The general mechanism is via both neurotransmission and by changes in neuromodulators in targeted areas of the brain. The overall cognitive illusion (called by S `The Phenomenological Illusion', by Pinker `The Blank Slate' and by Tooby and Cosmides `The Standard Social Science Model') is that S2/S3 has generated the action consciously for reasons of which we are fully aware and in control of, but anyone familiar with modern biology and psychology can see that this view is not credible. A sentence expresses a thought (has a meaning), when it has clear COS, i.e., public truth conditions. Hence the comment from W: " When I think in language, there aren't `meanings' going through my mind in addition to the verbal expressions: the language is itself the vehicle of thought." And, if I think with or without words, the thought is whatever I (honestly) say it is as there is no other possible criterion (COS). Thus, W's lovely aphorisms (p132 Budd) "It is in language that wish and fulfillment meet" and "Like everything metaphysical, the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language." And one might note here that `grammar' in W can usually be translated as EP and that in spite of his frequent warnings against theorizing and generalizing, this is about as broad a characterization of higher order descriptive psychology (philosophy) as one can find. Though W is correct that there is no mental state that constitutes meaning, S notes that there is a general way to characterize the act of meaning-- "Speaker meaning... is the imposition of conditions of satisfaction on conditions of satisfaction" which means to speak or write a well-formed sentence expressing COS in a context that can be true or false and this is an act and not a mental state. Hence the famous quote from W: "If God had looked into our minds he would not have been able to see there whom we were speaking of (PI p217)" and his comments that the whole problem of representation is contained in "that's Him" and "...what gives the image its interpretation is the path on which it lies," or as S says its COS. Hence W's summation (p140 Budd) that "What it always comes to in the end is that without any further meaning, he calls what happened the wish that that should happen"..." the question whether I know what I wish before my wish is fulfilled cannot arise at all. And the fact that some event stops my wishing does not mean that it fulfills it. Perhaps I should not have been satisfied if my wish had been satisfied"...Suppose it were asked `Do I know what I long for before I get it? If I have learned to talk, then I do know." 168 Wittgenstein (W) is for me easily the most brilliant thinker on human behavior. He shows that behavior is an extension of innate true-only axioms (see "On Certainty" for his final extended treatment of this idea) and that our conscious ratiocination emerges from unconscious machinations. His corpus can be seen as the foundation for all description of animal behavior, revealing how the mind works and indeed must work. The "must" is entailed by the fact that all brains share a common ancestry and common genes and so there is only one basic way they work, that this necessarily has an axiomatic structure, that all higher animals share the same evolved psychology based on inclusive fitness, and that in humans this is extended into a personality based on throat muscle contractions (language) that evolved to manipulate others. I suggest it will prove of the greatest value to consider W's work and most of his examples as an effort to tease apart not only fast and slow thinking (e.g., perceptions vs dispositions-see below), but nature and nurture. "Philosophy simply puts everything before us and neither explains nor deduces anything...One might give the name 'philosophy' to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions." PI 126 "The more narrowly we examine actual language, the sharper becomes the conflict between it and our requirement. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not a result of investigation: it was a requirement.)" PI 107 "The wrong conception which I want to object to in this connexion is the following, that we can discover something wholly new. That is a mistake. The truth of the matter is that we have already got everything, and that we have got it actually present; we need not wait for anything. We make our moves in the realm of the grammar of our ordinary language, and this grammar is already there. Thus, we have already got everything and need not wait for the future." (said in 1930) Waismann "Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle (1979) p183 "Here we come up against a remarkable and characteristic phenomenon in philosophical investigation: the difficulty---I might say---is not that of finding the solution but rather that of recognizing as the solution something that looks as if it were only a preliminary to it. We have already said everything. ---Not anything that follows from this, no this itself is the solution! ....This is connected, I believe, with our wrongly expecting an explanation, whereas the solution of the difficulty is a description, if we give it the right place in our considerations. If we dwell upon it, and do not try to get beyond it." Zettel p312-314 169 "Our method is purely descriptive, the descriptions we give are not hints of explanations." BBB p125 "For the clarity that we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear." PI p133 W can also be regarded as a pioneer in evolutionary cognitive linguistics- the Top Down analysis of the mind and its evolution via the careful analysis of examples of language use in context, exposing the many varieties of language games and the relationships between the primary games of trueonly unconscious, axiomatic fast thinking of perception, memory and reflexive emotions and acts (often described as the subcortical and primitive cortical reptilian brain first-self functions), and the later evolved higher cortical dispositional conscious abilities of believing, knowing, thinking etc. that constitute the true or false propositional secondary language games of slow thinking that include the network of cognitive illusions that constitute the basis of our second-self personality. He dissects hundreds of language games showing how the true-only perceptions, memories and reflexive actions of system one (S1) grade into the thinking, remembering, and understanding of system two (S2) dispositions, and many of his examples also address the nature/nurture issue explicitly. With this evolutionary perspective, his later works are a breathtaking revelation of human nature that is entirely current and has never been equaled. Many perspectives have heuristic value, but I find that this evolutionary two systems view is the best. To paraphrase Dobzhansky's famous comment: "Nothing in philosophy makes sense except in the light of evolutionary psychology." The common ideas (e.g., the subtitle of one of Pinker's books "The Stuff of Thought: language as a window into human nature") that language is a window on or some sort of translation of our thinking or even (Fodor) that there must be some other "Language of Thought" of which it is a translation, were rejected by W, who tried to show, with hundreds of continually reanalyzed perspicacious examples of language in action, that language is not just the best picture we can ever get of thinking, the mind and human nature, but speech is the mind, and his whole corpus can be regarded as the development of this idea. He rejected the idea that the Bottom Up approaches of physiology, experimental psychology and computation (Computational Theory of Mind, Strong AI, Dynamic Systems Theory, functionalism, etc.) could reveal what his analyses of Language Games (LG's) did. The difficulties he noted are to understand what is always in front of our eyes and to capture 170 vagueness ("The greatest difficulty in these investigations is to find a way of representing vagueness" LWPP1, 347). He recognized that 'Nothing is Hidden'-i.e., our whole psychology and all the answers to all philosophical questions are here in our language (our life) and that the difficulty is not to find the answers but to recognize them as always here in front of us-we just have to stop trying to look deeper and to abandon the myth of introspective access to our "inner life" (e.g., "The greatest danger here is wanting to observe oneself." LWPP1, 459). Incidentally, the equation of logic or grammar and our axiomatic psychology is essential to understanding W and human nature (as DMS, but afaik nobody else, points out). "Some of the most important logical features of intentionality are beyond the reach of phenomenology because they have no immediate phenomenological reality... Because the creation of meaningfulness out of meaninglessness is not consciously experienced...it does not exist...This is... the phenomenological illusion." Searle PNC p115-117 "...the basic intentional relation between the mind and the world has to do with conditions of satisfaction. And a proposition is anything at all that can stand in an intentional relation to the world, and since those intentional relations always determine conditions of satisfaction, and a proposition is defined as anything sufficient to determine conditions of satisfaction, it turns out that all intentionality is a matter of propositions." Searle PNC p193 "The intentional state represents its conditions of satisfaction...people erroneously suppose that every mental representation must be consciously thought...but the notion of a representation as I am using it is a functional and not an ontological notion. Anything that has conditions of satisfaction, that can succeed or fail in a way that is characteristic of intentionality, is by definition a representation of its conditions of satisfaction...we can analyze the structure of the intentionality of social phenomena by analyzing their conditions of satisfaction." Searle MSW p28-32 "Superstition is nothing but belief in the causal nexus." TLP 5.1361 "Now if it is not the causal connections which we are concerned with, then the activities of the mind lie open before us." BBB p6 "We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, 171 the problems of life remain completely untouched. Of course, there are then no questions left, and this itself is the answer." TLP 6.52 "Nonsense, Nonsense, because you are making assumptions instead of simply describing. If your head is haunted by explanations here, you are neglecting to remind yourself of the most important facts." Z 220 Our shared public experience becomes a true-only extension of our axiomatic EP and cannot be found mistaken without threatening our sanity. That is, the consequences of an S1 'mistake' are quite different from an S2 mistake. A corollary, nicely explained by DMS and elucidated in his own unique manner by Searle, is that the skeptical view of the world and other minds (and a mountain of other nonsense including the Blank Slate) cannot really get a foothold, as "reality" is the result of involuntary axioms and not testable true or false propositions. The investigation of involuntary fast thinking has revolutionized psychology, economics (e.g., Kahneman's Nobel prize) and other disciplines under names like "cognitive illusions", "priming", "framing", "heuristics" and "biases". Of course these too are language games, so there will be more and less useful ways to use these words, and studies and discussions will vary from "pure" System 1 to combinations of 1 and 2 (the norm as W made clear), but presumably not ever of slow System 2 dispositional thinking only, since any System 2 thought or intentional action cannot occur without involving much of the intricate network of "cognitive modules", "inference engines","intracerebral reflexes", "automatisms", "cognitive axioms", "background" or "bedrock" (as W and later Searle call our EP). One of W's recurring themes was TOM, or as I prefer UA (Understanding of Agency). Ian Apperly, who is carefully analyzing UA1 and UA2 in experiments, has recently become aware of Hutto, who has characterized UA1 as a fantasy (i.e., no 'Theory' nor representation involved in UA1--that being reserved for UA2-see my review of his book with Myin). However, like other psychologists, Apperly has no idea W laid the groundwork for this 80 years ago. It is an easily defensible view that the core of the burgeoning literature on cognitive illusions, automatisms and higher order thought is compatible with and straightforwardly deducible from W. In spite of the fact that most of the above has been known to many for decades (and even 3⁄4 of a century in the case of some of W's teachings), I have never seen anything approaching an adequate discussion in behavioral science texts and commonly there is barely a mention. 172 Now that we have a reasonable start on the Logical Structure of Rationality (the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought) laid out we can look at the table of Intentionality that results from this work, which I have constructed over the last few years. It is based on a much simpler one from Searle, which in turn owes much to Wittgenstein. I have also incorporated in modified form tables being used by current researchers in the psychology of thinking processes which are evidenced in the last 9 rows. It should prove interesting to compare it with those in Peter Hacker's 3 recent volumes on Human Nature. I offer this table as an heuristic for describing behavior that I find more complete and useful than any other framework I have seen and not as a final or complete analysis, which would have to be three dimensional with hundreds (at least) of arrows going in many directions with many (perhaps all) pathways between S1 and S2 being bidirectional. Also, the very distinction between S1 and S2, cognition and willing, perception and memory, between feeling, knowing, believing and expecting etc. are arbitrary--that is, as W demonstrated, all words are contextually sensitive and most have several utterly different uses (meanings or COS). Many complex charts have been published by scientists but I find them of minimal utility when thinking about behavior (as opposed to thinking about brain function). Each level of description may be useful in certain contexts but I find that being coarser or finer limits usefulness. The Logical Structure of Rationality (LSR), or the Logical Structure of Mind (LSM), the Logical Structure of Behavior (LSB), the Logical Structure of Thought (LST), the Logical Structure of Consciousness (LSC), the Logical Structure of Personality (LSP), the Descriptive Psychology of Consciousness (DSC), the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought (DPHOT), Intentionality-the classical philosophical term. System 1 is involuntary, reflexive or automated "Rules" R1 while Thinking (Cognition) has no gaps and is voluntary or deliberative "Rules" R2 and Willing (Volition) has 3 gaps (see Searle) 173 Disposition* Emotion Memory Perception Desire PI** IA*** Action/ Word Cause Originates From**** World World World World Mind Mind Mind Mind Causes Changes In***** None Mind Mind Mind None World World World Causally Self Reflexive****** No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes True or False (Testable) Yes T only T only T only Yes Yes Yes Yes Public Conditions of Satisfaction Yes Yes/No Yes/No No Yes/No Yes No Yes Describe A Mental State No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes/No Yes Evolutionary Priority 5 4 2,3 1 5 3 2 2 Voluntary Content Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes Voluntary Initiation Yes/No No Yes No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive System ******* 2 1 2/1 1 2 / 1 2 1 2 Change Intensity No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Precise Duration No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Time, Place (H+N, T+T) ******** TT HN HN HN TT TT HN HN Special Quality No Yes No Yes No No No No Localized in Body No No No Yes No No No Yes Bodily Expressions Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Self Contradictions No Yes No No Yes No No No Needs a Self Yes Yes/No No No Yes No No No Needs Language Yes No No No No No No Yes/No 174 FROM DECISION RESEARCH Disposition* Emotion Memory Perception Desire PI** IA*** Action/ Word Subliminal Effects No Yes/No Yes Yes No No No Yes/No Associative/ Rule Based RB A/RB A A A/RB RB RB RB Context Dependent/ Abstract A CD/A CD CD CD/A A CD/A CD/A Serial/Parallel S S/P P P S/P S S S Heuristic/ Analytic A H/A H H H/A A A A Needs Working Memory Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes General Intelligence Dependent Yes No No No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive Loading Inhibits Yes Yes/No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Arousal Facilitates or Inhibits I F/I F F I I I I Public Conditions of Satisfaction of S2 are often referred to by Searle and others as COS, Representations, truthmakers or meanings (or COS2 by myself), while the automatic results of S1 are designated as presentations by others ( or COS1 by myself). * Aka Inclinations, Capabilities, Preferences, Representations, possible actions etc. ** Searle's Prior Intentions *** Searle's Intention In Action **** Searle's Direction of Fit ***** Searle's Direction of Causation ****** (Mental State instantiates--Causes or Fulfills Itself). Searle formerly called this causally selfreferential. ******* Tversky/Kahneman/Frederick/Evans/Stanovich defined cognitive systems. ******** Here and Now or There and Then 175 One should always keep in mind Wittgenstein's discovery that after we have described the possible uses (meanings, truthmakers, Conditions of Satisfaction) of language in a particular context, we have exhausted its interest, and attempts at explanation (i.e., philosophy) only get us further away from the truth. It is critical to note that this table is only a highly simplified context-free heuristic and each use of a word must be examined in its context. The best examination of context variation is in Peter Hacker's recent 3 volumes on Human Nature, which provide numerous tables and charts that should be compared with this one. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date account of Wittgenstein, Searle and their analysis of behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my article The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Wittgenstein and Searle (2016). EXPLANATION OF THE TABLE System 1 (i.e., emotions, memory, perceptions, reflexes) which parts of the brain present to consciousness, are automated and generally happening in less than 500msec, while System 2 are abilities to perform slow deliberative actions tha t are represented in consciousness (S2D-my terminology) requiring over 500msec, but frequently repeated S2 actions can also become automated (S2A-my terminology). There is a gradation of consciousness from coma through the stages of sleep to full awareness. Memory includes short term memory (working memory) of system 2 and long term memory of System 1. For volitions one would usually say they are successful or not, rather than T or F. Of course, the various rows and columns are logically and psychologically connected. E.G., Emotion, Memory and Perception in the True or False row will be True only, will describe a mental state, belong to cognitive system 1, will not generally be initiated voluntarily, are causally self reflexive, cause originates in the world and causes changes in the mind, have a precise duration, change in intensity, occur here and now, commonly have a special quality, do not need language, are independent of general intelligence and working memory, are not inhibited by cognitive loading, will not have voluntary content, and will not have public conditions of satisfaction etc. There will always be ambiguities because the words cannot precisely match the actual complex functions of the brain (behavior), that is, there is a combinatorial explosion of contexts (in sentences and in the world), and this is why it's not possible to reduce higher order behavior to a system of laws which would have to state all the possible contexts –hence Wittgenstein's warnings against theories. 176 About a million years ago primates evolved the ability to use their throat muscles to make complex series of noises (i.e., primitive speech) to describe present events (perceptions, memory, reflexive actions and some Primary or Primitive Language Games (PLG's). System 1 is comprised of fast,automated, subcortical, nonrepresentational, causally self-referential, intransitive, informationless, true-only mental states with a precise time and location) and over time there evolved in higher cortical S2 with the further ability to describe displacements in space and time (conditionals, hypotheticals or fictionals) of potential events (the past and future and often counterfactual, conditional or fictional preferences, inclinations or dispositions -the Secondary or Sophisticated Language Games (SLG's) of System 2 slow, cortical, conscious, information containing, transitive (having public Conditions of Satisfaction-Searle's term for truthmakers or meaning which I divide into COS1 and COS2 for private S1 and public S2), representational- which I again divide into R1 for S1 representations and R2 for S2) ,true or false propositional attitudinal thinking, with all S2 functions having no precise time and being abilities and not mental states. Preferences are Intuitions, Tendencies, Automatic Ontological Rules, Behaviors, Abilities, Cognitive Modules, Personality Traits, Templates, Inference Engines, Inclinations, Emotions, Propositional Attitudes, Appraisals, Capacities, Hypotheses. Some Emotions are slowly developing and changing results of S2 dispositions (W RPP2 148) while others are typical S1-fast and automatic to appear and disappear. "I believe", "he loves", "they think" are descriptions of possible public acts typically displaced in spacetime. My first-person statements about myself are true-only (excluding lying) –i.e. S1, while third person statements about others are true or false –i.e., S2 (see my reviews of Johnston 'Wittgenstein: Rethinking the Inner' and of Budd 'Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology'). "Preferences" as a class of intentional states --opposed to perceptions, reflexive acts and memories-were first clearly described by Wittgenstein (W) in the 1930's and termed "inclinations" or "dispositions". They have commonly been termed "propositional attitudes" since Russell but this is a misleading phrase since believing, intending, knowing, remembering etc., are often not propositions nor attitudes, as has been shown e.g., by W and by Searle (e.g., cf. Consciousness and Language p118). They are intrinsic, observer independent public representations (as opposed to presentations or representations of System 1 to System 2 – Searle-C+L p53). They are potential acts displaced in time or space while the evolutionarily more primitive S1 perceptions memories and reflexive actions are always here and now. This is one way to characterize System 2 -the second major advance in vertebrate 177 psychology after System 1-the ability to represent events and to think of them as occurring in another place or time (Searle's third faculty of counterfactual imagination supplementing cognition and volition). S1 'thoughts' are potential or unconscious mental states of S1 --Searle-Phil Issues 1:4566(1991). Perceptions, memories and reflexive (automatic) actions can be described as S1 or primary LG's (PLG's -e.g., I see the dog) and there are, in the normal case, NO TESTS possible so they can be True Only. Dispositions can be described as secondary LG's (SLG's –e.g. I believe I see the dog) and must also be acted out, even for me in my own case (i.e., how do I KNOW what I believe, think, feel until I act or some event occurs-see my reviews of Johnston 'Wittgenstein: Rethinking the Inner' and Budd 'Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology'). Note well that Dispositions also become Actions when spoken or written as well as being acted out in other ways, and these ideas are all due to Wittgenstein (mid 1930's) and are NOT Behaviorism (Hintikka & Hintikka 1981, Searle, Hacker, Hutto etc.,). Wittgenstein can be regarded as the founder of evolutionary psychology and his work a unique investigation of the functioning of our axiomatic System 1 psychology and its interaction with System 2. After Wittgenstein laid the groundwork for the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought in the Blue and Brown Books in the early 30's, it was extended by John Searle, who made a simpler version of this table in his classic book Rationality in Action (2001). It expands on W's survey of the axiomatic structure of evolutionary psychology developed from his very first comments in 1911 and so beautifully laid out in his last work On Certainty (OC) (written in 1950-51). OC is the foundation stone of behavior or epistemology and ontology (arguably the same), cognitive linguistics or Higher Order Thought, and in my view the single most important work in philosophy (descriptive psychology) and thus in the study of behavior. Perception, Memory, Reflexive actions and Emotion are primitive partly Subcortical Involuntary Mental States, that can be described in PL G's, in which the mind automatically fits the world (is Causally Self Referential--Searle) --the unquestionable, true only, axiomatic basis of rationality over which no control is possible). Preferences, Desires, and Intentions are descriptions of slow thinking conscious Voluntary Abilities-that can be described in SLG's- in which the mind tries to fit the world. Behaviorism and all the other confusions of our default descriptive psychology (philosophy) arise because we cannot see S1 working and describe all actions as SLG's (The 178 Phenomenological Illusion- TPI-Searle). W understood this and described it with unequalled clarity with hundreds of examples of language (the mind) in action throughout his works. Reason has access to memory and so we use consciously apparent but often incorrect reasons to explain behavior (the Two Selves or Systems or Processes of current research). Beliefs and other Dispositions can be described as thoughts which try to match the facts of the world (mind to world direction of fit), while Volitions are intentions to act (Prior Intentions-PI, or Intentions In Action-IAA-Searle) plus acts which try to match the world to the thoughts-world to mind direction of fit-cf. Searle e.g., C+L p145, 190). Sometimes there are gaps in reasoning to arrive at belief and other dispositions. Disposition words can be used as nouns which seem to describe mental states ('my thought is...') or as verbs or adjectives to describe abilities (agents as they act or might act - 'I think that...) and are often incorrectly called "Propositional Attitudes". Perceptions become Memories and our innate programs (cognitive modules, templates, inference engines of S1) use these to produce Dispositions - (believing, knowing, understanding, thinking, etc., -actual or potential PUBLIC ACTS (language, thought, mind) also called Inclinations, Preferences, Capabilities, Representations of S2) and Volition -and there is no language (concept, thought) of PRIVATE mental states for thinking or willing (i.e., no private language, thought or mind). Higher animals can think and will acts and to that extent they have a public psychology. Perceptions: ("X" is True): Hear, See, Smell, Pain, Touch, temperature Memories: Remembering, Dreaming? Preferences, Inclinations, Dispositions (X might become True) : CLASS 1: Propositional (True or False) public acts of Believing, Judging, Thinking, Representing, Understanding, Choosing, Deciding, Preferring, Interpreting, Knowing (including skills and abilities), Attending (Learning), Experiencing, Meaning, Remembering, Intending, Considering, Desiring, expecting, wishing, wanting, hoping (a special class), Seeing As (Aspects), CLASS 2: DECOUPLED MODE-(as if, conditional, hypothetical, fictional) Dreaming , Imagining, Lying, Predicting, Doubting CLASS 3: EMOTIONS: Loving, Hating, Fearing, Sorrow, Joy, Jealousy, Depression. Their function is to modulate Preferences to increase inclusive 179 fitness (expected maximum utility) by facilitating information processing of perceptions and memories for rapid action. There is some separation between S1 emotions such as rage and fear and S2 such as love, hate, disgust and anger. DESIRES: (I want "X" to be True-I want to change the world to fit my thoughts): Longing, Hoping, Expecting, Awaiting, Needing, Requiring, obliged to do INTENTIONS: (I will make "X" True) Intending ACTIONS (I am making "X" True) : Acting, Speaking , Reading, Writing, Calculating, Persuading, Showing, Demonstrating, Convincing, Doing Trying, Attempting, Laughing, Playing, Eating, Drinking, Crying, Asserting(describing, teaching, predicting, reporting), Promising , Making or Using Maps, Books, Drawings, Computer Programs –these are Public and Voluntary and transfer Information to others so they dominate over the Unconscious, Involuntary and Informationless S1 reflexes in explanations of behavior. WORDS EXPRESS POTENTIAL ACTIONS HAVING VARIOUS FUNCTIONS IN OUR LIFE AND ARE NOT THE NAMES OF OBJECTS NOR OF A SINGLE TYPE OF EVENT. The social interactions of humans are governed by cognitive modules- roughly equivalent to the scripts or schemata of social psychology (groups of neurons organized into inference engines), which, with perceptions and memories, lead to the formation of preferences which lead to intentions and then to actions. Intentionality or intentional psychology can be taken to be all these processes or only preferences leading to actions and in the broader sense is the subject of cognitive psychology or cognitive neurosciences when including neurophysiology, neurochemistry and neurogenetics. Evolutionary psychology can be regarded as the study of all the preceding functions or of the operation of the modules which produce behavior, and is then coextensive in evolution, development and individual action with preferences, intentions and actions. Since the axioms (algorithms or cognitive modules) of our psychology are in our genes, we can enlarge our understanding by giving clear descriptions of how they work and can extend them (culture) via biology, psychology, philosophy (descriptive psychology), math, logic, physics, and computer programs, thus making them faster and more efficient. Hajek (2003) gives an analysis of dispositions as conditional probabilities which are algorithmatized by Rott (1999), Spohn etc. Intentionality (cognitive or evolutionary psychology) consists of various 180 aspects of behavior which are innately programmed into cognitive modules which create and require consciousness, will and self and in normal human adults nearly all except perceptions and some memories are purposive, require public acts (e.g., language), and commit us to relationships in order to increase our inclusive fitness (maximum expected utility--Bayesian utility maximization but Bayesianism is highly questionable) via dominance and reciprocal altruism (Desire Independent Reasons for Action-Searlewhich I divide into DIRA1 and DIRA2 for S1 and S2) and impose Conditions of Satisfaction on Conditions of Satisfaction -Searle-(i.e., relate thoughts to the world via public acts ( muscle movements –i.e., math, language, art, music, sex, sports etc.). The basics of this were figured out by our greatest natural psychologist Ludwig Wittgenstein from the 1930's to 1951 but with clear foreshadowings back to 1911, and with refinements by many, but above all by John Searle beginning in the 1960's. "The general tree of psychological phenomena. I strive not for exactness but for a view of the whole." RPP Vol 1 p895 cf Z p464. Much of intentionality (i.e., of our language games) admits of degrees. As W noted, inclinations are sometimes conscious and deliberative. All our templates (functions, concepts, language games) have fuzzy edges in some contexts as they must to be useful. There are at least two types of thinking (i.e., two language games or ways of using the dispositional verb "thinking")- nonrational without awareness and rational with partial awareness(W), now described as the fast and slow thinking of S1 and S2. It is useful to regard these as language games and not as mere phenomena (W RPP Vol2 p129). Mental phenomena (our subjective or internal "experiences") are epiphenomenal, lack criteria, hence lack info even for oneself and thus can play no role in communication, thinking or mind. Thinking like all dispositions (inclinations, propositional attitudes) lacks any test, is not a mental state (unlike perceptions of S1), and contains no information until it becomes a public act in speech, writing or other muscular contractions. Our perceptions and memories can have information (meaning-i.e., a public COS) only when they are manifested in public actions, for only then do thinking, feeling etc. have any meaning (consequences) even for ourselves. (Memory and perception are integrated by modules into dispositions which become psychologically effective when they are acted upon). Developing language means manifesting the innate ability to substitute words for acts. TOM (Theory of Mind) is much better called UA-Understanding of Agency – my term-and UA1 and UA2 for such functions in S1 and S2) –and can also be called Evolutionary Psychology or Intentionality--the innate genetically programmed production of consciousness, self, and thought which leads to intentions and then to actions by contracting muscles. Thus, "propositional 181 attitude" is a confusing term for normal intuitive rational S2D or nonrational automated S2A speech and action. We see that the efforts of cognitive science to understand thinking, emotions etc. by studying neurophysiology is not going to tell us anything more about how the mind (thought, language) works (as opposed to how the BRAIN works) than we already know, because "mind" (thought, language) is already in full public view (W). Any phenomena that are hidden in neurophysiology, biochemistry, genetics, quantum mechanics, or string theory, are as irrelevant to our social life as the fact that a table is composed of atoms which "obey" (can be described by) the laws of physics and chemistry is to having lunch on it. As W so famously said "Nothing is hidden". Everything of interest about the mind (thought, language) is open to view if we only examine carefully the workings of language. Language (mind, public speech connected to potential actions) was evolved to facilitate social interaction and thus the gathering of resources, survival and reproduction. It's grammar (i.e., evolutionary psychology, intentionality) functions automatically and is extremely confusing when we try to analyze it. Words and sentences have multiple uses depending on context. I believe and I eat have profoundly different roles as do I believe and I believed or I believe and he believes. The present tense first person expressive use of inclinational verbs such as "I believe" describe my ability to predict my probable acts and are not descriptive of my mental state nor based on knowledge or information in the usual sense of those words (W). It does not describe a truth but makes itself true in the act of saying it --i.e., "I believe it's raining" makes itself true. That is, disposition verbs used in first person present tense are causally self-referential--they instantiate themselves but as descriptions of possible states they are not testable (i.e., not T or F). However past or future tense or third person use--"I believed" or "he believes" or "he will believe' contain information that is true or false as they describe public acts that are or can become verifiable. Likewise, "I believe it's raining" has no information apart from subsequent actions, even for me, but "I believe it will rain" or "he will think it's raining" are potentially verifiable public acts displaced in spacetime that intend to convey information (or misinformation). Nonreflective or Nonrational (automatic) words spoken without Prior Intent (which I call S2A-i.e., S2D automated by practice) have been called Words as Deeds by W & then by Daniel Moyal-Sharrock in her paper in Philosophical Psychology in 2000) Many so-called Inclinations/Dispositions/Preferences/Tendencies/Capacities/Abilities are Non-Propositional (Non-Reflective) Attitudes (far more useful to call them functions or abilities) of System 1 (Tversky and Kahnemann). Prior Intentions 182 are stated by Searle to be Mental States and hence S1 but again I think one must separate PI1 and PI2 since in our normal language our prior intentions are the conscious deliberations of S2. Perceptions, Memories, type 2 Dispositions (e.g., some emotions) and many Type 1 Dispositions are better called Reflexes of S1 and are automatic, nonreflective, NON -Propositional and NON-Attitudinal functioning of the hinges (axioms, algorithms) of our Evolutionary Psychology (Moyal-Sharrock after Wittgenstein). Now for some comments on Horwich's "Wittgenstein's Metaphilosophy". After the above and my many reviews of books by and about W, S, H, DMS etc., it should be clear what W is doing and what a contemporary account of behavior should include, so I'll make just a few comments. First one might note that putting "meta" in front of any word should be suspect. W remarked e.g., that metamathematics is mathematics like any other. The notion that we can step outside philosophy (i.e., the descriptive psychology of higher order thought) is itself a profound confusion. Another irritation here (and throughout academic writing for the last 4 decades) is the constant reverse linguistic sexism of "her" and "hers" and "she" or "he/she" etc., where "they" and "theirs" and "them" would do nicely. The major deficiency is the complete failure (though very common) to employ what I see as the hugely powerful and intuitive two systems view of HOT and Searle's framework which I have outlined above. This is especially poignant in the chapter on meaning p111 et seq. (esp. in footnotes 2-7), where we swim in very muddy water without the framework of automated true only S1, propositional dispositional S2, COS etc. One can also get a better view of the inner and the outer by reading e.g., Johnston or Budd (see my reviews). Horwich however makes many incisive comments. I especially liked his summary of the import of W's antitheoretical stance on p65. "There must be no attempt to explain our linguistic/conceptual activity (PI 126) as in Frege's reduction of arithmetic to logic; no attempt to give it epistemological foundations (PI 124) as in meaning based accounts of a priori knowledge; no attempt to characterize idealized forms of it (PI 130) as in sense logics; no attempt to reform it (PI 124, 132) as in Mackie's error theory or Dummett's intuitionism; no attempt to streamline it (PI 133) as in Quine's account of existence; no attempt to make it more consistent (PI 132) as in Tarski's response to the liar paradoxes; and no attempt to make it more complete (PI 133) as in the settling of questions of personal identity for bizarre hypothetical 'teleportation' scenarios." 183 For me, the high points of all writing on W are nearly always the quotes from the master himself and this is again true here. His quote (p101) from TLP shows W's early grasp of EP which he later termed the 'background' or 'bedrock'. "Thought is surrounded by a halo. Its essence, logic, presents an order, in fact the a priori order of the world: that is the order of possibilities, which must be common to both world and thought. But this order, it seems, must be utterly simple. It is prior to all experience, must run through all experience; no empirical cloudiness or uncertainty can be allowed to affect it. It must rather be of the purest crystal. But this crystal does not appear as an abstraction; but as something concrete, indeed, as the most concrete, as it were, the hardest thing there is. (TLP # 5, 5563, PI 97)." There are many good points in the chapter on Kripke but some confusions as well. The discussion of W's refutation of private language on p165-6 seems a bit unclear be on p 196-7 he states it again-and this notion is not only central to W but to all understanding of HOT. Stern has perhaps the best discussion of it I have seen in his "Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations". Kripke, in spite of all the noise he made, is now generally understood to have totally misconstrued W, merely repeating the classic skeptical metaphysical blunders. Those who want to dig into 'Kripkenstein', or philosophy generally, should read "Kripke's Conjuring Trick" by Read and Sharrock-a superb deconstruction of skepticism that is readily available on the net. I find the chapter on consciousness very good, especially p190 et. seq. on private language, qualia, inverted spectra and the umpteenth refutation of the idea that W is a behaviorist. It is worth repeating his final remark. "What sort of progress is this-the fascinating mystery has been removed-yet no depths have been plumbed in consolation; nothing has been explained or discovered or reconceived. How tame and uninspiring one might think. But perhaps, as Wittgenstein suggests, the virtues of clarity, demystification and truth should be found satisfying enough." Horwich is first rate and his work well worth the effort. One hopes that he (and everyone) will study Searle and some modern psychology as well as Hutto, Read, Hutchinson, Stern, Moyal-Sharrock, Stroll, Hacker and Baker etc. to attain a broad modern view of behavior. Most of their papers are on academia.edu but for PMS Hacker see 184 http://info.sjc.ox.ac.uk/scr/hacker/DownloadPapers.html. Finally, let me suggest that with the perspective I have encouraged here, W is at the center of contemporary philosophy and psychology and is not obscure, difficult or irrelevant, but scintillating, profound and crystal clear and that to miss him is to miss one of the greatest intellectual adventures possible. 185 Review of The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker (2008) Michael Starks ABSTRACT I start with some famous comments by the philosopher (psychologist) Ludwig Wittgenstein because Pinker shares with most people (due to the default settings of our evolved innate psychology) certain prejudices about the functioning of the mind and because Wittgenstein offers unique and profound insights into the workings of language, thought and reality (which he viewed as more or less coextensive) not found anywhere else. The last quote is the only reference Pinker makes to Wittgenstein in this volume, which is most unfortunate considering that he was one of the most brilliant and original analysts of language. In the last chapter, using the famous metaphor of Plato's cave, he beautifully summarizes the book with an overview of how the mind (language, thought, intentional psychology) –a product of blind selfishness, moderated only slightly by automated altruism for close relatives carrying copies of our genes--works automatically, but tries to end on an upbeat note by giving us hope that we can nevertheless employ its vast capabilities to cooperate and make the world a decent place to live. Pinker is certainly aware of but says little about the fact that far more about our psychology is left out than included. Among windows into human nature that are left out or given minimal attention are math and geometry, music and sounds, images, events and causality, ontology (classes of things), dispositions (believing, thinking, judging, intending etc.) and the rest of intentional psychology of action, neurotransmitters and entheogens, spiritual states (e.g, satori and enlightenment, brain stimulation and recording, brain damage and behavioral deficits and disorders, games and sports, decision theory (incl. game theory and behavioral economics), animal behavior (very little language but a billion years of shared genetics). Many books have been written about each of these areas of intentional psychology. The data in this book are descriptions, not explanations that show why our brains do it this way or how it is done. How do we know to use the sentences in their various way (i.e., know all their meanings)? This is evolutionary psychology that operates at a more basic level –the level where Wittgenstein is most active. 186 And there is scant attention to context. Nevertheless, this is a classic work and with these cautions is still well worth reading. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book 'The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017' (2017). "If God looked into our minds he would not be able to see there whom we were thinking of." "Ought the word "infinite" to be avoided in mathematics? Yes: where it appears to confer a meaning upon the calculus; instead of getting one from it." RFM revised edition (1978) p141 "Time and again the attempt is made to use language to limit the world and set it in relief-but it can't be done. The self-evidence of the world expresses itself in the very fact that language can and only does refer to it. For since language only derives the way in which it means, its meaning, from the world, no language is conceivable that does not represent this world." Wittgenstein Philosophical Remarks S47 "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world" TLP I start with these famous comments by the philosopher (psychologist) Ludwig Wittgenstein (W) because Pinker shares with most people (due to the default settings of our evolved innate psychology) certain prejudices about the functioning of the mind and because Wittgenstein offers unique and profound insights into the workings of language, thought and reality (which he viewed as more or less coextensive) not found anywhere else. The last quote is the only reference Pinker makes to Wittgenstein in this volume, which is most unfortunate considering that he was one of the most brilliant and original analysts of language. Another famous Wittgensteinian dictum is "Nothing is Hidden." If one dips into his work sufficiently, I think he makes it very clear what this means- that our psychology is in front of us all the time if we only open our eyes to 187 see it and that no amount of scientific work is going to make it clearer (in fact it just gets more and more obscure). This is not antirational or antiscientific but it just states what he sees as the facts-a soccer game is out on the field – not in our head--and we understand perfectly well the motivations, anxieties, stresses and disappointments of the players and what effort is required to play and how the ball moves when kicked. Immense advances have been made in sports physiology, anatomy, bioenergetics, physics math and chemistry. Whole books full of equations have been written about how balls move thru the air and muscles apply force to move bones; about how muscle movements originate in part of the cortex, are mirrored in the brains of others; mountains of literature on motivation, personality, brain function and modeling. Has this given us any more insight into a soccer game or changed our experience of playing or watching? Intentionality (rationality) has been evolved piecemeal from whatever tools (genes) animals had to work with and so is full of paradoxes and illusions. Just as we see mirages in the desert or read words into sentences that are not there, and see animated blobs on a screen "causing" others to move and "helping" or "hindering"', we look for thinking and believing in the head and confuse our innate psychological axioms with empirical facts (e.g., regarding math and geometry as things we "discover" in the world, rather than invent). In order for the concept and word "reality" to apply to the results we get from the use of differential equations, MRI scanners and particle colliders to a greater degree than or in place of apples, rocks and thunderstorms, it would be necessary for these recent discoveries to have had the same role in natural selection over hundreds of millions of years. It is only survival advantage over eons that selected the genes enabling our distant (invertebrate) ancestors to begin reacting in useful ways to the sights and sounds of the world and ever so slowly to produce brains that could form concepts (thoughts) that eventually were verbalized. Science and culture cannot replace or take preference over our ancient intentional psychology but merely slightly extends or supplements it. But when philosophizing (or doing linguistics!) we are easily misled as context is missing and our psychology automatically dissects every situation for the causes and the ultimate or lowest level of explanation and we substitute that for the gross higher levels because there is nothing in our language rules to prevent it. It comes ever so naturally to say we don't think-our brain does and tables are not solid because physics tells us they are made of molecules. But W reminded us that our concepts of, and words for, thinking, believing and other dispositions are public actions, not processes in the brain, and in what sense are molecules solid? Hence, the 188 quote above, which bears repeating, since I see it as one of the most fundamental ideas we have to get clear about before we can make any progress in the study of behavior. "Time and again the attempt is made to use language to limit the world and set it in relief-but it can't be done. The self-evidence of the world expresses itself in the very fact that language can and only does refer to it. For since language only derives the way in which it means, its meaning, from the world, no language is conceivable that does not represent this world." Much of W's writing is examples of the common-sense knowledge that is essential to the success of all animal behavior and by and large not only the behavioral science but even AI, which cannot succeed without it, has been unable to grasp and implement it. Even one of the fathers of AI, Marvin Minsky said (in a 2003 Boston Univ. speech) that "AI has been brain dead since the 70's" and lacked common sense reasoning. But his recent book "The Emotion Machine" still shows no awareness of the work that W did 75 years ago, and this means no awareness of the contextual, intentional, point of view without which one cannot hope to grasp how the mind (language) works. When talking about behavior (i.e., thought or language or action) it is a nearly universal mistake to regard the meaning of a word or sentence as attached to it, ignoring the infinite subtleties of context, and thus we go astray. Of course, we cannot include everything about context, as that would make discussion difficult, even impossible, but there is a vast difference between regarding meaning as something that can be fully given by a dictionary entry and meaning as shorthand for a family of complex uses. Even Klein's classic book 'Time in Language' (not cited by Pinker) regards the 'time' as a family of loosely connected uses, though of course he too has no awareness of W, Searle or intentionality. The point of mentioning this is that Pinker shares the reductionistic biases of most modern scientists and that this colors his approach to behavior in ways that will not be obvious to most readers. As fascinating as his data are and as masterful as his writing is, it subtly leads us to what I think is a mistaken picture of our psychology-a view that is due to the innate biases of our evolved psychology and hence is a universal failing. Pinker is the Richard Dawkins of psychology-one of the major popularizers of science in modern times. Possibly only the late and most unlamented (he was a self-serving egomaniac who misled millions with his specious 189 reasoning and blank slateism) Stephan Gould sold more volumes of pop sci. It was Pinker's masterful refutation of the universal delusion that human nature is culturally generated (one of Gould's many delusions) that made his previous book 'The Blank Slate' a classic and a top choice for most important books of the 21st century. Incidentally, there are many put-downs of Gould, including some by Pinker and Dawkins ("he has made tilting at windmills into his own personal art form" –as I recall it from a Dawkins review of a Gould tome from the Journal 'Evolution' a decade or so ago), but I think the best is that of Tooby and Cosmides in a letter to the NY Times (search their page or the Times). All of these works are intimately connected by the subject of animal behavior, evolutionary psychology, and of course 'The Stuff of Thought". Following convention, Pinker discusses Putnam's famous, but badly flawed, twin earth thought experiment (bizarre thought expts. in philosophy were essentially invented by Wittgenstein), which claims to show that meaning is not in the head, but it was W in the 30's-i.e., 40 years earlier-who showed decisively that all the dispositions or inclinations (as he called them, though philosophers, lacking acquaintance with his work commonly call them by the incorrect name of propositional attitudes) including meaning, intending, thinking, believing, judging etc. function as descriptions of our actions and not as terms for mental phenomena. They cannot be in the head for the same reason a soccer game cannot be in the head. Later in life Putnam began to take Wittgenstein seriously and changed his tune accordingly. He makes almost no reference to the large and fascinating literature on behavioral automatisms (i.e., most of our behavior! --see e.g., "Experiments With People'(2004) or Bargh's 'Social Psychology and the Unconscious' (2007) for the older work, and the now (2016) vast and rapidly expanding literature on implicit cognition), which shows that the more you look, the clearer it becomes that actions which we regard as results of our conscious choice are not. People shown pictures or reading stories of old people tend to walk out of the building slower than when give those of young people etc. etc. The well-known placebo effect is a variant where the info is consciously input- e.g., in a 2008 study eighty-five percent of volunteers who thought they were getting a $2.50 sugar pill said they felt less pain after taking it, compared with a 61 percent control group. Such effects can be induced subliminally if the price info is input via images, text or sound. Presumably the same is true of most of our choices. This brings us to one of my major gripes about this book-it's monomaniacal 190 obsession with the "meaning" of words rather than their use-a distinction made famous by W in his lectures and some 20 books beginning in the 1930's. Like W's insistence that we do not explain behavior (or the rest of nature) but only describe it, this may seem like a pointless quibble, but, as usual, I have found as I reflected on these matters over the years that W was right on the mark. He said that a formula which will work most of the time is that the meaning of a word (far better to say a sentence) is its use in language-and this means its public use in a specified context to communicate info from one person to another (and sometimes to another higher mammal-dogs share a major portion of our intentional psychology). I mention this partly because in a previous book Pinker accused W of denying that animals have consciousness (an extraordinary view that is actually defended by some) because he noted that a dog can't think "perhaps it will rain tomorrow", but W's point was the unexceptional one that there are many thoughts that we cannot have without language and that we have no test for interpreting a dog's behavior as showing that it expected something tomorrow. Even if it used an umbrella and invariably got it out of the closet the day before a rain, there is no way to connect this to it's mental state-same for a deaf mute who could not read or write or use sign language. This connects to his famous demonstrations of the impossibility of a private language and to the fact that dispositions are not in the head. W showed how the absence of any public test means that even the dog and the mute cannot know what they are thinking-nor can we, because dispositions are public acts and the act is the criterion for what we thought-even for ourself. This is the point of the quote above-neither God nor neurophysiologists can see thoughts, beliefs, images, hopes in our brain, because they these are terms for acts and neither the vague and fleeting epiphenomena we experience, nor the correlates detectable by brain studies, function in our life in the same way as do the contextual use of the sentences describing these acts. And, regarding animal consciousness, W noted that intentional psychology gets a foothold even in a fly-a point marvelously and increasingly supported by modern genetics, which shows that many genes and processes fundamental to primate behavior got their start at least as early as nematodes (i.e., C. elegans) some billion years ago. Intentional psychology or intentionality (very roughly our personality or rationality or higher order thought (HOT) is a very old philosophical concept that (unknown to most) was given its modern formulation by Wittgenstein, who, in the 20,000 pages of his nachlass, now mostly translated and published in some 20 books and several CDROM's, laid the foundations for the modern study of human behavior. Sadly, he was mostly a recluse who did not publish for the last 30 years of his life, never really finished writing anything of his 191 later work and wrote his brilliant and highly original comments on behavior in a style various termed epigrammatic, telegraphic, oracular, Socratic, obscure etc. and all published posthumously over a period of more than 50 years (the famous Philosophical Investigations (PI) in 1953 and the most recent-but not the last!-The Big Typescript in 2005) and thus, though he was recently voted one of the top 5 philosophers of all time, and Philosophical Investigations the most important philosophy book of the 20 century, he is ignored or misunderstood by nearly everyone. The feeling I often get is that our psychology is a coral reef with most people snorkeling on the surface admiring the bumps while Wittgenstein is 20 meters below probing the crevices with scuba gear and flashlight. Wittgenstein's literary executors were stuffy academics and his books issued mostly from Blackwell with staid academic titles and no explanation whatsoever that they can be seen as a major foundation for the modern study of evolutionary psychology, personality, rationality, language, consciousness, politics, theology, literature, anthropology, sociology, law etc., –in fact everything that we say, think and do since, as he showed, it all depends on the innate axioms of our evolved psychology which we share to a large extent with dogs and to some extent even with flies and C. elegans. Had his works been presented with flashy covers by popular presses with titles like How the Mind Works, The Language Instinct, and The Stuff of Thought, much of the intellectual landscape of the 20 century might have been different. As it is, though he is the major subject of at least 200 books and 10,000 papers and discussed in countless thousands more (including Pinker's How the Mind Works), based on the hundreds of articles and dozens of books I have read in the last few years, I would say there are less than a dozen people who really grasp the significance of his work, as I present it in this and my other reviews. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date account of Wittgenstein, Searle and their analysis of behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my article The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Wittgenstein and Searle (2016). One result of all this (what one philosopher has called "the collective amnesia regarding Wittgenstein") is that students of language including Pinker take Grice's notions such as implicature (which seems just a fancy word for implication) and, more recently, relevance theory, as a framework for "the relation between words and meaning" (of course W would turn in his grave at this phrase since how can they be separable from their use if one follows 192 his meaning is use formula?) but they seem to me feeble substitutes for intentionality as described by W and revised and enlarged by Searle and others. In any case, Grice is the normal soporific academic, Sperber (a leader in relevance theory) tolerable, Pinker engaging and often elegant and even poignant, Searle (see esp. 'Rationality in Action') is clear, rigorous, and quite original (though owing, I think, a very big debt to W) but too academic for the bestseller lists, while Wittgenstein, once you grasp that he is a natural master psychologist describing how the mind works, is very demanding, but brilliantly original and often breathtaking. Pinker writes masterful prose while Wittgenstein writes telegrams, though often moving and poetic ones and on a few occasions, he wrote beautiful essays. Pinker can be mined for some gold, lots of iron and some dross while W is mostly gold, a little iron and hardly a speck of dross. Pinker is mostly summarizing the work of others (though in impeccable style) while W is so original and so bizarre he's way over most people's heads. I suggest reading Pinker, Searle and Wittgenstein alternately or simultaneously with a dash of Sperber, Grice and a few hundred others from time to time. W said that the problem is not to find the answer, but to recognize that which is always before us as the answer. That is, our language is (by and large) our thought, which is about actual or potential events (including actions by agents such as barking, speaking and writing), and that meaning, contra Pinker and a cast of thousands, is use and nothing is hidden (i.e., language is (mostly) thought). The ignorance in many quarters is so complete that even an otherwise marvelous recent 358 page book by Wiese on a topic virtually created by Wittgenstein (Numbers, Language and the Human Mind-which I see is cited by Pinker) there is not a single reference to him! W mostly emphasizes the different uses of the "same" words" (i.e., a splitter) who originally wanted to use the quote "I'll teach you differences!" as the motto of his book PhilosophicaI Investigations. That is, by describing the different uses of sentences (the language games), and by modifying the games in thought experiments, we remind ourselves of the different roles these games play in life and we see the limits of our psychology. But Pinker, again following the seductive defaults of our evolved modules and the egregious examples of thousands of others, is a lumper who often blurs these differences. E.G., he speaks repeatedly of "reality" as though it was a single thing (rather than a whole family of uses). He also speaks of reality as something separate from our experience (i.e., the classic idealist/realist 193 confusion). But what test is there for reality? He slips (as do we all) so easily into the reductionistic substitution of lower levels for higher ones so we are all inclined to dismiss the thinking that we can see (i.e., actions) for processes in the brain, which our language (thought) can not possibly be describing, as it evolved long before anyone had any idea of brain functions. If Pinker imagines that you are not really reading this page (e.g., your retina is being hit with photons bouncing off ink molecules etc.) then I respectfully suggest he needs to reflect further on the issue of language, thought and reality and I know of no better antidote to this toxic meme than immersion in Wittgenstein. Reflecting on Wittgenstein brings to mind a comment attributed to Cambridge Philosophy professor C.D. Broad (who did not understand nor like him), which ran something like 'Not offering the chair of philosophy to Wittgenstein would be like not offering the chair of physics to Einstein!" I think of Wittgenstein as the Einstein of intuitive psychology. Though born ten years later, he was likewise hatching ideas about the nature of reality at nearly the same time and in the same part of the world and like Einstein nearly died in WW1. Now suppose Einstein was a suicidal homosexual recluse with a difficult personality who published only one early version of his ideas that were confused and often mistaken, but became world famous; completely changed his ideas but for the next 30 years published nothing more, and knowledge of his new work in mostly garbled form diffused slowly from occasional lectures and students notes; that he died in 1951 leaving behind over 20,000 pages of mostly handwritten scribblings in German, composed of sentences or short paragraphs with, often, no clear relationship to sentences before or after; that these were cut and pasted from other notebooks written years earlier with notes in the margins, underlinings and crossed out words so that many sentences have multiple variants; that his literary executives cut this indigestible mass into pieces, leaving out what they wished and struggling with the monstrous task of capturing the correct meaning of sentences which were conveying utterly novel views of how the universe works and that they then published this material with agonizing slowness (not finished after half a century) with prefaces that contained no real explanation of what it was about; that he became as much notorious as famous due to many statements that all previous physics was a mistake and even nonsense and that virtually nobody understood his work, in spite of hundreds of books and tens of thousands of papers discussing it; that many physicists knew only his early work in which he had made a definitive 194 summation of Newtonian physics stated in such extremely abstract and condensed form that it was impossible to decide what was being said; that he was then virtually forgotten and that most books and articles on the nature of the world and the diverse topics of modern physics had only passing and usually erroneous references to him and that many omitted him entirely; that to this day, half a century after his death, there were only a handful of people who really grasped the monumental consequences of what he had done. This, I claim, is precisely the situation with Wittgenstein. It seems crushingly obvious that our evolved psychology has been selected to match the world to the maximal extent compatible with our genetic and energetic resources and that is ALL we can say about reality, and we ALL understand this (we LIVE it) but when we stop to think about it, the defaults of our universal psychology take over and we start to use the words (concepts) of "reality," "aspects," "time," "space,", "possible," etc. out of the intentional contexts in which they evolved. The following gem comes from biologists (I take it from Shettleworth's superb but neglected book Cognition, Evolution and Behavior). "The role of psychology then is to describe the innate features of the minds of different organisms which have evolved to match certain aspects of that physical external universe, and the way in which the physical universe interacts with the mind to produce the phenomenal world. O'Keefe and Nadel "The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map" Think of it this way-you can look up a word in the dictionary but you cannot look up a use there, unless there was a video which showed before and after the event and all relevant facts about it. The dictionary is like a morgue full of dead bodies. Here lies "rose" and here "run" and here "in" and here "is" and what is missing is life. Add a photo and it's a little better: add a video and lots better: add a long 3D color hires video with sound and smell and its getting there. Part of Wittgenstein's description of our public psychology included many detailed examples of how the sensations and images in my mind don't carry any epistemic weight even for me. How do I know I am eating an apple? My taste and vision might be wrong and how to decide? But if I talk about it or write it down and you say "that's a tasty looking apple" etc. I have an objective test. Right and wrong get a foothold here. W was going to use a quote from Goethe as the motto of PI --"In the beginning 195 was the deed." That is, evolutionarily it was perceptions and actions and then memories of them and then thoughts about them and then words voicing the thoughts. So, the event is the thing Australopithecus thought about and natural selection for being able to make acoustic blasts which substituted for them was strong enough to modify our vocal apparatus and suitable control circuitry at a fantastic pace, so by early Neanderthal time they were talking a blue streak and have not shut up mind or mouth for more than a few minutes since. W understood, as few have, the primacy of actions and the irrelevance of our thoughts, feelings etc. as the foundations of communication, which is why he is often called a behaviorist (i.e., Dennett, Hofstadter, B.F. Skinner style denial of the reality of our mental life, mind, consciousness etc.) but this is patently absurd. It reminds me of the famous description of Plato of the shadows on the cave wall vs turning around to see people actually using language-an analogy that I never thought of in regard to W and which I was stunned to see a few hours later in Pinker's last chapter. In any case if one considers carefully any case of language use we see that much of our intentional psychology is called into play. One can see the ignorance of Wittgenstein in the articles in EEL2 (the Elsevier Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics-2nd ed. (2005) 12,353pyes that's 12 thousand pages in 14 vols and a mere $6000) which is by far the biggest, and one hopes the most authoritative, reference in language studies. Curiously, Pinker does not have a single reference to it, but you can find it, along with nearly all of Pinker, Searle, Wittgenstein and thousands of others free on the net. To get a grasp of the basic necessities for AI you might e.g., find it much more interesting to read W's RFM than Minsky's 'The Emotion Machine'. Pinker has referred to Brown's famous list of hundreds of universals of human behavior, but these are nearly all gross higher level behaviors such as the possession of religion, reciprocal altruisms etc. but it large omits hundreds of other universals which underlie these. Wittgenstein was the first, and in some cases perhaps the only one to date, to point out many of the more fundamental ones. However, he did not tell you what he was doing and nobody else has either so you will have to puzzle it out for yourself. Most people read first (and often nothing else) his Philosophical Investigations but I prefer the more strictly mathematical examples in his Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. If you read with the understanding that he is 196 describing the universal axioms of our evolutionary psychology which underlie all our reasoning then his work makes perfect sense and is breathtaking in its ingenuity. Pinker illustrates how the mind works with the Barbecue Sauce example. There are of course a limitless number of others which illustrate our subjective probability (often called Bayesian reasoning-though he does not mention this). My favorites are Doomsday (see e.g., Bostrum's book or web page), Sleeping Beauty and Newcomb's problem. Unlike Barbecue, which has a clear solution, many others have (depending on your viewpoint) one, none or many. We may regard these as interesting, as they show gaps in or limits to our rationality (a major theme in Wittgenstein) or (what we have known at least since de Finetti's work in the 20's) that all probability is subjective, or like the famous liar paradox or Godel's theorems (see my review of Hofstadter's 'I am a Strange Loop), as trivial demonstrations of the limits of our primate mind, though Pinker does not expand on this issue nor give more than a few hints at the vast literature on decision theory, game theory, behavioral economics, Bayesianism etc. EEL2 does have a passable short article on W which avoids making too many glaring errors, but it totally misses nearly everything of importance, which, if really understood, would make the article by far the longest one in the book. Nearly the whole thing is wasted on the Tractatus, which everyone knows he totally rejected later and which is extremely confused and confusing as well. Hardly anything on his later philosophy and not a word about the two searchable CDROM's which are now the starting point for all W scholars (and anyone interested in human behavior) which are now becoming widely disseminate via the net. There is also nothing here nor in the articles about Chomsky, innate ideas , evolution of syntax, evolution of semantics, evolution of pragmatics (practically every one of his 20,000 pages has to do with novel ideas and examples on these two), schema theory etc., nor about how he anticipated Chomsky in studying "depth grammar", described the problem of underdetermination or combinatorial explosion nor a word about his discovery (repeatedly and in detail-e.g., RPP Vol. 2 p20) some 20 years before Wason of the reasons for "glitches" in "if p then q" types of constructions now analyzed by the Wason selection tests (one of the standard tools of EP research), nor about how his work can be seen as anticipating many ideas in evolutionary psychology, about his founding the modern study of intentionality, of dispositions as actions, of the epiphenomenality of our mental life and of the unity of language, math, geometry, music, art and games, nor even an explanation of what he meant by language games and 197 grammar-two of his most frequently used terms. W made the change from trying to understand the mind as a logical, domain general structure to a psychological idiosyncratic domain specific one in the late 20's but Kahneman got the Nobel for it in 2002, for numerous reasons, not the least of which is that they did lab work and statistical analysis (though W was a superb experimentalist and quite good at math). Of course, one cannot fault the EEL2 too much as it merely follows the similar omissions and lack of understanding throughout the behavioral sciences. And, I am not bringing this up in the way one might complain about the absence of info on ancient Chinese war rockets in a book on rocket engines, but because his work is still a virtually untapped mine of behavioral science diamonds, and, for my money, some of the most exhilarating and eye opening prose I have ever read. Nearly anything he has written could be used as a supplementary text or lab manual in any philosophy or psychology class and in much of law, mathematics, literature, behavioral economics, history, politics, anthropology, sociology and of course linguistics. Which brings us back to Pinker. In the last chapter, using the famous metaphor of Plato's cave, he beautifully summarizes the book with an overview of how the mind (language, thought, intentional psychology) – a product of blind selfishness, moderated only slightly by automated altruism for close relatives carrying copies of our genes--works automatically, but tries to end on an upbeat note by giving us hope that we can nevertheless employ its vast capabilities to cooperate and make the world a decent place to live. Pinker is certainly aware of but says little about the fact that far more about our psychology is left out than included. Among windows into human nature that are left out or given minimal attention are math and geometry, music and sounds, images, events and causality, ontology (classes of things), dispositions (believing, thinking, judging, intending etc.) and the rest of intentional psychology of action, neurotransmitters and entheogens, spiritual states (e.g., satori and enlightenment, brain stimulation and recording, brain damage and behavioral deficits and disorders, games and sports, decision theory (including game theory and behavioral economics), animal behavior (very little language but a billion years of shared genetics). Many books have been written about each of these areas of intentional psychology. The data in this book are descriptions, not explanations that show why our brains do it this way or how it is done. How do we know to use the sentences in their various ways (i.e., know all their meanings)? This is evolutionary psychology that operates at a more basic level –the level where Wittgenstein is most 198 active. And there is scant attention to context. Among the countless books not referred to here are Guerino Mazzola's excellent tome investigating the similarity of math and music 'The Topos of Music', Shulgin's amazing work probing the mind with psychochemicals 'Phikal' and 'Tikal'. Many which try to represent mental functions with geometrical or mathematical means such as Rott 'Belief Revision' Gardenfors various books, and of course the massive efforts going in logic (e.g. the 20 or so Vol Handbook of Philosophical Logic) as well as many others edited or written by the amazing Dov Gabbay (e.g., 'Temporal Logic'). Re spatial language of the numerous volumes on the psychology, language or philosophy of space, the recent 'Handbook of Spatial Logic' (especially fun are Chap 11 on space-time and the last Chap. by Varzi) stands out. The point is that these logical, geometrical and mathematical works are extensions of our innate axiomatic psychology, and so they show in their equations and graphics something about the 'shape' or 'form' or 'function' of our thoughts (modules, templates, inference engines), and so also the shape of those of animals and even perhaps of computers (though one has to think of what test would be relevant here!). And of course. all the works of Wittgenstein, keeping in mind that he is sometimes talking about the most basic prelinguistic or even premammalian levels of thought and perception. Of course, many books on AI, robot navigation and image processing are relevant as they must mimic our psychology. Face recognition is one of our most striking abilities (though even crustaceans can do it) and the best recent work I know is 'Handbook of Face Recognition'. Of the numerous books on space/time one can start with Klein's 'Language and Time' or McLure's 'The Philosophy of Time'. Smith's 'Language and Time', Hawley's 'How Things Persist' and Sider's 'FourDimensionalism' , Ludlow's 'Semantics, Tense and Time' , Dainton's 'Time and Space'.and 'Unity of Consciousness', Diek's 'The Ontology of Spacetime' and Sattig's 'The Language and Reality of Time". But as one would expect, and as detailed by Rupert Read, the language games here are all tangled up and most of the discussions of time are hopelessly incoherent. And also a good but now dated book covering much of relevance with articles by Searle and others is Vanderveken's 'Logic, Thought and Action'. 199 Review of "Are We Hardwired? by Clark & Grunstein Oxford (2000) Michael Starks ABSTRACT This is an excellent review of gene/environment interactions on behavior and, in spite of being a bit dated, is an easy and worthwhile read. They start with twin studies which show the overwhelming impact of genetics on behavior. They note the increasingly well known studies of Judith Harris which extend and summarize the facts that shared home environment has almost no effect on behavior and that adopted children grow up to be as different from their stepbrothers and sisters as people chosen at random. One basic point that they (and nearly all who discuss behavioral genetics) fail to note is that the hundreds (thousands depending on your viewpoint) of human behavioral universals, including all the basics of our personalities, are 100% determined by our genes, with no variation in normals. Everyone sees a tree as a tree and not a stone, seeks and eats food, gets angry and jealous etc. So, what they are mostly talking about here is how much environment (culture) can affect the degree to which various traits are shown, rather than their appearance. Finally, they discuss eugenics in the usual politically correct fashion, failing to note that we and all organisms are the products of nature's eugenics and that attempts to defeat natural selection with medicine, agriculture, and civilization as a whole, are disastrous for any society that persists. As much as 50% of all conceptions, or some 100 million/year, end in early spontaneous abortion, nearly all without the mother being aware. This natural culling of defective genes drives evolution, keeps us relatively genetically sound and makes society possible. However, it is now clear that overpopulation will destroy the world before dysgenics has a chance. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book 'The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017' (2017). 200 This is an excellent review of gene/environment interactions on behavior and, in spite of being a bit dated, is an easy and worthwhile read. They start with twin studies which show the overwhelming impact of genetics on behavior. They note the increasingly well known studies of Judith Harris which extend and summarize the facts that shared home environment has almost no effect on behavior and that adopted children grow up to be as different from their stepbrothers and sisters as people chosen at random. There is lots of impact on personality (ca 50% of variation) from early environment, presumably peer interaction, TV etc., but we really don't know. They summarize the genetics of behavior in the earliest true animals, the protozoa, and note that many of the genes and mechanisms underlying our behavior are already present. There is strong selective advantage to identifying the genes of one's potential mates and even protozoa have such mechanisms. There is data showing that people tend to pick out mates with different HLA types but the mechanism is obscure. They present various lines of evidence that we communicate unconsciously with pheromones via the vomeronasal organs and not mediated by smell neurons. One chapter reviews the biology of the nematode C. elegans, noting the fact that it shares many mechanisms and genes with protozoa and with us due to the extreme conservativism of evolution. Some human genes have been inserted into it with apparent preservation of their function in us. Moreover, they show what seem to be mechanisms of long term and short term memory controlled by genes in a fashion similar to that in higher organisms. They note the general similarity of the nonvisual cryptochome mediated regulation of circadian rhythms in yeasts and fruitflies to those in higher animals and even to those in plants. It has been shown that both cry-1 and cry-2 cryptochrome genes are present in fruit flies, mice and humans and that the photoreceptor system is active in many body cells other than the retina, and researchers have even been able to trigger circadian rhythms from light shined on our leg! After a brief survey of work on the famous slug Aplysia and the cAMP and Calmodulin systems, they review the data on human neurotransmitters. The chapter on aggression notes the impulsive aggression of low serotonin mice and the effects on aggressive behavior of mutations/drugs that effect the 201 chemistry of nitric oxide- recently, to the amazement of all, identified as a major neurotransmitter or neuromodulator. In a chapter on consumption, they recount the now well known story of leptin and its role in regulation food intake. Then a summary of the genetics of sexual behavior. One basic point that they (and nearly all who discuss behavioral genetics) fail to note is that the hundreds (thousands depending on your viewpoint) of human behavioral universals, including all the basics of our personalities, are 100% determined by our genes, with no variation in normals. Everyone sees a tree as a tree and not a stone, seeks and eats food, gets angry and jealous etc. So, what they are mostly talking about here is how much environment (culture) can affect the degree to which various traits are shown, rather than their appearance. There are also highly active fields studying human behavior which they barely mention- evolutionary psychology, cognitive psychology, parts of sociology, anthropology and behavioral economics-which are casting brilliant lights on behavior and showing that it is to a large extent automatic and unconscious with little voluntary awareness or control. The authors bias towards biology is a huge defect. Finally, they discuss eugenics in the usual politically correct fashion, failing to note that we and all organisms are the products of nature's eugenics and that attempts to defeat natural selection with medicine, agriculture, and civilization as a whole, are disastrous for any society that persists. As much as 50% of all conceptions, or some 100 million/year, end in early spontaneous abortion, nearly all without the mother being aware. This natural culling of defective genes drives evolution, keeps us relatively genetically sound and makes society possible. However, it is now clear that overpopulation will destroy the world before dysgenics has a chance. 202 Is JK Rowling More Evil Than Me? Michael Starks ABSTRACT How about a different take on the rich and famous? First the obvious-the Harry Potter novels are primitive superstition that encourages children to believe in fantasy rather than take responsibility for the world-the norm of course. JKR is just as clueless about herself and the world as all the other monkeys, but about 200 times as destructive as the average American and about 800 times more than the average Chinese. She has been responsible for the destruction of maybe 30,000 hectares of forest to produce these trash novels and all the erosion ensuing (not trivial as its ca. 12 tons/year soil into the ocean for everyone on earth or maybe 100 tons per American, and so about 5000 tons/year for Rowling's books and movies and her 3 children). The earth loses about 1% of its topsoil every year, so as it nears 2100, most of its food growing capacity will be gone. Then there is the huge amount of fuel burned and waste made to make and distribute the books and films, plastic dolls etc. She shows her lack of social responsibility by producing children rather than using her millions to encourage family planning or buy up the rain forest, and by promoting the conventional liberal stupidity of 3rd world supremacy that is destroying Britain, America, the world and her descendant's future. Of course, she's not that different from the other 7.7 billion clueless just noisier and more destructive It is the no free lunch problem writ large. The mob just can't see that there is no such thing as helping one person without harming others. Rights or privileges given to new entrants into an overcrowded world can only diminish those of others. In spite of the massive ecological disasters happening in front of them everywhere everyday, they can't pin them to the unrestrained motherhood of "the diverse", which accounts for most of the population increase of the last century and all of that in this one. They lack some combination of intelligence, education, experience and sanity required to extrapolate the daily assaults on the resources and functioning of society to the eventual collapse of industrial civilization. Each meal, each trip by car or bus, each pair of shoes is another nail in the earth's coffin. It has likely never crossed her mind that one seat on a plane from London to San Francisco produces about one ton of carbon which melts about 3 square meters of sea ice and as one of the overprivileged she has probably flown hundreds of such 203 flights. Not only the rich and famous, but nearly any public figure at all, including virtually all teachers, are pressured to be politically correct, which in the Western Democracies, now means social democratic (diluted communist) third world supremacists working for the destruction of their own societies and their own descendants. So, those whose lack of free speech (and basic common sense), which should prohibit them from making any public statements at all, totally dominate all the media, creating the impression that the intelligent and civilized must favor democracy, diversity and equality, while the truth is that these are the problems and not the solutions, and that they themselves are the prime enemies of civilization. How about a different take on the rich and famous? First the obvious-the Harry Potter novels are primitive superstition that encourages children to believe in fantasy rather than take responsibility for the world-the norm of course. JKR is just as clueless about herself and the world as all the other monkeys, but about 200 times as destructive as the average American and about 800 times more than the average Chinese. She has been responsible for the destruction of maybe 30,000 hectares of forest to produce these trash novels and all the erosion ensuing (not trivial as its ca. 12 tons/year soil into the ocean for everyone on earth or maybe 100 tons per American, and so about 5000 tons/year for Rowling's books and movies and her 3 children). The earth loses about 1% of its topsoil every year, so as it nears 2100, most of its food growing capacity will be gone. Then there is the huge amount of fuel burned and waste made to make and distribute the books and films, plastic dolls etc. She shows her lack of social responsibility by producing children rather than using her millions to encourage family planning or buy up the rain forest, and by promoting the conventional liberal stupidity of 3rd world supremacy that is destroying Britain, America, the world and her descendant's future. Of course, she's not that different from the other 7.7 billion clueless just noisier and more destructive. Like all the rich, she is able to multiply her destruction by causing others to destroy on her behalf. Each child she produced results in about 50 tons of topsoil into the ocean, 300 lbs of toxic chemicals produced, 1 acre of forest/wetland/ gone forever, every year. Like all people, her family steals from all people on the earth and from their own descendants (no human rights without human wrongs), and, like the vast majority, she is poorly educated, egomaniacal, and lacking self-awareness, so these issues never cross her mind. In addition to the material destruction to make and distribute 204 her books and movies, there is the vast amount of time wasted in reading and viewing them. In addition, the extreme immaturity shown by the characters in them and their preoccupation with infantile superstitious fantasies can only do harm to impressionable minds. The world would be a better place if she had never been born, but one can say it of nearly everyone. It has long been the understanding of spiritually aware people that all but a tiny number of us spend their whole lives asleep, and this view is powerfully supported by modern psychological research, which shows that nearly all our actions are done mechanically, for reasons of which we are not aware and over which we have no control. Our personality is an illusion produced by evolution to ensure reproduction. We are only a package for selfish genes carrying out their blind programs and, like all organisms, we live to replicate our genes and to accumulate and consume resources to that end. In our case that means we live to destroy the earth and our own descendants. It is essential to this game that we remain unaware of it, for, to the extent we become aware and live our lives as conscious beings, we diminish our reproduction and the genes which produce this behavior are selected against. Rowling is a typical example of a seemingly intelligent aware person who will walk through their whole life sound asleep-just like nearly all of the other 11 billion (I extrapolate to 2100) -and like them, lives only to destroy the earth and to leave her toxic offspring behind to continue the destruction. Like so many, she, with Obama and the Pope, share the common delusion that the poor are more noble and deserving, but the rich differ only in having the chance to be more destructive. The poor are the rich in waiting. So 800 Chinese or Indians do about as much damage as JKR and her family. Rich or poor they do the only things monkeys can do consume resources and replicate their genes until the collapse of industrial civilization about the middle of the next century. In the blink of an eye, centuries and millennia will pass and, in the hellish world of starvation, disease, war and violence that their ancestors created, nobody will know or care that any of them existed. She is no more inherently evil than others, but also no better and, due to the accidents of history, she is high on the list of Enemies of Life on Earth. It is the no free lunch problem writ large. The mob just can't see that there is no such thing as helping one person without harming others. Rights or privileges given to new entrants into an overcrowded world can only diminish those of others. In spite of the massive ecological disasters happening in front of them everywhere everyday, they can't pin them to the unrestrained motherhood of "the diverse", which accounts for most of the 205 population increase of the last century and all of that in this one. They lack some combination of intelligence, education, experience and sanity required to extrapolate the daily assaults on the resources and functioning of society now to the eventual collapse of industrial civilization, as well as the courage to say so even if they do realize it. Each meal, each trip by car or bus, each pair of shoes is another nail in the earth's coffin. It has likely never crossed her mind that one seat on a plane from London to San Francisco produces about one ton of carbon which melts about 3 square meters of sea ice and as one of the overprivileged she has probably flown hundreds of such flights. It never crosses their minds that the average lower class family of 4 take out in goods, services, and infrastructure costs perhaps $50,000 more every year than they contribute, and in 100 years (when it will have expanded to perhaps 10 people) will have cost the country about $15 million, and immeasurably more in long term ecological and social costs (what is the value for the collapse of civilization?). Not only the rich and famous, but nearly any public figure at all, including virtually all teachers, are pressured to be politically correct, which in the Western Democracies, now means social democratic (diluted communist) third world supremacists working for the destruction of their own societies and their own descendants. So, those whose lack of free speech (and basic common sense), which should prohibit them from making any public statements at all, totally dominate all the media, creating the impression that the intelligent and civilized must favor democracy, diversity and equality, while the truth is that these are the problems and not the solutions, and that they themselves are the prime enemies of civilization. America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century and now all of it due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources and the addition of 4 billion more ca. 2100 will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America, this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a nightmare of crime and poverty. China will continue to overwhelm America and the world, as long as it maintains the dictatorship which limits selfishness. The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests. This, plus 206 ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else-there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently, social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. Those who want a broader framework may see my essay 'Suicide by Democracy' at the end of this volume. THE DIGITAL DELUSION --COMPUTERS ARE PEOPLE AND LANGUAGE IS MATH AND HI-TECH WILL SAVE US 208 Review of Freedom Evolves by Daniel Dennett (2003) Michael Starks ABSTRACT ``People say again and again that philosophy doesn t really progress, that we are still occupied with the same philosophical problems as were the Greeks. But the people who say this don t understand why it has to be so. It is because our language has remained the same and keeps seducing us into asking the same questions. As long as there continues to be a verb to be that looks as if it functions in the same way as to eat and to drink , as long as we still have the adjectives identical , true , false , possible , as long as we continue to talk of a river of time, of an expanse of space, etc., etc., people will keep stumbling over the same puzzling difficulties and find themselves staring at something which no explanation seems capable of clearing up. And what s more, this satisfies a longing for the transcendent, because, insofar as people think they can see the limits of human understanding , they believe of course that they can see beyond these.`` This quote is from Ludwig Wittgenstein who redefined philosophy some 70 years ago (but most people have yet to find this out). Dennett, though he has been a philosopher for some 40 years, is one of them. It is also curious that both he and his prime antagonist, John Searle, studied under famous Wittgensteinians (Searle with John Austin, Dennett with Gilbert Ryle) but Searle got the point and Dennett did not, (though it is stretching things to call Searle or Ryle Wittgensteinians). Dennett is a hard determinist (though he tries to sneak reality in the back door), and perhaps this is due to Ryle, whose famous book The Concept of Mind (1949) continues to be reprinted. That book did a great job of exorcising the ghost but it left the machine. Dennett enjoys making the mistakes Wittgenstein, Ryle (and many others since) have exposed in detail. Our use of the words consciousness, choice, freedom, intention, particle, thinking, determines, wave, cause, happened, event (and so on endlessly) are rarely a source of confusion but as soon as we leave normal life and enter philosophy (and any discussion detached from the environment in which language evolved) chaos reigns. Like most Dennett lacks a coherent framework-which Searle has called the logical structure of rationality. I have expanded on this considerably since I wrote this review and my recent articles show in detail what is wrong with Dennett's approach 209 to philosophy. Let me end with another quote from Wittgenstein-- Ambition is the death of thought . Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book 'The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017' (2017). ``People say again and again that philosophy doesn t really progress, that we are still occupied with the same philosophical problems as were the Greeks. But the people who say this don t understand why it has to be so. It is because our language has remained the same and keeps seducing us into asking the same questions. As long as there continues to be a verb to be that looks as if it functions in the same way as to eat and to drink , as long as we still have the adjectives identical , true , false , possible , as long as we continue to talk of a river of time, of an expanse of space, etc., etc., people will keep stumbling over the same puzzling difficulties and find themselves staring at something which no explanation seems capable of clearing up. And what s more, this satisfies a longing for the transcendent, because, insofar as people think they can see `the limits of human understanding , they believe of course that they can see beyond these.`` "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language". "Ambition is the death of thought" These three quotes are from Ludwig Wittgenstein, who redefined philosophy some 70 years ago (but most people have yet to find this out). Dennett, though he has been a philosopher for some 40 years, is one them. It is also curious that both he and his prime antagonist, John Searle, studied under famous Wittgensteinians (Searle with John Austin, Dennett with Gilbert Ryle) but Searle at least partially got the point and Dennett did not. Dennett is a hard determinist (though he tries to sneak reality in the back door), and perhaps this is due to Ryle, whose famous book The Concept of Mind (1949) continues to be reprinted. That book did a great job of exorcising the ghost but it left the machine. Dennett enjoys making the mistakes Wittgenstein, Ryle (and many others since) have exposed in detail. By accident, just before this book, I had read The Minds I , which Dennett coauthored with Douglas 210 Hofstadter in 1981. They made some bad mistakes (see my review), and saddest of all, they reprinted two famous articles that pointed the way out of the mess--Nagel s `What is like to be a bat?` and an early version of John Searle s Chinese Room argument explaining why computers don t think. Nagel pointed out that we do not even know how to recognize what a concept of a bat s mind would be like. Searle similarly explained how we lack a way to conceptualize thinking and how it differs from what a computer does (e.g., it can translate Chinese without understanding it). Likewise, we lack a clear test for recognizing what counts as good vs bad--or just intelligible-for many philosophical and scientific concepts. Our use of the words consciousness, choice, freedom, intention, particle, thinking, determines, wave, cause, happened, event (and so on endlessly) are rarely a source of confusion but as soon as we leave normal life and enter philosophy (and any discussion detached from the environment in which language evolved) chaos reigns. Wittgenstein was the first to understand why and to point out how to avoid this. Unfortunately, he died in his prime, his works are composed almost entirely of a series of examples of how the mind (language) works, and he never wrote any popular books, so understanding of his work is restricted to a very few. Searle is one of the world s leading philosophers and has written many extremely clear and highly regarded articles and books, some of which have pointed out the glaring defects in Dennett s work. His review ``Consciousness Explained Away of Dennett's 1991 book ` Consciousness Explained and his book The Mystery of Consciousness are very well known, and show, in a way that is amazingly clear for philosophical writing, why neither Dennett (nor any of the hundreds of philosophers and scientists who have written on this topic) have come close to explaining the hard problem-i.e., how do you conceptualize consciousness. Many suspect we will never be able to 'conceptualize' any of the really important things (though I think W made it clear that they are mixing up the very hard scientific issue with the very simple issue of how to use the word), but it is clear that we are nowhere near it now as a scientific issue. My own view is that the scientific issue is straightforward as we can see 'consciousness' being put together a few neurons at a time by evolution and by development. And the 'concept' is a language game like any others and one just needs to get clear (specify clear COS) about how we will use the word. Dennett has mostly ignored his critics but has favored Searle with 211 vituperative personal attacks. Searle has been accused by Dennett and others of being out to destroy cognitive psychology which is quite funny, as modern philosophy is (mostly) a branch of cognitive psychology, and Searle has made it very clear for 30 years that WE are a good example of a biological machine that is conscious, thinks, etc. He just points out that we don t have any idea how this happens. Searle characterizes as intellectual pathology , the views of Dennett and all those who deny the existence of the very phenomena they set out to explain. Dennett repeats his mistakes here and leaves his reply to his critics to the penultimate page of the book, where we are told that they are all mistaken and it is a waste of space to show how! Unsurprisingly, there is not one reference to Wittgenstein or Searle in the entire book. There are however, many references to other old school philosophers who are as confused as he is. It is scientism writ large-the almost universal mistake of mixing together the real empirical issue of science with the issues of how the language is to be used (language games) of philosophy. Like most people, it does not cross his mind that the very inference engines he thinks with are forcing him to come to certain conclusions and that these will often be quite unconnected with or wrong about the way things are in the world. They are a jumble of evolutionary curiosities which do various tasks in organizing behavior that were useful for survival hundreds of thousands of years ago. Wittgenstein was a pioneer in doing thought experiments in cognitive psychology and began to elucidate the nature of these engines and the subtleties of language in the 30 s, and thus he made the sorts of comments that this review begins with. Dennett says (p98) that his view is compatibilism, i.e., that free will (which I hope, for coherence, we can equate with choice) is compatible with determinism (i.e., that there is at any instant exactly one physically possible future --p25). He wants to show that determinism is not the same as inevitability. However, the whole book is smoke and mirrors by means of which choice, in the sense we normally understand it, disappears and we are left with ``choicè`, which is something we cannot choose. Naturally, this echoes the fate of consciousness in his earlier book ``Consciousness Explained``. It is remarkable that, at a time when we are just beginning to reach the point where we might be able to understand the basics of how a single neuron 212 works (or how an atom works for that matter), that anyone should think they can make the leap to understanding the whole brain and to explain its most complex phenomena. Please recall the last sentence of Wittgenstein from the opening quote: And what s more, this satisfies a longing forthe transcendent, because, insofar as people think they can see `the limits of human understanding , they believe of course that they can see beyond these.`` The relation between language, thought and reality is extraordinarily complex and everyone gets lost. If one is very, very careful, we can lay out the language games (e.g., specify the Conditions of Satisfaction of various statements using the words consciousness and mind) and clarity becomes possible, but Dennett throws caution to the winds and we are dragged into the quicksand. There are at least 3 different topics here (evolution of our brain, choice and morality) and Dennett tries vainly to weld them together into a coherent account of how freedom evolves from the deterministic crashing of atoms. There is, however, no compelling reason to accept that bouncing atoms (or his favorite example, the game of life running on a computer) are isomorphic with reality. He knows that quantum indeterminacy (or the uncertainty principle) is a major obstacle to determinism, however defined (and has been taken by many as an escape to freedom), but dismisses it due to the fact that such events are too rare to bother with. By extension, it's unlikely that any such event will happen now or even in our whole lifetime in our brain, so we appear to be stuck with a determined brain (whatever that may be). However, the universe is a big place and it's been around a long time (perhaps 'forever') and if even one such quantum effect occurs it would seem to throw the whole universe into an indeterminate state. The notion there is at any instant exactly one physically possible future cannot be true if at any instant, a quantum indeterminacy can occur--in this case there would seem to be infinitely many possible futures. This recalls one of the escapes from the contradictions of physics-each instant our universe is branching into infinitely many universes. He correctly rejects the idea that quantum indeterminacy gives us the answer to how we can have choice. This obvious idea has been suggested by many but the problem is that nobody has any idea how to specify an exact sequence of steps which starts with the equations of physics and ends up with the phenomena of consciousness (or any other emergent phenomenon). If so, they will definitely win at least one Nobel Prize, for not only will they have 'explained' consciousness, they will have 'explained' (or much better 'described' as Wittgenstein insisted) the universal phenomenon of emergence 213 (how higher order properties emerge from lower ones). So, they would have to solve the easy problem (to determine the exact state of the brain corresponding to some mental state and preferably specify the exact position of all the atoms in the brain over time-ignoring uncertainty) and the hard one (what exactly correlates with or produces consciousness or choice etc.?). And while they are at it how about also doing the impossible--an exact and full solution to the quantum field equations for a brain. It is very well known that these equations are uncomputable, even for one atom or a vacuum, as it would require an infinite amount of computer time. But infinite will do for one atom so maybe a brain will take no longer. It never crosses his mind (nor anyone I have seen) that nobody can make clear how an atom 'emerges' from electrons, neutrons and protons or a molecule emerges from atoms nor cells from molecules etc. Yes, there are some equations but if you look carefully you will see lots of hand waving and facts that are just accepted as 'the way things are' and so I think it clearly is the same with consciousness, color, choice, pain emerging from bunches of cells. He starts off on the first page appealing to the laws of physics for protection against fantastic notions such as immaterial souls, but physics is made of notions just as fantastic (uncertainty, entanglement, wave/particle duality, Schrodinger s dead/alive cat etc.) and as Feynmann said many times ``Nobody understands physics! Many think nobody ever will and I am one of many who say there is nothing to 'understand' but rather there is just lots of 'things' along with existence, space, time, matter etc. to accept. There is a limit to what our tiny brain can do and maybe we are at that limit now. Even if we create a massive computer that could understand (in some sense) far better than we, it is not clear that it could explain to us. Understanding an idea requires a certain level of intelligence or power (e.g., holding a certain number of things in mind and performing a certain number of calculations/second). Most people will never grasp the abstruse math of string theory no matter how long they have to do it. Many cannot understand much simpler concepts. So, there is good reason to suppose that our supersmart computer, even if we teach it how to think in the 'same' sense that we do, will never be able to explain really complex things to us. On the first page is one of his favorite quotes, which compares the brain to a bunch of tiny robots, and on pg2 he says that we are made of mindless robots. The way the brain (and any cell) works is nothing at all like the way robots work and we don t even know how to conceptualize the difference (i.e., we know how robots work but not how brains work-e.g., how do they make 214 choices, understand images and motives etc.). As I noted above, this was pointed out by Searle 30 years ago but Dennett (and countless others) just does not getit. We are also told on the first page that science will let us understand our freedom and give us better foundation for our morality. So far as I can see, neither science nor philosophy, nor religion, has any effect on our understanding of our freedom or morality. Although he discusses the biology of altruism and rational choice at length, he never mentions the abundant evidence from cognitive psychology that our moral intuitions are built in and demonstrable in 4 year old children. Instead, he spends much time trying to show how choice and morality come from memories of events and our interaction with others. On pg2 he says our values have little to do with the goals of our cells and on pg2 to3 that our personality differences are due to how our robotic teams are put together, over a lifetime of growth and experience.`` This is a bald dismissal of human nature, of the abundant evidence that our differences are to a large extent programmed into our genes and fixed in early childhood, and is typical of his constant confused wandering back and forth between determinism and environmentalism (i.e., his view that we develop morality over time by experience and by thinking aboutmoral issues). Many other sections of the book show the same confusion. Those who don t know the evidence may wish to read Pinker s The Blank Slate , Boyer s Religion Explained and any of the hundred or so recent texts, and tens of thousands of articles and web pages on personality development, and evolutionary and cognitive psychology. On pg4 he says bison don t know they are bison and that we have known we are mammals for only a few hundred years. Both show a fundamental lack of understanding of cognitive psychology. The cognitive templates for ontological categories were evolved, in their original forms, hundreds of millions of years ago and animals have the inborn ability to recognize others of their species and of other species and classes of animals and plants without any learning sufficient to establish categories. Bison know they are like other bison and our ancestors knew they were like other mammals and that reptiles were different but similar to each other etc. Cognitive studies have shown these types of abilities in very young children. Of course, it is true that the words bison and mammal are recent, but they have nothing to do with how our brains work. On page 5 he attributes postmodernism s hostility to science as a product of fearful thinking but does not speculate why that is. In spite of his 215 acquaintance with cognitive psychology he does not see that this is likely due to the fact that many science results clash with the feelings normally produced by the operation of the inference engines for intuitive psychology, coalition, social mind, social exchange, etc. On page 9 he notes that free will is a problem and our attitudes to it make a difference, but for whom? Nobody but philosophers. We make choices. What s the problem? One has to step outside life to experience a problem and then everything becomes a problem. What are consciousness, pain, yellow, intention, matter, quarks, gravity etc.? I doubt that any normal person has ever experienced a fundamental change in their interactions with people or their decision-making processes due to their thinking about choice. This shows that there is something strange about such questions. Wittgenstein shows that the language games are different. There are games for language connected with the cognitive templates for Decisions, or seeing colors etc., and thinking philosophically is operating them in decoupled mode. Decoupled modes permit thinking about the past, planning for the future, guessing the mental states of others, etc., but if one takes the results in the wrong way and starts to think ` John will try to steal my wallet , rather than just imagining that John might do it, confusion enters and those who cannot turn off the decoupled mode or distinguish it from coupled mode, enter the realm of pathology. Some aspects of schizophrenia and other mental illness might be seen this way--they lose control of which mode they are in, e.g., not being able to see the difference between the motives people have and the motives they might have. One can then see much of the philosophizing people do as operating in these decoupled modes but failing to be able to keep in front of them the differences from the normal mode. Normal mode-e.g., what is that lion doing-was undoubtedly the first one evolved and decoupled modes--what did that lion do last time or what does he intend to do next--evolved later. This was probably never a problem for animals--any animal that spent too much time worrying about what might happen would not be very successful contributing to the gene pool. It is interesting to speculate that only when humans developed culture and began degenerating genetically, could large numbers of people survive with genes that led them to spend alot of time in decoupled modes. Hence, we have philosophy and this book, which is mostly about running the decision templates in decoupled mode where there are no real consequences except earning royalties for putting the results in a book for other people to use to run their engines indecoupled mode. Let us alter 216 Wittgenstein s quote to read: As long as there continues to be a verb to decide that looks as if it functions in the same way as to eat and to drink , as long as we continue to talk of freedom of action, of saying I wish I had done otherwise, etc., etc., people will keep stumbling over the same puzzling difficulties and find themselves staring at something which no explanation seems capable of clearing up. As with most philosophy books, nearly every page, often every paragraph, changes from one type of language game to another without noticing that now one would have to be joking or dreaming or acting in a play or reciting a story, etc., and not actually intending anything nor describing an actual situation in the world. On page 10 he says we count on free will for the whole way of thinking about our lives, like we count on food and water, but whoever, outside philosophy, standing in front of lunch counter full of food, ever thinks how fine it is that they have free will so they can pick coke instead of mineral water? Even if I want to be a serious compatibilist and try thinking this in decoupled mode, I have to exit and enter nondecoupled mode to make the actual choice. Only then can I go back to decoupled mode to wonder what might have happened if I had not had the ability to make a real choice. Wittgenstein noted how pretend games are parasitic on real ones (this is not a trivial observation!). The ability to engage in very complex decoupled scenarios is already evident in 4 year old children. So, I would say that normally, nobody counts on having choice, but rather we just choose. As Wittgenstein made clear it is action based on certainty that is the bedrock of our life. See the recent writings of Daniele Moyal-Sharrock. On the same page, he shows again that he does not grasp cognitive basics. He says we learn to conduct our lives in the conceptual atmosphere of choice, and that ` It appears to be a stable and ahistorical construct, as eternal and unchanging as arithmetic, but it is not. And on page 13-- It is an evolved creation of human activity and beliefs . The whole thrust of cognitive psychology (and Wittgenstein) is that we do NOT learn the basics of planning, deciding, promising, resenting, etc., but that these are built-in functions of the inference engines that work automatically and unconsciously and start running in very early childhood. There is no evidence that they change as we grow, or are in any way subject to our beliefs, only that they mature just as our body does. On pg 14 he suggests it's probable that our having free will depends on our believing we have it! Do we believe we see an apple, feel a pain, are happy? The language game of belief is very different from that of knowing. We can 217 believe we have a dollar in our pocket but if we take it out and look at it we can t meaningfully then say that we still believe it (except as a joke etc.). The inference engine can run in decoupled (belief) mode so we can imagine having choices or making them, but in life we just make them and it is only in very odd situations we can say that we believe we made a choice. But Dennett is saying this is the universal case. If making a choice had any dependence on belief than so would everything else-consciousness, seeing, thinking, etc. If we take this seriously (and he says the serious problems of free will ) then we are getting into trouble and if we actually try to apply it to life, then madness is minutes away. He, like nearly all philosophers had no clue that Wittgenstein showed us the way out of this need to ground our actions on beliefs by describing the actual basis of knowing which is the ungrounded 'hinges' or automatisms of System 1 thinking in his last work 'On Certainty'. Daniele Moyal-Sharrock has explained this over the last decade and I have summarized her work and incorporated it in my reviews and articles. . On page 65 et seq., he discusses causation, intention and the `informal predicates that we use to describe atoms etc., but cognitive research has shown that we describe all 'objects' with a limited number of ontological categories, which we analyze with our intuitive physics modules, and that when agents (i.e., animals or people or things like them-i.e., ghosts or gods) are involved we use our concepts (engines) for agency, intuitive psychology, social minds, etc. to decide how to behave. There is almost certainly no causation module but rather it will involve all of these and other inference engines, depending on the precise situation. Discussing possibility and necessity is much easier if one talks in terms of the output of our modules for intuitive physics, agency, ontological categories etc. Of course, there is no mention here of Wittgenstein s many incisive comments on causation, intention, deciding, nor of Searle s now classic works on Intention and Social Reality. He spends much time on Ainslie s book Breakdown of Will , in which is discussed the hyperbolic discounting faculties (i.e., inference engines) by which we evaluate probable outcomes. He makes much of the excellent work of Robert Frank on altruism, emotion and economics, but the book he cites was 15 years old when this book was published. It was Bingham s idea, amplified by Frank and by Boyd and Richardson (1992) that cooperation was greatly stimulated by the evolution of means for punishing cheaters. He suggests these as examples of Darwinian 218 approaches that are obligatory and promising. Indeed, they are, and in fact they are standard parts of economic, evolutionary and cognitive theory, but unfortunately, he makes little reference to the other work in these fields. All that work tends to show that people do not choose but their brains choose for them. He does not establish any convincing connection between this work and the general problem of choice. Philosophers of all stripes have been hypnotized by their ability to decouple the inference engines to play `what if games, loving to put counterintuitive tags on ontological categories (i.e., if Socrates was immortal etc.). In this respect, they share some elements with primitive religion (see Boyer). This is not a joke, nor an insult, but merely points out that once one has a grasp of modern cognitive concepts, one sees that they apply thoughout the whole spectrum of human activity (and it would be odd if they did not). But as Wittgenstein explained so beautifully, the language games and the inference engines of S2 have their limits--explanations come to an end--we hit bedrock (S1). But the philosopher thinks he can see beyond it and walks out on the water. On pg 216 he says that making oneself so that one could not have done otherwise is a key innovation in the evolutionary ascent to free will, and that we can only be free if we learn how to render ourselves insensitive to opportunities. But where this ability resides is not revealed for several chapters! Dennett has a penchant for hiding his ideas in a massive amount of rather irrelevant text. Again, he gets things backwards, as there is a vast body of very good evidence from biology and psychology that we get the feelings that we should behave in some way from our inference engines and these are not provided by some part of our conscious self, but by the automatic and unconscious operation of the engines. As he notes, hundreds of experiments with the Prisoner s Dilemma and related protocols have shown how easy it is to manipulate people s choices and that their calculations are not conscious and deliberate at all and in fact much of modern psychological, sociological and neuroeconomics research is devoted to distinguishing the automatisms of S1 from the deliberative thinking of S2 and showing how S1 rules. When the situation is manipulated to make people conscious, they are much slower and less reliable (S2). So, there has been constant pressure of natural selection to make the engines fast and automatic and inaccessible to deliberate thought. 219 Dennett says `we make ourselves so that we could not do otherwise and that this is the basis of morality and choice. The evidence would seem to be exactly the opposite. Our inference engines give us basic moral intuitions and we generally act in accord with the results. If we or others do not we feel guilt, outrage, resentment etc., and then cheater genes will invade the population and this is one of the main theories as to how a good part of morality evolved. Our genes make us so we can t (mostly) do otherwise, not our will or whatever Dennett thinks can do it. We can often choose to do otherwise, but our own intuitions and the knowledge of social disapproval usually serve to limit our choices. These intuitions evolved in small groups between 50,000 and some millions of years ago. In the modern world, the intuitions are often not to our long-term advantage and the social controls weak. This is a prime reasonfor the inexorable progress into chaos in the world. On pg 225 he finally sneaks in a definition of free will as a complicated snarl of mechanistic causes that look like decision making (from certain angles) . He claims that this plays all the valuable roles of free will but lacks some (unspecified) properties possessed by traditional free will. The smoke is thick but I am pretty sure one of those unspecified properties is what we understand as choice. He insists (top of pg 226) that hisnaturalistic account of decision making leaves plenty of room for moral responsibility, but making ourselves so we couldn t do otherwise does not seem to describe the way we actually function, nor does it seem to leave any room for morality, as that would seem to consist precisely in being able to do otherwise. He does not propose any test for deciding if a choice is voluntary or forced and I doubt he could do so. Normally if someone asks us to move our hand, we know what counts as having a choice, but, typical of philosophers, I expect that regardless of whether it moves or not he will count both as evidence for his position and of course if everything counts then nothing counts as Wittgenstein so trenchantly remarked many times. At this point he also starts his discussion of Libet s well known work on conscious attention, which is the only part of the book that I felt was worth my time. However, Libet's claim that we make decisions without awareness has been debunked many times, by both psychologists and philosophers (e.g., Searle and Kihlstrom). On page 253 et seq., he sneaks in his definition of conscious will-the brains 220 user illusion of itself which has as one of its main roles providing me with the means of interfacing with myself at other times``. And ``Illusory or not, conscious will is the persons guide to his or her own moral responsibility for action. `` He says the trick we need is to see that ``Ì control what is happening inside the simplification barrier ... where decision making happens . ``Mental events become conscious by entering into memory . The process of self description... is what we are . The crucial thing is that choice is possible because the self is distributed over space (the brain) and time (memories). He realizes this is going to leave many incredulous (everyone who can follow this and really understands the bizarre language games!). I know that many people find it hard to grasp this idea or take it seriously. It seems to them to be a trick with mirrors, some kind of verbal slight of hand that whisks consciousness, and the real Self, out of the picture just when it was about to be introduced. Many will say he took the words out of their mouth, but I would say it s incoherent and that everything we know about consciousness and the whole universe (making the obvious extensions of such claims) was gone long before we got this far in his tome. And a careful look at the language games shows their lack of coherence (i.e., no clear Conditions of Satisfaction as I note in my articles). On pg 259 he says that culture has made us rational animals! This is a stunning denial of human (and animal) nature (i.e., genetics and evolution) coming from the person who wrote Darwin s Dangerous Idea ! Presumably he is talking about his idea that it is memories spread over space (the brain and other people) and time (much like Dawkins' memes) that give us choices and morals and consciousness (line 6 from bottom). He says consciousness is a user-interface but it is never made clear who or where the user is and how it interfaces with the brain (you will have to suffer through Consciousness Explained' to find that there is no answer there either). Though he makes many references to evolutionary and cognitive psychology, he seldom uses any of the terminology that has been current for decades (social mind, intuitive psychology, coalitional intuitions etc.) and clearly is not familiar with most of the concepts. If he means that we got the fine details of morality from culture, that's ok, but this is the S2 icing on the cake and the S1 cake was baked by the genes. We are also told here that R&D (by which he means evolution here, but other things elsewhere) has given us the self and that language creates a new kind of consciousness and morality. I am sure that he will get little agreement on this. It seems quite clear that consciousness and the basics of morality evolved 221 in primates (and earlier) long before spoken language (though it is very contentious as to how language evolved from extant capacities in the brain). He continues ``morality memes arose by accident some tens of thousands of years agò` which would be OK if he meant the icing on the cake but he clearly means the cake! And then he says the point of morality is not the survival of our genes, which is an amazing (and totally incorrect) thing to say, even if he was only referring to memes. On pg 260 he claims that because we do not comprehend our bland dispositions to cooperate , they mean nothing to us, but it is the operation of our templates (i.e., reciprocal altruism promoting inclusive fitness) that is everything to us. As Dawkins recently noted in his comments on E.O Wilson's disastrous recent work supporting the phantasm of 'group selection', natural selection is inclusive fitness (see my article on Wilson's 'The Social Conquest of Earth'). There is ample evidence that if one of our many 'templates' is damaged, a person cannot function properly as a social being (e.g., autism). I would say it is the operation of the templates for intuitive psychology etc., which lead Dennett to the counterintuitive views that we do not have consciousness and choice in the way we think. He also says here that it was one of the major evolutionary transitions when we were able to change our views and reflect on reasons for them. This again reflects his lack of understanding of evolutionary psychology. I know of no evidence that the basic moral intuitions, like all the templates, are accessible to consciousness but there is a huge body of work showing the opposite. We may decide our cheating was justifiable, or forgive someone else s cheating, but we still know it was cheating (i.e., we cannot change the engine). I suspect my ancestors a million years ago had the same feelings in the same situation, but what has happened is that there are now lots of other things that may be taken as relevant, and that sometimes these will lead me to act contrary to my feelings. Another issue is that as culture developed, one had to make many important or moral typè decisions for which the engines were not evolved to give a clear answer. On pg 267 he says that we now replace our free floating rationales (probably corresponding to what cognitive psychologists call our templates or inference engines) with reflection and mutual persuasion. And on pg 286 he says that it is a child s upbringing --demanding and giving reasons-that affects moral reasoning. Again, he just has no grasp of what has happened in the last 30 years of research--the templates are innate S1 automatisms and cannot change with reflection or upbringing. We are then told again that 222 consciousness makes moral issues available over time to the self, which takes responsibility. It is not any more coherent or credible with repetition. On pg 289 he has a chapter summary which repeats the mistaken notions that it is culture that makes it possible to reflect and that choice depends on education (memory) and sharing. It s clear that it is not culture but the inherited cognitive structures that make it possible to reflect and to choose and that culture determines the acceptable actions and their rewards or punishments. On pg. 303 he discusses the classic philosophical barrier between ought and is , unaware that our templates solved that problem long ago- i.e., they tell us how to feel about situations regarding other people. He also seems to be unaware that there are hundreds of 'cultural' universals implanted in our genes (e.g. see Pinker's The Blank Slate ). He often starts into what looks like it's going to be a good discussion of some issues in evolutionary psychology, but invariably wanders off into philosophical arcana and winds up with more confusion. This happens on pg. 261 where he states that concepts like praiseworthy were shaped over millennia by culture, while most would say the basis for such concepts is in the genes and each culture only determines the details of acceptable reactions to the intuitions its members get from their innate mechanisms. On pg 262 he tries to explain how an ESS (Evolutionarily Stable Strategy) can produce morality. His idea here is that genetic `R&D`(i.e., evolution) produces dim understandings of morals and then culture (memetics) produces variations and clarifications. I would say that we all know, and much research has made clear, that we commonly get very clear results from our inference engines and only dimly understand in special cases. Culture merely decides what we can do about our feelings. The last part of the book is mostly concerned with moral culpability. He refers to the legal classic by Hart and Honore, which I started reading 30 years ago since its authors were deeply influenced by Wittgenstein. Dennett tells us that we have control overour own morality and that thinking about morality will improve us. But, there seems no justification whatever for this view in this book. There is nothing at all here to help anyone escape from the dictates of the monkey mind and I am quite sure that when industrial civilization collapses in the 22nd century people will be acting as their ancestors did 200,000 years ago. It is a defensible point of view that those who manage to escape do so by traveling a spiritual path that has no connection with philosophyand there is not a hint of spirituality in this entire book--another telling point considering that many mystics have fascinating things to say 223 about the functioning of the mind. I find more wisdom about how to be free and moral in any of Osho s 200 books and tapes than anywhere in philosophy. Unsurprisingly, one rarely finds spiritually and morally advanced people teaching at universities. There is no sign here, nor in anything he has done, that Dennett is morally superior. After 40 years of thinking about morality he launches personal attacks on his critics or arrogantly dismisses them. It seems clear that, like all of us, he is trapped in the limits of his inference engines. So, how much opportunity is there to improve our morality? It seems clear (e.g., see Pinker s `The Blank Slatè) that most of our behavior is genetic and the rest due to unknown factors in our environment, in spite of the vigorous efforts of parents and religions and political parties. On average, maybe 5% of the variation in moral behavior (variations are the only thing we can study) is due to our own efforts (culture). The moral choices that matter most today are those affecting the fate of the world. But our templates were not evolved to deal with overpopulation (except by murder) and climate change (except by moving elsewhere and killing any opposition). How remarkable it would be if just one of the hundreds of millions of educated people in the world managed to figure out what consciousness or choice or any mental phenomenon really is. And if one did, we would expect them to be a scientist at the cutting edge of research using some exotic fMRI equipment and the latest parallel processing neural networked fuzzy logic computer etc. And that would only mean they specify the neural circuits. So, they cannot answer this question at all! But it needs no answer –like the existence of space, time, matter, it's just the way things are and the philosopher's job is to clarify the language games we can play. But a philosopher or physicist just sitting there thinking, coming up with the solution to the greatest scientific puzzle there is! And then writing a whole book about it without checking with the sceptics first. To return to the quote at the beginning-- Ambition is the death of thought . Indeed--though clearly Wittgenstein was thinking of profound thought! 224 Review of I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter (2007) Michael Starks ABSTRACT Latest Sermon from the Church of Fundamentalist Naturalism by Pastor Hofstadter. Like his much more famous (or infamous for its relentless philosophical errors) work Godel, Escher, Bach, it has a superficial plausibility but if one understands that this is rampant scientism which mixes real scientific issues with philosophical ones (i.e., the only real issues are what language games we ought to play) then almost all its interest disappears. I provide a framework for analysis based in evolutionary psychology and the work of Wittgenstein (since updated in my more recent writings). Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book 'The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017' (2017). "It might justly be asked what importance Gödel's proof has for our work. For a piece of mathematics cannot solve problems of the sort that trouble us. --The answer is that the situation, into which such a proof brings us, is of interest to us. 'What are we to say now?'--That is our theme. However, queer it sounds, my task as far as concerns Gödel's proof seems merely to consist in making clear what such a proposition as: 'Suppose this could be proved' means in mathematics." Wittgenstein "Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics" p337(1956) (written in 1937). "My theorems only show that the mechanization of mathematics, i.e., the elimination of the mind and of abstract entities, is impossible, if one wants to have a satisfactory foundation and system of mathematics. I have not proved that there are mathematical questions that are undecidable for the human mind, but only that there is no machine (or blind formalism) that can decide all numbertheoretic questions, (even of a very special kind) .... It is not the structure itself of the deductive systems which is being threatened with a brakedown, but only a certain interpretation of it, namely its interpretation 225 as a blind formalism." Gödel "Collected Works" Vol 5, p 176-177. (2003) "All inference takes place a priori. The events of the future cannot be inferred from those of the present. Superstition is the belief in the causal nexus. The freedom of the will consists in the fact that future actions cannot be known now. We could only know them if causality were an inner necessity, like that of logical deduction. -The connexion of knowledge and what is known is that of logical necessity. ("A knows that p is the case" is senseless if p is a tautology.) If from the fact that a proposition is obvious to us, it does not follow that it is true, then obviousness is no justification for belief in its truth." TLP 5.133--5.1363 "Now if it is not the causal connections which we are concerned with, then the activities of the mind lie open before us." Wittgenstein "The Blue Book" p6 (1933) "We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched. Of course, there are then no questions left, and this itself is the answer." Wittgenstein TLP 6.52 (1922) I have read some 50 reviews here and on the net (that by quantum physicist David Deutsch was perhaps the best) and none of them provide a satisfying framework, so I will try to give novel comments that will be useful, not only for this book but for any book in the behavioral sciences (which can include ANY book, if one grasps the ramifications). Like his classic Gödel, Escher, Bach: The Eternal Golden Braid, and many of his other writings, this book by Hofstadter (H) tries to find correlations or connections or analogies that shed light on consciousness and all of human experience. As in GEB, he spends a great deal of time explaining and drawing analogies with the famous "incompleteness" theorems of Gödel, the "recursive" art of Escher and the "paradoxes" of language (though, as with most people, he does not see the need for quotes, and this is the core of the problem). The idea is that their seemingly bizarre consequences are due to "strange loops" and that such loops are in some way operative in our brain. In particular, they may "give rise" to our self, which he seems roughly to equate with consciousness and thinking. As with everyone, when he starts to talk about how his mind works, he goes seriously astray. I suggest that it is in finding the reasons for this that the interest in this book, and most general commentary on behavior lies. 226 I will contrast the ideas of ISL with those of the philosopher (armchair psychologist) Ludwig Wittgenstein (W), whose commentaries on psychology, written from 1912 to 1951, have never been surpassed for their depth and clarity. He is an unacknowledged pioneer in evolutionary psychology (EP) and developer of the modern concept of intentionality. He noted that the fundamental problem in philosophy is that we do not see our automatic innate mental processes. He gave many illustrations (one can regard the entire 20,000 pages of his nachlass as an illustration), some of them for words like "is" and "this", and noted that all the really basic issues usually slip by without comment. A major point which he developed was that nearly all of our intentionality (roughly, our evolutionary psychology (EP), rationality or personality) is invisible to us and such parts as enter our consciousness are largely epiphenomenal (i.e., irrelevant to our behavior). The fact that nobody can describe their mental processes in any satisfying way, that this is universal, that these processes are rapid and automatic and very complex, tells us that they are part of the "hidden" cognitive modules (templates or inference engines) that have been gradually fixed in animal DNA over more than 500 million years. As in virtually all writing which tries to explain behavior (philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, politics, theology, and even, as with H, math and physics), I am a Strange Loop (ISL) commits this kind of error (oblivion to our automaticity) continually and this produces the puzzles which it then tries to solve. The title of ISL comprises words we all know, but as W noted, word uses can be seen as families of language games (grammar) which have many senses (uses or meanings), each with its own contexts. We know what these are in practice but if we try describing them or philosophizing (theorizing) about them, we nearly always go astray and say things that may appear to have sense but lack the context to give them sense. It never crosses Hofstadter's mind that both "strange" and "loop" are out of context and lack any clear sense (to say nothing about "I" and "am"!). If you go to Wikipedia, you find many uses (games as W often said) for these words and if you look around in ISL you will find them referred to as if they were all one. Likewise, for "consciousness", "reality", "paradox", "recursive", "self referential", etc. So, we are hopelessly adrift from the very first page, as I expected from the title. A loop in a rope can have a very clear sense and likewise a diagram of a steam engine governor feedback loop, but what about loops in mathematics and the mind? H does not see the "strangest loop" of all-that we use our consciousness, self and will to deny themselves! 227 Regarding Gödel's famous theorems, in what sense can they be loops? What they are almost universally supposed to show is that certain basic kinds of mathematical systems are incomplete in the sense that there are "true" theorems of the system whose "truth" (the unfortunate word mathematicians commonly substitute for validity) or "falsity (invalidity) cannot be proven in the system. Though H does not tell you, these theorems are logically equivalent to Turing's "incompleteness" solution of the famous halting problem for computers performing some arbitrary calculation. He spends a lot of time explaining Gödel's original proof, but fails to mention that others subsequently found vastly shorter and simpler proofs of "incompleteness" in math and proved many related concepts. The one he does briefly mention is that of contemporary mathematician Gregory Chaitin-an originator with Kolmogorov and others of Algorithmic Information Theory-who has shown that such "incompleteness" or "randomness" (Chaitin's term-though this is another game), is much more extensive than long thought, but does not tell you that both Gödel's and Turing's results are corollaries to Chaitin's theorem and an instance of "algorithmic randomness". You should refer to Chaitin's more recent writings such as "The Omega Number (2005)", as Hofstadter's only ref. to Chaitin is 20 years old (though Chaitin has no more grasp of the larger issues here –i.e., innate intentionality as the source of the language games in math-than does H and shares the 'Universe is a Computer" fantasy as well). Hofstadter takes this "incompleteness" (another word (conceptual) game out of context) to mean that the system is self referential or "loopy" and "strange". It is not made clear why having theorems that seem to be (or are) true (i.e., valid) in the system, but not provable in it, makes it a loop nor why this qualifies as strange nor why this has any relationship to anything else. It was shown quite convincingly by Wittgenstein in the 1930's (i.e., shortly after Gödel's proof) that the best way to look at this situation is as a typical language game (though a new one for math at the time)-i.e., the "true but unprovable" theorems are "true" in a different sense (since they require new axioms to prove them). They belong to a different system, or as we ought now to say, to a different intentional context. No incompleteness, no loops, no self reference and definitelynot strange! W: "Gödel's proposition, which asserts something about itself, does not mention itself" and "Could it be said: Gödel says that one must also be able to trust a mathematical proof when one wants to conceive it practically, as the proof that the propositional pattern can be constructed according to the rules of proof? Or: a mathematical proposition must be capable of being conceived as a proposition of a geometry which is 228 actually applicable to itself. And if one does this it comes out that in certain cases it is not possible to rely on a proof." (RFM p336). These remarks barely give a hint at the depth of W's insights into mathematical intentionality, which began with his first writings in 1912 but was most evident in his writings in the 30's and 40's. W is regarded as a difficult and opaque writer due to his aphoristic, telegraphic style, but if one starts with his only textbook style work-the Blue and Brown Books --and understands that he is explaining how our evolved higher order thought works, it will all become clear to the persistent. W lectured on these issues in the 1930's and this has been documented in several of his books. There are further comments in German in his nachlass (some of it formerly available only on a $1000 cdrom but now, like nearly all his works, on p2p). Canadian philosopher Victor Rodych has recently written two articles on W and Gödel in the journal Erkenntnis and 4 others on W and math, which I believe constitute a definitive summary of W and the foundations of math. He lays to rest the previously popular notion that W did not understand incompleteness (and much else concerning the psychology of math). In fact, so far as I can see W is one of very few to this day (and NOT including Gödel! -though see his penetrating comment quoted above) who does. Related forms of "paradox" which exercise H (and countless others) so much was extensively discussed by W with examples in math and language and seems to me a natural consequence of the piecemeal evolution of our symbolic abilities that extends also to music, art, games etc. Those who wish contrary views will find them everywhere and regarding W and math, they may consult Chihara in Philosophical Review V86, p365-81(1977). I have much respect for Chihara (I am one of maybe half a dozen people who have read his "A Structural Account of Mathematics" cover to cover) but he fails on many basic issues such as W's explanations of paradoxes as unavoidable and almost always harmless facets of our EP. In any case, it would seem that the fact that Gödel's result has had zero impact on math (except to stop people from trying to prove completeness!) should have alerted H to its triviality and the "strangeness" of trying to make it a basis for anything. I suggest that it be regarded as another conceptual game that shows us the boundaries of our psychology. Of course, all of math, physics, and human behavior can usefully be taken this way. While on the topic of W, we should note that another work which H spends a lot of time on is Whitehead and Russell's classic of mathematical logic "Principia Mathematica", primarily since it was at least partly responsible for 229 Gödel's work leading to his theorems. W had gone from Russell's beginning logic student to his teacher in about a year, and Russell had picked him to rewrite the Principia. But W had major misgivings about the whole project (and all of philosophy as it turned out) and, when he returned to philosophy in the 30's, he showed that the idea of founding math (or rationality) on logic was a profound mistake. W is one of the world's most famous philosophers and made extensive commentaries on Gödel and the foundations of mathematics and the mind; is a pioneer in EP (though nobody seems to realize this); the discoverer of the basic outline and functioning of higher order thought and much else, and it is amazing that Dennett &H, after half a century of study, are completely oblivious to the thoughts of the greatest natural psychologist of all time (though they have 6 billion for company). There is, as some have remarked, a collective amnesia regarding W not only in psychology (for which his works should be in universal service as texts and lab manuals) but in all the behavioral sciences including, amazingly, philosophy. H's association with Daniel Dennett (D), another famously confused writer on the mind, has certainly done nothing to help him learn new perspectives in the nearly 30 years since GEB. In spite of the fact that D has written a book on intentionality (a field which, in its modern version, was essentially created by W), H seems to have no acquaintance with it at all. Perceptions leading to memories, feeding into dispositions (inclinations)(W's terms, also used by Searle, but called "propositional attitudes by others) such as believing and supposing, which are not mental states and have no precise duration etc/, are momentous advances in understanding how our mind works, which W discovered in the 20's, but with threads going back to his writings before the first worldwar. The Eternal Golden Braid is not realized by H to be our innate Evolutionary Psychology, now, 150 years late (i.e., since Darwin), becoming a burgeoning field that is fusing psychology, cognitive science, economics, sociology, anthropology, political science, religion, music ( e.g., G. Mazzola's "The Topos of Music"-(topos are substitutes for sets) one of the great science (psychology) books of the 21st century, though he is clueless about W and most of the points in this review), art, math, physics and literature. H has ignored or rejected many persons one might regard as our greatest teachers in the realm of the mind-W, Buddha, John Lilly, John Searle, Osho, Adi Da (see his "The Knee of Listening"), Shulgin and countless others. The vast majority of the insights from philosophy, as well as those from quantum physics, probability, meditation, EP, cognitive psychology and psychedelics 230 do not rate even a passing reference here (nor in most philosophical writings of scientists). Though there are some good books in his bibliography, there are many I would regard as standard references and hundreds of major works in cognitive science, EP, math and probability, and philosophy of mind and science that are not there (nor in his other writings). His sniping at Searle is petty and pointless-the frustration of someone who has no grasp of the real issues. In my estimation, neither H nor anyone else has provided a convincing reason to reject the Chinese room argument (the most famous article in this field) that computers don't think (NOT that they cannot ever do something that we might want to call thinking- which Searle admits is possible). And Searle has (in my view) organized and extended W's work in books such as "The Construction of Social Reality" and "Rationality in Action'-brilliant summations of the organization of HOT (higher order thought-i.e., intentionality)-rare philosophy books you can even make perfect sense of once you translate a little jargon into English! H, D and countless others in cognitive science and AI are incensed with Searle because he had the temerity to challenge (destroyI would say) their core philosophy –the Computational Theory of Mind (CTM) almost 30 years ago and continues to point this out. Of course, they (nearly) all reject the Chinese room or simply ignore it, but the argument is, in the view of many, unanswerable. The recent article by Shani (Minds and Machines V15, p207228(2005)) is a nice summary of the situation with references to the excellent work of Bickhard on this issue. Bickhard has also developed a seemingly more realistic theory of mind that uses nonequilibrium thermodynamics, in place of Hofstadter's concepts of intentional psychology used outside the contexts necessary to give them sense. Few realize that W again anticipated everyone on these issues with numerous comments on what we now call CTM, AI or machine intelligence, and even did thought experiments with persons doing "translations" into Chinese. I had noticed this (and countless other close parallels with Searle's work) when I came upon Diane Proudfoot's paper on W and the Chinese Room in the book "Views into the Chinese Room" (2005). One can also find many gems related to these issues in Cora Diamond's edition of the notes taken in W's early lectures on math "Wittgenstein's Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, Cambridge 1934(1976). W's own "Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics" covers similar ground. One of the very few who has surveyed W's views on this in detail is Christopher Gefwert, whose excellent pioneering book "Wittgenstein on Minds, Machines and Mathematics" 231 (1995), is universally ignored. Though he was writing before there was any serious thought concerning electronic computers or robots, W realized that the basic issue here is very simple---computers lack a psychology (and even 70 years later we have barely a clue how to give them one), and as usual he summed it all up in his unique aphoristic way "But a machine surely cannot think! --Is that an empirical statement? No. We only say of a human being and what is like one that it thinks. We also say it of dolls and no doubt of spirits too. Look at the word "to think" as a tool." (Philosophical Investigations p113). Out of context, many of W's comments may appear insipid or just wrong, but the perspicacious will find that they usually repay prolonged reflection-he was nobody's fool. Hofstadter, in all his writings, follows the common trend and makes much of "paradoxes", which he regards as self references, recursions or loops, but there are many "inconsistencies" in intentional psychology (math, language, perception, art etc.) and they have no effect, as our psychology evolved to ignore them. Thus, "paradoxes" such as "this sentence is false" only tell us that "this" does not refer to itself. Any symbolic system we have (i.e., language, math, art, music, games etc.) will always have areas of conflict, insoluble or counterintuitive problems or ill definitions. Hence, we have Gödel's theorems, the liar's paradox, inconsistencies in set theory, prisoner's dilemmas, Schrodinger's dead/live cat, Newcomb's problem, Anthropic principles, Bayesian statistics, notes you can't sound together or colors you can't mix together and rules that can't be used in the same game. A set of subindustries within Decision Theory, Behavioral Economics, Game Theory, Philosophy, Psychology and Sociology, Law, Political Science etc. and even the Foundations of Physics and Math (where it is commonly disguised as Philosophy of Science) has arisen which deals with endless variations on "real" (e.g., quantum mechanics) or contrived (e.g., Newcomb's problem- see Analysis V64, p18789(2004)) situations where our psychology –evolved only to get food, find mates and avoid becoming lunch-gives ambivalent results, or just breaks down. Virtually none of those writing the hundreds of articles and countless books on these issues which appear yearly seem aware they are studying the limits of our innate psychology and that Wittgenstein usually anticipated them by over half a century. Typically, he took the issue of paradox to the limit, pointing to the common occurrence of paradox in our thinking, and insisted that even inconsistencies were not a problem (though Turing, attending his classes, disagreed), and predicted the appearance of inconsistent logical systems. Decades later, dialetheic logics were invented and Priest in his recent 232 book on them has called W's views prescient. If you want a good recent review of some of the many types of language paradoxes (though with no awareness that W pioneered this in the 1930's and largely innocent of any grasp of intentional context) see Rosenkranz and Sarkohi's "Platitudes Against Paradox" in Erkenntnis V65, p319-41(2006). Appearance of many W related articles in this journal is most appropriate as it was founded in the 30's by logical positivists whose bible was W's Tractus Logico Philosophicus. Of course, there is also a journal devoted to W and named after his most famous work- "Philosophical Investigations". H, in line with nearly universal practice, refers often to our "beliefs" for "explanations" of behavior, but our shared psychology does not rest on belief-we just have awareness and pains and know from infancy that animals are conscious, self-propelled agents that are different from trees and rocks. Our mother does not teach us that any more than a dog's mother does and in could not teach us! And, if this is something we learn, then we might teach a child (or a dog) that a bird and a rock are really the same kind of thing (i.e., to ignore innate intentional psychology). W clearly and repeatedly noted the underdetermination of all our concepts (e.g., see his comments on addition and the completion of series in Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics), which mandated their becoming innate (ie, evolution had to solve this problem by sacrificing countless quadrillions of creatures whose genes did not make the right choices). Nowadays this is commonly called the problem of combinatorial explosion and often pointed to by evolutionary psychologists as compelling evidence for innateness, unaware that W anticipated them by over 50 years. Our innate psychology does not rest on "beliefs" when it is clearly not subject to test or doubt or revision (e.g., try to give a sense to "I believe I am reading this review" and mean (i.e., find a real use in our normal life for) something different from "I am reading this review"). Yes, there are always derivative uses of any sentence including this one, but these are parasitic on the normal use. Before any "explanations" (really just clear descriptions, as W noted) are possible, it has to be clear that the origins of our behavior lie in the axioms of our innate psychology, which are the basis for all understanding, and that philosophy, math, literature, science, and society are their cultural extensions. Dennett (and anyone who is tempted to follow him-i.e., everyone) is forced into even more bizarre claims by his skepticism (for I claim it is a thinly veiled 233 secret of all reductionists that they are skeptics at heart-i.e., they must deny the "reality" of everything). In his book "The Intentional Stance" and other writings he tries to eliminate this bothersome psychology that puts animals in a different class from computers and the universe by including our innate evolved intentionality with the derived intentionality of our cultural creations (i.e., thermometers, pc's and airplanes) by noting that it's our genes, and so ultimately nature (i.e., the universe), and not we that "really" has intentionality, and so it's all "derived". Clearly something is gravely amiss here! One thinks immediately that it must then also be true that since nature and genes produce our physiology, there must be no substantive difference between our heart and an artificial one we make from plastic. For the grandest reductionist comedy in recent years see Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" which shows us how the universe and all its processes and objects are really just "computers" and "computation" (which he does not realize are intentional concepts having no meaning apart from our psychology and that he has NO TEST to distinguish a computation from a noncomputation-i.e., he eliminates psychology by definition). One sees that Dennett does not grasp the basic issues of intentionality by the title of his book. Our psychology is not a stance or attribution or posit about ourself, or other being's mental lives, any more than it's a "stance" that they possess bodies. A young child or a dog does not guess or suppose and does not and could not learn that people and animals are agents with minds and desires and that they are fundamentally different from trees and rocks and lakes. They know (live) these concepts (shared psychology) from birth and if they weaken, death or madness supervene. This brings us again to W who saw that reductionist attempts to base understanding on logic or math or physics were incoherent. We can only see from the standpoint of our innate psychology, of which they are all extensions. Our psychology is arbitrary only in the sense that one can imagine ways in which it might be different, and this is the point of W inventing odd examples of language games (i.e., alternative concepts (grammars) or forms of life). In doing so, we see the boundaries of our psychology. The best discussion I have seen on W's imaginary scenarios is that of Andrew Peach in PI24: p299-327(2004). It seems to me that W was the first one to understand in detail (with due respects to Kant) that our life is based on our evolved psychology, which cannot be challenged without losing meaning. If one denies the axioms of math, one cannot play the game. 234 One can place a question mark after every axiom and every theorem derived from them but what is the point? Philosophers, theologians and the common person can play at this game as long as they don't take it seriously. Injury, death, jail or madness will come quickly to those who do. Try to deny that you are reading this page or that these are your two hands or there is a world outside your window. The attempt to enter into a conceptual game in which these things can be doubted presupposes the game of knowing them-and there cannot be a test for the axioms of our psychology-anymore than for those of math (derived, as W showed, from our intuitive concepts) --they just are what they are. In order to jump there must be some place to stand. This is the most basic fact of existence, and yet, it is a remarkable consequence of our psychology being automated that it is the hardest thing for us to see. It is an amusing sight indeed to watch people (everyone, not just philosophers) trying to use their intuitive psychology (the only tool we have) to break out of the bounds of our intuitive psychology. How is this going to be possible? How will we find some vantage point that lets us see our mind at work and by what test will we know we have it? We think that if we just think hard enough or acquire enough facts we can get a view of "reality" that others do not have. But there is good reason to think that such attempts are incoherent and only take us further away from clarity and sanity. W said many times in many ways that we must overcome this craving for "clarity", the idea of thought underlaid by "crystalline logic", the discovery of which will "explain" our behavior and our world and change our view of what it is to be human. "The more narrowly we examine actual language, the sharper becomes the conflict between it and our requirement. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not a result of investigation: it was a requirement.)" PI 107 On his return to philosophy in 1930 he said: "The wrong conception which I want to object to in this connexion is the following, that we can discover something wholly new. That is a mistake. The truth of the matter is that we have already got everything, and that we have got it actually present; we need not wait for anything. We make our moves in the realm of the grammar of our ordinary language, and this grammar is already there. Thus, we have already got everything and need not wait for the future." (Waismann "Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle (1979) p183 and in his Zettel P 312-314 "Here we come up against a remarkable and characteristic phenomenon in 235 philosophical investigation: the difficulty---I might say---is not that of finding the solution but rather that of recognizing as the solution something that looks as if it were only a preliminary to it. 'We have already said everything. ---Not anything that follows from this, no this itself is the solution!" "This is connected, I believe, with our wrongly expecting an explanation, whereas the solution of the difficulty is a description, if we give it the right place in our considerations. If we dwell upon it, and do not try to get beyond it." Some might also find it useful to read "Why there is no deductive logic of practical reason" in Searle's superb "Rationality in Action" (2001). Just substitute his infelicitous phrases "impose conditions of satisfaction on conditions of satisfaction" by "relate mental states to the world by moving muscles"-i.e., talking, writing and doing, and his "mind to world" and "world to mind directions of fit" by "cause originates in the world" and "cause originates in the mind". Another basic flaw in H (and throughout scientific discourse, which includes philosophy since it is armchair psychology) concerns the notions of explanations or causes. We have few problems understanding how these concepts work in their normal contexts but philosophy is not a normal context. They are just other families of concepts (often called grammar or language games by W and roughly equivalent to cognitive modules, inference engines, templates or algorithms) comprising our EP (roughly, our intentionality) but, out of context, we feel compelled to project them onto the world and see "cause" as a universal law of nature that determines events. As W said, we need to recognize clear descriptions as answers which terminate the search for ultimate "explanations". This gets us back to my comment on WHY people go astray when they try to "explain" things. Again, this connects intimately with judgements, decision theory, subjective probability, logic, quantum mechanics, uncertainty, information theory, Bayesian reasoning, the Wason test, the Anthropic principle (Bostrum "The Anthropic Principle" (2002)) and behavioral economics, to name a few. There is no space here to get into this rat's nest of tightly linked aspects of our innate psychology, but one might recall that even in his pre-Tractatus writings, Wittgenstein commented that "The idea of causal necessity is not A superstition but the SOURCE of superstition". I suggest that this seemingly trite remark is one of his most profound –W was not given to platitude nor to carelessness. What is the "cause" of the Big Bang 236 or an electron being at a particular "place" or of "randomness" or chaos or the "law" of gravitation? But there are descriptions which can serve as answers. Thus, H feels all actions must be caused and "material" and so, with his pal D and the merry band of reductionist materialists, denies will, self and consciousness. D denies that he denies them, but the facts speak for themselves. His book "Consciousness Explained" is commonly referred to as "Consciousness Denied" and was famously reviewed by Searle as "Consciousness Explained Away". This is especially odd in H's case as he started out a physicist and his father won the Nobel prize in physics so one might think he would be aware of the famous papers of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen and of von Neumann in the 20's and 30's, in which they explained how quantum mechanics did not make sense without human consciousness (and a digital abstraction won't do at all). In this same period others including Jeffreys and de Finetti showed that probability only made sense as a subjective (i.e., psychological) method and Wittgenstein's close friends John Maynard Keynes and Frank Ramsey first clearly equated logic with rationality, and Popper and others noted the equivalence of logic and probability and their common roots in rationality. There is a vast literature on interrelationships of these disciplines and the gradual growth of understanding that they are all facets of our innate psychology. Those interested might start with Ton Sales article inthe Handbook of Philosophical Logic 2nd Ed. Vol 9 (2002) since it will also introduce them to this excellent source, now extending to about 20 Volumes (all on p2p). Ramsey was one of the few of his time who was capable of understanding W's ideas and in his seminal papers of 1925-26 not only developed Keynes' pioneering ideas on subjective probability, but also extended W's ideas from the Tractatus and conversations and letters into the first formal statement of what later became known as substitutional semantics or the substitutional interpretation of logical quantifiers. (See Leblanc's article in Handbook of Philosophical Logic 2nd Ed. V2, p53131(2002)). Ramsey's premature death, like those of W, Von Neumann and Turing, were great tragedies, as each of them alone and certainly together would have altered the intellectual climate of the 20th century to an even greater degree. Had they lived, they might well have collaborated but as it was, only W realized he was discovering facets of our innate psychology. W and Turing were both Cambridge professors teaching classes on the Foundations of Mathematics-though W from the position that it rested on unstated axioms of our innate psychology and Turing from the conventional view that it was a matter of logic that stood by 237 itself. Had these two homosexual geniuses become intimately involved, amazing things might have ensued. I think everyone has these "deflationary" reductionist tendencies, so I suggest this is due to the defaults of intuitive psychology modules which are biased to assigning causes in terms of properties of objects, and cultural phenomena we can see and to our need for generality. Our inference engines compulsively classify and seek the source of all phenomena. When we look for causes or explanations, we are inclined to look outward and take the third person point of view, for which we have empirical tests or criteria, ignoring the automatic invisible workings of our own mind, for which we do not have such tests (another arena pioneered by W some 75 years ago). As noted here, one of W's takes on this universal "philosophical" problem was that we lack the ability to recognize our normal intuitive explanations as the limits of our understanding, confusing the untestable and unchallengeable axioms of our psychology with facts of the world which we can investigate, dissect and explain. This does not deny science, only the notion that it will provide the "true" and "real" meaning of "reality". There is a vast literature on causes and explanations so I will only refer to Jeffrey Hershfield's excellent article "Cognitivism and Explanatory Relativity" in Canadian J. of Philosophy V28 p505-26(1998) and to Garfinkel's book "Forms of Explanation" (1981). This literature is rapidly fusing with those on epistemology, probability, logic, game theory, behavioral economics, and the philosophy of science, which seem almost completely unknown to H. Out of the hundreds of recent books and thousands of articles, one can start on this with Nancy Cartwright's books, which provide a partial antidote to the "Physics and Math Rule the Universe" delusion. Or, one can just follow the links between rationality, causality, probability, information, laws of nature, quantum mechanics, determinism, etc. in Wikipedia and the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, for decades (or, with W's comments in mind, maybe only days) before one realizes he got it right and that we do not get clearer about our psychological "reality" by studying nature. One way to look at ISL is that its faults remind us that scientific laws and explanations are frail and ambiguous extensions of our innate psychology and not, as H would have it, the reverse. It is a curious and rarely noticed fact that the severe reductionists first deny psychology, but, in order to account for it (since there is clearly something that generates our mental and social life), they are forced into camp with the blank slaters (all of us before we get educated), who ascribe psychology to 238 culture or to very general aspects of our intelligence (i.e., our intentionality is learned) as opposed to an innate set of functions. H and D say that self, consciousness, will, etc. are illusions-merely "abstract patterns" (the "spirit" or "soul" of the Church of Fundamentalist Naturalism). They believe that our "program" can be digitized and put into computers, which thereby acquire psychology, and that "believing" in "mental phenomena" is just like believing in magic (but our psychology is not composed of beliefs-which are only its extensions-and nature is magical). I suggest it is critical to see why they never consider that "patterns" (another lovely language game!) in computers are magical or illusory. And, even if we allow that the reductionist program is really coherent and not circular (e.g., we are too polite to point out –as do W and Searle and many others-that it has NO TEST for it's most critical assertions and requires the NORMAL functioning of will, self, reality, consciousness etc., to be understood), can we not reasonably say "well Doug and Dan, a rose by any other name smells as sweet!" I don't think reductionists see that even were it true that we could put our mental life in algorithms running in silicon (or--in Searle's famous example-in a stack of beer cans), we still have the same "hard problem of consciousness": how do mental phenomena emerge from brute matter? This would add yet another mystery with no obvious way to recognize an answer- what does it mean (why is it possible) to encode "emergent properties" as "algorithms"? If we can make sense out of the idea that the mind or the universe is a computer (i.e., can say clearly what counts for and against the idea), what will follow if it is or it isn't? "Computational" is one of the major buzzwords of modern science, but few stop to think what it really means. It's a classic Wittgensteinian language game or family of concepts (uses) that have little or nothing in common. There are analog and digital computers, some made of blocks or mechanical gears only (Babbage etc.), we compute by hand (as is well known, Turing's first comments on this referred to humans who computed and only later did he think of machines simulating this), and physicists speak of leaves computing "their" trajectory as they fall from the tree, etc. etc. Each game has its own use (meaning) but we are hypnotized by the word into ignoring these. W has analyzed word games (psychological modules) with unsurpassed depth and clarity (see esp. the long discussion of knowing how to continue a calculation in the Brown Book), understanding of which should put an end to the superstitious awe which generally surrounds this word and all words, thoughts, feelings, intuitions etc. It's dripping with irony that D wrote a book on the EP of religion, but he 239 cannot see his own materialism as a religion (ie, it's likewise due to innate conceptual biases). Timothy O'Connor has written (Metaphilosophy V36, p436448 (2005)) a superb article on D's Fundamentalist Naturalism (though he does not really get all the way to the EP point of view I take here), noting that simply accepting the emergence of intentionality is the most reasonable view to take. But pastors D and H read from the Churchland's books and the other bibles of CTM (Computational Theory of Mind) and exhort one and all to recognize their pc's and toaster ovens as sentient beings (or at least they soon will be). Pastor Kurzweil does likewise, but few attend his sermons as he has filled the pews with pc's having voice recognition and speech systems and their chorus of identical synthetic voices shout "Blessed be Turing" after every sentence. See my review of his book "Will Hominoids or Androids Destroy the Earth? -A Review of How to Create a Mind" by Ray Kurzweil (2012) in the next section. Emergence of "higher order properties" from "inert matter" (more language games!) is indeed baffling, but it applies to everything in the universe, and not just to psychology. Our brains had no reason (i.e., there are no selective forces operative) to evolve an advanced level of understanding of themselves or the universe, and it would be too genetically costly to do so. What selective advantage could there have been in seeing our own thought processes? The brain, like the heart, was selected to function rapidly and automatically and only a minute part of its operations are available to awareness and subject to conscious control. Many think there is no possibility of an "ultimate understanding" and W tells us this idea is nonsense (and if not then what test will tell us that we have reached it)? Perhaps the last word belongs to Wittgenstein. Though his ideas changed greatly, there are many indications that he grasped the essentials of his mature philosophy in his earliest musings and the Tractatus can be regarded as the most powerful statement of reductionist metaphysics ever penned (though few realize it is the ultimate statement of computationalism). It is also a defensible thesis that the structure and limits of our intentional psychology were behind his early positivism and atomism. So, let us end with the famous first and last sentences of his Tractatus, seen as summarizing his view that the limits of our innate psychology are the limits of our understanding. "The world is everything that is the case." "Concerning that of which we cannot speak, we must remain silent." 240 Another cartoon portrait of the mind from the reductionist metaphysicians--a Review of Peter Carruthers 'The Opacity of Mind' (2011) Michael Starks ABSTRACT Materialism, reductionism, behaviorism, functionalism, dynamic systems theory and computationalism are popular views, but they were shown by Wittgenstein to be incoherent. The study of behavior encompasses all of human life but behavior is largely automatic and unconscious and even the conscious part, mostly expressed in language (which Wittgenstein equates with the mind), is not perspicuous, so it is critical to have a framework which Searle calls the Logical Structure of Rationality (LSR) and I call the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought (DPHOT). After summarizing the framework worked out by Wittgenstein and Searle, as extended by modern reasoning research, I show the inadequacies in Carruther's views, which pervade most discussions of behavior including contemporary behavioral sciences. I maintain that his book is an amalgam of two books, one a summary of cognitive psychology and the other a summary of the standard philosophical confusions on the mind with some new jargon added. I suggest that the latter should be regarded as incoherent or as a cartoon view of life and that taking Wittgenstein at his word, we can practice successful self therapy by regarding the mind/body issue as a language/body issue. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book 'The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017' (2017). I will first offer some comments on philosophy and its relationship to contemporary psychological research as exemplified in the works of John Searle (S) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (W) (jointly WS) as I consider S the successor to W and one must study their work together. It will help to see my reviews of PNC (Philosophy in a New Century), TLP, PI, OC, Making the Social World (MSW) and other books by and about these two geniuses, who 241 provide a clear description of behavior that I will refer to as the WS framework. Only given this framework, which Searle calls the Logical Structure of Rationality (LSR) and I call the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought (DPHOT), is it possible to have clear descriptions of behavior but it is entirely missing from nearly all discussions of behavior. Even in the works of WS it is not laid out clearly and in virtually all others it is only hinted at, with the usual disastrous consequences. I will begin with some quotes from W and S. These quotes are not chosen at random but result from a decade of study and together they are an outline of behavior (human nature) from our two greatest descriptive psychologists. If one understands them, they penetrate as deeply as it is possible to go into the mind (largely coextensive with language as W made clear) and provide as much guidance as one needs-it is then just a matter of looking at how language works in each case and by far the best place to find perspicuously analyzed examples of language is in the 20,000 pages of Wittgenstein's Nachlass. "The confusion and barrenness of psychology is not to be explained by calling it a "young science"; its state is not comparable with that of physics, for instance, in its beginnings. (Rather with that of certain branches of mathematics. Set theory.) For in psychology there are experimental methods and conceptual confusion. (As in the other case, conceptual confusion and methods of proof.) The existence of the experimental method makes us think we have the means of solving the problems that trouble us; though problem and method pass one another by." Wittgenstein (PI p.232) "Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness." Wittgenstein The Blue Book "Here we come up against a remarkable and characteristic phenomenon in philosophical investigation: the difficulty---I might say---is not that of finding the solution but rather that of recognizing as the solution something that looks as if it were only a preliminary to it. We have already said everything. ---Not anything that follows from this, no this itself is the solution! .... This is connected, I believe, with our wrongly expecting an explanation, whereas the solution of the difficulty is a description, if we give it the right place in our considerations. If we dwell upon it, and do not try to get beyond it." Zettel p312-314 242 "The decisive movement in the conjuring trick has been made, and it was the very one we thought quite innocent." Wittgenstein, PI para.308 "But I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness: nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false."Wittgenstein OC 94 "Now if it is not the causal connections which we are concerned with, then the activities of the mind lie open before us." Wittgenstein "The Blue Book" p6 (1933) "Nonsense, Nonsense, because you are making assumptions instead of simply describing. If your head is haunted by explanations here, you are neglecting to remind yourself of the most important facts." Wittgenstein Z 220 "Philosophy simply puts everything before us and neither explains nor deduces anything...One might give the name `philosophy' to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions." Wittgenstein PI 126 "What we are supplying are really remarks on the natural history of man, not curiosities; however, but rather observations on facts which no one has doubted and which have only gone unremarked because they are always before our eyes." Wittgenstein RFM I p142 "The aim of philosophy is to erect a wall at the point where language stops anyway."Wittgenstein Philosophical Occasions p187 "The limit of language is shown by its being impossible to describe a fact which corresponds to (is the translation of) a sentence without simply repeating the sentence (this has to do with the Kantian solution to the problem of philosophy)." Wittgenstein CV p10 (1931) "Can there be reasons for action which are binding on a rational agent just in virtue of the nature of the fact reported in the reason statement, and independently of the agent's desires, values, attitudes and evaluations? ... The real paradox of the traditional discussion is that it tries to pose Hume's guillotine, the rigid factvalue distinction, in a vocabulary, the use of which already presupposes the falsity of the distinction." Searle PNC p165-171 "...all status functions and hence all of institutional reality, with the exception 243 of language, are created by speech acts that have the logical form of Declarations...the forms of the status function in question are almost invariably matters of deontic powers...to recognize something as a right, duty, obligation, requirement and so on is to recognize a reason for action...these deontic structures make possible desire-independent reasons for action...The general point is very clear: the creation of the general field of desire-based reasons for action presupposed the acceptance of a system of desire-independent reasons for action." Searle PNC p34-49 "Some of the most important logical features of intentionality are beyond the reach of phenomenology because they have no immediate phenomenological reality... Because the creation of meaningfulness out of meaninglessness is not consciously experienced...it does not exist...This is... the phenomenological illusion." Searle PNC p115-117 "...the basic intentional relation between the mind and the world has to do with conditions of satisfaction. And a proposition is anything at all that can stand in an intentional relation to the world, and since those intentional relations always determine conditions of satisfaction, and a proposition is defined as anything sufficient to determine conditions of satisfaction, it turns out that all intentionality is a matter of propositions." Searle PNC p193 "So, status functions are the glue that hold society together. They are created by collective intentionality and they function by carrying deontic powers...With the important exception of language itself, all of institutional reality and therefor in a sense all of human civilization is created by speech acts that have the logical form of Declarations...all of human institutional reality is created and maintained in existence by (representations that havethe same logical form as) Status Function Declarations, including the cases that are not speech acts in the explicit form of Declarations." Searle MSW p11-13 "But you cannot explain a physical system such as a typewriter or a brain by identifying a pattern which it shares with its computational simulation, because the existence of the pattern does not explain how the system actually works as a physical system. ...In sum, the fact that the attribution of syntax identifies no further causal powers is fatal to the claim that programs provide causal explanations of cognition... There is just a physical mechanism, the brain, with its various real physical and physical/mental causal levels of description." Searle Philosophy in a New Century (PNC) p101-103 "In short, the sense of `information processing' that is used in cognitive 244 science is at much too high a level of abstraction to capture the concrete biological reality of intrinsic intentionality...We are blinded to this difference by the fact that the same sentence `I see a car coming toward me,' can be used to record both the visual intentionality and the output of the computational model of vision...in the sense of `information' used in cognitive science, it is simply false to say that the brain is an information processing device." Searle PNC p104-105 "The intentional state represents its conditions of satisfaction...people erroneously suppose that every mental representation must be consciously thought...but the notion of a representation as I am using it is a functional and not an ontological notion. Anything that has conditions of satisfaction, that can succeed or fail in a way that is characteristic of intentionality, is by definition a representation of its conditions of satisfaction...we can analyze the structure of the intentionality of social phenomena by analyzing their conditions of satisfaction." Searle MSW p28-32 "Speaker meaning... is the imposition of conditions of satisfaction on conditions of satisfaction. The capacity to do this is a crucial element of human cognitive capacities. It requires the ability to think on two levels at once, in a way that is essential for the use of language. At one level, the speaker intentionally produces a physical utterance, but at another level the utterance represents something. And the same duality infects the symbol itself. At one level, it is a physical object like any other. At another level, it has a meaning: it represents a type of a state of affairs" MSW p74" ...once you have language, it is inevitable that you will have deontology because there is no way you can make explicit speech acts performed according to the conventions of a language without creating commitments. This is true not just for statements but for all speech acts" MSW p82 "The more narrowly we examine actual language, the sharper becomes the conflict between it and our requirement. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not a result of investigation: it was a requirement.)"PI 107 A major theme in all discussion of human behavior is the need to separate the genetically programmed automatisms from the effects of culture. All study of higher order behavior is an effort to tease apart not only fast S1 and slow S2 thinking (e.g., perceptions and other automatisms vs. dispositions), but the logical extensions of S2 into culture (S3). 245 Searle's (S) work as a whole provides a stunning description of higher order S2/S3 social behavior which is due to the recent evolution of genes for dispositional psychology, while the later Wittgenstein (W) shows how it is based on true-only unconscious axioms of S1 which evolved into conscious dispositional propositional thinking of S2. S1 is the simple automated functions of our involuntary, System 1, fast thinking, mirror neuron, true-only, nonpropositional, mental statesour perceptions and memories and reflexive acts including System 1 Truths and UA1 --Understanding of Agency 1-and Emotions1such as joy, love, anger) which can be described causally, while the evolutionarily later linguistic functions are expressions or descriptions of voluntary, System 2, slow thinking, mentalizing neurons, testable true or false, propositional, Truth2 and UA2 and Emotions2joyfulness, loving, hating-the dispositional (and often counterfactual) imagining, supposing, intending, thinking, knowing, believing, etc. which can only be described in terms of reasons (i.e., it's just a fact that attempts to describe System 2 in terms of neurochemistry, atomic physics, mathematics, make no sense--see W for many examples and Searle and Hacker (Human Nature)for disquisitions). One should take seriously W's comment that even if God could look into our mind he could not see what we are thinking--this should be the motto of Cognitive Psychology. Yes, a cognitive psychologist of the future may be able to see what we are perceiving and remembering and our reflexive thinking and acting, since these S1 functions are always causal mental states (CMS) but S2 dispositions are only potentially CMS and so not realized or visible. This is not a theory but description of our language, mind, life, grammar (W). S, Carruthers (C) and others muddy the waters here because they sometimes refer to dispositions as mental states as well, but as W did long ago, S, Hacker and others show that the language of causality just does not apply to the higher order emergent S2 descriptions-again not a theory but a description of how our dispositional states (language, thinking) work. S1 is composed of unconscious, fast, physical, causal, automatic, nonpropositional, true only mental states, while slow S2 can only coherently be described in terms of reasons for actions that are more or less conscious dispositions to behavior (potential actions) that are or can become propositional (T or F). It seems quite obvious to me (as it was to W) that the mechanical view of mind exists for the same reason as nearly all behavior--it is the default operation of our evolved psychology (EP) which seeks explanations in terms of what we can deliberately think through slowly (S2), 246 rather than in the automated S1, of which we mostly remain oblivious--called by S in PNC `The Phenomenological Illusion' (TPI). TPI is not a harmless philosophical error but a universal obliviousness to our biology which produces the illusion that we control our life and among the consequences are the inexorable collapse of what passes for civilization. Our slow or reflective, more or less "conscious" (beware another network of language games!) second-self brain activity corresponds to what W characterized as "dispositions" or "inclinations", which refer to abilities or possible actions, are not mental states (or not in the same sense as S1 states), and do not have any definite time of occurrence and/or duration. But disposition words like "knowing", "understanding", "thinking", "believing", which W discussed extensively, have at least two basic uses. One is a peculiar philosophical use (but graduating into everyday uses) which refers to the true-only sentences resulting from direct perceptions and memory, i.e., our innate axiomatic S1 psychology (`I know these are my hands')--i.e., they are Causally Self Referential (CSR)-i.e., to see a cat makes it true and in the normal case no test is possible, and the S2 use, which is their normal use as dispositions, which can be acted out, and which can become true or false (`I know my way home')--i.e., they have external, public, testable Conditions of Satisfaction (COS) and are not CSR. The investigation of involuntary fast thinking of System 1 has revolutionized psychology, economics and other disciplines under names like "cognitive illusions", "priming", "framing", "heuristics" and "biases". Of course these too are language games so there will be more and less useful ways to use these words, and studies and discussions will vary from "pure" System 1 to combinations of 1 and 2 (the norm as W made clear), but presumably not ever of slow System 2 dispositional thinking only, since any System 2 thought or intentional action cannot occur without involving much of the intricate network of "cognitive modules", "inference engines", "intracerebral reflexes", "automatisms", "cognitive axioms", "background" or "bedrock" --as W and later Searle call our Evolutionary Psychology (EP). One way of regarding this is that the unconscious automatic System 1 activates the higher cortical conscious personality of System 2, bringing about throat muscle contractions which inform others that it sees the world in certain ways, which commit it to potential actions. A huge advance over prelinguistic or protolinguistic interactions in which only gross muscle movements were able to convey very limited information about intentions. 247 The deontic structures or `social glue' are the automatic fast actions of S1 producing the slow dispositions of S2 which are inexorably expanded during personal development into a wide array of automatic universal cultural deontic relationships (S3). I expect this fairly well describes the basic structure of behavior. These descriptions of cognition and volition are summarized in Table 2.1 of MSW, which Searle has used for many years and is the basis for an extended one I have created. In my view, it helps enormously to relate this to modern psychological research by using my S1, S2, S3 terminology and W's true-only vs propositional (dispositional) description. Thus, CSR references S1 trueonly perception, memory and prior intention, while S2 refers to dispositions such as belief and desire. So, recognizing that S1 is only upwardly causal (world to mind) and contentless (lacking representations or information) while S2 has content and is downwardly causal (mind to world) (e.g., see my review of Hutto and Myin's `Radical Enactivism'), I would change the paragraphs from MSW p39 beginning "In sum" and ending on pg 40 with "conditions of satisfaction" as follows. In sum, perception, memory and reflexive prior intentions and actions (`will') are caused by the automatic functioning of our S1 true-only axiomatic EP. Via prior intentions and intentions-in-action, we try to match how we desire things to be with how we think they are. We should see that belief, desire (and imagination--desires time shifted and decoupled from intention) and other S2 propositional dispositions of our slow thinking later evolved second self, are totally dependent upon (have their COS originating in) the CSR rapid automatic primitive trueonly reflexive S1. In language and neurophysiology there are intermediate or blended cases such as intending (prior intentions) or remembering, where the causal connection with COS (i.e., with S1) is time shifted, as they represent the past or the future, unlike S1 which is always in the present. S1 and S2 feed into each other and are often orchestrated seamlessly by the learned deontic cultural relations of S3, so that our normal experience is that we consciously control everything that we do. This vast arena of cognitive illusions that dominate our life S has described as `The Phenomenological Illusion.' It follows in a very straightforward and inexorable fashion, both from W's 3rd period work and from the observations of contemporary psychology, that `will', `self' and `consciousness' are axiomatic true-only elements of System 1 248 just like seeing, hearing, etc., and there is no possibility (intelligibility) of demonstrating (of giving sense to) their falsehood. As W made so wonderfully clear numerous times, they are the basis for judgment and so cannot be judged. The true-only axioms of our psychology are not evidential. Like Carruthers and others, S sometimes states (e.g., p66-67 MSW) that S1 (i.e., memories, perceptions, reflex acts) has a propositional (i.e., true-false) structure. As I have noted above, and many times in other reviews, it seems crystal clear that W is correct, and it is basic to understanding behavior, that only S2 is propositional and S1 is axiomatic and true-only. They both have COS and Directions of Fit (DOF) because the genetic, axiomatic intentionality of S1 generates that of S2 but if S1 were propositional in the same sense it would mean that skepticism is intelligible, the chaos that was philosophy before W would return, and in fact if true, life would not be possible. As W showed countless times and biology demostrates, life must be based on certainty--automated unconscious rapid reactions. Organisms that always have a doubt and pause to reflect will die-no evolution, no people, no philosophy. Language and writing are special because the short wavelength of vibrations of vocal muscles enable much higher bandwidth information transfer than contractions of other muscles and this is on average several orders of magnitude higher for visual information. Thinking is propositional and so deals with true or false statements, which means that it is a typical S2 disposition which can be tested, as opposed to the true-only automatic cognitive functions of S1. Or you can say that spontaneous utterances and actions are the primitive reflexes or Primary Language Games (PLG) of S1, while conscious representations are the dispositional Secondary Language Games (SLG's) of S2. It sounds trivial and indeed it is, but this is the most basic statement of how behavior works and hardly anyone has ever understood it. I would translate S's summary of practical reason on p127 of MSW as follows: "We yield to our desires (need to alter brain chemistry), which typically include Desire -Independent Reasons for Action (DIRA--i.e., desires displaced in space and time, most often for reciprocal altruism), which produce dispositions to behavior that commonly result sooner or later in muscle movements that serve our inclusive fitness (increased survival for genes in ourselves and those closely related)." And I would restate his description on p129 of how we carry out DIRA2/3 as "The resolution of the 249 paradox is that the unconscious DIRA1 serving long term inclusive fitness generate the conscious DIRA2 which often override the short term personal immediate desires." Agents do indeed consciously create the proximate reasons of DIRA2/3, but these are very restricted extensions of unconscious DIRA1 (the ultimate cause). Evolution by inclusive fitness has programmed the unconscious rapid reflexive causal actions of S1 which often give rise to the conscious slow thinking of S2 (often modified into the cultural extensions of S3), which produces reasons for action that often result in activation of body and/or speech muscles by S1 causing actions. The general mechanism is via both neurotransmission and by changes in neuromodulators in targeted areas of the brain. The overall cognitive illusion (called by S `The Phenomenological Illusion', by Pinker `The Blank Slate' and by Tooby and Cosmides `The Standard Social Science Model') is that S2/S3 has generated the action consciously for reasons of which we are fully aware and in control of, but anyone familiar with modern biology and psychology can see that this view is not credible. Though W is correct that there is no mental state that constitutes meaning, S notes (as quoted above) that there is a general way to characterize the act of meaning-- "Speaker meaning... is the imposition of conditions of satisfaction on conditions of satisfaction" which is an act and not a mental state. This can be seen as another statement of W's argument against private language (personal interpretations vs publicly testable ones). Likewise, with rule following and interpretation --they can only be publicly checkable acts--no private rules or private interpretations either. And one must note that many (most famously Kripke) miss the boat here, being misled by W's frequent referrals to community practice into thinking it's just arbitrary public practice that underlies language and social conventions. W makes clear many times that such conventions are only possible given an innate shared psychology which he often calls the background, and it this which underlies all behavior and which is schematized in the table. As I have noted in my other reviews, few if any have fully understood the later W and, lacking the S1, S2 framework it is not surprising. Thus, one can understand why one cannot imagine an object while seeing it as the domination of S2 by S1. There is no test for my inner experiences, so whatever comes to mind when I imagine Jack's face is the image of Jack. Similarly, with reading and calculation which can refer to S1, S2 or a combination and there is the constant temptation to apply S2 terms to S1 processes where the lack of 250 any test makes them inapplicable. Two of W's famous examples used for combatting this temptation are playing tennis without a ball (`S1 tennis'), and a tribe that had only S2 calculation so `calculating in the head (`S1 calculating') was not possible. `Playing' and `calculating' describe actual or potential acts--i.e., they are disposition words but with plausible reflexive S1 uses so as I have said before one really ought to keep them straight by writing `playing1' and `playing2' etc. But we are not taught to do this and so we want to either dismiss `calculating1' as a fantasy, or we think we can leave its nature undecided until later. Hence another of W's famous comments--"The decisive movement in the conjuring trick has been made, and it was the very one we thought quite innocent." That is, the first few sentences or often the title commit one to a way of looking at things (a language game) which prevents clear use of language in the present context. A sentence expresses a thought (has a meaning), when it has clear COS, and this means has public truth conditions. Hence the comment from W: " When I think in language, there aren't `meanings' going through my mind in addition to the verbal expressions: the language is itself the vehicle of thought." And, if I think with or without words, the thought is whatever I (honestly) say it is as there is no other possible criterion (COS). Thus, W's lovely aphorisms (p132 Budd) "It is in language that wish and fulfillment meet" and "Like everything metaphysical, the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language." And one might note here that `grammar' in W can usually be interpreted as the logical structure of language, and that in spite of his frequent warnings against theorizing and generalizing, this is about as broad a characterization of philosophy and higher order descriptive psychology as one can find. Likewise, with the question "What makes it true that my image of Jack is an image of him?" Imagining is another disposition and the COS is that the image I have in my head is Jack and that's why I will say `YES' if shown his picture and `NO' if shown one of someone else. The test here is not that the photo matches the vague image I had but that I intended it (had the COS that) to be an image of him. Hence the famous quote from W: "If God had looked into our minds he would not have been able to see there whom we were speaking of (PI p217)" and his comments that the whole problem of representation is contained in "that's Him" and "...what gives the image its interpretation is the path on which it lies," or as S says its COS. Hence W's summation (p140 Budd) that "What it always comes to in the end is that 251 without any further meaning, he calls what happened the wish that that should happen"..." the question whether I know what I wish before my wish is fulfilled cannot arise at all. And the fact that some event stops my wishing does not mean that it fulfills it. Perhaps I should not have been satisfied if my wish had been satisfied"...Suppose it were asked `Do I know what I long for before I get it? If I have learned to talk, then I do know." Disposition words refer to Potential Events (PE's) which I accept as fulfilling the COS and my mental states, emotions, change of interest etc. have no bearing on the way dispositions function. I am hoping, wishing, expecting, thinking, intending, desiring etc. depending on the state I take myself to be in-on the COS that I express. Thinking and intending are S2 dispositions which can only be expressed by reflexive S1 muscle contractions, especially those of speech. Now that we have a reasonable start on the Logical Structure of Rationality (the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought) laid out we can look at the table of Intentionality that results from this work, which I have constructed over the last few years. It is based on a much simpler one from Searle, which in turn owes much to Wittgenstein. I have also incorporated in modified form tables being used by current researchers in the psychology of thinking processes which are evidenced in the last 9 rows. It should prove interesting to compare it with those in Peter Hacker's 3 recent volumes on Human Nature. I offer this table as an heuristic for describing behavior that I find more complete and useful than any other framework I have seen and not as a final or complete analysis, which would have to be three dimensional with hundreds (at least) of arrows going in many directions with many (perhaps all) pathways between S1 and S2 being bidirectional. Also, the very distinction between S1 and S2, cognition and willing, perception and memory, between feeling, knowing, believing and expecting etc. are arbitrary--that is, as W demonstrated, all words are contextually sensitive and most have several utterly different uses (meanings or COS). Many complex charts have been published by scientists but I find them of minimal utility when thinking about behavior (as opposed to thinking about brain function). Each level of description may be useful in certain contexts but I find that being coarser or finer limits usefulness. The Logical Structure of Rationality (LSR), or the Logical Structure of Mind (LSM), the Logical Structure of Behavior (LSB), the Logical Structure of Thought (LST), the Logical Structure of Consciousness (LSC), the Logical 252 Structure of Personality (LSP), the Descriptive Psychology of Consciousness (DSC), the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought (DPHOT), Intentionality-the classical philosophical term. System 1 is involuntary, reflexive or automated "Rules" R1 while Thinking (Cognition) has no gaps and is voluntary or deliberative "Rules" R2 and Willing (Volition) has 3 gaps (see Searle) 253 Disposition* Emotion Memory Perception Desire PI** IA*** Action/ Word Cause Originates From**** World World World World Mind Mind Mind Mind Causes Changes In***** None Mind Mind Mind None World World World Causally Self Reflexive****** No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes True or False (Testable) Yes T only T only T only Yes Yes Yes Yes Public Conditions of Satisfaction Yes Yes/No Yes/No No Yes/No Yes No Yes Describe A Mental State No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes/No Yes Evolutionary Priority 5 4 2,3 1 5 3 2 2 Voluntary Content Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes Voluntary Initiation Yes/No No Yes No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive System ******* 2 1 2/1 1 2 / 1 2 1 2 Change Intensity No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Precise Duration No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Time, Place (H+N, T+T) ******** TT HN HN HN TT TT HN HN Special Quality No Yes No Yes No No No No Localized in Body No No No Yes No No No Yes Bodily Expressions Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Self Contradictions No Yes No No Yes No No No Needs a Self Yes Yes/No No No Yes No No No Needs Language Yes No No No No No No Yes/No 254 FROM DECISION RESEARCH Disposition* Emotion Memory Perception Desire PI** IA*** Action/ Word Subliminal Effects No Yes/No Yes Yes No No No Yes/No Associative/ Rule Based RB A/RB A A A/RB RB RB RB Context Dependent/ Abstract A CD/A CD CD CD/A A CD/A CD/A Serial/Parallel S S/P P P S/P S S S Heuristic/ Analytic A H/A H H H/A A A A Needs Working Memory Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes General Intelligence Dependent Yes No No No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive Loading Inhibits Yes Yes/No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Arousal Facilitates or Inhibits I F/I F F I I I I Public Conditions of Satisfaction of S2 are often referred to by Searle and others as COS, Representations, truthmakers or meanings (or COS2 by myself), while the automatic results of S1 are designated as presentations by others (or COS1 by myself). * Aka Inclinations, Capabilities, Preferences, Representations, possible actions etc. ** Searle's Prior Intentions *** Searle's Intention In Action **** Searle's Direction of Fit ***** Searle's Direction of Causation ****** (Mental State instantiates--Causes or Fulfills Itself). Searle formerly called this causally selfreferential. ******* Tversky/Kahneman/Frederick/Evans/Stanovich defined cognitive systems. ******** Here and Now or There and Then 255 One should always keep in mind Wittgenstein's discovery that after we have described the possible uses (meanings, truthmakers, Conditions of Satisfaction) of language in a particular context, we have exhausted its interest, and attempts at explanation (i.e., philosophy) only get us further away from the truth. It is critical to note that this table is only a highly simplified context-free heuristic and each use of a word must be examined in its context. The best examination of context variation is in Peter Hacker's recent 3 volumes on Human Nature, which provide numerous tables and charts that should be compared with this one. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date account of Wittgenstein, Searle and their analysis of behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my article The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Wittgenstein and Searle (2016). 256 EXPLANATION OF THE TABLE About a million years ago primates evolved the ability to use their throat muscles to make complex series of noises (i.e., primitive speech) to describe present events (perceptions, memory, reflexive actions that can be described as Primary or Primitive Language Games (PLG's)-i.e., one class of reflexes of the fast associative unconscious automated System 1, subcortical, nonrepresentational, causally self-referential, intransitive, informationless, true only mental stateswith a precise time and location) and gradually developed the further ability to encompass displacements in space and time to describe memories, attitudes and potential events (the past and future and often counterfactual, conditional or fictional preferences, inclinations or dispositions-the Secondary or Sophisticated Language Games (SLG's) of System 2 slow, cortical, conscious, information containing, transitive (having public COS), representational, true or false propositional attitudinal thinking, which has no precise time and are abilities and not mental states). Preferences are Intuitions, Tendencies, Automatic Ontological Rules, Behaviors, Abilities, Cognitive Modules, Personality Traits, Templates, Inference Engines, Inclinations, Emotions, Propositional Attitudes, Appraisals, Capacities, Hypotheses. Some Emotions are Type 2 Preferences (W RPP2 148). "I believe", "he loves", "they think" are descriptions of possible public acts typically displaced in spacetime. My first-person statements about myself are true-only (excluding lying) while third person statements about others are true or false (see my review of Johnston 'Wittgenstein: Rethinking the Inner'). "Preferences" as a class of intentional states --opposed to perceptions, reflexive acts and memories-were first clearly described by Wittgenstein (W) in the 1930's and termed "inclinations" or "dispositions". They have commonly been termed "propositional attitudes" since Russell but this is a misleading phrase since believing, intending, knowing, remembering etc., are often not propositions nor attitudes, as has been shown e.g., by W and by Searle (e.g., cf Consciousness and Language p118). They are intrinsic, observer independent mental representations (as opposed to presentations or representations of System 1 to System 2 – SearleC+L p53). They are potential acts displaced in time or space while the evolutionarily more primitive S1 perceptions memories and reflexive actions are always here and now. This is one way to characterize System 2 –the major advance in vertebrate psychology after System 1-the ability to represent events and to think of them as occurring in another place or time (Searle's third faculty of counterfactual imagination supplementing cognition and volition). S2 257 dispositions are abilities to act (contract muscles producing speech or body movements via S1 at which time they become causal and mental states). Sometimes dispositions may be regarded as unconscious since they can become conscious later-SearlePhil Issues 1:45-66(1991). Perceptions, memories and reflexive (automatic) actions can be described as S1 or Primary Language Games's (PLG's --e.g., I see the dog) and there are, in the normal case, NO TESTS possible so they can be True Only. Dispositions can be described as secondary LG's (SLG's –e.g. I believe I see the dog) and must also be acted out, even for me in my own case (i.e., how do I KNOW what I believe, think, feel until I act-see above quotes from W). Dispositions also become Actions when spoken or written as well as being acted out in other ways, and these ideas are all due to Wittgenstein (mid 1930's) and are NOT Behaviorism (Hintikka & Hintikka 1981, Searle, Hutto etc.,). Wittgenstein can be regarded as the founder of evolutionary psychology and his work a unique investigation of the functioning of our axiomatic System 1 psychology and its interaction with System 2. Though few have understood it well (and arguably nobody fully to this day) it wasfurther developed by a few --above all by John Searle, who made a simpler version of this table in his classic book Rationality in Action (2001). It expands on W's survey of the axiomatic structure of evolutionary psychology developed from his very first comments in 1911 and so beautifully laid out in his last work On Certainty (OC)(written in 1950-51). OC is the foundation stone of behavior or epistemology and ontology (arguably the same), cognitive linguistics or DPHOT, and in my view the single most important work in philosophy (descriptive psychology) and thus in the study of behavior. Perception, Memory, Reflexive actions and Basic Emotions are primitive partly Subcortical Involuntary Mental States, that can be described in PLG's, in which the mind automatically fits the world (is Causally Self Referential- Searle) --the unquestionable, true only, axiomatic basis of rationality over which no control is possible). Preferences, Desires, and Intentions are descriptions of slow thinking conscious Voluntary Abilities-that can be described in SLG's-in which the mind tries to fit the world. Behaviorism and all the other confusions of our default descriptive psychology (philosophy) arise because we cannot see S1 working and describe all actions with Secondary Language Games (SLG's) which S calls The Phenomenological Illusion (TPI). W understood this and described itwith unequalled clarity with hundreds of examples of language (the mind) in action throughout his works. Reason has access to working memory and so 258 we use consciously apparent but typically incorrect reasons to explain behavior (the Two Selves of current research). Beliefs and other Dispositions can be described as thoughts which try to match the facts of the world (mind to world direction of fit), while Volitions are intentions to act (Prior Intentions-PI, and IntentionsIn Action-IA-Searle) plus acts which try to match the world to the thoughts-world to mind direction of fit-cf. Searle e.g., C+L p145, 190). Sometimes there are gaps in reasoning to arrive at belief and other dispositions. Inclination words can be used as nouns which seem to describe mental states (e.g. belief), or as verbs which describe abilities (agents as they act or might act) (e.g., believing) and are often incorrectly called "Propositional Attitudes". Perceptions become Memories and our innate programs (cognitive modules, templates, inference engines of S1) use these to produce Dispositions-(actual or potential PUBLIC ACTS also called Inclinations, Preferences, Capabilities, Representations of S2) and Volition -and there is no language (concept, thought) of PRIVATE mental states for thinking or willing (i.e., no private language). Higher animals can think and will acts and to that extent they have a public psychology. Perceptions: ("X" is True): Hear, See, Smell, Pain, Touch, temperature Memories: Remembering, Dreaming (S1) Preferences, Inclinations, Dispositions (X might become True) (S2) CLASS 1: Believing, Judging, Thinking, Representing, Understanding, Choosing, Deciding, Preferring, Interpreting, Knowing (including skills and abilities), Attending (Learning), Experiencing, Meaning, Remembering, Intending, Considering, Desiring, expecting, wishing, wanting, hoping (a special class), Seeing As (Aspects), CLASS 2: DECOUPLED MODE-Dreaming , Imagining, Lying, Predicting, Doubting CLASS 3: EMOTIONS: Loving, Hating, Fearing, Sorrow, Joy, Jealousy, Depression. Their function is to modulate Preferences to increase inclusive fitness (expected maximum utility) by facilitating information processing of perceptions and memories for rapid action. There is some separation between S1 emotions such as rage and fear and S2 such as love, hate, disgust and 259 anger. DESIRES: (I want "X" to be True-I want to change the world to fit my thoughts): Longing, Hoping, Expecting, Awaiting, Needing, Requiring, obliged to do INTENTIONS: (I will make "X" True) Intending ACTIONS (I am making "X" True) : Acting, Speaking , Reading, Writing, Calculating, Persuading, Showing, Demonstrating, Convincing, Doing Trying, Attempting, Laughing, Playing, Eating, Drinking, Crying, Asserting(describing, teaching, predicting, reporting), Promising , Making or Using Maps, Books, Drawings, Computer Programs–these are Public and Voluntary and transfer Information to others so they dominate over the Unconscious, Involuntary and Informationless S1 reflexes in explanations of behavior. ALL WORDS ARE PARTS OF COMPLEX LANGUAGE GAMES (THOUGHTS LEADING TO ACTIONS) HAVING VARIOUS FUNCTIONS IN OUR LIFE AND ARE NOT THE NAMES OF OBJECTS NOR OF A SINGLE TYPE OF EVENT. We drive a car but also own it, see it, see its photo, dream about it, imagine it, expect it, remember it. The social interactions of humans are governed by cognitive modules- roughly equivalent to the scripts or schemata of social psychology (groups of neurons organized into inference engines), which, with perceptions and memories, lead to the formation of preferences which lead to intentions and then to actions. Intentionality or intentional psychology can be taken to be all these processes or only preferences leading to actions and in the broader sense is the subject of cognitive psychology or cognitive neurosciences when including neurophysiology, neurochemistry and neurogenetics. Evolutionary psychology can be regarded as the study of all the preceding functions or of the operation of the modules which produce behavior, and is then coextensive in evolution, development and individual action with preferences, intentions and actions. Since the axioms (algorithms or cognitive modules) of our psychology are in our genes, we can enlarge our understanding by giving clear descriptions of how they work and can extend them (culture) via biology, psychology, philosophy (descriptive psychology), math, logic, physics, and computer programs, thus making them faster andmore efficient. Hajek (2003) gives an analysis of dispositions as conditional probabilities and they are algorithmatized by Spohn etc. 260 Intentionality (cognitive or evolutionary psychology) consists of various aspects of behavior which are innately programmed into cognitive modules (however defined) which create and require consciousness, will and self and in normal human adults all dispositions are purposive, require public acts (e.g., language), and commit us to relationships (called Desire Independent Reasons for ActionDIRA by Searle) in order to increase our inclusive fitness (maximum expected utility- sometimes called-controversially-Bayesian utility maximization) via dominance and reciprocal altruism and impose Conditions of Satisfaction on Conditions of Satisfaction -Searle-(i.e., relate thoughts to the world via public acts ( muscle movements –i.e., math, language, art, music, sex, sports etc.). The basics of this were figured out by our greatest natural psychologist Ludwig Wittgenstein from the 1930's to 1951 but with clear foreshadowings back to 1911 ("The general tree of psychological phenomena. I strive not for exactness but for a view of the whole." RPP Vol 1 P895 cf Z P464), and with refinements by many, but above all by John Searle beginning in the 1960's. Much of our S2 intentionality admits of degrees or kinds (principally language games). As W noted, inclinations (e.g. thinking) are sometimes conscious and deliberative. All our templates (functions, concepts, language games) have fuzzy edges in some contexts as they must to be useful. There are at least two types of thinking (i.e., two language games or ways of using the dispositional verb "thinking")-non-rational without awareness and rational with partial awareness(W), now described as the fast and slow thinking of S1 and S2. It is useful to regard these as language games and not as mere phenomena (W RPP2 129). Mental phenomena (our subjective or internal "experiences") are epiphenomenal, lack criteria, hence lack info even for oneself and thus can play no role in communication, thinking or mind. Thinking like all dispositions (inclinations, propositional attitudes) is not a mental state, and contains no information until it becomes a public act (realizes a COS) in speech, writing or other muscular contractions. Our perceptions and memories can have information (meaning-COS) when they are manifested in public actions via S2, for only then do they have any meaning (consequences) even for ourselves. Memory and perception are integrated by modules into dispositions which become psychologically effective when they are acted upon. Developing language means manifesting the innate ability to substitute words for acts. The common term TOM (Theory of Mind) is much better called (UAUnderstanding ofAgency). Intentionality is the innate genetically programmed production of 261 consciousness, self, and thought which leads to intentions and then to actions by contracting muscles. Thus, "propositional attitude" is a confusing term for normal intuitive rational or non-rational speech and action but I give it as a synonym for dispositions as it's still widely used by those unfamiliar with W and S. The efforts of cognitive science to understand thinking, emotions etc. by studying neurophysiology is not going to tell us anything more about how the mind (thought, language) works (as opposed to how the brain works) than we already know, because "mind" (thought, language) is already in full public view (W). Any phenomena that are hidden in neurophysiology, biochemistry, genetics, quantum mechanics, or string theory, are as irrelevant to our social life as the fact that a table is composed of atoms which "obey" (can be described by) the laws of physics and chemistry is to having lunch on it. As W so famously said "Nothing is hidden". Everything of interest about the mind (thought, language) is open to view if we only examine carefully the workings of language. Language was evolved to facilitate social interaction and thus the gathering of resources, survival and reproduction. Its grammar functions automatically and is extremely confusing when we try to analyze it. Words and sentences have multiple uses depending on context. I believe and I eat have profoundly different roles as do I believe and I believed or I believe and he believes. The present tense first person expressive use of inclinational verbs such as "I believe" describe my ability to predict my probable acts and are not descriptive of my mental state nor based on knowledge or information in the usual sense of those words (W). "I believe its raining", "I believed it was raining", "he believes its raining", "he will believe its raining,", "I believe it will rain" or "he will think it's raining" are potentially verifiable public acts displaced in spacetime that intend to convey information (or misinformation) and so have COS which are their truth (or falsity) makers. Non-reflective or Non-rational (automatic) words spoken without Prior Intent have been called Words as Deeds by W & then by DMS in her paper in Philosophical Psychology in 2000) are typical of much of our behavior as they bridge S1 and S2 which interact in both directions most of our waking life. Perceptions, Memories, some Emotions and many "Type 1 Dispositions" are better called Reflexes of S1 and are automatic, non-reflective, NONPropositional and NON-Attitudinal functioning of the hinges (axioms, algorithms) of our Evolutionary Psychology (Moyal-Sharrock after Wittgenstein). 262 Now for some comments on "The Opacity of Mind" (OM). By the time I finished the first page of the preface, I realized this book was just another hopeless mess (the norm in philosophy). He made it clear that he had no grasp of the subtlety of language games (e.g., the drastically different uses of 'I know I'm awake', 'I know what I mean' and 'I know what time it is') nor the nature of dispositions (which he calls by the misleading and obsolete term 'propositional attitudes') and was basing his ideas about behavior on such notions as private language, introspection of 'inner speech' and the computational description of mind, which were laid to rest by W 3⁄4 of a century ago and by S and many others since. But I knew most books on human behavior are just as confused and that he was going to give a summary of recent scientific work on the brain functions corresponding to higher order thought (HOT), so I kept on. Before I read any book in philosophy or cognitive science, I go to the index and bibliography to see whom they cite and then try to find some reviews and especially an article in BBS since it has peer feedback, which is generally highly informative. As noted above, W and S are two of the most famous names in this field but in the index and bibliography I found only 3 trivial mentions of W and not one for S or Hacker-surely the most remarkable achievement of this volume. As expected, several reviews from philosophical journals were useless and the BBS responses to his précis of this book appear devastating--though, characteristically (with the exception of one mention of W) -they too are clueless about WS. More remarkable, though he includes many references as recent as 2012, the 2009 BBS article is not among them and, so far as I can recall, he does not provide substantive responses to its criticisms in this book. Consequently, the powerful WS inspired LSR framework is totally absent and all the confusions it has cleared away are abundant on nearly every page. If you read the above and my other reviews and then the BBS article (readily available free on the net) your view of this book (and most writing in this arena) will likely be quite different. Of course, the major defect of BBS is apparent--the commenters get only a one page comment and no reply, while the authors get a long article and a long reply, so it always appears that they prevail. It is clear however that C's ISA theory, like most (all?) philosophical theories is a shape shifter which alters to "explain" every objection. Thus, the line between a meaningful theory (actually a description) tied to facts and a vague notion that "explains" nothing blurs. Of course, C often says that his theory "predicts" such and such observation but this appears to occur after the fact and of course the opposing theories shape shift as well. A powerful theory predicts things 263 which nobody was expecting and even the opposite of what they were expecting. We are also reminded of W's constant injunctions to stick to describing the facts and avoid otiose "explanations". W's definitive arguments against introspection and private language are noted in my other reviews and are extremely well known. Basically, they are as clear as day-we must have a test to differentiate between A and B and tests can only be external and public. He famously illustrated this with the 'Beetle in the Box'. If we all have a box that cannot be opened nor x-rayed etc. and call what is inside a 'beetle' then 'beetle' cannot have any role in language, for every box could contain a different thing or it could even be empty. So, there is no private language that only I can know and no introspection of 'inner speech'. If X is not publicly demonstrable it cannot be a word in our language. This shoots down Carruther's (C's) ISA theory of mind, as well as all the other 'inner sense' theories which he references and a huge # of other books and articles. I have explained W's dismantling of the notion of introspection and the functioning of dispositional language ('propositional attitudes') above and in my reviews of Budd, Johnston and several of S's books. Basically, he showed that the causal relation and word and object model that works for S1 does not apply to S2. Regarding ISA, many have deconstructed the idea of a 'language of thought' but in my view none better than W in BBB p37 -, "if we keep in mind the possibility of a picture which, though correct, has no similarity with its object, the interpolation of a shadow between the sentence and reality loses all point. For now, the sentence itself can serve as such a shadow. The sentence is just such a picture, which hasn't the slightest similarity with what it represents." One thing to keep in mind is that philosophical theories have no practical impact whatsoeverthe real role of philosophy being to clear up confusions about how language is being used in particular cases (W). Like various 'physical theories' but unlike other cartoon views of life (i.e., the standard religious, political, psychological, sociological, biological, medical, economic, anthropological and historical views of most people), it is too cerebral and esoteric to be grasped by more than a tiny fringe and it is so unrealistic that even its adherents totally ignore it in their everyday life. Likewise, with other academic 'theories of life' such as the Standard Social Science or Blank Slate Model widely shared by sociology, anthropology, pop psychology, history and literature. However, religions big and small, political movements, and sometimes economics often generate or embrace already existing cartoons that ignore physics and biology (human nature), posit forces terrestrial or 264 cosmic that reinforce our superstitions (our innately inspired psychological defaults), and help to lay waste to the earth (the real purpose of nearly every social practice and institution which are there to facilitate replication of genes and consumption of resources). The point is to realize that these are on a continuum with philosophical cartoons and have the same source. All of us could be said to have various cartoon views of life when young and only a few ever grow out of them. Also note that, as W remarked long ago, the prefix "meta" is unnecessary and confusing in most (maybe all) contexts, so for 'metacognition' in this book, substitute 'cognition' or 'thinking', since thinking about what we or others believe or know is thinking like any other and does not have to be seen as 'mindreading' (UA in my terminology) either. In S's terms, the COS are the test of what is being thought and they are identical for 'it's raining', I believe it's raining', 'I believe you believe it's raining' and 'he believes it's raining' (likewise for 'knows', wishes, judges, understands, etc.), namely that it's raining. This is the critical fact to keep in mind regarding 'metacognition' and 'mindreading' of dispositions ('propositional attitudes') which C promotes. One of the responses in BBS was by Dennett (who shares most of C's illusions), who seems to find these ideas quite good, except that C should eliminate the use of 'I' since it assumes the existence of a higher self (the aim being hard reduction of S2 to S1). Of course, the very act of writing, reading and all the language and concepts of anything whatsoever presuppose self, consciousness and will (as S often notes), so such an account would be just a cartoon of life without any value whatsoever, which one could probably say of most philosophical accounts of behavior. The WS framework has long noted that the first person point of view is not eliminable or reducible to a 3rd person one, but this is no problem for the cartoon view of life. Likewise, with the description of brain function or behavior as 'computational', 'information processing' etc, -all well debunked countless times by WS, Hutto, Read, Hacker and many others. Worst of all is the crucial but utterly unclear "representation", for which I think S's use as a condition of satisfaction (COS) of representing (i.e., the same form as for all dispositional nouns and their verbs) is by far the best. That is, the 'representation' of 'I think it's raining' is the COS that it's raining. Saddest of all is that C (like Dennett) thinks he is an expert on W, having studied him early in his career and decided that the private language argument is to be rejected as 'behaviorism'! W famously rejected behaviorism and much of his work is devoted to describing why it cannot serve as a 265 description of behavior. "Are you not really a behaviourist in disguise? Aren't you at bottom really saying that everything except human behavior is a fiction? If I do speak of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction." (PI p307) And one can also point to real behaviorism in C in its modern 'computationalist' form. WS insist on the indispensability of the first person point of view while C apologizes to D in the BBS article for using "I" or "self". This is in my view the difference between an accurate description of language use and the use one can imagine in a cartoon. Hutto has shown the vast gulf between W and Dennett (D) which will serve to characterize C as well, since I take D and C (along with the Churchland's and many others) to be on the same page. S is one of many who have deconstructed D in various writings and these can all be read in opposition to C. And let us recall that W sticks to examples of language in action, and once one gets the point he is mostly very easy to follow, while C is captivatedby 'theorizing' (i.e., chaining numerous sentences with no clear COS) and rarely bothers with specific language games, preferring experiments and observations that are quite difficult to interpret in any definitive way (see the BBS responses), and which in any case have no relevance to higher level descriptions of behavior (e.g., exactly how do they fit into the Intentionality Table). One book C praises as definitive (Memory and the Computational Brain) presents the brain as a computational information processor-a sophomoric view thoroughly and repeatedly annihilated by S and others. In the last decade, I have read thousands of pages by and about W and it is quite clear that C does not have a clue. In this he joins a long line of distinguished philosophers and scientists whose reading of W was fruitless-Russell, Quine, Godel, Kreisel, Chomsky, Dummett, Kripke, Dennett, Putnam etc. (though Putnam began to see the light later). They just cannot see that most philosophy is grammatical jokes and impossible vignettes-a cartoon view oflife. Books like this that attempt to bridge two levels of description are really two books and not one. There is the description (not explanation, as W made clear) of our language and nonverbal behavior and then the experiments of cognitive psychology. "The existence of the experimental method makes us think we have the means of solving the problems that trouble us; though problem and method pass one another by."(W PI p232), C et al are enthralled by science and just assume that it is a great advance to wed high level descriptive psychology to neuroscience and experimental psychology, but WS and many others have shown this is a mistake. Far from making the description of behavior scientific and clear, it makes it incoherent. And it 266 must have been by the grace of God that Locke, Kant, Nietzsche, Sartre, Wittgenstein, Searle et al were able to give such memorable accounts of behavior without any experimental science whatsoever. Of course, like politicians, philosophers rarely admit mistakes or shut up so this will go on and on for reasons W diagnosed perfectly. The bottom line has to be what is useful and what makes sense in our everyday life. I suggest the philosophical views of CDC (Carruthers, Dennett, Churchland), as opposed to those of WS, are not useful and their ultimate conclusions that will, self and consciousness are illusions make no sense at all-i.e., they are meaningless having no clear COS. Whether the CDC comments on cognitive science have any heuristic value remains to be determined. This book (like a huge body of other writing) tries to discount the HOT of other animals and to reduce behavior to brain functions (to absorb psychology into physiology). The philosophy is a disaster but, provided one first reads the many criticisms in the BBS, the commentary on recent psychology and physiology may be of interest. Like Dennett, Churchland and so many others often do, C does not reveal his real gems til the very end, when we are told that self, will, consciousness (in the senses in which these words normally function) are illusions (supposedly in the normal sense of this word). Dennett had to be unmasked by S, Hutto et al for explaining away these 'superstitions' (i.e., not explaining at all and in fact not even describing) but amazingly C also admits it at the beginning, though of course he thinks he is showing us these words do not mean what we think and that his cartoon use is the valid one. One should also see Hacker's criticisms of cog sci with replies by S and Dennett in "Neuroscience and Philosophy" and well explored in Hacker's books "Human Nature" and "Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience" (see my reviews). It is remarkable that virtually nobody in all the behavioral disciplines (in which I include literature, history, politics, religion, law, art etc as well as the obvious ones) ever states either their logical framework or what it is that they are trying to accomplish and what role language analysis and science play, so all those interested in behavior might consider memorizing Hacker's lovely summary of what philosophy (DPHOT) aims to do and how this relates to scientific pursuits. "Traditional epistemologists want to know whether knowledge is true belief and a further condition ..., or whether knowledge does not even imply belief ... We want to know when knowledge does and when it does not require justification. We need to be clear what is ascribed to a person when it is said 267 that he knows something. Is it a distinctive mental state, an achievement, a performance, a disposition or an ability? Could knowing or believing that p be identical with a state of the brain? Why can one say `he believes that p, but it is not the case that p', whereas one cannot say `I believe that p, but it is not the case that p'? Why are there ways, methods and means of achieving, attaining or receiving knowledge, but not belief (as opposed to faith)? Why can one know, but not believe who, what, which, when, whether and how? Why can one believe, but not know, wholeheartedly, passionately, hesitantly, foolishly, thoughtlessly, fanatically, dogmatically or reasonably? Why can one know, but not believe, something perfectly well, thoroughly or in detail? And so on through many hundreds of similar questions pertaining not only to knowledge and belief, but also to doubt, certainty, remembering, forgetting, observing, noticing, recognising, attending, being aware of, being conscious of, not to mention the numerous verbs of perception and their cognates. What needs to be clarified if these questions are to be answered is the web of our epistemic concepts, the ways in which the various concepts hang together, the various forms of their compatibilities and incompatibilities, their point and purpose, their presuppositions and different forms of context dependency. To this venerable exercise in connective analysis, scientific knowledge, psychology, neuroscience and selfstyled cognitive science can contribute nothing whatsoever." (Passing by the naturalistic turn: on Quine's cul-de-sacp15-2005). Of course, I would add that it is the study of our evolved psychology, of DPHOT, of the contextual sensitivity of language (W's language games). It is not trivial to state these facts as it is quite rare to find anyone who grasps the big picture and even my hero's such as Searle, Priest, Pinker, Read, etc. fall embarrassingly short when they try to define their professions. There have long been books on chemical physics and physical chemistry but there is no sign that the two will merge (nor is it a coherent idea) nor that chemistry will absorb biochemistry nor it in turn will absorb physiology or genetics, nor that biology will disappear nor that it will eliminate psychology, sociology, etc. This is not due to the 'youth' of these disciplines but to the fact that they are different levels of description with entirely different concepts, data and explanatory mechanisms. But physics envy is powerful and we just cannot resist the 'precision' of physics, math, information, and computation vs the vagueness of higher levels. It 'must' be possible. Reductionism thrives in spite of the incomprehensibility of quantum mechanics, uncertainty, wave/particles, live/dead cats, quantum entanglement, and the incompleteness and algorithmic randomness of math 268 (Godel/Chaitin-see my review of Yanofsky's 'The Outer Limits of Reason') and its irresistible pull tells us it is due to EP defaults. Again, a breath of badly needed fresh air from W: "For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not a result of investigation: it was a requirement." PI p107. And once again W from the Blue Book-"Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness." It is hard to resist throwing down most books on behavior and rereading W and S. Just jump from anything to e.g. these quotes from PI http://topologicalmedialab.net/xinwei/classes/readings/Wittgenstein/pi_94- 138_239-309.html. I suggest viewing the question of mind as essentially the same as all the 'deep' philosophical questions. We want to understand the 'reality' perceived by S1, but S2 is not up to it. It's all (or mostly) in the unconscious machinations of S1 via DNA. We don't know but our DNA does courtesy of the death of trillions of organisms over some 3 billion years. So, we struggle with science and ever so slowly describe the mechanisms of mind (i.e., of brain), knowing that even should we arrive at "complete" knowledge of the brain, we would just have a description of what neuronal pattern corresponds to seeing red or making a choice and an "explanation" of why is not possible (not intelligible). It is obvious to me after reading tens of thousands of pages of philosophy that the attempt to do higher level descriptive psychology of this kind, where ordinary language morphs into special uses both deliberately and inadvertently, is essentially impossible (i.e., the normal situation in philosophy and other behavioral disciplines). Using special jargon words (e.g., intensionality, realism etc.) does not work either as there are no philosophy police to enforce a narrow definition and the arguments on what they mean are interminable. Hacker is good but his writing so precious and dense it's often painful. Searle is very good but requires some effort to embrace his terminology and I believe he makes a few major mistakes, while W is hands down the clearest and most insightful, once you grasp what he is doing, and nobody has ever been able to emulate him. His TLP remains the ultimate statement of the mechanical reductionist view of life, but he later saw his mistake and diagnosed and cured the 'cartoon disease', but few get the point and most simply ignore him and biology as well, and so there are tens of thousands of books and millions of articles and most religious and political organizations (and until recently most of economics) and almost all people with cartoon views of life. But the world is not a cartoon, so a great 269 tragedy is being played out as the cartoon views of life collide with reality and universal blindness and selfishness bring about the collapse of civilization over the next twocenturies. I hesitate to recommend C's writings to anyone, as the experienced ought to have about the same perspective I do, and the naïve will be wasting their time. Either read philosophy or cognitive science and avoid the amalgams. Among the endless books and articles available, I commend the 3 volumes on Human Nature edited by Carruthers (yes, the same), the 3 on Human Nature written by Hacker, the Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology 2nd Ed, and my reviews of W/S, Hutto, DMS, Hacker et al. and the original books. Finally, I suggest that if we accept W's equation of language and mind and regard the 'mind/body problem' as the 'language/body problem' it may help achieve his therapeutic aim. 270 Will Hominoids or Androids Destroy the Earth? -A Review of How to Create a Mind by Ray Kurzweil (2012) Michael Starks ABSTRACT Some years ago, I reached the point where I can usually tell from the title of a book, or at least from the chapter titles, what kinds of philosophical mistakes will be made and how frequently. In the case of nominally scientific works these may be largely restricted to certain chapters which wax philosophical or try to draw general conclusions about the meaning or long term significance of the work. Normally however the scientific matters of fact are generously interlarded with philosophical gibberish as to what these facts mean. The clear distinctions which Wittgenstein described some 80 years ago between scientific matters and their descriptions by various language games are rarely taken into consideration, and so one is alternately wowed by the science and dismayed by its incoherent analysis. So it is with this volume. If one is to create a mind more or less like ours, one needs to have a logical structure for rationality and an understanding of the two systems of thought (dual process theory). If one is to philosophize about this, one needs to understand the distinction between scientific issues of fact and the philosophical issue of how language works in the context at issue, and of how to avoid the pitfalls of reductionism and scientism, but Kurzweil, like nearly all students of behavior, is largely clueless. He, is enchanted by models, theories, and concepts, and the urge to explain, while Wittgenstein showed us that we only need to describe, and that theories, concepts etc., are just ways of using language (language games) which have value only insofar as they have a clear test (clear truthmakers, or as John Searle (AI's most famous critic) likes to say, clear Conditions of Satisfaction (COS)). I have attempted to provide a start on this in my recent writings. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book 'The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and 271 Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017' (2017). Also, as usual in 'factual' accounts of AI/robotics, he gives no time to the very real threats to our privacy, safety and even survival from the increasing 'androidizing' of society which is prominent in other authors (Bostrum, Hawking, etc.) and frequent in scifi and films, so I make a few comments on the quite possibly suicidal utopian delusions of 'nice' androids, humanoids, democracy, diversity, and genetic engineering. I take it for granted that technical advances in electronics, robotics and AI will occur, resulting in profound changes in society. However, I think the changes coming from genetic engineering are at least as great and potentially far greater, as they will enable us to utterly change who we are. And it will be feasible to make supersmart/super strong servants by modifying our genes or those of other monkeys. As with other technology, any country that resists will be left behind. But will it be socially and economically feasible to implement biobots or superhumans on a massive scale? And even if so, it does not seem remotely possible, economically or socially to prevent the collapse of industrial civilization. So, ignoring the philosophical mistakes in this volume as irrelevant, and directing our attention only to the science, what we have here is another suicidal utopian delusion rooted in a failure to grasp basic biology, psychology and human ecology, the same delusions that are destroying America and the world. I see a remote possibility the world can be saved, but not by AI/robotics, CRISPR, nor by democracy and equality. Some years ago, I reached the point where I can usually tell from the title of a book, or at least from the chapter titles, what kinds of philosophical mistakes will be made and how frequently. In the case of nominally scientific works these may be largely restricted to certain chapters which wax philosophical or try to draw general conclusions about the meaning or long term significance of the work. Normally however the scientific matters of fact are generously interlarded with philosophical gibberish as to what these facts mean. The clear distinctions which Wittgenstein described some 80 years ago between scientific matters and their descriptions by various language games are rarely taken into consideration, and so one is alternately wowed by the science and dismayed by its incoherent analysis. So, it is with this volume. If one is to create a mind more or less like ours, one needs to have a logical structure for rationality and an understanding of the two systems of thought 272 (dual process theory). If one is to philosophize about this, one needs to understand the distinction between scientific issues of fact and the philosophical issue of how language works in the context at issue, and of how to avoid the pitfalls of reductionism and scientism, but Kurzweil, like nearly all students of behavior, is largely clueless. He, is enchanted by models, theories, and concepts, and the urge to explain, while Wittgenstein showed us that we only need to describe, and that theories, concepts etc., are just ways of using language (language games) which have value only insofar as they have a clear test (clear truthmakers, or as John Searle (AI's most famous critic) likes to say, clear Conditions of Satisfaction (COS)). Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my art The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017'(2017). Actually, "reduction" is a complex language game or group of games (uses of words with various meanings or COS) so its use varies greatly depending on context and often it's not clear what it means. Likewise, with modeling or simulating or reproducing or equivalent to or the same as etc. Likewise, with the claims here and everywhere that "computation" of biological or mental processes is not done as it would take too long but not computable or calculable means many things or nothing at all depending on context and this is usually just totally ignored. Chapter 9 is the typical nightmare one expects. Minsky's first quote "Minds are simply what brains do" is a truism in that in some games one can e.g., say 'my brain is tired' etc. but like most he has no grasp at all of the line between scientific questions and those about how the language games are to be played (how we can use language intelligibly). Descriptions of behavior are not the same as descriptions of brain processes. This 'reductionism' is a hopelessly bankrupt view of life, -it just does not work, i.e., is not coherent, and this has been explained at length, first by Wittgenstein and subsequently by Searle, Hacker and many others. For one thing, there are various levels of description (physics, chemistry, biochemistry, genetics, neurophysiology, brain, thought/behavior) and the concepts (language games) useful and intelligible (having clear meaning or COS) at one level work differently at another. Also, one 'mental state', 'disposition' or 'thought' or 'action', can be described in first person or third person by many statements and vice versa, one statement 273 may describe many different 'mental states', 'dispositions', 'thoughts' or 'actions' depending intricately on context, so the match between behavior and language is hugely underdetermined even for 'simple' acts or sentences. and as these become more complex there is a combinatorial explosion. There is no clear meaning to describing my desire to see the sun set at the lower levels and their never will be. They are different levels of description, different concepts (different language games) and one cannot even make sense of reducing one to the other, of behavior into neurophysiology into biochemistry into genetics into chemistry into physics into math or computation and like most scientists Kurzweil's handwaving and claims that it's not done because its inconvenient or impractical totally fails to see that the real issue is that 'reduction' has no clear meaning (COS), or rather many meanings depending acutely on context, and in no case can we give a coherent account that eliminates any level. Nevertheless, the rotting corpse of reductionism floats to the surface frequently (e.g., p37 and the Minsky quote on p199) and we are told that chemistry "reduces" to physics and that thermodynamics is a separate science because the equations become "unwieldy", but another way to say this is that reduction is incoherent, the language games (concepts) of one level just do not apply (make sense) at higher and lower levels of description, and it is not that our science or our language is inadequate. I have discussed this in my other articles and it is well known in the philosophy of science, but it is likely never going to penetrate into "hard science". The psychology of higher order thought is not describable by causes, but by reasons, and one cannot make psychology disappear into physiology nor physiology into biochemistry nor it into physics etc. They are just different and indispensable levels of description. Wittgenstein famously described it 80 years ago in the Blue Book. "Our craving for generality has [as one] source ... our preoccupation with the method of science. I mean the method of reducing the explanation of natural phenomena to the smallest possible number of primitive natural laws; and, in mathematics, of unifying the treatment of different topics by using a generalization. Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness. I want to say here that it can never be our job to reduce anything to anything, or to explain anything. Philosophy really is 274 "purely descriptive." Like nearly all 'hard' scientists and even sadly 'soft' ones as well, he has no grasp at all of how language works, e.g., of how 'thinking' and other psychological verbs work, so misuses them constantly throughout his writings (e.g., see his comments on Searle on p170). I won't go into an explanation here as I have written extensively on this (see my recent ebook Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization -Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 by Michael Starks 3rd Ed. 675p (2017)). So, like most scientists, and even most philosophers, he plays one language game (uses the words with one meaning or Condition of Satisfaction) but mixes it up with other quite different meanings, all the while insisting that his game is the only one that can be played (has any 'real' sense). Like most, he also is not clear on the distinction between scientific issues of fact and the issues of how language can be used intelligibly. Also, he does not have a clear grasp of the distinction between the two systems of thought, the automaticities of nonlinguistic system S1 and the conscious deliberations of linguistic system S2 but I have described this extensively in my writings and will not do so here. Another thing that Kurzweil never mentions is the obvious fact that there will be severe and probably frequently fatal conflicts with our robots. Just think about the continual daily problems we have living with other humans, about the number of assaults, abuses and murders every day. Why should these be any less with androids--and then who takes the blame? There would not seem to be any reason at all why androids should be less in conflict with each other, and with us, than other humans are already. Asimov's law of robotics –do not harm humans, is a fantasy that is unattainable in practice for androids just as it is for us. I admit (as Searle has many times) that we are 'androids' too, though designed by natural selection, not having 'intelligence' from one viewpoint, but having limitless 'intelligence' from another. What is to stop androids having all the mental ailments we have-neuroses, psychoses, sociopathies, egomania, greed, selfish desire to produce endless copies of one's own 'genome' (electrome, digitome, silicome?), racism (programism?), something equivalent to drug addiction, homicidal and suicidal tendencies? Of course, humans will try to exclude bad behavior from the programs but this will have to be after the fact, i.e., when it's already dispersed, and as they will be self programming and updating, any badness that confers a survival advantage will spread rapidly. This is of course just 275 the android equivalent of humanoid evolution by natural selection (inclusive fitness). John Searle killed the idea of strong AI with the Chinese room and other descriptions of the incoherence of various language games (as Wittgenstein had done superbly long before there were computers, though few have noticed). He is regarded by some as the nemesis of AI, but in fact he has just kept it on track and has no antipathy to it at all. Searle has said repeatedly that of course machines can think and feel, for we are such machines! Made of proteins etc., and not metal, but machines in a very fundamental sense nevertheless. And machines that took about 4 billion years of experimentation in a lab the size of the earth with trillions or trillions of machines being created and only a tiny number of the most successful surviving. The efforts of AI seem or at least robotics, seem trivial by comparison. And as he notes it is possible that much or all of our psychology may be unique to fleshy beings, just as much of AI may be to solid state androids. How much might be true overlap and how much vague simulation is impossible to say. Darwinian selection or survival of the fittest as it applies to machines, is a major issue that is never addressed by Kurzweil, nor most others, but is the subject of a whole book by philosopher-scientist Nik Bostrum and of repeated warnings by black hole physicist and world's longest surviving ALS sufferer Stephen Hawking. Natural selection is mostly equivalent to inclusive fitness or favoritism towards close relatives (kin selection). And there is no countervailing 'group selection' for 'niceness' (see my review of Wilson's The Social of Conquest of Earth (2012)). Yes, we do not have DNA and genes in robots (yet), but in what is perhaps philosopher Daniel Dennett's most (only?) substantive contribution to philosophy, it is useful to regard inclusive fitness as the 'universal acid' which eats through all fantasies about evolution, nature and society. So, any self-replicating android or program that has even the slightest advantage over others will automatically eliminate them and humans and all other lifeforms, protein or metal, that are competitors for resources, or just for 'amusement' as human do with other animals. Exactly what will prevent programs from evolving selfishness and replacing all other competing machines/programs or biological life forms? If one takes the 'singularity' seriously, then why not take this just a seriously? I commented on this a long ago and of course it is a staple of science fiction. So, AI is just the next stage of natural selection with humans speeding it up in certain directions until they are replaced by their creations, just as the 276 advantages in our 'program' resulted in the extinction of all other hominoid subspecies. As usual in 'factual' accounts of AI/robotics, Kurzweil gives no time to the very real threats to our privacy, safety and even survival from the increasing 'androidizing' of society which are prominent in other nonfiction authors (Bostrum, Hawking etc.) and frequent in scifi and films. It requires little imagination to see this book as just another suicidal utopian delusion concentrating on the 'nice' aspects of androids, humanoids, democracy, computers, technology, ethnic diversity, and genetic engineering. It is however thanks to these that the last vestiges of our stability/privacy/security/prosperity/tranquility/sanity are rapidly disappearing. Also, drones and autonomous vehicles are rapidly increasing in capabilities and dropping in cost, so it will not be long before enhanced AI versions are used for crime, surveillance and espionage by all levels of government, terrorists, thieves, stalkers, kidnappers and murderers. Given your photo, fingerprints, name, workplace, address, mobile phone #, emails and chats, all increasingly easy to get, solar powered or self-charging drones, microbots, and vehicles will be able carry out almost any kind of crime. Intelligent viruses will continue to invade your phone, pc, tablet, refrigerator, car, TV, music player, health monitors, androids and security systems to steal your data, monitor your activities, follow you, and if desired, extort, kidnap or kill you. Its crystal clear that if the positives will happen then the negatives will also. This dark side of AI/Robotics/The internet of things goes unmentioned in this book, and this is the norm. Though the idea of robots taking over has been in scifi for many years, I first started to think seriously about it when I read about nanobots in Drexler's Engines of Creation in 1993. And many have worried about the 'grey goo' problem-i.e., of nanobots replicating until they smother everything else. Another singularity that Kurzweil and most in AI do not mention is the possibility that genetic engineering will soon lead to DNA displacing silicon as the medium for advanced intelligence. CRISPR and other techniques will let us change genes at will, adding whole new genes/chromosomes in months or even hours, with superfast development of organisms or brains in vats without bothersome bodies to encumber them. Even now, without genetic engineering, there are precocious geniuses mastering quantum mechanics in their early teens or taking the cube of a 10 digit number in their head. And the programming of genes might be done by the same computers and programs being used for AI. 277 Anyone who takes AI seriously also might find of interest my article on David Wolpert's work on the ultimate law in Turing Machine Theory which suggests some remarkable facets of and limits to computation and 'intelligence'. I wrote it because his work has somehow escaped the attention of the entire scientific community. It is readily available on the net and in my book: Wolpert, Godel, Chaitin and Wittgenstein on impossibility, incompleteness, the liar paradox, theism, the limits of computation, a nonquantum mechanical uncertainty principle and the universe as computer-the ultimate theorem in Turing Machine Theory (2015). To his credit, Kurzweil makes an effort to understand Wittgenstein (p220 etc.), but (like 50 million other academics) has only a superficial grasp of what he did. Before computers existed, Wittgenstein discussed in depth the basic issues of what computation was and what makes humans distinct from machines, but his writings on this are unknown to most. Gefwert is one of the few to analyze them in detail, but his work has been largely ignored. On p222 Kurzweil comments that it is 'foolish' to deny the 'physical world' (an intricate language game), but it is rather that one cannot give any sense to such a denial, as it presupposes the intelligibility (reality) of what it denies. This is the ever-present issue of how we make sense of (are certain about) anything, which brings us back to Wittgenstein's famous work 'On Certainty' (see my various reviews of his books) and the notion of the 'true only' proposition. Like all discussions of behavior, Kurzweil's needs a logical structure for rationality (intentionality) and (what is equivalent) a thorough understanding of how language works, but it is almost totally absent. As much of my book deals with these issues I won't go into them here except to provide the summary table of intentionality. After half a century in oblivion, the nature of consciousness is now the hottest topic in the behavioral sciences and philosophy. Beginning with the pioneering work of Ludwig Wittgenstein in the 1930's (the Blue and Brown Books) to 1951, and from the 50's to the present by his successors Searle, MoyalSharrock, Read, Hacker, Stern, Horwich, Winch, Finkelstein etc., I have created the following table as an heuristic for furthering this study. The rows show various aspects or ways of studying and the columns show the involuntary processes and voluntary behaviors comprising the two systems (dual processes) of the Logical Structure of Consciousness (LSC), which can also be regarded as the Logical Structure of Rationality (LSR-Searle), of behavior (LSB), of personality (LSP), of Mind (LSM), of language (LSL), of reality (LSOR), of Intentionality (LSI) -the classical philosophical term, 278 the Descriptive Psychology of Consciousness (DPC) , the Descriptive Psychology of Thought (DPT) –or better, the Language of the Descriptive Psychology of Thought (LDPT), terms introduced here and in my other very recent writings. The ideas for this table originated in the work by Wittgenstein, a much simpler table by Searle, and correlates with extensive tables and graphs in the three recent books on Human Nature by P.M.S Hacker. The last 9 rows come principally from decision research by Johnathan St. B.T. Evans and colleagues as revised by myself. System 1 is involuntary, reflexive or automated "Rules" R1 while Thinking (Cognition) has no gaps and is voluntary or deliberative "Rules" R2 and Willing (Volition) has 3 gaps (see Searle) 279 Disposition* Emotion Memory Perception Desire PI** IA*** Action/ Word Cause Originates From**** World World World World Mind Mind Mind Mind Causes Changes In***** None Mind Mind Mind None World World World Causally Self Reflexive****** No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes True or False (Testable) Yes T only T only T only Yes Yes Yes Yes Public Conditions of Satisfaction Yes Yes/No Yes/No No Yes/No Yes No Yes Describe A Mental State No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes/No Yes Evolutionary Priority 5 4 2,3 1 5 3 2 2 Voluntary Content Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes Voluntary Initiation Yes/No No Yes No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive System ******* 2 1 2/1 1 2 / 1 2 1 2 Change Intensity No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Precise Duration No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Time, Place (H+N, T+T) ******** TT HN HN HN TT TT HN HN Special Quality No Yes No Yes No No No No Localized in Body No No No Yes No No No Yes Bodily Expressions Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Self Contradictions No Yes No No Yes No No No Needs a Self Yes Yes/No No No Yes No No No Needs Language Yes No No No No No No Yes/No 280 FROM DECISION RESEARCH Disposition* Emotion Memory Perception Desire PI** IA*** Action/ Word Subliminal Effects No Yes/No Yes Yes No No No Yes/No Associative/ Rule Based RB A/RB A A A/RB RB RB RB Context Dependent/ Abstract A CD/A CD CD CD/A A CD/A CD/A Serial/Parallel S S/P P P S/P S S S Heuristic/ Analytic A H/A H H H/A A A A Needs Working Memory Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes General Intelligence Dependent Yes No No No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive Loading Inhibits Yes Yes/No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Arousal Facilitates or Inhibits I F/I F F I I I I Public Conditions of Satisfaction of S2 are often referred to by Searle and others as COS, Representations, truthmakers or meanings (or COS2 by myself), while the automatic results of S1 are designated as presentations by others (or COS1 by myself). * Aka Inclinations, Capabilities, Preferences, Representations, possible actions etc. ** Searle's Prior Intentions *** Searle's Intention In Action **** Searle's Direction of Fit ***** Searle's Direction of Causation ****** (Mental State instantiates--Causes or Fulfills Itself). Searle formerly called this causally selfreferential. ******* Tversky/Kahneman/Frederick/Evans/Stanovich defined cognitive systems. ******** Here and Now or There and Then 281 It is of interest to compare this with the various tables and charts in Peter Hacker's recent 3 volumes on Human Nature. One should always keep in mind Wittgenstein's discovery that after we have described the possible uses (meanings, truthmakers, Conditions of Satisfaction) of language in a particular context, we have exhausted its interest, and attempts at explanation (i.e., philosophy) only get us further away from the truth. He showed us that there is only one philosophical problem-the use of sentences (language games) in an inappropriate context, and hence only one solution- showing the correct context. On p 278 he comments on our improving life and references 'Abundance' by his colleague Diaminidis – another utopian fantasy, and mentions Pinker's recent work "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined", but fails to note that these improvements are only temporary, and are bought at the cost of destroying our descendant's futures. As I have reviewed Pinker's book and commented in detail on the coming collapse of America and the world in my articles, I will not repeat it here. Every day we lose about 200 million tons of topsoil into the sea (ca. 12kg/person/day) and about 20,000 hectares of agricultural land becomes salinified and useless. Fresh water is disappearing in many areas. And every day the mothers of the 3rd world (the 1st world now decreasing daily) 'bless' us with another 300,000 or so babies, leading to a net increase of about 200,000-another Las Vegas every 10 days, another Los Angeles every month. About 4 billion more by 2100, most in Africa, most of the rest in Asia. The famously tolerant Muslims will likely rise from about 1/5th to about 1/3 of the earth and control numerous H bombs. Thanks to the social delusions of the few hundred politicians who control it, America's love affair with 'diversity' and 'democracy' will guarantee its transformation into a 3rd world hellhole and the famously benevolent Chinese will take center stage. Sea level is projected to rise at least one to three meters by 2100 and some projections are ten times higher. There is no doubt at all that it will eventually rise much higher and cover much of the world's prime cropland and most heavily populated areas. It's also clear that the oil and natural gas and good quality easy to get coal will be gone, much of the earth stripped of topsoil, all the forests gone, and fishing dramatically reduced. I would like to see a plausible account of how androids/AI will fix this. Even if theoretically possible, at what cost in money and pollution and social distress to created and maintain them? The second law of thermodynamics and the rest of physics, chemistry and economics works for androids as well as hominoids. And who is going to force the world to cooperate when its obvious life is a zero-sum game in 282 which your gain is my loss? There is no free lunch. Even if robots could do all human tasks right now it would not save the world from constant international conflicts, starvation, disease, crime, violence and war. When they cannot be made to cooperate in this limited time of abundance (bought by raping the earth) it is hopelessly naïve to suppose that they will do it when anarchy is sweeping over the planet. I take it for granted that technical advances in electronics, robotics and AI will occur, resulting in profound changes in society. However, I think the changes coming from genetic engineering are at least as great and potentially far greater, as they will enable us to utterly change who we are. And it will be feasible to make supersmart/super strong servants by modifying our genes or those of other monkeys. As with other technology, any country that resists will be left behind. But will it be socially and economically feasible to implement biobots or superhumans on a massive scale? And even if so, it does not seem remotely possible, economically or socially to prevent the collapse of industrial civilization. So, ignoring the philosophical mistakes in this volume as irrelevant, and directing our attention only to the science, what we have here is another suicidal utopian delusion rooted in a failure to grasp basic biology, psychology and human ecology, the same delusions that are destroying America and the world. I see a remote possibility the world can be saved, but not by AI/robotics, CRISPR, nor by democracy and equality. 283 What Do Paraconsistent, Undecidable, Random, Computable and Incomplete mean? A Review of Godel's Way: Exploits into an undecidable world by Gregory Chaitin, Francisco A Doria, Newton C.A. da Costa 160p (2012) Michael Starks ABSTRACT In 'Godel's Way' three eminent scientists discuss issues such as undecidability, incompleteness, randomness, computability and paraconsistency. I approach these issues from the Wittgensteinian viewpoint that there are two basic issues which have completely different solutions. There are the scientific or empirical issues, which are facts about the world that need to be investigated observationally and philosophical issues as to how language can be used intelligibly (which include certain questions in mathematics and logic), which need to be decided by looking at how we actually use words in particular contexts. When we get clear about which language game we are playing, these topics are seen to be ordinary scientific and mathematical questions like any others. Wittgenstein's insights have seldom been equaled and never surpassed and are as pertinent today as they were 80 years ago when he dictated the Blue and Brown Books. In spite of its failings-really a series of notes rather than a finished book-this is a unique source of the work of these three famous scholars who have been working at the bleeding edges of physics, math and philosophy for over half a century. Da Costa and Doria are cited by Wolpert (see below or my articles on Wolpert and my review of Yanofsky's 'The Outer Limits of Reason') since they wrote on universal computation and among his many accomplishments, Da Costa is a pioneer in paraconsistency. In spite of its failings-really a series of notes rather than a finished book- this is a unique source of the work of these three famous scholars who have been working at the bleeding edges of physics, math and philosophy for over half a century. Da Costa and Doria are cited by Wolpert (see below or my articles on Wolpert and my review of Yanofsky's 'The Outer Limits of 284 Reason') since they wrote on universal computation, and among his many accomplishments, Da Costa is a pioneer in paraconsistency. Chaitin's proof of the algorithmic randomness of math (of which Godel's results are a corollary) and the Omega number are some of the most famous mathematical results in the last 50 years and he has documented them in many books and articles. His coauthors from Brazil are less well known in spite of their many important contributions. For all the topics here, the best way to get free articles on the cutting edge is to visit ArXiv.org, viXra.org, academia.edu, citeseerx.ist.psu.edu or philpapers.org where there are tens of thousands of preprints on every topic (be warned this may use up all your spare time for the rest of your life!). As readers of my other articles are aware, in my view there are two basic issues running throughout philosophy and science which have completely different solutions. There are the scientific or empirical issues, which are facts about the world that need to be investigated observationally, and philosophical issues as to how language can be used intelligibly, which need to be decided by looking at how we actually use certain words in particular contexts and how these are extended to new uses in new contexts. Unfortunately, there is almost no awareness that these are two different tasks and so this work, like all scientific writing that has a 'philosophical' aspect, mixes the two with unfortunate results. And then there is scientism, which we can here take as the attempt to treat all issues as scientific ones and reductionism which tries to treat them as physics and/or mathematics. Since I have noted in my reviews of books by Wittgenstein (W), Searle and others, how an understanding of the language used in what Searle calls the Logical Structure of Reality (LSR) and I call the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought (DPHOT), along with the Dual Process Description (the Two Systems of Thought) helps to clarify philosophical problems, I will not repeat the reasons for that view here. Since Godel's theorems are corollaries of Chaitin's theorem showing algorithmic randomness (incompleteness) throughout math (which is just another of our symbolic systems that may result in public testable actions-i.e., if meaningful it has COS), it seems inescapable that thinking (dispositional behavior having COS) is full of impossible, random or incomplete statements and situations. Since we can view each of these domains as symbolic systems evolved by chance to make our psychology work, perhaps it should be regarded as unsurprising that they are not "complete". For math, Chaitin says this 'randomness' (another group of language games) shows there are 285 limitless theorems that are 'true' but unprovable-i.e., 'true' for no 'reason'. One should then be able to say that there are limitless statements that make perfect "grammatical" sense that do not describe actual situations attainable in that domain. I suggest these puzzles go away if one considers W's views. He wrote many notes on the issue of Godel's Theorems, and the whole of his work concerns the plasticity, "incompleteness" and extreme context sensitivity of language, math and logic, and the recent papers of Rodych, Floyd and Berto are the best introduction I know of to W's remarks on the foundations of mathematics and so to philosophy. Regarding Godel and "incompleteness", since our psychology as expressed in symbolic systems such as math and language is "random" or "incomplete" and full of tasks or situations ("problems") that have been proven impossible (i.e., they have no solution-see below) or whose nature is unclear, it seems unavoidable that everything derived from it by using higher order thought (system 2 or S2) to extend our innate axiomatic psychology (system 1 or S1) into complex social interactions such as games, economics, physics and math, will be "incomplete" also. The first of these in what is now called Social Choice Theory or Decision Theory (which are continuous with the study of logic and reasoning and philosophy) was the famous theorem of Kenneth Arrow 63 years ago, and there have been many since such as the recent impossibility or incompleteness proof by Brandenburger and Kreisel (2006) in two-person game theory. In these cases, a proof shows that what lookslike a simple choice stated in plain English has no solution. There are also many famous "paradoxes" such as Sleeping Beauty (dissolved by Rupert Read), Newcomb's problem (dissolved by Wolpert) and Doomsday, where what seems to be a very simple problem either has no one clear answer, or it proves exceptionally hard to find. A mountain of literature exists on Godel's two "incompleteness" theorems and Chaitin's more recent work, but I think that W's writings in the 30's and 40's are definitive. Although Shanker, Mancosu, Floyd, Marion, Rodych, Gefwert, Wright and others have done insightful work in explaining W, it is only recently that W's uniquely penetrating analysis of the language games being played in mathematics and logic have been clarified by Floyd (e.g., 'Wittgenstein's Diagonal Argument-a Variation on Cantor and Turing'), Berto (e.g., 'Godel's Paradox and Wittgenstein's Reasons' , and 'Wittgenstein on Incompleteness makes Paraconsistent Sense' , and Rodych ( e.g., 'Wittgenstein and Godel: the Newly Published Remarks' and 'Misunderstanding Gödel :New Arguments about Wittgenstein and New Remarks by Wittgenstein'). Berto is one of the best recent philosophers, and 286 those with time might wish to consult his many other articles and books including the volume he coedited on paraconsistency. Rodych's work is indispensable, but only two of a dozen or so papers are free online (but see also his Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles). Berto notes that W also denied the coherence of metamathematics-i.e., the use by Godel of a metatheorem to prove his theorem, likely accounting for W's "notorious" interpretation of Godel's theorem as a paradox, and if we accept W's argument, I think we are forced to deny the intelligibility of metalanguages, metatheories and meta anything else. How can it be that such concepts (words) as metamathematics, undecidability and incompleteness, accepted by millions (and even claimed by no less than Penrose, Hawking, Dyson et al to reveal fundamental truths about our mind or the universe) are just simple misunderstandings about how language works? Isn't the proof in this pudding that, like so many "revelatory" philosophical notions (e.g., mind and will as illusions a la Dennett, Carruthers, the Churchland's etc.), they have no practical impact whatsoever? Berto sums it up nicely: "Within this framework, it is not possible that the very same sentence...turns out to be expressible, but undecidable, in a formal system... and demonstrably true (under the aforementioned consistency hypothesis) in a different system (the meta-system). If, as Wittgenstein maintained, the proof establishes the very meaning of the proved sentence, then it is not possible for the same sentence (that is, for a sentence with the same meaning) to be undecidable in a formal system, but decided in a different system (the meta-system) ... Wittgenstein had to reject both the idea that a formal system can be syntactically incomplete, and the Platonic consequence that no formal system proving only arithmetical truths can prove all arithmetical truths. If proofs establish the meaning of arithmetical sentences, then there cannot be incomplete systems, just as there cannot be incomplete meanings." And further "Inconsistent arithmetics, i.e., nonclassical arithmetics based on a paraconsistent logic, are nowadays a reality. What is more important, the theoretical features of such theories match precisely with some of the aforementioned Wittgensteinian intuitions...Their inconsistency allows them also to escape from Godel's First Theorem, and from Church's undecidability result: they are, that is, demonstrably complete and decidable. They therefore fulfil precisely Wittgenstein's request, according to which there cannot be mathematical problems that can be meaningfully formulated within the system, but which the rules of the system cannot decide. Hence, the decidability of paraconsistent arithmetics harmonizes with an opinion Wittgenstein maintained thoughout his philosophical career." 287 W also demonstrated the fatal error in regarding mathematics or language or our behavior in general as a unitary coherent logical 'system,' rather than as a motley of pieces assembled by the random processes of natural selection. "Godel shows us an unclarity in the concept of 'mathematics', which is indicated by the fact that mathematics is taken to be a system" and we can say (contra nearly everyone) that is all that Godel and Chaitin show. W commented many times that 'truth' in math means axioms or the theorems derived from axioms, and 'false' means that one made a mistake in using the definitions (from which results follow necessarily and algorithmically), and this is utterly different from empirical matters where one applies a test (the results of which are unpredictable and debatable). W often noted that to be acceptable as mathematics in the usual sense, it must be useable in other proofs and it must have real world applications, but neither is the case with Godel's Incompleteness. Since it cannot be proved in a consistent system (here Peano Arithmetic but a much wider arena for Chaitin), it cannot be used in proofs and, unlike all the 'rest' of Peano Arithmetic, it cannot be used in the real world either. As Rodych notes "...Wittgenstein holds that a formal calculus is only a mathematical calculus (i.e., a mathematical language-game) if it has an extra-systemic application in a system of contingent propositions (e.g., in ordinary counting and measuring or in physics) ..." Another way to say this is that one needs a warrant to apply our normal use of words like 'proof', 'proposition', 'true', 'incomplete', 'number', and 'mathematics' to a result in the tangle of games created with 'numbers' and 'plus' and 'minus' signs etc., and with 'Incompleteness' this warrant is lacking. Rodych sums it up admirably. "On Wittgenstein's account, there is no such thing as an incomplete mathematical calculus because 'in mathematics, everything is algorithm [and syntax] and nothing is meaning [semantics]..." W has much the same to say of Cantor's diagonalization and set theory. "Consideration of the diagonal procedure shews you that the concept of 'real number' has much less analogy with the concept 'cardinal number' than we, being misled by certain analogies, are inclined to believe" and makes many other penetrating comments (see Rodych and Floyd). Of course, the same remarks apply to all forms of logic and any other symbolic system. As Rodych, Berto and Priest (another pioneer in paraconsistency) have noted, W was the first (by several decades) to insist on the unavoidability and utility of inconsistency (and debated this issue with Turing during his classes on the Foundations of Mathematics). We now see that the disparaging comments about W's remarks on math made by Godel, Kreisel, Dummett and many others were misconceived. As usual, it is a very bad idea to bet against W. Some may feel we have strayed off the path here-after all in 'Godel's Way' 288 we only want to understand 'science' and 'mathematics' (in quotes because part of the problem is regarding them as 'systems') and why these 'paradoxes' and 'inconsistencies' arise and how to dispose of them. But I claim that is exactly what I have done by pointing to the work of W. Our symbolic systems (language, math, logic, computation) have a clear use in the narrow confines of everyday life, in what we can loosely call the mesoscopic realm--the space and time of normal events we can observe unaided and with certainty (the innate axiomatic bedrock or background as W and later Searle call it). But we leave coherence behind when we enter the realms of particle physics or the cosmos, relativity, math beyond simple addition and subtraction with whole numbers, and language used out of the immediate context of everyday events. The words or whole sentences may be the same, but the meaning is lost (i.e., to use Searle's preferred term, their Conditions of Satisfaction (COS) are changed or opaque). It looks to me like the best way to understand philosophy is to enter it via Berto, Rodych and Floyd's work on W, so as to understand the subtleties of language as it is used in math and thereafter "metaphysical" issues of all kinds may be dissolved. As Floyd notes "In a sense, Wittgenstein is literalizing Turing's model, bringing it back down to the everyday and drawing out the anthropomorphic commandaspect of Turing's metaphors." W pointed out how in math, we are caught in more LG's (Language Games) where it is not clear what "true", "complete", "follows from", "provable", "number" ,"infinite", etc. mean (i.e., what are their COS or truthmakers in THIS context), and hence what significance to attach to 'incompleteness' and likewise for Chaitin's "algorithmic randomness". As W noted frequently, do the "inconsistencies" of math or the counterintuitive results of metaphysics cause any real problems in math, physics or life? The apparently more serious cases of contradictory statements –e.g., in set theory---have long been known but math goes on anyway. Likewise for the countless liar (self-referencing) paradoxes in language and in the "incompleteness" and "inconsistency" (groups of complex LG's) of mathematics as well. It is a constant struggle to keep in mind that different contexts mean different LG's (meanings, COS) for "time", "space", "particle" "object" , "inside", "outside", "next", "simultaneous", "occur", "happen", "event" ,"question", "answer" ,"infinite", "past", "future", "problem", "logic", "ontology", "epistemology", "solution", "paradox","prove", "strange", "normal", "experiment", "complete", "uncountable", "decidable", "dimension", "complete", "formula", "process", "algorithm", "axiom", "mathematics", "number", "physics", "cause", "place", "same","moving", "limit", "reason", 289 "still", "real" "assumption", "belief", 'know", "event", "recursive", "meta- ", "selfreferential" "continue", "particle", "wave",, "sentence" and even (in some contexts) "and", "or", "also", "add" , "divide", "if...then", "follows" etc. As W noted, most of what people (including many philosophers and most scientists) haveto say when philosophizing is not philosophy but its raw material. Chaitin, Doria, and Da Costa join Yanofsky (Y), Hume, Quine, Dummett, Kripke, Dennett, Churchland, Carruthers, Wheeler etc. in repeating the mistakes of the Greeks with elegant philosophical jargon mixed with science. I suggest quick antidotes via my reviews and some Rupert Read such as his books 'A Wittgensteinian Way with Paradoxes' and 'Wittgenstein Among the Sciences', or go to academia.edu and get his articles , especially 'Kripke's Conjuring Trick' and 'Against Time Slices' and then as much of Searle as feasible, but at least his most recent such as 'Philosophy in a New Century', 'Searle's Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy', 'Making the Social World' and 'Thinking About the Real World' (or at least my reviews) and his forthcoming volume on perception. There are also over 100 youtubes of Searle, which confirm his reputation as the best standup philosopher since Wittgenstein. A major overlap that now exists (and is expanding rapidly) between game theorists, physicists, economists, mathematicians, philosophers, decision theorists and others, all of whom have been publishing for decades closely related proofs of undecidability, impossibility, uncomputability, and incompleteness. One of the more bizarre is the recent proof by Armando Assis that in the relative state formulation of quantum mechanics one can setup a zero-sum game between the universe and an observer using the Nash Equilibrium, from which follow the Born rule and the collapse of the wave function. Godel was first to demonstrate an impossibility result and (until Wolpert- see my article on his work) it is the most far reaching (or just trivial/incoherent) but there have been an avalanche of others. As noted, one of the earliest in decision theory was the famous General Impossibility Theorem (GIT) discovered by Kenneth Arrow in 1951 (for which he got the Nobel Prize in economics in 1972-and five of his students are now Nobel laureates so this is not fringe science). It states roughly that no reasonably consistent and fair voting system (i.e., no method of aggregating individuals' preferences into group preferences) can give sensible results. The group is either dominated by one person and so GIT is often called the "dictator theorem", or there are intransitive preferences. Arrow's original paper was titled "A Difficulty in the Concept of Social Welfare" and can be stated like 290 this:" It is impossible to formulate a social preference ordering that satisfies all of the following conditions: Nondictatorship; Individual Sovereignty; Unanimity; Freedom From Irrelevant Alternatives; Uniqueness of Group Rank." Those familiar with modern decision theory accept this and the many related constraining theorems as their starting points. Those who are not may find it (and all these theorems) incredible and in that case, they need to find a career path that has nothing to do with any of the above disciplines. See "The Arrow Impossibility Theorem"(2014) or "Decision Making and Imperfection"(2013) among legions of publications. Another recent famous impossibility result is that of Brandenburger and Keisler (2006) for two person games (but of course not limited to "games" and like all these impossibility results it applies broadly to decisions of any kind), which shows that any belief model of a certain kind leads to contradictions. One interpretation of the result is that if the decision analyst's tools (basically just logic) are available to the players in a game, then there are statements or beliefs that the players can write down or 'think about' but cannot actually hold. But note W's characterization of 'thinking' as a potential action with COS, which says they don't really have a meaning (use), like Chaitin's infinity of apparently well-formed formulas that do not actually belong to our system of mathematics. "Ann believes that Bob assumes that Ann believes that Bob's assumption is wrong" seems unexceptionable and multiple layers of 'recursion' (another LG) have been assumed in argumentation, linguistics, philosophy etc., for a century at least, but B&K showed that it is impossible for Ann and Bob to assume these beliefs. And there is a rapidly growing body of such impossibility results for one person or multiplayer decision situations (e.g., they grade into Arrow, Wolpert, Koppel and Rosser etc.). For a good technical paper from among the avalanche on the B&K paradox, get Abramsky and Zvesper's paper from arXiv which takes us back to the liar paradox and Cantor's infinity (as its title notes it is about "interactive forms of diagonalization and self-reference") and thus to Floyd, Rodych, Berto, W and Godel. Many of these papers quote Yanofsky's (Y's) paper "A universal approach to selfreferential paradoxes and fixed points. Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, 9(3):362–386,2003. Abramsky (a polymath who is among other things a pioneer in quantum computing) is a friend of Y's and so Y contributes a paper to the recent Festschrift to him 'Computation, Logic, Games and Quantum Foundations'(2013). For maybe the best recent (2013) commentary on the BK and related paradoxes see the 165p powerpoint lecture free on the net by Wes Holliday and Eric Pacuit 'Ten Puzzles and Paradoxes about Knowledge and 291 Belief'. For a good multi-author survey see 'Collective Decision Making (2010). One of the major omissions from all such books is the amazing work of polymath physicist and decision theorist David Wolpert, who proved some stunning impossibility or incompleteness theorems (1992 to 2008-see arxiv.org) on the limits to inference (computation) that are so general they are independent of the device doing the computation, and even independent of the laws of physics, so they apply across computers, physics, and human behavior, which he summarized thusly: "One cannot build a physical computer that can be assured of correctly processing information faster than the universe does. The results also mean that there cannot exist an infallible, general-purpose observation apparatus, and that there cannot be an infallible, general-purpose control apparatus. These results do not rely on systems that are infinite, and/or non-classical, and/or obey chaotic dynamics. They also hold even if one uses an infinitely fast, infinitely dense computer, with computational powers greater than that of a Turing Machine." He also published what seems to be the first serious work on team or collective intelligence (COIN) which he says puts this subject on a sound scientific footing. Although he has published various versions of these proofs over two decades in some of the most prestigious peer reviewed physics journals (e.g., Physica D 237: 257-81(2008)) as well as in NASA journals and has gotten news items in major science journals, few seem to have noticedand I have looked in dozens of recent books on physics, math, decision theory and computation without finding a reference. W's prescient grasp of these issues, including his embrace of strict finitism and paraconsistency, is finally spreading through math, logic and computer science (though rarely with any acknowledgement). Bremer has recently suggested the necessity of a Paraconsistent Lowenheim-Skolem Theorem. "Any mathematical theory presented in first order logic has a finite paraconsistent model." Berto continues: "Of course strict finitism and the insistence on the decidability of any meaningful mathematical question go hand in hand. As Rodych has remarked, the intermediate Wittgenstein's view is dominated by his 'finitism and his view [...] of mathematical meaningfulness as algorithmic decidability' according to which '[only] finite logical sums and products (containing only decidable arithmetic predicates) are meaningful because they are algorithmically decidable.'". In modern terms this means they have public conditions of satisfaction (COS)-i.e., can be stated as a proposition that is true or false. And this brings us to W's view that ultimately everything in math and logic rests on our innate (though of 292 course extensible) ability to recognize a valid proof. Berto again: "Wittgenstein believed that the naïve (i.e., the working mathematician's) notion of proof had to be decidable, for lack of decidability meant to him simply lack of mathematical meaning: Wittgenstein believed that everything had to be decidable in mathematics...Of course one can speak against the decidability of the naïve notion of truth on the basis of Godel's results themselves. But one may argue that, in the context, this would beg the question against paraconsistentists-and against Wittgenstein too. Both Wittgenstein and the paraconsistentists on one side, and the followers of the standard view on the other, agree on the following thesis: the decidability of the notion of proof and its inconsistency are incompatible. But to infer from this that the naïve notion of proof is not decidable invokes the indispensability of consistency, which is exactly what Wittgenstein and the paraconsistent argument call into question...for as Victor Rodych has forcefully argued, the consistency of the relevant system is precisely what is called into question by Wittgenstein's reasoning." And so: "Therefore the Inconsistent arithmetic avoids Godel's First Incompleteness Theorem. It also avoids the Second Theorem in the sense that its non-triviality can be established within the theory: and Tarski's Theorem too-including its own predicate is not a problem for an inconsistent theory" [As Graham Priest noted over 20 years ago]. This brings to mind W's famous comment. "What we are 'tempted to say' in such a case is, of course, not philosophy, but it is its raw material. Thus, for example, what a mathematician is inclined to say about the objectivity and reality of mathematical facts, is not a philosophy of mathematics, but something for philosophical treatment." PI 234 And again, 'decidability' comes down to the ability to recognize a valid proof, which rests on our innate axiomatic psychology, which math and logic have in common with language. And this is not just a remote historical issue but is totally current. I have read much of Chaitin and never seen a hint that he has considered these matters. The work of Douglas Hofstadter also comes to mind. His Godel, Escher, Bach won a Pulitzer prize and a National Book Award for Science, sold millions of copies and continues to get good reviews (e.g. almost 400 mostly 5 star reviews on Amazon to date) but he has no clue about the real issues and repeats the classical philosophical mistakes on nearly every page. His subsequent philosophical writings have not improved (he has chosen Dennett as his muse), but, as these views are vacuous and unconnected to real life, he continues to do excellent science. 293 Once again note that "infinite", "compute", "information" etc., only have meaning in specific human contexts- that is, as Searle has emphasized, they are all observer relative or ascribed vs intrinsically intentional. The universe apart from our psychology is neither finite nor infinite and cannot compute nor process anything. Only in our language games do our laptop or the universe compute. W noted that when we reach the end of scientific commentary, the problem becomes a philosophical one-i.e., one of how language can be used intelligibly. Virtually all scientists and most philosophers, do not get that there are two distinct kinds of "questions" or "assertions" (both families of Language Games). There are those that are matters of fact about how the world is-that is, they are publicly observable propositional (True or False ) states of affairs having clear meanings (COS)-i.e., scientific statements, and then there are those that are issues about how language can coherently be used to describe these states of affairs, and these can be answered by any sane, intelligent, literate person with little or no resort to the facts of science, though of course there are borderline cases where we have to decide. Another poorly understood but critical fact is that, although the thinking, representing, inferring, understanding, intuiting etc. (i.e., the dispositional psychology) of a true or false statement is a function of the higher order cognition of our slow, conscious System 2 (S2), the decision as to whether "particles" are entangled, the star shows a red shift, a theorem has been proven (i.e., the part that involves seeing that the symbols are used correctly in each line of the proof), is always made by the fast, automatic, unconscious System 1 (S1) via seeing, hearing, touching etc. in which there is no information processing, no representation (i.e., no COS) and no decisions in the sense in which these happen in S2 ( which receives its inputs from S1). This two systems approach is now a standard way to view reasoning or rationality and is a crucial heuristic in the description of behavior, of which science and math are special cases. There is a huge and rapidly growing literature on reasoning that is indispensable to the study of behavior or science. A recent book that digs into the details of how we actually reason (i.e., use language to carry out actions-see W and S) is 'Human Reasoning and Cognitive Science' by Stenning and Van Lambalgen (2008), which, in spite of its limitations (e.g., limited understanding of W/S and the broad structure of intentional psychology), is (as of early 2015) the best single source I know. There are endless books and papers on reasoning, decision theory, game theory etc. and many variants of and some alternativesto the two systems framework, but I am one of a rapidly increasing number who find 294 the simple S1/S2 framework the best one for most situations. The best recent book on reason from the dual systems approach is Dual-Process Theories of the Social Mind (2014) edited by Sherman et al. and Manktelow et al 'The Science of Reason' (2011) is also indispensable. What is only now coming to the fore, after millennia of discussion of reasoning in philosophy, psychology, logic, math, economics, sociology etc., is the study of the actual way in which we use words like and, but, or, means, signifies, implies, not, and above all 'if' (the conditional being the subject of over 50 papers and a book ('IF') by Evans, one of the leading researchers in this arena. Of course, Wittgenstein understood the basic issues here, likely better than anyone to this day, and laid out the facts beginning most clearly with the Blue and Brown Books starting in the 30's and ending with the superb 'On Certainty' (which can be viewed as a dissertation on how the two systems work), but sadly most students of behavior don't have a clue about his work. Yanofsky's book (The Outer Limits of Reason) is an extended treatment of these issues, but with little philosophical insight. He says math is free of contradictions, yet as noted, it has been well known for over half a century that logic and math are full of them-just google inconsistency in math or search it on Amazon or see the works of Priest, Berto or the article by Weber in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. W was the first to predict inconsistency or paraconsistency, and if we follow Berto we can interpret this as W's suggestion to avoid incompleteness. In any event, paraconsistency is now a common feature and a major research program in geometry, set theory, arithmetic, analysis, logic and computer science. Y on p346 says reason must be free of contradictions, but it is clear that "free of" has different uses and they arise frequently in everyday life but we have innate mechanisms to contain them. This is true because it was the case in our everyday life long before math and science. Until very recently only W saw that it was unavoidable that our life and all our symbolic systems are paraconsistent and that we get along just fine as we have mechanisms for encapsulating or avoiding it. W tried to explain this to Turing in his lectures on the foundations of mathematics, given at Cambridge at the same time as Turing's course on the same topic. Now I will make a few comments on specific items in the book. As noted on p13, Rice's Theorem shows the impossibility of a universal antivirus for computers (and perhaps for living organisms as well) and so is, like Turing's Halting theorem, another alternative statement of Godel's Theorems, but 295 unlike Turing's, it is rarely mentioned. On p33 the discussion of the relation of compressibility, structure, randomness etc. is much better stated in Chaitin's many other books and papers. Also of fundamental importance is the comment by Weyl on the fact that one can 'prove' or 'derive' anything from anything else if one permits arbitrarily 'complex' 'equations' (with arbitrary 'constants') but there is little awareness of this among scientists or philosophers. As W said we need to look at the role which any statement, equation, logical or mathematical proof plays in our life in order to discern its meaning since there is no limit on what we can write, say or 'prove', but only a tiny subset of these has a use. 'Chaos', 'complexity', 'law', 'structure', 'theorem', 'equation', 'proof', 'result', 'randomness', 'compressibility' etc.are all families of language games with meanings (COS) that vary greatly, and one must look at their precise role in the given context. This is rarely done in any systematic deliberate way, with disastrous results. As Searle notes repeatedly, these words have intrinsic intentionality only relevant to human action and quite different (ascribed) meanings otherwise. It is only ascribed intentionality derived from our psychology when we say that a thermometer 'tells' the temperature or a computer is 'computing' or an equation is a 'proof'. As is typical in scientific discussion of these topics, the comments on p36 (on omega and quasi-empirical mathematics) and in much of the book cross the line between science and philosophy. Although there is a large literature on the philosophy of mathematics, so far asI know, there is still no better analysis than that of W's, not only in his comments published as 'Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics' and 'Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics', but throughout the 20,000 pages of his nachlass (awaiting a new edition on CDROM). Math, like logic, language, art, artefacts and music only have a meaning (use or COS in a context) when connected to life by words or practices. Likewise, on p54 et seq. it was W who has given us the first and best rationale for paraconsistency, long before anyone actually worked out a paraconsistent logic. Again, it is critical to be aware that not everything is a 'problem', 'question', 'answer', 'proof' or a 'solution' in the same sense and accepting something as one or the other commits one to an often confused point of view. In the discussion of physics on p108-9 we must remind ourselves that 'point', 'energy', 'space', 'time', 'infinite', 'beginning', 'end', 'particle', 'wave', 'quantum' etc. are all typical language games that seduce us into incoherent 296 views of how things are by applying meanings (COS) from one game to a quite different one. So, this book is a flawed diamond with much value and I hope the authors are able to revise and enlarge it. It makes the nearly universal and fatal mistake of regarding science, especially mathematics, logic and physics, as though they were systems-i.e., domains where "number", "space", "time", "proof", "event", "point", "occurs", "force", "formula" etc. can be used throughout its "processes" and "states" without changes in meaning-i.e., without altering the Conditions of Satisfaction, which are publicly observable tests of truth or falsity. And when it's an almost insuperable problem for such truly clever and experienced people as the authors, what chance do the rest of us have? Let us recall W's comment on this fatal mistake. "The first step is the one that altogether escapes notice. We talk of processes and states and leave their nature undecided. Sometime perhaps we shall know more about them-we think. But that is just what commits us to a particular way of looking at the matter. For we have a definite concept of what it means to learn to know a process better. (The decisive movement in the conjuring trick has been made, and it was the very one that we thought quite innocent.)" PI p308 While writing this article I came upon Dennett's infamous 'damning with faint praise' summary of W's importance, which he was asked to write when Time Magazine, with amazing perspicacity, choose Wittgenstein as one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century. As with his other writings, it shows his complete failure to grasp the nature of W's work (i.e., of philosophy) and reminds me of another famous W comment that is pertinent here. "Here we come up against a remarkable and characteristic phenomenon in philosophical investigation: the difficulty---I might say--is not that of finding the solution but rather that of recognizing as the solution something that looks as if it were only a preliminary to it. We have already said everything. ---Not anything that follows from this, no this itself is the solution! .... This is connected, I believe, with our wrongly expecting an explanation, whereas the solution of the difficulty is a description, if we give it the right place in our considerations. If we dwell upon it, and do not try to get beyond it." Zettel p312-314 297 Chaitin is an American and his many books and articles are well known and easy to find, but Da Costa (who is 85) and Doria (75) are Brazilians and most of Da Costa's work is only in Portuguese, but Doria has many items in English. You can find a partial bibliography for Doria here http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/PEEPS2/doria_franciscoA.html The best collections of their work are in Chaos, Computers, Games and Time: A quarter century of joint work with Newton da Costa by F. Doria 132p(2011), On the Foundations of Science by da Costa and Doria 294p(2008), and Metamathematics of science by da Costa and Doria 216p(1997), but they were published in Brazil and almost impossible to find. You will likely have to get them through interlibrary loan or as digital files from the authors. There is a nice Festschrift in honor of Newton C.A. Da Costa on the occasion of his seventieth birthday edited by Décio Krause, Steven French, Francisco Antonio Doria. (2000) which is an issue of Synthese (Dordrecht). Vol. 125, no. 1-2 (2000), also published as a book, but the book is in only 5 libraries worldwide and not on Amazon. Another relevant item is New trends in the foundations of science : papers dedicated to the 80th birthday of Patrick Suppes, presented in Florianópolis, Brazil, April 22-23, 2002 by Jean-Yves Beziau; Décio Krause; Otávio Bueno; Newton C da Costa; Francisco Antonio Doria; Patrick Suppes; (2007), which is vol. 154 # 3 of Synthese, but again the book is in only 2 libraries and not on Amazon. Brazilian studies in philosophy and history of science: an account of recent works by Decio Krause; Anto nio Augusto Passos Videira; has one article by each of them and is an expensive book but cheap on Kindle. Though it is a decade old, some may be interested in "Are the Foundations of Computer Science Logic-dependent?" by Carnielli and Doria, which says that Turing Machine Theory (TMT) can be seen as 'arithmetic in disguise', in particular as the theory of Diophantine Equations in which they formalize it, and conclude that 'Axiomatized Computer Science is Logic-Dependent'. Of course, as Wittgensteinians, we want to look very carefully at the language games (or math games), i.e., the precise Conditions of Satisfaction (truthmakers) resulting from using each of these words (i.e., 'axiomatized', 'computer science', and 'logicdependent'). Carnielli and Agudello also formalize TMT in terms of paraconsistent logic, creating a model for paraconsistent Turing Machines (PTM's) which has similarities to quantum computing and so with a quantic interpretation of it they create a Quantum 298 Turing Machine model with which they solve the Deutsch and Deutsch-Jozsa problems. This permits contradictory instructions to be simultaneously executed and stored and each tape cell, when and if halting occurs, may have multiple symbols, each of which represents an output, thus permitting control of unicity versus multiplicity conditions, which simulate quantum algorithms, preserving efficiency. The articles, and especially the group discussion with Chaitin, Fredkin, Wolfram et al at the end of Zenil H. (ed.) 'Randomness through computation' (2011) is a stimulating continuation of many of the topics here, but again lacking awareness of the philosophical issues, and so often missing the point. Chaitin also contributes to 'Causality, Meaningful Complexity and Embodied Cognition' (2010), replete with articles having the usual mixture of scientific insight and philosophical incoherence, and as usual nobody is aware that Ludwig Wittgenstein (W) provided deep and unsurpassed insights into the issues over half a century ago, including Embodied Cognition (Enactivism). Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book 'The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017' (2017). Finally, I would like to mention the work of physicist/philosopher Nancy Cartwright whose writings on the meaning of natural 'laws' and 'causation' are indispensable to anyone interested in these topics. 299 Wolpert, Chaitin and Wittgenstein on impossibility, incompleteness, the liar paradox, theism, the limits of computation, a non-quantum mechanical uncertainty principle and the universe as computer-the ultimate theorem in Turing Machine Theory Michael Starks ABSTRACT I have read many recent discussions of the limits of computation and the universe as computer, hoping to find some comments on the amazing work of polymath physicist and decision theorist David Wolpert but have not found a single citation and so I present this very brief summary. Wolpert proved some stunning impossibility or incompleteness theorems (1992 to 2008-see arxiv.org) on the limits to inference (computation) that are so general they are independent of the device doing the computation, and even independent of the laws of physics, so they apply across computers, physics, and human behavior. They make use of Cantor's diagonalization, the liar paradox and worldlines to provide what may be the ultimate theorem in Turing Machine Theory, and seemingly provide insights into impossibility, incompleteness, the limits of computation, and the universe as computer, in all possible universes and all beings or mechanisms, generating, among other things, a nonquantum mechanical uncertainty principle and a proof of monotheism. There are obvious connections to the classic work of Chaitin, Solomonoff, Komolgarov and Wittgenstein and to the notion that no program (and thus no device) can generate a sequence (or device) with greater complexity than it possesses. One might say this body of work implies atheism since there cannot be any entity more complex than the physical universe and from the Wittgensteinian viewpoint, 'more complex' is meaningless (has no conditions of satisfaction, i.e., truth-maker or test). Even a 'God' (i.e., a 'device'with limitless time/space and energy) cannot determine whether a given 'number' is 'random' nor can find a certain way to show that a given 'formula', 'theorem' or 'sentence' or 'device' (all these being complex language games) is part of a particular 'system'. Those interested in more of my writings in their most recent versions may 300 I have read many recent discussions of the limits of computation and the universe as computer, hoping to find some comments on the amazing work of polymath physicist and decision theorist David Wolpert but have not found a single citation and so I present this very brief abstract. Wolpert proved some stunning impossibility or incompletenesstheorems (1992 to 2008-see arxiv.org) on the limits to inference (computation) that are so general they are independent of the device doing the computation, and even independent of the laws of physics, so they apply across computers, physics, and human behavior, which he summarized thusly: "One cannot build a physical computer that can be assured of correctly processing information faster than the universe does. The results also mean that there cannot exist an infallible, general-purpose observation apparatus, and that there cannot be an infallible, general-purpose control apparatus. These results do not rely on systems that are infinite, and/or non-classical, and/or obey chaotic dynamics. They also hold even if one uses an infinitely fast, infinitely dense computer, with computational powers greater than that of a Turing Machine." He also published what seems to be the first serious work on team or collective intelligence (COIN) which he says puts this subject on a sound scientific footing. Although he has published various versions of these over two decades in some of the most prestigious peer reviewed physics journals (e.g., Physica D 237: 257-81(2008)) as well as in NASA journals and has gotten news items in major science journals, few seem to have noticed and I have looked in dozens of recent books on physics, math, decision theory and computation without finding areference. It is most unfortunate that almost nobody is aware of Wolpert, since his work can be seen as the ultimate extension of computing, thinking, inference, incompleteness, and undecidability, which he achieves (like many proofs in Turing machine theory) by extending the liar paradox and Cantors diagonalization to include all possible universes and all beings or mechanisms and thus may be seen as the last word not only on computation, but on cosmology or even deities. He achieves this extreme generality by partitioning the inferring universe using worldlines (i.e., in terms of what it does and not how it does it) so that his mathematical proofs are independent of any particular physical laws or computational structures in establishing the physical limits of inference for past, present and future and all possible calculation, observation and control. He notes that even in a classical universe Laplace was wrong about being able to perfectly predict the future (or even perfectly depict the past or present) and that his impossibility results can be viewed as a "non-quantum mechanical uncertainty principle" (i.e., there cannot be an infallible observation or control device). Any universal physical 301 device must be infinite, it can only be so at one moment in time, and no reality can have more than one (the "monotheism theorem"). Since space and time do not appear in the definition, the device can even be the entire universe across all time. It can be viewed as a physical analog of incompleteness with two inference devices rather than one self-referential device. As he says, "either the Hamiltonian of our universe proscribes a certain type of computation, or prediction complexity is unique (unlike algorithmic information complexity) in that there is one and only one version of it that can be applicable throughout our universe." Another way to say this is that one cannot have two physical inference devices (computers) both capable of being asked arbitrary questions about the output of the other, or that the universe cannot contain a computer to which one can pose any arbitrary computational task, or that for any pair of physical inference engines, there are always binary valued questions about the state of the universe that cannot even be posed to at least one of them. One cannot build a computer that can predict an arbitrary future condition of a physical system before it occurs, even if the condition is from a restricted set of tasks that can be posed to it- that is, it cannot process information (though this is a vexed phrase, as many including John Searle and Rupert Read note) faster than the universe. The computer and the arbitrary physical system it is computing do not have to be physically coupled and it holds regardless of the laws of physics, chaos, quantum mechanics, causality or light cones and even for an infinite speed of light. The inference device does not have to be spatially localized but can be nonlocal dynamical processes occurring across the entire universe. He is well aware that this puts the speculations of Wolfram, Landauer, Fredkin, Lloyd etc., concerning the universe as computer or the limits of "information processing", in a new light (though the indices of their writings make no reference to him and another remarkable omission is that none of the above are mentioned by Yanofsky in his recent comprehensive book 'The Outer Limits of Reason' (see my review). Wolpert says he shows that 'the universe' cannot contain an inference device that can 'process information' as fast as it can, and since he shows you cannot have a perfect memory nor perfect control, its past, present or future state can never be perfectly or completely depicted, characterized, known or copied. He also proved that no combination of computers with error correcting codes can overcome these limitations. Wolpert also notes the critical importance of the observer ("the liar") and this connects us to the familiar conundrums of physics, math and language. As noted in my other articles I think that definitive comments on many relevant issues here (completeness, certainty, the nature of computation etc.) were made long ago by Ludwig Wittgenstein and here is 302 one relevant comment of Juliet Floyd on Wittgenstein: "He is articulating in other words a generalized form of diagonalization. The argument is thus generally applicable, not only to decimal expansions, but to any purported listing or rule-governed expression of them; it does not rely on any particular notational device or preferred spatial arrangements of signs. In that sense, Wittgenstein's argument appeals to no picture and it is not essentially diagrammatical or representational, though it may be diagrammed and insofaras it is a logical argument, its logic may be represented formally). Like Turing's arguments, it is free of a direct tie to any particular formalism. Unlike Turing's arguments, it explicitly invokes the notion of a language-game and applies to (and presupposes) an everyday conception of the notions of rules and of the humans who follow them. Every line in the diagonal presentation above is conceived as an instruction or command, analogous to an order given to a human being..." The parallels to Wolpert are obvious. However once again note that "infinite", "compute", "information" etc., only have meaning (i.e., are transitive (Wittgenstein) or have COS--Conditions of Satisfaction (Searle) in specific human contexts-that is, as Searle has emphasized, they are all observer relative or ascribed vs intrinsically intentional. The universe apart from our psychology is neither finite nor infinite and cannot compute nor process anything. Only in our language games do our laptop or the universe compute. However not everyone is oblivious to Wolpert. Well known econometricians Koppl and Rosser in their famous 2002 paper "All that I have to say has already crossed your mind" give three theorems on the limits to rationality, prediction and control in economics. The first uses Wolpert's theorem on the limits to computability to show some logical limits to forecasting the future. Wolpert notes that it can be viewed as the physical analog of Godel's incompleteness theorem and K and R say that their variant can be viewed as its social science analog, though Wolpert is well aware of the social implications. Since Godel's theorems are corollaries of Chaitin's theorem showing algorithmic randomness (incompleteness) throughout math (which is just another of our symbolic systems), it seems inescapable that thinking (behavior) is full of impossible, random or incomplete statements and situations. Since we can view each of these domains as symbolic systems evolved by chance to make our psychology work, perhaps it should be regarded as unsurprising that they are not "complete". For math, Chaitin says this 'randomness' (again a group of Language Games in Wittgenstein's terms) 303 shows there are limitless theorems that are true but unprovable-i.e., true for no reason. One should then be able to say that there are limitless statements that make perfect "grammatical" sense that do not describe actual situations attainable in that domain. I suggest these puzzles go away if one considers W's views. He wrote many notes on the issue of Godel's Theorems, and the whole of his work concerns the plasticity, "incompleteness" and extreme context sensitivity of language, math and logic, and the recent papers of Rodych, Floyd and Berto are the best introduction I know of to W's remarks on the foundations of mathematics and so to philosophy. K and R's second theorem shows possible nonconvergence for Bayesian (probabilistic) forecasting in infinitedimensional space. The third shows the impossibility of a computer perfectly forecasting an economy with agents knowing its forecasting program. The astute will notice that these theorems can be seen as versions of the liar paradox, and the fact that we are caught in impossibilities when we try to calculate a system that includes ourselves has been noted by Wolpert, Koppl, Rosser and others in these contexts and again we have circled back to the puzzles of physics when the observer is involved. K&R conclude "Thus, economic order is partly the product of something other than calculative rationality". Bounded rationality is now a major field in itself, the subject of thousands of papers and hundreds of books. And this seemingly abstruse work of Wolpert's may have implications for all rationality. Of course, one must keep in mind that (as Wittgenstein noted) math and logic are all syntax and no semantics and they have nothing to tell us until connected to our life by language (i.e., by psychology) and so it is easy to do this in ways that are useful (meaningful or having COS) or not (no clear COS). Finally, one might say that many of Wolpert's comments are restatements of the idea that no program (and thus no device) can generate a sequence (or device) with greater complexity than it possesses. There are obvious connections to the classic work of Chaitin, Solomonoff, Komolgarov and Wittgenstein and to the notion that no program (and thus no device) can generate a sequence (or device) with greater complexity than it possesses. One might say this body of work implies atheism since there cannot be any entity more complex than the physical universe and from the Wittgensteinian viewpoint, 'more complex' is meaningless (has no conditions of satisfaction, i.e., truth-maker or test). Even a 'God' (i.e., a 'device' with limitless time/space and energy) cannot determine whether a given 'number' is 'random' nor can find a certain way to show that a given 'formula', 'theorem' or 'sentence' or 304 'device' (all these being complex language games) is part of a particular 'system'. 305 Review of 'The Outer Limits of Reason' by Noson Yanofsky 403p (2013) Michael Starks ABSTRACT I give a detailed review of 'The Outer Limits of Reason' by Noson Yanofsky from a unified perspective of Wittgenstein and evolutionary psychology. I indicate that the difficulty with such issues as paradox in language and math, incompleteness, undecidability, computability, the brain and the universe as computers etc., all arise from the failure to look carefully at our use of language in the appropriate context and hence the failure to separate issues of scientific fact from issues of how language works. I discuss Wittgenstein's views on incompleteness, paraconsistency and undecidability and the work of Wolpert on the limits to computation. To sum it up: The Universe According to Brooklyn---Good Science, Not So Good Philosophy. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my art The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017'(2017). Alvy's Mom responding to his being depressed because the universe is expanding - "What has the universe got to do with it? You're here in Brooklyn! Brooklyn is not expanding!" This famous Woody Allen joke makes a profound point about the context sensitivity of language that applies throughout philosophy and science. It's funny because it is obvious that the meaning of "expanding" in the two cases is quite different. Brooklyn might expand if the population increases or the city annexes outlying land, but the universe is said to expand due to cosmic telescopes that show a red shift indicating that stars are receding from each other or to measurements of matter density etc. Different meanings (language games) (LG's) were famously characterized by the Austrian-English philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (W) as the central problem of philosophy and shown to be a universal default of our psychology. Though he did this beginning with the Blue and Brown Books (BBB) in the early 30's, left a 20,000 306 page nachlass, and is the most widely discussed philosopher of modern times, few understand him. To Yanofsky's (Y's) credit, he has given much attention to philosophy and even quotes W a few times but without any real grasp of the issues. It is the norm among scientists and philosophers to mix the scientific questions of fact with the philosophical questions of how language is being used and, as W noted, - 'Problem and answer pass one another by'. Yanofsky (a Brooklyn resident like many of his friends and teachers) has read widely and does a good job of surveying the bleeding edges of physics, mathematics and computer science in a clear and authoritative manner, but when we come to the limits of scientific explanation and it's not clear what to say, we turn to philosophy. Philosophy can be seen as the descriptive psychology of higher order thought or as the study of the contextual variations of language used to describe cognition or intentionality (my characterizations), or the study of the logical structure of rationality(LSR)(Searle). Regarding LSR, Berkeley philosopher John Searle (S) is one of the best since W and his work can be seen as an extension of W. I have reviewed many books by them and others and together these reviews constitute a skeletal outline of higher order thought or intentionality, and so of the foundations of science. Those interested in all my writings in their most recent versions may download from this site my e-book 'Language Games of Philosophy, Psychology, Science and Religion Articles and Reviews 2006-2016' by Michael Starks First Ed. 648p (2016). It is common for books to betray their limitations in their titles and that is the case here. "Reason" and "limits" are complexes of language games. So I should stop here and spend the whole review showing how Y's title reveals the deep misunderstanding of what the real issues are. I knew we were in for a rough time by p5 where we are told that our normal conceptions of time, space etc., are mistaken and this was known even to the Greeks. This brings to mind W: "People say again and again that philosophy doesn't really progress, that we are still occupied with the same philosophical problems as were the Greeks... at something which no explanation seems capable of clearing up...And what's more, this satisfies a longing for the transcendent, because in so far as people think they can see the 'limits of human understanding', they believe of course that they can see beyond these. CV 307 (1931)" and also "The limit of language is shown by its being impossible to describe a fact which corresponds to (is the translation of) a sentence without simply repeating the sentence..." So, I would say we just have to analyze the different types of language games. Looking deeper is essential but surrendering our prior use is incoherent. Think about what is implied by "The Outer Limits of Reason". "Outer", "Limits" and "Reason" all have common uses, but they are frequently used by Y in different ways, and they will seem "quite innocent", but this can only be discussed in some specific context. We are using the word "question" (or "assertion", "statement" etc.) with utterly different senses if we ask "Does 777 occur in the decimal expansion of Pi?" than if we ask "Does 777 occur in the first 1000 digits of the decimal expansion of Pi? (W)" In the latter case it's clear what counts as a true or false answer but in the former it has only the form of a question. On p10 we find a group of "statements" which have quite different meanings. The first three are definitions and one could understand them without knowing any facts about their use-e.g., X cannot be Y and not Y. Y recommends the documentary "Into the Infinite" but actually it cannot be viewed unless you are in the UK. I found it free on the net shortly after it came out and was greatly disappointed. Among other things it suggests Godel and Cantor went mad due to working on problems of infinity-for which there is not a shred of evidence- and it spends much time with Chaitin, who, though a superb mathematician, has only a hazy notion about the various philosophical issues discussed here. If you want a lovely whirlwind "deep science" documentary I suggest "Are We Real?" on Youtube, though it makes some of the same mistakes. W noted that when we reach the end of scientific commentary, the problem becomes a philosophical one-i.e., one of how language can be used intelligibly. Yanofsky, like virtually all scientists and most philosophers, does not get that there are two distinct kinds of "questions" or "assertions" (i.e., Language Games or LG's) here. There are those that are matters of fact about how the world is-that is, they are publicly observable propositional (True or False) states of affairs having clear meanings (Conditions of Satisfaction -COS) in Searle's terminology-i.e., scientific statements, and then there are those that are issues about how language can coherently be used to describe these states of affairs, and these can be answered by any sane, intelligent, literate person with little or no resort to the facts of science. Another poorly 308 understood but critical fact is that, although the thinking, representing, inferring, understanding, intuiting etc. (i.e., the dispositional psychology) of a true or false statement is a function of the higher order cognition of our slow, conscious System 2 (S2), the decision as to whether "particles" are entangled, the star shows a red shift, a theorem has been proven (i.e., the part that involves seeing that the symbols are used correctly in each line of the proof), is always made by the fast, automatic, unconscious System 1 (S1) via seeing, hearing, touching etc. in which there is no information processing, no representation (i.e., no COS) and no decisions in the sense in which these happen in S2 ( which receives its inputs from S1). This two systems approach is now the standard way to view reasoning or rationality and is a crucial heuristic in the description of behavior, of which science, math and philosophy are special cases. There is a huge and rapidly growing literature on reasoning that is indispensable to the study of behavior or science. A recent book that digs into the details of how we actually reason (i.e., use language to carry out actions-see W and S) is 'Human Reasoning and Cognitive Science' by Stenning and Van Lambalgen (2008), which, in spite of its limitations (e.g., limited understanding of W/S and the broad structure of intentional psychology), is (as of mid 2016) the best single source I know. Regarding "incompleteness" or "randomness" in math, Y's failure to mention the work of Gregory Chaitin is truly amazing, as he must know of his work, and Chaitin's proof of the algorithmic randomness of math (of whichGodel's results are a corollary) and the Omega number are some of the most famous mathematical results in the last 50 years. Likewise, one sees nothing about unconventional computing such as those with membranes, DNA etc., that have no logic gates and follow the biological patterns of "information processing". The best way to get free articles on the cutting edge is to visit ArXiv.org, viXra.org, academia.edu, citeseerx.ist.psu.edu, researchgate.net, or philpapers.org where there are tens of thousands of free preprints on every topic here (be warned this may use up all your spare time for the rest of your life!). Regarding Godel and "incompleteness", since our psychology as expressed in symbolic systems such as math and language is "random" or "incomplete" and full of tasks or situations ("problems") that have been proven impossible (i.e., they have no solution-see below) or whose nature is unclear, it seems unavoidable that everything derived from it-e.g. physics and math) will be "incomplete" also. Afaik the first of these in what is now called Social Choice Theory or Decision Theory (which are continuous with the study of logic and 309 reasoning and philosophy) was the famous theorem of Kenneth Arrow 63 years ago, and there have been many since. Y notes a recent impossibility or incompleteness proof in two-person game theory. In these cases, a proof shows that what looks like a simple choice stated in plain English has no solution. Although one cannot write a book about everything, I would have liked Y to at least mention such famous "paradoxes" as Sleeping Beauty (dissolved by Read), Newcomb's problem (dissolved by Wolpert) and Doomsday, where what seems to be a very simple problem either has no one clear answer, or it proves exceptionally hard to find one. A mountain of literature exists on Godel's two "incompleteness" theorems and Chaitin's more recent work, but I think that W's writings in the 30's and 40's are definitive. Although Shanker, Mancosu, Floyd, Marion, Rodych, Gefwert, Wright and others have done insightful work, it is only recently that W's uniquely penetrating analysis of the language games being played in mathematics have been clarified by Floyd (e.g., 'Wittgenstein's Diagonal Argument-a Variation on Cantor and Turing'), Berto (e.g., 'Godel's Paradox and Wittgenstein's Reasons , and 'Wittgenstein on Incompleteness makes Paraconsistent Sense' and the book 'There's Something about Godel ', and Rodych ( e.g., Wittgenstein and Godel: the Newly Published Remarks', 'Misunderstanding Gödel :New Arguments about Wittgenstein', 'New Remarks by Wittgenstein' and his article in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 'Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Mathematics' ). Berto is one of the best recent philosophers, and those with time might wish to consult his many other articles and books including the volume he co-edited on paraconsistency (2013). Rodych's work is indispensable, but only two of a dozen or so papers are free online with the usual search but of course it's all free online if one knows where to look. Berto notes that W also denied the coherence of metamathematics--i.e., the use by Godel of a metatheorem to prove his theorem, likely accounting for his "notorious" interpretation of Godel's theorem as a paradox, and if we accept his argument, I think we are forced to deny the intelligibility of metalanguages, metatheories and meta anything else. How can it be that such concepts (words) as metamathematics and incompleteness, accepted by millions (and even claimed by no less than Penrose, Hawking, Dyson et al to reveal fundamental truths about our mind or the universe) are just simple misunderstandings about how language works? Isn't the proof in this pudding that, like so many "revelatory" philosophical notions (e.g., mind and will as illusions –Dennett, Carruthers, the Churchlands etc.), they have no practical impact whatsoever? Berto sums it up nicely: "Within this 310 framework, it is not possible that the very same sentence...turns out to be expressible, but undecidable, in a formal system... and demonstrably true (under the aforementioned consistency hypothesis) in a different system (the meta-system). If, as Wittgenstein maintained, the proof establishes the very meaning of the proved sentence, then it is not possible for the same sentence (that is, for a sentence with the same meaning) to be undecidable in a formal system, but decided in a different system (the meta-system) ... Wittgenstein had to reject both the idea that a formal system can be syntactically incomplete, and the Platonic consequence that no formal system proving only arithmetical truths can prove all arithmetical truths. If proofs establish the meaning of arithmetical sentences, then there cannot be incomplete systems, just as there cannot be incomplete meanings." And further "Inconsistent arithmetics, i.e., nonclassical arithmetics based on a paraconsistent logic, are nowadays a reality. What is more important, the theoretical features of such theories match precisely with some of the aforementioned Wittgensteinian intuitions...Their inconsistency allows them also to escape from Godel's First Theorem, and from Church's undecidability result: there are, that is, demonstrably complete and decidable. They therefore fulfil precisely Wittgenstein's request, according to which there cannot be mathematical problems that can be meaningfully formulated within the system, but which the rules of the system cannot decide. Hence, the decidability of paraconsistent arithmatics harmonizes with an opinion Wittgenstein maintained thoughout his philosophical career." W also demonstrated the fatal error in regarding mathematics or language or our behavior in general as a unitary coherent logical 'system,' rather than as a motley of pieces assembled by the random processes of natural selection. "Godel shows us an unclarity in the concept of 'mathematics', which is indicated by the fact that mathematics is taken to be a system" and we can say (contra nearly everyone) that is all that Godel and Chaitin show. W commented many times that 'truth' in math means axioms or the theorems derived from axioms, and 'false' means that one made a mistake in using the definitions, and this is utterly different from empirical matters where one applies a test. W often noted that to be acceptable as mathematics in the usual sense, it must be useable in other proofs and it must have real world applications, but neither is the case with Godel's Incompleteness. Since it cannot be proved in a consistent system (here Peano Arithmetic but a much wider arena for Chaitin), it cannot be used in proofs and, unlike all the 'rest' of PA it cannot be used in the real world either. As Rodych notes "...Wittgenstein holds that a formal calculus is only a mathematical calculus (i.e., a mathematical language-game) if it has an extra-systemic application in 311 a system of contingent propositions (e.g., in ordinary counting and measuring or in physics) ..." Another way to say this is that one needs a warrant to apply our normal use of words like 'proof', 'proposition', 'true', 'incomplete', 'number', and 'mathematics' to a result in the tangle of games created with 'numbers' and 'plus' and 'minus' signs etc., and with 'Incompleteness' this warrant is lacking. Rodych sums it up admirably. "On Wittgenstein's account, there is no such thing as an incomplete mathematical calculus because 'in mathematics, everything is algorithm [and syntax] and nothing is meaning [semantics]..." W has much the same to say of Cantor's diagonalization and set theory. "Consideration of the diagonal procedure shews you that the concept of 'real number' has much less analogy with the concept 'cardinal number' than we, being misled by certain analogies, are inclined to believe" and many other comments (see Rodych and Floyd). As Rodych, Berto and Priest (another pioneer in paraconsistency) have noted, W was the first (by several decades) to insist on the unavoidability and utility of inconsistency (and debated this issue with Turing during his classes on the Foundations of Mathematics). We now see that the disparaging comments about W's remarks on math made by Godel, Kreisel, Dummett and many others were misconceived. As usual, it is a very bad idea to bet against W. Some may feel we have strayed off the path here-after all in "The Limits of Reason" we only want to understand science and math and why these paradoxes and inconsistencies arise and how to dispose of them. But I claim that is exactly what I have done by pointing to the work of W and his intellectual heirs. Our symbolic systems (language, math, logic, computation) have a clear use in the narrow confines of everyday life, of what we can loosely call the mesoscopic realm-the space and time of normal events we can observe unaided and with certainty (the innate axiomatic bedrock or background). But we leave coherence behind when we enter the realms of particle physics or the cosmos, relativity, math beyond simple addition and subtraction with whole numbers, and language used out of the immediate context of everyday events. The words or whole sentences may be the same, but the meaning is lost. It looks to me like the best way to understand philosophy is enter it via Berto, Rodych and Floyd's work on W, so as to understand the subtleties of language as it is used in math and thereafter "metaphysical" issues of all kinds may be dissolved. As Floyd notes "In a sense, Wittgenstein is literalizing Turing's model, bringing it back down to the everyday and drawing out the anthropomorphic command-aspect of Turing's metaphors." 312 W pointed out how in math, we are caught in more LG's (Language Games) where it is not clear what "true", "complete", "follows from", "provable", "number", "infinite", etc. mean (i.e., what are their COS or truthmakers in THIS context), and hence what significance to attach to 'incompleteness' and likewise for Chaitin's "algorithmic randomness". As W noted frequently, do the "inconsistencies" of math or the counterintuitive results of metaphysics cause any real problems in math, physics or life? The apparently more serious cases of contradictory statements –e.g., in set theory---have long been known but math goes on anyway. Likewise for the countless liar (self-referencing) paradoxes in language which Y discusses, but he does not really understand their basis, and fails to make clear that self-referencing is involved in the "incompleteness" and "inconsistency" (groups of complex LG's) of mathematics as well. Another interesting work is "Godel's Way" (2012) by Chaitin, Da Costa and Doria (see my review). In spite of its many failings-really a series of notes rather than a finished book-it is a unique source of the work of these three famous scholars who have been working at the bleeding edges of physics, math and philosophy for over half a century. Da Costa and Doria are cited by Wolpert (see below) since they wrote on universal computation and among his many accomplishments, Da Costa is a pioneer on paraconsistency. Chaitin also contributes to 'Causality, Meaningful Complexity and Embodied Cognition' (2010), replete with articles having the usual mixture of insight and incoherence and as usual, nobody is aware that W can be regarded as the originator of the position current as Embodied Cognition or Enactivism. Many will find the articles and especially the group discussion with Chaitin, Fredkin, Wolfram et al at the end of Zenil H. (ed.) 'Randomness through computation' (2011) a stimulating continuation of many of the topics here, but lacking awareness of the philosophical issues and so mixing science (fact finding) with philosophy (language games). It is a constant struggle to keep in mind that different contexts mean different LG's (meanings, COS) for "time", "space", "particle" "object", "inside", "outside", "next", "simultaneous", "occur", "happen", "event" ,"question", "answer" ,"infinite", "past", "future", "problem", "logic", "ontology", "epistemology", "solution", "paradox", "prove", "strange", "normal", "experiment", "complete", "uncountable", "decidable", "dimension", "complete", "formula", "process", "algorithm", "axiom", "mathematics", "physics", "cause", "place", "same","moving", "limit", "reason", "still", "real" "assumption", "belief", 'know", "event", "recursive", "meta-", "selfreferential" "continue", "particle", "wave",, "sentence" and 313 even (in some contexts) "and", "or", "also", "add" , "divide", "if...then", "follows" etc. To paraphrase W, most of what people (including many philosophers and most scientists) have to say when philosophizing is not philosophy but its raw material. Yanofsky joins Hume, Quine, Dummett, Kripke, Dennett, Churchland, Carruthers, Wheeler etc. in repeating the mistakes of the Greeks with elegant philosophical jargon mixed with science. As antidotes, I suggest some my reviews and some Rupert Read such as his books 'A Wittgensteinian Way with Paradoxes' and 'Wittgenstein Among the Sciences', or go to academia.edu and get his articles , especially 'Kripke's Conjuring Trick' and 'Against Time Slices' and then as much of S as feasible, but at least his most recent such as 'Philosophy in a New Century', 'Searle's Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy','Making the Social World' and 'Thinking About the Real World' (or my reviews if time is short) and his forthcoming volume on perception. There are also over 100 youtubes of Searle which confirm his reputation as the best standup philosopher since Wittgenstein. Y does not make clear the major overlap that now exists (and is expanding rapidly) between game theorists, physicists, economists, mathematicians, philosophers, decision theorists and others, all of whom have been publishing for decades closely related proofs of undecidability, impossibility, uncomputability, and incompleteness. One of the more 'bizarre' (i.e., not so if we clarify the language games) is the recent proof by Armando Assis that in the relative state formulation of quantum mechanics one can setup a zerosum game between the universe and an observer using the Nash Equilibrium, from which follow the Born rule and the collapse of the wave function. Godel was first to demonstrate an impossibility result and (until Wolpert) it is the most far reaching (or just trivial/incoherent) but there have been an avalanche of others. As noted, one of the earliest in decision theory was the famous General Impossibility Theorem (GIT) discovered by Kenneth Arrow in 1951 (for which he got the Nobel Prize in economics in 1972-and five of his students are now Nobel laureates so this is not fringe science). It states roughly that no reasonably consistent and fair voting system (i.e., no method of aggregating individuals' preferences into group preferences) can give sensible results. The group is either dominated by one person and so GIT is often called the "dictator theorem", or there are intransitive preferences. Arrow's original paper was titled "A Difficulty in the Concept of Social Welfare" and can be stated like this:" It is impossible to formulate a social preference ordering that satisfies all of the following conditions: Nondictatorship; Individual Sovereignty; Unanimity; Freedom From 314 Irrelevant Alternatives; Uniqueness of Group Rank." Those familiar with modern decision theory accept this and the many related constraining theorems as their starting points. Those who are not may find it (and all these theorems) incredible and in that case, they need to find a career path that has nothing to do with any of the above disciplines. See "The Arrow Impossibility Theorem"(2014) or "Decision Making and Imperfection"(2013) among legions of publications. Y mentions the famous impossibility result of Brandenburger and Keisler (2006) for two person games (but of course not limited to "games" and like all these impossibility results it applies broadly to decisions of any kind) which shows that any belief model of a certain kind leads to contradictions. One interpretation of the result is that if the decision analyst's tools (basically just logic) are available to the players in a game, then there are statements or beliefs that the players can write down or 'think about' but cannot actually hold. "Ann believes that Bob assumes that Ann believes that Bob's assumption is wrong" seems unexceptionable and 'recursion' (another LG) has been assumed in argumentation, linguistics, philosophy etc., for a century at least, but they showed that it is impossible for Ann and Bob to assume these beliefs. And there is a rapidly growing body of such impossibility results for 1 or multiplayer decision situations (e.g., it grades into Arrow, Wolpert, Koppel and Rosser etc). For a good technical paper from among the avalanche on the B&K paradox, get Abramsky and Zvesper's paper from arXiv which takes us back to the liar paradox and Cantor's infinity (as its title notes it is about "interactive forms of diagonalization and self-reference") and thus to Floyd, Rodych, Berto, W and Godel. Many of these papers quote Y's paper "A universal approach to self-referential paradoxes and fixed points. Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, 9(3):362–386, 2003. Abramsky (a polymath who is among other things a pioneer in quantum computing) is a friend of Y's and so Y contributes a paper to the recent Festschrift to him 'Computation, Logic, Games and Quantum Foundations' (2013). For maybe the best recent (2013) commentary on the BK and related paradoxes see the 165p powerpoint lecture free on the net by Wes Holliday and Eric Pacuit 'Ten Puzzles and Paradoxes about Knowledge and Belief'. For a good multi-author survey see 'Collective Decision Making (2010). One of the major omissions from all such books is the amazing work of polymath physicist and decision theorist David Wolpert, who proved some stunning impossibility or incompleteness theorems (1992 to 2008-see arxiv.org) on the limits to inference (computation) that are so general they are independent of the device doing the computation, and even independent of 315 the laws of physics, so they apply across computers, physics, and human behavior, which he summarized thusly: "One cannot build a physical computer that can be assured of correctly processing information faster than the universe does. The results also mean that there cannot exist an infallible, general-purpose observation apparatus, and that there cannot be an infallible, general-purpose control apparatus. These results do not rely on systems that are infinite, and/or non-classical, and/or obey chaotic dynamics. They also hold even if one uses an infinitely fast, infinitely dense computer, with computational powers greater than that of a Turing Machine." He also published what seems to be the first serious work on team or collective intelligence (COIN) which he says puts this subject on a sound scientific footing. Although he has published various versions of these over two decades in some of the most prestigious peer reviewed physics journals (e.g., Physica D 237: 257-81(2008)) as well as in NASA journals and has gotten news items in major science journals, few seem to have noticed and I have looked in dozens of recent books on physics, math, decision theory and computation without finding a reference. It is most unfortunate that Yanofsky and others have no awareness of Wolpert, since his work is the ultimate extension of computing, thinking, inference, incompleteness, and undecidability, which he achieves (like many proofs in Turing machine theory) by extending the liar paradox and Cantors diagonalization to include all possible universes and all beings or mechanisms and thus may be seen as the last word not only on computation, but on cosmology or even deities. He achieves this extreme generality by partitioning the inferring universe using worldlines (i.e., in terms of what it does and not how it does it) so that his mathematical proofs are independent of any particular physical laws or computational structures in establishing the physical limits of inference for past, present and future and all possible calculation, observation and control. He notes that even in a classical universe Laplace was wrong about being able to perfectly predict the future (or even perfectly depict the past or present) and that his impossibility results can be viewed as a "non-quantum mechanical uncertainty principle" (i.e., there cannot be an infallible observation or control device). Any universal physical device must be infinite, it can only be so at one moment in time, and no reality can have more than one (the "monotheism theorem"). Since space and time do not appear in the definition, the device can even be the entire universe across all time. It can be viewed as a physical analog of incompleteness with two inference devices rather than one self-referential 316 device. As he says, "either the Hamiltonian of our universe proscribes a certain type of computation, or prediction complexity is unique (unlike algorithmic information complexity) in that there is one and only one version of it that can be applicable throughout our universe." Another way to say this is that one cannot have two physical inference devices (computers) both capable of being asked arbitrary questions about the output of the other, or that the universe cannot contain a computer to which one can pose any arbitrary computational task, or that for any pair of physical inference engines, there are always binary valued questions about the state of the universe that cannot even be posed to at least one of them. One cannot build a computer that can predict an arbitrary future condition of a physical system before it occurs, even if the condition is from a restricted set of tasks that can be posed to it- that is, it cannot process information (though this is a vexed phrase as S and Read and others note) faster than the universe. The computer and the arbitrary physical system it is computing do not have to be physically coupled and it holds regardless of the laws of physics, chaos, quantum mechanics, causality or light cones and even for an infinite speed of light. The inference device does not have to be spatially localized but can be nonlocal dynamical processes occurring across the entire universe. He is well aware that this puts the speculations of Wolfram, Landauer, Fredkin, Lloyd etc., concerning the universe as computer or the limits of "information processing", in a new light (though the indices of their writings make no reference to him and another remarkable omission is that none of the above are mentioned by Yanofsky either). Wolpert says it shows that the universe cannot contain an inference device that can process information as fast as it can, and since he shows you cannot have a perfect memory nor perfect control, its past, present or future state can never be perfectly or completely depicted, characterized, known or copied. He also proved that no combination of computers with error correcting codes can overcome these limitations. Wolpert also notes the critical importance of the observer ("the liar") and this connects us to the familiar conundrums of physics, math and language that concern Y. Again cf. Floyd on W: "He is articulating in other words a generalized form of diagonalization. The argument is thus generally applicable, not only to decimal expansions, but to any purported listing or rule-governed expression of them; it does not rely on any particular notational device or preferred spatial arrangements of signs. In that sense, Wittgenstein's argument appeals to no picture and it is not essentially diagrammatical or representational, though it may be diagrammed and insofar as it is a logical argument, its logic may be represented formally). Like Turing's arguments, it is free of a direct tie to any 317 particular formalism. [The parallels to Wolpert are obvious.] Unlike Turing's arguments, it explicitly invokes the notion of a language-game and applies to (and presupposes) an everyday conception of the notions of rules and of the humans who follow them. Every line in the diagonal presentation above is conceived as an instruction or command, analogous to an order given to a human being..." W's prescient grasp of these issues including his embrace of strict finitism and paraconsistency is finally spreading through math, logic and computer science (though rarely with any acknowledgement). Bremer has recently suggested the necessity of a Paraconsistent Lowenheim-Skolem Theorem. "Any mathematical theory presented in first order logic has a finite paraconsistent model." Berto continues: "Of course strict finitism and the insistence on the decidability of any meaningful mathematical question go hand in hand. As Rodych has remarked, the intermediate Wittgenstein's view is dominated by his 'finitism and his view [...] of mathematical meaningfulness as algorithmic decidability' according to which '[only] finite logical sums and products (containing only decidable arithmetic predicates) are meaningful because they are algorithmically decidable.'" In modern terms this means they have public conditions of satisfaction-i.e., can be stated as a proposition that is true or false. And this brings us to W's view that ultimately everything in math and logic rests on our innate (though of course extensible) ability to recognize a valid proof. Berto again: "Wittgenstein believed that the naïve (i.e., the working mathematicians) notion of proof had to be decidable, for lack of decidability meant to him simply lack of mathematical meaning: Wittgenstein believed that everything had to be decidable in mathematics...Of course one can speak against the decidability of the naïve notion of truth on the basis of Godel's results themselves. But one may argue that, in the context, this would beg the question against paraconsistentists-and against Wittgenstein too. Both Wittgenstein and the paraconsistentists on one side, and the followers of the standard view on the other, agree on the following thesis: the decidability of the notion of proof and its inconsistency are incompatible. But to infer from this that the naïve notion of proof is not decidable invokes the indispensability of consistency, which is exactly what Wittgenstein and the paraconsistent argument call into question...for as Victor Rodych has forcefully argued, the consistency of the relevant system is precisely what is called into question by Wittgenstein's reasoning." And so: "Therefore the Inconsistent arithmetic avoids Godel's First Incompleteness Theorem. It also avoids the Second Theorem in the sense that its non-triviality can be established within the theory: and Tarski's Theorem too-including its own predicate is not a problem for an 318 inconsistent theory "[As Priest noted over 20 years ago]. Prof. Rodych thinks my comments reasonably represent his views, but notes that the issues are quite complex and there are many differences between he, Berto and Floyd. And again, 'decidability' comes down to the ability to recognize a valid proof, which rests on our innate axiomatic psychology, which math and logic have in common with language. And this is not just a remote historical issue but is totally current. I have read much of Chaitin and never seen a hint that he has considered these matters. The work of Douglas Hofstadter also comes to mind. His Godel, Escher, Bach won a Pulitzer prize and a National Book Award for Science, sold millions of copies and continues to get good reviews (e.g. almost 400 mostly 5 star reviews on Amazon to date) but he has no clue about the real issues and repeats the classical philosophical mistakes on nearly every page. His subsequent philosophical writings have not improved (he has chosen Dennett as his muse), but, as these views are vacuous and unconnected to real life, he continues to do excellent science. However once again note that "infinite", "compute", "information" etc., only have meaning in specific human contexts-that is, as Searle has emphasized, they are all observer relative or ascribed vs intrinsically intentional. The universe apart from our psychology is neither finite nor infinite and cannot compute nor process anything. Only in our language games do our laptop or the universe compute. However not everyone is oblivious to Wolpert. Well known econometricians Koppl and Rosser in their famous 2002 paper "All that I have to say has already crossed your mind" give three theorems on the limits to rationality, prediction and control in economics. The first uses Wolpert's theorem on the limits to computability to show some logical limits to forecasting the future. Wolpert notes that it can be viewed as the physical analog of Godel's incompleteness theorem and K and R say that their variant can be viewed as its social science analog, though Wolpert is well aware of the social implications. Since Godel's are corollaries of Chaitin's theorem showing algorithmic randomness (incompleteness) throughout math (which is just another of our symbolic systems), it seems inescapable that thinking (behavior) is full of impossible, random or incomplete statements and situations. Since we can view each of these domains as symbolic systems evolved by chance to make our psychology work, perhaps it should be regarded as unsurprising that they are not "complete". For math, Chaitin says this 'randomness' (again a group of LG's) shows there are limitless theorems that are true but unprovable-i.e., true for no reason. One should then be able 319 to say that there are limitless statements that make perfect "grammatical" sense that do not describe actual situations attainable in that domain. I suggest these puzzles go away if one considers W's views. He wrote many notes on the issue of Godel's Theorems, and the whole of his work concerns the plasticity, "incompleteness" and extreme context sensitivity of language, math and logic, and the recent papers of Rodych, Floyd and Berto are the best introduction I know of to W's remarks on the foundations of mathematics and so to philosophy. K and R's second theorem shows possible nonconvergence for Bayesian (probabilistic) forecasting in infinitedimensional space. The third shows the impossibility of a computer perfectly forecasting an economy with agents knowing its forecasting program. The astute will notice that these theorems can be seen as versions of the liar paradox and the fact that we are caught in impossibilities when we try to calculate a system that includes ourselves has been noted by Wolpert, Koppl, Rosser and others in these contexts and again we have circled back to the puzzles of physics when the observer is involved. K&R conclude "Thus, economic order is partly the product of something other than calculative rationality". Bounded rationality is now a major field in itself, the subject of thousands of papers and hundreds of books. On p19 Yanofsky says math is free of contradictions, yet as noted, it has been well known for over half a century that logic and math are full of them-just google inconsistency in math or search it on Amazon or see the works of Priest, Berto or the article by Weber in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. W was the first to predict inconsistency or paraconsistency, and if we follow Berto we can interpret this as W's suggestion to avoid incompleteness. In any event, paraconsistency is now a common feature and a major research program in geometry, set theory, arithmetic, analysis, logic and computer science. Y returns to this issue other places such as on p346 where he says reason must be free of contradictions, but it is clear that "free of" has different uses and they arise frequently in everyday life but we have innate mechanisms to contain them. This is true because it was the case in our everyday life long before math and science Regarding time travel (p49), I suggest Rupert Read's "Against Time Slices" in his free online papers or "Time Travel-the very idea" in his book "A Wittgensteinian Way with Paradoxes." Regarding the discussion of famous philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn on p248, those interested can see the work of Rupert Read and his colleagues, 320 most recently in his book "Wittgenstein Among the Sciences" and while there, you may make a start at eliminating the hard problem of consciousness by reading "Dissolving the hard problem of consciousness back into ordinary life" (or his earlier essay on this which is free on the net). It is in the last chapter "Beyond Reason" that philosophical failings are most acute as we return to the mistakes suggested by my comments on the title. Reasoning is another word for thinking, which is a disposition like knowing, understanding, judging etc. As Wittgenstein was the first to explain, these dispositional verbs describe propositions (sentences which can be true or false) and thus have what Searle calls Conditions of Satisfaction (COS). That is, there are public states of affairs that we recognize as showing their truth or falsity. "Beyond reason" would mean a sentence whose truth conditions are not clear and the reason would be that it does not have a clear context. It is a matter of fact if we have clear COS (i.e., meaning) but we just cannot make the observation--this is not beyond reason but beyond our ability to achieve, but it's a philosophical (linguistic) matter if we don't know the COS. "Are the mind and the universe computers?" sounds like it needs scientific or mathematical investigation, but it is only necessary to clarify the context in which this language will be used since these are ordinary and unproblematic terms and it is only their context which is puzzling. E.G, the "self-referential" paradoxes on p344 arise because the context and so the COS are unclear. On p140 we might note that 1936 was not actually "long" before computers since Zeus in Germany and Berry and Atanasoff in Iowa both made primitive machines in the 30's, though these pioneers are quite unknown to many in the field. Some of Zeus's are in the Deutsches Museum in Munich while the B & A machine was reconstructed from his design recently at Iowa State University where they worked. Wittgenstein discussed the philosophical aspects of computers some years before they existed. On p347, what we discovered about irrational numbers that gave them a meaning is that they can be given a use or clear COS in certain contexts and at the bottom of the page our "intuitions" about objects, places, times, length are not mistakenrather we began using these words in new contexts where the COS of sentences in which they are used were utterly different. This may seem a small point to some but I suggest it is the whole point. Some "particle" which can "be in two places" at once is just not an object and/or is not "being in places" in the same sense as a soccer ball. 321 Regarding his reference on p366 to the famous experiments of Libet, which have been taken to show that acts occur before our awareness of them and hence negate will, this has been carefully debunked by many including Searle and Kihlstrom. It is noteworthy that on the last page of the book he comments on the fact that many of the basic words he uses do not have clear definitions but does not say that this is because it requires much of our innate psychology to provide meaning, and here again is the fundamental mistake of philosophy. "Limit" or "exist" has many uses but the important point is-what is its use in this context. "Limit of reason" or "the world exists" do not (without further context) have a clear meaning (COS) but "speed limit on US 15" and "a life insurance policy exists for him" are perfectly clear. Regarding solipsism on p369, this and other classical philosophical 'positions' were shown by W to be incoherent. And finally, why exactly is it that quantum entanglement is more paradoxical than making a brain out of proteins and other goop and having it feel and see and remember and predict the future? Is it not just that the former is new and not directly present to our senses (i.e., we need subtle instruments to detect it) while animal nervous systems have been evolved to do the latter hundreds of millions of years ago and we find it natural since birth? I don't see the hard problem of consciousness to be a problem at all, or if one insists then ok but it's on all fours with endless others –why there is (or what exactly is) space, time, red, apples, pain, the universe, causes, effects, or anything at all. Overall an excellent book provided it is read with this review in mind. THE RELIGIOUS DELUSION – A BENEVOLENT UNIVERSE WILL SAVE US 323 Review of Religion Explained-The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought by Pascal Boyer (2002) Michael Starks ABSTRACT You can get a quick summary of this book on p 135 or 326. If you are not up to speed on evolutionary psychology you should first read one of the numerous recent texts with this term in the title. One of the best is "The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology" by Buss, but it is big and expensive. Until about 15 years ago, explanations of behavior have not really been explanations of mental processes at all, but rather vague and largely useless descriptions of what people did and what they said, with no insight into why. We might say that people gather to commemorate an event, praise god, receive his (or her or their) blessings, etc, but none of this describes the relevant mental processes so we might say they are explanations in much the same way that it explains why an apple drops to the ground if we say its because we released it and it's heavy-there is no mechanism and no explanatory or predictive power. This book continues the elucidation of the genetic basis of human behavior which has been almost universally ignored and denied by academia, religion, politics and the public (see Pinker s excellent book ``The Blank Slatè`). His statement (p3) that it is meaningless to ask if religion is genetic is mistaken as the percentage of variation due to genes and environment can be studied, just as they are for all other behaviors (see e.g., Pinker). The title should be "Preliminary Attempts to Explain Some Aspects of Primitive Religion" since he does not treat higher consciousness at all (e.g., satori, enlightenment etc.) which are by far the most interesting phenomena and the only part of religion of personal interest to intelligent, educated people in the 21st century. Reading this entire book, you would never guess such things exist. Likewise, for the immense field of drugs and religion. It lacks a framework for rationality and does not mention the dual systems of thought view which is now so productive. For these I suggest my own recent papers. Nevertheless, the book has much of interest and in spite of being dated is still worth reading. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my art The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle (2017). Those interested in more of my writings 324 may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017'(2017). "God is dead and man is free" Nietzsche "This very body the Buddha, this very earth the lotus paradise" Osho I can well imagine a religion in which there are no doctrines, so that nothing is spoken. Clearly, then, the essence of religion can have nothing to do with what is sayable Wittgenstein When this book appeared, it was a pioneering effort, but now there are endless discussions of this topic and so I will give a sufficiently detailed and accurate summary that only specialists will need to read it. You can get a quick summary of this book on p 135 or 326. If you are not up to speed on evolutionary psychology you should first read one of the numerous recent texts with this term in the title. The best are "The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology" 2nd ed (2015) and The 5th ed. of Evolutionary Psychology by Buss, but they are big and expensive. Until about 15 years ago, explanations of behavior have not really been explanations of mental processes at all, but rather vague and largely useless descriptions of what people did and what they said, with no insight into why. We might say that people gather to commemorate an event, praise god, receive their blessings, etc., but none of this describes the relevant mental processes so we might say they are explanations in much the same way that it explains why an apple drops to the ground if we say it's because we released it and it's heavy--there is no mechanism and no explanatory or predictive power. This book continues the elucidation of the genetic basis of human behavior which has been almost univerally ignored and denied by academia, religion, politics and the public (see Pinker s excellent book ``The Blank Slatè`). His statement (p3) that it is meaningless to ask if religion is genetic is mistaken as the percentage of variation due to genes and environment can be studied, just as they are for all other behaviors (see e.g., Pinker). The title should be Preliminary Attempts to Explain Some Aspects of Primitive Religion since he does not treat higher consciousness at all (e.g., satori, enlightenment etc.) which are by far the most interesting phenomena and the only part of religion of personal interest to intelligent, educated 325 people in the 21st century. Reading this entire book, you would never guess such things exist. Likewise, for the immense field of drugs and religion. How and why do entheogens trigger the inference engines and what role have they played in religion and life for the last million years? There is a huge mine of info on drugs and behavioral templates, but you won t find even a clue here. You can start with the recent books Entheogens and the Future of Religion" and Buddhism and Psychedelics or you can read my friend Alexander Shulgin's amazing probing of the cognitive templates in PHIKAL and TIKAL, available, as almost everything now, free on the net. One of the most unusual of the drug probes is ketamine, described by many, most notably in "Journeys into the Bright World" by Altounian and Moore, Jansen in "Ketamine" and in probably the most detailed account of a single entheogenic drug by a single user in the last two chapters of John Lilly s The Scientist``. Lilly, almost single handedly the founder of dolphin research, was a generation or more ahead of nearly everyone on many topics and he also probed his own mind with LSD and isolation tanks. See his `Simulations of God`(1975)(and my review of it) for his speculations on Mind, God and Brain and more aspects of the spiritual and mental not touched upon by Boyer. Also for recent heroic self therapy with entheogens see 'Xenolinguistics' by Slattery and 'DMT & My Occult Mind' by Khan. There is also virtually nothing here about the relation between physical and mental states. The practice of the many forms of yoga was highly advanced thousands of years ago. Its primary aim was to trigger spiritual states with body energy and the reverse. There is an immense literature and hundreds of millions have practiced it. The best personal account I know of by a mystic detailing the interaction of the mental and physical via yoga is found in `The Knee of Listening` by Adi Da (see my review here). Interwoven with the spellbinding account of his spiritual progress are the details of his work with the shakti energy of yoga (e.g., p95-9, 214-21, 249,281-3, 439-40 of the 1995 edition--preferable to the later ones). These few pages are worth more than a whole shelf of yoga books if you want to get to the heart of the mind/body relation in spirituality. Zen and other practices probe the brain s templates with meditation and tricks. Boyer does not understand that the major religions (and countless minor ones) were started by persons who broke the mold-i.e., somehow blocked or evaded some templates to destroy much of the ego and to discover aspects of their mind normally hidden. It is not hard to see why full blown enlightenment is rare, as those who have it stop behaving like monkeys (i.e., fighting, deceiving, reproducing) and this would be heavily selected against. 326 One might say those who achieved it are the only ones who became fully human (i.e., Jesus, Adi Da, Mohammed, Buddha, Mahavira, Rumi, Osho and 1000 or so others we know of). It seems Boyer has no personal experience with meditation, entheogens and higher consciousness (e.g., see pages 317, 320324) so he clearly does not treat all of religion. This is again evident (p32) when he says religion has no origin or clear explanation. Of course, this is true of the primitive religions he discusses, but Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, etc., have very clear origins and explanations in the enlightenment of Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed etc. He is mistaken (p308) in his belief that Eastern religion is mostly about ritual, rather than personal experience and inner states and that it got such ideas from Western philosophy (3000 years ago!). Amazingly, he rejects William James s notion that religion is a result of the experiences of exceptional individuals that are subsequently degraded by the masses (p310). James is clearly right and Boyer is again, only thinking of primitive religion. Perhaps the best personal account of the various states of samadhi, enlightenment, etc. is Adi Da s book--`The Knee of Listening` but by far the best source for personal accounts by an enlightened master are the numerous books, audios and videos by Osho, all free on the net. Witnessing one s thoughts is one of the commonest techniques of beginning meditators in many different traditions. Further progress fuses the perceiver and perceived (all is one). One wonders how this relates to the templates- do they enter consciousness, does spiritual change open new neural connections or close some? Cognitive psychology has barely started on this but is would be interesting to see PET or fMRI on an enlightened person or one in a samadhi state with good controls. Though he is right that many experiences are of some agent, advanced states have been described in a vast literature which shows they typically have no thoughts, no mind, no person, no god. This would seem to be the ultimate in decoupling templates in a functional person. For supernatural types of religious concepts to evolve and survive, they should belong to one of the basic ontological categories or templates (plant, tool, natural object, animal, person etc.) which the brain uses to organize perception and thought. These are commonly given counterintuitive properties such as prescience, telepathy, immortality, abilility to hear one's words or read one's thoughts, ability to heal or confer great power etc. Good supernatural concepts usually allow all inferences not specifically barred by the violation of intuition-i.e., a god will have all human properties but does not age or die. The huge number of religious concepts is contained in this short list of templates. It is the counterintuitive nature of the concepts that 327 makes them easy to remember and to transmit to others and this seems to by one reason why supernatural concepts are a central part of nearly all religions. Supernatural concepts interact with other types of templates such as intuitive psychology, intuitive physics, structure function and goal detection. If it activates physics, goal detection, intuitive psychology and intentional use then it will be a human-like being with superhuman properties. This is standard cognitive psychology and counterintuitive parts are added on for religious use. There is abundant evidence that brain areas that are activated when we do something are also activated when we see someone else doing a similar thing (mirror neurons). It is feasible that this is correlated with the need to join in and the satisfaction from participating in the rituals integral to society (sports, politics, music etc.) and religion. There is also evidence that seeing other people's emotions activates the same areas as our own. Our theory of mind (i.e., of other people's mental life-intuitive psychology) seems not to be one inference engine, but the sum of many and, as more research is done, more modules will be discovered. Another critical feature of inference engines is that they often run in decoupled or imaginary mode while we consider the past or the future. This starts quite early as shown by the common presence of imaginary playmates in children, their ability to grasp stories and TV, and he notes that research seems to show that children who create playmates seem to be better at grasping other people's mental states and emotions. The point in this context is that it seems quite natural to ascribe humanlike characteristics to spirits, ghosts, gods, etc. when there is no evidence at all for their actual presence. The innate inference engines are automatic as they have to be fast and not distract us. The mind was not evolved as an explanation machine and before the recent rise of science, nobody ever tried to explain why our foot moves when we walk, an apple falls to the ground, we get hungry or angry or why we experience or do anything. Only bizarre or cosmic occurrences like lightning or sunrise needed a cause. Our intuitive psychology and agency templates also prompted us to ascribe good and bad luck to some agent. Much of this may sound speculative but now that EP (evolutionary psychology) is a major paradigm, the evidence of such innate functions in early childhood and infancy is mounting rapidly. Supernatural agents (including deceased ancestors) are treated by intuitive psychology as intentional agents, by the social exchange system (a part of or variant on the cost/benefit systems) by the moral system as witnesses to moral actions, and by the person-file system as individuals. Since all these systems 328 can operate in decoupled mode, there is no need to consider whether these agents really exist. They are driven by relevance, by the richness of inferences that result and by the ease with which they can be remembered and communicated. The templates are highly tuned to gather info, get cooperation and calculate benefits in a very rapid, subconscious and normally error-free way, while conscious reason is slow and fallible. In modern times, the ego has time to waste on debate, explanation, and interpretation in endless attempts to deceive and manipulate others for personal gain. With large, mobile populations and fast communication the results of our social exchange, evaluation of trust, cheater detection and other templates are often useless and self-destructive. Strategic info (that which passes the relevance filters) activates the engines related to social interaction and our knowledge of what info others have is a critical part of the social mind. The supernatural agents typically have perfect knowledge. Though he does not seem to mention it, powerful people often come to have some of the characteristics of supernatural agents and so people will start to respond to them as to gods. Aliens, UFO s, new age mysticism, astrology, fantasy and sci-fi draw great attention due to activation, and often possess agents with strategic info. However, hundreds of millions have followed charismatic leaders with false strategic info (i.e., quasi-supernatural agents) to their deaths (The Branch Davidians of Waco, Communism, Nazism, Vietnam, Jonestown, George Bush, Comet Kahoutek etc.). Social interactions require a social mind-i.e., mental systems that organize them. Like most behavior, it is only recently that it was generally realized that we needed built-in mechanisms to do this. Strategic information is whatever activates the social mind. Our theory of mind tells us to what agents this info is also available. It is common to attribute to supernatural agents the ability to fully access info that would normally be partly or totally unavailable to others. All the engines must have some kind of relevance filter so that they are not constantly activated by trivia. We have taxonomies that tell us how to group things in ways relevant to their behavior or properties in the world. We expect large catlike things with big teeth and claws to be predators and not herbivores. Spirits fit human taxonomy and automatically have needs and desires, likes and dislikes and will thus give rewards and punishments and all any culture has to do is specify what these are. Those concepts giving the richest inferences with the least effort will survive. 329 A common viewpoint is given by relevance theory, which tries to determine how and why some concepts are more easily transmitted. Presumably, concepts which trigger engines more intensely or frequently, or more different engines, will be superior. So, we may have many concepts that are easier to remember and apply, rather than because they make sense or are useful in some way. This may help to explain the existence of many concepts or practices that seem arbitrary or stupid or which make life more difficult and applies to all of culture, not just to religion. Nearly all religions have full access agents-i.e., they know all or nearly all about us and Boyer distinguishes 3 classes--divine brutes with little or no access but which nevertheless have power, Aquinas agents which know everything and full strategic agents which have access to all the strategic or important info. He says that this may account for our interest in knowing other person's religious ideas or in converting them to ours. Only in this way can we understand how they may behave and interact. Agents that are aware of and able to affect our social interaction are richer in inferences, and so are easier to mentally represent and remember and thus enjoy a great advantage in cultural transmission. Thus, we can now say that religion does not create or even support morality, but that our built in moral intuitions make religion plausible and useful. Likewise, our mechanisms to explain good and bad luck makes their connection with supernatural agents simple. And since we share our moral system and our information with them, it is natural to expect they will enforce our attitudes. Altruism and cheating are central parts of human behavior. To show passionate feelings and honesty that are genuine (difficult to fake) is of great social (and genetic) value. This can be reinforced by religion as one would choose to cooperate with such persons rather than with rational calculators who may change their mind or cheat anytime their inference engines calculate that it is in their best interests. This system also requires that cheaters be punished, even when the cheating has minimal social cost. One common group of religious concepts are those that make cheating immoral. The mechanism is feelings (e.g., anger, jealousy, resentment, confusion) rather thanrational cogitation. We feel that it is wrong for someone to steal another's money rather than needing to sit down and think--well if he takes that money, then maybe he will take mine or he will have some future advantage over me etc. Perhaps here is one place that guilt enters in order to make the socially (genetically) destructive practice of cheating less appealing. This takes us into the huge literature on cheaters and cooperators, hawks and doves and 330 pretenders and into reciprocal altruism and game theory. Many types of commitment gadgets have evolved which tend to ensure cooperation--keeping track of reputation, legal or quasi-legal binds (contracts), strong passions, compulsive honesty, resentment and need to punish cheaters. Cooperation gadgets are built in also--moral intuitions, guilt, pride, gratefulness, hostility. In contrast to the nearly universal idea that moral realism (that behavior itself has a specific moral value that does not depend on one's viewpoint) is only developed by adults or is given by religion, it is now clear that this appears in 3 and 4 year olds and changes little with age. Methods have now been developed to study infants and in late 2007 a study appeared in Nature which showed that they can distinguish helper from nonhelper objects. But intuitive morality will often give the wrong results for adults in the modern world. Most of the basics of what has formerly been regarded as culture, is now known or suspected to be inherited. Pinker lists hundreds of different aspects of human societies that are universal and thus good candidates. One can compile a very long list of religious concepts that we don t need to be taught- --spirits understand human thoughts, emotions and intentions and differentiate between wishes or images and reality etc. It seems that the only feature of humans that is always projected onto gods, spirits, ghosts, etc, is a mind much like our own. Intuitive psychology applies to intentional agents in general (i.e., persons, animals and anything that appears to move in pursuit of its own goals). Intuitive physics is probably also composed of many subsegments and must be connected with the intentionality module –e.g., when a lion is chasing an antelope, we know that if it changes course, the lion will probably do so. One would expect that detecting such agents was a very ancient evolutionary priority and even 500 million years ago a trilobite that lacked such genes would soon be lunch. When the genes are mapped we can expect to find similar ones in fruitflies, just as we have for other genes such as the ones controlling body segmentation and immunity. Like our other concepts, religious ones are often vague and their use idiosyncratic due to the fact that they result from the unconscious functioning of inference engines. We cannot say precisely even what simple words mean, but we know how to use them. Just as Chomsky discovered depth grammar, one might say that Wittgenstein discovered depth semantics. 331 Wittgenstein was the first (and still one of the few) who understood that what philosophy (and all attempts to understand behavior) was struggling with was these built-in functions that are inaccessible to conscious thought. Though I have never seen it stated, it seems reasonable to regard him as a pioneer in cognitive and evolutionary psychology. Boyer takes a new view of death also. Corpses have properties that make supernatural concepts relevant apart from our need for comfort and this part of religion may be less about death than about dead bodies. They produce a dissociation between the animacy, intuitive psychology and person file systems. We see such dissociation in autism and odd neurological states such as Capgras syndrome. He sees this as another way that culture makes use of salient gadgets (events, objects etc.) which are highly relevant and grab the attention of the inference engines. And since this book appeared, evidence continues to accumulate that genes create culture to a much greater extent than most people (including scholars) ever imagined. Nobody ever thinks to inquire as to the motives if a rock that falls and hits us, but we always do if it comes from the hand of a person. Even a very young child knows this, due to its intuitive psychology, agency, animism and other engines. These engines must, in their orginal forms, be hundreds of millions of years old. A carboniferous dragonfly differentiated between animate and inanimate objects and calculated the trajectory of its prey. Religion originally worked in an atmosphere of perpetual fear. Inference engines evolved to find mates and food and shelter and avoid death, hence the approach to the gods as a powerless supplicant and the use of appeasement rituals and offerings (as we would to a person). Our danger avoidance is highly imperfect in the modern world due to guns, drugs and fast transport (cars, skis). Everywhere in the world you can see people walking in the streets just a step away from speeding vehicles, even though at least a million a year are run down. He says (p40) that memes (Dawkins famous cultural analog of the gene) are not a very good concept for cultural transmission since ideas are changed by each person, while genes remain the same. However, what about media-i.e., film, TV, print, email? They replicate more precisely than genes. These are now the prime means for transmitting and checking the validity of memes, not just what someone says. In any case, genes are not perfect either. Just as 332 there is a phenotype corresponding to the geneotype, there is a phene corresponding to the meme. Why do we invoke supernatural agents for good and bad luck? They activate our social exchange systems and since we regard them as having strategic info they can control what happens. It occurs to me that perhaps there is such great opposition to genetic explanations for behavior because people feel anyone who accepts this will automatically reject the social exchange and other templates and will always cheat. Or perhaps they fear the intuitive psychology will no longer work. Social rituals are examples of what psychologists have termed precautionary rules and these commonly include concerns about pollution, purification rituals (activation of the contagion system), contact avoidance, special types of touching, special attention to boundaries and thresholds, rule violations, use of certain numbers of bright colors, symmetrical arrays and precise patterns, special sounds or music, special dance and other movements, etc. All these trigger certain groups of templates, create satisfying feelings and are commonly coupled to religious concepts, and to politics, sports, hunting and agriculture, marriage, child rearing, music, art, folklore, literature etc. The agency detecting systems (e.g., predator and prey detection) are biased for over-detection-i.e., they do not need to see a lion or a person to be activated, but only a footprint or a sound of the right kind. Based on very little info, these systems then produce feelings and expectations about the agents' nature and intentions. In the case of supernatural agencies our intuitive psychology templates are also activated and generally produce a person-like entity plus the counterintuitive features, but their precise characteristics are generally left vague. The attaching of a counterintuitive tag (e.g., rising from the dead) to an agent (e.g., Jesus) or other ontological category makes it easy to remember and a good candidate for religion. All these modules are inherited but of course a baby does not have them fully developed and only with time and a `normal` environment will they emerge. I read this shortly before reading Ken Wilber s Sex, Ecology and Spirituality and could see on nearly every page how outdated and empty are most of the works which Wilber is discussing. A large part of Wilbur s 333 book and of the hundreds he analyzes on religion, psychology and philosophy are now archaic. However, Wilbur has written many books of great interest on spirituality and it is sad that Boyer does not even reference him-but neither does he reference drugs, Wittgenstein, meditation, yoga, satori or enlightenment in his index! One might speculate that the Nobel peace prize is given to those who are best at encouraging us to extend coalitions to include other countries or the world. Or, one might say they get the prize for efforts to turn off the `cheater detector` or social exchange templates which require that only those who reciprocate are included in one s group and given access to resources (which most of the world s poor clearly cannot do). He gives a brief summary of some of the self-deceptive inferences which play a role in religion as in all of life--consensus, false consensus, generation effect, memory illusions, source monitoring defects, confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance. Like the other templates, these gave very good results 100,000 years ago but with life in the fast lane they can now prove fatal for individuals and for the world. Coalitional intuitions and essence concepts are delineated as critical parts of human behavior. Humans automatically form groups and show hostility to persons not in the group and wholly undeserved friendship to those in the group (coalitional intuitions), even when the group is composed of total strangers. This relates to operation engines such as cost/benefit and calculation of reliability mentioned before. Essences are the concepts we use to describe our feelings (intuitions) about coalitions and other social categories (e.g., hierarchies and dominance). Although these mechanisms evolved in small groups, nowadays these are commonly operating with people to whom we are not closely related, so they often give false results. Stereotyping, racism and its accompaniments (i.e., arbitrary (or not so arbitrary) set distinctions) are probably the results of the operation of coalitional intuitions built into our brains, rather than stereotyping being a primary psychological function and the coalitions with their exclusion, dominance, and antipathy being the results. These engines may well explain the `social magic` that forms and guides societies. He suggests that one might explain fundamentalism as a natural reaction to the common violation of coalitional thinking in modern societies. Freedom to act as one chooses and in direct opposition to others in the same community creates strong and often violent feelings in those without the education or experience to deal with diversity and change. They often want public and spectacular punishment to assuage their feelings. Fundamentalism may best 334 be explained as attempts to preserve hierarchies based on coalitions, when these are threatened by easy defection or inattention. These are functioning in all people all the time but they come to the surface mainly when there is a situation that creates some special threat (i.e., modern life). Of course, as always, we need to keep in mind that the ultimate source and payoff for all behavior is in the genes. Though he says little about it, the notions of ontological categories and counterintuitive tags that `stick to them also go far to explain magic, the paranormal, folklore, mythology, folk medicine, astrology, theology, miracle workers, demonic and angelic possession, the arts, and formerly even much of science. Rituals act as snares for thought. Our contagion templates are powerful activators of behavior and it is natural to include many purification rituals in religion. They also make use of our planning systems, which we can see in extreme form in obsessive compulsive disorder. There is preoccupation with colors, spaces, boundaries, movements and contact. Salient gadgets are incorporated. We have a powerful need to imitate others. Rituals activate our undetected hazard systems. Sacrificial offerings to the unseen agents make use of our social exchange systems. Our coalitional intuitions are satisfied by group rites and marriage. The `naive sociology` of the common man extends into much philosophy, sociology, theology, anthropology, psychology, economics, politics and is the result of our attempts to make sense of our own behavior but this is the result of the automatic and unconscious functioning of our templates. Thus, much of culture seems magical-hence the term `social magic`. Inevitably, naive sociology is weak, so rituals and belief systems emphasize the benefits of cooperation and the costs of cheating or defection. The rituals and gadgets stimulate memory and satisfy the contagion system. Participation signals cooperation and the gods and spirits are optional. So, templates lead to religion which leads to doctrines and not the reverse. I think he goes seriously astray when discussing science vs. religion (p320). He says it is wrong to talk about religion as a real object in the world (whatever that might be), but of course the external and internal (mental) phenomena can be studied as well as any other, and he shows in this book that religion is a branch of cognitive psychology. He says there is no science as such, and we know that he means it s complex, but then there is no religion, law, sports, auto racing or anything at all, as such. He objects to `pop theology` which says religion makes the world more beautiful or meaningful or that it addresses ultimate questions, but all religion addresses the ultimate 335 questions and tries to make the world meaningful and less ugly. In addition, what I call `advanced religion` --i.e., the way it starts in the no-minds of Jesus, Buddha, Osho etc.-has a quite different take on the world than the primitive religion he discusses in this book (e.g., see the 200 books and DVD s of Osho at Oshoworld.com or on p2p, or see Wilber, Adi Da etc.). Again, on p 327 he thinks there is no religious center in the brain and though this is probably true for primitive religion, it seems more likely that there are centers (networks of connections) for the experiences of satori and enlightenment and maybe for entheogens too. He also thinks (p321) that science is less natural and more difficult than religion, but in view of the huge number of scientists and the facts that nearly everyone is able to absorb science in grade school, and that there have probably been less than 1000 enlightened persons in all of human history, it seems clear that situation is quite the reverse. It is vastly less difficult to become a botanist or a chemist than to dissolve one s ego! Natural selection will clearly eliminate higher consciousness genes but the rational calculus of science is quite consistent with gathering resources and producing children. Of course, the problem is that he is again fixated on primitive religion. He sums it up by saying (p 135) that religious activities activate inference systems that 'govern our most intense emotions, shape our interaction with other people, give us moral feelings and organize social groups`. Of course, these have nothing to do with satori or enlightenment! He notes that religious ideas are parasitic upon our intuitive ontology (i.e., they are relevant). They are transmitted successfully due to mental capacities that evolution has already created. As with other behaviors, religion is a result of aggregate relevance-i.e., the sum of the operation of all the inference engines. Thus, religious concepts and behavior are present not because they are necessary or even useful, but because they easily activate our templates, are easy to remember and transmit and so they survive over time. He gives a final summary (p326) of ``The Full History of all Religion (ever)`` as follows (of course it leaves out advanced religion`). Among the millions of things people discussed were some which violated our intuitions and this made them easier to remember and transmit. Those that were about agents were especially salient as they activated rich domains of possible inferences such as those about predators and intuitive psychology. Agents with counterintuitive properties, especially ability to understand and affect human behavior or the world were strongly transmitted. They became connected with other strange and somewhat counterintuitive events such as death and feelings about the continued presence of the dead. Somehow rituals arise and become associated with the powerful supernatural agents. Some persons will be more 336 skilled at conducting such rituals and guiding the interactions with the spirits. Inevitably they will create more abstract versions and start to acquire power and wealth. However, people will continue to have their own inferences about religion. He notes that religion owes much to the probably recent (in hominoid evolution) appearance of the decoupling ability and it occurs to me that one might regard entheogenic drug experiences, satori and enlightenment as the ultimate in decoupling--no past, no future, and not even a present-no here, no there, no me, no you and all is one thing and illusory. The other key transition in evolution is posited to be the ability to accept the violation of intuitive expectations at the level of ontological domains (i.e., the classes of things--plants, people, moving things etc.). He regards these capacities as leading to the invention of religion (and of course much else) but it s clear that Buddha and Jesus went quite a bit further. He rejects the idea that religious thoughts made minds more flexible and open (rather they became susceptible to certain concepts that activated the inferences of agency, predation, morality, social exchange, death etc.), but something made us susceptible also to the entheogens, satori and enlightenment and this is as flexible and open as people can be and remain sane. So it is clear that much remains to be discovered about spirituality. 337 Review of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality by Ken Wilber 2nd ed 851p (2001) Michael Starks ABSTRACT It is both amazing and fitting that this huge, jargon-laden (this book really needs a glossary!), heavily academic work has become a best seller in the world of the educated. One has to be dedicated to learn the jargon and then plow through 551 pages of text and 238 pages of notes. Meanwhile, we are told time and again that this is just an outline of what is to come! Though he severely criticizes the excesses of the three movements, this is a deconstructive and New Age Mystical and postmodern interpretation of religion, philosophy and the behavioral sciences from a very liberal, spiritual point of view-i.e., without the worst of decon, pm and NAM jargon, rabid egalitarianism and anti-scientific anti-intellectualism. He analyzes in some detail the various world views of philosophy, psychology, sociology and religion, exposing their fatal reductionistic flaws with (mostly) care and brilliance, but most of the sources he analyzes are of almost no relevance today. They use terminology and concepts that were already outdated when he was researching and writing 20 years ago. One has to slog thru endless pages of jargon –laden discussion of Habermas, Kant, Emerson, Jung et.al. to get to the pearls. You get a terrific sampling of bad writing, confused and outdated ideas and obsolete jargon. If one has a good current education, it is doubly painful to read this book (and most writing on human behavior). Painful because it s so tortured and confusing and then again when you realize how simple it is with modern psychology and philosophy. The terminology and ideas are horrifically confused and dated (but less so in Wilber s own analysis than in his sources). This book and most of its sources are would-be psychology texts, though most of the authors did not realize it. It is about human behavior and reasoning-about why we think and act the way we do and how we might change in the future. But (like all such discussion until recently) none of the 338 explanations are really explanations, and so they give no insight into human behavior. Nobody discusses the mental mechanisms involved. It is like describing how a car works by discussing the steering wheel and metal and paint without any knowledge of the engine, fuel or drive train. In fact, like most older explanations` of behavior, the texts quoted here and the comments by Wilber are often more interesting for what kinds of things they accept (and omit!) as explanations, and the kind of reasoning they use, than for the actual content. If one is up on philosophy and cognitive and evolutionary psychology, most of this is archaic. Like nearly everyone (scholars and public alike--eg, see my review of Dennett s Freedom Evolves and other books), he does not understand that the basics of religion and ethics-in fact all human behavior, are programmed into our genes. A revolution in understanding ourselves was taking place while he was writing his many books and it passed him by. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my art The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017'(2017). Anything that can be said can be said clearly` Ludwig Wittgenstein `Heaven and Earth are inhumane--they view the myriad creatures as straw dogs` TaoTe Ching It is both amazing and fitting that this huge, jargon-laden (this book really needs a glossary!), heavily academic work has become a best seller in the world of the educated. One has to be dedicated to learn the jargon and then plow through 551 pages of text and 238 pages of notes. Meanwhile, we are told time and again that this is just an outline of what is to come! This book and most of its sources are would-be psychology texts, though most of the authors did not realize it. It is about human behavior and reasoning-about why we think and act the way we do and how we might change in the future. But (like all such discussion until recently) none of the explanations are really explanations and so they gave no insight into human 339 behavior. Nobody discusses the mental mechanisms involved. It is like describing how a car works by discussing the steering wheel and metal and paint and the wheels without any knowledge of the engine or drive train. In fact, like most older explanations` of behavior, the texts quoted here and the comments by Wilber are often more interesting for what kinds of things they accept (and omit!) as explanations, and the kind of reasoning they use, than for the actual content. As with all reasoning and explaining one now wants to know which of the brains inference engines are activated to produce the results. It is the relevance filters which determine what sorts of things we can accept as appropriate data for each engine and their automatic and unconscious operation and interaction that determines what we can produce as an answer. Cognitive and evolutionary psychology are still not evolved enough to provide full explanations but an interesting start has been made. Boyer s `Religion Explained` is a good place to see what a modern scientific explanation of human behavior looks like (though it completely misses enlightenment!). Pinker s `How the mind Works` is a good general survey and his `The Blank Slatè (see my reviews) by far the best discussion of the heredity-environment issue in human behavior. They do not explain all of intelligence or thinking but summarize what is known. See several of the recent texts (ie, 2004 onwards) with evolutionary psychology in the title or the web for further info. We now recognize that the bases for art, music, math, philosophy, psychology, sociology, language and religion are found in the automatic functioning of templates or inference engines. This is why we can expect similarities and puzzles and inconsistencies or incompleteness and often, dead ends. The brain has no general intelligence but numerous specialized modules, each of which works on certain aspects of some problem and the results are then added, resulting in the feelings which lead to behavior. Wilber, like everyone, can only generate or recognize explanations that are consistent with the operations of his own inference engines, which were evolved to deal with such things as resource accumulation, coalitions in small groups, social exchanges and the evaluation of the intentions of other persons. It is amazing they can produce philosophy and science, and not surprising that figuring out how they work together to produce consciousness or choice or spirituality is way beyond reach. 340 Wilber is a bookworm and he has spent decades analyzing classic and modern texts. He is extremely bright, has clearly had his own awakening, and also knows the minutiae of Eastern religion as well as anyone. I doubt there are more than a handful in the world who could write this book. However, this is a classic case of being too smart for your own good and his fascination with intellectual history and his ability to read, analyze and write about hundreds of difficult books has bogged him down in the dead past. Though he severely criticizes the excesses of the three movements, this is a deconstructive and New Age Mystical and postmodern interpretation of religion, philosophy and the behavioral sciences from a very liberal, spiritual point of view-i.e., without the worst of decon, pm and NAM jargon, rabid egalitarianism and antiscientific antiintellectualism. As Boyer points out (p20), when fear and poverty give way to security and wealth, the results of the inference engines change and you find religion changing from appeasement rituals for the powerful gods in a hostile universe to self empowerment and control in a benevolent one (i.e., New Age Mysticism). He analyzes in some detail the various world views of philosophy, psychology, sociology and religion, exposing their fatal reductionistic flaws with (mostly) care and brilliance, but most of the sources he analyzes are of questionable relevance today. They use terminology and concepts that were already outdated when he was researching and writing 20 years ago. One has to slog thru endless pages of jargon –laden discussion of Habermas, Kant, Emerson, Jung et.al. to get to the pearls. He immerses himself in Freud and the psychoanalytic interpretation of dreams (eg, p92), though most now regard these as merely quaint artifacts of intellectual history. If one is up on philosophy and cognitive and evolutionary psychology, most of this is archaic. Like nearly everyone (scholars and public alike--eg, see my review of Dennett s Freedom Evolves and other books), he does not understand that the basics of religion and ethics-in fact all human behavior, are programmed into our genes. A revolution in understanding ourselves was taking place while he was writing his many books and it largely passed him by, though I have not read his latest works. If one has a good current education, it is doubly painful to read this book (and most writing on human behavior). Painful because it s so tortured and confusing and then again when you realized how simple it is with modern psychology and philosophy. The terminology and ideas are horrifically confused and dated (but less so in Wilber s own analysis than in his sources). 341 We now think in terms of cognitive templates which evolved about 100,000 years ago (in most cases several hundreds of millions of years earlier in their original forms). They operate automatically, are not accessible to consciousness and there is abundant evidence that they severely limit the behaviorial options for individuals and for society. His new preface notes one such study, but the book needs a total rewriting. There is an enormous resistance in us to accepting ourselves as part of nature, and in particular, any gene based explanations of behavior. Like all our thinking, these feelings are due to the operation of the cognitive templates, so perhaps it is the conflict between biological explanations and our automatic intuitive psychology or social mind systems that is responsible. These genetic systems have probably operated for hundreds of thousands of years and the new data from science is telling us the results of their operations (our feelings about what to do) are wrong. There is much interesting work to be done explaining social, economic and political behavior from this new viewpoint. Some jargon you will need is on pg X of the new preface where you find that the constantly used vision-logic is postformal cognition or network-logic or integral-aperspectival (all points of view are equal and must be considered). He also states the postmodern manifesto here: all views equal, dependent on limitless contexts, and merely interpretations. As he notes in great detail, this puts one on the slippery slope leading to much irrational and incoherent rant and there are very basic flaws in it. Nevertheless, it virtually took over US and European universities for several decades and is far from dead. You will also need his definition of eros from p528. You get a terrific sampling of bad writing, confused and outdated ideas and obsolete jargon. On p52 there is a quote from Jakobson which can be replaced by `the inference engines for psychology and language develop as we mature ; and paragraphs from Jantsch (p58) which say that evolution is evolution and cells are cells and (p71) the environment changes as organisms evolve. There is a quote from Foucault to open Book Two (p327) which, translated from deconstructese, says `knowledge helps to understand the world`. There is a long quote (p60-61) from Rupert Sheldrake which, when it is intelligible at all, says things that translate as proteins are proteins and cells are cells . There are numerous linguistic disasters from Habermas (e.g., if you have time to waste, try figuring out the quotes on p77 or 150), but some are actually translatable, such as those on p153-4, which say that people have 342 morals so society has laws and language evolved so society evolved. And lots of this from Wilber himself, as on p109 where he spends most of the page to say most mutations and recombinations fail and the surviviors are compatible with their evirons. In spite of his acquaintance with Searle s work, he is often confused about consciousness. He says (p117-8) that we can regard whatever we want as conscious, but clearly, once we leave the realm of animals that have eyes and a brain and walk around, it becomes a joke. Likewise, he is on very thin ice when discussing our interior and the need to interpret the minds of others. This is very far off the mark if one knows some Searle, Wittgenstein and cognitive psychology. Likwise with the `explanations of Wolf on p742 which are wrong for the same reasons that explanations of consciousness are wrong. It must be true that mind and spirit are based in physics (at least there is no intelligible alternative) but we don t know how to conceptualize this or even how to recognize such a concept. Many suspect we will never understand this nor any of the fundamentals of the universe (eg, see my review of Kaku s `Hyperspacè and Dennett). His notes (p129) that cultural studies have made little headway but neither he nor his sources understand that they lacked any framework to do so and often because they embraced the sterile idea of the blank slate. They want to be factual, even scientific, but they constantly veer off into fantasy. He delineates the integration of art, science and morality as the great task of postmodernism and he and others go to immense lengths to make connections and organize it all into a coherent plan for thinking and living. However, I wonder if it s really sensible or even possible. Life is not a game of chess. Even in the limited realm of art or morality it is not at all clear that there is anything other than that these are parts of human experience which draws them together. One can put paintings and sculpture and clothing and buildings and stick figures in an art book but is this really getting us anywhere? Please see my review of Hofstadter s `Godel, Escher, Bach for much more on this. Boyer shows in detail how religion is due to a complex of brain systems that serve many different functions which evolved long before there was anything like religion. The brain has numerous templates that take in data, organize it and relate it realtime to other data, but they each serve a specific purpose and those purposes are not ART, MORALITY, RELIGION, and SCIENCE. Cognitive psychology shows that we have many modules working simultaneously to produce any behavior and that we relate to people in many ways for many reasons. One basic function is coalitional intuition. This gives 343 us feelings that guide our entrance into groups and our interactions with other groups. We automatically and immediately overestimate the qualities of those in our group even if it s composed of randomly chosen total strangers we met five minutes before. Likewise, we immediately underestimate the good qualities of those in other groups. This and many other automatisms guide and commonly rule individual behavior, groups, nations and the world, but hardly anyone had a real understanding of this until quite recently. So, it is not surprising that almost all of his sources from Plato to Kant to Habermas have been wandering around in the dark and that Wilber is frantically running from one to the other with a flashlight trying to help them find their way out of the woods. He notes (p199) that the only serious global social movement to date was Marxism but thinks its fatal flaw was reductionism. It seems far more cogent to note that, like virtually all of modern society (and most of his sources and to a significant extent this book), it denied (or ignored or failed to understand) human nature and basic biology. Nobody seems to notice that most social institutions and ideals, (including equality and democracy) have this same flaw. Debate on human nature, the environment and the future is endless, but reality is an acid that will eat through all fantasy. To paraphrase Lincoln, you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can t fool mother nature anytime. He details intellectual history (philosophy, psychology, religion, ecology, feminism, sociology, etc) and shows where nearly everyone went too far in the direction of Ascent (to the spirit or religious life only) or Descent (to science, materialism, reductionism or Flatland). He trys to show how to heal the rifts by combining sense and soul (spiritual and material life, science and religion, internal and external, individual and social). Everything is related to everything else (holons in holarchies--ie, things in nested hierarchies-see p26,135 for his definition). The Age of Enlightenment denied the the spirit, the individual and the interior life but developed art, morals and science and led to democracy, feminism, equality and ecology. This reductionism compressed the intellect and the spirit into the Flatland of science, rationality and materialism. He sees the loss of the spiritual point of view with the Age of Enlightenment as the major factor responsible for the malaise of modern times, but `true spirituality` or`advanced religion`--my terms--(ie., the quest for enlightenment), as opposed to `primitive religion`(everything else-see Boyer) was always rare. It is advanced religion he sees as the panacea, but it is 344 primitive religion that the masses understand, and it too has only materialistic goals (money, power and all else serving to replicate genes). He understands that Jesus was a mystic in the same sense as Buddha and many others, and that what was to become the Catholic church largely destroyed his mystical aspects (personal search for enlightenment) in favor of primitive religion, priests, tithes and a structure seemingly modeled on the Roman army (p363). But, for the early Christian church, as for most religion, the cognitive templates were servants of the genes and enlightenment was not on the menu. Jesus was not a Christian, he had no bible, and he did not believe in a god any more than did Buddha. We have Christianity without the real intelligence of Jesus and this, as he explains in detail, is one cause of the West s extended stay in Flatland. I am not a Christian nor even a theist but it is one of the saddest things in history that the enlightened master who was to serve as the model of spirituality for the West had his vision of personal enlightenment destroyed and distorted by his own followers (but of course they are not really HIS followers). See the Gnostics and the Nag Hammadi manuscripts and above all Osho's discourses on the Gospel of Thomas. Like everyone until recently, the many authors he discusses lacked any real explanation for human behavior. It rarely occurred to them to ask why we have such ideas and behavior and the few who did had no coherent solution. Though he has read some of John Searle s superb philosophy, and has passing references to research in cognitive psychology, it is amazing that he could do 20 years research in philosophy without studying Wittgenstein, religion without reading Osho and watching his videos, and psychology without Buss, Tooby, Cosmides et al. Much of cognitive and evolutionary psychology was only published in journals at the time he was writing and Wilber has almost no references to journals. But, Wittgenstein is the most famous philosopher of modern times and Osho the most famous spiritual teacher. It is remarkable that although he spends much time in his books discussing the intellectual aspects of therapy (Freud, Beck, Maslow etc) and clearly understands that the spiritual path is the ultimate therapy, he totally ignores Osho, who had the most advanced therapeutic community in history functioning worldwide for the last 30 years. Osho never wrote a thick book containing a theory of human behavior, though his 200 books and many DVD s explain it as beautifully and clearly as has ever been done. Though he tries hard to heal the world, Wilber spends too much time in the 345 airy realms of intellectual debate. As a postmodernist, and holist new age mystic, he wants to unite art, morality and science, but science gets the short straw. As in some of his other books (e.g., A Brief History of Everythingsee my review), by far the worst mistakes he makes (along with nearly all his sources and most of the planet) are ignoring and misunderstanding basic biology. This is apparent thoughout the book. He starts chapter 7 with a quote from Aurobindo, who had the same failing. They have no grasp of the fact that the eugenic effects of evolution are driven by natural selection and when society became firmly established, this ceased and it s been totally dysgenic ever since. Genetic engineers have been at work and they have released on a helpless world the most horrifically destructive mutant imaginable. Society is the engineer and we are that mutant. If one gets the big picture, preoccupation with the possible destructive effects of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) -other than ourselves-is simply stupid and is perhaps a result of the operation of the contagion templates discussed by Boyer. That is, the potential destructive effect of all the GMOs we will ever make is unlikely to approach what humans have already done themselves. He says (p 508, p519) that Darwin does not explain evolution, supposedly well known before him, and accuses him of `massive obscurantism (he should be saying this about most of his sources!). The truth is that nothing in human behaviour or the world or the universe makes sense except in the light of evolution and no person did more to make this clear than Darwin. The work before him was little more than idle speculation and did not even approach a serious scientific treatment. This is why it had NO EFFECT on science or society. Of course, Darwin did not know genetics nor plate tectonics, and modern Neodarwinism adds many refinements, but it shows a total misunderstanding of science and history to say that this invalidates or diminishes his contributions. Wilber is clearly sliding sideways into the Creationist camp and one can only speculate as to which of his inference engines produce this. He shows in many places that he has a poor grasp of genetics and evolution. Eg., on p561--as Dawkins has so patiently explained, the unit of evolution is the gene, and none of the other things Wilber mentions work as a genetic unit. Though he lists `The Selfish Genè in his bibliography, it s clear he has not understood it, and it s 30 years old. Dawkins has written half a dozen superb works since and there are hundreds of others. Wilber seems to have an allergy to good biology books--most of those he quotes are very old and others are classics of confusion. He wastes a page 346 (p51) on the idea (mostly due to Gould and Eldredge) of punctuated evolution, which is of very little interest. Gould loved to make a big fuss about his `discoveries` and his energy got him alot of airtime, but when all was said and done, he had nothing new to say and dragged millions into his own confusions (as Dawkins, Conway Morris and many others have noted). Yes, evolution is sometimes faster but so what? Sometimes it rains a little, sometimes a lot. If you zoom in, in time or space, you always see more detail, and if you zoom out it starts to look the same. Gould was also responsible for the `spandrels of San Marcos` debacle and, with his Marxist colleagues Lewontin and Rose, for endless insipid attacks on `determinist biology`, including the scandalous verbal and physical assaults on E.O Wilson (who, unlike themselves, made numerous major contributions to biology, though he recently disgraced himself-see my review of his 'The Social Conquest of Earth'). Modern research (e.g., see Pinker and Boyer) makes it clear that Wilson was right on the money regarding evolution, except for his unfortunate recent embrace of 'group selection'. It is quite careless to say (p775) that there is no single pregiven world. Perhaps he only means we ought to be multicultural, egalitarian etc., but if there really were none, then how can we live and communicate? This is the ugliness of postmodernism creeping in. A large dose of Wittgenstein and cognitive psychology is an appropriate cure. Neither Wilber nor Derrida nor Foucault (nor most people) understand that there MUST be a single point of view or life would be impossible. This single point of view, resident in our genes, is integral to how we think and behave and largely dictates the vagaries of philosophy, politics and religion. The cognitive templates that underlie language, thought and our perception of reality logically must be the same and the evidence for this is overwhelming. Even the smallest changes, a few genes gone wrong, and you have autism, imbecility or schizophrenia. The brute fact that Wilber (and most of the world) largely ignores, is that there are 7 billion (11 billion by 2100) sets of selfish genes carrying out their programs to destroy the earth. They are an acid that will eat through any intellectual conclusions, egalitarian fanatasies and spiritual rebirths. Selfishness, dishonesty, tribalism and shortsightedness are not due to accidents of intellectual or spiritual history. He says that the lack of spirit is destroying the earth, and though there is this aspect to things, it is much more to the point to say that it is selfish genes that are responsible. Likewise, he says `Biology is no longer Destiny`, but it is an easily defensible point of view that the reverse is far more likely. The attempt to understand history in terms of ideas ignores biology and denies human nature. Selfish genes always live 347 in Flatland and less than 1000 people in all of human history have escaped the tyranny of the monkey mind into enlightenment. Most of chapter 6 on myth and magic is outdated, confused or just wrong. To give just a few examples, we now understand that most of a child s psychological and social development is built in and does not have to be learned (eg, pg 233-4). The child does not have to deconstruct anything--the inferences engines do it all (p260). Joseph Campbell is quoted extensively and he too was clueless about how we develop and how to explain the differences and similarities in cultures (p245-50). E.g., Campbell says mythology can only lay claim to childhood, but a look around the world shows how false this is and a reading of Boyer tells why. His discussion of thinking about the nonfactual on pg 279 to 80 is now referred to as running the inference engines in decoupled mode. To his contorted comments in the middle of pg 560 (and finally....) I want to say `explanation ends with the templates! P580-4 and 5913 are so full of dubious and plain wrong statements I don t even want to begin but suggest that Wilber and the reader start with Searle s `The Mystery of Consciousness`. Time and again, it is clear he shares the lack of a scientific viewpoint with most of his sources. What info or procedures can solve the questions of consciousness or of any social science and philosophical theories? How do you recognize an answer when you see it? He and they go on for pages and whole books without ever having any idea (e.g., see my review of Dennett s Freedom Evolves). On p702bottomhe talks about the fulcrum driving development but if one understands templates (and I mean here and elsewhere the entire corpus of cognitive and evolutionary psychology) then one either needs to rewrite this or eliminate it. Ditto for most of pgs 770-77. The tortured prose on pg 771-2 is only saying that the templates are probed by drugs or other input but not changed and that nobody knows (in a way they can clearly convey) what these are. The background or intersubjective worldspace is the templates and they develop very early in children and then stay fixed for life. The deliberate destruction of Jesus` mysticism has created a powerful bias against higher consciousness in the West. Though he does not understand or discuss enlightenment, Boyer gives the basis for understanding how and why this happened. Wilber embraces a simple utilitarianism (greatest good for greatest number)-i.e., the greatest depth for he greatest span (p334). This basic principle of much philosophy, religion and economics has serious problems and is probably unworkable. Which people should we make happy and how 348 happy and when (ie, now or in the future)? On what basis do we distribute resources now and how much do we save for the future population, and who decides and how to enforce this? He calls upon our Basic Moral Intuition (ie, the operation of our templates, as we now know), but our BMI is not really to help others but to help ourselves, and the few thousand (or let s be very optomistic and say few million) who are spritually advanced do not run the world and never will. The BMI-eg, social exchange, coalitional intuitions, intuitive psychology, etc, evolved to serve our own interests (not those of the group--if, like Wilber, you think this way please read some of Dawkin s books or my recent review of Wilson's 'The Social Conquest of Earth' in this volume) and in any case is hopelessly at sea in the modern world with it s advanced education, instant communications, firearms, mood altering drugs, clothes and cosmetics, a huge and mobile population and vanishing resources. Instead of the intellectual or spiritual approach Wilber takes to history, others take ecological, genetic or technogical approaches (eg, Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel or Pinkers The Blank Slate ). In the long run, it appears that only biology really matters and we see daily how overpopulation is overwhelming all attempts to civilize the masses. The democracy and equality which Wilber values so highly are means created by selfish genes to facilitate their destruction of the planet. In spite of the hope that a new age is dawning and we will see the biological and psychic evolution of a new human, the fact is that we are the most degenerate species there ever was and the planet is nearing collapse. The billions of years of eugenics (natural selection) that thrust life up out of the slime and gave us the amazing ability to write and read books like this is now over. There is no longer selection for the healthier and more intelligent and in fact they produce a smaller percentage of the children every year. Nature does not tolerate physical and mental aberrations but society encourages them. Our physical and mental peak was probably CroMagnon man or maybe even Neanderthals (who had larger brains (yes, I know they seem not to have contributed more than a few percent of our DNA) about 100,000 years ago. It seems plausible that only genetic engineering and an enlightened oligarchy can save us. He thinks (eg, p12 etc.) that it is our fractured world view (ie, denial of the spirit) that is responsible for our ecological catastrophes and preoccupation with material goods but this is another example of the denial of human nature. Nobody views heart conditions or Alzheimer disease as due to a fractured world view, but few seem to have any problem thinking you can change the fundamentals of behavior just by education or psychological manipulation. Modern science refutes this view conclusively (see Pinker, 349 Boyer etc). The intuitive psychology templates tell us that we can manipulate the behavior of others, but these templates were evolved hundreds of thousands of years ago, and they often fail to give correct results in modern contexts. Nearly every parent thinks they can profoundly influence the adult character (patience, honesty, irritability, depression, persistence, compulsiveness etc.) of their children in spite of clear evidence to the contrary (e.g., Pinker). He thinks that animal rights people are illogical and excessive when they value animals over humans and likewise with those who value the environment over people s needs. This may be logical in his system but of course humans are typically (and often reasonably) illogical. In any case, if we always put human needs first, then it is surely the end of peace, tranquility, beauty and sanity. Wilber defends Piaget, but like him he shows many places that he does not understand that the child does not have to learn the important things--they are built in and it only has to grow up. There seems to be no evidence that any of our templates change with time. The things that we learn are mostly trivial in comparison (ie, even a computer can learn them!). His sources are mostly lost in confusion and jargon but he is brilliant and if one bothers to read his explanations and translate Wilberspeak into English, it usually makes sense. On pg 5457 he explains holonic ecology. Here is a translation. All organisms have value in themselves and are related to all others in the ecosystem and we must wake up spiritually. There is a web of life (i.e., Gaia or ecosystem) and all have intrinsic value but higher organisms have more value, which requires a spiritual point of view. Neither the spiritual or scientific approach works alone (i.e., dualism is bad). Translated, it loses most of it s appeal but it is not fair to deny the poetry and majesty of his vision. But, this does not excuse him from writing clearly. Opacity is a nearly universal characteristic of the books he treats here. However, when Katz wrote a book denigrating mysticism Wilber took the time to do a `Searleian` analysis to show how incoherence has passed for scholarship (p629-31). Unfortunately, he does not continue this throughout the book and uses the jargon-laden incoherence of Habermas and others to explain other vague or incoherent texts (e.g., using Habermas instead of Searle or Wittgenstein or cognitive psychology to explicate Emerson p633). In the USA, some 120 million (about 250 million by 2100) third world refugees 350 from unrestrained motherhood are now the most powerful single force for destruction, having easily displaced fundamentalist European Christians. But all lowclass people are united in being against (or at least unwilling/unable to practice) population control and for environmental devastation in order to maximize the number of and resource use by their genes (though lacking any insight into this of course). This was a rational survival strategy when it was fixed in the genes millions of years ago, but it is suicidal now. The spiritual rebirth he talks about is not that of the "diverse" or the lower classes anywhere. His view is that it is the poor and ignorant who are the major environmental problem and that this is somehow due to our Flatland approach, so if we just wake up, get spritual and help them out this will solve it. However, the rich destroy as much as 20 times more than the poor per capita and the third world will pass the first in C02 production about 2025. But there is nothing noble about the poor-they are only the rich in waiting. Everyone is part of the problem and if one does the math (vanishing resources divided by increasing population) it s clear that the worldwide collapse of industrial society and a drastic reduction in population will happen and its only a matter of how and when (2150 is a good guess). Like so many, he suggests living lightly on the earth, but to live (and above all, to reproduce), is to do harm and if reproduction remains a right then it s hard to see any hope for the future. As is politically correct, he emphasizes rights and says little about responsibilities. It is a reasonable view that if society is to accept anyone as human, they must take responsibility for the world and this must take precedence over their personal needs. It is unlikely that any government will implement this, and equally unlikely that the world will continue to be a place any civilized person will wish to live in (or be able to). Those wishing a comprehensive up to date account of the analysis of behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my article The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Wittgenstein and Searle (2016). I reproduce the table of intentionality from it here. The rows show various aspects or ways of studying and the columns show the involuntary processes and voluntary behaviors comprising the two systems (dual processes) of the Logical Structure of Consciousness (LSC), which can also be regarded as the Logical Structure of Rationality (LSRSearle), of behavior (LSB), of personality (LSP), of Mind(LSM), of language 351 (LSL), of reality (LSOR), of Intentionality (LSI) -the classical philosophical term, the Descriptive Psychology of Consciousness (DPC) , the Descriptive Psychology of Thought (DPT) –or better, the Language of the Descriptive Psychology of Thought (LDPT), terms introduced here and in my other very recent writings. The ideas for this table originated in the work by Wittgenstein, a much simpler table by Searle, and correlates with extensive tables and graphs in the three recent books on Human Nature by P.M.S Hacker. The last 9 rows come principally from decision research by Johnathan St. B.T. Evans and colleagues as revised by myself. System 1 is involuntary, reflexive or automated "Rules" R1 while Thinking (Cognition) has no gaps and is voluntary or deliberative "Rules" R2 and Willing (Volition) has 3 gaps (see Searle) 352 Disposition* Emotion Memory Perception Desire PI** IA*** Action/ Word Cause Originates From**** World World World World Mind Mind Mind Mind Causes Changes In***** None Mind Mind Mind None World World World Causally Self Reflexive****** No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes True or False (Testable) Yes T only T only T only Yes Yes Yes Yes Public Conditions of Satisfaction Yes Yes/No Yes/No No Yes/No Yes No Yes Describe A Mental State No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes/No Yes Evolutionary Priority 5 4 2,3 1 5 3 2 2 Voluntary Content Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes Voluntary Initiation Yes/No No Yes No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive System ******* 2 1 2/1 1 2 / 1 2 1 2 Change Intensity No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Precise Duration No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Time, Place (H+N, T+T) ******** TT HN HN HN TT TT HN HN Special Quality No Yes No Yes No No No No Localized in Body No No No Yes No No No Yes Bodily Expressions Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Self Contradictions No Yes No No Yes No No No Needs a Self Yes Yes/No No No Yes No No No Needs Language Yes No No No No No No Yes/No 353 FROM DECISION RESEARCH Disposition* Emotion Memory Perception Desire PI** IA*** Action/ Word Subliminal Effects No Yes/No Yes Yes No No No Yes/No Associative/ Rule Based RB A/RB A A A/RB RB RB RB Context Dependent/ Abstract A CD/A CD CD CD/A A CD/A CD/A Serial/Parallel S S/P P P S/P S S S Heuristic/ Analytic A H/A H H H/A A A A Needs Working Memory Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes General Intelligence Dependent Yes No No No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive Loading Inhibits Yes Yes/No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Arousal Facilitates or Inhibits I F/I F F I I I I 354 Public Conditions of Satisfaction of S2 are often referred to by Searle and others as COS, Representations, truthmakers or meanings (or COS2 by myself), while the automatic results of S1 are designated as presentations by others ( or COS1 by myself). * Aka Inclinations, Capabilities, Preferences, Representations, possible actions etc. ** Searle's PriorIntentions *** Searle's Intention In Action **** Searle's Direction of Fit ***** Searle's Direction of Causation ****** (Mental State instantiates--Causes or Fulfills Itself). Searle formerly called this causally selfreferential. ******* Tversky/Kahneman/Frederick/Evans/Stanovich defined cognitive systems. ******** Here and Now or There and Then 355 The most profound spiritual autobiography of all time? a review of "The Knee of Listening" by Adi Da (Franklin Jones) (1995) Michael Starks ABSTRACT A brief review of the life and spiritual autobiography of the unique American mystic Adi Da (Franklin Jones). The sticker on the cover of some editions says `The most profound spiritual autobiography of all timè and this might well be true. I am in my 70 s and have read many books by spiritual teachers and on spirituality, and this is one of the greatest. Certainly, it is by far the fullest and clearest account of the process of enlightenment I have ever seen. Even if you have no interest at all in the most fascinating of all human psychological processes, it is an amazing document that reveals a great deal about religion, yoga, and human psychology and probes the depths and limits of human possibilities. I describe it in some detail and compare his teaching with that of the Indian mystic Osho. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017'(2017). There are many editions of the spiritual autobiography of the unique American mystic Adi Da (Franklin Jones). The first edition was 1972 and new editions with more material and much advertising about the group continue to appear. The latest one I have seen (2004) is about 3 times the size and weight of the 1995 editon I prefer, as the hundreds of pages of new material are more of the opaque prose and advertising. So, I recommend one of the earlier paperpack editions such as the 1995 one to which my page citations refer. A brief review of the life and spiritual autobiography of the unique American mystic Adi Da (Franklin Jones). The sticker on the cover of some editions says `The most profound spiritual autobiography of all timè and this might well 356 be true. I am in my 70 s and have read many books by spiritual teachers and on spirituality, and this is one of the greatest ones. Certainly, it is by far the fullest and clearest account of the process of enlightenment I have ever seen. Even if you have no interest at all in the most fascinating of all human psychological processes, it is an amazing document that reveals a great deal about religion, yoga, and human psychology and probes the depths and limits of human possibilities. As I have read and experienced alot in various religious traditions, I naturally compare his writings with those of others, particularly with the great Indian mystic Osho. Though they clearly agree on the major points of how to proceed on the path, letting go of the attachment to the spiritual quest etc, their styles are vastly different. Both are highly intelligent and well read (Osho could speed read and read a huge number of books) and were at home in the spiritual literature of the major religious traditions. However, like so much of the spiritual literature, most of Da s books are essentially unreadable as he struggles to express in language the ineffable realms of the enlightened mind. Even in this, by far his most readable book, he often veers off into pages of opacity as he tries to explain the unexplainable. A great pity he seems never to have read Wittgenstein –the greatest natural psychologist of all time-who showed that we must abandon the attempts at explanation and accept descriptions of our innate psychological functions in language, which is the mind. Osho by contrast is the clearest, most jargon free expositor of the spiritual life who has ever lived. He wrote very little and nearly all of his more than 200 books are transcriptions of spontaneous talks he gave-with no notes or preparation. They are nonetheless unexcelled masterpieces of spiritual literature. His amazing àutobiography` (actually compiled after his death) has been published by St. Martins and the full version, as well as all his books (many also available on DVD), are available online many places. Unfortunately, he has very little to say about the exact details of his spiritual progress. As Da lived most of his later life in seclusion on an island in Fiji it was not easy to get to hear him but the Dawn Horse Press sells a few videotapes on their web page. Da is not a very engaging or facile speaker, unlike Osho who is by turns amusing, shattering and hypnotic. But, as both of them understand, it s what the master is and not he says that is important. Both of them were utterly honest and uncompromising in their life and 357 teachings and Da omits nothing of relevance, including his youthful adventures with sex and drugs as well as his exposure to LSD, psilocybin and mescaline as a volunteer in government experiments. However, as with many or perhaps all of those destined to become enlightened, he was different from birth and experienced the Shakti energy (which he calls the Bright) from childhood. And, when he entered college, he said his primary interest was to discover what living beings are and what is living consciousness. Clearly not your typical freshman. A major problem in describing advanced spiritual states is that no criteria or language for them exists in common discourse so mystics have to try to bend language in mostly vain attempts to capture their experiences. It is far worse than trying to describe seeing to a congenitally blind person since they at least have the cognitive structures and experience of the world. But mystics are quite rare and most of them have left little or no description of their mental states. Unlike Osho, who rejected miracles, paranormal phenomena and all the other nonsense that commonly accompanies religion, Da seems to lack any science background at all and embraces precognition (p120), reincarnation (p555),`meditating` other persons, living on air (p287) etc., and regards the phenomena that I would say are happening in his brain as being `out therè. From comments included in newer editions it is clear that many of his disciples believe he can perform miracles like stopping a raging forest fire at their California retreat. Nevertheless, most of the time he is amazingly levelheaded, going thru over a decade of stress and psychic terrors that would drive most from the spiritual path. Millions of years of evolution have solidified the ego and it does not leave peacefully. Interwoven with the spellbinding account of his spiritual progress are the details of the mind's interaction with the body, described in the East in terms of various forms of Yoga (eg., p95-9, 214-21, 249,281-3, 439-40 in the 1995 edition I recommend). These few pages are worth more than a whole shelf of yoga books if you want to get to the heart of the mind/body relation in spirituality. Unlike most who have become enlightened, he had a thorough grounding in Christian practice and made a major effort to become a protestant, and then Greek Orthodox minister. Even years later, after he was far along the path with Muktananda, he had an amazing and totally unexpected series of visitations from Mary and Jesus that went on for weeks (p 301-3 et seq.). 358 Regarding drugs, as is nearly universal among spiritual teachers, he notes that although they may remove certain barriers at times, they do not provide a shortcut to understanding. However, nearly everyone is now aware that they put many on the path to higher consciousness throughout human history, especially in the last few decades. He describes in detail the many stages in his ego death or self realization (eg, p72-4, 198-200, 219,20, 238-9, 245, 249, 258-9, 281, 355-65, 368-72, 406). Along the way, he realized the ultimate disutility of all practices and all traditions (337-9) including yoga (281-3), which are all attached to seeking and goals, ultimately winding up in the present. He discovered, as have many others, that seeking and meditation became obstacles and gave them up for devotion to his guru Muktananda (p420-22). His detailed accounts of his interactions with the famous Swami Muktananda and his ultimate realization of his limitations are of rare insight and honesty. He constantly encounters his attachment to his ego (Narcissus-eg, p108-110) and asks himself--`Avoiding Relationship? ` by which he seems to mean avoiding the divine or ego death by preoccupation with spiritual seeking. After enlightenment, he teaches the only by me revealed and given Way of the heart`, finding all other paths to be `remedial` and egoic and merely pursuing God or reality (p359 +), but after a careful reading of this and several other books I never got any idea what that way consists in. Undoubtedly being in his presence helps alot but in other places he has complained about the fact that his disciples just won t let it happen and one wonders if even one has been able to follow him. Of course, the same considerations apply to all traditions and teachers and though some of Osho s friends (he disavowed the master/disciple relationship) have claimed enlightenment, nobody of his status has emerged. It looks like you have to have the right genes and the right environment and a very advanced and preferably enlightened guru to stimulate you. I suspect that the time has passed when an enlightened one could start a movement that transforms much of the world. The world desperately needs higher consciousness and I hope that someone comes up with an easier way very soon, but I think it's quite unlikely. 359 Do our automated unconscious behaviors reveal our real selves and hidden truths about the universe? -A review of David Hawkins 'Power vs Force--the hidden determinants of human behavior –author's official authoritative edition' 412p (2012)(original edition 1995). Michael Starks ABSTRACT I am very used to strange books and special people but Hawkins stands out due to his use of a simple technique for testing muscle tension as a key to the "truth" of any kind of statement whatsoever-i.e., not just to whether the person being tested believes it, but whether it is really true! What is well known is that people will show automatic, unconscious physiological and psychological responses to just about anything they are exposed to-images, sounds, touch, odors, ideas, people. So, muscle reading to find out their true feelings is not radical at all, unlike using it as a dousing stick (more muscle reading) to do "paranormal science". Hawkins describes the use of decreasing tension in the muscles of an arm in response to increases in cognitive load thus causing the arm to drop in response to the constant pressure of someone's fingers. He seems unaware that there is a long established and vast ongoing research effort in social psychology referred to by such phrases as 'implicit cognition', 'automaticity' etc., and that his use of 'kinesiology' is one tiny section. In addition to muscle tone (infrequently used) social psychologists measure EEG, galvanic skin response and most frequently verbal responses to words, sentences, images or situations at times varying from seconds to months after the stimulus. Many, such as Bargh and Wegner, take the results to mean we are automatons who learn and act largely without awareness via S1 (automated System 1) and many others such as Kihlstrom and Shanks say these studies are flawed and we are creatures of S2 (deliberative System 2). Though Hawkins seems to have no idea, as in other areas of the descriptive psychology of higher order thought, the situation regarding "automaticity" is still as chaotic as it was when Wittgenstein described the reasons for the sterility and barrenness of psychology in the 30's. Nevertheless, this book is an easy read and some 360 therapists and spiritual teachers may find it of use. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my art The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017'(2017). I am very used to strange books and special people but Hawkins stands out due to his use of a simple technique for testing muscle tension as a key to the "truth" of any kind of statement whatsoever-i.e., not just to whether the person being tested believes it but, whether it is really true! How could any sane person believe this? As a person with over 50 years adult experience with science, psychology, philosophy, religion and life I do not find it at all credible that it is even highly reliable about the person's beliefs and there is no chance of getting to know reality this way. What is well known is that people will show automatic, unconscious physiological and psychological responses to just about anything they are exposed to-images, sounds, touch, odors, ideas, people. So, muscle reading to find out their true feelings is not radical at all, unlike using it as a dousing stick (more muscle reading) to do "paranormal science". Kinesiology, also known as human kinetics, is the study of human movement. Kinesiology studies physiological, mechanical (muscle tone), and psychological mechanisms as indices of people's mental and physical status and often uses movement exercises as therapy. However, Hawkins (without saying so) is using the term to refer to a very narrow application of kinesiology-the use of decreasing tension in the muscles of an arm in response to increases in cognitive load (i.e., mention of some person, event or object), which causes the subject to be distracted by intellectual or emotional issues, thus decreasing the muscle tension and causing the arm to drop in response to the constant pressure of someone's fingers. Hawkins seems unaware that there is a long established and vast ongoing research effort in social psychology referred to by such phrases as 'implicit cognition', 'automaticity' etc., and that his use of 'kinesiology' is one tiny section. In addition to muscle tone (actually infrequently used) social psychologists measure EEG, galvanic skin response and most frequently verbal responses to words, sentences, images or situations at times varying from seconds to months after the stimulus. 361 It was just by chance that I read Hawkins book after reading several books and dozens of recent papers on implicit cognition and was greatly surprised that he uses it as a key to the universe--i.e., the 'ultimate nature of reality' and I am sure the hundreds of active researchers would be equally amazed. I relate his spiritual practice to contemporary work on implicit cognition. A major issue in most contemporary research on implicit social cognition is the degree to which it is automatic ('unconscious') and what constitutes 'evidence' for this. Hundreds of papers and dozens of books have appeared in just the last few years with massive confusion and often acrimonious debates. Many, such as Bargh and Wegner, take the results to mean we are automatons who learn and act largely without awareness via S1 and many others such as Kihlstrom and Shanks say these studies are flawed and we are creatures of S2. Though Hawkins seems to have no idea, as in other areas of the descriptive psychology of higher order thought, the situation regarding "automaticity" is still as chaotic as it waswhen Wittgenstein described the reasons for the sterility and barrenness of psychology in the 30's. Often the issue is stated by researchers and philosophers in terms of System 1 and System 2 functioning --a very useful, even indispensable division of behavior (intentionality) into our primitive reptilian automated, nonreflective S1 and our higher cortical primate conscious deliberative functions of S2. As noted in my other reviews, this division was pioneered by philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in the 1930's, though nobody has realized it. I am quite familiar with mediation and the phenomena of enlightenment (see my review of Adi Da's autobiography 'The Knee of Listening') and am willing to accept Hawkins' claim to be in this rarefied group (it is often said that we know of less than 1000 enlightened persons in all of human history). I can also accept that he may have been a very effective 'therapist' who helped many persons and clearly, he is highly intelligent. This does not make me accept his many questionable or clearly false statements about the facts of the world. I am also (on the basis of a lifetime of study of science and philosophy) very skeptical about the relevance of chaos, attractors, complexity theory, computation, etc. to the study of human behavior (see my many book reviews here and on academia.edu, philpapers.org, researchgate.net, vixra.org, Amazon etc.), claims which are often made by scientists as well. I hope to review various books on implicit cognition, so will not go into it here except 362 to say that it involves the usual horrific mixing of factual true or false scientific issues about causal brain functions (the S1 mind), with those about how language works (i.e., the mind, which as Wittgenstein showed us 3⁄4 of a century ago, is public behavior --the S2 mind)-other topics I have covered extensively in my reviews. So, Hawkins makes much of his muscle reading and I'm sure it often works well but there is a major logical error here. Regardless of what it says about the beliefs of the person being tested, it clearly says nothing whatever about the world itself. So, I respect Hawkins and his therapeutic work but, with the vast array of approaches to spiritual and emotional healing there are lots of choices. And it is one thing to be treated by an enlightened master-whose very presence (or even the thought of them) can be galvanizing, and quite another to be treated by an ordinary person. By far the best source of books, audios and videos of an enlightened master at work are those of Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) which are available to buy or free on the net. He therapized thousands at a time on occasion and created the most remarkable therapeutic community of all time around him. Though he is gone, his therapists still practice worldwide and his works can be transformative. Hawkins has other books which have many favorable reviews so those deeply interested may consult them. THE ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY DELUSION-DEMOCRACY , DIVERSITY AND EQUALITY WILL SAVE US 364 The Transient Suppression of the Worst Devils of our Nature-a review of Steven Pinker's 'The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined'(2012) Michael Starks ABSTRACT This is not a perfect book, but it is unique, and if you skim the first 400 or so pages, the last 300 (of some 700) are a pretty good attempt to apply what's known about behavior to social changes in violence and manners over time. The basic topic is: how does our genetics control and limit social change? Surprisingly he fails to describe the nature of kin selection (inclusive fitness) which explains much of animal and human social life. He also (like nearly everyone) lacks a clear framework for describing the logical structure of rationality (LSR-John Searle's preferred term) which I prefer to call the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought (DPHOT). He should have said something about the many other ways of abusing and exploiting people and the planet, since these are now so much more severe as to render other forms of violence irrelevant. Extending the concept of violence to include the global long term consequences of replication of someone's genes, and having a grasp of the nature of how evolution works (i.e., kin selection) will provide a very different perspective on history, current events, and how things are likely to go in the next few hundred years. One might start by noting that the decrease in physical violence over history has been matched (and made possible) by the constantly increasing merciless rape of the planet (i.e., by people's destruction of their own descendant's future). Pinker (like most people most of the time) is often distracted by the superficialities of culture when it's biology that matters. See my recent reviews of Wilson's 'The Social Conquest of Earth' and Nowak and Highfield's 'SuperCooperators' here and on the net for a brief summary of the vacuity of altruism and the operation of kin selection and the uselessness and superficiality of describing behavior in cultural terms. This is the classic nature/nurture issue and nature trumps nurture --infinitely. What really matters is the violence done to the earth by the relentless increase in population and resource destruction (due to medicine and technology and conflict suppression by police and military). About 200,000 more people a day 365 (another Las Vegas every 10 days, another Los Angeles every month), the 12 tons or so of topsoil going into the sea/person/year –about 1% of the world's total disappearing yearly, etc. mean that unless some miracle happens the biosphere and civilization will largely collapse in the next two centuries and there will be starvation, misery and violence of every kind on a staggering scale. People's manners, opinions and tendencies to commit violent acts are of no relevance unless they can do something to avoid this catastrophe, and I don't see how that is going to happen. There is no space for arguments, and no point either (yes I'm a fatalist), so I'll just make a few comments as though they were facts. Don't imagine I have a personal stake in promoting one group at the expense of others. I am 75, have no descendants and no close relatives and do not identify with any political, national or religious group and regard the ones I belong to by default as just as repulsive as all the rest. Parents are the worst Enemies of Life on Earth and, taking the broad view of things, women are as violent as men when one considers the fact that women's violence (like most of that done by men) is largely done in slow motion, at a distance in time and space and mostly carried out by proxy -by their descendants and by men. Increasingly, women bear children regardless of whether they have a mate and the effect of stopping one woman from breeding is on average much greater than stopping one man, since they are the reproductive bottleneck. One can take the view that people and their offspring richly deserve whatever misery comes their way and (with rare exceptions) the rich and famous are the worst offenders. Meryl Streep or Bill Gates and each of their kids may destroy 50 tons of topsoil each per year for generations into the future, while an Indian farmer and his may destroy 1 ton. If someone denies it that's fine, and to their descendants I say "Welcome to Hell on Earth"(WTHOE). The emphasis nowadays is always on Human Rights, but it is clear that if civilization is to stand a chance, Human Responsibilities must replace Human Rights. Nobody gets rights without being a responsible citizen and the first thing this means is minimal environmental destruction. The most basic responsibility is no children unless your society asks you to produce them. A society or a world that lets people breed at random will always be exploited by selfish genes until it collapses (or reaches a point where life is so horrific it's not worth living). If society continues to maintain Human Rights as primary, that's fine and to their descendants one can say with confidence "WTHOE". Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior 366 from the modern two systems view may consult my art The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017'(2017). This is not a perfect book, but it is unique, and if you skim the first 400 or so pages, the last 300 (of some 700) are a pretty good attempt to apply what's known about behavior to social changes in violence and manners over time. The basic topic is: how does our genetics control and limit social change? Surprisingly he fails to describe the nature of kin selection (inclusive fitness) which explains much of animal and human social life. He also (like nearly everyone) lacks a clear framework for describing the logical structure of rationality (LSR-John Searle's preferred term) which I prefer to call the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought (DPHOT). Mostly the criticisms given by others are nit-picking and irrelevant and, as Pinker has said, he could not write a coherent book about "bad things", nor could he give every possible reference and point of view, but he should have said at least something about the many other ways of abusing and exploiting people and the planet, since these are now so much more severe as to render other forms of violence irrelevant. Extending the concept of violence to include the global long term consequences of replication of someone's genes, and having a grasp of the nature of how evolution works (i.e., kin selection) will provide a very different perspective on history, current events, and how things are likely to go in the next few hundred years. One might start by noting that the decrease in physical violence over history has been matched (and made possible) by the constantly increasing merciless rape of the planet (i.e., by people's destruction of their own descendant's future). Pinker (like most people most of the time) is often distracted by the superficialities of culture when it's biology that matters. See my recent reviews of Wilson's 'The Social Conquest of Earth' and Nowak and Highfield's 'SuperCooperators' for a brief summary of the vacuity of altruism and the operation of kin selection and the uselessness and superficiality of describing behavior in cultural terms. This is the classic nature/nurture issue and nature trumps nurture --infinitely. What really matters is the violence done to the earth by the relentless increase in population and resource destruction (due to medicine and technology and conflict suppression by police and military). About 200,000 more people a day (another Las Vegas every 10 days, another Los Angeles every month), the 12 367 tons or so of topsoil going into the sea/person/year etc. mean that unless some miracle happens the biosphere and civilization will largely collapse in the next two centuries and there will be starvation, misery and violence of every kind on a staggering scale. People's manners, opinions and tendencies to commit violent acts are of no relevance unless they can do something to avoid this catastrophe, and I don't see how that is going to happen. There is no space for arguments, and no point either (yes, I'm a fatalist), so I'll just make a few comments as though they were facts. Don't imagine I have a personal stake in promoting one group at the expense of others. I am 75, have no descendants and no close relatives and do not identify with any political, national or religious group and regard the ones I belong to by default as just as repulsive as all the rest. Parents are the worst Enemies of Life on Earth and, taking the broad view of things, women are as violent as men when one considers the fact that women's violence (like most of that done by men) is largely done in slow motion, at a distance in time and space and mostly carried out by proxy -by their descendants and by men. Increasingly, women bear children regardless of whether they have a mate and the effect of stopping one woman from breeding is on average much greater than stopping one man, since they are the reproductive bottleneck. One can take the view that people and their offspring richly deserve whatever misery comes their way and (with rare exceptions) the rich and famous are the worst offenders. Meryl Streep or Bill Gates and each of their kids may destroy 50 tons of topsoil each per year for generations into the future, while an Indian farmer and his may destroy 1 ton. If someone denies it that's fine, and to their descendants I say "Welcome to Hell on Earth"(WTHOE). The emphasis nowadays is always on Human Rights, but it is clear that if civilization is to stand a chance, Human Responsibilities must replace Human Rights. Nobody gets rights (i.e., privileges) without being a responsible citizen and the first thing this means is minimal environmental destruction. The most basic responsibility is no children unless your society asks you to produce them. A society or a world that lets people breed at random will always be exploited by selfish genes until it collapses (or reaches a point where life is so horrific it's not worth living). If society continues to maintain Human Rights as primary, that's fine and to their descendants one can say with confidence "WTHOE". "Helping" has to be seen from a global long term perspective. Almost all 368 "help" that's given by individuals, organizations or countries harms others and the world in the long run and must only be given after very careful consideration. If you want to hand out money, food, medicine, etc., you need to ask what the long term environmental consequences are. If you want to please everyone all the time, that's fine and again to your descendants I say "WTHOE". Dysgenics: endless trillions of creatures beginning with bacteria-like forms over 3 billion years ago have died to create us and all current life and this is called eugenics, evolution by natural selection or kin selection (inclusive fitness). We all have "bad genes" but some are worse than others. It is estimated that up to 50% of all human conceptions end in spontaneous abortion due to "bad genes". Civilization is dysgenic. This problem is currently trivial compared to overpopulation but getting worse by the day. Medicine, welfare, democracy, equality, justice, human rights and "helping" of all kinds have global long term dysgenic consequences which will collapse society even if population growth stops. Again, if the world refuses to believe it or doesn't want to deal with it that's fine and to their (and everyone's) descendants we can say "WTHOE". Beware the utopian scenarios that suggest doomsday can be avoided by judicious application of technologies. As they say you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't fool mother nature any of the time. I leave you with just one example. Famous scientist Raymond Kurzweil proposed nanobots as the saviors of humankind. They would make anything we needed and clean every mess. They would even make ever better versions of themselves. They would keep us as pets. But think of how many people treat their pets, and pets are overpopulating and destroying and becoming dysgenic almost as fast as humans (e.g. feral cats alone kill perhaps 100 billion wild animals a year). Pets only exist because we destroy the earth to feed them and we have spay and neuter clinics and euthanize the sick and unwanted ones. We practice rigorous population control and eugenics on them deliberately and by omission, and no form of life can evolve or exist without these two controls-not even bots. And what's to stop nanobots from evolving? Any change that facilitated reproduction would automatically be selected for and any behavior that wasted time or energy (i.e., taking care of humans) would be heavily selected against. What would stop the bots program from mutating into a homicidal form and exploiting all earth's resources causing global collapse? There is no free lunch for bots either and to them too we can confidently say "WTHOE". 369 This is where any thoughts about the world and human behavior must lead an educated person but Pinker says nothing about it. So, the first 400 pages of this book can be skipped and the last 300 read as a nice summary of EP (evolutionary psychology) as of 2011. However, as in his other books and nearly universally in the behavioral sciences, there is no clear broad framework for intentionality as pioneered by Wittgenstein, Searle and many others. I have presented such a framework in my many reviews of works by and about these two natural psychological geniuses and will not repeat it here. 370 The Dead Hands of Group Selection and Phenomenology -A Review of Individuality and Entanglement by Herbert Gintis 357p (2017) Michael Starks ABSTRACT Since Gintis is a senior economist and I have read some of his previous books with interest, I was expecting some more insights into behavior. Sadly, he makes the dead hands of group selection and phenomenology into the centerpieces of his theories of behavior, and this largely invalidates the work. Worse, since he shows such bad judgement here, it calls into question all his previous work. The attempt to resurrect group selection by his friends at Harvard, Nowak and Wilson, a few years ago was one of the major scandals in biology in the last decade, and I have recounted the sad story in my article 'Altruism, Jesus and the End of the World-how the Templeton Foundation bought a Harvard Professorship and attacked Evolution, Rationality and Civilization -A review of E.O. Wilson 'The Social Conquest of Earth' (2012) and Nowak and Highfield 'SuperCooperators' (2012).' Unlike Nowak, Gintis does not seem to be motivated by religious fanaticism, but by the strong desire to generate an alternative to the grim realities of human nature, made easy by the (near universal) lack of understanding of basic human biology and blank slateism of behavioral scientists, other academics, and the general public. Gintis rightly attacks (as he has many times before) economists, sociologists and other behavioral scientists for not having a coherent framework to describe behavior. Of course, the framework needed to understand behavior is an evolutionary one. Unfortunately, he fails to provide one himself (according to his many critics and I concur), and the attempt to graft the rotten corpse of group selection onto whatever economic and psychological theories he has generated in his decades of work, merely invalidates his entire project. Although Gintis makes a valiant effort to understand and explain the genetics, like Wilson and Nowak, he is far from an expert, and like them, the math just blinds him to the biological impossibilities and of course this is the norm in science. As Wittgenstein famously noted on the first page of Culture and Value "There is no religious denomination in which the misuse of metaphysical expressions has been responsible for so much sin as it has in mathematics." 371 It has always been crystal clear that a gene that causes behavior which decreases its own frequency cannot persist, but this is the core of the notion of group selection. Furthermore, it has been well known and often demonstrated that group selection just reduces to inclusive fitness (kin selection), which, as Dawkins has noted, is just another name for evolution by natural selection. Like Wilson, Gintis has worked in this arena for about 50 years and still has not grasped it, but after the scandal broke, it took me only 3 days to find, read and understand the most relevant professional work, as detailed in my article. It is mind boggling to realize that Gintis and Wilson were unable to accomplish this in nearly half a century. I discuss the errors of group selection and phenomenology that are the norm in academia as special cases of the near universal failure to understand human nature that are destroying America and the world. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book 'The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017'(2017). Since Gintis is a senior economist and I have read some of his previous books with interest, I was expecting some more insights into behavior. Sadly, he makes the dead hands of group selection and phenomenology into the centerpieces of his theories of behavior, and this largely invalidates the work. Worse, since he shows such bad judgement here, it calls into question all his previous work. The attempt to resurrect group selection by his friends at Harvard, Nowak and Wilson, a few years ago was one of the major scandals in biology in the last decade, and I have recounted the sad story in my article 'Altruism, Jesus and the End of the World-how the Templeton Foundation bought a Harvard Professorship and attacked Evolution, Rationality and Civilization -A review of E.O. Wilson 'The Social Conquest of Earth' (2012) and Nowak and Highfield 'SuperCooperators' (2012).' Unlike Nowak, Gintis does not seem to be motivated by religious fanaticism, but by the strong desire to generate an alternative to the grim realities of human nature, made easy by the (near universal) lack of understanding of basic human biology and blank slateism of behavioral scientists, other academics, and the general public. 372 Gintis rightly attacks (as he has many times before) economists, sociologists and other behavioral scientists for not having a coherent framework to describe behavior. Of course, the framework needed to understand behavior is an evolutionary one. Unfortunately, he fails to provide one himself (according to his many critics and I concur), and the attempt to graft the rotten corpse of group selection onto whatever economic and psychological theories he has generated in his decades of work, merely invalidates his entire project. Although Gintis makes a valiant effort to understand and explain the genetics, like Wilson and Nowak, he is far from an expert, and like them, the math just blinds him to the biological impossibilities and of course this is the norm in science. As Wittgenstein famously noted on the first page of Culture and Value "There is no religious denomination in which the misuse of metaphysical expressions has been responsible for so much sin as it has in mathematics." It has always been crystal clear that a gene that causes behavior which decreases its own frequency cannot persist, but this is the core of the notion of group selection. Furthermore, it has been well known and often demonstrated that group selection just reduces to inclusive fitness (kin selection), which, as Dawkins has noted, is just another name for evolution by natural selection. Like Wilson, Gintis has worked in this arena for about 50 years and still has not grasped it, but after the scandal broke, it took me only 3 days to find, read and understand the most relevant professional work, as detailed in my article. It is mind boggling to realize that Gintis and Wilson were unable to accomplish this in nearly half a century. In the years after the Nowak, Wilson, Tarnita paper was published in Nature, several population geneticists recounted chapter and verse on the subject, again showing conclusively that it is all a storm in a teacup. It is most unfortunate that Gintis, like his friends, failed to ask a competent biologist about this and regards as misguided the 140 some well known biologists who a signed a letter protesting the publication of this nonsense in Nature. I refer those who want the gory details to my paper, as it's the best account of the melee that I am aware of. For a summary of the tech details see Dawkins Article The Descent of Edward Wilson http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/edward-wilson-socialconquest-earth-evolutionary-errors-origin-species. As Dawkins wrote 'For Wilson not to acknowledge that he speaks for himself against the great majority of his professional colleagues is-it pains me to say this of a lifelong 373 hero -an act of wanton arrogance'. Sadly, Gintis has assimilated himself to such inglorious company. There are also some nice Dawkins youtubes such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBweDk4ZzZ4. Gintis has also failed to provide the behavioral framework lacking in all the social sciences. One needs to have a logical structure for rationality, an understanding of the two systems of thought (dual process theory), of the division between scientific issues of fact and philosophical issues of how language works in the context at issue, and of how to avoid reductionism and scientism, but he, like nearly all students of behavior, is largely clueless. He, like them, is enchanted by models, theories, and concepts, and the urge to explain, while Wittgenstein showed us that we only need to describe, and that theories, concepts etc., are just ways of using language (language games) which have value only insofar as they have a clear test (clear truthmakers, or as eminent philosopher John Searle likes to say, clear Conditions of Satisfaction (COS)). Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my art The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017'(2017). After half a century in oblivion, the nature of consciousness (intentionality, behavior) is now the hottest topic in the behavioral sciences and philosophy. Beginning with the pioneering work of Ludwig Wittgenstein from the 1930's (the Blue and Brown Books) to 1951, and from the 50's to the present by his successors Searle, Moyal-Sharrock, Read, Hacker, Stern, Horwich, Winch, Finkelstein etc., I have created the following table as an heuristic for furthering this study. The rows show various aspects or ways of studying and the columns show the involuntary processes and voluntary behaviors comprising the two systems (dual processes) of the Logical Structure of Consciousness (LSC), which can also be regarded as the Logical Structure of Rationality (LSRSearle), of behavior (LSB), of personality (LSP), of Mind (LSM), of language (LSL), of reality (LSOR), of Intentionality (LSI) -the classical philosophical term, the Descriptive Psychology of Consciousness (DPC) , the Descriptive Psychology of Thought (DPT) –or better, the Language of the Descriptive Psychology of Thought (LDPT), terms introduced here and in my other very recent writings. 374 The ideas for this table originated in the work by Wittgenstein, a much simpler table by Searle, and correlates with extensive tables and graphs in the three recent books on Human Nature by P.M.S Hacker. The last 9 rows come principally from decision research by Johnathan St. B.T. Evans and colleagues as revised by myself. System 1 is involuntary, reflexive or automated "Rules" R1 while Thinking (Cognition) has no gaps and is voluntary or deliberative "Rules" R2 and Willing (Volition) has 3 gaps (see Searle) 375 Disposition* Emotion Memory Perception Desire PI** IA*** Action/ Word Cause Originates From**** World World World World Mind Mind Mind Mind Causes Changes In***** None Mind Mind Mind None World World World Causally Self Reflexive****** No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes True or False (Testable) Yes T only T only T only Yes Yes Yes Yes Public Conditions of Satisfaction Yes Yes/No Yes/No No Yes/No Yes No Yes Describe A Mental State No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes/No Yes Evolutionary Priority 5 4 2,3 1 5 3 2 2 Voluntary Content Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes Voluntary Initiation Yes/No No Yes No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive System ******* 2 1 2/1 1 2 / 1 2 1 2 Change Intensity No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Precise Duration No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Time, Place (H+N, T+T) ******** TT HN HN HN TT TT HN HN Special Quality No Yes No Yes No No No No Localized in Body No No No Yes No No No Yes Bodily Expressions Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Self Contradictions No Yes No No Yes No No No Needs a Self Yes Yes/No No No Yes No No No Needs Language Yes No No No No No No Yes/No 376 FROM DECISION RESEARCH Disposition* Emotion Memory Perception Desire PI** IA*** Action/ Word Subliminal Effects No Yes/No Yes Yes No No No Yes/No Associative/ Rule Based RB A/RB A A A/RB RB RB RB Context Dependent/ Abstract A CD/A CD CD CD/A A CD/A CD/A Serial/Parallel S S/P P P S/P S S S Heuristic/ Analytic A H/A H H H/A A A A Needs Working Memory Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes General Intelligence Dependent Yes No No No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive Loading Inhibits Yes Yes/No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Arousal Facilitates or Inhibits I F/I F F I I I I Public Conditions of Satisfaction of S2 are often referred to by Searle and others as COS, Representations, truthmakers or meanings (or COS2 by myself), while the automatic results of S1 are designated as presentations by others (or COS1 by myself). * Aka Inclinations, Capabilities, Preferences, Representations, possible actions etc. ** Searle's Prior Intentions *** Searle's Intention In Action **** Searle's Direction of Fit ***** Searle's Direction of Causation ****** (Mental State instantiates--Causes or Fulfills Itself). Searle formerly called this causally selfreferential. ******* Tversky/Kahneman/Frederick/Evans/Stanovich defined cognitive systems. ******** Here and Now or There and Then 377 It is of interest to compare this with the various tables and charts in Peter Hacker's recent 3 volumes on Human Nature. One should always keep in mind Wittgenstein's discovery that after we have described the possible uses (meanings, truthmakers, Conditions of Satisfaction) of language in a particular context, we have exhausted its interest, and attempts at explanation (i.e., philosophy) only get us further away from the truth. He showed us that there is only one philosophical problem-the use of sentences (language games) in an inappropriate context, and hence only one solution- showing the correct context. Gintis starts making dubious, vague or downright bizarre claims early in the book. It begins on the first page of the overview with meaningless quotes from Einstein and Ryle. On pxii the paragraph beginning 'Third Theme' about entangled minds needs rewriting to specify that language games are functions of System 2 and that's how thinking, believing etc. work (what they are), while the Fourth Theme which tries to explain behavior as due to what people 'consciously believe' is right. That is, with 'nonconsequentialism' he's trying to 'explain' behavior as 'altruistic' group selection mediated by conscious linguistic System 2. But if we take an evolutionary long term view, it's clearly due to reciprocal altruism, attempting to serve inclusive fitness, which is mediated by the unconscious operation of System 1. Likewise, for the Fifth Theme and the rest of the Overview. He favors Rational Choice but has no idea this is a language game for which the exact context must be specified, nor that both System 1 and System 2 are 'rational' but in quite different ways. This is the classic error of most descriptions of behavior, which Searle has called The Phenomenological Illusion, Pinker the Blank Slate and Tooby and Cosmides 'The Standard Social Science Model') and I have discussed it extensively in my other reviews and articles. As long as one does not grasp that most of our behavior is automated by nonlinguistic System 1, and that our conscious linguistic System 2 is mostly for rationalization of our compulsive and unconscious choices, it is not possible to have more than a very superficial view of behavior, i.e., the one that is nearly universal not only among academics but politicians, billionaire owners of high tech companies, movie stars and the general public. Consequently, the consequences reach far beyond academia, producing delusional social policies that are bringing about the inexorable collapse of industrial civilization. See my 'Suicide by Democracy-an Obituary for America and the World'. It is breathtaking to see America and the European democracies helping citizens of the third world destroy everyone's future. 378 On pxiii one can describe the 'nonconsequentialist' (i.e., apparently 'true' altruistic or selfdestructive behavior) as actually performing reciprocal altruism, serving inclusive fitness due to genes evolved in the EEA (Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation-i.e., that of our very distant ancestors), which stimulates the dopaminergic circuits in the ventral tegmentum and the nucleus accumbens, with the resulting release of dopamine which makes us feel good-the same mechanism that appears to be involved in all addictive behavior from drug abuse to soccer moms. And more incoherent babble such as "In the context of such environments, there is a fitness benefit to the 'epigenetic transmission' of such 'information' concerning the 'current state' of the 'environment', i.e., transmission through non-genetic 'channels'. This is called 'cultural transmission'" [scare quotes mine]. Also, that 'culture' is 'directly encoded' in the brain (p7), which he says is the main tenet of gene-culture coevolution, and that democratic institutions and voting are altruistic and cannot be explained in terms of self-interest (p1718). The major reason for these peculiar views does not really come out until p186 when he finally makes it clear that he is a group selectionist. Since there is no such thing as group selection apart from inclusive fitness, it's no surprise that this is just another incoherent account of behavior-i.e., more or less what Tooby and Cosmides famously termed The Standard Social Science Model or Pinker 'The Blank Slate'. What he calls 'altruistic genes' on p188 should be called 'inclusive fitness genes' or 'kin selection genes'. Gintis is also much impressed with the idea of gene-culture coevolution, which only means that culture may itself be an agent of natural selection but he fails to grasp that this can only happen within the context of natural selection (inclusive fitness). Like nearly all social scientists (and scientists, philosophers etc.), it never crosses his mind that 'culture', 'coevolution',' symbolic',' 'epigenetic', 'information', 'representation' etc., are all families of complex language games, whose COS (Conditions Of Satisfaction, tests for truth) are exquisitely sensitive to context. Without a specific context, they don't mean anything. So, in this book, as in most of the literature on behavior, there is much talk that has the appearance of sense without sense (meaning or clear COS). His claim on pxv, that most of our genes are the result of culture, is clearly preposterous as e.g., it is well known that we are about 98% chimpanzee. Only if he means those relating to language can we accept the possibility that some of our genes have been subject to cultural selection and even these merely modified ones that already existed-i.e., a few base pairs were 379 changed out of hundreds of thousands or millions in each gene. He is much taken with the 'rational actor' model of economic behavior. but again, is unaware that the automaticities of S1 underlie all 'rational' behavior and the conscious linguistic deliberations of S2 cannot take place without them. Like many, perhaps the vast majority of current younger students of behavior, I see all human activities as easily comprehensible results of the working of selfish genetics in a contemporary context in which police surveillance and a temporary abundance of resources gotten by raping the earth and robbing our own descendants leads to relative temporary tranquility. In this connection, I suggest my review of Pinker's recent book- The Transient Suppression of the Worst Devils of Our Nature-A Review of The Better Angels of Our Nature'. Many behaviors look like true altruism, and some are (i.e., they will decrease the frequency of the genes that bring them about – i.e, lead to the extinction of their own descendants), but the point which Gintis misses is that these are due to a psychology which evolved long ago in small groups on the African plains in the EEA and made sense then (i.e., it was inclusive fitness, when everyone in our group of a few dozen to a few hundred were our close relatives), and so we often continue with these behaviors even though they no longer make sense (i.e., they serve the interests of unrelated or distantly related persons which decreases our genetic fitness by decreasing the frequency of the genes that made it possible). This accounts for his promoting the notion that many behaviors are 'truly altruistic', rather than selfish in origin (such as in sect. 3.2). He even notes this and calls it 'distributed effectivity' (p60-63) in which people behave in big elections as though they were small ones, but he fails to see this is not due to any genes for 'true altruism' but to genes for reciprocal altruism (inclusive fitness), which is of course selfish. Thus, people behave as though their actions (e.g., their votes) were consequential, even though it is clear that they are not. E.g., one can find on the net that the chances of any one person's vote deciding the outcome of an American presidential election is in the range of millions to tens of millions to one. And of course, the same is true of our chances of winning a lottery, yet our malfunctioning EEA psychology makes lotteries and voting hugely popular activities. He also seems unaware of the standard terminology and ways of describing behavior used in evolutionary psychology (EP). E.g., on pg. 75 Arrow's description of norms of social behavior are described in economic terms rather than as EP from the EEA trying to operate in current environments, 380 and at the bottom of the page, people act not as 'altruistic' punishers (i.e., as 'group selectionists') but as inclusive fitness punishers. On p 78, to say that subjects act 'morally' or in accord with a norm 'for its own sake', is again to embrace the group selectionist/phenomenological illusion, and clearly it is groups of genes that are trying to increase their inclusive fitness via wellknown EP mechanisms like cheater detection and punishment. Again, on p88, what he describes as other-regarding unselfish actions can just as easily be described as self-regarding attempts at reciprocal altruism which go astray in a large society. Naturally, he often uses standard economics jargon such as 'the subjective prior must be interpreted as a conditional probability', which just means a belief in the likelihood of a particular outcome (p90-91), and 'common subjective priors' (shared beliefs) p122. Much of the book and of behavior concerns what is often called 'we intentionality' or the construction of social reality, but the most eminent theorist in this arena, John Searle, is not discussed, his now standard terminology such as COS and DIRA (desire independent reasons for action) does not appear, he is not in the index, and only one of his many works, and that over 20 years old, is found in the bibliography. On p97 he comments favorably on Bayesian updating without mentioning that it is notorious for lacking any meaningful test for success (i.e., clear COS), and commonly fails to make any clear predictions, so that no matter what people do, it can describe their behavior after the fact. However, the main problem with chapter 5 is that 'rational' and other terms are complex language games that have no meaning apart from very specific contexts, which are typically lacking here. Of course, as Wittgenstein showed us, this is the core problem of all discussion of behavior and Gintis has most of the behavioral science community (or at least most of those over 40) as coconspirators. Likewise, throughout the book, such as chapter 6, where he discusses 'complexity theory', 'emergent properties', 'macro and micro levels', and 'nonlinear dynamical systems' and the generation of 'models' (which can mean almost anything and 'describe' almost anything), but it's only prediction that counts (i.e., clear COS). In spite of his phenomenological illusion (i.e., the near universal assumption that our conscious deliberations describe and control behavior-at odds with almost all the research in social psychology for the last 40 years), he also shares the reductionist delusion, wondering why the social sciences have not 381 got a core analytical theory and have not coalesced. This of course is a frequent subject in the social sciences and philosophy and the reason is that psychology of higher order thought is not describable by causes, but by reasons, and one cannot make psychology disappear into physiology nor physiology into biochemistry nor it into physics etc. They are just different and indispensable levels of description. Wittgenstein famously described it 80 years ago in the Blue Book. "Our craving for generality has [as one] source ... our preoccupation with the method of science. I mean the method of reducing the explanation of natural phenomena to the smallest possible number of primitive natural laws; and, in mathematics, of unifying the treatment of different topics by using a generalization. Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness. I want to say here that it can never be our job to reduce anything to anything, or to explain anything. Philosophy really is "purely descriptive." He is also quite out of touch with the contemporary world, thinking that people are going to be nice because they have internalized altruism (i.e., group selection), and with demographic realities, when he opines that population growth is under control, when in fact predictions are for another 4 billion by 2100 (p133). He sees a need to "carve an academic niche for sociology" (p148), but the whole discussion is typical gibberish (no clear COS), and all one really needs (or can give) is a clear description of the language games (the mind at work) we play in social situations, and how they show how our attempts at inclusive fitness work or go astray in contemporary contexts. Over and over he pushes his fantasy that "inherently ethical behavior" (i.e., group selectionist altruism) explains our social behavior, ignoring the obvious facts that it's due to temporary abundance of resources, police and surveillance, and that always when you take these away, savagery quickly emerges (e.g., p151). It's easy to maintain such delusions when one lives in the ivory tower world of abstruse theories, inattentive to the millions of scams, robberies, rapes, assaults, thefts and murders taking place every day. Again, and again, (e.g., top p170) he ignores the obvious explanations for our 'rationality', which is natural selection –i.e., inclusive fitness in the EEA leading to ESS (Evolutionarily Stable Strategies), or at least they were more 382 or less stable in small groups 100,000 to 3 million years ago. Chapter 9 on the Sociology of the Genome is inevitably full of mistakes and incoherence-e.g., there are not special 'altruistic genes', rather, all genes serve inclusive fitness or they disappear (p188). The problem is that the only way to really get selfish genetics and inclusive fitness across is to have Gintis in a room for a day with Dawkins, Franks, Coyne etc., explaining why it is wrong. But as always, one has to have a certain level of education, intelligence, rationality and honesty for this to work, and if one is just a little bit short in several categories, it will not succeed. The same of course is true for much of human understanding, and so the vast majority will never get anything that is at all subtle. As with the Nowak, Wilson, Tarnita paper, I am sure that Dawkins, Franks and others would have been willing to go over this chapter and explain where it goes astray, but wanton arrogance is an absolute barrier to truth. The major problem is that people just do not grasp the concept of natural selection by inclusive fitness nor of subconscious motivations, and that many have 'religious' motivations for rejecting them. This includes not just the general public and non-science academics, but a large percentage of biologists and behavioral scientists. I recently came across a lovely review by Dawkins of a discussion of the selfish gene idea by top level professional biologists, in which he had to go over their work line by line to explain that they just did not grasp how it all works. But only a small number of people like him could do this, and the sea of confusion is vast, and so these delusions about human nature that destroy this book, and are destroying America and the world will, as the Queen said to Alice in a slightly different context, go on until they come to the end and then stop. 383 Altruism, Jesus and the End of the World-how the Templeton Foundation bought a Harvard Professorship and attacked Evolution, Rationality and Civilization. A review of E.O. Wilson 'The Social Conquest of Earth' (2012) and Nowak and Highfield 'SuperCooperators'(2012) Michael Starks ABSTRACT Famous ant-man E.O. Wilson has always been one of my heroes --not only an outstanding biologist, but one of the tiny and vanishing minority of intellectuals who at least dares to hint at the truth about our nature that others fail to grasp, or insofar as they do grasp, studiously avoid for political expedience. Sadly, he is ending his long career in a most sordid fashion as a party to an ignorant and arrogant attack on science motivated at least in part by religious fervor. It shows the vile consequences when universities accept money from religious groups, science journals are so awed by big names that they avoid proper peer review, and when egos are permitted to get out of control. It takes us into the nature of evolution, the basics of scientific methodology, how math relates to science, what constitutes a theory, and even what attitudes to religion and generosity are appropriate as we inexorably approach the collapse of industrial civilization. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book 'The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017' (2017). Famous ant-man E.O. Wilson has always been one of my heroes--not only an outstanding biologist, but one of the tiny and vanishing minority of intellectuals who at least dares to hint at the truth about our nature that others fail to grasp, or insofar as they do grasp, studiously avoid for of political expedience. Sadly, he is ending his long career in a most sordid fashion as a party to an ignorant and arrogant attack on science motivated at least in part 384 by religious fervor. It shows the vile consequences when universities accept money from religious groups, science journals are so awed by big names that they avoid proper peer review, and when egos are permitted to get out of control. It takes us into the nature of evolution, the basics of scientific methodology, how math relates to science, what constitutes a theory, and even what attitudes to religion and generosity are appropriate as we inexorably approach the collapse of industrial civilization. I found sections in 'Conquest' with the usual incisive commentary (though nothing really new or interesting if you have read his other works and are up on biology in general) in the often-stilted prose that is his hallmark, but was quite surprised that the core of the book is his rejection of inclusive fitness (which has been a mainstay of evolutionary biology for over 50 years) in favor of group selection. One assumes that coming from him and with the articles he refers to published by himself and Harvard mathematics colleague Nowak in major peer reviewed journals like Nature, it must be a substantial advance, in spite of the fact that I knew group selection was nearly universally rejected as having any major role in evolution. I have read numerous reviews on the net and many have good comments but the one I most wanted to see was that by renowned science writer and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. Unlike most by professionals, which are in journals only available to those with access to a university, it is readily available on the net, though apparently, he decided not to publish it in a journal as it is suitably scathing. Sadly, one finds a devastating rejection of the book and the most acerbic commentary on a scientific colleague I have ever seen from Dawkins-exceeding anything in his many exchanges with late and unlamented demagogue and pseudoscientist Stephan Jay Gould. Although Gould was infamous for his personal attacks on his Harvard colleague Wilson, Dawkins notes that much of 'Conquest' reminds one uncomfortably of Gould's frequent lapses into "bland, unfocussed ecumenicalism". The same is more or less true of all Wilson's popular writing including his most recent book 'The Meaning of Human Existence'-another shameless self-promotion of his discredited ideas on Inclusive Fitness (IF). Dawkins points out that the notorious 2010 paper by Nowak, Tarnita and Wilson in Nature was almost universally rejected by over 140 biologists who responded with letters and that there is not one word about this in Wilson's book. Nor have they corrected this in the subsequent 4 years of articles, 385 lectures and several books. There is no choice but to agree with Dawkin's trenchant comment "For Wilson not to acknowledge that he speaks for himself against the great majority of his professional colleagues is--it pains me to say this of a lifelong hero --an act of wanton arrogance." In view of Nowak's subsequent behavior one must include him as well. I feel like one of the stunned people one sees on TV being interviewed after the nice man next door, who has been babysitting everyone's children for 30 years, is exposed as a serial killer. Dawkins also points out (as he and others have done for many years) that inclusive fitness is entailed by (i.e., logically follows from) neoDarwinism and cannot be rejected without rejecting evolution itself. Wilson again reminds us of Gould, who denounced creationists from one side of his mouth while giving them comfort by spewing endless ultraliberal Marxist-tinged gibberish about spandrels, punctuated equilibrium and evolutionary psychology from the other. The vagueness and mathematical opacity (to most of us) of the mathematics of group or multilevel selection is just what the softminded want to enable them to escape rational thinking in their endless antiscientific rants, and (in academia) postmodernist word salads. Worse yet, Wilson's 'Conquest' is a poorly thought out and sloppily written mess full of nonsequiturs, vague ramblings, confusions and incoherence. A good review that details some of these is that by graduate student Gerry Carter which you can find on the net. Wilson is also out of touch with our current understanding of evolutionary psychology (EP) (see e.g., the last 300 pages of Pinker's 'The Better Angels of our Nature'). If you want a serious book length account of social evolution and some relevant EP from a by an expert see Principles of Social Evolution by Andrew F.G. Bourke, or a not quite so serious and admittedly flawed and rambling account but a must read nevertheless by Robert Trivers--The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life and older but still current and penetrating works such as The Evolution of Cooperation: Revised Edition by Robert Axelrod and The Biology of Moral Systems by Richard Alexander. After reading this book and its reviews, I dug into some of the scientific articles which responded to Nowak and Wilson and to Van Veelen's critiques of the Price equation upon which they heavily relied. The reviews noted that it has always been clear that the math of group or multilevel selection reduces to that of inclusive fitness (kin selection) and that it is not logically possible to select for behavior that does not benefit the genes that are unique to the actor and its immediate relatives. To put it bluntly, 'altruistic' behavior is always 386 selfish in the end in the sense that it increases survival of the genes in the altruist. This to me is obvious from daily life and any scientists who claim otherwise have clearly lost their way. Yes, it does happen in the weirdness of modern life (i.e., so unlike the stone age society in which we evolved) that one sometimes sees a person give their life to protect a nonrelated person, but clearly, they will not do it again and (provided its done before they replicate) any tendency to do it will not be inherited either. Even if they have already replicated they will on average leave behind fewer descendants than if they held back. This guarantees that any genetic tendency for 'true altruism'i.e., behavior that decreases one's genes in the population-will be selected against and no more than this very basic logic is needed to grasp evolution by natural selection, kin selection and inclusive fitness-all the mathematical niceties serving only to quantitate things and to clarify strange living arrangements in some of our relatives (e.g., ants, termites and mole rats). The major focus of the group selectionist's ('groupies') attack was the famous Extended Price Equation that has been used to model inclusive fitness, published by Price about 40 years ago. The best papers debunking these attacks that I have found are those of Frank and Bourke and I will start with a few quotes from Frank 'Natural selection. IV. The Price equation' J. EVOL. BIOL. 25 (2012) 1002–1019. 'The critics confuse the distinct roles of general abstract theory and concrete dynamical models for particular cases. The enduring power of the Price equation arises from the discovery of essential invariances in natural selection. For example, kin selection theory expresses biological problems in terms of relatedness coefficients. Relatedness measures the association between social partners. The proper measure of relatedness identifies distinct biological scenarios with the same (invariant) evolutionary outcome. Invariance relations provide the deepest insights of scientific thought...Essentially, all modern discussions of multilevel selection and group selection derive from Price (1972a), as developed by Hamilton (1975). Price and Hamilton noted that the Price equation can be expanded recursively to represent nested levels of analysis, for example individuals living in groups... All modern conceptual insights about group selection derive from Price's recursive expansion of his abstract expression of selection... A criticism of these Price equation applications is a criticism of the central approach of evolutionary quantitative genetics. Such criticisms may be valid for certain applications, but they must be evaluated in the broader context of quantitative genetics theory...[and in a quote from Price ... 'Gene frequency change is the basic event in biological evolution. The following 387 equation...which gives frequency change under selection from one generation to the next for a single gene or for any linear function of any number of genes at any number of loci, holds for any sort of dominance or epistasis, for sexual or asexual reproduction, for random or nonrandom mating, for diploid, haploid or polyploid species, and even for imaginary species with more than two sexes'...]... Path (contextual) analysis follows as a natural extension of the Price equation, in which one makes specific models of fitness expressed by regression. It does not make sense to discuss the Price equation and path analysis as alternatives... Critiques of the Price equation rarely distinguish the costs and benefits of particular assumptions in relation to particular goals. I use van Veelen's recent series of papers as a proxy for those critiques. That series repeats some of the common misunderstandings and adds some new ones. Nowak recently repeated van Veelen's critique as the basis for his commentary on the Price equation (van Veelen, 2005; Nowak et al., 2010; van Veelen et al., 2010; Nowak& Highfield, 2011; van Veelen, 2011; van Veelen et al., 2012... This quote from van Veelen et al. (2012) demonstrates an interesting approach to scholarship. They first cite Frank as stating that dynamic insufficiency is a drawback of the Price equation. They then disagree with that point of view and present as their own interpretation an argument that is nearly identical in concept and phrasing to my own statement in the very paper that they cited as the foundation for their disagreement... The recursive form of the full Price equation provides the foundation for all modern studies of group selection and multilevel analysis. The Price equation helped in discovering those various connections, although there are many other ways in which to derive the same relations... Kin selection theory derives much of its power by identifying an invariant informational quantity sufficient to unify a wide variety of seemingly disparate processes (Frank, 1998, Chapter 6). The interpretation of kin selection as an informational invariance has not been fully developed and remains an open problem. Invariances provide the foundation of scientific understanding: 'It is only slightly overstating the case to say that physics is the study of symmetry' (Anderson, 1972). Invariance and symmetry mean the same thing (Weyl, 1983). Feynman (1967) emphasized that invariance is The Character of Physical Law. The commonly observed patterns of probability can be unified by the study of invariance and its association with measurement (Frank & Smith, 2010, 2011). There has been little effort in biology to pursue similar understanding of invariance and measurement (Frank, 2011; Houle et al.,2011).' 388 I hope it is becoming clear why I chose the title I did for this article. To attack the Price equation and inclusive fitness is to attack not only quantitative genetics and evolution by natural selection, but the universally used concepts of covariance, invariance and symmetry, which are basic to science and to rationality. Furthermore, the clearly voiced religious motivation of Nowak invites us to consider to what extent such Christian virtues as true (permanently genetically self-diminishing) altruism and the brotherhood of man (woman, child, dog etc.) can be part of a rational program for survival in the near future. My take is that true altruism is a luxury for those who don't mind being evolutionary dead ends and that even in it's 'make believe' inclusive fitness version, one will be hard pressed to find it when the wolf is at the door (i.e., the likely universal scenario for the 12 billion in the next century). There is much more in this gem, which goes into exquisite logical and mathematical detail (and likewise his many other papers-you can get all 7 in this series in one pdf) but this will give the flavor. Another amusing episode concerns tautology in math. Frank again: 'Nowak & Highfield (2011) and van Veelen et al. (2012) believe their arguments demonstrate that the Price equation is true in the same trivial sense, and they call that trivial type of truth a mathematical tautology. Interestingly, magazines, online articles and the scientific literature have for several years been using the phrase mathematical tautology for the Price equation, although Nowak & Highfield (2011) and van Veelen et al. (2012) do not provide citations to previous literature. As far as I know, the first description of the Price equation as a mathematical tautology was in the study of Frank (1995).' Unlike Frank, Lamm and others, the 'groupies' have not shown any understanding of the philosophy of science (the descriptive psychology of higher order thought, as I like to call it) in these recent books and articles, nor in any of Wilson's numerous popular books and articles over the last half century, so I would not expect them to have studied Wittgenstein (the most penetrating philosopher of mathematics) who famously remarked that in math 'everything is syntax, nothing is semantics'. Wittgenstein exposes a nearly universal misunderstanding of the role of math in science. All math (and logic) is a tautology that has no meaning or use until it is connected to our life with words. Every equation is a tautology until numbers and words and the system of conventions we call evolutionary psychology are employed. Amazingly Lamm in his recent excellent article 'A Gentle Introduction to The Price Equation' (2011) notes this: 389 'The Price equation deals with any selection process. Indeed, we can define selection using it. It says nothing in particular about biological or genetic evolution, and is not tied to any particular biological scenario. This gives it immense power, but also means that it is quite possible to apply it incorrectly to the real world. This leads us to the second and final observation. The Price equation is analytic [true by definition or tautologous]. It is not a synthetic proposition [an empirical issue as to its truth or falsity]. We derived it based on straightforward definitions, and universal mathematical principles. The equation simply provides a useful way of interpreting the meaning of the straightforward definitions we started from. This however is not the case once you put the equation into words, thereby interpreting the mathematical relationships. If you merely say: _I define 'selection' to be the covariance blah blah blah, you might be safe. If you say: _the covariance blah blah blah is selection, you are making a claim with empirical content. More fundamentally, the belief that the rules of probability theory and statistics, or any other mathematical manipulation, describe the actual world is synthetic.' In this regard, also recommended is Helantera and Uller's 'The Price Equation and Extended Inheritance' Philos Theor Biol (2010) 2: e101. 'Here we use the Price Equation as a starting point for a discussion of the differences between four recently proposed categories of inheritance systems; genetic, epigenetic, behavioral and symbolic. Specifically, we address how the components of the Price Equation encompass different non-genetic systems of inheritance in an attempt to clarify how the different systems are conceptually related. We conclude that the four classes of inheritance systems do not form distinct clusters with respect to their effect on the rate and direction of phenotypic change from one generation to the next in the absence or presence of selection. Instead, our analyses suggest that different inheritance systems can share features that are conceptually very similar, but that their implications for adaptive evolution nevertheless differ substantially as a result of differences in their ability to couple selection and inheritance.' So, it should be clear that there is no such thing as sidestepping the Price equation and that like any equation, it has limitless applications if one only connects it to the world with suitable words. As Andy Gardner put it in his article on Price (Current Biology 18#5 R198). Also see his 'Adaptation and Inclusive Fitness' Current Biology 23, R577– R584, July 8, 2013 'Such ideas were rather confused until Price, and later Hamilton, showed that 390 the Price equation can be expanded to encompass multiple levels of selection acting simultaneously (Box 2). This allows selection at the various levels to be explicitly defined and separated, and provides the formal basis of group selection theory. Importantly, it allows the quantification of these separate forces and yields precise predictions for when group-beneficial behavior will be favoured. It turns out that these predictions are always consistent with Hamilton's rule, rb – c > 0. Furthermore, because kin selection and group selection theory are both based upon the same Price equation, it is easy to show that the two approaches are mathematically exactly equivalent, and are simply alternative ways of carving up the total selection operating upon the social character. Irrespective of the approach taken, individual organisms are expected to maximize their inclusive fitness - though this result follows more easily from a kin selection analysis, as it makes the key element of relatedness more explicit.' Consequently, to have the 'groupies' attacking the Price is bizarre. And here is Bourke's recent summary of inclusive fitness vs 'groupism': (haplodiploid and eusocial refer to the social insects which provide some of the best tests). 'Recent critiques have questioned the validity of the leading theory for explaining social evolution and eusociality, namely inclusive fitness (kin selection) theory. I review recent and past literature to argue that these critiques do not succeed. Inclusive fitness theory has added fundamental insights to natural selection theory. These are the realization that selection on a gene for social behaviour depends on its effects on co-bearers, the explanation of social behaviours as unalike as altruism and selfishness using the same underlying parameters, and the explanation of within-group conflict in terms of non-coinciding inclusive fitness optima. A proposed alternative theory for eusocial evolution assumes mistakenly that workers' interests are subordinate to the queen's, contains no new elements and fails to make novel predictions. The haplodiploidy hypothesis has yet to be rigorously tested and positive relatedness within diploid eusocial societies supports inclusive fitness theory. The theory has made unique, falsifiable predictions that have been confirmed, and its evidence base is extensive and robust. Hence, inclusive fitness theory deserves to keep its position as the leading theory for social evolution.' However inclusive fitness (especially via the Extended Price Equation) explains much more than ant society, it explains how multicellular organisms came into being. 391 'The third insight of inclusive fitness theory is the demonstration that conflict between members of a society is potentially present if they are unequally related to group offspring, since differential relatedness leads to unequal inclusive fitness optima. From this has sprung an understanding of an immense range of kin-selected conflicts, including conflicts within families and eusocial societies and intragenomic conflicts that follow the same underlying logic. The corollary of this insight is that societies are stable to the extent that the inclusive fitness optima of their members coincide. This in turn provides the rationale for the entire 'major transitions' view of evolution, whereby the origin of novel types of group in the history of life (e.g. genomes within cells, multicellular organisms and eusocial societies) can be explained as the result of their previously independent constituent units achieving a coincidence of inclusive fitness optima through grouping. From this standpoint, a multicellular organism is a eusocial society of cells in which the members of the society happen to be physically stuck together; the more fundamental glue, however, is the clonal relatedness that (barring mutations) gives each somatic cell within the organism a common interest in promoting the production of gametes...Nowak et al. argued that their perspective assumes a 'gene-centred approach' that 'makes inclusive fitness theory unnecessary'. This is puzzling, because entirely lacking from their perspective is the idea, which underpins each of inclusive fitness theory's insights, of the gene as a self-promoting strategist whose evolutionary interests are conditional on the kin class in which it resides...In their model of the evolution of eusociality, Nowak et al. deduced that the problem of altruism is illusory. They wrote that 'There is no paradoxical altruism that needs to be explained' because they assumed that potential workers (daughters of a colony-founding female or queen) are 'not independent agents' but rather can be seen 'as "robots" that are built by the queen' or the 'extrasomatic projection of [the queen's] personal genome'. If this claim were correct, then only the queen's interests would need to be addressed and one could conclude that worker altruism is more apparent than real. But it is incorrect, for two reasons. One is that, as has repeatedly been argued in response to previous 'parental manipulation' theories of the origin of eusociality, the inclusive fitness interests of workers and the mother queen do not coincide, because the two parties are differentially related to group offspring. The second is that worker behaviours such as eating of the queen's eggs, egg-laying in response to perceived declines in queen fecundity, sexratio manipulation by destruction of the queen's offspring and lethal aggression towards the queen all demonstrate that workers can act in their own interests and against those of the queen. In the light of this proven lack of worker passivity, workers' reproductive self-sacrifice is paradoxical at first 392 sight and this is the genuine problem of altruism that inclusive fitness theory has solved. (c) Alternative theory of eusocial evolution Nowak et al. [38] presented an 'alternative theory of eusocial evolution' (as alluded to in §2b), backed up by a 'mathematical model for the origin of eusociality'. However, these do not represent true alternative theories, either alone or in combination, because they do not make any points or predictions that have not been made within inclusive fitness theory' Speaking of various steps in a scheme suggested by Nowak et al, Bourke says: 'These steps constitute a reasonable scenario for the origin and elaboration of insect eusociality, but neither the sequence of steps nor the individual elements differ substantially from those that have been proposed to occur within the inclusive fitness framework...The alternative theory of eusocial evolution of Nowak et al. also exhibits two important weaknesses. To begin with, by allowing groups to form in multiple ways in step (i) (e.g. subsocially through parent–offspring associations but also by any other means, including 'randomly by mutual local attraction'), their scenario ignores two critical points that are inconsistent with it but consistent with inclusive fitness theory. First, the evidence is that, in almost all eusocial lineages, eusociality has originated in social groups that were ancestrally subsocial and therefore characterized by high within-group relatedness. Second, the evidence is that the origin of obligate or complex eusociality, defined as involving adult workers irreversibly committed to a worker phenotype, is associated with ancestral lifetime parental monogamy and hence, again, with predictably high within-group relatedness...In sum, Nowak et al. make a case for considering the effect of the population-dynamic context in which eusocial evolution occurs. But their alternative theory and its associated model add no fundamentally new elements on top of those identified within the inclusive fitness framework and, relative to this framework, exhibit substantial shortcomings...More fundamentally, as has long been recognized and repeatedly stressed , the haplodiploidy hypothesis is not an essential component of inclusive fitness theory, since Hamilton's rule for altruism can hold without the relatedness asymmetries caused by haplodiploidy being present. Highlighting the status of the haplodiploidy hypothesis to criticize inclusive fitness theory therefore misses the target. It also overlooks the fact that all diploid eusocial societies identified since the haplodiploidy hypothesis was proposed have turned out to be either clonal or family groups and so, as predicted by inclusive fitness theory, to exhibit positive relatedness. This is true of ambrosia beetle, social aphids, polyembryonic wasps, social shrimps and mole-rats. It is even true of a newly discovered eusocial flatworm. In short, the diploid eusocial societies, far from weakening 393 inclusive fitness theory, serve to strengthen it...More broadly, the theory uniquely predicts the absence of altruism (involving lifetime costs to direct fitness) between non-relatives, and indeed no such cases have been found except in systems clearly derived from ancestral societies of relatives. Finally, inclusive fitness theory is unique in the range of social phenomena that it has successfully elucidated, including phenomena as superficially dissimilar as the origin of multicellularity and the origin of eusociality, or intragenomic conflicts and conflicts within eusocial societies. Overall, no other theory comes close to matching inclusive fitness theory's record of successful explanation and prediction across such a range of phenomena within the field of social evolution. The challenge to any approach purporting to replace inclusive fitness theory is to explain the same phenomena without using the insights or concepts of the theory...Recent critiques of inclusive fitness theory have proved ineffective on multiple fronts. They do not demonstrate fatal or unrecognized difficulties with inclusive fitness theory. They do not provide a distinct replacement theory or offer a similarly unifying approach. They do not explain previously unexplained data or show that explanations from inclusive fitness theory are invalid. And they do not make new and unique predictions. The latest and most comprehensive critique of inclusive fitness theory, though broad-ranging in the scope of its criticism, suffers from the same faults. Certainly, relatedness does not explain all variation in social traits. In addition, the long-standing message from inclusive fitness theory is that particular combinations of non-genetic (e.g. ecological) and genetic factors are required for the origin of eusociality. Nonetheless, relatedness retains a unique status in the analysis of eusocial evolution because no amount of ecological benefit can bring about altruism if relatedness is zero.' Andrew F. G. Bourke 'The validity and value of inclusive fitness theory' Proc. R. Soc. B 2011 278, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2011.1465 14 September (2011) One thing rarely mentioned by the groupies is the fact that, even were 'group selection' possible, selfishness is at least as likely (probably far more likely in most contexts) to be group selected for as altruism. Just try to find examples of true altruism in nature –the fact that we can't (which we know is not possible if we understand evolution) tells us that its apparent presence in humans is an artefact of modern life, concealing the facts, and that it can no more be selected for than the tendency to suicide (which in fact it is). One might also benefit from considering a phenomenon never (in my experience) mentioned by groupies--cancer. No group has as much in common as the (originally) genetically identical cells in our own bodies-a 100 trillion cell clone-but we all born with thousands and perhaps millions of cells that have 394 already taken the first step on the path to cancer and generate millions to billions of cancer cells in our life. If we did not die of other things first, we (and perhaps all multicellular organisms) would all die of cancer. Only a massive and hugely complex mechanism built into our genome that represses or derepresses trillions of genes in trillions of cells, and kills and creates billions of cells a second, keeps the majority of us alive long enough to reproduce. One might take this to imply that a just, democratic and enduring society for any kind of entity on any planet in any universe is only a dream, and that no being or power could make it otherwise. It is not only 'the laws' of physics that are universal and inescapable, or perhaps we should say that inclusive fitness is a law of physics. In a bizarre twist, it was apparently such thoughts that drove Price (creator of the Price equation and a devout Christian) to suicide. Regarding the notion of 'theory', it is a classic Wittgensteinian language game-a group of uses loosely linked but having critical differences. When it was first proposed, evolution by natural selection was indeed highly theoretical, but as time passed it became inextricably linked to so many observations and experiments that it's basic ideas were no longer any more theoretical than that vitamins play critical roles in human nutrition. For the 'Theory of Deity' however it is not clear what would count as a definitive test. Perhaps the same is true of String Theory. Many besides groupies note the pleasant nature of much human interaction and see a rosy future ahead-but they are blind. It is crushingly obvious that the pleasantry is a transient phase due to abundant resources produced by the merciless rape of the planet, and as they are exhausted in the next two centuries or so, there will be misery and savagery worldwide as the (likely) permanent condition. Not just movie stars, politicians and the religious are oblivious to this, but even very bright academics who should know better. In his recent book 'The Better Angels of Our Nature' one of my most admired scholars Steven Pinker spends half the book showing how we have gotten more and more civilized, but he seems never to mention the obvious reasons why--the temporary abundance of resources coupled with massive police and military presence facilitated by surveillance and communication technologies. As industrial civilization collapses, it is inevitable that the Worst Devils of Our Nature will reappear. One sees it in the current chaos in the Middle East and Africa, and even the world wars were Sunday picnics compared to what's coming. Perhaps half of the 12 billion then alive will die of starvation, disease and violence, and it could be many more. 395 Another unpleasant fact about altruism, generosity and helping, virtually never mentioned, is that if you take a global long term view, in an overcrowded world with vanishing resources, helping one person hurts everyone else in some small way. Each meal, each pair of shoes create some pollution and some erosion and use up some resources, and when you add 7 billion of them together (soon to be 12) it is clear that one person's gain is everyone else's loss. Every dollar earned or spent damages the world and if countries cared about the future they would reduce their GDP (gross destructive product) every year. Even were groupism true this would not change. The facts that Wilson, Nowak et al have, for four years, persisted in publishing and making extravagant claims for grossly inadequate work is not the worst of this scandal. It turns out that Nowak's professorship at Harvard was purchased by the Templeton Foundation-well known for its pervasive sponsorship of lectures, conferences and publications attempting to reconcile religion and science. Nowak is a devout Catholic and it appears that a large gift to Harvard was contingent on Nowak's appointment. This made him Wilson's colleague and the rest is history. However, Wilson was only too willing as he had long shown a failure to grasp Evolutionary theory-e.g., regarding kin selection as a division of group selection rather than the other way around. I noticed years ago that he copublished with David Wilson, a longtime supporter of group selection, and had written other papers demonstrating his lack of understanding. Any of the groupies could have gone to the experts to learn the error of their ways (or just read their papers). The grand old men of kin selection such as Hamilton, Williams and Trivers, and younger bloods like Frank, Bourke and many others, would have been happy to teach them. But Nowak has received something like $14 million in Templeton grants in a few years and who wants to give that up? He is quite outspoken in his intent to prove that the gentleness and kindness of Jesus is built into us and all the universe. Jesus is conveniently absent, but one can guess from the qualities of other enlightened ones and the history of the church that the real story of early Christianity would come as a shock. Recall that the bible was expurgated of anything that did not meet the party line (e.g., check out the Nag-Hammadi manuscripts). And in any case, who would record the harsh realities of daily life? Almost certainly, the Nowak, Tarnita, Wilson paper would never have been published (at least not by Nature) if it had been presented by two average biologists, but coming from two famous Harvard professors it clearly did not 396 get the peer review that it should have. Regarding Nowak and Highland's book 'SuperCooperators' I will let Dawkins do the honors: I have read the book by Nowak and Highfield. Parts of it are quite good, but the quality abruptly, and embarrassingly, plummets in the chapter on kin selection, possibly under the influence of E O Wilson (who has been consistently misunderstanding kin selection ever since Sociobiology, mistakenly regarding it as a subset of group selection). Nowak misses the whole point of kin selection theory, which is that it is not something additional, not something over and-above 'classical individual selection' theory. Kin selection is not something EXTRA, not something to be resorted to only if 'classical individual selection' theory fails. Rather, it is an inevitable consequence of neo-Darwinism, which follows from it deductively. To talk about Darwinian selection MINUS kin selection is like talking about Euclidean geometry minus Pythagoras' theorem. It is just that this logical consequence of neo-Darwinism was historically overlooked, which gave people a false impression that it was something additional and extra. Nowak's otherwise good book is tragically marred by this elementary blunder. As a mathematician, he really should have known better. It seems doubtful that he has ever read Hamilton's classic papers on inclusive fitness, or he couldn't have misunderstood the idea so comprehensively. The chapter on kin selection will discredit the book and stop it being taken seriously by those qualified to judge it, which is a pity. http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/new-book-shows-thathumans-are-genetically-nice-ergo-jesus/ A scathing review of 'SuperCooperators' also appeared from eminent game theorist/economist/political scientist (and Harvard alumnus) Herbert Gintis (who recounts the Templeton scandal therein), which is quite surprising considering his own love affair with group selection- see the review of his book with Bowles by Price www.epjournal.net – 2012. 10(1): 45-49 and my review here of his most recent volume 'Individuality and Entanglement'(2017). Regarding Wilson's subsequent books, 'The Meaning of Human Existence' is bland and likewise confused and dishonest, repeating several times the groupies party line four years after its thorough debunking, and 'A Window on Eternity'is a meagre travel journal about the establishing of a national park in Mozambique. He carefully avoids mentioning that Africa will add 3 397 billion in the near future (the official UN projection), eliminating all of nature along with peace, beauty, decency, sanity and hope. In the end, it is clear that this whole sad affair will be only the tiniest bump on the road and, like all things which exercise our attention now, will soon be forgotten as the horrors of unrestrained motherhood bring society crashing down. But one can be sure that even when global warming has put Harvard beneath the sea and starvation, disease and violence are the daily norm, there will be those who insist that it is not due to human activities (the opinion of half the American public currently) and that overpopulation is not a problem (the view of 40%), there will be billions praying to their chosen deity for a rain of Big Macs from the sky, and that (assuming the enterprise of science has not collapsed, which is assuming a lot) someone somewhere will be writing a paper embracing group selection. 398 A Review of The Murderer Next Door by David Buss (2005) Michael Starks ABSTRACT Though this volume is a bit dated, there are few recent popular books dealing specifically with the psychology of murder and it's a quick overview available for a few dollars, so still well worth the effort. It makes no attempt to be comprehensive and is somewhat superficial in places, with the reader expected to fill in the blanks from his many other books and the vast literature on violence. For an update see e.g., Buss, The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology 2nd ed. V1 (2016) p 265, 266, 270–282, 388–389, 545–546, 547, 566 and Buss, Evolutionary Psychology 5th ed. (2015) p 26, 96–97,223, 293-4, 300, 309–312, 410 and Shackelford and Hansen, The Evolution of Violence (2014). He has been among the top evolutionary psychologists for several decades and covers a wide range of behavior in his works, but here he concentrates almost entirely on the psychological mechanisms that cause individual people to murder and their possible evolutionary function in the EEA (Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation-i.e., the plains of Africa during the last million years or so). Buss starts by noting that as with other behaviors, 'alternative' explanations such as psychopathology, jealousy, social environment, group pressures, drugs and alcohol etc. do not really explain, since the question still remains as to why these produce homicidal impulses, i.e., they are the proximate causes and not the ultimate evolutionary (genetic) ones. As always, it inevitably boils down to inclusive fitness (kin selection), and so to the struggle for access to mates and resources, which is the ultimate explanation for all behavior in all organisms. Sociological data (and common sense) make it clear that younger poorer males are the most likely to kill. He presents his own and others homicide data from industrialized nations, and tribal cultures, conspecific killing in animals, archeology, FBI data and his own research into normal people's homicidal fantasies. Much archeological evidence continues to accumulate of murders, including that of whole groups, or of groups minus young females, in prehistoric times. After surveying Buss's comments, I present a very brief summary of intentional psychology (the logical structure of rationality), which is covered 399 extensively in my many other articles and books. Those with a lot of time who want a detailed history of homicidal violence from an evolutionary perspective may consult Steven Pinker's 'The Better Angels of Our Nature Why Violence Has Declined'(2012), and my review of it easily available on the net and in two of my recent ebooks. Briefly, Pinker notes that murder has decreased steadily and dramatically by a factor of about 30 since our days as foragers. So, even though guns now make it extremely easy for anyone to kill, homicide is much less common. Pinker thinks this is due to various social mechanisms that bring out our 'better angels', but I think it's due mainly to the temporary abundance of resources from the merciless rape of our planet, coupled with increased police presence, with communication and surveillance and legal systems that make it far more likely to be punished. This becomes clear every time there is even a brief and local absence of the police. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book 'The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2017' (2017). Buss starts by noting that as with other behaviors, 'alternative' explanations such as psychopathology, jealousy, social environment, group pressures, drugs and alcohol etc. do not really explain, since the question still remains as to why these produce homicidal impulses, i.e., they are the proximate causes and not the ultimate evolutionary (genetic) ones. As always, it inevitably boils down to inclusive fitness (kin selection), and so to the struggle for access to mates and resources, which is the ultimate explanation for all behavior in all organisms. Sociological data (and common sense) make it clear that younger poorer males are the most likely to kill. He presents his own and others homicide data from industrialized nations, and tribal cultures, conspecific killing in animals, archeology, FBI data and his own research into normal people's homicidal fantasies. Much archeological evidence continues to accumulate of murders, including that of whole groups, or of groups minus young females, in prehistoric times. On p 12 he notes that the war between each individual and the world over resources begins at conception, when it begins growing by robbing its mother of food and stressing her body, and when her system fights back with 400 frequently fatal consequences for the conceptus. He does not tell us that estimates of spontaneous abortion are in the range of up to about 30% of all conceptions, so that as many as 80 million a year die, most so early that the mother does not even know she is pregnant, and perhaps her period is a bit late. This is part of nature's eugenics which we have not succeeded in defeating, though the overall dysgenic effect of civilization continues and each day the approx. 300,000 who are born are on average just slightly less mentally a physically fit than the approx. 100,000 who die, with a net increase in world population of ca. 200,000 and an ever larger 'unfit' population to destroy the earth (while being partly or wholely supported by their 'fit' neighbors). On p13 he says that we don't know for sure that OJ Simpson was guilty but I would say that regardless of the trial we do know he was, as it's the only reasonable interpretation of the facts of the case, which include his bizarre behavior. Also, in the subsequent civil trial, where his multimillion dollar defense attorneys were not present to subvert justice, he was quickly convicted, which led to the attachment of his assets, his armed robbery conviction and imprisonment. He notes on p20 that there were about 100 million known murders worldwide in the last 100 years, with maybe as many as 300 million if all the unreported were included. It is also to be kept in mind that America's murder rate is decreased by about 75% due to the world class medical system which saves most victims of attempts. I will add that Mexico has about 5X the murder rate of the USA and Honduras about 20X, and your descendants can certainly look forward to our rate moving in that direction due to America's fatal embrace of Diversity. Ann Coulter in 'Adios America'(2015) notes that Hispanics have committed about 23,000 murders here in the last few decades. For now, nothing will be done, and crime here will reach the levels in Mexico as the border continues to dissolve and environmental collapse and approaching bankruptcy dissolve the economy. Inside Mexico in 2014 alone, 100 U.S. citizens were known to have been murdered and more than 130 kidnapped and others just disappeared, and if you add other foreigners and Mexicans it runs into the thousands. See my article 'Suicide by Democracy' for further details. Even a tiny lightly traveled country like Honduras manages some 10 murders and 2 kidnappings a year of US citizens. And these are the best of times-it is getting steadily worse as unrestrained motherhood and resource depletion bring collapse ever closer. In addition to continued increases in crime of all 401 kinds we will see the percentage of crimes solved drop to the extremely low levels of the third world. More resources are devoted to the solution of murders than any other crime and about 65% are solved in the USA, but in Mexico less than 2% are solved and as you get further from Mexico City the rate drops to near zero. Also note that the rate here used to be about 80%, but it has dropped in parallel with the increase in the Diverse. Also 65% is the average but if you could get statistics I am sure it would rise with the percent of Euro's in a city and drop as the percent of Diverse increases. In Detroit (83% black) only 30% are solved. If you keep track of who robs, rapes and murders, it's obvious that black lives matter lots more to Euros (those of European descent) than they do to other blacks. These are my observations. Throughout history women have been at a major disadvantage when it came to murdering, but with the ready availability of guns we would expect this to change, but on p22 we find that about 87% of USA murderers are men and for same sex killing this rises to 95% and is about the same worldwide. Clearly something in the male psyche encourages violence as a route to fitness that is largely absent in women. Also relevant is that murders by acquaintances are more common than those by strangers. On p37 he notes that with high likelihood of conviction, murder is now a more costly strategy than formerly, but I think this depends entirely on who you are. In a largely Euro USA city or among middle and upper class people, over 95% of murders might be solved, but in lower class cities maybe 20% might be, and for gang dominated areas even less than that. And in 3rd world countries the chances of justice are even lower, especially when committed by gang members, so it is a highly viable strategy, especially if planned ahead of time. Next, he deals with violence and murder as a part of mating strategies, which they have clearly been throughout our evolution and remain so especially among the lower classes and in third world countries. He notes the frequent murder of wives or lovers by men during or after breakups. He comments in passing on mate selection and infidelity but there is minimal discussion as these topics are treated in great detail in his other writings and edited volumes. It is now well known that women tend to have affairs with sexy men that they would not select as a permanent partner (the sexy son theory) and to mate with them on their most fertile days. All these phenomena are viewed from an evolutionary perspective (i.e., what would the fitness advantage have been formerly). 402 There is very strong selection for behaviors that prevent a man from raising children fathered by someone else for the same reasons that 'group selection' is strongly selected against. However modern life provides ample opportunities for affairs, and genetic studies have shown that a high percentage of children are fathered by other than the permanent partner of their mother, with the percentage increasing from a few percent to as much as 30% as one descends from upper to lower classes in various modern Western countries at various periods. In his book Sperm Wars: The Science of Sex (2006) Robin Baker summarizes: 'Actual figures range from 1 percent in high-status areas of the United States and Switzerland, to 5 to 6 percent for moderate-status males in the United States and Great Britain, to 10 to 30 percent for lower-status males in the United States, Great Britain and France'. One might suppose that in societies where both men and women are highly concentrated in cities and have mobile phones, this percentage is rising, especially in the third world where use of birth control and abortion is erratic. He finds that most men and women who murder their mates are young and the younger their mates are, the more likely they will be murdered. Like much of behavior, this is hard to explain without an evolutionary perspective. One study found men in their 40's constituted 23% of mate murderers but men in their 50's only 7.7%, and 79% of female mate killers where between 16 and 39. It makes sense that the younger they are, the bigger the potential fitness loss to the male (decreased reproduction) and so the more intense the emotional response. As Buss puts it: "From Australia to Zimbabwe, the younger the woman, the higher the likelihood that she will be killed as a result of a sexual infidelity or leaving a romantic relationship. Women in the 15 to 24 year old bracket are at the greatest risk." A high percentage are killed within two months of separation and most in the first year. One study found that 88% of them had been stalked prior to being killed. In ssome chapters there are quotes from people giving their feelings about their unfaithful mates and these typically include homicidal fantasies, which were more intense and went on for longer periods for men than for women. He devotes some time to the increased risk of abuse and murder from having a stepparent with e.g., the risk to a girl of rape increasing about 10X if her father is a stepfather. It is now very well known that in a wide range of mammals, a new male encountering a female with young will attempt to kill them. One USA study found that if one or both parents are surrogates, this raises the child's chance of being murdered in the home between 40 and 100X (p174). A Canadian study found the beating death rate rose by 27X if one parent in a registered marriage was a stepparent while it rose over 200X if the 403 surrogate was a live-in boyfriend. Child abuse rates in Canada rose 40X when there was a stepparent. In humans, being without resources is a strong stimulus for women to eliminate their existing children in order to attract a new mate. A Canadian study found that even though single women were only 12% of all mothers, they committed over 50% of infanticides (p169). Since younger women lose less fitness from an infant death than older ones, it is not surprising that a cross-cultural study found that teenagers killed their infants at rates about 30X that of women in their twenties (p170). He then briefly discusses serial killers and serial rapists, the most successful of all time being the Mongols of Genghis Khan, whose Y chromosomes are represented in about 8% of all the men in the territories they controlled, or some 20 million men (and an equal number of women) or about half a percent of all the people on earth, which makes them easily the most genetically fit of all the people who have ever lived in historical times. Though this volume is a bit dated, there are few recent popular books dealing specifically with the psychology of murder and it's a quick overview available for a few dollars, so still well worth the effort. It makes no attempt to be comprehensive and is somewhat superficial in places, with the reader expected to fill in the blanks from his many other books and the vast literature on violence. For an update see e.g., Buss, The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology 2nd ed. V1 (2016) p 265, 266, 270–282, 388–389, 545–546, 547, 566 and Buss, Evolutionary Psychology 5th ed. (2015) p 26, 96–97,223, 293-4, 300, 309–312, 410 and Shackelford and Hansen, The Evolution of Violence (2014) He has been among the top evolutionary psychologists for several decades and covers a wide range of behavior in his works, but here he concentrates almost entirely on the psychological mechanisms that cause individual people to murder and their possible evolutionary function in the EEA (Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation-i.e., the plains of Africa during the last million years or so). Those with a lot of time who want a detailed history of homicidal violence from an evolutionary perspective may consult Steven Pinker's 'The Better Angels of Our Nature-Why Violence Has Declined'(2012) and my review of it easily available on the net and in two of my recent ebooks. Briefly, Pinker notes that murder has decreased steadily and dramatically by a factor of about 30 since our days as foragers. So, even though guns now make it extremely easy for anyone to kill, homicide is much less common. Pinker 404 thinks this is due to various social mechanisms that bring out our 'better angels', but I think it's due mainly to the temporary abundance of resources from the merciless rape of our planet, coupled with increased police presence, with communication and surveillance and legal systems that make it far more likely to be punished. This becomes clear every time there is even a brief and local absence of the police. Others also take the view that we have a 'nice side' that is genetically innate and supports the favorable treatment of even those not closely related to us ('group selection'). This is hopelessly confused and I have done my small part to lay it to rest in 'Altruism, Jesus and the End of the World-how the Templeton Foundation bought a Harvard Professorship and attacked Evolution, Rationality and Civilization. A review of E.O. Wilson 'The Social Conquest of Earth' (2012) and Nowak and Highfield 'SuperCooperators'(2012)'. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems of thought viewpoint may consult my book 'The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle (2017). Those interested in more of my writings may see Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet (2017). I now present a very brief summary of intentional psychology (the logical structure of rationality) which is covered extensively in my many other articles and books. Impulsive violence will involve the automated subcortical functions of System 1, but is sometimes deliberated upon ahead of time via cortical System 2. About a million years ago primates evolved the ability to use their throat muscles to make complex series of noises (i.e., speech) that by about 100,000 years ago had evolved to describe present events (perceptions, memory, reflexive actions with basic utterances that can be described as Primary Language Games (PLG's) describing System 1-i.e., the fast unconscious automated System One, true-only mental states with a precise time and location). We gradually developed the further ability to encompass displacements in space and time to describe memories, attitudes and potential events (the past and future and often counterfactual, conditional or fictional preferences, inclinations or dispositions) with the Secondary Language Games (SLG's) of System Twoslow conscious true or false propositional attitudinal thinking, which has no precise time and are abilities 405 and not mental states. Preferences are Intuitions, Tendencies, Automatic Ontological Rules, Behaviors, Abilities, Cognitive Modules, Personality Traits, Templates, Inference Engines, Inclinations, Emotions, Propositional Attitudes, Appraisals, Capacities, Hypotheses. Emotions are Type 2 Preferences (Wittgenstein RPP2 p148). "I believe", "he loves", "they think" are descriptions of possible public acts typically displaced in spacetime. My first-person statements about myself are trueonly (excluding lying), while third person statements about others are true or false (see my review of Johnston - 'Wittgenstein: Rethinking the Inner'). Now that we have a reasonable start on the Logical Structure of Rationality (the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought) laid out we can look at the table of Intentionality that results from this work, which I have constructed over the last few years. It is based on a much simpler one from Searle, which in turn owes much to Wittgenstein. I have also incorporated in modified form tables being used by current researchers in the psychology of thinking processes which are evidenced in the last 9 rows. It should prove interesting to compare it with those in Peter Hacker's 3 recent volumes on Human Nature. I offer this table as an heuristic for describing behavior that I find more complete and useful than any other framework I have seen and not as a final or complete analysis, which would have to be three dimensional with hundreds (at least) of arrows going in many directions with many (perhaps all) pathways between S1 and S2 being bidirectional. Also, the very distinction between S1 and S2, cognition and willing, perception and memory, between feeling, knowing, believing and expecting etc. are arbitrary--that is, as W demonstrated, all words are contextually sensitive and most have several utterly different uses (meanings or COS). INTENTIONALITY can be viewed as personality or as the Construction of Social Reality (the title of Searle's well known book) and from many other viewpoints as well. Beginning with the pioneering work of Ludwig Wittgenstein in the 1930's (the Blue and Brown Books) and from the 50's to the present by his successors Searle, Moyal-Sharrock, Read, Baker, Hacker, Stern, Horwich, Winch, Finkelstein, Coliva etc., I have created the following table as an heuristic for furthering this study. The rows show various aspects or ways of studying and the columns show the involuntary processes and voluntary behaviors comprising the two systems (dual processes) of the Logical Structure of Consciousness (LSC), which can also be regarded as the Logical Structure of 406 Rationality (LSR), of behavior (LSB), of personality (LSP), of Mind (LSM), of language (LSL), of reality (LSOR), of Intentionality (LSI) -the classical philosophical term, the Descriptive Psychology of Consciousness (DPC) , the Descriptive Psychology of Thought (DPT) –or better, the Language of the Descriptive Psychology of Thought (LDPT), terms introduced here and in my other very recent writings. 407 Disposition * Emotion Memory Perception Desire PI** IA*** Action/ Word Cause Originates From**** World World World World Mind Mind Mind Mind Causes Changes In***** None Mind Mind Mind None World World World Causally Self Reflexive****** No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes True or False (Testable) Yes T only T only T only Yes Yes Yes Yes Public Conditions of Satisfaction Yes Yes/No Yes/No No Yes/No Yes No Yes Describe A Mental State No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes/No Yes Evolutionary Priority 5 4 2,3 1 5 3 2 2 Voluntary Content Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes Voluntary Initiation Yes/No No Yes No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive System ******* 2 1 2/1 1 2 / 1 2 1 2 Change Intensity No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Precise Duration No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Time, Place (H+N, T+T) ******** TT HN HN HN TT TT HN HN Special Quality No Yes No Yes No No No No Localized in Body No No No Yes No No No Yes Bodily Expressions Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Self Contradictions No Yes No No Yes No No No Needs a Self Yes Yes/No No No Yes No No No Needs Language Yes No No No No No No Yes/No 408 FROM DECISION RESEARCH Disposition* Emotion Memory Perception Desire PI** IA*** Action/ Word Subliminal Effects No Yes/No Yes Yes No No No Yes/No Associative/ Rule Based RB A/RB A A A/RB RB RB RB Context Dependent/ Abstract A CD/A CD CD CD/A A CD/A CD/A Serial/Parallel S S/P P P S/P S S S Heuristic/ Analytic A H/A H H H/A A A A Needs Working Memory Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes General Intelligence Dependent Yes No No No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive Loading Inhibits Yes Yes/No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Arousal Facilitates or Inhibits I F/I F F I I I I * Aka Inclinations, Capabilities, Preferences, Representations, possible actions etc. ** Searle's Prior Intentions *** Searle's Intention In Action **** Searle's Direction of Fit ***** Searle's Direction of Causation ****** (Mental State instantiates--Causes or Fulfills Itself). Searle formerly called this causally selfreferential. ******* Tversky/Kahneman/Frederick/Evans/Stanovich defined cognitive systems. ******** Here and Now or There and Then One should always keep in mind Wittgenstein's discovery that after we have described the possible uses (meanings, truthmakers, Conditions of Satisfaction) of language in a particular context, we have exhausted its interest, and attempts at explanation (i.e., philosophy) only get us further away from the truth. It is critical to note that this table is only a highly 409 simplified context-free heuristic and each use of a word must be examined in its context. The best examination of context variation is in Peter Hacker's recent 3 volumes on Human Nature, which provide numerous tables and charts that should be compared with this one. 410 Suicide by Democracy-an Obituary for America and the World (2019 version) Michael Starks ABSTRACT America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century, and now all of it, due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources and the addition of 4 billion more ca. 2100 will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. The earth loses about 2% of its topsoil every year, so as it nears 2100, most of its food growing capacity will be gone. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America, this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a nightmare of crime and poverty. China will continue to overwhelm America and the world, as long as it maintains the dictatorship which limits selfishness. The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests. The idea of human rights is an evil fantasy promoted by leftists to draw attention away from the merciless destruction of the earth by unrestrained 3rd world motherhood. This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else-there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently, social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. The most basic facts, almost never mentioned, are that there are not enough resources in America or the world to lift a significant percentage of the poor out of poverty and keep them there. The attempt to do this is bankrupting America and destroying the world. The earth's capacity to produce food decreases daily, as does our genetic quality. And now, as always, by far the greatest enemy of the poor is other poor and not the rich. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. 411 "I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones." John Cage (1912-1992) At what point is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide." Abraham Lincoln (1838) THE SADDEST DAY IN US HISTORY. President Johnson, with 2 Kennedy's and ex-President Hoover, gives America to Mexico- Oct 3rd, 1965. Wolves in sheep's clothing, like most Democrats from that day onward. 412 PERCENT OF AMERICANS WHO ARE FOREIGN BORN -the result of the "no significant demographic impact" immigration act of 1965-nonEuropeans (the Diverse) were a 16% share, are now (2016) 37% and will be about 60% by 2100, since they are now 100% of the population increase of about 2.4 million every year. Suicide by democracy. PART OF THE COST OF DIVERSITY and of aging, being the world's unpaid policeman, etc., (not counting future liabilities which are 5 to 10 times as much, barring major social changes). 413 Useful definitions for understanding contemporary American politics DIVERSITY: 1. USA government program for handing over control to Mexico. 2. USA government program for providing free or heavily subsidized goods and services to those from other countries. 3. A means for turning America into a 3rd world Hellhole. 4. Multiculturalism, multiethnicism, multipartisanism, inclusivity, third world supremacy. RACIST: 1. Person opposed to diversity in above sense. 2. Person of different ethnicity who disagrees with me on any issue. 3. Person of any ethnicity who disagrees with me on anything. Also, called 'bigot' 'hater' or 'nativist'. WHITE SUPREMACIST: Anyone opposed to diversity in the above sense, i.e., anyone trying to prevent the collapse of America and of industrial civilization worldwide. THIRD WORLD SUPREMACIST: Anyone in favor of diversity in above senses. Anyone working to destroy their descendant's future. AKA Democrats, Socialists, Neomarxists, Democratic Socialists, Marxists, Leftists, Liberals, Progressives, Communists, Maternalists, Leftist Fascists, Multiculturalists, Inclusivists, Human Rightists. 414 HATE: 1. Any opposition to diversity in the above sense. 2. Expression of a desire to prevent the collapse of America and the world. EURO: White or Caucasian or European: one whose ancestors left Africa over 50,000 years ago. BLACK: African or Afro-American: one whose ancestors stayed in Africa or left in the last few hundred years (so there has not been time for evolution of any significant differences from Euros). DIVERSE: Anyone who is not EURO (European, white, Caucasian). HUMAN RIGHTS: An evil fantasy created by leftists to draw attention away from the merciless destruction of the earth by unrestrained 3rd world reproduction. Thus, temporary anomalies, such as democracy, equality, labor unions, women's rights, child rights, animal rights, etc. are due to high standards of living created by the rape of the planet and will disappear as civilization collapses and China rules the world. I should first note that I have no investment in the outcome of any social or political movement. I am old, without kids or close relatives, and in the blink of an eye I will be gone (of course the most important thing to remember is that very soon we will all be gone and our descendants will face the horrific consequences of our stupidity and selfishness). I offer these comments in hope they will give perspective, since concise rational competent analyses of the perilous situation in America and the world are almost nonexistent. I have close friends of various ethnicities, several times given my only assets to an impoverished third world person (no I did not inherit anything significant, did not have rich relatives, a trust fund or a cushy job), have had third world friends, colleagues, girlfriends, wives and business partners, and helped anyone in any way I could regardless of race, age, creed, sexual preferences or national origin or position on the autism spectrum, and am still doing so. I have not voted in any kind of election, belonged to any religious, social or political group, listened to a political speech or read a book on politics in over 50 years, as I considered it pointless and demeaning to have my views carry the same weight as those of morons, lunatics, criminals and merely uneducated (i.e., about 95% of the population). I find nearly all political dialog to be superficial, mistaken and useless. This is my first and last 415 social/political commentary. The millions of daily articles, speeches, tweets and newsbites rarely mention it, but what is happening in America and worldwide are not some transient and unconnected events, but the infinitely sad story of the inexorable collapse of industrial civilization due to overpopulation and of freedom due to it and to the malignant dictatorships that are the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) and Islam. Though these are the only important issues, they seldom are stated clearly in the endless debates and daily social convulsions, and few things in this article are ever discussed in any clear and intelligent way, in large part because the Diverse (i.e., those not of European ancestry) have a strangle hold on American and most Western media which make it impossible. Politics in democratic countries is dedicated almost entirely to providing the opportunity for every special interest group to get an ever-bigger share of the rapidly diminishing resources. The problem is that nearly all people are short-sighted, selfish, poorly educated, lacking experience and stupid and this creates an insoluble problem when there are 10 billion (by century's end), or when they constitute a majority of any electorate in a democratic system. It's one thing to make mistakes when there are time and resources to correct them, but quite another when it's impossible. The USA is the worst case as it seems to have vast resources and a resilient economy, and what I and most people grew up regarding as the wonderful traditions of justice, democracy, and equality, but I now see that these are invitations to exploitation by every special interest group (especially Hispanics, the CCP and Islam) and that giving privileges to everyone born, without imposing duties, has fatal consequences. Also, a system that operates this way cannot compete with ones that do notAsia and above all China is eating America's lunch (and that of all non-Asian countries), and nothing is likely to stop it, but of course overpopulation dooms everyone (the minority who will survive after the great 22nd/23rd century die-off) to a hellish life. A world where everyone is free to replicate their genes and consume resources as they wish will soon have a hard landing. The fact is that democracy has become a license to stealfrom the government-i.e., from the shrinking minority who pay significant taxes, from the earth, from everyone everywhere, and from one's own descendants, and that diversity (multiculturalism, multipartisanism, etc.) in an overcrowded world leads to insoluble conflict and collapse. The history in America is clear enough. In what can now be seen as the first major disaster stemming from the lunatic Christian idea of innate human rights, the politicians of the Northern states decided it was inappropriate for the South to have slaves. Slavery was certainly an outmoded and evil idea 416 and was disappearing worldwide, and it would have been eliminated with economic and political pressures after emancipation via the 13th amendment. But then as now, the utopian delusions prevailed, and so they attacked the South, killing and crippling millions and creating poverty and dysgenic chaos (the death and debility of a large percentage of able bodied Euro males) whose effects are still with us. The Africans replicated their genes at a higher rate, resulting in their coming to comprise an ever-increasing percentage of the country. Nobody realized it at the time and most still do not, but this was the beginning of the collapse of America and the defects in psychology which led the North to persecute the South were a continuation of the Christian fanaticisms which produced the murder and torture of millions during the middle ages, the Inquisition, the genocide of the new world Indians by the Europeans, the Crusades and the Jihads of the muslims for the last 1200 years. ISIS, Al-Queda, the Crusaders and the Army of the North have a great deal in common. Without asking the voters, a few thousand statesmen and congressmen and President Lincoln made ex-slaves citizens and gave them the right to vote via the 14th and 15th amendments. Gradually there came to be vast ghettos composed of ex slaves, where crime and poverty flourished, and where drugs (imported mostly by Hispanics) generated a vast criminal empire, whose users committed hundreds of millions of crimes every year. Then came the Democrats led by the Kennedys, who, raised in privilege and disconnected from the real world, and having like nearly all politicians no clue about biology, psychology, human ecology or history, decided in 1965 that it was only democratic and just that the country should change the immigration laws to decrease influx of Europeans in favor of 3rd world people (the Diverse). They passed the law and in 1965 president Lyndon Johnson signed it (see cover photo). There were misgivings from some quarters that this would destroy America, but they were assured that there would be "no significant demographic impact"! The American public never (to this day in 2019) had a chance to express their views (i.e., to vote), unless you count the Trump election as that chance, and congress and various presidents changed our democracy into a "Socialist Democracy", i.e., into a Neomarxist, third world supremacist fascist state. The Chinese are delighted as they do not have to fight the USA and other democracies for dominance, but only to wait for them to collapse. A few decades ago, William Brennen, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, suggested that a law passed a century before, to guarantee citizenship to former slaves (the first fatal legislative mistake, the second giving them the 417 vote), should apply to anyone who happened to be born in America. Subsequently, other rulings of the court (not the people, who have never been asked) decided all those born in the USA, regardless of parental status (e.g., even if they were aliens from another solar system) had a right to US citizenship (anchor babies) and were subsequently permitted to make citizens of all their relatives – (the third and fourth fatal mistakes). Again, it never crossed the minds of congress or the courts that the constitution did not give any such rights, nor that the American public should be permitted to vote on this. In addition to the millions of 3rd world people here ''legally" (i.e., with the permission of a few hundred in congress, but not the people) millions began entering illegally and all produced children at about 3 times the rate of existing Americans and generated ever increasing social problems. Most of the Diverse pay little or no taxes, and so they live partly or wholly on government handouts (i.e., taxes paid by the ever shrinking minority of Americans who pay any, as well as money borrowed from future generations to the tune of $2.5 billion a day, added to the $18 trillion in debt and the $90 trillion or more of unfunded future obligations-medicare, social security etc.), while the agricultural system, housing, streets and highways, sewers, water and electrical systems, parks, schools, hospitals, courts, public transportation, government, police, fire, emergency services and the huge defense spending needed to ensure the continued existence of our country and most others, were created, administered and largely paid for by Euros (i.e., those of European ancestry). The fact that the Diverse owe their wellbeing (relative to the Diverse still in the 3rd world) and their very existence (medicine, technology, agriculture, suppression of war and slavery) to Euros is never mentioned by anyone (see below). Naturally, the Euros (and a minority of tax paying Diverse) are outraged to have to spend ever more of their working lives to support the legions of newly arrived Diverse, to be unsafe in their own homes and streets and to see their towns, schools, hospitals, parks etc. being taken over and destroyed. They try to protest, but the media are now controlled by the Diverse (with the help of deluded Euros who are dedicated to destroying their own descendants), and it is now almost impossible to state any opposition to the collapse of America and the world without being attacked as "racist", "white supremacist" or "a hater", and often losing one's job for exercising free speech. Words referring to the Diverse are almost banned, unless it's to praise them and assist their genuine racism (i.e., living at the expense of and exploiting and abusing in every way possible the Euro's, and their Diverse tax paying neighbors), so one cannot mention blacks, immigrants, Hispanics, Muslims etc. in the same discussion with the words rapist, terrorist, thief, 418 murderer, child molester, convict, criminal, welfare etc., without being accused of "hatred" or "racism" or "white supremacy". They are of course oblivious to their own racism and third world supremacy. Keep in mind there is not and almost certainly will never be any evidence of a significant genetic difference between Euros and Diverse in psychology, or IQ, and that their tendency to excessive reproduction and other shortcomings is wholly due to culture. Gradually, every kind of special interest group has succeeded in eliminating any negative reference to them in any easily identifiable way, so there has almost vanished from public discourse not only words referring to the Diverse, but to the short, tall, fat, thin, mentally ill, handicapped, genetically defective, disadvantaged, abnormal, schizophrenic, depressed, stupid, dishonest, crazy, lazy , cowardly, selfish, dull etc. until nothing but pleasant platitudes are heard and one is left puzzled as to who fills the jails, hospitals and mental wards to overflowing, litters the streets with garbage, destroys the parks, beaches and public lands, robs, riots, assaults, rapes and murders, and uses up all the tax money, plus an extra 2.5 billion dollars a day, added to the 18 trillion national debt (or over 90 trillion if you extend the real liabilities into the near future). Of course, it's not due all to the Diverse, but every passing day a larger percentage is as their numbers swell and those of the Euros decline. It is now over fifty years after passing the new immigration act and about 16% of the population is Hispanic (up from less than 1% earlier), who have been reproducing at about 3X the rate of Euros , so that about half of children under 6 are now Hispanic, while some 13% of the country are blacks, rapidly being displaced and marginalized by Hispanics (though few blacks realize it, so they continue to support the politicians favoring further immigration and handouts and promising short term gains). Virtually nobody grasps the eventual collapse of America and the whole world, in spite of the fact that you can see it in front of your eyes everywhere. In America and worldwide, the Euros (and all the "rich" generally) are producing less than two kids per couple, so their populations are shrinking, and in America in 2014, for the first time since Euros came here in the 16th century, more of them died than were born, so their marginalization is certain. And, showing the "success" of the Neomarxist, third world supremacist immigration and welfare policies, the population of Hispanics in California passed 50%, so within a decade, the 6th largest economy in the world will be part of Mexico. The Diverse will, in, this century, eliminate all American "racism" (i.e., any 419 opposition or legal hindrance to takeover of all political power, and the appropriation of as much of their neighbor's money and property as they can manage,) except their own racism (e.g., graduated income tax which forces the Euro's to support them). Soon they will largely eliminate legal differences between citizens of Mexico and California and then Texas, who then will have full 'rights' (privileges) anywhere in the USA, so that citizenship will became increasingly meaningless (and an ever-lower percentage of the Diverse will pay any significant taxes or serve in the military, and a far higher percentage will continue to receive welfare and to commit crimes, and to get free or heavily subsidized schooling, medical care etc.). One cannot mention in the media that the predominant racism in the USA is the extortion by the Diverse of anyone with money (mainly Euros but also any Diverse who have money), the elimination of free speech (except their own), the biasing of all laws to favor this extortion, and their rapid takeover of all political and financial power, i.e., total discrimination against Euros and anyone belonging to the "upper classes", i.e., anyone who pays any significant taxes. Gradually the poverty, drugs, gangs, environmental destruction and the corruption of police, army and government endemic in Mexico and most other 3rd world countries is spreading across America, so we will be able to cross over the increasingly porous border with Mexico without noticing we are in a different country –probably within a few decades, but certainly by the end of the century. The population continues to increase, and here as everywhere in the world, the increase is now 100% Diverse and, as we enter the next century (much sooner in some countries), resources will diminish and starvation, disease, crime and war will rage out of control. The rich and the corporations will mostly still be rich (as always, as things get worse they will take their money and leave), the poor will be poorer and more numerous, and life everywhere, with the possible exception of a few countries or parts of countries where population growth is prevented, will be unbearable and unsurvivable. The cooperation among the Diverse to wrest control of society from Euros will crumble as society disintegrates and they will split into blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, Chinese, Filipinos, gays, seniors, disabled, and further where possible into endless subgroups. The rich will increasingly hire bodyguards, carry guns, drive bulletproof cars and use private police to protect them in their gated communities and offices, as is already commonplace in 3rd world countries. With much reduced quality of life and high crime, some will think of returning to their countries of origin, but there also overpopulation will exhaust resources and produce collapse even more severe than in the USA 420 and Europe, and the racism in the 3rd world, temporarily suppressed by a relative abundance of resources and police and military presence, will become ever worse, so life will be hellish nearly everywhere. The population in the 22nd century will shrink as billions die of starvation, disease, drugs, suicide, and civil and international war. As third world nuclear countries collapse (Pakistan, India and maybe Iran by then, thanks to Obama) and are taken over by radicals, nuclear conflicts will eventually occur. Still, perhaps nobody will dare to suggest publicly that the prime cause of chaos was unrestricted motherhood. Of course, much of this story has already played out in America, the U.K. and elsewhere, and the rest is inevitable, even without climate change and the ravenous appetites of China, which just make it happen faster. It's only a matter of how bad it will get where and when. Anyone who doubts this is out of touch with reality, but you can't fool mother nature, and their descendants will no longer debate it as they will be forced to live it. The poor, and apparently, Obama, Krugman, Zuckerberg and most Democrats (Neomarxists), don't understand the most basic operating principle of civilization-there is no Free Lunch. You can only give to one by taking from another, now or in the future. No such thing as helping without hurting. Every dollar and every item has value because somewhere, someone destroyed the earth. And leftists have the delusion that they can solve all problems by stealing from the rich. To get some idea of the absurdity of this, all US taxpayers earning over a million dollars have a total after tax profit of about 800 billion, while the annual deficit is about 1.5 trillion, and even taking it all does nothing to pay off the existing 18 trillion debt or the approx. 90 trillion in near term unfunded liabilities (e.g., medicare and social security). Of course, you cannot increase their tax or corporate tax very much more or it will greatly depress the economy and produce a recession, job losses and the flight of capital, and they already pay the highest taxes, relative to what they earn as a % of the nation's income, of any industrialized country. And once again, the top 1% of earners pay about 50% of total personal federal income tax while the bottom 47% (mostly Diverse) pay nothing. So the fact is we only have a sort of democracy, as we have almost nothing to say about what the govt. does, and a sort of fascism, as the ever expanding govt. spies on our every move, controls ever more minutely our every action, and forces us at gunpoint to do whatever they decide, and a sort of communism as they steal whatever they want from whomever they want and use it to support anyone they like, here and all over the world, most of whom have no interest in democracy, justice, or equality, except as means to take advantage of our 421 fatally flawed system to get as much money and services as they can in order to support replicating their genes and destroying the earth. Speaking of Obama, Trump says that he is the worst president ever, and of course Obama, totally arrogant, dishonest and lacking any real grasp of the situation (or unwilling to be honest) just laughs, and babbles platitudes, but as I reflect a bit it's clearly true. Like Roosevelt, who gave us the first giant step into fascism and govt. waste and oppression with an illegal and unconstitutional tax (social security), Obamacare let the govt. swallow 1/6 of the economy and created his own illegal tax (called 'penalties' of Obamacare, where FDR called them 'benefits' and 'contributions'). He tried to force the US to accept another 8 to 10 million illegals (nobody seems quite sure) which will 'birthright' into about 50 million by 2100. In the first 3 years of his office (2009 to 2012) the federal operating deficit increased about 44% from 10 to 15 trillion, the largest percent increase since WW2, while by mid 2015 it had increased to over 71% of fiscal operating budget -over $18 trillion or about $57,000 for every person in the USA, including children. His deferral of the deportation of millions of illegals, all of whom now receive social security, tax credits, medicare etc., is estimated to have a lifetime cost to the govt. (i.e., to the minority of us who pay any significant taxes) of ca. $1.3 trillion. Of course, this does not include free school, use of judicial system, jails and police, free 'emergency' care (i.e., just going to emergency for any problem whatsoever), degradation of all public facilities etc. so it's likely at least twice as much. And we have seen 8 years of incompetent handling of the Iraq, Afghan and Syrian wars and the cancerous growth of the CCP and Islam He probably gave the ability to make nuclear weapons to Iran, which is highly likely to lead to a nuclear war by 2100 or much sooner. He was clearly elected for classist, racist, third world supremacist reasons-because he had visible African genes, while the Euros, having left Africa some 50,000 years earlier have invisible ones. He, and most of the people he appointed, had little competence or experience in running a country and they were picked, like himself, on the basis of Diverse genes and Neomarxist, third world supremacist sympathies. If he is not a traitor (giving aid and comfort to the enemy) then who is? It is clear as day that, like nearly everyone, he operates totally on automatic primitive psychology, with his coalitional sympathies (biases) favoring those who look and act more like him. He (like most Diverse) is in fact doing his best to destroy the country and system that made his exalted life possible. In an interview near the end of his term he said that the major reason for the backwardness of the third world was colonialism. As with all leftist third world supremacists, it has never crossed his mind that about 95% of all the third world people owe their existence and their 422 relatively high standard of living to Euros and colonialism (i.e., medicine, agriculture, technology, science, trade, education, police and judicial system, communications, elimination of war and crime etc.), nor that the real enemies of the poor are other poor, who are just as repulsive as the rich, whom it is their greatest desire to emulate. I agree that, with the possible exception of Lincoln, he is the worst (i.e., most destructive to American quality of life and survival as a nation) for his lack of honesty, arrogance and assault on freedom and longterm survivability -a stunning achievement when his competition includes Nixon, Johnson, the Bushes and the Clintons, and which makes even Reagan look good. When considering bad presidents, we should start with Abraham Lincoln, who is revered as a saint, but he (with the help of congress) destroyed much of the country and the lives of millions of people fighting the totally unnecessary Civil War, and in many ways, the country will never recover as it led to the civil rights movement, the 1965 immigration act and the 1982 supreme court anchor baby ruling. Slavery would have come to an end soon without the war, as it did everywhere and of course it was Euros who provided the main impetus to bring it to an end here and everywhere. After the war the slaves could have been repatriated to Africa, or just given residence, instead of making them citizens (14th amendment) and then giving them the vote (15th amendment). He and his collaborators, like so many liberal upper class Euros then and now, was blinded by the utopian social delusions embodied in Christianity and democracy, which result from the inclusive fitness psychology of coalitional intuitions and reciprocal altruism, that was eugenic and adaptive in the EEA (Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation-i.e., from ca. 50,000 to several million years ago) but is fatally dysgenic and maladaptive in modern times. Note the great irony of the quote from him that begins this book, which shows that even the brightest are victims of their own limits, and have no grasp of human biology, psychology or ecology. It never crossed his mind that the world would become horrifically overpopulated and that the Africans would grow to become a giant social problem, at home and for themselves and the world as Africa expands to over 4 billion. Likewise, in spite of the now clear disaster, it seems not to cross Obama's that the Diverse at home and abroad will destroy America and the world, though any bright ten year old can see it. President Truman could have let McArthur use the atom bomb to end the Korean war, destroy communism and to avoid the continuing horror of China 423 run by 25 sociopaths (the Politburo) or really just seven sociopaths (the Politburo Standing Committee) or perhaps actually just one sociopath (Xi Jinping). Johnson could have done likewise in Vietnam, Bush in Iraq and Obama in Afghanistan, Syria and Libya. China and probably many 3rd world countries would have used nuclear weapons if the situations were reversed. Once a radical Muslim country gets the bomb a preemptive strike by them or on them will likely ensue, and this is probable by 2100 and near certain by 2200. If Gaddafi had succeeded in his efforts to get the bomb it would very likely have happened. The US could have forced Japan, China and Korea, Iraq and Libya and all the countries of Europe (and the whole world for that matter) to pay for the costs of our military efforts in all the recent wars, and between wars, instead of taking on most of the cost and then helping them take over most of America's manufacturing. Of course, these decisions, critical to the country's survival, were made by a handful of politicians without consulting the voters. The Kennedy's were an important part of changing the immigration laws in the mid 60's, so they have to count as traitors and major enemies of America on a par with Obama, G.W Bush and the Clintons. We could have followed the universal pleas of US industry and refused to sign the GATT, which gave free access to all our patents years before they are granted, though of course the Chinese now hack and steal everything with impunity anyway. Eisenhower could have let the UK keep possession of the Suez canal, instead of blackmailing them into leaving Egypt, and on and on. Some may be interested in a few statistics to give an idea of where we currently are on the road to hell. See the tables at the beginning. In the USA, the population of Hispanics will swell from about 55 million in 2016 (or as much as 80 million if you accept some estimates of 25 million illegals-it's a mark of how far the govt. has let things go that we don't really know) to perhaps 140 million midcentury and 200 million as we enter the 22nd century, at which time the US population will be soaring past 500 million, and the world population will be about 11 billion, 3 billion of that added from now to then in Africa and 1 billion in Asia (the official UN estimates at the moment). The Hispanics are reproducing so fast that Euros, now a 63% majority, will be a minority by midcentury and about 40% by 2100. Most of the increase in the USA from now on will be Hispanics, with the rest blacks, Asians and Muslims, and all the increase here and in the world will be 100% Diverse. About 500,000 people are naturalized yearly and since they are mostly from the 3rd world and produce children at about twice the rate of Euros, that will add perhaps 2 million midcentury and 5 million by 2100 for every year it continues. 424 To show how fast things got out of control after the "no demographic impact" TKO (technical knock out or Ted Kennedy Outrage, though we could equally call it the LBJ outrage, the Neomarxist outrage, the Liberal outrage etc.) immigration act of 1965, there are now more Hispanics in California than there are people in 46 other states. In 1970 just after the TKO, there were about 4 million Hispanics and now there are over 55 million "legals" (i.e., not made legal by the voters but by a handful of politicians and the Supremely Stupid court) and perhaps 80 million counting illegals. It never crosses the minds of the Democratic block-voting poor Diverse that the ones who will suffer by far the most from the "Diversification" of America are themselves. The U.S. has gone from 84 percent white, 11 percent black, 4 percent Hispanic and 1 percent Asian in 1965, to 62 percent white, 11 percent black, 18 percent Hispanic and 6 percent Asian now, according to a recent Pew report. By 2055, no one group is expected to have a majority--a perfect scenario for chaos, but you can see countless idiots from academia (now a paradise for state funded Neomarxist third world supremacism) praising multipartisanism. The Asians are predicted to increase faster than any group, doubling their percentage in the next few decades, but at least they will have gone thru a minimal immigration procedure, except of course for anchor baby families (producing which is now a major industry as Asians fly here to give birth, though they are greatly surpassed by Hispanics who only have to walk across the border at night). Of course, the Asians are by and large a blessing for America as they are more productive and less trouble than any group, including Euros. The US government (alone of major countries) pushes "diversity" but in countries all over the world and throughout history attempts to weld different races and cultures into one have been an utter disaster. Many groups have lived among or alongside others for thousands of years without notably assimilating. Chinese and Koreans and Japanese in Asia, Jews and gentiles in thousands of places, Turks, Kurds and Armenians etc., have lived together for millennia without assimilating and go for each other's throats at the slightest provocation. After over 300 years of racial mixing, the USA is still about 97% monoracial (i.e., white, Hispanic, black etc.) with only about 3% describing themselves as mixed race (and most of them were mixed when they came here). The Native Americans (to whom the whole New World really belongs if one is going to rectify past injustices against the Diverse, a fact which is never mentioned by the third world supremacists) are mostly still living isolated and (before the casinos) impoverished, as are the blacks who, 150 years after emancipation, largely still live in crime ridden, impoverished ghettos. And these have been the best of times, with lots of 425 cheap land and natural resources, major welfare and affirmative action programs (largely unique to 'racist' America), a mostly healthy economy and a government which extorts over 30% of their money (i.e., 30% of their working lives, counting income tax, sales tax, real estate tax etc.), earned by the tax paying part of the middle and upper class, to give the poor massive handouts -not only food stamps and other welfare, but police and emergency services, streets and parks, the government, the justice system, hospitals, national defense, schools, roads, bridges, power grid, etc., and the costs of environmental degradation, and the financial and emotional costs of crime and it's threat, etc., most of these never counted by anyone (and never mentioned by the Neomarxist third world supremacists) when considering the 'costs of welfare' or the huge downside to diversity. In any case, the liberal, democratic delusion is that such largesse and social policies will weld our 'diverse' (i.e., fatally fragmented) society into one happy family. But government handouts need to continually increase (for social security, wars, health care, schools, welfare, infrastructure, etc.) while the relative tax base shrinks, and our debt and unfunded entitlements grow by trillions a year, so the economy is in the process of collapse. The average family has less real net earnings and savings now than two decades ago and could survive about 3 months without income, about 40% of retired Americans have less than $25,000 savings etc. And again, these are the best of times with lots of 'free' resources (i.e., stolen from others and from our descendants) worldwide and about 4 billion less people than there will be by the next century. As economies fail and starvation, disease, crime and war spread, people will split down racial and religious lines as always, and in the USA Hispanics and Blacks will still dominate the bottom. It rarely occurs to those who want to continue (and increase) the numbers of and the subsidization of the Diverse that the money for this is ultimately stolen from their own descendants, on whom falls the burden of over $90 trillion debt if one counts the current entitlements (or up to $220 trillion if liabilities continued without reduction of handouts and no tax increase), and a society and a world collapsing into anarchy. As noted, one of the many evil side effects of diversity (e.g., massive increases in crime, environmental degradation, traffic gridlock, decreasing quality of schools, coming bankruptcy of local, state and federal governments, corruption of police and border officials, rising prices of everything, overloading of the medical system, etc.) is that our right to free speech has disappeared on any issue of possible political relevance and of course that 426 means just about any issue. Even in private, if any negative comment on 'diversity' is recorded or witnessed by anyone credible, the racist, third world supremacist Diverse and their Euro servants will try to take away your job and damage your business or your person. This is certain when it involves public figures and racial or immigration issues, but nothing is off limits. Dozens of books in the last two decades address the issue including 'The New Thought Police: Inside the Left's Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds', 'End of Discussion: How the Left's Outrage Industry Shuts Down Debate, Manipulates Voters, and Makes America Less Free (and Fun)' and 'The Silencing: how the left is killing free speech', but nothing will dissuade the Democratic Socialists (i.e., closet communists) and the lunatic fringe liberals. As noted, I am writing this book because nobody in Academia, nor any public figure, dares to do it. Another 'side effect' is the loss of much of our freedom and privacy as the government continues to expand its war on terror. There was never a compelling reason for admitting any serious number of Muslims (or any more Diverse for that matter). In any case, it seems a no-brainer to not admit and to expel single unmarried male Muslims aged 15 to 50, but even such obvious simple moves are beyond the capabilities of the retards who control congress and of course our beloved presidents, all of whom, with the members of congress, who voted for the immigration law changes starting in 1965, could be held personally responsible for 9/11, the Boston Marathon Bombing etc. Of course, Trump is trying to change this but it's too little, too late and barring his declaring martial law, running the country with the army, and deporting or quarantining 100 million of the least useful residents, America's date with destiny is certain. A lovely example of how suppression of free speech leads to ever more insanity is the case of Major Hasan (courtesy Mark Steyn's "After America"). An army psychiatrist at Fort Hood who had SoA (Soldier of Allah) on his business card, he was frequently reprimanded when a student army intern for trying to convert patients to Islam, and many complaints were filed for his constant anti-American comments--one day he gave a Power Point lecture to a room full of army doctors justifying his radicalism. Free speech and common sense being no more available in the military than civilian life, he was then promoted to Major and sent to Fort Hood, where he commented to his superior officer on a recent murder of two soldiers in Little Rock: "this is what Muslims should do-stand up to the aggressors" and "people should strap bombs on themselves and go into Times Square", but the army did nothing for fear of being accused of bias. One day he walked out of his office 427 with an assault rifle and murdered 13 soldiers. It turned out two different anti-terrorism task forces were aware that he had been in frequent email contact with top radical Islamist terrorists. The Army Chief of Staff General George Casey remarked: "What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here"!! Is it losing the 70 million on welfare or the 1.7 million in prison or the 3 million drug addicts that is more tragic? The invasion of the Southwest by Hispanics gives the flavor of what is coming and Coulter in her book "Adios America" tells of trashed parks, schools that dropped from A to D grade, billions for 'free' (i.e., paid for by the upper middle and upper class and businesses) medical care and other services in Los Angeles alone etc. Anyone living there who remembers what Texas or California were like 30 years ago has no doubts about the catastrophic consequences of diversity as they see it every day. In California, which I know personally, the urban areas (and even most parks and beaches) that I used to enjoy are now crowded with Hispanics and often full of trash and spray painted with gang signs, while the highways are horrifically crowded and the cities and towns overrun with drugs and crime, so most of it is now uninhabitable and the world's 6th largest economy is headed for bankruptcy as it tries to move 20 million mostly lower class Hispanics into the upper middle class by using tax money from the Euros. One of the latest lunacies was to try to put all illegals on Obamacare. Some persons I know have had their annual medical coverage increase from under $1000 before Obamacare to about $4000 (2017 estimate) and the extra $3000 is what the Democrats are stealing from anyone they can to cover the costs of free or very low cost care for those who pay little or no taxes, and who already are bankrupting hospitals forced to give them free "emergency" care. Of course, the Republicans are trying to kill it, but like the whole government, it is already in a death spiral that only a huge increase in fees can fix. One of the most flagrant violations of US law by the left-wing lunatics who support immigration is the creation of 'sanctuary cities'. The cities do not allow municipal funds or resources to be used to enforce federal immigration laws, usually by not allowing police or municipal employees to inquire about an individual's immigration status. This began with Los Angeles in 1979 (thus becoming the first large city donated to Mexico) and now includes at least 31 major American cities. Presumably, the President could order the army or the FBI to arrest the city officials who passed these regulations for obstruction of justice etc., but it's a murky legal area as (in another indication of the total ineptness of congress and the courts and the hopelessness of the democratic 428 system as currently practiced) immigration violations are civil offenses and not federal or state felonies which they clearly should be. After I wrote this the courts (predictably) blocked Trump's attempt to cut off funds to sanctuary cities, forgetting that their purpose is to protect the citizens of America, and not those of other countries here illegally. And recently California declared itself a sanctuary state, i.e., it's now part of Mexico. A competent government (maybe we could import one from Sweden, China or even Cuba?) could pass such legislation in a few weeks. Also, it could force compliance by cutting off most or all federal funds to any city or state that failed to comply with federal immigration laws, and at least one such bill has been introduced into congress recently, but the Democrats prevented its passage, and of course Obama or Clinton would have vetoed any attempt at giving American back to Americans. Trump of course has a different view, though he cannot save America via democratic means. As long as the Democrats (soon to return to power and, rumor has it, to change their name to Socialist Democratic Neomarxist Third World Supremacist Party of Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East) are in power, nothing will be done, and more cities and states will cease to be a part of America until Hispanics take over completely sometime in the second half of the century. Only a military coup can save America now and it's very unlikely the generals have the courage. For this review, I read a few politically oriented books and articles in print and on the web of the kind that I have avoided for over 50 years, and in them and the comments on them saw repeated accusations of 'racist' against people who were only stating their desire to have the USA remain a prosperous and safe country. This claim is now almost always false in the normal meaning, but of course true in the new meaning-i.e., one opposed to letting Mexico and Africa annex America. So, I wrote a reply to this slander, since I have never seen a good one. Actually, it's not 'racism' but self-defense –the Diverse in America are the racists, as on the average, your life here is largely an exploitation of other races, notably Europeans and Asians who actually pay taxes. For genuine racism look at how different groups native to your own country (or immigrants) are treated there. The vast majority of immigrants in the USA would not even be permitted to enter your countries, much less permitted citizenship, the privilege of voting, free or low cost housing, food, free or subsidized medical care, free school, affirmative action programs, the same 429 privileges as natives etc. And in the USA, it is the Diverse who have taken away the tranquility, beauty, safety and free speech that existed here before a handful of stupid politicians and supreme court justices let you in. We never voted to let you enter or become citizens--it was forced on us by halfwits in our government, beginning with Lincoln and his partners in crime. If we had a chance to vote on it, few foreigners except medical, scientific and tech experts and some teachers would have been admitted and perhaps 75% of the Diverse would be deported. In many cases, you have an alien religion (some of which demand the murder of anyone you take a dislike to) and culture (honor killings of your daughters etc.), do not pay a fair share of taxes (typically none) and commit far more crimes per capita (e.g., 2.5x for Hispanics, 4.5x for blacks). Furthermore, the middle class American pays about 30% of their income to the govt. This is about 66 days/year of their working life and maybe 20 days of that goes to support the poor, now mostly Diverse. And all the 'free' things such as welfare, food stamps, medical care and hospitals, schools, parks, streets, sanitation, police, firemen, power grid, postal system, roads and airports, national defense etc. exist largely because the 'racist' upper middle and upper class created, maintain and pay for them. Maybe another 4 working days goes to support the police, FBI, justice system, DHS, Border Patrol and other govt. agencies that have to deal with aliens. Add another 10 or so days to support the military, which is mostly needed to deal with the results of 3rd world overpopulation (the real major cause of the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen and the major cause of most of the wars, social unrest and conflicts past, present and future), and this cost, added to welfare, medicare, social security and environmental degradation (an ever increasing percentage for immigrants and their descendants) is bankrupting the country, with the only possible solution being to decrease the benefits and increase the taxes, the burden of which will fall on everyone's descendants. You take advantage of the freedom of speech we created to tell malicious lies about us and prevent rational discussion! Most of you, if doing this in your country of origin, would wind up in prison or dead! Shameless liars! What is your problem? --poor education, no gratitude, malicious, stupid, no experience with civilized society? (pick 5). And anyone who doubts any of this just does not know how to use their brain or the net as it's all there. These comments are just the facts that anyone can see, along with simple extrapolations into the future. Also, please let me ask the Diverse--do people in your country of origin work 30 days a year to support tens of millions of aliens who commit crimes at 430 several times the rate of natives, overcrowd your schools, highways, cities and jails, trash your parks and beaches, spray paint graffiti on buildings and import and sell drugs to addicts who commit over a hundred million crimes a year (added to the 100 million or so they commit themselves)? And have you had a 9/11 and many bombings and murders at home? Do immigrants control the media so that you cannot even discuss these issues that are destroying your country and the world? Will your country be totally in their control in a few generations and be another impoverished, crime ridden, starving, corrupt 3rd world hellhole? Of course, for most of you it already is, and you came to America to escape it. But your descendants won't have to be homesick for the hellhole, as they will have re-created it here. The Diverse here (and their Euro servants) never tire of complaining in all the media every day about how they are not treated fairly and not given enough (i.e., the Euros and the relatively rich Diverse don't work hard enough to support them), and it never crosses their minds that if it were not for taxes paid mostly by Euros now and for over a century previous, there would be little or no police or fire or medical or school services or parks or public transport or streets or sewers in their communities, and of course there would not even be a country here, as it is mainly Euros who created, and support it and who serve in the military in all the wars. And it was primarily Euros and their descendants who created the net and the pc's that was used to create this and the electronic or print media you are reading this on, the tech that produces the food you eat and the medicine that keeps you alive. If not for the Euros technology and security, at least 90% of all the Diverse in the world would not exist. Everyone condemns colonialism, but it was the way that the Diverse were brought out of the dark ages into modern times via communications, medicine, agriculture, and enforcement of democratic government. Otherwise all their populations would have stayed very small, backwards, starving, disease ridden, impoverished, isolated and living in the dark ages (including slavery and its equivalents) to this day. To sum it up, the Euro's antipathy to Diversity ('racism') is due to a desire that their children have a country and a world worth living in. Again, this is for everyone's benefit, not just Euros or the rich. Likewise, all my life I have been hearing third world people saying that their disproportionate problems with drugs, crime and welfare are due to racism, and certainly there is some truth to that, but I wonder why Asians, who must be subject to racism as well ( insofar as it exists-and relative to most Diverse counties, it's quite minimal here), and most of whom came here much more recently, spoke little or no English, had no relatives here and few skills, have a fraction of the crime, drugs and welfare (all less than Euros and so way less than blacks or Hispanics) and average about $10,000 more income per family 431 than Euros. Also, blacks never consider that they would not exist if their ancestors were not brought to the new world and they would never have been born or survived in Africa, that those who captured and sold them were usually African, that to this day Africans in Africa almost universally treat those of different tribes as subhuman (Idi Amin, Rwanda, Gaddafi etc. and far worse is soon to come as the population of Africa swells by 3 billion by 2100), and that if they want to see real racism and economic exploitation and police maltreatment, they should go live almost anywhere in Africa or the 3rd world. Returning to Africa or Mexico etc. has always been an option, but except for criminals escaping justice, nobody goes back. And it was the Euros who put an end to slavery worldwide and, insofar as possible, to serfdom, disease, starvation, crime and war all over the 3rd world. If it were not for colonialism and the inventions of Euros there would be maybe 1/10 as many Diverse alive and they would mostly still be living as they did 400 years ago. Likewise, it's never mentioned that if not for the Euro's, who were about 95% responsible for paying for and fighting and dying in WW2, the Germans and Japanese and/or the Communists would now control the world and only the Euros can prevent the CCP and/or the Muslims from doing so in the future. Also, it was mostly Euros who fought, are fighting and will be fighting the communists in Korea and Vietnam, and the Muslim fanatics in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan and the many others soon to come. Insofar as any revenge on the Euros is needed for their slavery (but slavery by other blacks in various forms has always existed), blacks have already had it abundantly. First, they have been largely supported and protected by the Euros for centuries. Second, the parasites they brought with them have infected and destroyed the lives of tens of millions of Euros. Malaria, schistosomes, filariasis, ascaris, yellow fever, smallpox etc., but above all hookworm, which was so common and so debilitating up to the early decades of this century that it was responsible for the widespread view of Southerners as stupid and lazy. All this is crushingly obvious, but I bet there is not one grade school or college text in the world that mentions any of it, as it's clearly 'racist' to suggest that the Diverse owe anything to Euros or to point out that other Diverse in their countries of origin always have and always will treat them far worse than Euro do. And they are incapable of grasping the true horror that is coming or they would all be one in opposing any increase in the population by any group anywhere and any immigration into America. Well before 2100 the Hispanics will control America, and the rest of the world will be dominated by Chinese and the rest by Muslims, who will increase from about 1/5th of 432 the world now to about 1/3rd by 2100 and outnumber Christians, and neither group is noted for embracing multiculturalism, women's rights, child rights, animal rights, gay rights, or any rights at all. So, the obvious fact is that overall the Euros have treated the Diverse much better than they have treated each other. And we now have the best of times, while by 2100 (give or take a generation or two) economic collapse and chaos will reign permanently except perhaps a few places that forcibly exclude Diverse. Again, keep in mind that in my view there is not, and almost certainly will never be, any evidence of a significant genetic difference between Euros and Diverse in psychology, or IQ, and that their tendency to excessive reproduction and other cultural limitations are accidents of history. Likewise, it never crosses Diverse, leftist, third world supremacist, Neomarxist minds that every year maybe 500 billion dollars are spent in the USA by federal, state and city govts. on education, medicine, transportation (highways, streets, rail, bus and airline systems), police, fire and emergency care, numerous welfare programs, the government and judicial systems--the vast majority of it created, maintained and paid for by the Euros, assisted by the taxes of the small minority of well-off Diverse. Also, there is the FBI, NSA, CIA, and the armed forces of the USA (another 500 billion a year) and other Euro countries, without which there would be no USA and little or no peace, security or prosperity anywhere in the world, and they have also been created, run and staffed largely by the Euros, who constitute most of the dead and wounded in every war (less an issue for Hispanics who serve in the military at about half the rate of Euros) and in every police force from 1776 to now. Without medicine and public health measures, most of their ancestors (and the whole third world) would have suffered and often died of leprosy, malaria, worms, bacteria, flu, tuberculosis, smallpox, syphilis, HIV, hepatitis, yellow fever, encephalitis, and the tech for high cholesterol and blood pressure, heart, cancer, and liver surgery, transplants, MRI, XRAY, Ultrasound etc., etc., has almost all been invented, administered and overwhelmingly paid for by the Euro 'racists' and 'white supremacists'. You think colonialism was bad? Just think what the 3rd world would be like without it, or what it would be like living under the Nazis, communists or Japanese (and will be like living under the Chinese or Muslims once the Diverse destroy America). This excuses nothing but just points out the facts of history. But fine, let's undo the 'injustice' and pass a Back to Africa (and Latin America and Asia etc.) law providing funds to repatriate everyone. They could sell their assets here and most could live like kings there, but of course there would be very few takers. And by the next century there will be 433 3 billion more Africans (the official estimate) and the whole continent will be a sewer, and 1 billion more Asians, and even India and China (who will add a hundred million or so each) will look like paradise in comparison to Africa, at least until the resources run out (oil, gas, coal, topsoil, fresh water, fish, minerals, forests). If you look on the net you find the Diverse incessantly whining about their oppression, even when it occurred decades or centuries ago, but I don't see how anything that's done by others, even today, is my responsibility, and much less so in the past. If you want to hold every Euro responsible for what the vast majority now alive are completely innocent of, then we want to hold all Diverse responsible for all the crimes committed by any of them here or their relatives in their countries of origin over the last 400 years, and for their share of all the tens of trillions spent to build and defend the USA and to keep them safe, healthy and well fed. Yes, most blacks and Hispanics are poor due to historical factors beyond their control, just as Euros are often richer due to historical factors beyond theirs, but the important points are that we now alive did not cause this, and that here, as almost everywhere that the Diverse are a significant percentage, they commit most of the crime, collect most of the welfare, pay the least taxes and continue breeding excessively and dragging their countries and the world into the abyss. Consider as well that the evils of colonialism are only prominent because they were recent. If we look carefully, we find that nearly every group in every country has an endless history of murder, rape, plunder and exploitation of their neighbors that continues today. It's not far off the mark to suggest that the best thing that could happen was to be conquered by the Euros. Once again, keep in mind that there is not and almost certainly will never be any evidence of a significant genetic difference between Euros and Diverse and that their limitations are almost certainly due to culture. The problem is not the Diverse nor Euros, but that people are selfish, stupid, dishonest, lazy, crazy, and cowardly and will only behave decently, honestly, and fairly if forced to do so. Giving people rights instead of having privileges they must earn is a fatal mistake that will destroy any society and any world. In the tiny groups in which we evolved, where everyone was our relative, reciprocal altruism worked, but in a world soon swelling to 11 billion, this impulse to help others is suicidal. The world is totally preoccupied with terrorists, but their effects are actually trivial compared e.g., to traffic accidents, murders, drug addiction, disease, soil erosion etc., and every day the 7.7 billion do vastly more damage to the world just by living. The mothers of the third 434 world increase the population by about 200,000 every day, and so do hugely more damage every hour than all the terrorists worldwide will do in the whole 21st century (until they get their hands on the bomb). Just the Diverse in the USA in one year will do far more damage to the USA and the world by destroying resources, eroding topsoil and creating CO2 and other pollution than all terrorism worldwide in all of history. Is there even one politician or entertainer or business person who has a clue? And if they did would they say or do anything- certainly not-who wants to be attacked for 'racism'. People everywhere are lazy, stupid and dishonest and democracy, justice and equality in a large Diverse welfare state are an open invitation to limitless exploitation of their neighbors and few will resist. In 1979 7% of Americans got means-tested govt. benefits while in 2009 it was over 30% and of course the increase is mostly the diverse. Food stamps rose from 17 million persons in 2000 to about 43 million now. In the first few years of Obama over 3 million enrolled to get 'disability' checks and over 20% of the adult population is now on 'disability' which according to the Census Bureau includes categories such as "had difficulty finding a job or remaining employed "and "had difficulty with schoolwork". There are now almost 60 million working age (16 to 65) adults who are not employed or about 40% of the labor force. Illegal families get about $2.50 in direct benefits for every dollar they pay in taxes and about another $2.50 indirect benefits (and not counting their damage to the biosphere) so they are a huge and ever increasing drain in spite of frequent fake 'news stories' on the net about their great value. Interest payments on our national debt are projected to rise to 85% of our total federal income by 2050. About half of our debt is owned by foreign govts., about a quarter by China, and if China continues to buy our debt at current rates, very soon our interest payments to them will cover their total annual military budget (ca. 80 billion vs U.S. of ca $600 billion) and (depending on interest rates) in a few years they would be able to triple or quadruple their military expenditures and it would all be paid for by US taxpayers. Actually, I have not seen it noted, but their lower costs mean that they are actually spending maybe 300 billion. And it is rarely mentioned why the US military budget is so enormous, and how it ties into the high life style and huge govt. subsidies in Europe and worldwide for that matter. The USA is the world's free policeman, providing technology, money and troops for keeping the peace and fighting wars worldwide and is too stupid to ask the other countries to pay their share--until the recent comments by Trump. To a significant extent, the ability of the Europeans and countries worldwide to have a high standard of living is due to the American taxpayers (without of 435 course being asked) paying for their defense for the last 75 years. The CIS reports total immigration will reach about 51 million by 2023, about 85% of the total population increase (all the rest due to the Diverse already here) and will soon comprise about 15% of the total population-by far the largest percentage in any big country in recent history. It was reported that the Dept. of Homeland Security New Americans Taskforce was directed to process the citizenship applications of the 9 million green card holders ASAP to try to influence the 2016 election. The federal govt. is a cancer which now takes about 40% of all income from the minority who pay significant taxes and federal govt. civilian employees are hugely overpaid, averaging ca. $81,000 salary and $42,000 benefits while private employees get about $51,000 salary and $11,000 benefits. About 25% of all the goods and services produced in the USA are consumed by the govt. and about 75% of total govt. income is given out as business and farm subsidies and welfare. If all federal taxes were increased by 30% and spending was not increased, the budget might balance in 25 years. Of course, the spending would increase immediately if more money was available, and also the economy would take a huge hit as there would be less incentive to earn or to stay in the USA and business investment and earnings would drop. It is estimated that private sector compliance with govt. regulations costs about 1.8 trillion a year or about 12% of our total GDP, and of course it is growing constantly, so we waste more on govt. paperwork every year than the GDP of most countries. The main push for evermore confiscation of our money (years of our working lives) by the govt. is the communism/socialism/fascism forced on us by the rapid increase of Diverse, but being the world's police force for free has cost us trillions, which also translates into years of our working lives as detailed elsewhere here. The poor are almost always spoken of as though they were somehow superior to the rich and it is implicit that we ought to make sacrifices for them, but they are only the rich in waiting and when they get rich they are inevitably exactly as loathsome and exploitative. This is due to our innate psychology, which in the small groups in which we evolved made sense, as everyone was our relative, but in a world that is fast collapsing due to the expansion of the Diverse it makes no sense. The poor care no more about others than the rich. Marvelous that even Obama and the Pope speak about the coming horrors of climate change, but of course not a word about the irresponsible parenthood that is its cause. The most you get from any govt. official, academic or TV 436 documentary is a meek suggestion that climate change needs to be dealt with, but rarely a hint that overpopulation is the source of it and that most of it for the last century and all of it from now on is from the 3rd world. China now creates twice the C02 of the USA and this will rise as it is expected to about double the size of our GDP by 2030 or so, and USA Diverse create about 20% of USA pollution, which will rise to about 50% by the next century. Ann Coulter in "Adios America" describes the outrageous story of what seems to be the only occasion on which Americans actually got to vote on the immigration issue-what some call "the great Prop 187 democracy ripoff". In 1994 Californians, outraged to see ever more Hispanics crowding into the state and using up tax money, put on the ballot Proposition 187 which barred illegals from receiving state money. In spite of the expected opposition and outrageous lies from all the self-serving, boot licking Neomarxist third world supremacists, it passed overwhelmingly winning 2/3 of white, 56% of black, 57% of Asian and even 1/3 of Hispanic votes (yes, many middle and upper class Hispanics realize being taken over by Mexico will be a disaster). Note that all these people are 'racists' or 'white supremacists' (or in slightly more polite columns of the Carlos Slim Helu controlled NY Times etc. 'bigots' or 'nativists') according to the current use of this word by a large percentage of liberals, many Hispanics, the Sierra Club, the ACLU and even Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman (who recently called Trump a 'racist' for daring to tell the truth while defending the USA from annexation by Mexico). It even carried the hopeless Republican candidate for Governor, Pete Wilson to a landslide victory, with 1/3 of his voters stating his support for Prop 187 was their reason for voting for him. However, the "ACLU and other antiAmerican groups" (Coulter) brought suit and it was soon struck down by a Democratic appointed (i.e., 'honorary Mexican') District Court Judge for being unconstitutional (i.e., protecting Americans rather than aliens). As with the 1898 and 1982 Supreme Court decisions giving citizenship to anyone who is born here, it was another hallucinatory interpretation of our laws and a clear demonstration of the hopelessness of the court system, or any branch of the government (at least a Democrat dominated one) in protecting Americans from a third world takeover. It has been suggested that the ACLU change its name to the Alien Civil Liberties Union and that it, along with the many other organizations and individuals working to destroy the USA, be forced to register as agents of a foreign government or preferably, be classified as terrorists and all their employees and donors deported or quarantined. 437 In spite of this, neither the state nor federal govt. has done anything whatsoever to prevent the takeover, and Coulter notes that when G.W. Bush ran for president, he campaigned in America with the corrupt Mexican president Gortari (see comments on Carlos Slim below), had brother Jeb 'Illegal Immigration is an act of love' Bush speak in Spanish at the Republican National Convention, and after winning, gave weekly radio addresses in Spanish, added a Spanish page to the White House website, held a huge Cinco de Mayo party at the White House, and gave a speech to the blatantly racist National Council of La Raza, in which, among other outrages, he promised $100 million in federal money (i.e., our money) to speed immigration applications! Clearly with both the Republican and Democratic parties seeking annexation by Mexico, there is no hope for the democratic process in America unless it is drastically changed and clearly this will never happen by using the democratic process. California is the 6th largest in economy in the world, ahead of France, Brazil, Italy, South Korea, Australia, Spain, India, Russia, and Canada, and more than double that of Mexico, and in about 10 years, when their 10 million kids grow up and the total Hispanic population of Calif is about 22 million (counting only legals), they will own the state and it will have been annexed by Mexico. In recent years, Calif. Governor Brown signed legislation granting drivers licenses to illegals, and paying for free medical care for their children (i.e., of course we the taxpayers pay). He agreed to let noncitizens monitor polls for elections, and they have been appointed to other government positions such as city councils without state govt. approval. He also forced all state officials to commit obstruction of justice by signing a law known as the Trust Act (i.e., trust they won't rob, rape, murder, sell drugs etc.), which specifies that unless immigrants have committed certain serious crimes, they cannot be detained (for delivery to the feds for deportation) past when they would otherwise become eligible for release. The batch of new "lets become part of Mexico" laws also included one that would allow immigrants without legal status to be admitted to the state bar and practice law in California. But he vetoed the bill allowing illegal aliens to serve on juries. So, the only thing that prevented the final step in turning over the Calif. Courts to Mexico was the arbitrary decision of one man! However, it won't be more than a few years before an Hispanic is Governor and then this and endless other atrocities will ensue, including presumably giving illegals the right to vote perhaps by passing another state law that violates or obstructs the federal one. In any case, there will soon by little distinction in California between being a citizen of the USA 438 and a citizen of any other country who can sneak across the border. Note that as usual the Citizens of California were never permitted to vote on any of these issues, which were passed by the Democratic controlled state legislature. Why don't they just be honest and change the name to Neomarxist Party of Mexico? At least they should be forced to register as the agent of a foreign govt. It is certain that California (and by the end of the century the USA) is lost to civilization (i.e., it will be like Mexico, which of course will be far worse by then since most of the world's resources will be gone and another 3 billion people will by demanding them) unless the govt. sends federal troops into California (and other states with sanctuary cities) to deport illegals and arrest all those (including numerous elected officials) who are violating federal law. Even this will only slow up the catastrophe unless a law is passed terminating anchor babies (i.e., those getting citizenship because they are born here), preferably retroactively to 1982 or better to 1898, and rescinding citizenship for them and all those who gained it from them-i.e. all their descendants and relatives. Also of course the 1965 immigration law must be declared unconstitutional and all those (and relatives and descendants) who immigrated since then have their status reviewed with the significant taxpayers remaining and the non or low payers repatriated. Hard to get precise statistics, as its 'racist' to even think about it, but in Stockton, California and Dallas, Texas about 70% of all births are to illegals and maybe 90% of the total counting all Hispanics, and of course the bills are almost all paid by Euros and 'rich' Diverse via forced taxation, which of course they never get to vote on. To end birthright, a new law has to be passed and not an old one repealed, as there is no such law- this was an utterly arbitrary opinion of Justice Willie, "anchor baby" Brennan and only a handful of justices ever voted for this hallucinatory interpretation of the law. Those who want to see how the Supreme Court destroyed our country by eroding the boundary between being an American citizen and a person who was passing through (and the lack of basic common sense in the law and the hopelessness of the American legal systemand the contrary opinions of legal experts) can consult Levin's 'Men in Black' or see United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) (yes it was a Chinese who began the assault on America over a century ago) where 6 lawyers (i.e., justices of the court) granted citizenship to the children of resident aliens and Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982) where 5 lawyers (with 4 disagreeing) granted citizenship to the children of illegal aliens and anyone giving birth while visiting. If just one of the 5 morons who voted for this had 439 changed their mind we would have maybe 10 million fewer on the welfare rolls now and perhaps 50 million fewer by 2100. Of course, none of the other 450 million or so adults alive between then and now have ever been permitted to vote on this or any of the basic issues leading inexorably to collapse. As we now see in the media every day, in a 'representative' democracy what is represented is not America's interests, but egomania, greed, stupidity and third world supremacism. How many people did it take to hand America to Mexico? For the TKO Immigration disaster in 1965 there were 320 representatives and 76 senators, and for anchor babies the two Supreme Court decisions totaling 11 lawyers, most of these 'outstanding citizens' now dead, so out of the approx. 245 million adult Americans citizens alive now, about 120 very senior citizens actually voted for the handover. As clear a demonstration of the hopelessness of representative democracy (as practiced here) as one could want. Clearly, if America is to remain a decent place to live for anyone, the 1965 act, and all subsequent ones, need to be repealed by a law that puts a moratorium on all immigration and naturalization, and preferably rescinds or at least reviews citizenship for everyone naturalized since 1965 (or preferably since the first absurd birthright ruling in 1898), along with all their relatives and descendants. All their cases could be reviewed and citizenship conferred on select individuals who scored high enough on a point scale, with welfare recipients, the chronically unemployed, felons, and their descendants ineligible, those with college or medical degrees, teachers, engineers, business owners etc., getting points towards eligibility, i.e., just basic common sense if America is to survive. Following Ann Coulter ('Adios America'), we note that corporate tax in the USA is one the highest in the world of major countries at 39% and as the govt. continues to raise taxes to support the half of the country that is on some kind of welfare (if one includes social security, unemployment, food stamps, housing subsidies, welfare and veterans benefits), inevitably capital and jobs will leave, and entering the next century with vanishing resources, and since the entire annual population increase of 2.4 million is now Diverse, that means about 200 million more of them ( for a total of around 350 million out of about 500 million) by 2100, a fragmented populace fighting for resources, and a drastically reduced standard of living with eventual collapse is inevitable, even without the predatory evils of the Seven Senile Sociopaths (i.e., the CCP).. 440 Regarding the tax situation, in 2013, those with gross incomes above $250,000 (nearly all of them Euros) paid nearly half (48.9%) of all individual income taxes, though they accounted for only 2.4% of all returns filed and their average tax rate was 25.6%. The bottom 50% of filers (those making under $34,000-maybe half Diverse and half Euros) paid an average of 1.2% federal income tax for total share of 2.4% while the next 35% of filers (those making $34k to $69k) averaged 21% tax rate for a total share of 10.5% of total federal income tax collected. So, it is obvious that contrary to the common view of the Democrats/third world supremacists/Neomarxists, the upper and upper middle class are giving the poor a largely free ride, and that we already have one foot in communism. However, we must not forget the $2.5 billion a day the US is going into debt and the total $80 trillion or more unfunded liabilities (e.g., social security and medicare), which will have to eventually be paid by some combo of increased taxes and decreased benefits to their descendants. Consider this: "When we combine the populations of non-payers and nonfilers and look to see what overall percentage of each group is not paying taxes, we find that: 50.7 percent of African American households pay no income taxes, 35.5 percent of Asian American households do not, 37.6 percent of White American households do not, and 52 percent of (legal) Hispanics pay no income taxes." There are about 5X as many Euros (whites) as blacks and 4X as many Euros as Hispanics in the USA, and there are about the same % of whites and blacks on welfare (39%) and about 50% of Hispanics, so percentage wise that means blacks are about 5X and Hispanics about 8X as likely to be on welfare as Euros. Including property taxes, sales taxes etc. brings the average middle class ($34k to $69k income) tax up to about 30%, so 4 months/year or about 15 years labor in a 50 year lifetime goes to the government, a large percentage to support immigrants who are destroying America and the world, and another large percentage for the military, which is a free police force for the rest of the world. Counting all support as enumerated above (i.e., not just food stamps etc., but the poor's fair share of all other expenses) the average middle class family works roughly 5 weeks/year or 5 years of their working life to support the poor. Neither mass immigration, nor slavery, nor anchor babies, nor excessive breeding, nor unemployment, nor crimes and drugs are their fault, but the middle and upper class pay for the poor, and their kids will pay more (likely at least 10 years of their 50 year working life well before 2100) until the standard of living and quality of life is about the same as that of Diverse countries, and they will both drop continually every year until collapse, even 441 if the Gang of Seven Sociopaths is destroyed. Of course, every statistic has a counter statistic and the Neomarxist Third World Supremacists and the Fifty Cent Army of the CCP are busily spreading disinformation and trolling all social media, but as a rough guide we find a recent study that found that 37% of Hispanic immigrant households got the majority of their income from welfare while 17% of blacks did (whites were not reported but I would guess about 10%). Of the $ 3.5 trillion budget, about 595 billion is deficit and about 486 billion goes to welfare, so eliminating welfare would almost balance it and eliminating all the costs associated with persons and their descendants naturalized since 1965 would put the USA solidly in the black and would probably allow paying off the $18 trillion national debt before the end of the century, while implementing a Naturalized Citizens Repatriation Act would likely allow this closer to midcentury. As I write this I see a 'news item' (i.e., one of the endless barrage of paid lies planted there every day by the Diverse and the Fifty Cent Army) on Yahoo that tells me that illegals are doing us a big favor as the majority are working and pay about $1000 each tax per year. But they don't tell us that they cost the country maybe $25,000 each in direct traceable costs and if you add their share of all the other costs (to maintain the govt. the police, the courts, the army, the streets etc., etc.) it's likely double that. As Coulter tells you on p47 of Adios America, a college educated person pays an average $29k taxes more per year than they get back in govt. services. Legal immigrants however get back an average $4344 more than they pay, while those without a high school degree get back about $37k more than they pay. She says that about 71% of illegal households get welfare. About 20% of US families get 75% of their income from the govt (i.e., extorted from taxpayers and borrowed from banks at 2.5 billion/day) and another 20% get 40%. In the UK, which is about on a par with the USA on its Diverse/Neomarxist path to ruin, about 5 million persons or 10% of able adults live totally on welfare and have not worked a day since the Labour govt. took over in 1997, and another 30% receive partial support. Greece, famous for it's recent huge bailout, is a typical case of how the masses always drag a country into chaos if permitted. People normally retire on full govt. pensions in their 50's and as early as 45, and when retirement at 50 was permitted for a couple of hazardous jobs like bomb disposal, it soon was enlarged to cover over 500 occupations including hairdressers (hazardous chemicals like shampoo) and radio and TV announcers (bacteria on 442 microphones)-no I am not joking. People often praise European countries for their generous welfare, but in fact it is mainly possible because nearly all their defense since the 50's (to say nothing about the two world wars, the Korean and Vietnamese wars, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Serbia etc., etc.), i.e., about $10 trillion in direct costs and perhaps another $10 trillion indirect) has been paid for by the USA (and by American lives and injuries), i.e., by the 20% of US taxpayers who pay any significant tax, plus much of the $18 trillion debt. In fact, like all the world, they would not even be independent countries if not for the USA who defeated the Germans in two wars and the Japanese and kept the communists and now the Muslims under control for half a century. So not only is the U.S. bled dry by the poor and Diverse here, but we pay for them all over the world as well as helping the rich there get richer. Typical of all Europe, in France, where the Muslims have become a huge problem, even when not slaughtering people, most of them are on welfare, paid for in part by the USA. For about a decade the biggest voting bloc in the U.N is the Organization of Islamic Cooperation which controls e.g., the Human Rights Council, where they allow only the rights permitted by Islamic law, and so forget women's rights, children's rights, gay rights, freedom of religion, free speech etc. and in fact freedom of any kind. As the Muslims unrestrained breeding increases their percent of world population from 1/5 to 1/3 by 2100 or so and civilization collapses, this will get much worse. Islam is defended with such ferocity because in the poor 3rd world countries it has been the only defense against selfishness and it provides poor men with a guarantee of reproduction and survival. The same used to be the case for Christianity. It is also clear that as the 22nd century approaches and America collapses, China will replace it as the 'Great Satan' since it will be dominant worldwide, protecting its ever-growing investments and Chinese citizens, and eventually doing whatever it wants, as 'Diversification' results in control of America by Mexicans and Africans and it loses military superiority and the money and will to fight. And of course, the Chinese will not follow America's path and be 'diversified' into collapse, unless via some great misfortune they become democratic/Neomarxist (they are of course now only communist in name). A bit off the mark but too nice to pass up is a lovely example of devolution (dysgenics) that is second only to overpopulation in bringing about the collapse of industrial civilization (though political correctness forbids discussion anywhere). U.K. Pakistanis, who often import their cousins to 443 marry and so are inbreeding with up to 5 children a family, sometimes with multiple wives, produce 30% of the rare diseases in the UK, though they are 2% of the population. Of course, most are on welfare and the defectives result in huge expenses for full time nursing care and special education (for those not deaf and blind). And the European High Court, like the US Supreme Court, has forgotten its real reason for existing and enraptured by Suicidal Utopian Delusions, has ruled the govt must pay full spousal benefits to all the wives and can't draw the line at two. A good part of Coulter's book is spent on crime, and we should first note (Coulter does not seem to, though I expect she knows) that it is rarely considered that it is hugely underreported, especially among the poor and Diverse. Thus, the BJS says that about 3.4 million violent crimes per year go unreported and the figures for nonviolent ones (burglary, assault, petty theft, vandalism, drug dealing, etc.) must be in the hundreds of millions, disproportionately committed by (and suffered by) the Diverse. One finds that the percent of adult males incarcerated for whites is 0.7, for Hispanics 1.5 and for blacks 4.7. It appears impossible to find any precise national figures for the cost of incarceration but $35K/year seems a minimum, and perhaps $50K for the legal system, and perhaps another $50k in medical and psychological costs, rehab programs, loss of work by their victims etc. According to the BJS non-Hispanic blacks accounted for 39.4% of the prison and jail population in 2009, while non-Hispanic whites were 34.2%, and Hispanics (of any race) 20.6%. According to a 2009 report by the Pew Hispanic Center, in 2007 Latinos "accounted for 40% of all sentenced federal offenders- -more than triple their share (13%) of the total U.S. adult population". Again, keep in mind there is not and almost certainly will never be any evidence of a significant genetic difference between Euros and Diverse in psychology, or IQ, and that their greater incidence of problems must be wholly due to their culture. If one counted only illegals, the crime and imprisonment rate would likely be double that reported for legal Hispanics. As Coulter notes (p101-2) it's impossible to get the actual figures for immigrant crime since it's of course 'racist' to even suggest they should be collected (and as noted, all crime among Diverse is greatly underreported and many Hispanics are misclassified as whites), but it's definitely above that stated, so their actual rate could be near that of blacks. One set of data showed about 1/3 of the 2.2 million state and local prisoners are foreign born and maybe another 5% are American born Hispanics and another 30% black, leaving about 32% white. The foreign born were 70% more likely to have committed a violent crime 444 and twice as likely a class A felony. As Coulter notes, virtually all immigrant groups have a higher crime rate than natives. As the invasion continues, bribery and extortion will see huge increases as they rise to the third world standard. Bribes (the mildest form of extortion) in cash or equivalent is the normal interaction between people in the third world and police, the military, customs and immigration officers, health and fire inspectors, teachers, school admissions officers, and even doctors, surgeons and nurses. I am not guessing here as I spent a decade of my life in the third world and experienced and heard countless stories about all of the above. As time passes, we can expect this to become routine here as well (first of course in California and the other Western states) and the nationwide norm thereafter. In addition to continued increases in crime of all kinds we will see the percentage of crimes solved drop to the extremely low levels of the third world. More resources are devoted to the solution of murders than any other crime and about 65% are solved in the USA, but in Mexico less than 2% are solved and as you get outside Mexico City the rate drops to near zero. Also note that the rate here used to be about 80%, but it has dropped in parallel with the increase in Diverse. Also 65% is the average but if you could get statistics I am sure it would rise with the percent of Euro's in a city and drop as the percent of Diverse increases. In Detroit only 30% are solved. If you keep track of who robs, rapes and murders, it's obvious that black lives matter lots more to Euros than they do to other blacks. Spanish may become the official and mandatory language and Roman Catholicism the official religion, and of course the Mexican cartels will be the dominant criminal organizations, at least for the Southwestern states by midcentury and likely the whole country by 2100. Of course, as Coulter points out, it's very hard to get statistics on race and crime or increasingly on race and anything, as it's considered 'racism' even to ask and the govt. refuses to collect it. Finding the truth is made much more difficult since Hispanic special interest groups (i.e., third world supremacists), abetted by Euro liberals, who have lost or sold whatever common sense or decency they may have had, are hard at work spreading disinformation with hundreds of thousands of false or misleading items on the net and social media every week. She does not seem to mention the massive deception facilitated by Yahoo, Bing, Facebook and others, who present among their news items, paid disinformation which presents 'news' that is deliberately false or hugely misleading, such as the item mentioned above (repeated many times a day somewhere on the net) which says that illegals are a good thing as they are paying taxes. 445 In spite of being given a largely free ride, the Diverse take it all for granted (especially as it's 'racist', 'hate' and 'white supremacist' to point out their free ride, so you won't find it in the major media) and have no problem suing the police, hospitals, and every branch of government for any imagined infraction. The Euros should get a clue and sue them back! They and the US govt, now that Trump is president, could file millions of suits or criminal cases against people who riot in the streets, picket and protest disrupting traffic, smashing windows and causing business losses, psychological trauma, etc. Sue and/or arrest all the criminals and their families for the damages to property, police, loss of business income and work, etc. Also sue the police and every branch of government for failing to protect them every time a crime is committed, especially by illegal Diverse. As I wrote this the parents of a young San Francisco woman murdered by an illegal alien criminal, who had been deported numerous times, and then shielded from deportation by the San Francisco police (obstruction of justice), is suing them and the feds (and they should sue the board of Supervisors and Governor Brown and the state legislature who voted for the sanctuary rules and Trust Act as well). Predictably he was found not guilty and in the sanctuary city of San Francisco (and now the sanctuary state of California) is able to live out his life of crime while being supported at public expense. Hundreds of thousands are robbed, assaulted, raped or murdered by Diverse, and perhaps 100 million victimized in lesser ways every year, and the injured parties (most often Diverse) should sue every time. To facilitate this, the Euros could establish a fund and various organizations to eliminate illegals and crime against Euros. And of course, all the countries that foreign born criminals come from should be forced to pay the cost of policing and prosecuting them and of keeping them here-welfare, medical care, schooling, and their share of all the goods and services mentioned above, including national defense. Mexico should pay all the costs of policing the border and for all the crimes and for all the upkeep of illegals here since day one-i.e., back to say 1965. And they and Colombia etc. should pay for the cost of drug enforcement, addict treatment and jailing, and say a $20 million fine every time someone is raped, disabled or murdered by a drug addict or by an illegal or a naturalized citizen or descendant of a person originating in their country. If they won't we could expel everyone born there and cut off all trade and visas, or just confiscate their oil, mineral and food production. Like many of the ideas here it sounds bizarre because the cowardice and stupidity of 'our' leaders (i.e., not actually ours as we are never asked) has 446 gotten us so used to being abused. We are the last country that should put up with abuse but the politicians and leftist morons have made us the easiest mark on the planet. Yes 9/11 is the most striking abuse, but in fact we suffer as many deaths and injuries from the Diverse every year (e.g., just from drugs and addicts or just from wars), and far more damage every day, if you extrapolate the consequences of their presence here into the future. Much controversy was generated when Trump mentioned we were letting rapists into the country, but he was just stating the facts. Most crimes in Diverse communities are never reported, often because they are committed by the Hispanic gangs who control them. Coulter recounts a few (the publisher cut the book in half and she says she can easily produce 50 cases for every one cited) of the more outrageous immigrant rape crimes committed here, noting a study in which Latino women here reported childhood sexual abuse at about 80X the rate of other American women, and since it seems likely many did not want to talk about it, it could be higher. She notes that in much of Latin America raping teenagers is not considered a crime (e.g., the age of consent in Mexico is 12) and in any case, it is rare that anything is done about it, since it's often connected to gang members or their families and if you protest you die. Coulter notes that illegals have made large areas of SouthWestern USA public lands and parks unsafe and some have been closed. Half of some 60 forest fires on federal or tribal land between 2006 and 2010 were started by illegals, many of them set deliberately to avoid capture. The cost of fighting these 30 alone might pay for a good start on a secure border fence. I assume everyone knows about the massive marijuana growing operations conducted by the Mexican cartels in our national forests. In addition to the erosion and pollution, it is the norm for growers to kill numerous animals and threaten hikers. Most depressing of all is the sellout of the Sierra Club (who suddenly changed their tune after getting a $100 million contribution from billionaire David Gelbaum with the proviso that they support immigration-clearly confused as his right hand protects nature while the left destroys it), who are now devoted to mass immigration, denouncing anyone opposed as "white racists" even when they are Diverse. So, they are another group that should be made to register as an agent of a foreign government and their executives and major contributors made to join the other criminals quarantined on an island (the Aleutians would be perfect but even Cuba would do) where they can't do more harm. Considering the blatant trashing of California by Hispanics, and the clear as day end of nature in America as 447 the immigrants about double the population during the next century or so, this is truly amazing from one viewpoint, but cowardice and stupidity are only to be expected. One murder in the USA is said to total about $9 million lifetime costs and if they get death it is several million more. At about 15,000/year that would be about $150 billion/year just for homicides-most by Diverse. Mexico has about 5X the murder rate of the USA and Honduras about 20X and your descendants can certainly look forward to our rate moving in that direction. Coulter notes that Hispanics have committed about 23,000 murders here in the last few decades. As I write, this item appeared on the net. "In an undated file photo, Jose Manuel Martinez arrives at the Lawrence County Judicial Building in Moulton, Ala., before pleading guilty to shooting Jose Ruiz in Lawrence County, Ala., in March 2013. Martinez has admitted to killing dozens of people across the United States as an enforcer for drug cartels in Mexico." Not of course rare, just one of the few to make the headlines recently. Figuring about 2.2 million prisoners (over 1% of the adult population) and a cost to put them in jail from the start of their criminal career of maybe $50,000 each or about $100 billion and the cost to keep them there of about $35,000 each or about $75 billion means a minimum of $150 billion a year, not including other governmental and social costs. I don't see any really clear estimates on the net for the total cost of crime in the USA, but in 2013 it was estimated that violent crime alone cost the UK (where guns are much less frequent and the Mexican and Colombian mafias don't operate significantly) ca. $150 billion or about $6000/household, or about 8% of GDP, but the USA has a much higher percentage of immigrants, guns and drugs, so including all the nonviolent crimes and figuring only 5% of the GDP, that would be about 900 billion per year. Figuring about 60% of crime due to the Diverse, or maybe 80% if you count that of Euros addicted to drugs imported by Diverse, we pay something like 700 billion a year to support Diverse crime. Of course, all those guilty of felonies, regardless of national origin, history or status could have their citizenship rescinded and be deported or quarantined on an island, where their cost of upkeep could be from $0 to $1000/year rather than $35,000 and it could be made a one-way trip to avoid recidivism. Yes, its sci-fi now, but as the 22nd century approaches and civilization collapses, the tolerance of crime will diminish of necessity. For now, nothing will be done, and crime here will reach the levels in Mexico as the border continues to dissolve and environmental collapse and approaching bankruptcy dissolve 448 the economy. Inside Mexico in 2014 alone, 100 U.S. citizens were known to have been murdered and more than 130 kidnapped and others just disappeared, and if you add other foreigners and Mexicans it runs into the thousands. Even a tiny lightly traveled country like Honduras manages some 10 murders and 2 kidnappings a year of US citizens. And of course, these are the best of times-it is getting steadily worse as unrestrained breeding and resource depletion bring collapse ever closer. In another index of how far out of control Mexico is, the criminal cartels, believed to generate well over $21 billion each year from drugs, illegal mining, fishing and logging, theft, prostitution, extortion, kidnapping and embezzlement, are an increasing threat to Pemex, the Mexican oil monopoly. Between 2009 and 2016, thieves tapped the pipelines roughly every 1.4 kms along Pemex's approximately 14,000 km pipeline network, getting more than $1 billion in annual revenue from the gas which they sell on the black market. They are able to do this by terrorizing Pemex employees to obtain info on its operations, offering them the same as they do for everyone in Mexico-silver or lead, i.e., take the bribes or you and your family die. Euros hear constantly about how bad they are not to want to give the Diverse even more. OK fine, lets agree to do it provided the third world country they are from lets in immigrants until they comprise about 30% of their population now and 60% by 2100, enforces legislation that gives all foreigners in their country, legally or not, citizenship for their babies, welfare, free food, free medical care, free schooling, immunity to deportation, free emergency care, drivers licenses, license to practice law, right to serve on juries, right to bring in all their relatives (who also get all these privileges), right to setup organizations that help them to lie on immigration forms, to evade deportation, to suppress free speech and to subvert the political process so that they can take over the country. Actually, let's make it easy and do it if even one of their countries implements even a few of these. Of course, it will never happen. Naturally, those with every kind of mental or physical deficiency are dissatisfied with their level of welfare and are getting organized too. Those with autism, actually a spectrum of genetic deficiencies due to as many as 1000 genes, are now campaigning to be regarded as not deficient but 'neurodiverse' and 'neurotypicals' should regard them as peers or even their superiors. No problem for me if someone wants to have a 'friend' or spouse who cannot experience love or friendship and who feels the same when they 449 die as they do when their goldfish does (except being more annoyed by the greater inconvenience). And those with more than mild cases will never hold a job and will be a burden to their relatives and society (i.e., the minority who pay taxes) all their lives, and have a strong tendency to pass the problem on to any offspring they have, so it will likely increase continually, the same as hundreds of other genetic problems with significant heritability. As diagnosis has improved, so has the incidence of autism, which now exceeds 1%, as does that for schizophrenia, schizotypal disorders, ADHD, drug addiction, alcoholism, alexithymia, low IQ, depression, bipolar disorder, etc., etc., so perhaps the combined incidence of disabling mental disorders exceeds 10% and those with physical problems who need partial or complete lifelong support is probably similar, and both are rising in number and percent, the inevitable results of 'civilization', 'democracy' and 'human rights'. Clearly, as the economy collapses, the costs of health care rise, and an ever-larger percentage are nonworking elderly and mentally or physically disabled, this lunatic system will collapse-i.e., the USA will eventually have about the same handouts for everyone as third world countries by the early 22nd century- none. Coulter comments on Mexican citizen Carlos Slim Helu (the world's third richest person as I write this) in the context of the near universal lying about and evasion of immigration issues by the New York Times and other media. He gave a huge loan to the Times a few years ago, to save it from bankruptcy, and this likely accounts for its subsequent failure to cover immigration issues in a meaningful way. Slim is the world's premiere monopolist and his companies control 90% of the Mexican telephone market and many of its major industries (Mexican's refer to their country as Slimlandia). His wealth is the equivalent of roughly 5% of Mexico's GDP. To add perspective, since the USA has about 15 times Mexico's GDP, to be comparable, Bill Gates or Warren Buffet would have to be worth about a trillion dollars each or about 20X their worth. California is the biggest money making US state for Slim, whose take of Mexican goods and services is about $140 million/day. To get the flavor of how things were when Slim managed to acquire the Mexican telephone company (and what can be expected here soon), Gortari (chosen by G.W. Bush to campaign with him) was president of the vicious Mexican political monopoly PRI, and in subsequent years Gortari's brother was found murdered, his relatives were apprehended by Swiss police when they tried to withdraw $84 million from his brother's bank account, and he fled Mexico for Ireland, where he remains. These are among the reasons Coulter calls Slim a robber baron and a baneful influence on Mexico and America. She notes that about $20 billion of Slim's yearly income from his telephone monopoly 450 comes from Mexicans living here. He is Lebanese on both sides, so Mexico has experienced it's own foreign takeover. The bleeding hearts insist Americans show ever more "humanity" and guarantee our own collapse to help the mob, but what humanity do the Diverse show? They breed like rabbits and consume without restraint, thus condemning everyone, including their own descendants, to Hell on Earth. There is nothing noble about the poor-they are just the rich in waiting. Showing the typical oblivion of the establishment, our Secretary of State Kerry praises China for 'lifting 200 million people out of poverty' but fails to note this placed a huge drain on the world resources, and is done by stealing from the future, including their own descendants, and that this is unsustainable. Ten or 11 billion (by 2100) all trying to stay out of poverty guarantees the collapse of the world. China's higher QOL, like our own, is only temporary, obtained at the cost of their own descendants and the worlds future. The major deficiency of the first version of this essay was lack of any discussion of China. The first thing we must keep in mind is that when saying that China says this or China does that, we are not usually speaking of the Chinese people, but of the Sociopaths of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party, i.e., the Seven Senile Sociopathic Serial Killers (SSS)of the Standing Committee of the CCP who rule China. There are 25 members of the Politburo but only 7 members of its Standing Committee, one of them usually being chosen as Premier. Currently and probably until he becomes senile or dies this is Xi Jinping. I recently watched some typical leftist fake news programs (i.e., pretty much the only kind one can find in the media, i.e., nearly everything now –i.e., Yahoo, CNN, The New York Times, etc.) on Youtube, one by VICE which mentioned that 1000 economists (and 15 Nobel Prize winners) sent a letter to Trump telling him that the trade war was a mistake, and another which interviewed an academic economist who said that Trump's move was a provocation for starting World War 3. They are right about the disruption of global trade, but have no grasp of the big picture, which is that the Seven Sociopaths have total world domination, with the elimination of freedom everywhere, as their goal. and that there are only two ways to stop them-a total trade embargo that devastates the Chinese economy and leads their military to force out the CCP and hold elections, or WW3. Clear as day, but all these "brilliant" academics can't see it. If the Sociopaths are not removed now, in as little as 15 years it will be too late and your descendants slowly but inexorably will be subject to the same fate as Chinese-kidnapping, torture and murder of any dissenters. 451 Of course, the CCP started WW3 long ago (you could see their invasion of Korea as the beginning) and is pursuing it in every possible way, except for bullets and bombs, and they will come soon. The CCP fought the USA in Korea, invaded and massacred Tibet, and fought border skirmishes with Russia and India. It conducts massive hacking operations against all industrial and military databases worldwide and has stolen the classified data on virtually all current US and European military and space systems, analyzed their weaknesses and fielded improved versions within a few years. Tens of thousands, and maybe hundreds of thousands, of CCP employees have been hacking into military, industrial, financial and social media databases worldwide since the early days of the net and there are hundreds of known recent hacks in the USA alone. As the major institutions and military have hardened their firewalls, the SSS have moved to minor institutions and to defense subcontractors and to our allies, which are easier targets. While it ignores the crushing poverty of hundreds of millions and the marginal existence of most of its people, it has built up a massive military and space presence, which grows larger every year, and whose only reason for existence is waging war to eliminate freedom everywhere. In addition to stripping the 3rd world of resources, a major thrust of the multi-trillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative is building military bases worldwide. They are forcing the free world into a massive high-tech arms race that makes the cold war with the Soviet Union look like a picnic. The Russians are not stupid, and in spite of pretending friendship with the Sociopaths, they surely grasp that the CCP is going to eat them alive, that their only hope is to ally themselves with the West, and Trump is right on the money in befriending Putin. Of course, the Neomarxist Third World Supremacists will likely take total control of the USA in 2020 and nothing could be more to the liking of the CCP. Snowden (another clueless twenty something) helped the SSS more than any other single individual, with the possible exception of all the American presidents since WW2, who have pursued the suicidal policy of appeasement. The USA has no choice but to monitor all communications and to compile a dossier on everyone, as it's essential not only to control criminals and terrorists, but to counter the SSS, who are rapidly doing the same thing, with the intent of removing freedom completely. Though the SSS, and the rest of the world's military, are spending huge sums on advanced hardware, it is highly likely that WW3 (or the smaller engagements leading up to it) will be software dominated. It is not out of the question that the SSS, with probably more hackers (coders) working for them then all the rest of the world combined, will win future wars with minimal 452 physical conflict, just by paralyzing their enemy electronics via the net. No satellites, no phones, no communications, no financial transactions, no power grid, no internet, no advanced weapons, no vehicles, trains, ships or planes. Some may question that the CCP (and of course the top tiers of the police, army and 610 Office) are really mentally aberrant, so here are some of the common characteristics of Sociopaths (formerly called psychopaths) that you can find on the net. Of course, some of these are shared by many autistics and alexithymics, and sociopaths differ from "normal" people only in degree. Superficial Charm, Manipulative and Cunning, Grandiose Sense of Self, Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt, Shallow Emotions, Incapacity for Love, Callousness/Lack of Empathy, Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature, Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others. Problems in making and keeping friends. Aberrant behaviors such as cruelty to people or animals, Stealing, Promiscuity, Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility, Change their image as needed, Do not perceive that anything is wrong with them, Authoritarian, Secretive, Paranoid, Seek out situations where their tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or admired (e.g., CCP, Police, Military, Predatory Capitalism), Conventional appearance, Goal of enslavement of their victims, Seek to exercise despotic control over every aspect of other's lives, Have an emotional need to justify their actions and therefore need their victim's affirmation (respect, gratitude), Ultimate goal is the creation of a willing victim, Incapable of real human attachment to another, Unable to feel remorse or guilt, Extreme narcissism and grandiosity, Their goal is to rule the world. Pathological Liars. This last is one of the most striking characteristics of the CCP. Virtually everything they say is an obvious lie, or distortion, mostly so absurd that 453 any well educated ten year old will laugh at them. Yet they persist in saturating all the media every day (a $10 billion annual budget just for foreign propaganda) with preposterous statements. The fact that they are so out of touch with reality that they think they will be taken seriously clearly shows what any rational person will regard as mental illness (sociopathy). There are only two paths to removing the CCP, freeing 1.4 billion prisoners from the SSS, and ending the lunatic march to WW3. The peaceful one is to launch an all-out trade war to devastate the Chinese economy until the military gets fed up and boots out the CCP. The USA needs, by any means necessary, to join all its allies in reducing the trade with China to near zero- no imports of any product from China or any entity with more that 10% Chinese ownership anywhere in the world, including any product with any component of such origin. No export of anything whatsoever to China or any entity that reexports to China or that has more than 10 % Chinese ownership, with severe and immediate consequences for any violators. Yes, it would temporarily cost millions of jobs and a major worldwide recession, and yes I know that a large part of their exports are from joint ventures with American companies, but the alternative is that every country will become the dog of the Seven Sociopaths (and like all animals they keep dogs in small cages while they fatten them for the kill) and/or experience the horrors of WW3. Other possible steps are to send home all Chinese students and workers in science and tech, freeze all assets of any entity more than 10% Chinese owned, forbid foreign travel to any Chinese citizen, to prohibit any Chinese or any entity more than 10% owned by Chinese from buying any company, land, product or technology from the USA or any of its allies. All these measures would be phased in as appropriate. We should keep in mind that the Chinese monster is largely due to the suicidal utopian delusions of our politicians. President Carter gave them the right to send students to the USA (there are currently about 300,000), use our intellectual property without paying royalties, gave them most favored nation trading status, and by decree canceled our recognition of Taiwan and our mutual defense agreement (i.e., with no vote by anyone – he should be an honorary CCP member, along with the Bushes, the Obamas, the Clintons, Edward Snowden, etc.). These were the first in a long series of conciliatory gestures to the world's most vicious dictatorship which made it possible for them to prosper, and set the stage for their coming invasion of Taiwan, the South Sea Islands and other countries as they wish. These measures along 454 with our failure to invade in the 40's to prevent their takeover of China, our failure to nuke their army and hence the CCP out of existence during the Korean War, our failure to prevent their massacre of Tibet, our failure to do anything when they exploded their first nuclear weapons, our failure to take them out in 1966 when they launched their first nuclear capable ICBM, our (or rather Bush's) failure to do anything about the Tiananmen massacre, our failure to shut down the Confucius Institutes present nn many universities worldwide, which are fronts for the CCP, our failure to ban the purchase of companies , property, mining rights etc. worldwide, which is another way to acquire high-tech and other vital assets, our failure to do anything over the last 20 years about their countless acts of espionage and hacking into our databases stealing nearly all our advanced weaponry, our failure to stop their allies North Korea and Pakistan from developing nukes and ICBM's and receiving equipment from China (e.g., their mobile missile launchers, which they claim were for hauling logs and it was pure coincidence they exactly fit the Korean missiles), our failure to stop them from violating our embargo on Iran's oil (they buy much of it, registering their ships in Iran), and its nuclear program (equipment and technicians go back and forth to N. Korea via China), our failure to stop them from providing military tech and weapons worldwide (e.g., North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, the cartels in Mexico, and over 30 other countries, our failure to stop the flow of dangerous drugs and their precursors directly or indirectly (e.g., nearly all Fentanyl and Carfentanyl sent worldwide, and meth precursors for the Mexican cartels come from China), and our failure to do anything about their building "ports" (i.e., military bases) all over the world, which is ongoing. An alternative to shutting down China's economy is a targeted strike by say 50 thermobaric drones on the 20th Congress of the CCP, when all the top members are in one place, but that won't take place until 2022. The Chinese would be informed, as the attack happened, that they must lay down their arms and prepare to hold a democratic election or be nuked into the stone age. The other alternative is an all-out nuclear attack. Military confrontation is unavoidable given the CCP's present course. It will likely happen over the islands in the South China Sea or Taiwan within a few decades, but as they establish military bases worldwide it could happen anywhere (see Crouching Tiger etc.). Future conflicts will have hardkill an softkill aspects with the stated objectives of the CCP to emphasize cyberwar by hacking and paralyzing control systems of all military and industrial communications, equipment, power plants, satellites, internet, banks, and any device or vehicle connected to the net. The Sociopaths are slowly fielding a worldwide array of manned and autonomous surface and underwater subs or drones capable 455 of launching conventional or nuclear weapons that may lie dormant awaiting a signal from China or even looking for the signature of US ships or planes. While destroying our satellites, thus eliminating communication between the USA and our forces worldwide, they will use theirs, in conjunction with drones to target and destroy our currently superior naval forces. Of course, all of this is increasingly done automatically by AI. All this is totally obvious to anyone who spends a little time on the net and can understand English. Two of the best sources to start with are the book Crouching Tiger (and the five Youtube videos with the same name), and the long series of short satirical pieces on the China Uncensored channel on Youtube or their new one www.chinauncensored.tv. The CCP's plans for WW3 and total domination are laid out quite clearly in Chinese govt publications and speeches. They spend an estimated 10 billion dollars yearly to spread their propaganda worldwide. They or their puppets own or control newspapers, magazines, TV and radio channels and place fake news in most major media everywhere every day. In addition, they have an army (maybe millions of people) who troll all the media placing more propaganda and drowning out legitimate commentary. The rule of the Seven Senile Sociopaths is a surrealistic tragicomedy like Snow White the Seven Dwarves, but without Snow White, endearing personalities, or a happy ending. They are the wardens of the world's biggest prison but they are they far the worst criminals, committing by proxy every day millions of assaults, rapes, robberies, bribes, kidnappings, tortures, and murders, most of them presumably by their own secret police of the 610 Office created on June 10, 1999 by Jiang Zemin to persecute the qigong meditators of Falun Gong, and anyone else deemed a threat, now including all religious and political groups not under their direct rule. By far the biggest ally of the Seven Dwarves is the Democratic party of the USA, which, at a time when America needs more than ever to be strong and united, is doing everything possible to divide America into warring factions with ever more of its resources going to sustain the burgeoning legions of the lower classes and driving it into bankruptcy. The CCP is by far the most evil group in world history, robbing, raping, kidnapping, imprisoning, torturing starving to death and murdering more people that all the other dictators in history (an estimated 100 million), and in a few years will have a total surveillance state for every activity of everyone in China, which is already expanding worldwide. Though the SSS treat us as an enemy, in fact, the USA is the Chinese people's 456 greatest friend and the CCP their greatest enemy. From another perspective, other Chinese are their greatest enemy as they demolish all the world's resources. Of course, some say that China will collapse of its own accord, and it's possible, but the price of being wrong is the end of freedom and WW3 or a long series of conflicts which the Seven Sociopaths will almost certainly win. One must keep in mind that they have controls on their population and weapons that Stalin, Hitler, Gaddafi and Idi Amin never dreamed of. CCTV cameras (currently maybe 300 million and increasing rapidly) on highspeed networks with AI image analysis, tracking software on every phone which people are required to use, all transactions payable only by phone already dominant there and universal and mandatory soon, total automatic monitoring of all communications by AI and an estimated 2 million online censors, in addition to millions of police and army cadres there as many as 10 million plainclothes secret police of 610 Office created by Jiang Zemin, with black prisons (i.e., unofficial and unmarked), instant updating of the digital dossier on all 1.4 billion Chinese and soon on everyone on earth who uses the net or phones. It's often called the Social Credit System and it enables the Sociopaths to shut down the communications, purchasing ability, travel, bank accounts etc. of anyone. This is not fantasy but already largely implemented for the Muslims of Xinjiang and spreading rapidly-see Youtube. How much Quality of Life (QOLa general measure including wealth, crime rate, stress, traffic, drug problems, happiness etc.) might Americans gain by various measures? Banning anchor babies might up QOL 5% by mid-century and 10% by the end, relative to doing nothing. Making the ban retroactive to 1982, or preferably to 1898, and thus deporting most of those naturalized by being related to anchor babies, might raise QOL another 5% immediately. Banning immigration might raise it another 10% by end of century, while making the ban retroactive to 1965 and deporting most immigrants along with their descendants and naturalized relatives might give Americans (Diverse and Euros) another 20% more QOL immediately. And there might be a Back to Africa or Slavery Restitution Act which sent all blacks, or at least those on welfare, unemployed or in prison, back to their homelands so we would never again have to listen to their inane complaints about being kidnapped (as noted, they never consider that if not for slavery they would not exist and if not for colonialism and Euro technology maybe 90% of the people in the third world would not exist), not to mention if not 457 for Euro's they would now be living (or dying ) under the Nazi's or the Japanese or the communists. Of course, one could do this on a case by case basis, keeping all the skilled (e.g., medical and hitech personnel). Instead of or prior to the slow deportation process, one could cancel the citizenship or at least the voting privileges of all the naturalized citizens and their descendants since 1965. The 42 million African-Americans (about 74 million by 2100) who account for 4.5x as many prisoners per capita as Euros, get a largely free ride for all essential services and welfare, take over and render uninhabitable large areas of cities, increase the crowding and traffic by about 13% etc., so they may decrease the QOL of all Americans about 20% on average but to unliveable for those who are in poor neighborhoods. Hispanics amount to about 18% (or about 25% including illegals) and they account for a minimum of 2.5X as many prisoners as Euros and have all the other issues, thus causing a QOL drop of about 30% or again to unliveable in areas they dominate, which soon will include the whole southwestern USA. So overall, it's a fair guess that deporting most Diverse would about double the QOL (or say from just bearable to wonderful) right now for the average person, but of course much more increase for the poorer and less for the richer. If one compares likely QOL in 2119 (i.e., a century from now), if all the possible anti-diversity measures were adopted, relative to what it will be if little or nothing is done, I expect QOL would be about 3X higher or again from intolerable to fantastic. After documenting the incompetence of the INS and the govt., and the countless treasonous and blatantly anti-white racist (in the original meaningful sense of racist) organizations (e.g., the National Council of La Raza) helping to swamp us with immigrants (partial list on p247 of Adios America) Coulter says "The only thing that stands between America and oblivion is a total immigration moratorium" and "The billion dollar immigration industry has turned every single aspect of immigration law into an engine of fraud. The family reunifications are frauds, the "farmworkers" are frauds, the high-tech visas are frauds and the asylum and refugee cases are monumental frauds." Her book is heavily documented (and most data were left out due to size constraints) and of course nearly all the data can be found on the net. As Coulter notes, a 2015 poll shows that more Americans had a favorable opinion of North Korea (11%) than wanted to increase immigration (7%,) but most Democrats, the Clintons, the Bush's, Obama, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, Hedge Fund billionaire David Gelbaum, Carlos Slim, Nobel Prize 458 winning economist Paul Krugman and megabillionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg don't want Americans to ever vote on it. She also mentions that then Florida Governor Jeb Bush (with a Mexican wife) pushed for a bill to give drivers licenses to illegal aliens (copying California) just 3 years after 13 of the 9/11 terrorists had used Florida drivers licenses to board the planes. Yes, the same Jeb Bush who recently called Illegal immigration "an act of love" (of course he means love for Mexico and hatred for the USA, or at least its Euros). The inexorable collapse of the USA (and other first world countries in Europe are just a step or two behind, as they have let in Diverse who are producing children at about 3 times Euro rates) shows the fatal flaws in representative democracy. If they are to survive and not turn into third world hellholes, they must establish a meritocracy. Change the voting age to 35 minimum and 65 maximum, with minimum IQ 110, proof of mental stability, lack of drug or alcohol dependence, no felony convictions, and a minimum score on the SAT test that would get one into a good college. But the sorry state of what passes for civilization is shown by a recent Gallup poll which found that about 50% of Americans believed the Devil influences daily events, and that UFO's are real, while 36% believe in telepathy and about 25% in ghosts. A yes on any of these would seem to be a good reason for lifetime exclusion from voting and preferably loss of citizenship as should a 'yes' or 'possibly' or 'probably' answer to "Do you think O.J. Simpson is innocent". Perhaps it will lessen the pain slightly to realize that it is not only the American government that is moronic and treasonous, as versions of its suicide are happening in other democracies. In Britain, the National Children's Bureau has urged daycare teachers to report any 'racist' utterance of children as young as three. About 40% of Britons receive some form of welfare. London has more violent crime than Istanbul or New York and is said to have almost 1/3 of the world's CCTV cameras, which record the average citizen about 300 times a day. Of course, as usual, there are no trustworthy statistics for China, where some of the most successful electronics companies are in the CCTV business and where facial recognition software can often identify any random person in minutes. The UK has the highest rate in Europe of STD's, unwed mothers, drug addiction and abortion. One fifth of all children have no working adult in their house, almost a million people have been on sick leave for over a decade, the courts forced the govt. to give a disabled man money to fly to Amsterdam to have sex with a prostitute because to deny it would be a "violation of his human rights". The number of indictable offenses per 1000 rose from about 10 in the 459 1950's to about 110 in the 1990's in parallel with the increase in Diverse. Thanks to Mark Steyn's "After America", which is required reading for all bright, civilized Americans who want their country to survive, though barring a military coup, there is not a chance. Coulter points out the absurdity of politicians fawning on the Hispanic voters (Hispandering). If presidential candidate Mitt Romney had won 71% of the Hispanic vote instead of 27% he still would have lost, but if he had won only 4% more of the white vote he would have won. In fact, 72% of voters are nonHispanic white, so even if someone got ALL the nonwhite votes, a presidential candidate could still win by a landslide, as we saw in the Trump election. The problem is a sizeable percent of white voters are morons and lunatics who are unable to act in their own self-interest. The absurdity of letting average citizens vote was shown when many were seriously considering Ben Carson for president in 2016--a Seventh Day Adventist bible thumping creationist Detroit ghetto homeboy of such obvious immaturity and stupidity that no sane country would permit him to occupy any public office whatsoever (of course one could say the same of most people and most politicians). He has however, the huge advantage that his defects give him much in common with the average American. It appears to me his limitations include autism-the reason for his famous "flat affect". Do not be fooled by his occasional simulations of laughter--autistics learn to mimic emotions at an early age and some even have successful careers as comedians. Famous comedian Dan Aykroyd had this to say about his Asperger's -- "One of my symptoms included my obsession with ghosts and law enforcement -I carry around a police badge with me, for example. I became obsessed by Hans Holzer, the greatest ghost hunter ever. That's when the idea of my film Ghostbusters was born." "Gentle Ben" Carson wants to outlaw abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, thinks we should ditch Medicare, and adheres to many weird conspiracy theories, such as the pyramids not being built by the pharaohs as tombs, but by the biblical Joseph for the storage of grain! He proposes to turn the Department of Education into a fascist overseer of proper morals, with students reporting professors who displayed political bias (i.e., anyone whatsoever) to the government so universities' funding could be cut. "I personally believe that this theory that Darwin came up with was something that was encouraged by the Adversary." The Adversary is a nickname for the devil; it's the actual translation of the word "Satan." He also dismissed the Big Bang, calling it a "fairy tale." Like all creationists, that means that he rejects most of modern science--i.e., everything that lets us make sense of 460 biology, geology, physics and the universe and puts them on all fours with people who lived 100,000 years ago--i.e., Neanderthals. Of course, to the sane, intelligent and educated, "fairy tales" are about heaven, hell, angels and devils, but these are at exactly the right level for the average low class American, Diverse or Euro. Hard to believe we could do worse than the Clinton's, Nixon, Reagan, Obama and G.W. Bush, but it will happen, and your descendants will see an endless line of politicians who's only real qualifications are greed, dishonesty, stupidity, sociopathy, dark skin or a Spanish surname. In any case, it's unavoidable in a mobocracy that morons, lunatics and the merely clueless will take over and run the show until it collapses, which is inevitable unless democracy as currently practiced changes radically and Diversity decreases. Now that we have a reasonably sane, intelligent, patriotic person as president (though seeing this thru the massive disinformation and libel produced by the Neomarxist Third World Supremacists can be difficult) and enough Republicans in congress (the Democrats having sold out their country long ago) we could theoretically deport the illegals, but unless we terminate immigration and retroactively deport most of those naturalized since 1965, it will only slow the disaster and not stop it. However nearly everything Trump tries to do is blocked by the Neomarxist judges and the democrats who long ago ceased to represent America's interests. Hillary Clinton was preferable to Obama, who was trained as a constitutional lawyer, so he knew our systems fatal weaknesses, and how much further he could go in creating a communist state enforced by fascism, like his muchadmired model Cuba. I can easily forgive Hillary for Benghazi and her emails and Bill for Monica, but not for their utterly cynical pardoning of clients of Hillary's brother Hugh, tax cheat Marc Rich and four Hasids convicted in 1999 of bilking the federal government of more than $30 million in federal housing subsidies, small business loans and student grants, in order to curry favor with N.Y. Jews. This is very well known and in fact just about everything I say here is easily findable on the net. Even though our mobocracy is a slow-motion nightmare, if we had a direct democracy (as we easily could in the computer age) and people were actually polled on important issues, perhaps most of our major problems would be disposed of quickly. Suppose tomorrow there was a vote of every registered voter with an email address or smartphone on questions something like this: Should all illegal aliens be deported within one year? Should welfare be cut 461 in half within 1year? Should all convicted felons born in another country or one of whose parents were, have their citizenship canceled and be deported within 90 days? Should all immigration be terminated except temporary work visas for those with special skills? Should all child molesters, rapists, murderers, and drug addicts have their citizenship canceled and deported, or if a native citizen, quarantined on an island? So much the better if voting was restricted to those whose parents and/or all four grandparents are native born, who are nonfelons, who have paid more than 5% of their income in taxes the last 3 years and passed mental health, current events and IQ tests. Again, the biggest benefactors would be the Diverse who remained here, but of course the majority will resist any change that requires intelligence or education to grasp. I am not against a Diverse society, but to save America for your children (recall I have no descendants nor close relatives), it should be capped at say 20% and that would mean about 40% of the Diverse here now would be repatriated. Actually I would not object to keeping the % Diverse we have now (about 37%) provided half the ones here were replaced by carefully screened Asians or by people from anywhere provided they are carefully screened (i.e., no criminals, mental or physical defectives, no religious nuts, no drug addicts, well educated with a proven useful profession), and that they agree to have no more than two children, with immediate deportation if they produce a third, commit a major felony, or remain on welfare for more than one year. And no relatives are permitted entry. In fact, it would be a huge step forward to replace all the Euro criminals, drug addicts, mental cases, welfare users, and chronically unemployed etc. with suitable Diverse. Of course, it's impossible now, but as civilization collapses and the Seven Sociopaths of the CCP take over, many amazing things will happen, all of them extremely unpleasant for billions of people, with the Diverse having the most suffering and dying. Coulter jokingly suggests inviting Israel to occupy the border with Mexico, as they have shown how to guard one. However, I would suggest really doing it-either giving them the Southern portion of each border state or perhaps just occupying the border section of Mexico (which we could do in a few days). Israel should be delighted to have a second country, since their position in Israel will become untenable as the USA, France etc. lose the ability to be the world's policemen, and nuclear capable third world countries collapse. However, we should require the Israelis to leave the strict orthodox at home where the Muslims will soon get them, as we already have enough rabbit breeding religious lunatics. 462 Speaking of the collapse of nuclear capable third world countries, it should be obvious that as this happens, probably before the end of this century, but certainly in the next, with H Bombs in possession of fanatics, it is just a matter of time before they begin vaporizing American and European cities. The only definitive defense will be preemptive "nucleation" of any such country that collapses, or where Muslim radicals take over. It must be obvious to Israel that they will have no other choice but a preemptive strike on Pakistan, Iran and maybe others. Another lovely gift from the Diverse. In a late 2015 poll by You.Gov, 29 percent of respondents said they can imagine a situation in which they would support the military taking control of the federal government – that translates into over 70 million American adults. And these again are the best of times. At this time in the next century, give or take a few decades, (much sooner in many third world countries), with industrial civilization collapsing, starvation, crime, disease and war worldwide, military coups will be happening everywhere. It's almost certainly the only cure for America's problems, but of course nobody will get to vote on it. In sum, this is the American chapter of the sad story of the inexorable destruction of the world by unrestrained motherhood. Fifty-four years ago, 396 US politicians voted to embrace the destruction of America by the third world, via the "no significant demographic impact" immigration act. Without the changes they and the Supreme Idiots Court made (along with failure to enforce our immigration laws), we would have about 80 million fewer people now and at least 150 million fewer in 2100, along with tens of trillions of dollars in savings. We would have a chance to deal with the immense problems America and the world face. But, burdened with a fatally fragmented (i.e., Diverse) population about twice the size we might have had, half of which will not contribute to the solution, but rather constitute the problem, it is impossible. What we see is that democracy as practiced here and now guarantees a fatally inept government. Peace and prosperity worldwide will vanish and starvation, disease, crime, military coups, terrorism and warlords will become routine, prbably in this century, certainly during the next. To me it's clear that nothing will restrain motherhood and that there is no hope for America or the world regardless of what happens in technology, green living or politics anywhere. Everything tranquil, pure, wild, sane, safe and decent is doomed. There is no problem understanding the stupidity, laziness, dishonesty, self-deception, cowardice, arrogance, greed and insanity 463 of hairless monkeys, but it ought to seem a bit odd that so many reasonably sane and more or less educated people could welcome into their country (or at least permit the entry and tolerate the presence of) large numbers of immigrants who proceed to take over and destroy it. Monkey psychology (shared by all humans) is only capable of seriously considering oneself and immediate relatives for a short time into the future (reciprocal altruism or inclusive fitness), maybe decades at most, so there is no internal restraint. Democracy is the ideal breeding ground for catastrophe. Most people are neither smart nor well educated, but one can see collapse happening in front of us, and above all in the big urban areas and in the Southwest, especially California and Texas. Sheer laziness, ignorance and a lack of understanding of ecology and the nature of population growth is part of it, but I think that the innate reciprocal altruism we share with all animals must have a big role. When we evolved in Africa we lived in small groups, probably seldom more than a few hundred and often less than 20, and so all those around us were our close relatives, and our behavior was selected to treat them reasonably well as they shared our genes (inclusive fitness) and would reciprocate good deeds (reciprocal altruism). We stopped evolving and began devolving, replacing evolution by natural selection with devolution (genetic degeneration) by unnatural selection about 100,000 years ago, when culture evolved to the point where language, fire and tools gave us a huge advantage over other animals, and there was no longer major selective force for changing behavior or increasing or maintaining health and intelligence. So, to this day we still have the tendency, when we do not feel in immediate physical danger, to act in a more or less friendly manner to those around us. The temporary peace, brought about by advanced communications and weaponry and the merciless rape of the planets resources, has expanded this 'one big family' delusion. Though the more intelligent and reflective persons (which of course includes many Diverse) can see the danger to their descendants, those who are poorly educated, dull witted, or emotionally unstable, sociopathic, autistic, or mentally ill (i.e., the vast majority) won't see it or won't act on it. But how about Adelson, Zuckerberg, Gelbaum, Biden, Clinton, Obama, Krugman and a very long list of the rich and famous? They have at least some education and intelligence, so how can they want to destroy their country and their own children's future? Actually, they are no more well educated, perceptive and future oriented than the average college graduate (i.e., not very), and also, they and their relatives live in gated communities and often have bodyguards, so they will not be seriously concerned about or even aware of trashed neighborhoods, beaches and parks, drive by shootings, home invasions, rapes 464 and murders, nor about paying taxes or making ends meet. They are just not thinking about the fate of their great grandchildren, nor anyone's, or if it does cross their mind, like the vast majority, they don't have clue a about human ecology, nor dysgenics, and can't see the inexorable path to collapse. Insofar as they do, they will not risk personal discomforts by saying or doing anything about it (selfishness and cowardice). A reader suggested I was talking about 'ethnic cleansing' of Diverse by Euros, but what's happening worldwide is exactly the reverse. I had not actually thought of the destruction of America and industrial civilization by Diverse as genocide, but since the number of Euros of all types (and many groups of Diverse such as Japanese and Koreans) will steadily decline, and their countries be taken over by Diverse, it does have that aspect, though it's the Euros failure to produce enough children that is responsible for their declining numbers. A few zealots (but not so few in the future as Muslims will increase from about 1/5 of the world to about 1/3 by 2100, stimulating the conditions which breed fanaticism) like Al Queda and ISIS want to eliminate all Euro's (and Jews and Sunni's and Feminists and Christians etc., etc.) and the Arabs will certainly demolish Israel by and by, but otherwise there is little motivation to get rid of those who are giving you a free lunch (though of course few Diverse will grasp how big the lunch really is until it stops and civilization collapses). However, as time passes and the competition for space and resources gets ever more desperate, genocide of all Euro groups may become an explicit goal, though mostly it will be far overshadowed by attacks of various Diverse groups on others, which has always been the case and always will. In any event, all Euro and many Diverse groups are certainly doomed--we are talking roughly 2100 and beyond, when the USA (then a part of Mexico) and Europe will no longer have the money or the will to suppress anarchy everywhere, as they will be unable to control it at home. Shocking as it is for me to come to these realizations (I never really thought about these issues in a serious way until recently), I don't see any hope for America or the other 'democracies' (America has one foot in Fascism and the other in Communism already) without a drastic change in the way "democracy" works, or in its complete abandonment. Of course, it's going to be pretty much the same elsewhere and both Euros and Diverse ought to pray the Chinese adopt democracy soon (so they collapse too) or they are doomed from outside and inside. That democracy is a fatally flawed system is not news to anyone with a grasp of history or human nature. Our second president John Adams had this to say in 1814: 465 "I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. ... Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never." John Adams, The Letters of John and Abigail Adams The most basic facts, almost never mentioned, are that there are not enough resources in America or the world to lift a significant percentage of the poor out of poverty and keep them there. The attempt to do this is bankrupting America and destroying the world. The earth's capacity to produce food decreases daily, as does our genetic quality. And now, as always, by far the greatest enemy of the poor is other poor and not the rich. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. So, it is clear that Ann Coulter is right and unless some truly miraculous changes happen very soon, it's goodbye America and hello Third World Hellhole. The only consolations are that we older folk can take comfort in knowing it will not be finalized during our lifetime, that those like myself who are childless will have no descendants to suffer the consequences, and, since the descendants of those who let this happen (i.e., nearly everyone) will be as loathsome as their ancestors, they will richly deserve hell on earth. The first group of articles attempt to give some insight into how we behave that is reasonably free of theoretical delusions. In the next three groups I comment on three of the principal delusions preventing a sustainable world- technology, religion and politics (cooperative groups). People believe that society can be saved by them, so I provide some suggestions in the rest of the book as to why this is unlikely via short articles and reviews of recent books by well-known writers. America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century and now all of it due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources and the addition of 4 billion more ca. 2100 will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a nightmare of crime and poverty. The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests. This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else-there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. Hence my concluding essay "Suicide by Democracy". | {
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Come i Sette Sociopatici che Governano la Cina Stanno Vincendo la Terza Guerra Mondiale e Tre Modi per Fermarli (2019) Michael Starks Astratto La prima cosa che dobbiamo tenere a mente è che quando diciamo che la Cina dice questo o la Cina lo fa, non stiamo parlando del popolo cinese, ma dei Sociopatici che controllano il Partito Comunista Cinese CCP, cioè i Sette Killer Seriali Senile (SSSSK) del Comitato permanente del PCC o dei 25 membri del Politburo ecc. I piani del CCP per la terza guerra mondiale e il dominio totale sono strutturati abbastanza chiaramente nelle pubblicazioni e nei discorsi govt cinesi e questo è il "sogno di Cina" di Xi Jinping. È un sogno solo per la piccola minoranza (forse da poche decine a poche centinaia) che governa la Cina e un incubo per tutti gli altri (tra cui 1,4 miliardi di cinesi). I 10 miliardi di dollari all'anno che si stima spendano in propaganda in tutto il mondo permette loro o i loro burattini di possedere o controllare giornali, riviste, canali televisivi e radiofonici e di inserire notizie false nella maggior parte dei principali media ovunque decine o centinaia di migliaia di volte ogni giorno. They hanno un esercito (forse milioni di persone) che oltre alla censura totale e immediata di tutti i media all'interno della Cina, troll tutti i media del mondo, mettendo più propaganda e annegando legittimo commento (l'esercito 50 centesimi). Oltre a spogliarerd il terzo mondo di risorse, una spinta importante della multi-trilionaria Belt and Road Initiative sta costruendo basi militari in tutto il mondo. Stanno costringendo il mondo libero in una massiccia corsa agli armamenti ad alta tecnologia che fa sembrare la guerra fredda con l'Unione Sovietica un picnic. Anche se la SSSSK, e il resto dell'esercito mondiale, stanno spendendo enormi somme su hardware avanzato, è altamente probabile che WW3 (o gli impegni più piccoli che portano ad esso) sarà software dominato. Non è fuori questione che la SSSSK, con probabilmente più hacker (programmatori) che lavorano per loro allora tutto il resto del mondo combinato, vincerà WW3 con minimo conflitto fisico, solo paralizzando i loro nemici tramite la rete. Niente satelliti, niente telefoni, niente comunicazioni, niente transazioni finanziarie, niente rete elettrica, niente internet, niente armi avanzate, niente veicoli, treni, navi o aerei. Ci sono solo due percorsi principali per rimuovere il PCC, liberare 1,4 miliardi di prigionieri cinesi e porre fine alla marcia folle per la terza guerra mondiale. Quello pacifico è quello di lanciare una guerra commerciale a tutto campo per devastare l'economia cinese fino a quando i militari si stancano e si avvia il PCC. Un'alternativa alla chiusura dell'economia cinese è una guerra limitata, come uno sciopero mirato di conlsi 50 droni termobarici sul 20congresso del PCC, quando tutti i membri migliori sono in un unico posto, ma che non avrà luogo fino al 2022 in modo da poter colpire la riunione plenaria annuale. I cinesi sarebbero stati informati, come è avvenuto l'attacco, che devono deporre le armi e prepararsi a tenere un'elezione democratica o essere inglobito nell'età della pietra. L'altra alternativa è un attacco nucleare a tutto campo. Il confronto militare è inevitabile, visto l'attuale corso del PCC. Accadrà probabilmente sulle isole del Mar Cinese Meridionale o Taiwan entro pochi decenni, ma man mano che stabiliscono basi militari in tutto il mondo potrebbe accadere ovunque (vedi il libro Tigre accovacciata ecc.). I futuri conflitti avranno aspetti hardkill e softkill con gli obiettivi dichiarati del PCC per enfatizzare la guerra informatica hackerando e paralizzando i sistemi di controllo di tutte le comunicazioni militari e industriali, attrezzature, centrali elettriche, satelliti, internet, banche e qualsiasi dispositivo o veicolo collegato alla rete. La SSSSK sta lentamente schierando una serie mondiale di sub o droni di superficie e subacquei con equipaggio e autonomi in grado di lanciare armi convenzionali o nucleari che possono rimanere domeggiati in attesa di un segnale dalla Cina o addirittura alla ricerca della firma di navi o aerei statunitensi. Mentre distruggevano i nostri satelliti, eliminando così la comunicazione tra gli Stati Uniti e le nostre forze in tutto il mondo, useranno i loro, insieme ai droni per colpire e distruggere le nostre forze navali attualmente superiori. Naturalmente, tutto questo è sempre più fatto automaticamente dall'IA. Di gran lunga il più grande alleato del PCC è il partito democratico degli Stati Uniti. La scelta è quella di fermare il PCC ora o guardare come estendere la prigione cinese su tutto il mondo. Naturalmente, la sorveglianza universale e la digitalizzazione delle nostre vite è inevitabile ovunque. Chi non la pensa così è profondamente fuori contatto. Naturalmente, è l'optinebbie che si aspettano che i sociopatici cinesi a governare il mondo, mentre i pessimisti (che si vedono come realisti) si aspettano AI (Intelligenza Artificiale, o come lo chiamo it Imbecility artificiale o Unalien follia) a prendere il sopravvento, forse non appena 2030. Coloro che sono interessati a ulteriori dettagli sul percorso folle della società moderna possono consultare le mie altre opere come Suicide by Democracy-an Obituary for America and the World 4th Edition 2020 e Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization 5th ed (2020) La prima cosa che dobbiamo tenere a mente è che quando diciamo che la Cina dice questo o la Cina lo fa, non stiamo parlando del popolo cinese, ma dei Sociopatici che controllano il PCC (Partito Comunista Cinese, cioè i Sette Killer Seriali Senile (SSSSK) del Comitato permanente del PCC o dei 25 membri del Politburo. Recentemente ho visto alcuni tipici programmi di notizie false di sinistra (più o meno l'unico tipo che si può trovare nei media, cioè, quasi tutto ora – cioè, Yahoo, CNN, The New York Times, ecc.) su YouTube, uno per VICE che ha detto che 1000 economisti (e 15 premi Nobel) ha inviato una lettera a Trump dicendogli che la guerra commerciale era un errore , e un altro che ha intervistato un economista accademico che ha detto che la mossa di Trump è stata una provocazione per iniziare la terza guerra mondiale. Hanno ragione sulla rottura del commercio globale, ma non hanno la comprensione del quadro generale, cioè che i Sette Sociopatiche hanno un dominio totale del mondo, con l'eliminazione della libertà ovunque, come loro obiettivo, e che ci sono solo due modi per fermarli: un embargo commerciale totale che devasta l'economia cinese e porta i loro militari a forzare il PCC e tenere elezioni , o WW3, che può essere limitato (braccia convenzionali con forse un paio di bombe) o totale (tutte le bombe in una sola volta). Chiaro come il giorno, ma tutti questi accademici "brillanti" non possono vederlo. Se i Sociopatici non saranno rimossi ora, tra appena 15 anni sarà troppo tardi, e i vostri discendenti lentamente ma inesorabilmente saranno soggetti allo stesso destino dei cinesi: sorveglianza totale con rapimento, tortura e omicidio di qualsiasi dissidenti. Naturalmente, il PCC è iniziato WW3 molto tempo fa (si poteva vedere le loro invasioni del Tibet o della Corea come l'inizio) e lo sta perseguendo in ogni modo possibile, ad eccezione di proiettili e bombe, e arriveranno presto. Il PCC combatté gli Stati Uniti in Corea, invase e massacrò il Tibet e combatté le schermaglie di confine con russia e India. Conduce massicce operazioni di hacking contro tutte le banche dati industriali e militari in tutto il mondo e ha rubato i dati classificati su praticamente tutti gli attuali sistemi militari e spaziali statunitensi ed europei, analizzato le loro debolezze e analizzato le versioni migliorate in pochi anni. Decine di migliaia, e forse centinaia di migliaia, di dipendenti CCP hanno hackerato database militari, industriali, finanziari e di social media in tutto il mondo fin dai primi giorni della rete e ci sono centinaia di noti recenti hack solo negli Stati Uniti. Come le principali istituzioni e militari hanno indurito i loro firewall, la SSSSK si sono trasferiti a istituzioni minori e per i subappaltatori di difesa e per i nostri alleati, che sono obiettivi più facili. Mentre ignora la povertà schiacciante di centinaia di milioni di persone e l'esistenza marginale della maggior parte della sua gente, ha costruito una massiccia presenza militare e spaziale, che cresce ogni anno di più, e la cui unica ragione di esistenza è fare la guerra per eliminare la libertà ovunque. Oltre a spogliare il terzord mondo di risorse, una spinta importante dellamulti-trilioni di miliardi di Belt and Road Initiative sta costruendo basi militari in tutto il mondo. Stanno costringendo il mondo libero in una massiccia corsa agli armamenti ad alta tecnologia che fa sembrare la guerra fredda con l'Unione Sovietica un picnic. I russi non sono stupidi, e nonostante fingendo amicizia con i Sociopatici, sicuramente capiscono che il PCC li mangerà vivi, che la loro unica speranza è di allearsi con l'Occidente, e Trump è proprio sui soldi per fare amicizia con Putin. Naturalmente, i Supremacisti del Terzo Mondo Neomarxist (cioè il Partito Democratico) probabilmente prenderanno il controllo totale degli Stati Uniti nel 2020 e nulla potrebbe essere più di gradimento del PCC. Snowden (un altro inconsapevole ventenne) ha aiutato la SSSSK più di ogni altro singolo individuo, con la possibile eccezione di tutti i presidenti americani dalla seconda guerra mondiale, che hanno perseguito la politica suicida di pacificazione. Gli Stati Uniti non hanno altra scelta che monitorare tutte le comunicazioni e compilare un dossier su tutti, in quanto è essenziale non solo controllare criminali e terroristi, ma contrastare la SSSSK, che stanno rapidamente facendo la stessa cosa, con l'intento di rimuovere completamente la libertà. Anche se la SSSSK, e il resto dell'esercito mondiale, stanno spendendo enormi somme su hardware avanzato, è altamente probabile che WW3 (o gli impegni più piccoli che portano ad esso) sarà software dominato. Non è fuori questione che la SSSSK, con probabilmente più hacker (codificatori) che lavorano per loro allora tutto il resto del mondo combinato, vincerà guerre future con un conflitto fisico minimo, solo paralizzando i loro nemici tramite la rete. Niente satelliti, niente telefoni, niente comunicazioni, niente transazioni finanziarie, niente rete elettrica, niente internet, niente armi avanzate, niente veicoli, treni, navi o aerei. Alcuni possono mettere in dubbio che il PCC (e, naturalmente, i livelli più alti della polizia, dell'esercito e 610 Ufficio) sono davvero mentalmente aberranti, quindi ecco alcune delle caratteristiche comuni di sociopati (precedentemente chiamati psicopatici) che si possono trovare in rete. Naturalmente, alcuni di questi sono condivisi da molti autistici e alexithymics, e sociopatici differiscono dalle persone "normali" solo in grado. Fascino superficiale, Controllo manipolativo e astuto, Grandiose Sense of Self, Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt, Shallow Emotions, Incapacity for Love, Callousness/Lack of Empathy, Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature, Believe they are onon-powerful, on-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others. Problemi nel fare e mantenere gli amici. Comportamenti aberranti come la crudeltà verso persone o animali, Rubare, Promiscuità, Versatilità Criminale o Imprenditoriale, Cambiare la loro immagine in base alle esigenze, Non percepire che qualcosa di sbagliato con loro, autoritario, Segreto, Paranoico, Cercare situazioni in cui il loro comportamento tirannico sarà tollerato, condonato, o ammirato (ad esempio, CCP, polizia, militare, capitalismo predatore), aspetto convenzionale, Obiettivo di schiavitù delle loro vittime, Cercare di esercitare il controllo dispotico su ogni aspetto della vita degli altri, Hanno un bisogno emotivo di giustificare le loro azioni e quindi hanno bisogno di affermazione della loro vittima (rispetto, gratitudine), Obiettivo finale è lacreazione di una vittima. Incapace di attaccamento umano reale ad un altro, Incapace di provare rimorso o senso di colpa, narcisismo estremo e grandiosità, Il loro obiettivo è quello di governare il mondo. Bugiardi patologici. Quest'ultima è una delle caratteristiche più sorprendenti del PCC. Praticamente tutto ciò che dicono in opposizione agli altri è una bugia ovvia, o distorsione, per lo più così assurda che ogni bambino-di dieci anni benistruito riderà di loro. Eppure persistono nel saturare tutti i media ogni giorno (circan estimated 10 miliardi di dollari di bilancio annuale solo per propaganda straniera) con dichiarazioni assurde. Il fatto che siano così fuori dal contatto con la realtà che pensano di essere presi sul serio mostra chiaramente ciò che qualsiasi persona razionale considererà come malattia mentale (sociopatia). Ci sono solo due percorsi principali per rimuovere il PCC, liberare 1,4 miliardi di prigionieri cinesi e porre fine alla marcia folle per la terza guerra mondiale. Quello pacifico è quello di lanciare una guerra commerciale a tutto campo per devastare l'economia cinese fino a quando i militari si stancano e si avvia il PCC. Gli Stati Uniti hanno bisogno, con ogni mezzo necessario, di unirsi a tutti i suoi alleati per ridurre il commercio con la Cina a quasi zero, nessuna importazione di qualsiasi prodotto dalla Cina o di qualsiasi entità con più di 10% di proprietà cinese in qualsiasi parte del mondo, compreso qualsiasi prodotto con qualsiasi componente di tale origine. Nessuna esportazione di qualsiasi tipo verso la Cina o qualsiasi entità che riesimporta in Cina o che ha più del 10% di proprietà cinese, con conseguenze gravi e immediate per eventuali trasgressori. Sì, costerebbe temporaneamente milioni di posti di lavoro e una grave recessione mondiale, e sì so che gran parte delle loro esportazioni provengono da joint venture con aziende americane, ma l'alternativa è che ogni paese diventerà il cane dei Sette Sociopatici (e come tutti gli animali commestibili tengono i cani in piccole gabbie mentre li ingrassano per le uccisioni) e/o sperimenteranno gli orrori della Seconda Guerra Mondiale. Altri possibili passi sono di inviare a casa tutti gli studenti cinesi e lavoratori in scienza e tecnologia, congelare tutti i beni di qualsiasi entità più di 10% di proprietà cinese, vietare i viaggi stranieri a qualsiasi cittadino cinese, vietare qualsiasi cinese o qualsiasi entità più del 10% di proprietà cinese di acquistare qualsiasi azienda, terra, prodotto o tecnologia dagli Stati Uniti o qualsiasi dei suoi alleati. Tutte queste misure verrebbero gradualmente introdotte nel modo più necessario. Dobbiamo tenere a mente che il mostro cinese è in gran parte dovuto alle illusioni utopistiche suicidie, alla codardia e alla stupidità dei nostri politici. Truman si rifiutò di lasciare che McArthur li diava in Corea, Il presidente Carter ha dato loro il diritto di inviare studenti negli Stati Uniti (attualmente ci sono circa 300.000), utilizzare la nostra proprietà intellettuale senza pagare le royalties, ha dato loro lo status di trading nazionale più favorito, e per decreto ha annullato il nostro riconoscimento di Taiwan e il nostro accordo di mutua difesa (cioè, senza voto da nessuno – dovrebbe essere un membro del CCP onorario, insieme ai Bush, gli Obama, i Clinton, Edward Snowden, ecc.). Questi sono stati i primi di una lunga serie di gesti concilianti verso la dittatura più feroce del mondo che ha permesso loro di prosperare, e hanno posto le basi per la loro prossima invasione di Taiwan, delle isole del Mare del Sud e di altri paesi come desiderano. Queste misure, unitamente alla nostra incapacità di invadere negli anni '40 per impedire la loro acquisizione della Cina, la nostra incapacità di cacciare il loro esercito e quindi il PCC fuori dalla guerra di Corea, la nostra incapacità di impedire il loro massacro in Tibet, la nostra incapacità di fare nulla quando hanno fatto esplodere le loro prime armi nucleari, la nostra incapacità di portarli fuori nel 1966 quando hanno lanciato il loro primo nucleare capace ICBM, il nostro (o meglio di Bush) incapacità di fare nulla per il massacro di Tiananmen, la nostra incapacità di chiudere gli Istituti Confucio presenti in molte università in tutto il mondo, che sono fronti per il CCP, la nostra mancata vietazione dell'acquisto di aziende, proprietà, diritti minerari ecc. in tutto il mondo, che è un altro modo per acquisire risorse vitali e di altri beni ad alta tecnologia e altri beni vitali , la nostra incapacità di fare nulla negli ultimi 20 anni circa il loro continuo spionaggio industriale e militare e l'hacking nei nostri database rubando quasi tutte le nostre armi avanzate, il nostro fallimento di fermare i loro alleati Corea del Nord e Pakistan di sviluppare armi nucleari e ICBM e ricevere attrezzature dalla Cina (ad esempio, i loro lanciamissili mobili, che sostengono essere per il trasporto di tronchi ed è stata pura coincidenza che si adattano esattamente ai missili coreani), la nostra incapacità di impedire loro di violare il nostro embargo sul petrolio iraniano (ne acquistano gran parte, registrando le loro navi in Iran), e il suo programma nucleare (attrezzature e tecnici vanno avanti e indietro a N. Corea attraverso la Cina), il nostro fallimento di impedire loro di fornire tecnologia militare e armi in tutto il mondo (ad esempio, attrezzature e tecnici vanno avanti e indietro a N. Corea attraverso la Cina), il nostro fallimento per impedire loro di fornire tecnologia militare e armi in tutto il mondo (ad esempio, attrezzature e tecnici (attrezzature e tecnici vanno avanti e indietro a N. Corea attraverso la Cina), il nostro fallimento nel non fornire tecniche militari e armi in tutto il mondo (ad esempio, attrezzature e tecnici , Corea del Nord, Iran, Pakistan, cartelli in Messico e oltre 30 altri paesi), la nostra incapacità di fermare il flusso di droghe pericolose e i loro precursori direttamente o indirettamente (ad esempio, quasi tutti Fentanyl e Carfentanyl inviati in tutto il mondo, e precursori di metanzuola per i cartelli messicani provengono dalla Cina), e la nostra incapacità di fare nulla per il loro edificio "porte" (cioè, basi militari) in tutto il mondo, e in corso i precursori di metanzuola per i cartelli messicani. Un'alternativa alla chiusura dell'economia cinese è una guerra limitata, come uno sciopero mirato di conlsi 50 droni termobarici sul 20congresso del PCC, quando tutti i membri migliori sono in un unico posto, ma che non avrà luogo fino al 2022 in modo da poter colpire la riunione plenaria annuale. I cinesi sarebbero stati informati, come è avvenuto l'attacco, che devono deporre le armi e prepararsi a tenere un'elezione democratica o essere inglobito nell'età della pietra. L'altra alternativa è un attacco nucleare a tutto campo. Il confronto militare è inevitabile, visto l'attuale corso del PCC. Accadrà probabilmente sulle isole del Mar Cinese Meridionale o taiwanese entro pochi decenni, ma man mano che stabiliscono basi militari in tutto il mondo potrebbe accadere ovunque (vedi Tigre accovacciata, ecc.). I futuri conflitti avranno aspetti hardkill e softkill con gli obiettivi dichiarati del PCC per enfatizzare la guerra informatica hackerando e paralizzando i sistemi di controllo di tutte le comunicazioni militari e industriali, attrezzature, centrali elettriche, satelliti, internet, banche e qualsiasi dispositivo o veicolo collegato alla rete. La SSSSK sta lentamente schierando una serie mondiale di sub o droni di superficie e subacquei con equipaggio e autonomi in grado di lanciare armi convenzionali o nucleari che possono rimanere domeggiati in attesa di un segnale dalla Cina o addirittura alla ricerca della firma di navi o aerei statunitensi. Mentre distruggevano i nostri satelliti, eliminando così la comunicazione tra gli Stati Uniti e le nostre forze in tutto il mondo, useranno i loro, insieme ai droni per colpire e distruggere le nostre forze navali attualmente superiori. Forse la cosa peggiore è il rapido sviluppo di robot e droni di tutte le dimensioni e capacità che saranno inevitabilmente impiegati da criminali e terroristi per agire da qualsiasi parte del mondo, e massicci sciami di cui saranno utilizzati da o al posto dei soldati per combattere guerre sempre più numerose e crudeli. Naturalmente, tutto questo è sempre più fatto automaticamente dall'IA. Tutto questo è del tutto ovvio per chiunque passi un po' di tempo in rete. Due delle migliori fonti con cui iniziare sono il libro Crouching Tiger (e i cinque video di Youtube con lo stesso nome), e la lunga serie di brevi pezzi satirici sul canale Cina Uncensored su Youtube o il loro nuovo www.chinauncensored.tv. I piani del PCC per la Terza Guerra Mondiale e il dominio totale sono strutturati chiaramente nelle pubblicazioni e nei discorsi del governo cinese e questo è il "sogno cina" di Xi Jiinping. È un sogno solo per la piccola minoranza che governa la Cina e un incubo per tutti gli altri (compresi 1,4 miliardi di cinesi). I 10 miliardi di dollari all'anno consentono loro o i loro burattini di possedere o controllare giornali, riviste, canali televisivi e radiofonici e di inserire notizie false nella maggior parte dei principali media ovunque ogni giorno. Inoltre, hanno un esercito (forse milioni di persone) che trollano tutti i media mettendo più propaganda e annegando commenti legittimi (l'esercito da 50 centesimi). La regola della SSSSK (o 25 SSSK se ci si concentra sul Politburo piuttosto che sul suo comitato permanente) è una tragimedia surreale come Biancaneve e i Sette Nani, ma senza Biancaneve, personalità accattivanti o un lieto fine. Sono i guardiani della prigione più grande del mondo, ma sono di gran lunga i peggiori criminali, impegnando ogni anno milioni di aggressioni, stupri, rapine, tangenti, rapimenti, torture e omicidi, la maggior parte dei quali presumibilmente da parte della propria polizia segreta del 610 Office creato il 10 giugno 1999 da Jiang Eemin per perseguitare i meditatori del Cretino del Falun Gong per perseguitare i meditatori del Falun Gong del Falun Gong , e chiunque altro abbia ritenuto una minaccia, ora includendo chiunque faccia qualsiasi commento critico e che non tutti i gruppi religiosi e politici rientrino nel loro diretto dominio. Di gran lunga il più grande alleato dei Sette Nani è il Partito Democratico degli Stati Uniti, che, in un momento in cui l'America ha più che mai bisogno di essere forte e unita, sta facendo tutto il possibile per dividere l'America in fazioni in guerra con sempre più delle sue risorse andando a sostenere le legioni in crescita delle classi inferiori e spingendolo in bancarotta , anche se, naturalmente, non hanno alcuna comprensione in questo. Il PCC è di gran lunga il gruppo più malvagio della storia del mondo, derubando, violentando, rapinendo, rapinendo, imprigionando, torturando, morendo di fame e uccidendo più persone che tutti gli altri dittatori della storia (circa 100 milioni di morti), e in pochi anni avrà uno stato di sorveglianza totale che registra ogni azione di tutti in Cina, che si sta già espandendo in tutto il mondo in quanto includono dati di hacking e da tutti coloro che passano attraverso i loro territori sotto il loro controllo , acquistare biglietti su compagnie aeree cinesi, ecc. Anche se la SSSSK ci tratta come un nemico, infatti, gli Stati Uniti sono il più grande amico del popolo cinese e il PCC il loro più grande nemico. Da un'altra prospettiva, altri cinesi sono i più grandi nemici del cinese, in quanto demoliscono tutte le risorse del mondo. Certo, alcuni dicono che la Cina crollerà di sua spontanea volontà, ed è possibile, ma il prezzo dell'essere sbagliato è la fine della libertà e la terza guerra mondiale o una lunga serie di conflitti che i Sette Sociopatici quasi certamente vinceranno. Bisogna tenere a mente che hanno controlli sulla loro popolazione e armi che Stalin, Hitler, Gheddafi e Idi Amin non hanno mai sognato. Telecamere a circuito chiuso (attualmente forse 300 milioni e in rapida crescita) su reti ad alta velocità con analisi delle immagini AI, software di monitoraggio su ogni telefono che le persone sono tenuti a utilizzare, e inseguitori GPS su tutti i veicoli, tutte le transazioni pagabili solo per telefono già dominante lì e universale e obbligatorio presto, monitoraggio automatico totale di tutte le comunicazioni da parte di AI e una stima di 2 milioni di censori umani online. Oltre a milioni di quadri della polizia e dell'esercito, ci possono essere fino a 10 milioni di poliziotti segreti in borghese del 610 Office creato da Jiang Eemin, con prigioni nere (cioè non ufficiali e non marcate), aggiornamento istantaneo del dossier digitale su tutti gli 1,4 miliardi di cinesi e presto su tutti coloro che sulla terra che utilizzano la rete o i telefoni. È spesso chiamato Social Credit System e permette ai Sociopatici di chiudere le comunicazioni, la capacità di acquisto, i viaggi, i conti bancari ecc. di chiunque. Questa non è fantasia, ma già ampiamente attuata per i musulmani dello Xinjiang e che si diffondono rapidamente: vedi YouTube, Cina incensurata ecc. Naturalmente, la sorveglianza universale e la digitalizzazione delle nostre vite è inevitabile ovunque. Chi non la pensa così è profondamente fuori contatto. La scelta è quella di fermare il PCC ora o guardare come estendere la prigione cinese su tutto il mondo. Il più grande alleato del PCC è il Partito Democratico degli Stati Uniti. Naturalmente, sono gli ottimisti che si aspettano che i sociopatici cinesi governino il mondo mentre i pessimisti (che si considerano realisti) si aspettano che la sociopatia dell'IA (o AS come la chiamo io – cioè la stupidità artificiale o la sociesia artificiale) prenda il sopravvento. È opinione di molte persone premurose Muschio, Gates, Hawking ecc., compresi i migliori ricercatori di IA (vedi i molti discorsi TED su YouTube) che l'IA raggiungerà l'auto-crescita esplosiva (aumentando la sua potenza migliaia o milioni di volte in pochi giorni, minuti o microsecondi) a un certo punto nei prossimi decenni – 2030 è talvolta menzionato, sfuggendo attraverso la rete e infettando tutti i computer sufficientemente potenti. AS sarà inarrestabile, soprattutto perché sembra che sarà in esecuzione su computer quantistici che aumenterà la sua velocità più migliaia o milioni di volte, e come un bel effetto collaterale, sarà in grado di rompere facilmente tutti gli schemi di crittografia. Se sei ottimista,manterrà gli esseri umani e gli altri animali in giro come animali domestici e il mondo diventerà uno zoo con un programma di allevamento in cattività eugenetico, se un pessimista, eliminerà gli esseri umani o anche tutta la vita organica come una fastidiosa competizione per le risorse. La fantascienza di oggi sarà probabilmente la realtà di domani. | {
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Forthcoming in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly Penultimate Version What it is to pretend Peter Langland-Hassan Abstract: Pretense is a topic of keen interest to philosophers and psychologists. But what is it, really, to pretend? What features qualify an act as pretense? Surprisingly little has been said on this foundational question. Here I defend an account of what it is to pretend, distinguishing pretense from a variety of related but distinct phenomena, such as (mere) copying and practicing. I show how we can distinguish pretense from sincerity by sole appeal to a person's beliefs, desires, and intentions-and without circular recourse to an "intention to pretend." 1. Ways to pretend The kinds of actions we call 'pretense' are really quite diverse. Consider: Make-believe pretense: Three-year-old Ella says 'meow' while crawling on all fours, rubbing her head against a table leg. She is pretending to be a cat. It is "make-believe." Though the name is misleading, since she is not trying to make anyone believe she is a cat. She is not disappointed when everyone continues to believe she is a girl. She's obviously just playing. On the other hand there are cases of: Deceptive pretense: Adam is unemployed. Today he dresses and acts like a security guard. Is he playing make-believe, like Ella? No, he is pretending to be a security guard in order to gain access to the bank vault. In cases like this, the pretender aims to cover up or hide something from someone else. Unlike make-believe, these pretenses involve an attempt to deceive-nothing playful about it. But there are also pretenses that are neither playful nor deceptive, such as: 2 Theatrical pretense: Tom Hanks yells at a volleyball. Why? He is pretending to lose his mind, during the filming of Castaway. He is not trying to make anyone believe that he, Tom Hanks, is losing his mind. Nor is he trying to make anyone believe that some other person is losing his mind. The intended audience will know it is just a movie. So this is not a case of deceptive pretense. There is no attempt to give anyone a false belief. At the same time, he has gone well beyond what we would normally call "make-believe." He is entirely serious in this endeavor and will be (more than) amply compensated. I am not suggesting that these "forms" of pretense are mutually exclusive, or even exhaustive. A child might engage in make-believe pretense while acting in the school play, being simultaneously involved in theatrical pretense. An improvisational theater troupe may begin a performance on a subway car without letting other riders know it is only a performance, being engaged in both deceptive and theatrical pretense. My reason for drawing the distinctions as I have is to highlight the very different kinds of action that can count as pretense: a child's game, a criminal act, the work of a thespian. In virtue of what do we group them together as pretense? What are we saying about these people, when we say they are pretending? That is my question. It could be that the question has no satisfying answer. It is possible that, while we are picking out a single importantly shared feature in calling each a case of pretense, there is no interesting analysis of that feature to be had, because pretense is a primitive notion. Sure, we might say that pretending involves "acting as if,"' or acting "non-seriously," but-if the primitive view is right-when pushed to explicate the relevant senses of acting as if and acting nonseriously, we will have to fall back on the term 'pretending.' The circle of explanation will be too tight. Leslie (1994, p. 218) considers a view of this kind, likening the analysis of pretense to the analysis of belief. 3 Another possibility is that our tendency to call each of the above a case of pretense is only due to their sharing some family resemblances. There is, however, nothing like an "essence of pretense" to be discovered by philosophical analysis-just, perhaps, a loose cluster of features that go under that name, some had by one sort of act, others by another, and none shared by all. One might think that the term 'game' is like this. We use it in a wide variety of contexts, but (perhaps) without any expectation that there is a deep or interesting answer to the question 'what is it to be a game?' I think that both of these approaches are unsatisfactory. Pretense is not so fundamental as to admit of no enlightening analysis; and there is something interesting and important-a unifying set of features-that marks something as pretense. While the proof of these claims will be in the pudding, I want to say one thing now about why simply falling back on a family resemblances view is problematic. In each of the three examples above, quite a lot hangs on the fact that the person is (only) pretending. Our ability to describe them as pretending is linked to our ability to rationalize their behavior (given what else is true of them). Asking whether they are pretending-and in virtue of what they count as pretending-is not like wondering whether the word 'sofa' correctly applies to a loveseat. We will not approach the loveseat entirely differently if we decide it is not really a sofa. The converse is true in the case of pretense. We make a psychologically "deep" comment on the child, the thief, and the thespian in describing them each as pretending. Nor are these borderline cases of pretense (as there will inevitably be). They are all easily identified as situations where a person is pretending. Yet no one has said what it is that these agents crucially have in common, other than that they are all... pretending. My goal in this paper is to defend an account of what it is to pretend-one that applies to all three kinds of cases-and to reveal some of the unappreciated difficulties in providing such an 4 account. The core idea will be that we can capture the difference between sincerity and pretense simply by appeal to a person's beliefs, desires, and intentions, and without circular recourse to an "intention to pretend." (It bears emphasis that the criterion also makes do without appeal to sui generis "imaginative" mental states). 1 After setting out the basics of such an approach in Sections 2 and 3, I sharpen the criterion in subsequent sections in order to 1) account for cases of pretending that p that do not involve acting as would be appropriate if p (Section 4), 2) distinguish pretending from mere copying (Section 5), and 3) show why only some representational arts involve pretense (Section 6). Effectively drawing these distinctions is a significant challenge for any account of pretense. Doing so is crucial to understanding what is really special about pretense: that it is a context where aiming at the obviously unachievable is socially acceptable. I close, in Section 7, with some related reflections on the importance of pretense to learning and child development. 2. First approximations Despite the considerable interest among contemporary philosophers and psychologists in pretense and imagination, few have made any attempt at a rigorous definition of pretense itself. 2 The clearest attempt at a formal definition of pretense I know of is J.L. Austin's famous paper on the topic. Austin's (1958) focus was on distinguishing pretense from sincere acts that, behaviorally speaking, may appear the same-for instance, in saying what distinguishes a genuine window-washer from a thief who pretends to wash windows as a means to assess what valuables 1 This account of pretense thus coheres with my approach to imagination-defended elsewhere (2012)-which holds that propositional imagining requires only the use of ordinary beliefs and desires. 2 See Liao & Gendler (2011) for a useful overview. Some relevant recent discussions within philosophy include Nichols & Stich (2000), Currie & Ravenscroft (2002), Velleman (2000), Gendler (2003), Carruthers (2006), Doggett & Egan (2007), and Van Leeuwen (2011). 5 lay inside. Pretense, he notes, does not require one to "stop short" of completing the pretended action. Rather, it is the intent to deceive that is essential. As he puts it: To be pretending...I must be trying to make others believe, or to give them the impression, by means of a current personal performance in their presence, that I am (really, only, &c.) abc, in order to disguise the fact that I am really xyz (1958, p. 275). Taken as a criterion for pretense, Austin's proposal faces a number of problems-several noted at the time by Anscombe (1958). For one thing, it seems to require that there can be no solitary pretense. A child cannot go into the backyard and pretend anything on her own. But, more to the point, it is simply wrong-to contemporary ears, at least-to saddle pretense with the intent to deceive. The vast majority of pretenses studied by developmental psychologists-make-believe pretenses-involve no intent to create a false belief in another. Neither do theatrical pretenses. It is no failure of a film or play that the audience leaves without forming any false beliefs. One might respond, in Austin's defense, that he is simply concerned with explaining a certain form of (deceptive) action, and that make-believe pretenses and theatrical events are simply other kinds of actions that travel under the same name. However, his own discussion reveals that he does, in fact, wish to count certain make-believe episodes as pretense. 3 And, in any event, the present analysis will show the three kinds of actions to have something importantly in common, and thus that a more general-and explanatorily more powerful-account is available. Ryle (1949) also offers remarks on the nature of pretense, though he does not present (or, I think, aim at) a reductive analysis. His characterizations rely upon closely related terms. For instance, he says that 'to describe someone as pretending is to say that he is playing a part, and to 3 For instance, Austin grants that, during a party game, he might pretend to be a hyena. And he allows that "there is no question of my trying to convince you seriously that I am something other than myself." Why, then, is it a pretense, on his account? His answer is that "on the party level, my performance [is] convincing" (1958, p. 274). However, it is unclear what it could be for the performance to be convincing "on the partly level," if it does not cause anyone to believe he is a hyena. 6 play a part is to play the part, normally, of someone who is not playing a part, but doing something ingenuously or naturally' (1949, p. 259). For this to serve as an explanation of pretense, we would need an independent account of what it is to do something ingenuously, as opposed to disingenuously. In addition, Ryle seems content to include all acts of copying within the realm of pretense (p. 260). As I will discuss in more detail below, there are many acts of copying (e.g. copying how someone ties his tie) that are not properly considered pretense. But saying why they do not count as pretense is a difficult task for any account that-like Ryle's, and the one developed here-departs from Austin in allowing for non-deceptive pretense. I propose to start afresh, considering and sharpening candidate definitions as I go. As good a place to begin as any is with the following thumbnail account offered by Gomez (2008) in an article on the evolution of pretense. Pretending, he suggests, is 'acting as if something were the case when one knows that it actually is not' (p. 586). Gomez's project is not to define pretense, but the proposal sounds reasonable enough on a first hearing-with the exception that 'knows' is clearly too strong. To pretend, it is enough that one acts as if something is the case that one believes not to be the case. For suppose an actor is tricked into attending an actual Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, under the false impression that it will be an improvisatory group pretense- part of an audition for an upcoming role. He might participate, and pretend that he is at an AA meeting, without knowing that he is not at one. I will modify Gomez's definition to account for this, and so that it leaves us with a criterion for what it is to pretend that p: D1: To pretend that p is to act as if p when one believes that not-p. 7 A word now about "acting as if." According to one sense of 'acting as if,' acting as if p is the very same thing as pretending that p-the two are synonymous. In that sense of 'acting as if,' we could simply (and trivially) define pretending that p as acting as if p. No need to mention what one knows. This would not be an interesting or informative definition. Nor is it, I take it, the sense of 'acting as if' that Gomez is working with. By 'acting as if p' Gomez likely means something along the lines of 'acting as would be appropriate if p' (Cf. Nichols and Stich, 2000). For then it is relevant to add something else-namely, that one also believes (or knows) that not-p. For not all cases of acting as would be appropriate if p are cases of pretending that p. After all, one typically acts as would be appropriate if p when one acts sincerely: when doing open-heart surgery, the surgeon acts as would be appropriate if she were a heart surgeon (we hope). If, however, she believes that she is not doing open-heart surgery, yet still acts as would be appropriate if she were, then she is more plausibly pretending. Of course, pretending that p does not require one to act exactly as would be appropriate if p (whatever else it requires). A child can pretend that she is a lion without acting exactly as she would if, per impossible, she were a lion. Indeed, it is no problem for the pretense if many things she does are things a lion definitely would not do (e.g., saying, 'Roar, I'm a lion!'). All that matters is that she intentionally undertakes some actions that would be appropriate if she were a lion. With that in mind, let us say that: D2: To pretend that p is to act in some ways that would be appropriate if p, while believing that not-p. 8 There are other questions one can raise about the claim that pretending involves acting 'as would be appropriate if.' 4 But, to ease exposition, I will delay addressing them until Section 4. I want now to focus on the term 'acting', as much rides on the distinction between intentionally acting some way and unintentionally acting that way. To pretend that p is not merely to (unintentionally) act in ways that would be appropriate if p. As I limp around the house after a soccer game, I may (unintentionally) act in ways that would be appropriate if I were a peg-legged pirate, while believing that I am not one. But I am only pretending to be a peg-legged pirate if my limping is done with the intention of acting like a peg-legged pirate. Here, as throughout, 'intention' is to be read non-extensionally, so as to create intensional (or "referentially opaque") contexts. Intentions, as I will understand them, are causally efficacious psychological states. And, in particular, I have in mind intentions-in-action (as opposed to "prospective intentions," which are linked to planning). These intentions can, for present purposes, simply be understood as actionguiding desires. 5 These clarifications bring us to D3: D3: To pretend that p is to intentionally act in some ways that would be appropriate if p, while believing that not-p. Yet, considered as a necessary condition, D3 is still too narrow, as it overlooks our ability to pretend what we believe-a feature of pretense emphasized by Nichols (2004, 2006), Leslie 4 These are problems relating to 1) pretenses involving props (e.g. pretending that a pencil is a car), 2) pretenses where stereotyped behaviors that the object of the pretense is not really believed to have are mimicked, and 3) pretenses where one pretends to be some kind of thing one believes does not really exist. 5 I leave open the question of the relation between one's beliefs and such action-guiding desires. Whether or not one's beliefs must be substantively linked in some way to one's guiding desires in order for one to count as acting intentionally will not matter for present purposes. 9 (1994), Walton (1990), and others. Examples are not hard to find. The following is an oft-cited case from a study by Leslie (1994, p. 223-5): Tea Party: In an experiment with two and a half year-olds, Leslie set out two cups on a table and invited children to take part in a tea party with him. He then made pouring motions with an (empty) pitcher over the two cups. Next he lifted one of the cups, turned it upside down, shook it, and set it back right side up on the table. Then he asked the children which cup was empty and which was full. His young participants had no trouble identifying the one that had been overturned as "empty" and the other as "full." Plausibly, these children both pretended and believed that the shaken cup is empty. Since we can pretend what we believe, D3 is not a necessary condition for pretending that p. And the plot thickens when we recall that one's outward behavior while pretending that p can be exactly the same as that of someone who is acting sincerely (Austin focuses on this feature of pretense). For while Tom Hanks was only pretending to lose his mind in Castaway, someone else could have acted just like him (in the sense of undertaking the same physical motions) while under the stress of being a genuine castaway. So then, someone can pretend that p while both believing that p and acting exactly as someone would act who is doing the same actions sincerely. What makes it the case that such a person is pretending? One idea might be that only the pretender acts with the intention to pretend (Van Leeuwen, 2011, p. 75). But, if taken as a proposal for what distinguishes pretense from sincerity, this just buries the problem one level down. 6 How is intending to pretend that p different 6 Van Leeuwen's (2011) project is not to define pretense, but rather to propose a set of mental states that are often involved in pretense. However, that argument relies upon a distinction between "full" and "semi" pretense, where acting with the intention to pretend is what distinguishes full pretense from semi-pretense (2011, p. 75). Thus, until 10 than intending to act in some ways that would be appropriate if p? If we can answer this question, we need not have appealed to an "intention to pretend" in the first place. If we cannot, then we have just arrived at primitivism about pretense, via primitivism about the intention to pretend. Another possibility is to appeal to imagination in order to account for the difference between pretense and sincerity. After all, it is natural to think of imagination as the cognitive component of pretense. Perhaps the pretender is acting from an imagining, while the sincere agent acts from her beliefs, and this accounts for why only the former is pretending. While initially tempting, this proposal does not in fact move us forward. If acting-from-imagination (whatever imagination might be) is necessary for pretense, it is surely not sufficient. For imagination plausibly drives all kinds of actions that are not pretense. Suppose a detective talks with his partner about which suspect to interview next, his mind wandering occasionally to imagine interviewing different people. There is no pretending going on here-no pretending to be a detective, no pretending to interview someone. Yet his imagining may well be action-guiding. It may influence his choice of which person to interview next. And, by imagining the suspect answering his questions, he may prime himself for the kinds of questions to ask. So the mere fact that an action is guided by an imagining does not by itself transform the action into pretense. This is true if, like many, one conceives of the imagination that guides pretense as being "belief-like" in nature. For such views typically hold that the same belief-like attitude is involved in ordinary hypothetical reasoning (S. Nichols & Stich, 2000; Weinberg & Meskin, 2006) which, when it guides action, need not involve pretense. And it is true if one views pretense-guiding imagination as involving sensory imagery (Kind, 2001; Van Leeuwen, 2011), since sensory imagery guides many forms of non-pretend action as well. For instance, it is used in the intention to pretend is properly understood, the needed distinction between full and semi pretense is not well grounded. 11 spatial reasoning (Barsalou, 1999; Kosslyn, Thompson, & Ganis, 2006), the development of new technologies (Arp, 2008), and both episodic memory and ordinary action planning (Schacter, Addis, & Buckner, 2007). In addition, both Funkhouser & Spaulding (2009) and Kind (2011) have plausibly argued that pretense does not-even as a necessary condition-require acting from an imaginative analog to desire. One might press on, insisting that the imagining has to be action guiding in the right way for the action to count as pretense. Perhaps, but I am not optimistic about finding the right way. Put it this way: by the time we find the "right way," I think we will no longer need to appeal to imagination as part of our criterion itself. That will be my argument. For now I want to press on in a different direction. 3. The importance of disbelief We can arrive at the difference between pretense and sincerity, I think, if we simply work a bit harder with belief. The following principle seems to capture something crucial: Not All Believed (NAB): Not all of the propositions pretended as part of a particular pretense are believed. Yes, you can pretend what you believe, but you cannot engage in a pretense where you believe everything you are pretending. Whenever someone pretends, there is some proposition that is being pretended that is not also believed. Consider the absurdity of cases that would suggest otherwise: 12 Hand: Waving my hand in the air I say: 'Look, I am pretending that I have a hand!' You say, 'Pretending that you have a hand and what else?' 'Nothing else,' I say, 'just pretending that I have a hand.' Standing: Standing before you I say, 'Look, I'm pretending that I am a person standing up!' You say, 'A person that is standing up who is...?' 'No,' I say, 'just a person who is standing up. A person with arms and legs and so on.' Surely, in both cases, I speak falsely-and necessarily so. I am not pretending what I say I am. I cannot be pretending these things. At least, I cannot pretend these things without adding to each pretense something that I do not already believe. Waving my hand in the air, I can pretend that I have a hand that is on fire. This is, ipso facto, to pretend that I have a hand. But, I cannot merely pretend that I have a hand-not so long as I believe myself to have one. And, standing before you, I can pretend that I am a soldier standing at attention, and thereby pretend to be a person standing up. But I cannot merely pretend that I am a person standing up (provided, again, that I believe myself to be standing). Pushing the point to its logical limit: one cannot pretend the world is exactly the way one believes it to be. That, I submit, just doesn't make sense. So, it is one thing to say that you can pretend what you believe, quite another to propose the absurd-that you can pretend a set of propositions all of which you believe. One might respond that, while there is something odd about the idea that one could pretend a set of propositions all of which one believes, it is nevertheless possible to do so. Such pretenses (I've heard it said) are merely practically absurd, as the whole point of pretense is to pretend something is true that is in fact false. While this is the practical "point" of pretense, one might insist that the metaphysics of pretense place no barrier on exclusively pretending what you believe. 13 In response, there are plenty of "pointless" pretenses that are easy enough to accomplish and that don't give rise to anything like the same feeling of absurdity, or the sense that the person trying to take part in them doesn't understand what it is to pretend. I can pretend, while sitting here at my computer, that I cannot find the G key. I hunt and I hunt...where could it be? This is a perfectly pointless thing for me to do; but it is not in any sense absurd or seemingly impossible. In general, using things for something other than their ordinary purpose (e.g. a knife as a screwdriver) does not give rise to any sense of absurdity. So trying to account for the absurdity of Hand and Standing simply by calling them pointless cannot be the whole story. Note also that I have not claimed that one cannot imagine a set of propositions all of which one believes-only that one cannot pretend such a set of propositions. Pretending and imagining are not the same thing. To note one contrast: in pretense, one's outward behavior must be substantively related to what is pretended; this is not so for imagination. In addition, those who reject NAB face the question of why, if one really can pretend a set of propositions all of which one believes, this rarely (if ever) seems to occur "in the wild." That is, all sides will agree that, statistically speaking, the vast majority of actual pretenses involve the pretender pretending something she does not believe. NAB can be taken as a hypothesis for explaining this uniformity. Almost all actual pretenses involve someone pretending at least one proposition she does not believe, because that is part of what makes her actions count as pretense. In denying NAB, one is forced either to declare the uniformity a coincidence, or to offer a plausible explanation for why a merely "pragmatic" feature of pretense accompanies it in almost all (or all) cases. Finally, a principle derived from NAB will constitute an important part of the final definition of pretense to be offered. Thus, a further reason for accepting NAB is that, in the absence of a plausible competing account, it provides grounding for the distinction between 14 pretense and sincerity. So, even if one lacks a strong intuition in favor of NAB, there are good reasons to accept it as a working hypothesis. Supposing we stand by NAB, how should we modify D3 in light of it? It will help to introduce the notion of a Pretense Episode, which incorporates NAB: Pretense Episode1 (PE1): an agent takes part in a pretense episode when (and only when) she intentionally acts in ways that would be appropriate if q, while not believing that q. We can then (re)define what it is to pretend that p as follows: D4: To pretend that p is to intentionally act in ways that would be appropriate if p, in the furtherance of a Pretense Episode1. By ensuring that pretending that p only takes place in the context of a Pretense Episode, we allow that a person can pretend that p while believing that p, without suggesting (against NAB) that a person can pretend a set of propositions all of which she believes. What is it for something to be done "in the furtherance of" a pretense episode? To understand whether a case of intentionally acting as would be appropriate if p furthers a particular pretense episode, we need to know the purpose of the Pretense-Episode-initiating act. Is it to deceive someone? Is it to initiate game between parent and child? Is it to get a role in a film? Once we know the purpose of the Pretense-Episode-initiating act, we can then determine whether a case of intentionally acting as would be appropriate if p was done in the furtherance of that purpose. So long as the purpose is not characterized as a purpose to pretend, there is no threat of circularity. And note: the notion of 15 a "game" invoked here does not "smuggle in" pretense. Many games (checkers, kickball) involve no pretending at all. Only game-playing that fulfills a further criterion for pretense will constitute "playing make-believe." Nevertheless, D4 may still be too liberal. For there are many situations where, out of an abundance of caution, we intentionally act in ways that would be appropriate if q while not believing that q, yet without initiating a Pretense Episode. These are cases where we think q may be the case (and aim to be prepared if it is), but where this "suspicion that q" does not yet rise to the level of belief. For instance: Parking meter: Bill is not sure whether the parking meter must be paid on Sundays. To be on the safe side, he feeds it some quarters. Bill intentionally acts as would be appropriate if the meter must be paid, while not believing that it must be paid. No pretense here. But now suppose that Bill is quite sure that meters needn't be paid on Sundays and nevertheless intentionally acts as if it must be paid, feeding it some quarters. Why would he do such a thing? Hypotheses according to which he is pretending immediately suggest themselves. Perhaps he is acting in a film. Or maybe he is trying to deceive someone else into thinking the meters must be fed. Or maybe he wishes to join his son in a game of make-believe that they are arriving for work together on a Monday morning. This suggests that pretense requires not just lack of belief in some relevant q, but rather disbelief in q. In short, it suggests: One Disbelieved (OD): In any pretense, at least one proposition will be pretended that is disbelieved. 16 As Parking Meter shows, it is not enough that one not believe some proposition that is pretended. One must go past agnosticism to actually disbelieve some proposition one is pretending, to count as pretending at all. 7 Incorporating OD into our criterion, we get: PE 2 and D4*: Pretense Episode2 (PE2): an agent takes part in a pretense episode when (and only when) she intentionally acts in ways that would be appropriate if q, while believing that not-q. D4*: To pretend that p is to intentionally act in ways that would be appropriate if p in the furtherance of a Pretense Episode2. D4* captures what of substance changes as Bill's meter paying turns from prudence to pretense. However, one might think that OD (and D4*) is now too strong, when considering the following kind of case: Coin Flip: Bill and Jim decide that the winner of a coin flip will take the big prize. Bill calls heads. The coin is flipped and, before he sees the outcome, Bill begins to jump up and down, pretending that he has won. 7 For simplicity, I am treating belief as binary-an all-or-nothing affair. Opting for the more nuanced language of degrees of belief, we can say that in any pretense at least one proposition must be pretended that one is quite certain is not true. Being "quite certain" involves having a very high degree of belief (though it lacks foundationalist aspirations). So, I am quite certain that I am working at a computer, that I have two hands, that Obama is the current President of the United States, that cats are animals-and not quite certain that it will be sunny tomorrow, or that the Democrats will win the next election. 17 Here Bill neither believes nor disbelieves that he has won. And his failure to believe that he has won may seem sufficient for him to count as pretending that he has won. However, looking more closely, there clearly is a proposition that is pretended and disbelieved. Bill is not merely pretending that he won, but rather that he has just found out that he won (presumably he would tell us so if we asked him, 'Did you just find out?!' as part of the pretense). Saying that Bill is simply pretending that he won (full stop), fails to capture what he is up to. For that coarse-grained description ('pretending that he won') would equally well apply to someone who is behaving entirely differently. For example, it would be true of someone who is pretending that he won the lottery five years ago, and is now being investigated for tax evasion. This suggests that Bill does indeed act on the more specific intention to act as would be appropriate if he just found out he won. And of course, Bill believes that he has not just found out that he won. That is why we say he is pretending. So, on closer examination, D4* is not eluded by Coin Flip. What these reflections suggest is that small differences in the intentions (and related desires) we ascribe can make all the difference in our determinations concerning whether someone is pretending or not. We see this also when considering cases of practicing or preparing for an event of kind x. For instance: Rock Band: The rock band is at rehearsal, running through some songs they plan to play at their next show. It may seem that the band members intend to act in ways that would be appropriate if they were at their next show, while believing they are not at the show-and yet without pretending to do anything. If so, D4* is again in trouble. 18 Again we must look closely at intentions. During a normal rehearsal the band stops when they hit a snag, repeating the section several times before going on. While this is no way to act at the show, their intentions are not subverted as they repeat the difficult section over and over. The whole point of the rehearsal is to iron out the wrinkles. It may be that the rehearsal goes quite well, and the band in fact engages in behavior that would be appropriate at the show. But this would not mean that their intention was to act as would be appropriate at the show (recall that intentions are to be read non-extensionally). More likely their intention is simply to get better at playing the songs. Only if the practice ends without improvement is their intention not satisfied. Of course, some practices may amount to pretenses. Suppose the band no longer faces each other during practice, but instead sets up in crowd-facing "gig formation," in order to better simulate performance conditions. Further, they agree that they will push through their snags without stopping, just as they will if they hit any at the show. Go far enough in this direction and it becomes plausible to say that they are pretending they are at the show-and that this pretense helps their preparation. This is because their motivating intention is specifically to act as would be appropriate at the show, while they believe they are not at the show. 8 Admittedly, the distinction here is subtle. But that should not be surprising, since the distinction between practicing and pretending is itself subtle, and there is overlap between the two. In some cases it may be hard to judge whether something is pretense or (mere) practice. This is not a problem for D4*, so long as that difficulty traces to a difficulty in determining the exact 8 A similar sort of case is where, in order to elicit better performance on a task, we try to act as absolute masters at the task would, while knowing our actual abilities fall short of that standard. For instance, it might seem that the golfer teeing up intends to act as would be appropriate if he were shooting a hole in one, while believing he is not shooting a hole in one, or that the sprinter may intend to act as would be appropriate if she were breaking the world record, while believing she is not breaking the world record. Yet this oversells their intentions. After all, the golfer is thrilled at simply getting onto the green in one swing, and the runner celebrates when she wins the race, even if she falls far short of the world record. So, it is implausible to think that either really acted upon (thwarted) intentions that were counterpoised to their beliefs in the way that generates pretense. That said, someone might imagine shooting a hole in one, or imagine setting the world record, as a means to improving performance-but this is different than intending to do those things. 19 beliefs or intentions of an agent. For then the difficulty lies not in the criterion, but in the epistemology of determining whether it is fulfilled. Similar points hold for cases of copying and imitating that fall short of pretense. But, before addressing those head-on, we need to sharpen D4* in response to a very different sort of worry. 4. Pretending that p without acting as would be appropriate if p In an insightful paper concerning young children's ability to recognize pretense in others, Friedman & Leslie (2007) point out that there are many cases of pretending that p that do not, strictly speaking, involve one's acting in ways that would be appropriate if p. These are principally cases where the main object of the pretense-the thing of which something is pretended-is something other than oneself (Friedman and Leslie call these 'object substitution' pretenses). For instance, a child may pretend that a pencil is a rocket, moving it through the air and making sound-effect noises ('Wooooshh!'). But the child herself is not really acting as would be appropriate if the pencil were a rocket: if the pencil were a rocket, the child would not be holding it up in the air; nor would she be making 'Woooosh!' noises. The rocket would be making those itself. The child's own behavior is not of the sort that would be at all appropriate if the pretense premise were true. It seems that D4* needs to be broadened to encompass pretenses that we initiate, but where we ourselves do not figure as characters in the pretense narrative. To that end, first observe that instances of 'pretending that p' can be rewritten as instances of 'pretending that x is y,' so long as we allow that x and y can replace terms that refer to a wide variety of things, including objects, properties, and actions. For example, in the formulation 'Billy pretends that the pencil is a rocket' (and where p = 'the pencil is a rocket), 'x' can stand in for 'the pencil' and 'y' for 'a rocket'. In 20 the formulation 'I pretend that I am a dolphin', 'x' stands in for 'I' and 'y' replaces 'a dolphin'. For 'Jill pretends that she is at a tea party', 'x' replaces 'Jill' and 'y' can stand in for 'at a tea party'. And so on. We have here a transformation rule for turning instances of 'pretends that p' into instances of 'pretends that x is y.' Given this way of transforming p, we can then say (at a first pass) that the relevant behavior involved in pretending that p involves making x y-like. Pretense behavior is likewise driven (partly) by an intention to make some x y-like (or, where y is a kind of situation or an action, like things in that kind of situation, or undergoing that kind of action). In rewriting the intention in this way, we also do away with the potentially problematic 'as would be appropriate if.' What it is for an act to be of a kind that would be "appropriate" if something else were happening is, I think, much less clear than what it is for two things to resemble each other. So, in the case of pretending that the pencil is a rocket, the child tries to make the pencil rocket-like; in the case of my pretending to be a dolphin, I try to make myself dolphin-like; in your pretending to be at a tea party, you try to make yourself at-a-tea-party-like. Usually the ways that x is made y-like will be by mirroring some of y's salient properties. Pretenses tend to focus on stereotypes or characteristic traits. But I do not see that as a necessary feature of pretense. Someone might intentionally duplicate in x relatively obscure properties of a y. So long as it is a y that the agent has in mind as the thing to which she is making x similar, this seems to me sufficient to count as pretending that x is y. Now it is true that resemblances are cheap, everything resembling everything else in some way or other. The reason this poses no problem is that what matters is not simply that x is made ylike, but that it is intentionally made y-like. This ensures that only a very small subset of resemblances-the ones the agent intentionally bestows in x-are relevant to the pretense. In addition, it seems to me that an agent does not need to successfully make x y-like, in order to count 21 as pretending that x is y. She simply needs to act with the intention of making x y-like. So, if Olivia mistakenly thinks that penguins can fly (while being otherwise knowledgeable about penguins), she may pretend that she is a penguin by running with arms out at her sides-as though soaring above icebergs. She is pretending that she is a penguin because she acts with the intention of making herself penguin-like. (Of course, if she is sufficiently mistaken about penguins, then the question will be raised as to whether she has the concept penguin. If she does not, then she will not be able to act on a desire to make herself penguin-like, since she will not be able to have such a desire). These points suggest the following adjustments to PE2 and D4*: Pretense Episode3: A Pretense Episode3 occurs when (and only when) one acts with the intention of making some x y-like, while believing that x is not y. D5: To pretend that p is to act with the intention of making some w z-like (in accordance with our transformation rule, above) in the furtherance of a Pretense Episode3. (Note that w and z may or may not have the same values as the x and y in the definition of Pretense Episode3). D5 allows us to capture cases of object substitution within our general definition of pretense. Pretending that the pencil is a rocket does not always involve making oneself act as would be appropriate if the pencil were a rocket, but it does involve intentionally making the pencil rocket-like. For instance, rockets make a more or less vertical trajectory through the air (not moving side to side, or running along the ground). To the extent that the child intentionally makes 22 the pencil rocket-like by moving it on a vertical trajectory through the air, while believing it is not a rocket, she is pretending that the pencil is a rocket. As for the Wooosh! sound effects, these too can be understood as instances of making the pencil rocket-like. For just as a rocket's movements are accompanied by Wooosh! sounds, so too are the pencil's movements accompanied by such sounds in the pretense. True, the pencil would be made more rocket-like if it were made to emit the Wooosh! sounds itself. However, the point of pretense is to go some distance toward making some x y-like-not a thing of the same kind as y- and this is accomplished merely by making sounds accompany the pencil's movements of the sort that accompany those of a rocket. Quite generally, to make x y-like in the relevant sense, one need not fiddle with the intrinsic properties of the x. Part of making x saliently y-like (when you yourself are not x) can involve making your reactions to x of the kind you would have toward y. This helps us see how mimicking certain "stereotyped" traits can count as pretense, even when we do not believe that the things mimicked have those exact traits. Cats do not really make the precise sound 'meow,' nor do dogs really say 'ruff, ruff.' We know this. But, nevertheless, in making these sounds we are still making ourselves saliently cat or dog-like. For these sounds are relevantly like the sounds that cats and dogs make-however poor our imitations may be. And it is a good thing that pretense sets the bar for similitude so low. It means we do not need to be Jim Carey to pretend to be a cat. Moreover, recall how low the bar really is: what matters is not that you in fact make yourself cat-like, but that you act with the intention of making yourself cat-like. This can be done while giving yourself no trait that is in fact shared by cats. But what about cases where one pretends to be a character or creature from a fiction-say, a member of the "undead," from a zombie movie (this is Doggett & Egan's (2007, p. 6) example). Presumably one lacks any beliefs about the traits of the undead (believing there to be no such things). How can one then act to make oneself like the undead? In this kind of case, it is natural to 23 suppose that we act to make ourselves like the kind of character or creature depicted in thus and such fictions. We have beliefs about how the undead are depicted (e.g., as stiff, as having a faraway look in their eyes). In pretending to be the undead, we try to make ourselves like the kinds of things depicted in such films. Our ability to do this is no more complex or puzzling than our ability to remember what has happened in a film or novel. Remembering the traits of the people and creatures therein depicted, we are able to give ourselves some of those traits. 5. Distinguishing pretense from mere copying These responses aside, D5 may nevertheless seem to have become too broad when we consider the following kind of case: Photocopy: Bob makes a photocopy of page w, resulting in page z, which is a copy of w. Shouldn't D5 count this as pretense? For here Bob intentionally makes z w-like, while believing that z is not w. But, obviously, mere photocopying is not pretense. The problem here rests on an ambiguity in how we can interpret what it is to 'intend to make x y-like.' The variable y can either be taken to refer to a kind of thing (a kind of flyer, say) or to a particular token of that kind (e.g., the particular instance of the flyer put in the copier). Call these the "token intention" and "type intention," respectively. They are clearly different intentions, even if they can at times give rise to the same behavior. For instance, only someone with the token intention will be disposed to try to pass the copy off as the particular token it was copied from. By contrast, someone with the type intention will not go beyond trying to make the copy relevantly like the kind of thing being copied. Assuming there are properties of the token flyer that are not relevant to its being the type of thing it is (e.g. it is printed on Aunt Sally's 24 favorite piece of paper), someone with the type intention will not be disposed to make x like the token y in those respects. If Bob is just doing some normal photocopying, it is safe to assume he has the type intention; his specific intention is to make the copies like the same kind of thing he is copying. Expecting success, he believes he will indeed make them into the same kind of thing (i.e., flyers of a certain kind) and so is not pretending. What if he had the token intention? To have the token intention, he would have to be focused on making the copy like the original in some way that goes beyond making it one more token of the same kind of thing. This will really only occur when the agent is focused on making x like some thing of which there can only be one instance. So, suppose the original flyer is printed on Aunt Sally's favorite piece of paper. If Bob attempts to make the copy like Aunt Sally's favorite piece of paper (e.g. he gives the copy to her, saying 'here it is again, your favorite piece of paper...'), then we can credit him with the token intention. We can also credit him with an act of pretense; for he does not believe that he has made the copy into Aunt Sally's favorite piece of paper. To be clear, a person can pretend either while having a type or a token intention, depending on the details of the case. The point of noting the distinction is that it allows us to see how certain apparent counterexamples-specifically, those involving "mere" copying-can be accommodated by the present account. To that end, we can consider another similar case: Elvis for Halloween: Oscar dresses up as Elvis Presley for Halloween, affecting the singer's mannerisms and fashion style. 25 Oscar is pretending to be Elvis. He intentionally makes himself like the token person Elvis Presley. And, of course, he believes he will not actually become Elvis in the process. That is why he counts as pretending. But now contrast James: Elvis Forever: James greatly admires and is indeed obsessed with Elvis. His daily appearance, actions, and personality are deeply informed by his appreciation of The King. James, I think, is not pretending to be Elvis. But why not? One might think that, like Oscar, he intentionally makes himself like the token person Elvis Presley, while believing he is not (and will not become) Elvis. But I think that, on reflection, the proper intention to ascribe James is the type intention-he intends to make himself like an Elvis-type-person, and believes he may have some success. That is, he thinks he may become that type of person, and so is not pretending. Unlike Oscar, he does not do things he would do if he had the token intention; he does not offer his autograph or say that Graceland is his home. His behavior (and behavioral dispositions) fall well short of anything that could be construed as intending to make himself like that token person; he aims to adopt a certain personality type, and will be pleased if he only goes that far. 9 This is not to say that one cannot pretend to be a particular type of person (or that one cannot pretend to be some token person for a very long time). The point is just that our assessments of pretense must be sensitive to whether the person's intention concerns a token or a type. James does not count as pretending to be an "Elvis-type of person" just because he thinks he may well have success at becoming that type of person, and being a person of that type is all that he is aiming at. Yet someone else acting on the intention to make himself like an Elvis-type of 9 I don't know that I can provide skintight account of what qualifies one as an Elvis-type person (or any type of particular individual). But, in any event, the matter must rest in the eye of the agent. The imitator or emulator will have in mind certain features of a person-normally, I would guess, longstanding personality traits and characteristic behaviors driven by such-the possession of which would make one into that type of person. 26 person could easily pretend to be an Elvis-type person, so long as he remained quite certain he would not in the process become an Elvis-type person. In light of the token/type distinction, we can sharpen our definition of a pretense episode as follows (keeping in mind that where the intention is interpreted in the type sense, so must be the relevant disbelief; and, where the intention is taken the token sense, so must be the disbelief): Pretense Episode4: A Pretense Episode occurs when (and only when) one acts with the intention of making some x y-like (where y refers either to a token or type), while believing that x is not, and will not thereby be made into, y (or a y). This gives us D6: D6: To pretend that p is to act with the intention of making some w z-like, in the furtherance of a Pretense Episode4. There is one further distinction to keep in mind when interpreting D6. We must distinguish between intending to copy, in x, some particular feature of y, versus intending to copy, in x, y itself (i.e., y considered "as such"). Again examples will help. Paper airplane: Joey and Robbie have made paper airplanes of different types-Joey's is a glider, Robbie's is traditional straight-shooter. But Joey wants his glider to have raised wing flaps like Robbie's, so he copies Robbie's straight-shooter in that respect. 27 This example might seem to find D6 too broad. Joey is not pretending that his plane x, is a straight-shooter. But isn't he intentionally making some x (his plane) y-like (where y is a straightshooter-type plane), while believing that x is not, and will not in the process become, a y? The answer is that we have interpreted Joey's intention too coarsely. His intention is narrowly focused on copying a certain aspect of Robbie's plane-and, in that regard, he expects success. Joey intends to make his plane, x, like a plane with raised wing flaps. And he believes that he will, in the process, make his plane into a plane of that kind-namely, one with raised wing flaps. It is no failure of his purposes when he does not make his plane like Robbie's straightshooter in any other respect; and his intention is unsatisfied when he makes it like a straightshooter in all respects but that one. Where pretense may emerge is if Robbie's intention is focused on making his paper plane like some other kind of plane he is sure he cannot make-if, for instance, he intends to make it like a Boeing 747. 6. Why only some representational arts are pretenses But that raises an interesting question: is making a plastic model of a Boeing 747 from a toy kit a case of pretense? And what about painting and sculpture, where an artwork is made to resemble some other kind of thing? Is the sculptor who shapes a lion out of clay pretending that the lump of clay is a lion? It seems hard to deny that the clay is intentionally being made lionlike, while it is believed that it will not become a lion. The same point applies to the model 747. One option is simply to include such model-making and artistic works within the realm of pretense. This would expand somewhat the ordinary notion of pretense, though there is of course a long tradition of linking the arts to pretense (see, e.g., Walton (1990), and perhaps Plato and Aristotle, depending on one's understanding of mimesis). However, I think the ordinary notion of 28 pretense can (and should) still be preserved, by adding a last amendment to our definition. Consider the following contrasts: (1) Elena carefully makes a model Boeing 747. Let us assume this involved no pretense. Having completed the model, she lifts it off the table and moves it through the air, as a plane would move, making sound effects. Suddenly she is pretending. (2) Tillman makes a caricature puppet of Bill Clinton. He is not pretending while making the puppet (we assume). But, as soon as he animates the puppet, making it behave in Clintonesque ways, he is pretending. (3) Recall Oscar, who dressed up as Elvis for Halloween. He was making himself Elvislike as he put on a white suit in preparation for the evening. But he was perhaps not yet pretending that he was Elvis (similar points pertain to actors preparing for a performance). The pretense began, in earnest, when he started acting like Elvis. What these cases suggest is that pretending does not simply involve acting with the intention of making some x y-like, but rather with the more specific intention of making some x currently act or function in y-like ways. 10 In the process of building a model of a 747, one is not acting on the intention to, at that moment, make the model do things that a 747 does. But, in guiding it through the air, one is acting on such an intention. And as one stiches and glues together the puppet of Clinton, one is not acting on the intention to, at that moment, make the puppet act like Clinton. But, in animating it, one is acting on such an intention. The same points apply to the Elvis case. Thus I propose the following last amendment: 10 What about extended pretenses that last for weeks or months (e.g. an undercover detective pretending to be a drug dealer)? It does not seem plausible that, during the entire time, the detective is acting from an intention to currently make himself act like a drug dealer. Here we are dealing with loose sense of 'pretense' where we say that a particular pretense continued over an extended period just because, during that time, the agent often took part in relevant pretense actions (and where these actions involved acting from an intention to act like a drug dealer). Compare: we might say that Babe Ruth played professional baseball for twenty-two years. We don't mean that he was literally engaged in a game of baseball for twenty-two years, but that, over the course of twenty-two years, he was often playing baseball. 29 Pretense Episode: A Pretense Episode occurs when (and only when) one acts with the intention of making some x function (or act), at that moment, in y-like ways (where y refers either to a token or type), while believing that x is not, and will not thereby be made into, y (or a y). This gives us D7 (final offer!): D7: To pretend that p is to act with the intention of making some w function, at that moment, in zlike ways, in the furtherance of a Pretense Episode. With this last condition we add back in something lost when we rejected the idea that pretense involves 'acting as would be appropriate if....' For that formulation is explicit that it is a similarity between one's present actions and those of some other thing that matters, and not just any similarities whatsoever. However, that version did not allow for pretenses with props, where one guides but does not figure in the pretense narrative. Such pretenses are captured by the new criterion. Interestingly, we now are able to see why only some of the representational arts (e.g., acting and puppetry) intuitively get counted as pretense, despite their close similarities to other arts. Prior to adding the last condition, the close connection between puppetry and portraiture is obvious: both involve purposefully making some x like some kind of thing y that one believes it will not become. However, only (what we may call) the "pretense arts" involve acting so as to make some x currently act or function like some such y. 11 And it is this difference that links the 11 One might object that, in making a realistic portrait of the Queen, a painter is intentionally making an object that acts or functions like the Queen in the weak sense that the painting (like the queen) causes thoughts about the Queen, upon being perceived. But as the painter works on the portrait she does not act with the intention of making 30 actor and puppeteer-but not the painter and the filmmaker-to the child playing make-believe, and the crook in disguise. 7. Faking it until we make it Needless to say, grounding the distinction between non-pretend copying (or imitation) and pretense copying and imitation is a delicate matter. I do not know of any other attempt to capture it. The key to the distinction, I have argued, is that pretense copying comes with an expectation that one will not succeed in making oneself into the kind of thing being copied. In this section I want to offer an indirect form of support for this account of the difference. It centers of the roles of copying, imitation, and pretense in learning and development. The fundamental difference between pretend copying and non-pretend copying, I have suggested, is that the former involves a cognitive focus on making oneself like a kind of thing one believes one will not in fact become in the process of the actions undertaken; the latter involves a focus on making oneself like a kind of thing one believes one may well become. In some cases, we see a behavior we think we can likely duplicate and set about trying to copy it; this is non-pretend copying and imitation. In other cases, we see a behavior or ability we would like to duplicate and believe we cannot duplicate it-not in the near future anyway. Often a good teacher will tell you to break that behavior into manageable pieces that you can successfully copy, and to build your way up. The novice guitarist should not try to play Jimi Hendrix's version of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' all at once-start instead by learning some basic chords. Yet, sometimes, the measured approach is the wrong tool for the job; sometimes it helps to focus on imitating the unachievable itself-so long as one does not expect immediate success. For the painting, at that instant, act or function like the Queen. Rather, she acts with the intention of contributing to a process that has as its end product something that (in this questionable sense) acts like the queen. And once the portrait is completed and hung on the wall, the painter is no longer involved in any actions of the kind that would potentially qualify her as pretending. 31 when there are no serious expectations for success, a rich and expanded set of actions can be imitated (and thereby practiced) without the anxiety that can arise out of a fear of failure. Indeed, the "practicing" can become a kind of game. By contrast, if in trying to learn the ways of adults children only undertook action-types that they thought could they could accurately duplicate, their range of opportunities for learning would be greatly narrowed. For instance, during a tea party pretense, a child may imitate the manner and affectations of adults at a tea party. Here the child's focusing on being adult-like enables a far richer set of behaviors to emerge than would be possible if the child were merely to focus on being a kind of thing (e.g. a dish-setting person) that she thinks she can presently be or become. The pretense allows her to inhabit the complex role of being an adult without any expectation-on the part of herself or her role-models-that she will in fact "successfully" become the kind of thing imitated. The pretense is a success so long as it is fun. My suggestion is that our ability to intentionally aim at what is, by our own lights, unattainable opens up wide behavioral possibilities for things like deception and theater-but also, crucially, for learning. To be clear, I am not proposing that it is a necessary feature of pretense that we aim at what seems unattainable. I might pretend to give a talk while believing I really will give one tomorrow. The key point is that pretense is a context where aiming at the obviously unattainable is a rational thing to do. Pretense "games" make elaborate, half-baked forms of imitation socially available in ways that mere copying does not. Thus, the distinction I have drawn between pretense copying and non-pretense copying harmonizes well with, and maybe gives a little insight into, the particularly important role of pretense in learning and child development. 32 8. Next steps I have defended an account of what it is to pretend. Ignoring the fine print, pretending occurs when someone intentionally acts to make something function or act, at that moment, like some other kind of thing, without intending to make it into a thing of that same kind-indeed, while believing it is not, and will not become, a thing of that kind. The account is broad enough to encompass the three kinds of pretense with which we began (make-believe, deceptive, and theatrical), while sufficiently nuanced to allow for a distinction between pretense and mere copying, and between the pretense arts and other representational arts. Further, it sheds explanatory light on the psychology of pretense, as it does not appeal to an "intention to pretend" as part of the definition (nor to a sui generis mental state of imagination). In addition, the present account helps clarify some other important questions with respect to the psychology of pretense. First, the question of what kind of mental states are needed to guide one's pretense-to which the answer "imaginings" is often given-becomes the question: what kind of mental states does one rely upon in intentionally making something function or act like some kind of thing one believes it not to be? It could be that the answer here is indeed "imaginings"-but it is also a possibility that belief and desire alone are sufficient (and not just for some pretenses, but for all (see, e.g., Langland-Hassan, 2012)). Second, the question of how we recognize pretense in others becomes the question of how we detect instances of another person intentionally making something function or act like some kind of thing they believe it not to be. These remain central questions in philosophical and psychological studies of pretense (Carruthers, 2006; Friedman, Neary, Burnstein, & Leslie, 2010; Lillard, 1994; S. Nichols & 33 Stich, 2000; Sobel, 2009). My hope is that this discussion may suggest some new possibilities for answering them. 12 Department of Philosophy University of Cincinnati 12 For valuable feedback on earlier versions of this work, I would like to thank: Jacob Beck, Ori Friedman, Christopher Gauker, and Roy Sorenson. 34 References Anscombe, G. E. M. (1958). Pretending. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, 32, 279-294. Arp, R. (2008). Scenario Visualization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Austin, J. L. (1958). Pretending. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, 32, 261-278. Barsalou, L. W. (1999). Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 577660. Carruthers, P. (2006). Why Pretend? In S. Nichols (Ed.), The Architecture of Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Currie, G., & Ravenscroft, I. (2002). Recreative Minds: Imagination in Philosophy and Psychology. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Doggett, T., & Egan, A. (2007). Wanting Things You Don't Want: the Case for an Imaginative Analogue of Desire. Philosophers' Imprint, 7(9), 1-17. Friedman, O., & Leslie, A. (2007). The conceptual underpinnings of pretense: Pretending is not 'behaving-as-if'. Cognition, 105, 103-124. Friedman, O., Neary, K. R., Burnstein, C. L., & Leslie, A. M. (2010). Is young children's recognition of pretense metarepresentational or merely behavioral? Evidence from 2and 3-year-olds' understanding of pretend sounds and speech. Cognition, 115(2), 314-319. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2010.02.001 Funkhouser, E., & Spaulding, S. (2009). Imagination and Other Scripts. Philosophical Studies, 143(3), 291-314. Gendler, T. (2003). On the Relation Between Pretense and Belief. In M. Kieran (Ed.), Imagination, Philosophy, and the Arts. London: Routledge. Gomez, J.-C. (2008). The Evolution of Pretense: From Intentional Availability to Intentional Non-Existence. Mind and Language, 23(5), 586-606. Kind, A. (2001). Putting the Image Back in Imagination. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 62(1), 85-109. Kind, A. (2011). The Puzzle of Imaginative Desire. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 89(3), 421-439. Kosslyn, S., Thompson, W. L., & Ganis, G. (2006). The Case for Mental Imagery. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Langland-Hassan, P. (2012). Pretense, Imagination, and Belief: The Single Attitude Theory. Philosophical Studies, 159, 155-179. Leslie, A. (1994). Pretending and believing: Issues in the theory of ToMM. Cognition, 50, 211238. Liao, S.-y., & Szabó Gendler, T. (2011). Pretense and imagination. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 2(1), 79-94. doi: 10.1002/wcs.91 Lillard, A. (1994). Making sense of pretense. In C. Lewis & P. Mitchell (Eds.), Children's early understanding of mind: Origins and development (pp. 211-234). Hove: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Nichols, S. (2004). Imagining and Believing: The Promise of a Single Code. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 62, 129-139. Nichols, S. (2006). Introduction. In S. Nichols (Ed.), The Architecture of the Imagination (pp. 118). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 35 Nichols, S., & Stich, S. (2000). A cognitive theory of pretense. Cognition, 74, 115-147. Ryle, G. (1949). The Concept of Mind. New York: Barnes & Noble. Schacter, D. L., Addis, D. R., & Buckner, R. L. (2007). Remembering the past to imagine the future: the prospective brain. Nat Rev Neurosci, 8(9), 657-661. doi: nrn2213 [pii] 10.1038/nrn2213 Sobel, D. M. (2009). Enabling conditions and children's understanding of pretense. Cognition, 113(2), 177-188. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2009.08.002 Van Leeuwen, N. (2011). Imagination is Where the Action Is. The Journal of Philosophy, 108(2), 55-77. Velleman, J. D. (2000). The Possibility of Practical Reasoning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Walton, K. L. (1990). Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Weinberg, J., & Meskin, A. (2006). Puzzling Over the Imagination: Philosophical Problems, Architectural Solutions. In S. Nichols (Ed.), The Architecture of Imagination (pp. 175204). Oxford: Oxford University Press. | {
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Argumentos, Ano 3, N°. 5 2011 51 Arte, sociedade e luxo: sobre o gosto e o refinamento nas cartas filosóficas de Voltaire * Doutorando pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação em Filosofia da UFSCar. ** Doutorando pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação em Filosofia da UFSCar. Luis F. de Salles Roselino*,∗Rafael Henrique Teixeira** Resumo Voltaire apresentou nas suas Cartas filosóficas diferentes temas, desde liberdade religiosa, literatura, política, até dramaturgia e ciência. As cartas apresentam-nos uma comparação entre Inglaterra e França. Neste paralelo, apresentaremos como Voltaire estava preocupado em validar um padrão elevado de gosto e refinamento. Este artigo irá revisar algumas das cartas finais que permitem demonstrar tal critério de gosto como um ponto de vista moderno sobre estes temas. Exporemos em Voltaire a eminência de uma modernidade nas questões do gosto, refinamento e, especialmente, na liberdade de desfrutar os encantos de uma vida cosmopolita repleta de entretenimento e luxo. Apresentaremos como Voltaire optou por se opor a barbárie em benefício da civilização e de certa forma, contra a religiosidade, em proveito de um hedonismo ético. Palavras-chave: Voltaire; Cartas filosóficas; luxo; modernidade. AbstRAct Voltaire has presented in his Letters on the English different themes, from religious ethics, literacy, politics, to dramas and science. The letters present us a comparison between England and France. In this parallel we shall present how Voltaire was concerned in evaluate a high standard of taste and refinements. This paper will review some of the last letters of those, which testify about this criterion of taste as a modern point of view. We shall present in Voltaire the eminence of modernity in taste, refinements and on liberty of enjoying the ecstasies of a cosmopolitan life fulfilled with entertainments and luxury. We shall present how Voltaire fought against barbarism in benefit of civilization and some how against religiosity in benefit of an ethic hedonism. Key words: Voltaire; Letters on the English; luxury; modernity. A R ev is ta d e Fi lo so fi a Argumentos, Ano 3, N°. 5 2011 52 As Cartas Filosóficas1 foram o testemunho de uma experiência. Voltaire buscou refúgio na Inglaterra após sua querela com o cavaleiro de Rohan, que manda seus empregados o espancarem. O cavaleiro recusa o duelo que Voltaire lhe propõe, indignado. Em abril de 1726 é enviado a Bastilha. Dirige-se à Inglaterra no inicio do mês de maio. Mais que a viagem, o importante é a situação de espírito de Voltaire quando a realiza. Não é como homem de letras desejoso de ampliar seus horizontes que chega à Inglaterra, mas como cortesão decepcionado: suas esperanças de fazer uma carreira brilhante na corte desapareceram. Deixando a Bastilha após uma prisão injusta, era natural que o principal cuidado de Voltaire fosse o de recolher na Inglaterra tudo o que lhe permitisse, por contraste, mostrar a absurdidade de seu próprio país2 (DELOFFRE, 1986, p. 16 e 22). Voltaire não foi à Inglaterra praticar anglofilia (Ibid. 17), simples apologia unilateral do povo inglês. Em carta de 1727, por exemplo, retrata algumas contradições que observara em território inglês. [...] uma superstição furiosa havia tomado toda a nação durante as guerras civis; uma doce e ociosa impiedade seguiu-se a esses tempos de perturbação sob o reino de Carlos II. Eis como tudo muda, e que tudo parece contradizer-se. O que é verdade numa época é errado noutra. Os espanhóis dizem de um homem: 'ele foi bravo ontem'. É quase assim que seria preciso julgar as nações, e principalmente a dos Ingleses; deveríamos dizer: "Foram tais nesse ano, nesse mês". (VOLTAIRE, 1727 [1986], p. 204). Devemos tomar suas descrições sobre a Inglaterra e a carga valorativa que ganham não como neutras, tampouco como exaltação arbitrária dos costumes ingleses. O quadro literário que Voltaire traça da Inglaterra faz 1 Utilizamo-nos de duas edições das Cartas Filosóficas: 1732 e 1770. A segunda apresenta acréscimos e supressões com relação à primeira. Citações de edições em língua francesa trazem traduções de nossa autoria. 2 projeto de escrever as cartas sobre a Inglaterra estava presente em Voltaire desde o início de sua estadia. Redigiu fragmentos a partir de 1728, já em França, onde se viu frente a obras de história, teatro, poesia. Um incidente (citado na carta XXIII) abala sua sensibilidade e o leva a retomar seus esboços, a morte da Senhora Lecouvreur: mais uma ocasião para criticar seus compatriotas. Após algumas leituras, notadamente de Newton, a obra ganha forma em 1732 (DELOFFRE, 1986, p. 24). aparecer, por contraprova, os obstáculos que sofrem as letras na França: ausência de visões audaciosas na falta de liberdade, formalismo e estreiteza na falta de contato com as forças vivas da nação (DELOFFRE, 1986: 10). Trataremos dessa caracterização da Inglaterra literária sem perder vista uma a questão do luxo, desenvolvida ao longo do século XVIII. E a partir de uma contraposição entre a visão civilizatória de Voltaire enquanto cultivo do gosto pelas artes e pelo refinamento, em oposição ao desenvolvimento rude e sem refinamento que seguiria um padrão natural, abordaremos algumas polêmicas entre Voltaire e Rousseau. Voltaire menospreza a tragédia in glesa, atacada na pessoa de Shakespeare. Os ingleses só lhe estimam em demasia pois seus dramaturgos medíocres, ao imitá-lo, fazemno sem o refinamento do estilo trágico: daí a impressão de Shakespeare ser inigualável. No que diz respeito às tragédias, os ingleses não passam de epígonos de Shakespeare, nunca poderão superá-lo se continuarem amarrados a padrões ultrapassados de gosto. O tempo, único a construir a reputação dos homens, faz com que, ao fim, os defeitos deles sejam respeitáveis. A maior parte das idéias desse autor [Shakespeare], bizarras e gigantescas, passados duzentos anos, adquiriram o direito de se passar por sublimes. Os autores modernos o copiaram, mas o que era aplaudido em Shakespeare é vaiado neles e, como bem podes deduzir, a veneração por esse antigo aumenta na medida em que os modernos são desprezados. (VOLTAIRE, 1732 [1986], p. 124). Voltaire justifica o louvor ao barbarismo das peças de Shakespeare e a recusa das bufonarias presentes em peças como as de Otway pelo seguinte argumento: as tolices de Otway são modernas, as de Shakespeare, Argumentos, Ano 3, N°. 5 2011 53 antigas (Idem). Contudo, aplaudir ou vaiar uma tragédia não deve ter como parâmetro um julgamento temporal que, de saída, coloca o passado como bom na medida em que é passado. É preciso julgar o moderno à luz dos avanços conquistados. Pois "[...] são necessários muitos séculos para que o bom gosto se aprimore." (Id. 1770 [2007], p. 90). Aprimoramento conquistado ao preço de avanços políticos, comerciais e culturais. Esses elementos não são tratados de modo explicito na carta que trata das tragédias inglesas, mas veremos adiante que eles são o substrato sobre o qual esse aprimora mento se opera, sua causa de fundo. Estariam dadas as condições para tal na sociedade inglesa. Embora os monstros brilhantes de Shakespeare agradem mil vezes mais que a correção moderna; O gênio poético dos ingleses assemelhase, até agora, a uma árvore exuberante plantada pela natureza, lançando ao acaso mil galhos e crescendo irregularmente com força; ele morre se quiserem forçar sua natureza e podá-la como uma árvore dos jardins de Marly. (Id., 1732 [1986], p. 128). Esta metáfora é central para compreendermos as cartas que discutem o refinamento do gosto. Trata-se da oposição entre algo "cultivado" e algo "natural". O primeiro padrão busca o mais alto pendão civilizatório, ao passo que o segundo desenvolve-se de forma irregular e ao acaso, falhando sempre por se limitar e ser incapaz de superar a condição rude e bárbara de seu berço. Observaremos casos distintos no que diz respeito à tragédia e à comédia inglesa. A tragédia se encontra amarrada a sombra de um mestre antigo, ao passo que a comédia se inspira nos avanços do refinamento. A idéia de cultivo das letras segue um padrão civilizatório radicalmente diferente da visão pluralista do desenvolvimento natural dos povos. Voltaire defende um padrão tipicamente iluminista: "Eles [ingleses] cultivaram as letras como se disso dependesse sua sorte; ademais, tornaram as artes respeitáveis aos olhos do povo que, em tudo, precisa ser guiado pelos grandes." (Id., 1770 [2007], p. 157). A defesa do cultivo das letras persegue o ideal de que os povos devem ser guiados pelos padrões mais altos do conhecimento e da cultura. Visão que vemos tantas vezes causar divergências entre Voltaire e Rousseau. O autor do Contrato Social afirma que o grande erro de Pedro o Grande foi importar padrões alemães e ingleses, ao invés de deixar a Rússia desenvolver naturalmente uma cultura própria: "Os russos jamais serão verdadeiramente policiados, por que o foram cedo demais" (ROUSSEAU, 1762 [1973], p. 67). Esse desenvolvimento deveria se originar naturalmente, isto é, das condições sociais e de traços tradicionais próprios do povo, não da importação desses padrões pelo gênio supostamente inovador do Czar. Pedro tinha o gênio imitativo, não possuía o verdadeiro gênio, aquele que cria, que do nada tira tudo. Algumas das coisas que empreendeu eram boas, a maioria delas, inconvenientes. Reconheceu que seu povo era bárbaro, mas não que ainda não amadurecera para a disciplina. Quis civilizá-lo, quando se impunha somente aguerri-lo. Desejou sobretudo fazer alemães e ingleses, quando devia começar por formar russos; impediu seus súditos de jamais se tornarem o que poderiam ser ao persuadi-los de que eram o que não são. (Ibid., p. 67-68). Rousseau via com pesar a maneira artificial como os padrões do gosto e do desfrute dos prazeres de uma vida indolente acabavam por multiplicar os vícios em povos que até então os desconheciam. Não se trata de um elogio a barbárie russa, mas a visão de que a importação de padrões feriria a pluralidade natural dos povos. O problema está na idéia de um gênio imitativo como falso gênio. Um desenvolvimento real deve ser um desenvolvimento criador e não uma cópia contaminada pelos padrões de refinamento franceses, ingleses, etc. Temos em Rousseau um defensor do desenvolvimento natural das virtudes, espontâneo, sem intervenções estrangeiras. Voltaire defende a árvore cultivada e podada pela mão de quem sebe impor a beleza da forma, não por desígnio de Deus, Argumentos, Ano 3, N°. 5 2011 54 mas pela vontade do homem que a cultiva. Para ele Pedro o Grande trouxe as beneficies da civilização para os russos, mas Rousseau, "o pequeno", não estava maduro para saber reconhecer esses avanços. "Se os russos não estavam maduros para a civilização do tempo de Pedro, o Grande, convenhamos que hoje eles estão maduros para a grandeza de alma e que Jean-Jacques não está totalmente maduro para a verdade e para o raciocínio." (VOLTAIRE, 1765 [2001], p. 216-17). Rousseau estaria preso a uma visão metafísica natural do desenvolvimento humano que tira a responsabilidade do homem pelo cultivo do bom gosto, deixando-a ao aquém, ou, como se diz, nas mãos de Deus. Rousseau não reconhecia proveito nesses ideais, e o caso dos espetáculos em Genebra não é diferente. Primeiro importam-se esse modos franceses para Genebra, logo os genebrinos não vêem mais com bons olhos seus costumes e desprezam o estilo de vida de seus antepassados. Com o refinamento do gosto segue a decadência moral, a indiferença, a ociosidade. Tudo que conduziu os grandes impérios do auge ao declínio. Por fim, o desprezo dos antigos usos que resultará da adoção de novos, tudo isso substituirá nossa antiga simplicidade de vida, pela agradável de Paris e pelos bons ares de França [...] Não há por que dissimular, as intenções ainda são corretas, mas os costumes já se inclinam visivelmente para a decadência e de longe seguimos as pegadas daqueles mesmos povos cujo destino não deixamos de temer. (ROUSSEAU, 1758 [1993], p. 418). Seguindo critérios distintos, Voltaire via a postura do Czar como exemplar. Essa opinião se expressa também nas Cartas Filosóficas, tratando agora do caso inglês. É o que se pode notar no trecho a seguir, pela expressão "basta um rei querer", que indica o vínculo ideal que deve haver entre o gosto pelas letras e a política. Parece-me que há hoje na corte [francesa] um gosto que não é o das letras, talvez daqui algum tempo a moda de pensar volte; basta um rei querer. Na Inglaterra é comum pensar, e as letras lá são mais honradas que na França. Essa vantagem é uma conseqüência necessária de sua forma de governo. (VOLTAIRE, 1732 [1986], p. 134). Comparando com a França, Voltaire põe na balança do refinamento a produção intelectual inglesa, constatando quais seriam seus pontos fracos e fortes: "Parece-me que os ingleses não têm historiadores tão bons como nós, que não têm verdadeiras tragédias, que têm comédias admiráveis e filósofos que deveriam ser os preceptores do gênero humano" (Ibid., 145). Utilizemo-nos do trato que Voltaire oferece à questão da comédia inglesa que, em contraposição a tragédia, é vista com bons olhos: "Se na maioria das tragédias inglesas os heróis são empolados e as heroínas extravagantes, em compensação o estilo é mais natural na comédia." (Id. 1770 [2007], p. 94). [...] não me peças para entrar, aqui, em nenhum detalhe dessas peças inglesas de que sou grande partidário, nem para te contar um bom chiste ou uma brincadeira de Wicherley e de Congrève; não se ri numa tradução. Se queres conhecer a comédia inglesa, o único meio é vir a Londres, permanecer três anos, aprender bem o inglês e assistir a comedia todos os dias. Não sinto grande prazer lendo Plauto e Aristófanes: por quê? Porque não sou grego nem romano. A fineza dos bons chistes, a alusão, as boas tiradas, tudo isso se perde para um estrangeiro [...] a boa comédia é a pintura eloqüente dos ridículos de uma nação; e, se não se conhece a nação a fundo, não se pode tampouco julgar a pintura (Id., 1732 [1986], p. 133). Rousseau (1758, [1996], p. 53), por uma afirmação semelhante, distingue a tragédia da comédia. Apresenta a tragédia como longe de nossos costumes, retratando seres empolados e quiméricos, ao passo que os costumes da comédia tem com os nossos uma relação mais imediata. Os efeitos dessa Argumentos, Ano 3, N°. 5 2011 55 caracterização decerto não serão os mesmos nos dois autores. Embora ambos critiquem o desejo de agradar ao público como algo que perverte os espetáculos, a crítica de Voltaire se di rige mais às tragédias enquanto Rousseau, à comédia. Rousseau via a comédia como corruptora da virtude. O temor ao riso público leva a uma disjunção viciosa entre o ser e a aparência, ao passo que para Voltaire aquilo que a comédia faz rir é algo a ser ridicularizado. Em linhas gerais, ambos seguem aquele espírito pré-revolucionário des crito por Marx3: "o moderno ancien régime é apenas o comediante do mundo existente cujos heróis reais já morreram." (MARX, 1844[2006], p. 148) Segundo Marx: Para as nações modernas, é instrutivo ver o ancien régime, que na sua história representou uma tragédia, desempenhar um papel cômico, como espectro [...]o ancien régime teve uma história trágica, uma vez que era o poder estabelecido no mundo, ao passo que a liberdade era uma fantasia pessoal, numa palavra, enquanto acreditou e tinha de acreditar em sua própria legitimidade. [...] o atual regime, que é um anacronismo, [...] supõe apenas que acredita em si e pede a todo mundo para compartilhar a sua ilusão (Idem). Voltaire está mais propenso a acreditar na legitimidade dessa liberdade pessoal e dos avanços do gosto. Rousseau é certamente o mais crítico. Não é simplesmente o prazer de escarnecer do passado, a satisfação que as comédias causam ao ridicularizar figuras antiquadas e quixotescas. O próprio estilo de Voltaire se inspira nesse espírito moderno descrito por Marx. O refinamento do gosto se sustenta em ridicularizar o bárbaro, e o desfrute dos prazeres no que lhe foi mais caro: ridicularizar a religião. A comédia já não encontrava mais graça num cavaleiro andante ou no escudeiro morto de fome do Velho da horta, o alvo do escárnio agora é outro: o quaker que treme e fala pelas ventas, os que mudam de religião para se vestirem com roupas da moda, etc. O cômico muda de alvo e só tem graça, ou melhor, só agrada às novas exigências do público distinto4, quando consegue atingir o ridículo específico de seu lugar e tempo histórico. Não se ri mais quando se pisa o rabo do diabo, ao malhar o Judas, ou nos defeitos físicos da feiúra alheia que sempre povoaram o humor medieval e popular. Não se ri de um bom chiste caso não se conheça os ridículos retratados. Voltaire se utiliza do exemplo do Tartufo, pois afirma que os ingleses copiaram, mascararam e mesmo estragaram as peças de Molière. Mas seria impossível que esse assunto fizesse sucesso em Londres.5 [...] porque não gostamos de retratos de pessoas que não conhecemos. Um dos grandes privilégios da nação inglesa é não ter tartufos. Para que houvesse falsos devotos, seria preciso haver verdadeiros. A palavra devoto é aqui praticamente desconhecida; ao contrário da muito conhecida palavra homem de bem. Aqui não existem imbecis que colocam suas almas em outras mãos [...] A filosofia, a liberdade, o clima levam à misantropia: Londres, que não têm tartufos, está repleta de Timãos. Desse modo, O misantropo ou o Homem de modos francos6 é uma das boas comédias que se tem em Londres (Voltaire, 1770 [2007], p. 96). Outro exemplo vem de Addison, o primeiro inglês que teria feito uma tragédia razoável, que escrevera com elegância, e que quis rivalizar com Shakespeare. Apresenta um Catão superior a Cornélia de Pierre Cor3 Não se pode ignorar a diferença de contexto, Marx trata do atraso alemão no século XIX, Voltaire do francês no século XVIII, apesar disso a referência a tragédia e a comédia é adequada, Voltaire é sem dúvida um autor que só se faz moderno ao rir do que é antigo ou bárbaro. 4 Não podemos ver tais mudanças no humor popular, só nos espetáculos que se dirigem a aristocracia e a burguesia em ascensão. O humor de rua se mantém constante na medida em que segue um desenvolvimento alheio aos novos padrões de refinamento, sendo que esse padrão exige uma compreensão culta do que está sendo satirizado. 5 Esse exemplo também nos é bastante útil para mostrar a já citada operação de Voltaire, que se utiliza de um aparente inventário dos espetáculos ingleses para estabelecer uma crítica aos costumes do povo francês. 6 Peça de Wicherley. Voltaire retrata-o como um autor excelente: "Esse homem, que passou sua vida no melhor mundo, conheceu perfeitamente seus vícios e ridículos, e os pintou com o pincel o mais firme e as cores as mais verdadeiras" (VOLTAIRE, 1732 [1986], p. 129). Argumentos, Ano 3, N°. 5 2011 56 neille: seu Catão é grande sem inchaço7 (Id., 1732 [1986], p. 127). Parece-me que essa peça é feita para um público um pouco filósofo e muito republicano. Duvido que nossas jovens senhoras e nossos dândis houvessem apreciado Catão de roupão, lendo diálogos de Platão e refletindo sobre a imortalidade da alma. Mas os que se elevam acima dos usos, preconceitos e fraquezas de sua nação, os que são de todos os tempos e de todos os países, os que preferem a grandeza filosófica às declarações de amor ficarão bem contentes encontrar aqui uma cópia, ainda que imperfeita, desse fragmento sublime [...] (Id., 1770 [2007], p. 90). Um espetáculo apenas faz sentido caso o público ou a nação em que é representada reconheça nela este novo caráter do ridículo. Decerto surge aqui a necessidade da adequação entre público e o espetáculo. Sabemos que esse foi um tema caro também a Rousseau. Para ele o espetáculo reforçava o caráter nacional, acentuava as inclinações naturais, dava nova energia a todas as paixões (ROUSSEAU, 1758 [1993], p. 12). Rousseau coloca a idéia do gênero a deriva, no elemento móvel da historicidade, julgando sua perfectibilidade segundo a forma histórica que serve de horizonte ao autor e ao público (PRADO JR., 1975 [2008], p. 48). Podemos colocar a hipótese que Voltaire leva em conta também esse elemento móvel. O que é cômico para um inglês não o é para um francês, a zombaria lhe carece de sentido. Mas Voltaire dá um passo que Rousseau não dá. Utiliza-se desse argumento para julgar a superioridade dos costumes e espetáculos ingleses. Não porque estava preocupado em traçar uma teoria geral dos espetáculos, mas sim em servir-se de sua caracterização nacional e histórica como instrumento de combate, por um lado, e de exaltação, de outro. Não que Rousseau não faça uma reflexão sobre o papel do espetáculo em seu meio, mas ele o fez de forma completamente diferente. Com relação ao tema religioso, Voltaire apresenta o poema cômico Hudibras8, cujo assunto é a guerra civil na época de Cromwell. A seita dos puritanos é apresentada como ares ridículos, não por que o poeta assim o quis, mas porque se vive numa época em que sobram motivos a zombarias desse tipo. Aquilo que fez com se derramasse tanto sangue e tantas lágrimas produziu um poema que força o leitor mais sério a rir [...] Os romanos certamente não fariam um poema burlesco sobre as guerras de César e de Pompeu e sobre as proscrições de Otávio e Antônio. Por que, então, as terríveis desgraças que a Liga causou na França e as que as guerras entre o rei e o parlamento disseminaram na Inglaterra puderam dar lugar a zombarias? É porque, no fundo, havia um ridículo oculto nessas querelas funestas. (VOLTAIRE, 1770. [2007], p. 112). Dissemos que não se ri de um bom chiste caso não se conheça o ridículo em questão. Se o ridículo de Butler soaria incompreensível a um francês letrado, isso se deve ao desconhecimento da comicidade do ridículo como algo contextualizado. Quando Voltaire trata do riso potencial de uma peça ou de uma poesia, o que busca é a matéria desse riso, o que é dado ao escárnio público, que a torna condenável. Não foi o mundo que se tornou ridículo, mas o comediante que passou a ver o mundo humano como tal. Só com liberdade religiosa se pode rir da religião. Em casos como esse, se há uma dificuldade na tradução de poemas e peças, isso não se dá apenas pelo aspecto lingüístico: é o espírito que a peça manifesta que é intraduzível, é a matéria da crítica política e social que ela comporta. Voltaire afirma 8 Voltaire aproxima Hudibras de Dom Quixote. Essa aproximação já havia sido feita pelo abade Dubos (Reflexões sobre a poesia e a pintura, 1719) (DELOFFRE, 1986, p. 260). Voltaire insiste então na diferença de que o personagem de Butler era um personagem real – um cavaleiro baronete real, entusiasta de Cromwell e seus coronéis – ao passo que o personagem de Miguel de Cervantes era fictício (VOLTAIRE, 1770 [2007], p. 113). 7 O elogio ao Catão de Addison não é, contudo, unilateral. "A irregularidade e a barbaridade do teatro [trágico] de Londres afetaram até a inteligência de Addison." (Id. 1770 [2007], p. 93). Argumentos, Ano 3, N°. 5 2011 57 apenas transcrever imperfeitamente essa música que é, na verdade, um poema, dada a impossibilidade de exprimir o gosto de seu canto (Idem). Como fazer rir leitores estrangeiros de ridículos já esquecidos na própria nação em que se tornaram célebres? Já não se lê Dante na Europa, porque tudo nele alude a fatos ignorados: o mesmo acontece com Hudibras. A maior parte das zombarias desse livro recaem sobre a teologia e os teólogos da época. Seria preciso um comentário a cada instante. A zombaria explicada deixa de ser zombaria, e um comentador de bons chistes não é capaz de dizê-los. (Ibid., p. 117). Pelo mesmo motivo não são passíveis de entendimento na França os livros de Swift. Para entender seu espírito e aquele de sua nação, seria preciso uma viagem a seu país. Swift tem a honra de ser padre e de zombar de tudo (Id. 1732 [1986], p. 143). Neste país, que parece tão estranho a parte da Europa, ninguém achou tão estranho que o reverendo Swift, deão de uma catedral, tenha zombado, em seu Conto do tonel, do catolicismo, do luteranismo e do calvinismo: ele se justifica dizendo não ter tocado no cristianismo. Pretende ter respeitado o pai dando cem chibatadas nos três filhos; pessoas difíceis acharam que as varas eram tão longas que alcançavam o pai. (Id. 1770 [2007], p. 120). O que Voltaire está nos dizendo é que para rir das religiões é preciso de uma liberdade religiosa que os ingleses gozam, mas os franceses não. Essa mesma dificuldade de tradução – do espírito e dos versos – é apontada ao mostrar o homem de gênio e o grande poeta na pessoa do conde de Rochester. As exigências de versificação e as conveniências da língua francesa são incapazes de transmitir "[...] o equivalente da licença impetuosa do espírito inglês." (Id., 1732 [1986], p. 138). Comparando as sátiras sobre o homem do conde de Rochester e do senhor Despréaux, da dificuldade lírica da tradução, Voltaire passa a impossibilidade de tradução do espírito inglês ao espírito francês. Está dado o material para o levantamento das diferenças, as quais, ainda que muitas vezes implicitamente, são apontadas com um objetivo: descrever a Inglaterra em contraposição a França, o que não se dá sem uma hierarquização dos valores em circulação nos dois países. Temos o caso de Pope, um pouco diferente. Seu refinamento facilitaria a tradução de seus temas porque tende a algo mais geral, podendo ser apreciado por nãoingleses. Segue um padrão estético, típico do neoclássico, e "[...] podemos traduzi-lo por que é extremamente lúcido, e porque seus temas são na maior parte gerais e comuns a todas as nações." (Ibid., 143). Trata-se de uma exceção à regra. Diferente do padrão estético mais geral, a comédia parece ser sempre local. São essas questões locais que nos interessam, são elas que tornam a visão de Voltaire sobre a Inglaterra tão interessante quanto a de Tocqueville sobre a América. Resta-nos tratar das condições que tornam possível o desenvolvimento desse homem inglês livre no pensamento: incapaz de rir do Tartufo, pois não conhece devotos; capaz de rir de algo tão funesto como uma guerra civil; e que zomba dos teólogos e da teologia em suas peças e em sua literatura. Voltaire apresenta um quadro, por meio do trato de poetas, dramaturgos e literatos, da relação específica que encontra na Inglaterra entre arte e sociedade, não sem vínculo com a configuração específica da política inglesa. Haveria uma espécie de relação de reciprocidade entre a liberdade na esfera política, econômica e artística. É difícil estabelecer qual delas leva as outras, mas podemos afirmar um condicionamento mútuo, traço que reforçaria a especificidade inglesa com relação à França e que dita o tom das Cartas Filosóficas. Voltaire justifica o hábito de honrar e cultivar as letras – vivo na Inglaterra e não mais como outrora na França – como uma vantagem para os primeiros e conseqüência direta de sua forma de governo (Ibid., 136). Reconheceu esse hábito na França, sob o reinado de Luís XIV, imortalizado em função dos incentivos para a astronomia, as matemáticas, a pintura, a escultura e a arquite tura. Argumentos, Ano 3, N°. 5 2011 58 Mas essa imortalidade não chegou a lhe custar duzentos mil francos por ano, afirma Voltaire, em tom irônico. Eis a especificidade inglesa: Espanta-me que o parlamento da Inglaterra, que decidiu prometer vinte mil guinéus a quem fizesse a impossível descoberta das longitudes, nunca tenha pensado em imitar Luís XIV na sua magnificência com relação às artes. O mérito encontra na Inglaterra outras recompensas mais honrosas para a nação; tal é o respeito que esse povo tem pelos talentos, que um homem de mérito, aqui, sempre faz fortuna. (Ibid., p. 146). O governo inglês, cuja forma seria a responsável por esse gosto difundido pelas letras e pelas belas-artes, resulta de uma nação que conseguiu9 regular o poder dos reis, estabelecendo um governo sábio em que "[...] o príncipe, todo poderoso para fazer o bem, tem as mãos atadas para fazer o mal; em que os senhores são grandes sem insolência e sem vassalos, em que o povo participa do governo sem confusão." (Ibid., p. 66). Voltaire introduz outro elemento na configuração do Estado inglês: o comércio. "O comércio, que enriqueceu os cidadãos da Inglaterra, contribuiu para torná-los livres; e essa liberdade estendeu o comércio por seu lado; daí se formou a grandeza do Estado" (Ibid., p. 75). Há em Londres cerca de oitocentas pessoas que tem o direito de falar em público e defender os interesses da nação; cerca de cinco ou seis mil reivindicam, por sua vez, a mesma honra; todos os outros se erigem em juízes destes, e todos podem mandar imprimir o que pensam sobre os assuntos públicos. Assim, a nação inteira sente a necessidade de se instruir. (Ibid., p. 134). Voltaire descreve uma atmosfera de cultivo as letras, impulsionada e favorecida pela configuração de uma sociedade livre no comércio e na política. Como se tudo conspirasse para um gosto apurado e generalizado. Utilizando-se do exemplo das Academias, Voltaire mostra que elas não são necessárias no sentido de um estímulo artificial, exterior às propensões de uma nação que por sua própria virtude fomenta o gosto e a difusão das artes. Todos os grandes homens se formaram antes das academias ou independentemente delas. Elas podem unicamente servir para manter o fogo que os grandes gênios acenderam. Contra pondo a Academia de Ciências francesa com a Sociedade Real de Londres, Voltaire nota que a londrina, diferentemente da francesa, não tem recompensas. Em compensação, ela é livre. A Sociedade de Londres, independente e estimulada apenas por si mesma, foi composta por sujeitos que descobriram o cálculo infinitesimal, as leis da luz, as da gravidade, a aberração das estrelas, o telescópio de reflexão, a bomba a vapor, o microscópio solar e muitas outras invenções tão úteis quando admiráveis. O que mais teriam feito esses grandes homens se tivessem sido pensionistas ou membros honorários? (Id., 1770 [2007], p. 129). O exemplo da Sociedade Real londrina – livre e isenta de condecorações falaciosas – mostra a fertilidade de um gosto espontâneo pelas letras e pela ilustração: "É verdade que a Sociedade Real teve um Newton, mas ela não o produziu [...] um gênio como Newton pertence a todas as Academias da Europa, pois todas têm muito a aprender com ele" (Id., 1732 [1986], p. 151). Se a Sociedade Real de Londres não possui recompensas ou regras, ao passo que há em 9 Essa conquista traz uma peculiaridade. Logo no início da exposição, em trecho de uma carta que trata das primeiras impressões de sua chegada na Inglaterra, Voltaire aponta para contrariedades aparentes, como a superstição furiosa que acompanha as guerras civis inglesas e para a necessidade de atentar para mudanças radicais e em num curto espaço de tempo na sociedade inglesa. Podemos dizer que ela se justifica agora, nas Cartas filosóficas. Na Inglaterra, ao contrário da França ou de Roma, a guerra civil teve a liberdade como objeto. Se na guerra civil romana o fruto colhido foi à escravidão, a dos distúrbios na Inglaterra foi a liberdade (Id.: 1732 [1986], p. 66). Se a crueldade e fanatismo dessas guerras inglesas são censurados na França, como o episódio da decapitação de Carlos I, esses acontecimentos não devem ser julgados pelos preconceitos franceses, mas sim pelos seus efeitos, pela liberdade na qual desembocou a Inglaterra: "Pesa esses atentados, e julga" (Ibid., p. 68). Argumentos, Ano 3, N°. 5 2011 59 Paris uma pequena fortuna assegurada ao geômetra ou ao químico (Ibid.: 150), há outra maneira de estimular as pessoas de letras na Inglaterra e os grandes nomes da ciência e da filosofia: são as honras que prestam ao simples mérito. O que mais estimula as artes na Inglaterra é a consideração que elas têm: o retrato do Primeiro Ministro encontra-se sobre a lareira de seu gabinete; mas vi o do senhor Pope em vinte casas. Newton foi honrado enquanto vivia e depois de sua morte como deveria sê-lo. Os homens mais importantes da nação disputaram a honra de carregar seus caixões durante os funerais. (Ibid., p. 147). Honrarias, possibilidade de fazer fortuna e reconhecimento público são a manifestação de que gozam na Inglaterra as pessoas de letras que, em contrapartida, tornam as artes respeitáveis aos olhos do povo. Waller, com sessenta mil libras de renda, nunca teve o tolo orgulho ou a negligencia de aban donar seu talento. Os condes de Dorset e Roscommon, os duques de Buckingham, milorde Halifax, dentre outros, não acreditavam rebaixar-se se tornado grandes poetas e ilustres escritores. "Suas obras lhes honram mais que seus nomes. Cultivaram as letras como se delas dependesse sua fortuna." (Ibid., p. 140). Voltaire se pergunta: Será preciso que tudo o que mais honra o espírito humano seja quase sempre o menos útil? Sua resposta é que um homem com as quatro regras de aritmética e com bom senso torna-se um grande negociante, ao passo que um algebrista passa a vida a procurar nos números relações e propriedades espantosas, mas sem utilidade, e que jamais lhes ensinará o que é o cambio. Todas as artes incluem-se mais ou menos nesse caso; há um ponto depois do qual as pesquisas apenas servem como curiosidade: essas verdades engenhosas e inúteis assemelham-se a estrelas que, situadas muito longe de nós, não nos darão nenhuma claridade. (Ibid., p. 154). Tratamos até aqui das Cartas Filosóficas, notadamente o inventário das letras inglesas. Resta-nos saber se ao defender a Inglaterra por meio da afirmação de sua superioridade com relação aos hábitos e gostos franceses, Voltaire não estaria realizando a apologia de algo que ultrapassa a simples oposição entre dois países. O que se ligaria as novidades inglesas, as suas peculiaridades com relação à França e ao resto da Europa? Seria possível localizar a defesa da Inglaterra em uma defesa da modernidade e do luxo? A apologia do luxo vincula-se à apologia da sociedade moderna. Essa discussão vinha do século XVII, então denominada a questão dos antigos e dos modernos. Tratavase de saber se antigos ou modernos eram superiores em diferentes campos: costumes, saber, ciências, etc. (MONzANI, 1995, p. 2022). Essa questão se encontra, nas Cartas Filosóficas, colocada num segundo plano. Não no sentido de não ter importância, mas no sentido de aparecer de modo indireto, já que a elaboração das cartas visava uma denúncia das inadequações francesas por meio de uma exaltação dos avanços ingleses. Podemos ler esses avanços ingleses na chave de uma modernidade nascente, que residiria na novidade e peculiaridade que apresentam. Se com a publicação de O Mundano (1736) temos a apologia dos tempos modernos e uma defesa dos efeitos do luxo, o modo como essa defesa se realiza nos autoriza a essa leitura retrospectiva das Cartas Filosóficas. O Mundano apresenta reviravoltas nas posições de Voltaire quanto ao tom da defesa do luxo, e sua viagem à Inglaterra foi importantíssima na mudança de suas concepções (Ibid., p. 20). A profissão de fé de O Mundano é clara. (GOUHIER, 1983, p. 33): "Amo o luxo e até mesmo a volúpia / Todos os prazeres, as artes de toda espécie / A propriedade, o gosto e os ornamentos / [...] Tudo serve ao luxo, aos prazeres desse mundo." (VOLTAIRE, 1736 [1877], p. 83-84). O personagem mundano orgulha-se de ser do mundo, colocando sobre essa palavra exatamente o sentido que lhe dá o ascetismo Argumentos, Ano 3, N°. 5 2011 60 cristão quando recomenda, ao contrário, não ser do mundo, não participar dele. Justificase que o poema termine numa alusão contra Fénelon (GOUHIER, 1983, p. 33), exemplo do ataque que a Igreja empreende ao luxo. Sua Aventuras de Telêmaco (1699) condena o luxo e elogia a frugalidade, mostrando os contornos da saudável e boa sociedade: aquela em que os homens vivem simplesmente e se contentam em satisfazer suas verdadeiras necessidades. Daí sua defesa da Ítaca de Ulysses a uma cidade brilhante graças a uma magnificência odiosa. (MONzANI, 1995, p. 24). Ao que responde Voltaire: Ora, agora senhor do Telêmaco / Nos orgulha realmente vossa pequena Ítaca / Vossa Salente / e vossos muros maravilhosos / Em que vossos homens de Creta, tristemente virtuosos / Pobres de efeito, e ricos de abstinência / Faltam de tudo para ter abundancia / [...] / O paraíso terrestre é onde eu estou. (VOLTAIRE, 1736 [1877], p. 87-88). Assim termina O Mundano, com a localização do paraíso em algum lugar muito distante do Éden.10 Uma defesa do presente e condenação de possíveis idílios passados: eis os argumentos do personagem mundano, que goza de seu presente e de seu mundo. Ele conhece seus detalhes, o que fica claro quando descreve o dia de um homem honesto em Paris, Londres ou Roma. Sua descrição se inicia com um convite: Ora, agora querem, meus amigos, / Saber um pouco, em nossos dias tão malditos, / Em Paris, Londres, ou em Roma, / Como é o dia de um homem honesto? / Entre nele: a multidão das belas-artes, / Filhas do gosto, se mostram aos seus olhos / [...] / É preciso entregar-se a esse palácio mágico. (Ibid., p. 85-86). Esse homem ainda se delicia com a simetria das fachadas, com jardins ornamentados, quadros e tapeçarias, banhos perfumados, vinhos e de guisados, e a possibilidade de ir a uma ópera nova a cada dia. Findo um dia com esses prazeres, eis que "[...] o amanhã fornece outros desejos. / Outras ceias, e novos prazeres." (Ibid., p. 87). Não estamos muito distantes da descrição do culto e fomentação das artes que Voltaire viu na Inglaterra. Decerto não se trata mais de açoitar a França, mas de condenar aqueles que pregam os malefícios do luxo, fonte de tantos prazeres. Trata-se uma defesa do presente que afasta qualquer defesa dos tempos antigos em detrimento de uma modernidade corruptora.11 Não teríamos aqui um indício para que coloquemos em paralelo a defesa que realizou da Inglaterra e essa defesa do presente que preenche O Mundano? Outro elemento do poema autoriza o estabelecimento desse paralelo. O trato oferecido ao comércio que, como vimos, tanto nasceu quanto contribuiu a liberdade inglesa. Ele agora fomenta o luxo, o desejo, o gozo daquilo que o progresso da sociedade proporciona. Em contrapartida o luxo, incitando o desejo e o gozo dos prazeres, alimenta o comércio que, por sua vez, é fonte de riqueza para a sociedade. Oh, o bom tempo que é o século do ferro! / A reunir um e outro hemisfério. / Vês esses rápidos navios / Que, do Texel, de Londres, de Bordeaux, / Vão buscar, para uma troca feliz, / Novos bens, nascidos às margens do Ganges, / Enquanto que ao longe, vencedores dos mulçumanos, 10 Se a apologia ao luxo é uma apologia à sociedade moderna, sua contrapartida é uma crítica das sociedades arcaicas, que implica, no limite, a condenação das primeiras sociedades e do estado de natureza. O que, aos olhos da Igreja, significaria desvalorizar a vida perfeita de Adão e Eva (MONzANi, 1995, p. 24). Eis o retrato do paraíso bíblico de Voltaire (1736 [1877], p. 85): "Meu caro Adão, meu lambão, meu bom pai, / Que fazias tu nos recantos do Éden? / Trabalhavas para este tolo gênero humano? / Acariciavas Madame Eva, minha mãe? / Contem-me o que tinham vocês dois / As unhas longas, um pouco negras e sujas, / A cabeleira um pouco mal ordenada, / A aparência parda, a pele nortada e curtida. / Sem limpeza o amor o mais feliz, / Já não é mais amor: é uma necessidade vergonhosa. / Dentro em breve cansados de sua bela aventura, / Debaixo de um carvalho ceiam galantemente / [...] / Feita a refeição, dormem sobre o chão: / Eis o estado da pura natureza". 11 "Lastimas que deseja o bom e velho tempo, / [...] / E o jardim de nossos primeiros pais; / Eu, eu dou graças à sábia natureza / Que, para o meu bem, me fez nascer nessa época / Tão difamada por nossos tristes críticos: / Esse tempo profano foi inteiramente feito para meus costumes." (Ibid., p. 83). Argumentos, Ano 3, N°. 5 2011 61 / Nossos vinhos da França embriagam os sultões? / Quando a natureza se encontrava em sua infância, / Nossos bons antepassados viviam na ignorância, / Não conheciam nem o teu nem o meu. / O que poderiam conhecer? Não tinham nada, / Estavam nus; e é certo / Que quem nada possui não tem nenhuma partilha a fazer / [...] / Faltava-lhes a indústria e a naturalidade: / Isso é virtude? Era pura ignorância. (Ibid., p. 83-84). O elogio ao comércio prossegue na Defesa do Mundano ou a Apologia do Luxo (1737).11 O personagem mundano se encontra em meio a uma refeição com um personagem que chama de monsenhor o santo. O mundano argúi seu companheiro de refeição, que o condena por ter pregado o luxo e vangloriado a volúpia, de onde vinha o vinho e o café que tomavam. Não teria sido preciso a indústria humana? Diz o mundano ao seu acusador: Todo o universo trabalhou para você, / A fim de que em paz, em vossa feliz cólera, / Insultes, em sua tola embriaguez, / Ao mundo inteiro, esgotado por lhe satisfazer. (Id., 1737 [1877], p. 94). Voltaire segue o argumento, e se faz passar por economista (GOUHIER, 1983: 33): Saiba sobretudo que o luxo enriquece / Um grande Estado, se perdê-lo um pequeno. / Esse esplendor, essa pompa mundana, / De um reino feliz é certamente a marca. / O rico nasceu para muito gastar; / O pobre é feito para muito amontoar. / [...] / Assim vemos na Inglaterra, na França, / Por centenas de canais circular a abundância. / O gosto do luxo entra em todas as condições: / O pobre vive da vaidade dos grandes; / E o trabalho, seduzido pela volúpia, / Abre-se a passos lentos o caminho à riqueza. (VOLTAIRE, 1737 [1877], p. 91-92). Mostram-se como elementos centrais e articulados nesses poemas as possibilidades do comércio e uma atmosfera de culto e gozo das artes. Vimos nas Cartas Filosóficas que o comércio contribuiu a constituição de uma Inglaterra livre, e que, se ele não é colocado numa cadeia causal necessária entre comércio-liberdade-arte, ao menos podemos conjecturar que a liberdade política e comercial instaura um solo fértil ao surgimento de grandes homens de letras. Nesses poemas comércio e artes em geral aparecem ligados a um novo elemento, o luxo. Vimos que nas Cartas Filosóficas o problema era uma contraposição entre França e Inglaterra, e que aqui se torna uma defesa do presente tal qual ele é, uma defesa da modernidade. Um novo circuito causal parece estar em operação: o comércio possibilita a circulação e gozo de novos bens (materiais e intelectuais), e esse gozo por sua vez realimenta o comércio e o trabalho. Essa defesa do presente e do luxo, acionando o comércio e as artes, é uma espécie de re-modelação em novos termos do que antes aparecia por meio de uma defesa da Inglaterra e uma desvalorização da França: progresso e desenvolvimento da sociedade, das ciências e das artes. No Mundano o luxo aparece como o supérfluo necessário. Abundância mãe das artes e dos trabalhos, que traz novas necessidades e novos prazeres (Id. 1736 [1877]: 84). Não é sobre a noção de supérfluo que joga a sua atenção, mas sobre a de excesso – inverte as posições, e passa de acusado a acusador. Agora quem deve dar explicações são os apologistas da frugalidade (Monzani, 1995: 39). Algo que Voltaire deixa claro em Sobre o uso da vida. [...] ao falar da abundância, / Eu cantei o gozo / De prazeres puros e permitidos, / E nunca a intemperança. / Pessoas de bem voluptuosas, / Apenas quero ensinar-lhes / A arte pouco conhecida de ser feliz: / Essa arte, que deve tudo abarcar, / É a de moderar suas resoluções. (VOLTAIRE, 1770 [1877]: 94). Esse argumento representou uma guinada na questão do luxo. Bem dosado e usado com bom espírito, ele constitui um 12 Não é a toa que Voltaire reedita O Mundano não apenas com a Apologia ao Mundano, mas também com a Carta do Senhor de Melon à Senhora a Condessa de Verrue sobre a Apologia do Luxo (1736). Jean Baptiste Melon foi um economista que apresentou uma apologia ao luxo em seu Ensaio Político sobre o Comércio. (1734) (GOUHIER, 1983, p. 32). Argumentos, Ano 3, N°. 5 2011 62 bem precioso para a civilização (MONzANI, 1995: 39). Voltaire opera um deslocamento dos termos de colocação do problema. A questão do luxo, ao ser tratada em termos de vício e de virtude, mascarava uma questão de caráter econômico que acabou ganhando um aspecto moral (Ibid., p. 21). Tomando o luxo como tudo aquilo que é além do necessário, ele seria uma conseqüência natural dos progressos da humanidade. (Ibid., p. 44). Em Voltaire vemos o esclarecimento aderir a um princípio moral. O horror ao bárbaro revela a necessidade de um padrão moderno para o gosto e para os costumes, dessa maneira, seu fundamento ético hedonista se torna inseparável de uma moral "mundana" que transita da crítica religiosa a fomentação de um ethos tipicamente moderno. Referências bibliográficas DELOFFRE, Frédéric. "Préface". In: VOLTAIRE. "Lettres philosophiques". Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1986. GOUHIER, Henri. "Rousseau et Voltaire: portraits dans deux miroirs". Paris: Vrin, 1983. MARX, Karl. "Crítica da Filosofia do Direito de Hegel". São Paulo: Boitempo, 1844 [2006]. MONzANI, Luis Roberto. "Desejo e prazer na idade moderna." Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 1995. PRADO Jr., Bento. "A retórica de Rousseau". São Paulo: COSACNAIFY, 1975 [2008]. ROUSSEAU, JeanJacques. "Carta a d'Alembert". Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 1758 [1993]. _____. "Do Contrato Social". Col. "Os Pensadores". São Paulo: Editora Abril 1762 [1973]. _____. "Discurso sobre as ciências e as artes".". São Paulo: Ed. Abril, 1750 [1973]. Coleção Os Pensadores. VOLTAIRE. "Cartas filosóficas". São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1770 [2007]. _____. "Comentário ao contrato social" "Comentários Político." São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1762 [2001]. _____. "Défense du mondain ou l'apologie du luxe". "Oeuvres complètes". Paris: Garnier Frères, 1737 [1877]. _____. "Deus e os homens." São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1769 [2000]. _____. "Lettres philosophiques". Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1732 [1986]. _____. "Le mondain". In: Voltaire. "Oeuvres complètes". Paris: Garnier Frères, 1736 [1877]. _____. "Projet d'une lettre sur les anglaise à M***". In: Voltaire. "Lettres philosophiques". Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1727 [1986]. _____. "Sur l'usage de la vie". "Oeuvres complètes". Paris: Garnier Frères, 1770 [1877]. | {
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'A Part' of the World: Deleuze and the Logic of Creation Christopher Satoor York University Abstract Is there a particular danger in following Deleuze's philosophy to its end result? According to Peter Hallward, Deleuze's philosophy has some rather severe conclusions. Deleuze has been portrayed by him as a theological and spiritual thinker of life. Hallward seeks to challenge the accepted view of Deleuze, showing that these accepted norms in Deleuzian scholarship should be challenged and that, initially, Deleuze calls for the evacuation of political action in order to remain firm in the realm of pure contemplation. This article intends to investigate and defend Deleuze's philosophy against the critical and theological accounts portrayed by Hallward, arguing that Deleuze's philosophy is not only creative and vital but also highly revolutionary and 'a part' of the given world. It then goes on to examine Hallward's distortion of the actual/virtual distinction in Deleuze because Hallward is not able to come to grips with the concept of life in Deleuze's philosophy. We live in an intensive and dynamic world and the main points of Deleuze's philosophy concern the transformation of the world. Deleuze is not seeking to escape the world, but rather to deal with inventive and creative methods to transform society. Keywords: Deleuze, Hallward, virtual-actual, singularities, differentiation, divergence, creation, dynamism, intensities Deleuze Studies 11.1 (2017): 25–47 DOI: 10.3366/dls.2017.0250 © Edinburgh University Press www.euppublishing.com/dls 26 Christopher Satoor I. Introduction: The Context of the Turn and the Debate In the last ten years, many texts have been released about the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. Most of these texts explicate Deleuze's work in multicultural and interdisciplinary frameworks. The recent trend has been to elaborate how these concrete concepts interact in the world. This has been a successful endeavour in various fields belonging to the Humanities. The academic enterprise, in theory, has given Deleuze studies a more prominent role in the world of cultural and critical theory. It is now possible to attach Deleuze's work to theories of cinema, philosophy, postcolonialism, artwork, literature and gender studies. However, there has also been a backlash against Deleuze's work. For example, Alain Badiou released Deleuze: The Clamor of Being in 1997, which criticised Deleuze's philosophy for being too tied to the abstract. According to Badiou, Deleuze's philosophy is centred on the ascetic thinker. Badiou makes three essential claims about Deleuze's philosophy: (1) it is organised around a metaphysics of the one; (2) it contains the dispossession of the subject; and (3) it requires a creative ascetic exercise (Badiou 2004: 16). These claims have been virtually ignored by the academic community, even though Badiou was starting to make a name in French thought. It was not until Peter Hallward's text, Out of This World, in 2006 that things finally got stirred up. Badiou's text only surveys Deleuze's solitary work; it excludes his co-authored works with Félix Guattari whereas Hallward's critique contains all of Deleuze's oeuvre. Badiou's initial critique of Deleuze lies more on the grounds of interpreting Deleuzian metaphysics in regards to the event. Hallward's maintains a radical thesis, that initially Deleuze holds onto a medieval and theological project, which cuts off all relations with the world and asks its material subjects to get rid of their human essence. Overall, Hallward holds on to the notion that Deleuze's philosophy is dangerous and that it distracts all actual creatures from their world: it culminates in a philosophy of indifference. Hallward states, 'Those of us who seek to change the world and to empower its inhabitants will need to look elsewhere' (Hallward 2006: 186). Although the academic community did not respond well to Hallward's critique, there were few critical responses to Hallward's text. Initially, only a handful of critics responded. However, the debate does not start here. The fundamental attack on Deleuze was that Deleuzian politics was meaningless, singular and has no effect on the world. The recent trend in Deleuze studies is to compare Deleuze's philosophy to theology. Therefore, the debate that Deleuze and the Logic of Creation 27 starts with Hallward is perpetuated by most people working in favour of Deleuze, who limit their studies of his work to its theological dimension. Deleuzians have not adequately answered Hallward's challenge. Instead, they have ignored his claims and proceeded to use theological apparatuses to explain his concepts. Works such as F. LeRon Shults's Iconoclastic Theology: Gilles Deleuze and the Secretion of Atheism (2014), Joshua Alan Ramey's The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and Spiritual Ordeal (2012) and Christopher Ben Simpson's Deleuze and Theology (2012) are now the most used secondary literature on the French philosopher. This gesture not only accepts Hallward's thesis indirectly, it cuts off creativity in a field open to interdisciplinarity. The new literature has been fragmented; it is no longer diverse, but is restricted to solving one function, the theological. While there are still some works being written on Deleuzian politics, it has been virtually abandoned. My present mission is to explain Hallward's position and subsequently defend Deleuze's philosophy from Hallward's critique. One must make a side note that Hallward indirectly 'creates' a new language to describe Deleuze's philosophy that will be used quite frequently in order to accurately present his position. In addition to defending Deleuze, the target of this article is Hallward's logic, which inaccurately interprets the relationship between the virtual and the actual. Hallward misappropriates the real context of what creation is to Deleuze. II. Hallward's Deleuze: Theophany and the Logic of Redemption Peter Hallward states that Deleuze writes a redemptive philosophy in conjunction with his spiritual allies: Spinoza, Saint Paul and Suhrawardi (Hallward 1997b: 6). This redemptive logic is designed to 'save' its readers from a situation depraved by consciousness, representation and 'the other' (6). Redemption from the aforementioned provides an immediate access to a different kind of situation, one that is grounded on an inclusive immanence to itself. Hallward notes that Deleuze's oeuvre explicates our passage from such a contaminated situation (material life) to a purer and more primordial situation. Deleuze's corpus, according to Hallward, begins with an ontological principle, or 'God' (6). This all-powerful force is somehow repressed by its own power of creation. The logic of redemption that Hallward puts forward is one aligned with both medieval and Islamic theology. Spinoza, Saint Paul and Suhrawardi attack our human, specific and worldly forms of difference, in favour of 28 Christopher Satoor another-worldly force (7). If redemption means an act of redeeming or atoning for our mistakes and our sins, Deleuze's philosophy attempts to 'rescue' us from the material world (7). According to Hallward, Deleuze's radical philosophy of immanence must entail a rigorous attack of transcendence and refuse all forms of negation. However, Hallward points out that this very critique of transcendence, posited by Deleuze, obtains its movement through a form of transcendence. This transcendence is the move away from our apparent contaminated situation, which could be called 'the given', and contains our human significance. According to Hallward, Deleuze's 'God' asks us to leave behind our material reality for a singular, inhuman and impersonal, position (6). This transcendence is the propelling gesture of Deleuze's entire project; and one that Hallward feels is quite problematic (8). For Deleuze, Spinoza and Suhrawardi, being is defined by a singularity or univocity. For Deleuze, being is univocal and the one expresses everything of the multiple (humans, dogs, plants, stars). What this amounts to is that 'the real' creates everything it perceives and conceives. There is only one kind of production for Deleuze: the production of the real (8). Humanity is produced and must, in some way, determine the differences between the real and unreal. However, as we have seen, the real is a part of this selfexpressive and immediate reality. The real must be immediate and not a part of the material world. For Deleuze, as Hallward notes, Spinoza, Saint Paul and Suhrawardi conclude that our greatest task is to overcome all of these obstacles. Our true goal in life is to return to a different situation, one that has succumbed to a dangerous escapism. If the real is immediate and primordial then, by definition, it must subsist in all creation. There is nothing in all creation that can separate us from the intellectual love of God. Yet, interestingly enough, we live separately from God. We live as interested and positioned subjects in a world. How we relate to God, in this scenario, is imagined through a form of transcendence that conceives God through the law; and this only brings us closer to a form of sin. Deleuze's solution, like his spiritual allies, is to escape the world; we must get past the specific, the (as-if), and become immediate to God (Hallward 1997b: 9). This amounts to us being 'remade', as if our minds and our whole being were transformed into a medium of God's infinite creations. Hallward sees Deleuze's philosophy in the same light. Hallward draws an analogy from Suhrawardi's philosophy of illumination, which consists of thought being aided by light and magic. In this model, light operates at a level of Deleuze and the Logic of Creation 29 all reality and produces divine, metaphysical sources of knowledge. The human is divided into two formal bodies: one tainted by the material world and the other the soul, which is aided by the light, a light that shelters these intellects in a collective oneness. Thus, it is thought through the light that survives as the reviver and resuscitator of life. The same is produced in Saint Paul, wherein the material world is in constant flux of sin, and one must align oneself with the body of Christ in order to escape the material world (10). According to Hallward, Deleuze uses the term 'the un-thought' or 'non-sense' to describe the same otherworldly body. The multiple is an expression of the one that is determined by its relation to God (Hallward 1997b: 10). All creatures aim to return to the movement towards the light. Like Suhrawardi, we must move towards the one that springs in all forms of life. Hallward feels that Deleuze's notion of freedom in its purest state is a form of obedience. The greater the right, of the one or sovereign, the more perfect unity there will be to establish one united body or substance (13). These aforementioned points, Hallward states, direct us to the elements of Deleuze's real philosophy, which is an exclusive ontology of univocity. Hallward claims that Deleuze does not offer us a critique of representation: 'What he gives us, at best, is a . . . "critique of misrepresentation"' (Hallward 1997a: 534). All of the following shows how Deleuze repeatedly breaks out of all given situations in order to jump into an ultimate monism. This is what Hallward states is the absolute 'monarch' or sovereignty (13). According to Hallward, Deleuze wants us to give up our worldly existence for a theophany. We have no sense of the real nature of things; they have been blocked and concealed from us by our deep-rooted human disposition. What Hallward sees continuously in Deleuze is this redemptive move to save the creature. III. Actual Creatures, Virtual Creatings, Confinement and Escapism Hallward states that Deleuze's philosophy is centred on the idea that being is creation. Creation embraces all features of reality and is the pivotal centre of all of Deleuze's works. If being is creation, being is also essentially differential (Hallward 2006: 24). This process of being differential is precisely what it means to be creative. Since being is part of the absolute creativity in all there is, it must be able to differentiate itself in an infinite amount of ways. This means that the most basic element of being consists, in part, in the process of creating (24). 30 Christopher Satoor Creating, in essence, serves as the reason behind all states of affairs, individuals and events. This makes 'being' the ultimate form behind a chaotic proliferation of unlimited events and creating that become one with creation and nature (Hallward 2006: 27). Every distinct creation creates a new organism, personality, object or experience. According to Hallward, we can describe creation as one act but it proceeds as two unique movements, through creations and creatures. Hallward states that 'Creare is one, we might say it involves both the active creans and the passive creaturum. The creating is implied or implicated within its creator; the creature is an explication or unfolding of the creating' (Hallward 2006: 27). As Hallward explains, Deleuze's logic of creation applies to each case of creating and creation. Deleuze attempts, through the production of creation, to construct the real in and of itself (Hallward 1997b: 16). Differentiated creatures are a part of actual extended forms of being. Yet, their existence is contingent, based upon the material constraints of the world (bodies, organs, situations). These differentiated creations are virtual and intensive rather than extended. Creation retains a primordial, self-differing essence and this self-differing essence can only be conceived in terms of a virtuality which actualises itself. Hallward's main point is that the real creative force between these two facets is only the virtual creating. The creating does not occupy an external position to the creature, but relies on the immanent relation internal to creation and creating (Hallward 2006: 27). This immanent relation between creature and creating arises internally through the creating to the creature. Hallward insists on showing us the relation between creating and creation. There is only one form of 'active' being that is truly alive, and that stems from the virtual creating. It is only the virtual creating that can differ and produce the new and the novel. According to Hallward, no matter how much effort is put into creating a work of art, a scientific function or a philosophical concept, the only thing that matters is the process of creating. Thus, Deleuzian philosophy privileges verbs over nouns to create, to act, to build (Hallward 2006: 43). Therefore, this creating is more pure than an actual living person, place or thing. A creating is not just a novel concept; it is entirely new in itself and eternal. What makes creating new is precisely this immanent and internal spark that creates and manifests change and transformation. In reality, the actual creature is only a simulation of its 'real' identity. The material self is only an optical illusion or effect of what is produced. It is only the virtual-creating that can produce the Deleuze and the Logic of Creation 31 'new' or novel. The real essence of a creature is its de-actualised state or the moment of its virtual-creativity (36). Creation only exists through the form of creatures, and only creatures can think the necessary process in which they are actualised. However, the reality of the situation is quite different. The actualisation and individuation of the actual person is always-only the essential product of a production that is itself necessary and primary to the creature. According to Hallward, the real destiny of the actual creature is to create and invent new ways of dealing with its own material reality. This inventive apparatus of dealing with materiality is precisely the moment where the creature empties everything that constitutes the self, thus dissolving it (Hallward 2006: 38). As stated earlier, creation is a solitary action but proceeds through an inherent dualism – the creating/creature and virtual/actual – and all transformation occurs internally, in the expression which intensifies it in an immanent monism. Essentially, all singular creations exist as multiple entities in one united body. Creating retains a virtual and ideal self-sufficiency that can only be deemed creative if, and only if, it can be incarnated in an existent creature, which then expresses and inhibits its own actualisation. According to Hallward, 'The existence (and resistance) of the creature is itself an internal necessity of creation; and creatural opacity is an immanent and unavoidable obstacle to the expression or development of being itself' (Hallward 2006: 39). The obstacle to which Hallward refers is the constraint of the material world (our bodies, organisation of organs and our habits). Deleuze's philosophy is constantly at odds with the material world. According to Hallward, Deleuze's real work is devoted to creating concepts to loosen the grip of conditions on the creature. It is important to note that Deleuze dedicated two books to Spinoza; and Hallward thinks there is a specific reason for this: Deleuze's philosophy occupies the Spinozist worldview, with some subtle modifications. For example, there is no distinction of the virtual and actual in Spinoza, but Hallward points out key similarities in both thinkers' metaphysics. 'The term "naturans" implies an active, creative feature, while "naturata" implies a passive, created substance' (Hallward 2006: 57). We have seen that only the 'virtual' is active while the 'actual' creature is passive. Spinoza, like Deleuze, seeks to construe nature as a self-creating reality. Every individual is precisely an active modifying facet of this univocal substance. Each singular creating in this model maintains the divine, eternal spark from the nature of God (57). 32 Christopher Satoor To understand this process of a singular creating contained in God/substance is to comprehend how all modifications are a part of the means of expressing the divine essence. Actual creatures are not 'modes' contained in God, but can only refer to certain times and places, which relate to themselves based on their own representation (Hallward 2006: 58). These actual creatures are clearly not active creations but passive selves. They cannot be a part of the means for creating, because they cannot express the one univocal power, they are stuck and caught in their material and disinterested lives (50). What exactly does this mean? Individuated/differentiated/actual creatures suffer from 'inadequate ideas', which are precisely the aforementioned affects. They live material and interested lives. This implies that they cannot take part in nature's divine essence. Materiality implies worldly bondage, limited to temporary existence. For Hallward's Deleuze, virtual creating is the only way that the production of the new can occur. It is only through this type of production that this novel creation has eternal existence that expresses the entirety of this infinite substance, and it is only the virtual-creating that is expressive of the cosmos, or God (57). Henri Bergson, according to Hallward, devoted his entire work to the nature of the virtual. For Bergson and Deleuze, the actual represents the passive subject; its habits, needs and wants. Yet, at the core of this subject, the actual represents the present. The misrepresentation of reality, here, is that although the actual may seem quite solid to us, in reality it is blurred by a materiality that falsely shapes the creature. The virtual is reduced to memory, and it represents the past that fills in the present. According to Hallward, the actual/creature is always guided by an illusion of its real self. The virtual is both immaterial and not-present, but it is seemingly the only real, lasting dimension of reality. It is the only real creative apparatus, while the actual is stuck to a limited perspective of the organism (Hallward 2006: 41). If the actual represents an organised body, the virtual represents an inorganic body that is disorganised and stripped of its material reality. The virtual is aligned with memory and it has no action, sensation or extension. Memory represents a pure form of immediacy and intuition. Thus, memory is disinterested in all present action. It catapults us towards the middle of a pure past or pure recollection. The pure past need not strive to preserve itself; it remains whole within itself. When we reflect on the past, we are not actualising or representing a memory to ourselves. What is occurring is a moment where we are actually delving deep into the past (Hallward 2006: 43). Deleuze and the Logic of Creation 33 Hallward insists on this repeatedly: Deleuze strives for a privileged position that produces its own de-actualisation and de-materialisation to empty the subject (Hallward 2006: 81). The empty subject evacuates the known creature in order to create. This model can only be maintained correctly, in its momentum, as a theophany. Pure memory is powerless and intensive. It shares no feelings or sensations and it contains no self-interest for the creature. Although the actual/virtual cannot be considered separately, the real task of every creature is to counteractualise and reverse its own creatural state confining it to a dematerialised form (43). Actualisation belongs to the virtual and the actualisation of a virtual singularity is constituted by the plane of immanence. This plane is where the creature is properly dissolved and annihilated. The virtual is the subject of actualisation and the plane of immanence is nothing but a process which converts objects into subjects. The 'actual' denotes an existing human being who can think, feel, have sensations and qualities, and embody a life story. The virtual describes characteristics that are not presentable – virtual/creatings are never present or presentable. Hallward's example of this is taken from Deleuze's last work Pure Immanence: An Essay on a Life, in which Deleuze invokes Charles Dickens's character, Riderhood, who has a near-death experience. Hallward states that: The virtual life that lives in Riderhood, remember, is not the actual 'subject who incarnated it in the midst of things [and] who made it good or bad'; it is rather the anonymous spark of life within him, with whom everyone empathises in a sort of immediate intuition or sympathy. Such living is our only genuine subject, . . . to be equal to the events that befall it, i.e. to the creatings that transform it. (Hallward 2006: 36, quoting Deleuze 2001: 28) Virtual differentiation creates what it actualises and this is because what it really 'actualises' never resembles the singularities that it brings to life (Hallward 2006: 37). A creation is a kind of pre-existence that ignores all activity and is the resemblance of real life. As Hallward notes, 'the actual is always constituted, while the virtual is wholly constituent' (Hallward 2006: 37). This is key to understanding Deleuze's philosophy. The virtual is always creative and the actual is always created (37). Virtual-creating is a pure form of creativity in and of itself. It can be seen as a pure primordial energy, which is both the constituent force of its power to create, along with its inexhaustible need for transformation and change (37). The Virtual can only be thought of as a kind of unthinkable abstraction. The 34 Christopher Satoor force of transformation that is possessed within it is none other than a pure intensity that aids both difference/being and the virtual creating that incarnates all things. As stated earlier, the actual is no more than an illusion or ephemeral result of our true immaterial self. The virtual is 'the real' and exists more actually then our material form; and this is predicated on the fact that virtual-creations are fully intensive, while the actual is material and extended. In a manner of speaking, the virtual-creating is intensive, immaterial, unlimited and is always individuating pure forces. The actual is material, extensive, limited and individuated; it is always in a fixed state (Hallward 2006: 42). Virtual creations can be conceived as events linked to quasi-causes. Interestingly enough, Hallward states that an event to Deleuze is free of all normative and personal causality. This means that all events are virtual and, as incorporeal entities, they distance themselves from actual corporeal entities. Creation and events are the same. An event is actualised in a body. However, it also consists of a shadowy, secret form that is eventually subtracted and then added to actualisation. The virtual can be real without being 'actual'. An event exists as a kind of dead time, where what lies at the heart of it is a non-presentable, immaterial, unmoving essence or spark. Such events exist as empty floating entities or 'mean-whiles' where nothing ever takes place. This means that the virtual-event can only be grasped by escaping our subjective perspective. This involves a kind of suspension and dissolution of all actual activity. Hallward recalls Deleuze's example of a battle in which the real event hovers over the battlefield and can only be realised in its pure imperceptible state (Hallward 2006: 42). An event that occurs cannot be part of our world; it must be out of this world. All identity disappears from the self and the world in these virtual events. What replaces 'real' material life is a power to intuit this impersonal reality, which is presented to us, as a new world, beyond the given. This given is material life in flux. However, we must somehow block this flux in its movement and align with the singular (44). All creatures that are able to create and to think must find the necessary means to escape the world, in order that they continue to be creative and thoughtful. Philosophy is obliged to lead us from actual to virtual; or from our world it must then lead us 'out of this world' (Hallward 2006: 44). The goal of this philosophy is not just to leap out of the world into another realm. Since, as actualised material beings, we are alienated and confined to a false identity of ourselves, our escape entails our de-actualisation or 'deterritorialisation', which brings us back Deleuze and the Logic of Creation 35 to the point of virtual-creating previously discussed. This virtual-creating is an impersonal and immaterial existence. The 'real' layers of our human form, such as needs, wants, desire and habits, are part of stratification. To stratify means building material layers that form our representation of this world. According to Hallward, Deleuze asks us to de-stratify ourselves, and to remove the layers of humanity, dismantle the actual creature and destroy the 'organised organism' (Hallward 1997a: 534). We must become a 'body-without-organs' and a 'body-without-others'. Our material body must attain a state where it can remove and de-populate itself from the world. For Robinson Crusoe (deserted on an island), the creative aspect of his existence is the moment where he no longer functions as a human, but as the virtual spark of the island that connects all life to one immanent life (Hallward 2006: 23). Our creatural confinement has to do with our actual existence and our material presence. These obstacles are imposed on the creature by our material constraints. Our task, as creators, is to loosen the grip of the material world and let out the virtual-creating that has been imprisoned inside of us. A creative body is never an actual entity, but is a wholly virtual one. Like Robinson Crusoe, we must learn to annihilate ourselves in order to let the 'eventisland' live thorough us (23). IV. In Defence of Deleuze's Logic of Creation: Univocity and Equality For Deleuze, the idea of becoming-subject involves a rupture. We must fundamentally break the ties that bind a subject to all formal representation. A subject and an apple can only individuate themselves based on an internal form of difference, an expressive, dynamic form. In order to ground difference in an expressive and dynamic form of comprehension, Deleuze needs to disclose a form of difference that is not created through the mediation of representation but understood through an absolute immediacy, a pure contemplation. This form of immediacy or pure contemplation is misrepresented by Hallward. The fallacy of Hallward's critique of Deleuze lies in the fact that we are presented with a Deleuze who embraces all forms of representation, who grounds difference on the negative and who takes advantage of the notion of life. Hallward's critique presents us with man as the centre of all life and our mission as being to become anonymous, imperceptible and de-materialise. If man is to become the centre of all life then why would Deleuze demand the destruction of the subject? The destruction 36 Christopher Satoor of the subject would then signal the removal of man from the world. These two claims do not coincide. Hallward's is far from the picture that Deleuze paints of life. According to Deleuze, difference can only be understood as difference once it can 'differentiate' what pertains to it (Deleuze 1994: 172). What is needed for this process is a singular individuating difference. This may sound peculiar, but what Deleuze has in mind is an entirely differential ontology that invokes the creation of a subject outside of our sensory-motor schema. He aims to present us with subjects who can formally oppose this representational schema on a new ground, that of repetition. What does this mean? In order to prevent us from falling into Hallward's trap of an 'a-subjective', 'a-specific' being, we need to recognise how Deleuze uses Duns Scotus' model of univocity. Since difference cannot be understood through negation and opposition, this newly created 'difference-in-itself' has no formal predicates standing behind it. The shadow of difference will only be repetition, which is the production of the new; the production of new difference. In essence, this means that difference must be its own 'differentiator of difference', or what Deleuze calls 'a dark precursor' that is always in-between the forces of life, pulling them together and creating unities (119). It is easy to get caught up in a thinker's jargon, and most of the problems that stem from accounts of Deleuze are the result of misrepresenting these subtle processes. Hallward, for example, creates the notions of creator, creating and creation in order to understand all the alterations of difference. Yet, by doing this, he often misses steps and blurs the distinctions between fundamental aspects of the philosophy. For now, what we need to do is familiarise ourselves with univocity and Scotus' model of being. The principle of univocity holds that all being is singular and that all entities are unique and resonate the same being within all of reality. Deleuze states, 'Being is univocal and it only has one single voice' (Deleuze 1994: 35). This singular ontology does not mean that all objects and entities are thrown into the same melting pot. Once being is understood as singular, and this univocal principle is actualised, it posits a radical thesis: all individuals, objects and entities should be comprehended as pure intensities. Deleuze sees pure difference as a formal intensity that lies behind difference. When we as individuals are actualised in activities, this intensive stream of individuality is turned into an extensive force. We can call this intensity 'a pre-personal' form of difference. It takes the shape of a potential which is then actualised and individuated. This form of individuation takes a pure potential and turns it into an extensive reality. This means there are two forms of pure difference: one is a virtual Deleuze and the Logic of Creation 37 structure behind an entity and the pre-personal. This is what Deleuze calls differentiation, and it deals with intensity and the intensive (Deleuze 1994: 207). The other form of pure difference is known as the actual. It is the individuation of being. What is important to note is that this notion of intensity lies behind the relationship of both difference and repetition, a difference that creates the new and the extensive. Both of these forms of difference are based on a univocal model. Deleuze states that 'univocal being is at one and the same time a nomadic distribution of crowned anarchy' (Deleuze 1994: 36). It is easy to misinterpret Deleuze's conception of crowned anarchy. Essentially, it should be understood as a set of multiples being expressive of this singular difference that makes up all of reality. Deleuze posits the theorem of monism = pluralism; what he has in mind is a theory of monism that stresses more importance on a pluralism. Each and every individual is essentially made up of this one totality. Each individual is expressive of this whole. Deleuze sees this monism in a different light than the history of monism in philosophy. What he ideally formulates is a monism with a unique variation of the multiple, each multiple possessing its own fundamental perspective of the whole. This is precisely why difference must produce the intensive. We must first be acquainted with life in order to be able to express it. Intensity is understood as a depth of the world, which opens a new space around us, that once actualised can be extensive or extended to be part of this whole. Hallward does not see the model in this way. He presumes that this crowned anarchy must be viewed like Thomas Hobbes's political model of a Leviathan standing over all beings. Since the state of nature is dangerous, it is the Leviathan, a giant, that keeps everyone in their place working towards society. This model makes all individuals fall prey to the rules and regulations of the one, but this one is a determinate totality, meaning everything is fixed in place. In Hallward's interpretation of Deleuze, his monism is a prison for actual creatures. Their mission is to de-actualise and become part of this Leviathan. Notice here, it is the Leviathan that gives us a reality. It is what centres our 'representation' of the world. Thus, Hallward's comparison of the Leviathan and its sovereign reign does not align with the Deleuzian singular and its perspective-based monism. Hallward is still presenting Deleuze's philosophy in the realm of opposition, analogy and negation. These errors of representation form what Deleuze calls the 'black nothingness of difference' (Deleuze 1994: 28). Deleuze differentiates between the colours black and white to express the difference between 38 Christopher Satoor intensity and representation. The colour black denotes the absence of all colours. All we have to do is think of the concept of a black hole which swallows all forms of light. If we cannot think of these colours outside of the black background as being individual intensities or individual differences, than all of them would melt into this black nothingness. What representation, analogy, negation and opposition present us with is a model of the same and the similar. Once we have melted into the same blackness, we are no longer individuated, actualised and grounded on our own unique perspective. All is lost in this ubiquitous self-same law of how things are supposed to appear to us. This is the negation of difference and the individual. This is how Hallward's argument depicts Deleuze: Deleuze, for Hallward, wants to melt everything into the same substance. In this melting of all things there is no room for difference because difference is negated. Hallward's position misrepresents Deleuze, and depicts an internal form of representation. This creates the space to move difference, the singular and the individual into nothingness. This destroys the model of uniqueness, expression and individuality. It reduces all particulars to the same. It also depicts our current societal state. We have a society of unique differences that are moulded according to how the 'one' imposes its structure. Either all individuality is reduced to the same in order to make each of these individuals a profitable outlet that gives back to the system; or they are not conducive to the system as a whole and their differences are not welcomed. The whole is fragmented on the schism of how the multiple should relate to the one. This forced conception blurs the distinction between who produces and who is seen as 'wholly other', creating and fragmenting a system of others that are never visible in the societal whole. Yet, Deleuze's univocal model is better described as an 'undifferentiated white abyss' (Deleuze 1994: 28). In this model, Deleuze makes room for every differential equation. If we look at the colour white as the elemental that exists in all colours, its dynamic spark or expressive intensity is contained in all visible reality. All colours possess a degree of whiteness in their constitution. The fundamental element of difference is what links the multiple with the whole. However, we are taught through the history of philosophy that to differentiate between two things we must not base this knowledge on a creative intensity that everyone possesses. Rather, we are taught to exclude and see reality through the eyes of opposition and negation. The method of equal intensity is how we are to understand univocity; the process of differentiation is what preserves all 'individual' being. Deleuze and the Logic of Creation 39 Crowned anarchy is, therefore, not a sovereign, medieval deity, which stands guard over us and makes us obey the rigid laws of the one. This result fragments difference. Crowned anarchy is like a giant white wall. Now, this white wall is entirely made up of several degrees of intensity that form the concept of white. Yet, there are unique variations and degrees of white that make up the wall. It is this multiple variation of intensity that differentiates between other degrees and forms a cohesive and singular reality. Notice here that each variation of white makes up the one. Each variation has its own unique perspective of the whole. The black nothingness isolates and cuts all the degrees of intensity, and severs difference and the subject. It melts them into the absorption of the one. These multiple perspectives of the one make reality; they add to it, they are part of the dynamic flow and flux of life. When life is severed from its activity, it is no longer active, but a passive subject that is melted into the framework of a false reality. We no longer believe in the world because we are cut off from its relations. The world in which we do believe again is this world built upon a univocal framework. This 'undifferentiated-difference' is the white abyss, where each subject is seen as an 'equal quality' of its infinite expression. This white wall has an infinite amount of attributes and an infinite amount of degrees; each individual reverberates and allows multiple sensations that can grasp all of reality. What univocity can offer us is a fundamental model of difference that is unaffected by representation. The real method behind the univocity of being and the differentiation of difference is to show how singular difference can differentiate among differential entities 'only' when all objects, subjects, animals and entities are seen as an equal part of reality. This essential equality allows the space for all beings to express of themselves in all of 'life'. Deleuze's differential ontology is first and foremost 'a philosophy of life'. This is the real method behind Deleuze. Hallward is right that Deleuze devoted two texts to Spinoza. However, Deleuze's fundamental pursuit, in his Spinozist analysis, is the hidden element of reality, the hidden element behind difference, 'intensity' and how this intensivedifference could become dynamic and expressive. Deleuze's texts on Spinoza are not about a God who can redeem us from the poison of the world, nor is there any logic of salvation built into this framework. It is the concept of 'expression' that Deleuze devotes these two books to. How can we become expressive again? How can we believe in a world that we ourselves cannot express? And so the leading statement of the text is the following: 'We still do not know what a body can do' (Deleuze 1990b: 2010). The real question behind these texts is how can a body 40 Christopher Satoor become an adequate expression of itself and all reality (210)? The real thinker that Deleuze models his metaphysics after is Leibniz. He devoted an entire text to Leibniz's conception of how reality is built by layers, or folds. Each layer or fold is like a line, a reality built upon a neverending series of lines. Each one of these lines or layers forms the identity or perspective of each unique differential being (Deleuze 1993: 8). When a line of intensity converges or is forced to converge on any kind of representational assemblage, this singular line deteriorates and is blocked from expressing its unique perspective on the whole. This process is what Deleuze calls 'reterritorialisation'. If a line can diverge away from the series, if it is allowed to fold and enfold, creating a new series amongst the whole, this process is called 'deterritorialisation'. This is the real process behind life; to create new assemblages and form new series of differential beings. Life must create expressive outlets for these continued processes of divergence. This divergence is called a 'line of flight', and once it frees itself from the convergence of the series, a new difference is produced through the repetition that embodies the series. This is the continued cycle we live in. Difference is first thrown into the face of a converging series, wherein it is blocked, cut off and reduced to representational ambiguities. Or, it can produce differential-being by diverging from the series, thus repeating the expressive-dynamic flow of life. Difference and repetition are the basis of reality. This is the model of being that Deleuze imports from Leibniz. We do not need to go too in-depth into Leibniz's theory, but it is important that we see the close connection between Leibniz's monad and Deleuze differential-singular being. According to Leibniz, a monad is a simple substance that is encased in 'the one' of reality or the universe (Deleuze 1993: 26). If we return to the example of the white wall, each monad, like the degrees of intensity that constitute it, forms all of reality. Each of these simple substances differentiates itself in the whole by dynamically adding in its own perspective. When a line diverges from the series, the repetition of its movement and its divergence creates 'a new difference', an 'extensive difference'. Subsequently, this extensive difference is what adds its perspective on the whole. A newly created perspective, 'singulardifferential extensive', creates the dynamic whole: a pluralism that makes up a monism. Where representation demands recognition, univocity implies an inherent equality that is the basis of all human reality. All living beings are 'a part' of this organic one-all. Each monad, as a subject, animal and plant, is conceived of as a differend (Deleuze 1994: 230). Each monad must actively animate itself from passive difference to Deleuze and the Logic of Creation 41 active difference, from representation to univocal singularity, from intensive to extensive, the move from the convergent series to a divergent actuality. Hallward completely misrepresents Deleuze. Instead of portraying an immediate 'white undifferentiated intensive' that is affected and expressive of an 'immanent' reality, he presents Deleuze bound to forms of representation, melted into the black nothingness. The underlying message of this black nothingness to Hallward is categorised by a God who demands that his subjects become nonliving entities and transcend every human assemblage. Once a univocal conception of difference is actualised and divergent deterritorialisation is affirmed: The body is no longer the obstacle that separates us from thought itself. But it is the movement that we overcome, a false sense of thinking that we shatter, once this is realized, we are plunged into the depths of reaching the unthought that is life, not that the body thinks but now it is free from the obstinate and stubborn world of identity, it is difference which forces us to think what is concealed from thought and reality. (Deleuze 1989: 189) The above quote shows what life is for Deleuze, a life without categories and a body-without-hierarchies. Hallward confuses this conception of the singular. He misunderstands that all life is creation, for Deleuze, and the novel and the new are a part of the dynamic between the convergent and divergent series. V. The Active Subject and the Three Syntheses of the Singular We know that Deleuze characterises the subject by a singular difference and that at the very base of the subject is a form of intensity. Nevertheless, this is still a difficult concept to grasp. According to Deleuze, the subject is part of a tripartite dialectic. Now, Deleuze never uses the word 'dialectic'. We are going to invoke this terminology because these three syntheses of the subject are asymmetrical, meaning they are always occurring at each moment. Each multidimensional layer involved in this synthesis is interacting with several stimuli and being affected and reproducing a new effect. This dialectic is staged between the past, the present and the future. The Humean subject is an empty screen. Like a movie theatre, it is empty until a projector passively shines images upon it. This passive screen lets in these sense impressions, forming a bundle of experiences. This sensuous bundle is what Deleuze defines as a habitual experience of sense data that affect us in our daily lives, forming our day-to42 Christopher Satoor day moments. These moments of habit, or contracting a habit, is what Deleuze calls the process of 'habitus' and this denotes all present experience. Habit becomes the constitutive root of the passive subject but in order for this present to pass or be filled in with context, the past must be able to actively integrate and substitute a complete consciousness. Deleuze invokes the Bergsonian 'pure past' as that which conditions the present, for the present could be nothing without a past that has not passed (Deleuze 1990a: 61). The pure past is a transcendental feature for Deleuze and it is this transcendental feature that gives content and depth to the passive subject. Interestingly enough, this form of pure past is what Hallward describes as empty and what causes friction between the material and the immaterial. However, what Hallward does not grasp is that this pure past is not in some immaterial realm. Time grounds the subject. Time is also the feature that aids repetition and meaning. Time is part of the virtual structure that pushes the convergent series into a divergent series. Deleuze calls this 'recollection-subjectivity and contraction-subjectivity' (53). The present will always be part of the actual subject, but an actual subject without intensity and extensity is nothing other than an empty shell. Yet, something is still required of the subject and there is a missing step. If Deleuze is trying to map out the free-flowing line of flight from passive to active subject, then what is it that animates these polar identities? What is it that connects the potential with the actual? This problem has caused many rifts in Deleuzian thought. What we need to remember is that Deleuze is not 'emptying' out the subject in order to bring forward some dynamic immaterial force. What activates these two forces is the most ambiguous and problematic feature in all of Deleuze's philosophy. This feature is the death of the subject. What we have to keep in mind is that, for Deleuze, thought really maps onto the body and each decade of thought changes the milieu of peoples. We have seen the Humean paradigm and the Bergsonian, but to truly understand the death of the subject we have to jump backwards into the Kantian paradigm. We should keep in mind that death for Deleuze is not how we perceive death today. It is not the end or the destruction of the subject. We need to establish some background in the history of philosophy first before we can begin to understand this idea of the death of the subject. For Descartes, time is held in place by the divine and the mechanistic world is created by God. The world works like clockwork and every part of the body has its place and role. In answering the question of subjectivity, Kant starts off with the same Cartesian problematic. Kant Deleuze and the Logic of Creation 43 uses the 'cogito' as the sole condition that solidifies the subject. Kant explains that this new cogito is a transcendental feature, meaning that it helps the human organism conform to its awareness. This 'I' that helps condition the subject is the main synthesis of all of our experience. It is best described by Kant as the faculties. What we call 'the self' today is part of the transcendental illusion, the illusion that we have a self. Kant agrees with Hume that we are just passive subjects. Those faculties that consist of the 'I' merely synthesise all of our experience, although its function is not really part of the subject. Kant has two functions of subjectivity: the 'I' and the 'self'. However, the 'self' is aided by reason to uphold this illusion, this thing-in-itself. This moment in Kant's philosophy between these two identities is what creates the schizophrenic subject for Deleuze. This rupture in all passive experience forms a fundamental dualism. Deleuze affirms that this sequence in thought creates a global unrest in the universal subject. The schizophrenic 'I' is never consolidated and Hegel's solution to this problem between the world of phenomena and noumena is to create the dialectic of representation, which fragments the subject even further. According to Deleuze, both Kant and Hegel uphold this ironic gesture of death. In order to free our judgements from being passive and empty, Kant creates the notion of practical reason, which makes this illusion of self have the power to create judgements. In addition, Hegel's gesture is to formulate a negative ground to solve the problem of this inherent lack. Deleuze is willing to accept this moment between the schizophrenic 'I' and the illusion of the 'self', but only if another solution is able to fix the problem. Practical reason in the form of judgements cannot help condition the subject. Neither can the negative ground, if habits fundamentally form the constituency of the subject and the past is our access to filling in these experiences with depth. Deleuze is in the same position as Kant and Hegel: something must be able to ground the unconditioned conditions. In other words, Deleuze needs a fundamental synthesis to conjoin this moment of schizophrenia. The Kantian route is to make this empty subject believe in the illusion of the self and the soul, by giving it judgements. However, judgements depend upon the false kind of representation that forms convergent blockages. This form of representation creates an indifferent-difference. The Hegelian path leads to controlling the subject, by letting it be guided by the ground of the negative. Since this ground does nothing but give the subject an objective lack, Hegel's answer is that transcendence must be posited in order to align self-consciousness with a form of absolute knowing. 44 Christopher Satoor The key to answering this solution, according to Deleuze, is that all humans exist among these processes of Humean habits, Bergsonian time and Kantian illusions. However, Deleuze's solution is to dissolve these representational habits and illusory judgements of self, difference must peel back the layers of its passivity. This becoming-intensive is Deleuze's solution. What Deleuze calls the 'death drive' is the moment of freeing these forced representational sedimentations on the body. Judgements, opposites and habits create hierarchies on the subject. Since we go through this continual process between the 'I' and the self, Deleuze states that Nietzsche's eternal return will be our saving grace. Every time we reach this point of tension between the schizophrenic 'I' and the self, repetition creates the production of the new, a new difference, the dissolving of the self. This brings us closer to what really makes the subject, its real actions and real potential, a real new difference. This stripped-down subject is the virtual-body: it is a body-withoutorgans, a non-hierarchised, non-sexualised subject. What is left of the subject is nothing but a series of active larval selves beneath our habits and representations. These larval selves represent the pre-individual singularities and activities that we possess. It is a dynamic self, and a real configuration of difference, because we go through this process constantly. When the cycle is repeated we go back to this state of pre-individual activities. Our goal is to affirm our absolute intensive actuality, we are more than just our habits, and this is why Deleuze calls on Nietzsche's idea of becoming and the eternal return. These larval selves are pure affirmation. They create the multitude that makes us an active being. What makes 'you' you is not your habits, or the way the world is represented to you, but how you 'actualise' your dynamic power, your creative spark, and this is the solution to the dualism between the 'I' and the self; beneath the crude materiality of everything, there is another self, an 'other-self', a multiple of selves that make up the unity of all of our activity. Deleuze claims that 'Underneath the self which acts are little selves which contemplate and which render possible both action and the active subject' (Deleuze 1994: 75). Action is greater than judgements. Life outweighs illusion and simulacra. This statement by Deleuze means that the 'self' is not based on its level of passivity or a crisis of illusion. Rather, it is the essential and dynamic, the intensive and the active self. When we act, and affirm all of the potential living beneath us, this chance, this 'roll of the dice', hands us back over to our lives (Deleuze 2006: 25). Deleuze and the Logic of Creation 45 VI. Constructivism and the Actual and the Virtual Partly what makes Peter Hallward's critique so strong is the logic of theophany that he invokes on Deleuze. Hallward states that Deleuze partakes in a one-all logic. One cannot really deny this framework but there are two points we must address: (1) the one-all does not refer to a unifying totality but to the plane of all thought and life, because Deleuze invokes a philosophy of constructivism and it is centred on the logic of creation; (2) in order to pass off this logic, Hallward makes a category mistake between immanence as the plane of all thought and emanation, a medieval theological concept. For Deleuze, concepts represent fundamental events and literally all events, and concepts, are part of this pre-philosophical plane. Even concepts go through the process of differentiation. Differentiation represents a virtual structure for Deleuze; we must not understand the virtual in terms of virtual reality, but as a moment of a structure or pre-individual singularity awaiting actualisation. These presupposed moments are called problems/structures. The problematic is an intensive field of differentiation, meaning it consists of several pre-individual singularities. Like our larval state, the pre-individual activities have not been actualised and individuated. The real process is to actualise these problematic structures and turn them into life solutions. These potentialities have the necessary means to germinate into life cycles. Deleuze's philosophy maps out these ontogenetic and morphogenetic processes. We must return to the world, return to life, and thus, Deleuze's philosophy is an ontology of life. Hallward is correct that Deleuze has a vital philosophy but his one-all does not refer to a God and his creatures, rather to multiple processes that involve these preindividual potentials in their virtual structure; their convergent state and the movement to their actualisation into a real solution, 'a real life'. The actual signals the divergent series and the production of the new. These virtual/actual multiples make up all of our reality and can be defined as simple problems and solutions. They cannot be reduced to a deity, for a deity is a representation of how the world works. If we look at simple vegetal life, plants form a virtual structure with the earth, there are pre-individual singularities that make up their constitution, and what photosynthesis produces in plant life is the process of intensity, which takes sunlight and turns it into simple sugars feeding the plant. The plant then takes the nutrients and actualises them all over its body and then returns what is left to the soil. This active genesis or 'differenciation' in 46 Christopher Satoor the plant is what Deleuze calls becoming-intense (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 197). This differential ontology starts off with 'differentiation' (virtual structure) and then moves to 'differenciation' (the genesis of actuality). To Deleuze, this is life solving problems and creation and novelty working at every second. So the structure of the virtual-actual is not the fundamental dualism posited by Hallward, but is an asymmetrical synthesis of life. Concepts are formed in the same manner, a problem is posed in a pre-individual state and the concept is created out of thought and actualised as a solution. Descartes created the cogito as a solution to radical subjectivity, and in doing this he solved the problem of medieval subjectivity. Any time this dynamic logic of creation is used – virtual/actual, convergent/divergent, differentiation/differenciation – the outcome is always an 'event'. An event is the individuation and actualisation of differenciation (the incarnation of the actual); Deleuze's point is that we are always-already in a problem. Life is about these fundamental encounters and solving each moment. It is not just the human organism that encounters problem-solving; the forces of life work in this exact way. This is something that Hallward is not able to accept. A thunderstorm, states Deleuze, is a virtual structure, the tension in the ground and the surge of electrical energy in the clouds create the process of differentiation; this is the moment of pre-individual singularities that create the potential that causes this influx of intensity. The actualisation or genesis of the storm is the bolt of lightning; this is the process of differenciation or the actual individuation of the storm. Life works through 'the logic of creation', and our means of problem-solving are created through concepts elaborated through philosophy, art, science and politics. Hallward is not able to accept this kind of creation of the new because he sees Deleuze's philosophy based on a false ground of immanence. VII. Conclusion: 'A Part' of This World In conclusion, Peter Hallward's critique of Deleuze exploits the concept of life. Deleuze's philosophy is one that is based on 'a logic of creation', a vital and dynamic expression of how we as subjects can 'believe' in the world again. The world, for Deleuze, is comparable to an egg. It is an egg that always puts us into a problem and an 'encounter' with life. If the world is embryonic, it is because among its endless possibilities are contained these pre-individual potentialities awaiting Deleuze and the Logic of Creation 47 our indefinite actualisation. If we are always-already in a problem, it is because we are always 'in the world', a world that is bound to the logic of creation, where intensity and difference are united in all activities of life. The production of the new, creation and novelty are occurring at every second, from thunderstorms, to photosynthesis, to procreation. Deleuze's philosophy is a system that maps our becoming-germinal, and this process is not in some other-worldly realm or held together by a God. It is 'we' that determine the flux and flow of all of our actions. Deleuze thinks that by changing the configuration of our understanding, by getting rid of false hierarchies and representations, we can have another chance at becoming a subject and becoming another self that is 'a part' of a dynamic and expressive world. References Badiou, Alain (2004) Deleuze: The Clamor of Being, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Deleuze, Gilles (1989) Cinema 2: The Time-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Deleuze, Gilles (1990a) Bergsonism, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam, New York: Zone Books. Deleuze, Gilles (1990b) Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, trans. Martin Joughin, New York: Zone Books. Deleuze, Gilles (1993) The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque, trans. Tom Conley, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Deleuze, Gilles (1994) Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton, New York: Columbia University Press. Deleuze, Gilles (2001) Pure Immanence: Essays on a Life, trans. Anne Boyman, New York: Zone Books. Deleuze, Gilles (2006) Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans. Hugh Tomlinson, New York: Columbia University Press. Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari (1987) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Hallward, Peter (1997a) 'Deleuze and the World Without Others', Philosophy Today, 41:4, pp. 530–40. Hallward, Peter (1997b) 'Gilles Deleuze and the Redemption from Interest', Radical Philosophy, 81, pp. 6–18. Hallward, Peter (2006) Out of This World: Deleuze and the Philosophy of Creation, London: Verso. Your short guide to the EUP Journals Blog http://euppublishingblog.com/ A forum for discussions relating to Edinburgh University Press Journals 1. 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Teoria cauzală a referinței a lui Saul Kripke Nicolae Sfetcu 11.06.2019 Sfetcu, Nicolae, "Teoria cauzală a referinței a lui Saul Kripke", SetThings (11 iunie 2019), URL = https://www.setthings.com/ro/teoria-cauzala-a-referintei-a-lui-saul-kripke/ Email: [email protected] Acest articol este licențiat sub Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International. Pentru a vedea o copie a acestei licențe, vizitați http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/. Începând cu anii 1960, Kripke a fost o figură centrală într-o serie de domenii legate de logica matematică, filozofia limbii, filosofia matematicii, metafizica, epistemologia și teoria seturilor. A avut contribuții influente și originale la logică, în special logica modală, și în filozofia analitică, cu o semantică a logicii modale care implică lumi posibile, numită acum semantica Kripke. (Fodor 2004) El a dezvoltat argumentul că necesitatea este o noțiune "metafizică", care trebuie separată de noțiunea epistemică a priori, și că există adevăruri necesare care sunt adevăruri a posteriori, cum ar fi "apa asta este H2O". În Numire și necesitate Kripke a propus o teorie cauzală a referinței, conform căreia un nume se referă la un obiect prin virtutea unei conexiuni cauzale cu obiectul, mediată de comunitățile vorbitorilor. El afirmă, de asemenea, că numele proprii, spre deosebire de majoritatea descrierilor, sunt desemnări rigide (numele propriu se referă la obiectul numit în orice lume posibilă în care obiectul există). (S. Kripke 1980) Ideile din Numire și necesitate au evoluat în timp, dezvoltându-se pe baza cercetărilor formale anterioare în teoria modelelor pentru logica modală, pe baza principiului leibnizian al indiscernabilității identicilor. Kripke afirmă că descrierile nu pot fi luate ca definiții ale denumirilor, nici referințele lor, nici semnificațiile lor. Kripke introduce astfel termenul "designator rigid" pentru ceva ce desemnează același obiect în orice lume posibilă și susține că numele proprii sunt denumiri rigide. Existența unui designator rigid nu implică faptul că obiectul există în orice lume posibilă. Aceasta presupune doar că în acele lumi în care designatorul există, este același obiect. Kripke enumeră și începe să discute cele șase teze ale teoriei descriptiviste a numelor, evidențiind o condiție (de necircularitate) necesară pentru satisfacerea acestor teze: Pentru orice teorie de succes, exprimarea nu trebuie să fie circulară. Proprietățile utilizate la vot nu trebuie să implice ele însele noțiunea de referință în așa fel încât să fie în cele din urmă imposibil de eliminat. El respinge teoria conform căreia referentul unui nume trebuie identificat printr-un proces de judecată în care descrierile sunt comparate sau evaluate. Pentru a evita circularitatea, descripția identificatoare, deși nu trebuie să includă o auto-referință, poate să includă o referire la referința altcuiva (o referință poate să-și împrumute de la o altă referință autentificarea sa). Astfel, Kripke schițează o teorie cauzală a referinței: un nume se răspândește ca printr-un lanț prin vorbe între oameni. Lanțul începe când un copil primește numele și părinții încep să vorbească despre copilul care folosește acest nume. La celălalt capăt ar putea fi o persoană care nu s-a întâlnit niciodată cu persoana și cu siguranță nu știe calea urmată de lanțul de nume pentru a ajunge la el. În opinia lui Kripke, există o legătură de la "botezul" inițial, dar detaliile sunt neclare. Spre deosebire de Strawson care impune cerința că vorbitorul trebuie să știe de la cine a primit referința, (Strawson 1950) teoria lui Kripke nu impune nicio cerință de felul acesta: ceea ce este relevant nu este cum gândește vorbitorul că a primit referința, ci lanțul actual de comunicare. Referința, pentru Kripke, depinde nu doar de ceea ce gândim noi înșine, ci și de comunitate, de istoria modului în care numele ajunge să fie preluat de vorbitor, și de alte aspecte asemănătoare. Pentru o astfel de teorie rezultatele sunt oarecum diferite în cazul unui om faimos față de un om obișnuit. Practic, conform lui Kripke, are loc un „botez" inițial în cadrul căruia obiectul poate fi numit prin ostensiune sau referința numelui poate fi fixată printr-o descriere. Când o persoană comunică altora numele, cel care primește numele trebuie să aibă intenția, atunci când îl folosește, să îi atribuie aceeași referință. Kripke admite că există anumite cazuri în care descrierile determină de fapt o referință, dar acestea nu sunt sinonime cu numele. Referentul numelor este de obicei determinat de o serie de legături cauzale între oamenii care au folosit numele, iar atunci când referentul unui nume este determinat de o proprietate atribuită acelui lucru numit, legătura este contingentă, mai degrabă decât necesară sau esențială. Kripke evidențiază situația în care vorbitorul are opinii eronate despre o persoană, caz în care referința este determinată prin aceea că vorbitorul este un membru al unei comunități de vorbitori care utilizează numele, care a fost transmis prin tradiție de la o verigă la alta. Rolul proprietăților unic identificatoare, în multe cazuri de designare, este doar să fixeze o referință, prin unele indicii contingente. Această teorie cauzală a referinței poate genera mai multe probleme: pot există nume care nu se referă, lanțul poate fi întrerupt, poate apare o schimbare de referință, etc. În plus, Kripke nu a explicat suficient ce anume constituie o "legătură" în lanț. Conform lui Kripke, sensul unui nume este obiectul la care se referă, și referentul unui nume este determinat de o legătură cauzală între un fel de "botez" și declarațiile ulterioare. El recunoaște astfel posibilitatea unor proprietăți semantice suplimentare pentru propozițiile care conțin nume, putându-se explica astfel de ce două nume care se referă la aceeași persoană pot da valori diferite ale adevărului în propoziții despre credințe. Ulterior, în articolul Un puzzle despre credință, Kripke pare să se opună acestei posibilități. (S. A. Kripke 1979) Argumentul său ar fi acela că două nume care se referă la același obiect dar au proprietăți semantice diferite ar trebui să explice prin faptul că numele co-referențiale se comportă diferit în propoziții despre credințe diferite. Kripke afirmă că acest lucru demonstrează că atribuirea de proprietăți semantice suplimentare numelor nu explică ce se intenționează. Kripke schițează o imagine cauzală a numelor cu două componente: fixarea referinței și împrumutul de referință. (Devitt and Sterelny 1999) Fixarea referinței unui nume se obține în virtutea unui "botez inițial". Referința este fixată la un obiect de către o persoană prezentă, prin ostensiune sau prin descriere. Ulterior numele se propagă prin împrumutul de referință, printr-un "lanț de comunicare cauzal", răspândindu-se în comunitate. Lanțul se păstrează cel puțin cât timp persoanele care aud numele identifică referința cu același obiect despre care au auzit. Kripke oferă exemple în care teoria lui nu pare să eșueze, precum în cazul schimbărilor de referință de la o persoană care a existat la un caracter fictiv. Lanțul cauzal al referinței poate include o persoană care nu s-a întâlnit niciodată cu persoana referențiată și să nu știe ce calea a urmat lanțul pentru a ajunge la el. În exemplul faimosului fizician american Richard Feynman, "Chiar dacă nu-și mai amintește de la cine a auzit de Feynman sau de la cine a auzit vreodată de Feynman. Știe că Feynman este un faimos fizician. Un anumit pasaj din comunicare care se referă în cele din urmă la omul însuși [Feynman] ajunge la vorbitor. Atunci el se referă la Feynman chiar dacă nu-l poate identifica în mod unic. (...) [Ar putea] avea probleme în a distinge între Gell-Mann și Feynman. Deci, el nu trebuie să știe aceste lucruri, în schimb a fost stabilit un lanț de comunicare care merge până la însuși Feynman, în virtutea apartenenței la o comunitate care a trecut numele de la o legătură la alta." (S. Kripke 1980, 91) Din păcate, Kripke nu oferă prea multe și clare detalii, precum ce anume constituie o "legătură" în lanț. În plus, teoria lui Kripke generează și anumite probleme, precum existența numelor care nu referă la persoane reale, sau posibilitatea ca lanțul să se întrerupă, sau să apară o schimbare de referință pe parcurs, precum în cazul Madagascar analizat de Gareth Evans. (Evans and Altham 1973) Searle, în Nume proprii și intenționalitate, (Searle 1982) critică teoria lui Kripke: explicația introducerii numelui în botez este, în fapt, descriptivă; lanțul cauzal extern nu ajunge la obiect, doar la botezul obiectului, care poate sau nu să aibă o legătură cauzală externă cu obiectul; putem să introducem un nume prin descriere și să îl folosim ca referință, chiar și ca "designator rigid", iar entitățile abstracte cu nume proprii sunt incapabile să inițieze lanțuri cauzale fizice; lanțul cauzal nu este "pur", include un conținut intelectual asociat cu fiecare utilizare a unui nume. Concluzia lui este că imaginea lanțului de cauzalitate al lui Kripke nu oferă nici o condiție suficientă, nici una necesară. Greșeala unei astfel de teorii cauzale ar fi că ea depășește analogia dintre referință și percepție care este dezvoltată explicit de Donnellan. (Donnellan 1974) Bibliografie Devitt, Michael, and Kim Sterelny. 1999. Language and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language. MIT Press. Donnellan, Keith S. 1974. "Speaking of Nothing." Philosophical Review 83 (1): 3–31. Evans, Gareth, and J. E. J. Altham. 1973. "The Causal Theory of Names." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 47: 187–225. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4106912. Fodor, Jerry. 2004. "Water's Water Everywhere." London Review of Books, October 21, 2004. https://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n20/jerry-fodor/waters-water-everywhere. Kripke, Saul. 1980. Naming and Necessity. Harvard University Press. Kripke, Saul A. 1979. "A Puzzle About Belief." In Meaning and Use, edited by A. Margalit, 239–83. Reidel. Searle, John Rogers. 1982. "Proper Names and Intentionality." Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 63 (3): 205–225. Strawson, P. F. 1950. "On Referring." Mind 59 (235): 320–344. | {
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[Published in Intentionality, Cognition and Mental Representation, in Gyula Klima (ed.) Medieval Philosophy (Fordham University Press, forthcoming)] HOW CHATTON CHANGED OCKHAM'S MIND: WILLIAM OCKHAM AND WALTER CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT Susan Brower-Toland Recent scholarship has begun to uncover the nature and extent of the reciprocal-and typically adversarial-relationship between William Ockham (d. 1347) and Walter Chatton (d. 1343). We now know, for example, that Chatton, a slightly younger contemporary of Ockham, is both enormously influenced by and, at the same time, highly critical of his older colleague; he often takes up precisely those questions Ockham treats (and likewise the terminology and conceptual framework in which he expresses them) only to reject Ockham's conclusions.1 We also know that Chatton's criticisms leave their mark on Ockham. Ockham frequently rehearses and responds to Chatton's objections, occasionally refining or even altogether revising his views in light of them. Perhaps the best-documented case of such influence concerns Ockham's developing views of concepts, where, in direct response to Chatton's criticisms, Ockham famously abandons his early "fictum" theory of concepts in favor of Chatton's own "mental-act" account.2 Although this may be the best-document case, it is by no means the only example of such influence-a handful of others have been discussed in the literature.3 In this paper, I hope to extend our current understanding of the relationship between these two Franciscan thinkers by looking in some detail at a debate between them over the objects of judgment. The broad outlines of Ockham's place in the development of the later medieval debate about judgment are fairly well drawn. Scholars have traced 1 For a general introduction to Chatton's philosophy see Keele 2006. A number of studies have been made of Chatton's reaction to (and, typically, criticism of) Ockham's views. See, for example, Keele 2007(a), Cova 1985, Maurer 1984, Kelly 1981, Fitzpatrick 1971, Gál 1967, and O'Callaghan 1955. 2 For a fuller discussion of Chatton's criticisms of Ockham and his role in Ockham's eventual change of mind see Gál 1967, Kelly 1981 and Tachau 1988, ch.7. 3 Joseph Wey (1980, 39* n.8) provides a list of places in Ockham's Quodlibetal Questions in which Ockham explicitly rehearses arguments or objections offered by Chatton. In addition to these, Wey also finds some 68 other textual parallels between Ockham's Quodlibeta and Chatton's writings. See Wey 1980, 27*. Stephen Brown (1985) presents evidence that Ockham draws on Chatton's Lectura in the course of his discussion of Aristotle's physics. See also, Keele 2006, § 3.3; Keele 2002, ch. 8; Keele 2007(a). 2 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT the discussion and controversy generated by Ockham's account among a host of fourteenth-century thinkers at both Oxford and Paris.4 It is well established, moreover, that Chatton is among the earliest and most vehement critics of Ockham's account of objects of judgment.5 What has gone overlooked in the literature, however, is the fact that Chatton's criticisms of Ockham have an important influence on Ockham himself. Not only has this gone unnoticed, scholars have at times thought that Chatton so misunderstood Ockham's position that, in the end, his objections to it fail even to apply. In what follows, I argue that Chatton's criticisms not only find their target in Ockham, but that they were felt by Ockham himself to be sufficiently forceful as to lead him to radically modify his views. Indeed, Ockham's most mature treatment of judgment contains revisions that not only resolve the problems Chatton identifies, but that also bring his final account of objects of judgment fairly close to Chatton's own. My discussion in what follows divides into three parts. In the first, I provide the background necessary for understanding Chatton's criticisms- namely, a description of Ockham's early theory of judgment. I then turn in the second part to sketch Chatton's central objections to that theory and the role these objections play in shaping Ockham's mature views. Here, I argue, first, that Ockham initially does defend a view susceptible of Chatton's criticisms and, second, that he is eventually persuaded by these criticisms to abandon it. Although the changes Ockham introduces into his final theory of judgment significantly reduce the distance between him and Chatton, important differences remain. In the third and final section, I consider these differences, arguing that they are important both to our understanding of Ockham and Chatton's respective theories of judgment, and to our understanding of the subsequent development of the debate about judgment. 1. BACKGROUND: OCKHAM'S EARLY THEORY OF JUDGMENT6 In order to appreciate Chatton's objections and the developments in Ockham's account to which they give rise, it is necessary to begin with a 4 For example, see Nuchelmans 1973, Tachau 1987, Grassi 1991, Perler 1990, 1992, and 1994, Karger 1995, Brower-Toland 2002, Cesalli 2002. 5 Reina 1970 and Keele 2003. 6 In what follows, citations of Ockham's Latin texts are to Ockham 1967-88. I use the following abbreviations in referring to particular volumes: Ord. (= Ordinatio. Scriptum in Librum Primum Sententiarum); Expos.Praedic. (=Expositio in Liburm Praedicamentorum Aristotelis); Expos.Perih. (= Expositio in Librum Perihermenias Aristotelis); Quodl. (= Quodlibeta Septem); SL (= Summa Logicae). Translations are my own. 3 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT brief overview of Ockham's early theory of judgment and certain features of Chatton's interpretation of it.7 Ockham's views about judgment are framed in terms of a much broader theory about the nature of human cognition-a theory that Chatton himself largely shares. According to this theory, all thought (that is, intellective cognition) forms a kind of mental language-one structured in much the way natural language is. Thus, like spoken and written language, the language of thought is compositional: it is comprised of simple or atomic units (namely, "concepts"), which, via the mental operation of "composition," can be combined in various ways to form complex, propositional expressions.8 Accordingly, Ockham divides mental expressions into two broad categories: sententential or propositional expressions, and the non-sentential terms or units-i.e., subject, predicate, and copula expressions-that comprise them.9 Ockham thinks this division maps Aristotle's distinction in the Categories between expressions that are "said in combination" (dicuntur cum complexione), and those "said without combination" (dicuntur sine complexione). Propositional expressions (complexa, propositiones) are those produced by the operation of composition and so are appropriately characterized as expressions only "said in combination"; by contrast "simple terms" (simplex termini, incomplexa) are semantic units that precede and are used in the operation of composition. On Ockham's view, the intellect's formation of a judgment involves not only its formulating or "composing" a propositional thought (that is, a mental sentence), but also its adopting some stance or attitude with regard to it. In order to accommodate this aspect of judgment, Ockham distinguishes between two different psychological modes, or types of mental act associated with the intellect's formation of a mental sentence, namely, apprehension and judgment. Acts of apprehension are, on his view, 7 Ockham's earliest account of judgment is developed in his Ordinatio commentary- primarily in q.1 of the prologue to it. It is this text that Chatton relies on for his interpretation of Ockham. In setting out Ockham's initial theory of judgment, therefore, I will be drawing primarily from his account in this work. I have discussed Ockham's early theory of judgment in more detail elsewhere. See Brower-Toland, 2007. 8 According to Ockham: "whatever the intellect can apprehend in a simple act of thinking, it can combine (componere) with another thing by saying 'this is that'." Ord. Prol., q. 1 (OTh II, 49). 9 Expos.Praedic. Cap. 4, § 1 (OPh II, 148). Ockham argues that while Aristotle was speaking primarily about spoken language in the passage from which this distinction is taken, he, nevertheless, intended it to apply to mental language as well. 4 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT acts or states in which the intellect merely considers or entertains a given content-whether non-propositional (as when the intellect forms or possesses an individual concept) or propositional (as when it entertains a mental sentence). Acts of judgment, by contrast, arise only in connection with the intellect's formation of a mental sentence; these are acts or states in which the intellect not merely entertains a given content, but takes some positive stance with respect to its truth. As Ockham puts it, judgment is an act "by which the intellect not only apprehends its object, but also gives its assent or dissent."10 Thus, in keeping with the interpretation of thought as an inner, mental language, we can perhaps think of judicative acts as mental assertions-that is, acts involving a kind of assertoric force. Broadly speaking, acts of judgment fall into one of two categories: assent or dissent. Acts of assent and dissent, however, can be further subdivided into particular propositional-or, we might say, 'judicative'- attitudes, namely, belief, knowledge, doubt, opinion, faith, etc. Thus, when one takes something as true (say, by believing, knowing, or opining) she is said to assent; when she takes it to be false (say, by disbelieving, or doubting) she is said to dissent. Accordingly, a given judicative act may be an act of knowledge, belief, doubt and so on depending on the grounds for and causes of that act or state. For this reason, Ockham (and Chatton, who adopts his terminology and conceptual framework) will often move freely between terms like "judgment", "act of assent", "act knowledge/belief." In addition to distinguishing between apprehension and judgment, Ockham also develops a certain picture of the logical and causal ordering among such acts. In particular, he holds that acts of judgment presuppose the occurrence of several (logically) prior acts of apprehension.11 For our purposes, we need only focus on one part of this account, namely, Ockham's claim that every act of judging presupposes a (logically) prior act of apprehending the object judged. As he explains, "an act of judgment with respect to a mental sentence presupposes an act of apprehension relating to the same thing."12 The motivation for this claim is just the intuition that one does not form a judgment with respect to something without first having apprehended or considered that same thing. Indeed, on Ockham's view, the prior act of apprehension is itself partly causally responsible for the occurrence of the subsequent judicative act. For, as he sees it, part of what explains one's coming to assent (or dissent) to something is one's prior 10 Ord. Prol., q. 1 (OTh I, 16). 11 See, Ockham's Ord. Prol., q. 1 (OTh I, 17-21). 12 Ord. Prol., q. 1 (OTh I, 17). 5 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT consideration or "apprehension" of it. Since, as we shall see, Chatton draws heavily on this particular feature of Ockham's account, it will be useful to set it out explicitly as follows: Ordering Principle: Every act of judgment is always preceded and caused by an act of apprehension relating to the same object (at least in the natural order, apart from supernatural intervention). Now, with this much of Ockham's theory of judgment Chatton is in perfect agreement. He shares Ockham's conception of thought as occurring in a type of mental language, and he accepts Ockham's account of the distinction between, and ordering among, acts of apprehension and judgment. What he objects to, and what he wants to reject, is Ockham's account of the objects of judgment. Ockham claims that all acts of judgment-that is, all acts of believing, knowing, opining, etc.-take mental sentences as their object. This claim about objects of judgment is at the heart of Ockham's early theory of judgment; indeed, Ockham's first argument for it comes in the very passage in which he introduces judgment as a species of act distinct from apprehension. The second type of act may be called an act of judgment. It is that act by which the intellect not only apprehends its object, but also gives its assent or dissent to it. This act is only in relation to a mental sentence (complexi). For our intellect does not assent to anything unless we consider it to be true and it does not dissent from anything unless we judge it to be false. 13 Because this claim about objects of judgment is so central to Ockham's early theory of judgment and to Chatton's criticisms of it, it will be useful to pause briefly to consider the motivation behind it. Ockham's commitment to the view that mental sentences are objects of judgment has a two-fold source: one rooted in his nominalism, the other in his understanding of Aristotelian demonstrative science. As the foregoing passage makes clear, Ockham thinks that judicative acts or attitudes pertain only to what is truth-evaluable, that is, only to what is capable of being true or false. But since Ockham's ontology has no place for abstract propositional entities such as sentence types, propositions, or states of affair, he holds that only sentence tokens-and, in the first place, mental sentence tokens-are the bearers of truth 13 Ord. Prol., q. 1 (OTh I, 16). 6 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT or falsity.14 Indeed, he is committed to what we would nowadays think of as a nominalist account of truth bearers. As he says, "nothing is true except a sentence [token]."15 This, together with understanding of acts of assent as relating to what is true (and dissent to what is false), entails that judicative attitudes such as belief and knowledge must relate to mental sentences as object. The other motivation for Ockham's views about the nature of objects of judgment comes from his understanding of the nature of demonstrative science (what he refers to as 'knowledge properly so called' (scientia propria dicta)). Following Aristotle's account of demonstrative knowledge in the Posterior Analytics, Ockham holds that what is known or assented to in demonstration is not only something that is true, but also something that is necessary and universal. For this same reason, he concludes that the (immediate) objects for all demonstrative knowledge (that is, of all scientia) must be mental entities since, on his view, there is nothing in extramental reality that is universal and, likewise, nothing there (besides God) that is a necessary being.16 Mental sentences, however, can possess universal concepts (that is, concepts which can be predicated of numerically distinct things) as constituent terms, and can be true necessarily (which, on his view, is just to be true whenever formed); thus, they alone are the only sort of entity suitable to function as objects for demonstrative scientia.17 Accordingly, Ockham's entire theory of demonstration is predicated on the assumption that the terms, the premises, and the objects of Aristotelian scientia are mental entities-namely, concepts and mental sentences. As he insists: "every science (scientia) whatsoever-whether it is real or rational-concerns only mental sentences. For it concerns those things which are known (scita) and 14 Ockham is, of course, well known for his nominalism. In general, he appears willing to allow only concrete, particular things (res) falling in the category of substance and quality. Thus, he denies the reality not only of universals, but also of abstracta including propositions (as they are nowadays conceived) and states of affairs. For an overview of Ockham's ontology see Adams 1987, chs. 1-9. See also Spade 1999 and Normore 1999. 15 Quodl. III.8 (OPh IX, 236). Sentences in natural language are also truth-bearers, but their truth-value (and, truth conditions) is wholly derivative on that of the corresponding sentence in the language of thought. 16 Serene 1982, 513. 17 As Ockham explains: "In one way something is called 'necessary'...because it can begin and cease to exist by no power; in such a way God alone is necessary.... In another way, a sentence called 'necessary'...which is such that it cannot be false-namely, which is true in such a way that, if it is formed it is not false but only true. And in this sense demonstration is of necessities...that is, of sentences which cannot be false but only true." SL III-2, 5 (OPh I, 512). 7 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT only mental sentences are known (scitur)."18 For convenience, in what follows, I refer to Ockham's position on objects of judgment simply as 'Ockham's position' where this is shorthand for his view that every act of judgment-every act of believing, opining, knowing, demonstrating, etc.- relates to a mental sentence as its immediate object. Now, it is precisely this position that Chatton wants to reject. Chatton denies not only that the objects of demonstrative science are mental sentences, but also, and more generally, the view that objects of all propositional attitudes are mental entities. Although Chatton is, as we shall see, willing to grant that in some special cases mental entities can be said to serve as objects of judgment, he insists that, in the normal course of things, the objects for judicative attitudes are extramental things (res). In order to appreciate the details of Chatton's criticisms, however, it is important to see that, throughout his discussion, he is presupposing a commitment on Ockham's part to a very specific conception of the metaphysical structure of mental language-and, so, to a very specific conception of the nature of the entities that serve as objects of belief and knowledge. To see what this assumption amounts to, I need to say just a word or two about the developments in Ockham's account of concepts. When Ockham originally formulates his theory of judgment, he is operating with what we might think of as a kind of act-object analysis of mental language. According to this analysis, mental sentences (and the concepts from which they are composed) are taken to be mind-dependent entities-what Ockham refers to as "ficta", where these are taken to be inner thought-objects distinct from and dependent on mental acts directed at them.19 As is well known, however, Ockham eventually rejects the actobject account of mental language-in no small part because of Chatton's criticisms of it. In its place, he adopts Chatton's own, adverbial (or 'mental act') analysis of mental language. On this view, concepts and mental sentences are not understood as intentional objects of acts of thinking, but 18 Ord. d.2, q.4 (OTh II, 135). 19 Ockham frequently refers to the mental entities that serve as objects of thought as 'ficta.' On his early theory of concepts and mental language, concepts or ficta are construed as entities that have a special (mind-dependent) mode of existence-they are, as Ockham describes them, 'objectively existing' beings. Because, on his early view, concepts are characterized as 'ficta' and as 'objectively existing' his early theory of mental language is sometimes referred to in the literature as the "fictum-theory" or as "objective-existence theory." 8 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT are rather identified with acts of awareness themselves.20 Thus, on Ockham's mature view, mental sentences are no longer understood as complex or structured thought-objects, but rather as complex or structured mental acts-what both Ockham and Chatton refer to as "complexa apprehensiones," and which we might call 'propositional apprehensions.'21 Obviously, such a shift in Ockham's conception of mental language required some amendment to his account of objects of judgment, since it entails, at very least, a change in his views about the nature of the mental sentences that serve as objects of judgment.22 Chatton simply assumes that Ockham means to hold fixed all the central elements of his early theory of judgment-and, in particular, the conclusion regarding mental sentences serving as objects of judgment-while merely replacing his early account of mental sentences with an adverbial, or "mental-act," analysis of them. Thus, on Chatton's interpretation, Ockham's considered view is that objects of judgment are mental acts, namely, complex or propositional acts of apprehension. And it this account of objects of judgment that is the target for his criticisms. Indeed, we can think of Chatton's objections to Ockham's position as an attempt to demonstrate why Ockham's early views regarding objects of judgment cannot be conjoined with an adverbial analysis of mental language. 2. CHATTON'S CRITICISMS AND CHATTON'S INFLUENCE Chatton takes up the question of objects of judgment in the first article of the first question of his Sentences Prologue (hereafter, q.1, a.1).23 Although he is clearly interested in the objects of judgment generally, the focus of his discussion in this context is a question about the objects of belief-or, more precisely, of faith. (This focus on the nature of the objects of faith is not surprising given the broader context of the discussion: not only does it occur in a commentary on a theological textbook, but the specific issue with which Chatton is concerned in this part of the commentary has to do with the evidentness (evidentia) of the articles of 20 Hence, Ockham's later theory of concepts is sometimes referred to as the 'mental-act' theory. 21 As Chatton explicitly says at one point in his discussion: "I am supposing that a mental sentence is a propositional apprehension." Rep. I, Prol. q.1, a.1, 41. 22 Although commentators have generally recognized that Ockham is forced to modify his early theory of judgment in light of his changing theory of concepts, there is disagreement as to what these modifications involve. See Brower-Toland, 2007. 23 References to q. 1, a.1 are to Chatton 1989. Wey 1989 provides a brief introduction to the prologue of Chatton's Sentence commentary. 9 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT faith.) The bulk of his discussion in this context is devoted to criticizing Ockham's position. Chatton opens his discussion with a lengthy quotation from Ockham's early account of apprehension and judgment and proceeds thereafter to list the (many) places in which Ockham explicitly claims that mental sentences are objects for judicative acts.24 Having done this, he goes on to develop a series of arguments, all of which are designed to establish not only the falsity of Ockham's position but also truth of his own, namely, that "the act of believing (and the act of knowing and opining...) has an external thing and not a mental sentence for its object."25 In what follows, I want to focus on three lines of criticism that emerge over the course of Chatton's discussion. In each of these, Chatton attempts to show that Ockham's own views regarding the nature of acts of judgment and apprehension entail the falsity of his (i.e. Ockham's) position regarding the nature of the objects of such acts. 2.1 Chatton's Criticisms: The first two lines of criticism take Ockham's ordering principle as their starting point. As I noted earlier, Chatton wholly accepts this principle; hence, he accepts Ockham's account of the logical and causal ordering among acts of judgment and apprehension-as he says: "I concede that every act of assent naturally presupposes an apprehension of its object".26 But, as we shall see, he also thinks that acceptance of Ockham's ordering principle provides an important first step in proving Ockham's account of judicative objects to be false (and his own to be true). To see why this should be the case, let us turn to the first line of argument. The argument takes the form of a reductio. Chatton concedes Ockham's ordering principle only to argue that its conjunction with Ockham's position on objects of judgment entails something obviously false: namely, that every act of judgment requires higher-order awareness (what Chatton himself refers to as "reflexive" apprehension) of one's own mental states. Since Chatton accepts the ordering principle, he thinks the result tells against Ockham's position. That the conjunction of the ordering principle and Ockham's position regarding object of judgment has this untoward consequence follows from the fact that, on Ockham's view, the mental sentence that serves as object for a given act of judgment is itself a mental act (namely, a 24 Prol. q.1, a.1, 18-20. Chatton draws exclusively from Ockham's Ordinatio discussion of judgment. 25 Prol. q.1, a.1, 20. 26 Prol. q.1, a.1, 42. 10 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT propositional apprehension). But, given Ockham's ordering principle, it follows that one does not assent to some mental sentence unless he first apprehends it...This is because, as he [namely, Ockham] proves, the apprehension of a mental sentence is the cause of the [judgment] by which the intellect assents to the sentence. 27 Clearly, if the sentences that serve as objects for judgment are propositional apprehensions, and if every judgment presupposes an apprehension of the object judged, it follows that every act of judgment-that is, any act of believing, knowing, opining, etc.-involves some kind of higher-order awareness of lower-order acts. But this, as Chatton goes on to argue, is implausible insofar as it conflicts with our experience of the phenomenology of judging. As Chatton repeatedly points out, we it seems clear that we form judgments all the time without any second-order awareness of our mental states. Given this, it is likewise clear that mental sentences cannot be said to be the object for every act of judgment. To illustrate the point, Chatton takes as an example a case in which someone forms the belief (i.e. comes to assent) that God is three and one. The formation of this belief or judgment begins with an act of (propositional) apprehension-that is, with the formation of the thought or mental sentence 'God is three and one.' This is followed by an act of judgment; in this case, a there is an assent in which the subject affirms or accepts the sentence as true. Now, as Chatton points out, when the intellect, in forming this mental sentence 'God is three and one', assents with an act of belief, that act [of believing] does not presuppose an apprehension of the mental sentence 'God is three and one.' ... This is because the assent requires on the part of the intellect only that the mental sentence be formed in the intellect. It does not require that any mental sentence be apprehended. 28 If, as Ockham claims, it were true that a mental sentence were the object of the belief that God is three and one, it would follow (given Ockham's ordering principle) that to form such a belief one would not only have to formulate the thought 'God is three and one', but would also have to have a higher-order awareness of that thought. But this is implausible. As Chatton insists, it seems we could form such a belief without any reflexive awareness of our own thoughts. Of course, if this is right, Ockham's 27 Prol. q.1, a.1, 17. 28 Prol. q.1, a.1, 39. 11 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT position is mistaken: not every judgment has a mental sentence as its object.29 Indeed, on Chatton's view, in most cases they do not. So much for Chatton's first line of criticism. If we turn now to the second, we can see that, like the first, it takes Ockham's ordering principle as its point of departure. This time, however, Chatton argues not merely against Ockham's position, but for a positive claim of his own: "assent has for its object an extramental thing or things (res)" (where by 'things' Chatton has in mind individual substances and/or their attributes). To see how Chatton arrives at this positive claim using Ockham's ordering principle, consider, once again, his account of the formation of the belief that God is three and one. As we've just seen, to believe or judge that God is three and one is just a matter of one's forming the mental sentence 'God is three and one' followed by a subsequent act of assent. What Ockham's ordering principle tell us, however, is that the object of the assent is the object of the act of apprehension that precedes and causes it. It follows, therefore, that whatever serves as the object of the propositional apprehension 'God is three and one' is the object of the assent in question. Chatton then proceeds to argue that since "the mental sentence is an apprehension of God," we are led by Ockham's own ordering principle to conclude that God (and not a mental sentence) is the object of the belief that God is three and one. Chatton holds, in general, that what is cognized in a given act of propositional cognition is some extra-mental object (res)-specifically, substances and, perhaps, some property of them. As he sees it, the object (or, as he often characterizes it, the "significate") of sentences in the language of thought is just the entity (or entities) that is cognized by its constituent terms. And, on his view, what is cognized by each of the terms of a mental sentence is some extramental object. As he explains: 29 As Chatton puts it elsewhere: "Supposing that a mental sentence [is present] in the intellect, and ruling out any apprehension of the mental sentence (omni apprehesione complexi circumscripta), the intellect is inclined to assent. But, having ruled out any apprehension of the metal sentence, [it is clear that] the intellect does not assent to the sentence. ... [This is clear] since according to [Ockham] (and according to the truth of the matter) the intellect does not assent without a cognition or apprehension [of that to which it assents]. Therefore, if the mental sentence is not apprehended, the intellect does not assent to it." Prol. q.1, a.1, 21. 12 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT a mental sentence is a certain propositional cognition. Thus, it is a cognition of just that which is cognized through the subject, or the predicate or the copula [of that mental sentence]. For its being a cognition accrues to it through its parts-but its parts are cognitions of an extra-mental thing.30 What is more, Chatton can see no reason why Ockham would disagree with this claim about the objects of propositional cognitions given his acceptance of Chatton's own adverbial analysis of mental sentences and of the concepts that comprise them. Of course, if this is right and the object of the complex or propositional apprehension that precedes and causes a given act of assent (or dissent) is an extramental entity it follows that the object of the judgment is likewise something extramental. As Chatton insists, if we suppose that the intellect forms a sentence that signifies an external thing, and suppose further that it does not apprehend that sentence (which assumption is plausible since the parts of that sentence are not apprehensions of the whole sentence), then (assuming all of this), I claim that this mental sentence is suited to cause an assent, but that it does not cause an assent that relates to that sentence [as its object]. For by assumption, the sentence is not what is apprehended. Therefore, the assent has for its object the external thing (or things) that are signified by that sentence.31 In the end, therefore, Chatton contends that Ockham's account of the relations which obtain between apprehension and judgment tell not only against his own conclusion about the objects of judgment but also in favor of Chatton's alternative account. "On the basis of [Ockham's] own claims," he says, "I have my principle point in this question-namely, that the assent 30 As Chatton proceeds to explain: "An external thing (res) is cognized through the subject, and the predicate and the copula since those terms are cognitions of an external thing. Throughout the whole time in which the sentence signifying an external thing is formed in the mind, the external thing is cognized-sometimes by the subject of the sentence, sometimes by the copula, sometimes by the predicate." Prol. q.1, a.1, 24. That Chatton does indeed think that what is apprehended by a mental sentence is a thing (i.e. an individual substance or attribute) one has only to consider his own examples. For instance when considering what is signified by the mental sentence 'God is three and one,' he claims that it is just God. "This is because that assent [viz. to the mental sentence God is three and one] requires on the part of the intellect only that that mental sentence be formed in the intellect. It does not require that any mental sentence is apprehended, because each part of that sentence is an apprehension of God and not of any accident in the mind" Prol. q.1, a.1, 39. God is the object for a number of other theological articles: 'God is incarnate,' 'God is God,' etc. 31 Prol. q.1, a.1, 26. 13 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT that the intellect has when it forms a mental sentence signifying an extramental thing has that thing (and not the mental sentence) for its immediate object."32 All of this leaves open the possibility that there are, nevertheless, some cases in which we do direct attention toward our own mental states and even go on to form second-order thoughts or judgments about them. Chatton is perfectly willing to acknowledge this possibility. Indeed, he explicitly allows that sometimes judgments do have mental sentences as their object. Cases in which an act of judgment relates to a mental sentence as its object are, on Chatton's view, cases in which one apprehends a given mental sentence and then goes on to make some judgment regarding its truth. Thus, for example, an act of assent that is directed at a mental sentence as its object will be an act in which one judges (believes, knows, etc.) that the sentence is true. Such judgments are, thus, not about or principally directed at some thing in extramental reality, but are rather directed at or about one's own mental acts. In order to accommodate this possibility, Chatton thinks it is necessary to draw a distinction, already anticipated above, between two kinds of judgment or assent: those that are about extramental things (res) and so require no awareness or apprehension of one's own mental acts or states, and those which are about one's own mental acts or states (i.e. about sentences in one's language of thought) and so do require some sort of higher-order or reflexive awareness of them. Accordingly, Chatton explicitly distinguishes between [1] the assent which the intellect has when it forms a mental sentence that immediately signifies an external thing-such as when one forms the sentence 'God is three and one'-and [2] the assent the intellect has when it forms a mental sentence that immediately signifies another mental sentence-such as when one forms this mental sentence 'the article of faith [e.g., 'God is three and one'] is true.'.33 As Chatton points out, one sort of assent (call it a 'non-reflexive' assent) is caused or prompted by the intellect's formation of a first-order mental sentence regarding some extramental thing (e.g. 'God is three and one'), and, so, has that thing (e.g., God) as object. The other sort of assent, which Chatton labels 'reflexive' assent, is caused by the intellect's formation of a second-order or meta-linguistic mental sentence (e.g. ''God is three and 32 Prol. q.1, a.1, 38. 33 Prol.q.1, a.1, 38. 14 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT one' is true'), and has (the first-order) mental sentence (e.g. 'God is three and one') as object. Obviously, the introduction of this distinction involves conceding to Ockham that some judgments do have mental sentences as objects. Chatton draws on this concession, however, to bolster his own position regarding objects of judgment. This brings us to the third line of criticism he pursues against Ockham. Here, after conceding that in some cases mental sentences do serve as objects of judgment, Chatton goes on to insist that the very possibility of such reflexive judgments presupposes the truth of his own view about the objects of non-reflexive judgments. This is because, Chatton maintains, every occurrence of a reflexive judgment directed at a mental sentence as object, requires the (logically) prior occurrence of a nonreflexive act of judgment that has an extramental thing as its object. As he explains: Assent to a mental sentence necessarily presupposes [a prior act of] assent to the thing (res) signified by that sentence. This is the case because assenting that it is the case in reality (as the sentence signifies it to be) is prior to assenting that the sentence itself is true.34 On Chatton's view one cannot judge that a thought or mental sentence is true unless one has first formed a belief or judgment about how things stand in reality. To judge a sentence (mental or otherwise) to be true is to judge that it corresponds to reality. Hence, if one assents to a mental sentence- that is, if one believes or judges that one's thoughts (or apprehensions) are true, this must be because one has already formed a belief or judgment about things in the extramental world. Thus, the formation of a judgment directed at a mental sentence presupposes a prior judgment that is not directed at a mental sentence-indeed, it presupposes a prior judgment about things in extramental reality. Hence, the concession that is possible for a judgment to have a mental sentences as object by itself, entails the falsity of Ockham's position because it entails that not every act of judgment has mental sentences as object.35 34 Prol. q.1, a.1, 27. 35 Thus, as Chatton explains, at one point, even if one apprehends and assents that the article 'God is three and one is true', this "does not entail that he first assents that the article is true. Rather it is the reverse. Assenting that an article is true requires that one [first] assent that something is the case in reality. And then, with the assent that relates to the external thing remaining in place, by virtue of that assent it then appears evident [to the person] that the article is true." Prol. q.1, a.1, 42. 15 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT Although Chatton raises a number of other objections for Ockham's account, what we've seen already will be sufficient for establishing his influence on the subsequent development of Ockham's views. 2.2 Chatton's Influence: Chatton's criticisms, as we've seen, are predicated on the assumption that Ockham continues to defend his early conclusion about mental sentences serving as objects of judgment even when his views about the nature of mental language itself began to evolve. Some commentators have questioned the accuracy of this assumption, however.36 There is evidence to suggest that once Ockham comes to accept the adverbial analysis of concepts and mental sentences, he also abandons his early claim that mental sentences serve as objects for every act of judgment.37 In the Quodlibetal Questions-a work which contains Ockham's most mature treatment of judgment and which also reflects his full acceptance of the adverbial analysis of mental language-Ockham explicitly claims that "an act of assent by which something is known to be such-and-such or known not to be such-and-such...does not have a mental sentence (complexum) as its object."38 In fact, Ockham's treatment of judgment throughout his Quodlibetal Questions reflects a consistent and wholesale rejection of his early contention that mental sentences are the 36 This was, in fact, my own view for a time. See also Karger (1995, 183) who contends that Chatton's arguments against Ockham are "misleadingly presented" and, in general characterizes Chatton's criticisms of Ockham in terms of their "unfairness" to Ockham. Apparently, Adam Wodeham-a contemporary of both Ockham and Chatton-seems to have shared much the same view. He too denounces Chatton as being unfair to Ockham on this score. See Karger 1995, n. 46. 37 Ockham's transition from the act/object or 'fictum' theory of concepts to the adverbial or 'mental-act' theory proceeds in three stages: in the earliest stage he advances the fictum theory, in the middle stage he defends both the fictum and the mental act theory as equally plausible views, and in the final stage he wholly endorses the mental-act theory. The earliest drafts of his Sentences commentary-that is, his Reportatio commentary and the early draft of his Ordinatio-belong to the early period. To the middle period belong his later additions to the Ordinatio commentary and his commentary on the Perihermenias. The Quodlibetal Questions, the Questions on the Physics, and the Summa Logicae all belong to the last period. For relative dating of these texts, see Boehner 1946 and 1951and Leff 1975, ch. 2. I have argued at length elsewhere (Brower-Toland, 2007) that Ockham's views about judgment also undergo a three-stage development-one corresponding to each of the three phases in the development of his theory of concepts. The view Chatton is attacking corresponds to the view that Ockham endorses during the second phase of his thinking about judgment. Thus, on my analysis, Chatton plays a role in Ockham's move from the second to the third and final theory of judgment. 38 Quodl. III, q. 8 (OTh IX, 233-234). 16 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT objects for all acts of judgment. But, if this is right-and Ockham never attempted to combine an adverbial analysis of mental language with his early theory of judgment-it follows that Chatton either misrepresents the views of his colleague (and, so, unfairly criticizes them) or is simply mistaken about the way they develop. In point of fact, however, Chatton's criticisms clearly do find a target in Ockham's developing views about judgment. To see this, we need only consider some of Ockham's remarks in his commentary on Aristotle's De Interpretatione-a work written just a few years before his Quodlibetal Questions were completed. In this work, Ockham defends precisely the view that Chatton criticizes.39 What is more, it looks as if Ockham comes to abandon this theory precisely in response to Chatton's criticisms. Thus, if Ockham does eventually develop a view immune to Chatton's criticisms, this does not owes to any misunderstanding or unfairness on Chatton's part; rather, it owes to the fact that Ockham himself fully appreciated the force of Chatton's objections and revised his view precisely in response to them. The nature and extent of Chatton's influence can best be seen if we begin by looking briefly at Ockham's remarks about judgment in the prologue to his De Interpretatione commentary. Ockham's discussion in this context represents his earliest attempt to modify his initial account of the objects of judgment in order to accommodate the adverbial model of mental language.40 In the prologue of the commentary, Ockham surveys a variety of views about the nature of concepts and of mental language, turning specifically in Section 6 to a discussion, and a limited defense, of the adverbial model of mental language. Over the course of his discussion, Ockham specifically addresses a question about what, on this way of 39 Although Chatton does not actually cite this work when criticizing Ockham's account of judgment, it is a work which dates to roughly the same period as the redaction of the Ordinatio commentary (on which Chatton does rely). What is more, there is good reason to think that Chatton knew of-perhaps was even present at-Ockham's lectures on De Interpretatione. This is because Ockham delivered his lectures on the 'old logic' in 132122 while staying at the Franciscan studium in London and it is widely supposed that Chatton was at the London studium during this same time. For discussion of the issue of Chatton's presence in London, see Gál 1967, 53*-56* and Courtenay 1990. 40 As noted earlier, at this stage in his thinking, Ockham has not wholly abandoned his early 'fictum' theory of concepts, he is simply now willing to entertain the mental-act account alongside it. In this particular section of the prologue to the De Interpretatione, he is attempting to develop an account of judgment that would accommodate the mental act account of concepts, but does so without wholly endorsing the mental-act account of concepts. 17 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT thinking about mental language, serves as object for judgment. His response is clear: objects of judgment are mental sentences-where these are understood as acts of propositional apprehension. As he explains: To apprehend a mental sentence is nothing other than to form a mental sentence. ... But, if we speak of an act of knowing some mental sentence, then it can be said that this act is an act that is distinct from the act [of apprehension] that is the mental sentence. And, therefore, when some mental sentence is known, there are two acts of the intellect occurring simultaneously, namely, the act that is the sentence and the other act by means of which the mental sentence is known. Nor does one ever find Aristotle denying that two acts of the intellect can exist at the same time in the intellect, especially when it comes to acts ordered in the way these are: mental sentence and act of knowing it.41 What this passage shows is that, when Ockham first begins to entertain the adverbial model of mental language, he clearly does continue to hold fixed his earlier views about mental sentences serving as objects of judgment. He is, at least at this stage in his thinking, willing to accept both that mental sentences can be taken as acts or modes of propositional apprehension, and that mental sentences, so understood, function as objects of judgment. Indeed, as the foregoing passage makes clear, Ockham initially sees nothing untoward in conjunction of the adverbial analysis of mental language and his earlier claim about objects of judgment. When we turn to his most mature treatment of judgment in the Quodlibetal Questions, however, it becomes evident that the objections Chatton raises against this account have had their impact. In fact, the revisions Ockham makes in his account of objects of judgment appear to be a direct response to Chatton's discussion in q.1, a.1, and to take a great deal from Chatton's discussion in that context.42 41 Expos.Perih. Prol., sec. 6 (OPh II, 358). Cf. Section 12 (OPh II, 375) where Ockham says much the same thing. 42 The dates assigned to Ockham's Quodlibetal disputations are 1322-1324. Although Ockham's discussion of judgment in the Quodlibetal Questions makes perfectly clear that he is not only aware of Chatton's objections, but even drawing material directly from Chatton's discussion in q.1, a.1, the precise means by which he had access to this material is a bit difficult to pin down. This is because the only extant version of Chatton's q.1, a.1 comes from the Lectura version of his Sentences prologue and the dates for the completion of the Lectura range from 1324-1330. It is not unreasonable, however, to suppose that Chatton was already revising the prologue for the Lectura even as he was still giving his Reportatio lectures-namely during the years of 1321-23. And since Ockham and Chatton were likely together at the London studium during these years, it may be that Chatton was composing the Lectura version of the prologue at roughly the same time Ockham was 18 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT Consider, for example, what Ockham says when, in his Quodlibetal Questions, he returns once again to the question about the objects of judgment. As noted earlier, he responds here by rejecting the claim that judicative acts always take mental sentences as their object. Significantly, however, he gives precisely Chatton's reasons for doing so: he claims that acceptance of such a view would entail something implausible, namely, that judgments would involve some kind of higher -order, reflexive awareness of one's own mental states. Thus, in Quodlibet III.8 Ockham says that, in the ordinary case, an act of judgment does not have a mental sentence (complexum) as its object because such an act is able to exist through the mere formulation of a mental sentence and without any apprehension of a mental sentence. For this reason, it cannot be an act of assenting to a mental sentence. Furthermore, when an ordinary person knows that a rock is not a donkey, he is not thinking about a mental sentence at all, and as a result he is not assenting to a mental sentence.43 These remarks make perfectly clear that Ockham is both aware of and accepts as decisive Chatton's argument against his earlier theory. For he explicitly acknowledges that to claim that a judgment relates to a mental sentences as object requires that such a judgment involves reflexive awareness of one's own mental states and, likewise, acknowledges that in the normal course of things we form judgments without any consciousness of our own thoughts or mental acts. He concludes with Chatton, therefore, that mental sentences cannot, in general, serve as objects of judgment. What is more, Ockham is now even willing to allow that there is a sense (albeit, a qualified or restricted one) in which we can say that things (res)- namely, substances and accidents-in extramental reality are objects of judgment. After all, in many cases, when we form a judgment we are aware engaged in his Quodlibetal disputations and, therefore, that Ockham had access to the material during the period he was presiding over these disputations. Or, it may be that Ockham incorporated material from Chatton's prologue into his Quodlibets some time after the disputations themselves were completed. After all, Ockham is thought to have revised and completed his Quodlibetal Questions some years after the disputations themselves were held-perhaps during 1324-1326 while he was in Avignon. Or, finally, it is even possible that Ockham had access only to the earlier Reportatio version of Chatton's Q.1, a. 1, but that the Lectura version is a simply a close parallel of the Reportatio discussion. For a discussion of the respective dating of Ockham's Quodlibeta Septem and Chatton's Reportatio and Lectura, see Wey 1967, 53*-56*; Wey 1980, 36*-38; Keele 2006, § 1; Keele, 2007(b). 43 Quodl. III.8 (OTh IX, 233-234). 19 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT of and judging about external things and, in this sense, the things themselves can be said to be the objects of judgment. Consider, for example, what Ockham says in connection with the previous example of judging that a rock is not a donkey: Although it is by means of a mental sentence formulated in the intellect that one affirms and knows that things are such and such in reality or that things are not such and such in reality, one nonetheless does not perceive this [mental sentence]. Instead, the act of assenting has as its object things outside the mind, namely, a rock and a donkey.44 Here Ockham concedes not only that this judgment involves no apprehension of the mental sentence that precedes and causes it, but also that since the judgment does clearly involve some awareness or apprehension of extramental things-namely, rocks and donkeys-these things can be said to be its objects. As he proceeds to explain: "by means of an assent of this sort I apprehend things (res) outside the mind, since every assent is an apprehension but not vice versa."45 Thus, to the extent that objects of judgment are those entities that are apprehended in the judgment-or in one or more of the acts leading up to the formation of the judgment-Ockham is willing to grant Chatton's view that extramental entities-that is, things such as rocks and donkeys-can serve as objects of judgment. Thus, a bit later in this same discussion, when considering the question of objects of faith or belief, Ockham explicitly concedes Chatton's own conclusion about the object of the belief that God is three and one. As Ockham puts it: "by such an act it is believed that God is three persons; and the object of that act (in the sense in which it has an object) is God."46 Although Ockham holds that substances or accidents can be called objects of judgment only in a restricted or qualified sense, the extent of Chatton's influence is evident, nonetheless. Not only does Ockham now reject his earlier conclusion about mental sentences serving as objects for all acts of judgment while also granting the view that things can serve (in some sense at least) as objects, but he also appropriates Chatton's distinction between the two different types of judgment, that is the distinction between non-reflexive and reflexive assent.47 44 Ibid. (OTh IX, 234). 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. (OTh IX, 236). 47 The distinction that Ockham, following Chatton, draws here between two acts of judgment is one that he comes to apply to other mental acts as well. Indeed, in a number of 20 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT Indeed, one of the most distinctive features of Ockham's treatment judgment in the Quodlibetal Questions is the appearance of this distinction-it shows up only in his most mature treatment of judgment and it matches exactly the distinction Chatton draws between acts of assent that require no awareness or apprehension of one's own mental acts or states (and so do not have mental sentences as objects) and those which do. In fact, at every point in the Quodlibetal Questions at which Ockham treats questions about judgment he begins his discussion by marking this very distinction. Consider, for example, his remarks at the outset of Quodlibet IV.16: I claim, as was explained in another Quodlibet, that acts of assenting are of two sorts. One sort is an act by which I assent that some thing is or is not such-andsuch in the way that I assent to its being the case that God exists, and to its being the case that God is three and one, and to its being the case that God is not the devil. ... The second sort of assent is an act by which I assent to something, with the result that the act of assenting does bear a relation to something, in the way that I assent to or dissent from a mental sentence (complexum) For example, I assent to the mental sentence 'a human being is an animal', since I consider it to be true. 48 Although there is a great deal going on in this passage, one thing that emerges perfectly clearly is that Ockham has adopted Chatton's distinction between non-reflexive and reflexive assent, and does so in order to make just the same point Chatton did-namely, that mental sentences can be the objects only of reflexive acts of assent. Indeed, like Chatton, Ockham now wants to distinguish between cases in which one apprehends and forms thoughts and judgments about things in extramental reality-for instance, about God and the devil, that the one is not the other, say-and cases in which one apprehends and forms (higher-order) thoughts and judgments about one's own (lower-order) thoughts-for example, about the mental places throughout his Quodlibetal Questions Ockham marks a distinction between what he calls "direct" and "reflexive" mental acts, claiming that "an act by which we understand an object outside the mind is called a direct act, and an act by which a direct act itself is understood is called a reflexive act." (Quodl. II.12 (OTh IX, 165)) What Ockham here refers to as 'direct' mental acts are just first-order acts involving an awareness only of items in the extra-mental world; reflexive acts, by contrast, are second-order as they involve awareness of other, first-order mental acts. Although Ockham does not restrict this distinction to acts of judgment, and while he never uses the terms "direct" and "reflexive" in the context of his treatments of judgment, it is clear, nevertheless, that the distinction between two types of assent corresponds to his distinction between direct and reflexive mental acts. 48 OTh IX, 376-377 21 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT sentence 'a human being is an animal', that that sentence is true, say. Since cases of the former sort are about things in extramental reality and not about sentences in one's head, they clearly require no reflexive awareness of such sentences. As Ockham goes on to explain: without exception it is never the case that the first sort of assent necessarily presupposes an apprehension of a mental sentence, since this sort of assent is not an assent relating to a mental sentence as object. Rather this assent presupposes apprehension of singular thing, though the intellect does not assent to singular things. By contrast, the second sort of assent, speaking naturally, does necessarily presuppose apprehension of a mental sentence...and the reason is that this sort of assent has a mental sentence for its object.49 Thus, insofar as it is only reflexive judgments that are about mental sentences, it is also only reflexive judgments that have mental sentences as object. Here again, Chatton's influence on Ockham is unmistakable.50 3. CHATTON AND OCKHAM ON THE OBJECTS AND STRUCTURE OF JUDGMENT To this point, I have been emphasizing the similarities between Ockham's final treatment of judgment and Chatton's discussion in q.1, a.1 in order to call attention to Chatton's influence on Ockham. What we have seen is, I think, sufficient to establish not only that Ockham does, at one point, advance precisely the view Chatton criticizes, but also that he is moved by these criticisms to revise this view-taking much from Chatton's own account in the course of doing so. Yet, while such revisions do bring Ockham's account much closer to Chatton's, the remaining disagreements between them should not be overlooked. Indeed, as I now want to show, 49 Ibid. 50 Not only can Chatton's influence be seen in the changes Ockham introduces to his final theory of judgment, it can also be seen in the structure the discussion itself. For example, in Quodlibet III.8, the three points Ockham considers in connection with the first of the objection he discusses turn out to be precisely the first, second, and seventh principle objections raised by Chatton in q.1, a.1 (pp. 21-22, 27 ,29-30). Likewise, all three objections Ockham treats in Quodlibet IV.16 are points raised by Chatton. In Quodlibet V.6, a number of arguments Ockham adduces in favor of each of his two theses have a close parallel in Chatton's discussion. For instance, the argument Ockham offers in favor of the conclusion that reflexive acts of judgment must be distinct from reflexive acts of apprehension is roughly the same argument Chatton offers in response to the first objection brought against his position (Prol. q.1, a.1, 33ff.). There, however, he's using the argument to argue for a distinction among non-reflexive apprehensions and judgments. 22 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT there are still a number of important differences between Chatton and Ockham's views about both objects and acts of judgment. 3.1 Objects of Judgment: As we've seen, Ockham concedes Chatton's point that in cases of first-order, non-reflexive acts of judging what is apprehended is not a mental sentence, but rather one or more extramental things. And insofar as extramental entities are what is cognized or apprehended in such judgments Ockham allows that such things can be said to be the 'objects' of judgment. Where he diverges from Chatton, however, is in his insistence that extramental things are not objects of judgment in the more strict sense of being "that which known" (or believed) or, more generally, that to which assent or dissent is given. Consider his remarks in a passage cited just above from Quodlibet IV.16 where he discussing the objects of first-order acts of faith: by [this sort of act] I assent that some thing is or is not such-and-such-in the way that I assent to its being the case that God exists, and to its being the case that God is three and one, and to its being the case that God is not the devil. I do not, however, assent to God or to the devil; rather I assent to its being the case that God is not the devil. Hence, strictly speaking, I assent to nothing through this act even though I apprehend God and the devil through this act. (Italics added.) Drawing on Chatton's own example of the belief that God is three and one, Ockham argues that although what is apprehended is God (and not a mental sentence about God), nevertheless, one does not "assent to God". Indeed, Ockham thinks that, strictly speaking, in cases of first-order judgments there is "nothing"-that is, no entity or object-to which the act of judging relates as what is assented to. Although this may seem an odd claim, it is, nevertheless, one Ockham returns to a number of times. In fact, he makes much the same point in Quodlibet III.8 when talking about the first-order judgment 'A rock is not a donkey.' As we've seen, Ockham grants that "this act of assent has as its object things outside the mind, namely, a rock and a donkey," yet, he also insists that "it is not, nevertheless, the case that a rock is known or that a donkey is known... Indeed, if you ask whether there is something known by this act, I reply that, properly speaking, it should not be said that something is known by this act."51 Ockham's point here is not that the act in question is empty or devoid of content; rather his point is simply that the relation in which it stands to extramental things (in this case, 51 OTh IX, 234. 23 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT rocks and donkeys) is not the relation of "being known" (or believed) or "being assented to." Thus, while Ockham is willing to grant Chatton's point that things such as rocks and donkeys (or God and the devil) can be called objects of judgments in the sense they are the objects toward which one's attention is directed in judgment (or, in Chatton's terms, what is "apprehended"), he also wants to resist saying that such entities are objects which can be judged or to which assent (or dissent) can be given. Indeed, as he says at one point, "there is no such thing as assent with respect to a thing (res), since it makes no sense to say that I assent to a rock or to a cow."52 The emphasis Ockham's puts on this point is clearly an attempt to distance himself from Chatton's own account of objects of judgment. Chatton, as we've seen, is not only perfectly comfortable with the claim that, in cases of non-reflexive judgments, the intellect "assents to a thing," but he goes further to insist that this what one must say. After all, he argues, if "the intellect does not [in such cases] assent to a mental sentence, it therefore assents to a thing (or to things) signified by the sentence."53 And, to his mind, there is nothing particularly worrisome about this. For, as he explains, it is "no more absurd [to say] that assent has for its immediate object one thing (or many things) than [to say] that the thing (or things) are signified simultaneously by the sentence that the intellect forms in assenting."54 This difference between what Chatton and Ockham are each willing to count as "objects" of judgment owes, ultimately, to the fact that each thinker approaches the question about objects of judgment with a different set of interests and aims in mind. For Chatton, the question about objects of judgment is, ultimately, a question about the broadly intentional or semantic features of mental language. On his view, therefore, the objects of judgment are whatever is apprehended or "signified" by the mental sentence that precedes and causes it. Thus, for him, the question about objects of judgment is, fundamentally, a question about the nature of the entities that serves as the referent or 'significate' for sentential expressions (namely, mental sentences). And, as we've seen, he thinks that mental sentences refer just to the thing (or things) to which their subject and predicate expressions 52 Quodl., IV.16 (OTh IX, 380) 53 Prol. q.1, a.1, 21. 54 Prol. q.1, a.1, 30. 24 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT refer-where these include substances and/or their attributes. Hence, these are objects of judgment.55 Ockham approaches the question about objects of judgment from a rather different set of concerns. From the start, he is thinking of objects of judgment in terms of truth and, in particular, in terms of truth-bearers.56 Thus, on his view, properly or "strictly" speaking, only what is true can be an object of assent-since only what is true is said to be "known" (scitum), "believed" (creditum), or, in general, an object for assent (or dissent). And since, mental sentences are, even on his mature view, the primary bearers of truth and falsity he is resistant to the notion that ordinary things (res) are objects of assent in any strict sense. Indeed, Ockham goes so far as to insist that it is only second-order judgments that can be said to have objects properly speaking; and this is because only these sorts of act relate to something in such a way that that it is appropriate to say of the relatum that it is known, or believed, or assented to. After all, only second-order judgments relate to something true (i.e. truth-bearing). As he explains, "the second [namely, reflexive] sort of [judgment] is an act of assenting by which I assent to something in such a way that the act of assenting does bear a relation to something-as it does when I assent to or dissent from a mental sentence."57 Thus, for Ockham the question about objects of judgment is closely tied to questions about the nature of truth-bearers; only 55 To some extent, therefore, my reading of Chatton diverges from that offered by Rondo Keele (2003), who claims that while "Chatton does sometimes drift over to talking about the signification of [mental] propositions ...it would be wrong to view Chatton's goal in q.1, a.1 as establishing or defending a res-theory as an answer to [this] question..." (48) Indeed, according to Keele, Chatton "has a small theoretical contribution on [the] question [about the significates of mental sentences] primarily because his interest in [that] question ...was quite low." (40) Although, I would concur with Keele's contention that (a) we must look beyond q.1, a.1 for a complete understanding of Chatton's account and (b) the complete account will ultimately show that Chatton takes 'res'-namely, individual substances and attributes-to function as truth-makers for sentences, nevertheless, none of this undermines the fact that, for Chatton, the question about the "significates" of mental sentences was of central importance. As I read him, Chatton holds that the significate of a mental sentence (and of the corresponding act of assent) is precisely that thing(s) that functions as its truthmaker. (Indeed, it is precisely the claim that his younger colleague Adam Wodeham attacks. See Brower-Toland, 2006.) I discuss Chatton's views on things (res) as truthmakers in more detail in my (as yet unpublished) paper "Can God Know More? Late Medieval Theories of Propositions".) 56 As we noted earlier, his initial definition of judgment and assent is in terms of truth: "our intellect does not assent to anything unless we consider it to be true and does not dissent from anything unless we judge it to be false." 57 Quodl. III.8 (OTh IX, 233). 25 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT what is true can, strictly or properly speaking, be said to be an object of judgment. Because Ockham and Chatton approach the question about objects of judgment with different interests and aims they arrive at different conclusions about what sorts of thing count as 'objects' of judgment. This same divergence in starting points also lies behind a second, and much more substantial disagreement between them-one having to do with the nature of objects of demonstration. As we've already noted, Ockham's general approach to the issue of objects of judgment is tied to particular concerns he has about objects of scientia-that is, demonstrative knowledge or science. As we've seen, in order to accommodate the standard definition of demonstrative knowledge (namely, as knowledge of what is not only true, but also necessary and universal) Ockham argues that all acts (and habits) of assent produced by a demonstrative syllogism relate to mental sentences as object. Despite all the other changes he makes to his early theory of judgment, this is a claim he retains. Thus, even in his most mature writings, Ockham insists that "the science (scientia) of nature is not about corruptible and generable things or about natural substances... rather, properly speaking, natural science is about intentions in the mind which are common to [external] things and which stand precisely for such things..."58 What this means for his mature theory of judgment is that demonstrative knowledge turns out to be a type of reflexive judgment-as Ockham himself explicitly points out: speaking about the second [namely, a reflexive] sort of knowing or assenting, I claim that such an act is a propositional act that properly speaking has a mental sentence as its object. ... And it is this sort of act that philosophers are commonly speaking of. For they claim that the effect of a demonstration is a habit that relates to a conclusion. Consequently, the act corresponding to that habit is an act that relates to a conclusion as its object. Philosophers also claim that nothing is known except what is true, and they are speaking of a mental sentence. They also claim that a demonstrative science is based on first and true principles. Therefore, only what is true is an object of a science.59 Here Ockham draws on his new distinction between reflexive and nonreflexive judgments (which, as we've seen, he takes from Chatton) in order to defend his early view about objects of demonstration. For, by restricting demonstration to reflexive acts of judgment, he is able to retain his original 58 Expos.Phys., Prol. (OPh IV, 11). Cf. SL III-2, qq. 1-12 (OPh I, 505-526). 59 Quodl. III. 8 (OTh IX, 234). 26 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT claim that demonstrative knowledge relates to mental sentences as object and in this way accommodate the strictures of demonstrative science within his nominalist ontology. Ockham's final position on objects of demonstration stands in stark contrast to Chatton's. For, throughout his discussion in q.1, a.1 Chatton makes clear that acts of demonstration can be non-reflexive in nature. For, as he sees it, it suffices for an act of knowing that the intellect demonstrates. And, as a result, even if neither the demonstration nor any of its parts is apprehended through a reflexive act, still that demonstration would exist, and would no less cause an act of assenting.60 Although demonstrative knowledge is the result of the formation in the intellect of a demonstrative syllogism, Chatton does not think demonstrative knowledge requires any second-order awareness of the syllogism-its premises or its conclusions. Indeed, on his view, it is perfectly possible for us to syllogize non-reflexively and so perfectly possible for us to have acts of scientific knowledge that relate to things in extramental reality. As he explains, "when someone demonstrates, that is, forms a demonstration that does not signify things in the mind, but rather things outside the mind ... the external thing (whether one or many) which is signified by the conclusion is the object of the assent." As opposed to Ockham, therefore, Chatton holds that demonstrative knowledge can be a first order act and, therefore, like any other act of judgment, can have some extramental thing as its object. These various points of disagreement between Ockham and Chatton regarding objects of judgment are significant not only because they mark the differences in their own positions, but also because they serve as starting point for subsequent debates about objects of judgment. Indeed, the differences that remain between Ockham and Chatton provide a good deal of fodder for later discussions. This is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the writings of Ockham and Chatton's immediate contemporaries and successors at Oxford. For thinkers such as Adam Wodeham, William Crathorn, Robert Holcot the positions marked out by Ockham and Chatton provide the main dialectical alternatives in terms of which the debate as a whole is framed-such authors either explicitly side with one or the other or else present themselves as attempt to develop some middle ground between 60 Prol., q.1, a.1, 21. 27 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT the two.61 And even beyond this immediate sphere of influence, the debate between Ockham and Chatton has a role in shaping the direction of the debate. As the debate about objects of judicative attitudes unfolds in the mid and latter half of the fourteenth century, the two issues which come to occupy the center of the discussion are precisely those which come to the fore in the debate between Ockham and Chatton: namely, the question of the nature of the objects of Aristotelian demonstrative knowledge, and the question about the nature of the entities "signified" by propositional expressions.62 Although Ockham and Chatton are not the first to consider these issues, their treatment of them seems to lend new momentum to the discussion. 3.2 Acts of Judgment: I want to call attention to one further difference between Ockham and Chatton's respective accounts of judgment. Here, the difference has to do not with their views about objects of judgment, but rather with they way in which each conceives of the act of judging itself. As 61 Thus, for example, Wodeham who commences his Lectura Secunda (D.1, q.1, a.1) with a question about the nature of objects of scientia, opens his discussion with the following question: "I ask first whether the act of knowledge (scientia) has as its immediate object things (res) or signs (signum)-that is, whether it has a sentence in the mind [as object] or the things signified by the sentence." (Wodeham 1990, 180) Although he doesn't name Chatton and Ockham explicitly here, he does mention them later on in the discussion. Similarly, Robert Holcot (d. 1349) opens his Quodlibet I.6, which focuses on a question about objects of God's knowledge, by rehearsing Ockham and Chatton's views on the question of objects of knowledge generally. "There is," he says, "uncertainty regarding what should be said to be known as object. One view, namely, Ockham's, is that only a mental sentence is known. Another view, namely, Chatton's, is that the object of an act of knowing or believing is not a sentence but the thing signified by the sentence." See, Holcot 1971, 3. Crathorn too frames his discussion on objects of scientia as a question about whether such objects are sentences (complexa) or things (res). See Crathorn 1988, 269-306. For further discussion of these figures see Tachau 1987; Nuchelmans 1973, chs. 12-13; Grassi 1990; Zupko 1994; Karger 1995; Brower-Toland 2002, chs. 4-5; and BrowerToland, 2006). 62 Wodeham, for example, considers both issues in a single question-he argues that the object of demonstrative scientia is something that is only "complexe significabile" (that is, something that can only be signified by a complex, sentential expression). A number of thinkers after Wodeham take an interest specifically in questions about the nature of the entities that are complexe significabile (i.e. signified by sentences). This debate clearly has its roots in the debate between Ockham and Chatton-in particular, in Chatton's focus on questions about the significate of mental sentences. For discussion of the development of the later fourteenth-century discussion of objects of scientia and of complexe significabilia see Kretzmann 1970; Nuchelmans 1973, chs. 14-16; Nuchelmans 1980 ch. 4; Zupko, 1994, Cesalli 2002; Gaskin 2003; and Conti 2004. 28 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT will become clear, the disagreement between them on this issue is far less conspicuous; neither Ockham nor Chatton ever explicitly remark on it, and perhaps didn't even clearly recognize it. Nonetheless, I think we can detect a difference in way in which each conceives of, and so characterizes, the intentionality associated with acts of judgment. Recall that both Ockham and Chatton assume that every judgment is caused by a (logically) prior apprehension. Despite their shared commitment to this assumption, Ockham allows that it would be possible for God act directly on the intellect to produce an act of judgment-without any prior act of apprehension. For, as he explains, one should not deny of any absolute thing that it can exist by divine power apart from another absolute thing, which is really distinct from it unless some evident contradiction arises. But there appears to be no evident contradiction in thinking that the judgment that follows an apprehension could exist even though the apprehension does not.63 Interestingly, however, Ockham goes on immediately after this to argue that while an act of judgment can occur in the absence of a distinct act of apprehension, it is, nevertheless, impossible for a judgment to occur without any apprehension whatsoever. As he says: "it is not a contradiction for an intellect to assent to a mental sentence without apprehending it by an act of apprehension really distinct from that assent; nevertheless, it can be conceded that assenting without apprehension of any sort does involve a contradiction."64 This is because, as he immediately goes on to add, "assent is itself a certain sort of apprehension."65 His point, I take it, is that acts of judging, just like acts of apprehending, are fully representational states. That is to say, they are intellective acts or states that are of or about something-states in which something is thought or "apprehended." Thus, it is impossible for there to be an act of assent without apprehension at all 63 Ord. Prol. Q.1 (OTh I, 59). 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. Although the texts on which I'm relying here are early, there is no indication that Ockham changes his mind about this. Indeed, in his discussion of judgment in the Quodlibetal Questions, Ockham explicitly re-iterates his early claim that "every act of assenting is an act of apprehension" at a couple of points. (See, OTh IX, 234, 311) And, in his mature account of the ordering among acts of judgment vis-à-vis apprehension (namely, in Quodlibet IV.16), Ockham continues to emphasize that acts of judging presuppose the prior occurrence only "naturally speaking"-that is, only in cases where God's influence is not under consideration. 29 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT since, on his view, this would be tantamount to saying that an act of judgment can be devoid of intentionality. For Ockham, therefore, judgment is a type of apprehension insofar as it is itself a fully representational act or state. An act of judgment is propositional in content in just the way propositional apprehensions (i.e. mental sentences) are. In fact, at one point, Ockham explicitly refers to acts of assent as "propositional" (complex) acts-much in the way he characterizes those propositional acts of apprehension with which he identifies mental sentences.66 It would appear, therefore, that the only difference between apprehension and judgment, on his view, has to do with the force associated with each: acts of judgment carry a kind of assertoric force not present in acts that are merely apprehensive. As Ockham expresses it, in judgment "the intellect not only apprehends its object, but also gives its assent or dissent with respect to it." On his view, therefore, acts of apprehension and judgment are acts belonging to the same genus-for they are each cognitive or intentional states. Indeed, as he says, if "one asks how these acts [namely, apprehension and judgment] differ, I say they are distinct in species; nor is it unfitting for there to be acts of distinct species in the same power with respect to the same object."67 Chatton, by contrast, seems to presuppose a different view about the nature of judgment. Not only does he nowhere indicate that acts of judging are a type of apprehension, capable of existing apart from the apprehensions that cause them, his remarks imply a rather different view of the nature of the relation between apprehension and judgment. It appears that, for Chatton, acts of judgment are not merely causally dependent on prior acts of apprehension, but are also dependent on them for their representationality-that is, for their representational content. In fact, some of his remarks in other contexts suggest that he takes acts of assent (and dissent) to be more akin to non-cognitive acts such as willing (and refusing) than to acts of apprehension. Indeed, at one point, he explicitly characterizes 66 See Quodlibet III. 8 (OTh IX, 234). There is some complication here, however, for in Quodlibet V.6 he characterizes acts of knowing and believing as 'simple'. It's not clear what to make of this claim, however. In any case, it's not at all clear that his calling such acts 'simple' counts against the interpretation I'm offering. For according to Ockham, a simple or "incomplex" mental act is just an act which is such that no part of it is itself an intellectual act (I take this definition from Panaccio 2004, 32). According to this definition, however, even mental sentences can be simple acts. Indeed, Ockham himself explicitly acknowledges this possibility. See, Expos.Perih. Prol., sec. 6 (OPh II, 355-357) and Expos.Perih. I.4 (OPh II, 395). 67 Ord. Prol. Q.1 (OTh I, 60) 30 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT acts of will as a type of assent or dissent and, later on in the same discussion, describes intellective assent and dissent as analogous to acts of appetite insofar as "what is affirmation and negation in the intellect is attraction and repulsion in the appetite."68 In the context of his discussion in q.1, a.1, Chatton's most explicit remarks about the difference between acts of apprehension and judgment come in a passage in which he is explaining how, in the case in which one comes to believe an article of the faith, the act in which assent is given differs from that in which one merely entertains (i.e. "apprehends") the article in question. His account here suggests that he takes the act of apprehending the article and the act of assenting to it to be not merely distinct numerically, but also distinct in kind. For, he says, the act of believing is a simple act, whereas the act of forming the article [i.e., forming a mental sentence stating an article of faith] occurs successively over time. Therefore, these acts are distinct. ... The first premise is clear since if it were not a simple act (one that does not include many acts) there would be no single instant at which it could be posited. After all, a mental sentence (which does include many acts) is usually formed by a wayfarer in succession-in that order in which it is formed in spoken words (or at least it can be so formed). And so [if the two acts were not distinct] there would be no one instant at which the faithful person believes.69 As Chatton emphasizes here, on his view, a propositional apprehension- that is, a mental sentence-is an aggregate of mental acts: one act serving as the subject term, another as the predicate term, and a third as the copula. By contrast, the act of believing or assenting is "simple." Thus, unlike the propositional act of apprehension that precedes and causes it, assent does not "include many acts" but, rather, in some sense attaches to or accompanies the existing aggregate this is the already formed mental sentence. As Chatton goes on to explain, however, "although an act of knowing or believing is a simple act of the intellect" and, so, not a "complex" or propositional act, he wants to insist that "it remains the case that it is a truth-evaluable (veridicus) act-as it is caused by means of composition [and division] and is such that it is not had prior to composition 68 Earlier in the same discussion, Chatton compares acts of willing and judging in this way: "Every act of the will is willing or resisting since it is no less the case here than in other respects that any act of the intellect following deliberation is assenting or dissenting. For it is clear from the Philosopher that in the intellect there is affirmation and negation and here there is attraction and repulsion." (Rep. I, D. 1, q.2, a.2, 40) 69 Prol. q.1, a.1, 34. 31 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT and division." Indeed, on his view, the act is "simple" in as much as it "does not include a plurality of acts intrinsically." Unlike other simple or nonpropositional acts, however, an act assent is such that it can exist only in connection with a complex or propositional apprehension and so will relate to that which is represented (or apprehended) by that apprehension. As Chatton is thinking of it, therefore, the act by which the intellect assents or judges is not, as it is for Ockham, a species of apprehension; it is, rather, an act that in some sense attaches to or follows on apprehension and adds a kind of judicative force to it.70 In light of the foregoing, we might summarize the difference between Ockham and Chatton in terms of their respective ways of accounting for the force and content associated with any given judgment. For Ockham, judgment is a single act-one that possesses both propositional content as well as a kind of assertoric force. Chatton, by contrast, seems to analyze the force and content involved in judgment into distinct types of act, one of which is a content bearing act, with the other functioning as the mental equivalent of a judgment stroke. Thus, for Chatton, a single judgment is comprised of two distinct types of act: a complex or propositional apprehension and a separate act of assent "by virtue of which the intellect takes (asserit) the propositional apprehension (complexum) to be true."71 Here again, the difference between Ockham and Chatton is significant for understanding later medieval developments. Indeed, we can find in thinkers such Adam Wodeham-an immediate successor and student of both Ockham and Chatton-evidence of this disagreement and some indication of how it came to shape later discussions. Since Wodeham's treatment of this issue not only appears to corroborate my reading of the difference between Ockham and Chatton, but also illustrates how such different conceptions of judgment made their way into subsequent discussions, it is worth considering briefly. Wodeham's discussion of this issue occurs in the context of a discussion about God's ability to directly cause an "evident" act of judgment. At one point in this discussion, he pauses briefly to summarize what he takes to be two different ways of thinking about the nature of judicative acts 70 Cf. Reportatio super Sententias III, d. 23, q. un, a. 3-4. Here Chatton is more explicit about the simplicity of the act of assenting and its relation to a mental sentence. In this context he explains that the formation of the mental sentence causes the act of assent, which assent has for its object that which is signified by the mental sentence which causes it. 71 Prol., q.1, a.1, 43. 32 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT themselves. The first of these bears a remarkable resemblance to the view I have attributed to Chatton, whereas the second looks to be Ockham's. Thus, on the first model, as Wodeham describes it, "no judgment...is an apprehension" but rather, judgment is only a certain nod by which the mind grants that it is the case as the mental sentence (or sentences) signifies. But for the fact that there is this nodding there would be [just] some apprehension concerning its being such and such. Thus, [judgment] is a certain mental concession or refusal that, according to nature, always presupposes and also co-occurs with a propositional apprehension, which when posited, one can grant or not grant as if mentally saying 'yes' or 'no' or by hesitating. And according to this, such an act might be a certain act of the soul that conforms more to acts of the appetite than to acts of apprehension ... Thus, if God were to cause such an act in us without apprehension, we would, inwardly, assess nothing by it since it is not a perceptive act. Rather we would remain totally blind.72 On this analysis, judgment is not an intentional or representational state, but is rather more like a mental "nod" that, as Wodeham explains, "always cooccurs" with a propositional apprehension. Indeed, if it were to somehow occur without being accompanied by an act of apprehension it would be, as he puts it a "blind" mental nod for the intellect would be assenting or dissenting (giving a mental nod, or shake) but not to anything. Thus, as Wodeham nicely puts it, on this view "no single mental act would be knowing [or believing or judging], rather it would be as much an aggregate of multiple acts." On the second of Wodeham's two models, however, an act of judgment "is itself a certain... apprehension." Indeed, as Wodeham goes on to explain, on this analysis it may be said that this sort of judgment is a single act that is simple in being, but in representing [it represents] just as much as the propositional and the nonpropositional acts that are necessary (naturally speaking) for causing and conserving it-although perhaps it represents and signifies in a less perfectly manner than these. ... For the two representative natures are of a different species-that is, the two acts belong to representations of their own species.73 Here, judgment is conceived as a type or species of apprehension; it is, as Wodeham says, an act that "represents and signifies" things in much the way as acts of apprehension do. On this view, therefore, judging is not a 72 Lectura Secunda, Prol., q.6 (I, 173). 73 Ibid. (I, 174). 33 OCKHAM AND CHATTON ON OBJECTS AND ACTS OF JUDGMENT composite mental state, but rather a single act in which one both represents or entertains a certain content and intellectively assents (or dissents) to it. Although Wodeham does not mention Ockham or Chatton by name in connection with either of these views, the resemblance to each seems clear.74 What is more, Wodeham's discussion not only provides a nice way of summarizing the differences between them, but also shows how the dispute between Ockham and Chatton on judgment may well have been responsible for initiating a wide-ranging debate about both the nature of objects of judgment and the nature and intentional structure of acts of judgment. Indeed, in the latter part of the fourteenth century, questions and debate about the nature of judicative acts comes to the fore alongside questions about objects of judgment.75 4. CONCLUSION In this paper, I have argued that Chatton's criticisms of Ockham find a target in Ockham's developing views about judgment and that they play an important role in shaping the outcome of that development. I have also attempted to show that while Ockham's final theory of judgment is clearly influenced by Chatton, significant differences between them remain- differences in the sorts of philosophical interests that motivate their respective accounts, differences in the conclusions they draw about the nature of objects of judgment, and, finally, differences in the way each conceives of the nature and structure of judicative states themselves. These points of disagreement serve to highlight the nature of the formative relationship between the two. For here, as in so many other cases, the exchange between them provides an occasion for each to refine and sharpen his views-and, by so doing, to further the philosophical debate itself. Indeed, as we've seen, understanding the differences between Chatton and Ockham sheds new light not only on what is distinctive in each, but also on the development of the later medieval debate about judgment as a whole.76 74 What is more, this issue arises in the context of a broader question in which he is addressing and adjudicating the differences between Ockham and Chatton's views on cognition-in particular, what sort of acts are required in order for the intellect to form an evident judgment. It is, therefore, not unlikely that in rehearsing (and ultimately deciding between) these two ways of thinking about judgment Wodeham means to be addressing yet one more difference between Ockham and Chatton. 75 See Nuchelmans 1980, 90-102. 76 I'm grateful to Jeff Brower for helpful comments and criticism on earlier drafts of this paper. 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The unsolvability of the mind-body problem liberates the will Jan Scheffel Professor, Fusion Plasma Physics, KTH Royal Inst. of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden Abstract The mind-body problem is analyzed in a physicalist perspective. By combining the concepts of emergence and algorithmic information theory in a thought experiment employing a basic nonlinear process, it is argued that epistemically strongly emergent properties may develop in a physical system. A comparison with the significantly more complex neural network of the brain shows that also consciousness is epistemically emergent in a strong sense. Thus reductionist understanding of consciousness appears not possible; the mind-body problem does not have a reductionist solution. The ontologically emergent character of consciousness is then identified from a combinatorial analysis relating to system limits set by quantum mechanics, implying that consciousness is fundamentally irreducible to low-level phenomena. In the perspective of a modified definition of free will, the character of the physical interactions of the brain's neural system is subsequently studied. As an ontologically open system, it is asserted that its future states are undeterminable in principle. We argue that this leads to freedom of the will. 1 Introduction Understanding consciousness is a central problem in philosophy. The literature produced through the centuries, relating to the 'mind-body' problem, is also huge. A subset of over 3500 articles has been collected by Chalmers (2016). An apparent contradiction lies in the fact that while we normally seek scientific understanding from a reductionist perspective, in which the whole is understood from its constituents, consciousness has for millions of years evolved into an extremely complex system with advanced high-level properties. The theoretical difficulties we have faced strongly suggest that fundamentally new ideas are needed for the mind-body problem to reach its resolution. In this work it is argued that emergence, combined with results from algorithmic information theory, is such an idea. The meaning of these concepts will shortly be discussed; we may here briefly state that emergence relates to complex systems with characteristics that are difficult or impossible to reduce to the parts of the systems and algorithmic information theory concerns relationships between information and computing capacity. We reach the conclusion that the mind is epistemically strongly emergent, which by definition implies that the mindbody problem cannot be solved reductionistically. Reductionistic understanding of the subjective aspects of consciousness, like introspection and qualia, is therefore not possible. The concept of 'explanatory gap' (Levine, 1983) is thus justified. McGinn, in his influential work "Can we solve the mind-body problem?" (McGinn, 1989) also concludes that the mind cannot be understood, but on other grounds. He focuses on the ability to understand phenomenal consciousness (Block, 1995), and find that we humans, because of "cognitive closure" are not able to solve this 'hard problem of consciousness' (Chalmers, 1995). With the reservation "the type of mind that can solve it is going to be very different from our" McGinn does not fully exclude that consciousness can be given some kind of explanation, an optimism not supported in this work. But how is freedom of the will related to the mind-body problem? We have devised a thought experiment which features a process that can be shown to be strongly emergent in the epistemic sense. The close relation to neurological functions of consciousness leads to the conclusion that also consciousness is epistemically strongly emergent. Furthermore we 2 will argue that consciousness, due to its particular complexity considered as a global system, is ontologically emergent. Chalmers (2006) finds, on intuitive rather than on formal grounds, that the mind is 'strongly emergent'; a term used in the same meaning as 'ontologically emergent'. The ontologically emergent character of consciousness resolves the contradiction we have long been facing for the freedom of the will; on the one hand, our volitional actions should occur deterministically quite as we wish to see them executed, but on the other hand determinism should not force our thoughts and intentions upon us. This explains the seemingly strange choice of title for this work. Of crucial importance is the use of a reformulation of the common definition 'ability to do otherwise' to a scientifically testable definition of free will. We here also touch upon the somewhat neglected circumstance that if we indeed could understand consciousness, it follows that the will cannot be free. Definitions are important in this work. There are at least two reasons for this. The first is that several aspects of the concepts of consciousness and freedom of will often are used in different ways by different philosophers, neuroscientists and others. Furthermore, it is sometimes unclear which definition is assumed. This may be understandable on the basis of that consciousness, not least semantically, is an elusive concept. The problem is rooted in its unique character, causing attempts for a definition to contain circular elements of some kind. The influential early characterisation of Locke (1690) "consciousness is the perception of what passes in a man's own mind" suffers from reference to the subjective term "perception". Nagel's (1974) characterisation "there is something that it is like to be that organism something it is like for the organism" has gained popularity, although "is like" refers back to the subject itself, that is to consciousness. A more exhaustive and recent discussion of possible criteria for and meanings of conscious states can be found in Van Gulick (2014). However, either of the above formulations sufficiently catches the subjective components of consciousness that are referred to in this work, thus we here consider phenomenal consciousness. When we discuss other key concepts, attempts will be made to render the treatment more precise, in some cases using formalisations from physics and mathematics. The second reason for the need for clear definitions is simply that binding arguments requires precision (Carnap, 1950). The consequence of such specifications may of course be that the definitions of some philosophers are excluded; the results of this article should be seen in this perspective. We begin by discussing what requirements must be placed on a solution of the mind-body problem. It is then argued that such a solution cannot be found. The core of the argument is that the epistemically strongly emergent nature of consciousness precludes understanding of it in a reductionist sense. In the subsequent section we show that the ontologically emergent character of consciousness dissolves the deterministic contradiction we have been facing for the freedom of the will. Finally follows discussion and conclusion. 2 What is required of a solution to the mind-body problem? The goal of the mind-body problem research is to find a theory that explains the relationship between mental and physical states and processes. The sub-problem which by far has attracted the most interest concerns the question how consciousness can be understood. We may initially ask the question: what is required from an adequate theory? Chaitin (1987) has clarified the meaning of the necessary requirement that a theory must be inherently less complex than what it describes; in his terminology it must to some extent be 'algorithmically compressible' in relation to what it should explain. Let us 3 illustrate this by an example. A relationship y = f(x) has been established to explain a phenomenon, but the precise dependence is not known. A series of experiments that generate N data points (xi,yi); i:1...N has thus been performed. Clearly, a polynomial Y(x) of degree N-1 (N coefficients) can always be fitted to be drawn through all the data points in an xy-diagram. Is it a theory? The answer is no, for the simple reason that Y(x) does not explain anything; it is always possible to draw a polynomial of degree N-1 exactly through N data points. Had we instead adapted a polynomial of lower degree through all the points, say a second order polynomial through 10 data points, then we would have a theory worthy of the name; it predicts more than it must. That it is algorithmically compressible means that it can be formulated using fewer bits of binary information than for Y(x). Simply put: a proper theory must be simpler than the phenomenon it describes, otherwise it does not explain anything. We will in this work make use of the discrete logistic equation for comparisons with the neurological processes that form the basis of consciousness. This equation can be formulated as the discrete recursive relation xn+1 = λxn(1-xn), n:0...nmax, where the positive integer nmax can be chosen freely. The discrete logistic equation then iteratively generates new numbers xn+1 for increasing values of numbers n. The parameter λ and the start value x0 must first be selected. We can now ask: is there an explicit theory for the value xn+1, that is is there a function u(k) which satisfies the relation xk = u(k), being algorithmically compressible as compared to repeated use of the iterative relationship xn+1 = λxn(1-xn)? Of course we can form x1 = λx0(1-x0), x2 = λx1(1-x1) = λλx0(1-x0)(1-λx0(1-x0)) and so on. This latter route is however not feasible; for large n we will find that xn+1 becomes extremely complex; this way of searching u(k) does not result in a valid theory. Alternatively formulated: the binary bits needed to represent these terms is at least of the same order as the bits representing the numbers x1, x2, x3... themselves! Unfortunately, it can be shown that the question must be answered in the negative; no matter how we try it is not possible (except for a very few values of λ) to derive a theory, that is a compact, explicit expression for u(k). The cause of the problem is that the discrete logistic equation is a nonlinear recursive equation. Let us, for a moment, instead consider the simpler linear recursive equation xn+1 = A+λxn , n:0...nmax, where A is a constant, for which the general term xk can be derived in explicit form simply as xk = x0λk +A(1-λk)/(1-λ) for λ ≠ 1 and as xk = x0 +Ak when λ = 1. The solution is expressed using only a few mathematical symbols; it is thus algorithmically compressible (may be represented by fewer digital bits of information) as compared to the solution xk obtained iteratively by forming x1 = A+λx0, x2 = A+λx1 = A+λ(A+λx0), x3 = A+λx2 = A+λ(A+λ(A+λx0)) and so on. This explicit solution was analytically available because of the low complexity involved in the solution of linear equations as compared to nonlinear. Furthermore, the solution for xk is derived mathematically by using well-known axioms and theorems; consequently we can theoretically explain the values xk for the linear recursive equation. We have here employed examples from mathematics, but the reasoning applies generally when we seek any kind of formal explanation or theory for a phenomenon. As a result, a theory cannot explain consciousness if it relates to systems of the same level of complexity (like other minds). Understanding is only reached from theories that are less complex than consciousness itself and relate to already established knowledge; in other words they should be algorithmically compressible in relation to consciousness. 4 3 Emergence stands in the way The emergent character of consciousness is still debated in the philosophical literature (Kim 1999, Kim 2006, Chalmers 2006). We will here argue that consciousness is both epistemically strongly emergent and ontologically emergent. Consciousness thus has features that are not reducible to the properties of its components. The standard expression 'not reducible to' expresses that the characteristics of the low-level components of the phenomenon are insufficient to determine high-level properties. By 'low-level' and 'highlevel' we refer to the parts of and integrated wholes of a system or phenomenon, respectively. This is of course central to the mind-body problem since it settles the issue of the 'explanatory gap' (Levine, 1983); an unbridgeable gap exists between the theories we can formulate on the basis of the basic physiology of the brain and the subjective, cognitive function of consciousness. A consequence is that behaviour of consciousness is unpredictable, a relationship being of importance as we later approach the problem of freedom of will. First we turn to investigate the emergent character of consciousness. 3.1 Definition of epistemical and ontological emergence For this we define epistemically strong emergence in the following way: A high-level phenomenon is epistemically strongly emergent with respect to phenomena on low-level if the latter constitute the basis for the high-level phenomenon and if the theories that describe the low-level phenomena cannot predict behaviour at high-level. Ontological emergence, in turn, can be defined by replacing "if the theories that describe the low-level phenomena cannot predict behaviour at high-level" with "if its behaviour is not reducible to processes at low-level". It may be argued that any phenomen or behaviour in a physicalist world would be reducible to low-level properties since we assume that the physical is all there is. But this is not what is meant by reduction; supervenience does not imply reducibility. An ontologically irreducible phenomenon, if it exists, would not be determined by its low-level-properties or behaviour; it would not follow a statistical or law-like behaviour in relation to its low-level components. Loosely formulated it can be said that its behaviour comes as a surprise to nature. This distinction is crucial and we will indeed see that even if determinism holds, there are systems where extreme complexity can, in an ontological sense, 'shield' the dynamics of a high-level phenomenon from that of its associated low-level phenomena. An important consequence is that these systems are uncontrollable in principle. It may here also be remarked that there is no need to distinguish between 'strong' and 'weak' ontological emergence. The requirements for ontological emergence are indeed harder to satisfy than those for epistemic emergence; the former relates to intrinsic properties of the system rather than to knowledge about and theories for the system. The term epistemically weakly emergent, in turn, is frequently used for systems that can be simulated on a computer but otherwise would be characterized as epistemically strongly emergent. This definition will be adopted here as well. Emergence is naturally related to complexity. The brain features about 100 billion nerve cells (neurons), each connected to thousands of other nerve cells via dendrites. A model of the mind must be able to handle a corresponding complexity. As we have just discussed, algorithmic information theory implies that 'models' or 'theories' that cannot be algorithmically compressed to a complexity lower than that of the data they describe do not measure up. It is however not entirely clear how emergent properties arise in complex systems. It would be of great help if we could actually point to a relevant example. Our approach will thus be to, using a thought experiment, provide an example of a system with strongly emergent properties, related to neural processes of the brain but with lower complexity. The epistemically strongly emergent character of consciousness will then follow. 5 3.2 The Jumping robot Our thought experiment is the following. Let us imagine a number of robots that are deployed on an isolated island. All robots are designed in the same way. They are programmed to be able to freely walk around the island and perform certain tasks. The robots can communicate with each other and are also instructed to carry out their duties as effectively as possible. If a robot becomes more efficient by performing a certain action, it should 'memorize' it and 'teach' the other robots the same skill. Let us concentrate on the behaviour of one of these robots and call the thought experiment 'the Jumping robot'. In order to support the robots to move about freely, their movement patterns are partially determined by the discrete logistic equation just described. The iterative equation xn+1 = λxn(1-xn) generates new numbers xn+1 in the interval [0,1] when x0 (also in the range [0,1]), and λ are set. These numbers affect how the robot should coordinate its joints, muscles and body parts, but the robot is programmed only to use information leading to safe motion without falling. Let us put λ = 4. It can then be shown mathematically that, for almost any choice of x0, a chaotic sequence in the interval [0,1] is generated already for moderately large n. A chaotic sequence is characterised by that it is not algorithmically compressible (Chaitin, 1987); there is no theory that can predict the value of xk for large k. If we consider consecutive xk, xk+1, xk+2 and so on, these numbers will seem completely random. But the interesting and important fact is that they actually are deterministic; each number in the sequence is unambiguously defined by the former and so on in a long chain. Let us summarize: in the general case, there exists no algorithmically compressible explicit expression xk = u(k) for the discrete logistic equation and for the case λ = 4, there is neither any empirical opportunity to establish a law for the generated values. Now assume that it would be of great value if the robots could perform jumps without falling. An attempt is thus made to learn a robot this behaviour. From a large number of x0 values different sequences of numbers are generated, using the discrete logistic equation, in the hope that one of these sequences would correspond to movements which when combined result in the robot performing a jump. We ignore here that the procedure is obviously cumbersome; the complexity is partly caused by the fact that the robot consists of a large amount of joints, muscles and other bodyparts that should be coordinated, partly by the ignorance as to what movements the robot would need to perform for a successful jump and partly by that the discrete logistic equation does not allow control of the movements. After numerous unsuccessful attempts the task is thus given up; the robots cannot be 'taught' to jump. Instead now initiate robots with random x0 and leave them to themselves for some time on the island, after which we return. To our surprise, we now find that several of the robots make their way not only by walking, but also by jumping over obstacles. They have thus developed an emergent property or behaviour. We cannot explain how one or more of the robots aquired the property to be able to jump; no theory is to be found. As we saw, we could neither simulate the behaviour. If so, this would have been an example of epistemically weak emergence. The robot's behaviour is thus epistemically strongly emergent. A main point here is that the emergent ability to jump per se is both fully comprehensible to us as well as fully plausible in the sense that we can imagine that a certain sequential use of joints, muscles and bodyparts may indeed accomplish this behaviour, at the same time realizing that some kind of chance or evolution beyond our modelling capacity was required in the light of the complexity involved. There is no magic involved in the process, rather the behaviour is similar to that of random mutations in the genome of an individual organism, producing improved characteristics. The behaviour, however, does not appear to be ontologically emergent since we know that the 6 robot's capacity to jump really is reducible to its finite number of parts. Similar conclusions about the emergent properties of nonlinear systems have been reached by other authors (Silberstein and McGeever, 1999). 3.3 The emergent character of consciousness What then is the relevance of this epistemically strongly emergent system for the mindbody problem? It could be argued that we can make detailed studies of a jumping robot, simply ignoring how it reached its emergent state, in order to understand its functions and presumably build copies that perform the same movement patterns and therefore also can jump. Maybe we could build consciousness in a similar manner? By a careful procedure, we may perhaps map all the required details of the state of the robot to its ability to jump. This procedure does not, however, catch the complete behaviour of the robot which should include the time-dynamics of its 'brain', being governed by the discrete logistic equation. Since this equation is chaotic, it is numerically impossible to work backwards indefinitely from a known, present state to accurately determine prior states that controls the robot's actions. For this reason a theory for the Jumping robot cannot be developed. Thus at best we can hope to build 'zombie robots' that copy the mechanical behaviour of the Jumping robots but not their associated 'brain' functions. Moreover, our understanding of a singular emergent property or behaviour does not imply a complete understanding of any possible property or behaviour of the system. Having investigated all relevant aspects pertinent to the robot's jumping ability does not imply that we now can control the robot to, for example, jump on one leg only. A posteriori understanding of emergent systems is not sufficient for a priori understanding of their properties. The emergent states of the human brain, to be discussed shortly, must be understood similarly. A complete mapping of an individual thought process to its supervenient neural network certainly does not guarantee understanding of qualitatively different thought processes. Furthermore, it is well known that mental processes suffer from an additional complexity, not related to emergence: they cannot be scientifically related to externally measurable properties in the same way as for the robots; the conscious properties of the mind are predominantly accessible internally or subjectively. Consciousness thus cannot be straightforwardly understood from basic externally controllable, non-emergent physical states, because the resulting characteristic emergent properties cannot be ascertained objectively. Our focus is here on emergence, so we will not dwell on this difficulty any further. Let us now investigate the degree of emergence associated with consciousness. The human brain is vastly more complex than the discrete logistic equation. In brief, its approximately 100 billion neurons communicate as follows. Via the so-called dendrites, each neuron can be reached by electrochemical signals from tens to tens of thousands (average 7000) neighbouring neurons. The contributions from these signals are weighted in the neuron's cell body to an electrical potential. When this reaches a certain threshold, the neuron sends out a pulse along a nerve fibre, which in turn may connect via synapses to several other cell dendrites. The outgoing signal from a neuron is thus a step function rather than a continuous, nonlinear function of the incoming signal. This justifies the choice of the discrete logistic equation rather than its continuous counterpart in the thought experiment. Neurons fire about 100 signals per second with signal speeds of up to 100 meters per second. The behaviour varies from neuron to neuron. For networks of neurons, it is found that nonlinear functions called sigmoids, with S-shaped dependence of the input signals, provide realistic models. Mathematically, sigmoids are closely related to the discrete logistic equation. 7 We can thus conclude that communication within the neural network of the brain occurs nonlinearly and discretely with a complexity far exceeding that of the simple logistic equation. The behaviour of the latter is, as we have seen, characterised as algoritmically incompressible. Since, in a physicalist perspective, it is the neural processes of the brain that underlies consciousness, it follows that a theory for phenomenal consciousness cannot be constructed. Thus consciousness, and similarly subconsciousness, is epistemically strongly emergent. In the same way that we could not reductionistically explain the Jumping robot's behaviour, we can not reductionistically explain the properties of consciousness; the mind-body problem is unsolvable. We may now ask whether consciousness is also ontologically emergent; are the properties of consciousness irreducible to the lower level states and processes that form the basis of consciousness, the ones that consciousness supervene on? The meaning of 'cannot be reduced to' for this question need be illuminated. Let us return to the example of the Jumping robot. The property to be able to jump is not ontologically emergent for the reason that in an objective meaning this property was an option within reach for the system, although its details were unknown to us. By 'objective' we mean that the various possible sequences of numbers being generated by the discrete logistic equation, of which at least one potentially lead to jumping behaviour, correspond to an amount of information that is manageable in principle. This latter statement demands clarification, since we now have made contact with the consequences of quantum mechanics and information theory for ontology. It has been shown (Lloyd 2002, Davies, 2004) that the information storage capacity of the universe is limited by the available quantum states of matter inside the causal horizon. The latter is the distance, limited by the finite speed of light, outside which no events may be causally influential. Using multiple arguments it is found that the order of 10120 bits of digital information may be contained within this horizon. The fact that this result is an estimate is not essential; what matters here is that information storage capacity is limited to a magnitude of this nature. For a property or behaviour to be characterized as ontologically emergent it must therefore exhibit a complexity transcending some 10120 bits of digital information; only then can we say that there is no possibility, even in principle, to 'reduce' it to the low-level phenomena on which it is based. Note that 'ontology' is used in this work in the traditional, philosophical sense and not as a reference to properties or interrelationships between entities used in computer science and information science. It would certainly be helpful if we could find a specific example of an ontologically emergent system. To this end, we note that emergence rarely is associated with the results of human activities, with design, but rather with evolution; the development of nature. Evolution has through natural selection access to a tremendous diversity of degrees of freedom and features a huge potential to generate emergent systems. An example from chemistry is myoglobin, an important oxygen binding molecule found in muscle tissue (Luisi, 2002). Here 153 amino acids are interconnected in a so-called polypeptide chain. Since there are 20 different amino acids, the number of possible combinations of chains amounts to the enormous number 20153 ≈ 10199, which corresponds to a number of digital bits much larger than 10120. Myoglobin is thus an ontologically emergent phenomenon in nature; the molecule is, in terms of optimized functions such as high oxygen affinity, not reducible to its low-level constituents. It could only evolve, it could not be designed. Returning to consciousness, we will now argue that individual thought processes are emergent. We recall that the example of the Jumping robot was used for illustrating strong epistemic emergence; a certain robot property (or behaviour or state) X was to be designed but our modelling capacity, even using computer simulations, turned out to be insufficient to accomplish X. This is precisely what we mean by strong epistemic emergence; high-level behaviour could not be predicted or controlled from low-level 8 behaviour. However, since the possible number of combinations of robot joints, muscles and other bodyparts is limited we have reason to assume that the computational capacity of the universe, if accessible, would suffice for solving the problem. Thus X is an example of strong epistemic but not ontological emergence. Next, we found an instance Y of ontological emergence in the myoglobin protein molecule. Its high oxygen affinity is ontologically emergent because of its extreme complexity. Just as X surprisingly appeared among the robots on the island, Y develops as a 'surprise' to nature itself. Let us proceed along the same lines as earlier: we wish to determine whether consciousness entails any property Z that is ontologically emergent. More precisely: given the physical resources on which consciousness supervenes, is it possible to reduce all occuring properties or behaviour of the mind ontologically to these low-level processes? Is the information processing capacity of the universe sufficient for this task? Let us imagine a human-like individual in a situation where conscious choices need be made. This could, for example, be to select courses from a menu at a restaurant. The final choice will be influenced by factors such as earlier taste experiences and attained preferences, allergies, views on appropriate diets, present state of hunger, the internal matches between starters, main courses and desserts, memories from possible earlier visits to the restaurant, views on suitable accompanying drinks as well as prices. Just as we interested us for the jumping ability of the robots we are now interested in the individual's choice of a threecourse dinner. What are the required low-level conditions for that the individual should have the property of choosing a certain, specified combination of these dishes? We will now argue that this property is an example of Z. Assume that one-thousandth of the 1011 neurons of the brain are involved in the associated thought process. Assume also that there is some redundancy, or cluster behaviour, so that only one-thousandth of these in turn need to actively be controlled. This leaves N = 105 neurons to be initiated. It can be assumed that their states are binary; only two states exist for each. Thus there are 2N possible combinations of neural states. Clearly even a small fraction of these possible states is much larger than 10120. Similarly as for the oxygen affinity of the myoglobin molecule it is not possible to design, even in principle, a thought process that would correspond to, for example, the choice of a particular three-course meal. This extremely complex mental process has evolved to take place at a level that is not reducible to low-level processes. As a result thought processes of the mind generally are ontologically emergent; they cannot be reduced to the low-level components, the neurons, that they supervene on. As we will argue shortly, this opens up for 'downward causation'. Needless to say, we could imagine even more complex examples of properties Z, including those related to subjective experiences. 3.4 Neuroscience The neural networks of the brain communicate in discrete nonlinear processes to generate cognitive functions such as the abilities to feel pain, think, make choices and introspect. If these basic processes were linear, their behaviour could possibly be reduced to a theory. This theory would have lower complexity than what it describes since it would be algorithmically compressible. Nonlinear systems like the neural network of the brain, however, generally feature higher complexity. Since the neural network associated with consciousness is nonlinear to its nature and epistemically strongly emergent, we have argued that a theory cannot be constructed for it. Thus consciousness cannot be understood within a reductionistic framework. This holds regardless if we seek a computational theory of mind or any other formally reductionistic theory of mind. 9 It is of interest here to briefly discuss a quite different obstacle for understanding consciousness. Abandoning efforts for finding theories of consciousness, we may be inclined to instead turn to the possibility of artificially designing consciousness. In neuroscience there is a search for 'neural correlates of consciousness' (NCC), which form the neural processes in the brain that are directly linked to the individual's current mind activities. Let us say that NCC:s indeed can be identified to an extent that serious attempts to create conscious processes in artificial brains can be made. On each such experimental attempt the function must be ensured; the system must be diagnosed. Otherwise there is the possibility that we have designed an advanced system that externally behaves like a consciousness but actually lacks mental processes. The problem is here that essentially no fundamental limit exists for non-cognitive 'intelligence' of advanced computer programs. These would then, properly designed, be able to pass any kind of Turing test. In these tests, where the respondent is hidden so that the person performing the test does not know whether it communicates with a human or a machine, any machine that produces similar responses as humans when addressed are deemed intelligent on the level of a human. The Turing test is valuable for testing intelligence, but obviously is unreliable for testing consciousness. But what would then be an adequate diagnosis? Current definitions of phenomenal consciousness provide an answer: we are to ensure that the system can have subjective experiences. But since all measurement of the functions of consciousness must be done externally, that is by laboratory personnel using diagnostic equipment, the system's internal cognitive functions cannot be measured. There is simply no information externally available from the system that would be indistinguishable from that which can be produced by an advanced, but unconscious, computer program. We could be facing an intelligent robot, without ability for conscious behaviour. This is, as mentioned elsewhere, therefore not a viable route for solution of the mind-body problem. In short: understanding of a system implies the possibility of constructing it, with all of its functions. But since the intended function (generation of conscious thoughts) of the systems we may construct cannot not be experimentally verified, we can not say with certainty that we understand them. 4 Consequences for free will Must we have the thoughts we have? Do our thoughts only happen, rather than being created by ourselves? Does determinism hold our will into an iron grip? The free will problem presumably is the most important existential problem and has generated shelf kilometers of literature throughout the centuries. One reason for the problematic situation is very likely the most common definition of free will itself: 'the ability to act differently'. Indeed, it is hard to see any opportunity for scientific methods to determine whether we actually can 'act differently' or not. How do we know whether an individual's actions are autonomous or predetermined? And why should even a free consciousness act differently in two identical situations? Many arguments about the will thus lead to uncertain terrains. 4.1 Alternative definition of free will We here make an attempt to provide a definition of free will with characteristics that are scientifically decidable: A conscious individual has free will if its behaviour takes place according to its intentions, the intentions are not subconsciously generated and if the individual's mind is an ontologically open system. By 'will' we here refer to expressions by a cognitive system of preferenced future actions. Furthermore, by an 'ontologically open system' is meant a causal, physically closed 10 system for which the future behaviour is undeterminable and thus uncontrollable, even in principle. We will justify the definition as follows. Experience tells us that basic, lower level phenomena are causal and deterministic. Quantum mechanical statistical corrections must, of course, be taken into account as discussed below. If also the higher level neuronal functions of the conscious individual are determinable beforehand, it is obvious that its will is governed by laws outside its conscious control. This circumstance is a feature of the classical, deterministic argument against free will. Behaviour related to ontologically open conscious systems is, on the other hand, not directly reducible to earlier physical neural states. As argued in the following, this is typical for ontologically emergent behaviour. Individuals featuring ontologically emergent neural processes are ontologically undeterminable beforehand. They cannot be externally controlled, not even in principle. This is the crucial and decisive property we assign to ontologically open systems. Noteworthy is that ontological openness is possible also for systems that are deterministic (or essentially so) at lower-level, as shown below. Consequently the notions of compatibilism and incompatibilism are irrelevant here. Phenomena relating to classical open physical systems are generally causal, but indeterminable. These systems are open to external influence, and they are thus not guaranteed to evolve identically when repeatedly started from the same initial conditions. The associated dynamic processes should not be regarded as random or chancy; the point is that the system itself does not contain sufficient information about its future external states. This becomes clear if we extend the size of the system to also include all of its external influences. Such a system may be physically closed, causal and deterministic. We will, in the next section, argue that consciousness is ontologically open in spite of being a physically closed system. For the sake of completeness and accuracy we should, as mentioned, account for the implication of quantum mechanics that determinism does not fully apply at the very micro-level; the uncertainty principle shows that nature is 'blurry' at the sub-atomic and atomic particle levels. For larger clusters of particles, however, like the molecules that make up the neurons, this effect is of much less importance, because of so-called quantum decoherence. The concept of 'adequate determinism' has been coined to emphasize that the statistical determinism that results and is used here, in essence is correct in the macroscopic world, even if quantum phenomena are important for very small systems. Returning to the present definition of free will, we note that the desired actions of a free consciousness must not turn into anything other than intended; behaviour must be based on its intentions. If I wish to consider what to eat for dinner, such a reflection must be possible. My actions must consistently and adequately follow my will. The phrasing 'takes place according to its intentions' is deliberately somewhat vague; the precision we may strive for in our actions is sometimes not achieved; this is not because the will is not obeyed but rather from our physical and psychological limitations. Note that we also assume conscious individuals; it is not meaningful to talk about 'will' for other systems. Finally, the condition that 'the intentions are not subconsciously generated' is needed to ensure that the individual's 'brain' does not contain any hidden systems that manipulates it in a manner that consciousness, in spite of being controlled, experiences intentions as its own. So-called 'character decisions', decisions that we make without active reflection based on our experiences and consolidated positions, we treat in this context as conscious. We will return to these. In summary, we have cast the formulation 'the ability to act differently' into an alternative, scientifically decidable formulation in order to generate improved methodological conditions to handle the free-will problem. A condensation of the definition could be something like 'An individual that can realize conscious, unforced choices has free will'. 11 The task is now to address the inhibiting circumstance that the mind must feature a deterministic character in order to enable coherent thought processes and consistent performance of its intended actions, but at the same time feature an ontologically open future to permit self-caused actions. Free will implies that this potential contradiction is dissolved. It is at this point the emergent character of consciousness becomes crucial. It should be noted that if it really were the case that a true theory of consciousness could be designed, then there is no room for free will. Free will implies that the mind is epistemically strongly emergent, a fact that deserves more attention in the literature. The reason is simply that if the individual's behaviour would be epistemically computable or could be simulated, its behaviour would be predictable and controllable and thus not free. 4.2 Consciousness and determinism We will now argue that consciousness is an ontologically open, high-level global system. The question is then how it would be possible for the brain's essentially deterministic atomic lower-level activity to lead to ontologically open behaviour at the higher interneural levels related to consciousness, considering that man and consciousness are of the physical world. At this point it can be instructive to discuss a hypothetical Jumping robot. It is clear that if its functions were not epistemically emergent, we could control it. We could then device certain input to its 'brain' in order to produce a certain behaviour, like jumping. If the robot furthermore had conscious capabilities we could in principle fool it into believing that it chooses to jump out of free will by manipulating its memory and cognital functions. If its functions instead were characterised by epistemically strongly emergent behaviour, as in our thought experiment, it cannot be controlled. Consequently this robot is, in a sense, free in relation to us. Moving to an even higher level of complexity, we may next assume that the robot's behaviour is truly ontologically emergent. This extends the freedom of the robot since its future actions are undeterminable, even in principle. It may be objected, however, that there is no escape from the robot's deterministic dependence on its initial set-up and conditions in combination with the laws of nature. If the robot is repeatedly started from exactly the same conditions, its behaviour would be the same. This contradicts our intuitive perception of free will. We would certainly hesitate to assign free will to this robot. Experience shows that causality applies in our physical world. This means that the current state of a typical physical system, in terms of the positions and velocities of its microscopic constituents, provides a sufficient condition to take it to a subsequent state; cause results in effect. We endeavour to express the regularities of cause and effect as laws of nature. If new physical states can be found uniquely from previous states of the system, we talk about determinism. Stated equivalently: determinism implies that the evolution of a system, if repeatedly started from the same initial conditions, will always be identically the same. Everyday events, such as when the billiard cue hits the cue ball which subsequently knocks down the yellow ball in the hole, tempt us to believe that causality and determinism are equivalent concepts. But they are not. The future of a specified causal physical system may actually be undetermined, even disregarding the statistical nature of quantum mechanics. This happens when the system is open in some sense, that is when unaccounted external phenomena may have an influence. Our everyday experiences could lead us to the erroneous conclusion that change and the underlying forces act instantaneously. All effects of forces in nature, that is changes of state, are in fact due to combinations of the four basic forms of interaction through exchange of particles called bosons. This interaction takes indeed a finite time; the lower limit is given by a key relationship in quantum mechanics called Heisenberg's uncertainty 12 principle (Lloyd, 2002). The limiting time is proportional to Planck's constant and inversely proportional to the system's average energy above the ground state, which for a one kilo system means that no more than 5*1050 changes of state are possible per second. In the entire visible universe, which dates back some 14 billion years and has a mass of 1053 kg, in total a maximum of about 10121 changes of quantum states have occurred. Although this is a huge number it is not infinite. The universe's 'capacity to act and compute' is thus limited by Planck's constant and the available energy. As a consequence, the futures of very complex physical systems are 'unknown' even to nature at each instant in the sense that this information cannot be processed and obtained presently; it requires too much computational resources (Wolpert 2008). The fact that future states of very complex systems are ontologically undecided is of course important when discussing determinism and the relation to ontologically open systems. Let us now consider the behaviour of a hypothetical single conscious individual placed in a closed room, without contact with the outside world. Also assume that there is, in an objective sense, complete access to all information relevant to the individual including all initial and boundary conditions. We are interested in the character of the individual's behaviour in a certain future time interval. For the sake of argument let us first consider an imagined case of behaviour that we could deem as undeterminable with respect to the individual's choices and actions. If the individual, before taking a decision, had the magic ability to consult a clever genie inhabiting some dimension otherwise unrelated to our physical world, the individual's future would clearly not be deterministically given. The influence of the genie's advice on the individual's behaviour would be similar to the case of external signals influencing an open physical system. Since the individual's decisions are not immediate consequences of its present physical state, we must infer that the will of this individual is not limited by any deterministic dependence on its initial set-up and conditions. In discussions of determinism, in a similar vein as that of Laplace in Essai philosophique sur les probabilities (1814), it is often asserted that given the positions and velocities of all particles in the universe, its future would be in principle determinable. It is sometimes forgotten, however, that the argument implicitly assumes the continual action of given laws of nature. The appearance of the genie violates this assumption. Returning to reality the genie of the thought experiment can, with the same result, be replaced by the individual's emergent thought processes in combination with preferences being acquired during its earlier life, now stored in its memory. Will is about planning and experiences are necessary prerequisites. These experiences are personal and rated subjectively, whereafter they are remembered and used as a basis for subsequent preferences. The preferences are consulted, similarly as the genie, before decisions are taken. Furthermore the preferences are the result of ontologically emergent processes where subjective positive or negative connotations have been related to various events, actions and choices. Alternatively formulated, consciousness, in any given time interval, acts as an open system in the sense that the memories associated with subjective preferences are ontologically unrelated to the physical situation. The fact that in principle it is possible to, atom by atom in a Laplacian sense, build the individual's entire network of coupled neurons is not relevant here. Such a system would still have built in subjective preferences, the character of which would be unknown and, as we have argued, with functions equivalent to conferring with an independent genie. Ontological emergence is again crucial in that it decouples the physical state of the system from its subjective properties and behaviour. This concludes our argument for that behaviour of conscious individuals is ontologically open. 13 Summarising, consciousness is an ontologically open system and thus undeterminable and uncontrollable in principle. We have argued that it is meaningless to say that the evolution of consciousness is deterministically given since at any instant ontologically emergent subjective experiences, stored as memories in the mind, govern the individual's behaviour. How could, we may wonder, such complex behaviour evolve in humans? Perhaps the most competitive evolutionary aspect of consciousness is its ability for planning in order to avoid dangers, gain advantages and to optimize longer time survival. Planning requires alternatives to compare with. The alternatives manifest themselves to us humans through experience; we are by necessity not born with fixed perceptions about the world since, for example, our environments differ depending on where we are born. Our experiences need storage, or memory, so that they can become conscious alternatives when we are about to make choices. Together with these objective experiences, we have also stored associated subjective impressions. In the process of planning, when making our choices, it is precisely the subjective impressions that influence our decisions. These are so-called 'character decisions', discussed in the next section. Again, ontologically emergent and thus externally uncontrollable brain processes act so as to store personal and subjective impressions for subsequent use in decision making processes. This is certainly in line with our notion of free will. The effect of memory on consciousness to continuously modify it has the result that consciousness may act differently, even if external conditions are unchanged. Repeatedly facing identical external situations, conscious individuals can make new and different choices each time, as a result of recollections of subjective experiences of earlier instances. We have, from a physicalistic and thus monistic position, argued for that the mind is an ontologically open system. Interestingly, the same result seems to follow from a dualist perspective. To show this, assume for a moment that dualism holds; there is both a material and a somehow separated 'mental dimension'. What characterises activity in the mental dimension? Certainly not randomness; scientific analysis of mental behaviour speaks against this. But if the mental dimension features regularity and law-bound processes we face a similar question as when taking the physicalistic stance: what is the maximum freedom that can be excerted by the will, given the laws of nature? Thus a natural conclusion is that dualism cannot provide conscious will with higher degrees of freedom than those found within physicalism. To conclude, the mind's ontologically open high-level character is argued to be a result of the ontologically emergent nature of the causal processes in its complex neural network, combined with the limitations in nature's capacity for deterministically connecting present states to future states. 4.3 Willed intentions and the role of subconsciousness Free will requires, according to the present definition, that individual behaviour takes place according to the individual's intentions. This condition is not really problematic; it is satisfied by our experiences. The individual's everyday functioning is completely dependent on that she consistently carries out what she decides. Does she want to make herself a cup of coffee, she does it. The exceptions that can be identified, such as shortage of coffee or that she cannot be bothered, are not about principal mental limitations but of physical or psychological disability or of limitations in the outside world. So far, we have presented arguments for that the combined consciousness/subconsciousness meets the requirements for free will. But few would regard this as sufficient; if our volitional decisions, in spite of their onthologically open origin, are unconsciously dictated to us it is difficult to speak of free will. There is evidence, however, that 14 consciousness in a number of situations exerts its will without significant influence from the subconscious. First, it should be noted that there is a spectrum of degrees of collaboration between the two. Our experiences of dreams show that subconsciousness may be active when we are not consciously aware. Driving a car along a well-known road is a well known example of collaboration between consciousness and subconsciousness. And participation in an intense discussion is an example of consciousness mainly acting on its own. But the independent role of consciousness and the will has been strongly questioned over the past few decades and some authors talk of "the illusion of free will". Support is partly found from neuroscience. A "readiness potential," being activated unconsciously well before we make conscious decisions, appears to reveal that the main decision-making takes place beyond consciousness. A pioneer in the field was Libet (1985). The experiments since then carried out within this field has, however, many possible sources of error and have endured severe criticism in several places (Klemm, 2010 and Baumeister et al, 2011). In certain practical situations it is, from an evolutionary point of view, crucial that consciousness may act undisturbed. The need for rapid and well balanced decisions, as when we are driving and we suddenly need to consider how to avoid a car that suddenly wobbles into the roadway, is one example. In a very short time we need to perform a large number of considerations, including how to avoid colliding with people while at the same time ensure our own safety. The subconscious mind would not, with the associated delay that Libet's and other experiments show, have time to gather all the relevant information in order to survey the situation and in a short time deliver adequate decisions that do not conflict with our conscious perception and handling of the situation. Certainly, if conscious decisions would not be important in situations like these, evolution would have provided us with a mechanism that automatically disconnected consciousness in favour of subconsciousness, in a similar manner as when we react reflexively. Furthermore it is well known that, upon learning new knowledge and skills, performance is gradually taken over by the subconscious as we become more knowledgeable and skilful. But for the beginner who sits down at a piano, the subconscious mind is completely unprepared. There is no way for the subconscious to control the finger movements because it does not 'know' what should be done (Klemm, 2010). Obviously more research is needed to identify to which degree subconsciousness impacts on our actions, however we have here given examples where the subconscious cannot reasonably have a significant role. The cooperation between consciousness and the unconscious points to a second argument why consciousness must not be controlled by the subconscious. Neuroscience shows that a significant part of the 'processors' of the brain used for conscious thought are also used for unconscious processes (Dehaene, 2014). This provides support for that not only global neural processes of consciousness but also those of subconsciousness are ontologically emergent. Thus, whereas deterministic processes (in the adequate sense, as discussed above) contribute to communication between consciousness and the unconscious, the latter is not deterministically controlling consciousness. As pointed out, experience shows that we can consciously cancel impulsive intentions, using our "free won't" (Libet, 1985). From another perspective, we do not necessarily need to make a distinction between consciousness and the subconscious as clearly separated global systems. Already individual neurological subsystems associated with the mind appear to be sufficiently complex to render their interaction ontologically emergent. In the subject of game theory similar results have, interestingly enough, been found. Emergent behaviour has been observed in simulations of nonlinear interaction between two players, who both act in order to optimize their game while trying to act unpredictable for the opponent, if players are allowed to make use of the game's history (West and Lebiere, 2001). 15 A complication related to the distinction between subconscious and conscious choices is what we might call 'character decisions'. Based on previous experience and reflections, people accumulate different positions or traits of character that could lead to routine behaviour in certain situations. Facing an approaching threatening individual, for example, certain people will normally escape while others preferably stay to deal with the danger. This behaviour does not necessarily constitute an active conscious choice of the type we have discussed so far, but may rather be a result of the individual's disposition to act in such situations. Since the individual normally is aware of her traits of character, we here consider the nature of character decisions to be conscious rather than unconscious. Our feelings, thoughts and choices do not simply happen to us. They arise from basic neural processes related to our minds and are developed emergently in a cooperation between consciousness and the unconscious. But how, then, can our thoughts and feelings take form in a structured and coherent way? How can the individual carry out her intentions unruled by the subconscious? These important questions are not analyzed here; of prime interest for the question of free will is that thoughts and feelings arise in a manner which is neither determinable nor controllable. 5 Discussion The results of this work unequivocally point towards non-reductive physicalism; mental states supervene on physical states but cannot be reduced to them. We may ask what the consequences are for causal closedness, that is the thesis that no physical events have causes beyond the physical world. Our answer is that the physical world really is causally closed in the ontological sense because we have every reason to regard it as causal; every physical state leads, in accord with the laws of nature, to a new state. For simpler, lowlevel systems, new states are in principle predetermined and sometimes even computable. The human brain employs deterministic low-level processes at the neural level for thought processes, carrying out certain actions (somatic nervous system) and for reflexes (autonomic nervous system). But as we have shown, this does not mean that all systems in the physical world are deterministically controlled. Emergence can alter the situation. Consciousness, which we have shown to be ontologically emergent, is such a high-level system. From an epistemic perspective this means that the possibility for conclusions about the causal functionality of mental systems are limited. The situation is reminiscent of that of mathematics for which Gödel proved that there are true theorems in the system that are unprovable because of its complexity. We can now explain why emergence does not cause overdetermination with regards to the causal situation for consciousness (Kim, 2006). It has been argued that if the dynamics of consciousness is determined by its current state plus the laws of nature, then emergent phenomena cannot exist independently; they must be a result of the conditions already provided. Otherwise we seem to be facing an overdetermined problem. The solution to the dilemma is that the emergent properties are of the same nature as those new conditions that may present themselves when a closed system is transformed to an open system. They are thus additional conditions, being governed by associated additional relations. Mathematically speaking, just as many new equations are added as new variabless. Thus overdetermination is avoided. For the example of the person being in a closed room, this could correspond to the door being opened. Emergent properties have thus, as far as deterministic control is concerned, the same impact on the development of the system as external influences have on an open system. This solution to the problem of overdetermination also explains how 'downward causation' (Kim, 2006) can take place. Interacting emergent phenomena can determine the development of the system (in this case, the mind) independently of the causal situation at lower levels. 16 What is then the implication for compatibilism; the position that determinism is compatible with free will? Interestingly, whether compatibilism or incompatibilism holds is not relevant here. Even though neural low-level processes are deterministic, high-level cognitive phenomena are ontologically indeterminable and uncontrollable in spite of being defined by low-level processes. The point of transition is, as we have seen, governed by the amount of information that can principally be stored and processed in a physical system. This also illustrates the point that in a physicalistic view of the world, determinism or indeterminism has no bearing its reductive character; it is emergence that renders physicalism nonreductive. Finally, how do these results relate to epiphenomenalism, the notion that mental states are only by-products of the physical states and unable to causally influence these? To answer this question, we need to note that the form of non-reductive physicalism assumed here is not a form of property dualism. Although mental states are not deducible from basic neurological states, they certainly directly correspond to physical states; they supervene on these. Non-reductionism follows because of the emergent character of mental states, not because of lack of correspondence between physical and mental states. Thus epiphenomenalism is ruled out here. 6 Conclusion In a physicalist analysis of the mind-body problem, resting on results from mathematics and physics, the concepts of algorithmic information theory and emergence are used to argue that the problem is unsolvable. The vast neural complexity of the brain is the basic obstacle; from a thought experiment it is shown that even a much simpler but related nonlinear system may exhibit epistemically strongly emergent properties. Reductionistic understanding of consciousness is thus not possible. Neuroscience will continue to make progress we will almost certainly find, for example, the cognitive centra that are active at certain stimuli or thought processes but emergent cognitive phenomena like qualia or introspection will not be expressed in a theory. The 'explanatory gap' cannot be bridged. From a scientifically and methodologically more useful definition of free will than the traditional it is subsequently argued that high-level neural cognitive processes are ontologically open, even though underlying physical laws and lower-level processes are deterministic. As a consequence conscious processes are not determinable, not even in principle. Thus, the three requirements for free will suggested here are satisfied; that the individual's actions take place on the basis of its intentions, that these intentions have not been subconsciously forced onto the individual and that the individual behaves as an ontologically open system. Acknowledgements Many thanks go to Mr Keith Elkin, for sharing his knowledge in neuroscience and several related concepts as well as for comments during many philosophical discussions. Thanks also professor Erik J. Olsson for insightful and constructive discussions on several aspects of the work. 17 References Baumeister, R. F., Masicampo, E. J., & Vohs, K.D. (2011). Do Conscious Thoughts Cause Behavior? Annu. Rev. Psychol., 62, 331-361 Block, N. (1995). On a confusion about the function of consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 18, 227-247 Carnap, R. (1950). Logical Foundations of Probability. (University of Chicago Press) Chaitin, G. J. (1987). Algorithmic Information Theory. (Cambridge University Press) Chalmers, D. J. (1995). Facing up to the problem of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2, 200–219 Chalmers, D. J. (2006). Strong and weak emergence. The Re-Emergence of Emergence. (Oxford University Press) Chalmers, D. J. (2016). MindPapers. http://consc.net/mindpapers/ Davies, P. C. W. (2004). Emergent biological principles and the computational properties of the universe. arXiv preprint astro-ph/0408014, 2004 arxiv.org Dehaene, S. (2014). Consciousness and the Brain. (Penguin Books, New York) Kim, J. (1999). Making sense of emergence. Philosophical Studies, 95, 3-36 Kim, J. (2006). Emergence: Core ideas and issues. Synthese, 151, 47-559 Klemm, W. R. (2010). Free will debates: Simple experiments are not so simple. Advances in Cognitive Psychology, 6, 47-65 Levine, J. (1983). Materialism and qualia: the explanatory gap. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 64, 354-361 Libet, B. (1985). Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 8, 529–566 Lloyd, S. (2002). Computational Capacity of the Universe. Physical Review Letters, 88, 237901-1-4 Locke, J. (1690). An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Luisi, P. L. (2002). Emergence in chemistry: chemistry as the embodiment of emergence. Foundations of Chemistry, 4, 183-200 McGinn, C. (1989). Can we solve the mind-body problem? Mind, 98, 349-366 Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat? Philosophical Review, 83, 435-450 Silberstein, M. & McGeever, J. (1999). The search for ontological emergence. The Philosophical Quarterly, 49, 182-200 Van Gulick, Robert, "Consciousness", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/consciousness. West, R. L. & Lebiere, C. (2001). Simple games as dynamic, coupled systems: randomness and other emergent properties. Journal of Cognitive Systems Research, 1, 221-239 Wolpert, D. H. (2008). Physical limits of inference. Physica D 237, 1257– | {
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©2011 Landes Bioscience. Do not distribute. Communicative & Integrative Biology 4:5, 516-520; September/October 2011; ©2011 Landes Bioscience 516 Communicative & Integrative Biology Volume 4 Issue 5 Key words: formal language, linguistic turn, incompleteness theorem, pragmatic turn, speech acts, biocommunication, natural genome editing Submitted: 05/26/11 Accepted: 05/27/11 DOI: 10.4161/cib.4.5.16426 Correspondence to: Guenther Witzany; Email: [email protected] Investigation into the sequence struc-ture of the genetic code by means of an informatic approach is a real success story. The features of human language are also the object of investigation within the realm of formal language theories. They focus on the common rules of a universal grammar that lies behind all languages and determine generation of syntactic structures. This universal grammar is a depiction of material reality, i.e., the hidden logical order of things and its relations determined by natural laws. Therefore mathematics is viewed not only as an appropriate tool to investigate human language and genetic code structures through computer sciencebased formal language theory but is itself a depiction of material reality. This confusion between language as a scientific tool to describe observations/experiences within cognitive constructed models and formal language as a direct depiction of material reality occurs not only in current approaches but was the central focus of the philosophy of science debate in the twentieth century, with rather unexpected results. This article recalls these results and their implications for more recent mathematical approaches that also attempt to explain the evolution of human language. Introduction In a series of articles Martin Novak tries to apply formal language theory to explain the evolution of human language. He suggests that the evolution of syntax (grammar) occurs as a simplified rule system that itself evolved by natural selection.1,2 Identification of meaning (semantics) occurs through identification of correct Can mathematics explain the evolution of human language? Guenther Witzany Telos-Philosophische Praxis; Vogelsangstrasse 18c; Bürmoos, Austria T hi s m an us cr ip t ha s be en p ub lis he d on lin e, p ri or t o pr in ti ng . O nc e th e is su e is c om pl et e an d pa ge n um be rs h av e be en a ss ig ne d, t he c it at io n w ill c ha ng e ac co rd in gl y. syntax. Human language evolved by representing the "grammar of the real world that is, the underlying logic of how objects relate to actions and other objects."1 Following Noam Chomsky Nowak proposes a universal grammar that represents the inner logic of nature. This inner logic of nature forms neuronal networks of brain architecture. Because this architecture depicts the inner logic of nature it functions according to natural laws which can be analysed by formalisable procedures such as mathematics. Universal Grammar specifies the mechanism of language acquisition also: "Universal Grammar is not learned but is required for language learning. It is innate."3 Because language has evolved to reduce communication mistakes "only a universal grammar satisfies the coherence threshold that can promote the evolution of grammatical communication."3 Alongside the 3 billion-year-old generative system of the nucleotid language human language emerged as a comparable generative system.4 Nowak is convinced that fundamental aspects of human language are amenable to formal analysis. In his approach mathematics and computer science-based formal language theory function as appropriate mathematical machinery to deal with these phenomena to investigate and analyse language-specific rules that generate meaningful linguistic structures.4 In this respect, languages, grammar and machines have some correspondence: context-free languages are generated by context-free grammars, which can be implemented by push-down automata. Context sensitive languages are generated by context sensitive grammars. For each of these languages there exists a Turing ©2011 Landes Bioscience. Do not distribute. www.landesbioscience.com Communicative & Integrative Biology 517 COmmentary because nucleic acids are arranged according to the molecular syntax of this language. Through this comparison Manfred Eigen follows the depiction theory of language within the tradition of mathematical language theory, systems theory and information theory. The world behaves according to physically determinable natural laws. These natural laws can be expressed only by using the language of mathematics. The essential rules of a language are therefore its syntax.16 The semantic aspect of language initially comprises an incidentally developed or combined sign sequence, a mixture of characters, which only gains significance in the course of specific selection processes. The linguistic signs are variables whose syntax is subject to the natural laws governing the neuronal architecture of the sign-using brain organ. The brain of humans is endowed with these variables and combines them to reflect synapse network logics. The variable sign syntax of the brain must then be filled with experiences of a personal nature and thus constitutes an individualised evaluation scheme. In messages between communication partners, one side encodes the message in phonetic characters. The receiver must then decode and interpret the message according to empathy and personal experience. Understanding messages shared between sender and receiver is possible largely because the uniform logical form-a universal grammar-lies hidden behind every language.16 Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem: Functions Lacking Algorithms are Not Calculable A similar situation (but more than 40 years before Eigen) is encountered in the attempt to absolutise mathematics as a purely formal language. This led Gödel to formulate the Unvollständigkeitssatz (incompleteness theorem) in his work Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der principia mathematica und verwandter Systeme.17 Gödel's aim was to convert metatheoretical statements into arithmetical statements by means of a specific allocation procedure. More precisely, he strove to convert the statements formulated in a meta-language into the object language S describe our observations, experiences, concepts.9 The important starting-point at this stage was that everything we see as part of material reality follows a natural logic of relations according to natural laws. If we want to describe material reality, then we have to investigate and describe objects in the realm of physics and chemistry, which are the only appropriate tools. The only language which is able to describe these objects and their relations is mathematics.10 Every sentence with which observations are described as well as sentences which are used to construct theories must fulfil the criterion of formalisabilty.11 Sentences which are not formalisable can be excluded from science. Natural laws expressed within the language of mathematics represent the inherent logic of nature.12 The central and most important element of language is therefore syntax. Only through syntax does the logical structure of a language as a depiction of the logical structure of nature reveal itself.13 Similarly to this model of language, systems theory and information theory investigate the empirical significance of scientific sentences by means of a quantifiable set of signs and, additionally, the information transfer of formalised references between a sender and a receiver. Information processing systems are therefore quantifiable themselves. Understanding information is possible because of the logical structure of the universal syntax, i.e., by a process which reverses the construction of meaning. Therefore information theory is also a mathematical theory of language.14,15 Both constructions are able to depict reality by means of formalized sentences like a picture or a photo in contrast to sentences which describe within the realm of a theoretical model. Manfred Eigen took this formal language theory to describe the genetic code as a regular language.16 Manfred Eigen Adopted this Position Early Thirty years before Martin Nowak's work Manfred Eigen explicitly compared human language with molecular genetic language. Both serve as communication mechanisms. The molecular constitution of genes is possible, according to Eigen, machine, which can decide whether it is a regular language or not.4 In a more recent work in reference 5, Nowak tries to undertake a complete mathematical theory of social evolutionary dynamics of humans by assuming that an "evolving population consists of reproducing individuals, which are information carriers. When they reproduce they pass on information. New mutants arise if this process involves mistakes."5 Information is inherited by replication. Errors (mutation) in replication lead to variation. Selection leads to survival of the fittest variants.6 The ambitious claim that his mathematical approach is not simply a languagebased scientific concept but a depiction of biological reality5 raises the question of how to justify scientific sentences and of the role of language in general. This was the central question in the philosophy of science debate in the twentieth century, with rather unexpected results. The Linguistic Turn in the 1930s One of the key events in the science history of the 20th century was the debate on how to establish an exact scientific language. Increasing empirical data had to be interpreted correctly to adapt knowledge to technical applications. The previous 2,000 years were dominated by a variety of philosophical conceptions that could not solve basic problems of empirical investigations and construction of theories. Modern empiricism wanted to be free of metaphysical implications.7 Therefore the only serious value as far as science was concerned was the rationality of methods for reaching scientific knowledge, i.e., the formalisable expression of empirical sentences.8 This was called objectivism, and it restricts itself to a pure observer perspective that confirms its observations by measurement techniques and subsumes reality in the formalisable depiction of these measurements. Between metaphysics and objectivism there is an unbridgeable gap: only what can be found empirically and described as formalisable exists. This scientific approach represented a fundamental shift in the history of rational thinking. It focused not on things, the world, processes and their relations but conversely the medium in which we ©2011 Landes Bioscience. Do not distribute. 518 Communicative & Integrative Biology Volume 4 Issue 5 semiotic rules and the socialised linguistic competence to build correct sentences enable interaction partners to understand identical meanings of utterances.19,22 Non-Formal Everyday Language as Ultimate Meta-Language The fact that paradoxes arising within a formal language cannot be solved with that language led to a differentiation between object-language and meta-language. Nonetheless, paradoxes can also appear within meta-language;23 these can only be solved by being split into metalanguage, meta-meta-language and so forth in an infinite number of steps. This unavoidable gradation of meta-languages necessitates resorting to informal speech, developed in the context of social experience, as the ultimate meta-language. Informal language is the last instance for deciding on the paradoxes emerging from objectand meta-languages. The only way to decide whether a mathematical formula is true or false is by using a non-formal language.17 One cannot decide this from the formal language itself. With non-formal languages one can easily change from formal to non-formal and vice versa.19,22 Interestingly this is completely impossible for formal language. This non-formal language is the tool that enables the language itself to be discussed.19,22 A computer is unable to do this because no algorithm is available with which a cybernetic machine can determine its underlying formal system. Scientists Learn Formal -Languages-in-Scientific- Communities When the pragmatic turn replaced the linguistic turn this was because from now on it was not the syntax and semantics that were the central focus of investigation of languages but (1) the subjects which interact with languages as well as (2) the pragmatic aspects in which these interacting subjects are interwoven and which determine how an interactional situation is able to be constituted as such.19 The complementarity and non-reductionability of the three levels of rules (syntax, pragmatics, semantics) which are at the basis of any everyday context is always the unity of language embedded in actions. This designates what was later termed "pragmatic turn" in contrast to the former "linguistic turn." Whereas in linguistic turn thinking the formal order in the syntax (universal grammar) played an essential role, now it was the context of consortial interacting humans in real life that played a crucial rule in the emergence of meaning in speech acts and utterances. This unity of language and actions Wittgenstein called Sprachspiel (language game). Game, because as in every game so also in language there are certain valid rules. It is not possible to choose any kind of language to take a position behind the practice of a lifeform by means of basic reasoning. Language itself is the last bastion as the real practice of actions and is primarily a social phenomenon. Wittgenstein worked out why it is impossible to construct a private (solus ipse) language. In his analysis of the expression "to obey a rule," Wittgenstein provides proof that the identity of meanings logically depends on the ability to follow intersubjectively valid rules with at least one additional subject; there can be no identical meanings for the lone subject. Speaking is a form of social action. Meaning is a social function.19 The rules of language games have developed historically as "customs" from consortial real-life usage. To understand the rules one must co-play within such a game. Then one can see the meaning of a term because as co-player one gains experience of how a term is used within this play, which rules determine its meaning and how the rules may change according to varying situations. Children do not learn language, words or sentences by means of innate universal grammar in that they reduce mistakes in understanding but look at interactional motifs of parents and others combined with words.19-22 Within social interactions they learn "how to do things with words" or how to combine words with actional motifs.22 Speaking, making propositions and understanding utterances do not operate by means of a private encoding process, and subsequently a private decoding process, but by means of consortially shared rule-governed sign-mediated interactions. The shared competence to follow by using the object language S. This led Gödel to two rather unexpected but farreaching conclusions: (1) on the assumption that system S is consistent, then it will contain one formally indeterminable theorem, i.e., one theorem is inevitably present that can be neither proved nor disproved within the system, (2) on the assumption that system S is consistent, then this consistency of S cannot be proved within S. The question of determinability and calculability is closely allied with the algorithm concept, whereby Eigen postulated that algorithms are not only concepts of theoretical language, but also depict (decision-) behavior in the realm of biology and, therefore, are amenable to formal analysis. He was convinced that everything can be represented in the form of algorithms and can thus, in principle (after sufficiently thorough analysis), be determined. This, however, neglects the consequence of the incompleteness theorem for that of the automaton theory of Turing and Neumann: a machine can principally calculate only those functions for which an algorithm can be provided. Functions lacking an algorithm are not calculable. Both Manfred Eigen and Martin Nowak assumed that the evolution of selfreproducing and self-organising organisms represents the realisation of the universal grammar underlying the logical order of the world. This universal grammar, as a representation of mathematically expressible reality, is also the formal basis for the evolution of these organisms. The Pragmatic Turn: Children Learn Non-Formal Languages in Interactions In his later work18 Wittgenstein refuted his early concept completely by abandoning the ideal of a world-depicting universal grammar. In contrast to former concepts which thought that behind any language lay a material reality which determined the visible order of languages (universal grammar) Wittgenstein proved that this is not the case. The most essential background of language is its concrete use by consortial interacting humans. The meaning of a word is its use (Wittgenstein 1953). The real use of a language in its ©2011 Landes Bioscience. Do not distribute. www.landesbioscience.com Communicative & Integrative Biology 519 syntactic sequences, not the inherent logic of grammar. Biocommunication and Natural Genome Editing Communication in general can be both empirically investigated and understood as rule-governed sign-mediated interaction.26 This is essentially different from chemical-physical interactions in inanimate nature, because the latter are not governed by semiotic rules. The complementarity of combinatorial (syntactic), context-dependent (pragmatic) and content-sensitive (semantic) rules is lacking if water freezes to ice. In contrast to this the presence of these rules that mediate every sign use-whether it be indices, icons or symbols-is equally valid for human communication and communication in non-human life.27 From this perspective we can identify several code-based communicative competences in non-human animate nature that underlie syntactic, pragmatic and semantic rules. Investigations in, e.g., bacteria,28,29 animals,30,31 fungi32,33 and plants34,35 palpably demonstrate that practically all organisms coordinate by codebased communication processes. More specifically, no coordination between cells, tissues, organs and organisms can be described appropriately without communication processes. If communication functions properly these processes will be coordinated in an optimised (selective) manner; if they are deformed, coordination will have deficits or fails. Interestingly, more and more empirical data suggest that the genetic code functions according to the rules of natural languages. This means that investigations of the genetic code must be able to identify competent agents that generate nucleotid sequences de novo, integrate them into host genomes and regulate them according to the cellular needs of host organisms36 and their capability of natural genetic engineering.37 The insertion or deletion of whole genes and gene sets (up to 100 complete genes within one infection event) by viruses, apparently plays a more important evolutionary role in genetic change than single chance mutations (errors) can achieve.38 Think of the remnants of such can therefore hardly be explained by syntactic analysis of grammatical structures. In this respect syntactic analyses cannot extract context-dependent meaning, because meaning is not a quality of syntactic structures but of context-dependent social interactions. This fundamentally contradicts computer science-based formal language theory and makes sense in terms of saving energy cost as well: not for every meaningful content is it necessary to generate a unique grammatical structure (sentence). Consequences for Formal Language Theories Natural language has proved to be a perpetually open system that cannot guarantee definitiveness from within itself.17,23 The consequences of this debate in the twentieth century for the use of mathematics in investigating natural languages/ codes are rather surprising: • There can be no formal system which is entirely reflectable in all its aspects while at the same time being its own metasystem. • Concrete communicative acts are basically unlimited in their possibilities. There will always be lines of argumentation that lie outside and have no connection with an existing system. Every system can be transcended argumentatively in principle. Newly-emerging language games and rules may develop as novel structures which are foreign to previous systems and not merely a further step in a series of prevailing elements. Therefore completely new grammatical coherent sequences are not the result of errors or misperceptions. • The ultimate meta-language, informal language, provides indispensable evidence about the communication practice of consortial subjects in the real environment; operators of formalisations are themselves an integral part of this. Reverting to this everyday type of communication reveals information about the subjects practising this usage. • In natural languages syntactic, pragmatic and semantic rules must be identifiable. If one level of rules is missing, one cannot speak about a natural language seriously. • In natural languages pragmatics (context) determines meaning (semantics) of natural language used in communicative actions were commonsense elements.24 Language therefore is not solely the subject of scientific investigation of a technique for information storage or transport but depends primarily on language-using consortia (language-game communities) of subjects with linguistic and communicative competences in real social contexts of a real lifeworld.19-22 On the other hand, it is not possible to develop an exact language of science which functions like the logical order of material reality because scientific languages are also spoken by real-life subjects and the validity claim of objectivism to eliminate all inexact parameters of subjects does not function even in the scientific language game. Also, scientific languages depend on utterances which are preliminary; they are as open as any real-life language and therefore can generate real novelties, new sentences which did not exist before, and therefore are able to progress in knowledge.25 Because utterances in scientific languages are subject to debate by scientific communities and are constantly under pressure to justify themselves they may contribute "in the long run" (Charles Sanders Peirce) to progress in knowledge.19 Locutionary and Illocutionary Speech Acts Because subjects share linguistic and communicative competences, i.e., can generate correct sentences and instal reciprocal interactions, they are able to differentiate rule-based as well as rule-contradictory linguistic behaviors. They are able to express a variety of meanings with identical syntactic structures. An utterance like, for instance, "the shooting of the hunters," can therefore transport rather different meanings which are clearly context-dependent. This led John Austin in his legendary speech-act theory20,21 to the differentiation of locutionary and illocutionary speech acts. He made the assumption that besides the superficial (locutionary) grammatical structure of a verbal utterance human interactors may perform certain actions (performative acts) with an utterance that is not explicit (illocutionary) in the grammatical structure. Illocutive aspects ©2011 Landes Bioscience. Do not distribute. 520 Communicative & Integrative Biology Volume 4 Issue 5 24. Morris CW. Signs, Language and Behavior. New York: G. Braziller 1946. 25. Kuhn TS. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1962. 26. Witzany G. From the "logic of the molecular syntax" to molecular pragmatism. Explanatory deficits in Manfred Eigen's concept of language and communication. Evol Cog 1995; 1:148-68. 27. Witzany G. Biocommunication and Natural Genome Editing. Dordrecht: Springer 2010. 28. Bassler BL, Losick R. Bacterially Speaking. Cell 2006; 125:237-46. 29. Ben Jacob E, Becker I, Shapira Y. Levine H. Bacterial linguistic communication and social intelligence. Trends Microbiol 2004; 12:366-72. 30. Frisch Karl v. Bees: Their Vision, Chemical Senses and Language. Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1971. 31. Lindauer M. Communication among social bees. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1971. 32. Lengeler KB, Davidson RC, D'Souza C, Harashima T, Shen WC, Wang P, et al. Signal Transduction cascades regulating Fungal Development and Virulence. Microbiol Mol Biol Rev 2000; 64:746-85. 33. Witzany G. Uniform categorization of biocommunication in bacteria, fungi and plants. World J Biol Chem 2010; 1:160-80. 34. Baluska F, Manuso S, Volkmann D. (Eds) Communication in Plants. Heidelberg/Berlin: Springer 2006. 35. Baluska F, Mancuso S, (Eds.). Signaling in Plants. Heidelberg/Berlin: Springer 2009. 36. Witzany G, (Ed.). Natural Genetic Engineering and Natural Genome Editing. New York: Wiley & Blackwell 2010. 37. Shapiro JA. A 21st century view of evolution: genome system architecture, repetitive DNA and natural genetic engineering. Gene 2004; 345:91-100. 38. Villarreal LP. Viruses and the Evolution of Life. Washington: American Society for Microbiology Press 2005. 39. Brosius J. The Contribution of RNAs and Retroposition to Evolutionary Novelties. Genetics 2003; 118:99-115. 40. Frost LS, Leplae R, Summers AO, Toussaint A. Mobile genetic elements: the agents of open source evolution. Nat Rev Microbiol 2005; 3:722-32. 41. Sternberg R, Shapiro JA. How repeated retroelements format genome function. Cytogenet Genom Res 2005; 110:108-16. 42. Slotkin RK, Martienssen R. Transposable elements and the epigenetic regulation of the genome. Nat Rev Genet 2007; 8:272-85. References 1. Nowak MA, Krakauer DC. The evolution of language. Proc Nat Acad Sci USA 1999; 96:8023-33. 2. Nowak MA, Plotkin JB, Jansen VAA. The evolution of syntactic communication. Nature 2000; 404:495-8. 3. Nowak MA, Komarova NL, Niyogi P. Evolution of Universal Grammar. Science 2001; 291:114-8. 4. Nowak MA, Komarova NL, Niyogi P. Computational and evolutionary aspects of language. Nature 2002; 417:611-7. 5. Nowak MA, Tarnita CE, Antal T. Evolutionary dynamics in structured populations. Philos T Roy Soc B 2010; 365:19-30. 6. Manapat ML, Chen IA, Nowak MA. The basic reproductive ratio of life. J Theor Biol 2010; 263:317-27. 7. Carnap R. Überwindung der Metaphysik durch logische Analyse der Sprache. Erkenntnis 1931; 2:219-41. 8. Carnap R. Die physikalische Sprache als Universalsprache der Wissenschaft. Erkenntnis 1931; 2:432-65. 9. Wittgenstein L. Tractatus logico-philosophicus. London: Kegan Paul, Trench 1922. 10. Russel B. An inquiry into Meaning and Truth. London: George Allen & Unwin 1941. 11. Carnap R. Logische Syntax der Sprache. Wien: Springer 1934. 12. Carnap R. Foundations of Logic and Mathematics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1939. 13. Carnap R. Der logische Aufbau der Welt. Berlin: Weltkreis-Verlag 1928. 14. Shannon CE, Weaver W. The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana: The University of Illinois Press 1949. 15. Turing A. Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Mind, New Series 1951; 59:433-60. 16. Eigen M, Winkler R. Das Spiel. Naturgesetze steuern den Zufall. München: Pieper 1975. 17. Gödel K. Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme. Monatsh Math Phys 1931; 38:173-98. 18. Wittgenstein L. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell 1953. 19. Apel KO. Towards a Transformation of Philosophy. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1980. 20. Austin J. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1962. 21. Searle JR. Speech acts. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 1969. 22. Habermas J. The Theory of Communicative Action. Boston: Beacon Press 1984. 23. Tarski A. Einführung in die mathematische Logik. Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1966. infection events as still active as regulatory consortia that act with cut-and-paste (transposons) as well as copy-and-paste (retrotransposons) competences to recode and recombine genetic content orders and their rich regulatory elements.39-42 Conclusion Besides genetic code and human language we are currently able to identify a variety of natural languages that are used in all kingdoms by organisms to coordinate consortial interactions within and between cells, tissues, organs and organisms. Biocommunication designates that semiochemicals in signaling codes in bacteria, plants, animals and fungi are structured by syntactic, pragmatic and semantic rules that are absent in inanimate nature. Natural genome editing transposes random changes of genetic content order by errors (mutation) through competent consortia of agents that edit natural languages/codes, e.g., generate nucleotid sequences de novo, integrate, regulate and-if adaptionally necessary-delete genetic content accordingly. This perspective seems to be more coherent with current knowledge about the role of epigenetic modifications, non-coding RNAs, early RNA-world hypothesis, RNAediting, mobile genetic elements and the role of viruses in the evolution of all life than error-based (mutation) changes of genetic content and their selection as the dominant resource of genetic innovation as suggested by the formal language theory of mathematics. | {
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La sostanza della verità Paolo Leonardi Università di Bologna Conoscenza e verità sono due temi principali nella ricerca di Paolo Parrini. Paolo si richiama a Immanuel Kant e alla ricerca di questi sulle condizioni di possibilità della conoscenza, ma ritiene che non esistano «condizioni formali di conoscibilità di natura universale e necessaria».1 La sua posizione riprende dunque, e aggiorna, quelle di neokantiani come Ernst Cassirer e di neoempiristi influenzati da Kant come Rudolf Carnap e Hans Reichenbach, e sfiora senza sottoscriverlo l'empirismo radicale di Willard van Orman Quine. Paolo si ferma, insomma, a un passo dalla dissoluzione del kantismo, riconoscendo, seppure categoria dal «carattere vuoto»,2 la verità come idea regolativa e come valore da cui originano delle prescrizioni. Sosterrò, qui, invece, che la verità non è una categoria vuota, e che non lo è due volte. Non lo è una prima volta. Paolo assimila verità e realtà: «[...] la dicotomia vero/falso, primariamente, si pone sullo stesso piano della dicotomia reale/irreale.»3 La verità è diversa dalla realtà. Della realtà siamo parte e di essa, anche se non solo di essa, parliamo; la verità concerne l'adeguatezza di alcune rappresentazioni linguistiche,4 ed è cioè una proprietà che alcune rappresentazioni linguistiche hanno o di cui mancano. Non lo è una seconda volta. Per stabilire se un'affermazione è adeguata, infatti, usiamo dei parametri, cosa che facciamo prendendo per vere alcune affermazioni. I parametri per indagare l'adeguatezza di alcune rappresentazioni linguistiche hanno un contenuto, sono cioè "compromesse", per così dire, con la realtà, e non hanno una natura puramente concettuale.5 Nel secondo punto 1 Parrini 2011: 19. 2 Ivi 154. 3 Ivi 26. E continua: «E sarebbe assurdo, quindi, rinunciare ad essa solo perché la nozione di verità è stata talvolta, o anche spesso, identificata con una Verità considerata come un valore, oltre che unitario, contenutisticamente determinato [...]». (Ibidem.) 4 Uso 'adeguatezza' come termine preteorico. 'Adeguatezza' è un termine la cui storia nelle teorie della verità è legata al realismo e spesso alla sua forma più forte, il corrispondentismo. Lo uso qui però senza alcun vincolo corrispondentista. Considero qui rappresentazioni linguistiche solo descrizioni, definite o indefinite, e enunciati assertivi (quelli prodotti nel compiere atti illocutori espositivi nella classificazione di Austin 1962-1975). 5 Non farò qui una ricostruzione delle idee di Paolo, né ripeterò le osservazioni critiche che ho mosse al suo importante testo Conoscenza e realtà (1995-1998), in Leonardi 1997. 2 riprenderò liberamente un'idea di Moritz Schlick e di Reichenbach da sempre cara a Paolo. 1. Gottlob Frege attribuisce a 'vero' un senso nullo. Scrive, infatti: Quando diciamo: "L'enunciato '3>2' è vero", secondo la formula linguistica stiamo predicando qualcosa dell'enunciato, cioè che ha la proprietà che indichiamo con la parola 'vero'. E quando diciamo: "Il pensiero che 3>2 è vero", lo stesso vale per il pensiero. Ma il predicato vero è completamente diverso da predicati come verde, salato, razionale; infatti, quel che intendiamo dire con l'enunciato possiamo dirlo più semplicemente dicendo: "3 è maggiore di 2". Qui non usiamo affatto la parola 'vero'. Ci accorgiamo così che con quel predicato non si aggiunge proprio nulla al senso. (1914: 370-1.) Frege è solo un esempio illustre, tra molti, dell'opinione che ritiene ridondante il predicato 'è vero', e dunque non senza senso ma con senso nullo, o (con un carattere) vuoto, come si esprime Paolo.6 A sostegno di questa opinione, Paolo ripropone modificata un'argomentazione di Arthur C. Danto per cui espressioni quali 'è vero', 'è reale', e simili, non sono predicati normali (non sono, cioè, come 'è rosso', 'corre', e simili). Non lo sarebbero perché non aggiungerebbero ulteriori proprietà o determinazioni a ciò cui sono applicati. Se le aggiungessero, dicendo '(L'enunciato) "La neve è bianca" è vero' anziché semplicemente 'La neve è bianca' non ci troveremmo più con due enunciati con lo stesso significato. Questo argomento però è una petizione di principio, perché assume un'identità di significato fra i due enunciati per negare significato al predicato 'è vero', oppure identifica significato e condizioni di verità. La seconda alternativa è dubbia. Ne conseguirebbe, infatti, che tutte le tautologie (e tutte le contraddizioni) avrebbero lo stesso significato. Inoltre, in un colpo solo, dissolverebbe i 6 La ridondanza del predicato 'è vero', in Frege, non risulta immediata come sembra. Tutti gli enunciati veri denotano il Vero, quindi, per esempio, '4 è maggiore di 2' denota il Vero. ' "4 è maggiore di 2" denota il vero' se e solo se ' " '4 è maggiore di 2' è vero" denota il vero'. Siccome, però, '4 è maggiore di 2' è un enunciato necessario, sempre vero, al pari di '3 è maggiore di 2', vale anche ' "4 è maggiore di 2" denota il vero' se e solo se ' "3 è maggiore di 2" denota il vero', anche se questa volta qualunque sia il senso dell'enunciato a destra del bicondizionale è certamente diverso da quello dell'enunciato a sinistra del bicondizionale. Cioè, la verità del bicondizionale non garantisce l'identità di senso dei due enunciati che lo compongono, e perciò sulla sola verità del bicondizionale non possiamo assumere neppure che ' "4 è maggiore di 2" denota il vero' e ' " '4 è maggiore di 2' è vero" denota il vero' abbiano senso nullo. 3 paradossi – '(Io) mento' non avrebbe significato, perché non saremmo in grado di indicarne le condizioni di verità. Se si volesse ciononostante seguire il suggerimento, che oppone predicati come 'è vero' a 'è rosso', 'corre', e simili, si potrebbe arrivare forse a sostenere che in 'Andrea corre', 'corre' accresce il significato di 'Andrea', o che chi afferma che Andrea corre non dà ad 'Andrea' lo stesso significato di chi lo nega.7 Danto, e Paolo, assimilano 'è vero' al predicato 'esiste', che, come Kant concepiscono come un predicato che non distingue. L'esistenza è quella proprietà che hanno tutte le entità che ci sono (che avevano tutte quelle che c'erano e non ci sono più; che avranno tutti quelle che ci saranno e che non ci sono ancora). Se l'esistenza non distingue fra tutto ciò che c'è, proprio per questo distingue tutto ciò che c'è dal resto – realtà da finzione,8 e entità reali da entità semplicemente possibili. 9 10 Soprattutto, per quanto qui mi interessa, 'esiste' è un predicato diverso da 'è vero', perché appunto si applica a entità e non solo a espressioni linguistiche (cioè a queste in quanto sono entità, e in quanto sono effettivamente entità linguistiche anziché entità che mimano espressioni di una lingua senza esserlo).11 Che proprietà, allora, attribuisce 'è vero' e a cosa attribuisce questa proprietà – quali sono i portatori di verità, come spesso si dice? Nella letteratura, i portatori di verità più accreditati sono credenze, proposizioni, enunciati, proferimenti, affermazioni. Frege, nel passo che ho citato, considera gli enunciati i portatori di verità, come farò anch'io. Seppure vuota, con senso nullo, la verità nella filosofia di Frege ha un ruolo fondamentale come idea regolativa della logica. Nell'articolo "Il pensiero", proprio in apertura, Frege scrive: La parola «vero» indica alla logica la direzione, così come «bello» la indica all'estetica e «buono» all'etica. Certo, tutte le scienze hanno come obiettivo la verità; ma la logica se ne occupa in una maniera del tutto 7 Cfr. Parrini 2011:11, che si richiama a Danto 1968: 243 e ss. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, con i concetti completi, sembra dar ragione alle ipotesi che scarto nel testo, per cui chi sostiene che Andrea corre parlerebbe di un individuo diverso di chi afferma che Andrea non corre. Cfr. Leibniz 1686 e 1686-9. 8 Per metterne in massimo risalto il rilievo, 'esiste' è il predicato che distingue sanità da delirio. 9 Kant, cui ci si richiama, sull'esistenza che il predicato di esistenza non aggiunge alcuna determinazione a una cosa – il concetto di cento talleri sarebbe identico a quello di cento talleri esistenti. Se l'argomento è buono, lo è per i concetti, ma non per le entità, ammesso che i concetti non siano dipendenti da entità. 10 Cfr. Moore 1936. 11 Un'entità inesistente non è neppure un'entità – anche se ci sono entità che non esistono più e entità che non esistono ancora. Senza esistenza, niente. Anche la finzione esige una narrazione reale che possa suscitare qualche illusione. 4 diversa. Il suo rapporto con la verità è press'a poco quello che la fisica ha con il peso o con il calore. Scoprire verità è il compito di tutte le scienze: alla logica spetta individuare le leggi dell'«esser vero». (Frege 1918-19: 43). La definizione di verità proposta da Alfred Tarski, nel 1933, la considera di nuovo una proprietà di enunciati, e la definisce in una metalingua per una lingua oggetto che rispetti alcuni vincoli.12 Nella metalingua si danno così le condizioni a cui un enunciato della lingua oggetto è vero, cioè le condizioni in cui l'uso di un enunciato della lingua oggetto, preteoricamente, è adeguato.13 Le modifiche alla teoria tarskiana abbozzate da Saul Kripke nell' "Outline of a theory of truth", del 1975, mettono ancor meglio in luce che 'è vero' sanziona l'uso adeguato di un enunciato. Scrive Kripke: Desideriamo catturare un'intuizione più o meno del genere seguente. Supponiamo di spiegare la parola 'vero' a qualcuno che non la capisca. Possiamo dire di aver titolo ad asserire (o a negare) di qualsiasi enunciato che è vero esattamente nelle circostanze in cui possiamo asserire (o negare) l'enunciato stesso. Il nostro interlocutore allora potrà comprendere cosa significhi, per esempio attribuire la verità a 'La neve è bianca', ma sarà ancora perplesso sull'attribuzione di verità a enunciati che contengano la stessa parola 'vero'. [...] In ogni modo, il nostro soggetto, se è disposto ad asserire 'La neve è bianca', sarà, in base alle regole, disposto ad asserire ' "La neve è bianca" è vero'.14 Ovviamente, c'è una differenza fra un uso adeguato e l'affermazione che un uso è adeguato. La differenza è il contenuto del predicato di verità, che quindi non ha senso nullo, non è una categoria vuota. 'La neve è bianca' afferma un contenuto, ' "La neve è bianca" è vero' afferma un altro contenuto, precisamente afferma che quel primo contenuto è adeguato. 12 Precisamente, che ci sia una descrizione, in termini strutturali, di tutti i suoi segni primitivi; che in essa gli enunciati siano distinguibili dalle altre espressioni in base a proprietà puramente strutturali; che ci sia una descrizione, in termini strutturali, dei suoi enunciati primitivi; che ci siano regole d'inferenza che permettano di trasformare enunciati in enunciati, e in particolare di determinare tutte le conseguenze degli enunciati primitivi; che la lingua oggetto non sia universale, in particolare non possa essere estesa includendovi i propri predicati semantici, come 'è vero (nella lingua oggetto)'. 13 Spesso si esprime un giudizio limitativo sulla definizione tarskiana di verità, perché Tarski non definisce 'è vero', ma 'è vero in L' o 'è veroL', cioè la verità in relazione a una lingua specifica. Se 'vero' è un predicato che ci serve a valutare l'adeguatezza di una rappresentazione linguistica, però, questa è esattamente la cornice di una definizione di 'è vero'. 14 Kripke 1975: 701. 5 Insomma, il vero è il complesso delle nostre rappresentazioni linguistiche adeguate.15 Invece, la realtà è tutto ciò che c'è. Questo non dice nulla della natura di ciò che c'è, e ci impegna a un realismo banale. Un oggetto? Un riflesso, un'eco? Un'illusione? Un'allucinazione? Le teorie spiegano la natura di ciò che c'è, e alcune teorie – cioè, alcune serie di rappresentazioni linguistiche – ci impegnano a un realismo non banale – cioè, se sono adeguate, e dunque vere, c'è una realtà non banale. La differenza fra verità e realtà può essere illustrata, forse, offrendo una lettura particolare di una questione controversa. Martin Heidegger (1927: 278) e Richard Rorty (1991: 3), hanno sostenuto, in modi diversi, che se non ci fossero esseri dotati di mente, non ci sarebbero verità.16 La distinzione che ho accennata permette di accettare l'idea. Se non ci fossero enti dotati di mente, non ci sarebbe una lingua, e dunque non ci sarebbero rappresentazioni, né adeguate né inadeguate, né vere né false. Questo in nessun modo esclude che ci sarebbe una realtà. O meglio, lo escluderebbe solo se pensassimo che la realtà fosse una proiezione degli esseri dotati di mente – allora, sì, se non ci fossero esseri dotati di mente, non ci sarebbe nulla. L'ipotesi però può anche essere intesa così: che esista la realtà che conosciamo meno gli esseri dotati di mente e meno le conseguenze che si danno perché ci sono esseri del genere.17 15 Spesso si pensa che la verità sia indipendente dalla lingua. Per esempio, sostenendo che i portatori della verità, cioè ciò di cui predichiamo la verità, sono proposizioni fregeane. Contro queste si possono muovere tutte le obiezioni che si muovono contro il mondo delle idee di Platone. Una concezione più modesta delle proposizioni le potrebbe volere uno strumento di classificazione di ciò che lingue diverse, e forse una stessa lingua, ci permettono di dire in modi diversi. Per la concezione meno modesta, vedi Künne 2003 e Marconi 2006. 16 Mi limito a un'osservazione su Rorty. Rorty sostiene questa tesi contrapponendo una concezione pragmatista a una realista della conoscenza. Scrive Rorty: Se non ci fossero menti, non ci sarebbe alcun uso per il termine 'stesso'. Oppositori come [Bertrand] Russell chiedono: non sarebbe tuttavia vero che ci sarebbero stelle? I pragmatisti rispondono alla domanda con un'altra domanda: cosa si suppone significhi 'esser vero' in un mondo in cui [non ci sono affermazioni, e quindi] non ci sono affermazioni che siano vere, né menti che abbiano credenze vere? (1991: 3) Il fatto che stiamo parlando di una situazione del genere non deve confondere, né noi che avendo una lingua, possiamo rappresentare una situazione del genere, e chiederci che aspetto per esempio avrebbe la terra se non ci fossero esseri dotati di mente, né Rorty che sembra pensare che siccome in quella situazione non ci sarebbe una rappresentazione della realtà, la realtà non avrebbe la forma che pensiamo che abbia, perché questa dipende da come sono fatte le cose quanto da come siamo fatti noi. Potrebbe essere, anche se nelle nostre rappresentazioni cerchiamo di superare i limiti e le distorsioni del nostro punto di vista. 17 Cfr. il saggio di Marconi citato nella nota 15. Marconi legge un po' diversamente Rorty. Come sottolinea Marconi, le posizioni di Heidegger e Rorty, seppur convergenti, non sono identiche. 6 2. Come stabilire quando una rappresentazione linguistica è adeguata? Prendiamo un enunciato semplice, composto da un nome e un verbo, come 'Andrea corre'. Quando un enunciato del genere descrive correttamente la situazione? Qui mi interessano solo i prerequisiti di una risposta a questa domanda, e i prerequisiti sono sapere chi è il portatore del nome 'Andrea' e che tratto descrive 'corre'. Il portatore del nome 'Andrea' è chi è stato battezzato così.18 Come si stabilisce quale tratto descrive 'corre'? Un'idea molto diffusa è che i tratti che descrivono proprietà siano note concettuali – un'idea che ben s'accorda con quella che la lingua dia voce al pensiero. La difficoltà principale di questo suggerimento è come si formino le note concettuali, come queste possano essere adatte per caratterizzare ciò cui sono applicate. Un'idea diversa è che i predicati con i quali descriviamo oggetti, almeno alcuni, siano fissati coordinandoli a oggetti che fungono quindi da campioni per decidere se altri oggetti hanno il tratto rilevante.19 Questa idea assomiglia a quella avanzata, nel 1918 da Schlick (1918-25) e ripresa nel 1928 da Reichenbach parlando di definizioni coordinative, definizioni che coordinano concetti e oggetti nella fisica, che servono innanzitutto per introdurre unità di misura. Scrive Reichenbach: Di principio, un'unità di lunghezza può essere definita sulla base di un'osservazione che non comporti alcuna relazione metrica, come 'la lunghezza d'onda di una luce di una certa intensità di rosso'. In questo caso un campione di questo colore rosso andrebbe conservato a Parigi al posto del metro campione. La caratteristica di questo metodo è coordinare un concetto con un oggetto fisico. (Reichenbach 1928: 15, trad. it. mia, cfr. trad. it. di Adriano Carugo: 40-1.) Una definizione coordinativa trasforma un campione in uno standard, collegando il piano oggettuale con quello linguistico-concettuale. Non dà nessuna informazione, ma offre uno strumento per raccoglierne. Come ben si sa, le unità di misura non sono mai definitive: riflettiamo sugli standard che abbiamo scelto e cerchiamo di trovarne altri per avere standard migliori. Informazioni di contorno e aggiustamenti (istruzioni su come si applica il campione, su come lo si conserva, sulle condizioni in cui funziona in modo affidabile, ecc) possono essere dati in misura limitata eppure indefinita. 18 Uso una nozione lato di battesimo per coprire un qualunque sistema con il quale si attribuisce un nome a una persona. E non accenno a nessun altro genere di nome proprio come i nomi di luoghi. Chiaramente, i dettagli sono più complessi. 19 Cfr. Leonardi 2011. 7 I predicati introdotti coordinandoli ad alcuni campioni sono, per definizione, veri di questi, e nello stesso tempo, come nel caso delle definizioni coordinative non aggiungono nessun contenuto, il contenuto stesso essendo offerto dall'oggetto cui si coordina la rappresentazione.20 Nella coordinazione verità e realtà si toccano, e la verità ha sostanza. Nel caso che sto discutendo è più appropriato dire che la coordinazione è tra parole e oggetti (o, parole e entità) piuttosto che concetti e oggetti fisici. Come le definizioni coordinative fissano le unità di misura adottando degli oggetti reali come metro, così intendendo i predicati come ho indicato, alcuni oggetti reali funzionano da parametro nell'indagare la realtà. Questa coordinazione non produce forse standard da conservare al museo (anche se i musei, soprattutto quelli non di belle arti, ne conservano diversi), ed è mobile, soggetta a diverse dinamiche, come quella dell'evoluzione della conoscenza, quella della pluralità e relativa disomogeneità dei campioni, quella del cambiamento linguistico. Dinamiche che avvengono contemporaneamente rispetto al complesso di predicati coinvolti, producendo occasionalmente delle tensioni. Infatti, uno stesso oggetto può essere un campione per più predicati – animale, pesce, squalo sono tre predicati possibili per uno stesso campione. La classificazione proposta da Carl Linnaeus, nel Systema naturae, nell'edizione del 1758, scompose il gruppo di campioni cui si collegava il termine 'pesce' cambiando di conseguenza molte relazioni fra i termini che prima erano considerate sottospecie dei pesci appunto, e, riclassificando i cetacei tra i mammiferi, mutò ovviamente anche le relazioni all'interno dei termini per i mammiferi. Questo modo di procedere rivede un'argomentazione che nel corso del secolo passato è tornata più volte, per esempio in Moore 1925. Nella quarta parte del saggio, Moore afferma di conoscere il significato ordinario delle parole ma di non saperle analizzare. Sulla nostra conoscenza del significato ordinario delle parole, alcuni filosofi del linguaggio ordinario come James O. Urmson hanno successivamente sviluppato l'argomentazione del caso paradigmatico (paradigm case argument), e una posizione simile in parte alle precedenti si trova nella discussione sui termini di genere naturale sviluppata da Hilary Putnam e Saul Kripke (con una posizione che Putnam applica anche ad artefatti come i lapis).21 Non voglio dare a quanto dico il peso che i filosofi che ho indicati hanno dato alle proprie tesi. Il mio punto è che la semantica della lingua è definita accettando per veri alcuni usi della stessa, e quindi 20 «[... ]stipulazioni convenzionali – ancorché non arbitrarie, [...] – di natura linguisticodefinitoria, priva di contenuto empirico e di genuino valore conoscitivo.» (Parrini 2002: 162.) Nel testo, però, attribuisco come contenuto all'espressione l'oggetto cui è coordinata. 21 Cfr. Urmson 1956, Donnellan 1967, Hanfling 2000 (capitolo 5), Kripke 1972-1980, Putnam 1975, Marconi 2009. 8 considerando la lingua limitatamente adeguata nel suo uso descrittivo.22 Adattando una metafora di Otto Neurath,23 cara a Quine, siamo in mare e possiamo capire come stare a galla partendo dallo stare a galla. Come ho detto, questi usi sono rivedibili, e ancor più quelli che io considero introdotti per coordinazione, perché sono usi introdotti in maniera più casuale di quelli di cui trattano Schlick e Reichenbach. Anche questi però sono rivedibili, come ho detto. Un secondo esempio, più complesso. Gli antichi consideravano il sole, Venere, Marte, ecc, tutti, pianeti, cioè stelle vagabonde (stelle non fisse). Quando Copernico ha posto il Sole al centro del sistema solare, Venere e gli altri pianeti sono stati distinti come tipo di corpo celeste dal Sole. Questo è rimasto una stella (e per almeno cent'anni ancora le stelle fisse sono rimaste fisse) e gli altri sono rimasti pianeti, ma i pianeti non erano più stelle affatto. Quando il Sole è stato riconosciuto come una stella fra indefinitamente molte altre, e non una stella in una posizione speciale, è rimasto però una stella, come le altre. Inoltre, tra Tycho Brahe e Edmund Halley, cioè tra il XVI e il XVIII secolo, la credenza nella fissità delle stelle è stata dissolta. La molteplicità dei campioni e lo sviluppo della conoscenza, in questo caso, hanno composto una tensione mutando l'attribuzione dei diversi nomi comuni, perché il nome comune è legato all'attribuzione di proprietà comuni. Paolo già nel 1976 scriveva che si doveva ammettere «l'esistenza di asserti sintetici relativamente o contestualmente a priori, quali che essi siano in ogni circostanza particolare data»,24 insistendo sulla natura teorico-sintetica di questa mossa piuttosto che sulla sua natura linguistico-semantica. In parte 22 Parlando dello stesso caso che Reichenbach 1928 esamina nella sezione sulle definizoni coordinative, e cioè parlando del metro campione, Kripke descrive il fissare lo standard del metro e depositarne un campione nel museo di Sévres un caso contingente a priori, cioè una definizione che fissa un riferimento. Wittgenstein scrive che «Per stabilire una prassi non sono sufficienti le regole, ma abbiamo bisogno anche di esempi. In un esempio, cosa e nome si incontrano. Wittgenstein 1953 discute il caso del metro standard, al § 50, sostenendo che del campione non si può dire che sia lungo un metro, perché si tratta di un elemento che ha un ruolo grammaticale e non empirico. Al più credo si possa sostenere che sia un elemento empirico cui è attribuito un ruolo grammaticale. Wittgenstein torna su questo punto in diverse occasioni, anche se meno direttamente, nel Tractatus, nelle discussioni con alcuni membri del Wiener Kreis, nelle osservazioni e nelle lezioni sui fondamenti della matematica – lo fa sempre distinguendo un ruolo logico del campione e le sue applicazioni empiriche, sebbene sia probabilmente impossibile distinguerle, cosa di cui sembra quasi convinto qua e là Wittgenstein 1969 (cfr, per esempio, §§ 309, 319, 321, 519). Su Kripke e su Wittgenstein sull'argomento si vedano: Salmon 1988, Diamond 2001, Pollock 2004, Mácha 2012. 23 Neurath 1932-33 [1983]: 92. 24 Parrini 1976 (II, §6: 285-6). Sulle definizioni coordinative di Reichenbach, che riprendono la nozione di convenzione coordinativa di Schlick, Paolo è tornato molte volte. Fra i molti luoghi si vedano Parrini 1984, 2002 (§ 2.4; §§4.4-5 e §6.4) e 2011 (cap. 3). 9 sospetto che questa insistenza dipenda da una sottovalutazione degli aspetti linguistico-semantici, come se essi non avessero nessuna conseguenza teorica. Per altro, mi chiedo perché riproporre il sintetico a priori kantiano seppure in una versione così indebolita. La coordinazione fra predicati e tratti delle cose non è una mossa a priori, non accade fuori dello spazio-tempo, e non è neppure per lo più una mossa fatta consapevolmente. Gli scienziati, che a Paolo stanno giustamente a cuore, possono fare alcune mosse del genere consapevolmente, come possiamo farle tutti, riflettendo. Nella lingua naturale, queste scelte sono per lo più ... naturali. La cognizione prelinguistica ci offre un mondo strutturato, e la lingua si connette al mondo che quella le offre. Più che di convenzioni e definizioni, enfatizza dei punti di riferimento, che eventualmente rifissa e cui, al caso, ne aggiunge di nuovi. I nostri punti di riferimento per i predicati sono gli stati di cose che prendiamo per veri.25 La lingua, insomma, non è un accessorio che serve a dar voce al pensiero, ma una "tecnologia" cognitiva che lo muta, per esempio, consentendoci di mettere e sviluppare in comune pensiero, cosa la prima limitata e la seconda limitatissima per gli altri animali, compresi i primati superiori. La semantica, che della lingua è un costituente essenziale, ci porta dalle parole alle cose, e per il ruolo che nel parlare ha la verità, fa sì che questa non sia un'idea vuota. La verità ci compromette con la realtà che ci aiuterà a capire e spiegare. 3. Due osservazioni finali ancora più brevi di quelle fatte fin qua. La prima. La verità non è in sé un valore.26 Perseguire la verità è un imperativo che ci proponiamo, e che alcune categorie di persone per la caratterizzazione formale o sostanziale della loro professione adottano – penso rispettivamente 25 Il senso comune, che Paolo sembra spregiare (Il valore della verità cit: 17), non è l'opinione comune, bensì la riflessione sull'affidabilità di alcuni giudizi ordinari. Così il filosofo del senso comune riflette sull'affidabilità dei nostri sensi, indicando alcuni contesti e cosa percepiamo in quei contesti. Per dubitare della loro correttezza, il filosofo del senso comune vorrebbe una ragione particolare. Se la loro correttezza è dubbia, qualunque conoscenza è inattingibile. I nostri sistemi sensori hanno un ruolo centrale anche nella riflessione, perché essa è mediata da immagini e da rappresentazioni linguistiche attuali o conservate in memoria. Un'immagine o una frase sono oggetti percepiti o presentati dalla memoria percettiva. Se la percezione è inaffidabile, anche il dubbio non può essere provato, ed è certamente inesprimibile. Tornando a Heidegger e Rorty, non saremmo dotati di mente. 26 Su questo ha insistito ripetutamente Paul Horwich, in Horwich 1990-1998 e in una serie di articoli successivi. Horwich sostiene una teoria della verità minimalista ma non vuota. 10 a giudici e scienziati, fra i quali includerei i filosofi. Molti esseri umani però preferiscono la fantasia, e in ogni modo non prendere atto della realtà. La seconda osservazione. Quando si discute di realismo, vale che noi stessi siamo parte della realtà, in cui tutto ha origine, e che perciò i latini chiamarono natura. Non c'è da stabilire se c'è qualcosa di reale, ma quanto c'è in natura, e che caratteristiche ha. Lo scetticismo riguarda i dettagli, non che ci sia la natura.27 Bibliografia Austin, J.L. (1962-1975), How to do things with words, a cura di J.O. Urmson e M. Sbisà Oxford UP Oxford [1962] 19753; trad. it. di C. Villata (1988) Come fare cose con le parole Marietti, Casale Monferrato. Danto, A.C. (1968), Analytical Philosophy of Knowledge, Cambridge UP, Cambridge. Davidson, D., e Harman , G. (1972, a cura di), Semantics of Natural Language, Reidel, Dordrecht. Diamond C. (2001), "How long is the standard meter in Paris? in McCarthy, T., e Stidd, S.C (2001), pp. 104-39. Donnellan, K. (1967), Paradigm-case Argument, in Edwards, P. (1967), vol. 6, pp. 39-44. Edwards, P. (1967, a cura di), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York. Flew, A. (1956, a cura di), Essays in conceptual analysis, Macmillan Londra. Frege, G. (1914) Logik in der Mathematik in Nachgelassene Schriften, Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg; trad. it. di E. Picardi (1986) La logica nella matematica in Scritti Postumi Bibliopolis, Napoli, pp. 370-1. Frege, G. (1918), Der Gedanke. Eine Logische Untersuchung, in «Beiträge zur Philosophie des deutschen Idealismus», 1918-19, I, pp. 59-77; trad. it. di R. Casati (1988), Il pensiero, in Ricerche logiche Guerini, Milano, pp. 43-74. Gunderson , K. (1975, a cura di), Language, Mind and Knowledge, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 7, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. Hanfling, O. (2000), Philosophy and ordinary language, Routledge, New York. Heidegger, M. (1927), Sein und zeit, Max Niemayer Verlag, Tubingen; trad. it. di P. Chiodi (1976), Essere e tempo Longanesi, Milano. Horwich, P. (1990-1998 ),Truth, Blackwell, Oxford; 2a ed., Oxford Up, Oxford. 27 Nel 1976 lessi per la prima volta un testo di Paolo Parrini, Linguaggio e realtà. Il libro era informato, bello, polemico, e Paolo mi sembrò allora, e dopo, uno dei migliori filosofi italiani, abbastanza analitico, con curiosità al di là di questa tradizione. Le polemiche, che emergono nei testi e nelle note a pie' di pagina, sono un contributo alla formazione di una comunità filosofica che nel nostro paese, nonostante i suoi sforzi, non esiste purtroppo ancora davvero. Ho presentato questo lavoro in un seminario a Palermo. Ringrazio Franco Lo Piparo, Francesca Piazza, Marco Carapezza, Francesco La Mantia, e Pietro Perconti. 11 Kripke, S.A. (1972 – 1980), Naming and necessity, in Davidson, D., e Harman , G. (1972, a cura di), pp. 253-355 e 763-9; ristampato come libro con l'aggiunta di una Prefazione, Blackwell, Oxford, 1980; trad. it. di M. Santambrogio (1982), Nome e necessità, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino. Kripke, S.A. (1975), Outline of a theory of truth in «The Journal of Philosophy», LXXII, 1975: 690716. Künne, W. (2003), Conceptions of truth, Oxford UP, Oxford. Leibniz, G.W. (1686), Discours de métaphysique, a cura di H. Lestienne, Félix Alcan, Parigi, 1907. Leibniz, G.W. (1686-8), Lettres de Leibniz à Arnauld, a cura di G. Lewis, Presses universitaires de France, Parigi, 1952. Leonardi, P. (1997), Discussione critica di Paolo Parrini Conoscenza e realtà / Saggio di filosofia positiva, in «Paradigmi», 1997, XV, pp. 363-80. Leonardi, P. (2011), "Predication", in Reboul, A. (2011, a cura di), pp. 14. McCarthy, T., e Stidd, S.C (2001, a cura di), Wittgenstein in America, Clarendon Press, Oxford. Mácha, J. (2012), Language meets and measures reality in Padilla Gálvez, J., e Gaffal, M. (2012, a cura di), pp. 121-8. Marconi, D. (2006 ), On the mind dependence of truth, in «Erkenntnis», LXV, pp. 301-18. Marconi, D. (2009), Being and being called: paradigm case arguments and natural kind words, in «The Journal of Philosophy», CVI, pp. 113-36. Moore, G.E. (1925), A defence of common sense, in Muirhead, J.H. (1925, a cura di ), pp. 193-223. Moore, G.E. (1936), Is existence a predicate?, in «Proc. of the Aristotelian Society Suppl. vol.» XV, pp. 175-88). Muirhead, J.H. (1925, a cura di) Contemporary British philosophy, George Allen & Unwin, Londra. Neurath, O. (1932 -33), Protokollsätze, in «Erkenntnis», III, pp. 204-14; ristampato in Neurath, O. (1983), pp. 91-9. Neurath, O. (1983), Philosophical papers 1913-1946, Kluwer, Dordrecht. Padilla Gálvez, J., e Gaffal, M. (2012, a cura di) Doubtful Certainties. Language-Games, Forms of Life, Relativism, Ontos Verlag, Munich. Parrini, P. (1976), Linguaggio e teoria, La Nuova Italia, Firenze. Parrini, P. (1984), Introduzione, in Reichenbach, H. ([1920] 1984), pp. 1-30. Parrini, P. (1995-1998), Conoscenza e realtà / Saggio di filosofia positiva, Laterza, Roma-Bari; (1998), trad. inglese, Knowledge and reality / An essay in positive philosophy, Kluwer, Dordrecht. Parrini, P. (2002), L'empirismo logico / Aspetti storiche e prospettive teoriche, Carocci, Roma. Parrini, P. (2011), Il valore della verità, Guerini, Milano,. Pollock, W.J. (2004), Wittgenstein on the standard meter, in «Philosophical Investigations» XXVII, 2004, pp. 148-57. Putnam, H. (1975), The Meaning of 'meaning', in Gunderson , K. (1975, a cura di), pp. 131-93; trad. it. di Cordeschi R. (1987) in Putnam H. (1987), pp. 239-97). Putnam, H. (1987), Mente, linguaggio e realtà, Adelphi, Milano. Reboul, A. (2011, a cura di) Philosophical papers dedicated to Kevin Mulligan http://www.philosophie.ch/kevin/festschrift/ ISBN 978-2-8399-1028-6. Reichenbach, H. ([1920] 1984) Relativitätstheorie und Erkenntnis apriori, Springer, Berlin; trad.it. di Parrini, P., e Parrini Ciolli, S. (1984) Relatività e conoscenza a priori, Laterza, Roma-Bari . Reichenbach, H. (1928), Philosophie der Raum-Zeit-Lehre, Walter De Gruyter, Berlino e Lipsia; trad. it. di Carugo, A. (1977), Filosofia dello spazio e del tempo, Feltrinelli, Milano. 12 Rivetti Barbò, F. (1963, a cura di), L'antinomia del mentitore nel pensiero contemporaneo da Pierce a Tarski, Vita e Pensiero, Milano. Rorty, R. (1991), Just one more species doing its best, in «London Review of Books», XII, n. 14 del 25 luglio, pp3-6. Salmon, N. (1988), How to measure the standard metre, in «Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society», New Series, LXXXVIII, pp. 193-217. Schlick, M. (1918-25), Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre, Julius Springer, Berlin, 1918, 19252. Tarski, A. (1933), Pojęcie prawdy w językach nauk dedukcyjnych, Nakładem Towarzystwa Naukowego Warszawskiego, Warsaw; trad. tedesca , con l'aggiunta di un post scriptum, di Blaustein, L. (1935), Der Wahrheitsbegriff in den formalizierten Sprachen, in «Studia Philosophica», I, pp. 261–405; trad. it. di Rivetti Barbò, F. (1963), Il concetto di verità nei linguaggi formalizzati, in Rivetti Barbò, F. (1963, a cura di), pp. 391-677). Urmson, J.O. (1956), Some questions concerning validity, in Flew, A. (1956, a cura di), pp. 120-33. Wittgenstein, L. (1953), Philosophische Untersuchungen, Blackwell Oxford; trad. it. di Piovesan, R., e Trinchero, M. (1967), Ricerche filosofiche Torino Einaiudi. Wittgenstein, L. (1969), Über Gewissheit / On Certainty, Blackwell Oxford; trad. it. di Gargani, A.G. (1971), Della certezza, Einaudi Torino. | {
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Denial of Responsibility and Normative Negation Federico L.G. Faroldi University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy University of Florence, Florence, Italy [email protected] Abstract. In this paper I provide some linguistic evidence to the thesis that responsibility judgments are normative. I present an argument from negation, since the negation of descriptive judgments is structurally different from the negation of normative judgments. In particular, the negation of responsibility judgments seem to conform to the pattern of the negation of normative judgments, thus being a prima facie evidence for the normativity of responsibility judgments. I assume - for the argument's sake - Austin's distinction between justification and excuse, and I sketch how to accommodate the distinction between internal (justification) and external (excuse) negation of responsibility within a language with a second-order analogous of existential generalization and λ operator. In the end I confront with and refute some objections against this argument. Keywords: Responsibility, Negation, Excuses, Justifications. 1 Introduction In this paper I suggest that negations of responsibility judgments are isomorphic to the negation of normative sentences. It is only external negation that inverts the value of responsibility judgments, thus providing a a prima facie evidence to consider responsibility judgments non-descriptive and normative-like. First, I contrast two sorts of negation: negation of normative sentences and negation of descriptive sentences, pointing out where they differ. My provisional hypothesis is that internal negation and external negation work in opposite ways for descriptive sentences and normative sentences. (i) In descriptive sentences internal negation inverts their (truth) value;1 whereas (ii) in normative sentences it is external negation that changes their (normative) value. Second, I consider denials of responsibility. I show that negation of responsibility judgments falls under case (ii). It is only external negation that inverts the value of responsibility judgments, thus suggesting at least an analogy between responsibility judgments and normative judgments. 1 Of course the value inversion occurs only in classical two-valued logic. In multivalued logics, it assigns its complement. This observation applies every time I mention truthvalues. F. Cariani et al. (Eds.): DEON 2014, LNAI 8554, pp. 81–94, 2014. c⃝ Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 82 F.L.G. Faroldi In the end of this paper I confront with three apparently possible objections to my argument: first, I have begged the question in the definition of responsibility judgments; second, all I have shown is that external negation inverts the value of sentences if they are not descriptive, but this tells nothing about the exact nature of those sentences; third, that these features of negation hold for other modalities, so there is nothing special about normativity. This paper aims at clarifying the various kinds of negation in logic and natural language (in §2). It then advances an interpretation of normative negation (§3) and considers how this model might shed light on responsibility judgments and in particular on negative responsibility judgments (§4). 2 Negation, Negations I shall now briefly introduce some concepts I use in this paper, namely: (i) the difference between negation, denial and rejection; (ii) the difference between logical negation, and natural language negations, including internal vs external negation and metalinguistic negation.2 2.1 Negation, Denial, Rejection For the purposes of this chapter, I shall adopt the now common distinction among negation, denial and rejection.3 While these definitions are apodictically stated, nothing significant for my arguments relies on them. Very roughly, negation acts on contents. For instance, 'unhappy' is the negation of 'happy'.4 Denial is, instead, an act. It can be either a linguistic act, or a non-linguistic act (for instance: shaking one's head). Rejection is, instead, a mental attitude.5 2.2 Internal vs. External Negation Due to a felicitous intuition in [26],6 the well-known sentence: (1) The King of France is not bald can be given two readings, usually paraphrased as follows:7 2 For an engaging yet theory-driven introduction to negation, see [17]. 3 For a survey on the matter, see [24]. The paper discusses even some theories about the respective relationships among negation, denial and rejection. 4 We got 'un', in English, from a reconstructed *en-, from Proto-Indoeuropean *n- (probably zero grade of *ne-), prefix usually found in most Indo-European tongues, cf. at least [6,23,38]. 5 On rejection, see [12,19,31,34]. 6 As far as I am aware, [10] (for instance in [10]) did not notice this phenomenon or shunned it. 7 For instance by [17, §6]. Denial of Responsibility and Normative Negation 83 (1a) INTERNAL: The King of France is not -bald (is un-bald);8 (1b) EXTERNAL: It is not the case (true)9 that the King of France is bald.10 The former (1a) is usually read as an example of internal negation; whereas the latter (1b) is usually read as an example of external negation.11 In propositional logic internal negation and external negation are equivalent, that is, they both equally invert the logical value of a given sentence.12 So, for instance: (2) Maria is brunette changes its truth-value both in (2a) and (2b), examples of internal negation and external negation, respectively: (2a) INTERNAL: Maria is not brunette; (2b) EXTERNAL: It is not the case (true) that Maria is brunette. Please keep this point in mind because it will become handy infra at §3, when we shall see that internal negation and external negation are not equivalent in normative sentences.13 2.3 Metalinguistic Negation Metalinguistic negation is defined14 as a formally negative utterance used to object to a previous utterance on any grounds (even of intonations, assertability, and so on). 8 ∃x(∀y(Kxf ↔ y = x) ∧ ¬Bx) 9 'True' was proposed by [20]. 10 ¬∃x(∀y(Kxf ↔ y = x) ∧ Bx) 11 [17, §6] questions the use of 'true' and underlines how no known natural language employ two distinct negative operators corresponding directly to internal and external negation, even if a given language employs two (or more) negative operators, for instance (former: declarative negation; latter: emphatic negation): Ancient Greek: 'ou' vs. 'mē'; Modern Greek: 'den' vs. 'me'; Hungarian: 'nem' vs. 'ne'; Latin: 'non' vs. 'nē'; Irish: 'nach' vs. 'gan'; Sanskrit: 'na' vs. 'mā'. There is another 'un-' in English which is not a negative operator, but it is analogous to German 'ent-' as in 'un-fold', 'ent-falten'. See Horn's interesting list of languages with distinct negative operators at p. 366. 12 But please keep in mind that duplex negatio affirmat only in propositional logic and some natural languages, for instance contemporary standard English. Both in Old and Middle English, along with contemporary languages such as Italian, Portuguese and many others, duplex negatio n e g a t. 13 This point was noticed also by St. [2]: "dicimus etiam nos "non debere peccare" pro "debere non peccare". Non enim omnis, qui facit, quod non debet, peccat, si proprie consideretur." Cf. [28, p. 36]. For an interesting survey of modal logics in Anselm, see [15] and [36,37]. 14 For instance by [18,17]. 84 F.L.G. Faroldi Here is an example of metalinguistic negation: (3) John didn'tmanage to pass his viva - it was quite easy for him. (Emphasis signals stressed intonation here.) (4) Ben is meeting a man this evening. No, he's not- he's meeting his brother. So one does not object to the truth of a sentence, but to its (felicitous, appropriate) assertability. Another interesting feature of metalinguistic negation is its inability to be incorporated prefixally: (5) The King of France is not happy (*unhappy) - in fact there isn't any king of France.15 2.4 Illocutionary or Neustic Negation Introduced as "neustic" negation by Hare ([14, p. 21] [13, p. 35]) and later called "illocutionary" negation (originally by Searle, cf. [22,29]), it should apply to what expresses illocutive force in a sentence or the neustic. Here it is an example. (8) I promise to come. (9a) I promise not to come. (9b) I don't promise to come. According to Searle, (9a) is simply a propositional (or internal) negation, whereas (9b) is an example of illocutionary negation: one denies the very linguistic act, not its content. (9a) and (9b) are not equivalent. Illocutionary negation, if it exists, seems non-truth conditional. Is it assimilable to metalinguistic negation? As [21] maintains, not always: in fact metalinguistic negation need not to be expressed linguistically, whereas illocutionary negation is necessarily linguistic. Some doubts about the very existence of illocutionary (or neustic) negation are expressed by [7,11,16] and [21]. [16] has proposed a very interesting reading of illocutionary negation not as external or metalinguistic negation (ie, a negation of the whole speech-act), but simply as an internal negation. According to him, (10) It is not the case (that) I promise to come it is not equivalent to (9b). But (9b) must be read not as the internal negation of the coming, but as the negation of promise (as in not-promise): (9b) I don't promise to come. (9b) would be - at most - the negation of a preceding speech-act, rather the negation of that very speech-act produced by uttering (9b). 15 [17, p. 392]. Denial of Responsibility and Normative Negation 85 To Sum Up. First, there is logical negation. Logical negation is a logical operator (for instance: '¬') which is unambiguous: it always inverts the truth-value of a given sentence p.16 Moreover, internal (logical) negation and external (logical) negation are functionally equivalent.17 Second, there is natural negation, ie negation in natural languages. As we have seen supra, negation in natural languages is much more complex a phenomenon than logical negation. Firstly, it may be pragmatically ambiguous (as [17, §6] and [32] masterly argued); secondly, other than descriptive negation, natural negation can be realized externally or metalinguistically, and it is not the case that it be always used to act on the truth of a given sentence; thirdly, nondescriptive negation cannot always be semantically analyzed in terms of external or metalinguistic negation, because there are pragmatic phenomena (intonation, phonetics, etc.) involved: external or metalinguistic negation can be realized implicitly, without fixed semantic features ('it is not the case that', 'it is not true that', etc.). Fourthly, not all (negated) sentences in natural language are truth-functional, but they may be commands, prayers, wishes or insults. Third, natural negation, for instance via metalinguistic negation, can be used not only to invert the truth-value of a sentence, but also to reject or question its assertability. 3 Normative Negation Last section was devoted to analyze different kinds of negation in logic and natural languages. In this section I try to give an account of normative negation. I maintain that it can be differentiated from non-normative negation because normative negation cancels (at least) one of its presuppositions, whereas non-normative negation preserves the presuppositions of the negated sentence. I have argued elsewhere that is not possible to have distinct species of negation for descriptive and normative language, but only different realizations of a single attitude.18 I therefore propose to extend the model we have sketched in the preceding sections to normative language. We have seen that logical negation, although unambiguous, is quite limited. Natural negation is instead a complex phenomenon, it does not always act on truth-values and it can be pragmatically ambiguous, divided among at least internal and external or metalinguistic negation. Moreover, following [17, §6], we have noticed that at least metalinguistic negation is a formally negative utterance used to object to a previous utterance on any grounds, especially its assertability. 16 In many-valued logics, it assigns p's truth-value complement. In logics with more than one negation, they are nonetheless unambigous. 17 Of course I am referring here to classical propositional logic. Intuitionistic logics do not accept the equivalence of internal and external negation, nor the law of double negation: ¬¬B = B. 18 See [9, §5]. 86 F.L.G. Faroldi I propose to extend this model also to normative language. To stick to a logical level, even [25, §§31-2] noticed that while external and internal negation are functionally equivalent in propositional logic, internal negation and external negation differ quite radically in deontic logic: the fact you are under an obligation not to teach deontic logic (O¬δ), for instance, it is quite different from the fact you are not under an obligation to teach deontic logic (¬Oδ). In an analogous fashion, I maintain that internal normative negation keeps the sentence binding or, so to speak, normative, only to invert its deonticity: from obligatory to forbidden, and so on.19 (Please note that I am not forced to assign normative sentences truth-aptness, because truth does not tell us the whole story even when (non-normative) natural language is concerned.) External or metalinguistic negation is a rejection of the assertability (lato sensu) of a prima facie, allegedly normative sentence. Specifically, though, rejection of the assertability of a normative sentence is (implicity, I maintain) not a normative judgment, but a judgment on its normativity (or bindingness, or you name it). If a speaker feels20 a given (non-normative) proposition unassertable, he rejects it metalinguistically; if he feels a given (prima facie normative) proposition not binding or not normative, he rejects it metalinguistically or externally, canceling its presupposition of normativity.21 Consider the following normative sentence: (1) Abortion is wrong and its prima facie negation: (2) Abortion is not wrong. Both are moral (normative) judgments, and share - among others - the following presupposition: (0) Abortion can be an object of a genuine moral judgment. Now consider external negation of (1):22 (3) It is not the case that abortion is wrong. Now, while (2) is still a normative judgment, (3) seems intuitively a judgment on the normativity of (1). (3) cancels (1)'s and (2)'s presupposition (0), because it simply rejects that abortion can be object of (that) moral judgment. Let's now make a comparison with internal and external negation of nonnormative sentences. Let's consider (4) He stopped beating his wife 19 I am well aware that not all normative sentences (or propositions) are in deontic terms. This was only an example to illustrate the general principle I want to bring forth. 20 Please note that 'to feel' here is used generally has no intended reference to emotivism or expressivism. 21 I am using this as a sort of a term of art, in order to make a general point without supporting a substantive theory of normativity either in terms of reasons (cf. for instance [27,30]), good (cf. [35]) or oughts. 22 Of course it can be realized also metalinguistically. Denial of Responsibility and Normative Negation 87 its internal negation: (5) He didn't stop beating his wife and its external negation: (6) It's not true that he stopped beating his wife. Neither (5) nor (6) modify the ("factive") presuppositions of (4) such as that he has a wife, and he used to beat her. Since - as we have seen - not every instance of external or metalinguistic negation is analyzable with distinct semantic (or, for that matter, syntactic) features, I assume a paraphrase in terms of external negation will account for the phenomenon, at least for our present purposes. Considering the problem with normative negation only from the point of view of truth is quite limited, because truth does not tell the whole story even in nonnormative negation, as I pointed out in the case of metalinguistic negation. This turns out to be a plus, because normative sentences are usually not considered truth-apt.23 In this section I contrasted descriptive and normative sentence by considering negation. I showed that normative negation, usually realized externally or metalinguistically, cancels its presupposition(s) of normativity. Next section applies this conclusion to judgments of responsibility, showing that their structure with respect to negation is akin to normative sentences. 4 Denial of Responsibility In last section I contrasted descriptive and normative sentence by considering negation. I suggested that normative negation, usually realized externally or metalinguistically, cancels its presupposition(s) of normativity. In this section, I apply these results to judgments of responsibility, in order to provide an argument to the thesis that responsibility judgments are normative, 23 And consequently one may maintain that (a) what you negate is not their truth; or that (b) norms cannot be negated. (a) was the position of the very first philosopher known to have written on this topic: Jerzy Sztykgold. In [33], he argued that you cannot negate the truth of norms, but only their righteousness [s"luszność] in terms of non-righteousness [nies"luszność]. (Righteousness and unrighteousness are, for Sztykgold, the strict análogon of truth and falseness.) (b) was instead the position of Karel Englǐs ([8]), according to which: (i) logical operations are possible only for "descriptive judgments" [soudy ]); (ii) negation [popřeńı ] is a logical operation; (iii) norms [normy ] and postulates [postuláty ], although sentential, are not "descriptive judgments"; and therefore (iv) logical operations don't apply to norms and postulates. In particular: (v) norms cannot be negated. Of course Englǐs' argument shows - at most, if premise (i) holds - that negation as a logical operator doesn't apply to norms. But negation is not exclusively a logical operator. Negation exists outside logic, in natural language, with different characteristics. 88 F.L.G. Faroldi and namely an argument "from negation". I shall show that when one denies responsibility, what happens is (a) what happens when one denies normative statements; (b) what happens is the case only when normative entities are concerned. This might show that judgments of responsibility are normative.24 Here is a more schematic version of my fourth argument: 1. when you deny a responsibility judgment, what happens (what obtains) is a cancelation of its presuppositions; 2. canceling of presuppositions obtains only when normative judgments are negated; 3. Therefore, responsibility judgements are normative judgments. Let's begin. I shall use negation a test to isolate a normative entity. We have seen back in §3 that negation of descriptive and normative entities differs in at least one substantial point: internal and external negation work in opposite ways. Here is an example for descriptive statements: Internal negation (1) "John isn't tall' vs. External negation (2) "It's not the case that John is tall" Now, let's take a normative statement (for simplicity's sake, I shall consider an imperative): Internal negation O(¬W ) (3): "Don't shut the window!" (that is: "Shut not the window"). Note that (3) and its "positive" (3a) Shut the window share a presupposition of normativity. Now, (3a)'s external negation: External negation ¬O(W ) (4a) "I do not accept that is the case of shutting the window"/ (4b) "I do not accept the command 'Shut the window"'/ (4c) "I don't care".25 instead, rejects (cancels) the presupposition of normativity that both (3) and (3a) shared. 24 This is by no means the standard theory. When judgments of responsibility are kept separate from responsibility or concepts of responsibility, they are usually considered non-normative; for example, judgments of responsibility are considered explanatory by [5,4]. Anderson ([1, §3.1] and p.c.) considers responsibility judgments to be normative, even though he does not provide any arguments for this thesis. 25 Of course I am aware these are only some possible paraphrases - there might be many more. The most important fact is that internal and external negation can be consistently kept separable. Denial of Responsibility and Normative Negation 89 As I explained in §2, for descriptive sentences it is internal negation that might change their truth-value (from truth to false and viceversa); vice versa, for normative (imperative, in this case) sentences, it is external negation that changes their normativity-value, by rejecting the presupposition of normativity. Now, let's apply this test to responsibility. Internal negation (5) "He is not responsible for killing A, because. . . " vs. External negation (6) "It is not the case that he is responsible for killing A, because. . . "/ Now, if (5) stands to (1) as (6) stands to (2), we can confidently conclude that (5) and (6) are statements analogous to (1) and (2), that is, non-normative. Quite on the contrary, if (5) stands to (3) as (6) stands to (4), we can confidently conclude that (5) and (6) are statements analogous to (3) and (4), that is, broadly normative. It turns out, unfortunately, that you cannot really tell if (5) - internal negation of responsibility - tells us something of significance, for the very simple reason that its interpretation requires an understanding of responsibility. If you think responsibility is an objective state-of-affairs, that can be somehow empirically ascertained, then you would interpret (5) as a descriptive statement, whose truth-value is to be checked against the world; and vice versa. Therefore, let's turn to (6) to seek some clarification of the matter. My hypothesis is that a statement such as (5) stands for a justification; while (6) stands for an excuse. I take advantage of the paradigm excuse vs. justification developed in [3]. With a justification, I maintain, we remain in the domain of the normative: we accept A, and even add some reasons for it. The presupposition of normativity is kept. Quite on the contrary, an excuse, in a way, suspends what was going on, it makes "normativity freeze" because it refers to conditions other than the very act A, conditions that (by definition) rule out responsibility (duress, infancy, mental incapacity, maybe psychopathy for moral responsibility). The presupposition of normativity is canceled. In the words of Austin: [i]n the one defence [= justification], briefly, we accept responsibility but deny that it was bad: in the other [= excuse], we admit that it was bad but don't accept full, or even any, responsibility ([3]). it is not quite fair or correct to say baldly "X did A". We may say it isn't fair just to say X did it; perhaps he was under somebody's influence, or was nudged. Or, it isn't fair to say baldly he did A; it may have been partly accidental, or an unintentional slip. Or, it isn't fair to say he did simply A – he was really doing something quite different and A was only incidental, or he was looking at the whole thing quite differently ([3, p.2]). 90 F.L.G. Faroldi First, excuses are denial of responsibility because, in giving excuses, a person contests or opposes a previously ascribed responsibility, by rejecting constitutive elements of the accusation: for instance, by denying having committed anything. He simply denies that the previous ascription of responsibility is sound. Second, excuses are rhetic (and not thetic) negations (denials) of responsibility because they do not seek to cancel or nullify responsibility, since they assume that there is no responsibility whatsoever. Absence of responsibility is constitutive of excuses: if there were responsibility, they would not be excuses but - at most - justifications. Excuses do not presuppose responsibility, but only ascription of responsibility.26 Justifications, instead, are not at all negations of responsibility because justifications presuppose responsibility: justifications affirm responsibility, but deny it is responsibility for something bad. (A paradigmatic example seems to me "self defense": a admits to having killed b, but b was assaulting him with a knife, for instance.) Negative Properties and Existential Generalization. A possible way to account for the difference between internal and external negation, and the existence of a given property is to consider a plausible analogous of Existential Generalization at the second order (I am not arguing for it at this point; I shall only make my point with a somewhat sloppy notation). (EG1) Fa |= ∃xFx (1) ¬Fa |= ∃xFx But with a λ operator we can gain negative properties: (2) λx(¬Fx)a |= ∃x(¬Fx ∧ x = a) Likewise, it is plausible to hold the following: (EG2) Fa |= ∃P∃x(Px ∧ x = a ∧ P = F )27 (3) ¬Fa |= ∃P∃x(Px ∧ x = a ∧ P = F ) but (4) λPλx(¬Fx)a |= ∃P∃x(Px ∧ x = a ∧ P = λx(¬Fx)) While both (1) and (3) are plain external negations and don't license any inference to the existence of either something or some property; (2) and (4) can, with the use of λ-abstraction, represent internal negation. Internal negation seems to license an inference to the existence of some property of sort. The connection with internal and external negation of responsibility, while stretched, is significant: in fact, we suggested that with external negation of responsibility (excuse) there is no more responsibility (and normativity) involved, whereas with internal negation of responsibility (justification) the normativity is kept. 26 As I noted with accusations, not all excuses are pled using a verb like 'to excuse' or 'scusare'; in an analogous fashion, it is not only the use of 'to excuse' or 'scusare' that can make an excuse. 27 Of course one needs to explain what '=' among P and F means. I thank Tim Williamson for discussion on this point. Denial of Responsibility and Normative Negation 91 Two Examples: Excuses vs. Justifications. I am going to illustrate the difference between justification and excuses. I ask the reader to imagine two fictional criminal cases (both involve a death), and to abstract from particular legal systems in order to focus on the general point. In the first, let's call it WIFE, a man comes back home and sees an intruder trying to rape or kill his wife. By chance, there is the intruder's loaded gun at hand. The man takes it up, aims and finally shoots the intruder down - killing him. In court, he admits the murder and puts forward his reasons. His lawyer says: "Look, he is not responsible for the killing, because that was self-defence: he was trying to defend and save his own wife." This is a justification: you admit your deed (there are all the relevant required elements: actus reus, mens rea, volition, intention, knowledge and so on to make that killing a murder) but you have a (good) reason for you action. In the second, let's call it MAD, a mentally-ill man escapes from a psychiatric hospital, manages to get a gun, and shoots down a random passer-by. His lawyer says: "Look, he is not responsible for the killing, because it is not the case he is (= can be) responsible at all : he is mad (under duress, in infancy. . . )." This is an excuse: you may admit the deed, but it was done without the relevant required conditions: without mens rea, for instance, or without those capacities required for a death or a killing to be a murder. To sum up, with a justification you deny your responsibility for that deed qua a particular action (but you admit, nonetheless, that you are under the domain of responsibility, that you can be responsible); with an excuse you deny your responsibility tout court, you deny that you are under the very domain of responsibility. The lawyer's sentence in WIFE: "he is not responsible for the killing" is comparable to (3): "Don't shut the window" and (5): "He was not responsible", inasmuch as they are internal negations. On the contrary, the lawyer's sentence in MAD: "it is not the case he is (= can be) responsible at all" seems to me analogous to (4): "It is not the case you order me to shut the window" and (6): "It is not the case that he is responsible for A, because. . . " As (3) conserved the imperative nature of the sentence, so WIFE conserved the domain of responsibility. As (4) instead went out the domain of the imperative, to make a non-imperative claim, in the same way MAD appealed to a condition - in a way a non-normative, even factual condition - to be excluded from the domain of responsibility. This linguistic evidence is consistent with the conceptual arguments I put forward earlier in this section: while justifications aren't at all denial of responsibility because they presupposes responsibility, excuses are in fact denial of responsibility, because they reject it. With justifications and excuses, negation of responsibility coincides both with a linguistic act (denial) and a mental state (rejection). 92 F.L.G. Faroldi We suggested that – (i) when we deny responsibility, we have (at least) two cases: internal negation (which stands for a justification) and external negation (standing for an excuse). Then, we have seen that – (ii) internal negations of responsibility do not exit the domain of responsibility (they presuppose responsibility); whereas external negations do (they reject the presupposition of responsibility). But this was exactly what happened with normative sentences (as I showed in §3): internal negation keeps the sentence normative (it keeps the presupposition of normativity), whereas external negation rejects it (it cancels the presupposition of normativity). If we suppose that this kind of negation is at work only with non-descriptive (and namely, normative statements), we can therefore conclude that – (iii) since judgments denying responsibility are structurally akin to normative sentences, responsibility judgments are akin to normative sentences. Caveats and Assumptions. Now, some caveats. I have limited my discussion to the word (and the concept) of responsibility in the proper, fuller sense. I am very well aware that there may be pragmatical ways to express a responsibility judgment without mentioning the word 'responsibility' or any related. I am also aware that we may get indicative (or descriptive) sentences (to express/ascribe responsibility). For this (and for other) reasons linguistic arguments are interesting but not conclusive. I offer more (non linguistic) arguments for the thesis that responsibility is normative in [9]. Last but not least, my argument makes the following assumption: there are only two kinds of language relevant to our investigation here: descriptive and normative language. This may not be the case: there are several other language domains I am not considering: prayers, exclamations, insults, whose "status" with regard to negation is unclear. Therefore, it might be the case that the different ways negation works (in descriptive and normative domains) is not exclusive: negation might work in prayers as in normativity, and the second premise of my argument would be factually undermined. Assuming the prima facie evidence I discussed as conclusive might be too strong, and other interpretations are certainly possible depending on substantive theories of normativity, modality, and responsibility. But even if in general this argument does not prove to be conceptually unassailable, I think it is still very telling. Objections. I consider here three possible objections to my argument: first, I have begged the question in the definition of responsibility judgments; second, all I have shown is that external negation inverts the value of sentences if they are not descriptive, but this tells nothing about the exact nature of those sentences; third, these features of negation may be shared by other kinds of modality, so there is not special about normativity. To the first objection, I put forward a twofold reply: first, there is no shared consensus either on what responsibility is or on what responsibility judgments Denial of Responsibility and Normative Negation 93 are: a degree of arbitrariness is needed anyway; second, there is no conceptual reason precluding my analysis to be extended further, given the right premisses. To the second objection, I reply that I have at least shown that responsibility judgments are not descriptive; nonetheless I believe a linguistic test such as mine cannot exhaust the richness of human practices - in other words, normativity is not a sheer linguistic notion. To the third objection, I reply that, examples with "oughts" notwithstanding, it is not clear whether normativity is a modality or not (it may be a property, for one). Moreover, other modalities may be normative as well (recently [30] so argued for necessity, the a priori, and other modalities), and thus these features of negation shouldn't come as a surprise. Acknowledgements. For discussion on various points, suggestions, and critiques I thank Amedeo Giovanni Conte, Mattia Bazzoni, Guglielmo Feis, Sergio Filippo Magni, Timothy Williamson and two anonymous referees. References 1. Anderson, S.: Coercion. In: Zalta, E.N. (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2011) 2. Anselm of Canterbury. "Lambeth's Fragments". In: Schmitt, F.S. (ed.) Ein neues unvollendetes Werk des hl. Anselm von Canterbury. Aschendorff, Münster i W (1936) 3. Austin, J.L.: A Plea for Excuses: The Presidential Address. In: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 57, pp. 1–30 (1956) 4. Björnsson, G., Persson, K.: A Unified Empirical Account of Responsibility Judgments. In: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (forthcoming) 5. Björnsson, G., Persson, K.: The Explanatory Component of Moral Responsibility. Noûs 46(2), 326–354 (2012) 6. Brückner, A.: S"lownik etymologiczny jezyka polskiego. Wiedza Powszechna, Warszawa (1957) 7. Cohen, L.J.: Do Illocutionary Forces Exist? The Philosophical Quarterly 14, 118–137 (1964) 8. Englǐs, K.: Postulát a norma nejsou soudy. In: Casopis pro právńı a státńı vědu XXVIII, pp. 95–113 (1947) 9. Faroldi, F.L.G.: The Normative Structure of Responsibility. Law, Ethics, Neuroscience (forthcoming) 10. Frege, F.L.G.: Der Gedanke: Eine logische Untersuchung. In: Beiträge zur Philosophie des Deutschen Idealismus I, pp. 58–77 (September 1918) 11. Garner, R.T.: Some Doubts about Illocutionary Negation. Analysis 31, 106–112 (1971) 12. Gomolińska, A.: On the Logic of Acceptance and Rejection. Studia Logica 60(2), 233–251 (1998) 13. Hare, R.M.: Some Sub-Atomic Particles of Logic. Mind 98, 23–37 (1989) 14. Hare, R.M.: The Language of Morals. Clarendon Press, Oxford (1952) 15. Henry, D.P.: St. Anselm on the Varieties of 'Doing'. Theoria 19, 178–183 (1953) 16. Hoche, H.-U.: Do Illocutionary, or Neustic, Negations Exist? Erkenntnis 43, 127–136 (1995) 94 F.L.G. Faroldi 17. Horn, L.R.: A Natural History of Negation. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois (1989) 18. Horn, L.R.: Metalinguistic Negation and Pragmatic Ambiguity. Language 61(1), 121–174 (1985) 19. Incurvati, L., Smith, P.: Rejection and Valuations. Analysis 70(1), 3–10 (2010) 20. Karttunen, L., Peters, S.: Conventional Implicature. In: Oh, C.-K., Dinneen, D. (eds.) 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Oxford University Press, Oxford (2010) 31. Smiley, T.: Rejection. Analysis 56(1), 1–9 (1996) 32. Speranza, J., Horn, L.R.: A Brief History of Negation. Journal of Applied Logic 8(3), 277–301 (2010) 33. Sztykgold, J.: Negacja normy. Przeglad filozoficzny 39, 492–494 (1936) 34. Tamminga, A.: Logics of Rejection: Two Systems of Natural Deduction. Logique et Analyse 146, 169–208 (1994) 35. Thomson, J.J.: Normativity. Open Court, Chicago, Illinois (2008) 36. Uckelman, S.L.: Anselm's Logic of Agency, Amsterdam: Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC). University of Amsterdam (2007) 37. Uckelman, S.L.: Modalities in Medieval Logic. Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, Amsterdam (2009) 38. Vasmer, M.: Russisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. C. Winter, Heidelberg (1958) | {
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Os tempos sociais e o mundo contemporâneo. 117 Um debate para as ciências sociais Emília Araújo & Eduardo Duque (eds.) (2012) Os tempos sociais e o mundo contemporâneo. Um debate para as ciências sociais e humanas Universidade do Minho: Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Sociedade / Centro de Investigação em Ciências Sociais ISBN: 978-989-8600-07-3 Contributos para a compreensão da aceleração do tempo EDUARDO DUQUE UCP-Braga e CICS-Universidade do Minho [email protected] Resumo: Gilles Deleuze (1992: 178) escreveu que nenhum pintor "(...) pinta numa tela virgem, nem o escritor escreve numa página branca, mas a página ou a tela estão desde logo de tal modo cobertas por "clichés" preexistentes, preestabelecidos, que é necessário antes de mais apagar, limpar, laminar, ou até rasgar para fazer passar uma corrente de ar vinda do caos, que nos traz a visão". Razão pela qual apresentamos, inicialmente, um pequeno poema de Miguel Torga para, de seguida, empreendermos uma breve análise sobre a capacidade que a aceleração do tempo tem para determinar alguma coisa a ser e das suas consequências, ou possíveis consequências, num mundo onde o progresso, que se nos apresenta profundamente contraditório, tem por objetivo proteger-nos da tirania do passado. Palavras-chave: Temporalidade, aceleração, mudança, desenvolvimento, progresso, valores Tempo Tempo - definição da angústia. Pudesse ao menos eu agrilhoar-te Ao coração pulsátil dum poema! Era o devir eterno em harmonia. Mas foges das vogais, como a frescura Da tinta com que escrevo. Fica apenas a tua negra sombra: - O passado, Amargura maior, fotografada. Tempo... E não haver nada, Ninguém, Uma alma penada Que estrangule a ampulheta duma vez! Que realize o crime e a perfeição De cortar aquele fio movediço De areia Que nenhum tecelão É capaz de tecer na sua teia! Miguel Torga, Antologia poética. Eduardo Duque 118 Os tempos sociais e o mundo contemporâneo. Um debate para as ciências sociais A nossa época "caracteriza-se pelo facto de que nada permanece mas também nada de essencial muda; é um tempo em que acontecem coisas de mais mas em que ao mesmo tempo nos sentimos fartos de repetições, rituais e rotinas" (Innerarity, 2011: 39). Pensemos que por trás da dinâmica de permanente aceleração possa haver uma "paradoxal estagnação" da história na qual nada de realmente novo aparece. Segundo Baudrillard (2005), a lógica do post descreve precisamente mudanças de época que não correspondem a novos começos, nas quais há uma significativa vinculação recíproca de passado, presente e futuro. E, neste caso, apenas a pessoa pode "unir" o tempo (Zambrano, 2003: 137). Apesar de tudo, vivemos uma época especialmente acelerada: uma experiência que se faz presente em muitos aspectos da vida, quer individual quer coletiva. Para isso, terá contribuído a tecnologização da sociedade. As novas tecnologias propiciaram uma cultura do presente sem profundidade temporal. Trata-se de uma época fascinada pela velocidade e superada pela sua própria aceleração (Innerarity, 2011). O que leva Bauman (2007: 199) a referir que "a nossa cultura não se apoia mais como as culturas de tempos antigos ou aquelas que os primeiros etnólogos encontraram numa prática da recordação, do conservar e da sabedoria. É uma cultura da liquidação, da descontinuidade e do esquecer". Mas a vida é uma interrogação. Em todos os seus passos há uma ideia de futuro que o presente não pode negar, por isso, Maria Zambrano (2003: 25) recorda-nos que sendo o tempo, por excelência, o nosso meio vital, devíamos saber respirá-lo como o ar. Saber respirar é a primeira condição para saber movimentar-se, caminhar, atravessar o espaço. Os atletas devem tê-lo sabido sempre. E há uma relação entre o saber movimentar-se fisicamente e o saber movimentar-se na história. Por alguma razão na Grécia os Jogos Olímpicos tiveram carácter ao mesmo tempo sagrado e nacional, o caráter de rito da cidadania. No modo de se movimentar das multidões, um observador avisado poderia surpreender a situação social de um país. Pelo ritmo ou pela falta dele, pelo modo de mover os pés, de dar-se espaço ou de aglomerar-se. A arte exprimiu esta vivência e as suas aporias. Pensemos, por exemplo, na estética da velocidade que podemos encontrar nos tempos da música. Foram introduzidas na técnica da composição novas anotações de velocidade "Presto" (Muito depressa; muito rápido)", mais à frente, outra ordem, "Prestissimo" (O mais depressa possível). As técnicas de aproveitamento do tempo transformam os movimentos humanos em movimentos de cadeias de montagem. Por exemplo, a "máquina de comer" que permite alimentar o operário sem necessidade de interromper o seu trabalho, ou seja, sem necessidade de perder tempo; ou o tiro inteligente que muda e retifica o seu trajeto durante o voo, evitando outros tiros, outros gastos, são tiros que aprendem enquanto caminham. Mas porque é que se corre tanto na sociedade moderna? Podíamo-nos deter em vários argumentos, porém, devido à falta de "tempo", invocamos um dos fundamentos que julgamos mais fortes para a aceleração, ou seja, corremos muito devido dificuldade de selecionar e, consequentemente, eliminar a informação que, por sua vez, quando incompleta ou deturpada, conduz à ambiguidade ou ao saber contraditório. É necessário, por isso, estar atento à informação que se recebe, de modo que haja um melhor tratamento da mesma. Podemos assim dizer que se trata de um jogo e, através das informações recebidas e Contributos para a compreensão da aceleração do tempo Os tempos sociais e o mundo contemporâneo. 119 Um debate para as ciências sociais devidamente filtradas, ganhamos ou perdemos. Segundo Innerarity (2011: 74) "nas sociedades funcionalmente diferenciadas, produz-se uma autêntica explosão da quantidade de informação existente em correspondência com a pluralização de situações e possibilidades dos diversos horizontes sistémicos". Cada sistema de informação não leva a uma diminuição da mesma, pelo contrário, a diminuição de informação acontece com a seleção da informação. A informação não pode ser ignorada, mas tem de possuir uma estrutura com sentido. Logo, é urgente tomar decisões antes do tempo expirar. Sartre (1987: 9) dizia que o homem estava condenado à liberdade. Nos tempos de hoje, estamos condenados à decisão. A sociedade está, agora, obrigada a decidir cada vez em mais âmbitos e num período curto de tempo, a isso nos condiciona o poder dos mercados bolsistas, que não conhece os tempos, os ritmos ou as estações. Num único momento, se a aposta foi no tempo certo, ganhou fortunas, mas, por infortúnio, num único segundo, pode conhecer a miserabilidade do tempo. Neste sentido, Beck (2000: 46) refere que os seres humanos perderam uma coisa essencial: a não decisão. "A partir de agora, a não decisão só é possível com decisão". Ortega y Gasset (2002) refere que viver é ver-se a cada instante obrigado a decidir o que vamos fazer, portanto, a ser imediatamente futuro. A vida não é dada já feita, mas tem que a fazer cada qual e o espírito do homem não é primariamente espectador da sua existência, mas autor desta: tem que a ir decidindo momento a momento. Sem dúvida que, como refere Heidegger, em O conceito de tempo (2003: 60), o relógio mostra-nos o agora, mas nunca nenhum relógio mostrou o futuro nem o passado. O tempo da ação, da decisão é o agora, que pode, simultaneamente, ser quantificado e qualificado. Todo o medir do tempo não é mais do que conseguir fazer do tempo uma quantidade e quando se regista no presente uma tarefa agendada para o futuro, estamos somente a determinar quanto é que se tem de esperar em tempo até ao presente. Claro que este é o tempo da quantidade. O tempo da vida, aquele que lhe dá sabor e qualidade, é outro, é o da estética, do belo, do sentido. É o tempo do olhar para as coisas e sentir que já não são nossas, porque nunca o foram, só as conquistamos no presente. No passado não existíamos e elas chegaram até nós por amor, talvez por excesso de dom. Se é verdade que há que decidir viver, não é menos verdade que a vida é curta e que, como refere Odo Marquard (2003), todos os homens são nascidos tardiamente (nascem depois do tempo). Quando começam não é no início. Antes de cada um já houve outros, em cujas tradições ou costumes somos nascidos, de modo que são a nossa origem, o nosso princípio a quem nos devemos ligar. Esta relação é inevitável, pois os homens são "para a morte" e, mesmo que a vida dure muito, todos morrem, sempre muito cedo. Assim são os homens, porque cada um chega tarde (nunca no princípio) e parte cedo (novo no tempo). 1. O tempo da aceleração O mundo moderno é no seu todo uma teia acelerada de processos. O estar em movimento define a sua matriz genética. A aceleração descreve o seu modo de operar. A velocidade é a linguagem quotidiana, daí que o próprio estado de mudança social é por natureza acelerado, tão acelerado que, por vezes, inquieta e desassossega. Há duas posturas Eduardo Duque 120 Os tempos sociais e o mundo contemporâneo. Um debate para as ciências sociais perante esta inquietação: para uns, ainda estamos num estado muito prematuro de desenvolvimento, situando-o como que num estado embrionário e, como tal, há um longo caminho a percorrer; para outros, o desenvolvimento acontece a uma velocidade vertiginosa, onde tudo acontece demasiado rápido, sem tempo para digerir tantos acontecimentos, tanta informação, dando origem à obtenção de ganhos e metas nunca esperados. Perante este diagnóstico, Marquard (2003) aponta duas saídas antagónicas: por um lado, para os entusiastas do progresso e da aceleração sem limites, invoca-se a revolução; por outro lado, para os que consideram que já se chegou longe de mais, é urgente desacelerar e abandonar a ideia de progresso sem limite. Em todo o caso, ambas as posturas, embora contraditórias, convergem num referencial: eliminar o mal-estar da aceleração da mudança por oferta de aceleração. Ora, para prosseguirmos é imperioso definir os termos. Enquanto não se definir clara e definitivamente a semântica da aceleração (algo que julgamos ser difícil de concretizar, a menos que se postule, por exemplo, a existência de um "mundo das ideias", à maneira platónica), parece-nos que o ideal de tempo é uma ideia de razão à maneira kantiana, a colocar, nestas páginas, entre parênteses, uma vez que pode apontar para um modelo de verdade fixa, que tende a institucionalizar-se (algo diferente do que aqui se pretende propor), em relação ao qual se pode determinar, porque se tem um termo de medida, o lento e o célere, o melhor e o pior que se pode ter ou esperar. Modelo de verdade típico dos sistemas das filosofias realistas. Ainda assim, valeria a pena pensar se o nosso tempo, o tempo em que vivemos, é igual, metricamente igual, ao de um aborígene. Possivelmente há mais que um tempo, mais que uma métrica de aceleração, da mesma forma que existe mais do que uma verdade. Quanto à verdade, dialogando com Rorty (Objectiv, Realism, and Truth), não será difícil de a definir já que se manifesta como um conjunto de crenças partilhadas no mundo e no tempo por uma determinada comunidade de sujeitos. Quanto ao tempo, se o objectivarmos, não é mais do que uma métrica da dimensão natural da existência, medido com base na nossa experiência subjectiva. Por isso, torna-se veloz para uns e vagaroso para outros. Innerarity (2011), por sua vez, definiu o campo semântico da aceleração moderna a parir de três dimensões: • Da técnica, referindo-se ao movimento das pessoas, dos bens e das informações, bem como às velocidades de produção e transformação da matéria em energia e serviços. Estas dinâmicas acontecem com uma dimensão objetiva que se pode medir em função do tempo aplicado. • Da mudança social, entendendo-a como o ritmo com que se modificam as formas de ação e as direções de uma sociedade. As sociedades modernas podem ser consideradas aceleradas do ponto de vista da mudança social; isto significa que diminui a estabilidade das nossas referências, que o presente se comprime, dura cada vez menos, em consequência de uma crescente inovação. • Do ritmo vital, referindo-se à quantidade de coisas que o sujeito deseja realizar e que está acima das possibilidades técnicas de aumento da aceleração, o que traduz subjetivamente a sua sensação de falta de tempo, no medo de perder Contributos para a compreensão da aceleração do tempo Os tempos sociais e o mundo contemporâneo. 121 Um debate para as ciências sociais alguma coisa ou na obrigação de se adaptar continuamente ao que ele não conhece ao certo. "Não possui carácter objectivo: é apenas a consequência de uma desproporção" (Innerarity, 2011: 37). Quando falamos de aceleração, tendemos a atribuir a sua causa aos instrumentos, mas "a velocidade é fundamentalmente subjectiva" (Ibidem); queremos, cada vez mais, fazer mais coisas e, por isso, saltamos de uma para outra com maior frequência. Não existe uma velocidade objetiva, uma medida universal da aceleração; a aceleração é sempre um conceito relativo, já que o tempo da vida não é o mesmo que o tempo da teoria; a vigência no campo da moda é muito diferente da do campo das convicções morais; as coisas envelhecem mais depressa no campo da Informática que no do direito romano; o esforço para estar em dia em matéria científica é menor que em letras... E também as épocas da história se caracterizam pela sua peculiar medição do tempo, que pode dar origem a presentes de muito variada duração (Innerarity, 2009: 186). Descrever a nossa sociedade com base unicamente na aceleração é um ato redutor já que não tem em conta as suas ambivalências. "É preciso começar por reconhecer que, apesar do carácter aceleratório da nossa civilização, há movimentos contrários: com a dinâmica da civilização moderna cresce também a impertinente presença do que não participa imediatamente na sua evolução" (Innerarity, 2011: 38). Uma coisa não destrói a outra, porque elas complementam-se mutuamente. Duas filosofias diferentes. Dois contextos opostos, que fazem existir duas perspetivas diferentes da mesma dimensão: o tempo. Qual delas é a mais verdadeira? Que tempo realmente existe? Não pretendemos submeter o tempo a um julgamento capital, até porque não temos capacidade nem para o condenar, nem para o absolver. Certamente que os dois, isto é, o tempo da aceleração e o tempo da desaceleração não são mais do que a expressão de um único tempo. 2. O tempo da desaceleração A verdade é importante? Invoquemos a presença de Deleuze e peçamos apenas um pouco de ordem para nos proteger do caos (Deleuze, 1992: 176). Não nos podemos esquecer do rumo a que nos propusemos no início deste artigo, tomará ele um aspeto diferente se mencionarmos a desconstrução pós-moderna? Num mundo que valoriza, no homem, a sua alma racional em detrimento da sua alma sensível, que futuro estará reservado ao tempo como elemento perscrutador do "progresso" humano? Será possível falar da desaceleração do tempo nas sociedades modernas? Não será um excesso de bondade pensar que abrandar o ritmo é possível? A missão proposta é a de fazer estoirar um "golpe de dom" e tornar possível o impossível. Um golpe que concilie os tempos: passado, presente e futuro, como que fosse possível atribuir a cada um deles um rótulo, no passado o tempo era lento, acelerou-se no presente e conciliou-se no futuro. Reivindica-se, aqui, para a história, um desenvolvimento acelerado sem consequências trágicas. Não é a pós-modernidade o tempo do possível? A queda dos referentes fixos de verdade, que a Pós-Modernidade sublinha nos nossos dias, mais do que remeter-nos para questões de sentido, ou de verdade, remete-nos Eduardo Duque 122 Os tempos sociais e o mundo contemporâneo. Um debate para as ciências sociais para a plausibilidade dos diversos discursos, para a possibilidade de se falar com seriedade de desaceleração. Viajemos com Hartmut Rosa, pelo presente, diagnosticando as categorias da desaceleração: • Os limites naturais da velocidade: torna-se difícil falar de limites absolutos a respeito da aceleração. As inovações relativas à velocidade alteraram a nossa perceção e o nosso tipo de comportamento acerca da própria velocidade; o que parecia patologia transformou-se num hábito que fez a norma; • Oásis face à aceleração: as dinâmicas sociais não são completas, nem os subsistemas se submetem com docilidade a uma ordem universal de aceleração; • Abrandamento como efeito secundário disfuncional: são aquelas formas patológicas da desaceleração; as estagnações, as depressões, as crises económicas ou as dessincronizações; • Desacelerações intencionais: formas de lentidão antimodernas ou alternativas, como apologias da preguiça, da serenidade e da resistência. Que sentido haverá na desaceleração? Não será o mesmo do que propormos que uma flecha atinja o alvo com menos velocidade? Não perderá o rumo e não se desviará do alvo em virtude de uma ordem contracorrente? Que ganhos há, neste caso, na desaceleração? Marquard (2003) dirá que que num mundo descontínuo é preciso defender a continuidade. "Quanto mais rápidas são as modernizações, tanto mais, inevitavelmente, são necessários e importantes os homens lentos. Pois o novo mundo não pode ser sem as antigas práticas. Humanidade sem modernidade está paralisada; modernidade sem humanidade é fria; modernidade precisa de humanidade, pois futuro precisa de origem" (Marquard, 2003: 246). Marquard (2003) perguntará ainda quanto se mudou onde quase nada se mudou? Um pouco mais à frente, retoma o pensamento quão pouco se mudou onde quase tudo se mudou. O processo histórico é o sentido de continuidade, de lentidão; as nossas mudanças são suportadas pelas nossas não-mudanças; o novo não é possível sem o muito antigo; o futuro precisa de passado; os homens são fundamentalmente lentos. A experiência fundamental do histórico é, mais do que a experiência da mutabilidade, a dos limites. Isto vale também para o sentido estético. O homem lento cresceu para o mundo moderno (Marquard, 2003). 3. Da ausência de tempo à precipitação da urgência Hoje ninguém tem tempo. A explicação é simples. O futuro tornou-se indeterminado e o passado irrecuperável. Heidegger (2003) diria que o tempo é temporal, constitui, portanto, a (sua) determinação mais própria. E não se trata de tautologia nenhuma, pois o ser da temporalidade significa uma efetividade desigual. Os acontecimentos dão-se no tempo. Isto não quer dizer que tenham tempo, mas que vêm ao nosso encontro como que atravessando um presente. Este tempo presente torna-se explícito à medida que se revela através do agora; uma sequência de que se diz que tem uma direção única e irreversível. Tudo o que acontece revela-se desde o futuro sem fim até Contributos para a compreensão da aceleração do tempo Os tempos sociais e o mundo contemporâneo. 123 Um debate para as ciências sociais ao passado irrecuperável. E duas coisas são características nesta interpretação: em primeiro lugar, a não-reversibilidade; em segundo, a homogeneização sobre a base pontual do agora. Ora, se o tempo se torna um bem escasso, porque se fundamenta no agora, no presente, ele é vivido em trânsito. Só se o tempo for compreendido assim, enquanto ser-aí, é que vem a esclarecer-se realmente o que tradicionalmente se opina acerca do tempo, ao dizer-se que o tempo é o autêntico principium individuationis. Na maior parte das vezes, isto entende-se como uma sucessão irreversível, como tempo presente e tempo natural. Mas em que medida é que o tempo, tomado em sentido próprio, é princípio de individuação, isto é, aquilo a partir do que o ser-aí é com carácter de em-cada-momento-respetivamente? É no ser-por-vir do antecipar que o ser-aí, normalmente, é ele mesmo (Heidegger, 2003). Repitamos a questão do que o tempo é, temporalmente. Claro que pressupomos a "boa fé" daquele com quem conversamos. Só se pretende aqui repor a verdade, a nossa crença vai ser partilhada, remetemo-nos a um determinado contexto, o nosso interlocutor viaja connosco, pedimos a palavra e simplesmente dizemos: é verdade (que procuramos o consenso)! É verdade que ser ou não-ser é a questão se invocarmos o Hamlet de William Shakespear, mas deixará de ser verdade se nos situarmos em Parménides. A questão é simples, só o ser é, o não-ser, de facto, não é. Abstraiamos da resposta e repitamos a pergunta. O que é que aconteceu à pergunta? Transformou-se noutra. A pergunta "o que é o tempo?" transformou-se na pergunta "quem é o tempo?'". Mais precisamente: o tempo somos nós mesmos? Ou ainda mais precisamente: serei eu o meu tempo? Se bem entendo a pergunta, diria Heidegger (2003), com ela chegamos ao mais sério. Esta questão é, pois, a que constitui a via de acesso e de trabalho mais adequada ao tempo, enquanto este é sempre em cada caso o meu. Então, é que o ser-aí é ser em questão. Vivendo a densidade do presente, torna-se compreensível, ou pelo menos admissível, que se tenha despoletado a cultura da urgência. "O novo não é o intercâmbio de informações, dinheiro, bens e pessoas, ou de ideias e doenças, a grandes distâncias; o novo está na velocidade e na falta de resistência com que esses processos decorrem" (Innerarity, 2011: 38). A ampliação do espaço e aceleração do tempo são duas caraterísticas fundamentais do mundo atual. O espaço amplia-se enquanto o tempo se acelera; o tempo tende a aniquilar o espaço. E como tal, há aqui um risco. Dirá Beck (1986: 13) "somos testemunhas sujeito e objecto de uma ruptura dentro da modernidade, que se separa dos contornos da clássica sociedade industrial e cunha uma nova forma a aqui assim chamada (industrial) "sociedade de risco". Isto exige um equilíbrio difícil entre as oposições de continuidade e descontinuidade na modernidade, que se reflectem na oposição de modernidade e sociedade industrial, sociedade industrial e sociedade de risco". Nas questões emergentes das sociedades modernas, "a urgência deixou de ser excepcional e impõe-se como modalidade temporal da acção em geral" (Innerarity, 2011: 39). Porém, "o urgente só tem sentido quando existe o que não é urgente" (Ibidem). O estado de urgência contribui para fragilizar as organizações e é terreno para surgirem os problemas graves, como mostra o exemplo das catástrofes das bolsas ou da política perante as pressões imediatas. Eduardo Duque 124 Os tempos sociais e o mundo contemporâneo. Um debate para as ciências sociais Os indivíduos são dominados pelo desejo da satisfação imediata e mostram-se intolerantes perante a frustração; exigem tudo no imediato, saltam de um desejo para outro com uma impaciência permanente. Deixarmos que a urgência do presente nos absorva limita-nos a nossa energia temporal ao mais imediato. E se mergulhamos na urgência presente, menos valor atribuímos à ideia de projeto e à lógica do longo prazo. Valores como a flexibilidade ou a adaptação, que são muito importantes, transformam-se em princípios absolutos que determinam as grandes decisões. "Instaurou-se uma ditadura do tempo real nas organizações, na política e na sociedade em geral. É o império da eficácia, do instante, do curto prazo, da satisfação, da urgência, da velocidade, da imediatez, da ligeireza e da flexibilidade" (Innerarity, 2011: 42). A cultura da urgência está também ligada à "sentimentalização" das sociedades modernas; a hegemonia do sentimental tende a legitimar a ação imediata e a desprezar outras alternativas que se inscrevam num registo menos imediato (Innerarity, 2011). O sentimento precipita o momento, o que faz com que não haja tempo para a espera. Esperar incomoda, provoca a razão, o limite, a consciência e sabemos que, numa sociedade de urgências sucessivas, a consciência precisa do tempo para ser e é a ela que lhe compete "levar a nau do eu a um porto seguro e produtivo" para o futuro (Curado, 2007: 189), na "intersecção do eu e da memória" (Damásio, 2010: 363). A cultura da urgência precisa de consciência para não se precipitar no futuro. Há feridas que se abrem no presente que se pagam, com um preço caro, ao logo de todo o percurso de vida. E neste aspeto, a sentimentalização da sociedade, que gera, na maioria dos casos, ritmos acelerados de menor consciência, pode hipotecar uma dívida odiosa, difícil de suportar no futuro. Daí que Richard Sennet, na voz de Innerarity (2003: 41), refira que "a nossa relação com o tempo está desregulada"; isto manifesta-se na enorme dificuldade com que nos projetamos no futuro e na nossa absorção pela urgência do presente. "Os prazos subverteram os valores e o urgente substituiu o importante; reina a tirania do que é preciso despachar" (Ibidem). De facto, já não somos capazes de estabelecer metas de grande alcance, possivelmente, o horizonte é demasiado míope, falta-nos visão para aonde queremos caminhar, apontar de forma direcionada o foco para podermos continuar a prosseguir viagem como quem projeta e deseja alcançar o (seu) sonho. Quem projeta constrói futuro no presente, enriquece a história com o tempo que há-de vir. Apesar de tudo, cultura da urgência não nos é estranha. Ela coabita com a história e pensar o contrário não seria honesto. Platão (1990), na Carta VII, perguntava qual é o tempo da urgência, da mesma forma como também perguntava qual é o tempo do amor, o tempo da criação, o tempo da liberdade ou o tempo da decisão. Todavia, nas sociedades atuais, a urgência parece que encurtou o tempo. Quando se fala de tempo parece que se fala de urgência. E a questão é esta: tempo e urgência não são sinónimos. Logo, a urgência colocanos frente à problemática da interpretação, da interpretação da própria interpretação, a reinterpretação. O que é urgente? O que é que será tão urgente que obriga a ser urgente? Pensar no imediato impede que aconteça a história. Não há presente no imediato. E, assim, poderíamos pensar que a cultura da urgência não faz história e nela não toma assento. Contributos para a compreensão da aceleração do tempo Os tempos sociais e o mundo contemporâneo. 125 Um debate para as ciências sociais 4. A utopia do progresso A proposta da qual partimos é que existe uma falsa ideia de progresso. Assistimos ao esgotamento de uma ideia de progresso, como sendo linear, necessário, irreversível e contínuo, já que as sociedades ocidentais conferiam "o direito e o poder de gerar e gerir expectativas, através do assento de uma acção política suportada pela assunção do princípio do progresso" (Araújo, 2011: 27). Todavia, reflectindo bem, o tempo não é circular, cíclico, nem pode entender-se de modo exclusivamente linear. Ele envolve-se numa rede de relações múltiplas e complexas. Cada dimensão do tempo desvela-se ele próprio num tríplice modo: passado, presente e futuro, interligando-se entre si, como os tempos de um mesmo verbo. O tempo e a história vivem desta conjugação múltipla, na constante abertura ao futuro. Tal facto revela que o tempo é uma construção, é uma realidade complexa. Daí que falar-se da ideia de progresso não é mais do que uma utopia. No dizer de Maria Zambrano (2003), o tempo ao passar torna-se passado, mas não desaparece. Se desaparecesse totalmente não teríamos história. Mas, se o futuro não estivesse a agir, se, todavia, o futuro fosse simples não-estar, também não teríamos história. O futuro apresenta-se-nos primariamente, como "o que está para chegar". Se do passado nos sentimos vir, mais exatamente, "estar a vir", o futuro sentimo-lo chegar, sobrevir-nos, de modo inevitável. Morreu definitivamente a fé no progresso autómato e, como todas as mortes, também esta deixou consequências: dá-se uma "fragmentação do progresso, o seu estilhaçamento" (Innerarity, 2011: 142). Assim, "já não existe um futuro da sociedade que seja indiscutível no presente. E tem-se a impressão de que o apelo a qualquer futuro se tornou especialmente suspeito ou pelo menos controverso" (Ibidem: 143). Com o fim da ideia moderna de progresso, teremos que reaprender a viver com o tempo. É urgente criar novas categorias, novos significados, para que possamos proceder a novas interpretações e daí gerar novos códigos e novas palavras-chave de interpretação da sociedade. Estas novas categorias terão um efeito de pharmakon, serão o veneno, na forma de remédio, que procurará curar a corrida vertiginosa do progresso, mas que também a pode matar. Tal como acontecia com o duplo efeito da escrita visto por Platão (1990). A escrita tinha a nobre missão de conservar, de transmitir a verdade, mas era olhada com desconfiança, uma vez que nos desviava a atenção da Razão, da sua função de procurar o universal e, consequentemente, de atingir a virtude. Este conceito pode ainda ser visto, em Derrida (1978), como conceito de "bode expiatório", que tem como função conservar a sociedade. Está encontrada a fonte do mal, será reposta a paz e a ordem à comunidade. Se a suposta aceleração geral da nossa sociedade tem o seu contraponto em fenómenos de desaceleração, e se a generalização da urgência arruína o próprio conceito de urgência é necessário que a análise da nossa temporalidade deva ser completada com a ideia de que existe também uma falsa mobilidade. "Em última instância, as sociedades combinam a sua resistência à mudança com uma agitação superficial" (Innerarity, 2011: 44). A utopia do progresso transformou-se numa utopia técnico-informática, num movimento desordenado, agitação sem regras e dissipação de energia (Ibidem: 45). Eduardo Duque 126 Os tempos sociais e o mundo contemporâneo. Um debate para as ciências sociais É a vez do pharmakon atuar, o alerta está lançado: já não há mais o tempo de aceleração; já não há mais o tempo de desaceleração; já não há mais a ideia de progresso, porque já não há o tempo, há, já só, este tempo, que, pela sua especificidade, se inscreve no plano imanente e transporta, em si, sementes de esperança. Há, e este há, que não é menos ostensivo do que cognitivo, determina-o a ser aqui e agora. É esta a realidade que nos é dada viver. Vamos vencer ou sucumbir. "A flecha do tempo é irreversível" (Borges, 2011: 179). A verdade é que não temos tempo a perder, o que significa que o presente não dura muito, ou melhor, é uma construção que não dura sempre o mesmo. Mas, no presente, já ganhamos a vitória: não há presente no imediato e, por isso, não vale a pena viver de qualquer forma. Há que construir uma sociedade nova, onde a contagem do tempo seja diferenciada não pela expressão numérica mas pelo tempo vivido, entregue e doado. Seria, sem dúvida, um tempo melhor, cairológico. Esta desconstrução constitui um rombo no casco da hermenêutica da sociedade moderna, com a introdução de um elemento diacrónico no sincrónico. É preciso, pois, devolver à vida o que lhe foi retirado e colocado num ideal, devolvendo o humano ao tempo, de forma a que o segredo do êxito passe pelo reconhecimento individual da bondade do tempo. Referências Araújo, E. (2011). A política de tempos: elementos para uma abordagem sociológica. Política & Trabalho, Revista de Ciências Sociais, 3, 19-40. Baudrillard, J. (1995). A sociedade de consumo. Lisboa: Edições 70. Bauman, Z. (2007). Schneller leben : Lernen und Vergessen in der flüchtigen Modern. Leben in der flüchtigen Moderne. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Beck, U. (1986). Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne. Frankfurt: Ed. Suhrkamp. Beck, U. (2000). The Brave New World of Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Borges, A. (2011). Deus e o Sentido da Existência. Lisboa: Gradiva. Curado, M. (2007). Luz misteriosa. A Consciência no Mundo Físico. Vila Nova de Famalicão:Quasi. Damásio, A. (2010). O Livro da Consciência. A Construção do Cérebro Consciente. Lisboa: Temas e Debates. Deleuze, G & Guattari, F. (1992). O que é a Filosofia?. Lisboa: Editorial Presença. Derrida, J. (1978). Éperons Les Styles de Nietzsche. Paris: Flammarion. Heidegger, M. (2003). O conceito de tempo. Lisboa: Fim de Século. Innerarity, D. (2009). A Sociedade invisível. Como observar e interpretar as transformações do mundo actual. Lisboa: Teorema. Innerarity, D. (2011). O Futuro e os seus Inimigos. A paisagem temporal da sociedade contemporânea. Uma teoria da aceleração. Lisboa: Teorema. Marquard O. (2003). Zukunft braucht Herkunft, Philosophische Essays. Stuttgart: Reclam. Contributos para a compreensão da aceleração do tempo Os tempos sociais e o mundo contemporâneo. 127 Um debate para as ciências sociais Ortega y Gasset, J. (2002). O que é o conhecimento?. sl: Ed. Fim de Século. Platão (1990). A República. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Sartre, J. P. (1987). O existencialismo é um humanismo. São Paulo: Nova Cultural. Torga, M. (1981). Antologia poética. Coimbra: Ed. Coimbra. Zambrano, M. (2003). Pessoa e Democracia. Lisboa: Fim de Século, 121-139. | {
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Modal logic S4 as a paraconsistent logic with a topological semantics Marcelo E. Coniglio and Leonardo Prieto-Sanabria Dedicated to Amilcar Sernadas, a brilliant mind abstract. In this paper the propositional logic LTop is introduced, as an extension of classical propositional logic by adding a paraconsistent negation. This logic has a very natural interpretation in terms of topological models. The logic LTop is nothing more than an alternative presentation of modal logic S4, but in the language of a paraconsistent logic. Moreover, LTop is a logic of formal inconsistency in which the consistency and inconsistency operators have a nice topological interpretation. This constitutes a new proof of S4 as being "the logic of topological spaces", but now under the perspective of paraconsistency. 1 Topology, Modal Logic and Paraconsistency The studies on the relationship between modal logic, topology and paraconsistency, have a relatively long history. By extending the Stone representation theorem for Boolean algebras, McKinsey and Tarski (see [14]) proved in 1944 that it is possible to characterize modal logic S4 by means of a topological semantics. Within this semantics, the necessity operator and the possibility operator ♦ are interpreted as the interior and the closure topological operators, respectively, and so this result states that S4 is, in a certain sense, "the logic of topological spaces". Moreover, they prove that S4 is semanticaly characterized by the real line (with the usual topology) or, in general, by any dense-in-itself separable metrizable space. Several variants and generalizations of McKinsey and Tarski's result have been proposed in the literature (see, for instance, [18] and [12]). Semantics for Paraconsistent logics (that is, logics having a negation which produces some non-trivial contradictory theories) have been defined in topological terms by several authors. For instance, Mortensen studies in [16] some topological properties by means of paraconsistent and paracomplete logics. Goodman already proposes in [10] an "anti-intuitionistic logic" which is paraconsistent and it is endowed with a topological semantics. Along the same lines, Priest analyzes a paraconsistent negation obtained by dualizing the intuitionistic negation, defining a topological semantics for such negation (see [17]). From a broader perspective, Başkent proposes in [1] an interesting study of topological models for paraconsistency and paracompleteness. 2 Marcelo E. Coniglio and Leonardo Prieto-Sanabria By its turn, the relationship between paraconsistency and modal logic is also very close. Already in 1948, Jaśkowski presented in [11] his "discussive logic", which is considered the first formal system for a paraconsistent logic, and it was formalized in terms of modalities. Beziau observes in [2] (see also [3]) that the operator ¬α def= ∼α defines in modal logic S5 a paraconsistent negation (here, ∼ denotes the classical negation). This relation between modalities and paraconsistent negation was already observed by Beziau in 1998 (despite the paper was published only in 2006, see [4]), from the perspective of Kripke semantics, when defining the logic Z. However, already in 1987, de Araújo et al. observed in [9] that a Kripke-style semantics can be given for Sette's 3valued paraconsistent logic P1, based on Kripke frames for the modal logic T. In that semantics, the formula ¬α (for the paraconsistent negation ¬ of P1) is interpreted exactly as the modal formula ∼α. Beziau's approach was generalized by Marcos in [13], showing that there is a close correspondence between non-degenerate modal logics and the paraconsistent logics known as logics of formal inconsistency (see Section 6). This paper contributes to this discussion by introducing a propositional logic, called LTop, which extends classical propositional logic with a paraconsistent negation. This logic has a very natural interpretation in terms of topological models which associate to each formula a set (not necessarily open or close). The classical connectives are interpreted as usual, and the paraconsistent negation is interpreted as the topological closure of the complement, in a dual form to the usual interpretation of the intuitionistic negation (namely, the interior of the complement). This topological interpretation of a paraconsistent negation is very natural, and it was already proposed in [10], [16] and [1]. Modalities and ♦ can be defined in the language of LTop, which are interpreted as the interior and closure operator, respectively. As expected, the logic LTop is nothing more than an alternative presentation of modal logic S4, but in a language (and through a Hilbert calculus) corresponding to an extension of classical logic by means of a paraconsistent negation. It is worth noting that the logic Z in [4] introduces an axiomatization of S5 as an extension of classical logic with a paraconsistent negation, and so the present result is a kind of generalization of such result, provided that S5 can be obtained from S4 by adding an additional axiom. Additionally, it is proved that LTop is a logic of formal inconsistency (see Section 6) in which the consistency and inconsistency operators have a nice topological interpretation. This constitutes a new proof of S4 as being "the logic of topological spaces", but now under the perspective of paraconsistent logics. It is finally shown that intuitionistic propositional logic can be interpreted in LTop through a very natural conservative translation. 2 The propositional logic LTop In this section, the propositional logic LTop will be introduced by means of a Hilbert calculus, with a modal-like notion of derivations. DEFINITION 1. Let V = { pn : n ≥ 1 } be a denumerable set of propositional variables. Given the propositional signature Σ = {∼ ,¬ ,→} let L be the language generated by the set V over the signature Σ. S4 as a paraconsistent logic 3 As suggested by the notation, ∼ and ¬ are unary connectives representing two different negations, while → is a binary connective which represents an implication (in the logic LTop to be defined below). The connective ∼ will represent a classical negation, while ¬ will represent a paraconsistent negation. The implication will be also classical. The following usual abbreviations can be introduced in the language L: (conj) α ∧ β def= ∼(α→ ∼β) (disj) α ∨ β def= ∼α→ β DEFINITION 2 (Propositional Logic LTop). The logic LTop is given by the Hilbert calculus over the language L defined by following the axioms and inference rules: Axiom schemas: α→ (β → α) (Ax1) (α→ (β → γ))→ ((α→ β)→ (α→ γ)) (Ax2) (∼α→ β)→ ((∼α→ ∼β)→ α) (Ax3) α→ ¬∼α (Ax4) ¬∼¬∼α→ ¬∼α (Ax5) ¬(α ∧ β)→ ¬α ∨ ¬β (Ax6) ∼¬(α→ α) (Ax7) Inference rules: α α→ β β (MP) α→ β ¬β → ¬α (CR) α β α ∧ β (DR) The Logic LTop has the following notion of derivation: DEFINITION 3 (Derivations in LTop). (1) A derivation of a formula α in LTop is a finite sequence of formulas α1 . . . αn such that αn is α and every αi is either an instance of an axiom or it is the consequence of some inference rule whose premises appear in the sequence α1 . . . αi−1. We say that α is derivable in LTop, and we write `LTop α, if there exists a derivation of it in LTop. (2) Let Γ∪ {α} be a set of formulas. We say that α is derivable in LTop from Γ, and we write Γ `LTop α, if either `LTop α or there exists a finite, non-empty subset {γ1, . . . , γn} of Γ such that (γ1 ∧ (γ2 ∧ (. . . ∧ (γn−1 ∧ γn) . . .))) → α is derivable in LTop. By the very definition, ∅ `LTop α iff `LTop α. REMARK 4. The consequence relation `LTop for LTop given in the previous definition is Tarskian and finitary, that is, it satisfies the following properties: 4 Marcelo E. Coniglio and Leonardo Prieto-Sanabria (i) if α ∈ Γ then Γ `LTop α; (ii) if Γ `LTop α and Γ ⊆ ∆ then ∆ ` α; (iii) if Γ `LTop ∆ and ∆ `LTop α then Γ `LTop α, where Γ ` ∆ means that Γ ` δ for every δ ∈ ∆; and (iv) if Γ `LTop α then Γ0 `LTop α for some finite Γ0 contained in Γ. This can be proven by adapting to the logic LTop, together with the pair of connectives (→,∧), a general result (Theorem 2.10.2) concerning entailment systems found in [20]. REMARK 5. Note that (Ax1), (Ax2) and (Ax3) plus (MP) contitute an axiomatization of propositional classical logic CPL over the signature {∼,→}. 3 Basic Propositions derivable in LTop In this section some basic propositions will be derived in LTop. DEFINITION 6. Define the relation ≡ in L as follows: α ≡ β iff `LTop α→ β and `LTop β → α An immediate consequence of the rules CR and MP is the following: PROPOSITION 7. If α ≡ β then ¬α ≡ ¬β. From Proposition 7 and Remark 5 it follows: COROLLARY 8 (Weak Replacement). If αi ≡ βi for i = 1, . . . , n then, for every formula φ(p1, . . . , pn), it holds: φ[p1/α1 * * * pn/αn] ≡ φ[p1/β1 * * * pn/βn]. In the terminology introduced by Wójcicki, the latter result shows that LTop is a selfextensional logic. On the other hand, the following meta-property of LTop can be easily proved: PROPOSITION 9 (Deduction Theorem). For every set of formulas Γ∪{α, β}: Γ, α `LTop β iff Γ `LTop (α→ β). Proof. It is an immediate consequence of the notion of derivations in LTop and the properties of CPL. The details are left to the reader. The relation between the two primitive negations is as follows: PROPOSITION 10. `LTop ∼α→ ¬α. Proof. Consider the following (meta)derivation in LTop: 1. `LTop ∼α→ ¬∼∼α (by Ax4) 2. `LTop ∼α→ ¬α (Replacement) The converse does not hold in general (see Proposition 16 below). The weak negation ¬ satisfies the following basic properties: PROPOSITION 11. The following holds in LTop: S4 as a paraconsistent logic 5 (i) `LTop α ∨ ¬α. (ii) ¬(α ∧ β) ≡ (¬α ∨ ¬β). (iii) `LTop ¬(α ∨ β)→ (¬α ∧ ¬β). Proof. (i) Consider the following (meta)derivation in LTop: 1. `LTop ∼α→ ¬α (by Proposition 10) 2. `LTop (α ∨ ∼α)→ (α ∨ ¬α) (1, CPL) 3. `LTop α ∨ ∼α (CPL) 4. `LTop α ∨ ¬α (2,3 MP) (ii) By (Ax6) it is enough to show that `LTop (¬α ∨ ¬β) → ¬(α ∧ β). Thus, consider the following (meta)derivation in LTop: 1. `LTop (α ∧ β)→ α (CPL) 2. `LTop ¬α→ ¬(α ∧ β) (CR, 1) 3. `LTop (α ∧ β)→ β (CPL) 4. `LTop ¬β → ¬(α ∧ β) (CR, 3) 5. `LTop (¬α ∨ ¬β)→ ¬(α ∧ β) (2,4, CPL) (iii) By CPL, `LTop α → (α ∨ β) whence `LTop ¬(α ∨ β) → ¬α, by (CR). Analogously, `LTop ¬(α ∨ β)→ ¬β. The result follows ny CPL. The converse of item (iii) of the latter proposition does not hold in general. It will be proven in the next section by using the topological semantics for LTop (see Proposition 16). 4 Topological Semantics for LTop In this section, an intuitive semantics for LTop over topological spaces will be given. Given a a topological space (X, τ) and A ⊆ X, the interior and the closure of A in the given topology, as well as its complement (relative to X), will be denoted by Int(A), A and Ac, respectively. The powerset of X will be denoted by ℘(X). DEFINITION 12. A Topological structure for LTop is a topological space T = 〈X, τ〉. A Topological model for LTop is a pair M = 〈T , v〉 such that T is a topological structure 〈X, τ〉 for LTop and v : L → ℘(X) is a function, called valuation, satisfying the following conditions: 1. v(α→ β) = v(α)c ∪ v(β); 2. v(∼α) = v(α)c; 6 Marcelo E. Coniglio and Leonardo Prieto-Sanabria 3. v(¬α) = v(α)c. Note that, because of (conj) and (disj): (v-conj) v(α ∧ β) = v(∼(α→ ∼β)) = (v(α)c ∪ v(β)c)c = v(α) ∩ v(β); (v-disj) v(α ∨ β) = v(∼α→ β) = (v(α)c)c ∪ v(β) = v(α) ∪ v(β). DEFINITION 13 (Semantical consequence in LTop). (1) A formula α in L is true in a topological modelM = 〈〈X, τ〉, v〉, written as M |= α, if v(α) = X. (2) A formula α in L is valid in LTop, denoted by |=LTop α, if M |= α for every topological model M. (3) Let Γ∪{α} be a set of formulas. We say that α is a semantical consequence of Γ in LTop, denoted by Γ |=LTop α, if either |=LTop α or there exists a finite non-empty set Γ0 ⊆ Γ such that ⋂ γ∈Γ0 v(γ) ⊆ v(α), for every topological model 〈〈X, τ〉, v〉. Note that, by the very definition, ∅ |=LTop α iff |=LTop α. PROPOSITION 14. [Soundness] The logic LTop is sound with respect to the topological semantics, that is: Γ `LTop α implies Γ |=LTop α, for every set of formulas Γ ∪ {α}. In particular, `LTop α implies that |=LTop α. Proof. We first prove that `LTop α implies |=LTop α, since LTop is finitary and by Proposition 9. But the latter is easily proved by observing that every axiom is valid in every topological space, and that inference rules preserve validity. The case for Γ 6= ∅ follows from the very definitions. COROLLARY 15. If α ≡ β then v(α) = v(β) for every topological model 〈T , v〉. Proof. Suppose that α ≡ β, and let 〈〈X, τ〉, v〉 be a topological model for LTop. The result follows by observing that v(α→ β) = X iff v(α) ⊆ v(β). The converse of the last corollary will follow from the completeness theorem (see Theorem 36 below). Thanks to that, and by the definition of the topological semantics, it is easy to see that Proposition 11(ii) corresponds to one of the Kuratowski axioms for the closure operator, namely: A∪B = A ∪B for every A,B ⊆ X. By using again the soundness theorem of LTop w.r.t. topological semantics, it can be seen that some properties of the classical negation ∼ fail for the negation ¬: PROPOSITION 16. Let p and q be two different propositional variables. Then: (i) 0LTop (¬p ∧ ¬q)→ ¬(p ∨ q). (ii) 0LTop p→ ¬¬p. S4 as a paraconsistent logic 7 (iii) 0LTop ¬¬p→ p. (iv) 0LTop ¬p→ ∼p. Proof. Consider M = 〈〈R, τ〉, v〉 such that τ is the usual topology on the set R of real numbers. (i) Let v(p) = (−∞, 0]∪ [1,+∞) and v(q) = (−∞, 1]∪ [2,+∞). Then v(¬p) = (0, 1) = [0, 1] and v(¬q) = (1, 2) = [1, 2] and so v(¬p ∧ ¬q) = v(¬p) ∩ v(¬q) = {1}. On the other hand, v(p ∨ q) = R and so v(¬(p ∨ q)) = ∅ = ∅. Since v(¬p ∧ ¬q) 6⊆ v(¬(p ∨ q)) it follows that v((¬p ∧ ¬q) → ¬(p ∨ q)) 6= R. By soundness of LTop w.r.t. topological models, 0LTop (¬p ∧ ¬q)→ ¬(p ∨ q). (ii), (iii) and (iv) Let v(p) = (0, 1) ∪ {2}. Then v(¬¬p) = [0, 1], which is incomparable with v(p). On the other hand, v(¬p) 6⊆ v(∼p). 5 LTop as a modal logic Consider the following abbreviations: 1. α def = ∼¬α 2. 3α def = ¬∼α Semantically, it means the following: 1. v(α) = v(∼¬α) = (v(α)c)c = Int(v(α)) 2. v(3α) = v(¬∼α) = (v(α)c)c = v(α) The relationship between and 3 is as expected. PROPOSITION 17. The following holds in LTop: (i) α ≡ ∼3∼α. (ii) 3α ≡ ∼∼α. Proof. It is immediate from the axioms and rules of LTop. The following properties of 3 can be proven in LTop: PROPOSITION 18. The operator 3 satisfies the following properties in LTop: (i) `LTop α→ 3α. (ii) 3α ≡ 33α. (iii) 3(α ∨ β) ≡ 3α ∨3β. 8 Marcelo E. Coniglio and Leonardo Prieto-Sanabria (iv) If `LTop (α→ β) then `LTop (3α→ 3β). Proof. (i) and (ii): It follows easily from the axioms and rules of LTop. (iii) Since, for any α and β, (¬α ∨ ¬β) ≡ ¬(α ∧ β) then, in particular, (¬∼α ∨ ¬∼β) ≡ ¬(∼α ∧ ∼β). But ∼α ∧ ∼β ≡ ∼(α ∨ β) (by CPL) and then, using Replacement, we have that (¬∼α ∨ ¬∼β) ≡ ¬∼(α ∨ β) namely 3α ∨3β ≡ 3(α ∨ β). (iv) Consider the following (meta)derivation in LTop: 1. `LTop (α→ β) (by Hypothesis) 2. `LTop (∼β → ∼α) (CPL) 3. `LTop (¬∼α→ ¬∼β) (CR) REMARK 19. Observe that the logical properties of the connective 3 in LTop stated in Proposition 18 reflect, when interpreted in topological structures, the basic properties of a closure operator. Indeed, they represent the following properties, for all subsets A,B of a topological space X: (i) A ⊆ A; (ii) A = A; (iii) A ∪B = A ∪B; and (iv) if A ⊆ B then A ⊆ B. Dually, the following properties of , seeing as an interior operator, can be proved in LTop: PROPOSITION 20. The following holds in LTop: (i) `LTop (α→ α) (ii) `LTop α→ α. (iii) α ≡ α. (iv) (α ∧ β) ≡ α ∧β. (v) If `LTop (α→ β) then `LTop (α→ β). (vi) `LTop (α→ β)→ (α→ β). Proof. Items (i)-(iv) are left to the reader. (v) Consider the following (meta) derivation in LTop: 1. `LTop (α→ β) (Hypothesis) S4 as a paraconsistent logic 9 2. `LTop (¬β → ¬α) (CR) 3. `LTop (¬β → ¬α)→ (∼¬α→ ∼¬β) (CPL) 4. `LTop (∼¬α→ ∼¬β) (2,3 MP) (vi) Since `LTop ((α→ β)∧α)→ β then `LTop ((α→ β)∧α)→ β, by (v). The result is an immediate consequence of ((α→ β)∧α) ≡ ((α→ β))∧α (by item (iv)), Replacement and the properties of CPL. REMARK 21. Observe that properties (ii), (iii) and (vi) of the last proposition correspond to the well-known modal axioms (T), (4) and (K), respectively. By its turn, property (v), together with (i), produce the modal necessitation rule. In fact, as we shall see in Section 9, LTop coincides with modal logic S4 up to language. Additionally, the logical properties (i)-(v) of the connective stated in the last proposition reflect, when interpreted in topological structures, the basic properties of an interior operator. Specifically, they state the following properties, for all subsets A,B of a topological space X: (i) Int(X) = X; (ii) Int(A) ⊆ A; (iii) Int(A) = Int(Int(A)); (iv) Int(A∩B) = Int(A)∩Int(B); and (v) if A ⊆ B then Int(A) ⊆ Int(B). 6 LTop as a logic of formal inconsistency The Logics of Formal Inconsistency (LFIs) where introduced by W. Carnielli and J. Marcos in [8], and additionally studied in [7; 6] (among others). They are paraconsistent logics (that is, logics with a non-explosive negation ¬) and with a consistency operator which alows to recover the explosion law w.r.t. ¬ in a non-trivial way. In formal terms:1 DEFINITION 22. Let L = 〈Θ,`〉 be a Tarskian, finitary and structural logic defined over a propositional signature Θ, which contains a negation ¬, and let ◦ be a (primitive or defined) unary connective. Then, L is said to be a Logic of Formal Inconsistency (an LFI, for short) with respect to ¬ and ◦ if the following holds: (i) φ,¬φ 0 ψ for some φ and ψ; (ii) there are two formulas α and β such that (ii.a) ◦(α), α 0 β; (ii.b) ◦(α),¬α 0 β; (iii) ◦(φ), φ,¬φ ` ψ for every φ and ψ. 1This is a simplified version of the definition of LFIs. In the general definition, a nonempty set ©(p) of formulas depending exactly on the propositional variable p is considered, instead of a connective ◦(p). 10 Marcelo E. Coniglio and Leonardo Prieto-Sanabria Condition (ii) of the definition of LFIs is required in order to satisfy condition (iii) (called gentle explosion law) in a non-trivial way. Examples of consistency operators defined in LTop violating condition (ii) will be given in Remark 30. Consider the following proposal for a consistency operator in LTop w.r.t. the negation ¬: (cons) ◦α def= 3α→ α ≡ ∼α ∨α = ∼¬∼α ∨ ∼¬α. Let L be an LFI. An inconsistency operator • can also be defined, which satisfies the following: ` (α ∧ ¬α)→ •α. In general, • can be defined in L in two ways: •α def= ¬◦α, or •α def= ∼◦α, where ∼ is a classical negation definable in L. In the case of LTop, these alternatives produce the following: (incons) •α def= ∼◦α = ∼(3α→ α) = ∼(3α→ ∼¬α) = 3α ∧ ¬α; (incons') •′α def= ¬◦α ≡ ¬(∼¬∼α∨∼¬α) ≡ ¬∼(¬∼α∧¬α) = 3(3α∧¬α). Let 〈〈X, τ〉, v〉 be a topological model for LTop. Recall that ∂A = A ∩ Ac and Ext(A) = Int(Ac) denote the boundary and the exterior of a set A ⊆ X. Thus, the operators ◦, • and •′ for consistency and inconsistency in LTop are semantically characterized as follows (by using Corollary 15): (v-cons) v(◦α) = v(∼α ∨α) = Ext(v(α)) ∪ Int(v(α)); (v-incons) v(•α) = v(3α ∧ ¬α) = v(α) ∩ v(α)c = ∂v(α); (v-incons') v(•′α) = v(3(3α ∧ ¬α)) = v(α) ∩ v(α)c. Given that the intersection of closed sets is a closed set, it follows that v(α) ∩ v(α)c = v(α) ∩ v(α)c and so v(•α) = v(•′α). This means that, given the consistency operator proposed for LTop, there is just one inconsistency operator generated from it by means of the usual definitions. It is worth noting that ◦ and •, as well as the negation ¬, have a nice interpretation in topological terms. REMARK 23. Note that, for every topological model M, v(α ∧ ¬α) = v(α) ∩ v(α)c ⊆ v(α) ∩ v(α)c = v(•α) and so • satisfies the basic requirement for an inconsistency operator. The inclusion above is strict in general: let M = 〈〈R, τ〉, v〉 such that τ is the usual topology on the set R of real numbers, and v(p) = (0, 1), where p is a propositional variable. Then v(¬p) = (−∞, 0] ∪ [1,+∞) and so v(p ∧ ¬p) = v(p) ∩ v(¬p) = ∅. On the other hand v(p) = [0, 1] and so v(•p) = {0, 1} 6⊆ ∅ = v(p∧¬p). This means that LTop separates the notions of ¬-contradiction and inconsistency: every ¬-contradiction is an inconsistency but the converse S4 as a paraconsistent logic 11 is not always true. In logical terms:2 `LTop (α ∧ ¬α)→ •α but 0LTop •α→ (α ∧ ¬α). In order to prove that LTop is an LFI w.r.t. ¬ and ◦, we begin by proving the following: LEMMA 24. Let p and q be two different propositional variables. Then: (i) p,¬p 0LTop q; (ii) ◦p, p 0LTop q; (iii) ◦p,¬p 0LTop q. Proof. Let M = 〈〈R, τ〉, v〉 such that τ is the usual topology on the set R of real numbers, v(p) = [0, 1) and v(q) = (2, 3). (i) Since v(p)c = (−∞, 0) ∪ [1,+∞) it follows that v(¬p) = (−∞, 0] ∪ [1,+∞). Hence v(p ∧ ¬p) = v(p) ∩ v(¬p) = {0} 6⊆ v(q). (ii) Note that Ext(v(p)) = (−∞, 0)∪ (1,+∞). Given that Int(v(p)) = (0, 1) it follows that v(◦p) = Ext(v(p)) ∪ Int(v(p)) = R \ {0, 1}. Hence, v(◦p) ∩ v(p) = (0, 1) 6⊆ v(q). (iii) From (i) and (ii) it follows that v(◦p) ∩ v(¬p) = ( R \ {0, 1} ) ∩ ( (−∞, 0] ∪ [1,+∞) ) = (−∞, 0) ∪ (1,+∞) 6⊆ v(q). The previous lemma shows that ¬ and ◦ satisfy in LTop properties (i) and (ii) of Definition 22. In order to prove that condition (iii) of such definition is also satisfied, it is necessary to prove some previous results in LTop. LEMMA 25. If `LTop α→ γ and `LTop β → γ then `LTop (α ∨ β)→ γ. Proof. Assume that `LTop α → γ and `LTop β → γ. By using CPL, we also have that `LTop (α→ γ)→ ((β → γ)→ ((α∨β)→ γ). The result follows by (MP). LEMMA 26. `LTop α→ (α→ (¬α→ β)). Proof. By CPL, it is enough to shown that `LTop (α ∧ α ∧ ¬α) → β. Thus, it will shown that `LTop (∼¬α ∧ α ∧ ¬α) → β. Consider the following (meta)derivation in LTop: 1. `LTop (∼¬α ∧ α ∧ ¬α)→ (∼¬α ∧ ¬α) (CPL) 2. `LTop (∼¬α ∧ ¬α)→ β (CPL) 2Of course this holds after proving the completeness of LTop w.r.t. topological models, see Theorem 36 below. 12 Marcelo E. Coniglio and Leonardo Prieto-Sanabria 3. `LTop (∼¬α ∧ α ∧ ¬α)→ β (1, 2, CPL) Similarly, it can be proven the following: LEMMA 27. `LTop ∼α→ (α→ (¬α→ β)). Finally: LEMMA 28. `LTop ◦α→ (α→ (¬α→ β)). Proof. Recall that ◦α ≡ ∼α ∨ α. The result follows from lemmas 26, 27 and 25, and by Replacement. PROPOSITION 29. LTop is an LFI w.r.t. ¬ and ◦. Proof. It follows from lemmas 24 and 28. REMARK 30. Let ◦′α def= α and ◦′′α def= ∼α. Then, lemmas 26 and 27 state that these unary operators satisfy item (iii) of Definition 22 of LFIs. Since item (i) of that definition is also satisfied (because LTop is ¬-paraconsistent) one wonders if ◦′ and ◦′ could be considered as alternative consistency operators in LTop w.r.t. ¬. However, it is easy to see that they are trivial, in the sense that property (ii) of Definition 22 fails for both of them. Indeed, v(◦′α∧¬α) = ∅ in every topological model and so condition (ii.b) fails for ◦′. On the other hand, v(◦′′α ∧ α) = ∅ in every topological model, hence condition (ii.a) fails for ◦′′. Being so, the gentle exlosion law is satisfied by both operators in a trivial way. It is worth noting that Marcos suggested in [13] the following definition of a consistency operator inside a modal logic: α def= α → α. Considered in LTop, this formula defines a consistency operator in the sense of Definition 22. The inconsistency operators naturally associated to it are •α = ∼ α = α∧¬α (where inconsistency is identified with contradiction) and •′α = ¬ α = α ∧ ¬α (where inconsistency and contradiction are diferent notions). 7 Intermezzo: A problem on Kuratowski operators In this section a technical result (Proposition 31) concerning the definition of a closure operator from a given colletion of sets enjoying some properties will be given. This result will be used in the proof of completeness of LTop w.r.t. topological models, in Section 8. Let X 6= ∅ be a set. Let B ⊆ ℘(X) be a collection of subsets of X such that: (i) ∅ ∈ B and X ∈ B; and (ii) if F,G ∈ B then F ∪G ∈ B. Now, let (*) : B → B be a mapping such that: 1. ∅ = ∅; S4 as a paraconsistent logic 13 2. F ⊆ F for every F ∈ B; 3. F ∪G = F ∪ Ĝ for every F,G ∈ B; 4. F = F for every F ∈ B. Note that X = X, from 2. From 3 it follows that (*) is monotonic: F ⊆ G implies F ⊆ Ĝ, for every F,G ∈ B. We ask wether it is possible to extend (*) to a Kuratowski closure operator (*) : ℘(X)→ ℘(X) over X (that is, satisfying properties 1-4 above for every F,G ∈ ℘(X)). Next result give us a positive answer. PROPOSITION 31. Let B and (*) as above. The operator (*) : ℘(X)→ ℘(X) given by A = ⋂ {F : F ∈ B and A ⊆ F}, is a Kuratowski closure operator over X such that F = F if F ∈ B. Proof. First, it is easy to see that F = F if F ∈ B. In fact, given F ∈ B then F ⊆ F and so F = ⋂ {Ĝ : G ∈ B and F ⊆ Ĝ} ⊆ F . On the other hand, if G ∈ B and F ⊆ Ĝ then F ⊆ G = Ĝ, and so F ⊆ F . This means that (*) extends the operator (*) to ℘(X). We will prove now that (*) is a Kuratowski closure operator. (1) From the observation above, ∅ = ∅ = ∅. (2) Clearly A ⊆ A. (3) Let A,B ⊆ X. Then A ∪B = ⋂ A⊆F F ∪ ⋂ B⊆Ĝ Ĝ = ⋂F such that F = {F ∪ Ĝ : F,G ∈ B; A ⊆ F and B ⊆ Ĝ}. On the other hand, A ∪B = ⋂ G such that G = {Ĥ : H ∈ B and A ∪ B ⊆ Ĥ}. Since F ∪G = F ∪ Ĝ then F ⊆ G. On the other hand, let Ĥ ∈ G. Then Ĥ ∈ B is such that A ⊆ Ĥ and B ⊆ Ĥ and so Ĥ = Ĥ ∪ Ĥ ∈ F . From this, G ⊆ F . Therefore, A ∪B = A ∪B. (4) By definition, A = ⋂ F such that F = {F : F ∈ B and A ⊆ F}. By its turn, A = ⋂ G such that G = {Ĝ : G ∈ B and A ⊆ Ĝ}. Let Ĝ ∈ G. Then G ∈ B such that A ⊆ Ĝ and so Ĝ ∈ F . This means that G ⊆ F and so A = ⋂ F ⊆ ⋂ G = A. 8 Completeness Theorem for the logic LTop Recall that, given a logic L and a formula α in the language L of L, a set ∆ ⊆ L is α-saturated in L if: (1) ∆ 0L α; and (2) if β 6∈ ∆ then ∆, β `L α. It follows that α-saturated sets are closed non-trivial theories of L, that is: ∆ 6= L, and β ∈ ∆ iff ∆ `L β. The following classical result will be useful: 14 Marcelo E. Coniglio and Leonardo Prieto-Sanabria THEOREM 32 (LindenbaumLos). Let L be a Tarskian and finitary logic over a language L. Let Γ ∪ {α} be a set of formulas of L such that Γ 0L α. Then, it is possible to extend Γ to an α-saturated set ∆ in L. Proof. See [19, Theorem 22.2]. Since the logic LTop is Tarskian and finitary (see Remark 4) then the last theorem holds for it. Additionally, α-saturated sets in LTop satisfy the following properties: PROPOSITION 33. Let ∆ be an α-saturated set in LTop. Then: (i) (β → β) ∈ ∆ and ∼¬(β → β) ∈ ∆ for every β; (ii) (β → γ) ∈ ∆ iff β 6∈ ∆ or γ ∈ ∆; (iii) ∼β ∈ ∆ iff β 6∈ ∆; (iv) (β ∧ γ) ∈ ∆ iff β ∈ ∆ and γ ∈ ∆; (v) (β ∨ γ) ∈ ∆ iff β ∈ ∆ or γ ∈ ∆; (vi) β 6∈ ∆ implies ¬β ∈ ∆. Now, let Xc = {∆ ⊆ L : ∆ is an α-saturated set in LTop for some α ∈ L}. For every φ ∈ L let Fφ = {∆ ∈ Xc : φ 6∈ ∆}. Observe that Fφ = Fψ whenever φ ≡ ψ. Let B = {Fφ : φ ∈ L}. Clearly: (i) ∅ ∈ B since ∅ = F(φ→φ), by Proposition 33(i); additionally, Xc ∈ B since Xc = F∼(φ→φ) (recalling that α-saturated sets are non-trivial theories); (ii) Fφ ∪ Fψ = F(φ∧ψ) ∈ B, by Proposition 33(iv). Notice that Xc \ Fφ = F∼φ, by Proposition 33(iii). Consider now a mapping (*) : B → B defined as follows: Fφ = F∼¬φ = {∆ ∈ Xc : ¬φ ∈ ∆}. Observe the following: (i) ∅ = ∅. In fact: ∅ = F(φ→φ) = F∼¬(φ→φ) = ∅, by Proposition 33(i). (ii) Fφ ⊆ Fφ. In fact: if ∆ ∈ Fφ then φ 6∈ ∆ and so ¬φ ∈ ∆, by Proposition 33(vi). Thus ∆ ∈ Fφ. (iii) Fφ ∪ Fψ = Fφ ∪ Fψ. In fact: Fφ ∪ Fψ = F∼¬φ ∪ F∼¬ψ = F(∼¬φ∧∼¬ψ) = F∼¬(φ∧ψ) = F(φ∧ψ) = Fφ ∪ Fψ, by Proposition 20(iv). (iv) Fφ = Fφ. In fact: Fφ = F∼¬φ = F∼¬∼¬φ = F∼¬φ = Fφ, by Proposition 20(iii). Then, by Proposition 31, the operator (*) : ℘(Xc)→ ℘(Xc) given by A = ⋂ {F∼¬φ : A ⊆ F∼¬φ} S4 as a paraconsistent logic 15 is a Kuratowski closure operator over Xc such that Fφ = Fφ = F∼¬φ. DEFINITION 34. The canonical structure for LTop is the topological space Mc = 〈Xc, τc〉 such that τc is the topology overXc generated by the Kuratowski closure (*) defined above. The canonical model for LTop is the model 〈Mc, vc〉 such that vc(p) = F∼p = {∆ ∈ Xc : p ∈ ∆}, for every p ∈ V. Notice that, since Xc \ Fφ = F∼φ, then each Fφ is clopen in Mc. LEMMA 35 (Truth Lemma). For every φ ∈ L it holds: vc(φ) = F∼φ = {∆ ∈ Xc : φ ∈ ∆}. Proof. Since it was observed, F∼φ = {∆ ∈ Xc : φ ∈ ∆}. By induction on the complexity of φ it will be proven that vc(φ) = F∼φ. If φ = p ∈ V then the result holds by definition of vc. If φ = (ψ → γ) then vc(φ) = vc(ψ → γ) = (Xc \ vc(ψ)) ∪ vc(γ), by definition of vc. By induction hypothesis and Proposition 33, the latter is equal to (Xc \ F∼ψ) ∪ F∼γ = F∼∼ψ ∪ F∼γ = Fψ ∪ F∼γ = F(ψ∧∼γ) = F∼(ψ→γ) = F∼φ. If φ = ∼ψ then vc(φ) = vc(∼ψ) = (Xc \ vc(ψ)), by definition of vc. By induction hypothesis it is equal to (Xc \ F∼ψ) = F∼∼ψ = F∼φ. If φ = ¬ψ then vc(φ) = vc(¬ψ) = (Xc \ vc(ψ)), by definition of vc. By induction hypothesis and the definition of closure it is equal to (Xc \ F∼ψ) = F∼∼ψ = Fψ = Fψ = F∼¬ψ = F∼φ. THEOREM 36 (Completeness of LTop). For every set of formulas Γ ∪ {φ} it holds: Γ |=LTop φ implies Γ `LTop φ. Proof. Suppose that Γ 0LTop φ, and assume that Γ 6= ∅. By Theorem 32, there exists a φ-saturated set ∆ in LTop such that Γ ⊆ ∆. Consider the canonical model 〈Mc, vc〉. Since Γ ⊆ ∆ then ∆ ∈ vc(γ) for every γ ∈ Γ, by Lemma 35, and so ∆ ∈ ⋂ γ∈Γ vc(γ). On the other hand φ 6∈ ∆ and so ∆ 6∈ vc(φ), by Lemma 35. Thus ⋂ γ∈Γ vc(γ) 6⊆ vc(φ). This shows that Γ 6|=LTop φ. The case Γ = ∅ is proved analogously. The latter result can be applied to the question of defining unary connectives in LTop, which can be solved semantically in terms of the Kuratowski's closure-complement problem. Indeed, a theorem due to Kuratowski states that there are at most 14 distinct sets obtainable by iterations of closure (k) and complement (c) to a given subset of X. As a consequence of this, and by soundness and completeness of LTop w.r.t. topological models, there are only 14 unary conectives definable in LTop by iterations of ¬ and ∼. They are listed in the table below ( as usual, the composition of operators must be read from right to left, and so, for instance, kc stands for c followed by k). 16 Marcelo E. Coniglio and Leonardo Prieto-Sanabria Operator Connective id ∼∼ c ∼ k ¬∼ ck ∼¬∼ kc ¬ ckc ∼¬ kck ¬¬∼ ckck ∼¬¬∼ kckc ¬¬ ckckc ∼¬¬ kckck ¬¬¬∼ ckckck ∼¬¬¬∼ kckckc ¬¬¬ ckckckc ∼¬¬¬ 9 LTop is S4 up to language In this section it will be shown that LTop is nothing more than the well-known modal logic S4, presented in a different (non-modal) language. In order to do this, two translation mappings ∗ : L4 → L and ⊗ : L → L4 will be defined, where L4 is the set of formulas of S4, satisfying the following: (1) Θ `S4 β iff Θ∗ `LTop β∗ for every Θ ∪ {β} ⊆ L4; and (2) Γ `LTop α iff Γ⊗ `S4 α⊗ for every Γ ∪ {α} ⊆ L, where `S4 denotes the consequence relation of S4 (observe that derivations in S4 from non-empty sets of premisses are defined in a similar way as in LTop). Here, Θ∗ = {γ∗ : γ ∈ Θ} and γ∗ denotes ∗(γ), for every γ ∈ L4. A similar notation is adopted for the translation mapping ⊗. Moreover, β ≡4 (β∗)⊗ and α ≡ (α⊗)∗ for every β ∈ L4 and α ∈ L, where β ≡4 γ means that `S4 β → γ and `S4 γ → β. From this result, it can be said that LTop coincides with S4 'up to translations' or 'up to language'. Previous to prove this result, it will be shown that the modal Necessitation rule ('if α is a theorem then α is a theorem') is admissible in LTop (where φ denotes, as stated above, the formula ∼¬φ of L). This means that adding this rule to LTop does not add any new theorem to the resulting logic. THEOREM 37 (Admissibility in LTop of the Necessitation rule). Consider, in the language L of LTop, the Necessitation rule: (NEC) α α (where, as stated above, α denotes ∼¬α). Then, (NEC) is admissible in LTop, that is: if `LTop φ then `LTop φ. Proof. Suppose that `LTop φ. By soundness of LTop with respect to topological structures, it follows that |=LTop φ. This means that v(φ) = X for every model 〈〈X, τ〉, v〉. But then v(¬φ) = v(φ)c = ∅ = ∅ and so v(φ) = v(∼¬φ) = v(¬φ)c = X, for every model M. Thus |=LTop φ and so `LTop φ, by the completeness theorem. S4 as a paraconsistent logic 17 Now, the logic S4 will be formally analyzed. Recall from Remark 5 that the Hilbert calculus formed by axioms (Ax1), (Ax2) and (Ax3) of LTop plus the rule (MP) constitutes a Hilbert calculus HCPL for CPL over the signature {∼ ,→}. DEFINITION 38 (Modal logic S4). Consider the signature Σ = { ,∼ ,→} and let L4 be the language generated by the set V of propositional variables (recall Definition 1) over the signature Σ. The modal logic S4 is defined over the language L4 by adding to HCPL the following axioms and rules: (α→ β)→ (α→ β) (K) α→ α (T) α→ α (4) α α (NEC) Derivations (without and with premisses) are defined in S4 in a similar way as in LTop (recall Definition 3), as usual in modal systems. It is well-known (consult, for instance, [5]) that the Hilbert calculus presented in Definition 38, together with its notion of derivations, is adequate for the modal logic S4. If β, γ ∈ L4 then β ≡4 γ will mean that `S4 β → γ and `S4 γ → β. Now, the two translation mappings will be defined. DEFINITION 39. Let ∗ : L4 → L be a mapping defined recursively as follows (here, ∗(γ) will be denoted by γ∗, for every γ ∈ L4): (i) p∗ = p if p is a propositional variable; (ii) (γ)∗ = ∼¬(γ∗); (iii) (∼γ)∗ = ∼(γ∗); (iv) (γ → δ)∗ = (γ∗)→ (δ∗). DEFINITION 40. Let ⊗ : L→ L4 be a mapping defined recursively as follows (here, ⊗(γ) will be denoted by γ⊗, for every γ ∈ L): (i) p⊗ = p if p is a propositional variable; (ii) (¬γ)⊗ = ∼(γ⊗); (iii) (∼γ)⊗ = ∼(γ⊗); (iv) (γ → δ)⊗ = (γ⊗)→ (δ⊗). PROPOSITION 41. For every β ∈ L4, β ≡4 (β∗)⊗. Proof. The proof is done by induction on the complexity of β ∈ L4 (which is defined as usual). By definition of ∗, it is enough to analyze the induction step 18 Marcelo E. Coniglio and Leonardo Prieto-Sanabria when β = γ. Then, we have that β∗ = ∼¬(γ∗). From this, by definition of ⊗, by Replacement of S4 and by induction hypothesis (from which γ ≡4 (γ∗)⊗), (β∗)⊗ = ∼∼((γ∗)⊗) ≡4 ((γ∗)⊗) ≡4 γ = β. That is, β ≡4 (β∗)⊗. PROPOSITION 42. For every α ∈ L, α ≡ (α⊗)∗. Proof. The proof is analogous to that of Proposition 41, but now the only case to be analyzed is when α = ¬δ. The details are left to the reader PROPOSITION 43. For every β ∈ L4, `S4 β implies that `LTop β∗. Proof. Consider the Hilbert calculus for S4 presented above. It is immediate to see, by the results about LTop proved in the previous sections, that any instance β of an axiom of S4 is such that β∗ is a theorem of LTop. On the other hand, by definition of ∗, it is immediate that (MP) is translated as itself by ∗. Finally, the translation of (NEC) by ∗ is an admissible rule in LTop, by Theorem 37. From this, it is easy to prove, by induction on the length of a derivation of β in S4, that `S4 β implies that `LTop β∗. The details are left to the reader. PROPOSITION 44. For every α ∈ L, `LTop α implies that `S4 α⊗. Proof. The proof uses an argument analogous to that of Proposition 43. Let us begin by observing that the translation by ⊗ of axioms (Ax1), (Ax2) and (Ax3) of LTop are instances of the same axioms in S4. The same happens with the rule (MP). Now, observe that the translation by ⊗ of axioms (Ax4) and (Ax5) of LTop corresponds to axioms (T) and (4) of S4, but written in terms of the possibility operator. Then, they are derivable in S4. The translation by ⊗ of any instance axiom (Ax6) of LTop has the form ∼(γ ∧ δ) → (∼γ ∨ ∼δ). The latter is equivalent, by CPL, to (γ ∧δ)→ (γ ∧ δ), which is a theorem of S4. The translation by ⊗ of any instance of axiom (Ax7) of LTop has the form (γ → γ), which is derivable in S4. The rule (DR) is translated by ⊗ as itself, being clearly a derived rule in the Hilbert calculus of S4. Finally, the translation by ⊗ of the rule (CR) has the form γ → δ/∼δ → ∼γ. Suppose that `S4 γ → δ. Then `S4 γ → δ (this is a well known fact of S4) and so, by CPL, `S4 ∼δ → ∼γ. This proves that the translation by ⊗ of the rule (CR) is an admissible rule in S4, concluding the proof. COROLLARY 45. Let α ∈ L and β ∈ L4. Then: (i) `LTop α iff `S4 α⊗. S4 as a paraconsistent logic 19 (ii) ) `S4 β iff `LTop β∗. Proof. (i) If `LTop α then `S4 α⊗, by Proposition 44. Conversely, if `S4 α⊗ then `LTop (α⊗)∗, by Proposition 43. The result follows by Proposition 42. (ii) It is proved analogously, by using Proposition 41 in the last step. COROLLARY 46. Let Γ ∪ {α} ⊆ L and Θ ∪ {β} ⊆ L4. Then: (i) Γ `LTop α iff Γ⊗ `S4 α⊗. (ii) Θ `S4 β iff Θ∗ `LTop β∗. Proof. It is immediate from Corollary 45, the definition of the respective consequence relation in both logics, and the fact that both translations preserve the connectives of CPL. The details are left to the reader. The last result, together with propositions 41 and 42, justify the claim that LTop and S4 define the same logic, up to language. 10 Encoding Intuitionistic Logic inside LTop Finally, it will be shown that LTop has the expressive power to encode Intuitionistic Propositional Logic IPL by means of a conservative translation. This is not surprising, since LTop is S4 up to translations, as it was proven in the previous section. On the other and, it was proved by McKinsey-Tarski in [15] that Gödel's translation T of IPL into S4 is conservative for valid formulas, that is: α is intuitionistically valid iff T (α) is derivable in S4. In order to define a conservative translation from IPL to LTop, consider the signature Σint = {∼, →, ∧, ∨} for IPL and let LIPL be the language generated by the set V of propositional variables (recall Definition 1) over the signature Σint. The consequence relation of IPL, denoted by `IPL, can be axiomatized by a Hilbert calculi over LIPL (see, for instance, [15]). It is well known that `IPL is semantically characterized by a topological semantics given by topological modelsM = 〈T , v0〉 such that T = 〈X, τ〉 is a topological space and v0 : LIPL → τ is a valuation satisfying the following conditions: 1. v0(∼α) = Int(v0(α)c); 2. v0(α→ β) = Int(v0(α)c ∪ v0(β)); 3. v0(α ∧ β) = v0(α) ∩ v0(β); 4. v0(α ∨ β) = v0(α) ∪ v0(β). 20 Marcelo E. Coniglio and Leonardo Prieto-Sanabria It generates a semantical consequence as follows: |=IPL α iff v0(α) = X for every topological model 〈〈X, τ〉, v0〉. Moreover, Γ |=IPL α iff either |=IPL α or there exists a finite non-empty set Γ0 ⊆ Γ such that ⋂ γ∈Γ0 v0(γ) ⊆ v0(α), for every topological model 〈〈X, τ〉, v0〉. By definition, ∅ |=IPL α iff |=IPL α. Consider now the following translation mapping: DEFINITION 47. Let : LIPL → L be a mapping defined recursively as follows: (i) p = p = ∼¬p if p is a propositional variable; (ii) (∼γ) = ∼(γ ) = ∼¬∼(γ ); (iii) (γ → δ) = ((γ )→ (δ )) = ∼¬((γ )→ (δ )); (iv) (γ ∧ δ) = (γ ) ∧ (δ ); (v) (γ ∨ δ) = (γ ) ∨ (δ ). Now, the desired result is the following: THEOREM 48. Let Γ ∪ {φ} ⊆ LIPL. Then: Γ `IPL φ iff Γ `LTop φ . Proof. ('Only if' part) Suppose that Γ `IPL φ such that Γ 6= ∅, and let 〈〈X, τ〉, v〉 be a topological model for LTop. It is easy to prove that, for every α ∈ LIPL, v(α ) ∈ τ . Thus, there is a mapping v0 : LIPL → τ given by v0(α) def = v(α ) for every α. It can be seen that v0 is a valuation for IPL whence 〈〈X, τ〉, v0〉 is a topological model for IPL. By soundness of IPL w.r.t. topological models it follows that ⋂ γ∈Γ v0(γ) ⊆ v0(φ). That is, ⋂ γ∈Γ v(γ ) ⊆ v(φ ). This means that Γ |=LTop φ and so Γ `LTop φ , by completeness of LTop w.r.t. topological models. The case when `IPL φ is proved analogously. ('If' part) Suppose that Γ `LTop φ such that Γ 6= ∅, and let 〈〈X, τ〉, v0〉 be a topological model for IPL. Define a mapping v1 : V → ℘(X) such that v1(p) = v0(p) for every propositional variable p. Extend v1 to a valuation v : L → ℘(X) for LTop by using the clauses of Definition 12. It is easy to prove that v0(α) = v(α ) for every α ∈ LIPL. Let 〈〈X, τ〉, v〉 be the resulting topological model for LTop. By hypothesis and soundness of LTop w.r.t. topological models, ⋂ γ∈Γ v(γ ) ⊆ v(φ ) and so ⋂ γ∈Γ v0(γ) ⊆ v0(φ). This shows that Γ |=IPL φ, and then Γ `IPL φ by completeness of IPL w.r.t. topological models. The case when `LTop φ is proved analogously. The latter result shows that is a conservative translation from IPL to LTop. Acknowledgments The first author have been supported by FAPESP (Thematic Project LogCons 2010/51038-0), and by a research grant from CNPq (PQ 308524/2014-4). S4 as a paraconsistent logic 21 BIBLIOGRAPHY [1] Can Başkent. Some topological properties of paraconsistent models. Synthese, 190(18):4023–4040, 2013. [2] Jean-Yves Beziau. S5 is a paraconsistent logic and so is first-order classical logic. Logical Studies, 9:301–309, 2002. [3] Jean-Yves Beziau. Paraconsistent Logic from a Modal Viewpoint. Journal of Applied Logic, 3(1):7–14, 2005. [4] Jean-Yves Beziau. The paraconsistent logic Z: a possible solution to Jaśkowski's problem. Logic and Logical Philosophy, 15:99–111, 2006. [5] Patrick Blackburn, Maarten de Rijke and Yde Venema. Modal Logic. Volume 53 of Cambridge Tracts in Theoretical Computer Science series. Cambridge University Press, 2002. [6] Walter A. Carnielli and Marcelo E. Coniglio. Paraconsistent Logic: Consistency, Contradiction and Negation. Volume 40 of Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science series. Springer, 2016. [7] Walter A. Carnielli, Marcelo E. Coniglio, and João Marcos. Logics of Formal Inconsistency. In: D. M. Gabbay and F. Guenthner, editors, Handbook of Philosophical Logic (2nd. edition), volume 14, pages 1–93. Springer, 2007. [8] Walter A. Carnielli and João Marcos. A taxonomy of C-systems. In: W. A. Carnielli, M. E. Coniglio, and I. M. L. D'Ottaviano, editors, Paraconsistency: The Logical Way to the Inconsistent, volume 228 of Lecture Notes in Pure and Applied Mathematics, pages 1–94. Marcel Dekker, 2002. [9] Ana L. de Araújo, Elias H. Alves, and José A. D. Guerzoni. Some relations between modal and paraconsistent logic. The Journal of Non-Classical Logic, 4(2):33–44, 1987. Available at http://www.cle.unicamp.br/jancl/. [10] Nicolas D. Goodman. The Logic of Contradiction. Zeitschrift für Mathematische Logik und Grundlagen der Mathematik, 27(8-10):119–126, 1981. [11] Stanis law Jaśkowski. Rachunek zdań dla systemów dedukcyjnych sprzecznych (in Polish). Studia Societatis Scientiarun Torunesis – Sectio A, I(5):55–77, 1948. Translated to English as "A propositional calculus for inconsistent deductive systems". Logic and Logic Philosophy, 7:35–56, 1999. Proceedings of the Stanis law Jaśkowski's Memorial Symposium, held in Toruń, Poland, July 1998. [12] Tamar Lando. Completeness of S4 for the Lebesgue Measure Algebra. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 41(2):287–316, 2012. [13] João Marcos. Nearly every normal modal logic is paranormal. Logique et Analyse, 48(189192):279–300, 2005. [14] John Charles C. McKinsey and Alfred Tarski. The Algebra of Topology. Annals of Mathematics, 45:141–91, 1944. [15] John Charles C. McKinsey and Alfred Tarski. Some theorems about the sentential calculi of Lewis and Heyting. The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 13(1):1–15, 1948. [16] Chris Mortensen. Topological Separation Principles and Logical Theories. Synthese, 125(1-2):169–178, 2000. [17] Graham Priest. Dualising Intuitionistic Negation. Principia, 13(3):165–84, 2009. [18] Johan van Benthem and Guram Bezhanishvili. Modal Logics of Space. In Marco Aiello, Ian Pratt-Hartmann and Johan Van Benthem, editors, Handbook of Spatial Logics, pages 217–298. Springer-Verlag, Dordrecht, 2007. [19] Ryszard Wójcicki. Lectures on propositional calculi. Ossolineum, Wroclaw, Poland, 1984. [20] Ryszard Wójcicki. Theory of logical calculi: Basic theory of consequence operations, volume 199 of Synthese Library. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1988. Marcelo E. Coniglio Centre for Logic, Epistemology and the History of Science (CLE) University of Campinas (UNICAMP) Campinas, SP, Brazil E-mail: [email protected] Leonardo Prieto-Sanabria Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas (PUC-Campinas) Campinas, SP, Brazil E-mail: [email protected] | {
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REASON DETHRONED; KNOWLEDGE REGAINED by James Arthur Moore B.A., Indiana University (Bloomington), 1983 M.A., University of Pittsburgh, 1987 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 1991 © Copyright by James Arthur Moore 1991 iii REASON DETHRONED; KNOWLEDGE REGAINED James Arthur Moore, Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, 1991 Hume held that we have no rational justification for our inductive beliefs. A more radical view is that we have no rational justification for any of our beliefs. This dissertation has two goals pertaining to this more radical view. The first goal is to find a basis for constructive epistemology that is consistent with this view. This goal is first sought by considering externalist theories of knowledge (those that make justification a function of aspects external to awareness) since these do not require rational justification for knowledge. Externalist theories are defended against the usual objections, partly via a strategy of immunizing them from counterexample-based objections by arguing that epistemologies can be successful even if they fail to explicate ordinary epistemic notions. But a new objection to externalist theories is then brought to light. The objection begins as an attack against a dogma of contemporary epistemology, that the chief benefit of possessing knowledge is having a true belief. It is argued that there are many other benefits to having knowledge (e.g. that knowledge is a belief with which it is easy to "infect" others), iv and that externalist theories are defective because externalist knowledge lacks these benefits. A mixed internalist/externalist theory, bilevel reliabilism, is then presented as a solution to this difficulty. The second goal is to provide an explanation of the function and origin of human epistemic practices (e.g. the linguistic practice of knowledge attribution) that is consistent with the no-rational-justification view. Providing such an explanation is problematic for holders of this view because, if it is correct, it seems, prima facie, that there is no reason to have epistemic practices. This goal is achieved by arguing that epistemic practices, despite appearing (because of their misleading folk epistemology) to have rational justification as their goal, chiefly function to promote the existence of bilevel reliabilist knowledge, a very useful type of belief that is not rationally justified. It is then argued that the explanation of the origin of epistemic practices is that they arise from natural human inductive tendencies. v FOREWORD There are many people whose assistance in preparing this dissertation I would like to acknowledge. First, I would like to thank my dissertation director, Joseph Camp, for his many helpful suggestions and criticisms and for teaching me the difference between hard philosophizing and mere logic-chopping. I would also like to thank another member of my committee, John Earman, for his helpful comments and for alleviating some of the difficulties created by the untimely death of another committee member, Wilfrid Sellars. I would also like to thank Annette Baier and Alexander Nehamas for helping me to see, via Hume and Nietzsche, respectively, that life with "reason dethroned" was not as bleak as it at first appeared. And I would like to give a special thanks to my dear friend, Christopher Williams, for helping me to understand the limitations of analytic philosophy and for never letting me forget that philosophy is one of the humanities. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Edward and Eileen, and brother, Michael, for their financial and other assistance that helped to assure that I got this done before the millennium was out. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD.................................................................................................................... v PROLEGOMENON ........................................................................................................ 1 1. OPTIONS FOR A CONSTRUCTIVE NEO-HUMEAN EPISTEMOLOGY ........ 4 2. OBJECTIONS TO EXTERNALISM ....................................................................... 11 2.1 Counterexample-Based Objections to Externalist Theories ........................... 11 2.2 Externalism, Awareness, and Norms .............................................................. 19 2.3 The Original Causation Problem.................................................................... 20 3. THE REFERENCE CLASS PROBLEM FOR PROCESS RELIABILISM ........ 22 4. EXTERNALISM, OR, HOW TO GET NO MORE FROM KNOWLEDGE THAN TRUTH .................................................................................................... 32 4.1 Vericentrism in Epistemology ......................................................................... 33 4.2 The Extra-verific Utility of Knowledge ........................................................... 35 4.2.1 The Extra-verific Utility of T-knowledge ......................................... 36 4.2.2 Externalism and Extra-verific Utility............................................... 45 4.3 Why R-knowledge and T-knowledge Differ in Extra-verific Utility ................ 48 4.4 The Flaw in Externalism ................................................................................. 53 5. BILEVEL RELIABILISM: AN ACCOUNT OF KNOWLEDGE AND JUSTIFICATION ............................................................................................... 56 5.1 Mere Internalism Reconsidered ...................................................................... 56 5.2 Mixed Internalist/Externalist Accounts........................................................... 59 5.3 Bilevel Reliabilism, a Radical Mixed View ..................................................... 62 5.4 The Extra-verific Utility of Br-knowledge ...................................................... 67 5.5 Bilevel Reliabilism and Reasons-based Justification ..................................... 72 vii 5.6 Bilevel Reliabilism and Alston's "Internalist Externalism" ............................ 73 5.6.1 Alston's Account ............................................................................... 74 5.6.2 Alston's Account and Bilevel Reliabilism ........................................ 78 5.7 An Externalist Objection ................................................................................. 80 6. EXPLAINING EPISTEMIC PRACTICES: PRELIMINARIES .......................... 83 6.1 A Task for Bilevel Reliabilism......................................................................... 83 6.2 The Nature and Importance of the Project of Explaining Epistemic Practices ................................................................................................... 85 6.3 A Strategy for a Bilevel Reliabilist Explanation of Epistemic Practices ........ 90 6.4 Human Folk Epistemology .............................................................................. 96 6.5 The Content of Ordinary Epistemic Practices ...............................................106 7. A BILEVEL RELIABILIST EXPLANATION OF EPISTEMIC PRACTICES 109 7.1 The Origin of the Practice of Knowledge Attribution ....................................110 7.2 How Knowledge Ascriptions Could be of Br-Knowledge ..............................113 7.2.1 Ascribing Knowledge to R-justified Beliefs ....................................114 7.2.2 Ascribing Knowledge to Br-justified Beliefs ...................................123 7.3 That the Practice of Knowledge Attribution Promotes Br-knowledge and that such Promotion is Useful .........................................................................127 7.4 Explaining the Practice of Knowledge Attribution as it Exists Today...........129 7.5 Summary of the Explanation and Consideration of the Generality of its Application ...............................................................................................132 7.6 Implications of the Bilevel Reliabilist Explanation of the Existence and Function of Epistemic Practices ..............................................................135 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..........................................................................................................143 1 PROLEGOMENON Hume held that reason alone could not be responsible for and could not justify our adoption of inductive beliefs. A more extreme view is not uncommon today: that reason alone does not justify the adoption of any of our beliefs. 1 In recent times the former view has often gone by the name of "inductive skepticism" and the latter by the name of "global skepticism". However, for the purposes of this dissertation, I want to introduce a new term, neo-Humeanism, for the latter view. There are several reasons for this move. First, there are a number of different reasons for being a global skeptic. Giving this view its own name differentiates it as the view involving a certain claim about the impotency of reason. Second, the view itself does not make any claim about the impossibility of knowledge, so the new name helps to differentiate it from full-blooded skepticism. Third, since the new name avoids the negativity implicit in "skepticism", it does not misleadingly paint out the positive aspects of the view, 2 e.g. that neoHumeanism naturally leads to positive philosophizing in the form 1 I would number among adherents of this view, or something very close to it, philosophers as diverse as Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul Feyerabend, Richard Rorty, the Scottish sociologists of knowledge, and the French deconstructionists. 2 As Kemp Smith (1949) complained had happened with Hume's philosophy. 2 of determining what non-rational means we have for adopting and justifying our beliefs. A fundamental assumption of this dissertation is the truth of neo-Humeanism. This assumption is made not, of course, because neo-Humeanism is uncontroversial but because the dissertation aims to explore some of the consequences of neo-Humeanism and there is not room in one dissertation to both explore its consequences and defend it. 3 One consequence that provides part of the motivation for undertaking the dissertation concerns epistemic practices--the practices consisting of attributing knowledge, assessing evidence, giving reasons, etc. These practices seem, for all the world, to have the pursuit of rational justification as their raison d'être, but, if neo-Humeanism is correct, this supposed raison d'être is a sham. The question then arises of just why these practices exist and what their purpose, if any, might be. Finding a satisfactory answer to this question is a primary purpose of the dissertation, and the reader would do well to bear this in mind even though the discussion often seems to veer far from this topic. A second assumption should also be noted. This assumption is the viability of some sort of substantive theory of truth. I do not believe anything in the dissertation requires a robust realist and/or correspondence theory of truth (nor would I wish to 3 Anyone interested in examining a defense of the view can consult a number of works, e.g. Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature can be viewed in this light or, better yet, Hume's Treatise of Human Nature for the portion of neo-Humeanism pertaining to inductive and moral beliefs. 3 advocate one), but it does require a theory that can at least make some sense of the notion that cognitive 4 devices succeed, qua cognitive devices, by arriving at the truth. 4 It has been pointed out to me that in contemporary psychological parlance "cognitive" has come to mean something like "rule-guided". In this dissertation, "cognitive" has the more traditional meaning, stemming from its Latin root, of "pertaining to or associated with knowing and believing". 4 1 OPTIONS FOR A CONSTRUCTIVE NEO-HUMEAN EPISTEMOLOGY The epistemology most commonly associated with a Humean or neo-Humean position is the negative one of skepticism. A principal aim of this dissertation is to discover some basis for constructive epistemology consistent with neo-Humeanism. And this is not an easy aim to fulfill, for, as will be seen presently, most traditional approaches to epistemology are inconsistent with neo-Humeanism. It should also be noted that this aim has been chosen not because of an interest in epistemology for epistemology's sake but because human epistemic practices are an important and interesting element of human affairs, and it would be useful to have some viable discipline devoted to a positive examination of them. Let us consider, then, the suitability of the various types of epistemological theories as bases for such a discipline by examining the following taxonomy of epistemological theories. The taxonomy is not exhaustive, but it does include the options most important for present purposes. Since the taxonomy relies heavily on the internalism/externalism distinction and the notion of "rational privileging" to distinguish among sorts of theories, it will be useful to discuss these ideas before proceeding to the taxonomy itself. Though it is widely used in the contemporary epistemological literature, the internalism/externalism distinction has achieved no fixed usage. It was first intro- 5 duced into the philosophical mainstream in Armstrong (1973) (though he only uses half of the contemporary terminology, "externalism", and credits its origination to an unpublished paper by Gregory O'Hair) and he explains the externalist half of it as follows: According to 'Externalist' accounts of...knowledge, what makes a true...belief a case of knowledge is some natural relation which holds between the belief-state, Bap [i.e. a's believing that p], and the situation which makes the belief true. (1973, p.157) Contemporary versions of the distinction vary considerably from this original account and are applied to theories of justification as well as theories of knowledge. The version of the distinction to be employed here derives--but differs--from that in Pollock (1986). On the version used here, epistemological internalism is the view that justification is a function solely of the internal states of a cognizer 5 --where by "internal state" is not meant a state within the confines of the cognizer's body but a state of which he can be aware, e.g. a belief or perceptual state. Thus, an internalist account of justification will specify just what sorts and sets of internal states will justify a cognizer in a belief. An internalist account of knowledge will be defined as 5 It might seem that some accounts that are usually thought of as internalist, e.g. Cartesian ones, clearly require more for justification than that a cognizer merely possess certain internal states. For example, a Cartesian account might seem to require not only that a cognizer believe the premises of a proof of his belief, the conclusion of a proof of his belief, and believe that the premises are known and lead inductively to the conclusion, but also that the premises are in fact known and in fact lead inductively to the conclusion. Otherwise, it might be argued, the Cartesian would risk making one justified in a belief, in effect, merely if one believed one were justified. However, it is possible to interpret such Cartesian views as avoiding this consequence without requiring anything that violates this definition of internalism: they do so by requiring that the cognizer possess a rational guarantee of truth for all such justifying internal states. This rational guarantee is supposed to be achievable by possessing internal states – if it is held to do so by other means the Cartesian becomes an externalist. 6 one that employs an internalist account of justification. Epistemological externalism is the view that justification is a function of factors external to the cognizer's awareness, e.g. the reliability of the process through which a belief is formed. Thus, an externalist account of justification will specify some set of external factors pertaining to a belief that make it justified or not. An externalist account of knowledge is one employing an externalist account of justification. 6 I term a belief "rationally privileged" if a cognizer must prefer it to its negation in order to remain epistemically rational--where it is assumed that cognizers, qua epistemically rational beings, prefer truth or the probability of truth. I introduce this term because it seems to be a useful way to refer to the really important issue in the traditional debate between the skeptic and anti-skeptic. For example, Socrates's and Plato's epistemological debate with the Sophists can be viewed as a debate about the existence of rational privileging: the Sophists claiming that all is mere opinion (doxa) and Socrates and Plato claiming that there are rationally privileged beliefs (epistēmē) that are not the result of bias or upbringing and that the Sophists are irrational not to prefer. The advantage of framing such debates in terms of rational privileging rather than the more typical issues of the existence of knowledge or justification is twofold. First, in the current epistemological atmosphere "knowledge" and "justification" can mean very different things to different people, so it can be both problematic and unclear to describe the debate simply as one about the existence 6 For an attempt to taxonomize the various kinds of externalism and internalism see Alston (1986). 7 of knowledge or justification. Second, the term and the notion of rational privileging are more descriptive of what is really at stake--especially in highlighting the key role played by reason. We are now ready to consider the taxonomy of epistemological theories. Traditional Theories Traditional epistemological theories are internalist and hold that their internal justification rationally privileges certain beliefs--some of which rationally privileged beliefs count as knowledge. Examples of such theories are those of Plato, Descartes, Locke, and many of the logical positivists. 73 However, traditional theories are unacceptable as a neo-Humean basis for constructive epistemology, for in denying to any belief the sort of rational justification that Hume denied to inductive beliefs, the neo-Humean emphatically denies the existence of rational privileging; hence, traditional theories are unacceptable because they make knowledge a sort of belief that, according to the neo-Humean, cannot exist. 7 My claims that traditional epistemological theories, as well as the particular theories of the historical figures I cite, have these features should not be interpreted as an exegetical claim about the history of epistemology. These claims only concern the way in which these theories have been widely understood as operating. 8 Pragmatist Theories Pragmatist theories differ from traditional theories in that they make knowledge, instead of a rationally privileged belief (and so one privileged in regard to truth), a belief privileged in terms of its usefulness. 84 Such theories are also unacceptable to the neo-Humean because they implicitly rely on the existence of rationally privileged beliefs. For judgments about which beliefs are pragmatically privileged are presumed, by the pragmatist, to be rationally privileged in regard to the truth, i.e. the belief that one belief is more useful than another is to be believed not because it is useful, but because it is true. (Of course, a theory need not rely on rational privileging in this way. Such theories are not addressed in this category.) Mere Internalist Theories Mere internalist theories attempt to solve the difficulties of traditional theories by abandoning rational privileging but retaining internalism. The mere internalist makes justification a matter of possessing internal states that are privileged not by reason but by some internal but more easily attainable means. Some remarks of Nelson Goodman's concerning the justification of inductive and deductive rules of logic are suggestive of one such means: A rule is amended if it yields an inference we are unwilling to accept; an inference is rejected if it violates a rule we are unwilling to amend. The process of justification is the delicate one of making mutual adjust- 8 As with my remarks about traditional theories, the claims made here about pragmatist theories should not be interpreted as exegetical claims about historical figures. 9 ments between rules and accepted inferences; and in the agreement thus achieved lies the only justification needed for either. (1979, p.64) Such a process of "reflective equilibrium" 9 is a means of identifying privileged internal states, but the privilege involved is not rational privilege because it carries no guarantee of achieving truth or probability of truth. Another sort of mere internalist privilege might be employed by a social pragmatist epistemology: those states would be privileged that, according to the cognizer's judicious assessment, were sanctioned by his epistemic community. We will go into some detail concerning the difficulties with mere internalism in a later chapter. But for now we can say that the difficulty with mere internalism as a basis for constructive epistemology is that it opens the door to epistemological nihilism; for, since the sort of privilege on which the mere internalist bases his epistemology gives us no guarantee of achieving truth or the probability of truth, it becomes unclear, on this view, why we should care about epistemic affairs. Externalist Theories Externalist theories (e.g. those of Goldman, Armstrong, Nozick, McGinn 106 ) try to solve the difficulties of mere internalism by replacing internalism with externalism. That is, such theories block the epistemological nihilism that threatened mere internalism by requiring, as do traditional theories, that justification helps to get 9 The term is from Rawls (1971). 10 Probably the first full-blown externalist theory of knowledge is presented in Goldman (1967). Less explicit precursors are F. P. Ramsey in 1929 (see Ramsey: 1978, pp. 126-27) and Watling (1954). 10 us to the truth. However, unlike traditional theories, this requirement is made by reference to external features of a belief. The advantage of appealing to external features is that trying to fulfill this requirement by reference to internal features is tantamount to attempting the impossible task of rationally privileging beliefs; but the requirement clearly seems fulfillable when only external features are required. Since externalist theories do not rely on rational privileging and do not invite epistemological nihilism, they seem to offer the most promise of providing a basis for a constructive neo-Humean epistemology. Consequently, we shall examine their strengths and weaknesses in detail in the next few chapters. 11 2 OBJECTIONS TO EXTERNALISM This chapter examines the two most influential types of objection to externalism to determine whether they eliminate externalist theories as candidate bases for constructive epistemology. The type of objection examined in the first section concerns alleged counterexamples to externalist views. The type examined in the second concerns the alleged irrelevance of external features to the following of justificatory norms and, hence, to justification. 2.1 Counterexample-Based Objections to Externalist Theories This type of objection uses counterexamples to show that externalist accounts of knowledge or justification are unacceptable because they violate traditional or ordinary intuitions about these concepts. For present purposes, it will be convenient to apply all the counterexample-based objections to be considered here to one paradigm theory, a simple form of the type of externalism known as process reliabilism. (Though some of these objections were originally applied to different sorts of externalist theories, the change should not alter their effectiveness since they were formulated to apply to externalist theories generally.) Reliabilist theories, generally, are externalist theories that make justification and knowledge a function of some external aspect of the reliability of cognitive processes. Reliable indication theories 12 (see e.g. Armstrong (1973)), the other chief type of reliabilism, make justification and knowledge a function of whether a cognizer's possessing a belief reliably indicates whether the state of affairs that the belief represents obtains. Process reliabilist theories (see e.g. Goldman (1986)) make justification and knowledge a function of whether a belief has been acquired via a reliable process. Our paradigm process reliabilist theory holds that a belief is justified just in case it was acquired via a reliable process (where "reliable" means the process results in true beliefs more than fifty percent of the time (a higher percentage might be required in some cases)) and that a belief constitutes knowledge just in case it is true and so justified. This theory, which closely resembles several of those offered by Alvin Goldman, will be termed simple process reliabilism. Laurence Bonjour offers one counterexample-based objection to externalism. He describes the following case: Samantha believes herself to have the power of clairvoyance, though she has no reasons for or against this belief. One day she comes to believe, for no apparent reason, that the President is in New York City. She maintains this belief, appealing to her alleged clairvoyant power even though she is at the same time aware of a massive amount of apparently cogent evidence, consisting of news reports, press releases, allegedly live television pictures, and so on, indicating that the President is at that time in Washington, D.C. Now the President is in fact in New York City, the evidence to the contrary being part of a massive official hoax mounted in the face of an assassination threat. Moreover, Samantha does in fact have completely reliable clairvoyant power under the conditions which were then satisfied, and her belief about the President did result from the operation of that power. (1985, p.38) Bonjour claims this case demonstrates the insufficiency of externalist conditions for justification. And, in the case of simple process reliabilism, Samantha's belief about 13 the whereabouts of the president does seem to meet the conditions for justification: the belief is formed by a reliable process, Samantha's reliable clairvoyant power. But, Bonjour claims, Samantha's belief is clearly not justified, for Samantha is being thoroughly irrational and irresponsible in disregarding the evidence that the President is not in New York City on the basis of a clairvoyant power which she has no reason at all to think that she possesses; and this irrationality is not somehow canceled by the fact that she happens to be right. (1985, p.39) Thus, Bonjour's objection to externalist theories seems to be that they provide insufficient conditions for justification because they fail to include rationality as a requirement for being justified, and rationality is an intuitive requirement for being justified. Another counterexample-based objection to externalism is offered by Stewart Cohen. Cohen tries to show that externalist accounts of justification are unacceptable because they fail to provide necessary conditions for justification. He considers a possible world in which Descartes's evil genius hypothesis holds true, i.e. "our cognitive processes (e.g., perception, memory, inference) are not reliable owing to the machinations of ...[a] malevolent demon" (Cohen:1985, p.281). He then asks us to imagine two inhabitants of this world, A, who is a good reasoner, i.e., reasons in accordance with the canons of inductive inference, and B, who engages in confused reasoning, wishful thinking, reliance on emotional attachments..., etc. Since the beliefs of A and B are both produced by unreliable processes (the evil demon sees to this), a reliabilist theory of justification must render identical epistemic appraisals of both sets of beliefs. (1985, p.283) Cohen claims, in effect, that such a case shows that externalist theories such as simple process reliabilism fail to provide necessary conditions for justification because, while 14 neither A nor B meet these conditions, we intuit that A, in contrast to B, is clearly justified in his beliefs. Since what A possesses and B lacks can be fairly characterized as rationality, the upshot of Cohen's example is similar to that of Bonjour's. But while Bonjour's example shows that there can be externalist justification without rationality, Cohen's shows that there can be rationality-and with it justification--without externalist justification. Even if the counterexamples alleged in this sort of objection are genuine, I would argue that such objections are much less conclusive against externalism than those who make them often assume. For these objections seem to assume that for an epistemological theory to be successful, its theories of justification and knowledge must constitute explications of ordinary or traditional notions. For example, the Cohen and Bonjour objections seem to make this assumption when they consider it a sufficient condition for rejecting externalist theories that they violate traditional intuitions that rationality and justification are intimately connected. Assuming these objections make this assumption, they would seem to fail as attacks on externalism in general for two reasons: many externalists do not make this assumption, and the assumption is false. I take up these two points in order. To see that not all externalists assume that epistemological theories must explicate ordinary epistemic notions to be successful, we need only consider the variety of purposes for which such theories have been advanced. Though some externalist accounts have clearly been advanced as explications of ordinary notions (e.g. Goldman (1976) and Kornblith (1980)), others have been advanced for entirely 15 different reasons: some because it seemed a promising way to stop the regress of justification and build a tenable foundationalism (e.g. Armstrong (1973)); some because it was thought important to include animals, small children, and certain artificial cognitive devices among the realm of knowing beings (e.g. Dretske (1981), Alston (1983)); and some because it was thought it would be a good way to naturalize epistemology (e.g. Goldman (1978)). Since these theories are advanced with goals other than the explication of ordinary notions, it would seem clear that not all externalists make this assumption. 11 Thus, counterexample-based objections would seem to fail as general objections to externalism because they do not, as stated, present a difficulty for all externalist theories. However, let us term epistemologies that do not attempt to explicate ordinary epistemic notions radical epistemologies, and those that do, conservative epistemologies. We can say, then, that though counterexample-based objections are ineffective against radical externalist theories, they are effective against conservative externalist theories. Because of this effectiveness, and for other reasons, the remainder of our discussion will focus on the viability of radical externalist theories. 11 Moreover, concerning the particular assumption made in the Bonjour and Cohen objections – that the intuitive connection between rationality and justification ought to be preserved – it is interesting to note that at least one externalist directly rejects it. Alvin Goldman has written in a discussion of skepticism that: Another dimension of appraisal possibly orthogonal to skepticism is rationality. This is a widely cited epistemic desiderata, one that may be feasible for human beings even if both knowledge and justifiedness are not. (Goldman:1986, p. 40) 16 The second reason that counterexample-based objections fail as general objections to externalism concerned the falsity of the assumption that epistemologies must explicate ordinary notions to be successful. It is important to appreciate this reason as well, for if one does not, one might think that all a critic such as Bonjour or Cohen would need to make his objection work against radical theories would be to include an adequate defense of the assumption. To see why the assumption is false, consider an analogous and familiar example from the history of atomic theory. An "essential feature" of the concept of the atom in the mid-nineteenth century was indivisibility. It is easy to imagine that many physical scientists at the time believed that so fundamental a tenet as the indivisibility of the atom could not be revoked without abandoning both the concept of an atom and anything like atomic theory. We know better. Atomic theory survived with the successor concept of a divisible atom because modern atomic theory serves an explanatory role and is related to other disciplines very much the way nineteenth century atomic theory was. The parallel I want to draw with epistemology should be fairly obvious. Just as modern atomic theory has been successful despite employing a concept of atom radically different from the traditional concept, so an epistemological theory might be successful employing epistemic concepts radically different from--and so failing to explicate--traditional notions. It would achieve such success by being able to achieve, 17 while employing these radical concepts, many of the tasks epistemologies traditionally aim to achieve. 12 Thus, it would seem to be false that epistemologies must explicate ordinary notions to be successful and, hence, impossible for counterexample-based objections to become effective against radical theories by defending that assumption. Moreover, it seems doubtful that any addition to counterexample-based objections would make them effective against radical theories, for merely pointing out, as such objections do, that the epistemic concepts radical theories employ differ from the traditional concepts, does not demonstrate a defect in such theories since they may be entirely successful despite these differences. Indeed, pointing out such conceptual differences is pointing out the obvious to the radical externalist, for his very strategy is to employ epistemic concepts that are significantly different from traditional versions in order to achieve greater success than traditional epistemology. 13 Though it would seem doubtful that counterexample-based objections could be effective against radical externalist theories, a remark of Cohen's, occurring later in 12 It might be objected that there is an important disanalogy between epistemology and atomic theory in that it is never considered a task of the latter to explicate ordinary notions about the concepts it employs, but it is often considered a task of the former. It is true that the two are different in this respect, but I see no reason this difference should undermine the overall point. The difference does mean that a radical epistemology, in contrast to a radical physics, will necessarily fail to achieve one traditional epistemological task, the explication of ordinary epistemic notions; but simply because a radical epistemology fails at one task does not mean it fails as an epistemology. 13 In fairness to Bonjour, it should be noted that he does grudgingly admit that his counterexample-based objections are "ineffective" (1985, p. 57) against theories of the sort I have been calling "radical". However, his remarks and tone suggest that he doubts any radical theory could solve any important epistemological problem, so he would seem to believe that the counterexample is effective against any externalist theory worth considering. 18 the same discussion in which he presents his counterexample, can be interpreted as an attempt to supplement his objection so that it will be effective against such theories. After noting that a reliabilist might respond to his Cartesian demon criticism by saying that the distinction between A and B does not concern the justificational status of their beliefs but their being reasonable or rational, he replies: If the Reliabilist wants to distinguish 'justified' from 'reasonable' or 'rational' he may do so. But clearly the important epistemic concept, the one epistemologists have been concerned with, is what the Reliabilist would call 'reasonability' or 'rationality.' ...the Reliabilist [is]...changing the subject. (pp.283-4) For present purposes, we can interpret this remark as supplementing Cohen's counterexamplebased objection with the claim that if the reliabilist "goes radical" and accepts the counterintuitive consequences of Cohen's counterexample, his epistemology will fail because it will constitute "changing the subject" and will no longer be an epistemology. But such a move fails to make Cohen's objection effective, for there is no reason given to believe that changing the notion of justified in this way will constitute a changing of the subject, and the case of the history of atomic theory clearly illustrates that radical changes in a discipline's fundamental concepts need not constitute a "changing of the subject". However, simply because there is no reason to believe it will constitute changing the subject does not, of course, mean that it will not. To determine whether a particular radical externalist epistemology will, requires examining the nature of a full-blown theory, i.e. considering what sorts of epistemological tasks it would perform, what interdisciplinary relationships it would have, etc. And here, clearly, the burden of proof is on the externalist. To show that he has a 19 viable epistemology he must show that it can accomplish a significant amount of epistemological work. To date, there seem to be no externalist theories that have clearly been demonstrated to have this capacity. However, this may simply be because the appropriate theory has yet to be developed. Thus, though it seems clear that counterexample-based objections do not refute radical externalist theories, determining whether such theories might be successful requires considering what tasks they might accomplish. After considering some other objections to externalism, we will begin this latter task. 2.2 Externalism, Awareness, and Norms Another influential type of objection to externalism concerns the alleged irrelevance of external features to justification. Versions of this objection have been presented in a number of places including Pollock (1987) and (1986) and Papineau (1985, p. 377). For our purposes, we can deal with the following generic version: (1) External considerations, by their very nature, are features of which we are unaware. (2) In following norms, we can only concern ourselves with things of which we are aware. (3) Hence, we cannot concern ourselves with external factors when following norms. (4) Justification concerns the epistemic norms we follow. /... (5) Externalist accounts of justification must be wrong since they include in their accounts external factors that cannot be relevant to justification. Pollock claims his version of this argument constitutes a "refutation" of externalism. However, it seems clear that the radical externalist can defend himself against this objection pretty much as he did against counterexample-based objections. He can 20 simply deny premiss (4) as a bias of traditional epistemology--one which his radicalized account of justification abandons. And Pollock actually makes reference to this option for the externalist: The sense of epistemic justification with which I am concerned in this paper is the reason-guiding sense, and if it is acknowledged that...externalism bears only upon another sense of justification then my main point has been conceded. (1987, p.78) Given this admission, Pollock's claim to have refuted externalism is clearly an overstatement. 2.3 the Original Causation Problem Before leaving this discussion of the difficulties facing externalist theories, a difficulty I have dubbed the "original causation problem" should be addressed. This problem, while not a significant factor in the internalism vs. externalism debate, is a difficulty that most externalist theories must solve. The problem can best be presented in the form of a counterexample: Suppose Saddam comes to believe that the world is round via a reliable source, e.g. his high school geography teacher. Later, he comes to place absolute faith in the proclamations of his mentally deranged brother, whom he takes to be a religious prophet. In Saddam's presence, his brother, in the midst of assertions such as "electronic computers are demons from the underworld", "God exists and does not exist", "'Saddam' begins with a 'P'", etc., also proclaims "the world is round". At this point, Saddam's reason for believing the world is round is that his brother says it is. Saddam's belief that the world is round seems to meet simple process reliabilist requirements for justification, for it has been acquired by a reliable process--Saddam learned it from his high school geography teacher--but he clearly seems to lack 21 justification for his belief in his later period. Thus, the counterexample would seem to show that simple process reliabilism gives insufficient conditions for justification. This counterexample is not one which a radical externalist would do well to dismiss as merely reflecting a bias of traditional epistemology, for the intuitions it shows are violated are not merely traditional intuitions but also common-sense intuitions that any externalist wishing to present a consistent theory should respect. Probably the best way for the externalist to solve the problem is to specify that the belief-forming process that determines whether a belief is justified need not be the original process, rather, it is whatever process sustains the belief at a given time. Thus, Saddam's belief in his later period lacks justification because it comes to be sustained by an unreliable belief-forming process. HENCEFORTH, EXTERNALIST THEORIES PRESENTED HERE CAN BE ASSUMED TO INCORPORATE THIS MODIFICATION. 22 3 THE REFERENCE CLASS PROBLEM FOR PROCESS RELIABILISM In the previous chapter we examined several criticisms of externalism and found none that ruled out externalist theories as a possible basis for a successful constructive epistemology. In this chapter we consider an influential criticism of a popular kind of externalist theory, process reliabilism. We pause to consider this more restricted criticism because we will be focusing on process reliabilist theories in coming chapters. I call the difficulty presented for process reliabilism by this criticism--to supply it with the name it has heretofore lacked--the reference class problem for reliabilism. This name was chosen because the problem is closely related to a difficulty in the frequency interpretation of probability concerning the selection of appropriate reference classes for calculating the probability of individual events. 14 The problem arises in trying to apply process reliabilist theories of justification to individual beliefs. Consider, for example, the simple process reliabilist theory of justification. This theory, presumably, gives us a recipe for determining whether a particular belief, a belief token, is justified: discover whether the belief token was acquired via a reliable belief-forming process (henceforth "bfp"). But to follow this 14 For more on this difficulty for the frequency theory see, e.g. Salmon:1966, pp. 83 ff. 23 recipe we must resolve an ambiguity in the phrase "reliable bfp": does it refer to the particular series of events leading to the creation of the belief token--what we will term a bfp token--or to a bfp type? Since types are universals and could have no direct causal effect on a belief token, it seems the phrase would best be interpreted as referring to a bfp token. But now the really difficult question arises--what does it mean for a bfp token to be reliable? Two possible accounts suggest themselves: (1) A bfp token is reliable just in case it is subsumed by some reliable bfp type. (2) A bfp token is reliable under the same conditions a bfp type is reliable. Unfortunately, neither of these accounts is acceptable for the process reliabilist. But to understand why, we first need to know what it is for a bfp type to be reliable. For our purposes we will consider a bfp type reliable just in case it tends to produce more true than false beliefs. (There are other plausible accounts: e.g., a bfp type is reliable just in case more of its actual and possible belief products are true than false. But we stick to this one for the sake of simplicity.) Now we can begin to see the difficulty with account (1). It turns out that any bfp token will be subsumed under many different bfp types. 15 For example, if we form a belief reading an article in Tuesday's newspaper, the bfp token leading to the belief will be subsumed under the following bfp types, among others: forming-a-belief-by-reading, forming-a-belief-by-reading-a-Tuesdaypaper, forming-a-belief-while-engaged-in-another-activity, forming-a-belief-while-one-is-alive, etc. Given the great variety of bfp types subsuming a 15 In fact there will be indenumerably many, but I will not trouble the reader with a proof of this claim. 24 token, it becomes clear upon further consideration that for any bfp token it will always be possible to gerrymander some reliable bfp type that subsumes it 16 ; hence, account (1) has the consequence that every belief is justified and is thus an unacceptable interpretation for the process reliabilist. Account (2) does not fare better. Given our account of reliability for bfp types, account (2) yields "a bfp token is reliable just in case it tends to produce more true than false beliefs". Since bfp tokens are unique (both actually and possibly), there is only their actual belief product to indicate their "tendencies". But this means that all belief tokens producing true beliefs will be judged reliable and all those producing false beliefs unreliable, and, hence, that all true beliefs will be counted as justified and all false beliefs unjustified. Obviously, such a result is unacceptable for any theory of justification, so account (2) is also unacceptable for the process reliabilist. Thus, there does not seem to be ready-to-hand any account of the reliability of a bfp token that does not make the process reliabilist theory of justification vacuous, and this is the reference class problem for reliabilism. A number of philosophers have pointed out, in one form or another, this difficulty, e.g. Foley (1985), Feldman (1985), Chisholm (1988), and Pollock (1986). Pollock in particular has been especially bleak about the prospects for a solution: 16 A quick method of gerrymandering such a type for any token is as follows. First, construct a description of the type that picks out the token uniquely or almost uniquely (e.g. by specifying year, date, time, place, etc.). Then take any highly reliable bfp type, e.g. forming-a-belief-about-people's-telephonenumbers-by-consulting-a-phone-book. Finally, form another type description by disjoining these two descriptions. The result will be a reliable type subsuming the token in question. 25 The only way to avoid this is to impose some kind of restriction on gerrymandering, but there does not appear to be any non-ad hoc way of doing that. (1986, p. 119) [These]... methodological problems seem to me to constitute a decisive refutation of process reliabilism. (1986, p. 121) However, I suspect that, once again, Pollock has overstated the difficulties posed by his criticisms; for there is reason to believe that, contrary to Pollock, there is such a thing as the reliability of a bfp token--despite difficulties in articulating its nature in a philosophically acceptable way. The reason is that we seem to make meaningful judgments about the reliability of bfp tokens with relative ease in everyday life. For example, if we are eating on Tuesday at a Chinese restaurant and see that Sheila comes to believe she will receive a raise tomorrow simply because her fortune cookie presages she will, we judge, of course, that Sheila's belief is not reliably formed. And this judgment would seem to be easily interpretable as a judgment about the reliability of a bfp token: we judge that the particular series of events leading Sheila to develop her belief was not a reliable way to form the belief. It might be thought that one could also interpret this judgment as being equivalent to the conjunction: (a) Believing-what-one-reads-in-fortune-cookies is an unreliable bfp type and (b) The given token is an instance of that type. Such an analysis would eliminate any reference to the reliability of bfp tokens and so provide critics such as Pollock with a means of explaining away apparently meaningful references to the reliability of bfp tokens. But the analysis cannot be right. Suppose we were later to discover that the following type subsumed the bfp token: believing-what-one-reads-in-fortune-cookies-aboutreceiving-raises-when-one's-boss-is- 26 owner-of-the-Chinese-restaurant-at-which-one-is-eating,-and-the-restaurant-makes-its-ownfortunes-and-fortune-cookies. This discovery might lead us, with good reason, to view our initial judgment that the token was unreliable as false, but note that the discovery would have no bearing on the truth of the suggested analysans--the analysans would still be considered (as well as be) true. This difference clearly indicates that the analysandum and the suggested analysans are not equivalent and, hence, that the analysis fails. It would seem then that we make judgments about the reliability of bfp tokens that are not analyzable merely as judgments about the reliability of bfp types. Now it is open to Pollock to claim that these judgments are simply confused and not about any genuine feature of bfp tokens. But there are two reasons to resist such a move: (1) It is usually poor hermeneutics to interpret people as talking nonsense unless alternative interpretations have been exhausted and (2) there is a plausible alternative interpretation. This interpretation is that in making judgments about the reliability of a bfp token we are making a judgment about the reliability of that process type we judge to be critical for the causal production of the belief in question (henceforth I refer to this type simply as the "critical type"). We can put this interpretation in the form of the claim that the judgment is equivalent to the following conjunction: (a) The token is subsumed by some bfp type b (b) b is reliable and (c) b is the critical bfp type for the token. Obviously, an assessment of this interpretation depends on what account is given of the notion of the critical type for a bfp token. Intuitively, the idea is that the 27 critical bfp type is the one (or, at least, one of a class of types) that, given the nature of the cognizer's environment and psychology, is most relevant to assessing whether the belief token was reliably formed. To get a firmer handle on the notion of a critical type, let us recall the Chinese restaurant example. There are clearly several bfp types subsuming the token whose reliability we would judge irrelevant to assessing how reliably the belief was formed, e.g. forming-a-belief-on-a-Tuesday, forming-a-belief-in-a-Chinese-restaurant, forming-a-belief-inclose-proximity-to-food, etc. However, it is difficult to determine just what it is about these types that makes their reliability irrelevant. I suspect that we can see they are irrelevant because we use an intuitive "feel" for what is important in the situation in which the belief was formed in order to select relevant types and exclude irrelevant ones. I would speculate that this feel is the sort of understanding that it is nearly impossible to specify algorithmically (and hence the sort that makes artificial intelligence so difficult), perhaps because it is acquired in the midst of the complex process of becoming a person. However, I would conjecture that we can approximate some of this feel, and so give some definite content to the notion of a critical type, by requiring that the critical type refer only to features that would play a role in a correct psycho-sociological description of the cause of the belief. By "psycho-sociological description" is meant an answer to the question "what caused the belief" that is given in psychological and/or sociological terms. Though there is also no algorithm for determining what features would or would not be mentioned in such a description, relying on such a requirement is a significant improvement over relying on the aforementioned "feel" to give content to 28 the notion of critical type because the requirement does not merely rely on individual impressions to decide whether a type is critical, and, in most cases, determining whether a type meets the requirement should be relatively non-controversial, for, e.g. the requirement would clearly eliminate the three candidate critical types listed above from consideration because the day of the week, the ethnicity of the food, and the degree of proximity to food, respectively, would play no role in a psycho-sociological description of the cause of the belief. 17 In addition to excluding types that refer to irrelevant features, there is another sort of type that should not be counted as critical. Examples in the present case are forming-a-belief-bybelieving-a-written-fortune, forming-a-belief-by-believing-what-someone-else-has-writtenabout-you. The problem with these types is that, though both refer to features playing a role in the cause of the belief, they do not seem to include all the features one would think important for assessing the reliability of the cause of the belief. For example, neither mentions that the fortune is written by someone having no knowledge of the person for whom the fortune is predicted. Such types can be denied critical status by requiring that among types meeting other requirements for being the critical type, choose the narrowest. 18 17 The notion of a "psycho-sociological description of the cause of a belief" is, admittedly, less definite than one would like. However, this indefiniteness is not a major drawback, for its chief function in the account is to serve as a sort of theoretical placeholder for the content of everyday intuitions. 18 It might be thought such a requirement risks making the critical type one that is so narrowly specified that it includes only the bfp token in question. However, I suspect any such narrow specification will include features that violate the previous requirement. 29 Thus far, we have given the following content to the notion of the critical bfp type for a bfp token: 19 (i) The critical type subsumes the token. (ii) The critical type refers only to features that would play a role in a correct psychosociological description of the cause of the belief. (iii) The critical type is the narrowest of those types meeting the other requirements for the critical type. If we assign this content to the expression "critical bfp type" in the tripartite conjunctive analysis of the notion of the reliability of bfp tokens given above: (a) The token is subsumed by some bfp type b (b) b is reliable and (c) b is the critical bfp type for the token. we have the account of bfp token reliability that I want to recommend to the process reliabilist and now defend. The first point to be made in its favor is that it solves the reference class problem in that it does not make the process reliabilist theory of justification vacuous in either of the ways described above or in any other way. The two vacuity problems discussed above were the difficulty of making every belief justified and the difficulty of making all and only true beliefs justified. The former difficulty is avoided because 19 The inspiration for this account, as well as the source of the "critical process type" terminology, is the following remark of Goldman's: Let me advance a conjecture about the selection of process types, without full confidence. The conjecture is: the critical process type is the narrowest type that is causally operative in producing the belief token in question. (1986, p. 50) Apart from giving one example, Goldman says almost nothing about how we are to interpret his conjecture, so I cannot say to what extent his account and mine agree except to say that they differ in that Goldman wants to limit consideration of bfp types to those describing internal psychological processes. 30 the reliability of a bfp token is made dependent on the reliability of one type, the critical process type; hence, it is not possible to make any belief whatever justified by gerrymandering a reliable bfp type for it since the gerrymandered type need not be the critical type. The second difficulty is avoided because the reliability of the bfp token is made dependent on a process type that has multiple possible and (usually) actual tokens, and the various true-false belief product ratios for the type will lead to various reliability judgments for the critical type, and its corresponding token, regardless of the truth-value of the belief token; hence, both true and false beliefs will be justified and unjustified. Another advantage of the account is that it makes perfect sense of ordinary judgments about the reliability of bfp tokens. In particular, it avoids the aforementioned difficulty in making sense of such judgments that plagued the analysis which reduced such judgments merely to claims about the reliability of bfp types. That difficulty, it will be recalled, concerned the fact that our judgment about the reliability of the bfp token in the Chinese restaurant example would change if we were provided with certain additional information-despite the irrelevance of that information to judging the truth of the analysans suggested by the account. The difficulty is avoided with the new account because the collateral information (that Sheila's boss owns the restaurant, and it makes its own fortunes and fortune cookies) is relevant to judging the truth of the new analysans, for the information should lead us to conclude that clause (3) was false since the information indicates a different bfp type is the critical one. One disadvantage of this account is that, since it fails to offer necessary and sufficient conditions for being the critical bfp type, it must be regarded as 31 incomplete and, hence, the boundaries of the concept of reliability for bfp tokens must be regarded as indefinite. Now, for philosophers trained in the analytic tradition (as am I), the inclination is to regard this as a near fatal flaw; however, it is wise to restrain this inclination. The notions of biological species, game, and chair (to name but a few) have so far defeated all attempts to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for their application (at least to my knowledge), yet all serve well in theoretical as well as ordinary contexts, and I see no reason why this account of the reliability of bfp types should not do likewise. 20 (It also might help to assuage analytic consciences to recall that the reason for the failure to specify necessary and sufficient conditions is not logical laziness, but the difficulty involved in articulating the "feel" we employ in selecting the critical process type.) One final note concerning discussions of process reliabilism below. Those discussions frequently apply the phrase "formed by a reliable process" to beliefs. THIS PHRASE SHOULD HENCEFORTH BE UNDERSTOOD AS ABBREVIATORY FOR "FORMED BY A RELIABLE BFP TOKEN", WHERE "RELIABLE BFP TOKEN" IS UNDERSTOOD AS HAS BEEN EXPLAINED ABOVE. This convention is employed to minimize the literary awkwardness of the inherently awkward rhetoric of analytic epistemology. 20 Indeed, in the many contexts in which this notion is employed in subsequent chapters, its indefiniteness causes no difficulties at all. 32 4 EXTERNALISM, OR, HOW TO GET NO MORE FROM KNOWLEDGE THAN TRUTH Thus far, we have succeeded in defending externalism from the most influential criticisms of it. It might be thought that the next step toward establishing radical externalism as a basis for a constructive neo-Humean epistemology would be to justify its radical nature by demonstrating the many tasks such an epistemology would accomplish. However, I will not now undertake such a step. The reason is that I believe the externalist approach contains a flaw that is not remedied by radicalization, and I do not want to spend time evaluating a program so flawed. However, I do believe an epistemology incorporating externalist elements avoids this problem, and it was towards the end of carving a niche for it that I engaged in the defense of externalism above. I will attempt to demonstrate the tasks this epistemology might achieve later. In this chapter the ultimate goal is to uncover this heretofore unnoticed flaw in externalism. However, an equally important goal, achieved en route to this criticism, is the explosion of a dogma of contemporary epistemology--that the primary end of epistemic endeavors is truth--and the bringing to light of the many other important goals there are for such endeavors in addition to truth. 33 4.1 Vericentrism an Epistemology Contemporary epistemologists spend a great deal of effort trying to determine what knowledge is, but, somewhat surprisingly, they give little attention to the question of why we should bother obtaining knowledge or engage in epistemic endeavors. And this question would seem to be of no small import, for, for instance, educational institutions have as their announced aim the imparting of knowledge; so the question would also seem to be the question of the purpose of education. When the question is addressed by contemporary epistemologists (of either externalist or internalist stripe), the answer given seems almost always to be that the goal of epistemic endeavors is truth or, more precisely, true belief. This view of the goal of epistemic endeavors will be termed epistemological vericentrism. More specifically, vericentrism is the view that all genuinely epistemic or cognitive endeavors have, with minor exceptions, true belief 21 as their only goal. This view is expressed commonly enough, and without argument, that it constitutes a dogma of contemporary epistemology. It is evidenced explicitly in the following quotations from the externalists Goldman and Alston and the internalist Bonjour. Goldman writes: ...I...wish to preserve the centrality of true belief in the network of intellectual values. ...We have various cognitive faculties and operations that seem to promote true belief...and this is their principal utility. (1986, pp.138-9) 21 To avoid being diverted by problems with vericentrism that are of no concern here, I will include in this general goal of true belief considerations involved in the epistemic maintenance of one's belief corpus that are related to, though not literally a component of, the goal of acquiring true belief, e.g. the avoidance of false beliefs, the maximization of the number of true beliefs, etc. 34 Alston speaks of ...the basic aim of believing or, more generally, of cognition, viz., to believe truly rather than falsely. (1988, p.269) While he is discussing the role of epistemic justification Bonjour writes: ...the goal of our distinctly cognitive endeavors is truth.... (1985, p.7) A rough corollary of the general claim vericentrism makes about epistemic and cognitive endeavors is that the primary utility of justification is as a means to truth. For it is surely also true that the immediate goal of epistemic endeavors is obtaining justification, and since the vericentrist seems to hold that their ultimate goal is truth, it would seem that justification is beneficial only as a means to truth. Bonjour makes this claim explicitly: If truth were somehow immediately and unproblematically accessible..., then the concept of justification would be of little significance and would play no independent role in cognition. ... The basic role of justification is that of a means to truth.... (Ibid.) On this view justification acquires a role analogous to Wittgenstein's ladder--once it gets us where we want to go (truth) we no longer have any use for it since its only use is getting us where we wanted to go. Of course, one does not point out the existence of a dogma unless one intends to object to it. My objection to vericentrism--including its more specific corollary--is that there are other goals for epistemic endeavors besides true belief; and these other goals derive from the fact that justification, at least as it is traditionally conceived, is more than just a means to truth. There are other benefits to justification--and hence to knowledge, since justification is a component of knowledge--and, it will be argued, 35 these other benefits, what will be termed the extra-verific utilities of knowledge, provide a significant goal for epistemic endeavors additional to true belief. The relevance of the existence of these utilities to my criticism of externalism is that, according to it, externalist knowledge is relatively impotent because it lacks these extra-verific utilities. Obviously, however, it should first be established that there are such utilities before criticizing externalist knowledge for lacking them, and it is to this task that we move next. 4.2 The Extra-verific Utility of Knowledge Since dogmas concern traditional views, it will be most appropriate to exploding the dogma of vericentrism to consider whether knowledge as it has been traditionally conceived possesses extra-verific utility. Thus, we turn first to an examination of the possibility of extraverific utility for knowledge as it has been viewed by traditional epistemological theories (in the sense of "traditional" described in chapter 1); henceforth, we will refer to such knowledge as tknowledge, and to the corresponding notion of justification as t-justification. Later, in connection with the criticism of externalism, we will consider the extra-verific utility of externalist knowledge. In general, the question of extra-verific utility for knowledge is the question of whether some of the usefulness of an item of knowledge derives from a feature other than its being a true belief. That is, clearly truth is, in most cases, a useful feature of a belief--e.g. if one has true rather than false beliefs concerning the presence of lions in one's bedroom one will either avoid being eaten or avoid needless anxiety. Extra- 36 verific utility concerns what other benefits there might be to having knowledge apart from the having of a true belief. Idiosyncratic accounts of knowledge aside, knowledge is distinguished from mere true belief by justification; hence, if knowledge possesses extra-verific utility it must derive from justification. 4.2.1 The Extra-verific Utility of T-knowledge Since extra-verific utility can only derive from justification, to determine whether tknowledge possesses extra-verific utility we must consider whether t-justification provides any. This can be determined by performing a thought experiment in which we add t-justification to a particular case of mere true belief and see what utility is added. Since the original case is already one in which the belief is true, any added utility should be extra-verific utility. Though it will be claimed here that the results of the thought experiment would be the same for almost any theory of t-knowledge or t-justification, it would be impractical to attempt to prove this claim by testing all such theories. Instead, one traditional account will be treated as paradigmatic, and I will attempt to conduct the experiment in such a way that the results will not depend on the account's peculiarities. The paradigm will be the view that a belief has knowledge-sufficient justification just in case it is either one of the kinds of (supposed) infallibly self-justifying beliefs (i.e. either a belief deriving from the (supposed) perceptually given or an a priori belief in (supposed) analytic propositions) or is infallibly derivable from such beliefs. Since this view bears many similarities to Descartes's epistemology, it will 37 be referred to as Cartesian foundationalism; however, it is clearly different from Descartes's actual view on a number of points. The first step in the experiment is to describe a case of mere true belief. Suppose in ancient Rome Julius Caesar's brother Justinian comes by the mere true belief that m: On the ides of March a group of men will attempt to assassinate Caesar. We may suppose that his belief is merely true because he has come by it via a gypsy fortune teller. Next, we will provide Justinian with Cartesian-style justification for his belief. Suppose that, in addition to seeming to hear m from a Gypsy fortune teller, Justinian acquires a variety of other infallibly self-justifying basic beliefs. For example, he eavesdrops on senators' conversations and acquires the belief that he seems to have heard Brutus discussing such a plan on two occasions, and he intercepts some of the senators' mail and acquires the belief that he seems to have seen a letter signed by several senators swearing themselves to such a plan, etc. And suppose that these beliefs, together with other knowledge possessed by Justinian, provide him with infallible justification for m, so that he now has available a demonstration that m. 22 There seem to be at least five respects in which the addition of Cartesian justification increases the utility of Justinian's belief. First, since Justinian now has infallible justification for his belief, he will (typically) believe that he can't be wrong 22 Since, in line with my neo-Humeanism, I believe no Cartesian-style knowledge or justification can exist, I will not attempt to fully describe a case in which he does – the reader must use his epistemological imagination here. 38 about it. This belief, in turn, should lead to an increase in the actual subjective probability of his belief in m. And this increase in subjective probability is beneficial because it is an increase in the subjective probability of a true belief. Second, the justification for the belief can make Justinian aware of certain methods of acquiring justified beliefs and so help him acquire more justified beliefs. For example, he is now aware that he might get more justified--and very important--beliefs by surreptitious surveillance of senators' correspondence and conversations. The justification provides three other benefits because it increases what will be termed the "infectiousness" of the belief. The infectiousness of a belief is the ease with which it may be transmitted to others. 23 The justification increases the belief's infectiousness because Justinian can now--at least with an ideal case of Cartesian justification--convince others of the belief by providing a conclusive proof of it using his justification. 24 The first benefit relating to the increased infectiousness of Justinian's belief is that since the justification is, in this case, making a true belief infectious, it will have 23 This notion of infectiousness bears some relation to recent discussions of the epistemology of testimony. (See e.g. Peacocke (1986), Fricker (1987), and McDowell (forthcoming).) These discussions focus on the question of how an assertion of a known proposition can transmit knowledge to a hearer of the assertion. However, since the infectiousness of knowledge concerns only the spread of belief – not knowledge, these issues are quite distinct and should not be run together. 24 A "conclusive proof" is probably overstating the case; for self-justifying beliefs about how things appear that are involved in Justinian's justification for his belief will be self-justifying only for him and only when he is having the relevant perceptual state, so he will not be able to provide as strong a proof to others as he could have provided for himself, and so will not be able to provide a conclusive proof. But we can ignore this complication for the moment since it only affects the degree of the increase of infectiousness – not whether there will be any. 39 the advantage for the community as a whole of aiding the spread of a true belief through the community; and, for obvious reasons, it is generally better that community members have true rather than false beliefs. (Though, of course, true belief is not always beneficial for a community. For example, in the present case, if Rome will be better off with another emperor it might be better that no one else knew of the plot.) A second infectiousness-related benefit of Justinian's belief is that it will give him greater power to influence the beliefs of others--especially since this increased infectiousness is under his control (he can offer the proof or not, as he wishes) and so pick and choose whom he wishes to infect with his belief. Clearly, such power will be of great advantage in motivating others to act against the conspiracy--especially those dubious of the reliability of fortune tellers. A third infectiousness-related benefit of Cartesian justification is that since it increases infectiousness it will also tend to increase unanimity of opinion within the community. Unanimity of opinion is a benefit for the community when cooperative ventures are undertaken. (However, in some cases it is advantageous to have community members with diverse viewpoints, e.g. in a legislative body. Hence, this benefit is perhaps not as straightforward as the other two.) In the case of Justinian and his belief in m, we seem to have discovered five extra-verific benefits for knowledge that are provided by Cartesian justification. We can summarize these benefits as follows: 40 (1) Increase in the subjective probability for the cognizer of a true proposition. (2) Help in acquisition of more justified beliefs. (3) Increase in the belief's infectiousness, yielding the following benefits: (i) Facilitating the spread of a true belief through the community (since the infectiousness of a true belief is increased). (ii) Increasing the ability of the cognizer to influence the beliefs of others. (iii) Increasing community unanimity. We should consider now whether our discovery of extra-verific utility for this instance of Cartesian knowledge warrants the conclusion that Cartesian knowledge in general has each of these extra-verific utilities. We will consider two objections to that conclusion. First, it might be objected that some of this extra-verific utility cannot be attributed to Cartesian knowledge in general because the utility is relative to the kind of community in which the belief occurs. For example, Cartesian justification will increase the infectiousness of a belief only in a community which has faith in the deliverances of Cartesian reason. (Perhaps community members would be irrational to question Cartesian reason, but no law of nature prevents human beings from being irrational.) Hence, the utilities deriving from increased infectiousness will not obtain for Cartesian knowledge in such a community. And, therefore, one cannot ascribe the utilities accruing to this case of Cartesian knowledge to Cartesian knowledge generally, for not all cases will occur in communities with congenial epistemic norms. The initial reply to this objection is that both the infectiousness and the utility of Cartesian knowledge refer to potentialities. Certain communities or individuals may be unable to take advantage of them because of peculiar beliefs, e.g. that 41 Cartesian reason is untrustworthy, but nevertheless they remain and so exist even in societies with uncongenial epistemic norms. But this characterization of utility and infectiousness opens the door to another difficulty. Since any mere true belief--in fact any belief at all--will have some characteristic in which some possible community's epistemic norms would place absolute faith, such an account of infectiousness runs the risk of rendering mere true beliefs and Cartesian knowledge equally infectious because of equal community-relative potential unless, e.g., some criteria for measuring the degree of infectiousness are included. And if all beliefs are equally infectious, it makes no sense to speak of increased infectiousness as some sort of utility. The best way to solve this problem is probably to abandon the notion of a transcommunity degree of infectiousness and, instead, make distinctions in our list of utilities in terms of kinds of infectiousness and degree of community-relative infectiousness to achieve utilities that are generalizable and avoid the preceding objection. Let us revise our list of utilities 3(i)- (iii) accordingly: (3) Provides a high quality and high degree of infectiousness for a belief in three respects: (i) Provides truth-linked infectiousness and so facilitates the spread of true belief throughout the community. (ii) Insures a high degree of infectiousness in a rational community, and so insures the cognizer a high degree of power to influence the beliefs of others in such a community. (iii) Insures a high degree of infectiousness in a rational community, and so will promote unanimity in such a community. Utility 3(i) now specifies a certain kind of infectiousness that is provided by Cartesian justification: "truth-linked" infectiousness. Infectiousness is truth-linked 42 just in case it derives from properties that are at least more often than not associated with true beliefs. Cartesian justification only accrues to true beliefs, so, clearly, infectiousness deriving from it is truth-linked. Specifying that Cartesian justification provides truth-linked infectiousness rather than increased infectiousness, solves two problems. First, it eliminates the objectionable mention in the old version of 3(i) of an increase in absolute infectiousness. Second, it specifies how, despite there being no increase in absolute infectiousness, Cartesian justification facilitates the spread of true belief. It facilitates it because it introduces infectiousness into the community that will only spread true beliefs. The sort of infectiousness accruing to mere true belief, on the other hand, may spread true or false beliefs indiscriminately. For example, the infectiousness deriving from Justinian's mere true belief that m being acquired via a fortune teller, would aid the spread of true belief in that one case, but, generally, this sort of infectiousness would not aid the spread of true belief because it is not truth-linked. Utilities 3(ii) and 3(iii) now specify that Cartesian justification insures a high degree of relative rather than absolute infectiousness. The degree of infectiousness is made relative to a "rational" community. For a community to count as rational in this sense it is not required that its members always act rationally or only believe what is rational, but only that, at minimum, its members are, for the most part, susceptible to the various means of rational persuasion (though, for a variety of reasons, rational considerations may fail to persuade them in many cases). I take it it will be granted me that human communities are rational communities in this sense and 43 that living in a rational community is, generally speaking, preferable to living in a non-rational community. Granting these presumptions, the shift to rational-community-relative infectiousness solves difficulties similar to those solved by the shift to truth-linked infectiousness. First, it eliminates objectionable talk of increase in absolute infectiousness. 25 Second, it helps to show why, if Cartesian justification provides no increase in absolute infectiousness, it is beneficial in terms of power to influence others and promotion of community unanimity. It is beneficial because it promotes these features relative to rational communities, and such promotion is beneficial because that is the sort of community in which we reside and because rational communities are one of the best sorts of communities to reside in. Moreover, rationality is a feature of the human community as a whole; hence, if one ventures outside one's local human community, infectiousness relative to rational communities will certainly be applicable while parochial sorts of infectiousness may not. These changes to our original list yield a list of utilities possessed by Cartesian knowledge in general, with one exception. Utility (1) (increase in subjective probability) suffers from the same defects we found above in the original utility 3(i), but these defects can also be remedied similarly. Below is a list of utilities that makes the 25 The shift to relative infectiousness is alone sufficient to defeat the problems with talk of increase in absolute infectiousness noted above, but mention even of the increase of relative infectiousness was deleted because even it presents a problem: and makes clear sense only in cases in which one acquires a belief and later acquires Cartesian justification for it, as in the case of Justinian's belief in m; since all cases are not of this type, mention of increased infectiousness is omitted tout court. 44 necessary changes to utility (1) and which will count as our final version of the general extraverific utilities of possessing Cartesian knowledge: 26 (1) Provides a truth-linked assignment of high subjective probability to the proposition believed. (2) Facilitates the acquisition of more justified beliefs. (3) Provides a high quality and high degree of infectiousness for a belief in three respects: (i) Provides truth-linked infectiousness and so facilitates the spread of true belief throughout the community. (ii) Insures a high degree of infectiousness in a rational community, and so insures the cognizer a high degree of power to influence the beliefs of others in such a community. (iii) Insures a high degree of infectiousness in a rational community, and so will promote unanimity in such a community. Thus, it can be seen that one type of t-knowledge, Cartesian knowledge, possesses extraverific utility. Do all other types of t-knowledge possess such utility? It seems likely that most any other type of t-knowledge would also possess such utilities. To see why, consider how the chief differences among types of t-knowledge would affect their extra-verific utility. For example, consider a theory that required only fallibilist and coherentist t-justification for tknowledge. The change to fallibilist justification clearly would have some effect on the extraverific utility, e.g. the assignment of subjective probability would no longer be 1 and the degree of infectiousness of the belief relative to a rational society would no longer be so high; but it seems the extra-verific utilities would remain nevertheless. Nor would the switch to coherentism eliminate extra-verific utilities, for, since the coherentist fallibilist justification is t- 26 The reader may note that some of these benefits are dependent on the belief's being true; nevertheless, they are additional to the utility one derives directly from the truth of the belief and so count as extraverific. 45 justification, we know it will rationally privilege a belief in terms of its probability of being true; hence, because of the nature of rational privileging, it will provide infectiousness as surely as would foundationalist justification. It would seem, then, that vericentrism is wrong, for justification is more than just a means to truth, and knowledge, at least as it is traditionally conceived, possesses extra-verific utilities which provide a goal for epistemic endeavors besides truth. Now that we have dispensed with vericentrism, I want to begin to show how its falsity can be used to mount a criticism of externalism. The first step in this criticism is to consider whether externalist knowledge possesses extra-verific utility. 4.2.2 Externalism and Extra-verific Utility To determine whether externalist knowledge possesses extra-verific utility we can employ the same method used to determine whether t-knowledge possessed it--pick one view as paradigmatic and perform the relevant thought experiment on it. The paradigm will be the simple process reliabilist theory discussed in chapters 2 and 3. Henceforth, we will refer to knowledge on the simple process reliabilist theory as "r-knowledge" and justification of this sort as "r-justification". In performing the experiment on r-knowledge we can use the same example of mere true belief used in our investigation of t-knowledge and then see if the addition of r-justification increases the utility of the belief. Adding r-justification means adding some reliable beliefforming process to the case. However, in choosing a process to add we must be careful. For it would be easy to choose a process that yielded extra-verific utility due to features additional to its reliability. For example, 46 considered as a belief-forming process, Cartesian justification is reliable, but it would be inappropriate to choose it to test r-knowledge since it adds much more than r-justification. Let us add then, the following facts to the case. Let us suppose that, unknown to Justinian, the fortune teller is a senator in disguise, who wants to warn Caesar anonymously of the plot. In this way we add reliability of belief-forming process to the example, but little else of relevance. 27 With one small exception, the addition of r-justification to the belief does not seem to increase its utility. In particular, it fails to add the extra-verific utilities possessed by tknowledge. The r-justification will not provide Justinian with utility (1), for he is not aware that his belief-forming process is reliable and so cannot adjust his subjective probability assignments accordingly. It will not provide utility (2) for similar reasons--Justinian is unaware of his belief's r-justification, so he cannot use it to acquire more justified beliefs. The infectiousness-derived utilities would seem to suffer similarly: since Justinian is not aware of his r-justification, he cannot convey it to others; hence, he cannot use it to positively affect the infectiousness of the belief to provide any of utilities 3(i)-(iii). The exception to r-justification's lack of extra-verific utility is a slight increase in some of the infectiousness-derived utilities. For though, as was just noted, 27 In fairness to the externalist, it should be noted that such an example would not count as knowledge according to what is probably the most sophisticated version of process reliabilism, that expressed in Goldman (1986) (concerning such examples see Goldman's reply to Putnam, p. 110). Nevertheless, I want to retain the example for a number of reasons. First, it draws the distinctions I want to draw more clearly than other examples. Second, the more sophisticated version is both extremely complicated and largely incomplete, so it is far from clear what cases it counts as knowledge. Third, I do not believe this version solves the problems which the present example illustrates. 47 Justinian himself cannot use his r-justification to positively affect the belief's infectiousness and so increase these utilities, his limitation does not prevent others from noticing its r-justification and so becoming more susceptible to infection; and the result of their increased susceptibility would be a utility-producing change in infectiousness. To see how such third-person awareness of Justinian's r-justification could produce extraverific utility, consider the following situation. Suppose Marcus, another senator, knows that a colleague plans to disguise himself as a fortune teller to warn Justinian of some plot. Justinian tells Marcus of his belief and its source. Marcus guesses the identity of the fortune teller and so becomes aware of Justinian's r-justification, i.e. becomes aware that Justinian's belief was acquired by a reliable process. Consequently, Marcus becomes infected with belief in m. The possibility of such cases provides clear justification for ascribing extra-verific utility 3(i) to r-knowledge. For, clearly, any infectiousness deriving from r-justification will be truthlinked and will help spread true belief through the community. Utility 3(ii) will not be attained for it requires that the cognizer intend to make use of his infectiousness, and this Justinian cannot do. The presence of utility 3(iii) is arguable, for it is not clear that, e.g., Marcus is coming to believe in m because he is rational. But let us be charitable to the externalist and suppose that for present purposes it is because he is rational. It would seem, then, that r-knowledge does possess some extra-verific utility; however, I would argue that, compared to the extra-verific utility of t-knowledge, the 48 extra-verific utility of r-knowledge is hardly worth noting. For it pertains only to cases of thirdperson awareness of r-justification as described above, and it seems clear that such cases are rare; moreover, even when they occur, r-knowledge possesses at most two of the five utilities of tknowledge. 28 We should now consider whether the extra-verific utility poverty of r-knowledge extends to externalist theories of knowledge generally. To determine whether it does, and also because it is an interesting topic in its own right, we will examine in detail the reasons for the utility disparity between r-knowledge and t-knowledge. 4.3 Why R-Knowledge and T-Knowledge Differ in Extra-verific Utility Obviously, the utility disparity must be due to some difference between r-knowledge and t-knowledge. The most obvious difference is that t-knowledge requires internalist and rknowledge externalist justification. But it will be useful to examine the differences in greater detail. 28 A defender of r-knowledge might object that the case against extra-verific utility for r-knowledge has been unfairly conducted, for the typical case of r-knowledge will not be one in which there is no firstperson awareness of r-justification – as in the present instance in which Justinian's awareness is blocked by the senator's disguise – but will be one in which such awareness is present, as when one is looking up some item in an encyclopedia. And since much of the criticism of r-knowledge has been predicated on this lack of first-person awareness, the criticism is unfair. The reply to this objection is to point out that, as was noted above, the case of the disguised senator was specifically designed to add only r-justification to the case of mere true belief, and this involves excluding first-person awareness as well as Cartesian justification. The rationale for the former exclusion is that first-person awareness is an internal state of the cognizer and, hence, clearly not a component of r-knowledge. Thus, any contribution it might make to the utility of a belief is not to be attributed to r-knowledge. 49 Some of these differences are nicely detailed in what is perhaps the earliest criticism of a reliabilist account of knowledge. This criticism is made by Wilfrid Sellars in his 1956 lecture "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind". He there considers the following proposal concerning the nature of observational knowledge: An overt or covert token of 'This is green' in the presence of a green item...expresses observational knowledge if and only if it is a manifestation of a tendency to produce overt or covert tokens of 'This is green'--given a certain set-if and only if a green object is being looked at in standard conditions. (1963, p.167) This is a reliabilist account of observational knowledge since it makes knowing hinge on the possession of a reliable "tendency". Sellars's criticism of this view relies upon his claim (henceforth the "authority recognition condition" for knowledge) that ...to be the expression of knowledge, a report must not only have authority, this authority must in some sense be recognized by the person whose report it is. (Ibid., p.168) And the discussion which follows implies that since the proposed view of observational knowledge does not require that the observer satisfy the authority recognition condition, it gives insufficient conditions for the possession of observational knowledge. Sellars says that to satisfy the authority recognition condition the observer must know that tokens of 'This is green' are symptoms of the presence of green objects in conditions which are standard for visual perception. (Ibid.) Moreover, Sellars implies that the proposed view also fails to include a related requirement for knowledge of any type: ...in characterizing an episode...as that of knowing...we are placing it in the logical space of reasons, of justifying and being able to justify what one says. (Ibid., p.169) 50 The reliabilist proposal fails to place knowledge in the "logical space of reasons" largely because it does not make having reasons for one's belief a requirement for justification. I am not now concerned with the correctness of Sellars's criticism 29 but, as noted above, bring it up to delineate the differences between t-knowledge and r-knowledge. The first such difference is revealed in his claim that the reliabilist account is deficient because it ignores the authority recognition condition for knowledge. Clearly, r-knowledge has no requirement of authority recognition for knowledge. For, e.g., in Justinian's case of r-knowledge, he had no awareness or recognition of the special authority of his belief, for he has no idea that his belief was acquired via a reliable process rather than fortune telling. Though our version of tknowledge does not explicitly require that the cognizer recognize the authority of her belief, it does make such recognition easily accessible, and it is typically the case (or would seem to be, if such knowledge existed) that the cognizer actually recognize the authority of her belief. For example, to have Cartesian t-knowledge, the cognizer must possess a sort of proof of his belief. And to the extent that one can possess a proof of a proposition and not recognize that it is a proof of a proposition, Cartesian knowledge does not require that one recognize the authority of one's knowledge. However, the possession of a proof clearly facilitates the recognition of such authority 29 In fact, as it stands, Sellars's criticism is effective against a conservative but not a radical reliabilist. For a radical reliabilist can simply reply that "Yes, your criticism does note a discrepancy between traditional and reliabilist accounts, but I am not trying to create an account of knowledge that fits the traditional mold. So for what reason, then, must knowledge in my sense meet the authority recognition condition or be in the logical space of reasons?" Alston (1983) makes a similar response to Sellars's criticism of reliabilism. 51 and, in typical cases, it would seem that the possessor of such t-knowledge would recognize the authority of his belief, for, typically, when one possesses a proof, one recognizes it as a proof (at least if we make the requirements for possession of a proof reasonably strong). Thus, though authority recognition is not an explicit doctrinal difference between r-knowledge and tknowledge, it would seem to be a difference nonetheless. The second difference is revealed in Sellars's criticism of reliabilism for ignoring the logical space of reasons. Clearly, t-knowledge, but not r-knowledge, requires the having of reasons for knowledge; hence, only the former will be what will be termed a "reasons-based" account. There is a third important difference not illustrated by Sellars's criticisms. Since rknowledge does not require that the cognizer possess reasons for her belief, a fortiori, it requires no rationally privileged reasons. Thus, only t-justification requires rational privileging. Let us consider which of these differences might account for the disparity in extra-verific utility between the two sorts of knowledge. The first difference noted concerned authority recognition. Clearly, authority recognition is an important factor in the extra-verific utility of tknowledge. For it is authority recognition that allows the cognizer to treat his knowings differently from his mere true believings, and such differential treatment is important for obtaining each of the extra-verific utilities. For example, in the case in which Justinian possessed Cartesian knowledge of m, he recognized the authority of his belief, i.e. that he possessed Cartesian justification for 52 it and so could not be wrong. This recognition allowed him to see that his belief was especially trustworthy and adjust the subjective probability he assigned his belief accordingly (utility 1). Since it made him aware that his belief had t-justification, it made it possible for him to use that justification to acquire more justification (utility 2). Since the recognition made him aware that he possessed a proof of his belief, it made him aware that he had that resource to infect others (utility 3). The second difference, making justification a matter of reason giving, also contributes to the utility disparity. Possessing justification of a reasons-based sort insures that the justification will, because it requires the possession of reasons, have a positive effect on the belief's infectiousness. The third difference, rational privileging, also plays a role in the disparity and in two ways. First, it insures a high degree of infectiousness, for it insures (at least in the strongest form of rational privileging) that a full proof of the truth of the belief will be available, and, insofar as people are rational, they should be persuaded by a genuinely full proof. And, it would seem, human beings, although far from perfectly rational, are highly susceptible to persuasion by means of such proofs. Second, rational privileging insures a high quality of infectiousness and subjective probability assignment by insuring that both are truth-linked. Thus, each of these three differences would seem to contribute to the utility disparity. Each points to some aspect of t-knowledge that contributes to extra-verific utility but is lacking in r-knowledge. But in addition to lacking these three attributes, r-knowledge also possesses certain features t-knowledge lacks, and we should consider 53 what effect these might have on the disparity. The primary relevant feature is the requirement that the belief be acquired by a reliable belief-forming process. The only effect on the disparity this requirement would seem to have is to narrow the gap slightly by providing the belief with an authority that others might recognize, as was noted above. We began this inquiry into the causes of the utility disparity partly to determine whether the utility poverty of r-knowledge extends to externalist accounts generally. Each of the features of t-knowledge that we have found to be responsible for the utility disparity are features that no purely externalist account of knowledge could have, for each feature pertains to the cognizer's internal states. Thus, it would seem likely that the utility poverty does extend to externalist accounts generally. Now it is time to consider whether this utility deficit constitutes a problem for externalism. 4.4 The Flaw in Externalism So far I have been content merely to point out the disparity in extra-verific utility between t-knowledge and externalist knowledge. However, I also believe externalist knowledge's lack of extra-verific utility constitutes a flaw in externalism. But so far the radical externalist could reply to this charge as to the charges of Bonjour and Cohen (see chapter 2): he could admit that there is this difference between t-knowledge and r-knowledge, but protest that a difference is not ipso facto a flaw. 54 But this charge is on firmer ground than the criticisms discussed above, for it does not merely concern the failure of externalist knowledge to satisfy our traditional intuitions of what knowledge is, but also concerns a practical deficiency in externalist knowledge--it does not do as much for us as we might expect knowledge to do. And the extra-verific utilities externalist knowledge lacks are, arguably, of substantial significance for the well-being of society, for they promote unanimity and so enhance the ability to engage in cooperative projects, and they promote unanimity of correct opinion and so increase the chances that such projects will succeed. The benefits accruing to the individual from these utilities are also significant. They give her power to influence the views of others (and only about correct opinions), and to have a high degree of confidence in correct opinions. The radical externalist might respond to such a plea by saying that "it would be nice, for the reasons indicated, if knowledge, on one's account, had such extra-verific utility; but this is not the only desideratum for an account of knowledge. T-knowledge, for example, possesses extra-verific utility, but the traditional account cannot be the basis for a constructive epistemology simply because there can be no t-knowledge. The externalist account, on the other hand, can provide such a basis because externalist knowledge clearly can exist. Perhaps extraverific utility is just what must be sacrificed if we are to achieve the greater good of making epistemology a constructive discipline." This response would be fine except for one difficulty. It turns out that this sacrifice is not necessary to provide the basis for a constructive epistemology, for 55 there is a theory of knowledge that both makes knowledge a kind of belief that can exist and preserves extra-verific utility for knowledge. This theory will be the subject of the next chapter. 56 5 BILEVEL RELIABILISM: AN ACCOUNT OF KNOWLEDGE AND JUSTIFICATION Chapter 4 uncovered a defect in externalist epistemologies. In terms of the taxonomy of epistemological theories presented in chapter 1, the inadequacy of externalist approaches exhausts the options for a constructive neo-Humean epistemology. If we are to continue the search for a basis for constructive epistemology, we must either develop new options or somehow resurrect the old. In this chapter an attempt will be made to do both. First we consider whether an original option, mere internalism, might be resurrected. Then we consider a new option, mixed internalist/externalist epistemologies. 5.1 Mere Internalism Reconsidered Mere internalist theories, it will be recalled, make justification a matter of possessing some set of internal states that are privileged but not rationally privileged. Mere internalist theories are worth reconsidering at this point because they seem a natural way to avoid the difficulty encountered by externalism in the last chapter. The reason is that they avoid the difficulties of traditional theories by eschewing rational privileging, but retain the internalist character of traditional theories and so 57 offer hope that they might also retain some of the extra-verific utility of t-knowledge and so avoid one of externalism's chief difficulties. But there are a number of obstacles to fulfilling the promise of mere internalism. First, rational privileging plays a non-trivial role in providing t-knowledge with extra-verific utility. It is what gives t-justification its infective "punch". Moreover, it is what links t-justification to truth, so it is what makes the truth-linked extra-verific utilities ((1) and 3(i)) possible. A mere internalist account must find some way to make up for the contribution of rational privileging if the level and quality of extra-verific utility is to remain the same. Second, rational privileging not only gives t-knowledge much of its extra-verific utility, it is also what makes t-justification a means to truth and so makes t-justification a provider of verific utility. A mere internalist account must also find some means of making up for this contribution of rational privileging if justification is to remain a provider of verific utility. A natural way to attempt to overcome these difficulties is to try to specify some nonrational privilege in regard to truth that a belief must have and that will play some of the roles of rational privileging. Since we are now considering pure internalist theories, we can choose only from internalist sorts of privilege (in particular, we can't attempt to privilege reasons externally via, e.g., an externalist requirement that they be truth conducive). However, it is difficult to see how there could be any sort of purely internalist privileging in regard to truth that would both not be a form of rational privileging and would help mere internalism overcome these obstacles. For the most obviously helpful form of internalist privileging with regard to the 58 truth would involve the ability to "see" from our (internal) perspective that a belief is privileged over its competitors regarding truth, for that would allow us to make the best use of its privileged status. But any privileging that involves such "seeing" would seem tantamount to rational privileging. Thus there seems little hope of finding some sort of non-rational privileging in regard to truth that can play the aforementioned truth related roles of rational privileging. The only avenue left for the mere internalist is to consider means of privileging beliefs irrespective of truth, and see to what extent these might achieve something akin to the (verific and/or extra-verific) utility of rational privileging. For example, one might privilege beliefs in terms of the cognizer's possessing justifying reasons of a sort that is socially approved. Prima facie, such a suggestion is promising since it seems a good way to obtain infectiousness without rational privileging--make one's belief infectious not because it is rationally superior but because one has reasons that the rest of society deem acceptable. But the rest of the utility of tjustification disappears with such a view. All truth-linked utilities (infectiousness-related and otherwise) disappear, as well as all verific utilities since such justification is no longer a means to truth. The only utility such knowledge would possess is the infectiousness-related extra-verific utilities pertaining to ability to influence others (3(ii)) and unanimity (3(iii)). Thus, such knowledge would seem to be even poorer than r-knowledge in overall utility. Mere internalism, then, does not seem very promising as a basis for constructive epistemology. Its main advantage, that it does not require rational privileging for 59 knowledge, also seems to be its chief drawback; for without rational privileging mere internalist knowledge suffers from the same utility poverty as externalist knowledge. 5.2 Mixed Internalist/Externalist Accounts Reasoning that approaches that are inadequate separately might be adequate when combined, several philosophers have proposed mixed internalist/externalist accounts in recent years (e.g. Peacocke (1986) and Alston (1988)). There are two important respects in which mixed accounts can vary: by making different combinations of internalist and externalist elements and by constituting either conservative or radical epistemologies. We will consider first whether conservative mixed views might yield viable constructive epistemologies. Since conservative epistemologies have different goals than radical ones, we must evaluate them on somewhat different terms. Since conservative mixed views are proposed in an attempt to develop an account of knowledge and justification that satisfies our intuitions about what these things are, we can use their adequacy on this count as a means of evaluation. Two desiderata have been paramount in the quest to satisfy such intuitions: avoidance of counterexamples and preservation of the intuition that we do and can have considerable quantities of knowledge. The latter aim is achieved by these mixed views by eschewing rational privileging as a requirement for justification. Typically, proponents of such views begin their argument that their epistemologies achieve the former aim by considering pure externalist accounts. They claim that externalist 60 conditions for justification are clearly necessary, but, in addition, they claim (e.g. because of Bonjour type counterexamples) that they are not sufficient. The missing ingredient, it is then claimed, is the internalist requirement that the cognizer be acting "responsibly" from her epistemic perspective. (Such a requirement of epistemic responsibility constitutes the addition of an internalist element to the account of justification because responsibility pertains to the interconnections between one's internal states.) Typically, acting with epistemic responsibility will involve having reasons for one's belief that are, in some sense, good. Let us see how this argument works with a particular example. Recall the Bonjour counterexample to externalism discussed in chapter 2 in which Samantha comes to believe (truly) via a reliable clairvoyant power--of which she is unaware--that the president is in New York when all the newspapers say he is in Chicago. Proponents of conservative mixed views claim that the reason we are reluctant to ascribe justification or knowledge to Samantha in this case is that she is being epistemically irresponsible--she has no evidence or good reasons for her belief, yet she is not reluctant to adopt it. Conservative mixed views avoid such counterexamples because they also have the internalist requirement that Samantha act responsibly, e.g. that she adopt the relevant belief only if she has substantial evidence for believing that she has a reliable clairvoyant power and that the belief resulted from it. On the basis of such cases, proponents of these views conclude that their theory satisfies our intuitions about knowledge and justification. The chief difficulty with this claim becomes evident once we begin to inquire further into the nature of epistemic 61 responsibility and ask just what it is about so-called "epistemically responsible" behavior that makes it responsible. Two prima facie attractive answers are not available to the conservative mixed theorist: that it is responsible because it is rationally privileged and that it is responsible because it is externally privileged. The former answer is unavailable for obvious reasons, the latter because responsibility is a feature of internal states. The most likely remaining answer would seem to be that epistemically responsible behavior is just behavior that we are comfortable with and that is traditionally accepted by society for one reason or another. But once this answer is accepted, it seems increasingly unlikely that mixed views will ultimately satisfy our epistemic intuitions. For though they might initially be satisfied because the behavior required for the possession of knowledge is behavior with which we are comfortable, once it is made clear that this behavior lacks rational privileging our intuitions will be violated. Thus, e.g., suppose the above case is improved so that Samantha is acting epistemically responsibly because a reputable psychologist has told her that she has a reliable clairvoyant power and that it was responsible for the relevant belief. Our intuitions may initially be happy, but once we delve deeper and discover all the unjustified foundational beliefs on which the scientist bases his claim, our intuitions should react against the claim that Samantha has knowledge. The problem, then, with conservative mixed views, (even, I would claim, with those that include some internalist element other than epistemic responsibility) would seem to be that their internalist element is too weak to satisfy our intuitions about 62 counterexamples but making it stronger risks making knowledge and justification unreachable, e.g. by requiring rational privileging. 5.3 Bilevel Reliabilism, a Radical Mixed View Let us move now to the category of radical mixed theories--the sole category of epistemological theory, of those we have so far mentioned, that we have yet to find unacceptable. But the approach in examining this category will be somewhat different from that employed in examining the others. No attempt will be made to come to a general conclusion about the theories so far proposed in this category, for I know of none. Rather, the primary goal will be to present a radical mixed theory, termed "bilevel reliabilism", that avoids the aforementioned difficulties of externalism--the poverty of extra-verific utility--and traditional internalism--the impossibility of knowledge--and so might serve as the basis for a constructive epistemology. 30 To see what bilevel reliabilism is and how it avoids these difficulties, let us consider how we might, at this point in the dialectic, construct a theory that avoids them. The natural way of avoiding the difficulty concerning the impossibility of knowledge is to omit rational privileging as a requirement for knowledge, as with the mere internalist approach. But the mere internalist then tries to achieve extra-verific utility and build a positive epistemology with what remains of traditional internalism, 30 Though there have been no radical mixed theories proposed as such, some of the conservative mixed theories discussed in the preceding section could serve double duty as radical theories. I believe bilevel reliabilism is superior to such theories, and towards the end of this chapter I argue for its superiority over one such theory that has attracted some attention. 63 and, as we have seen, this attempt is unsuccessful. But, once one has decided to eschew rational privileging, there is another natural path to follow to try to solve the second difficulty, and that is to try to "beef up" externalist theories with internalist elements (other than rational privileging) so that the resulting knowledge will possess extra-verific utility. Let us see how this second path might be pursued. In chapter 4 we discovered three features of t-knowledge that accounted for its utility advantage over r-knowledge: an authority recognition condition, a reasons-based account of justification, and rational privileging. An obvious way to try to "beef up" the utility of rknowledge is to try to add some or all of these features to r-knowledge. Since rational privileging would obviously be an unacceptable addition, we are left to consider the other two prospects. I first consider the possibility of adding an authority recognition condition to rknowledge--a path that leads to bilevel reliabilism--and then consider whether reasons-based justification should be required. Our present goal, then, is to see if some sort of authority recognition condition can be added to the notion of r-knowledge so that its extra-verific utility will be increased. Let us recall Sellars's version of the condition: ...to be the expression of knowledge, a report must not only have authority, this authority must in some sense be recognized by the person whose report it is. (1963, p.168) In terms more appropriate for our present endeavor, we can state the condition as the requirement that a belief constitutes knowledge only if the believer recognizes the authority of the belief. The most straightforward way of adding the requirement to the account of r-knowledge would, of course, simply be to add it to the other 64 requirements for r-knowledge, that a belief be true and acquired by a reliable process. But the straightforward approach saddles our account of knowledge with two unacceptable unclarities: unclarity about what constitutes recognition and unclarity about what authority is to be recognized. The unclarity concerning recognition is particularly worrisome because recognition is an epistemic term, and, in fact, for our purposes "recognizing the authority of a belief" is virtually synonymous with "knowing that a belief has authority". Thus, so construed, the condition would create a circular account of knowledge if it were merely appended to the requirements for r-knowledge. To avoid this circularity we must use some account of recognition that avoids epistemic terms. One easy means of doing this is to interpret recognition in reliabilist terms, i.e. to say that one recognizes a belief's authority when one r-knows it has authority. This interpretation can then be easily converted into an account without epistemic terms via the definition of r-knowledge. The unclarity concerning the nature of the authority to be recognized can be even more easily eliminated: we simply specify that the authority is what makes r-knowledge distinctive, its being acquired by a reliable process. These clarifications result in the following account of authority recognition: S recognizes the authority of his belief in p iff: S r-knows that his belief in p was acquired by a reliable process. Before putting this account to use there is one more ambiguity to be resolved: is the analysans satisfied if S merely r-knows that his belief in p was acquired by some process which (for all S rknows) may or may not be reliable, but turns out to be 65 reliable? Or must S also r-know by which process he acquired his belief and that that process is reliable? I opt for the latter, stronger reading: S recognizes the authority of his belief in p iff: (a) S r-knows that his belief in p was acquired via belief acquisition process b. and (b) S r-knows that b is a reliable belief acquisition process. Hereafter, this sense of authority recognition will be referred to as the r-recognition of authority. This notion of the r-recognition of authority can be used to produce the following version of r-knowledge "beefed-up" by the addition of an authority recognition condition: 31 Knowledge is belief that is true, acquired by a reliable process, and whose authority is r-recognized by the cognizer. This form of reliabilism is what I referred to above as bilevel reliabilism. I give it this name because it requires for knowledge reliably acquired belief at two levels--the belief constituting knowledge and the belief about that belief's authority. (Henceforth, when it is required for clarity, I will refer to the higher level beliefs as "meta-beliefs" and the lower level belief as the "object belief".) In addition to an account of knowledge, bilevel reliabilism includes an account of justification. This account is a straightforward corollary to the account of br-knowledge (as it will henceforth be termed). One will be br-justified in a belief in p 31 The reader should take care not to forget the convention announced at the end of chapter 3 concerning the interpretation of expressions such as "acquired by a reliable process" in interpreting this account. 66 when one's belief fulfills either all the requirements for br-knowledge or all of them except the requirement that p be true. More precisely: S is br-justified in his belief that p iff his belief is r-justified (i.e. acquired by a reliable process), and S r-recognizes the authority of his belief. Another way to view the notion of br-justification is that it requires r-justification on two levels-with the additional requirement that the meta-beliefs are true and, hence, r-known. Thus, the process of br-justification can be viewed as having two parts. First, one acquires an object belief via a reliable process, e.g. looks it up in an encyclopedia. Second, one r-recognizes the authority of the object belief, e.g. comes to believe, truly and via a reliable process, that looking up things in an encyclopedia is a reliable belief acquisition process and that the object belief was acquired by that process. Let us consider a concrete example of br-knowledge. Suppose a librarian, Lester, acquires the true belief that h: Belize was formerly British Honduras by reading it in an encyclopedia. Since it is true, Lester's belief that h constitutes br-knowledge if it is br-justified. It will be br-justified if it meets the two requirements for br-justification. It meets the first requirement because it is acquired by the reliable process of consulting an encyclopedia. It will meet the second if Lester r-recognizes the authority of his belief in h. He will do so if, in turn, he fulfills the two requirements for the r-recognition of authority. We can suppose he fulfills clause (a) because he r-knows, via reliable introspection, that he acquired his object belief by 67 consulting an encyclopedia. And we can suppose he fulfills clause (b) because his professional experience with encyclopedias allows him to r-know that consulting an encyclopedia is reliable. 5.4 The Extra-verific Utility of Br-knowledge Having succeeded in developing a mixed theory based on r-knowledge but including an authority recognition condition, we should now consider whether this theory achieves its intended purpose, i.e. whether br-knowledge possesses a significant amount of extra-verific utility. Previously we determined whether a kind of knowledge possessed extra-verific utility by performing a thought experiment in which the relevant sort of justification was added to a case of mere true belief and then noting the effect of the addition on the utility of the belief. We can test br-knowledge in the same way. Let us consider an example of mere true belief in which pathological liar Laurence makes claim e to his friend Eileen: e: There will be a total eclipse of the sun tomorrow. Suppose further that e is true and Eileen thus comes to have the mere true belief that e. Let us now add br-justification to Eileen's belief. Suppose that Eileen disbelieves Laurence's claim at first, and proceeds to verify it in a world almanac, and then believes e. We can suppose that she thus achieves the two components of br-justification. She achieves the first of r-justifying her object belief since it is now acquired by the reliable process of consulting a reliable source. The second component is the r- 68 recognition of the authority of the object belief, which, it will be recalled, also has two components: r-knowing that one's belief was acquired by reliable process b, and r-knowing that b is a reliable belief acquisition process. We will suppose she achieves the first because she uses reliable introspective and observational powers to notice that she acquired her object belief from the world almanac. And we will suppose she achieves the second because her past experience with world almanacs and similar reference sources reliably indicates that they are reliable sources on matters of this kind. Now we should consider whether the addition of br-justification increases the utility of the belief. Likely suppliers of increased utility are the sorts of extra-verific utilities noted for tjustification in chapter 4: (1) Provides a truth-linked assignment of high subjective probability to the proposition believed. (2) Facilitates the acquisition of more justified beliefs. (3) Provides a high quality and high degree of infectiousness for a belief in three respects: (i) Provides truth-linked infectiousness and so facilitates the spread of true belief throughout the community. (ii) Insures a high degree of infectiousness in a rational community, and so insures the cognizer a high degree of power to influence the beliefs of others in such a community. (iii) Insures a high degree of infectiousness in a rational community, and so will promote unanimity in such a community. We saw in chapter 4 that the first component of br-justification, r-justification, brings about a small increase in utility 3(i). Whatever improvement br-justification is to make on this performance will hinge on the other component, authority recognition. Authority recognition does seem to provide utility (1). Authority recognition provides Eileen with the meta-belief that her belief in e was reliably acquired, and, in 69 typical cases, this meta-belief should lead her to assign a high subjective probability to e. And this assignment will be truth-linked; for since her meta-belief that her object belief was reliably acquired must be true if she is br-justified, the assignment will be made only to reliably acquired object beliefs, which, of course, are mostly true. Utility (2) also is obtained. Authority recognition provides Eileen with the information that almanacs are reliable sources of information. She can use that information by consulting almanacs to obtain more br-justified beliefs. Utilities 3(i)-(iii) hinge on the quality and degree of infectiousness of a belief, so to see if they are obtained we should consider whether authority recognition improves the quality or degree of infectiousness. There seem to be two principal ways in which authority recognition can affect infectiousness. First, authority recognition provides Eileen with meta-beliefs that she can use to convince others of her object belief. For example, she can say to her philosopher friend Phillip "I read in the world almanac that there will be a total eclipse of the sun tomorrow", and also report, if he is unaware of the reliability of almanacs, the content of her other metabelief, that almanacs are reliable sources. The reporting of meta-beliefs clearly improves the quality of infectiousness. It does so because the infectiousness provided is truth-linked, for to be a component of br-justification the meta-beliefs must be true, and if the meta-beliefs are true then the object belief must be reliably acquired and thus, usually true; hence, meta-beliefs of brjustification will be reportable mostly in cases in which the object belief is true, and so the infectiousness is truth-linked. The reporting of meta-beliefs can also be seen as contributing to the degree of infec- 70 tiousness. However, it would not seem to have any special effect on the degree of infectiousness in rational communities as did t-knowledge, for br-justification provides no sort of rational privileging. In the present case, the difference can be seen by noting that the fact that Eileen is br-justified provides no guarantee that she have any reason at all for believing that almanacs are reliable sources of information, and so there is no special rational persuasiveness that accrues to her reports of her meta-beliefs. However, there is a type of community in which it would be desirable in which to live and in which such reports would affect the degree of infectiousness--a community whose members had, to a significant degree, reliable belief forming processes. For the members of such a community would be prone to recognize the truth of Eileen's reports of her meta-beliefs, and so would be infected with the meta-belief and then would also be more readily infected with the object-belief. Thus, the reporting of meta-beliefs would contribute to the degree of infectiousness in such a community. A second way in which authority recognition improves the degree and quality of infectiousness concerns the direction in which Eileen can pursue a defense of her object belief. Merely reporting meta-beliefs, as above, begins such a defense, but suppose these too are questioned. Her defense can continue in one of two directions: Eileen can attempt to defend e directly, by trying to convince the doubter that there will be a total eclipse of the sun tomorrow, or she can attempt to defend it indirectly by defending her meta-beliefs in the authority of her belief in e. The first means of defense is unaffected by the possession of the sort of authority recognition supplied by 71 br-justification, but the second is facilitated. To see how, let us consider how the second sort of defense might occur in the present case. Suppose Eileen mentioned "There is going to be a total eclipse of the sun tomorrow--I read it in the world almanac, which is reliable on such matters" to a visitor from Sudan who knew nothing of world almanacs. If the Sudanese doubts her claim that e, she might then defend her belief indirectly by defending her meta-belief in the reliability of world almanacs, e.g. by showing the Sudanese a world almanac and noting its accuracy on other matters. It can be seen that the r-recognition of authority facilitates her defense in two ways. First, it supplies Eileen with the meta-beliefs to defend. Second, since the authority recognition guarantees that the meta-beliefs Eileen is defending are true, the recognition increases the chances that the defense will be successful, at least among inquirers (such as the Sudanese and Eileen) who are capable of discovering the truth of the matter. Since the defensibility of a belief is part and parcel of its infectiousness, the r-recognition of authority's contribution to the defensibility of Eileen's belief represents a contribution to its infectiousness. To determine whether this contribution yields extra-verific utility, we must consider whether the infectiousness contributed is an improvement in the degree and/or quality of infectiousness. It seems to be both. The infectiousness is truth-linked because it derives from br-justification, and br-justification is truth-linked. And the infectiousness contributed is of high degree in a desirable community type. As with authority recognition's other contribution to infectiousness, this sort of infectiousness will be effective in a community whose members 72 have, by and large, reliable belief forming processes; for the defense of meta-beliefs employed in the case of br-justification will always be of true beliefs and, hence, will have good chances of succeeding in such a society. In sum, then, br-justification provides infectiousness-derived utilities in two ways: (1) it provides meta-beliefs the mere reporting of which can improve infectiousness and (2) it facilitates the indirect defense of object beliefs via the defense of meta-beliefs. We see then that br-knowledge possesses extra-verific utility in abundance. In fact, apart from utilities 3(ii)-(iii) being relativized to a different sort of community, br-knowledge seems to possess all the sorts of extra-verific utilities of t-knowledge, though perhaps to a lesser degree. 5.5 Bilevel Reliabilism and Reasons-based Justification Above we noted that there are two ways in which one might try to "beef up" r-knowledge to increase extra-verific utility: add an authority recognition condition and require a reasonsbased account of justification. Bilevel reliabilism is the result of pursuing the former option, and we should now consider whether the other option ought also to be pursued. Since, as we have seen in the preceding section, pursuing the path of authority recognition has led to the successful theory of bilevel reliabilism, the other option seems most promising considered as an addition to bilevel reliabilism, i.e. the most attractive way to "beefup" a reliabilist theory with reasons-based justification would 73 be to add it not to r-knowledge but to br-knowledge. But there are several reasons for not making this move. First, the primary upshot of such a move would be to exclude certain cases of br-knowledge--those lacking certain sorts of reasons--from the category of knowings. There would be a reason to exclude such cases if we were presently attempting to construct a conservative epistemology, for such cases clearly violate intuitions about the nature of knowledge. But since bilevel reliabilism is a radical epistemology, violations of intuitions are not a primary concern. Second, since there are no rationally privileged reasons, it is unclear if there is any real basis for selecting a sort of reasons to require for knowledge. Third, there are certainly a number of functions reasons serve, e.g. they seem to help us get to the truth, they seem to play an important role in our intuitions about what counts as knowledge, and they have an important semantic role as well. Since these functions must be recognized somewhere in one's theory of the world, why, it might be asked, not recognize them in one's theory of knowledge? In fact, each of these functions is addressed in my overall epistemology. The first is addressed simply in the bilevel reliability requirement, for if reasons help one get to the truth, that will be one more way in which one can reliably acquire a belief. The second and (to some extent) the third will be addressed in the account of folk epistemology presented in subsequent chapters. 74 5.6 Bilevel Reliabilism and Alston's "Internalist Externalism" Another mixed internalist/externalist theory, the account of justification presented in William Alston's "An Internalist Externalism" (1988), has attracted a good deal of attention recently. If this view were presented as a radical epistemology it would avoid the criticisms of conservative mixed views made above and would be a competitor to the bilevel reliabilist account. I argue below that if it is so construed, bilevel reliabilism is still the superior view. However, in addition to introducing Alston's view to provide a dialectical opponent for bilevel reliabilism to vanquish, I also want to consider it because it has many instructive similarities and differences with bilevel reliabilism the illuminating of which should aid in the appreciation of the special character of bilevel reliabilism. 5.6.1 Alston's Account Alston has generally written in defense of externalist theories such as reliabilism, though he has usually stopped short of endorsing a particular reliabilist theory. But in this article he confesses some dissatisfaction with the usual reliabilist account of justification: We find something incongruous, or conceptually impossible, in the notion of my being justified in believing that p while totally lacking any capacity to determine what is responsible for that justification. Thus, when reliability theorists of justification maintain that any reliably formed belief is ipso facto justified, most of us balk. ...since it is possible for a belief to be reliably formed without the subject's having any capacity to determine this.... (1988, p.272) He then asks why we have such intuitions about justification, i.e., why we think that for a subject to be justified in a belief, he must have "access" to the justification. In 75 his answer he notes first his view that the notion of "being justified in holding a belief" is important to us because we have ...the practice of critical reflection on our beliefs, of challenging their credentials and responding to such challenges--in short the practice of attempting to justify beliefs. (1988, p.273) Granting this, Alston argues, it becomes clear why we intuitively require that a subject have access to his justification if he is to be justified: But then it is quite understandable that the concept should include the requirement that the justifier be accessible to the subject. For only what the subject can ascertain can be cited by that subject in response to a challenge. (1988, p.274) Thus far, Alston's line of argument should seem somewhat reminiscent of arguments presented above. 32 He notes an intuitive difficulty with reliabilist accounts of justification--that they guarantee the subject no access to the justification for his belief--and explains the intuition that such access is required by appeal to our practices of justifying our beliefs to others. Above, we discovered a defect in externalism in the form of a lack of extra-verific utility for externalist knowledge, part of this lack concerned the degree of infectiousness of a belief, and responding to challenges to a belief is, of course, a determinant of infectiousness. Having presented a difficulty with reliabilism and analyzed its source, Alston proposes a solution. He proposes a view of epistemic justification which is fundamentally reliabilist and externalist, but includes an internalist element to solve the 32 Just for the record, it should be noted that the theory of bilevel reliabilism as well as the line of thought leading to it were developed before its developer had read Alston's article. 76 problem concerning a subject's access to the justification for his belief. As I understand it his view is that S is (prima facie) justified in believing p iff (1) S's belief that p is "based on an adequate ground". (p.265) (2) The ground is "the sort of thing whose instances are fairly directly accessible to [S] on reflection". (p.275) (To simplify matters I ignore the additional, and less interesting, conditions that must be fulfilled to be ultima facie justified on Alston's account.) Alston phrases his account in idiosyncratic terminology, so I will explain it before considering the account's plausibility. To clarify Alston's position, we must consider what he means by the ground of a belief, being based on a ground, and being an adequate ground. Concerning "ground" he says: I...use 'ground' for the psychological input to the belief forming mechanism, i.e., the belief or experience.... (p.267) and ...the "ground" for a belief is not what we might call the total concrete input to the belief forming mechanism, but rather those features of that input that are actually taken account of in forming the belief, in, so to say, "choosing" a propositional content for the belief. (p.268) One of Alston's examples of a ground is one's belief that the streets are wet when that grounds one's belief that it rained last night. It should be stressed that for Alston a ground is always a psychological state of the subject, either a belief or an experience. A belief is based on a ground only if the belief is causally dependent on the ground, but, of course, mere causal dependence is not sufficient. As to what conditions are both necessary and sufficient, Alston suggests: 77 Wherever it is clear that a belief is based on another belief or on an experience, the belief forming "process" or "mechanism" is taking account of that ground or features thereof, being guided by it, even if this does not involve the conscious utilisation of a belief in a support relation. To say that my belief that the streets are wet is based on the way they look is to say that in forming a belief about the condition of the streets I (or the belief forming "mechanism") am differentially sensitive to the way the streets look; the mechanism is so constituted that the belief formed about the streets will be some, possibly very complex, function of the visual experience input. (p.266) Thus, a belief is based on a ground if and only if the belief is appropriately causally dependent on another belief or experience. Clearly, however, being based on a ground is insufficient for being justified in a belief. For example, one's belief that one will become rich today may be based on the ground that one believes a horoscope's prediction to that effect. Alston requires, in addition, that to be justified one's belief must be based on an adequate ground. And he says that the "adequacy of a ground...depend[s] on its being a sufficiently strong indication of the truth of the belief grounded" (p.270). We now have a rough idea of the meaning of clause (1). If this had been all there was to Alston's view of justification, it would already have both internalist and externalist components. It is internalist in that it requires that the ground of a belief be a (internal) psychological state. It is externalist in its requirement that the ground be truth conducive. But if Alston stopped with clause (1) he would have left the difficulty he ascribed to reliabilist accounts of justification unsolved. For though he has required that the ground be an internal state, he has made no provisions for insuring that this ground will be available for citation if the belief is challenged. This is the job of the 78 second clause, which adds a second internalist element. It insures that in most cases the subject will be able to cite (at least upon reflection) his ground in defense of his belief. (Alston's reasons for not requiring accessibility are irrelevant to the present discussion.) Thus, examples such as Bonjour's clairvoyance case--in which the believer has no means of defending his belief--do not come out justified on Alston's account, for there is no ground for the belief, and, so, a fortiori there is no ground accessible to the cognizer to defend his belief. 5.6.2 Alston's Account and Bilevel Reliabilism I want now to stress just one important respect in which bilevel reliabilism is superior to Alston's account. The internalist element of br-justification, it will be recalled, is the authority recognition condition: S recognizes the authority of his belief in p iff: (a) S r-knows that his belief in p was acquired via belief acquisition process b. and (b) S r-knows that b is a reliable belief acquisition process. Similar to Alston's requirement that the subject have access to the ground of his belief (clause (2)) is clause (a) of bilevel reliabilism's authority recognition condition. In each case the subject has a belief with which he might conceivably respond if his original belief is challenged. Clause (b) also has a place in Alston's scheme, it is tantamount to recognizing that a ground is adequate; but Alston specifically excludes recognition of the adequacy of the ground from his conditions for justification (p.281). One of his reasons for doing so seems to be that he did not believe he could 79 include this condition and preserve the externalist character of his account. But, in any event, excluding it renders his account inferior to bilevel reliabilism. The inferiority is reflected in the effect that excluding such recognition has on the extraverific utility of knowledge. Let us consider the effect in the case of his example of believing it rained last night on the ground that the streets are wet. Suppose that this ground is sufficiently truth conducive to be adequate (broken water mains, etc. not occurring often enough to undercut adequacy), and suppose that the subject has access to the ground (i.e. if someone asks him why he thinks it rained last night he says "the streets are wet"), so clause (2) is also satisfied. But suppose further that the subject does not recognize the adequacy of his ground (the further requirement that bilevel reliabilism makes (clause (b)), i.e. that he does not recognize that the ground is truth conducive. The effect of this omission on the extra-verific utility justification lends to knowledge is disastrous. Recall once again the extra-verific utilities of t-knowledge: (1) Provides a truth-linked assignment of high subjective probability to the proposition believed. (2) Facilitates the acquisition of more justified beliefs. (3) Provides a high quality and high degree of infectiousness for a belief in three respects: (i) Provides truth-linked infectiousness and so facilitates the spread of true belief throughout the community. (ii) Insures a high degree of infectiousness in a rational community, and so insures the cognizer a high degree of power to influence the beliefs of others in such a community. (iii) Insures a high degree of infectiousness in a rational community, and so will promote unanimity in such a community. The subject will not obtain utility (1). For he will not place a high subjective probability on his belief that it rained last night because he has an adequate ground, 80 for he has no idea whether the ground is truth conducive. Similarly, he cannot use his justification to acquire more justified beliefs, for he has no beliefs about whether this belief is epistemically better off than a mere true belief. Infectiousness (and the benefits that accompany it) is improved slightly, for the subject can defend his belief with "the streets are wet", and this defense will be both truth-linked and more effective in a society whose members have mostly reliable belief forming processes. Such infectiousness is similar to that achieved by the possessor of br-knowledge by the mere reporting of the content of meta-beliefs. But the infectiousness of br-knowledge pertaining to the defense of meta-beliefs is not obtained. For the subject has no idea whether his belief was acquired from an adequate ground, so he cannot defend his belief on the basis that it was reliably acquired. Thus, in terms of extra-verific utility, Alston's account would seem to make only a small improvement upon the lot of the usual reliabilist accounts, whereas bilevel reliabilism succeeds almost as well as traditional accounts. 5.7 An Externalist Objection Because of its advantage in extra-verific utility, bilevel reliabilism would seem to be superior to any pure externalist theory. However, the externalist might contest our assumption that possession of extra-verific utility constitutes such a decisive advantage for bilevel reliabilism. He might claim that the extra-verific utility of br-knowledge comes at a price: the authority recognition condition included by bilevel reliabilism to achieve extra-verific utility excludes cases of mere r-knowledge--cases 81 of r-knowledge in which authority recognition is absent--from the bilevel reliabilist account of knowledge. And this exclusion is a problem, the externalist might argue, because non-human animals and pre-linguistic children seem to have lots of knowledge, but this exclusion would seem to prevent them from having any. The externalist might then claim that there is a pure externalist alternative superior to bilevel reliabilism. This epistemology would consist of the simple reliabilist view represented by r-knowledge, and would relegate to one of its branches other than the theory of knowledge and justification the issue of extra-verific utility. This epistemology would, the externalist might claim, be superior to bilevel reliabilism because it preserved the possibility of knowledge for animals and children while at the same time dealing with the issue of extra-verific utility. The bilevel reliabilist's best reply to such an objection is probably just to point out that the pure externalist alternative is preferable only if the intuition that animals and children have knowledge is right. But there are, of course, well known reasons to doubt that that intuition is right. But, assuming these reasons are inconclusive, there would appear to be a standoff between bilevel reliabilism and the pure externalist alternative. 33 If these views were developed into full-blown epistemologies, and we could see the explanatory roles the concept of knowledge played in each, perhaps there 33 The reader should not conclude from the existence of this standoff that the criticism of externalism in chapter 4 comes to nought, for it has, even if the pure externalist option is embraced, forced the externalist to recognize the importance of extra-verific utility. And the recognition of the importance of extra-verific utility is, I think, the most important result of this criticism. 82 would be some firmer basis for preferring one to the other. But, at this point, we must proceed on the basis of educated hunches. My hunch is that bilevel reliabilism is the more promising of the two theories, and, having shown above that it avoids the difficulties of the usual epistemological alternatives, I want next to see what in the way of constructive epistemology might be built upon this foundation. 83 6 EXPLAINING EPISTEMIC PRACTICES: PRELIMINARIES In bilevel reliabilism we have discovered a radical mixed theory of knowledge and justification that escapes each of the objections that have so far been raised against externalist and internalist epistemologies. To establish it as a promising basis for constructive epistemology, there remains the all-important task of justifying its radical nature by showing that there are significant epistemological tasks it can accomplish. In this chapter the nature of one such task is discussed. In the next chapter the task is carried out. 6.1 A Task for Bilevel Reliabilism There are some tasks that it would likely be fruitless for any radical or largely externalist theory of knowledge to attempt to undertake, e.g. explicating the ordinary concept of knowledge or, since external features are outside a cognizer's perspective, providing first-person guidance in evaluating epistemic norms. One sort of task that would seem suitable for both radical and purely or partly externalist theories, such as bilevel reliabilism, is the examination of a cognizer or group of cognizers from an "external" perspective, i.e., roughly, a perspective in which the examiner is privy to certain epistemically relevant features of a cognizer's environment that are external to 84 the cognizer's perspective. One example of such a situation would be a designer's evaluation of the performance of a robot with artificial intelligence. In such a case the designer would, typically, have access to many features of the robot's environment external to its perspective but crucial to evaluating its success, e.g. the design of the robot's hardware and software, whether the robot was operating as designed, whether the robot was finding the correct solutions to the problems it faced, e.g. whether it correctly identified the blue box as the blue box. The particular task to which bilevel reliabilism will be applied is of this sort and will involve taking an external stance to a problem that is, in my view, one of the most important facing a neo-Humean epistemology (i.e. an epistemology that denies the existence of rationally privileged beliefs). The problem concerns the epistemic practices we engage in daily, our practices of inquiry and justification. These practices seem, for all the world, to be aimed at the rational privileging of beliefs. But if, as the neo-Humean epistemologist maintains, there is no rational privileging, then the question naturally arises as to just what the function, if any, of these practices is and just why they have arisen. I want to apply bilevel reliabilism to this problem by using it to provide an explanation of the existence and function of epistemic practices. Such a project can be approached rather naturally from an external stance. We can consider the project from the viewpoint of an anthropologist who is attempting to determine the explanation of the existence and function of some cultural practice. Though in this case we are part of the culture being examined (human culture), the external stance can still be 85 taken since we will often be aware of many features of the epistemic environment that particular human subjects may not be, e.g. we will know details of human cognitive capacities and, when investigating past behavior, we will be aware of the future course of events. Before presenting the explanation itself, we must first consider a number of topics in more detail: the nature and importance of the task, strategies for pursuing an explanation of epistemic practices, "folk" epistemology, and the content of human epistemic practices. 6.2 The Nature and Importance of the Project of Explaining Epistemic Practices We should first be more precise about just what project we are considering, for there are many sorts of practices that might be counted as epistemic and many aspects of epistemic practices that might be explained. As the term is used here, "epistemic practices" refer to practices peculiar to the production, maintenance, and evaluation of a society's body of knowledge. So construed, three of the chief epistemic practices are the practices of classifying beliefs as knowings or non-knowings, justifying and requesting justification for a belief, and engaging in inquiry. As was indicated above, the aspects of epistemic practices to be explained here are their existence and function. By an "explanation of the existence of epistemic practices" is meant an account of how and why they have come to exist in human communities generally. That is, an account of the historical events leading to the development of such practices in a particular human community is not, of course, 86 what is meant here; but, rather, an account capable of explaining what general features of human communities have led to the development of such practices in nearly every extant human community. By "an explanation of the function of epistemic practices" is meant an account of their chief function, presumably a beneficial one, relative to human affairs. It is conceivable, though it would seem unlikely, that there is no such function, e.g. because, as with astrological practices, the practices are based on false assumptions and the chief function is not real. (Practices may, of course, have secondary functions even if there is no chief function, e.g. astrological practices may entertain people. But these secondary functions are not of concern here.) This pairing of aspects to be explained is not, of course, random. The explanation of the function of a practice is often closely related to the explanation of its existence. For example, the function of placing broken limbs in plaster casts is to speed their healing and insure that they are in proper alignment. Though the explanation of the function of this practice does not explain exactly how it came to exist, it clearly goes a long way toward explaining why the practice exists. However, there are clearly cases in which the explanation of these two aspects of a practice are not closely related. For example, the practice among Catholics of avoiding the use of contraceptives has the function of contributing to overpopulation in some predominantly Catholic countries, 34 but clearly this function does little to explain the existence 34 Actually, this is a secondary function of the practice, but it serves for illustratory purposes. 87 of the practice. We shall see below how the explanation of the function and the existence of epistemic practices are related. Now that the explanatory project to be undertaken has been clarified, let us consider the reasons to undertake it. One reason is just that it would be nice to know about the origin and function of a practice so fundamental to human culture. Another reason is a reason largely for neo-Humean epistemologists. The explanation of the existence and function of epistemic practices is a rather straightforward affair for traditional epistemologies. 35 Traditional epistemologies identify knowledge with some sort of rationally privileged belief. Given this identification, it seems clear that the function of ordinary epistemic practices can be explained as the production, evaluation, etc. of such privileged beliefs; and the existence of such practices can be explained in terms of human beings recognizing the importance of such beliefs and developing practices to promote, evaluate, and identify them. However, as was noted above, because neo-Humean epistemologies abandon rational privileging, there is no such straightforward explanation for them to employ. And this lack creates a second reason for undertaking an explanation of epistemic practices: a neo-Humean epistemology that fails to provide an explanation of the existence of epistemic practices leaves itself open to an attack on grounds of explanatory inadequacy. This point can be illustrated by considering a recent neoHumean approach to epistemology. This 35 The straightforwardness of the explanation helps to explain why traditional epistemologists give little attention to the issue. 88 approach is called by Richard Rorty "epistemological behaviorism", and he characterizes it as the "method" of: Explaining rationality and epistemic authority by reference to what society lets us say, rather than the latter by the former.... (Rorty:1979, p.174) This approach lends itself to an epistemology according to which justification is merely a matter of having beliefs which are supported in socially approved ways. As it stands, such a deflationary epistemology, at least in its more sophisticated forms, is understandably appealing to those seeking alternatives to traditional epistemology. However, as it stands, it leaves us totally in the dark concerning an explanation for the existence of epistemic practices. Why should society bother to approve certain ways of supporting beliefs at all? Why not leave individuals to formulate beliefs however they choose? Such a deflationary approach gives no clue as to how such questions are to be answered. Indeed, it makes epistemic practices seem so trivial that one begins to wonder, if that epistemology were correct, why any society would develop them. Since not only some but all human societies have developed epistemic practices, this epistemology would seem to be explanatorily inadequate. A third reason for undertaking the project of explaining epistemic practices is that it could provide the basis for arguments against certain epistemologies and epistemological attitudes. For example, suppose that the only adequate explanations are those that attribute to certain common epistemic practices a high utility. Such a result could be used as ammunition against epistemic nihilists, anarchists, and relativists. It provides ammunition against nihilists because it indicates that epistemic 89 practices have utility, against anarchists because it indicates that epistemic freedom should be restricted, and against relativists because it indicates that one society's epistemic practices may be superior to another society's. Such arguments would be of special relevance to the dialectic of contemporary philosophy since, on the one hand, deflationary accounts of epistemic practices are much in vogue, and, on the other, traditional epistemology seems to have few effective arguments against them. 36 In addition to these three general reasons for pursuing such an explanation, there is also the aforementioned reason concerning support for bilevel reliabilism. However, the reader should be aware that the support provided by pursuing the explanation will not involve arguing that the bilevel reliabilist explanation is the best explanation. For undertaking such an argument would be beyond the scope of a philosophical work since it would involve gathering empirical data concerning the precise nature of actual epistemic practices as well as intensive evaluation of alternative explanations. Instead, the support for bilevel reliabilism will involve seeking a plausible bilevel reliabilist explanation. Plausibility is an appropriate goal for a project undertaken from the philosophical armchair, and is also a prerequisite for determining that further research on a theory is worth pursuing. However, it might be wondered whether merely finding a plausible explanation will provide much support for a radical theory such as bilevel reliabilism. In this case it should, for, to my knowledge, there are no plausible explanations of the existence and function of 36 Of course, this reason as a motivating reason for undertaking the explanation only if one opposes such extremist views. 90 epistemic practices extant that are consistent with neo-Humeanism; thus, any theory that can produce one should command respect. 6.3 A Strategy for a Bilevel Reliabilist Explanation of Epistemic Practices One strategy for explaining epistemic practices was illustrated above in sketching a traditional epistemological explanation of epistemic practices. This strategy attempts to explain the function and existence of ordinary epistemic practices by showing that they approximate some ideal set of useful practices. Let us briefly consider how such a strategy could be applied by a traditional epistemology whose justificatory practices rationally privilege a belief by giving it a Cartesian justificatory foundation and also thereby entitle the belief to the honorific "knowledge". First, it would have to be argued that though we are certainly not perfectly Cartesian in our epistemic affairs, our epistemic conduct does approximate ideal Cartesian practice. Since Cartesian practices, the argument would continue, are highly beneficial (they help us get to the truth, etc.), practices that approximate them will tend to share in these benefits. Finally, it would be argued that ordinary practices do share in these benefits, and this is their function. This function, in turn, explains their existence; for, it would be claimed, humans began employing them because they recognized they could perform this useful function. Henceforth, we will term this explanatory strategy, in which the function and existence of epistemic practices is explained by their approximation to a useful set of ideal practices, the approximation strategy. An important advantage of this strategy is 91 its reliance on a utility beneficial to human societies generally. This feature enables the approximation strategy to avoid a difficulty of some other approaches. For example, a historical approach might explain the existence of epistemic practices in a society by appealing to the need for a priestly class to maintain conformity of opinion after a sudden introduction of foreign ideas. However, it is clear that such an explanation is superficial at best, for it faces the immediate objection that since epistemic practices are ubiquitous (i.e. they exist in all human societies), a genuine explanation of their existence should appeal to features common to all societies. Since the approximation strategy relies upon a utility beneficial to human societies generally to explain the existence of epistemic practices, it meets this requirement. Though the approximation strategy has this advantage, it would seem an inappropriate strategy for a bilevel reliabilist explanation. The reason is that, as will be shown presently, counterexamples indicate that the notions of br-knowledge and br-justification are not even approximations of their everyday counterparts. And if bilevel reliabilism and everyday epistemic views differ dramatically on such a fundamental point, it is difficult to see how ordinary practices could plausibly be claimed to approximate an ideal set of bilevel reliabilist practices. A counterexample indicating the difference between the notion of br-knowledge and the ordinary notion of knowledge can be constructed similarly to the Bonjour counterexamples to externalist theories of knowledge simply by transporting the "irrationality" of the belief to the second level. For example, suppose Lisa believes truly that Gorbachev is in Leningrad, and that she has acquired this belief via 92 the reliable process of reading the newspaper. Suppose further that she r-recognizes the authority of her belief: she r-knows via a reliable process of introspection that she acquired the belief by reading the newspaper, and she r-knows that believing what one reads in newspapers on such matters is a reliable belief acquisition process. In such a case Lisa's belief fulfills all the requirements for br-knowledge. But suppose that her r-knowledge that newspapers are reliable on such matters was acquired via a reliable clairvoyant power of which she is unaware, and suppose that she has no grounds for believing that newspapers are reliable sources of information on such matters. In such a case it would be difficult to attribute knowledge, in the everyday sense, to Lisa. For if she were pressed to defend her belief she would soon have to admit she had no basis for believing newspapers were reliable, and her justification for her belief that Gorbachev was in Leningrad would seem to vanish. Similar considerations make it difficult to attribute justification, in the everyday sense, to Lisa even though her belief is br-justified. This divergence between the notions of br-knowledge and br-justification and ordinary notions indicates that bilevel reliabilism would do best to employ some explanatory strategy other than the approximation strategy. But it might be objected that the divergence indicates an even more serious difficulty: that radical epistemologies generally are inappropriate for the task of explaining ordinary epistemic practices since a conservative epistemology 37 (traditional or otherwise) would, because of the 37 The term "conservative epistemology" is explained in chapter 2. 93 similarity between its epistemic notions and ordinary ones, always seem capable of a simpler explanation via the approximation strategy. However, I would argue that the opposite is true: that it is conservative epistemologies that are inappropriate for explaining epistemic practices. The reason is that, as will be discussed below, ordinary notions of knowledge and justification are fairly close to Cartesian--in a broad sense of the term--notions of knowledge and justification. And, like the corresponding Cartesian notions, knowledge and justification in the ordinary sense simply cannot exist; hence, the accounts of knowledge and justification of a successful conservative epistemology, because it aims to explicate ordinary epistemic notions, should also refer to things that cannot exist. Though this correspondence between the two sets of notions may allow a conservative epistemology to make a simpler explanation of epistemic practices, clearly an epistemology dealing with non-existent entities will have great difficulty producing a satisfying explanation of epistemic practices. (Thus, for these purposes, one might even argue that the lack of counterexamples to an epistemology constitutes an objection to it.) Regardless of whether the claim that radical epistemologies are superior for such explanatory purposes is correct, the argument to support the claim does suggest a framework in which a radical epistemology such as bilevel reliabilism could play a role in an explanation of epistemic practices. But before showing how it could a pair of distinctions need to be drawn. First, let us distinguish everyday beliefs about what knowledge and justification are and what the purport of epistemic practices is, and 94 everyday epistemic practices themselves. The former (the set of beliefs) constitutes a kind of epistemology. Let us term it, adapting from the philosophy of psychology, folk epistemology. Second, in the philosophy of psychology it is common to distinguish folk psychology from scientific psychology; similarly, we can distinguish folk epistemology from what will be termed philosophical epistemology, the epistemological views of experts such as professional philosophers. Using these distinctions, the difficulty concerning the use of a radical epistemology to explain epistemic practices can be restated as follows: How can a philosophical epistemology that diverges from folk epistemology successfully explain epistemic practices? Borrowing a bit more from the philosophy of psychology will enable us to see how to answer this question positively. The issue of the extent to which folk and scientific psychology are compatible and the question of the import of the theoretical terms of folk psychology ('belief', 'desire', etc.) are much debated. Positions on this issue range from the view that scientific psychology is entirely compatible with folk psychology and will provide a systematization and theoretical underpinning for it, to the view that they are radically incompatible and that scientific psychology will not only show that folk psychology is largely false but also that the very ontology of folk psychology (i.e. the hypostasization of beliefs, desires, etc.) should be abandoned. 38 It should now be apparent how to answer the above question positively. A philosophical epistemology divergent from folk epistemology could explain epistemic 38 For more on these issues in the philosophy of psychology see, e.g., Stich (1983). 95 practices by standing to folk epistemology and its correlative epistemic practices in one of the range of ways that scientific psychology stands to folk psychology. That is, though philosophical epistemology might employ very different notions from those used in folk epistemology and epistemic practices, it nevertheless might be able to provide a systematization and theoretical underpinning for folk epistemology and epistemic practices, as in the case of compatibilism in the philosophy of psychology, or it might be able to explain the phenomena addressed by folk epistemology even though folk epistemology turned out to be false, as in the case of incompatibilism in the philosophy of psychology. In either case, a radical philosophical epistemology would be able to explain epistemic practices unhindered by its divergence from folk epistemology on key epistemic notions. We have been discussing in general terms how a radical epistemology could successfully explain epistemic practices. Now we should consider what specific strategy to adopt for a bilevel reliabilist explanation. As the remarks above concerning the falsity of folk epistemology suggest, the strategy to be adopted is close to the radical incompatibilist approach. We will attempt to explain the function of epistemic practices by showing that though folk epistemology and bilevel reliabilism diverge radically, and so the utility of epistemic practices cannot be explained by the approximation of folk epistemology to bilevel reliabilism; nevertheless, epistemic practices promote both br-justification and br-knowledge (despite the fact that folk epistemology does not view them as having this function), and it is the utility achieved by the 96 promotion of these useful things that is the beneficial function of epistemic practices. 39 It might be thought that the explanation of the existence of epistemic practices would then follow as a matter of course from the explanation of their function by claiming that, as with the approximation explanation employed by traditional epistemology, epistemic practices have come to be because people recognized their utility. But this route is blocked in the present strategy because the falsity of folk epistemology means that humans do not correctly understand the utility of epistemic practices: they believe the practices are useful but for the wrong reasons and in the wrong ways. Accordingly, the bilevel reliabilist explanation of the existence of epistemic practices is one that is independent of their actual utility; instead, the existence of epistemic practices will be explained as a result of natural human inductive tendencies and erroneous beliefs in the utility of epistemic practices. There are three major steps to carrying out this explanatory strategy. First, we must describe folk epistemology and actual epistemic practices. This descriptive step will occupy us for the remainder of this chapter. Second, we must explain the origin of these practices by showing how natural inductive tendencies have given rise to them. Third, we must explain the function of these practices by showing that they promote br-knowledge and are useful because of it. These latter explanatory steps will occupy us in the next chapter. 39 Thus, in a sense it might be said that the approximation strategy will be applied indirectly because, though folk epistemology and bilevel reliabilism are incompatible, they end up recommending approximately the same epistemic practices. 97 6.4 Human Folk Epistemology Before considering the content of human folk epistemology, a few remarks about folk epistemology in general are in order. Above, folk epistemology was defined as the everyday view of knowledge, justification, and the purport of epistemic practices. When we speak of folk epistemology or folk psychology, we mean of course, the folk epistemology or psychology typical of humans. However, though this implicit restriction recognizes the possibility of nonhuman folk theories different from ours, this way of speaking does seem to imply a singularity of human folk theories. But surely this is wrong. Surely folk psychological and epistemological views have not remained static through human history nor have they been undifferentiated across the globe. Nevertheless, I want to retain this manner of speaking because it is a useful idealization. It is useful because, despite there being a plurality of human folk epistemologies and folk psychologies, there seems to be a common core of beliefs to which there are few exceptions (at least if we discount prehistory), and it seems appropriate to call this core simply folk epistemology or folk psychology. The description of folk epistemology below is a rough approximation of this core of beliefs. The sense of 'everyday' employed in the definition should also be specified. By 'everyday' is meant the uncritical beliefs people have about what epistemic practices amount to, i.e. what they believe about them when they are not engaged in the philosophical task of considering what the best account of them is. Hence, 'everyday' view could also be rendered as 'working' view. 98 How does one determine the content of human folk epistemology? Prima facie it might seem a straightforwardly empirical task--one simply interviews people concerning their epistemological beliefs. But such a method of inquiry would be unsuitable for the same reasons it would be unsuitable in linguistics to use such methods to determine the meaning of a word or the grammar of a language--people are awkward at expressing themselves about such matters and often make mistakes. Alternatively, one might suggest that looking at epistemic practices in action would be a better method since that would eliminate difficulties with limitations of eloquence. But the problem of mistakes would remain, and the difficulty of the gross underdetermination of folk epistemology by actual epistemic practice would render such an approach of limited value. A more helpful approach to determine the content of folk epistemology is to look at the behavior and pronouncements of official bodies of inquiry, e.g. courts, congressional committees, etc. Their behavior is an excellent source of information concerning folk epistemology, for such bodies are supposed to have as their goal the impartial pursuit of truth, and they can function in society (at least democratic ones) only so long as they are seen as successful at this task; and they will be seen as successful only so long as their procedures are in general conformance with a society's general beliefs about proper epistemic practice, i.e. its folk epistemology. Let us consider, then, the typical behavior and pronouncements of such bodies. Often they have the stated goal of "proving beyond a reasonable doubt" an answer to a question posed. The usual method to achieve this goal is to gather evidence and 99 then draw conclusions based upon that evidence. In both the evidence-gathering and conclusiondrawing stages of this method, rhetoric concerning the intent to deal only with "facts" and not "speculation" is often exhibited. Ideally, the outcome of the process is the "proof", in the sense of the provision of conclusive evidence, of some answer to the question posed, e.g. the prosecutor will have proved that the defendant is guilty or a congressional committee will have proved that the president had full knowledge of the illegal activities of certain members of his administration. Of course, the proceedings are not always held to have succeeded in proving anything conclusively, but it is not uncommon that they are. The investigative procedure just sketched will probably sound banal and commonsensical to the philosophically untrained ear, and this is just as it should be when we are hunting for folk epistemology. But to the trained ear these pronouncements should reflect an epistemology bearing some similarity to Cartesian foundationalism, and which repeats some of its errors. First of all, there is implicit the Cartesian assumption of a foundation for knowledge, a class of "facts" with which we start the investigation, and which are "given" in the sense that we need not infer them from other evidence and that they come to us from the world and are beyond dispute. Such an assumption is the point of Jack Webb's famous refrain on the television show Dragnet, "Just the facts ma'am". The error in this assumption is, of course, thinking that the world gives us any such set of facts that are beyond dispute, that there is any special class of privileged beliefs which need not be critically examined and need no grounding beyond themselves. A second feature of the epistemology reflected in such 100 pronouncements is the view that we can obtain from such an investigation proofs of a claim, e.g. that the defendant is guilty of murder. I encountered examples of this view recently: a sports commentator spoke of waiting for the courts to "prove one way or the other" whether Pete Rose bet on baseball games, and Peter Jennings of ABC news spoke of there at last being "scientific proof" that aspirin can reduce the risk of heart attack. 40 This belief in the possibility of proof, in the sense of providing conclusive evidence, is also a feature of Cartesianism, and the error is similar also. The error is in supposing anything like conclusive evidence can be provided in such contexts. 41 Above, folk epistemology was characterized as having three elements: views about the purport of epistemic practices, views of knowledge, and views of justification. So far we have addressed only the first element: Folk epistemology holds that epistemic practices (at their best, as in the case of investigative bodies) consist of gathering facts to prove claims. The rest of folk epistemology is more difficult to 40 It might be objected that talk of "proof" in science should not be treated as tantamount to talk of conclusive proof because "proof" in this context just means "strong evidence". This synonymy claim is clearly wrong, for even in ordinary parlance one can have strong scientific evidence for p even though p is false, but one cannot have scientific proof of p when p is false. 41 It might be objected that American civil court proceedings, which require only a preponderance of evidence for a favorable ruling, provide evidence against the claim that folk epistemology insists upon the possibility of proof. However, this fact does not tell against the claim that has been made for two reasons. First, the claim is not that folk epistemology recognizes the possibility of proof in every instance but only in a significant number of them. Second, the absence of a commitment to obtain proof in civil rather than criminal proceedings can be explained on practical rather than epistemological grounds. It is held as a great sin in criminal cases to convict an innocent man; thus, for the prosecution to obtain a conviction not merely strong evidence but proof is required that the defendant is guilty. In civil cases an erroneous verdict has less undesirable consequences; hence, there is no requirement of proof to guard against such verdicts. 101 determine, for only philosophers consider what knowledge and justification are. However, we can probably infer with a fair degree of accuracy such views from the partial folk epistemology we have so far uncovered. Knowledge, for folk epistemology, is just a true belief that one proves (or is able to prove) in the manner just described. Thus, if Rose is convicted of betting on baseball games we are entitled to claim that we know he did. Knowledge-sufficient justification is just possessing the proof of such a claim. But in addition to a belief in knowledge-sufficient justification, folk epistemology also seems to include a belief in justification insufficient for knowledge and having little to do with "proof". An example of such fallible justification might occur in the case of a congressional committee formed to assess the environmental impact of the Alaskan oil pipeline. In such a case evidence is gathered to support various claims. It is commonly thought that this evidence does not prove any of the claims--no one can be sure just what will happen when so many variables are at play, but the inquiry may give us a best guess-and fallible justification--for a claim as to what will happen. The belief in such justification raises two issues concerning folk epistemology--the folk view of the purport of such justification and the view of its exact nature. The view of its purport seems plain: it increases the likelihood of being right. Clearly, such a view is erroneous if, as we have been assuming throughout our discussion, Hume's attack on induction is successful. I don't believe there are any developed folk epistemological views concerning just what counts as justification of this type--such justification is usually evaluated on a case by case basis. 102 We have sketched accounts of the chief elements of folk epistemology and made clear the ways in which they are erroneous. Much more could be said about folk epistemology, but this brief sketch suffices for present purposes. For, as with the bilevel reliabilist explanation of epistemic practices itself, no claims are being made about the definitiveness of this account of folk epistemology; the chief aim is to provide a plausible account. However, to increase its plausibility, let us consider a few objections. First, it might objected that I have unjustly incorporated one of the least plausible aspects of Cartesian-style epistemology into folk epistemology: the requirement of conclusive evidence and, hence, epistemic certainty, for knowledge. For clearly, the objection might continue, considerations of evil geniuses and whether we can tell when we are dreaming are too farfetched to be of folk epistemological concern, but they ought to be of concern if folk epistemology required certainty for knowledge. There are several points to be made in reply to this objection. First, the fact that skeptical problems related to evil geniuses, etc., are ignored in day-to-day affairs can be adequately explained while maintaining the present account of folk epistemology. It may simply be a question of discounting fanciful threats to certainty in day-to-day affairs, while equally remote but less fanciful threats are taken seriously. An example of the latter would be that one would not be said to know that a recently purchased lottery ticket would not win the lottery even though the chances of winning were one in thirty million. Second, the usual reason for arguing that folk epistemolo- 103 gy does not require certainty for knowledge, is that it will transform folk epistemology from a false to a true theory. However, even changing the present account of folk epistemology in this way will leave a view that asserts the possibility of rational privileging, and so it will still be erroneous. Thus, unless there is clear evidence to the contrary, there would seem to be no reason to avoid what seems a natural interpretation of folk epistemology and retain the certainty requirement. 42 J.L. Mackie has advanced an "error theory" concerning the nature of ethical statements: ...the denial of objective values will have to be put forward...as an 'error theory', a theory that although most people in making moral judgments implicitly claim...to be pointing to something objectively prescriptive, these claims are all false. (1977, p.35) Similarly, the present account of folk epistemology might be viewed as an error theory concerning the nature of epistemic claims. Two sorts of objections that have been raised against Mackie's error theory might also be raised against this epistemological error theory. First, it might be objected that this error theory saddles the non-philosophical public with the errors of philosophers, and that is unfair because such persons do not have philosophical views on these matters. Second, it might be noted that throughout this work, in addition to making various claims about knowledge, I have also been claiming to know various things. Presumably, I do not believe these claims are false, but the error theory I propound implies that they are. 42 Another reason to retain this requirement is that it immunizes everyday knowledge from the Gettier problem. (See Dretske (1971) for a discussion of why a certainty requirement provides immunity to the Gettier problem.) 104 The first objection would seem to stand or fall on the plausibility of two claims: (1) that the folk epistemology just presented attributes to ordinary people epistemic beliefs at a level of sophistication that their beliefs about this topic do not reach and (2) that it is bad hermeneutics to interpret a practice as thoroughly erroneous unless there is very good reason to do so and that no very good reason has been given in the present case. I suppose that much of the plausibility of claim (1) rests on the suspicion that, for example, a Texas ranch hand would have little to say if asked his views on the purport of epistemic practices or the nature of knowledge and justification. I will freely grant that such persons would respond in this fashion, but this fact alone does little to support claim (1); for all it demonstrates is an inability to articulate such beliefs, not the lack of them. Moreover, it should be noted that this folk epistemology, as was noted above, does not attribute to ordinary people theories about the nature of knowledge and justification; it only states that they are implied by their views about the purport of epistemic practices. The crucial issue in determining the plausibility of (1), then, would seem to be whether ordinary people possess (at least) inarticulate views of the sort included in this folk epistemology about the purport of epistemic practices. There are several reasons to believe they do. One reason is that such persons engage in quite sophisticated epistemic behavior, e.g. a ranch hand might evaluate the soundness of another's reasons for believing a prize steer has footand-mouth disease; hence, it does not seem implausible to suppose they have equally sophisticated inarticulate beliefs about the nature of epistemic practices. Another reason is provided by the typical response of students in introduction to 105 philosophy courses to Cartesian and Humean skeptical challenges. If they had no views on such matters, one would expect such students to react passively or with mild interest. But, of course, they typically react with shock or amusement that anyone could hold such views, and, when challenged, try valiantly to overcome them. What more natural way to explain such a reaction than that these challenges contradict views these students already have? There would seem, then, to be good reasons to believe ordinary persons possess at least inarticulate sophisticated views about epistemic practices; hence, claim (1) would seem to be on shaky ground. 43 Claim (2) is likewise on shaky ground. First, because there are numerous cases in which whole categories of human practices have come to be seen as thoroughly erroneous, e.g. magical, religious, astrological, alchemic, etc. Second, because there is good reason for supposing humans might arrive at erroneous beliefs about epistemic practices: men as brilliant as Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, etc. have arrived at systematically erroneous views about the powers of epistemic practices, so why couldn't the ordinary person? Third, because there are good reasons for supposing ordinary views about epistemic practices are erroneous--e.g. the pronouncements of official bodies of inquiry, television commentators, etc.--and these have already been discussed above. My reply to the second of the error theory objections, concerning my own use of "know", is just that to say that I do not intend my tokenings of "know" to be 43 The reader who remains skeptical of the claim that ordinary persons have even inarticulate sophisticated views about such matters might want to consider that all that is really needed to establish the legitimacy of this folk epistemology is the plausibility of the (in some respects) weaker claim that erroneous views of this sort be implied by the practices people engage in. 106 interpreted in the ordinary sense. I am uncertain exactly what interpretation they ought to have, but, for present purposes, they can be safely treated as at least being claims to know in the deflationist sense specified in the next section. (The reader may be surprised that I choose not to have my claims to know interpreted as claims to br-know. The reason for this choice is that brknowledge seems too complex and theoretical a notion to serve smoothly in everyday contexts.) 6.5 The Content of Ordinary Epistemic Practices We now have a description of folk epistemology, but knowing what people believe about epistemic practices doesn't necessarily give us a full or accurate picture of the epistemic practices they engage in; and, in the present case, folk epistemology gives a highly inaccurate picture since it implies, for example, that knowledge is attributed to a kind of belief which cannot exist. A more accurate description will be attempted here, but, to keep this descriptive project as well as the explanation as a whole manageable, our attentions here and in the rest of the explanation will be restricted to the epistemic practice of knowledge attribution. By "knowledge attribution" is meant the practice of classifying beliefs as knowings or non-knowings. A description of the practice of knowledge attribution involves specifying what beliefs we classify as knowings. However, for present explanatory purposes, the description ought to be applicable to the knowledge attribution practice of most any society; thus, though a detailed description is needed, we should not be so specific that features peculiar to a society are included. Also, a description is needed that will 107 not beg the very epistemological and explanatory questions at issue by being couched in theoryladen terms, e.g. a description that claimed "knowledge is attributed to br-knowledge" would not be very helpful. The basis for a description meeting these requirements can be obtained from the deflationist epistemology Sosa (1983) terms "conventionalist foundationalism" and ascribes to Richard Rorty. Roughly, conventionalist foundationalism holds that a claim is justified when it can be shown to follow, according to socially approved inferential and argumentative norms, from the class of assertions which receive direct social approval, i.e. assertions and kinds of assertions which society deems it ridiculous and irrational to question, e.g. first-person reports of psychological states, "France exists", etc. The deflationary component of this view is the claim that this is all there is to epistemic practices--they are just a matter of convention. Many of the assumptions underlying conventionalist foundationalism seem to be clearly true. Society does sanction certain beliefs, classes of beliefs, and inferential norms, as ridiculous to question. And we do come to know which of these are sanctioned as part of the process of socialization. For example, every child learns that he can make deceitful use of the special authority granted to first-person pain reports to avoid another painful day of primary education. The controversial claim of conventionalist foundationalism is that societal sanction is just a matter of convention. But, if we excise this claim from conventionalist foundationalism the result will be the sort of description of knowledge attribution we are seeking: 108 The title of knowledge is conferred on just those beliefs which receive direct social sanction or which the believer can infer by socially sanctioned norms from claims which receive direct social sanction. Although somewhat rough, such a description--henceforth the "conventionalist foundationalist description"-meets the requirements set forth above. For it applies to human societies generally, and it is couched in terms that do not beg the epistemological and explanatory questions that are about to be addressed. To see that it does not beg such questions, consider that such a description would be applicable to a society that employed the knowledge attribution practice recommended by an epistemology as different from bilevel reliabilism as Cartesian foundationalism. All that would be required for the description to be true of a Cartesian society would be that the society sanction, for knowledge attribution purposes, the basic beliefs and inferential norms recommended by Cartesian foundationalism. Our explanandum, the epistemic practice of knowledge attribution, thus isolated, we can proceed to the explanation. 109 7 A BILEVEL RELIABILIST EXPLANATION OF EPISTEMIC PRACTICES We are now ready to begin constructing the bilevel reliabilist explanation of the existence and function of epistemic practices, or, to be more precise, practice, for the explanation will be limited to the practice of knowledge attribution. The details of this explanation will be generated in reference to a hypothetical human society, the Gawanans, that will be used as a paradigm human society. The first step in developing the explanation will be to explain how a practice of knowledge attribution might originate among the Gawanans. The second step will be to explain the function of their knowledge attribution practice in terms of its promotion of br-knowledge. The final step will be to consider to what extent the explanation of the Gawanan practice can be used to explain the knowledge attribution practice of human societies in general. Throughout the presentation of the explanation, the reader should bear in mind that the aim is only to present a plausible explanation--not necessarily the best--so no arguments that it is best will be attempted. 110 7.1 The Origin of the Practice of Knowledge Attribution The Gawanans are a prehistoric community of hunter-gatherers with a moderately rich spoken language consisting of declarative sentences, commands, questions, expressions of emotion, but no knowledge attribution pracitice. Gawanan development of a knowledge attribution practice might begin when, in their daily affairs, they come to believe certain things about their own beliefs and those of their associates. For example, when Ogg comes to believe that there is a saber-toothed tiger in the area and reports his belief to the others, the rest of the group usually comes to believe that he is correct, but on a few occasions they wind up believing he is wrong. They discover that when they believe he is right, he usually believes (and so do they) that he has directly observed the beast in good viewing conditions. When they believe he is wrong he usually believes he has seen its pawprint, caught its scent, etc. Through many generations such beliefs become the basis for inductions to generalizations about how beliefs acquired in certain ways can be relied upon whereas others cannot; and these inductions, in turn, become the basis for societal sanctioning of belief acquisition processes. (The transition from merely believing that certain processes are trustworthy to sanctioning them, being marked, in part, by the belief-process favoritism becoming part of the cultural heritage Gawanan parents transmit to their offspring.) Moreover, Gawanans discover that it is often useful to inform other Gawanans of how they acquired their beliefs. For example, they discover that if one Gawanan believes he acquired his belief about the proximity of saber-toothed tigers by one of the means held to be trustworthy, it will aid him in motivating the others to act appropriately if 111 he informs them how he acquired his belief. Because of such informings, though no word for knowledge has been introduced, it seems fair to say that something qualifying as a practice of knowledge attribution is largely in place, for Gawanans are classifying beliefs as being of a trustworthy kind or not. A word for knowledge would be introduced, perhaps, when the Gawanans begin to tire of having to make detailed explanations of how they acquired a belief whenever they wished to claim it was one of the processes thought to be trustworthy. Such a word could be substituted for the explanation whenever a Gawanan wanted to make such a claim about one of his beliefs. The above explanation of the origin of knowledge attribution can be summarized as follows. The practice of knowledge attribution arises in Gawanan society because Gawanan inductive abilities, combined with desires to be right about states of affairs, lead them to develop views about the trustworthiness of various belief-forming processes. And these views, in turn, become part of the societal heritage and lead to certain belief-forming processes receiving social sanction. A word for knowledge is then introduced as an abbreviated way of claiming that a Gawanan's belief was acquired via one of the sanctioned processes. However, this explanation cannot be our final explanation because the practice of knowledge attribution whose existence it explains is not the conventionalist foundationalist practice that is our ultimate explanandum. The practice just explained differs from the conventionalist foundationalist practice in that a "pedigree" rather 112 than an "evidentialist" view of justification operates implicitly. A pedigree 44 view of justification is that typical of reliabilists, and is distinguished by the relevancy of the causal pedigree of a belief to its being justified. An evidentialist 45 view holds that being justified is a function of the evidence one possesses. Later, we will consider how a conventionalist foundationalist practice might evolve from this pedigree practice, and so complete the explanation of the origin of the present-day practice of knowledge attribution. But for the next few sections, which deal with the function of knowledge attribution, I want to treat the pedigree view as the explanandum. The reason is that since br-justification is of the pedigree type, the details of the bilevel reliabilist explanation of the function of knowledge attribution will be simpler if we first consider the function of the pedigree view. Before considering the function of knowledge attribution, I want to briefly consider an alternative explanation of the origin of this practice that I suspect many philosophers, especially non-epistemologists, might give if asked. This explanation is that the practice was developed to serve a certain performative linguistic function. The explanation claims with Austin that To suppose that 'I know' is a descriptive phrase, is only one example of the descriptive fallacy, so common in philosophy. (Austin:1961, p.71) In the case of avowals of knowledge, the performative function is just that, as Austin says, "when I say 'I know', I give others my word: I give others my authority for 44 This term is borrowed from Levi:1980, p. 28. 45 This term is borrowed from Feldman and Conee (1985). 113 saying that 'S is P'" (Ibid., p.67). Thus, roughly, on this view knowledge ascription in general performs the same linguistic function as promising--but with propositions instead of deeds. The explanation of the origin of knowledge attribution to which such a view leads is that the practice was developed to enable us to make such propositional "promises". Such an explanation is clearly at odds with the explanation given above, for according to it the chief linguistic function of knowledge attribution is the descriptive one of communicating the special sort of belief one has, i.e. a belief acquired via a process socially sanctioned as trustworthy. This explanation is an intriguing alternative, but it does not work, at least as it stands. The reason is that "know" does not have the performative function the Austinian account claims it does. The easiest way to see this is just to note, as does Jonathan Harrison in a discussion of the topic, that: ...someone saying 'I promise...' is thereby promising, whereas someone saying 'I know...' is not thereby knowing, but simply claiming that he knows. (Harrison: 1962, p.449) For further argument against the Austinian line I refer the reader to Harrison's article. 7.2 How Knowledge Ascriptions Could be of Br-Knowledge We are now ready to begin developing a bilevel reliabilist explanation of the function of Gawanan epistemic practices. As was noted in the previous chapter, the gist of the bilevel reliabilist explanation is that the practice of knowledge attribution functions to promote brknowledge and is useful because it does. The first step is to 114 establish the plausibility of three claims about the Gawanans' pedigree knowledge attribution practice: (I) That their knowledge ascriptions will, typically, be made of br-knowledge. (II) That their practice of knowledge attribution promotes br-knowledge. (III) That the promotion of br-knowledge is useful. Claim (I) is addressed in this section, claims (II) and (III) in the next. 7.2.1 Ascribing Knowledge to R-justified Beliefs In the Gawanans' knowledge attribution practice, knowledge is ascribed to beliefs acquired by bfp's that have come to receive societal sanction via inductive generalizations concluding that they are trustworthy. Since, by definition, a majority of br-justified beliefs will constitute brknowledge, 46 one way to show that beliefs to which knowledge is ascribed will typically constitute br-knowledge--and hence that (I) is true--is to show that they will typically be brjustified. A first step toward establishing the latter claim is showing that such beliefs will be rjustified, and that is our concern here. An obvious way to show that these beliefs will be r-justified is to show that the sanctioned bfp's are reliable. The best way to show this is to show that the inductive 46 The reason that this is true is that all br-justified beliefs are r-justified, and, by definition, a majority of r-justified beliefs are true. And since a br-justified true belief constitutes br-knowledge, majority of brjustified beliefs will be br-knowledge. (Note: For the sake of simplicity, I have employed some claims in this argument that are not literally true. For example, it is not literally true that "by definition, a majority of r-justified beliefs are true". By definition a belief is r-justified iff it is acquired by a reliable process, and that process is reliable iff it tends to produce more true than false beliefs. But a particular group of r-justified beliefs might be all false if they were products and processes that tended to produce more true than false beliefs but, in the case of this particular group, produced only false beliefs. The above argument (as well as similar claims below) ignores this possibility because it would constitute a statistical freak.) 115 inferences which largely determine which processes receive sanction are, in some appropriate sense, good ones. Let us consider an inference that might play a role in the sanctioning of a bfp in Gawanan society: On 10 occasions Ogg has believed he directly observed a saber-toothed tiger in the vicinity. On these 10 occasions there was a saber-toothed tiger in the vicinity. Therefore, usually when Ogg believes he directly observes a saber-toothed tiger in the vicinity, there is one in the vicinity. Inductions such as this might lead to the sanctioning of direct observation as a trustworthy bfp not only for Ogg's observances of saber-toothed tigers but also for observances of events, medium-sized physical objects, etc., and eventually for the sanctioning of direct observation as a trustworthy bfp for all normal Gawanan's (i.e. sane, with good eyesight, etc.) What would have to be the case for such inferences to be an effective means of sanctioning reliable bfp's? An obvious answer is that the premisses would have to be true and the regularities the inferences project would have to be realized. Let us see if there is reason to suppose these two elements obtain for such inductions. Reason to suppose the first element obtains can be garnered from the fact that Gawanans, being humans, are the product of a long evolutionary history. Since having reliable cognitive machinery has obvious survival value, it seems plausible to suppose that evolution would reinforce whatever hereditary tendencies humans might have in this direction. Moreover, it seems plausible that cultural pressures would, ceteris paribus, tend to preserve and reward reliable belief-forming methods. These 116 two factors might combine to give the Gawanans belief processes reliable enough to produce sufficient true premisses for successful inductions concerning the reliability of belief-forming processes. (Though these reasons are not as strong as one would like given the breadth of the claims we are considering (e.g. that the Gawanans possess generally reliable cognitive processes), I see no way of strengthening the reasons or narrowing the claims and still getting the epistemic ball rolling for the Gawanans--they must start out being largely right about things before they can increase their accuracy by employing epistemic practices.) 47 Providing an argument that the second element, the realization of the regularities that the Gawanans' sanctioning inductions project, obtains is not so simple. One might even suspect that providing such an argument will require a Herculean effort since it might seem to require constructing a robust theory of projection that will circumvent Goodman's paradox and other difficulties. However, fortunately, our task is not so daunting. Let us consider the nature of a theory of projection more closely. Most directly, a theory of projection is required for the construction of an adequate system of inductive logic, for in addition to inference rules such a logic 47 Richard Boyd, in his attempt to support scientific realism by arguing that the best explanation for the "instrumental reliability" of scientific methodology is that the theories associated with it are "approximately true" (see e.g. Boyd 1984), has noted a similar difficulty that he calls the "start-up problem" (mentioned in a lecture c. 1988). The start-up problem, if I recall correctly, is the problem that since scientific methodology is theory-laden, one cannot use scientific methods to get true theories unless one's present theories are already largely true; for if one's present theories are false then the methodology employed will be unsuccessful because it will be laden with false theories. Thus, according to Boyd, the engine of (supposed) scientific progress cannot be started unless it is first infused with a number of nonscientifically acquired true theories. Since Boyd's project is also a sort of explanation of epistemic practices, this start-up problem may be one faced by most such explanations. 117 would require rules dictating which predicates were or were not projectible. 48 Secondarily, a theory of projection could play a role in the t-justification 49 of induction, since it might help to show that our choice of predicates to project is not epistemically arbitrary. I do not believe there is a theory of projection that can succeed at either of these projects (at least in any non-trivial way) and, of more present relevance, we do not need to complete such projects to solve our present problem. For that problem concerns showing that inductions are effective, and they may be effective even if they are totally devoid of logical, rational, or epistemic privilege; for it is easy to imagine possible worlds in which inductions are effective regardless of their rationality. For example, a world in which the conclusions of all inductions made are true "by accident". (Though, of course, it might be objected that induction is not really effective in such a world since "by accident" implies that counterfactual applications of induction would not be successful.) To see how to construct an argument, without recourse to logic or rationality, that the regularities Gawanans' project inductively are realized, let us turn to some of the ideas of W. V. Quine. In "Natural Kinds" Quine claims: To trust induction as a way of access to the truths of nature...is to suppose...that our quality space matches that of the cosmos. (1969, p.125) 48 The classic source for arguments for the last claim is, of course, Nelson Goodman's Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. 49 T-justification, it will be recalled, is traditional justification in the sense discussed in chapters 1 and 4. 118 This remark provides the basis for the argument we will pursue: the Gawanans' inductive projections are realized because "our [i.e. human beings, including the Gawanans] quality space matches that of the cosmos". To present this argument we must first unpack some of the obscurer notions it employs: the notion of a quality space, what it would mean for our quality space to match that of the cosmos, and why a match would promote inductive success. I take up these points in order. Quine borrows the notion of a quality space from psychology. Our quality space (also called similarity space) consists of a ranking of things as similar to each other or not as reflected by our dispositions to judge them as similar. Expanding metaphorically on the spatial reference in "quality space", we can imagine this ranking as represented in a three-dimensional space occupied by object types, tokens, and properties (e.g. shades of colors) where there is a direct correlation between the proximity of entities and the degree of similarity between them. Some features of a quality space may be innate. For example, Quine cites animal experiments in which: A response to a red circle, if it is rewarded, will be elicited again by a pink ellipse more readily than by a blue triangle.... (1969, p.123) It may well be that such a response is, at least partly, genetically programmed. But even apparently innate quality spacings can be altered. For example, pre-theoretically we would classify a whale as more similar to a shark than a seal, but post-theoretically the reverse is true. The relevance of quality spacings to induction is that quality spacings would seem to largely determine what inductive projections we make. For example, if we know little of insects and are stung by a yellow jacket, we may subsequently judge a honey bee to be likely to sting on account of its similarity to the 119 yellow jacket but may not judge a butterfly as relevantly similar. Thus, since, in our quality space, we judge yellow jackets as more similar to honey bees than butterflies, we project propensity to sting for honey bees but not butterflies. Let us now consider what it might mean for our quality space to match that of the cosmos. Our quality space, it might be suggested, matches that of the cosmos just when the things we judge to be similar are similar, e.g. as they are when we judge one lump of gold more similar to another lump of gold than to a lump of iron pyrite. But, unfortunately, this straightforward account of matching will not do. To see why, it must first be noticed that quality spaces concern generic similarity judgments, i.e. similarity judgments not made relative to respects. But, for a number of reasons, it is notoriously difficult to cash out such generic similarity judgments in objective terms (cf. Quine (1969) ch. 5). For example, in the last example, it seems to be taken for granted that chemical composition will determine which pair of metal lumps is most similar, but, clearly, other factors should also be considered, e.g. their shape, size, etc.--and it is unclear just how much weight these other factors should be assigned. It might be thought that each could be assigned equal weight and the question of similarity could be decided in terms of number of shared qualities, but the hopelessness of this proposal is easily seen once it is realized that the number of shared qualities (at least if we equate such sharing with the sharing of predicates) will be infinite for any two objects. I suspect that these difficulties in making sense of objective generic similarity (i.e. generic similarity in the cosmos) are insurmountable, 120 and, since the proposed account of matching assumes clear sense can be made of objective generic similarity, it would seem to be unacceptable. To avoid these difficulties I suggest that we make the question of matching between our quality space and that of the cosmos hinge not on a correlation between our similarity judgments and the state of the cosmos but on a correlation between the projections we make using our quality space and the state of the cosmos. Thus, we can say that our quality space matches that of the cosmos to the extent that our actual and counterfactual projections using this quality space are/would be successful. Thus, if we predict that whales, being similar to fish, will have scales and be cold-blooded, our false prediction will indicate a divergence between our quality space and that of the cosmos. It should now be clear why a match between our quality space and that of the cosmos should contribute to inductive success. Our quality space clearly plays a major role in determining what inductive projections we make. Indeed, if we are to make a projection based on past experience about any new situation, we will employ our quality space to determine the new situation's similarity to past situations. Thus, it stands to reason that a match between our quality space and that of the cosmos would contribute to inductive success. However, it might be objected that this explanation of why a match of quality spaces would contribute to inductive success is vacuous. For we seem to have defined the degree of match between our quality space and that of the cosmos in terms of degree of inductive success; thus, it would seem to follow trivially that a 121 match would contribute to inductive success, for it is a logical consequence of having a high degree of match that one has a high degree of success. For the most part, I must agree with this objection. We have failed to make sense of a match between our quality space and that of the cosmos other than by appeal to inductive success, so it is pointless to claim that a match somehow explains inductive success. 50 However, admitting this difficulty does not prevent us from putting our discussion so far to good use. Even if we dismiss talk of a "match" of quality spaces explaining inductive success as no more than a façon de parler, the truly important conclusion can still be drawn from the preceding discussion: different quality spaces can increase or decrease inductive success, so the shape of one's quality space (though not its matching the cosmos) can be instrumental in achieving inductive success. Having clarified the ingredient notions in our argument that Gawanan inductive projections are realized despite their lack of logical or rational privilege, the argument itself can finally be presented. The argument is that Gawanan inductive projections are successful because Gawanans, along with all humans, have a quality space that leads them, by and large, to project regularities that obtain in the world (i.e. a quality space that "matches" the cosmos), and that there are two factors that conspire to give humans such a quality 50 A similar problem may infect the line of reasoning pursued by Quine in "Natural Kinds" (ch. 5 of Quine (1969)). He does not there present any detailed notion of what a match implies that would avoid this problem. 122 space. The first is natural. Since having a quality space that leads to inductive success has obvious survival value, biological evolution would select for it. Clearly, however, evolution alone is not sufficient, for we are naturally prone (by our innate quality space) to make predictive mistakes. For example, we mistake whales for fish and non-poisonous king snakes for the similarly colored poisonous coral snakes evolution has selected them to mimic. A second factor, a cultural one, enters in to correct the deficiencies in our innate quality space: our innate quality spaces are fine-tuned by second-order inductions (cf. Quine:1969, pp. 128-9). That is, when we see our inductions fail, we infer that such predictions will not work in the future and seek to alter our quality space accordingly. For example, we examine the coloration of the snakes more closely and, after noting two color patterns, bifurcate that section of our previously unified quality space. Such fine-tuning can be passed on from generation to generation and so become part of the cultural heritage human societies give their members. In these two ways, natural and cultural, humans, including Gawanans, come to have a quality space that enables them to project regularities that obtain in the world. Reasons have now been given for believing that both elements requisite for the Gawanans' inductions to be an effective means of sanctioning actually reliable bfp's--true premisses and the projection of existing regularities--obtain. Suppose they do obtain. Since beliefs acquired by sanctioned bfp's are those to which knowledge is ascribed, this will mean that knowledge is ascribed to r-justified beliefs. To make plausible the claim that knowledge ascriptions are typically made of br-knowledge 123 (claim I), it only remains to be shown that the other elements of br-justification are present in beliefs to which knowledge is ascribed. 7.2.2 Ascribing Knowledge to Br-justified Beliefs Br-justified beliefs are r-justified beliefs whose authority is r-recognized. Hence, since we have given good reasons to believe that the Gawanans' ascribe knowledge to r-justified beliefs, we can make plausible the claim that they ascribe knowledge to br-justified beliefs by showing that their knowledge attribution practice admits only beliefs whose authority is r-recognized, and that is the goal here. Let us begin by recalling the two components of authority recognition for bilevel reliabilism: S recognizes the authority of his belief in p iff: (a) S r-knows that his belief in p was acquired via bfp b. and (b) S r-knows that b is a reliable bfp. There is an internalist and an externalist element to each of these clauses. The internalist element is the requirement that S have meta-beliefs of these sorts, the externalist element is that the meta-beliefs constitute r-knowledge. Let us consider first whether the Gawanans ascribe knowledge only to cases in which the internalist element is present. To determine this, it will be useful to consider firstand thirdperson knowledge attributions (i.e. knowledge avowals and attributions of knowledge to others) separately. These are examined in turn. For the Gawanans, part of the act of (correctly) avowing knowledge is to "ascertain" whether one's belief has been acquired by one of the socially approved 124 bfp's, for if it has not the avowal is incorrect. Hence, in avowing knowledge, one does, as a matter of course, acquire the meta-belief required by clause (a)--a belief about which bfp led to the object-belief. Does one also acquire the meta-belief required by clause (b)--a belief about whether the bfp is reliable? If one is to attempt to avow knowledge correctly one must "ascertain" whether the particular bfp producing the object belief is one of those socially sanctioned. Making such an effort would not eo ipso produce beliefs about the reliability of the bfp, but if we consider the process of social sanctioning more closely, we will see that such beliefs will be produced. In Gawanan society the sanctioning begins with inductions which have as their ultimate conclusions that certain bfp's are trustworthy. Hence, the rationale for sanctioning is clearly that the bfp's are trustworthy, i.e. reliable. In practical terms this means that parents will pass these sanctions on to their children giving trustworthiness as the rationale for the sanctioning, and that any bfp whose trustworthiness comes to be doubted may lose its sanction. Thus, if one comes to believe that his bfp is one of those socially sanctioned, one does, typically, also come to believe that it is a reliable bfp. Thus, it can be seen that, typically, one has the meta-belief pertaining to clause (b) as well; hence, the first-person internalist part of our present project is complete. These internalist elements do not seem to be similarly required for third-person knowledge ascription. In such cases, since the ascription is done by another, the cognizer possessing the object-belief is not required by the act of ascription to have beliefs either about which bfp led to his belief or about the reliability/social sanction- 125 ing of that bfp. And I am not certain that there is any aspect of Gawanan epistemic practices that decisively requires internalist features in cases of third-person attribution. However, it is worth noting that typically in such a case the attributor would possess these internalist features, i.e. he must believe that the belief was acquired by his fellow Gawanan by a bfp b and believe that b is trustworthy; otherwise he would not be disposed to make the attribution. Thus, in such cases, the act of knowledge attribution would require at least that someone in the society, viz. the attributor, possess the internalist element of br-justification. In any event, this slight chink in our present argument is heavily mitigated by two factors. First, third-person knowledge ascription seems to occur relatively infrequently. Second, as seldom as third-person knowledge ascription occurs, third-person knowledge ascription to beliefs for which the cognizer lacks these meta-beliefs will occur even more seldom. Thus, though knowledge may sometimes be correctly ascribed to nonbr-justified beliefs in such situations, it is not really a problem for the present explanation since it occurs so rarely that its overall effect is negligible. (Consequently, I will hereafter ignore problematic cases of third-person knowledge attribution.) Next we examine whether the externalist element of authority recognition is typically present in the beliefs to which the Gawanans' ascribe knowledge, i.e. whether the meta-beliefs associated with these object beliefs constitute r-knowledge. Consider first the clause (a) metabelief--the belief that one's belief has been acquired by bfp b. It seems reasonable to suppose that that meta-belief typically constitutes r-knowledge simply because it is acquired via introspective faculties that seem to be 126 quite reliable when it comes to determining just how we acquire a certain belief (or, at least, how we sustain that belief in cases in which we have forgotten just how we acquired it). 51 The clause (b) meta-belief--that the relevant bfp is reliable--also seems typically to constitute r-knowledge. For, as was noted above, this meta-belief can be seen as being acquired via an inference from the belief that the relevant bfp is socially sanctioned. 52 And acquiring beliefs via such an inference would seem to be a reliable bfp in such cases, for the premiss will typically be true--determining whether a bfp is socially sanctioned is not a difficult task--and, when it is, the conclusion will also typically be true, for, as was discussed in the previous section, the inductive practices employed by Gawanans are an effective means of sanctioning only reliable bfp's. We can now see how all the elements of authority recognition will obtain, typically, for the beliefs to which the Gawanans' ascribe knowledge, and, thus, that it is plausible that such beliefs are mostly br-justified beliefs and, hence, mostly br-knowledge. 51 It may be objected that there is a significant number of situations in which such faculties are not reliable. For example, emotions and desires often lead to the formation of belief via wishful thinking, and often in such cases we are unaware of their role in the formation of our belief. But epistemic practices (ours, and, we will assume the Gawanan's also) correct for such cases by the practice of challenging and defending a knowledge claim. Being challenged to defend one's belief or merely knowing that one may be challenged should lead a person to consider a knowledge ascription more carefully and not avow knowledge in such cases. 52 Individualists may protest that if Gawanan inferences typically proceed in this direction their judgments of reliability will be inordinately dependent on their society. However, relying on society for judgments of reliability can help avoid individual errors in making such judgments. For example, errors due to too limited experience with the bfp, or the obtuseness of the particular individual, or his emotional biases. 127 7.3 That the Practice of Knowledge Attribution Promotes Br-knowledge and that such Promotion is Useful Having established the plausibility of the claim that Gawanan knowledge ascriptions are typically made of br-knowledge (claim I), we are now ready to conclude the explanation of the function of the Gawanan practice of knowledge attribution by arguing that this practice promotes br-knowledge (claim II) and is useful because it does (claim III). Thus far we have been concerned with the Gawanan practice of knowledge attribution primarily considered as a means for the classification of beliefs as knowings or not. However, to complete this final stage of our explanation we must construe the practice a bit more broadly, for clearly the mere ability to classify beliefs need not promote br-knowledge since the Gawanans may never exercise the ability. If the practice is to promote br-knowledge, it must be more inclusive. To see what to include, let us consider the argument about to be presented. The general argument that the practice promotes br-knowledge is that Gawanans desire, for a number of reasons, to possess "knowledge" (the quotation marks here indicate that the word is being used in the Gawanan sense), and, since "knowledge" is applied mostly to br-knowledge, such desires will result in an increase in br-knowledge in the community. Thus, to give this argument a chance to succeed, we will include in the Gawanan practice of knowledge attribution two demands for "knowledge" that are consistent with the epistemic institutions of the Gawanan community and human societies generally. 128 The first such demand arises from the social demand that one's opinion be especially trustworthy in certain "high stakes" situations: e.g. when one is asked for information, when one is contradicting another with greater authority, or, at least in contemporary society, when one is determining the guilt or innocence of a defendant. Since knowledge, for Gawanans, is distinguished from other beliefs primarily in terms of its trustworthiness, a demand for trustworthy opinion is easily transformed into a demand for knowledge. A second such demand arises not from social but from individual desires. Usually, ceteris paribus, we seek to be right about things. Since "knowledge" is held to be trustworthy, we will naturally seek it out as a way to be right. Including these demands in the practice of knowledge attribution makes clear that it promotes br-knowledge in the community: members desire "knowledge" for at least these two reasons, and, since "knowledge" is mostly br-knowledge, their efforts to realize their desires should bring more br-knowledge into being. Such promotion is also clearly a useful thing, for as we saw in previous chapters, br-knowledge is a very useful kind of belief to have. We have finally concluded the bilevel reliabilist explanation of the function of the Gawanans' knowledge attribution practice. The function of their practice is the useful promotion of br-knowledge. We must now attempt to apply what we have established so far to the conventionalist foundationalist version of the practice--the version that would seem to exist today--and then consider to what extent what we have established about Gawanan society applies to human societies generally. 129 7.4 Explaining the Practice of Knowledge Attribution as it Exists Today Continuing to use Gawanan society as a paradigm, we now turn our attention to explaining the origin and function of the conventionalist foundationalist practice of knowledge attribution. We first attempt to explain its origin by considering how such a practice might evolve from the Gawanans' pedigree practice and then attempt to explain the function. The conventionalist foundationalist practice was described in the previous chapter as follows: The title of knowledge is conferred on just those beliefs which receive direct social sanction or which the believer can infer by socially sanctioned norms from claims which receive direct social sanction. To see how such a practice might evolve from the Gawanans' pedigree practice recall that their pedigree practice sanctions bfp's directly, and, by extension, sanctions beliefs in terms of their bfp ancestry. However, this unstructured and rather haphazard sanctioning process may become unwieldy. Since it sanctions bfp types in piecemeal fashion, there may come to be so many sanctioned bfp's that individual Gawanans cannot effectively master the epistemological heritage of their community. An evidentialist practice such as conventionalist foundationalism might evolve as an attempt to introduce a structure to the sanctioning process to make it more manageable. Let us take a closer look at this practice to see how this evolution might occur. The conventionalist foundationalist practice allows sanctioning of beliefs either noninferentially or inferentially. A belief is sanctioned non-inferentially if it is determined to belong to one of a certain set of privileged kinds of beliefs, e.g. beliefs 130 in analytic propositions or beliefs about the way things appear. A belief is sanctioned inferentially if it is determined to be inferable by socially sanctioned inference norms from sanctioned beliefs. A switch to such a two-tiered sanctioning system could greatly streamline the sanctioning process for the community, but, of course, for such a switch to be acceptable the new process must sanction mostly the same beliefs as the old. This streamlining could occur while maintaining sanctioning equivalence as follows. The bfp's sanctioned by the pedigree practice would be assigned to one of the two tiers--non-inferential or inferential--and equivalents to each introduced. Bfp's involving an explicit psychological inference as well as many involving only implicit inferences would be assigned to the inferential tier, and the remainder would be assigned to the non-inferential tier. Translation at the non-inferential level would not involve streamlining because each bfp would be translated into a corresponding kind of belief, e.g. a sanctioned bfp of "direct observation" might be "translated" into a sanctioning of "beliefs resulting from direct observation". But at the inferential tier things could be much streamlined, for a variety of sanctioned bfp's using one inference rule could be replaced by the sanctioning of the inference rule. For example, to use a somewhat contrived example, sanctioned bfp's of believing-that-afood-is-non-poisonous-after-directly-observing-people-eating-it-with-no-ill-effects-onnumerous-occasions and believing-that-tigers-will-attack-humans-after-directly-observingattacks-on-numerous-occasions could be reduced to the sanctioning of the inference norm of enumerative induction (assuming the non-inferential sanctioning of direct observation is already in place). In this way, a switch to a conventionalist foundationalist practice 131 could both streamline the sanctioning process and maintain the same corpus of privileged beliefs. It can be seen, then, that a conventionalist foundationalist practice would be a practical improvement over the Gawanans' pedigree practice and that such an advantage could provide the impetus for its evolution from the pedigree practice. To complete the explanation of the origin of a Gawanan conventionalist foundationalist practice we should explain the mechanics of this evolution, i.e. just how the transition from one practice to the other occurs, and why the conventionalist foundationalist rather than some other simplifying practice evolved. But I will not attempt to add these elements here since they would probably be tedious, highly speculative, and, as will become evident, are not required for the success of our overall project. We now turn to the explanation of the function of the Gawanan conventionalist foundationalist practice described above. Above, it was noted that the evolution from a pedigree practice to a conventionalist foundationalist practice would tend to retain the same corpus of "knowledge", i.e. would count the same set of beliefs as knowledge. Given this extensional equivalence of the two practices, the task of explaining the function of the conventionalist foundationalist practice becomes one of simply transferring to it, mutatis mutandis, the explanation of the function of the pedigree practice. As with the pedigree practice, the explanation of the function of the conventionalist foundationalist practice is that it promotes the existence of br-knowledge via the combination of three features: (1) that its "knowledge" is mostly br-knowledge; (2) that there is a social demand for such "knowledge" in high stakes 132 situations; and (3) that individuals desire such knowledge because they desire to be right. Feature (1) is achieved because it was shown how it could be true for the pedigree practice above, and because the two practices are presumed to be extensionally equivalent. Features (2) and (3) are achieved as they were with the pedigree practice. 7.5 Summary of the Explanation and Consideration of the Generality of its Application We have now completed the presentation of the bilevel reliabilist explanation of the origin and function of the Gawanans' knowledge attribution practice. In sum, the explanation of the origin is that Gawanans were led to develop a knowledge attribution practice because, first of all, their inductive tendencies led them to have beliefs about the trustworthiness of various types of belief-forming processes. These beliefs, in turn, led to the community's sanctioning certain bfp's as trustworthy. And a word for knowledge was finally introduced--and thus a knowledge attribution practice was fully realized--to abbreviate the otherwise tedious process of claiming that one's belief was acquired via one of the sanctioned bfp's. From this pedigree knowledge attribution practice there then evolved, as a way of simplifying the sanctioning process, a conventionalist foundationalist practice. The principal function of the Gawanans' pedigree knowledge attribution practice is promoting the existence of a highly useful type of belief, br-knowledge, within the community. Briefly, the explanation of how the practice achieves this function is as follows. Armed with a set of mostly true beliefs and an effective 133 quality space for making inductions that has been selected for by evolution and fine-tuned by second-order inductions, Gawanans sanction certain bfp's as trustworthy. Since this belief set and quality space make Gawanans relatively efficient cognitive mechanisms, their sanctions succeed in picking out mostly reliable bfp's. Beliefs resulting from these processes become known as knowledge, and, typically, the authority of these beliefs is r-recognized because of various requirements involved in the act of knowledge attribution pertaining to its place in the space of reasons and the space of communal interactions. Thus, knowledge comes to be attributed primarily to br-knowledge. Because of its presumed trustworthiness, there are strong social and individual demands for knowledge, and these demands cause the community to increase the production of knowledge. It is in this way that the pedigree knowledge attribution practice functions to promote br-knowledge. The conventionalist foundationalist practice promotes br-knowledge in just the same way, attributing, as it does, knowledge to just the same beliefs. Let us now consider to what extent this explanation is applicable to human societies generally. Since, in the course of the explanation, no explanatorily important attributes were attributed to Gawanan society that could not be possessed by human societies generally (i.e. no special historical developments or religious beliefs), it seems clear that it is possible that this is the explanation, mutatis mutandis, for the practice of knowledge attribution in all human societies. But our initial goal, it will 134 be recalled, was to provide a plausible 53 explanation. And it seems to me that this too has been accomplished, for arguments have been provided for most parts of the explanation and these have relied upon factors, such as evolutionary and cultural pressure, that are universal to human societies. However, a greater plausibility has been established for some parts of the explanation, especially when it is considered as a general explanation, than others, and it will be worth noting these. Perhaps the least well supported parts of the explanation concern the explanation of the origin. Little reason was given to believe that inductions concerning bfp's (rather than, e.g., inductions concerning reasons) should be the ones that lead to the development of a knowledge attribution practice. Moreover, since the plausibility of the claim that an evidentialist practice evolved from a pedigree practice depends on the plausibility of the claim that a pedigree practice developed first, the former claim would also seem to have relatively weak support. However, it should be noted that the plausibility of the explanation of the function is not directly dependent on the plausibility of the explanation of the origin. For the key to the explanation of the function was establishing that a conventionalist foundationalist practice promoted br-knowledge, and that could be true even if the practice evolved in some entirely different way. 53 A "plausible" explanation, for present purposes, differs from a merely possible one primarily in that there will be some, though far from conclusive, good reasons for believing that it is actual, and that there will be no obvious reasons for believing that it is not actual. 135 7.6 Implications of the Bilevel Reliabilist Explanation of the Existence and Function of Epistemic Practices We turn now to consider the implications of the bilevel reliabilist explanation of epistemic practices. In the previous chapter a number of reasons for undertaking such a task were discussed: increasing our knowledge of an important part of human affairs; providing a defense for non-traditional epistemologies against charges of explanatory inadequacy; providing a weapon against epistemological anarchism, relativism, and nihilism; and providing support for bilevel reliabilism as a basis for constructive epistemology. In assessing the extent to which the explanation achieves these goals, we must bear in mind that it is only claimed to be a plausible, not definitive, explanation. Though it might be doubted that merely a plausible explanation could go very far in achieving such goals, it will become evident that it makes significant progress. The first goal was to increase our knowledge of this important part of human affairs. I would argue that this goal has been achieved by the explanation. The explanation makes clear and, to my knowledge, for the first time, the details of how a practice of knowledge attribution could originate and be of great general utility despite there being no rational privileging of the sort the practitioners believe (at least in some of the practice's forms) to be the raison d'être of the practice. Thus, it offers researchers an appealing alternative to extant hypotheses, most of which have either the problem of relying upon the existence of rational privileging or, in denying the existence of rational privileging, make epistemic practices appear useless. 136 The second goal was to provide a defense for neo-Humean epistemologies against charges of explanatory inadequacy. Such charges, it will be recalled from the previous chapter, were that these epistemologies could not satisfactorily explain why such practices existed. For in denying the existence of rational privileging, they deny epistemic practices a general utility that could explain their near universal existence in human communities. The bilevel reliabilist explanation provides the tools for a defense against such charges since it shows how epistemic practices might have originated simply from universal human inductive tendencies. The third goal was to provide a weapon against epistemological anarchism, relativism, and nihilism. The explanation succeeds here too (although, as will become evident, the weapon is primarily defensive in nature). But before examining how it succeeds, let us pause to clarify the meaning of these three terms in the present context. Our present concern is the current practice of knowledge attribution, which, for these purposes, can be thought of as a set of principles bestowing epistemic honor on some beliefs and theories and denying it to others. An epistemological anarchist 54 about this practice will hold that it is unnecessarily restrictive. The principles pick out no set of beliefs and theories more deserving of honor than any other set of beliefs and theories; thus, we would be better off without the practice since it denies, without justification, honor to certain beliefs and theories. An epistemological relativist holds that though there may be a point to honoring some beliefs/theories over others, there are many mutually incompatible and widely 54 This term is from Feyerabend (1975). 137 divergent sets of principles that humans might adopt to distribute this honor, and the honor bestowed by one of these systems takes (and ought take) no precedence over that bestowed by another. An epistemological nihilist holds that the practice has no useful function and ought to be abandoned. To see how the bilevel reliabilist explanation provides a weapon against such extremist views, consider the structure of the debate between epistemological extremists and moderates. Moderates wishing to oppose extremist views face a dialectical dilemma regarding the existence of rational privileging. Either they accept its existence or they do not. If they accept its existence, they should be able to marshall powerful attacks against extremist views. For, as was noted in the previous chapter, the current practice of knowledge attribution seems to be aimed at bestowing honor on rationally privileged beliefs, and, if there is such privileging and the practice is largely successful in picking out beliefs so privileged, then it is relatively easy to argue that the practice has a useful function and the honor bestowed is genuine and, hence, that extremist views are wrongheaded. But if moderates accept the existence of such privileging, then they must also accept the burden of defending their belief in its existence. However, the history of skeptical attacks on this view shows its defense to be very difficult--indeed, so difficult that for the purposes of this dissertation we have assumed it to be hopeless. Thus, the first horn of the dilemma is complete--there is no more dialectical room in which moderates can maneuver. Suppose, then, that moderates deny the existence of rational privileging. Extremists would seem to have good cause to rejoice at this move as well. For it is accepted by both sides (or 138 at least we will assume so for present purposes) that current practices are held by society at large to bestow honor on rationally privileged beliefs, and if such privilege does not exist, the conclusion seems clear that these practices fail at their appointed task. And, once this conclusion is drawn, the door seems wide open for nihilists to attempt to show that epistemic practices are pointless, for anarchists to show that the honor bestowed is bogus, and for relativists to argue for equal status for a variety of systems of bestowing honor since the current one has no special place from the standpoint of reason. The bilevel reliabilist explanation provides a weapon for moderates by providing for them a way out of this dialectical dilemma. It provides a way out by allowing an opponent who opts for the horn denying the existence of rational privileging to block the advance of extremists by appealing to the plausible possibility presented by the explanation. To the epistemological nihilist, for example, he can say: Yes, there is no rational privileging, and so we agree that the practice does not have the function it is generally supposed to have. However, the practice may have other useful functions. And I am not here attempting to block nihilistic moves merely by shifting to you the burden of proving that there are no such alternative functions, for the bilevel reliabilist explanation of epistemic practices gives a detailed and plausible account of how such practices might have just such a function. And to the anarchist he can offer the bilevel reliabilist explanation as a plausible scenario according to which the honor bestowed is not bogus, for it is granted mostly to cases of brknowledge. And to the relativist he can decry the equal status given various systems of distributing honor, for, if the bilevel reliabilist explanation is cor- 139 rect, our system bestows it largely to cases of br-knowledge--a sort of belief useful in most any community--and other systems might not. In this way, the bilevel reliabilist explanation can be of assistance to moderates who deny rational privileging and who--though tempted by the heady intellectual freedom of the nihilist, anarchist, and relativist positions--wish to avoid the epistemic chaos inherent in each. As a way of further elucidating the manner in which the explanation serves as a weapon against extremist positions, I want to make clear that there is one means of using it as a weapon that I am definitely not advocating. This means could be employed only after the explanation had been extensively tested and confirmed so that there was widespread scientific agreement that it was the best explanation. Once this had been achieved, there would then be those who would wish to claim "our best science indicates the extremists are wrong--epistemic practices do have a useful function, and they do pick out beliefs that are deserving of honor, [etc.]". There are two difficulties with such a claim. First, the claim is appealing to the authority of science as a means of refuting epistemological extremism, but, of course, it is the very authority of science that the extremist questions, so such an appeal has no force with him. (Of course, if it is then claimed that the explanation establishes the authority of science, the appeal to the extremist will be blatantly circular.) A second difficulty is that the claim seems to assume the existence of rational privileging, for it seems to imply that we ought to heed the dictates of our best science because its results are rationally privileged. 140 It should now be clear that I do not intend to use the bilevel reliabilist explanation to provide any sort of science-based refutation of extremist positions. The dialectical move it provides the moderate position is not one of refutation, but of defense against attack. It can be used as a defensive, but not an offensive weapon. And the defense it provides does not involve any sort of claim of rational privilege for the moderate position, but only a defense of the tenability of the position. In addition to providing moderates with an escape from the aforementioned dialectical dilemma, the explanation also can serve to defend a moderate position from a different, though closely related, sort of attack that the extremist might launch. This sort of attack claims that a position, in some respect, undermines itself. Such an attack would seem to be successful against a traditional epistemological position (one that affirms the existence of rational privileging). For such a view undermines itself in that if one employs the practices it recommends, i.e. the usual sorts of Wissenschaftliche methods 55 , to determine whether there are rationally privileged beliefs, the result is negative (or so I, and the extremist, would argue). The bilevel reliabilist explanation can be seen as helping to show that a moderate position denying rational privileging does not undermine itself. For the explanation shows that if one employs the epistemic practices recommended by moderate positions (which are the same as those recommended by the traditionalist) to determine whether epistemic practices serve a useful function, the answer is positive. 55 By this expression I mean to refer to those methods generally regarded as sound scholarly/scientific methods. 141 (The preceding discussion may lead the reader to wonder, if I make no claim of rational privilege for the bilevel reliabilist explanation, just what, if any, sort of special status I do believe it has and why, in any event, I am advocating it. I suspect my answer will be unsatisfying to those inclined to ask such questions. My answer, in general terms, is just that I believe the explanation is that favored by the sort of methodology employed in generating it (i.e. Wissenschaftliche methodology). I do not believe this methodology has any sort of rational privilege, but it is consistent with the form of life 56 I favor, and that is why I advocate the views that I believe it favors.) The fourth goal of undertaking an explanation of epistemic practices was to provide support for bilevel reliabilism as a basis for a constructive neo-Humean epistemology. Since bilevel reliabilism is a radical epistemology, to establish it as a basis for constructive epistemology requires that it be shown capable of accomplishing a variety of tasks. This has been accomplished, in part, by showing how it achieves the three goals discussed above. Thus, though it would probably be going to far to say that the radical nature of bilevel reliabilism has been completely justified, a substantial beginning for doing so has been achieved. 56 Very roughly, by "form of life" I mean to refer to the fundamental assumptions one makes about the universe and one's place in it that do not derive from other beliefs one has. 142 BIBLIOGRAPHY 143 Alston, William: 1983, 'What's Wrong with Immediate Knowledge?', Synthese 55, 73-95. Alston, William: 1986, 'Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology', Philosophical Topics 14, 1, 179-221. Alston, William: 1988, 'An Internalist Externalism', Synthese 74, 265-83. Armstrong, David M.: 1973, Belief, Truth, and Knowledge, Cambridge U. Press, London. Austin, John L.: 1961, Philosophical Papers, Clarendon Press, Oxford. Bonjour, Laurence: 1985, The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, Harvard U. Press, Cambridge. Boyd, Richard: 1984, 'The Current Status of Scientific Realism' in Leplin (1984). Chisholm, Roderick M.: 1988, 'The Indispensability of Internal Justification', Synthese 74, 28596. Cohen, Stewart: 1984, 'Justification and Truth', Philosophical Studies 46, 279-95. Dretske, Fred: 1971, "Conclusive Reasons", Australasian Journal of Philosophy 49, 1-22. Dretske, Fred: 1981, Knowledge and the Flow of Information, MIT Press, Cambridge. Feldman, Richard: 1985, 'Reliability and Justification', The Monist 68, 2, 159-74. Feldman, Richard and Conee, Earl: 1985, 'Evidentialism', Philosophical Studies 48, 15-34. Feyerabend, Paul: 1978, Against Method, Verso, London and New York. Foley, Richard: 1985, 'What's Wrong with Reliabilism?', The Monist 68, 2, 188-202. 144 Fricker, Elizabeth: 'The Epistemology of Testimony', Aristotelean Society Supplementary Volume 61, 57-83. Goldman, Alvin I.: 1967, 'A Causal Theory of Knowing', The Journal of Philosophy 64, 12, 35572. Goldman, Alvin I.: 1976, 'Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge', The Journal of Philosophy 73, 20, 771-91. Goldman, Alvin I.: 1978, 'Epistemics: The Regulative Theory of Cognition', The Journal of Philosophy 75, 10, 509-23. Goldman, Alvin I.: 1979, 'What is Justified Belief?' in Justification and Knowledge, New Studies in Epistemology, G. Pappas ed., D. Reidel, Dordrecht, pp. 1-23. Goldman, Alvin I.: 1980, 'The Internalist Conception of Justification' in Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Volume V, Studies in Epistemology, P. French et. al., eds., U. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, pp. 27-52. Goldman, Alvin I.: 1986, Epistemology and Cognition, Harvard U. Press, Cambridge. Goodman, Nelson: 1979, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, 3rd ed., Hackett, Indianapolis. Harrison, J.: 1962, 'Knowing and Promising', Mind 71, 284, 443-57. Kaplan, Mark: 1985, 'It's Not What You Know That Counts', Journal of Philosophy 82, 7, 35063. Kornblith, Hilary: 1980, 'Beyond Foundationalism and the Coherence Theory', The Journal of Philosophy 72, 597-612. Leplin, Jarrett, ed.: 1984, Scientific Realism, U. of California Press, Berkeley. Levi, Isaac: 1980, The Enterprise of Knowledge, MIT Press, Cambridge. McDowell, John: forthcoming, 'Knowledge by Hearsay' in a collection of essays on the epistemology of testimony, B.K. Matilal and A. Chakrabarti, eds. Mackie, John L.: 1977, Ethics, Inventing Right and Wrong, Penguin, Middlesex. Papineau, David: 1985, 'Realism and Epistemology', Mind 94, 367-88. 145 Peacocke, Christopher: 1986, Thoughts: An Essay on Content, Basil Blackwell, Oxford. Pollock, John: 1986, Contemporary Theories of Knowledge, Rowman & Littlefield, Totowa, New Jersey. Pollock, John: 1987, 'Epistemic Norms', Synthese 71, 61-95. Quine, W.V.O.: 1969, Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, Columbia U. Press, Cambridge. Ramsey, Frank P.: 1978, Foundations: Essays in Philosophy, Logic, Mathematics and Economics, D.H. Mellor, ed., Humanities Press, Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. Rawls, John: 1971, A Theory of Justice, Belknap Press, Cambridge. Rorty, Richard: 1979, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton U. Press, Princeton. Salmon, Wesley: 1966, The Foundations of Scientific Inference, U. of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh. Sellars, Wilfrid: 1963, Science, Perception, and Reality, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. Smith, Norman Kemp: 1949, The Philosophy of David Hume, Macmillan, London. Sosa, Ernest: 1983, 'Nature Unmirrored, Epistemology Naturalized', Synthese 55, 49-72. Stich, Stephen: 1983, From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science, MIT Press, Cambridge. Watling, John: 1954, 'Inference from the Known to the Unknown', Proceedings of the Aristotelean Society 55, 81-108.BIB | {
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Subject and Object in Scientific Realism Howard Sankey University of Melbourne 1. Introduction: Subject and Object Dimitri Ginev and I once worked together on a project entitled "Analytic vs. Hermeneutic Perspectives on the Philosophy of Science".1 In the course of our discussions, one topic often came to the fore. Dimitri argued that the scientific realist position that I endorse is wedded to an untenable dualism of subject and object. This dualism gives rise to a number of characteristic problems that disappear once the dualism is renounced. In this paper, I return to the topic in order to consider what a scientific realist might say about the dichotomy of subject and object. I will begin with some remarks about terminology. As I understand the subject-object distinction, the contrast is between the knowing subject and the known object. On the one hand, there is the subject who possesses knowledge. On the other hand, there is the object that is known to the subject. Though much is known to the subject about their own mental states, in the cases of interest the known object is in the "external world" outside the mind. I do not restrict the knowing subject to humans, since I regard knowledge as a natural phenomenon. At least some non-human animals possess knowledge. I tend not to employ the traditional expression "external world", since I think of the knowing subject as immersed in the world rather than separated off from it. Nor do I think of knowledge as restricted to "objects" in any strict sense, since there may be knowledge not just of objects, but of 1 This was the title of a collaborative research project which brought Dimitri to the University of Melbourne as visiting scholar in 1997. 2 properties, relations, facts, events, regularities, laws of nature, etc. I have a slight preference for the expression 'epistemic agent' rather than 'subject', since I think of knowers as active participants rather than passive subjects. My realism has a pragmatist orientation, since I take realism to be grounded in practical interaction with the objects in our immediate surroundings.2 The notion of an object is connected with the notions of objectivity and of an objective world. As a realist, I hold that we inhabit an objective reality that in large part exists independently of thought, language and conceptualization. Against the sceptic, I hold that we are able to have genuine objective knowledge of this mind-independent reality. But this epistemologically optimistic view brings with it a number of characteristic problems, most importantly, that of explaining how knowledge of such a mind-independent reality is possible. How are we able to bridge the epistemic gap between the subjective realm of belief and the objective extra-mental world? This is the place where Dimitri's concern about the subject-object dichotomy gets its grip. The suite of epistemological and metaphysical problems that must be addressed by the realist simply disappears if one denies that there is an epistemic gap between mind and world because there is no subject-object distinction to open up the gap. In what follows, I will first characterize the scientific realist position that I adopt. I will then address the question of the nature of scientific knowledge from a realist point of view. Next I will consider the question of how to locate the knowing subject within the 2 Though my pragmatist orientation starts at the ground level of practical interaction with everyday objects, it extends to the theoretical knowledge found in the sciences. Although I do not follow Hacking in his restriction of scientific realism to entity realism, I am persuaded by his talk of intervention that we must take seriously scientists' practical interaction with the world in the context of experimental science (Hacking 1983). I also hold that a pragmatist orientation is of relevance to meta-methodological considerations about the warrant of the rules of scientific method (cf. Rescher 1977). 3 context of scientific realism. After that I will consider the place of mind in an objective world. I will close with some general remarks on the topic. 2. Scientific Realism and Common Sense As classically understood, scientific realism is the view that the aim of science is truth. Given that the aim of science is truth, scientific progress must consist in progress toward that aim. Because science is successful, we may be confident that science has made considerable progress toward the aim of truth. The aim of truth need not be thought of in terms of one true and complete theory of the world toward which science advances.3 Instead, the aim may be to build up an increasing store of truths of a singular as well as a general nature that are known about the world. With the advance of science, considerably more truth is known now than was known previously. Rather than convergence on one true theory, progress might better be thought of as continued increase in the amount of truth that is known about the world.4 For the realist, truth must be a correspondence relation between what we believe about the world and the way the world is. Truth cannot be an epistemic notion, such as 3 I find the idea of "one true and complete theory" of the world next to incomprehensible. Would such a theory contain a complete enumeration of all of the facts throughout the entirety of space and time? It is difficult to imagine a theory of that kind, let alone conceive of one. Hacking raises doubts not only about such a theory but about the idea of a complete description of anything (Hacking 1983, p. 94). I discuss the issue in somewhat greater detail in my (2008, pp. 261-2). 4 Unfortunately, my way of thinking about progress in terms of increase in truth falls foul of the same problem that confronted Popper's notion of verisimilitude, viz., any addition of new truth will be accompanied by new falsehoods. While I recognize that there may be formal difficulties which confront the notion of an increase of truth, I am optimistic that a technically adequate account of the notion will be developed. For present purposes, I remain content with the intuitive idea that we now know a great deal more truths about the world than we did at an earlier stage in the history of science. 4 coherence or ideal justification, since that would lead to an idealist metaphysics (cf. Musgrave 1997). Because realism stands opposed to idealism, the realist requires a notion of truth that is non-epistemic. Truth does not depend upon what we believe, or on what we are justified in believing. The truth of claims about the world depends upon the way that the world in fact is. The idea that truth is a correspondence relation captures the idea that the truth of a claim about the world depends upon the world in fact being the way that the claim says that the world is. Of course, more needs to be said about the exact nature of correspondence. For my part, I favour a construal of correspondence in terms of causal relations of reference along the lines once proposed by Hartry Field (1972). But it is entirely possible that a more minimalist construal of the correspondence theory of truth is compatible with realism. What is essential is that the notion be a non-epistemic one. According to the scientific realist, scientific investigation is not restricted to observable features of the world. It extends to aspects of the world that are not open to direct inspection by our unaided senses. As scientists seek to explain observed phenomena, they develop scientific theories. In the process, they often postulate the existence of unobservable theoretical entities whose behaviour gives rise to phenomena at the observable level. Evidence for theoretical entities is typically indirect, involving explanatory considerations as well as confirmation of the observational consequences of the theory that posits the entities. Discourse about theoretical entities is not to be reduced to discourse about observable entities. Scientific talk about theoretical entities is to be taken literally as discourse which genuinely refers, or purports to refer, to unobservable entities that actually exist in the objective world. A theoretical term (e.g. 'phlogiston', 'aether') may fail to refer if the entity to which it purports to refer does not in fact exist. Nor is the reference of a theoretical term tied uniquely to the theory in which the term is introduced. It is possible for the same term to 5 be employed by different theories to refer to the same thing. Indeed, different theories may refer to the same theoretical entity even if they do not employ the same term. I have always understood scientific realism in what I take to be the classical sense as committed to the idea that the aim of science is truth. However, I have been persuaded by Stathis Psillos that it may not be necessary to take a thesis about the aim of science as an essential ingredient of scientific realism.5 The aims of science may vary historically, and from one science or group of scientists to another. Instead of arguing that all of the potentially competing aims of science must somehow be subservient to the overriding aim of truth, the realist may instead adopt an epistemological approach. On this view, the realist need not be committed to the thesis that truth is the one paramount aim subserved by all other scientific aims. Instead, we may think of scientific realism as primarily an epistemological thesis. According to this epistemological thesis, science not only can but routinely does produce genuine knowledge of the objective world which it investigates. The advantage of adopting this epistemological construal of scientific realism is that it retains a robust commitment to scientific knowledge while avoiding the need to defend the view that all scientific aims must subserve the paramount aim of truth, or that all scientific activity ultimately serves a single aim. The standard argument for scientific realism is the "no miracles" argument that realism is the only way to explain the success of science without appeal to a miracle. This argument is usually thought of as an inference to the best (or perhaps the only) explanation of the success of science. I have myself employed a version of this argument at the meta- 5 I am grateful to Stathis Psillos and the members of his seminar for discussion of this issue and other topics relating to scientific realism while I was a visitor at the University of Athens. Psillos's statement of scientific realism involves metaphysical, semantic and epistemic components, with no mention of the aim of truth (see Psillos 1999, p. xix). I had always found this puzzling. But I now recognize that a robust form of scientific realism may be articulated without reference to the aim of science. 6 methodological level to argue for a realist theory of scientific method on which the rules of method are to be conceived as reliable means to arrive at truth (e.g. Sankey 2000). But there is one reason why I prefer not to overemphasize the "no miracles" argument. It seems to me that the attempt to establish realism by this route overlooks the extent to which science is grounded in the practical activity of scientists, who as agents interact with the world around them.6 This issue brings me to the topic of common sense and its relation to science. Some philosophers hold that there is a conflict between science and common sense. Some also hold that where there is a conflict between science and common sense, it is common sense that must give way to science. On this view, common sense is outmoded theory, which is to be rejected with the advance of scientific inquiry. If the view that science leads to the overthrow of common sense is combined with a scientific realist outlook, we arrive at the view that what science tells us about the world is correct and the commonsense view is to be rejected as false. Hence, some scientific realists adopt an eliminativist view of common sense on which our ordinary commonsense descriptions of the world are to be rejected in favour of the descriptions provided by our best scientific theories. But this is to throw the baby out with the bath water. In my view, we are to be realists about the ordinary everyday objects with which we interact on a daily basis.7 Though we are 6 In drawing attention to the importance of scientists' practical interaction with the world for realism, I follow Hacking. I have argued elsewhere that Hacking's experimental argument for realism is in fact an inference to the best explanation of the success of scientific practice (Sankey 2012). Thus, contrary to Hacking, the argument is not fundamentally different in form from the standard argument for scientific realism. Despite this, I think that Hacking is right to emphasize the importance of actual scientific practice in the case for scientific realism. 7 Some realists may argue for the existence of ordinary things by means of an inference to the best explanation of experience. This may have made sense in the context of a sense data version of indirect realism (cf. Russell 1959, pp. 22-3). But I think that the warrant for belief in such things is more direct than this. We directly perceive objects and their properties. Such direct perception provides the belief in such objects and properties with their warrant. 7 prone to error and may be subject to illusion, much of what we ordinarily take ourselves to know of the world immediately around us is true. As I write these words, my computer is indeed on the desk before me, the window is open and there is a tree outside in the courtyard. To deny these things would be to reject the dictates of common sense in favour of a scepticism about the external world for which no compelling reason may be provided. Rather than eliminate common sense, we should take common sense as our "epistemic base" in the words of David Armstrong (2004). What Armstrong calls the "Moorean truths" of common sense are not to be rejected. They are to be taken as our epistemic starting-point. On the view that I propose, science is to be viewed as an outgrowth of common sense. The rules of scientific method are in many cases a more rigorous application of procedures employed as part of our ordinary everyday epistemic interaction with the world. Most importantly, observation by means of our senses plays a crucial epistemic role in both common sense and science. It is true that beliefs that have formed part of common sense are on some occasions rejected. But what more generally occurs is that phenomena known to common sense are explained by science. In such cases, science does not reject common sense. It provides us with an explanation of phenomena of which we have experience in our commonsense interaction with the world around us.8 The point is important for the epistemology of scientific realism. If we are able to take much of commonsense belief to be well-grounded, then less emphasis may be placed on the "no miracles" argument. To the extent that science is an outgrowth of common sense, the epistemic credentials of science derive from its basis in common sense rather than from a tenuous abductive argument that the success of science is best explained by realism. I have 8 I distinguish between widely held beliefs and basic common sense. Beliefs widely held in a culture may come and go. But the beliefs of basic common sense (e.g. beliefs about our immediate surroundings based on sense experience) are far more resistant to change. I discuss the relation between science and basic common sense at greater length in my (2014). 8 no doubt that such reasoning plays a role in ordinary common sense. But it seems to me that practical interaction with the world in experimental settings provides stronger vindication of claims about theoretical entities than recourse to the "no miracles" argument suggests. I am strongly inclined to the view that sense perception and embodied action bring scientists into causal contact with theoretical entities with which they interact in experimental settings.9 The point is greatly reinforced if one takes into account the pervasive use of instrumentation in laboratory settings to extend perception and to control and manipulate entities not detectable by the naked eye. 3. Is Scientific Knowledge Justified True Belief? The title of this section intentionally follows the title of Edmund Gettier's famous paper (1963). However, I will not pose or attempt to solve scientific versions of Gettier's problem. My question is instead whether the idea that knowledge is justified true belief may serve as an appropriate suggestion about the nature of scientific knowledge. As traditionally understood, knowledge may be analysed in the following terms: S knows that P if and only if: (1) S believes that P (2) S is justified in believing that P 9 Here I must issue a promissory note. I wish to combine a direct realist theory of perception with a scientific realist account of theoretical entities. In perception, we causally interact with observable entities. The observable entities are made up out of unobservable theoretical entities. Given the perceptual interaction with observable entities, we thereby causally interact with the theoretical entities of which they are made. Perception therefore causally connects the observer with unobservable entities that make up observable entities. I recognize that more must be said to justify the move from perception of observables to causal interaction with unobservables. But this is the direction in which I think that scientific realism might usefully be developed in order to better ground it in scientific practice. 9 (3) 'P' is true This is the traditional analysis of knowledge as justified true belief, against which Gettier presented two counter-examples. It is not without interest in the present context that the analysis refers to S. Though 'S' might stand for Smith or perhaps someone, I take it that 'S' is meant to refer to a subject who holds the belief that P. But it is not entirely clear that such an analysis of knowledge or indeed reference to a subject is appropriate for scientific knowledge. In the first place, we sometimes speak of scientific knowledge where we do not mean to refer to specific belief-states of individual human knowers. We may use the expression 'knowledge' to refer to a body of knowledge rather than to specific states of knowing. We might, for example, speak of the knowledge found in a specific field of science. Or we might wish to refer to the entire corpus of scientific belief. When we use the expression 'scientific knowledge', we might be using the word 'knowledge' in the strict sense of justified true belief, so that individual scientific beliefs must be both justified and true in order to count as knowledge. But it would not be an inappropriate use of the expression 'scientific knowledge' to use it in such a way that it refers not just to those scientific beliefs that are true and justified, but in addition to scientific beliefs that are well-grounded though not true. Indeed, scientific knowledge might be taken to include outmoded theories which are no longer accepted but continue to have some applicability in restricted domains. Thus, the expression 'scientific knowledge' may be employed to refer to beliefs that are justified but in fact false, as well as to beliefs that are known to be false. In short, there seems to be a usage of the expression 'scientific knowledge' that does not work with a strict understanding of knowledge as justified true belief. 10 In the second place, there is a potential tension between the idea that knowledge is justified true belief and a scientific realist view of the truth-status of contemporary science. Few if any scientific realists take themselves to be committed to the truth of all claims that may be found within current science. Rather, scientific realists typically take the view that our best scientific theories are to be accepted as true or approximately true. It is crucial for realists to allow that theories may be approximately true, since realists need not hold that the end of science is near. Though some particularly well-established scientific claims may be true, much of contemporary science may later be revised or profoundly altered. For this reason, scientific realists tend to see science as advancing toward the truth, so that our best contemporary theories are to varying degrees approximations of the truth rather than true simpliciter. But if a theory should be taken to be approximately true, rather than true, it is hard to see how belief in the theory might constitute knowledge in the sense of justified true belief. After all, the traditional analysis of knowledge does not say that 'P' is approximately true. There may perhaps be some way to reconcile the justified true belief analysis of knowledge with the idea that our best current theories are to be accepted as approximately true.10 But I would tend to approach the matter in another way. Given that many contemporary theoretical claims about the world may only be approximately true, they are strictly speaking false. Hence, such claims do not constitute items of scientific knowledge. However, they may well be grounded in the rules of scientific method in a way that provides them with a sound epistemic justification. Such claims will therefore constitute justified 10 One way may be to say that approximately true claims should be understood as approximations that are in fact true. For example, the claim that I am exactly six feet tall is false, though it is approximately true that I am six feet tall. We should understand the latter as the claim that I am approximately six feet tall. That approximate claim is true. 11 beliefs for the scientists who hold them on an appropriate basis. Thus a significant proportion of the current corpus of scientific belief may constitute justified belief rather than knowledge. However, this is entirely consistent with saying that some, perhaps even a significant proportion, of the current corpus of scientific belief does constitute knowledge in the sense of justified true belief. All that is required is that appropriately justified beliefs are in fact true. If such scientific beliefs are true, given that they are justified, they constitute knowledge. So the corpus of contemporary scientific belief may contain not only justified beliefs, but also a significant body of knowledge in the strict sense of justified true belief. Of course, one may ask: "How does one know that one has scientific knowledge?" In the case of any particular purported item of scientific knowledge, how does one know that that item constitutes an item of knowledge rather than mere justified belief? Part of the answer to this question is that in very many cases one does know that one knows. If we reject scepticism, we hold that knowledge is possible. There will be cases in which our epistemic justification is of the sort that, given that we reject scepticism outright, it is clear that we do have knowledge. I am thinking particularly of cases of immediate observation where we are able to inspect objects directly to determine their properties. In such cases, the only temptation to say that we do not have knowledge is the temptation to concede to the sceptic that we do not have epistemic access to the external world. But that is a temptation that we may justifiably resist. In other cases, we may know without knowing that we know. Here, I am thinking of those cases where we may not have a high level of confidence in a theoretical claim about unobservable states of affairs because it fails to have strong evidence in its favour. In such cases, if the theoretical claim is in fact true, and if our justification for the claim is wellgrounded in the norms of scientific method, then we have knowledge. We may not be 12 confident of our knowledge. In a sense, therefore, we may fail to know that we possess the item of knowledge. But we do not need to know that we know in order to have knowledge. It suffices that the conditions for knowledge stated by the justified true belief analysis of knowledge be satisfied. There is no need to know that the conditions are satisfied, though in some cases we may know this.11 4. The Subject in Scientific Realism What, then, are we to say of the subject-object distinction for scientific realism? As we have seen, the realist is committed to the existence of a mind-independent reality that objectively exists "outside the mind". If the realist wishes to endorse the view that scientific knowledge may be justified true belief, it appears to follow that the realist is committed to the existence of a knowing subject. With the exception of knowledge of our own mental states, therefore, knowledge requires a knowing subject and a known object outside the mind. Thus, it appears that the realist must adopt the dichotomy of subject and object that Dimitri sought to challenge. Is this such a bad thing? 11 In saying that we may know that we know, the possibility of a regress arises. If we know that we know, where knowledge is understood as justified true belief, the question arises of the status of this second-order item of knowledge. Presumably, it too must be a justified true belief. But if the second-order item of knowledge is a justified true belief, how is the item of second-order knowledge justified? Presumably, appeal must be made to a third-order item of knowledge, namely, that we know that we know that we know. In this way, the assumption that we may know that we know leads to an infinite regress. To avoid the regress, I suggest we follow Roderick Chisholm in adopting a stance of epistemic particularism. The question of what we know is prior to the question of how we know. We identify particular items of knowledge independently of the question of what criteria these items of knowledge must satisfy in order to be knowledge. If the process of justifying an item of belief gives rise to a regress, this does not impugn the status of the item of knowledge. Of course, this may beg the question against the sceptic. But, as Chisholm admits, this may be unavoidable (see Chisholm 1973, p. 37). 13 Here it is important that realism be placed in the context of epistemological naturalism rather than within the context of a traditional Cartesian epistemology. In the Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes employs the method of hyperbolic doubt to identify the basis of epistemic certainty.12 On the basis of reflection upon what it is possible to doubt, Descartes came to the view that one thing that can be known for certain is that the doubting subject, a thinking thing, exists. An evil demon might create a massive illusion in which everything we believe is false. No things, bodies or general properties exist. It is not just that the senses deceive us. We have no senses. Reflection on the possibility of such an illusion may lead us to doubt everything that we believe. We thus find ourselves in a situation in which we doubt everything. But, if we doubt, then we exist. For we must exist in order to doubt. Having recognized that inability to doubt his own existence was something that he clearly and distinctly perceived to be the case, Descartes took clear and distinct perception to be a criterion of epistemic certainty. But he did not take clear and distinct perception of external objects to guarantee the existence of external objects. To guarantee the veridicality of beliefs about external objects, Descartes appealed to a non-deceiving God. This led him into the infamous Cartesian circle. He employs clear and distinct ideas to argue for the existence of God. He then appeals to God to guarantee the veracity of clear and distinct ideas. In the case of Descartes, the distinction between subject and object is the source of a profound epistemological challenge that cannot be met. It is impossible to start with mental states known directly to the mind of the knowing subject, and then to mount a compelling 12 Apart from naturalistic misgivings about scepticism, I find the method of hyperbolic doubt to be a highly dubious method indeed. It assumes that doubt may be generated "for free". It assumes that we may choose to doubt without specific reason for doubt. For discussion of the dubious nature of Cartesian doubt, see Rescher's discussion of doubt based on sensory error in Descartes (Rescher 1982). 14 case for the existence of an external world based solely on intrinsic features of these mental states available to the knowing subject by reflection or introspection. Thus, the subjectobject dichotomy lies at the heart of Cartesian epistemology and the traditional problem of scepticism about the external world. But, if we reject Cartesian epistemology in favour of a naturalistic epistemology, the situation is altered. Instead of the internal mental states of the knowing subject, we should start with the basic commonsense claims (the "Moorean truths") about the world around us that Armstrong calls the epistemic base. We reject scepticism about the external world in favour of genuine knowledge of the ordinary everyday things that surround us. The standards of epistemic justification and knowledge are the standards of common sense and science, rather than the standard of introspective epistemic certainty bequeathed to us by the Cartesian sceptic. If we approach the question of knowledge on the basis of such a non-Cartesian naturalistic approach, then the subject-object dichotomy is less of a threat. We are not confronted with the impossible task of rebuilding the external world on the basis of mental states to which we have direct epistemic access. We are instead grounded in the world immediately around us to which we have epistemic access by way of our senses. There is no great gulf between mind and world because we are in the world and we interact with it. This, by the way, is why we should discard the phrase 'external world'. It is an expression that reflects the Cartesian predicament in which we seek to show that the world outside of our minds fits with the contents of our minds. The expression 'external world' goes hand-in-hand with the Cartesian sceptical dichotomy of subject and object, and should be rejected as we reject the Cartesian basis for that dichotomy. But this is no reason to think that we must renounce the dichotomy of knowing subject and known object. Provided only that the subject is a living embodied agent practically engaged with the objects in their immediate vicinity, no threat is posed by the dichotomy of subject and object. 15 5. Mind in an Objective World As we have seen, the realist holds that we inhabit a mind-independent, objective world. It is this world of which science provides theoretical knowledge. The idea of mind-independence gives rise to a further aspect of the subject-object dichotomy, which also arose in conversation with Dimitri. What is the place of the human (or any other) mind in this mindindependent reality? If the world is mind-independent, does this mean that there are no minds? Is there any place for the knowing subject in an objective reality? Few modern-day scientific realists would have much sympathy for Cartesian dualism.13 The idea of mind as a categorically distinct substance unable to causally interact with physical substance has little currency in the modern scientific world-view. Minds are a naturally occurring part of a thoroughly physical world. Hence, scientific realists may be materialists or physicalists who deny that there is any sui generis mental stuff. Contemporary philosophical discussion of the mind-body problem explores such questions as whether mental states reduce to, supervene upon, or are to be eliminated in favour of brain states. Still, there is a sense in which the scientific realist should not be committed qua scientific realist to a physicalist outlook. If our best scientific theory were to propose that mind consists of mental substance entirely distinct from physical substance, then the realist should endorse this view. The non-material mind might be thought of as a theoretical entity whose existence was postulated to explain certain phenomena. Though we may now think 13 Here a brief terminological note is in order. I take Cartesian dualism to be a position in the philosophy of mind according to which mind and matter are distinct substances. This metaphysical view is distinct from the epistemological distinction between (knowing) subject and (known) object. At least some of the time, Dimitri seems to use the expression "Cartesian dualism" to apply to both positions (e.g. forthcoming). But I suggest that the positions are distinct, and neither stand nor fall together. 16 that there is no such entity, substance dualism may well have been an appropriate position for the scientific realist to adopt at the time of Descartes. Despite this, there is a sense in which the question of the relation between mind and matter is not the point at issue with respect to mind-independence. The crucial question relates to the ontological status of things outside the mind, such as mountains and rocks, tables and chairs. The question is whether such things exist in their own right, independently of mental activity, or depend for their existence on mental activity. Such things as rocks and mountains do not depend for their existence upon any mental states that we might have. Naturally occurring things such as mountains and rocks existed before humans ever formed beliefs or concepts relating to them. They continue to exist whether or not we think that they do. Artefacts such as tables and chairs are built by humans and so depend for their existence qua tables or chairs upon human intention and activity. But their existence qua physical objects does not depend upon human thought, experience or conceptual activity. One might still wonder about minds. Surely minds cannot exist in a way that is independent of the mental. It makes no sense to say that minds are independent of mind. If anything is mind-dependent, the mind surely is. Or is it? Here it seems to me that the correct response may be somewhat counter-intuitive. Trivially, no mind may exist without itself. Still, in the relevant sense of mind-independence, minds do in fact enjoy a mind-independent mode of existence. I do not need to believe that I have a mind in order to have one. Nor do I need to possess the concept of a mind in order to possess a mind. A young human child may have a mind before developing sufficient mental capacity to be able to recognize that they have a mind. Similarly, non-human animals may have a mind or be capable of having mental states though they may never be able to acquire the conceptual apparatus required for them to know that they have a mind. 17 An individual who possesses a mind need not recognize that they do. Nor must their possession of a mind be recognized by anyone else. The fact that one has a mind does not depend on the recognition that they have a mind by someone else. If an individual possesses a mind, this is an objective fact about them that does not depend on anyone thinking or saying that they have a mind. Their having a mind is, in the relevant sense, a mind-independent fact about them. Given this, I do not think that the subject-object dichotomy is undermined by the realist commitment to the existence of a mind-independent reality. The realist is primarily concerned to insist that the world that exists beyond the human mind does not depend in any way for its existence on the mind or mental activity. But the mind has a place within this reality as a naturally occurring possession of certain kinds of organisms. 6. Conclusion The scientific realism that I favour is a scientific realism that is grounded in our immediate interaction with the world. Rather than place undue weight on an inference to best explanation of the success of science, I emphasize practical aspects of scientists' interaction with the world. But this is not some narrow empiricism of the present moment, since the evidence available to our senses is the basis on which we build the scientific world-picture. Science may be an outgrowth of common sense. But it has taken us a tremendous distance beyond that which is immediately accessible to us in experience. The dichotomy of subject and object does not loom large in contemporary discussions of scientific realism. There are no doubt interesting explanations for this which turn on the fact that scientific realism tends to be pursued within the tradition of analytic philosophy. Still, it seems clear that the scientific realist can engage with the issue. In particular, there 18 seems to be no need for the scientific realist to abandon the dichotomy of subject and object. Nor does the dichotomy pose a challenge for the scientific realist. Provided that the realist abandons the project of traditional Cartesian epistemology in favour of a naturalistic approach to epistemology, subject and object may be retained within a thoroughly realistic outlook on the world. References Armstrong, D.M. (2004), Truth and Truthmakers, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Chisholm, R. (1973), The Aquinas Lecture, 1973: The Problem of the Criterion, Marquette University Press, Milwaukee Descartes, R. (1986), Meditations on First Philosophy (trans. by J. Cottingham), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Field, H. (1972), 'Tarski's Theory of Truth', Journal of Philosophy, 69, 347-75 Gettier, E. (1963), 'Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?', Analysis, 23, 121-3 Ginev, D. (forthcoming), 'Hermeneutic Realism and the Existence of Theoretical Objects', in M. de Caro and M Feraris (eds.), New Realism, Mimesis Edizioni, Milano Hacking, I. (1983), Representing and Intervening, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Musgrave, A. (1997), 'The T-Scheme Plus Epistemic Truth Equals Idealism', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 74, 490-96 Psillos, S. (1999), Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth, Routledge, London Rescher, N. (1977), Methodological Pragmatism, Blackwell, Oxford 19 Rescher, N. (1982), 'The Illegitimacy of Cartesian Doubt' in Essays in Philosophical Analysis, University Press of America, Washington, pp. 309-19 Russell, B. (1959), The Problems of Philosophy, Oxford University Press, Oxford Sankey, H. (2000), 'Methodological Pluralism, Normative Naturalism and the Realist Aim of Science', in R. Nola and H. Sankey (eds.), After Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend: Recent Issues in Theories of Scientific Method, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 211-29 Sankey, H. (2008), 'Scientific Realism and the Inevitability of Science', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 39, 259-64 Sankey, H. (2012), 'Reference, Success and Entity Realism', Kairos, 5, 31-42 Sankey, H. (2014), 'Scientific Realism and Basic Common Sense', Kairos, 10, 11- | {
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2 The Philosophy of Dalit Liberation Editor Dr. Desh Raj Sirswal Assistant Professor (Philosophy), P.G.Govt. College for Girls, Sector-11, Chandigarh & Programme Co-ordinator, Centre for Studies in Educational, Social and Cultural Development (CSESCD), Milestone Education Society (Regd.), Pehowa (Kurukshetra) March 2014 http://msesaim.wordpress.com 3 The Philosophy of Dalit Liberation (E-book) Editor: Dr. Desh Raj Sirswal 28th March, 2014 No. CSESCD/2014/01 © Centre for Studies in Educational, Social and Cultural Development (CSESCD), Pehowa (Kurukshetra) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above mentioned publisher of this lecture. Publisher: Centre for Studies in Educational, Social and Cultural Development (CSESCD), Milestone Education Society (Regd.), Balmiki Dharmashala, Ward No.06, Pehowa (Kurukshetra) 136128 (Haryana) Website: http://msesaim.wordpress.com, Email: [email protected] 4 Table of Content Preface Chapter-I: Dr. B.R.Ambedkar 's Critique of Democracy in India Dr. Desh Raj Sirswal Chapter-II: Dr. Ambedkar's Ideas on the Importance of Equality in a 'Just' Society Ms. Manju Chauhan Chapter-III: Contribution of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar to Indian Society Ms. Rajni Bala Annexures: I. A Chronology of Main Events in Dr.B.R.Ambedkar's Life II. About the Centre 5 Preface The philosophy of dalit liberation is a critical issue in the present time in Indian society. Since there are lots of socalled social thinkers and writers who themselves designated as Ambedkarite and propagated their own ideology rather than the philosophy of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar, a true revolutionary and a man of wisdom. I read a story on facebook at Karl Marx (Group) about African children. It touched my heart as our Indians didn't understand it since 8000 years and continue with discrimination with our fellow beings. Although our great thinkers or socalled great culture, teaching universal brotherhood since ancient times. But it is a bitter truth that we are far from the meaning of INDIANNESS and continue with our sick mentality of socalled great Hindu Order. This short story can be a good lesson for Dalits and Women, if they will be organised for their struggle, there will be no any social evil that can harm their happiness and freedom. There is a need to get organised for a proper goal. Just read the story and think over it: An anthropologist proposed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put a basket full of fruit near a tree and told the kids that whoever got there first won the sweet fruits. When he told them to run they all took each other's hands and ...ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats. When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had all the fruits for himself they said: "UBUNTU, how can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?" ' UBUNTU' in the Xhosa culture means: "I am because we are". In India, the problem of casteism is a bigger social issue rather than other issues which we are discussing in present academic and social front. There are several policies of the Govt. and amendments in the constitution of India to eradicate this problem. But the reality is more critical than the Government Reports highlight. There is need to work on the social front through real efforts to change the present condition of Indian society. It is the right time to become more conscious about the need of a positive ideology and its future effects. 6 In this short title, we are presenting three essays on the philosophy of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar which discussed his ideas on casteism, social change, education, social justice, education, women issues, and democracy etc. These essays are the revised version of papers presented in the National Seminar on "Ambedkarite Quest on Egalitarian Revolution in India" (26th & 27th November, 2013) organized by the Centre for Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Studies, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, Haryana. In the end of this book I included a chronology of life events of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar as an annexure. Hope this book will be helpful to understand his intention of social revolution and motivate us to be conscious about our duties and work for the higher goal rather than follow personal pleasure. I am thankful to all the members of Milestone Education Society (Regd.), Pehowa (Kurukshetra) for their continuous effort to propagate Dr. B.R.Ambedkar's ideology as well as their positive efforts to provide quality and fruitful education to the weaker section of society. Dr. Desh Raj Sirswal 7 Chapter-I Dr. B.R.Ambedkar 's Critique of Democracy in India Dr. Desh Raj Sirswal Various philosophers, political scientists and writers have given numerous ideas on democracy. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was a relentless champion of human rights and staunch believer in democracy, he said: "Democracy is not a form of government, but a form of social organisation." In "Prospects of Democracy in India" he analyzed Indian Democracy and said a democracy is more than a form of government. It is primarily a mode of associated living. The roots of democracy are to be searched in the social relationship, in the terms of associated life between the people who form a society. He believed that in democracy revolutionary changes in the economic and social life of the people are brought about without bloodshed. The conditions for that are (i) there should not be glaring inequalities in society, that is, privilege for one class, (ii) the existence of an opposition, (iii) equality in law and administration, (iv) observance of constitutional morality, (v) no tyranny of the majority, (vi) moral order of society, and (vii) public conscience. Addressing the Constituent Assembly, he suggested certain devices essential to maintain democracy: "(i) constitutional methods, (ii) not to lay liberties at the feet of a great man, (iii) make a political democracy a social democracy." In this chapter, an attempt has been made to provide an analysis of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar's critique of democracy in India and discuss his ideal of social democracy. Meaning of Democracy: Democracy is the government of the people. In this system the ruling power of a state is vested in the people at large. The people exercise the governing power either directly or through its representatives chosen periodically by them. Literally, the term democracy means the rule of the people. The term is derived from the Greek word 'demos', which means the people. Democracy has been defined in various ways, as 'a form of government in which the majority rules', as 'the rule of the many', as 'a form of government in which everyone has a share', as 'rule of the people' and so on. Democracy, in the view of Abraham Lincoln, is "the government of the people, for the people and by the people."1 Democracy is of two types: Pure or Direct Democracy: In a pure democracy all the citizens directly participate in the business of the government. This form of democracy existed in the Greek city states which were very small in size. Representative or Indirect Democracy: In a representative or indirect democracy all the citizens do not directly participate in the business of the government, but their representatives elected periodically; attend the legislature and act on behalf of them. Modern democracies are example of indirect or representative forms of democracies. They are representative because the modern nation states are so large in size that it is physically impossible to directly participate in the business of legislation. There are four main components or building blocks of a functioning democracy. These are: Free and Fair Elections: Competitive elections are the main device whereby public officials are rendered accountable and subject to popular control. They also constitute an important arena for ensuring political equality between citizens, both in access to public office and in the value of their votes. 8 Open and Accountable Government: In a democracy the accountability of the government to the public is on the side a legal accountability: to the courts for the observance of the law by all public officials; on the other side a political accountability; to parliament and the public for the justifiability of government polity and actions. Civil and Political Rights: Civil and political rights encompass those freedomof expression, association, movement, and so on –which is a necessary condition for people to act politically, whether in terms of self-organisation within civil society or to bring influence to bear upon government Democratic or Civil Society: The idea of a 'civil' society indicates that democracy needs to have social association of all kinds that are organized independently of the state.2 The democratic ideal emphasizes people's rule for their common good. As it is peoples' government, it is based upon public opinion and general will. The adherents of the democratic ideals consider democracy to be the best and most successful of all social ideals. The motto of the democratic ideals is "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity." Let's discuss the meaning of these ideals in short: Liberty: In its absolute sense Liberty means mere license; to do as one likes, to think and act as one chooses without being restrained by any external authority. Liberty presupposed the existence of certain rights. Without rights liberty has no meaning. Rights mean certain claims of individuals recognized by society which can be legally enforced on the conduct of others. The very essence of democracy consists in granting political liberties to its people. Equality: The aim of this ideal is to guarantee liberty to its members. This implies maintenance of certain conditions for the full development of the individual's personality. Liberty and equality are complementary to each other. There are different forms of equality: economic, legal, political and social. Fraternity: Friendship or brotherhood forms the essential basis of this democratic ideal. The promotion of collective welfare is the aim of this and it can be fulfilled if people think of a common brotherhood and realize that individual good can never be achieved by neglecting the concept of common good.3 Speaking on the need for the recognition of the principle of fraternity, Dr. Ambedkar remarked in the Constituent Assembly, "What does fraternity means? Fraternity means a sense of common brotherhood of all Indiansof Indians being one people. It is the principle which gives unity and solidarity to social life." There is also an international aspect of fraternity which takes us to the concept of universal brotherhood, the ancient Indian ideal of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakamof the entire world being one family. This has been elaborated in Article 51 of the Constitution under the Directive Principles.4 The ideals have its basis on justice. The term 'justice' commonly use in the sense of fairness, equality, and impartiality. According to Plato the justice of the state consists in due performance by each man of his duties in his appointed place. Plato's conception of justice has in reference to legal rights and duties. It is the duty of a well-organized government to adopt all necessary measures for the maintenance of justice that already secured to its members. The ideals of justice, liberty and equality are relevant and meaningful only in as much as these promote a feeling of common brotherhood, of mutual affection, of being sons of same Mother India despite all the racial, linguistic, religious and other diversities of many sorts. The Fundamental Rights guaranteed to all citizens without any discrimination and the Directive Principles directed at achieving social and economic equality are also designed to promote fraternity.5 9 Social Democracy of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar According to Dr. Ambedkar, modern democracy is based on consent of the people and aims at welfare of the people. He defines democracy as, "a form and a method of government whereby revolutionery changes in the economic and social life of the people are brought about without blood-shed". In democracy, the persons who are duly authorised by the people to rule over them try to introduce changes in the social and economic life of the people, so that welfare of the people could be possible.6 Believing in the ideology of parliamentary democracy Ambedkar held that the true spirit of democracy consisted of true equality. He said, "Our aim is to realize in practice our ideal of one man one value in all walks of life. It is because the representative government is the means for the depressed classes it is to give it a great value." Dr. Ambedkar's goal was to realise the social, economic and political freedom in the parliamentary form of democratic government. He was quite confident that it could bring the democratic revolution in India as it ensured self-government as well as good government, right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, removal of social, economic and political inequality and making it possible for every subject to enjoy freedom from want and fear. Hence, Ambedkar sought to mobilise the depressed castes in order to establish parliamentary democracy in India. This Democracy rests on four premises which may be set out in the following terms: The individual is an end in himself. The individual has certain inalienable rights which must be guaranteed to him by the Constitution. The individual shall not be required to relinquish any of his constitutional rights as a precondition precedent to the receipt of a privilege. The State shall not delegate powers to private persons to govern others. According to Dr. Ambedkar merely to get political rights like equal participation by all adults in the electoral process and get registered as voters or to vote-was meaningless unless all citizens respected the values of and were guaranteed caste and creed discriminations, even economic justice was not enough unless it was coupled with social justice. Dr. Ambedkar had said; "On 26th January 1950 we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics, we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics, we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principles of one man one value."7 According to him the following were the basic characteristics of democracy: The soul of democracy is the doctrine of one man, one value. Democracy is a form and method of government whereby revolutionary changes in the economic and social life of the people are brought about without bloodshed. Democracy is not merely a form of Government. It is primarily a mode of associated living of conjoined communicated experience. It is essentially an attitude of respect and reverence towards fellowmen. Democracy is incompatible and inconsistent with isolation and exclusiveness, resulting in the distinction between the privileged and the unprivileged. Democracy cannot work without friction unless there is fellow feeling among those who constitute the State. 10 Dr. B.R. Ambedkar defines successful democracy as, "The first thing required for the successful working of democracy is that there must be no glaring inequalities and there must be neither an oppressed class nor an suppressed class. The second thing required is the existence of opposition to show whether the Govt. is going wrong. The third thing is equality before law and in administration. The fifth point is the functioning of moral order in society, for moral is taken for granted in Democracy. The sixth thing is the requirement of public resources." Again he said, "A democratic Government can remain democratic only if it is worked by two partiesa party in power and a party in opposition."8 The Founding Fathers were conscious of the fact that mere political democracy i.e. getting the right to vote once in five years or so was meaningless it was accompanied by social and economic democracy. Political equality was not possible unless men were made equal on the social and economic plane as well. Right to vote for hungry and illiterate man without clothing and shelter meant little. For Dr. Ambekdar, social and economic democracies were the real aim and ultimate goal. What Dr. Ambedkar told the Constituent Assembly on 19 November, 1948 needs to be quoted a little in extensor: "Our democracy lays down what is called Parliamentary democracy. By Parliamentary democracy we mean 'one man one vote'. We also mean that every Government shall be on the anvil, both in its daily affairs and also at the end of a certain period when the voters the electorate will be given an opportunity to assess the work done by the Government. The reason why we have established in the Constitution a political democracy, because we do not want to install by any means whatsoever a perpetual dictatorship of any particular body of people. While we have established political democracy, it is also the desire that we should lay down as our ideal economic democracy... there are various ways in which people believe that economic democracy can be brought about; there are those who believe in having a socialistic State as the best form of economic democracy; there are those who believe in the communistic idea as the most perfect form of economic democracy."9 Dr. Ambedkar firmly believed that political democracy cannot succeed without social and economic democracy. In his talk given on the Voice of America he argued that: "Democracy could not be equated with either republic or parliamentary form of government. The roots of democracy lay not in the form of government, parliamentary or otherwise. A democracy is a model of associated living. The roots of democracy are to be searched in social relationship, in terms of the associated life between the people who form the society."10 While presenting the Draft Constitution for final adoption by the Constituent Assembly on 25 November, 1949, Dr. Ambedkar said, "We must make our political democracy a social democracy as well. Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life which recognizes liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life. These principles of liberty, equality and fraternity are not to be treated as separate items in a trinity. They form a union of trinity in the sense that to divorce one from the other is to defeat the very purpose of democracy. Liberty cannot be divorced form equality, equality cannot be divorced from fraternity." He was a true defender of social democracy.11 According to Dr. Ambedkar social democracy means a way of life which recognizes liberty, equality and fraternity. He explains the importance of social democracy in these lines, "A democratic form of Government presupposes a democratic form of society. The formal framework of democracy is of no value and would indeed be a misfit if there was no social democracy. The political never realized that democracy was not a form Government; it was essentially a form of society. It may not be necessary for a democratic society to be marked by unity, by community of purpose, by loyalty to public ends 11 and by mutuality of sympathy. But it does unmistakably involve two things. The first is an attitude of mind, an attitude of respect and equality towards their fellows. The second is a social organization free from rigid social barriers."12 In the Indian society so long as caste barriers and caste-based inequalities exist, real democracy cannot operate. In this sense democracy means a spirit of fraternity and equality and not only a political arrangement. Thus according to him for democracy just social foundation is must. Democracy in India This is a matter of fact that India today is in a situation which the political scientists refer to as "democratic deficit" wherein "the failure of an elected government to fulfill the promises to the electorate." This type of democracy can also be understood as a compromise between the "power of the vote" and the "power of business", with the governments negotiating the interface between the two. It is too well known that the 'corporate welfare' always wits out over 'social welfare' when economy gets tight. Hence Ambedkar warns, "What they are doing is not to make India safe for Democracy but to free the tyrant to practice his tyrannies. Let not tyranny has the freedom to enslave."13 Dr Ambedkar laid much emphasis on the term moral and said: "The Declaration of Independence does not assert that all men are equal; it proclaims that they are created equal." He further argued: "For the successful working of democracy there must not be glaring inequalities in the society. There must not be an oppressed class. There must not be a suppressed class." In case of inequalities "State intervention is a must". Right to treatment as an equal must precede the right to equal treatment as a state policy. Equality of opportunity is a misleading term. There should be opportunity for equality.14 Dr. Ambedkar criticized Indian Society in the Prospects of Democracy in India that "Democracy is quite different from a Republic as well as from Parliamentary Government. The roots of democracy lie not in the form of government, parliamentary or otherwise. A democracy is more than a form of government. It is primarily a mode of associated living. The roots of democracy are to be searched in the social relationship, in the terms of associated life between the people who form a society. What does the word society connote? To put it briefly, when we speak of society, we conceive of it as one by its very nature. The qualities, which accompany this unity, are praiseworthy community of purpose and desire for welfare, loyalty to public ends and mutuality of sympathy and co-operation. Are these ideals to be found in Indian society ? The Indian society does not consist of individuals. It consists of an innumerable collection of castes, which are exclusive in their life and have no common experience to share and have no bond of sympathy. Given this fact it is not necessary to argue the point. The existence of the caste system is a standing denial of the existence of those ideals of society and therefore of democracy." Dr. Ambedkar himself, was anxious that the stigma of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes etc. should be removed from the face of Indian society. Special provisions for reservation etc. were viewed as a temporary measure for enabling these sections of society to come up in the social and economic ladder so as to be at par with others and stand at the same starting point on a level playing field in the race of tomorrow. It was furthest from the minds of the makers of the Constitution to perpetuate the ST/SC labels for an indefinite period or to make them permanent features of our society. Unfortunately 12 however, while very little has been done during the last four decades and more to uplift the poorest amongst these sections economically, educationally or socially, the issue of reservations has become highly politicalized. Thus exploited Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Backward Classes have been reduced to mere vote banks in the calculations of politicians anxious to get to power and to stay there. Perhaps, Dr. Ambekdar foresaw and feared such developments and that was why while favouring reservations for a period much longer than 10 years, he expressed himself strongly against giving power to Parliament to extend by laws the period of reservations.15 Dr. Ambedkar emphasized the protection of civil rights of all people including "untouchables". He said that if civil rights were protected, it would automatically result in a better social status. There were three important components to Ambedkar's political strategy which were as follows: By continuous political agitation and bargaining, the Scheduled Castes should to extract safeguards and guarantees from the British Government. Caste Hindus, Muslims, and depressed castes were three separate and independent elements of the Indian society and while conceding some reforms for the Indians, all these elements should by satisfactorily consulted. The depressed classes should capture political power as it was the only means available to them for self-development and protection of their rights. In an endeavor to protect the basic interests of the depressed castes, Ambedkar kept the depressed caste movement independent from the national movement. Secondly due to historical reasons the depressed classes lost their self-respect, self-identity, and autonomy. In order to regain them, Ambedkar wanted his followers to recognize the fact that the rights they had secured were their birth right and they had secured them through struggle. He embraced Buddhism to enable scheduled castes to develop their social and cultural identity in a manner they wanted. The logical culmination of Ambedkar's political strategy was his acceptance of Buddhism as a means to self-development and self-realisation.16 Ambedkar regarded Karl Marx as the father of modern socialism or communism. There certain prerequisites for Marxism to succeed. The society should be a free society: it should give importance to an individual over society and it should be based on equality, fraternity and liberty.17 Today democratic revolution is a label much used by many and particularly Marxists of all shades. The Communist Party of India (M) declares its good is to run people's democratic revolution while for CPI, it is national democratic revolution whereas the Maoists aim to engage in new democratic revolution. On the other hand it is a humanitarian revolution that Dr. Ambedkar envisioned. "All the same we must not forget the vast difference that separated a revolution from real social change." A revolution transfer political power from one party to another but what we require is a real change in the relative strength of the forces operating in society.18 Need of Democratic Education According to Dr Ambedkar, education is that which make men fearless, teach unity, make understand their birth right and teach man to struggle and fight for their freedom. Education is a revolution. If education can't serve these purposes, then such education is a dead one and better it should be burnt or set to fire. According to Dr. Ambedkar that is not education which does not make capable, don't teach equality and morality, but the true education is that which safeguards the interests of the humanity and provides bread, knowledge and feelings of equality in the society. Time education really creates life in the society. In the philosophy of Baba Saheb the place of self-respect and human pride was the greatest and most important. He, to develop the qualities of justice, through education wanted equality, 13 brotherhood, freedom and fearlessness. He was in favour of making education able to provide employment. This education brings stability in the society. Good behavior upon reason and reason gets its due place due to education, experience and interview.19 The whole education system, particularly at the earliest stages of primary and secondary schools, needs to be oriented to democratic ethos, to needs of social engineering through peaceful parliamentary means, to living together with fellow feeling for each other and in harmony and mutual tolerance, and to inculcating a sense of social responsibility and patriotism. In order to establish real, concrete and practical democracy, there is a need to democratic education. It means restructuring of the entire educational system in keeping with the spirit of democracy. Unless the schools develop as democratic institutions, the development of democratic minds among pupils is not possible. Tolerance, impartiality and respect for truth should be adopted first by the teachers and the parents and plasticised by them in the classrooms and at homes, if they are to be adopted by pupils as values in their lives.20 Dr. Ambedkar was a great source of inspiration to the economically poor students of today. He was of the opinion that incomplete education does not benefit. So the students should study competition, with interest and enthusiasm. It is not only sufficient to read and receive degrees. The students should involve themselves in constructive work. He participated in the social activities from his very study life.21 Dr. Ambedkar rightly said, "Can education destroy caste ? The answer is 'Yes' as well as 'No'. If education is given as it is today, education can have no effect on caste. It will remain as it will be. The glaring example of it is the Brahmin Caste. Cent percent of it is educated, nay, majority of it is highly educated. Yet, not one Brahmin has shown himself to be against caste. In fact, an educated person belonging to the higher caste is more interested, after his education, to retain the caste system than when he was not educated. For education gives him an additional interest in the retention of the caste system, namely, by opening additional opportunity of getting a bigger job." Dr. Ambedkar believed in the political process and was only anxious that the Depressed Classes share in it according to their numbers and needs. He believed that democracy offers every individual achieve social equality, economic and political justice guaranteed in the preamble of the constitution. Liberty, equality and fraternity should be the only alternative to abolition caste society.22 With the efforts of Dr. Ambedkar India got a constitution which incorporated the principles of liberty, equality and justice. He provides for one man one vote (universal adult franchise), a common All India Civil Service to man the important posts, independent judiciary, free and compulsory education to the children upto 14 years of age etc. The heart of the constitution, according to Dr. Ambekdar, is the fundamental rights guaranteed to every citizen and Directive Principles to the executive and legislature for the governance of the country. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the chief architect of our constitution, also included secularism and economic democracy in the constitution scheme so as to transform the stagnant Indian society into an egalitarian and vibrant social order. Nationalist to the core, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar bestowed upon India, an extremely strong (but at the same time flexible too) constitution keeping in mind the welfare of the common man and above all, unity and integrity of India. References: 1. Promode Bandhu Sengupta (1967). Handbook of Social Philosophy, Banarjee Publishers, Calcutta, p.289. 2. David Beetham & Kevin Boyle (2011). Democracy: 80 Questions and Answers, National Book Trust, India, pp.28-30. 3. Promode Bandhu Sengupta (1967). Handbook of Social Philosophy,pp.294-299. 14 4. Subhasg C.Kashyap (2002). Citizen and the Constitution, Publication Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, New Delhi, p.169. 5. ibid,p.168. 6. Chhaya Bakane,S. Zaheer Ali, Dr. M. Murlidhara,Prof S. P. Buwa (2012).Modern Indian Political Thought edited by Politicals Science Paper – II. MAY, 2012 – M.A. PART I), University of Mumbai. 7. Subhasg C.Kashyap (2002). Citizen and the Constitution, p.112. 8. Ambedkar's quotations cited from S.K. Kushwaha (1998). Essays in Honour of Bharat Ratna Baba Saheb Dr. B.R.Ambedkar, Publication Bureau, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, pp.121-122. 9. Subhasg C.Kashyap (2002). Citizen and the Constitution,p.92. 10. Shyam Chand, "Dr. Ambedkar on Democracy" in Mainstream, Vol XLV, No 51, http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article467.html 11. Subhasg C.Kashyap (2002). Citizen and the Constitution,p.93. 12. S.K. Kushwaha (1998). Essays in Honour of Bharat Ratna Baba Saheb Dr. B.R.Ambedkar, p.133. 13. P.D. Satya Pal, "Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and his Vision for Reconstruction of Indian Society" in Felicitation volume in Honour of Prof. (Dr.) Sohan Raj Tater, editors Suresh Kumar Aggarwal and et all. Cooperation Publications, Jaipur, p.465. 14. Shyam Chand, "Dr Ambedkar on Democracy" in Mainstream, Vol XLV, No 51 15. Subhasg C.Kashyap (2002). Citizen and the Constitution, p.159. 16. M.P.Singh & Himanshu Roy (2011). Indian Political Thought: Theme and Thinkers (edited) , Pearson, Delhi, pp. 216-217. 17. B.R.Ambedkar (1983). Writing and Speeches, Vol.3, Bombay Education Department, Government of Maharastra, p.95. 18. P.D. Satya Pal, "Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and his Vision for Reconstruction of Indian Society" in Felicitation volume in Honour of Prof. (Dr.) Sohan Raj Tater, p.465. 19. B.C. Mahapatra & Ashok Kumar (2004). "Ambedkar and His Philosophy Towards Education" in Dalits in Third Millennium edited by B.C. Mahapatra, Sarup & Sons, New Delhi, p.50 20. Subhasg C.Kashyap (2002). Citizen and the Constitution, pp. 254, 256. 21. B.C. Mahapatra & Ashok Kumar (2004). "Ambedkar and His Philosophy Towards Education" , p.52. 22. Nirmal Singh (2013). "Casteless Democratic India: Vision of B. R Ambedkar" in Paripex Indian Journal of Research, 97. Vol. 2, Issue 7, July, p.258. 15 Chapter-II Dr. Ambedkar's Ideas on the Importance of Equality in a 'Just' Society Ms. Manju Chauhan Dr. Bhim Rao Ramji Ambedkar was born in a Mahar family on 14 April, 1891. He was a champion of Human Rights and emancipator of untouchables, the Architect of Indian Constitution and called as "Babasaheb". As he was born as a socalled lower caste, he himself has experienced the life of untouchable. Thus, he knew the condition of the downtrodden very well than any other high caste person. It has become the mission of his life to establish a new social order based on justice, liberty and equality. He spent his whole life fighting against discrimination and he has written on various political and social matters. He is the person who tried to change the society according to people and offered a model of 'Just Society'. This society, he wanted to establish on the basis of liberty, equality and fraternity. The Idea of Just Society Dr. Ambedkar offered a model of an 'ideal society' or 'just society'.1 "The ideal would be a society based on liberty, equality and fraternity."2 He was of view that a society should be 'Just' a society not a collection of several castes, religions or communities. He wanted the society to be broad in terms of communicating and sharing. "An ideal society should be mobile, should be full of channels for conveying a change-taking place in one part to the other parts. In an ideal society there should be many interests consciously communicated and shared. There should be varied and free points of contact with other modes of association. In other words there must be social endomosis."3 Dr. Ambedkar for his 'just society' recognized two essential principles: 1. The individual is an end in himself and that the aim and object of the society is the growth of the individual and the development of his personality. Society is not the growth of the individual because such subordination is for his betterment and only to the extent necessary. 2. The terms of associated life between members of society consideration founded on liberty, equality and fraternity.4 With these principles he challenged the caste system and stressed on equality. According to him, casteless and classless society is must for the success of democracy. Political right is more important than temple entry.5 So, he wanted to establish a society where discrimination on any base does not exists. For this, he expressed need of balanced economy, successful democracy and 'just society'. How society was....? According to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the existing social order meant the Hindu Social Order which was deeply rooted in Hindu Varna System.6 The Hindu Varna System was totally based on caste system. In the beginning, it was based on occupation but later on it became rigid. "The caste in Hindu society is still the most powerful factor in determining a man's dignity, calling and profession. Such rigid caste system is not found anywhere else outside India."7 The Hindu caste system is like a social structure in which the majority of the lowest castes are forcibly kept at the bottom of the pyramid, condemned to manual professions and forced to serve the castes above them.8 As discrimination is the main function of the caste system, in India, every low caste has to suffer. Society is divided into the 'interior' and 'exterior' castes or the touchable and untouchables.9 In Hinduism, there was no hope for the untouchables, they had to suffer. They had to tolerate maltreatment by the Brahmins. It was said that 16 a poor Brahmin, Rajput or Bania may be deprived of good education for reasons of poverty, but his or her whole lifestyle radiates a degree of confidence which a low caste person from an economically welloff background is hard put to match.10 The low caste were considered to be impure. They were the unwanted beings of the society. Caste discrimination had spread even in the educational institutions. SC/ST students were not allowed to enter in the classrooms. They were supposed to stand or sit outside the classroom. There are pre-conceived notion about academic caliber of the SC/ST students and hence they are labeled as 'academically backward'.11 Backward class students were maltreated by the high caste students as well as the teachers. They were not concerned about these students even when they were brilliant. So, the discrimination has crept to the mind of the people. The promotion of purity of body promotes the purity of mind.12 How he wanted to make it....? Ambedkar dreamt India to be an egalitarian state; a casteless society.13 In other words he wanted to transform the Indian Society into JUST SOCIETY i.e. of which the base is equality not the caste. According to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, an individual is final end and any good social order or society has also to go through the two tests namely 'the test of justice' and 'the test of utility'.14 Before knowing about the test of justice, we must know the meaning of it. Justice is the norm or the criterion for judging right and wrong in the modern society. Also, according to B.R. Ambedkar, "justice is another name of liberty, equality and fraternity".15 Now, the test of justice means the authenticity of the law and order is to be tested and the test of utility is meant by the ability of the society to balance the political, economic and social condition. Ambedkar had expressed the need of equality in every field. He wanted his country/Indian Society to be politically, economically and socially balanced. He wanted every individual to be in good condition. To him a society is made by its individual. Because according to him, if an individual is suffering from a wrong, it is not because by his conduct deserves it. The disability is imposed on the class and if he is found to be laboring under it, it is because he belongs to that class.16 There were several reasons for this condition of an individual. The main reason was the three principles of society which were made to preserve the position of the high caste people and the caste system. The principle of graded inequality has been carried into the total human life including social, economic and political. The second principle was of fixity of occupation according to which every member of each class had to follow the occupation assigned to his or her class without any choice. Third was the fixation of people within their respective classes which means every person's class was decided by birth not by ability.17 According to B.R. Ambedkar, " a society without any respect for human personalities is a band of robbers.18 Dr. Ambedkar from his childhood was influenced by some factors as well as his observations like "The downtrodden people in India were the last to be hired but the first to be fired."19 So, he constantly gave attention to the problem of inequality for the downtrodden untouchable community which forms the basis of his thinking and writings. The Importance of Equality "Casteism is an expression of mental slavery."20 So, for his ideal society, Ambedkar requests people, "We have to safeguard two things, namely, the principle of opportunity and at same time satisfy the demand of communities which had not had so far representation in the state."21 Equality is the basic need for a healthy society. Without equality the society will become handicapped. Equality through Education: Ambedkar tried to improve the position of the downtrodden. He believed that would elevate their status and make them free from superstitions and many other kind of social evils. According to him, 17 Education plays a major role in a child's career. Without the knowledge of three R's namely reading, writing and arithmetic, a child is not only imperfect but he cannot even aspire for a successful life.22 Also, it helps to develop the physique powers of thinking, feeling and volition, which are basic characteristics of a human being. Still, the Brahmin teachers refused to teach the untouchable students. The Hindus objected to the instruction of untouchables on the ground that "education would advance them in life and induce them to seek emancipation from their servile condition." Consequently, the spread of education among the untouchables was only marginal. The best example for this is, in 1920 in whole of the Bombay Presidency with a depressed class population of 16 lakhs, there was only one B .A. (Ambedkar) and six matriculates.23 Because the depressed class students were not only students, they were the earning members of their families. Though, they were literally provided education. But, nobody was concerned about their physical and mental conditions. If we consider position of a well-educated person 100 steps far. Then, the downtrodden were at zero and the high caste people were at 70-75 because of their literate and financially well ancestors. They were taught right form their growing years even when they were not in school because the environment of their families was enough to give a perfect start to a student to learn basic things. But, on the other hand, a downtrodden whose family is uneducated could start learning from his school only. Most of the time, such students didn't even knew that if they would be able to deposit their fee and they would get books or not. And side by side they had to study also. In such conditions, if we compare a downtrodden student with high caste student, the downtrodden have to start from zero whereas the high caste student just has to move from 70-75 to 100th step. Dr. Ambedkar gave three things to the depressed classes as "Be educated, be organized and agitate."24 According to him, Education is that which makes man fearless, teach unity, make understand their birth right and teach man to struggle and fight for the freedom. Education is a revolution. If education can't serve these purposes, then such education is a dead one and better it should be set to fire. Also, education is that which safeguards the interests of the humanity and provides bread, knowledge and feeling of equality in the society.25 He wanted equality in the society. He wanted equality, brotherhood, freedom and fearlessness to develop the qualities of justice through education. The education brings stability in the society. Equality through New Professions: The downtrodden were bound to do the labor work at that time because for a very long period they were in the same professions. Dr. Ambedkar suggested the downtrodden to acquire new skills and start new professions to improve their condition so that they could achieve equal status in the society. Without changing the profession no one can get better position. How can one think of spending money on education and other luxuries if he can't fulfill even his basic needs? Also, the profession which requires more physical effort and gives less money must be changed to improve the condition of the society. For example, if a blacksmith somehow succeeds to educate his children and make them enough qualified to get such jobs which do not require much physical work and gives enough earning. Still, he wants his children to do the same job that he does. Also, in most of the cases the downtrodden students get the best jobs still they don't get respect as good citizen. People still treat them as downtrodden. According to B.R. Ambedkar, a change was needed in the society and this change was to be brought by the downtrodden. This was the change of profession. For such situations, once B.R. Ambedkar said, "I should have expected some provision where by it would have been possible for the state to make economic, social and political justice a reality and I should have from that point of view expected the resolution to state in most exp-licit terms that in order that there may be social and economic justice in the country, that there would be nationalization of industry and land, I do not understand how it could 18 be possible for any future government which believes in doing justice socially, economically and politically unless its economy is a socialist economy."26 Ambedkar knew that JUST society can't be formed without balanced economy. He always said, "Learn to live in this world with self-respect. You should always cherish some ambition to do something in this world."27 As the individual is the final end, if every individual improves his condition then society's economic condition will improve automatically. Equality through Democracy: Democracy is not merely a form of Government. It is primarily a mode associated living of conjoint communicated experience. It is essentially an attitude of respect and revenge towards fellowmen.28 He formed political organizations of untouchables so that they could organize politically, demand for their rights and adequate share in power. To establish the democracy in the society, Dr. Ambedkar think for the successful working of the democracy is that there must be no glaring inequalities in the society. There must not be a class which has got all the privileges and a class which has got all the burdens to carry. Such a thing, such a division, such an organization of society has written itself the germs of bloody revolution, and perhaps it would be impossible for democracy to cure them.29 "Ambedkar being an admirer of political or parliamentary democracy opined, its conception as government by discussion and not by fisticuffs."30 The downtrodden were suffering from a lot of economic and political problems. Still, "parliamentary democracy took no notice of economic inequalities, and did not care to examine the results of freedom of contract on the parties to the contract in spite of the fact that they were unequal in their bargaining power. Parliamentary democracy did not mind, if the freedom of contract gave the strong opportunity to depress the weak. The result is that in standing out as the protagonist of liberty has continuously added to the economic wrongs of the poor, the downtrodden and the disinherited."31 The society was in such condition that equality is needed in every field. As we all know that India was divided and lacked proper government. Also, providing equal rights and status to every individual of the country had become duty of the government. So, in order to establish law and order and justice in the country the constitution was made. "Our constitution envisages tripartite picturesque of social justice, viz. Justice-social, economic and political is directed in the socio-economic justice is procured by the Directive Principles of state Policy, Justicesocial and political is secured by Fundamental Rights. Therefore, the trinity – the preamble, the directive principles and the Fundamental Rightsthe quintessence of justice, in the contemplation of the Constitution is the liberation from socio-economic subjection and consists in the actualization of the goals of full and free development of every individual."32 Dr. Ambedkar rose to be a Chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee and respected as a "founding father" of the Indian Constitution because of his intellectual debates in the Constituent Assembly in multifarious ways in the framing of the Indian Constitution. His role in the process of the Constitution making was decisive because he did the professional task of drafting the provisions of the constitution. The important feature of Indian Constitution is the dignity of man and human being and creation of casteless, classless, homogenous society. Dr. Ambedkar, the chief Architect of the Indian Constitution made social justice a founding faith and incorporated humanist provisions to lift the level of the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other weaker section of the society to make democracy viable on equal footing for all.33 According to him, the political democracy cannot be successful unless there is social and economic democracy is present. Casteless and classless society is must for success of democracy.34 Thus, the constitution has much importance in Just Society. Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Chairman of the Constituent Assembly, was so impressed by the efforts of Dr. Ambedkar that he remarked: "sitting in the chair and watching the proceedings from day to day, I have realized as 19 nobody else could have, with what zeal and devotion the members of the drafting committee and made him its chairman. He has not only justified his selection but had added luster to his work which he has done."35 This remark proves his dedication towards his work which he was doing to establish equality in society. Equality by Removing Social Inequalities: In order to remove social inequalities and achieve the goal of social justice one unique device of reservation system was built up in the Constitution so as to permit protective discrimination in favor of certain castes and class of people. These categories of human beings were subjected to historical injustice and constituted socially under privileged class. Reservation in favor of such under-privileged segment of society was not generally opposed and by large it was accepted as necessary step towards upliftment of the downtrodden have nots.36 Regarding reservation in legislature Dr. Ambedkar strongly advocated for such reservation in favor of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. Although he adopted a compromistic attitude by accepting periodic review of 5 years to 10 years, with a note that if it was considered necessary to extend the period at the end of 10years would not be beyond their capacity or intelligence to invent new ways of the protection which they were promised here.37 The primary objects of the society were to search after the truth and to establish conduct educational institutions such as schools, colleges, hostels, libraries, playgrounds, etc. he opened hostels at Panvel, Pune, Nastik, Sholapur, Thane(Maharashtra) and Dharwar(Karnataka) provided free lodging facilities as well as bare expenses in cured by the students on clothes, books and stationary.38 In 1924, he founded the Bahishkrit Hitkari Sabha to promote education among the depressed classes by opening hostels or by employing such other means as may be seen necessary or desirable to promote the spread of culture among them by opening libraries, social centers and classes or study circles, to advance and improve their economic conditions by starting industrial and agricultural school.39 Dr. Ambedkar gave a great speed and impetus to the feelings of Mahatma Phule. He gave detailed description of the condition of women in the society in his important book 'The rise and fall of Hindu women'. He was of opinion that development made in a society is judged by the extent of education on made available to women in society. As Law Minister of India he introduced the 'Hindu Code Bill' in the year 1951. This bill introduced few new things in the existing law such as; right to property to woman, share to daughter in parental property, provision for divorce etc. Indian society so long as caste barriers and caste based inequalities exist, real democracy cannot operate. Thus, according to him, for democracy Just Social foundation is must.40 Caste system is the basic factor of the Indian Society. As Dr. Ambedkar said, "It is not possible to break caste without annihilating the religious notions on what it, the caste system is founded."41 It was very obvious that the Hindu religion stands responsible for the existence of caste system in the Indian society. In Hinduism, "the law of slavery permitted emancipation, once a slave always a slave was not the fate of the slave. In untouchability, there is no escape, once an untouchable always an untouchable."42 This was the main reason for people to distract towards the Hinduism and attract towards the other religions like Buddhism, Islam, Sikhism, Jainism, Christianity, etc. which do not have caste system. Caste System is an ascending scale of hatred and descending scale of contempt. Socially, converted untouchables will be members of a community whose religion is universalized and equalized all values of life.43 20 Dr. Ambedkar himself had adopted Buddhism. Because according to him, "everyone who is an inhabitant of Hindustan is a Hindu."44 In that sense, it can be said that the untouchables are Hindus. The Buddhists rejected the Brahmanistic religion which consisted of Yajna and animal sacrifice, particularly if the cow. "The sun shines in day and moon makes bright the night. The warrior shines when he is in amour and Brahmin when he is meditating. But Buddha shines over all by day as well as by night by his own glory."45 This impressed him and made him to adopt Buddhism. Of which equality is the main objective. So, for his Just Society, he suggested downtrodden to leave such religion which cannot serve them equal status. He said, "Religion is for man and not man is for religion."46 On one hand, the way of life based on liberty, equality and fraternity. On the other hand, the way of attaining a government based on social democracy which is the milestone of social justice.47 "It must not be misconceived that Dr. Ambedkar was the domain of a particular caste or community, but, rather, he belonged to all Indians, Gautama Buddha, Jyoti Ba Phule, John Dewey (his mentor at Columbia University, New York, U.S.A.), Karl Marx, Justice M.G. Ranade, Mahatma Gandhi (his political opponent not for the sake of oppositions but in believing the words of Jennings. If there if no opposition there is no democracy.), influenced Dr. Ambedkar and shaped as well as reshaped his thinking process, conviction and pragmatic approach to social justice."48 The most important part of Dr. Ambedkar's career was to secure the social and political equality. He argued that "the country must be placed above community."49 Ambedkar himself explained his Social Philosophy: "My social philosophy may be said to be enshrined in three words: liberty, equality and fraternity."50 What Dr. Ambedkar said is the things of the past are applicable today also? The answer is affirmative, because a number of official reports of various commissions appointed by the government of India have endured Dr. Ambedkar's above position. He also worked on social order based upon the Hindu Classical Religion. His works included 'Philosophy of Hinduism' and 'The Hindu Social Order'.51 His mission completed with the framing of the constitution. However, it was theoretical only. Slowly, it spread and is still spreading. His dream will come true one day. In praise of Dr. Babasaheb, I would say: In nineteenth century A fighter took birth As a downtrodden He throughout his life Fought for equality Liberty and fraternity Thus establishing The JUST SOCIETY. References: 1. James Massy (2003). Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: A Study in Just Society, Manohar Publisher & Distributors, New Delhi, p.106 21 2. B.R. Ambedkar (1987). 'Annihilation of Caste with a reply to Mahatma Gandhi', in Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Vol.1, compiled by Vasant Moon, Bombay: Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, p.57 3. Ibid. 4. B.R. Ambedkar (1987). 'The Hindu Social Order: Its essential principles', in Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Vol.3, op.cit, p.95 5. B.K. Ghatak (1997). Dr. Ambedkar's Thought, A.P.H. Publishing corporation, New Delhi, p.219 6. James Massy (2003). Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: A Study in Just Society, op.cit, p.103 7. L.M. Shrikant (1951). 'Report of the Commission for Scheduled Tribes for the period ending 31 December, Delhi, p.1 8. Lawrence D'Souza (2012). Political Views and Thoughts of Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar, Cyber Tech Publications, 2012, p.135 9. Devendra Bose (1968). The Problems of Indian Society, Bombay Popular Prakashan, pp.7-8. 10. Lawrence D'Souza, op.cit, p.140 11. ibid, p.139 12. Devendra Bose, op.cit, p.6 13. K.L. Bhatia (1994). Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: Social Justice and the Indian Constitution, Deep and Deep Publications, New Delhi, p.35 14. James Massy (2003). Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: A Study in Just Society, op.cit, p.107 15. Ibid. 16. B.R. Ambedkar (1987). 'Annihilation of Caste with a reply to Mahatma Gandhi', in Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Vol.3, op.cit, pp.99-106. 17. Ibid, p.111. Also see: Reservation for Backward Classes, Mandal Commission, 1980, (along with Introduction, Delhi: Akalank Publications, 1990, p.25) 18. B.R. Ambedkar (1987). ' The Hindu Social Order: Its Essential Principles', op.cit, pp.96-97 19. B.R. Ambedkar (1946). What Congress and Gandhi have done to the Untouchables?, pp.191-192 20. Citation: Phule & Ambedkar (http://www.mu.ac.in) 21. Constituent Assembly Debates (C.A.D.), Vol. VII, pp.701-702 22. B.C. Mahapatra (2004). Dalits in Third Millennium, Sarup & Sons Publication, New Delhi, p. 43 23. ibid,p.44. 22 24. ibid,p.49. 25. ibid,p.50. 26. B.R. Ambedkar. Indian Political Thought: Themes and thinkers, M.P. Singh and Himanshu Roy, Pearson, Delhi, 2011,p.219. 27. Citation: Phule & Ambedkar, op.cit 28. B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste, op.cit, p.57 29. Thus Spoke Ambedkar (1989). Vol. I, p.48 (Sec.,L.R. Balley(Ed.), Thoughts of Ambedkar, Bheem Patrika Publication, Jalandhar, p.31 30. K.L. Bhatia, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: Social Justice and the Indian Constitution, op.cit, p.32 31. ibid 32. ibid, p.4 33. ibid, p.94 34. Citation: Phule & Ambedkar, op.cit 35. B. Shiva Rao (1968). The Framing of India's Constitution (selected documents).. 36. K.L. Bhatia, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: Social Justice and the Indian Constitution, op.cit, p.190. 37. Constituent Assembly Debates (C.A.D.), Vol. IX, pp. 696-697. 38. B.C. Mahapatra, Dalits in Third Millennium, op.cit, p.45. 39. ibid, p.49. 40. Citation: Phule & Ambedkar, op.cit. 41. B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste, op.cit, p.57. 42. B.K. Ghatak, Dr. Ambedkar's Thought, op.cit, p.99. 43. ibid, p.103 44. ibid, p.169 45. ibid, p.203 46. Citation: Phule & Ambedkar, op.cit 47. K.L. Bhatia, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: Social Justice and the Indian Constitution, op.cit, p.27 48. ibid, p.4 49. Vide,B.R. Ambedkar's speech in January 1950, quoted by Chandra Bharill, Civil And Military Law J., 1979, pp.87-88 23 50. K.L. Bhatia, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: Social Justice and the Indian Constitution, op.cit, p.4. 51. James Massy (2003). Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: A Study in Just Society, p.102. 24 Chapter-III Contribution of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar to Indian Society Ms. Rajni Bala Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was a multifaceted personality, an intellectual, a revolutionary, a philosopher, a patriot, a scholar, a writer, and the constitution maker. He struggled against the untouchability and the caste system. He began to get a taste of the bitter reality of being born as untouchable. He has popularly known as the pioneer who initiated the liberation movement of roughly 65 million untouchables of India. He realized that the right of the untouchables could only be safeguard by making constitutional provision. He was a scholar as much as a "man of action". He gave an inspiring self-confidence to the dalits, untouchables and women. He was in the favour of education and equal rights for everyone. He has been regarded as a ray of hope, for downtrodden in India. His vision of democracy and equality was closely related to good society, rationality and the scientific outlook. He held that the emancipation of Dalit in India was possible only through the three-pronged approached of education, agitation and organization. Thus Ambedkarism is the great relevance to Indian society to achieve social justice, removal of untouchability, in establishing equality and true democracy. The objective of this chapter is to draw an outline for Dr. B.R. Ambedkar's contribution to present Indian society. Early Life and Background: Dr. B.R. ambedkar born on April 14th 1891, in Mhow in central India. He is popularly known as Dr. Babasaheb Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. His father's name was Ramji and mother's name was Bhima Bai Sakal. He was the fourteenth child of his parents. He was born as a Dalit. At the age of six he lost his mother. His family was looked after by his father's sister Meera Bai. His father Ramji was a very strict for discipline. He lived a simple and pious life. He wanted his children to develop a good character. He married to Jija Bai, she was a widow. Bhim could not accept his step mother. Bhim went through many humiliating situations in his childhood. His teacher would not touch his notebooks, even he was not allowed to sit with another students. He carried a gunny bag to school with him to sit upon. Once, when he was drinking water from a public reservoir, he mercilessly beaten by castes Hindus. He had experience one more humiliating situation by a local barber when he refused to defile himself by touching Bhim's hair. Now, "Bhim started feeling the fate of untouchables. While Bhim was studying in Satara, he acquired surname 'Ambedkar'. Bhim's forefathers originally belonged to a place called Ambavade in the Konkan region as per the practice of all Marathi speaking Hindus, together with the actual surname Sakpal. Bhim's teacher felt that the surname 'Ambavadekar' is a bit long and untidy. He simplified it and get bit entered in the school record as ambedkar.1 Bhim was average student but he became interested in reading the general books. He passed his matriculation examination from Elphinston High School in 1907. He was married to a 9 years old girl Rama Bai, when he was 17 years old. Then he joined Elphinston college. He passed intermediate examination and the Maharaja of Baroda Sayaji Rao granted a scholarship and he passed B.A in 1912. After one year, once again Sayaji Rao helped him. He was selected to be sent America on a scholarship for higher studies. He worked very hard when he reached New York in 1913. He passed his M.A in 1915. He wrote a thesis on "Ancient India Commerce". His thesis National Dividend for India: A Historian & Analytical Study, was accepted by the Columbia University in 1916. 25 After 8 years the university decided to confer him a Doctor of Philosophy. After some time he went to London to study economics and political science but before completing his studies the Baroda Govt. terminated his scholarship and he returned to India. Bhim Rao started a newspaper, named Mooknayak on January 31, 1920 with the help of Shahu Maharaj. He was the Maharaja of Kolhapur, who was helping the students of depressed classes by providing them free boarding lodging facilities. In 1920, Dr.Ambedkar went to London and return to India after completing his studies. He became a barrister along with the Doctorate of Science from London and Ph.D. from America. His wife Rama Bai died on May 27, 1935. And in June 1935, he joined as the Principal of Law College. Dr. Ambedkar is our constitution maker. On April 29, 1947 the constituent Assembly declared that untouchability in all forms should be abolished. On August 15, 1947 India became free and he was invited to join the cabinet as minister of law. The constituent assembly of independent India appointed a committee with Dr. Ambedkar as its chairman.2 In 15 April, 1948, he married with Dr. Sharada Kabir, she worked in the same hospital where Dr. Ambedkar was receiving treatment to his unbalanced health. On December 5, 1956 he went to bed and never wake up again, he died in sleep. Works of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Dr. B.R. Ambedkar wrote the following notable books: Castes in India, May 1916 The National Dividend of India, 1916 Small Holdings in India and Their Remedies, 1917 Weekly 'Mook Nayak', Started 31st January 1920 Provincial Decentralisation of Imperial Finance in British India, June 1921 The Problem of a Rupee Its Origin & Its Solution, March 1923 The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India, 1925 Weekly 'Bahishkrit Bharat', Started 13th April 1927 Weekly 'Janata', Started December 1930 Annihilation of Caste, December 1935 Federation Vs. Freedom, January 1939 Thoughts on Pakistan, December 1940 Mr. Gandhi & the Emancipation of the Untouchables, December 1942 Ranade, Gandhi & Jinnah, January 1943 What Congress & Gandhi have done to the Untouchables, June 1945 Who Were the Shudras?, October 1946 States & Minorities, March 1947 The Untouchable, October 1948 Maharashtra as Linguistic Province, October 1948 Thoughts on Linguistic States, December 1955 Buddha & His Dhamma, Published 1957 The Government of Maharashtra, India has published various Writings & Speeches of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar into many volumes in several languages and these are available for public purchase with simple rates. 26 Quality Education: Dr. Ambedkar wanted peace in both, the individual and social relationships. He emphasized on secular education for social emancipation. He was in the favour of education for all shade of people. According to him education is the best way for the enlightenment of human beings from ignorance. He was in the favour of full freedom of education without the barriers of caste; creed and race. He was very particular in developing the primary education. He regarded education as a means to reach the doors of light and hope. "Education is something which ought to be brought within the reach of everyone. The object of primary education is to see that every child that enters the portals of a primary school does learn it only at a stage when it becomes literate and continues to be literate throughout the rest of his life."3 Education is the most important part of our life. We are useless and incomplete without proper education. Education is not only a part of our life, even it is the base of our life. Dr. Ambedkar was always in the favor, that everyone should be educated. Education is the most important bases of power in the society. He says that education is a source of power and is also an agency that empowers people. He insisted that to his Dalit people that, educate to organize and to struggle, for their own betterment. He mainly emphasized that the education is a vital force for individual development and social change. Education was an instrument for the change of the lives of untouchables. Education is the effective instrument of mass movement to safeguard life and liberty. Education trains the human to think and take right decision. Education must got through by the way of free mind and free thinking. Baba Sahib had given prime importance to education. He was very particular in developing the primary education. He was mainly concerned about the upliftment and political struggle of the untouchables. He wanted the people to cultivate the values and freedom and equality among themselves; it is possible only through education. The basic theme of his philosophy of education is inculcating the values of liberty, equality, fraternity, justice and moral character among the boys and girls of all shades. Women Empowerment: Dr. Ambedkar is an architect of Indian constitution. He provided strong constitutional safeguards to women. The vision of Ambedkar about women is explicitly depicted in Indian constitution. Equality of sexes is strongly backed by the constitution through article 14, 15 and 16. The principle of gender equality is enshrined in the Indian constitution in its preamble, fundamental rights, fundamental duties and directive principles. He started involving women in the struggle for eradication of castesystem and upliftment of under privileged section. He realized that this couldn't be achieved without liberating the women themselves. He motivated women and addressed them to participate in the struggle against caste prejudices. He encouraged women to organize themselves impressed by the large gathering of women at women's conference held at Nagpur on 20th July, 1942, he told women to be progressive and abolish traditionalism, ritualism and customary habits, which were detrimental to their progress. The issue of social empowerment of women needs to be raised higher and given utmost importance. Women empowerment has five components: women's sense of self growth; their right to have and to determinate choices; their right to have access to opportunities and resources; their right to have the power to control their lives within the home and outside; and their ability to influence the direction and social change to more just social and economic order, nationality and internationality. Ambedkar 27 strongly believe that women empowerment can be achieved by the welfare of women. The activities of empowering women worldwide should follow the vision of Dr. Ambedkar. He believed that education can bring a great change in the condition of untouchables. Only education can make them aware of their self-respect, their duties and their rights. Caste-System: Caste-system divided society into discrete parts and groups. The caste groups commonly known as untouchables are at the very bottom of the caste-system and have traditionally been subject to discrimination and severe forms of oppression by their higher castes. The caste hierarchy is founded on the belief that he lower castes can pollute the higher castes, and the fear that members of higher castes who have contact with the lower castes will be spiritually damaged.4 Dr. Ambedkar wrote on the origin of castes as follows: Brahmins were the originators of this unnatural institution founded and maintain through the unnatural means. He says that roots of the untouchability are the caste-system. The roots of caste-system are religion attached to Varan-asharm, the roots of Varanaashrama is the Brahaminical religion is authoritarianism or political power.5 He believed that the untouchability could be solved or wiped out by the political power. He called untouchables as depressed class. In Indian society caste is still the most powerful factor in determine the person's dignity. According to Varnamodel, the Harijans or untouchables are outside the caste-system, and contact with Harijans can pollute the other members of other Varnas. The set of the four Varnas divided into: Brahmis, Kshtriyas, Vaisheyas and Shudras. Dr. Ambekar was of the opinion that Hindu society failed to unite and it was unfortunate that religion was a rock on which Hindu built their houses. His two well-known works, The Shudras (1947) and The Untouchables(1948), has for the first time analyzed in detail that Shudras and untouchables, which created a stir in. It was Dr. Ambedkar who felt that untouchables to come forward and play a pioneering role in the eradication of caste destruction of the Brahmanical society. According to Dr. Ambedkar religion is an influence or force suffused through the life of each individual molding his character determining his actions and reactions, his likes and dislikes. The likes and dislikes, actions and reactions are not institution, which can be lopped off. They are forces and influences which can be dealt with by controlling them. Ambedkar was the first person to demand separate reservation system in the favour of Dalits in Round Table Conference; hence three round table conferences were failed. Dr. Ambedkar realized that affirmative action is the only way to improvement of Dalit communities which safeguards through legal institutions. He did not encourage the aspiration of caste system within India. He believed that law is an important powerful weapon to fight against discrimination.6 Social Change: Dr. Ambedkar wanted to bring a social change through the means of peace rather than violence, force and compulsion. He wanted to build a society of liberty, equality and fraternity. He wanted social reforms to generate public opinion for the condemnation of the gross inequalities in the society. He urged them to establish bureaus to deal with urgent cases of inequality. The bureaus should persuade the powerful section of society to chance to depressed classes to work in the ship factories and mills of the rich and the caste Hindus. Dr. Ambedkar suggested a common participation on the family level among the touchable and untouchable classes of the Hindus.7 28 Dr. Ambedkar emphasized that we need a large army of sincere workers to carry out the programmes against caste and untouchabilty. Ambedkar was in the favour of mass education. He wanted to the establishment of two party systems, to be implementing for good functioning of legislative and democracy too. A legislature can be good only when it is constituted by the best candidates and those candidates elected by the educated electorate. He says that the sound legislature can be possible when it is governed by two parties. Two party systems can be establish through an act of legislation. Dr. Ambedkar also wanted to bring about economic self-sufficiency justice and equality of poor through an act of legislature. In this he wanted the cooperation of both, the government and individual voluntary organizations. He wanted to achieve the economic justice in the society. He stressed upon the change of the heart and the mindset of the people. His motto was to change out, not to revenge. He says that social norms and changes can be founded on the principle of liberty, equality and fraternity. He was in the favour of non-violence and peace. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was not only the leader of the untouchables but he was a leader of national stature. He was deeply interested in human dignity. He wanted to reconstruct the Indian society through the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. He wanted to make women independent, educated, strong and liberal. He laid the foundation of new Indian society, in which the untouchables have the equal rights and they are not depressed. He had unshakeable faith in democracy. He pulled the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes into the main stream of the society. He sacrificed his whole life for the amelioration of the women, scheduled castes, and scheduled tribes. He strongly fought against the caste-system and the gender discrimination. He creates a social revolution by awaking women, and depressed classes (untouchables). Even today, in achieving social justice, Ambedkarism is of great relevance to Indian society. References: 1. S.P.Gupta (2007). Eminent Persons of India, Ess Pee Publication, Chandigarh, p.21. 2. Ibid, p.25. 3. P.Nithya (2012). "Ambedkar's Vision on the Empowerment of Dalit Education" in International Journal of Multidisciplinary Educational Research, Vol. 01, Issue 02, June, p.47 4. Scott Grinsel (2010). " Caste and the Problem of Social Reform in Indian Equality Law" in The Yale Journal of International Law, Vol.35: 199, p.204. 5. V.T.Rajashekhar (2004).Caste a Nation within the Nation. Bangalore: Books for Change. 6. Nirmal Singh (2013). "Casteless Democratic India: Vision of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar" in ParipexIndian Journal of Research, Vol.2, Issue 7, July, pp.257258. 7. Murali Korada & K.Victor Babu (2012). "Dr. Ambedkar's Concept of Social Change" in International Journal of Multidisciplinary Educational Research, Vol. 01, Issue 01, April, p.216. 29 Annexure-I A Chronology of Main Events in Dr.B.R.Ambedkar's Life 1891 Apr 14 Born at Mahu (Madhya Pradesh), the fourteenth child of Subhedar Ramji Sapkal and Mrs Bhimabai Ambedkar. 1896 Death of the mother, Mrs Bhimabai Ambedkar 1900 November Entered the Government High School at Satara. 1904 Entered the Elphinstone High School at Bombay. 1906 Married Ramabhai daughter of Mr. Bhiku Walangkar, one of the relations of Gopal Baba Walangkar 1907 Passed Matriculation Examination, secured 382 marks out of 750. 1908 January Honoured in a meeting presided over by Shri S K Bole, Shri K A (Dada) Keluskar Guruji presented a book on the life of Gautam Buddha written by him. Entered the Elphinstone College, Bombay. 1912 December Birth of the son Yeshwant. 1913 Passed B.A Examination with Persian and English from University of Bombay, secured 449 marks out of 1000. 1913 February Death of father Subhedar Ramji Maloji Ambedkar at Bombay. 1913 July Gaikwar's Scholar in the Columbia University, New York, reading in the Faculty of Political Science. 1915 June 5 Passed M.A. Examination majoring in Economics and with Sociology, History, Philosophy, Anthropology and Politics as the other subjects of study. 1916 May Read a paper on The Castes in India' before Prof. Goldernweiser's Anthropology Seminar. The paper was later published in The Indian Antiquary in May 1917. It was also republished in the form of a brochure, the first published work of Dr. Ambedkar. Wrote a Thesis entitled 'The National Divident of India – A Historical and Analytical Study' for the Ph.D Degree. 1916 June Left Colombia University after completing work for the Ph.D, to join the London School of Economics and Political Science, London as a graduate student. 1917 Columbia University conferred a Degree of Ph.D. 1917 June Return to India after spending a year in London working on the thesis for the M.Sc. (Econ) Degree. The return before completion of the work was necessitated by the termination the scholarship granted by the Baroda State. 1917 July Appointed as Military Secretary to H.H. the Maharaja Gaikwar of Baroda with a view Finance Minister. But left shortly due to ill. Treatment meted out to him because of his lowly caste. Published "Small Holdings in India and Their Remedies". 1918 Gave evidence before the Southborough Commission on Franchise. Attended the Conference of the depressed 30 Classes held at Nagpur. 1918 November Professor of Political Economy in the Sydenham College of Commerce & Economics, Bombay. 1920 Jan 31 Started a Marathi Weekly paper Mooknayak to champion the cause of the depressed classes. Shri Nandram Bhatkar was the editor, later Shri Dyander Gholap was the editor. 1920 Mar 21 Attended depressed classes Conference held under the presidency of Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj at Kolhapur. 1920 March Resigned professorship at Sydenham College to resume his studies in London. 1920 May Memorable speech in Nagpur, criticised Karmaveer Shinde and Depressed Classes Mission. 1920 September Rejoined the London School of Economics. Also entered Gray's Inn to read for the Bar. 1921 June The thesis 'Provincial Decentralisation of Imperial Finance in British India' was accepted for M.Sc. (Econ) Degree by the London University. 1922-23 Spent some time in reading economics in the University of Bonn in Germany. 1923 March The Thesis 'The Problem of the Rupee – Its origin and its solution' was accepted for the degree of D.Sc. (Econ.). The thesis was published in December 1923 by P S King & Company, London. Reissued by Thacker & Company, Bombay in May 1947 under the title History of Indian Currency and Banking Vol. 1. 1923 Called to the Bar. 1923 April Returned to India. 1924 June Started practice in the Bombay High Court. 1924 July 20 Founded the 'Bahishkrit Hitkarini Sabha' for the uplift of the depressed classes. The aims of the Sabha were educate, agitate, organise. 1925 Published 'The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India' dissertation on the provincial decentralisation of Imperial Finance in India'. Opened a hostel for Untouchable students at Barshi. 1926 Gave evidence before the Royal Commission on Indian Currency (Hilton Young Commisssion). Nominated Member of the Bombay Legislative Council. 1927 March 20 Started Satyagraha at Mahad (Dist Kolaba) to secure to the untouchables the Right of access to the Chavdar Tank. 1927 April 3 Started a fortnightly Marathi paper Bahiskrit Bharat Dr. Ambedkar himself was the editor. 1927 September Established 'Samaj Samata Sangh'. 1927 December Second Conference in Mahad. 1928 March Introduced the "Vatan Bill" in the Bombay Legislative Council. 1928 May Gave evidence before the Indian Statutory Committee (Simon Commission). 31 1928 June Professor. Government Law College Bombay. Principal. Government Law College Bombay. 1928-29 Member. Bombay Presidency Committee of the Simon Committee. 1930 March Satyagraha at Kalram Temple. Nasik to secure for the Untouchables the right of entry into the temple. 1930-32 Delegate. Round Table Conference representing Untouchables of India. 1932 September Signed with Mr. M.K. Gandhi the Poona Pact giving up, to save Gandhi's life. separate electorates granted to the Depressed Classes by Ramsay MacDonald's Communal Award, and accepting, instead representation through joint electorates. 1932-34 Member joint Parliamentary Committee on the Indian Constitutional Reform. 1934 Left Parel, Damodar Hall and came to stay in 'Rajagriha' Dadar (Bombay). This was done in order to get more accommodation for his library which was increasing day by day. 1935 May 26 Death of wife. Mrs. Ramabai Ambedkar. 1935 June Dr. Ambedkar was appointed as Principal of Government Law College, Bombay. He was also appointed Perry Professor of Jurisprudence. October 13 Historical Yeola Conversion Conference held under the Presidentship of Dr. Ambedkar at Yeola Dist., Nasik. He exhorted the Depressed Classes to leave Hinduism and embrace another religion. He declared: 'I was born as a Hindu but I will not die as a Hindu'. He also advisedhis followers to abandon the Kalaram Mandi entry Satyagriha, Nasik. December Dr. Ambedkar was invited by the Jat Pat Todak Mandal of Lahore to preside over the Conference. Dr.Ambedkar prepared his historical speech. The Annihilation of Caste'. The conference was cancelled by the Mandal on the ground that Dr.Ambedkar's thoughts were revolutionary. Finally, Dr. Ambedkar refused to preside and published his speech in book form in1937. 1936 January 12-13 The Depressed Classes Conference was held at Pune. Dr. Ambedkar reiterated his resolve of the Yeola Conference to leave Hinduism. The conference was presided over by Rav Bahadur N. Shina Raj. February 29 Dr. Ambedkar's Conversion Resolution was supported by the Chambars (Cobblers) of East Khandesh. May 30 Bombay Presidency Conversion Conference (Mumbai Elaka Mahar Panshad) of Mahars was held at Naigaum (Dadar) to sound their opinion on the issue of Conversion. Mr. Subha Rao, popularly known as Hydrabadi Ambedkar, presided over the Conference. In the morning the Ascetics shaved their beards, moustaches and destroyed their symbols of Hinduism in an Ascetic's Conference. June 15 Conference of Devadasis was held m Bombay to support Dr. Ambedkar's Resolution of Conversion. June 18 Dr. Ambedkar-Dr. Moonje talks on conversion. Pro Sikkhism. 32 June 23 Matang Parishad in support of Conversion. August Dr. Ambedkar founded the Independent Labour Party, a strong opposition party in Bombay's Legislative Council. September 18 Dr.Ambedkar sent a delegation of 13 members to the Golden Temple Amritsar to study Sikkhism. November 11 Dr.Ambedkar left for Geneva and London. 1937 Dr.Ambedkar organised the 'Municipal Workers' Union' Bombay in 1937. January 14 Dr. Ambedkar returned to Bombay. February 17 The First General Elections were held under the Govt. of India Act of 1935. Dr. Ambedkar was elected Member of Bombay Legislative Assembly (Total Seats 175. Reserved Seats 15. Dr. Ambedkar's Independent Labour Party won 17 seats.) March 17 The Mahad Chowdar Tank case was decided in favour of D.C. by which they got a legal right to use the public wells and tanks. July 31 Dr. Ambedkar received a grand reception at Chalisgaon Railway station. September 17 Dr. Ambedkar introduced his Bill to abolish the Mahar Watan in the Assembly December 31 Reception at Pandhapur on the way to Sholapur, where he was going to preside over the Sholapur District D.C'. Conference. 1938 January 4 Reception given by the Sholapur Municipal Council. 1938 January The Congress Party introduced a Bill making a change in the name of Untouchables. i.e. they would be called Harijans meaning sons of God. Dr. Ambedkar criticised the Bill. as in his opinion the change of name would make no real change in their conditions. Dr. Ambedkar and Bhaurav Gaikwad protested against the use of the term Harijans in legal matters. When the ruling party by sheer force of numbers defeated the I.L.P., the Labour-Party group walked out of the Assembly in protest under the leadership of Dr. Ambedkar. He organised peasants march on Bombay Assembly. The peasants demanded the passing of Dr. Ambedkar's Bill for abolition of the Khoti system. 1938 January 23 Dr. Ambedkar addressed a Peasants' Conference at Ahmedabad. 1938 February 12-13 Dr. Ambedkar addressed a historical Conference of Railway workers at Manmad (Dist. Nasik). 1938 April Dr. Ambedkar opposed creation of a separate Karnataka State in the national interest. 1938 May Dr. Ambedkar resigned from the Principal-ship of the Government Law College, Bombay. 1938 May 13-21 Dr. Ambedkar went on tour of Konkan Region. He also went to Nagpur in connection with a court case. 1938 August A meeting was held at R.M. Bhat High School, Bombay for exposing Gandhiji's attitude in disallowing a D.C. man being taken into the Central Ministry. 1938 September Dr. Ambedkar spoke on the Industrial Disputes Bill in the Bombay 33 Assembly. He bitterly opposed it for its attempt to outlaw the right of workers to strike. He said: If Congressmen believe that Swaraj is their birth-right, then the right to strike is the birth-right of workers. 1938 October 1 Dr. Ambedkar addressed a large gathering at Bawala, near Ahmedabad. On return he addressed another meeting at Premabhai Hall, Ahmedabad. 1938 November 6 The Industrial Workers strike. The procession (under the leadership of Dr. Ambedkar, Nirnkar, Dange, Pasulkar etc) was organised from Kamgar Maidan to Jambori Maidan, Worii. Dr.Ambedkar toured the workers areas with Jamvadas Mehta. 1938 November 10 Dr. Ambedkar moved a Resolution for adoption of the methods for birthcontrol in the Bombay Assembly. 1938 December Dr. Ambedkar addressed the first D.C. Conference in Nizam's dominion at Mahad. 1939 January 18 Dr. Ambedkar addressed a large gathering at Rajkot January 19 Ambedkar-Gandhi talks. January 29 Kale Memorial Lecture of Gorkhale School of Politics and Economics, Poona reviewing critically the All India Federation Scheme set out in the Govt. of India Act of 1935. The speech was issued in March 1939 as a tract for the times under the title 'Federation v/s Freedom'. July Dr. Ambedkar addressed a meeting organised for Rohidas Vidya Committee. October Dr.Ambedkar-Nehru first meeting. December The Conference at Haregaon was held under the Presidentship of Dr.Ambedkar to voice the grievances of Mahar and Mahar Watandass 1940 May Dr. Ambedkar founded the 'Mahar Panchayat'. 1940 July 22 Netaji Subash Chandra Bose met Dr. Ambedkar in Bombay. 1940 December Dr. Ambedkar published his Thoughts on Pakistan. The second edition with the title Pakistan or Partition of India was issued in February 1945. A third impression of the book was published in 1946 under the title India's Political What's What: Pakistan or Partition of India. 1941 January Dr.Ambedkar pursued the issue of recruitment of Mahars in the Army. In result the Mahars Battallion was formed 1941 May 25 Mahar Dynast Panchayat Samiti was Formed by Dr. Ambedkar. 1941 July Dr.Ambedkar was appointed to sit on the Defence Advisory Committee. 1941 August The Conference was held at Sinnar in protest of tax on Mahar Watams. Dr.Ambedkar launched a no-tax campaign. He saw the Governor. Finally, the tax was abolished. The Mumbai Elaka Conference of Mahars, Mangs and Derdasis were organised under the Chairmanship of Dr.Ambedkar 1942 April Dr. Ambedkar founded the All India Scheduled Castes Federation in Nagpur. 1942 July 18 Dr. Ambedkar addressed All India D.C. Conference at Nagpur. 1942 July 20 Dr.Ambedkar joined the Viceroy's Executive Council as a Labour Member 1942 December Dr. Ambedkar submitted a paper on "The problems of the Untouchables in 34 India" to the Institute of Pacific Relations at its Conference held in Canada. The paper is printed in the proceedings of the Conference. The paper was subsequently published in December 1943 in the book form under the title Mr Gandhi and Emancipation of the Untouchables. 1943 January 19 Dr. Ambedkar delivered a Presidential address on the occasion of the 101st Birth Anniversary of Justice Mahader Govind Ranade. It is published in book form in April 1943 under the title Ranade. Gandhi and Jinnah. 1944 Dr. Ambedkar founded "The Building Trust and the Scheduled Caste Improvement Trust". 1944 May 6 Dr.Ambedkar addressed the Annual Conference of the All India S.C. Federation at Parel (Bombay) The speech was later published under the title "The Communal Deadlock and a way to solve it.' 1944 June Dr.Ambedkar published his book What Congress and Gandhi have done to the Untouchables a complete compendium of information regarding the movement of the Untouchables for political safeguards. Dr.Ambedkar attended the Simla Conference. 1944 July Dr Ambedkar founded 'People's Education Society' in Bombay. 1946 Dr Ambedkar gave evidence before the British delegation. 1946 April Opening of Siddharth College of Arts and Science in Bombay 1946 May The Bharat Bhushan Printing Press (founded by Dr Ambedkar) was burnt down in the clashes between D.C. and the Caste-Hindus 1946 June 20 Siddharth College started September Dr Ambedkar went to London to urge before the British Government and the Opposition Party the need to provide safeguards for the D.C., on grant of Independence to India and thus to rectify the wrongs done to the D.C. by the Cabinet Mission. October 13 Dr Ambedkar published his book. Who were Shudras? An enquiry into how the Shudras came to be the fourth Varna in the Indo-Aryan Society. Dr Ambedkar was elected Member of the Constitution Assembly of India. November Dr Ambedkar's First speech in the Constituent Assembly. He called for a 'strong and United India'. 1947 March Published 'States and Minorities'. A memorandum of Fundamental Rights, Minority Rights, safeguards for the D.C. and on the problems of Indian states. 1947 April 29 Article 17 of the Constitution of India for the abolition of Untouchability was moved by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in the Constituent Assembly and it was passed. 1947 August 15 India obtained her Independence. Dr Ambedkar was elected to the Constituent Assembly by the Bombay Legislature Congress Party. Dr Ambedkar joined Nehru's Cabinet. He became the First Law Minister of Independent India. The Constituent Assembly appointed him to the drafting Committee, which elected him as a Chairman on 29th August 1947. 35 1948 February Dr Ambedkar completed the Draft Constitution of Indian Republic. 1948 April 15 Second marriage Dr Ambedkar married Dr Sharda Kabir in Delhi. 1948 October Published his book The Untouchables. A thesis on the origin of Untouchability. Dr. Ambedkar submitted his Memorandum, "Maharashtra as a linguistic Province" to the Dhar Commission. The Linguistic Provinces Commission). 1948 October 4 Dr.Ambedkar presented the Draft Constitution to Constituent Assembly. 1948 November 20 The Constituent Assembly adopted Article 17 of the Constitution for the abolition of Untouchability. 1949 January Dr. Ambedkar, Law Minister of India visited Hydrabad (Deccan) 1949 January 15 Dr. Ambedkar was presented with a Purse at Manmad by his admirers. He addressed a large gathering. 1949 January 21 He stayed at Aurangabad in connection with his opening proposed College. During the stay he visited Ajanta Ellora Caves. 1949 March/ May Dr. Ambedkar visited Bombay in connection with College work and for a medical check-up. 1949 September Meeting between Dr. Ambedkar and Madhavrao Golvalker, Chief of RRs and the residence of Dr. Ambedkar at Delhi. 1949 November Dr. Ambedkar came to Bombay for college work meeting and medical check-up. 1949 November Dr. Ambedkar addressed the Constituent Assembly. 1949 Noveber 26 Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution. Dr Ambedkar came to Bombay for check-up. 1950 January 11 Dr. Ambedkar addressed the Siddharth College Parliament on the Hindu Code Bill. In the evening he was presented with a silver casket containing a copy of the Indian Constitution at Nare Park Maidan, Bombay. May Dr. Ambedkar's article The Buddha and the Future His Religion' was published in the journal of Mahabodhi Society, Calcutta. Dr.Ambedkar addressed the Young Men's Buddhist Association on "The Rise and Fall of Hindu Women". Dr. Ambedkar spoke on the "Merits of Buddhism" at the meeting arranged on the occasion of Buddha Jayanti in Delhi. 1950 September 1 Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the First President of the Indian Republic laid the foundation stone of Milind Maharidyalaya, Aurangabad. Dr. Ambedkar delivered a speech on the occasion (The printed speech is available with Mr Surwade) 1950 December Dr. Ambedkar went to Colombo as a Delegate to the World Buddhist Conference. 1951 February 5 Dr.Ambedkar, Law Minister introduced his "Hindu Code Bill" in the Parliament. 1951 April 15 Dr. Ambedkar laid the foundation stone of "Dr Ambedkar Bhavan". Delhi. 1951 July Dr. Ambedkar founded "The Bhartiya Buddha Jansangh". 1951 September Dr. Ambedkar compiled a Buddhist prayer book Buddha Upasana Palha 1951 September 9 Dr. Ambedkar resigned from the Nehru Cabinet because, among other 36 reasons, the withdrawal of Cabinet support to the Hindu Code Bill in spite of the earlier declaration in the Parliament by the Prime Minister Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, that his Government would stand or fall with the Hindu Code Bill. Apart from this Nehru announced that he will sink or swim with the Hindu Code Bill. Dr. Ambedkar published his speech in book form under the title The Rise and Fall of Hindu Women. 1951 September 19 The marriage and divorce Bill was discussed in the Parliament. 1951 October 11 Dr. Ambedkar left the Cabinet. 1952 January Dr. Ambedkar was defeated in the First Lok Sabha elections held under the Constitution of Indian Republic. Congress candidate N. S. Kajrolkar defeated Dr Ambedkar. 1952 March Dr. Ambedkar was introduced into Parliament as a member of the Council (Rajya Sabha) of States, representing Bombay. 1952 June 1 Dr. Ambedkar left for New York from Bombay. 1952 June 15 Columbia University (USA) conferred the honorary Degree of LL.D., in its Bi-Centennial Celebrations Special Convocation held in New York. 1952 June 16 Dr. Ambedkar returned to Bombay. 1952 December 16 Dr. Ambedkar addressed Annual Social Gathering of Elphinstone College, Bombay. 1952 December 22 Dr. Ambedkar delivered a talk on "Conditions Precedent to the Successful working of Democracy" at the Bar Council, Pune. 1953 January 12 The Osmania University conferred the honorary Degree of LL.D on Dr. Ambedkar. 1953 March The Untouchability (offences) Bill was introduced in the Parliament by the Nehru Government. 1953 April Dr. Ambedkar contested the By-Election for Lok Sabha from Bhandara Constituency of Vidarbha Region but was defeated Congress Candidate Mr Borkar. 1953 May Opening of Siddharth College of Commerce and Economics in Bombay. 1953 December Dr. Ambedkar inaugurated the All India Conference of Sai devotees at the St. X'avier's Maidan Parel Bombay (His inaugural speech is available with Mr Surwade) 1954 May Dr. Ambedkar visited Rangoon to attend the function arranged on the occasion of Buddha Jayanti. 1954 June The Maharaja of Mysore donated 5 acres of land for Dr Ambedkar's proposed Buddhist Seminary to be started at Bangalore 1954 September 16 Dr. Ambedkar spoke on the Untouchability (Offences) Bill in the Rajya Sabha 1954 October 3 Dr. Ambedkar broadcast his talk "My Personal Philosophy" 1954 October 29 Shri R. D. Bhandare, President of Bombay Pradesh S.C. Federation presented a purse of Rs. 118,000 on behalf of S.C.F. to Dr. Ambedkar at 37 Purandare Stadium, Naigaum (Bombay) 1954 December Dr. Ambedkar participated as delegate to the 3rd World Buddhist Conference at Rangoon. 1955 April 3 Delivered a speech "Why Religion is necessary". 1955 May Dr. Ambedkar established Bhartiya Bauddha Mahasabha (The Buddhist Society of India 1955 August Founded 'Murnbai Rajya Kanishtha Garkamgart Association' 1955 December Published his opinions on linguistic states in book form under the title Thoughts on linguistic States. 1955 December Dr. Ambedkar installed an image of Buddha at Dehu Road (near Pune) 1955 December 27 Dr. Ambedkar spoke against reservation of seats in the State and Central Legislatures. 1956 February Dr. Ambedkar completed his The Buddha and His Dhamma, Revolution & Counter-revolution in Ancient India. 1956 March 15 Dr. Ambedkar wrote and dictated the Preface of The Buddha and His Dhamma. 1956 May 1 Dr. Ambedkar spoke on Linguistic states in the Council of States. Dr. Ambedkar spoke on BBC London on "Why I like Buddhism", Also, he spoke for Voice of America on "The Future of Indian Democracy". 1956 May 24 Dr. Ambedkar attended a meeting at Nare Park organised on the eve of Buddha Jayanti, Shri B.G.Kher, Prime Minister of Bombay was Chief Guest. This meeting was the last meeting of Dr. Ambedkar in Bombay. 1956 June Opening of Siddharth College of Law in Bombay. 1956 October 14 Dr. Ambedkar embraced Buddhism at an historic ceremony at Diksha Bhoomi, Nagpur with his millions of followers. Announced to dissolve S.C.F and establish Republican Party. 1956 November 20 Delegate, 4th World Buddhist Conference, Khalinandu, where he delivered his famous speech famous speech 'Buddha or Karl Marx'. 1956 December 6 Maha Nirvana at his residence, 26 Alipore Road,New Delhi. 1956 December 7 Cremation at Dadar Chawpatti – Now known as Chaitya Bhoomi Dadar (Bombay). Reference: "Important Events" from Ambedkar.org, updated on April 06, 2000. Cited on 27th December, 2013, http://www.ambedkar.org/Babasaheb/impevents.htm 38 Annexure-II Centre for Studies in Educational, Social and Cultural Development (CSESCD), Milestone Education Society (Regd.) Pehowa (Kurukshetra) established a Centre to study our great social reformers and their ideas with implications in the educational, social and cultural development of the oppressed society. Dr. Ambedkar stressed on the empowerment of the oppressed as a means of their release from exploitation and injustice. To follow the lines of our great scholars, we initiated this programme. Vision "My final words of advice to you are educate, agitate and organize; have faith in yourself. With justice on our side I do not see how we can loose our battle. The battle to me is a matter of joy. The battle is in the fullest sense spiritual. There is nothing material or social in it. For ours is a battle not for wealth or for power. It is battle for freedom. It is the battle of reclamation of human personality." -Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar Mission Every educational institution from secondary school to University College should be developed to become an agency of change. Objectives: The Centre will be concentrated on the following programmes: 1.To understand and disseminate the concepts relating to Social reformers like Buddha, Jyotiba Phoole, Savitri Bhai Phoole, Ambedkar etc. and the philosophies enunciated by them related to social justice and equity, conflict resolution, empowerment of women, rural development and related topics. 2. To set up a Library and Reading room for researchers, students scholars and other readers outside the society, so that an increasing number of persons become acquainted with the thoughts of our enlightened thinkers. 3. To organize seminars/lecture series on some identified topics on such studies. Lecture series may be organized in the Centre or in any other suitable place and material of these lectures may be placed in the library / website & publish for the use of the researchers, students and other interested persons. 4. To conduct research/studies in the thoughts and programmes of the above mentioned thinkers. 5. To conduct field work and action programmes on the basis of constructive programme related to the thoughts of the respective thinkers. 39 6.To conduct a full-time or part-time course of about 3 to 6 months, or of similar duration, for a group of researchers/social workers/students/functionaries of nongovernmental organizations focusing on particular aspects of thinking and work of our great social thinkers. 7. The Centre also do some studies in folk literature and their implications of these ideologies in oppressed peoples. 8. Besides above mentioned activities, the Centre does some comparative studies with relation to these specific social thinkers of India. Link: http://msesaim.wordpress.com | {
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Review Reviewed Work(s): Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle by Pierre Klossowski and Daniel W. Smith Review by: Keith Ansell Pearson Source: Journal of Nietzsche Studies, No. 18 (FALL 1999), pp. 84-89 Published by: Penn State University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20717726 Accessed: 27-07-2019 03:06 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Penn State University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Nietzsche Studies This content downloaded from 128.210.126.199 on Sat, 27 Jul 2019 03:06:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Pierre Klossowski. Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle. Trans. Daniel W. Smith. London: Athlone Press, 1999. 0 485 11440 2. ?12.99 hbk. Keith Ansell Pearson Thirty years after its publication in France, Klossowski's Vicious Circle has been published in English in a highly readable translation by Daniel W. Smith. Klossowski's text is often compared in stature to such eventful read ings as Martin Heidegger's two-volume study and Gilles Deleuze's Nietzsche and Philosophy. Such comparisons, however, miss the essential incompa rable character of Klossowski's text. It may well be the most extraordinary text on Nietzsche ever composed, as well as one of the most disconcerting and disquieting. It has a certain communion with Bataille's writings, includ ing his own text on Nietzsche, but on account of its trenchant insights, ex acting rigour, and exquisite precision, it goes far beyond anything in Bataille's reading. It is not a book that one can readily recommend as an essential text that anyone concerned with Nietzsche must read, simply because it is a quite terrifying reading of Nietzsche. At the end of it, the reader, or should I say this reader, experiences utter vertigo. Klossowski is a truly great writer and reader. His knowledge of Nietzsche's texts, including the Nachlass fragments from the 1880s, as well as rare material from Nietzsche's schooldays at Schulpforta (including a horror story called "Euphorion"), is impressive. Klossowski has a rare un derstanding of the details of Nietzsche's thinking and of what is truly at stake in it. His book takes us further into the treacherous depths of Nietzsche's thought than any other study I know. In many ways, its readers may still lie in the future. The danger with this book is that it will be read too cavalierly in terms of the alleged fashionable tropes of deconstruction or poststructuralism, such as the incompleteness of meaning, the infinite play of interpretation, and so on. This would be a great shame since such institu tionalised readings miss its crucial dimension and fail to engage with what makes this such a convincing and remarkable text, namely, that it has pen etrated the strange depths of Nietzsche's thought and shows what this amounts to, not only for his critique of language and meaning, but for his engagement with "life" in terms of both a theory of knowledge and a theory of evolution. For Klossowski, Nietzsche is a thinker of the near and distant future, a future, he says, which has now become our everyday reality. However, eve rything depends on knowing how we ought to read Nietzsche. Klossowski is ingenious in his response. He argues throughout the book that Nietzsche's Journal of Nietzsche Studies, Issue 18, 1999. Copyright ? 1999 The Friedrich Nietzsche Society. 84 This content downloaded from 128.210.126.199 on Sat, 27 Jul 2019 03:06:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Book Review 85 key thought-experiments are simulacra which unfold in terms of the simula tion of a "conspiracy." The Nietzschean conspiracy is not, of course, that of a class, but of an isolated individual "who uses the means of this class not only against his own class, but also against the existing forms of the human species as a whole" (xv). The second key component of the reading is the claim that Nietzsche's thought revolves around delirium as its axis and, furthermore, that it is incredibly lucid on this issue (Klossowski 's unfolding of the drama of Nietzsche's last days in Turin in his final chapter makes for some truly chilling and remarkable reading since it demonstrates in a way that is both convincing and unnerving that there was something completely lucid about Nietzsche's descent into muteness and madness). Klossowski insists that, conceived in terms of a project of delirium, Nietzsche's thought cannot simply be labelled "pathological." It is far too knowing about itself for this and lucid to the extreme. Nietzsche produces a body of work that challenges both the principle of identity (the authority of language, of the code, of the institution) and the reality principle (consciousness, the subject, the ego, substance, etc.). His new demonstration?"required by institutional language for the teaching of reality"?takes the form of the movements of a "declarative mood." Ultimately this contagious mood, or what Klossowski calls the "tonality of the soul," supplants the demonstration and b?th thought and life become "mute." The limits of the principles of identity and reality are inevitably and inexorably reached. By the end of the introduction, we have in place a theme that will be come one of the text's most important features: the opposition between "cul ture" (society, language, and consciousness), which is based on the inten tion to teach and learn, and the tonality of the soul, which operates on the level of intensities that can be neither taught nor learnt. This opposition strikes me as a dramatic transposition into the heart of Nietzsche's darkness of the essential thematic of Henri Bergson's first published text, Time and Free Will. This text begins with the phenomenon of intensity and intensive magnitudes, moves on to a conception of duration as a virtual multiplicity, and then arrives at a twofold conception of the "self," the "superficial" self of language and society and the "deep-seated" self of duration and intensity. Klossowski was a keen reader of Heidegger (whose two volumes on Nietzsche he translated into French in 1971). However, the "authenticity" at stake in his reading of Nietzsche is not that of historicality and resolution, but rather that of intensity and the dissolution of both identity and reality. The opening chapter, entitled "The Combat against Culture," presents Nietzsche as a thinker "beyond the human condition," that is, one who chal lenges and puts to the test the knowledge, practices, customs, and habits that make up Western culture (6). In response to the "levelling powers of gre This content downloaded from 128.210.126.199 on Sat, 27 Jul 2019 03:06:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 86 Keith Ariseli Pearson garious thought," Nietzsche champions the alternative "erectile power of particular cases." Since morality is by definition the domain of gregarious ness, it is viewed as the "principal 'metaphysical virus' of thought and sci ence" (6). In chapter 2, "The Valetudinary States at the Origin of a Semiotic of Impulses," Klossowski commences his presentation of eternal return and its. essential paradoxical nature as a doctrine that cannot be taught since it is an experience that is not bound up with either language or social communica tion. The actual and complex nature of its experience is the focus of chapter 3. Chapters 4-6 are devoted to bringing out and examining the various as pects of the doctrine, including the scientific (chapter 5) and the political (chapter 6). It is clear that for Klossowski the most crucial dimension of the thought-experiment is to be found in the descriptions Nietzsche gave his Sils experience in August 1881 "6000 feet beyond man and time." Klossowski accords a tremendous privilege to this event in Nietzsche's life since it provides access, he holds, to the tonality of the soul and the intensities of lived experience that are beyond knowledge and outside communication. However, because everything that is at stake in Nietzsche is made depend ent on this momentous experience in Klossowski's reading, it also becomes the vulnerable point in that reading. Klossowski approaches the eternal return in terms of asking the ques tion, "What kind of invention does it provide?" The invention is a deeply paradoxical one, not only because it is attempting to respond to the deepest problems of "life," but also because it is doing so through the "impossible" mediums of language, pedagogy, culture, and such. Adherence to the non sense of life and belief in return entails an "impracticable lucidity" (53). The project is not one of renouncing language, intentions, or even willing, but rather one of evaluating them "in a different manner than we have hith erto evaluated them?namely, as subject to the 'law' of the vicious Circle" (53). The law of this circle has a specific non-sense to it, which is to do with the liquidation of meaning and goal. This is how Klossowski brings together the thought-experiments of the later Nietzsche: The "overman" becomes the name of the subject of the will to power, both the meaning and the goal of the Eternal Return. The will to power is only a humanized term for the soul of the Vicious Circle, whereas the latter is a pure intensity without intention. On the other hand, the Vicious Circle, as Eternal Return, is presented as a chain of existences that forms the indi viduality of the doctrine's adherent, who knows that he has pre-existed otherwise than he now exists, and that he will yet exist differently, from "one eternity to another." (70) This content downloaded from 128.210.126.199 on Sat, 27 Jul 2019 03:06:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Book Review 87 This articulation of the doctrine reveals both the enormous influence of Bataille on Klossowski 's configuration (or disfiguration) and gives expres sion to his own unique conception of a new fatalism, that of fortuity.1 This can be understood in terms of a "renewed version of metempsychosis," in which the "richness of a single existence" resides in infinite possibilities of becoming-other; it resides in "affective potential" (71 ). Within the economy of the vicious circle, one fortuitous soul is dissolved in order to give way to another equally fortuitous soul. The experience of return is one of intensity, then, which "emits of a series of infinite vibrations of being" (72). The promise of this new teaching is the promise of a new creature coming into being, one that has gone beyond the established gregarious conditions of life and which no longer lives according to the "durable fixity of species" (139). Nietzsche's body and organism became, according to Klossowski, the battleground upon which the struggle of life seeking to overcome itself to higher levels of intensity and energy was played out. He interprets the col lapse in Turin in terms of disproportion between "the time of the pathos" and the "time of the organism." This gives rise to an exchange or transac tion in which the organism and the body "are the price of the pathos." In other words, the law of eternal return required "the destruction of the very organ that had disclosed it: namely, Nietzsche's brain" (221). Klossowski is decisive in his choice of reading the eternal return in terms of what I would designate as a "superior existentialism" (the authen ticity of self-dissolution) and disregarding its cosmological aspects. He en dorses Lou Salome's judgement that the search for a scientific foundation to the doctrine is an error, though he does not give an account of his reasons for adhering to this now widespread view. He does entertain, with Salome, the highly speculative claim that the reason why Nietzsche himself was so keen to find proof of his doctrine in a cosmology was because this would help him in the task of dissuading himself of a delirious intelligence. This claim rests on a highly selective and tendentious reading of the intellectual trajectory of Nietzsche's thought and disregards the cosmology Nietzsche worked on and outlined in the 1880s (a decade that witnesses Poincare's efforts to establish a recurrence theorem in science, to which Klossowski makes no reference). It is not that Klossowski ignores completely the relation between Nietzsche and science; on the contrary, he has some stimulating things to say about it. His stance on this issue is to argue that Nietzsche's researches into the biological and physiological sciences were only ever motivated by the needs of his own personal singularity or "particular case." Thus, Nietzsche wanted "to find a mode of behaviour, in the organic and inorganic world, that was analogous to his own valetudinary state .. . based on this mode of This content downloaded from 128.210.126.199 on Sat, 27 Jul 2019 03:06:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 88 Keith Ansell Pearson behaviour, to find the arguments and resources that would allow him to re create himself, beyond his own self (32). Science is an ambiguous ally in Nietzsche's inhuman project. On the one hand, it explores life and the uni verse without being concerned about the consequences for human behav iour with regard to the reality principle. On the other hand, it is "essentially an institutional principle dictated by reasons of security for the (gregarious) continuity of existence" (134). Klossowski argues that Nietzsche projects the "conspiracy" of his teaching of the vicious circle against the "external conspiracy ... of the science and morality of institutions." It is in this con text that we can best appreciate the meaning of Nietzsche positioning him self "contra Darwin": "The selection expounded by Darwin coincides per fectly with bourgeois morality." Natural selection "conspires with gragariousness by presenting mediocre beings as strong, rich and powerful beings" (169). Klossowski is right to make Nietzsche's engagement with Darwinism central to a reading of his texts, but I am not convinced that he has got to grips with either the full complexity of Nietzsche's response to Darwin or the challenge Darwinism presents to any Nietzschean-inspired thinking of life. Nietzsche's thinking?notably the doctrine of will to power? reaches an impasse once it realizes that "Darwinism is correct": "[T]he will to power in which I recognize the ultimate character and ground of all change provides us with the reason why selection is not in favour of the exceptions and lucky strokes" {WP 685). Now if the triumph of reactive values is not "antibiological," as Nietzsche himself tells us, then what becomes of the doctrine of will to power? If it ends up concurring with Darwinism, then is the doctrine of return Nietzsche's attempt to find a way out of this impasse? If these are the right kind of questions to pose, then the truly key issue be comes that of the adequacy of eternal return as a response to biological and cultural evolution. It is inadequate to simply assert, as Klossowksi does, that Nietzsche equated Darwinism with bourgeois morality. On the con trary, for Nietzsche, Darwin's theory of evolution is the correct one?even at the level of will to power. This is why he tells us that his engagement takes place around a "problem of economics." In short, Nietzsche seeks to identify within evolution a different energetics, one in which "'Duration' as such has no value" {WP 864). In neither case, then, that of Darwinism or Nietzscheanism, are we dealing simply with a problem of morality; rather, we are dealing with a problem of economics and energetics. The intelligence of this text on the vicious circle demands an exact en gagement. For me the most important problem of Klossowski's reading re volves around the manner in which it unknowingly takes over the central antinomy of Bergson's early text and produces through its lens an interpre tation of the eternal return as the paradoxical doctrine of muteness par ex This content downloaded from 128.210.126.199 on Sat, 27 Jul 2019 03:06:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Book Review 89 cellence. He refuses to work through the antinomy and instead sets it up a kind of a priori antagonism between intensity and institution. Ultimately, for Klossowski, Nietzsche is not someone who thinks be yond the human condition. Rather, he is indeed "one of those machines who explode" and who feels the dissolution of all identity and reality, and so is, in some quasi-mystical sense, beyond truth and knowledge, beyond meta physics and science. This explains why he spends so little time on Nietzsche's attempts to come up with some cosmological proof of the doctrine. For Klossowski, this is not because the thought is ethical, but because both the ethical and cosmological renditions of the thought-experiment miss the es sential point of it, chiefly, that it is outside of thought altogether. All the stress is placed on the ecstasy and the agony of the 1881 summit experience in Sils-Maria. For Klossowski, this is the decisive turn in Nietzsche's lived experience. His subsequent attempts to work out the meaning of what had happened to him are doomed attempts to communicate what is beyond com munication and to make sense of an irreducible non-sense. The disjunction between life and knowledge on which so much of his staging of the case of Nietzsche rests proves a fateful, and perhaps ulti mately fatal, choice for Klossowski to make since it condemns Nietzsche to isolation and solitude as his irrevocable destiny, playing the role of a simu lator of thought, the supreme conspirator-actor in Klossowski's stage pro duction of the filthy lessons of philosophy, one who teaches the unteachable, thinks the unthinkable, and attempts to unthink thought?and then falls, unsurprisingly, into complete (and unsimulated?) muteness and madness. Deparment of Philosophy University of Warwick pyrbh@snow. csv. Warwick, ac. uk Note 1. For Bataille on return as a "mode of drama" that "unmotivates the moment and frees life of ends," see his On Nietzsche, trans. B. Boone (London: Athlone Press, 1992), preface, xxxiii. This content downloaded from 128.210.126.199 on Sat, 27 Jul 2019 03:06:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms | {
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Semantic dispositionalism without exceptions Arvid Båve1 Published online: 10 April 2019 The Author(s) 2019 Abstract Semantic Dispositionalism is roughly the view that meaning a certain thing by a word, or possessing a certain concept, consists in being disposed to do something, e.g., infer a certain way. Its main problem is that it seems to have so many and disparate exceptions. People can fail to infer as required due to lack of logical acumen, intoxication, confusion, deviant theories, neural malfunctioning, and so on. I present a theory stating possession conditions of concepts that are counterfactuals, rather than disposition attributions, but which is otherwise similar to inferentialist versions of dispositionalism. I argue that it can handle all the exceptions discussed in the literature without recourse to ceteris paribus clauses. Psychological exceptions are handled by suitably undemanding requirements (unlike that of giving the sum of any two numbers) and by setting the following two preconditions upon someone's making the inference: that she considers the inference and has no motivating reason against it. The non-psychological exceptions, i.e., cases of neural malfunctioning, are handled by requiring that the counterfactuals be true sufficiently often during the relevant interval. I argue that this accommodates some important intuitions about concept possession, in particular, the intuition that concept possession is vague along a certain dimension. Keywords Dispositionalism Kripke Wittgenstein Kripkenstein Dispositions Meaning Concepts Inferentialism Conceptual role semantics Peacocke Ceteris paribus Naturalism Boghossian Horwich I will here put forward and defend a new variant of Semantic Dispositionalism, the view that someone's meaning something by a word, possessing a certain concept, & Arvid Båve 1 Stockholm, Sweden 123 Philos Stud (2020) 177:1751–1771 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-019-01283-3 etc., consists in their being disposed to do something, e.g., infer a certain way. Actually, I will propose that such semantic notions are analysed rather in terms of counterfactual conditionals, but this is still very much in the spirit of standard dispositionalism. We may distinguish between Strict Semantic Dispositionalism, which takes semantic claims to be analysable as proper disposition attributions, and Broad Semantic Dispositionalism, which includes my ''conditional'' variant. Why treat my account as a form of ''dispositionalism'' at all? Because for most intents and purposes of the debate about Semantic Dispositionalism, the difference is insignificant. Kripke would not have taken my conditional account as interestingly different from the strict variety he was discussing. Also, Barbara Vetter has argued convincingly that philosophers' use of ''disposition'' is technical, and tied to a ''conditional conception'' of dispositions (2014: 147f.). In other words, they simply mean by ''disposition'' something that can be captured by a conditional. In any case, whenever the difference does become significant, we can easily revert to the disambiguation just made, so no confusion should arise.1 I will present no positive argument for ''the very idea'' of Semantic Dispositionalism2 but rather propose a positive account and argue that it steers clear of the exceptions (or counterexamples) found in the literature, which target extant forms of Semantic Dispositionalism. The account only concerns the simple case of conjunction, and I will sidestep the vast question how other meanings/concepts should be handled, as this simple case involves enough trouble for one paper. There is much else discussed in the literature on Semantic Dispositionalism that I will forego. The concept of rule following will not be touched upon. Rather, I discuss whether semantic claims can be analysed as counterfactuals, staying neutral on whether meaning something amounts to rule following, or whether rule following can be analysed in terms of counterfactuals. I similarly ''cut out the middle man'' with regard to dispositions: I don't discuss whether semantic properties are constituted by dispositions, nor whether disposition claims can be analysed as counterfactuals. I merely discuss whether semantic claims can be analysed as counterfactuals. This seems to me a recommending feature of the theory, as it thereby shuns two controversial and obscure notions in favour of counterfactuals, which are comparatively well understood. Given the radical disagreements about the nature of dispositions in the contemporary debate, it seems inadvisable to appeal to them at all in a theory that aims to explain something other than dispositions. 1 Gundersen (2002) and Choi (2008) argue that attributions of canonical dispositions, like ''x is disposed to break if struck'', should be analysed as simple counterfactuals. If they are right and my account is true, then, by the transitivity of equivalence, we can infer a form of Strict Semantic Dispositionalism, namely, one which takes semantic claims to be equivalent with ascriptions of canonical dispositions. Note, however, that this form of dispositionalism does not commit us to saying that semantic properties are conventional dispositions, like fragility. In fact, both Gundersen and Choi deny that conventional dispositions can be analysed as canonical dispositions. Further competing analyses of dispositions include Crane (1996), Lewis (1997), Mumford (1998), Heil (2003), Fara (2005), Manley and Wasserman (2008), Choi (2008), Steinberg (2010) and Vetter (2014). 2 Such arguments can be found in Boghossian (2003) and Horwich (2005). 1752 A. Båve 123 Finally, I also ignore large parts of the literature that concerns the specific dispositionalist analysis of meaning plus by ''?'', discussed by Kripke. This omission is motivated by the claim, argued in Sect. 3, that that specific analysis is particularly unpromising, and therefore distracts from the more interesting questions about Semantic Dispositionalism. The focus of the paper, then, is on a new, broadly dispositionalist theory of certain semantic properties (of concept possession, in fact), and how it handles the exceptions that threaten other such theories. These exceptions are both many and disparate. For instance, someone might fail to manifest such a disposition because of their finitude, or due to ineptitude, inattention, intoxication, confusion, fatigue, belief in deviant philosophical theories or logics, or neural malfunctioning. Each of these exceptions is a problem in its own right, but, as I explain in Sect. 2, they also collectively constitute a problem which is more than the sum of its parts, and which derives precisely from the fact that they seem precisely so many and disparate. Overcoming these difficulties is the main purpose of this paper. I will defend a broadly ''inferentialist'' theory about possessing the concept AND, on which possessing this concept consists in inferring in accordance with certain rules under certain counterfactual circumstances. My main novel points will be (1) that the presumed number and disparity of exceptions to broadly dispositionalist analyses has been exaggerated, (2) that all psychological exceptions can be dealt with by setting a suitably undemanding requirement (unlike the requirement of giving the sum of any pair of numbers), and including merely two stimulus conditions, namely, of considering the relevant inference, and of having no motivating reason against making it, (3) that non-psychological exceptions, particularly, exceptions due to neural malfunction, are to be handled by the condition that the relevant counterfactuals be true sufficiently often (during the relevant interval). Section 1 describes the relevant objections against Semantic Dispositionalism more thoroughly. Section 2 offers some preliminaries, states the first version of the theory, and makes some general points about it. Sections 3 and 4 deal respectively with the preconditions of considering inferences and of having no motivating reason against making an inference. Section 5 locates (the first version of) my view in dialectical space, and Sect. 6 proposes a modification of the theory, intended to handle neural exceptions. 1 The problems of exceptions The debate about Semantic Dispositionalism has its roots in the specifically behaviourist dispositionalist ideas of the 1940s, but intensified considerably with Kripke's (1982) discussion, which will be our starting point. The dispositionalist claim at the focus of his discussion-call it Kripke's Dispositionalism-is that ''to mean addition by '?' is to be disposed, when asked for any sum 'x ? y', to give the Semantic dispositionalism without exceptions 1753 123 sum of x and y as the answer'' (1982: 22). As Kripke makes clear, this is not to be understood behaviouristically. There are plenty of well-known and decisive objections against behaviouristic analyses of mental or semantic claims, but Kripke's more interesting objections target mentalist forms of dispositionalism, featuring mental notions like belief. I will here focus only on arguments against dispositionalism consisting of alleged exceptions to dispositionalist analyses.3 The two main arguments of this kind are, Error: We are prone to make mistakes and thus not disposed to always give the sum of any two numbers. Finitude: Due to our finite nature, we cannot conceive of very large numbers, so we are not disposed to give the sum of such numbers. In the ensuing debate, another problem for dispositionalism has emerged, raised by the sheer number and disparity of circumstances that may prevent a given disposition to be manifested. Aside from exceptions relating to error and finitude, someone may also fail to manifest the relevant disposition due to: Deviant (philosophical) theories or logics: they have philosophical or other theoretical reasons against believing or inferring so and so (cf. Williamson 2007: Ch. 4). Reasoned change in view: where the relevant disposition is to make a simple inference, one might fail to manifest it because one disbelieves the conclusion (cf. Harman 1986: 1ff.; Besson 2012). Dysfunctional states: they are confused, inattentive, tired, stressed, distracted, or under the influence of drugs (see, e.g., Azzouni 2017: Ch. 2). Neural malfunction (noise, disturbance, etc.): in this type of case, there is no psychological explanation of why the person fails to manifest the disposition, i.e., no explanation featuring psychological concepts like belief, perception, desire, etc. The explanation is rather purely physical (neural), consisting, e.g., in a neuron not firing in spite of receiving the right kind of input, or some neural factor blocking the manifestation of a disposition. Opponents of Semantic Dispositionalism often provide a list like this, and then exclaim, ''And so on!'', implying that the list goes on for long, or even indefinitely. However, I have not found any particularly long list of exceptions anywhere in the literature, and will argue that the impression of a hopelessly wide range of exceptions is illusory. 3 I will thus ignore the so-called arguments from normativity and extension-determination. It should be noted, however, that some philosophers more or less identify these arguments with the ''problem of Error'' [see Kripke (1982: 24), Martin and Heil (1998: 284ff.) and Handfield and Bird (2008: 286)]. But there are arguments worthy of these labels that go beyond the problem of Error. For instance, it could be argued that since meaning claims analytically or a priori entail normative claims, and disposition attributions (or counterfactuals) don't, the latter cannot be used to analyse the former. Similarly, it can be argued that since meaning claims directly entail extension attributions and disposition claims do not, the latter cannot be used to analyse the former. I take both of these arguments to have been persuasively rebutted [see, e.g., Glüer and Wikforss (2009, 2018) on the former and Horwich (1998: Ch. 10, 2005: Ch. 3) on the latter]. 1754 A. Båve 123 The illusion may be due partly to a superficial similarity with the main obstacle to behaviourist analyses of mental states, and with conditional analyses of such ''conventional'' dispositional properties as brittleness. For instance, the behaviourist idea of identifying belief with a disposition to utter or assent to a sentence seems implausible in view of the sheer number and disparity of factors that may inhibit this behaviour: shyness, dishonesty, aphasia, defiance, inattention, ... and so on! Simple conditional analyses of properties like brittleness seem similarly beset by an indefinite number of exceptions, like the notorious finks, masks, etc. [see Choi and Fara (2018) for an overview]. But mentalist versions of Semantic Dispositionalism are different, or so I will argue. Let us get clearer on what exactly the problem of the ''many and disparate exceptions'' is supposed to be. I take it to consist in a dilemma, both horns of which seem untenable. The first option is to deal with the exceptions by explicitly saying of each of them that its absence is a precondition for the manifestation of the disposition. But, the objection goes, considering the number and disparity of possible inhibiting factors, it seems that this will require an intolerably complex, gerrymandered, and possibly even infinite analysis. The second option is to cover all exceptions with a ''ceteris paribus'' clause, like ''barring inhibiting factors'', ''in ideal circumstances'', or ''in normal circumstances''. But it seems difficult to explicate these hedges without making ceteris paribus laws come out false or trivial.4 In response, it has been argued that there must be some way of making such laws non-vacuously true, given their prominent role in science [see, e.g., Fodor (1983, 1991), and Steinberg (2010: §4)]. As against this line of reasoning, it has been argued that ceteris paribus hedges may be admissible for scientific purposes but not for those of Semantic Dispositionalism [see Kusch (2005) and, for a reply, Cheng (2009)]. 2 Toward an improved form of Semantic Dispositionalism Although the account I propose here is like the first horn of the above dilemma in that it eschews ceteris paribus clauses, it is not aptly described as a theory which ''explicitly rules out each exception''. Rather, it contains only two qualifications, and I will argue that they take care of all psychological exceptions (albeit not nonpsychological, ''neural'' exceptions, which are handled by a modification of the theory, presented in Sect. 6). A benefit of this theory is that it avoids the commitment to analysing ceteris paribus hedges, and thus runs no risk of trivialization. The theory I will propose is quite different from Kripke's. In my view, the debate has suffered seriously from the assumption that Semantic Dispositionalism stands or falls with his very optional, very specific, and arguably very implausible dispositionalist analysis of meaning plus. In my view, that analysis is simply 4 For an overview, see Reutlinger and Hüttemann (2017: §§4–5). See also Fodor (1983, 1990, 1991), Boghossian (1989: 537ff.), Kusch (2005, 2006), Tennant (1997, §4.7), Miller (1997: 181ff.), Pettit (1999), Pietroski and Rey (1995), Cheng (2009), Podlaskowski and Jones (2012) and Podlaskowski (2012). Semantic dispositionalism without exceptions 1755 123 refuted by the arguments from Error and Finitude. It is as implausible as taking meaning prime to consist in a disposition to tell, of each number, whether it is prime. Meaning prime is more reasonably identified with a disposition to accept something obvious, which can be seen as a definition of ''prime'', and similarly for meaning plus by ''?''. In line with this reasoning, Christopher Peacocke has proposed that possessing the concept PLUS consists in finding primitively compelling the Peano axioms containing ''?'' (1992: 134ff.). I find that particular proposal psychologically unrealistic, but the general idea remains sound: meaning something must consist in a disposition to accept something obvious and definitional.5 More generally, the relevant dispositions much be relatively undemanding, if the theory is not to succumb to the problem of Error.6 I will henceforth discuss the example of conjunction rather than addition, because I take the latter to involve complications with no relevance for my main message. I will also assume the neo-Gricean view that meaning something by an expression really consists of two separate things: possessing the relevant concept, and using the expression to express that concept [see, e.g., Davis (2003) for a detailed theory of this kind]. These two matters require separate accounts, and the dispositionalist view I will propose concerns only concept possession. It is obvious that, in a choice between possessing a concept and using a certain expression to express it, the former is more reasonably taken as the target of the debates about Semantic Dispositionalism. (Despite this difference between my account and Kripke's Dispositionalism, much of what I will have to say will apply also to dispositionalist accounts of ''meaning x by e''.), It has been independently argued by Peacocke (1992) that concepts can be individuated by their possession conditions. Appropriating Peacocke's ''(A)-form individuations'' and modifying them in accordance with the points above, my reductions will be roughly of the form, (F) x possesses C (e.g., AND) iff, for some concept c, if x were to ..., then x would -, where the variable ''c'' will occur in at least one of the spaces ''...'' and ''-''. While the analysandum in (F) is roughly that of Peacocke's concept individuations, the kind of analysans I shall propose differs importantly from his (and I will argue at length below that mine is preferable). 5 A more plausible candidate might be the inference from ''There are m Fs and n Gs'' and ''No F is a G'' to ''There are m ? n things that are F or G''. 6 The problem of Error arguably also refutes the crude, dispositionalist idea that possessing the concept HORSE consists in a disposition to apply it to all and only horses. Possessing HORSE is more plausibly identified with a disposition to apply the concept in response to certain perceptions. A promising proposal is that the relevant perceptions can be adequately categorized as those belonging to a certain nonconceptual, perceptual similarity space, as defined, e.g., in Gauker (2011: Chs. 5–6). Many concepts will probably be associated rather with a cluster of dispositions, e.g., concepts of artefacts, which are associated both with shape recognition and beliefs about function. 1756 A. Båve 123 Finally, I will need some way of quantifying over propositions that are subpropositions in logically complex propositions. To this end, I will stipulate that the function f takes dyadic propositional-operator concepts, like the concept AND, and pairs of propositions to the relevant logically complex proposition. Thus, the proposition that snow is white and grass is green = f(AND, that snow is white, that grass is green), and so on [see Båve (forthcoming) for details]. The first version of the account of the concept AND that I'll defend now reads: (D) x possesses AND just in case, for some concept c, (i) for every proposition p, q, if x were to (a) consider inferring p (or q) from f(c, p, q) for an appropriate amount of time, and (b) have no motivating reason against this inference, then x would immediately infer p (or q) from f(c, p, q) and (ii) for every proposition p, q, if x were to (a) consider inferring f(c, p, q) from p and q for an appropriate amount of time, and (b) have no motivating reason against this inference, then x would immediately infer f(c, p, q) from p and q.7,8 Here, ''p'' and ''q'' are ordinary, first-order, objectual variables ranging over propositions. Clause (i) covers the elimination rule for conjunction and (ii) covers the introduction rule. Although I won't discuss the matter here, we may note that (D) can be modified so as to demand only (i) or (ii) for possession of AND, which would be tantamount to saying that possessing the concept merely requires a disposition to follow the elimination rule or introduction rule, respectively. Another important variation adds a third condition alongside (i) and (ii), namely, that x must not be ''disposed toward'' any other inference rule with respect to c than the introduction and elimination rules of AND. Here, that x is ''disposed toward'' the conjunction elimination rule with respect to c simply amounts to (i) being true, and analogously for other inference rules. Here and in the following three sections, I will clarify (D), argue that it indeed avoids all psychological exceptions discussed in the literature, and explain how it can be modified to accommodate various different views about concept possession. Like the theories of Paul Boghossian (2003) and Paul Horwich (2005), (D) is a dispositionalist version of inferentialism. Of course, inferentialist theories are 7 This theory is a refinement of my more inchoate suggestions in Båve (2015b: 26f, 2016: 14). 8 I have heard more than one philosopher vent the suspicion that (D) is circular because its right-hand side presupposes that the person possesses the concept in question. It does, indeed, presuppose this, but this does not render (D) circular in any interesting sense. It would be circular if ''AND'' or some synonymous concept-designator had occurred in its right-hand side, but this clearly does not hold. I am not sure why (D) seems circular to some philosophers, but perhaps the impression gives way if one considers that the gist of (D) might as well be expressed by a sentence of the form, ''AND = the concept c such that x possesses c just in case ...'' [cf. Peacocke (1992: 6–10)]. It is also important to note that (D) is not meant to define ''possess'', so it could well contain this word in its right-hand side without circularity. Semantic dispositionalism without exceptions 1757 123 controversial9 but their general viability is beyond the scope of this paper, which is rather about the particularly dispositionalist aspects of such theories. The notion of inference is obviously central to (D). An inference, as I use the term, is a mental event, which may but need not result in a new belief. It can also result in the strengthening of one's belief (if one already believed the conclusion), or the kind of state resulting from an inference from a mere supposition (however exactly that kind of state should be characterized). Perhaps one can make an inference without believing or supposing the premises, but I will leave that open. I also leave open whether inference is (always) voluntary, conscious, subpersonal, or an act (rather than merely an event). I will say more about inference in Sect. 4, in response to a recent argument against inferentialism by Paul Boghossian. By ''immediately'', I mean that the inference is not based on other beliefs. So, even if someone infers one proposition from another without considering any further proposition, this inference is still not immediate if it is causally dependent on previous inferences, as when an inference is a ''shortcut'' of previous, more complex inferences [cf. Peacocke (1992: 6) and the discussion in Sect. 4 below]. (D) handles the problem of error, I submit, simply because the relevant inferences are so basic, simple, and obvious that we simply do not make any ''mistakes'' here of the kind we might make when adding. It is important to note, though, that (D) is consistent with possessors of AND reasoning as illogically as one can imagine, as long as they satisfy (i) and (ii). A counter-example to (D) cannot consist in someone's making an inference (whether fallacious or not), but only in their not making an inference. The well-known empirical findings of human illogicality are thus no threat to (D). Also, on the final account I propose in Sect. 6, people can even possess AND at a time while failing to satisfy (i) or (ii), as long as this does not occur too often.10 Note how (D) differs from standard dispositionalist solutions to the problem of Error, which are attempts to salvage Kripke's idea that meaning plus amounts to a disposition to add, e.g., Martin and Heil (1998) and Fodor (1991). Those solutions involve controversial claims about the (highly contested) nature of dispositions, 9 For overviews of the debate, see, e.g., Greenberg and Harman (2008), Whiting (2019), and Båve (2015a). 10 With (D) in place, we can now also see how recognitional concepts like HORSE could be individuated along the lines of note 5. Let ''d'' range over mental demonstratives, let HORSE be the perceptual similarity space related to horses, and let p be the function taking one monadic predicative concept and one individual concept (including mental demonstratives) to propositions, so that p(HORSE, CHISHOLM) is the proposition that Chisholm is a horse. Now, we can say, x possesses HORSE iff for some concept c, for all d, if x had a perception in which d falls within HORSE, considered the proposition f(c, d), and had no motivating reason against believing f(c, d), then x would believe f(c, d). We now need to explain what it is for a mental demonstrative to ''fall within'' a perceptual similarity space, but this should be possible. As with (D), it is difficult to see how anyone possessing HORSE could fail to satisfy this condition, except in cases of neural malfunction. As for the perceptual similarity space HORSE, note that we can use the word ''horse'' in defining it, without any resulting circularity in the concept possession above. What we cannot do, however, is to define it using the concept designator ''HORSE''. 1758 A. Båve 123 whereas mine, by appealing to undemanding cognitive tasks, can instead use simple counterfactuals. 3 Considering inferences The precondition of ''considering an inference'' is probably the most tentative aspect of (D), so I will here try to clarify and defend it at some length. I think we need to set a constraint on this notion to the effect that anyone possessing and must be able to consider inferences in the relevant sense, including unsophisticated thinkers like small children. This means inter alia that we must not take this act to involve metaconceptual thought, i.e., thoughts about propositions (cf. Boghossian 2003). This constraint clearly does not follow from (D). Nor is it needed to avoid triviality. My reason for setting it is rather that it is hard to see how anyone can have come to satisfy (i) or (ii) without having actually considered an inference, and then having somehow learnt to respond to this act by making the inference. Fortunately, we will see that the main independent motivation for positing this act type of considering will also motivate the claim that unsophisticated thinkers are indeed capable of performing it. (Note, however, that no analogous argument could be used to show that unsophisticated thinkers must be capable of having motivating reasons against an inference, so the constraint applies only to considering inferences.) By including the precondition of considering inferences in (D), we can solve the problem of finitude. I will assume, as seems natural, that one can consider an inference only if one can entertain its premises and conclusion. But this immediately entails that, for propositions too complex to entertain, the instances of (i)a and (ii)a do not actually obtain, and so (D) does not entail that possessors of and actually make the relevant inferences. Thus, propositions too complex to entertain are not counterexamples to (D). (D) does require, of course, that in the closest possible world in which the antecedent of (i) holds of two highly complex propositions, so will the corresponding consequent. But this is as it should. Note, again, the relatively uncontroversial ideas involved in this solution of the problem of finitude. By contrast, others have tried to solve the problem by positing ''abstractions'' of agents (Podlaskowski (2012)), or dispositions that are ''infinitely projectible'' (Martin and Heil (1998: §4)) or ''composite'' (Warren (forthcoming)). Similar ideas have been proposed by Blackburn (1984), Tennant (1997: §4.13.2), and Shogenji (1993). Although these theorists agree with me that we need to appeal to ''simpler tasks'', their candidate tasks are all proposed as subtasks through which one is supposed to be able to give the sum of any two numbers. But, again, in order to possess PLUS (or mean plus by ''?''), one need not be disposed to add very well at all, let alone be disposed to add any two numbers. One need not, for instance, have any idea of how to add double-digit numbers like 68 and 57 (e.g., by adding single digits, ''carrying'', and so on). By rejecting this Kripkean presupposition, we avoid stretching the notion of disposition beyond recognition, as these authors argubly do, and we avoid the unreasonably demanding conditions for possessing PLUS. These Semantic dispositionalism without exceptions 1759 123 other theories also succumb to a ''special'' problem of finitude, described in Podlaskowski (2012: §4.2), which is exactly the problem of finitude for dispositionalist accounts of conjunction that I am here claiming to solve (see also Kusch (2006: 278f.) for further criticisms of Tennant). Even if the precondition of considering solves the problem of finitude, we also need some independent motivation for positing this act type. To this end, note that, as Broome (2016: 632) emphasizes, people are not disposed simply to infer in accordance with rational inference rules, but only to the extent that they ''take interest'' in the conclusion. We don't (per impossibile) go around constantly forming new beliefs in propositions that follow via analytic inference rules from what we already believe. Some intermediary, triggering factor must be identified, and this is precisely what I take the act of considering an inference to be. I propose that considering an inference is something close to the act of entertaining its premises and conclusion. This is suitably non-metaconceptual and thus an act that unsophisticated thinkers can perform. This act is presumably sensitive to what is relevant [cf. Gilbert Harman's ''Maxims of Reasoning'' (1986: 2) and Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory (1986)]. It also plausibly has as one of its functions to trigger inferences. These two characteristics are plausibly seen as connected, and illustrate the more general role that considering inferences plays in our cognitive system, particularly, its role in helping individuals to form relevant beliefs in response to real life situations. Although I think this gives us a firmer grasp of what we are trying to characterize, none of it needs to go into the conditions of possessing any concept. Such conditions need only involve the act of considering, not its connection with relevance, nor its function, nor its wider role in our cognitive lives. I will remain neutral on how exactly ''considering'' should be defined, but I will mention some possibilities, which should clarify the matter further. Consider first the simpler case of coming to non-inferentially believe obvious propositions, as we may come to non-inferentially believe that 2 = 2. Just as with inferences, we do not just categorically believe all obvious propositions. Rather, we are disposed to believe them upon consideration. Now, while considering in this sense could be the same as mere entertaining, we might instead have to relativize these acts to specific attitudes, distinguishing considering-for-belief, considering-for-desire, etc. To consider-for-belief the proposition that p is similar to wondering whether p, or ''asking oneself'' whether p, as long as the latter can be taken as suitably undemanding and non-metaconceptual. Returning now to ''considering an inference'', I think it plausible enough that it requires at least entertaining the conclusion and premises. The question is whether the entertaining of the premises and the entertaining of the conclusion must also be performed a certain way, and whether the acts must be connected somehow. I will leave these questions for another occasion, however, since I think I have said enough to motivate the positing of the act type of considering an inference. Aside from solving the problem of finitude, the precondition of considering also helps us ''shrink the distance'' between input and output to such a minimum that there will be few or no causal intermediaries between them that may fail to be present, thus inhibiting the output. (This is consonant with our assumption that the 1760 A. Båve 123 act of considering an inference has the function of triggering inferences.) On the other extreme, we find behaviourist analyses, where, arguably, indefinitely many psychological factors can causally intervene between input and output (stimulus and response). Although (D) thus avoids exceptions by ''shrinking the distance'' in this way, it is not thereby rendered trivial. For, firstly, the counterfactuals will only be true of analytic inferences (where an ''analytic'' inference is one which occurs in a (D)form individuation of some concept). Secondly, on the final theory defended in Sect. 6, these counterfactuals are sometimes false, even for analytic inferences, due to neural malfunction. The appropriate amount of time in (D) means sufficiently long but not too long. We need the lower limit in order to allow possessors of AND who haven't inferred after a mere nanosecond's consideration. With this limit, we can also grant that they may fail to infer, even if they consider the inference and have no reason against it, if they get interrupted or distracted along the way (cf. Besson 2012: 67). The upper limit, by contrast, is needed to rule out thinkers as possessors of AND, namely, those who take too long considering before they infer. The boundaries of the ''appropriate'' amount of time are plausibly vague. 4 Motivating reasons Having a motivating reason against an inference means having a motivating reason for not making it. Not making an inference is a so-called ''negative action'', but still an action, since it can be motivated in the same way as positive actions (see Bach 2010). The notion of a motivating reason [or ''agent's reason'' or what Hornsby (2008: 249) calls ''B-type'' reason] is well established in the philosophical literature [see, e.g., Dancy (2000) and Alvarez (2010) for overviews]. It is based on natural, intuitive uses of ''reason'', in which we can say that someone did something for a reason, although that reason might not be a good reason. It is just what made the person act the way she did. The main point of qualifying the reasons spoken of in (D) as motivating is to distinguish them from normative reasons. A normative reason for something cannot be bad; it is by definition something that really provides justification (if only pro tanto). This latter is what we typically have in mind when we interpret, ''The reason for believing in science is that it works''. The notion of a motivating reason, by contrast, is non-normative, psychological and causal-explanatory. Some have taken motivating reasons to be psychological states, consisting of beliefs and desires (e.g., Smith 1994: 94ff.), but an analysis which better fits ordinary usage takes them to be propositions: the proposition P is a motivating reason for x to / iff x's believes P and this belief, in conjunction with other beliefs and desires of x, motivate x to /. It seems, however, that the notion of a motivating reason is factive, i.e., that every motivating reason is true (cf. Unger 1975: 208). If that is so, then (D) requires a slightly different notion, which is like that of a motivating reason, minus factivity, and this is in fact the notion I just defined. Semantic dispositionalism without exceptions 1761 123 However natural, the notion of motivating reason is controversial. Opponents insist that reasons cannot be mental and cannot be non-normative [see, e.g., Williamson (forthcoming)]. This seems to me purely terminological, however. It is clear that we do speak of bad reasons in ordinary language, and also of people's having reasons as being psychologically causal-explanatory. Note that not any psychological factor preventing someone from doing something amounts to there being a motivating reason against their doing it. If it were, (D) would be at risk of trivialization. Having a motivating reason motivates the person to act in the typical and distinctive way of belief, desires, and intentions. Although the notion of a motivating reason is contested, I think it should be clear enough what I am after here, and that any party to the debate about reasons can find their own favoured way of saying what I am using ''having a motivating reason'' to say (perhaps using ''apparent reason'' or ''taking so and so to be a reason'', or even by eschewing the notion of reason and speaking merely of beliefs motivating one not to infer). However exactly one wishes to express the (b)-clauses in (D), it is clear that we are after some psychological, causal, non-normative notion, rather than the abstract and normative notion of objective reason. Wedgwood (2007) has argued that concepts cannot be individuated in wholly descriptive terms, because the dispositions constituting the possession of a concept can only be described using the normative notion of a defeater, where a defeater is a good reason to suspend judgment. But his account thereby entails, wrongly, that a person who fails to infer in the required way for a bad reason ipso facto does not possess the concept (cf. Rey 2007: §3.4). (Therefore, I think normativists like Wedgwood, who want to claim that concepts cannot be individuated in wholly descriptive terms, had better reject the very idea that concepts can be individuated by their possession conditions, and say instead that they are individuated by what normative principles they satisfy.) One can have a reason against an inference in two ways: one may have a reason to reject the conclusion, or one can have some reason against the inference proper (note that the former is not a reason against inferring if the premises are merely supposed, rather than believed). The latter can consist in the belief either that the inference is invalid or unreliable, or that one is unreliable (momentarily or permanently) as far as the relevant kind of inference is concerned (perhaps due to confusion, inebriation, etc.). These distinctions between kinds of defeaters are commonplace in epistemology (see, e.g., Pollock 1974: §3.3). The precondition of ''having no motivating reason against'' is meant to take care of cases of (1) people with ''deviant'' logics/theories, (2) people failing to infer something simply because they disbelieve the conclusion (in which they may instead come to disbelieve one of the premises, as in Harman's examples of ''reasoned change in view''), (3) people who think they are momentarily unreliable with respect to the relevant kind of inference, and (4) people convinced of ''scepticism about reason'' (supposing this is possible at all). 1762 A. Båve 123 I think this should be obvious enough for each of (1)–(4), but we may briefly look at how the clause helps with case (1), for illustration. Williamson has argued at length that a logician could hold a deviant theory, due to which he takes some sentences of the form ''Every F is F'' to be untrue, and hence refuses to accept it (or believe the proposition it expresses). But someone's holding a deviant theory and consequently failing to accept, believe, or infer something is of course a case in which they have a motivating reason against doing so. Hence, such cases are not counterexamples to (D). One might worry that the precondition of not having a motivating reason against the inference makes the right-hand side of (D) too weak, rendering (i) or (ii) true of concepts other than AND. For instance, the concept OR may seem to satisfy (i), since we always have a reason against inferring hpi from hp or qi, which may seem to make (i) vacuously true.11 We can grant that there is always and necessarily an objective reason against this inference involving or, but this has no bearing on (i), which concerns motivating reasons, in the sense explained. And it is clearly possible to lack a motivating reason against the inference. In fact, most people do most of the time, since they usually haven't even considered the matter. What about someone who does have a motivating reason against inferring hpi from hp or qi? This case is unproblematic, too, since (i) is a counterfactual, rather than a material conditional, and is thus not rendered true by the falsity of its antecedent. On the standard Lewis-Stalnaker semantics, whether (i) is true rather depends on whether the consequent is true in the closest possible world in which the antecedent is true. The antecedent, moreover, is clearly metaphysically possible. This is so even for someone who is so constituted that, whenever he considers the inference, a motivating reason against it pops up. For even if this connection holds of someone, it cannot hold of metaphysical necessity. And since the antecedent is possible, the counterfactual can be false. Thus, neither of these two considerations about the concept OR shows that the precondition of not having a motivating reason against makes (D)'s possession condition too weak. Let me close this section by briefly considering such ''dysfunctional states'' as confusion, inattention, etc. These alleged counterexamples have not been elaborated in the literature, but have rather just been listed without further comment in order to illustrate the ''many and disparate'' exceptions to dispositionalist analyses. Although these cases seem to present problems for Kripke's Dispositionalism, which involves demanding dispositions, it is unclear whether they amount to anything over and above the Problem of Error, simply providing various explanations of why someone may make relevant errors. In any case, there are at least three reasons to think they do not pose a problem for (D). Firstly, one may take the inferences in (D) to be so simple that, no matter how drunk, tired, or confused, if one has been sober enough to consider making it, one will be sober enough to make it, at least barring neural malfunctioning. Secondly, one could take these confused states to be states in which one often fails 11 Thanks to Peter Pagin for raising this worry about an earlier draft of this paper, in which it wasn't as clear that the notion of reason I was employing was that of a motivating reason. Semantic dispositionalism without exceptions 1763 123 to consider obvious inferences. In that case, however, they are clearly no problem for (D). Thirdly, these dysfunctional states can be seen as states in which we suffer neural malfunction more often than otherwise. But if so, then the worry about confused states will be answered by my treatment of neural malfunction, given in Sect. 6. (One might worry that it has now become unclear whether drunkenness and the like should be classified as a psychological factor or not. But I don't think this is a problem: it could conceivably be defined both in (partly) psychological terms and in wholly non-psychological terms. The above points seem to stand in either case.) 5 (D)'s position in dialectical space Boghossian (2014) has levelled an argument against inferentialism (and his former self), based on considerations about the nature of inference. This argument clearly also targets (D), so we had better ensure it does not refute it. He argues that inference must be taken to essentially involve the person's taking the premises to justify the conclusion, and further that this ''taking'' must be seen as an intentional state. (Note that while inference is obviously intentional in that it relates intentional states, the interesting question is whether the relation itself must be understood in intentional terms.) He then infers from this claim to the falsity of inferentialism. I think this inference may well be correct, but that the premise is insufficiently motivated. Against the view that inference is merely a matter of beliefs causing other beliefs, Boghossian notes that there are cases of beliefs-causing-beliefs that are not inferences. Even so, it may still be possible to define inference as a process of beliefs-causing-beliefs satisfying some further condition, which does not involve intentional states. And there might of course be non-intentional accounts of inference that don't take them to be a matter of beliefs causing beliefs. (Responding to Boghossian, Broome 2014 argues that there is.) Also, there might be several legitimate notions of inference, some of which make it an intentional relation and some of which make it non-intentional. The question would then be why the latter couldn't be used for the purposes of Inferentialism or Semantic Dispositionalism. If unsophisticated thinkers like small children can infer, then inference simply can't satisfy Boghossian's ''taking condition'', since this entails an ability for metaconceptual thought and some concept of epistemic justification that these thinkers do not have. Even if we accept Boghossian's condition and conclude that small children cannot infer, we must still arguably hold that they undergo some simpler, inference-like type of process. But then, we could perhaps substitute inference in (D) for this simpler process. Let us now turn to Peacocke's (1992) theory of concepts, and the ways in which I hold (D) to be preferable. Peacocke takes the possession conditions of logical concepts like conjunction to be that one find the relevant inferences primitively compelling. That a person finds an inference primitively compelling means that ''(1) he finds them compelling; (2) he does not find them compelling because he has inferred them from other premises and/or principles; and (3) for possession of the 1764 A. Båve 123 concept C in question (here conjunction) he does not need to take the correctness of the transitions as answerable to anything else'' (1992: 6). But on its most natural interpretation, ''finding a transition compelling'' means having a propositional attitude about ''transitions'' to the effect that they are ''compelling''. This involves sophisticated metaconceptual thought, as well as a sophisticated epistemic or cognitive concept of being compelling, which we cannot plausibly take to be a precondition of possessing AND (think of the children!). Perhaps Peacocke wants to ultimately explain this seeming appeal to a propositional attitude in non-intentional terms, but until we have any idea of how to do so, we are stuck with an unacceptable account of logical concepts. My view is, of course, that (D) provides precisely the kind of non-intentional and undemanding condition that we are after. Although I reject Peacocke's theory, I agree that what constitutes concept possession is primitive and immediate in roughly the way he indicates. But this, I think, is accommodated by (i) and (ii) as they stand. This is so, firstly, because of the qualifier, ''immediately'', which is defined as a matter of not being causally dependent on other, previous inferences or beliefs. (D) also captures a kind of immediacy simply by its paucity of stimulus conditions: nothing more than the satisfaction of (a) and (b) is necessary for the person to infer. This is perhaps easier to see if one considers that primitiveness and immediacy are negative notions, primitiveness consisting in a lack of a certain kind of grounding and immediacy consisting in a lack of intermediaries. Peacocke also takes possession of AND to require that one finds the inferences primitively compelling ''because they are of [the relevant] forms'' (ibid.). Although (D) does not explicitly mention forms, it still entails a kind of minimal sensitivity to form simply in virtue of its mention of the propositions p and q and the corresponding f(c, p, q). To demand more than this minimal sensitivity, e.g., thoughts about forms, would again be to over-intellectualize. In conclusion, (D) seems capable of accommodating many of the insights behind Peacocke's possession conditions, and yet avoids the objection from over-intellectualization, by stating a condition that does not involve any propositional attitude about inferences, to the effect that they are compelling. Finally, let me briefly comment on Besson's (2012) discussion about whether dispositions to disbelieve should be required for possessing logical concepts, e.g., whether, to possess AND, one must be disposed to disbelieve a conjunction when one disbelieves one of the conjuncts (here, I use ''disbelieve'' in the sense in which it is closely tied to belief in negation, rather than in the sense of suspended judgment). (D) does not set any such requirement, but could easily be modified so as to rectify this, if needed. Such a modification would mean giving a bilateral account (see, e.g., Rumfitt 2000). This worry is thus no threat against Semantic Dispositionalism as such, but only against its unilateral variants. In order to give a bilateral account along the lines of (D), we need to posit an act analogous to inference, yet involving disbelief rather than merely belief. But this posit seems reasonable, and something which adherents of bilateralism are arguably committed to anyway. Semantic dispositionalism without exceptions 1765 123 6 A dispositionalist theory without exceptions? If (D) indeed avoids all psychological kinds of exceptions, we are better equipped to deal with the remaining one, involving neural malfunction. Before laying out my own proposal, let me mention a more obvious one, namely, to simply add to the preconditions in (D) that no neural malfunctioning (noise, etc.) is taking place. This proposal faces difficulties very similar to those afflicting dispositionalist theories with ''ceteris paribus'' hedges. Adding this precondition immediately raises the question of what neural malfunction is, and it is hard to see how to answer this question without trivializing the account. Something is a state of malfunction only relative to some proper functioning. In the present context, proper functioning consists in the satisfaction of (i) and (ii). But if malfunction is so defined that a case of malfunction comes out as one in which (i) or (ii) is false, then the ''no malfunction'' condition will trivialize the account. For this reason, I think, a theory that avoids counterexamples from neural malfunction must not mention them as such, i.e., it should not use the notion of neural malfunction. I will deal with neural exceptions by taking it to be necessary and sufficient for possessing AND that one satisfies (i) and (ii) sufficiently often (during a given interval). A similar hedge is used by Manley and Wasserman (2008) and Cheng (2010). However, the former do it for very different purposes, and I'll argue below that my proposal differs markedly and advantageously from Cheng's. If I am right that (D) has no psychological exceptions, it follows that the only times at which (i) and (ii) will not be true of a person who possesses AND will be times at which there is neural malfunction. But it is nowhere asserted that these exceptions are cases of neural malfunction. Therefore, we are under no obligation to define this notion, and hence at no risk of trivializing the account in the way explained above. We can define, ''being true sufficiently often during an interval I'' as ''being true during a sufficiently large (possibly scattered) portion of I'', and we can define the simpler ''true during I'' as ''true at every point of time in I''. Turning now to a rather different consideration, which will prove relevant for the final proposal, consider the widely shared intuition that one cannot be in such mental states as belief, desire, understanding something, etc., for a mere split second. I propose that the same holds for concept possession, and that this fact can be accommodated by saying that in order to possess a concept at a time, that time must be part of a longer interval, throughout which the relevant counterfactuals must hold sufficiently often. This proposal thus handles at once the problem of neural malfunction and the intuition about concept possession as non-instantaneous. Thus, the final proposal will read, 1766 A. Båve 123 (D0) x possesses AND at t just in case, for some concept c, and all propositions p, q, there is a sufficiently long interval I (t [ I), such that it holds sufficiently often during I that (i) and (ii).12,13 Here, the quantifiers bind the variables ''p'' and ''q'' in (i) and (ii), which are as in (D). It is naturally a vague matter how much is ''sufficient''. Thus, I take concept possession to be vague along the same dimension, and I take it to be a recommending feature of (D0) that it accommodates our intuition that concept possession is indeed vague in this way. Here is a way of bringing this intuition out. Assuming that possession of AND hinges on satisfaction of (i) and (ii) at all, it seems clear that someone who never satisfies them determinately does not possess the concept, and someone who always satisfies them determinately does. But, intuitively, there will also be intermediary cases, in which it will be indeterminate whether the person possesses the concept. Consider someone who has some neural configuration which would normally make them satisfy (i) and (ii). If some other neural, non-psychological factor ''blocks the disposition'' too often, i.e., if it prevents the person from satisfying (i) and/or (ii) too often, then she does not possess the concept. This is in sharp contrast to the case in which the blocking factor is psychological, e.g., belief in some deviant logic. One can possess a concept even if one never makes analytic inferences that one considers, if the inhibitions are psychological, e.g., belief in some deviant logic. In cases of non-psychological blockers, by contrast, there is just ''something wrong with'' the person; there is a basic deficiency due to which he does not possess the concept. Someone's belief in a deviant logic may also be deficient in the sense that it is irrational, but this is not the kind of basic deficiency that entails failure to possess the concept. I have spoken here of neural factors blocking so and so, but I should emphasize that I take the exact neural structure of a person's brain to be inessential to concept possession. As long as one satisfies the right-hand side of (D0), it does not matter if one has a discrete neural structure underlying one's satisfaction of (i) and (ii) and if the occasional blocking factor is also discrete or whether it is part of the underlying structure, and so on. All that matters is that one satisfies (i) and (ii) sufficiently often. The condition in (D0) could be further complicated to accommodate certain other intuitions. Perhaps it should be required that the intervals during which (i) and (ii) are never true are not too long. Also, perhaps we can be more tolerant of long periods of malfunction (i.e., when (i) and (ii) are not true of a person) when they are 12 There are some obvious variations here, e.g., having ''SOI((i)) & SOI((ii))'' instead of ''SOI((i) & (ii))'', but I will not discuss such niceties here. It may well be indeterminate which variant is correct. 13 This theory may seem similar to the view, advanced by Cheng (2011), that meaning-attributions should be seen as habituals or generics, following Michael Fara's similar treatment of disposition attributions (2005). Both views suffer from the problem that they defer the solution of the puzzles about attributions of meaning or dispositions to the study of habituals or generics, which are notoriously difficult to characterize semantically. My theory has no such problem, since it merely states a simple (albeit vague) boundary of ''sufficiently often'' and does not defer to the study of some poorly understood semantic phenomenon. Semantic dispositionalism without exceptions 1767 123 explicable, or explicable in a certain way. For instance, perhaps we can be more generous toward someone with rather long intervals of not satisfying (i) and (ii), if that failure is explained by the intake of drugs or some other identifiable cause. Thus, the above definition of ''sufficiently often'' could be replaced by one that assigns different weights to periods of malfunction, depending, e.g., on their causes. That seems reasonable to me, but I will leave these niceties for another occasion. Now, one might wonder, if we allow this condition of ''sufficiently often'', couldn't we do away with at least one of the preconditions in (D)? No. If the ''having no reason against'' condition were omitted, people with a ''deviant logic'', who never infer in accordance with an analytic rule would wrongly count as not possessing the concept. And without the ''considering'' condition, people would fail to satisfy the counterfactuals almost all of the time, making it impossible to set a reasonable limit to ''sufficiently often''. The ''sufficiently often'' hedge also does not allow us to require more demanding dispositions, like the disposition to add, for even very poor adders, who mostly gives non-sums for given adding tasks, may possess the concept PLUS. Finally, I want to compare (D0) with a recent claim made by Cheng (2010: §4), which is that one has a ''rule-following disposition'' only if any intrinsic and/or permanent antidotes be activated ''only occasionally'', i.e., only if such inhibiting factors be absent sufficiently often. While this may superficially seem similar to (D0), it is in fact very different. Cheng's proposal is intended as a defence of Martin and Heil's realist version of Kripke's Dispositionalism with respect to plus. But I am of course not defending that theory, since I take it to set too demanding a condition for concept possession. Secondly, Cheng's account explicitly mentions antidotes as such, and thus runs the risk of trivialization. More importantly, my condition of ''sufficiently often'' is intended to take care only of neural malfunctioning and not, as in Cheng's account, of any factor, psychological or not, that may prevent someone from adding correctly. Cheng's claim has precisely the implausible consequence I took pains to avoid, that ''alternative logicians'', who permanently fail to infer in accordance with analytic inference rules, come out as not possessing the relevant concept. We were able to avoid this consequence (while simultaneously steering clear of Peacocke's overintellectualization) by setting conditions which are both suitably undemanding and whose only exceptions are cases of neural malfunctioning. The last condition is crucial, for it seems that a concept possessor could always have some psychological mechanism constantly preventing them from inferring in accordance with analytic rules. To see how (D0) differs from and improves upon Cheng's view, it is thus crucial to take the whole of (D0) into account, including the details it inherits from (D) and their motivation.14 14 Interestingly, Cheng also comments on the vagueness of ''sufficiently''. However, he suggests that it may be a problem for his defence, saying: ''One may wonder how the question whether a subject S follows rule A or rule B can be settled on a realistic dispositionalist account that invokes such vague predicates. Doesn't invoking these vague phrases imply that the answer to the question whether S follows rule A or rule B will remain vague too? And doesn't this result confirm Kripke's scepticism after all?'' (2010: 215). 1768 A. 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Wittgenstein and the Methodology of Semantics Abstract R.C. Pradhan claims in Language, Reality, and Transcendence that, in Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations, "[i]n no case is Wittgenstein interested in the empirical facts regarding language, as for him philosophy does not undertake any scientific study of language" (Pradhan 2009, xiv). I consider Ludwig Wittgenstein's purportedly anti-scientific and anti-empirical approach to language in light of advances by philosophers and linguists in the latter half of the 20th century. I distinguish between various ways of understanding Wittgenstein's stance against scientism. Due to the success of more recent work on language, I argue that Wittgenstein's critique, as interpreted by Pradhan in Language, Reality, and Transcendence, does not undermine the formal study of language. Nevertheless, I argue, the contention of Wittgenstein and Pradhan that language, through grammar (in Wittgenstein's sense), serves a variety of functions still sheds light on the differences in meaning across different discourses. I argue that a synthesis of Wittgenstein's pluralist theory of meaning with elements of a theoretical study of language offers the best comprehensive account of natural language. I will argue that this conception of language is consistent with elements of Pradhan's interpretation. As Pradhan notes, "The aim here is not to project one kind of grammatical determination but keep options open for many such grammatical determinations such that the grammatical nuances are not papered over in the name of the unity of grammar" (Pradhan 2009, 28). Wittgenstein and the Methodology of Semantics R.C. Pradhan claims in Language, Reality, and Transcendence that, in Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations, "[i]n no case is Wittgenstein interested in the empirical facts regarding language, as for him philosophy does not undertake any scientific study of language" (Pradhan 2009, xiv). I consider Ludwig Wittgenstein's purportedly anti-scientific and anti-empirical approach to language in light of advances by philosophers and linguists in the latter half of the 20th century. I distinguish between various ways of understanding Wittgenstein's stance against scientism. Due to the success of more recent work on language, I argue that Wittgenstein's critique, as interpreted by Pradhan in Language, Reality, and Transcendence, does not undermine the formal study of language. Nevertheless, I argue, the contention of Wittgenstein and Pradhan that language, through grammar (in Wittgenstein's sense), serves a variety of functions still sheds light on the differences in meaning across different discourses. I argue that a synthesis of Wittgenstein's pluralist theory of meaning with elements of a theoretical study of language offers the best comprehensive account of natural language. I will argue that this conception of language is consistent with elements of Pradhan's interpretation. As Pradhan notes, "The aim here is not to project one kind of grammatical determination but keep options open for many such grammatical determinations such that the grammatical nuances are not papered over in the name of the unity of grammar" (Pradhan 2009, 28). Wittgenstein's Early and Later Metaphilosophy In Language, Reality, and Transcendence, R.C. Pradhan presents a novel, wideranging reading of the later philosophy of Wittgenstein. Pradhan concludes that Wittgenstein's later philosophy is continuous in important respects with the early philosophy presented in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Pradhan contends that Wittgenstein, in the Philosophical Investigations just as much as in his earlier work, has an aim of allowing a role for the transcendental, the ethical, and the mystical. Pradhan considers the metaphilosophical perspective of the earlier and later work of Wittgenstein to be deeply opposed to scientism. In his study of the Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus, The Great Mirror, Pradhan claims "Wittgenstein does away with the purely scientific view of the world" (Pradhan 2002, 134). One cannot have a comprehensive understanding of reality based on science alone. Pradhan himself makes strong claims against scientism and empiricism. He contends "It is the worst philosophical disease to reduce reality to the empirically given facts alone," holding that there are transcendental facts regarding what is possible that extend beyond our experience (Pradhan 2002, 143). These transcendental facts include truths about language that, according to Pradhan, reveal the structure of reality. Wittgenstein, as in his earlier work, understands the nature of the world through language on Pradhan's reading, a reading that characterizes Wittgenstein as a kind of Kantian who holds we understand the structure of the world through the structure of language. Pradhan contends that grammar, in the later philosophy of Wittgenstein, reveals the nature of reality. One key aspect of this reading is Pradhan's notion of the autonomy of grammar. Considering Wittgenstein's rejection of the study of language as a theoretical endeavor, Pradhan concludes, "[g]rammar is autonomous, and in a logical sense, constitutes reality" (Pradhan 1992, 13). There is no empirical study of grammar, and of the deeper underlying facts about language and reality itself, on Pradhan's reading. Drawing on the insights of his reading of the earlier philosophy of Wittgenstein from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Pradhan construes grammar, in the later philosophy of Wittgenstein, as the correlate of logical form in Wittgenstein's earlier philosophy. Pradhan contends that there is "an underlying unity of the two models" in his "earlier and later philosophy" (Pradhan 1989, 140). There is, as becomes clear in Pradhan's reading of the later Wittgenstein, a continuity in methodology as well between the earlier and later work. Pradhan holds that anti-scientism and anti-empiricism lie behind the ideas in Wittgenstein's earlier work and later work. There is a strong textual basis for the claim, made by Pradhan, that Wittgenstein is opposed to the idea that philosophy can present scientific theories about the nature of language. In the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein contends that philosophy generally does not present theories: It is true to say that our considerations could not be scientific ones...And we may not advance any kind of theory...We must do away with all explanation, and description must take its place (Wittgenstein 1953, sect. 109) This metaphilosophical anti-scientism comes through in Wittgenstein's rejection of the idea of philosophy offering a scientific account of language. For Pradhan, Wittgenstein rejects the idea not only of a scientific conception of language; Wittgenstein, according to Pradhan, does not consider the study of language to be an empirical study: "In no case is Wittgenstein interested in the empirical facts regarding language, as for him philosophy does not undertake any scientific study of language" (Pradhan 2009, xiv). It is worth noting here that the idea of rejecting a scientific study of language can be distinguished from the idea of rejecting an empirical study of language. If the term science is used in a way that incorporates both the natural and the formal sciences, then there are sciences such as mathematics that may be studied scientifically but not empirically. It is possible as well for there to be empirical studies that are not scientific. History is in many key respects an empirical study of the past, but it lacks the precision and the explanatory goals that would make it a science. A key distinction needs to be made between the formalism of science and the empirical nature of science: The science of mathematics is formal but not empirical; the science of physics is empirical and formal; and the study of history is empirical but not formal. As will be noted below, the ideas of rejecting the formalism of science and of rejecting the empirical aspect of certain sciences should be clearly distinguished. The Strong Rationalist Reading The rejection, based on Wittgenstein's anti-scientism, of the empirical study of language leads Wittgenstein, according to Pradhan, to contend that the study of language in terms of human behavior is inappropriate. Pradhan claims, in "A Note on Wittgenstein's Philosophical Grammar: Language, Grammar, and Natural History," that "[g]rammar cannot be derived from natural history, i.e. from the way we normally behave" (Pradhan 1989, 150). It is clear that, on Pradhan's interpretation, Wittgenstein in his later philosophy of the Philosophical Investigations just as in the earlier philosophy of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus does not, according to Pradhan, think it is correct to study language in any kind of empirical fashion. I will call this the Strong Rationalist reading of Wittgenstein. Pradhan makes a case for a Strong Rationalist reading of the Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus. In "A Note on Wittgenstein's Philosophical Grammar," Pradhan cites Wittgenstein's claim in the Tractatus that "[p]hilosophy is not one of the natural sciences" (Wittgenstein 1922, 51) to support the claim that "Wittgenstein opposes the method of discovery since, for him, philosophy and logical grammar are declared to be not sciences which can discover logical form" (Pradhan 1989, 143). Given Pradhan's contention that grammar is the equivalent, in Wittgenstein's later philosophy, of logical form, Pradhan holds that philosophical study of language in the later works is also not an empirical science. In fact, as noted above, for Pradhan the study of language is not an empirical study at all. Citing Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 4.12, Pradhan contends, "logical form and rules of grammar can not be explained by appeal to any sort of fact" (Pradhan 1989, 143). Given Pradhan's contention that grammar is the correlate of logical form in the later philosophy of Wittgenstein, Pradhan holds that the nature of language is not accounted for by any fact in the Philosophical Investigations as well. Is Wittgenstein a Strong Rationalist? Is there indeed such a continuity between the methods of Wittgenstein in his earlier and later philosophy? It is not clear how we could square the use approach to meaning in Wittgenstein's later philosophy with the Strong Rationalist non-empirical approach to semantics. Wittgenstein, as Pradhan notes, is well known for considering meaning to be use: "Every symbol in the language has a use and that is the crux of the whole philosophy of language, according to the later Wittgenstein" (Pradhan 2009, 72). In order to grasp the notion of meaning as use, are observations of the world and the uses of language by communities and individuals not necessary? Consider Wittgenstein's discussion of "games." The examples Wittgenstein gives for comparison, "board-games, card-games, Olympic games" are the sort of things that one could only be aware of through experience. As Wittgenstein says in his passage on games, "don't think, but look!" (Wittgenstein 1958, sect. 66) Even the term Wittgenstein uses to characterize the relationship among games, "family resemblance," connotes a certain kind of visual experience. (Wittgenstein 1958, sect. 66). Wittgenstein's method, with its emphasis on looking, involves this kind of empirical evidence. Wittgenstein appeals to the variety of uses of language in order to rebut the Augustinian theory of language, according to which the function of language is to name objects. Part of this refutation of the Augustinian theory involves careful attention to our linguistic practices. In the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein argues his case by providing examples of the variety of uses of language, uses that we are acquainted with through our awareness of the normal practices of language speakers: Review the multiplicity of language-games in the following examples, and in others: Giving orders, and obeying them- Describing the appearance of an object, or giving its measurements- Constructing an object from a description (a drawing)- Reporting an event- Speculating about an event- Forming and testing a hypothesis- Presenting the results of an experiment in tables and diagrams- Making up a story; and reading it- Play-acting- Singing catches- Guessing riddles- Making a joke; telling it- Solving a problem in practical arithmetic- Translating from one language to another- Asking, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying- --It is interesting to compare the multiplicity of the tools of language and of the ways they are used, the multiplicity of kinds of word and sentence, with what logicians have said about the structure of language... (Wittgenstein 1958, sect. 23). Pace Pradhan, what Wittgenstein is doing in this passage is proving his point by appealing to the variety of ways in which people normally behave. He points out this sort of linguistic behavior to reject the idea that all language functions to name objects in the world. Wittgenstein's own method, a method of providing not explanatory theories but descriptions of the world that leave everything as it is, does not seem to square well with the Strong Rationalist reading. As Pradhan himself notes, "Wittgenstein holds that reflections on grammar really amount to philosophical descriptions, not philosophical explanations" (Pradhan 2009, 28). It is not clear how it would be possible to provide an adequate description of language use without making the kinds of observations Wittgenstein discusses in his passage on games or in his citation of the varieties of uses of language. Pradhan's claim that "[g]rammar cannot be derived from the natural history, i.e. from the way we normally behave" does not fit with Wittgenstein's citations of the way in which we behave when we use the term 'game' or language generally (Pradhan 1989, 150). The Vague Descriptive Account As Pradhan rightly notes, Wittgenstein's later philosophy is not a scientific approach to language. I contend that this is largely due not to Wittgenstein's stressing of an anti-empirical methodology, but rather his stress on an anti-theoretical, informal methodology. As noted above, there is a distinction between the empiricism of the sciences, at least the natural sciences, and the formalism of the sciences. Insofar as Wittgenstein rejects the idea that the study of language is a science, his claim is ambiguous between rejecting the idea that the study of language is an empirical study and rejecting the idea that the study of language is a formal study. Given that there is a good textual basis for holding that Wittgenstein does appeal to empirical data, the best reading of Wittgenstein's rejection of the scientific study of language is that it is a rejection of formalism. Perhaps this is what Pradhan had in mind. Pradhan characterizes Wittgenstein's philosophy in terms of a rejection of strict rules: "Wittgenstein holds that language operates not through strict rules but through a network of rules which do not constitute an ideal universal logic" (Pradhan 2009, 42) There is a textual basis for considering Wittgenstein's anti-scientism to consist in his anti-formalism regarding language and philosophy. Wittgenstein writes: The more narrowly we examine actual language, the sharper becomes the conflict between it and our requirement. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not a result of investigation: it was a requirement.) The conflict becomes intolerable; the requirement is now in danger of becoming empty.-We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal, but, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk; so we need friction. Back to the rough ground! (Wittgenstein 1953, sect. 107). It is worth noting, in connection with Wittgenstein and empiricism, his claim that we "examine actual language" in the study of language, along with his clear statement of his rejection of the frictionless planes of a purely formal conception of language. This rejection of strict rules is made apparent in one of Wittgenstein's key examples, the meaning of the term "Moses." Moses, as Wittgenstein argues in a critique of his mentor Bertrand Russell's theory of names, does not necessarily have the same meaning as a particular definite description. To claim that Moses did not exist is not strictly the same statement as any of 1-3. 1. The man who led the Israelites though the wilderness did not exist. 2. The man who lived at that time and place and was called 'Moses' did not exist. 3. The man who as a child was taken out of the Nile by Pharaoh's daughter does not exist. In fact, Wittgenstein's conception of the meaning of proper names seems open to the possibility that any of these 3 descriptions, or any particular number of descriptions of Moses might be false yet we can still meaningfully claim that Moses does not exist. Wittgenstein, in line with Pradhan's claim that his later philosophy does not involve strict rules, does not think there are a strict number of descriptions that are identical to the meaning of the name "Moses." "I shall perhaps say, by 'Moses' I understand the man who did what the Bible relates of Moses, or at any rate a good deal of it. But how much? Have I decided how much must be proved false in order for me to give up my proposition as false? Has the name "Moses" got a fixed and unequivocal use for me in all possible cases?" The answer, for Wittgenstein, is no: "I use the name 'N' without a fixed meaning" (Wittgenstein 1958, sect. 79). In order to properly characterize the way in which Wittgenstein is opposed to scientism, it is key to distinguish between the Strong Rationalist reading and what I will call the Vague Descriptive Account. The Vague Descriptive Account is clear in Wittgenstein's theory of names. What is different between the sciences and philosophy is that, unlike the sciences, Wittgenstein's account of language rejects the idea that there are strict rules for language use. This is a respect in which Wittgenstein is breaking not only away from his earlier philosophy but also from the approach to language taken by Bertrand Russell. The theory of descriptions offered by Russell is flawed, on Wittgenstein's critique, not due to empiricism in Russell's approach to language. Instead, the flaw is in seeking too much precision in his understanding of names. As presented so far, Wittgenstein's anti-theoretical approach to language consists in his Vague Descriptive Account of language, and not in the anti-empirical Strong Rationalist reading. In considering whether or not Wittgenstein's approach is tenable, we should consider this paradigmatic example of the meaning of names. Against Vague Descriptivism As an example of Wittgenstein's approach to semantics, the Vague Descriptive Account is flawed. Saul Kripke in Naming and Necessity has argued this convincingly. These arguments are familiar, but I will briefly spell them out to draw the consequences for Wittgenstein's philosophy. As Kripke argues, names are rigid designators whereas descriptions are not rigid designators. A rigid designator denotes the same individual in every possible world. In a world where Moses did not lead the Israelites out of Egypt, 'Moses' would still denote Moses yet 'The man who led the Israelites out of Egypt' would designate some other person, if anyone at all. One can conceive a world in which Moses's brother Aron lead the Israelites out of Egypt: in such a world, the word 'Moses' would not designate Aron, but 'The man who led the Israelites out of Egypt' would designate Aron. Kripke further argues that, even if all of the descriptions we currently associate with Moses were false, in the actual world, the word 'Moses' would still denote Moses. So there is a stronger claim, a stricter rule, than the one articulated by Wittgenstein: 'Moses' could still denote Moses not only if some but if all descriptions associated with Moses are false. Kripke provides further support for his view by noting the extent of mistaken descriptive beliefs among individuals. Many people might have mistaken beliefs regarding Wittgenstein. Some people might think Wittgenstein was the inventor of postmodernism. Others might think that Wittgenstein was a cultural relativist. Yet others might think Wittgenstein was German. If Wittgenstein's Vague Descriptive Account of the meaning of names were true, then none of these individuals would actually be referring to Wittgenstein with the name 'Wittgenstein.' This is counterintuitive: it seems that all of these individuals are referring to Wittgenstein even though they are falsely describing him. If Kripke is correct, then there are certain rules of language that are indeed strict. For example, it is a strict rule that names are rigid designators. It is a strict rule that the name 'Moses' denotes Moses and 'Moses' is not equivalent to any definite description. It is also a strict rule that identity statements involving names are necessarily true, whereas identity statements involving descriptions are only contingently true. "Bertrand Russell is Viscount Amberley" is necessarily true, as both are names that rigidly designate the same individual. "Bertrand Russell is the author of "On Denoting" is only contingently true. Thus the Vague Descriptive Account, taken as a generalization about language, is flawed. A further reason to doubt the Vague Descriptive Account comes from developments in syntax. The research program initiated by Noam Chomsky and developed by theoretical linguists in the 20th and 21st centuries details our understanding of syntax through a theory that is both empirical and precise. If the Chomskyan linguistic research program is on the right track, neither Strong Rationalism nor Vague Descriptivism is tenable. The problem with Strong Rationalism is that empirical facts are used in a significant way in Chomskyan linguistics to establish theories: the primary evidence in favor of these theories of language is provided by the linguistic intuitions of ordinary language speakers. The problem with Vague Descriptivism is, in the variety of theories of syntax developed by linguists after Chomsky, there are strict rules in the grammar of a language such as English. To take one set of simple examples from one version of Chomskyan linguistics, a sentence consists of a noun phrase and a verb phrase; a verb phrase consists of a verb and a noun phrase; and a noun phrase consists of a determiner and a noun (Chomsky 1986, 57). By explaining facts about grammaticality in terms of general phrase structure rules of this kind, contemporary linguistics has made significant progress in explaining our understanding of language. Meaning and Use As I have argued, Wittgenstein, on Pradhan's interpretation, takes meaning to be studied in a non-empirical fashion and semantic theories to never involve strict rules. Based on a reading of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, I have argued that Wittgenstein is not committed to the Strong Rationalist approach to language, but he does take a Vague Descriptive Account to certain aspects of language, specifically proper names. In light of Wittgenstein's discussion of games, Kripke's account of names, and contemporary advances in linguistics, I have contended that neither of Strong Rationalism nor Vague Descriptivism is tenable as a general methodology for semantics. However, I contend that there is a strand in Wittgenstein's philosophy, noted by Pradhan, which does offer a deep insight into the nature of language. This is Wittgenstein's interpretation of the meaning of terms in a holistic framework of use. Pradhan writes, citing Wittgenstein: "Wittgenstein does not propose a theory construction, however, as he is more inclined to see the connections as they are part of the internal structure of the concepts. He writes: A main source of our failure to understand is that we do not command a clear view of the uses of our words.-Our grammar is lacking in this sort of perspicuity. A perspicuous representation produces just that understanding that consists in "seeing connections."...(PI, sect. 122)." (Pradhan 2009, 26-27). I contend that these connections among concepts are best grasped through our understanding of the use of the terms that express such concepts. Use, which we can observe in each other's linguistic practices, makes perspicuous the nature of concepts through contexts that implicitly give the meaning of a term. The conception of meaning as use provides a fruitful framework for accounts of the meanings of many terms in language. As I will argue, we can see how Wittgenstein's conception of meaning works through the examples of logical connectives such as 'and,' moral terms such as 'ought,' and metalinguistic and metaphysical terms such as 'true' and 'fact.' To assign a referent to 'and,' 'or,' or 'not,' or to treat logical connectives as generic properties or relations would result in a failure to recognize the special inferential role these terms play within language. The key to understanding 'and' is through its use. From the proposition that p and the proposition that q, we may infer the proposition that p and q. From the proposition that p and q, we may infer the proposition that p and we may infer the proposition that q. These characteristic uses of the term 'and' implicitly define the meaning of the term. Meaning as use provides the best account of the role of logical connectives. These logical terms are not the only terms in a language that are best understood through a use conception of meaning. The meaning of central moral terms such as 'ought' are best explained in terms of use. If we simply were to treat ought as a relation between agents and actions, we might be able to describe the world, but we would fail to recognize a key aspect of the meaning of 'ought': its normative role. As Wilfrid Sellars has stressed, speakers who accept that they ought to perform action A will have a tendency towards performing that action. In "Some Reflection on Language Games," Sellars writes: The motivating role of 'ought' in the first person is essential to the 'meaning' of 'ought.' That is to say, it could not be true of a word that 'it means ought' unless this word had motivating force in the language in which it belongs. (Sellars 1954, 350). It is in virtue of the fact that the concept conveyed by the term 'ought' plays such a role in motivation and action that this term has the meaning it has. Normative terms are implicitly defined by the role that acceptance of sentences containing such terms plays in leading one to pursue certain courses of action and avoid others. A person who believes that she ought to give to charity will have a tendency towards giving to charity. The person who mouths the words 'I ought to give to charity' yet has not the slightest tendency towards giving to charity does not really believe that she ought to give to charity. A use conception of moral language allows us to include the diversity of the uses of such terms in our conception of their meaning. We use moral language in a variety of ways. A term such as 'ought' plays a key role not only in our own deciding what we ought to do, but also in critiquing each other's choices, actions, and thoughts. We can recognize the tie of the notion of 'ought' to a range of what P.F. Strawson termed our "reactive attitudes": a person who has done what she ought not to have done ought to feel ashamed of herself; a person who has treated us in a way she ought not to have done ought to be resented. Each of these uses of 'ought' implicitly defines the term. That the term 'ought' plays a variety of roles, both in our internal deliberations and our external critiques, is no objection to its being a meaningful term. As Wittgenstein would stress, there is no need for a single, precise definition of a term such as 'ought' for it to be meaningful. These varieties of the use of 'ought' give it its distinctive meaning in language. Meaning as use also provides insight into the meaning of metalinguistic terms such as 'true' and metaphysical notions such as 'fact.' The failure of philosophical attempts to define truth as correspondence to the facts, or pragmatic utility, or provability has motivated philosophers to implicitly define truth in terms of use. In one version of this theory, disquotationalism, our use of the following disquotational schema defines the notion of truth: a sentence 's' is true if and only if s. That we reason in this way is clear from the truth of claims such as: 'snow is white' is true if and only if snow is white. We can also use this sort of deflationary method to define notions that seem like deep metaphysical notions. The notion of a fact seems to function in just the same way the notion of truth functions: for any proposition that p, it is a fact that p if, and only if, p. It is a fact that snow is white if and only if snow is white. Pluralism and Language One of the major points emphasized by Pradhan, in his reading of Wittgenstein, is pluralism. Pradhan writes, in Language, Reality, and Transcendence: "The aim here is not to project one kind of grammatical determination but keep options open for many such grammatical determinations such that the grammatical determinations are not papered over in the name of the unity of grammar" (Pradhan 2009, 28). Wittgenstein's philosophy allows, I contend, both strict and non-strict rules, depending on the terms involved. Thus there is room to synthesize the insights of Kripke, Chomsky, and others with Wittgenstein's insights of the approach to meaning as use. If we want to understand the meaning of names, it is best to look at how names are used, namely as rigid designators. The name 'Moses' is simply used, in the community, to refer to Moses. It is used to refer to that man. As Kripke stresses in Naming and Necessity, in an imagined conversation between an ordinary person and a Quinean philosopher over whether Nixon might have won the election, a name functions in a way similar to a demonstrative, to pick out some individual in the world. "On the other hand, the term 'Nixon' is just a name of this man" (Kripke 1972, 41). Names, like the name 'Kripke' are uttered to make reference to persons, in this case, Saul Kripke. The names 'Bertrand Russell' and 'Viscount Amberley' are used to make reference to one and the same individual, Bertrand Russell. Kripke's insight into the function of names despite can be seen as an insight into the use of names. We use names as rigid designators and not as descriptions. Like Wittgenstein, Kripke stresses the ordinary understanding of the use of terms such as names to make his point. He writes: Of course, some philosophers think that something's having intuitive content is inconclusive evidence in favor of it. I think it is very heavy evidence in favor of something myself (Kripke 1972, 42). In a fashion similar to that of Wittgenstein, Kripke appeals to the ordinary use of terms in order to resolve philosophical problems and understand the nature of meaning. Kripke goes on to further spell out that other terms, other than names, can be used as rigid designators. "Demonstratives can be used as rigid designators, and free variables can be used as rigid designators of unspecified objects" (Kripke 1972, 49, n. 16). Note the explicit mention of use. We can distinguish between rigid and nonrigid designator usages of different terms in the language. Unlike Wittgenstein, Kripke claims that there are precise facts about the meaning of certain terms, such as names. Wittgenstein's approach to meaning can be made to cohere with developments in the study of language in the 20th century by retaining the idea of meaning as use, while rejecting the idea that the study of language does not involve, at times, but not always, precise theoretical claims. The best Wittgensteinian approach to language is not committed to Strong Rationalism or a general Vague Descriptive Account, but rather allows for both strict formal theories of language and less formal theories of certain discourses, such as normative discourse. While a Strong Rationalist reading of Wittgenstein can be called into question, and the Vague Descriptive theory of meaning has been refuted, the use methodology and semantic pluralism stressed by Pradhan in his reading of Wittgenstein still offers substantial insights into the meaning of language. A fruitful approach to the study of language in the 21st century will leave behind a strong opposition between Wittgenstein's conception of meaning as use and contemporary views of meaning in terms of reference and truth conditions in favor of a synthesis of these views into a pluralist theory of meaning. References Cited Chomsky, Noam (1986) "Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin, and Use", (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers) Kripke, Saul (1972) "Naming and Necessity", (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press) Pradhan, R.C. (1989) "A Note on Wittgenstein's Philosophical Grammar: Language, Grammar, and Natural History" *Truth, Meaning, and Understanding: Essays in Philosophical Semantics*, by R.C. Pradhan (New Delhi: Indus Publishing Company), 140-153 Pradhan, R.C. (1992) "Truth, Meaning, and Understanding: Essays in Philosophical Semantics", (New Delhi: Indus Publishing Company) Pradhan, R.C. (2002) "The Great Mirror: An Essay on Wittgenstein's Tractatus", (New Delhi: Kalki Prakash). Pradhan, R.C. (2009) "Language, Reality, and Transcendence: An Essay on the Main Strands of Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy", (Boca Raton, USA: BrownWalker Press) Sellars, Wilfrid (1954) "Some Reflections on Language Games" *Science, Perception, and Reality*, by Wilfrid Sellars, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul), 321-358 Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1958) "Philosophical Investigations", (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.) | {
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More Democracy Is Not Better Democracy: Cain's Case for Reform Pluralism Piers Norris Turner 1. INTRODUCTION A persistent worry about real-world democra-cies is the extent to which they allow some individuals to exert disproportionate influence on electoral and legislative processes, whether because of wealth, gender, race, religion, education, or other considerations. Inequalities in political influence seem inconsistent with the equal concern and respect that many political theorists now argue constitutes the intrinsic value of democracy and legitimizes coercion by the state. In order to satisfy the demands of democratic legitimacy, then, it seems we must work to eradicate inequalities of political influence wherever possible. Against this, democratic ''pluralists'' have long argued that no real-world democracy can deliver on such ideals of democratic legitimacy, and that the attempt to do so will actually undermine our valuable, though imperfect, existing democratic institutions.1 The underlying problem is that politics is always going to be an arena in which different organized groups assert their interests against each other, with sometimes messy results. Pluralists agree with Madison that ''that the causes of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects.''2 They thus argue that while conflict cannot be eradicated, it can be managed by a series of institutional checks and balances that distribute power and provide constrained competitive fora. Basic democratic institutions and procedures, including periodic elections as well as freedoms of speech and association, remain important in the pluralist picture. But pluralists argue that on any realistic democratic model, individuals will have a voice largely through organized groups representing their interests. Managed well, the conflict of interests can prevent any one interest group from dominating others over the long-term. But any hopes of achieving democratic ideals like equality of political influence will be thwarted by the realities of political life. In Democracy More or Less: America's Political Reform Quandary, Bruce Cain offers a sophisticated version of the Madisonian position, which he calls ''reform pluralism.''3 Like other pluralists, he argues that democratic legitimacy should not be understood in terms of the achievement of some democratic ideal but only in terms of satisfying basic democratic accountability requirements. This is partly for theoretical reasons having to do with the difficulty of articulating a single coherent democratic ideal, and partly for the practical reason that most significant reform efforts are bound to have perverse effects on the democratic system itself. Underlying these claims is a deep pessimism about what it is reasonable to expect of the average citizen in terms of public concern, intelligence, and expertise. In slogan form, Cain concludes that more democracy is not (likely to be) better democracy. Piers Norris Turner is an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at The Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. The author is grateful to Bruce Cain, Ned Foley, Eric MacGilvray, and Michael Neblo for comments on an earlier draft of this essay. It was presented at a 2013 symposium on Cain's book, Democracy More or Less: America's Political Reform Quandary, organized by the Democracy Studies Center at The Ohio State University. 1See e.g., Robert Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956) and Who Governs (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961). 2James Madison, Federalist, No. 10. 3Bruce Cain, Democracy More or Less: America's Political Reform Quandary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), 20ff. All in-text citations are to this work. ELECTION LAW JOURNAL Volume 13, Number 4, 2014 # Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. DOI: 10.1089/elj.2014.0284 520 His main practical conclusion is thus a skeptical one. Despite widespread frustration about the American political system, he argues, most ambitious democratic reform efforts are either ill conceived or anyway bound to fail. In these comments I want to explore the framework underlying the ''pluralist'' approach in hopes of making clearer how one might resist Cain's skeptical practical conclusion. In section 2, I present in more detail Cain's reform pluralist argument for a set of mid-level practical principles. In section 3, I argue that, with regard to what might count as better democracy for Cain, the most natural framing of his argument is that of democratic instrumentalism. Instrumentalists tend to share Cain's view that the best form of democracy is not one that perfectly embodies an abstract democratic ideal, but one that does the best in actually promoting the public good. In section 4, however, I suggest that the instrumentalist should not accept Cain's skeptical conclusion, despite the cogency of his critique of certain overly idealistic reform efforts. His arguments against idealistic overreach do not undermine the possibility of significant improvements to our democratic political system, especially in light of his own recognition of significant improvements in the past. 2. REFORM PLURALISM Cain begins with the observation that Americans are deeply dissatisfied with the state of their political system. But he warns against ''corruption confusion,'' arguing that there is relatively little direct material corruption in the U.S. political system (162–163). Rather, the corruption that underlies our dissatisfaction is the ''democratic distortion'' resulting from the institutional perversion of democratic aims or the systematic undermining of democratic principles (164). For many reformers-whom Cain calls ''populists''-the worry about democratic distortion is grounded in the arguably quintessential democratic value, mentioned already, that all individuals should have equal influence over the political process: ''The populist reformer aspires to apply the 'one person, one vote' equality principle across all dimensions of political influence, empowering individual citizens with equal opportunities to contribute to campaigns, acquire information from the government, observe decisions and remove officials they do not like'' (7). On this view, as long as some of us have more influence than others, there is reason for democratic reform. The resulting practical impulse among populists, which Cain labels the ''democratic imperative,'' is toward ''more opportunities for citizens to observe, participate in and control their government's actions,'' approaching something like a plebiscitary democracy of unmediated majoritarian control over political decisions (7). The problem, Cain argues, is that the populist response to democratic dissatisfaction is plagued by theoretical and practical difficulties, and much of the book pursues the critical task of showing how the populist approach fails. Among the theoretical difficulties is identifying what counts as democratic distortion in the first place. For instance, there are many compelling conceptions of fairness, procedural and substantive, that are not all capable of being instantiated together. Why should equality of influence be the unique democratic fairness concern when majoritarian procedures may threaten a tyranny of the majority? Similarly, the populist drive toward greater participation and transparency must be balanced against other democratic values, such as deliberation and the effective representation of interests. There is no single weighting of these goods that is obviously most democratic. Despite these difficulties, Cain accepts that historical democratic developments have established a universally recognized threshold or ''lower boundary'' (18) for basic democratic accountability, constituted by universal suffrage, periodic elections, and the provision of certain basic rights including freedom of speech and freedom of association. These are settled matters and, for the reform pluralist, meeting these threshold conditions is sufficient for democratic legitimacy. The challenge facing democratic reformers is whether any reforms are required above this democratic legitimacy threshold, in what Cain calls the ''democratic interval'' (18). Partly because of the theoretical difficulties just described, however, reform pluralists are skeptical about any further specification of what democratic legitimacy requires. The pluralist rather embraces the thought that theoretical differences are themselves subject to political compromise, with democratic developments worked out by interest groups themselves in real time. This may leave our political system looking like an awkward or even incoherent balancing of various democratic MORE DEMOCRACY IS NOT BETTER DEMOCRACY 521 values-and it makes the question of democratic distortion much more complicated-but that is all that we can reasonably expect or want. As a result, reformers should not buy into any one ideal of democracy as a blueprint for reform efforts. Cain's skepticism carries over to practical matters, where he argues that the American political system has structural constraints that severely limit the short-term reform agenda, including a constitution that is near-impossible to amend and which enshrines certain representative institutions anathema to majoritarian impulses, as well as a Supreme Court that has upheld a strong view on First Amendment liberties and campaign spending despite the resulting inequality of influence on the political process. This last constraint forces us to accept that moneyed interests will not simply be regulated away in favor of the populist ideal of perfect equality of influence. Cain criticizes populist reform efforts in two main ways: they either undermine their own stated goals or they succeed only by undermining some other equally important democratic value. Thus, for example: in trying to maximize citizen participation, reformers may actually overburden and turn off citizens; or in focusing too much on transparency, reformers may damage democratic deliberation that requires some breathing room; or in establishing an initiative process to promote direct democracy, reformers may simply provide special interests a new tool to control and exploit the political system; or in setting up citizen oversight bodies, reformers may simply create a new delegation that must be held accountable and is susceptible to the same interests as the previous arrangement-Cain calls this last problem the ''delegation paradox'' (7–9). But the general, underlying practical problem with populist proposals is that they expect too much of average citizens and their representatives: ''the questions that are not asked frequently enough, despite decades of empirical research on this topic [citations omitted], are whether individual citizens have the resources, motivation and capacity to undertake these new civic opportunities, and if not, what does this mean for the design of effective reforms?'' (7). We cannot reasonably expect the electorate to consistently exhibit the intelligence and publicspiritedness necessary to make the populists' ideal participatory systems work. Nor can we expect our representatives to be impartial judges. Human beings will always suffer from cognitive and sympathetic deficiencies. This perhaps explains why Cain makes no mention of long-term reform possibilities through public education. He does not seriously entertain the thought that the quality of our democracy might improve over time by improving the qualities of the citizens themselves. Unlike the populist, Cain argues that we must operate within our historical, Madisonian system designed to balance coalitions of competing interests through a variety of checks and balances. In trying to accommodate the ''democratic imperative,'' then, the pluralist aims only to ''make the proxy representation of citizens by interest groups, nonprofits, political parties and other intermediaries as fair and effective as possible'' (6). Fortunately, the pluralist argues, our Madisonian system of representative and divided government offers a pragmatic approach to democratic accountability that meets the democratic legitimacy threshold by balancing those coalitions of interest groups without giving any of them a permanent institutional advantage. Bearing in mind the constraints of the American democratic system, Cain finally endorses a handful of minor, incremental reforms, including: ensuring that all citizens' votes are treated equally at the ballot box, with uniform rules governing how votes are cast and counted; introducing rules for semi-disclosure of campaign donations in which identities are not revealed but other relevant voter data might be made public so that citizens could see who is behind candidates and policy proposals; and rather than limiting campaign spending, trying to find ways to provide public funding to candidates that otherwise could not compete with privately funded campaigns. With apologies to the nuances of Cain's arguments, reform pluralism can be summarized in four claims. (1) Certain threshold democratic accountability features are necessary and sufficient for political legitimacy. (2) Any effort to improve a democracy above that threshold by single-mindedly reforming one aspect of the democratic system-in particular, increased citizen participation-is bound to have perverse consequences. (3) The fact of citizens' cognitive and motivational limitations entails that any democratic reforms requiring people to participate significantly in legislation or governance are bound to fail. (4) Reform efforts should be limited to (a) protecting the basic democratic threshold features and (b) securing a fair playing field for competing interest groups in society. 522 TURNER 3. THREE FRAMEWORKS FOR PLURALISM In evaluating reform pluralism, I want to focus on how the lower boundary-the basic democratic legitimacy threshold-is justified. Cain acknowledges that the lower boundary of democratic accountability has changed over time: In the earliest periods of American history, the electorate did not include women, minorities and younger voters. Senators were selected by state legislatures, and presidential nominations were controlled by party caucuses and elected officials. Citizens had no freedom of information rights or open meeting laws to assist them in figuring out what the government had done or was planning to do. It was truly a minimal democracy, not one that would be deemed sufficiently democratic today. (14) He adds that the ''boundary between democracy and nondemocracy is.dynamic over time'' (14). What should we make of these claims? On one hand, Cain seems to allow that the basic democratic legitimacy threshold has changed over time, and for the better. On the other hand, we saw earlier his argument that there is little reason to expect future reform efforts to lead to any significant improvements in the quality of our democracy. Presumably, however, earlier changes to the democratic threshold resulted from reform efforts that were pursued when the basic elements of the pluralist picture-competing interest groups and cognitively and motivationally limited citizens-were also in effect. It is important to appreciate that Cain does not provide a general argument for why improvements in the basic democratic threshold are less likely now than before. He argues effectively for the much more limited claim that specific reform efforts inspired by single-minded populism are likely to have perverse effects. But, in order to secure the pluralist's reform skepticism, he needs to show that the theoretical and practical difficulties facing less single-minded and idealistic reform efforts are greater today than in the past. Consider three simplified frameworks that accommodate both Cain's acceptance of the current democratic legitimacy threshold and his skepticism about improvements beyond it. One natural way of making sense of the pluralist approach is to regard it as a form of political realism that recognizes a widespread commitment to basic democratic accountability mechanisms but rejects the moral impulse toward reform. Call this democratic realism. The democratic realist accepts the significance of the democratic threshold for providing stability and the balance of interests, and argues that political reformers must respect the sociological fact that there is a near-universal acceptance of those legitimacy conditions in Western democracies. But the realist does not emphasize the moral value of that threshold (or of potential improvements to it), and resists reforms that might threaten the stability it provides. Though some of what Cain writes seems to be in the democratic realist mode, it is doubtful that he is a thoroughgoing realist. Certainly, the pluralist's disdain for ideal theory sometimes evokes the realist's antipathy to idealistic reformers. And like the realist, Cain does not provide much in the way of guiding moral principles. But his acceptance of the democratic threshold does seem to be a moral commitment, and not merely an acknowledgment of sociological fact. A second way of making sense of the pluralist approach would be to adopt a public reason framework in which the legitimacy of state coercion is understood in terms of what can be justified to all reasonable citizens.4 On this view, the democratic threshold would be defined by whatever is publicly justified and it may change over time. But the public reason pluralist-who is skeptical of political reform-could also argue that advocating for changes to the status quo at any given time might endanger the currently publicly justified order. The democratic threshold recognized at any particular time would have moral significance in virtue of its being justified to all reasonable citizens. But the public reason pluralist might resist, on related moral grounds, any changes that would threaten the publicly justified order.5 4See, e.g., John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). 5Gerald Gaus argues that, given the great value of an equilibrium on social rules, there must be a strong bias toward the status quo in any realistic public reason theory. See Gerald F. Gaus, The Order of Public Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). MORE DEMOCRACY IS NOT BETTER DEMOCRACY 523 This kind of view has its attractions, but I think it also does not capture Cain's own thinking. Instead, he writes, ''Democracies must produce good outcomes for their citizens in a utilitarian sense. To be sure, an election is an imperfect welfare calculus and tool for promoting governance, but it is the foundation of democratic design'' (15). Like Madison, Cain seems to justify his claims ultimately in terms of what conduces to the public good. The third way of making sense of Cain's pluralism, then, is by appeal to democratic instrumentalism, according to which democratic institutions have value only insofar as they conduce to the public good (suitably characterized). An advantage of this account is that it neatly explains Cain's basic difference with populist reformers. Unlike the populist, the instrumentalist is not ultimately concerned with making our system perfectly democratic (along some dimension), but with making our imperfect democracy as effective as possible in promoting the public good. On an instrumentalist view, Cain argues for skeptical practical conclusions because theoretical and practical difficulties make it unlikely that populist democratic reforms will do better than the Madisonian system in promoting the good. We may need to tinker with our democracy to keep it running smoothly within its Madisonian limits, and of course we should guard against any major threats to basic democratic legitimacy, but that is about it. Trying to do more than that, guided by some democratic ideal, is bound to lead to worse outcomes. Let us assume that even a more optimistic instrumentalist would agree with Cain that those who aim to maximize democracy-and who hold that government legitimacy hangs on meeting idealized democratic conditions-are mistaken. More democracy need not always be better democracy, and democratic legitimacy should not be tied to the achievement of some maximal populist ideal. But setting Cain's pluralism in an instrumentalist setting also opens it up to a clear challenge from the optimist. For if better democracy is cashed out in terms of conduciveness to the public good, then the optimist may argue that Cain has failed to make the case that we can do no better-above the current democratic threshold conditions-than just to tinker with our Madisonian system. In rejecting the single-minded pursuit of populist aims, Cain has not shown that piecemeal and balanced-but still significant-democratic changes could not raise the democratic threshold in the future. 4. ROOM FOR REFORM In the context of democratic instrumentalism, the question of whether Cain's pessimism about democratic reform is justified is an empirical one. He argues convincingly that in the near term there are constitutional constraints on what can be achieved: [R]eform occurs within a general constitutional framework that is rarely challenged and nearly impossible to change at the federal level. Politically feasible reforms necessarily take the separation of powers, federalism, permeable bureaucracy, court review, strong First Amendment tradition, political professionalism, and suspicion of power as givens. To do otherwise is politically naıve and utopian. But the decision to do what is possible-a second-best strategy-has significant consequences for the form and effectiveness of reform efforts. (39) But it is striking that rather than call for longterm reform efforts to amend the constitution or to educate the citizenry or to develop new democratic institutions, he simply concludes that we must work within those constraints indefinitely. With a long view, an optimistic instrumentalist has room to argue that it is worth attempting a variety of democratic experiments to see what improvements for posterity might result. These efforts must be balanced rather than single-minded, and most experiments will fail, but Cain seems to move too quickly from the failure of populist over-idealization and single-mindedness to the claim that even piecemeal reforms are unlikely ever to constitute significant improvements over the Madisonian system. For instance, the fact that maximizing citizen participation across the political system will have perverse consequences is not an argument against increasing citizen participation here and there, and the fact that we can never fully rein in the influence of moneyed interests on politics is not an argument against partial measures to change incentives. Over time these changes might have significant effects on the quality of our democracy as an instrument to promote the public good. It seems that pluralism-like political realism- overreacts to utopian thinking with unnecessary hard-headedness. Many earlier reformers were also overly idealistic-one need only think of the many experimental communities of the late 524 TURNER nineteenth century-but some of their efforts over time resulted in real improvements that were successfully adopted within the existing political system. It is certainly difficult to predict which reform efforts might lead to further improvements. Perhaps most of them will fail. But I do not see any less reason now than before to believe that some of them could lead to important improvements in our democratic system. Evaluating the success of these democratic experiments presents its own challenge. But note that, in the context of democratic instrumentalism, we are no longer trying to measure how democratic a system is-with all the theoretical difficulties Cain highlights-but rather how well a political system promotes the public good. Recent years have seen a rise in the development of indices to measure effectively the average quality of life or happiness of citizens in different countries. These provide a foothold to evaluate different political systems above the democratic threshold.6 Cain's long-term skepticism hinges on his view of human limitations. That is what fundamentally seems to stand in the way of his moving away from the Madisonian vision. On his view, any more rationalistic picture of democratic processes is bound to demand too much either of our cognitive abilities or of our capacity for impartial judgment. Such rationalistic reforms would thus tend toward worse outcomes than the messy but workable give-and-take of the current system. But I am optimistic that even though people are not perfectible we are still improvable and that changes in social conditions over time may do a great deal to foster an ideal of citizenship in which individuals are expected to have a more disinterested concern for others. In this respect, it is interesting how far Cain has shifted away from his instrumentalist predecessor, John Stuart Mill. Mill believed that over time individuals could be improved through education and could develop public spirit to a much greater extent than they exhibit currently. This belief made it possible to imagine a democratic system relying to some degree on citizens' impartial regard for the public good, rather than for their own self-interest.7 As a result, he remained open to a host of practical democratic proposals. Mill may have been too optimistic in this respect. But the long-term question for our reform efforts now is not whether there are limits to human moral and intellectual improvement-there surely are-but whether we have reached them yet. Given historical social improvements, which Cain himself acknowledges, I believe we still have strong reason to engage with the difficult long-term project of developing a better culture of democratic citizenship. 5. CONCLUSION By adopting a democratic instrumentalist framework, Cain is able to get critical leverage on populists focused exclusively on making our democracy as democratic as possible. If we focus too much on having more rather than better democracy, we run into significant theoretical and practical difficulties. Cain's book is invaluable for making this case as comprehensively as one could hope, based on masses of empirical evidence. But the instrumentalist account of better democracy also gives us reason to believe that significant reform efforts remain worth pursuing, for the simple reason that some of them have worked in the past. Address correspondence to: Piers Norris Turner Department of Philosophy The Ohio State University 230 N. Oval Mall Columbus, OH 43210 E-mail: [email protected] 6One instructive recent attempt to evaluate democracies by such indices is Benjamin Radclifff, The Political Economy of Human Happiness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). We should be open to the thought that democratic experiments around the world might suggest long-term possibilities for our own democracy. 7John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government, Vol. XIX of The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, ed. J.M. Robson (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1861), 371–577. MORE DEMOCRACY IS NOT BETTER DEMOCRACY | {
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The 'Guise of the Ought-to-Be'. A Deontic View of the Intentionality of Desire Federico Lauria (2017, in Federico Lauria & Julien Deonna, The Nature of Desire, New York: Oxford University Press) Abstract How are we to understand the intentionality of desire? According to the two classical views, desire is either a positive evaluation or a disposition to act. This chapter examines these conceptions of desire and argues for a deontic alternative, namely the view that desiring is representing a state of affairs as what ought to be. Three lines of criticism of the classical pictures of desire are provided. The first concerns desire's direction of fit, i.e. the intuition that the world should conform to our desires. The second concerns the death of desire principle, i.e. the intuition that one cannot desire what one represents as actual. The last pertains to desire's role in psychological explanations, i.e. the intuition that desires can explain motivations and be explained by evaluations. Following these criticisms, three positive arguments in favor of the deontic conception are sketched. Keywords Intentionality of Desire – Evaluative View – Motivational View – Deontic View – Ought-to-be – Direction of Fit – Death of Desire Principle – Satisfaction – Meinong If we look inside ourselves, as the traditional metaphor goes, we see a myriad of things such as doubts, memories, fears, regrets, loves, and desires. Some people desire to see the ocean; others aspire to become great musicians; Romeo pines for Juliet. Despite the pivotal role of desire in our lives, the nature of desire has rarely been addressed in detail in the philosophical literature.1 What are desires? How do desires represent the world and how are we to understand their intentionality? The aim of this inquiry is to investigate these questions. Given that the liver was thought to be the seat of desire in a tradition that started with Plato and remained influential in the Middle Ages, we may echo Blaise Pascal's famous "Logic of the Heart" by describing this as an attempt at discovering the "Logic of the Liver."2 1 Notable exceptions are Schroeder 2004, Oddie 2005, Tenenbaum 2007, Arpaly & Schroeder 2013, among others. 2 See in particular, Plato 1953, Timaeus, 70c-72b, and Galen 2005, On the Doctrines of Plato and Hippocrates, 6.8.6-6.8.77. I owe this metaphor and the following thought experiment to Kevin Mulligan. 2 Allow me to start with a thought experiment in order to approach the issue with a more intuitive touch. Imagine a world inhabited by creatures that are exactly like us in all respects but one. They have doubts, memories, and maybe even emotions and sentiments similar to ours. But, unlike us, they have no desires whatsoever. The relevant question is the following: how exactly would this desireless world differ from the actual world, where desire is ubiquitous? In the history of philosophy as well as in the contemporary literature, two prevailing answers to this question have been put forward, which correspond to two classical views of desire. On the first conception, which is Aristotelian in spirit, desires are essentially positive evaluations.3 Roughly, desiring a state of affairs is representing it as being good. In desiring to see the ocean, say, one positively evaluates this state of affairs. On this view, a desireless world would be a world of creatures that do not evaluate anything in a positive light or, at least, that are deprived of the positive evaluation constituted by desire. According to the second classical view, which is Humean in spirit, desires are essentially motivational states. Desiring that p, it is claimed, is being motivated to act in such a way that p obtains.4 For instance, desiring to visit Los Angeles is to be moved to act so as to realize this state of affairs. Desireless creatures would be inert or would at least lack the motivational "oomph" characteristic of desire. This conception of desire is often taken for granted in the philosophical and psychological literature.5 My purpose is to explore and question these two classical pictures so as to motivate an alternative approach: the deontic view of desire. On this conception, the key to understanding desire is neither goodness nor motivation, but a deontic feature: norms of the "ought-to-be" type. Some states of affairs are such that they ought to obtain, and desire, I claim, bears an essential relation to what ought to be. More precisely, the proposal is that desires involve a specific way or manner of representing content: a deontic mode. To desire p is to represent p as what ought to be or, if one prefers, as what should be. Desiring to live in New York is representing this state of affairs as what ought to be. Desire thus involves the "guise of the ought-to-be," so to speak. 3 See Stampe 1986, Oddie 2005, Tenenbaum 2007, and section 1 of this article. In this volume, see Oddie and Friedrich. 4 See Smith 1994, Dancy 2000, and section 2 of this article. In this volume, see Döring & Eker and Alvarez. I use "p" to refer to the content of desire without implying that the content is necessarily propositional. 5 See Schroeder 2004: 3 and the introduction to this volume. 3 To proceed carefully, it is worth formulating three desiderata that an appealing view of desire's intentionality should meet. This will provide the guidelines for our exploration. According to the "direction of fit" metaphor, beliefs are supposed to conform to the world, whereas the world is supposed to conform to our desires.6 This contrast appears clearly in cases of mismatch. Suppose Sam believes that it is sunny in London, when it is, in fact, raining. What should be modified is his belief, not the facts. Beliefs thus have the mind-toworld direction of fit. Consider now that Sam desires that it is sunny, when it is raining. Much to his displeasure, his desire is frustrated. Yet, this is not a sufficient reason for him to get rid of or modify his desire, since doing so may well amount to a form of cheating or resentment. As illustrated in La Fontaine's story of sour grapes, there is something wrong in discarding a desire solely on the grounds that it is doomed to frustration: the fox is wrong in considering the grapes as being sour and in ceasing to desire them just because he could not get them. If anything, and as far as the satisfaction of desire is concerned, the world should change so as to fit the desire: desire thus has the world-to-mind direction of fit.7 Much more could be said, since the interpretation of this metaphor has proven very controversial. What is important in the present context, though, is that any promising view of desire's intentionality should be compatible with and account for the intuition that desire has the world-to-mind direction of fit.8 While the first desideratum concerns the relation between desire and the world, the next two desiderata concern the relation between a subject's desires and her other mental states. Sometimes desires are partly explained by other mental states, such as the subject's affective dispositions. In other cases, desires partly explain other mental states, such as intentions. Sam desires to go New York because he likes to go to New York and this desire in turn explains why he intends to go there. Explanations of this type are crucial for understanding people's behavior. Any elegant theory of desire's intentionality should be compatible with the explanatory relations that desires bear with other mental states and should ideally explain these relations. Call this desideratum "consonance." 6 See Anscombe 1963, Platts 1979, Searle 1983, and Humberstone 1992, among others. In this volume, see Railton's, Gregory's, and Wall's contributions as well as the introduction. 7 The contrast in directions of fit extends more generally to cognitive and conative representations as well as to speech acts. 8 For the thought that the idea of a direction of fit is dubious, see Sobel & Copp 2001, Milliken 2008, Frost 2014. 4 By contrast, some relations between desire and other representations are dissonant. One such dissonance is the combination of a desire with the belief that the desire is satisfied. Imagine that Sam desires to see Niagara Falls. Mary offers to take him there. There they are, enjoying the breath-taking panorama. At some point, Sam says: "I want to see Niagara Falls." "Sam, you are seeing Niagara Falls," replies a quite surprised Mary. We understand Mary's astonishment. It is strange to express a desire to see something while in the midst of seeing it. Sam might express a desire to continue seeing the Falls, but this is a different desire than a desire simply to see the Falls. How could he desire simply to see the Falls while he is seeing them and is aware of his doing so? It appears that desire is incompatible with the representation that its content obtains. Let us call this phenomenon the "death of desire principle." According to this principle, a desire for p ceases to exist once the subject represents that p obtains, for instance once one starts believing that p.9 In other words, desires are about states of affairs that are not represented as actual. This principle is often taken for granted in the literature and has a long pedigree – from Plato and Aquinas to Descartes, Locke, Hobbes, and Sartre.10 To the extent that it is true, an attractive theory of desire's intentionality should be compatible with and ideally illuminate this principle.11 A theory of desire should thus strive to account for desire's direction of fit, as well as for the aforementioned consonant and dissonant combinations of desire with other mental phenomena. In what follows, I shall examine the extent to which the evaluative (§1) and motivational (§2) conceptions of desire meet this constraint. The upshot is that these classical views do not adequately satisfy those desiderata, which calls for a revisionary account of desire. In the last section (§3), I argue that adopting the deontic conception of desire is the best alternative. 1. Desire and the Good: The Evaluative Conception 9 The representation that p obtains might be a belief or whatever state that represents content as actual (e.g. perceiving that p, seeming to one that p). 10 Plato, Symposium in Plato 1953; Aquinas 1920-1942, Summa Theologica, Ia IIae, 30, 2 ad1; Descartes 1989, The Passions of the Soul [57]; Locke 1975, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II, 20, 6: 174; Hobbes 1994, Leviathan [6]; Sartre 1984, Being and Nothingness. For contemporary discussions, see Kenny 1963: 8184, 115–116; Armstrong 1968: 155; Boghossian 2003: 42-43; and Oddie 2005: 72. In this volume, see Oddie, Massin, Döring & Eker, and the introduction. 11 One might want to deny this principle. But this comes at a cost, as similar principles intuitively hold for all types of conations. For instance, intending to do something and simultaneously believing that one has executed one's intention is odd. This suggests that the principle captures something essential to conations. 5 Imagine that you desire to listen to Brahms's 4th Symphony. From a first-person perspective, listening to this symphony seems good to you in some way (e.g. it seems pleasant). The thesis that desire involves a positive evaluation is almost a dogma in philosophy, tracing back to Plato. It is nicely captured by the Scholastic formula of the "guise of the good": nihil appetimus, nisi sub ratione boni" ["there is nothing that is desired, except under the appearance of the good" (translation mine)].12 After all, how could one desire something without seeing any good in it? One way of accounting for this facet of desires is to think of them as positive evaluations.13 There are different ways of understanding this idea, so let us present a variety of specific shapes the evaluative conception can take (§1.1) before raising three challenges to this view (§1.2). 1.1. Types of Evaluative Views The most influential form of the evaluative approach to desire – the perceptual model – relies on an analogy between perceptual experience and desire. The relation between desire and the good is alleged to mirror that between, say, visual perception and colors and shapes.14 As vision presents us with colors and shapes, desire presents us with the good. Since perceptual experiences can be understood as being sensory seemings or appearances, the analogy amounts to conceiving of desires as being value seemings or appearances of the good.15 Defenders of this view emphasize similarities between desire and perceptual experiences. For instance, both are representations held from a particular perspective. Seeing the stars in the sky involves a determinate perspective, namely that of a particular human being who is located miles away from the stars. Similarly, moving from spatial to evaluative perspectives, going to the opera tonight may appear good to me, but not to Sally, depending on our respective cares and concerns.16 Whatever the merit of the analogy, one needs not adopt it to defend the evaluative conception, since there exist at least two other versions of the latter.17 According to the doxastic model of the evaluative approach, desires are evaluative beliefs – to desire p is to believe that p is good.18 On this view, as in the perceptual model, values are 12 Kant 1997, Critique of Practical Reason, AA 05-59, 12-14. On the guise of the good, see Tenenbaum 2013, and, in this volume, Oddie, Massin. For doubts, see Döring & Eker this volume. 13 Another way of accounting for this feature consists in thinking of positive evaluation as a necessary feature of desire without being identical to it (see end of section 1). 14 For the sake of the argument, I assume that the perceptual analogy consists in the claim that desire is analogous rather than identical to perceptual experience. 15 Stampe 1986, Oddie 2005, Tenenbaum 2007, and Oddie this volume. 16 Oddie 2005: 60-63. 17 For scepticism on the perceptual model, see Friedrich, Döring & Eker, Gregory, and Ashwell in this volume. 18 Davidson 1980: 97 in Davidson 2001. See Friedrich, Döring & Eker, and Ashwell this volume for objections. 6 part of desire's content. Yet, it is common to think that representations involve an intentional mode in addition to content – an idea that can be exploited to defend a third variant of the evaluative approach. Consider belief. Intuitively, in believing something (say, that the cat is on the mat), one represents this thing as being true or as actual. By contrast, remembering something seems to involve a different manner of representing it, namely as belonging to the past. In both cases, there is a specific way in which content is represented: a way that seems essential to the psychological type under consideration. In this respect, intentional modes should not be confused with traditional modes of presentation, the latter not being essential to types of representations. For instance, seeing a cup from above and seeing one from the right involve distinct modes of presentation. Yet, both representations belong to the same psychological type: visual perception. Intentional modes are thus more than a manner of representing – they are ways of representing that are good candidates for distinguishing between types of representations. Just as belief might be understood as representing a state of affairs as actual and memory might be conceived as the representation of a state of affairs as past, where this is part of the manner of representing, desire can be thought as representing a state of affairs as good. On this proposal, the value is part of the mode in which the content is represented.19 1.2.The Evaluative Conception and the Desiderata Whatever the variant of the evaluative view one favors, it appears that the conception faces major challenges corresponding to the aforementioned desiderata.20 1.2.1. Evaluation and the Death of Desire Principle Does the axiological view meet the death of desire or the intuition that one cannot desire a state of affairs that is represented as actual? The answer depends, of course, on how appealing to a sort of evaluation fares in this respect. And there are reasons to think that evaluations do not fare very well. Firstly, evaluations are compatible with believing that their content obtains. Such beliefs are sometimes even required by evaluative states. For instance, how could one be happy that Mary is on one's side and thus positively evaluate this state of affairs, if one did not believe 19 Friedrich 2012 and this volume. 20 For further criticism of the evaluative conception, see Döring & Eker, Massin, and Ashwell this volume. 7 her to be on one's side? Since the death of desire principle consists in the claim that desires are incompatible with the representation that their content obtains, it appears that conceiving of desire along evaluative lines does not fit well with the principle. The aficionado of the evaluative conception might reply that this does not prevent desire from constituting a type of evaluation that, unlike other ones, satisfies this desideratum.21 Nothing in the axiological view should lead us to think that no sort of evaluation meets this constraint. Still, one important question arises. Why think that the evaluation at stake in desire satisfies this principle, while other types of evaluation do not? In the absence of a convincing answer to this question, the reply seems ad hoc. Secondly, given that not all evaluations satisfy the death of desire principle, the axiological view has difficulty explaining this feature of desire, which is something a theory of desire should ideally do. Even if one assumes that some types of evaluation satisfy the relevant principle, this would still have to be conceived as a brute fact or, at least, as a facet that cannot be explained by desire's evaluative nature only. The question remains: why is it odd for Sam to desire seeing Niagara Falls when he is aware of watching them? A friend of the evaluative view might go so far as to reject the death of desire principle, one's modus tollens being another's modus ponens. In fact, the evaluative view fares well with the denial of the death of desire principle.22 However, even if one is convinced that the principle is not true for all desires, it remains to be shown why it is a paradigmatic feature of many desires – and appealing to their evaluative nature may prove insufficient in this regard. I shall now emphasize that similar worries for the evaluative conception arise in connection with the direction of fit desideratum, mounting further evidence that the evaluative approach is unable to account for the intuitive features of desire. 1.2.2. Evaluation and Direction of Fit Does the axiological view provide a plausible picture of desire's direction of fit, i.e. the intuition that the world should conform to our desires? The answer to this question depends on the direction of fit of the evaluations recruited by one's approach to desire. Unfortunately for the defender of the axiological view, evaluations generally seem to have the mind-toworld direction of fit, unlike that of desire. 21 See Oddie this volume. 22 See Oddie 2005: 70-2 and this volume. 8 Paying attention to the satisfaction conditions and the correctness conditions of a representation will reveal why. A belief is satisfied if, and only if, its content obtains, i.e. when it is true. Since true beliefs are nothing but correct beliefs, it follows that beliefs' satisfaction conditions are identical to their correctness conditions. By contrast, the satisfaction of desires does not amount to those desires being accurate: correct desires might be frustrated (unlucky, virtuous Juliet) and incorrect desires might be fulfilled (lucky, vicious Romeo). The algorithm is thus the following: When its conditions of satisfaction and correctness are identical, a representation has the mind-to-world direction of fit; otherwise, it has the world-to-mind direction of fit.23 With this algorithm in mind, our question can be reformulated as follows: are the satisfaction conditions of evaluations identical to their correctness conditions? On the face of it, the answer is positive – a positive evaluation of an object or a state of affairs is satisfied if, and only if, that object or state of affairs is good, which amounts to the evaluation being accurate. This is plausible for evaluative beliefs, but also for emotions, which can be understood as another type of evaluative state with the mind-to-world direction of fit.24 This is exactly what is expected from evaluations insofar as they are meant to inform us about what is good or bad for us. After all, why should the world conform to our evaluations? So it appears that evaluations have the direction of fit opposite to that of desire. As before, it might simply be assumed as primitive fact that desire is a type of evaluation that has the world-to-mind direction of fit. But this reply appears to be as suspiciously ad hoc as the one we considered in relation to the death of desire principle. And if the key to understanding desire is its being an evaluation, then desire's evaluative nature should help explain its direction of fit. However, the evaluative view seems to fail to deliver such an explanation, since evaluations typically instantiate the opposite direction of fit. 25 The intuition that the world should conform to our desires remains enigmatic. 1.2.3. Evaluative Consonance One day, on a whim, I wanted a paper plane. You might wonder why. When confronted with an apparently awkward desire, pointing out the features of the desired object that one regards 23 See De Sousa 2011: 56-57. 24 See, for instance, De Sousa 1987, Tappolet 2000, and Deonna & Teroni 2012. 25 One might reply that desire has both directions of fit (see Railton and Gregory this volume). For reasons I do not have the space to present here, I think that this move is not helpful (Lauria 2014: 56-59). 9 as desirable gives some intelligibility to the desire.26 As soon as I tell you that I find paper planes to be beautiful, the mystery surrounding my desire may vanish a little. These explanations amount to specifying the manner in which something is positively evaluated. Furthermore, desires can be explained with reference to various types of evaluation. Sam may desire to swim in the river because doing so seems good to him – i.e. in virtue of an appearance of the good – or because he represents swimming in the river as good – i.e. in virtue of the evaluative manner of representing content – and so on for other types of positive evaluation. Now, it is tempting to think that these sorts of explanations are at least partly causal explanations: the fact that one evaluates a state of affairs positively causes one to desire that state. This means that the axiological view faces an immediate challenge. Causal relations are irreflexive: they require distinct relata. For instance, the statement "p because p," understood as "the cause of p is p," does not constitute an explanation: when one wonders why it rains and is being answered "because it rains," one has not been provided with an explanation. If desires were positive evaluations, then explaining a desire for something by a positive evaluation of this thing would be similarly vacuous. As outlined, however, explaining desires by positive evaluation is far from being vacuous. This should lead us to conclude that the axiological picture cannot make sense of our intuitions regarding the sorts of explanations to which desires are subject.27 If this is correct, it appears that the evaluative conception does not satisfy our desiderata adequately. However, a positive moral emerges: evaluations can be the grounds of desire.28 Desire can involve the "guise of the good" without being an evaluation, but in virtue of depending on an evaluation. This nicely captures the intuition driving the axiological view while avoiding its difficulties. A world in which creatures do not evaluate anything would, indeed, be a desireless world. However, this is the case because evaluation is a necessary condition for desire – not because desire is a kind of evaluation. It is time now to turn our attention to the second classical conception of desire. 2. Desire and Action: The Motivational Conception 26 See Anscombe 1963: 70-78. 27 One might reply that some reflexive explanations are informative. I have argued that this reply does not stand, given the disanalogies between reflexive, informative explanation and the explanation of desire by evaluations (Lauria 2014: 61-63). 28 See Massin this volume and Meinong 1917 for a similar view; see, however, Döring & Eker this volume. 10 Juliet intensely desires to see Romeo. It is likely that this strong desire will give her the motivation to act in ways that will make this desire come true. She might not know how to do so. She might hesitate. She might be afraid of satisfying this desire. Still, she is disposed to realize it. According to the motivational conception of desire, this is the key to understanding desire. On this very popular view, desire is nothing but a motivational state.29 Since motivation is considered to be desire's function, this picture corresponds to the standard functionalist approach to desire. In this section, I shall present the motivational conception (§2.1) before assessing it in light of our three desiderata (§2.2). 2.1. The Motivational Dogma The standard way of defining desire in motivational terms is by conceiving it as a disposition to act in favor of the obtaining of its content.30 In other words, in desiring p, a subject is disposed to act in favor of p or, at least, in ways she believes will bring about p. For instance, desiring to contemplate the stars is being disposed to act in such a way that is conducive (or so we believe it to be) to being absorbed by them. Since desires are understood as dispositions to act, this view is compatible with the existence of desires that do not manifest themselves in actions, and, more controversially, with desiring subjects who are not actually motivated to act. In desiring to change the past, for instance, Romeo might not be actually motivated to act in such a way that what he desires comes about. In this case, it is reasonable to explain the absence of actual motivation by the idea that being actually motivated to act requires believing that one has the power to realize the desire – a belief that Romeo does not hold. Yet, although Romeo is not actually motivated to act, he is still disposed to act so that the desired state of affairs obtains. Were he to believe that he could erase the past, he would try to do so, all things being equal.31 One might think that the standard motivational conception is at odds with a first-person approach to the intentionality of desire that aims at capturing how desires represent their content. After all, the dispositional picture is silent on this point; it seems to capture desire from the outside, so to speak. A more promising approach is to construe desires as involving a motivational mode. On this variant, desiring a state of affairs is representing it as a goal or 29 See, for instance, Armstrong 1968, Stampe 1986, Stalnaker 1987, Smith 1994, Dancy 2000, and, in this volume, Döring & Eker, Alvarez, Railton, and Ashwell. 30 See, for instance, Stalnaker 1987: 15. 31 Some have argued that those cases are counterexamples to the motivational view (Mele 2003) or mark the distinction between wishes and desires (Döring & Eker this volume). However, see Armstrong 1968: 155, Schroeder 2004: 17, and Dancy 2000: 87-88 for a reply. 11 as what ought to be done.32 For instance, desiring to see Juliet is representing this state as a goal or as what ought to be done. Be that as it may, is a motivational approach to desire more promising than an evaluative one? I shall argue that this is not the case as motivational and evaluative accounts face the same problems.33 2.2. The Motivational Conception and the Desiderata This last assertion may be surprising. At first glance, one might be inclined to think that the motivational conception has the resources to meet the three desiderata. Firstly, the standard interpretation of the direction of fit is motivational in spirit: the fact that the world should conform to our desires – the world-to-mind direction of fit – is usually equated with the thought that desires dispose us to act. Secondly, the motivational view also seems to be in a position to satisfy the death of desire principle. After all, one is not disposed to act in favor of a state of affairs that one believes already obtains. How could Desdemona be disposed to marry Othello if she were aware that she had already married him? Finally, dispositions to act appear to lend themselves to being explained by evaluations in the same way as desires. Romeo's disposition to visit the MoMA can be explained by his positive evaluation of this state, just like his desire to visit the MoMA. On these grounds, it is tempting to adopt the motivational conception of desire. However, I think that this temptation should be resisted. Let us begin with what may well be the most surprising claim, namely the one concerning direction of fit. 2.2.1. Motivation and Direction of Fit According to the standard interpretation, the world-to-mind direction of fit amounts to the following. In the case of a mismatch between desire and the world, i.e. when a desire is frustrated, one should not change the desire. Rather (and this is where the motivational view enters the picture), the subject should act in such a way that the desire will be satisfied.34 For this is desire's function. One general problem with the motivational conception and the aforementioned interpretation of the world-to-mind direction of fit hangs on the satisfaction conditions of dispositions to act and, more generally, of motivational states. Indeed, it is natural to think that the satisfaction 32 See e.g. Schafer 2013. 33 For further criticism of the motivational view, see Döring & Eker, Alvarez, Gregory, and Railton in this volume. 34 See, for instance, Searle 1986 and Smith 1994. In this volume, this interpretation is assumed in Railton's and Gregory's contributions. 12 conditions of motivational states consist in the subject intentionally acting. If Sam is disposed to go to London, his disposition is realized or satisfied when he intentionally goes there. This is explicit in the functionalist picture of desire, especially in its teleosemantic version.35 In case this intuition is not shared, let me emphasize that desire's satisfaction conditions should bear a particular relation to action in order for the motivational view to secure an essential link between desire and action. The worry is that the satisfaction conditions of desire refer to the obtaining of its content, which can happen independently of the subject's action. The desire that it rains, say, is satisfied by the fact that it rains period. If this is on the right track, then the conclusion is that the motivational approach does not deliver the right satisfaction conditions for desires.36 This in turn has an impact on the direction of fit desideratum, since the direction of fit of a representation is conditioned on its satisfaction.37 Indeed, the world should conform to our desires only insofar as their satisfaction is concerned. For instance, all things considered, the world should not conform to our immoral desires, as this would lead to a world of evil. Yet, as far as the satisfaction of those desires is concerned, it remains true that the world should conform to them, although this consideration is defeated by their immoral nature. Since it appears that the motivational view does not deliver the right satisfaction conditions for desires, it is difficult to see how it could account for their direction of fit in an appealing way. In fact, it delivers counterintuitive verdicts in situations where the content of a desire obtains independently of the subject's action. If satisfaction consists in the subject's acting such that the desire's content obtains, the desire will not count as satisfied when the subject gets what she wants independently of her actions. Hence, the world should still conform to the desire. This sounds far-fetched, to put it mildly. Even if it assumed that the desire is satisfied in such circumstances, the norm that the subject act so as to satisfy the desire has not been met. This is problematic, as the following case will illustrate. Imagine that Romeo desires to see Juliet and can arrange a meeting by writing a letter to her. Before having the opportunity to do so, he meets her in Venice by pure chance. According to the motivational interpretation of desire's direction of fit, Romeo should have acted to bring about the satisfaction of his desire. But he did not comply with this norm. We should then conclude that something went wrong: Romeo's behavior was inappropriate or dysfunctional. 35 See e.g. Milikan 2005, Papineau 1984. 36 See Friedrich 2008: 5-6 for a similar objection. 37 This is motivated further by the thought that the fitting relation is satisfaction (Lauria 2014: 142-146). 13 But this is absurd: Romeo did nothing wrong and such cases seem far from dysfunctional. Isn't it ideal to get what one wants without making any effort? One might reply that the inappropriate character of Romeo's behavior is defeated by other considerations: Romeo has been prevented from acting and, ultimately, the right result happened, provided that this reunion is a good thing. Yet, this reply should lead one to suspect that what matters for desire satisfaction is that the content of the desire obtains, whether in the presence of action or in its absence. After all, the satisfaction conditions of desire do not make any reference to action, so why put so much emphasis on action? A conception of desire that clearly implies that desires are satisfied when their content obtains is more elegant. Consequently, it is not clear that desire's direction of fit should be equated with the norm that desiring subjects act so as to satisfy their desire. Rather, a more modest norm suggests itself: that the world should change for the desire to be satisfied. The motivational conception might well make sense of the direction of fit of intentions or dispositions to act, since the satisfaction conditions of those phenomena are constituted by actions. Still, as far as desire is concerned, the view seems to be slightly off target. And the reason is that it fails to capture the right conditions of desire gratification. 2.2.2. Motivation and the Death of Desire Principle As emphasized earlier, it is tempting to think that the motivational approach has the resources to meet the death of desire desideratum. For subjects are not disposed to bringing about states of affairs they believe already obtain.38 As intuitive as this may sound, I think that this explanation is suspect. Firstly, according to the death of desire principle, a desire for a state of affairs ceases to exist when one represents that one's desire has been satisfied. The principle then appears to depend on the representation of desire's satisfaction. Now, if the motivational view delivers the wrong picture of desire's satisfaction conditions, as I argued, it cannot elegantly meet the desideratum on the death of desire either. This argument relies on the same considerations as the ones presented in section 2.2.1, so let us turn our attention to a further problem. In order to make full sense of the death of desire principle, the motivational view should explain the apparent incompatibility between desiring p and representing p as obtaining. Why 38 Stampe 1987: 336-337. See also Armstrong 1968: 155, Dretske 1988: 114, and Goldman 2006: 96, although the last two do not appeal to representations of facts but merely to facts. See also Russell's analysis of desire in Kenny 1963: 72. 14 are we not disposed to act in favor of states of affairs that we believe already obtain? It is quite plausible to think that one is disposed to act in favor of a state of affairs only if one believes that there is something one could do, albeit maybe in an ideal world, to bring it about. Now, if the state of affairs already obtains, then there is nothing one can do to bring it about. So, presumably, if a subject believes that a state of affairs obtains, she will not believe that there is something she could do to bring it about.39 The belief in a desire's satisfaction thereby prevents one from being motivated, since it is incompatible with the belief that one can bring about the desire's satisfaction. Believing that a desire is satisfied will thereby kill the desire. Despite being intuitive, the story remains problematic. Imagine that Othello believes that a state of affairs obtains and also believes that he can change the past. He will very likely believe that he can act in favor of the obtaining of this state, despite his belief that the state already obtains. It is thus not clear why believing that a state obtains should require the absence of the belief that one could act in its favor. And, since no alternative motivational story of the death of desire principle suggests itself, the lesson is that the motivational view fails to provide a satisfactory explanation of it. This observation should lead us to worry whether the motivational conception is compatible with the death of desire principle in the first place. Imagine that Othello believes that he had gin and tonic, while also believing that he can go back in time. He might still be disposed to act in favor of having this very same drink, despite believing that he has just had it. Indeed, were he to travel back in time and at this point have the desire for this cocktail again, he would act so as to have it again. It is important to remind the reader that, in order to account for desires that do not involve actual motivation, the motivational view should provide room for such counterfactual motivation, as outlined earlier.40 This case would be harmless if desires did not vanish when subjects believe both that they can bring about a state of affairs and that this same state of affairs obtains. However, restricting the principle in this way is not really an option. Even if Othello believes that he can travel back in time, he will cease to desire to drink this particular gin and tonic at the instant he believes that he just drank it. True, as soon as he believes that he has travelled back in time, he might again desire that cocktail. But this might be because he then believes that he 39 See Döring & Eker this volume. 40 The worry presented focuses on the dispositional variant of the motivational view, but extends as well to the variant appealing to a motivational mode. 15 did not have this very same gin and tonic. In this respect, dispositions to act differ from desires: even before he travelled back in time, and despite believing that he just had this gin and tonic, Othello is disposed to have this drink. According to the motivational view, one should conclude that he still desires so. Yet, as just emphasized, this conclusion is counterintuitive. As far-fetched as this scenario could seem, it reveals that the motivational conception does not account for the death of desire: when one represents that a desire is satisfied, the desire vanishes, yet the disposition to act may still remain alive. 2.2.3. Motivational Consonance We commonly explain one's motivations with reference to one's evaluations in the same way as we do for desire. At first sight, the motivational view thus seems well placed to illuminate the explanation of desires. But does it capture explanations by desires? Consider the following explanation. Mary loves the Metropolitan Opera. This is why she desires to go to the Metropolitan opera. And she is disposed to go to the Metropolitan Opera because she desires to go to there. The more we know about Mary's mental states, the more we understand why she is disposed to act in this way. One explanation of the disposition is provided by her desire, which is in turn grounded in a positive evaluation (love). Although the mention of Mary's desire might be insufficient to justify her disposition to act, prima facie it provides a partial explanation of it. Moreover, the explanation seems to be partly causal: the desire causes and might also be the reason for her motivation. Now, given the already mentioned irreflexivity of causal relations, such explanations turn out to be vacuous if desires are nothing but dispositions to act. Yet, intuitively, these explanations appear to be informative. It thus seems that the motivational view fails to make sense of desire's explanatory power. This argument of course relies on a conception of motivation that the defender of the motivational conception of desire is unlikely to share. On this approach, desiring just is being motivated, and the alleged explanatory relations are vacuous. By contrast, our argument invites us to think of motivation as being partly dependent on desire rather than as being identical to it.41 In order to motivate this picture, it is fruitful to consult our modal intuitions about cases in which someone desires a state of affairs, but is not disposed to act in its favor. 41 See Marks 1986: 139-141, Schroeder 2004: 139 and Friedrich 2008: 6-7. 16 If such inert desires are conceivable, then we have a reason to think of desire as grounding motivation rather than being a motivation.42 Imagine that Romeo is suffering from a particular type of depression. His depression is such that it has deprived him from having any dispositions to act. Still, it is conceivable that he desires certain states of affairs. He might desire that his beloved Juliet fares well, despite not being disposed to do anything to bring this about. This case should not be confused with others in which a person fails to be motivated to act so as to satisfy some desire because a second stronger desire of hers outweighs the motivation of the first one. In the case under discussion, Romeo has no stronger desire nor is he lacking the modal beliefs necessary for being disposed to act. He strongly wants that p, has no conflicting desire, and believes that he can act in favor of p, yet fails to be disposed to act. The depression has not only masked the manifestation of the disposition; it has damaged the motivational system. This, I contend, is conceivable. Empirical studies even suggest that patients suffering from Parkinson's disease or akinetic mutism manifest this kind of inertia, despite the fact that these people seem to have desires.43 Moreover, the intuitive verdict of such cases is instructive: it is natural to diagnose Romeo as suffering from strong practical irrationality, or at least from an absence of practical rationality. This suggests that desires provide some reason to be disposed to act in favor of their satisfaction, although they might do so with the help of the evaluation on which they are based. This is one way that desires can ground motivations. If this argument is on the right track, then it appears that motivation is at most a sufficient condition for desire but not a necessary one. A desireless world could thus be a world without motivation, possibly inhabited by totally passive creatures. But this is explained by desires grounding motivations rather than being identical with them. The motivational "oomph" of desire could then be captured by means of this grounding relation. To sum up the dialectical situation, the classical conceptions of desire face inverted problems. On the one hand, axiological views focus on a necessary but insufficient condition for desire by outlining the evaluative ground of desire. On the other hand, motivational views focus on what is at most a sufficient but not necessary condition for desire, as they put emphasis on motivations based on desire. If this is correct, then the grain of truth in these approaches concerns the grounding relations instantiated by desire: what is grounded on desire 42 See Strawson's Weather Watchers (2009) for a candidate of inert desire. 43 See Schroeder 2004: 173-4. 17 (motivation) and what desire is grounded in (evaluation). This is why they seem to miss what they should capture: this thing called desire. This conclusion has been motivated by means of philosophical exploration, but the neuroscientific evidence on desire points our inquiry in the same direction. It is almost a dogma in neuroscience that desires are involved in the reward system and are related to the neurotransmitter of dopamine.44 According to the neuroscientific picture, desire comes with an anticipation of reward that regulates motivation and is in turn regulated by the experience of the actual reward. One important challenge is to translate these findings in folk psychological terms so as to shed light on the intentionality of desire. In this respect, Schroeder has done substantial work in claiming that the neuroscientific findings call for a picture of desire that differs from the classical ones. He argues that equating desire with an evaluative cognition fares poorly in the face of the empirical evidence.45 Similarly, he claims that the neuroscientific picture does not favor the motivational conception of desire.46 It goes far beyond the scope of this article to discuss this issue in detail. However, as far as our dialectic is concerned, it seems that the conclusions drawn so far in this chapter are in line with Schroeder's interpretation of the neuroscientific evidence. Furthermore, studies reveal that motivation is strongly influenced by desire and, in turn, by positive anticipation. It thus appears that the neuroscientific picture of desire aligns itself with the moral that has emerged: positive evaluation might ground desire and desire might ground motivation. In light of the empirical evidence, Schroeder has proposed to identify desires with representations of rewards.47 I venture that the deontic view of desire is one way of understanding what representations of rewards are from a first-person perspective. In the last section, I argue that the deontic conception can fill the explanatory gap between evaluation and motivation that has appeared on a priori grounds and that our neuroscientific interlude has corroborated. 3. Desire and Ought-to-Be: The Deontic Conception What if desires, like vows, prayers, and demands, were essentially deontic representations: that is, representations concerning what should be the case? Desiring to live in New York would amount to being somehow struck by the fact that one's living there is how things 44 See Schroeder and Railton this volume. 45 See Schroeder this volume. 46 Schroeder 2004: 107-130. 47 Schroeder 2004. 18 should be. This is the intuition that drives the deontic conception of desire defended in this article. This section presents this view (§3.1) and sketches three arguments in its favor (§3.2). 3.1. The Deontic View The deontic conception I shall defend has it that desiring is representing a state of affairs as what ought to be or as what should be, where this captures the deontic mode of representing. Given that this proposal refers to norms of the ought-to-be type, let me say a few words about them. There is a plethora of norms: one ought to keep one's promises, to avoid inflicting unnecessary suffering, and to eat properly, et cetera. In these examples, the word "ought" refers to the obligation for given subjects to act in certain ways. We use the same word "ought" with a closely related but distinct purpose when we say, for instance, that cancer ought not to exist, that Mary being happy is how things should be, or that things turned out the way they should have. Prima facie, no appeal to obligation to act in a certain way seems necessary to explain these uses of "ought." I shall assume here that the latter are ought-to-be norms – they are about states of affairs – and should be contrasted with ought-to-do norms.48 For the remaining of my discussion, it is important to keep in mind that the deontic view appeals exclusively to ought-to-be norms.49 It is another feature of the deontic conception that it rests on the distinction between mode and content.50 Desiring p is representing p as what ought to be or, if one prefers, as what should be. The content of a desire is a state of affairs (typically a non-deontic one), while its deontic character is taken care of at the level of the mode of representing the content. Desires are thus distinct from deontic beliefs: while deontic beliefs take deontic states of affairs as their content, desires involve a deontic manner of representing. In order to clarify the contrast, let me formulate an analogous proposal for belief. In believing p (say, that it rains), one represents p as obtaining or as actual. Within this picture, the difference between desire and belief consists in the presence either of a deontic or of an "existential" feature in the 48 On the distinction between ought-to-do and ought-to-be norms, see Harman 1973, Geach 1982, Jackson 1985, Von Wright 1998, Wedgwood 2006, 2007, and Schroeder 2011. 49 In this respect, the view I favor differs from the other deontic accounts in this volume, which appeal to reasons to act (Gregory) or norms in general (Massin). It is also different from accounts relying on the imperative mode or force, at least if the latter is constituted by an ought-to-do norm (see Schafer 2013, Archer 2015). 50 See Friedrich this volume. On modes, see Lauria 2014: 122-128. 19 respective modes.51 Most philosophers acknowledge the existence of intentional modes, but often assume that they are reducible to functional roles.52 On my proposal, it is important to observe that the deontic mode is irreducible to the functional role of desire, namely motivation. 53 My approach takes modes seriously and uses them to unravel desire's semantics, which, I think, was the credo of early phenomenologists.54 To my knowledge, there are no advocates of the deontic view in the contemporary literature, but Velleman and Massin defend related accounts.55 Meinong, however, if I interpret him correctly, has proposed this picture of desire.56 Be that as it may, the conception has the resources to meet our three desiderata, or so I will argue. 3.2. The Deontic View and the Desiderata The main idea is that ought-to-be norms are all we need to make sense of our desiderata because these norms instantiate the properties that were singled out in each desideratum. Let us address them in turn. 3.2.1. Direction of Fit and Ought-to-Be Let us assume that there is a sense in which norms have a direction of fit. This sense might not be literal. Directions of fit are features of representations, and considering that norms may not be representations, the assumption may seem far-fetched. But there are reasons to think it is not. If the idea of a direction of fit is to be understood in terms of appropriate ways for fit or satisfaction to obtain, then norms may well have a direction of fit. Norms, like desires, can be satisfied in the sense that their content can obtain. More importantly, in cases of mismatch between a norm and the world, it is clear that what should be changed, all things being equal, is the world. Consider that Sam ought to keep his promise. It is an essential feature of this norm that what should be changed, if anything, is the world – not the norm. As in the case of 51 Given the presence of the deontic feature in the mode, one might say that desiring p is oughting p. If it is assumed that oughts are requirements, it follows that desiring is, in a sense, requiring a state to obtain. I take it that those are equivalent formulations of the deontic view (Lauria 2014: 131). 52 This is explicit in the teleosemantic approach (e.g. Millikan 2005). 53 See Lauria 2016. 54 For other approaches to desire appealing to modes or force, see Friedrich 2012 and this volume; Schafer 2013 and Archer 2015 use force to unravel justificatory or inferential relations, respectively. 55 Velleman explicitly writes that desiring is representing some content as to be made true, while believing is representing content as a fact (Velleman 2000: 105). However, it appears that Velleman equates the mode of desire with goodness (Velleman 2000: 106, 115) and is thus a proponent of an evaluative conception of desire. In this volume, Massin argues that desire's formal object is the ought-to-be or ought-to-do, whereas the present proposal focuses on ought-to-be norms. Moreover, Massin does not equate desires with deontic representations, unlike what I argue here. 56 See Meinong 1917: 91, 96 for the essential relation desires bear to the ought-to-be and Meinong 1917: 37 for the view that the ought-to-be is part of desire's mode, at least as I understand him. 20 desire, changing the norm rather than the world would amount to cheating. This facet of norms is what makes them crucial in regulating people's behavior and ideally making the world a better place. This observation, of course, emerges from considering the satisfaction of norms, and is entirely compatible with some norms being inappropriate and thus in need of being changed. Still, if we focus exclusively on satisfaction, even inappropriate norms are such that the world should conform to them. In all these respects, then, norms behave exactly like desires. Note, too, that the differences between ought-to-do and the ought-to-be norms are irrelevant here as there is no reason to think that these norms differ in this regard. It is essential to the norm according to which, say, it ought not to be that people die in terrible pain that the world should conform to it rather than the other way around. This feature of norms, I contend, is the key to understanding the direction of fit of desire. Indeed, if desires involve a deontic mode, then the world must conform to them in order for satisfaction to obtain. The reason is that the world should meet norms. The contrast in direction of fit is made manifest when we focus on representations not involving a deontic mode. Consider the similar proposal made for beliefs. In believing that it rains, say, one represents the state of affairs that it rains as obtaining. Unlike desire, which involves a deontic manner of representing content, beliefs can be described from a first-person perspective without reference to any norm. After all, facts (i.e. what obtains) are not deontic entities, unlike norms. Since facts are not such that the world should conform to them, representing a state of affairs as obtaining does not imply that the world should conform to the representation. Rather, if anything, the representation of content as actual should conform to the facts, given that it represents its content as a fact. Beliefs thus come with the norm of conforming to reality, i.e. the mind-to-world direction of fit. The deontic view, then, is not only compatible with the direction of fit of desire; it also provides an appealing elucidation of this vexed metaphor. Desires have the world-to-mind direction of fit because they involve a deontic mode. In contrast to the evaluative conception, the proposal under discussion, grounded as it is in an essential feature of norms, is not ad hoc. Similarly, given its emphasis on ought-to-be rather than ought-to-do norms, the deontic view delivers the right satisfaction conditions for desire, unlike the motivational picture. The world should thus conform to our desires because the world is supposed to fit norms. 3.2.2. The Death of Desire Principle and Ought-to-Be 21 How does the deontic conception fare with the death of desire? Again, norms seem to satisfy a principle close to that of the death of desire. Consider the sentence: "Sam ought to answer this question now and Sam has answered this question now." Prima facie, this sentence sounds odd. Intuitively, if Sam has answered the question, then it is not the case that he ought to answer it, for he just did. Likewise, if Sam ought to answer the question, then it is not the case that he did, precisely because answering it is what he ought to do. Within this sentence, then, the deontic operator does not coexist happily with the existential operator. Now, there is prima facie no reason to think that the ought-to-be operator differs from the ought-to-do operator in this respect. It then follows that deontic operators are incompatible with the existential operator governing the very same content. In other words, norms are incompatible with the obtaining of their content. The norm is in place as long as its content does not obtain. As soon as its content is realized, it disappears. Norms do not survive their satisfaction. Or so it is intuitive to think.57 If there is indeed an incompatibility between a norm being in place and it being satisfied, then the following claim suggests itself: desires die when one believes that they are satisfied. For desire involves a deontic mode, while belief involves an existential one. As norms are incompatible with the facts that constitute their satisfaction, so are desires incompatible with beliefs about their actual satisfaction. Again, the symmetry between norms and desires is the key to explaining the death of desire principle.58 This being said, the deontic view is compatible with a more modest attitude vis-à-vis the death of desire principle. There are apparent counterexamples to the principle. For instance, my desire to treat other people with respect seems compatible with my belief that I treat them with respect. The same is true of any desire about general or non-dated states of affairs.59 What is important to recognize is that any apparent counterexamples in the case of desires also have analogous counterparts in the case of norms.60 Indeed, if we focus our attention on general norms, e.g. the norm that one should respect other people, then one might start questioning the alleged incompatibility of norms with their satisfaction. After all, at least 57 See Castaneda 1970. 58 See Meinong 1917: 143-5. 59 See Oddie this volume for another counterexample. 60 See, however, Lauria 2014: 243-250 for a defense of the principle against those cases. 22 prima facie, some people do respect others while still being supposed to do so. Sometimes things are exactly as they should be.61 Since the deontic view is committed to an analogy between desires and norms, it is not committed to the truth of the death of desire principle, but merely to the mirroring of desire and norms in relevant respects. It can accommodate counterexamples to the death of desire principle where there are symmetrical counterexamples to the claim that norms are incompatible with their satisfaction. Depending on one's intuitions, one may endorse a stronger or weaker claim about the principle without impacting on the force of its deontic explanation. The deontic conception can thus illuminate the death of desire principle whether the principle is true of all desire or not. Unlike the evaluative view, and provided that norms satisfy a similar principle to some extent, it does so without being ad hoc. In contrast with the motivational picture, it delivers the right satisfaction conditions while avoiding the problem that comes with an appeal to dispositions. Scheler already pointed out that norms are incompatible with facts and that representations of norms are in the same way incompatible with representations of facts.62 The originality of my proposal lies in equating the relevant representations of norms with desires, which shares the spirit of Meinong's suggestion.63 3.2.3. Consonance and Ought-to-Be In light of our discussion of the classical conceptions of desire, the deontic proposal should provide room and account for the following explanatory relations: desires are partly explained by positive evaluations and can partly explain motivations. The deontic view appears to meet this requirement. It is intuitive to explain why Sam represents being in New York as what ought to be with reference to his positive evaluation of this state of affairs. Similarly, it makes sense to explain why Mary is motivated to go to Los Angeles with reference to her representing this state of affairs as what ought to be. Can we substantiate these intuitions further? The answer will depend on whether values, ought-to-be norms, and ought-to-do norms instantiate similar relations. 61 See Massin this volume. 62 Scheler 1973: 207-8. 63 As Massin this volume underlines, Meinong understood the death of desire principle in terms of the idea that we desire future and contingent states of affairs. My understanding is different (Lauria 2014). Yet, the explanation of the principle is the same: the appeal to norms. 23 At first approximation, this seems to be the case. It is natural to think that p ought to be because p is valuable.64 Consider the norm that it ought to be that people heed traffic lights. This norm seems to be grounded in the goodness of heeding traffic lights, which, in turn, is inherited from the value of life. Likewise, obligations to act in given ways seem to be explainable by what ought to be, i.e. the state of affairs resulting from the action required. Mary ought to go to Los Angeles because it ought to be that she lives there. This might constitute only part of the explanation of the ought-to-do norm. Appealing to the evaluative property grounding the norm will provide a (more) complete explanation. Still, since explanatory relations are (at least to some extent) transitive, this is compatible with the idea that ought-to-be norms partly explain ought-to-do norms. Of course, much more can be said about the relations ought-to-be norms bear to values and ought-to-do norms.65 In particular, it should be shown that they are irreducible to these other entities, since reduction here would make the corresponding explanations vacuous.66 Yet, on the face of it, the suggested articulation of the relations between values, ought-to-be norms, and ought to-do norms seems to be informative, or, more to the point, as consonant as the explanatory relations holding between desires, evaluations, and motivations. Desires can explain motivations and be explained by evaluations because ought-to-be norms ground ought-to-do norms and are built on goodness. Conclusion In this chapter, I argued that the deontic conception of desire constitutes a promising approach to the intentionality of desire. Desiring is representing a state of affairs as what ought to be. Indeed, classical views face the challenge of explaining desire's direction of fit, accommodating the death of desire principle, and articulating satisfactorily the explanatory relations instantiated by desire. I claimed that the deontic view can meet the three crucial desiderata, since norms of the ought-to-be type share the relevant properties. In a nutshell, the deontic mode elegantly espouses the contours of desire: desires and ought-to-be fit like hand and glove. This is not to say that the classical views of desire fail to capture anything about desire. Quite the contrary, in fact: if the deontic conception is correct, then the classical views of desire emphasize what appear to be the grounding relations instantiated by desire. In 64 See Meinong 1917: 99, Scheler 1973: 184, Mulligan 1998, Ogien & Tappolet 2009, and Tappolet forthcoming. 65 For a more detailed discussion, see Lauria 2014: 177-185. 66 On the distinction between values and norms, see Massin this volume. 24 this respect, the deontic conception can secure the grain of truth of the classical views without suffering from their pitfalls. In addition to offering an alternative picture of desire, the proposal is a first step in reinstalling intentional modes at the heart of our philosophical preoccupations. It is not clear that functional roles capture all there is about intentionality. There is room for a first-personal approach to the mind that takes seriously the idea that mental representations are different points of view about the world. Specifying this idea in terms of intentional modes could then disclose the "logic" of mental representations, as I tried to do with the case of desire. A desireless world would thus be a world in which creatures do not represent anything as what ought to be, do not require anything of the world, and do not care whether some states of affairs obtain or not. It would be a dull world deprived of any aspirations – and of much of its charm – because desire is the "eye" of what should be.67 References Anscombe, G. E. M. (1963). Intention. Oxford: Blackwell. Aquinas, T. (1920-1942). Summa Theologica. London: Burns, Oates & Washburne. Archer, A. (2015). 'Reconceiving Direction of Fit', Thought, 4 (3), 171-180. Armstrong, D. M. (1968). A Materialist Theory of the Mind. London & New York: Routledge. Arpaly, N. & Schroeder, T. (2013). In Praise of Desire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Boghossian, P. (2003). 'The Normativity of Content', Philosophical Issues, 13, 32-45. Castañeda, H.-N. (1970). 'On the Semantics of the Ought-to-do', Synthese, 21 (3-4), 449– 468. Dancy, J. (2000). Practical Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Davidson, D. (2001). Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Deonna, J. & Teroni, F. (2012). The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction. London & New York: Routledge. Descartes, R. (1989). The Passions of the Soul. Translated by S. H. Voss. Indianapolis: Hackett. De Sousa, R. (1987). The Rationality of Emotion. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. - (2011). Emotional Truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dretske, F. (1988). Explaining Behavior. Reasons in a World of Causes. Cambridge, London: MIT Press. Friedrich, D. G. (2008). An Affective Theory of Desire. Ph.D. Dissertation. - (2012). 'The Alluringness of Desire', Philosophical Explorations: An International Journal for the Philosophy of Mind and Action, 15 (3), 291-302. Frost, K. (2014). 'On the Very Idea of Direction of Fit', Philosophical Review,123 (4), 429-484. 67 This article is a summary of my Ph.D. Dissertation. I wish to express my gratitude to the following people for their insights and support: Julien Deonna, Gianfranco Soldati, Fabrice Teroni, Kevin Mulligan, Graham Oddie, Peter Railton, Martine Nida-Rümelin, Richard Dub, Otto Brun, Alexander Bown, Clare Mac Cumhaill, Alexander Skiles, David Sander, Timothy Bayne, Olivier Massin, Amanda Garcia, Ghislain Guigon, Anne Meylan, Julien Dutant and the contributors to this volume. 25 Galen. (2005) On the Doctrines of Plato and Hippocrates. Edited by P. De Lacy. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Geach, P.T. (1982). 'Whatever Happened to Deontic Logic?', Philosophia, 11, 1-12. Goldman, A. H. (2009). Reasons from Within. Desires and Values. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harman, G. (1973). 'Review of The Significance of Sense: Meaning Modality, and Morality', Philosophical Review, 82, 235-239. Hobbes T. (1994). Leviathan. Edited by E. Curley. Indianapolis: Hackett. Humberstone, I. L. (1992). 'Direction of Fit', Mind, 101 (401), 59–83. Jackson, F. (1985). 'On the Semantics and Logic of Obligation', Mind, 94 (374), 177-195. Kant, I. (1997). Critique of Practical Reason. Edited by M. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kenny, A. (1963). Action, Emotion and Will. London & New York: Routledge. Lauria, F. (2014). "The Logic of the Liver." A Deontic View of the Intentionality of Desire. Ph.D. Dissertation. - (2016). 'L'oeil du devoir-être. La conception déontique de l'intentionnalité du désir et les modes intentionnels', Studia Philosophica, Special issue "Intentionnalité et subjectivité", edited by G. Fréchette, J. Friedrich and A. Hügli. Locke, J. (1975). An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Edited by P. H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Marks, J. (1986). 'The Difference between Motivation and Desire', in J. Marks (ed.), The Ways of Desire. New Essays in Philosophical Psychology on the Concept of Wanting. Chicago: Precedent Publishing. Meinong, A. (1917). On Emotional Presentation. Translation (1972). Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Mele, Alfred (2003). Motivation and Agency. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Millikan, R. G. (2005). Language: A Biological Model. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Milliken, J. (2008). 'In a Fitter Direction: Moving Beyond the Direction of Fit Picture of Belief and Desire', Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 11, 563–571. Mulligan, K. (1998). 'The Spectre of Inverted Emotions and the Space of Emotions', Acta Analytica, 89-105. Oddie, G. (2005). Value, Reality, and Desire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ogien, R. & Tappolet, C. (2009). Les concepts de l'éthique. Faut-il être conséquentialiste? Paris: Hermann Editeurs. Papineau, D. (1984). 'Representation and Explanation', Philosophy of Science, 51, 550-72. Plato. (1953). The Dialogues of Plato. Translation B. Jowett, 4th ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Platts, M. (1979). Ways of Meaning. An Introduction to a Philosophy of Language. London, Henley & Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Sartre, J.-P. (1984). Being and Nothingness. Translated by H. E. Barnes. New York: Washington Square Press. Schafer, K. (2013). 'Perception and the Rational Force of Desire', Journal of Philosophy, 110 (5), 258-281. Scheler, M. (1973). Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values: A New Attempt Toward the Foundation of an Ethical Personalism. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press. Schroeder, M. (2011). 'Ought, Agents, and Actions', Philosophical Review, 120, 1-41. Schroeder T. (2004). Three Faces of Desire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Searle, J. R. (1983). Intentionality. An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, M. (1994). The Moral Problem. Oxford: Blackwell. 26 Sobel, D. & Copp, D. (2001). 'Against Direction of Fit Accounts of Belief and Desire', Analysis, 61 (1), 44-53. Stalnaker, R. (1984). Inquiry. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Stampe, D. W. (1986). 'Defining Desire', in J. Marks (ed.), The Ways of Desire. New Essays in Philosophical Psychology on the Concept of Wanting. Chicago: Precedent Publishing. - (1987). 'The Authority of Desire', The Philosophical Review, 96 (3), 335-381. Strawson, G. (2009). Mental Reality. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Tappolet, C. (2000). Emotions et valeurs. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. - (forthcoming) 'Evaluative Vs. Deontic Concepts', in H. Lafollette (ed.), International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Tenenbaum, S. (2007). Appearances of the Good. An Essay on the Nature of Practical Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. - (2013). 'The Guise of the Good', The International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Velleman, J. D. (1992). 'The Guise of the Good', Noûs, 26 (1), 3-26. - (2000). The Possibility of Practical Reason. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Von Wright, G. H. (1998). 'Ought to be – Ought to do', in G. Meggle (ed.), Actions, Norms, Values. Berlin: De Gruyter. Wedgwood, R. (2006). 'The Meaning of 'Ought'', Oxford Studies in Metaethics, 1, 127-160. - (2007). The Nature of Normativity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. | {
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Defending Gödel against Floyd-Putnam's Wittgenstein In a paper published in the very last year of the last century, Juliet Floyd and Hilary Putnam argued that Wittgenstein's so-called "notorious paragraph" may be understood as containing an idea of great philosophical interest,1 namely (FPW) Let P be the Gödel sentence of the system PM2. Then if one assumes that ¬P is provable in PM, one should give up the translation of P by the English sentence 'P is not provable'. I think Floyd and Putnam are in fact right in saying that what they attribute to Wittgenstein is of philosophical interest. In this note, however, I will make two specific points against them: (A) with a minimally charitable reading of Gödel's introduction to his 1931 paper,3 FPW does not serve as a successful attack on what might be called the popular interpretation of the first incompleteness theorem, an interpretation according to which Gödel has shown that there are 1 "A Note on Wittgenstein's 'Notorious Paragraph' about the Gödel Theorem" [hereafter FP], The Journal of Philosophy, 97 (2000): 624-632. See also Timothy Bays's critical note, "On Floyd and Putnam on Wittgenstein on Gödel", ibid., 101 (2004): 197-210, and their reply to Bays, "Bays, Steiner, and Wittgenstein's 'Notorious' Paragraph about the Gödel Theorem" [hereafter FP2], ibid., 103 (2006): 101-110. 2 That is, the system of Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathematica. One question in the recent debate over Wittgenstein's comments on Gödel is whether or not one may consider systems like Peano Arithmetic on a par with PM (see the articles referred to in the previous footnote, as well as Bays's reply to FP2, available at http://www3.nd.edu/~tbays/papers/wnp2.pdf). My concerns here are independent of this issue. 3 "On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems I", in Solomon Feferman et al., eds., Kurt Gödel Collected Works, Volume I: Publications 1929-1936 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 145-195. 1 true but unprovable sentences; (B) since something perfectly analogous to FPW can be said concerning the second incompleteness theorem, the fact that Wittgenstein does not express any qualms about the second theorem gives us some evidence that Floyd and Putnam might have been overly charitable to Wittgenstein in ascribing to him a deep insight into Gödel's theorem and a solid knowledge of ω-consistency and related notions. What gives additional force to (B) is that, unlike the case of the first theorem, the second theorem is not-or not so obviously-immune to an FPW-based attack. Theses (A) and (B) will be defended in sections II and III respectively. I will start with a clarificatory note (section I); before embarking on that, let me, in conformity with the tradition, quote the notorious paragraph in full. I imagine someone asking my advice; he says: "I have constructed a proposition (I will use 'P' to designate it) in Russell's symbolism, and by means of certain definitions and transformations it can be so interpreted that it says: 'P is not provable in Russell's system'. Must I not say that this proposition on the one hand is true, and on the other hand is unprovable? For suppose it were false; then it is true that it is provable. And that surely cannot be! And if it is proved, then it is proved that it is not provable. Thus it can only be true, but unprovable." Just as we ask, " 'provable' in what system?", so we must also ask, " 'true' in what system?" 'True in Russell's system' means, as was said: proved in Russell's system; and 'false in Russell's system' means: the opposite has been proved in Russell's system.-Now what does your "suppose it is false" mean? In the Russell sense it means 'suppose the opposite is proved in Russell's system'; if that is your assumption, you will now presumably give up the interpretation that it is unprovable. And by 'this interpretation' I understand the translation into this English sentence.-If you assume that the proposition is provable in Russell's system, 2 that means it is true in the Russell sense, and the interpretation "P is not provable" again has to be given up. If you assume that the proposition is true in the Russell sense, the same thing follows. Further: if the proposition is supposed to be false in some other than the Russell sense, then it does not contradict this for it to be proved in Russell's system. (What is called "losing" in chess may constitute winning in another game.)4 I. While in his formal and official statement of the incompleteness theorems Gödel does not mention truth, it is very popular indeed-and Gödel's own informal discussion in Section 1 of his paper is at least partly responsible for the popularity of this practice-to interpret the first incompleteness theorem as saying that for every consistent axiomatizable theory T which is capable of incorporating a certain small part of arithmetic, there is a sentence P which is true (i.e., true in the standard model N) and is independent of T. Unlike many other commentators, Floyd and Putnam read the notorious paragraph not as an attempt at refuting Gödel's theorem, but as an argument against this interpretation of it. For the sake of discussion, let us grant Floyd and Putnam that Wittgenstein is in fact just criticizing the following Target Argument for the popular reading of the first incompleteness theorem (extracted, with obvious little changes, from the notorious paragraph quoted above): (TA) Suppose P were false; then it is true that it is provable. And that surely cannot be! And if it is proved, then it is proved that it is not provable. Thus it can only be true, but unprovable. 4 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, G.H. von Wright et al., eds. (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, revised ed., 1978), I, Appendix III, §8, pp. 118 f. 3 How is Wittgenstein's criticism of TA supposed to go through? Neither in their original article nor in its sequel, Floyd and Putnam are ideally clear here-it is not crystal clear how exactly is FPW related to the popular reading of the first incompleteness theorem. It seems to me that what FP's Wittgenstein had in mind is something along with the following argument. (If you already find FP(2)'s presentation clear, you may skip to the next section.) (1) When talking about P being true or false, your use of 'true' and 'false' should be qualified by means of your answer to the question, 'True/false in what system?' (2) The only relevant answer is: 'In T.'5 True means T-provable, false means T-refutable. (3) FPW. That is to say, if you assume that ¬P is provable in T, then you have to give up the interpretation of P as saying that P is not provable. (4) But then you cannot say that the sentence P is unprovable and true. The reason is that, although P is in fact unprovable if T is consistent, P can no longer be understood as expressing its own unprovability. In other words, the reductio assumption (of TA) alters the meaning of P, so that when you assume that P is false [i.e., refutable in T], P can no longer be interpreted as talking about its own provability. Therefore, (5) The popular reading of Gödel's theorem is untenable (insofar as it is supposed to be supported by TA). 5 Here T is the theory (or "system") which is subject to the first incompleteness theorem, e.g., the system of PM. Once again, I do not intend to enquire into the following question: So far as Wittgensteinian considerations are concerned, are we allowed to replace PM with Peano Arithmetic (or with Robinson's Q, etc.)? 4 As for (1) and (2), I take FP's word for it that they are justified if we adopt Wittgenstein's way of looking at the project of Principia Mathematica (see FP, pp. 629-631). Concerning (3), Floyd and Putnam do a superb job in justifying it. Their argument for (3) goes like this. If P is refutable in T, then, as Gödel proves in his paper, T is ω-inconsistent, an easy consequence of which being that no model of T is isomorphic to the standard model N. By Gödel's construction, the sentence P is, in the eye of T, equivalent to ∃¬ xPROOF(x, #P), where PROOF represents, in T, the effectively computable relation Proof, a relation which holds between two natural numbers a and b iff a is the Gödel number of a T-proof of a sentence whose Gödel number is b. Now if it turns out that T has no standard model (e.g., because of its ωinconsistency), we can no longer interpret PROOF in standard natural numbers, hence it is not clear at all that PROOF is saying anything about the relation Proof. More specifically, if m is a non-standard number in the universe of a model M of T, we have no reason to think of M ⊨ PROOF[m,#P] as saying anything about the existence of a T-proof of P. I think (1)-(5) is a lovely argument. However, and despite my dislike of Gödel's remarks in his introduction, I think the (1)-(5) argument does not work against TA, at least not if we augment TA with its obvious missing premise. This is the subject matter of my next section. II. FP's Wittgenstein holds that TA is not a good argument, for if one assumes that ¬P is provable (and, for FP's Wittgenstein, this is what it means for P to be false), one will then "presumably give up the interpretation" that P is expressing its own unprovability. The reason given by FP's Wittgenstein, to recapitulate, is founded on the well-known fact that if ¬P is 5 provable then T is ω-inconsistent. Now, informative as these observations are, I do not think that they defuse TA. Or, to be more precise, I think they do not defuse TA in the context of Gödel's paper. Let me explain. As made explicit by Gödel (op. cit., p. 147), the argument sketched in the introduction to his 1931 paper was "without any claim to complete precision". It is, therefore, no surprise that there is no mention of the rather unintuitive (and perhaps ad-hoc looking) notion of ωconsistency throughout his introductory Section 1 (pp. 145-151). Surely Gödel knew it as well as anyone that the simple consistency of T does not imply the irrefutability of P,6 and in the technical part of his paper he defined the notion of ω-consistency and employed it to prove the first incompleteness theorem.7 That being so, charity requires us to believe that, even in the informal and introductory part of his paper, the technical assumption of ω-consistency is at work. But then the (1)-(5) argument is blocked, for the assumption of ω-consistency makes FPW, as it occurs in that argument, vacuous. The assumption of ω-consistency, which is explicitly included in the statement of the first incompleteness theorem (Theorem VI in Gödel op. cit, p. 181), guarantees that ¬P is not provable; insofar as the arguments adduced by Floyd and Putnam are concerned, it also 6 Shortly after the publication of Gödel's paper, J.B. Rosser presented another self-referential sentence whose irrefutability depends on the simple consistency of T. It remains true, however, that the simple consistency of T does not guarantee the unprovability of ¬P. See also the next footnote. 7 Gödel op. cit., pp. 173 ff. At least since the 1950s it is known that the full power of ω-consistency is not needed to prove the first incompleteness theorem. Kreisel weakened the assumption of ω-consistency to 1consistency, and even this is more than what is needed. For a comprehensive survey of this and relevant notions, see Daniel Isaacson, "Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Undecidability of the Gödel Sentence and Its Truth", in David DeVidi et al., eds., Logic, Mathematics, Philosophy, Vintage Enthusiasms: Essays in Honour of John L. Bell (New York: Springer, 2011), pp. 135-152. 6 deprives Wittgenstein of any reason to think that "the 'translation' of P as 'P is not provable in PM' is untenable" (FP, p. 625). As it stands, the (1)-(5) argument is simply irrelevant to Gödel's informal argument, given that Gödel was fully aware of the requirement of ωconsistency. I find it unfortunate that, in his introduction, Gödel talks about the truth of the Gödel sentence of a system, and I am in agreement with Alister Watson when he says that Gödel's informal discussion of the theorem "obscures, rather than illuminates the point".8 However, if what I have said here is correct, Gödel's remarks are not susceptible to the worries that Floyd and Putnam put in Wittgenstein's mouth. III. Some years ago, Georg Kreisel reported that in the early 1940s Wittgenstein had told him that, "having been put off by the introduction," he had never read Gödel's proof.9 This would be of some interest if one's question were whether Wittgenstein, the man, had understood Gödel's theorems, given that the notorious paragraph was written in 1937. That, however, is not my concern here. The point I am going to make is the following hypothetical: if someone of Wittgenstein's calibre reads Gödel's paper and makes the observations FP claims he made, then it is rather odd that he does not make similar observations concerning the second incompleteness theorem. In fact, he could have made a stronger case against (the prose of) the second theorem. Here is why. 8 "Mathematics and Its Foundations," Mind, 47 (1938): 440-451, at p. 446, quoted by FP, op. cit, at p. 628n10. 9 "Second Thoughts Around Some of Gödel's Writings: A Non-academic Option", Synthese, 114 (1998): 99-160. For Floyd's scepticism concerning this report, see her "Proof versus Prose: Wittgenstein on Gödel, Tarski and Truth", Philosophia Mathematica (3), 9 (2001): 280-307, at p. 285n14. 7 Already in his introductory Section 1 we hear Gödel saying that the precise analysis of the informal argument he just gave "leads to surprising results concerning consistency proofs for formal systems", and that these results "will be discussed in more detail in Section 4 (Theorem XI)". Theorem XI is what is now called Gödel's second incompleteness theorem, formulated thus in Gödel's paper:10 Let κ be any recursive consistent class of FORMULAS; then the SENTENTIAL FORMULA stating that κ is consistent is not κ-PROVABLE; in particular, the consistency of P is not provable in P, provided P is consistent (in the opposite case, of course, every proposition is provable [in P]). Gödel then goes on to sketch the proof. Now the important thing for Wittgenstein (or for FP's Wittgenstein anyway) would be: What is exactly the sentential formula which states that κ is consistent? In Gödel's notation, this is the formula Wid(κ), which is defined in Gödel's footnote 63 to be (Ex)(Form(x) & Bewκ(x)). The required definitions are given in items 23 and 46 of Section 2, respectively, and Bew is the exact same predicate about which FP's Wittgenstein said its interpretation as provable has to be given up if the system (here κ) turns out to be ω-inconsistent. Now if the translation of Bew as provable is doubtful, then of course the translation of Wid as consistent 10 Footnotes omitted, italics and the square brackets are present in the version appeared in the Collected Works, op. cit., p. 193. The attentive reader will surely not mistake the reference of Gödel's 'P' with Wittgenstein's: in Gödel, P is the system under question, while Wittgenstein uses 'P' to denote the Gödel sentence of the system. Also, note that what Gödel calls recursive [rekursive] is nowadays called primitive recursive; the scope of the first incompleteness theorem as Gödel states it, then, is wider than what a modern-day reader might understand from the sentence. 8 is no less doubtful. One would then expect to see the same kind of attack on the translation of Wid(κ) as stating that 'κ is consistent'. Wittgenstein, however, disappoints this expectation. And that is not the end. That is not the end because, although Gödel's assumption of ω-consistency in the official statement of the first theorem makes FPW vacuous, no such assumption is being made in the case of the second theorem: ω-consistent or not, κ does not prove Wid(κ) provided that κ is simply consistent. Unlike the first incompleteness theorem, the official formulation of the second incompleteness theorem does admit of ω-inconsistent systems, and FP's Wittgenstein could have said that in those systems one should give up the interpretation of Wid(κ) as the consistency of the system.11 To summarize, although I am sympathetic to the insightful claim of FPW, I have argued for two theses. First, I think FPW is not applicable to the first incompleteness theorem because the assumption of ω-consistency is present there. Secondly, I have argued that FPW is applicable to the second incompleteness theorem, so that one must have reservations in 11 Throughout my argument, I overlooked Timothy Bays's case against FPW (see footnotes 1 and 3 above), to the effect that in the apocalyptic aftermath of a discovery that Peano Arithmetic (or another axiomatizable extension of Robinson's Q) is ω-inconsistent, it is more probable that mathematicians will give up the ωinconsistent system than giving up the familiar translation of P. For the purposes of my argument here, I need not make my mind about Bays's thesis. The second incompleteness theorem is supposed to say something quite general about a wide array of systems, viz. they cannot prove their own consistency if they are in fact consistent. Even if we intentionally make up an ω-inconsistent theory-presumably for studying something other than the standard model N-we still want to say that it cannot prove its consistency if it is consistent. But now the FPW insight challenges the interpretation of Wid(κ) (or, Con(κ) in the modern jargon) as the consistency of κ. 9 saying that the theorem says something about the unprovability of the consistency, and this I find of genuine philosophical importance-though the fact that Wittgenstein did not comment on it diminishes our confidence in his understanding of Gödel's proof. | {
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Hayek versus Trump: The Radical Right's Road to Serfdom Aris Trantidis, University of Lincoln, United Kingdom Nick Cowen, University of Lincoln, United Kingdom Hayek's The Road to Serfdom has been interpreted as a general warning against state intervention in the economy.1 We review this argument in conjunction with Hayek's later work and discern an institutional thesis about which forms of state intervention and economic institutions could threaten personal and political freedom. Economic institutions pose a threat if they allow for coercive interventions, as described by Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty: by giving someone the power to force others to serve one's will by threatening to inflict harm, in the absence of general rules of conduct. According to the logic of the argument, welfare-state provisions are not coercive insofar as they do not allow the identification and discriminatory treatment of individuals. By contrast, we claim that a structure of coercion is likely to emerge from the command-and-control nature of protectionist institutions and immigration restrictions currently advocated by the radical right. Keywords: Hayek, Road to Serfdom, state intervention, rule of law, radical right, economic freedom and democracyHayek's The Road to Serfdom is a compelling but imperfectly understood in-tellectual statement about the relationship between economic institutions and personal and political freedom. Hayek's original thesis is that the fully planned economy can set a society on a path to totalitarianism. What makes Hayek's description unique is that the initial stages of this path require no malicious intent on behalf of statesmen seeking power but result from the epistemic challenges theyThis work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ES/J500057/1). We are grateful for the supportive feedback this paper received at the March 2015 Meetings of the Public Choice Society in San Antonio, Texas, and the April 2016 Midwest Political Science Association conference in Chicago, Illinois. 1. Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). Published online March 5, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1086/707769 Polity, volume 52, number 2 (April 2020), pp. 159–188. 0032-3497/2020/5202-0002$10.00. © 2020 Northeastern Political Science Association. All rights reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits reuse of the work with attribution. This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 160 | Hayek versus Trumpface when replacing the market with a political process.2 This has sparked controversy over Hayek's position on mixed economies, which differ significantly from the socialist planned economy he originally had in mind. Is he making a gloomy prediction about the political prospects of the welfare state too? Is his work a calumny aimed at discrediting any form of regulatory intervention? If Hayek is indeed attacking welfare states in general, then his thesis appears to be refuted by the fact that contemporary mixed economies have maintained political liberty. In this article, we aim to show that the key problem of interpretation stems from a reading of Serfdom based on isolated passages. A combined reading of Hayek's Serfdom and his The Constitution of Liberty establishes a more coherent argument, which applies to today's shifting political and economic landscape and is relevant to contemporary debates about the role of the state and the prospects of liberal democracy. In Constitution, Hayek introduces the notion of coercion as a state in which "one man's actions are made to serve another man's will, not for his own but for the other's purpose,". . . when "the alternatives are so manipulated that one is compelled to choose what the coercer wants as the least painful choice."3 This occurs when a person controls the environment or circumstances of another person and poses options so manipulated that the coercer forces the other person to choose a path of action that is the least painful for him and serves the coercer's purpose.4 Personal freedom (the "state of liberty") is thus "independence from the arbitrary will of another" and depends on general rules delineating a wide range of choice in shaping one's course of behavior according to one's own will.5 We posit that the notion of coercion holds the key to reconstructing a coherent argument by addressing two interpretative gaps. First, we link the notion of coercion to Hayek's core theme, the epistemic properties of institutions, which underpins Serfdom. Second, we establish a link between coercion that limits personal freedom and limitations on political freedom. Hayek associated coercion with3. Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty: The Definitive Edition, ed. Ronald Hamowy, The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, vol. 17 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 199. 4. Ibid., 133. 5. Ibid., 59; see also Chandran Kukathas, Hayek and Modern Liberalism (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1989), 132; and Theodore L. Putterman, "Berlin's Two Concepts of Liberty: A Reassessment and Revision," Polity 38 (2006): 416–46, at 419. 2. Peter J. Boettke, "Information and Knowledge: Austrian Economics in Search of Its Uniqueness," Review of Austrian Economics 15 (2002): 263–74, at 264; Dan Greenwood, "Facing Complexity: Democracy, Expertise and the Discovery Process," Political Studies 58 (2010): 769– 88, at 771–72; Dan Greenwood, "The Problem of Coordination in Politics: What Critics of Neoliberalism Might Draw from Its Advocates," Polity 43 (2011): 36–57, at 42; and K. Sabeel Rahman, "Conceptualizing the Economic Role of the State: Laissez-Faire, Technocracy, and the Democratic Alternative," Polity 43 (2011): 264–86, at 272. This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). Aris Trantidis and Nick Cowen | 161personal freedom, which he distinguished from "political liberty" or "political freedom," concepts he identified with democracy.6 As a result, in Constitution Hayekmade no system-level generalizations about how arbitrary state intervention can unleash a path to authoritarianism, as he did in his critique of the planned economy in Serfdom.7 Bringing together Hayek's ideas about the epistemic properties of institutions, coercion, and democracy allows us to suggest what types of state intervention other than central planning are likely to have a negative impact on political freedom. Hayek's Serfdom thesis should neither be read as a general indictment of the mixed economy nor as a statement exclusively limited to the case of central planning in a socialist economy. We argue instead that Hayek offers a general warning aimed at discriminatory state interventions in economic life that undermine the competitive market process with coercive commands. Based on this argument, we examine aspects of the mixed economy in order to address the question: Which economic agendas are more likely to lead to illiberal political outcomes? This reading of Hayek allows us to assess current policy trends and institutional settings. We revisit the protectionist policies propounded by the radical right, a political movement defined by an economic ideology that professes respect for private property and capitalism but advocates extensive protectionism and tight immigration controls. The radical right has made significant electoral gains in Western Europe and the United States. Its influence is increasingly felt by mainstream parties too, such as the Republican Party in the United States and the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom, which have shifted toward acceptance of protectionism and stricter immigration controls. This policy direction, we explain, entails risks that can be associated with the Hayekian warning. Hayek's Institutional Thesis The Epistemic-Institutional Foundations of The Road to Serfdom Hayek's popular book has been interpreted as a prediction about the catastrophic effects of large-scale state economic interventions that depart from the classical liberal ideals of "laissez-faire."8 This reading comes in two distinct forms. The first one6. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 58, 168, and 61–62, respectively (see note 2 above). See also Sean Irving, "Limiting Democracy and Framing the Economy: Hayek, Schmitt and Ordoliberalism," History of European Ideas 44 (2018): 113–27, at 118. 7. See Andrew Farrant and Edward McPhail, "Hayek, Samuelson, and the Logic of the Mixed Economy?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 69 (2009): 5–16, at 13. 8. Elsewhere Hayek repudiated dogmatic support for laissez-faire, suggesting that the intuition behind the phrase only offered a "rule of thumb" about what government regulation was This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 162 | Hayek versus Trumpcan be labelled the "expansionary interpretation." It claims that Hayek's logic of state economic intervention can also be observed in a mixed economy and, hence, building a mixed economy carries the risk of creating a slippery slope to a fully planned economy and totalitarianism.9 This interpretation is popular among committed advocates of free markets as a general warning against the impact of state intervention on political freedom. Critics of Hayek's prediction follow this interpretation and emphasize that Hayek's predictions in Serfdom have not materialized in the context of mixed economies.10 The second interpretation suggests that there is a quantifiable threshold after which this slippery slope effect will materialize: a path to authoritarianism will be unleashed after state intervention in the economy reaches a certain degree. Hayek's argument has been presented as quantifiable and, therefore, falsifiable. Rosser as well asMeadowcroft andAlves deduce that the proportion of GDPmade up of public expenditure is a reasonable measure of the intensity of economic intervention. Meadowcroft and Alves take their cue from Hayek's reference in Serfdom to the German economy in the 1930s: Where, as was, for example, true in Germany as early as 1928, the central and local authorities directly control the use of more than half the national income (according to an official German estimate then, 53 per cent), they control indirectly almost the whole economic life of the nation.11 In that view, if Hayek was correct, mixed economies in the West with relatively high state expenditures should have already unleashed the slippery slope to totalitarianism, but empirical reality disconfirms this prediction. Hayek's thesis, therefore,appropriate. See Friedrich A. von Hayek, Law, Legislation, and Liberty: Rules and Order, vol. 1 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1993 [1937]), 62. 9. Paul A. Samuelson, "Personal Freedoms and Economic Freedoms, in theMixed Economy," in The Business Environment, ed. E. F. Cheit (New York: Wiley, 1964): 193–227, at 226–27; Paul A. Samuelson, Economics, 12th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985); and Paul A. Samuelson, "Economic History and Mainstream Economic Analysis," Rivista Di Storia Economica (2001): 271–89, at 305. See also Farrant and McPhail, "Hayek, Samuelson, and the Logic of the Mixed Economy?" (see note 7 above); and Andrew Farrant and Edward McPhail, "Does F. A. Hayek's Road to Serfdom Deserve to Make a Comeback?," Challenge 53 (July 2010): 96–120, at 102. 10. Stavros Ioannides, "Austrian Economics, Socialism, and Impure Forms of Economic Organisation," Review of Political Economy 12 (2000): 45–71, at 46. 11. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 103 (see note 1 above); also see André Azevedo Alves and JohnMeadowcroft, "Hayek's Slippery Slope, the Stability of the Mixed Economy and the Dynamics of Rent Seeking," Political Studies 62 (2014): 843–61, at 846; and J. Barkley Rosser, "The Road to Serfdom and the World Economy: 60 Years Later," European Journal of Political Economy 21 (2005): 1012–25, at 1017. This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). Aris Trantidis and Nick Cowen | 163is disproven by the personal liberties and stable democratic institutions observed in advanced mixed economies with relatively high state expenditures. Boettke and Candela challenge this interpretation by placing Serfdomwithin the broader epistemic program launched by Mises and developed by Hayek as part of the socialist calculation debate.12 They argue that Hayek makes an institutional argument about the association between state intervention and authoritarianism. Focusing on the institutional infrastructure within which economic activity takes place, they discern that the organizational logic of planning and the situational logic of a move towards a planned economy bring instability to liberal institutions: The logic of the situation and the logic of organization under socialist planning are such that democracy and the rule of law are unsustainable in substantive content, and the system, if pursued to its logical end, would result in the concentration of political power in the hands of the men least capable of constraining the abuse of power.13 Boettke and Candela also put forward an epistemic-institutionalist interpretation of Serfdom. We develop their argument by highlighting that in Serfdom central planning has negative effects on political liberty because the epistemic deficiencies of that system generate conflicts as well as demands in society for strong leadership, which then enables the rise of an authoritarian leader who claims it is necessary to address these problems. This point allows us to further advance Hayek's argument in the following sections in two ways. Focusing on the relationship between commands and personal liberty, we revisit Hayek's Constitution and develop a broader institutional argument explaining why, besides planning, economic regimes that are characterized by political commands and administrative discretion pose a threat to political liberty. On that basis, we will explain why the economic agenda of protectionism, as espoused by the radical right in the policy fields of international trade, industrial development, and immigration, constitutes such a threat. Hayek aims to dispel the belief that socialism can be achieved and maintained by democratic means and to promote the idea that efforts to organize a planned economy would have unintended political consequences that no socialist would endorse.14 Hayek defined socialism as the replacement of private ownership of the means of production with a planned economy where a central planning body12. Peter J. Boettke and Rosolino A. Candela, "The Intellectual Context of F. A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom," Journal of Private Enterprise 32 (2017): 29–44. 13. Ibid., 36. 14. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 79, 82 (see note 1 above). This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 164 | Hayek versus Trumpdisplaces the entrepreneur working for profit.15 In this type of economy the impersonal mechanism of the market is replaced by the "collective and 'conscious' direction of all social forces to deliberately chosen goals."16 In his view, a move to a planned economywould risk an outcome different from the intended aims of socialists: "instead of freedom and prosperity, bondage and misery."17 This outcome can be initially unforeseen and unintended, and soHayek reminded socialists of the classical liberal postulate that personal and political freedom had never existed in the past without freedom in economic affairs.18 The organizational dimension resonates with Hayek's epistemological thesis, as presented in "The Use of Knowledge in Society" and "The Counter-Revolution of Science," on social cooperation among strangers in conditions of dispersed and limited knowledge.19 The main tenet is that competition among entrepreneurs better addresses this fundamental problem of knowledge.20 For Hayek and Mises, dispersed knowledge renders socialist planning impossible.21 Central planning stifles the competitive process that allows effective use of dispersed knowledge in the economy.22 But the inefficiency of planning will also have serious political implications if the pathway to a fully-planned economy entails the gradual expansion and entrenchment of a command system that displaces the open-ended competitive market altogether.2315. Ibid., 83. 16. Ibid., 73. 17. Ibid., 65. 18. Ibid., 67; see also David Schmidtz, "History and Pattern," Social Philosophy and Policy 22 (2005): 148–77, at 156; and Robert S. Taylor, "Illiberal Socialism," Social Theory and Practice 40 (2014): 433–60, at 435. 19. Friedrich A. von Hayek, "The Use of Knowledge in Society," American Economic Review 35 (1945): 519–30, at 526; and The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Press, 1979). See also Peter J. Boettke, "On Reading Hayek: Choice, Consequences and The Road to Serfdom," European Journal of Political Economy 21 (2005): 1042–53, at 1043; and Bruce Caldwell, Hayek's Challenge: An Intellectual Biography of F. A. Hayek (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 241. 20. Peter J. Boettke and Kyle W. O'Donnell, "The Failed Appropriation of F. A. Hayek by Formalist Economics," Critical Review 25 (2013): 305–41; and Jeffrey Friedman, "Hayek's Two Epistemologies and the Paradoxes of His Thought," Critical Review 25 (2013): 277–304, at 288. 21. Peter J. Boettke, "Hayek's The Road to Serfdom Revisited: Government Failure in the Argument against Socialism," in Calculation and Coordination: Essays on Socialism and Transitional Political Economy (New York: Routledge, 2001), 47–65, at 49; Mark Pennington, "Hayekian Political Economy and the Limits of Deliberative Democracy," Political Studies 51 (2003): 722–39, at 727; and Morris M. Wilhelm, "The Political Thought of Friedrich A. Hayek," Political Studies 20 (1972): 169–84, at 170. 22. Boettke, "Hayek's The Road to Serfdom Revisited," 49 (see previous note). 23. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 88 (see note 21 above). This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). Aris Trantidis and Nick Cowen | 165On this account, planning makes it impossible to achieve consensus or a stable majority to tackle the distributional conflicts thatwill revolve around the ends of numerous planning processes. Comprehensive planning requires adjudicating among countless conflicting values and expectations, which is beyond the capacity of democracy.24 Distributional clashes in the planned economy will create stronger demands for greater and more authoritative powers for government to act on its own responsibility.25 Ultimately, there can be a popular cry for a strong leader to fully plan and coordinate economic activity.26 While the public will not anticipate such a political development, once a command economy is established, it will degenerate into political authoritarianism by the nature of the power it will assume to address its own inefficiencies and inner conflicts. Hayek writes, "just as the democratic statesman who sets out to plan economic life will soon be confronted with the alternative of either assuming dictatorial powers or abandoning his plans, so the totalitarian dictator would soon have to choose between disregard of ordinary morals and failure."27 Serfdom describes the two interrelated processes-epistemic and institutional: taking steps towards a planned economy that may progressively and stealthily lead to an institutional state of affairs in which planning replaces competition and there is popular demand for strong leadership to take tough decisions in face of the failures of central planning. What is unique about this account is that it starts with a benevolent yet epistemically unwarranted effort to build a planned economy and leads to authoritarianism because of the coercive nature of the powers concentrated by the government's strong leadership of economic affairs. Planning produces this outcome through the combined effect of the organizational nature of command government interventions and the situational problems of this type of planning. Both the epistemic deficiencies of a command economy and the coercive24. Peter J. Boettke, Vlad Tarko, and Paul Aligica, "Why Hayek Matters: The Epistemic Dimension of Comparative Institutional Analysis," in Advances in Austrian Economics, vol. 21, ed. Peter J. Boettke and Virgil Henry Storr (Bingley, U.K.: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2016), 163–85, at 177; Peter J. Boettke and Peter T. Leeson, "Hayek, Arrow, and the Problems of Democratic Decision-Making," Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice 20 (2002): 9–21, at 12; Samuel De Canio, "Democracy, the Market, and the Logic of Social Choice," American Journal of Political Science 58 (2014): 637–52, at 639; Gerald F. Gaus, "Self-Organizing Moral Systems: Beyond Social Contract Theory," Politics, Philosophy & Economics 17 (2018): 119– 47, at 140; and Pennington, "Hayekian Political Economy" (see note 21 above). 25. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 108 (see note 1 above). 26. Ibid., 99. 27. Ibid., 158; see also 126. This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 166 | Hayek versus Trumpproperties inherent in the commands themselves combine to produce negative consequences for personal and political freedom. Hayek's take on the logic of command and control looks at these interventions not simply as the cause of failure, frustration, and popular unrest that could lead to a popular cry for an economic dictator, but also as components of an economic structure which by their own nature lead to increasing coercion. The Institutional Thesis on Coercion in The Constitution of Liberty We now move beyond the epistemic deficiencies of central planning that Boettke and Candela have defended as central to Hayek's argument in Serfdom.28 We emphasize that the epistemic deficiencies of planning and the conflicts it generates are not the only conditions at work that pave the way to authoritarianism. To that end, we focus on the notion of coercion that Hayek's later work on the rule of law elaborated. We also establish a more general account of the coercive potential of institutions that obstruct the competitive market process even in the absence of central planning. This potential does not merely emerge from the inefficiencies and distributional conflicts that planning creates-a reality that modern democracies often face-but is also associated with the nature of the interventions such that, when applied on a large scale, the interventions can effectuate an encompassing command structure of economic and political relations. Our starting point of this interpretation is Hayek's definition of illiberal coercion in Constitution as the power to force other people to serve one's will by the threat of inflicting harm.29 Hayek's account of coercion is inspired by neo-Roman scholars as submission to the arbitrary will of another person, and it has remarkably close parallels with contemporary liberal republican theorists.30 Illiberal coercion28. Boettke and Candela, "The Intellectual Context of F. A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom," 41 (see note 12 above). 29. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 212 (see note 2 above); and Peter Lindsay, "Exposing the Invisible Hand: The Roots of Laissez-Faire's Hidden Influence," Polity 37 (2005): 295–314, at 304. 30. Harrison P. Frye, "Freedom without Law," Politics, Philosophy & Economics 17 (2018): 298–316, at 301; Sean Irving, "Hayek's Neo-Roman Liberalism," European Journal of Political Theory, July 17, 2017, at https://doi.org/10.1177/1474885117718370; see also Robert S. Taylor, "Market Freedom as Antipower," American Political Science Review 107 (2013): 593–602, at 597; and Robert S. Taylor, Exit Left: Markets and Mobility in Republican Thought, first ed. (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2017), 92. There are other republican theorists who share the same concern with non-domination but are more skeptical of the capacity of market institutions to contribute to protecting political liberty. See Steven Klein, "Fictitious Freedom: A Polanyian Critique of the Republican Revival," American Journal of Political Science 61 (2017): 852–63, at 857; and This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). Aris Trantidis and Nick Cowen | 167is unleashed when the institutional environment is one in which an authority decides what the individual does and how they do it through commands that entail arbitrary discrimination.31 For Hayek, this requires someone else's control of one's environment and circumstances, while personal freedom presupposes the protection of a private sphere in which individuals can determine their own actions of choice free from such interference.32 This protection is offered by the rule of law, which is defined in Constitution as a permanent framework that secures the private sphere in which individuals can make their own decisions by means of rules formulated in abstract and general terms to secure equality to all persons.33 Hayek distinguishes this notion of coercion from coercion under the rule of law, which is legitimate "only if it is applied in the enforcement of universal rules of just conduct equally applicable to all citizens."34 In this article, we use the term coercion in the sense of illiberal coercion. In addition, Hayek uses an Aristotelian postulate of isonomy, stating that equality before the law is "the only kind of equality conducive to liberty."35 A free society presupposes the limitation of coercion by equality before the law. Rules must be impersonal, general, and abstract, allowing individuals to plan their own course of action in a protected private sphere.36 In Hayek's conception of the rule of law, state economic planning is an infringement of personal freedom insofar as it is not confined to setting fixed rules under which individuals can decide how to make use of available resources. Each instance of coercive planning involves momentary decision making that must address various claims and interests and will inevitably privilege some at the expense of others on an unpredictable basis. The planning authority can thus discriminate between persons.37 Hayek's conception of personal liberty precludes distribution on an individual basis by a single source of authority, as this can permit coercive manipulation and is "bound to create further demands forJohn P. McCormick, "Contain the Wealthy and Patrol the Magistrates: Restoring Elite Accountability to Popular Government," American Political Science Review 100 ( 2006): 147–63, at 159. 31. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 164, 217–18 (see note 2 above). 32. Ibid., 71, 206, 21–12; see also Friedrich A. von Hayek, Law, Legislation, and Liberty: A New Statement of the Liberal Principles of Justice and Political Economy (London: Routledge, 1998), 55. 33. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 239 (see note 2 above). 34. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, 50 (see note 8 above). 35. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 149 and 286 (see note 2 above); see also Irving, "Hayek's Neo-Roman Liberalism" (see note 30 above). 36. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 72 (see note 2 above). 37. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 127–28 (see note 1 above). This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 168 | Hayek versus Trumpnew controls," pushing towards a direction in which the whole society will be organized in accordance to this principle.38 The institutionalist interpretation that we have refined here brings coherence to Hayek's seemingly ambivalent stance towards the mixed economy: on the one hand, his rejection of "social justice" as a coherent and attractive goal for governments and, on the other hand, his acceptance of several forms of state intervention.39 Hayek's position rejects policies that follow the same logic of intervention he described in Serfdom.40 It is on this basis that Hayek rejected certain types of state intervention while accepting others, indeed against the way he has frequently been characterized both by his critics and supporters. Potentially legitimate interventions include counter-cyclical policies to replace lost credit during a recession (in today's terms, expanding the money supply), which Hayek supported beginning in 1933,41 and some welfare state functions that he endorsed in Constitution in 1960 as "security against severe physical privation, the assurance of given minimum sustenance for all."42 In 1973, in Law, Legislation and Liberty, Hayek clarified the compatibility of his principles with government provision of services for a minority of those unable to look after themselves; his position was justified by moral reasons shared broadly among citizens and as part of social insurance against misfortune for the whole population: Although the provision of such services increases the necessity of levying taxes, these can be raised according to uniform principles; and the duty to contribute to the costs of such agreed common aims could be brought under the conception of general rules of conduct. It would not make the private citizen in any way the object of administration; he would still be free to use his38. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 164 (see note 2 above). 39. See Peter Lindsay, "Polanyi, Hayek, and the Impossibility of Libertarian Ideal Theory," Polity 47 (2015): 376–96, at 381; Andrew Lister, "The 'Mirage' of Social Justice: Hayek Against (and For) Rawls," Critical Review 25 (2013): 409–44; Andrew Lister, "Markets, Desert, and Reciprocity," Politics, Philosophy & Economics 16 (2017): 47–69; Jeff Spinner-Halev, "Liberalism, Markets, and Responsibility," Journal of Politics 79 (2017): 1329–41, at 1339; Adam James Tebble, "Hayek and Social Justice: A Critique," Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 12 (December 2009): 581–604; and John Tomasi, Free Market Fairness (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012), 123. 40. Farrant and McPhail, "Hayek, Samuelson, and the Logic of the Mixed Economy?" (see note 7 above). 41. Hayek, "Saving," in Profits, Interest and Investment (London: George Routledge & Sons Ltd., 1939), 157–70, at 164–65; and K. Sabeel Rahman, Democracy against Domination (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 8. 42. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 376 (see note 2 above). This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). Aris Trantidis and Nick Cowen | 169own knowledge for his purposes and not have to serve the purposes of an organization.43 Hayek accepts that welfare distributions to classes of people formed on the basis of shared demographic characteristics are not arbitrary insofar as "they are equally recognized as justified by those inside and outside the group."44 This involves provisions for the weak and the vulnerable or policies offering protection against risks, provided that the rules governing these provisions are general and abstract.45 A welfare system differs from the command economy Hayek had in mind when he wrote Serfdom, not necessarily because welfare policies, regulation, taxation and redistribution are free from epistemic challenges, but because they are far from being functions of a command economy.46 While Hayek grew skeptical about whether governments can confine themselves to principles preventing coercive uses of state power,47 mixed economies differ fromHayek's structure of coercion, which was articulated in Constitution in 1960, at a time when Western democracies had developed their welfare and redistributive policies. Hayek's political thought can be understood as postulating a qualitatively nuanced position on the structure of mixed economies. Depending on the type and the scale of intervention, political coercion is possible. The threshold after which authoritarianism is a probable outcome is not simply a certain level of government's share of GDP, but a type of structural transformation of the economy towards a prevalent nature of intervention that permits coercivemanipulation. Hayek rejects the notion of "social justice" as a normative principle governing distributive politics, because policy applications in the name of social justice will be coercive and attempts to build an economy that would embody a notion of social justice will tend towards command-and-control planning.48 This is an economic institutional system of the type of the German economy that Hayek describes in Serfdom and is reminiscent ofMises's Zwangswirtschaft, a social system emerging from the continuous expansion of political intervention in which the allocation of resources is43. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, 142 (see note 8 above). 44. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 222 (see note 2 above). 45. Ibid., 165. 46. François Godard, "The Road to Serfdom's Economistic Worldview," Critical Review 25 (2013): 364–85, at 377. 47. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, 142–43 (see note 8 above). 48. Farrant and McPhail, "Hayek, Samuelson, and the Logic of the Mixed Economy?," 12– 13 (see note 7 above). This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 170 | Hayek versus Trumpdecided by arbitrary political decision making despite the fact that a façade of the market system is preserved.49 In sorting out a general structural-institutional argument, in this and the following two subsections, we developHayek's distinction between an economy governed by the rule of law, which reduces arbitrariness and therefore the scope for coercion, and an economy that, by increasing the range and intensity of discriminatory interventions, becomes illiberal in the Hayekian sense. Arbitrariness becomes a serious problem when it engulfs the whole economy, as is the case in Serfdom and its centrally planned system: The consequence is that, as planning extends, the delegation of legislative powers to diverse boards and authorities becomes increasingly common . . . Constantly the broadest powers are conferred on new authorities which, without being bound by fixed rules, have almost unlimited discretion in regulating this or that activity of the people.50 There will be no economic or social questions that would not be political questions in the sense that their solution will depend exclusively on who wields the coercive power, on whose are the views that will prevail on all occasions.51 Combining Hayek's epistemic argument with this conception of coercion allows us to reconstruct a general argument applicable to other economic structures. We posit that depending on the coercive capacity of the interventions they entail, economic institutions can undermine liberal democratic institutions.52 This allows us to make an addendum to the organizational and situational logic developed in Serfdom and to discern a generalizable Hayekian warning. In particular, the notion of coercion in Constitution clarifies the mechanism by which commands can foster political authoritarianism and enables us to answer the question of which economic regimes besides central planning could limit political liberties to such an extent that the actual character of a political regime shifts to authoritarianism.53 The49. Ludwig von Mises, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, trans. J. Kahane (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1951), 533; John Hagel and Walter E. Grinder, "From Laissez-Faire to Zwangswirtschaft: The Dynamics of Interventionism," in The Dynamics of Intervention: Regulation and Redistribution in the Mixed Economy, ed. Peter KurrildKlitgaard (London: Elsevier, 2005), 59–86. 50. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 120 (see note 1 above); emphasis added. 51. Ibid., 138. 52. See Boettke, "On Reading Hayek," 1046–47 (see note 19 above). 53. Robert A. Lawson and J. R. Clark, "Examining the Hayek–Friedman Hypothesis on Economic and Political Freedom," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 74 (2010): 230– 39. This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). Aris Trantidis and Nick Cowen | 171institutional argument is that state interventions that work in coercive ways analogous to planning threaten personal liberty. Political coercion becomes possible when these interventions make up an institutional structure similar to the planning structure envisaged by Hayek, allowing political authority to issue commands that result in society's increasing subjection to the arbitrary will of the rulers. The nature of this system is inextricably linked to de facto restrictions of property rights.54 As we discuss in the next section, the notion of de facto restrictions of property rights enables us to assess interventions enacted by economic institutions and rules which, while professing respect for property rights, nevertheless seek to determine the use of property rights on an ad hoc basis. De Facto Restrictions of Property Rights and Actual Coercion Is the recognition of private property sufficient to protect one's private sphere from coercive interventions? To better illustrate the relation between coercion and property rights, we propose two conceptual additions to Hayek's account. First, rather than focusing on the presence or absence of property rights, we propose treating property as a bundle of rights that together effectuate a private sphere for autonomous, non-coercive action.55 Classical liberal theorists have sometimes failed to appreciate the conceptual dimensions of property rights,56 leaving classical liberals to defend an archaic unitary notion of full liberal ownership almost by default as "that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe."57 However, the traditional notion of property as full liberal ownership includes a bundle of related rights over incidents (i.e., various activities that legal rights permit or prohibit): to possess, use, manage, derive income and capital from, and destroy or transfer an asset.58 Two features of these incidents that define the content (rather than the form) of private property rights are income and control,54. Boettke, "On Reading Hayek," 1048 (see note 19 above). 55. A. M. Honoré, "Ownership," in Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence: A Collaborative Work, ed. Klitgaard (see note 49 above), 107–26; Daniel Attas, "Fragmenting Property," Law and Philosophy 25 (2006): 119–49; and Gerald F. Gaus, "Property," in The Oxford Handbook of Political Philosophy, ed. David M. Estlund (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012): 93–112. 56. Gaus, "Property," 94 (see previous note). 57. William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England in Four Books, vol. 1 (Philadelphia, Pa.: J. P. Lippincott Company, 1893), 393, at http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option 5com_staticxt&lstaticfile5show.php%3Ftitle52140&layout5html. 58. Honoré, "Ownership" (see note 55 above). This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 172 | Hayek versus Trumpwhich can be independent features.59 One can have robust rights of control-possession and use of an asset-while having limited rights over the income. In other cases, citizens may have the right to own a factory (possession), but they may be frequently subject to many interventions concerning how they exercise control over this asset (use). This view of multiple instances of rights that constitute one's private sphere enables us to scrutinize different forms of state intervention in the economy in light of Hayek's notion of coercion. We will clarify the implications of diverse institutional settings of government intervention, including the coercive potential of economic agendas that respect property rights in principle but nevertheless propose everincreasing restrictions on those rights. These restrictions vary; they may affect the income derived from property through taxation and redistribution; or the control of property through regulation or protectionist measures. Second, rather than assessing the typical form or source of the rule authorizing intervention, we assess the nature of interventions as they are actually implemented. This distinguishes our approach from Hayek's distinction in Law, Legislation and Liberty between general law as nomos that limits and delineates a range of permissible action and thesis that takes the form of commands that instruct someone to do something. Here we seek to address the problem that we identified when rules take the form of general and abstract provisions but still enable commands and administrative or judicial discretion at the stage of implementation: their implementation and enforcement can be ad hoc and largely dependent on the discretion of the enforcing authority. We thus consider the applicability of state interventions at all stages of implementation and enforcement, regardless of whether their authorizing source takes the form of a Hayekian nomos or thesis. Even when the lawgiver does not know the cases to which the rule applies, both the administrators and the judges-who are situated in and accountable to political networks-may be able to isolate particular cases and decide to interpret the law differently according to who is under judgment or to enforce it on an arbitrary basis.60 Impersonal and Partial-Discriminatory Intervention Bringing these two additions together, we distinguish between impersonal and partial-discriminatory applications of state intervention on the basis of their coercive capacity.59. Attas, "Fragmenting Property," 120 (see note 55 above). 60. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 227 (see note 2 above). This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). Aris Trantidis and Nick Cowen | 173We define partial-discriminatory applications of state intervention as those that identify individuals prior to the act of intervention (thereby allowing for the intervener to reward or punish individual persons) and include Hayek's planning commands.61 Moreover, this type of intervention includes rules that formally conform to the generality principle of the rule of law-setting out abstract, predictable, and equal terms for behavior-but whose applicability can be discretionary, allowing for discrimination at the stage of enforcement. For instance, expropriation of property, the regulation of production, the seizure of existing profits or products, or any form of adjudication by an authority may be determined by fixed rules, but actual decisions may not be independent of arbitrary selection if the affected actors can still be identified ahead of time (ex ante). Because there is personal identification in these cases, partial-discriminatory application of state authority can be used for the purpose of coercion in the sense described above. Impersonal applications of state intervention, on the other hand, are impartial in the sense that they do not enact discrimination on the individual level. These can include laws that are explicitly designed to favor a large group of beneficiaries (the unemployed or the retired) or an open group of beneficiaries (people suffering from a rare disease) even if they convey a privilege at the expense of others (whether unfairly or not in any given actor's judgment). A policy or a law is uniformly applied to a group when it is configured in a way that is still impartial at the individual level: its inclusion and exclusion criteria apply to everyone and its treatment of individuals is impersonal, in the sense that it does not entail ex ante identification of individual members either for inclusion or exclusion. Consider, for example, welfare distributions to groups, such as people with special educational needs, farmers, local constituents, or pensioners. Although such policies allow for the distribution of privileges to a group, these allocations are not partial-discriminatory in the sense described above, because the privileges are delivered automatically to all eligible members of the group regardless of personal identity. Even the particularized benefits, for example, that U.S. congressmen may win for their constituents in order to seek campaign support and re-election can count as impersonal if the group of beneficiaries is, in principle, open and not individually fixed.62 Likewise, under a welfare state, transfer payments that offer services to latent beneficiary groups are not partial-discriminatory types of state intervention, since individuals are less likely to61. We introduce the term partial-discriminatory to distinguish it from discrimination that can be either personal or impersonal. 62. See David R. Mayhew, Congress: The Electoral Connection, 2nd ed. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004), 114. This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 174 | Hayek versus Trumpbe identified prior to the act of intervention insofar as the rule precludes that they will be selected in a discriminatory way. Impersonal applications can be amatter of either policy design or the method of implementation. Our conception of generality here concerns the rule's applicability: the capacity for each intervention to apply discretionary treatment upon the identification of the individual recipients can be more or less likely than general application. The risk from partial-discriminatory applications resonates with Hayek's definition of coercion as one's individual dependence on the approval of another person stemming from prior manipulation of one's alternatives.63 It differs from the strictest "generality principle" conceived of by Buchanan and Congleton as the standard in which political actions must "apply to all persons independently of membership in a dominant coalition or effective interest group."64 That would preclude any distribution to a group unless it is neutral in the sense that everyone has an equal chance of qualifying for it. One can differentiate between the two types of government interventions on a case-by-case basis by examining actual implementations, and on a theoretical level, by examining the capacity that each policy type offers to a government for partialdiscriminatory treatment, that is, the relative ease by which a government can apply a type of policy in the form of Hayekian commands targeting individuals and can do so in a way that does not necessarily violate any formal constitutional restrictions on government discretion. Given the rule-of-law limitations of contemporary liberal democracies, such as the United States, the type of policy agenda that is more likely to expose citizens to the kind of arbitrary power that Hayek warns against in Constitution and Serfdom is a policy agenda whose discretionary and ad hoc applications have already been practiced and accepted as compatible with existing rules and norms. For example, interventions into the income dimension of property are usually not partial-discriminatory at the individual level. States can easily tax income by using non-discretionary and non-discriminatory rules, such as tax brackets and income levels. Higher taxes in a mixed economy mean only that a greater proportion of income is claimed from everyone who falls within predetermined categories of taxpayers. This reduces (but does not eliminate) the risk of discrimination at the stage of enforcement. At times, owners of capital can be treated partially if the general rules allow bureaucratic discretion at the stage of tax law enforcement. Similarly,63. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 223 (see note 2 above). 64. James M. Buchanan and Roger D. Congleton, Politics by Principle, Not Interest: Toward Nondiscriminatory Democracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), xi. This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). Aris Trantidis and Nick Cowen | 175a welfare entitlement system in a democracy is less likely to permit selective enforcement and discrimination in terms of who is eligible for treatment underMedicare and Medicaid, or for participation in pension schemes based on retirement age and prior contributions. Partial-discriminatory interventions rely on rules that allow for wide discretion in interventions in the use or management of others' property and activity in an ad hoc fashion, as well as on a wide scope for interpretation at the stage of enforcement. The property owners may still retain formal control and supervision over their property but can be subjected to ad hoc applications of state intervention at the enforcement stage and face active penalties should they fail tomeet policy-related targets or quotas. In addition, they are more easily identified prior to the enactment of a rule imposing what is seemingly a general restriction. In these instances, individuals aremore exposed to coercion by the arbitrary will of the political authority in the sense that the threat of intervention forces them to act according not to a preferred course of action but to a plan serving the ends of the political authority.65 Both the type and scale of these interventions define the nature of the institutional environment.Onour account, economic structures characterized by thewidespread application of partial-discriminatory interventions risk unleashing a path to political coercion because the institutional setting and the actual practices that take place within it allow for the identification and targeting of substantial numbers of individuals. The institutional threshold here is the link between the nature of intervention and the range of its application.66 Coercion becomes systemic in an environment where exit is severely limited. This state of affairs describes the situation in which "the alternatives before me have been so manipulated that the conduct that the coercer wants me to choose becomes for me the least painful one."67 Without room for exit, people find themselves subjected to the orders and the arbitrary will of the coercive political force.68 We transpose Hayek's conception of coercion into a political thesis: Political coercion is a state of affairs in which one's choice of political behavior depends on the approval of a political authority.69 This state authority deprives the individual of a sphere of choice among alternatives bringing them to a situation in which they are compelled to choose what the political actor wants them to choose as the least costly65. See Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 71 (see note 2 above). 66. See Sanford Ikeda, "The Dynamics of Interventionism," in Dynamics of Intervention, ed. Kitgaard, 21–57, at 41 (see note 49 above). 67. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 200 and 207 (see note 2 above). 68. Ibid., 182–83. 69. Ibid., 71. This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 176 | Hayek versus Trumpoption.70 Due to the fear of arbitrary treatment and the threat of penalties assessed against that individual's economic and social activities, their social and political actions can be made to serve the desires of that political actor. Finally, the conceptual distinction between the capacity for partial-discriminatory and impersonal applications of state intervention helps us clarify why contemporary mixed economies have high levels of income claims and significant regulatory power over sectors of the economy but retain a substantial degree of personal and political liberty; this is due to the limited presence of partial-discriminatory applications of state interventionism. The welfare and regulatory systems of advanced democracies mostly offer impersonal entitlements to distributions and enact generally applicable regulations. Institutional changes that expand the scope for partialdiscriminatory applications of state intervention increase the risk for political coercion. Policies vary in the ease with which they can be used in a partial discriminatory way at the phases of both enactment and implementation according to how easy it is to isolate who is affected by the policy. Observing policy implementation in the United States, Lowi distinguishes between policies that allow for the highest degree of "disintegration," which he calls distributive or individualized conflict and provision, and "redistributive" policies, which, in his classification, affect broad categories, such as the business class, the working class, or the "have-nots."71 Regulatory policies-which comprise Lowi's intermediate category-invoke general rules, but their impact can be disaggregated at the sectoral level. As Lowi observes, protectionist tariff policies can exhibit the highest degree of disintegration on an individual basis and, as a result, they can be prone to patronage. Tariff policies favor the propagation of particular demands from special interests, but the structure of competition for favorable policies also includes ideological debates and discussions.72 Tariff policy in the hands of different administrations in the United States after 1962 assumed the character of a regulatory policy, but questions on quotas and subsidies for specific commodities became part of distributive politics.73 Lowi's observation of the changing nature of tariff policy suggests that this policy type has a high capacity for partial-discriminatory application depending on what use those in office decide to make of it and for what purpose.70. Ibid., 199. 71. Theodore J. Lowi, "American Business, Public Policy, Case-Studies, and Political Theory," World Politics 16 (1964): 677–715, at 691. 72. Ibid., 711. 73. Ibid., 701–04. This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). Aris Trantidis and Nick Cowen | 177The specific area of anti-dumping policies illustrates this capacity for discrimination in trade policy. Bloningen finds that the U.S. Department of Commerce has enjoyed a wide scope for discretion in this policy area, despite the availability of appeals courts and dispute settlement procedures available to investigated parties, and even in the presence of general principles such as those provided by the Uruguay Round Agreements and U.S. law.74 Other scholars have criticized the substantive and procedural requirements for the calculation of margin of dumping75 and export subsidization, and have identified a bias toward the identification of higher margins and higher import duties.76 Hansen argues that this bias leads specific industries to seek protection when they think the U.S. International Trade Commission is likely to grant them protection.77 Goldstein finds that the likelihood that an industry which has filed an application to the commission will be granted protection depends less on economic need andmore on the ability to apply political pressure on decision makers.78 However, scholars have yet to link these applications of particularism and favoritism in trade policy to an agenda aiming at political coercion. Why political coercion in economic life did not become predominant in the United States can be explained by the structure of political power and interest-group competition in U.S. politics. Mashaw describes how the early republic used much administrative discretion for purposes of economic development and nation-building.79 This involved tasks such as land distribution, currency management, and establishing trade and transport infrastructure, which stood in dissonance with the ideology of the time, which stressed limited national power and localism. Administrative structures were devised to address the demands for government throughout the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian periods; these consisted of a localized and fragmented system of administration subject to common law rules of accountability sanctioned by74. Bruce A. Blonigen, "Evolving Discretionary Practices of U.S. Antidumping Activity," Canadian Journal of Economics 39 (2006): 874–900, at 875–78. 75. The latter is defined as the alleged difference between the foreign market value of a good and its price in the U.S. market. 76. Richard Boltuck and Robert E. Litan, eds., Down in the Dumps: Administration of the Unfair Trade Laws (Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution, 1991). 77. Wendy L. Hansen, "The International Trade Commission and the Politics of Protectionism," American Political Science Review 84 (1990): 21–46. 78. Judith Goldstein, "The Political Economy of Trade: Institutions of Protection," American Political Science Review 80 (1986): 161–84. 79. Jerry L. Mashaw, Creating the Administrative Constitution: The Lost One Hundred Years of American Administrative Law (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2012), 82. This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 178 | Hayek versus Trumpcourts. This was an evolving environment characterized by dispersed patterns of bargaining between state governments and different national agencies under the shadow of possible judicial remedies. Hayek's warning about a central authority assuming widespread planning power over the whole of society does not apply to decentralized bargaining over specific administrative outcomes. Instead, early American state building evolved into what Dahl describes as a pluralist stage in U.S. politics. Dahl describes American interest group politics as consisting of fields for competition, mostly in local settings, in which each policy creates and invites a separate group of stakeholders: ". . . the vast apparatus that grew up to administer the affairs of the American welfare state is a decentralized bargaining bureaucracy."80 McCormick adds that experimentation with bureaucratic planning in sectors such as transport and infrastructure was ultimately captured by rivalry among sectors and interest group competition.81 The decentralized nature of competition for favorable policies across different economic sectors has given shape to the United States' arena of particularistic politics, which so far has avoided a single political force coming to hold sway over a wide range of economic sectors. There is an important distinction between particularistic politics as a generalized practice in liberal democracies82 and a widespread application of partialdiscriminatory politics that takes the form of command-and-control management. Protectionist trade policy poses a heightened risk for partial-discriminatory treatment, but such risk may not materialize in the absence of a political agency willing to unleash the coercive capacity of the policy tools it has available and in the absence of political and ideological conditions enabling it to do so. Refining Dahl's analysis by pointing out that policy outcomes are not merely the result of group conflict, Lowi notes that "the relations among the interests and between them and government vary, and the nature of and conditions for this variation are what our political analyses should be concerned with."83 In turn, Arnold makes the important observation that members of Congress have some degree of autonomy80. Robert A Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), 145. 81. Richard L. McCormick, The Party Period and Public Policy: American Politics from the Age of Jackson to the Progressive Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 209–12. 82. John W. Kingdon, Congressmen's Voting Decisions, 3rd ed. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1989), 35–38; and Douglas L. Kriner and Andrew Reeves, "The Influence of Federal Spending on Presidential Elections," American Political Science Review 106 (2012): 348–66, at 350–51. 83. Lowi, "American Business," 709 (see note 71 above). This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). Aris Trantidis and Nick Cowen | 179against powerful interest groups, and that they instrumentally exercise their autonomy when it is in their electoral interest to do so.84 The question, therefore, is which political force has the agenda and the ideology to support such a shift in power relations from particularistic politics towards partial-discriminatory politics. The ideology would need to be tailored to justify a command-and-control modality of policy making and implementation on a large scale. Not all political ideologies offer a justification that would allow a political force to change the character of economic policy and transform the economic structure into an overarching discriminatory regime. Hayek and the Radical Right We come to our final question. Does the radical right pose such a threat to liberty? We are concerned with the degree to which its economic agenda can create an economic structure enabling command-and-control applications that resemble Hayek's central planning decisions. The radical right refers to a range of political movements and parties characterized by a combination of populism, ethno-nationalism, and authoritarianism.85 Populism describes a discourse or thin ideology that claims there is an inherently antagonistic relationship between "the people" and "the elites,"86 with the latter attacked as corrupt and the former venerated as the legitimate source of political power.87 Authoritarianism describes the preference of the radical right for security and strong authority, its attacks on political pluralism, and its reference to the will of the people as justifying political power with little regard to formal procedures and institutional checks.88 Nationalism refers to the fundamental ideological position of radical right parties that the nation takes normative precedence over all other values: democracy, pluralism, an autonomous civil society, and personal and84. R. Douglas Arnold, Logic of Congressional Action (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992), 4. 85. Bart Bonikowski, "Ethno-Nationalist Populism and the Mobilization of Collective Resentment," British Journal of Sociology 68 (2017): S181–S213; and Cas Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 86. Paris Aslanidis, "Is Populism an Ideology? A Refutation and a New Perspective," Political Studies 64 (April 2016): 88–104, at 96; and Cas Mudde, "The Populist Zeitgeist," Government and Opposition 3 (2004): 542–63, at 545. 87. Hanspeter Kriesi and Takis S. Pappas, "Populism in Europe During Crisis: An Introduction," in European Populism in the Shadow of the Great Recession, ed. Kriesi and Pappas (Colchester, U.K.: ECPR Press, 2016), 1–19, at 4. 88. Juan J. Linz, Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000), 255. This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 180 | Hayek versus Trumpeconomic liberty. These values are subordinated to the definition of a national interest, which radical right parties claim they authentically represent.While specific radical right parties and movements have adopted diverse interpretations of what the "national interest" is, they concur on an ideology characterized by hostility to immigration and multiculturalism, populist opposition to what they see as "globalist" elites and global institutions, and a preference for assertive and charismatic leadership to transform the economic and political status quo by means of decisive commands. The economic agenda of the radical right is an extension of political nationalism in the sphere of economic policy. While most radical right parties rhetorically acknowledge what can be broadly described as a neoliberal ethos-supporting fiscal stability, currency stability, and a reduction of government regulation-they put forward a prominent agenda for economic protectionism that justifies departures from neoliberal postulates regarding thinner and uniform regulations and generally lower spending.89 These departures are justified as serving the national interest, which takes precedence over any other set of values and considerations, such as individual freedom, social justice, gender equality, class solidarity, or environmental protection, which may drive economic policy in other political parties. Rather than a principled stance on government intervention along the traditional left-right spectrum, the radical right's economic agenda can be described as mixing nativist, populist, and authoritarian features.90 It seemingly respects property and professes a commitment to economic liberty, but it subordinates economic policy to the ideal of national sovereignty. An example of a radical right party is the Front National in France, which has an agenda critical of global capitalism and has proposed measures such as reestablishing import tariffs and other border controls, the re-nationalization of agricultural policy, taking control of tax policies from the European Union, and state control and responsibility for the prices of essential goods.91 To justify a range of89. Alexandre Afonso, "Whose Interests Do Radical Right Parties Really Represent? The Migration Policy Agenda of the Swiss People's Party between Nativism and Neoliberalism," in The Discourses and Politics of Migration in Europe, ed. Umut Korkut et al. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 17–35, at 21; and Leonce Röth, Alexandre Afonso, and Dennis C. Spies, "The Impact of Populist Radical Right Parties on Socio-economic Policies," European Political Science Review 10 (2018): 325–50. 90. Simon Otjes et al., "It's Not Economic Interventionism, Stupid! Reassessing the Political Economy of Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties," Swiss Political Science Review 24 (2018): 270–90, at 273. 91. Daniel Stockemer and Abdelkarim Amengay, "The Voters of the FN under Jean-Marie Le Pen and Marine Le Pen: Continuity or Change?," French Politics 13 (2015): 370–90, at 376; This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). Aris Trantidis and Nick Cowen | 181protectionist measures, this party has invoked the principle of "national preference" and has inextricably linked it with the notion of national sovereignty. Likewise, the Freedom Party in Austria has emphasized national control, particularly over the movement of labor, and a commitment to protect Austrian workers against immigrants. In Germany, the Alternative for Germany has adopted an agenda proposing re-establishing national control over the economy against supranational institutions.92 In the United States, President Trump has emerged to lead a radical faction from inside the traditional right-wing Republican Party on a strident platform opposing immigration, global institutions, and current international trade arrangements, which he has portrayed as antagonistic to American economic interests.93 The key question is whether this type of agenda can unleash a wider wave of partial-discriminatory state interventions. Is economic nationalism likely to include the type of command-and-control economic policies that we fear as coercive? Economic nationalism can be applied through tariffs, import quotas, and immigration restrictions, all justified by appeals to the "national interest." This approach to economic management allows authorities to treat property as an object of administration in a way similar to the directions of private activity that Hayek feared would take place in the pursuit of "social justice."94 It can take the form of discriminatory decisions and commands that have a capacity to coerce even though their authorization may come from generally worded rules. Protectionism can be effectuated by expedient decisions and flexible discretion in the selection of beneficiaries and the exclusion of others; hence it entails a strong potential for discrimination. The government will enjoy wide discretion in identifying the sectors of the economy or even particular companies that enjoy such a protection, such as national champions that need to be strengthened and weaker industries that need to be protected. The radical right potentially could exploit protectionism's highest capacity for partial-discriminatory applications.and Gilles Ivaldi, "Towards the Median Economic Crisis Voter? The New Leftist Economic Agenda of the Front National in France," French Politics 13 (2015): 346–69, at 358. 92. Kai Arzheimer, "The AfD: Finally a Successful Right-Wing Populist Eurosceptic Party for Germany?," West European Politics 38 (2015): 535–56, at 545–46. 93. Matthew C. MacWilliams, "Who Decides When the Party Doesn't? Authoritarian Voters and the Rise of Donald Trump," PS: Political Science & Politics 49 (2016): 716–21, at 717; and Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris, "Trump and the Populist Authoritarian Parties: The Silent Revolution in Reverse," Perspectives on Politics 15 (2017): 443–54, at 446. 94. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, 142 (see note 8 above); indeed, Hayek saw twentiethcentury nationalisms as partly motivated by an underlying desire for social justice among their adherents, at 134 (see note 8 above). This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 182 | Hayek versus TrumpThe political rhetoric of the radical right and their political tactics suggest that this development is possible. The radical right has employed tactics of attacking opponents as unpatriotic and scapegoating them for any failures the nation has suffered. Its attitude suggests that the kind of economic nationalism and protectionism that it prefers would likely be arbitrary, ad hoc, and applied to manipulate economic and political behavior. This is perhaps most tragically demonstrated in the case of immigration restrictions and deportation practices. These may appear to coerce exclusively foreign residents, but ultimately they harm citizens who are unable to prove their status and citizens who choose to associate with foreign nationals.95 Evidence of the discretionary features of this agenda can be found in Trump's tactics of targeting some businesses while accommodating others in his personal circle of special interests.96 In April 2017, Trump ordered a comprehensive review of steel imports with an eye to adopting protectionist measures, invoking "national security" as the criterion upon which he would base his judgment, on the basis of a rarely used law, Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.97 Trump vowed to impose tariffs ranging from 15% to 35% to protect American jobs. This gave him leverage over sectors and specific firms, illustrated by his threat to impose a tariff on the Ford Motor Company in retaliation for outsourcing some factory jobs.98 Likewise, Trump's deal with United Technologies regarding its Carrier Corporation brand, providing tax incentives in order to save approximately a thousand jobs in Indiana, could set a precedent that reshapes the relationship between government and business.99 Trump has also criticized Apple Inc.'s policy on encryption and its reliance on China for its international production.100 In addition, in March 2018, Trump gathered steel and aluminum industry representatives to gauge their views and to show that his decisions would depend on95. Chandran Kukathas, "On David Miller on Immigration Control," Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 20 (2017): 712–18, at 716. 96. Nicholas Fandos, "Corporations Open the Cash Spigot for Trump's Inauguration,"New York Times, January 15, 2017, at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/15/us/politics/trump-inauguration -donations-corporations.html. 97. Mark Landler, "Trump Roars Again on Trade, Reviewing Steel and Chiding Canada," New York Times, April 20, 2017, at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/20/business/trade-canada -trump-steel.html?ref5business&_r50. 98. Kirsten Korosec, "Trump Targets Ford Ahead of Michigan Primary," Fortune, March 7, 2016, at https://fortune.com/2016/03/07/trump-targets-ford-michigan-primary/. 99. "Read Donald Trump's Remarks at Carrier Plant in Indiana," Time, December 1, 2016, at https://time.com/4588349/donald-trump-carrier-jobs-speech/. 100. Lindsey J. Smith, "Donald Trump on Apple Encryption Battle: 'Who Do They Think They Are?,' " Verge, February 17, 2016, at https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/17/11031910 /donald-trump-apple-encryption-backdoor-statement. This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). Aris Trantidis and Nick Cowen | 183personal interactions.101 Trump presents himself as a dealmaker-in-chief. His professed style of government is that of a business manager, which involves fixing things: Congress . . . has been deadlocked for years and [is] virtually unable to deal with any of our most pressing domestic problems, or even the most basic ones, such as passing a budget. Think of it: a little thing like passing the budget. They don't even have a clue.102 Finally, I realized that America doesn't need more "all talk, no-action" politicians running things. It needs smart businesspeople who understand how to manage. We don't need more political rhetoric-we need more common sense. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"-but if it is broke, let's stop talking about it and fix it. I know how to fix it.103 Trump presents his economic policy as flexible management in which the choice of the target for sanction or subsidy is driven by the pursuit of the national interest. In this light, it is plausible that the radical right can introduce an economic regime which, by virtue of its greater capacity for discretionary-and, therefore, discriminatory-application offers sufficient scope for coercive interventions in the sense that individual winners and losers can be identified ex ante and actors are given a choice between political loyalty rewarded with benefits, or retaliation in the form of economic penalties with the specific target already in mind. Finally, the dynamics of such a discriminatory system exhibit similarities with the terms of the Hayekian analysis. For Hayek, the tendency for further expansion of government control over the economy simultaneously exacerbates distributional conflicts and leads to a fully planned economy. Unless societies opt for a return to competition, this will unleash a popular cry for a strongman to deliver more effective and comprehensive planning. Once an economic system of centralized command is established, it will easily degenerate into authoritarianism.104 The path101. "Remarks by President Trump in Listening Session with Representatives from the Steel and Aluminum Industry," March 1, 2018, at https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements /remarks-president-trump-listening-session-representatives-steel-aluminum-industry/. 102. Donald Trump, Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again (New York: Threshold Editions, 2015), xiii. 103. Ibid, 4. 104. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 107 (see note 1 above). This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 184 | Hayek versus Trumpto economic dictatorship would involve "further agreement that planning is necessary" and "stronger demands that the government or some single individual should be given powers to act on their own responsibility."105 Competition for privilege under such a protectionist system makes it less likely that the level of discriminatory interventions will remain stable. Given the nature of economic protectionism as a structure for partial-discriminatory interventions, the allocation of privileges and sanctions is susceptible to clientelist exchange, namely "the proffering ofmaterial goods in return for electoral support, where the criterion of distribution that the patron uses is simply: did you (will you) support me?"106 Ad hoc protectionist decisions favoring a specific industry or company create incentives for actors to engage in rent seeking and for the government to exercise further discretion.107 Protectionist policies can culminate in trade disputes and trade wars, in which the results of retaliation further expand the government's scope for discretion. Countervailing duties and measures during a trade war are also at the discretion of national governments. The operation of this system is likely to intensify distributional tensions, due to the inchoate aims it seeks to achieve, potentially leading to an economic system ridden with conflicts over the personalized allocation of government privilege. For this reason, it is alarming to observe Trump attacking what he sees as "unfair trade practices" and risking the onset of trade wars that increase uncertainty about "worrisome" remedies and methods that can be at his disposal.108 They can involve a wider use of ad hoc applications of protectionism, threatening to overturn long-standing rules in a way that broadens the scope of threats and generates calls for retaliation. All of this bestows on the president more power and opportunities for partial-discriminatory decisions. Handley and Limão point out that "reopening any agreement would replace a system built on long term policy commitments with a regime where commitments change with the preferences of each newly elected government."109 This bolsters an agenda that asserts that a strong and centralized political authority should assume the responsibility of effectively managing this105. Ibid., 108. 106. Susan Carol Stokes, "Political Clientelism," in Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics, ed. Carles Boix and Susan Carol Stokes (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2007), 604–05. 107. Gordon Tullock, The Rent-Seeking Society (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund, 2005), 9– 10. 108. Kyle Handley and Nuno Limão, "Trade under T.R.U.M.P. Policies," in Economics and Policy in the Age of Trump, ed. Chad P. Bown (London: CEPR Press, 2017), 141–52, at 142–43. 109. Ibid., 149. This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). Aris Trantidis and Nick Cowen | 185system in a logic similar to that described in Serfdom.110 Competition for governmentgranted protection is likely to expand the scope for favors and sanctions and reduce the space where economic actors can find refuge from partial-discriminatory interventions. Such an economic agenda, by the nature of the type of applications it requires, is more likely to alter the economic structure to that of an "an attenuated property rights system"111 and to forge a system that will sustain society's dependence on political authority. In such circumstances, the same mechanisms that currently ensure that the bureaucracy is aligned with the elected government's political goals will be used to impose partial-discriminatory treatment justified in the name of the national interest.112 It is then possible to envisage a political authority positioned to identify winners, reward them in return for their loyalty, and threaten dissenters with exclusion and discrimination. This state of affairs can become so dominant that it eliminates exit for economic actors to spheres of economic activity relatively protected from partial-discriminatory interventions. If partial-discriminatory allocations become typical, economic actors may find it impossible to operate outside the reach of the politicized economy and to avoid the exercise of coercion that it entails.113 At that point, partial-discriminatory interventions generate not simply a state-controlled economy, but a politically controlled society where economic actors can be identified, targeted, rewarded, or discriminated against on political grounds. If the allocation of opportunities is systematically controlled by a single political force that determines how the government distributes resources,114 social groups find themselves tied into a relationship of110. See also Mises, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis (see note 49 above). 111. Boettke, "On Reading Hayek," 1048 (see note 19 above). 112. Mathew Mccubbins, Roger G. Noll, and Barry R. Weingast, "Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control," Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 3 (1987): 243–77; B. Dan Wood and Richard W. Waterman, "The Dynamics of Political Control of the Bureaucracy," American Political Science Review 85 (1991): 801–28; Terry M. Moe, "Control and Feedback in Economic Regulation: The Case of the NLRB," American Political Science Review 79 (1985): 1094–1116; and Richard P. Nathan, The Administrative Presidency (New York: MacMillan, 1983), 81. 113. Aris Trantidis, "Clientelism and the Classification of Dominant Party Systems," Democratization 22 (2015): 113–33, at 126. 114. Kenneth F. Greene, "A Resource-Theory of Single-Party Dominance: The PRI in Mexico," in Dominant Political Parties and Democracy: Concepts, Measures, Cases, and Comparisons, ed. Matthijs Bogaards and Françoise Boucek (New York: Routledge, 2010), 155–74; Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 10; Beatriz Magaloni, Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and Its Demise in Mexico (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 9; Luis FernandoMedina and Susan Carol Stokes, "Monopoly andMonitoring: An Approach to Political This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 186 | Hayek versus Trumpdependency which, instead of violence, uses partial-discriminatory allocations as socioeconomic sanctions that force citizens to show political loyalty and to abstain from strong demonstrations of dissent.115 Conclusion Drawing fromHayek's notion of coercion, we have offered an extension of Hayek's argument about the relationship between economic structure and political liberty. Hayek does not make a gloomy prediction about the democratic prospects of mixed economies, nor does he solely warn about socialist planning. Instead, his account of coercion in Constitution offers the basis for a refined argument about which institutional settings pose a potential threat to liberty. Our institutional argument is based on the combined effect of economic commands as incursions into the sphere of personal freedoms (private property and economic freedom), the presence of an authority that applies discretionary economic power (an economic dictator), and the consequences of that system for personal and political liberty. We then examined the radical right's agenda in order to answer the question of whether its policy agenda is likely to expose citizens to the kind of arbitrary power that Hayek warns us against inConstitution and Serfdom. Is the radical right's preference for economic nationalism and protectionism a threat in light of Hayek's writings? Our analysis in the section on "Impersonal and Partial-Discriminatory Intervention" develops Hayek's notions of coercion and personal liberty in Constitution. Partial-discriminatory interventions allow for ex ante identification of individuals and ad hoc discrimination that can become politically coercive even if the rule underpinning it appears to be general. On that basis, we extend Hayek's political thought. First, we emphasize the capacity for the actual application of rules and policies in a coercive manner, and less so the typical form of the rule itself. Although form and applicability are interrelated, general rules of conduct can become coercive at the stage of implementation and enforcement. Second, we argue that the mere appeal to social justice will not necessarily lead to coercive applications of state power, despite the conflicts that various policies invoking social justiceClientelism," in Patrons, Clients, and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition, ed. Herbert Kitschelt and Steven Wilkinson (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 68–83, at 69; and Aris Trantidis, "Reforms and Collective Action in a Clientelist System: Greece during the Mitsotakis Administration (1990–93)," South European Society and Politics 19 (2014): 215–34, at 216. 115. See Robert A. Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1971), 49. This content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). Aris Trantidis and Nick Cowen | 187may generate. Ideologies invoking the concept of social justice have driven the development of welfare systems, but these systems have largely implemented impersonal entitlements that do not readily facilitate personal and discretionary allocations. By contrast, the radical right's combined political and economic agenda generates an increased risk of coercion as understood byHayek. The Radical Right brings an ideology that encourages discretionary policies on a large scale under a system of protections and subsidies controlled by a single agency (in the U.S. case, the presidency). This threatens to expose economic actors to the coercive power that Hayek condemns in Constitution and to transform society into a rent-seeking economy prone to authoritarian manipulation, as he describes in Serfdom. The radical right's nationalist agenda and political strategy can unlock a large scope for partial-discriminatory treatment. It claims to represent a nation against corrupt elites, and it reveres authority in a way that justifies a disregard for procedural checks and permits partial-discriminatory applications of state power. The radical right's economic principle of the putative national interest is a specific, exclusionary configuration of "social justice," as Hayek would understand it, that elicits policies that increase the scope for government command of private activity. Economic protectionism in the service of the "national interest" is governed by rules that allow for a wider range of discretionary decisions justified by expediency. Protectionism is ripe for discrimination with tariff policies, national subsidies, government contracts, and other financial instruments enough to cover most sections of economic activity. Partial-discriminatory policies could emerge from any branch of government, depending on the institutions of each country. In the U.S. case, the executive can exercise discretion through its control over bureaucratic departments. There are reasons to be optimistic about the stability of democracy in the United States. It has a large private sector and civil society, boisterous news media, and an independent judiciary that frequently countermands executive commands. However, there are reasons to be alarmed. Part of the radical right's agenda is to control the Republican Party and build a network across formal institutional veto points, such as Congress and the Supreme Court. It aims at control over the administration and the removal of processes and norms that impede policies that they present to be in the national interest. The argument we put forward here is not mainly about a particular government in which the radical right has gained power, but also about the institutional infrastructure that the radical right can introduce into the economic system, possibly in subsequent rounds over time, which would enable those in power toThis content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 188 | Hayek versus Trumpincrease their capacity for infringements on personal and political freedom. The radical right's ideology offers a nationalist line of defense for the establishment of a far-reaching partial-discriminatory economic regime starting with governmentfirm or government-industry agreements, the treatment of business in relation to production, policies on imports and exports, and the treatment of immigrants and their families. On the aggregate level, such an economic regime carries a higher risk for increased levels of political coercion through practices that help the government to reward loyalists and punish dissenters. Democracies can survive distributional conflicts, withstand recurrent policy failure, and even endure the rise and fall of individual demagogues, but they can hardly survive a structure allowing large-scale coercion.Aris Trantidis is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in International Relations and Politics at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lincoln, United Kingdom. He is the author of Clientelism and Economic Policy: Greece and the Crisis (Routledge, 2016) and has published on semi-authoritarianism, political hegemony, corruption, and democratic theory. He can be reached at atrantidis@lincoln .ac.uk. Nick Cowen is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Criminology at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lincoln and a Program Affiliate Scholar at the Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law. He has published in the American Journal of Political Science, the British Journal of Criminology, and Critical Review. He studies the implications of subjective knowledge for the performance of legal institutions and public policies. He can be reached at [email protected] content downloaded from 086.146.255.161 on June 11, 2020 02:45:54 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). | {
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© Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 2016, 12(2) HOW MUCH SHOULD THE PEOPLE KNOW? IMPLICATIONS OF METHODOLOGICAL CHOICES IN THE STUDY OF INTENTIONALITY AND BLAME ASCRIPTIONS Maria Botero Sam Houston State University Diana Buccafurni-Huber Independent Scholar Donna Desforges Sam Houston State University Several studies have shown that people are more likely to attribute intentionality and blame to agents who perform actions that have harmful consequences. This kind of bias has problematic implications for jury decisions because it predicts that judgment in juries will malfunction if an action has a blameworthy effect. Most of these studies include in their design a vignette in which it is clear that agents have foreknowledge of the effects of their actions. This kind of design fails to replicate trial situations where, in most cases, it is impossible to know with certainty whether agents have foreknowledge of the effects of their actions. In the present study, we adopt an alternative design that includes vignettes in which there is no direct evidence of foreknowledge to investigate the relationship between intentionality and blame in actions that have harmful and helpful effects. We find that people are still more likely to attribute intentionality to actions that produce harmful effects than actions that produce good effects. However, we find that people tend to attribute more blame when they have direct evidence of foreknowledge than when presented with an alternative design that does not include foreknowledge. Results indicate the relevant role that evidence of foreknowledge plays in experimental designs that study blame attribution. Keywords: foreknowledge, blame, intentionality, methods Research on blame attribution has focused on the idea that mental factors such as intentionality and foreseeability play a fundamental role for blame attribution (Alicke, 2000, 2008; Lagnado & Channon, 2008; Shaver, 1985). Traditionally, intentionality has played a guiding role in the ascription of blame. For example, in mens rea, the difference between murder and manslaughter rests on whether the accused's behavior was intentional (Cushman, 2008). This emphasis on intentionality also is present in moral philosophy where it is argued that an action is morally permissible if an agent foresees but does not Author note: Maria Botero and Donna Desforges, Department of Psychology and Philosophy, Sam Houston State University; Diana Buccafurni-Huber, Independent Scholar. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Maria Botero, Department of Psychology and Philosophy, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas 77380. E-mail: [email protected] © Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 2016, 12(2) 102 HOW MUCH SHOULD THE PEOPLE KNOW intend harmful consequences (Fitzpatrick, 2014). For example, Mikhail (2011) argues that harmful acts such as homicide may be permissible so long as the agent does not intend homicide as a goal of the action. However, it has been shown that, in cases of homicide, if the agent intends a harmful action and foresees harmful consequences without intending those harmful consequences, people will attribute intentionality and blame for both the intentional action and the unintended foreseen harmful consequences. Studies (Guglielmo & Malle, 2010; Malle, 2006; Malle & Nelson, 2003; Nadelhoffer, 2006) have explored this relationship between mental states and attributions of blame in jury-like situations where participants ascribe intentionality to agents who commit a crime. These studies have shown that participants were more likely to judge a behavior as intentional and blame the agent for the behavior when there was a bad side-effect, even if the agent claimed that he did not perform the behavior with the purpose of bringing about that bad side-effect. This kind of bias has problematic consequences for jury decisions. Nadelhoffer (2004, 2006) argues that moral judgment in juries will malfunction if an action has a morally blameworthy side-effect. He argues that we ought to abandon the practice of asking juries whether they consider the defendant to have acted intentionally. The background for these studies is a general bias found when determining the difference between intentional and unintentional effects in social psychology (Langer, 1975; Lerner, 1980; Mele, 2006; Mele & Cushman 2007; Rosset, 2008; Wegner, 2002) and determining intentional and unintentional effects in helpful and harmful conditions found in moral psychology (Knobe, 2003, 2006; Knobe & Burra, 2006; McCann, 2005; Sverdlik, 2004). One element common to the methodology employed by these studies (Guglielmo & Malle, 2010; Malle & Nelson, 2003; Nadelhoffer, 2006) is the use of vignettes in which the main character has foreknowledge of the consequences of his/her actions, and this foreknowledge is explicit in the vignette. This design is the direct product of a long history of defining an intentional action as an action where the agent, at the time of choosing an action, is aware of the effects of the intended action (Mele, 1992). However, in everyday life, when ascribing intentionality and blame we rarely know the mental state of a person. If we observe a person breaking a rule or law, it is unlikely that the person will reveal the intentions, beliefs, and/or desires that motivated the behavior. To ascribe blame, people observing the behavior must use other sources of information, such as the context wherein the behavior takes place or previous information about this person (Desforges, 2000). This is also true during a trial; it is not always clear that the accused had knowledge of the consequences of his/her actions. To decide whether the accused could foresee the side-effect of his/her action, the prosecution and defense provide jurors with a description of the facts and often conflicting interpretations of the accused's foreknowledge and motivation. In this paper, we examine the methodological consequences of including foreknowledge in a study that examines ascriptions of intentionality and blame in a case of © Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 2016, 12(2) BOTERO, ET AL. 103 murder that is committed during a felony (i.e., robbing a store), which is death-penalty eligible. We depart from previous studies by employing a vignette that provides the reader with the same information that would be available in ordinary, everyday interactions or in the context of sitting on a jury. That is, we employed a vignette in which it is not clear whether the main character has foreknowledge of the side-effects of his/her action. This analysis is important for two reasons. First, as Mawson (2005) has reported intentions are taken for granted and seldom verified in jury trials. Second, evidence of foreknowledge can provide direct evidence of foreseeability, and it has been shown that foreseeability is connected to ascriptions of intentionality and blame (Alicke, 2000; Lagnado & Channon, 2008; Shaver, 1985). To analyze the way participants ascribe blame we used Alicke's (2000) culpability control model (CCM). We chose this model because if, as others claim, the attribution of intentionality and blame in jury-like situations is biased, then we need a model that makes it possible to measure bias in blame validation processes. The CCM provides a description of how people may alter their perceptions in their blame validation process and that allows us to explain the reasons behind their bias. In this model, Alicke (2000) identifies three aspects of personal control that encourage ascriptions of blame (i.e., mental elements such as desires or plans, behavioral elements such as actions or omissions, and consequential elements or behavioral outcomes). Using these aspects, we test whether ascriptions of blame are affected by the lack of direct evidence of foreknowledge and which aspects are used by participants to justify their ascriptions of blame. As argued by Lagnado and Channon (2008), it is important to consider both positive and negative outcomes to fully understand blame ascriptions. To determine the relationship between intentionality and praise, we also use the mental, behavioral, and consequential aspects of personal control to examine praise attributions. Finally, addressing concerns as to whether studies that utilize undergraduate students exclusively provide accurate descriptions of human behavior (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010), we compare ascriptions of intentionality and blame in community and undergraduate student samples. Most studies use undergraduate students as their exclusive sample and extrapolate their results to jurors' assessments of behavior. To test whether students' responses are similar to those of people in the community, we conducted surveys of a random sample of participants in the city of Huntsville, Texas. Both the students and members of the community live or spend a significant portion of time in Huntsville, home of the Walls Unit, which houses "the busiest death chamber in America" (Fernandez, 2013, para. 4). The results of these surveys are relevant because they will inform us about the moral intuitions of people who are both familiar with death penalty cases and who could be selected as potential jurors in a death penalty trial. We tested the following hypotheses. First, even in more naturalistic conditions with no direct evidence of outcome foreknowledge, participants still will exhibit bias in ascribing intentionality in an action that resulted in harm. Second, we believe that the bias observed in previous studies (Nadelhoffer, 2006) is in part the result of the methodological choice to © Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 2016, 12(2) 104 HOW MUCH SHOULD THE PEOPLE KNOW including foreknowledge in the design. Following the CCM (Alicke, 2000), we expected that eliminating direct evidence of foreknowledge and desire in our vignettes will decrease the actor's personal control. This in turn was expected to decrease blame ascriptions. If our hypotheses are correct, this will mitigate some concerns that authors (Nadelhoffer, 2006; Malle, 2006; Malle & Nelson, 2003) have posed regarding the attributions of intentionality in juries. Finally, we hypothesized that ascriptions of intentionality and blame of the community and students will be different. It seems plausible that the moral intuitions of people who have lived longer and been exposed for a longer period of time to death penalty cases will be different than the intuitions of undergraduate students (the community-participant's average age was 48 years, while the student-participants' average age was 21 years). METHOD Participants In the first part of our study, the first group of participants (N = 87) were people who attended two summer festivals held in Huntsville, Texas. The second group of participants (N = 167) were students attending Sam Houston State University during December of 2012. Materials and Procedure Participants in each group were asked to complete basic demographic questions (e.g., gender, age, ethnicity, religion, and general occupation) and read one of two scenarios depicting a thief shooting and killing the clerk he robbed (see Appendix). The scenarios are identical with the exception of the third-party consequences. In one scenario, the harm condition, the clerk's death has harmful consequences for the clerk's children (after their father's death, the clerk's children are forced to live in the streets). In the other scenario, the help condition, the clerk's death has beneficial consequences for the children (after their father's death, the clerk's children are adopted by a loving, non-abusive family) [1]. After reading the survey, the participants are asked whether the behavior was intentional; how much blame/praise the main character deserves (assessed using a Likert-type scale); why he is or isn't to be blamed/praised (an open-ended question); and whether they agree with the death penalty. For the first open-ended question, we used Alicke's (2000) CCM to code the participant's answer in one of three categories: (1) Mental elements such as desires or plans, (2) behavioral elements such as actions or omissions, and (3) consequential elements or behavioral outcomes. If the answer to the open-ended question included more than one reason, then each reason was coded independently. Two coders coded the second open-ended question. The number of observed agreements among these coders was 53 (91.38% of the observations), Kappa = 0.863, SE of Kappa = 0.059 and Weighted Kappa = 0.885. The strength of agreement is considered to be "very good" (Fleiss, 1981). Finally, participants were asked whether they agree (or not agree) with the death penalty. For the second part of our study, 145 Sam Houston State University students participated during January of 2013. Each participant was asked to complete the same basic © Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 2016, 12(2) BOTERO, ET AL. 105 demographic questions (e.g., gender, age, ethnicity, religion, and general occupation) as in the first part of the study. They were asked also to read the same surveys used in the first part of the study (i.e., one of two scenarios, depicting a thief who shot and killed the clerk he robbed, that are differentiated by harmful and helpful side effects) except that the main character of these vignettes has foreknowledge of the consequences of his actions and demonstrates no care for these consequences (see Appendix). Just as in the first part of the study, after reading the survey, the participants are asked whether they think the behavior was intentional; how much blame (praise) using a Likert-type scale the main character deserves; why they think he is or isn't to be blamed/praised (an open-ended question); and whether they agree with the death penalty. For the analysis of this open-ended question, we used Alicke's (2000) CCM model as in the first part of the study. RESULTS The Huntsville Community-No Foreknowledge Eighty-seven participants (34 males, 53 females) from a community sample completed the questionnaire[1]. The average age was 48[2]. A Chi-square analysis was conducted between attributions of intentionality in harm and help conditions, and it was found that the difference between harm and help conditions was significant X2(1, N = 87) = 18.08, p < .001. In the harm condition, 52% of the participants said the harmful consequence of the agent's action (i.e., the children living on the streets) was not intentional, and 48% said it was intentional. In the help condition, 93% said the helpful consequence of the agent's action (i.e., the children living with a loving, non-abusive family) was not intentional, and 7% said it was intentional. In the harm condition, the blame attribution mean was 4.93 and in the help condition the praise attribution mean was 0.33. These results show that, even when lacking direct evidence of foreknowledge, participants exhibited a bias towards ascribing intentionality to an action that resulted in harmful consequences. The results also show that even though both conditions (i.e., harm and help) do not indicate direct evidence of foreknowledge, participants are likely to blame the actor for a behavior that results in harmful consequences and not to praise him for a behavior that results in helpful consequences. Students-No Foreknowledge One hundred and sixty-seven participants (64 males, 103 females) completed the questionnaire. The average age was 21[3]. A Chi-square analysis was conducted between attributions of intentionality in harm and help conditions, and it was found that this difference between harm and help conditions was significant X2(1, N = 167) = 29.40, p < .001. In the harm condition, 52% of the participants said the harmful consequence of the agent's action (i.e., the children living on the streets) was not intentional, and 48% said it was intentional. In the help condition, 90% said the helpful consequence of the agent's action (i.e., the children living with a loving, non-abusive family) was not intentional, and 10% said it was intentional. In the harm condition, the blame attribution mean was 4.55 and in the help condition the praise attribution mean was 0.83. These results show that, even when lacking direct evidence of foreknowledge, participants exhibited a bias towards ascribing intentionality to an action that resulted in harmful consequences. The results also show that © Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 2016, 12(2) 106 HOW MUCH SHOULD THE PEOPLE KNOW even though both conditions (i.e. harm and help) do not indicate direct evidence of foreknowledge, participants are likely to blame the actor for a behavior that results in harmful consequences and not to praise him for a behavior that results in helpful consequences. Students with Foreknowledge As mentioned, since no significant differences were found in the ascription of intentionality in harm/help conditions between the community and student groups in the first part of the study, we recruited only student participants for this next level of analysis. One hundred and forty-five participants (63 males, 82 females) completed the questionnaire. The average age was 25[4]. A Chi-square analysis was conducted between attributions of intentionality in harm and help conditions, and it was found that this difference between harm and help conditions was significant X2(1, N = 144) = 46.19, p < .001. In the harm condition, 32% of the participants said the harmful consequence of the agent's action (i.e., the children living on the streets) was not intentional, and 68% said it was intentional. In the help condition, 88% said the helpful consequence of the agent's action (i.e., the children living with a loving, non-abusive family) was not intentional, and 12% said it was intentional. In the harm condition, the blame attribution mean was 5.16 and in the help condition the praise attribution mean was 0.84. These results show that when presented with direct evidence of foreknowledge, participants exhibited an even more pronounced bias towards ascribing intentionality to an action that resulted in harmful consequences. The results also show that when presented with evidence of foreknowledge participants are even more likely to blame the actor for a behavior that results in harmful consequences and continue to not praise him for a behavior that results in helpful consequences. Comparison of Self-Reports of Ascription of Blame Between Students with No Foreknowledge and Students with Foreknowledge A Chi-square analysis was conducted between the foreknowledge and no foreknowledge student groups to compare the relationship between the kinds of mental states being used to attribute blame and praise in the harm and help conditions. There was no significant difference between the foreknowledge and no foreknowledge group. However, there was a difference between participants who exhibited a bias towards ascribing intentionality in an action that resulted in harmful consequences (i.e., participants who exhibit a gap between harm and help conditions; they consistently ascribe intentionality in the harm condition and do not ascribe praise in the help condition) and participants who did not exhibit the bias X2(3, N = 308) = 24.28, p < .001. Participants who did not exhibit the bias (both foreknowledge and no foreknowledge groups) consistently use more behavioral elements to justify not ascribing blame (noforeknowledge 68% use behavioral elements to not ascribe blame; foreknowledge 64% use behavioral elements to not ascribe blame). At the same time, they use more behavioral elements to justify ascribing praise (no foreknowledge 66% use behavioral elements to ascribe praise; foreknowledge 58% use behavioral elements to ascribe praise). Finally, a one-way between subjects Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was conducted between foreknowledge and no foreknowledge student groups to compare blame attributions. We were interested in the following question: Did the presence of foreknowledge © Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 2016, 12(2) BOTERO, ET AL. 107 result in a significant difference in blame attributions? Indeed, there was a significant difference between the attribution of blame between these two groups F(3,306) = 228.38 p < .0001. Participants in the harm condition with foreknowledge ascribed higher levels of blame to the agent (M = 5.16, SD = 1.26) than did participants without foreknowledge (M = 4.55, SD = 1.53; Tukey HSD; p < .05). DISCUSSION As predicted in the first part of the study, we found that, even if an agent does not have foreknowledge, participants are still more likely to attribute intentionality to the action that brought about those harmful effects (although at a lower rate than previous findings) than they are to attribute intentionality to an action that brought about helpful effects. When presented with a vignette that includes foreknowledge, participants exhibit a more pronounced biased effect of attributing intentionality to a behavior that resulted in a harmful effect. Thus, based on the results of this study, we can conclude that foreknowledge seems to contribute to a more pronounced bias in attributing intentionality, but participants still show this bias even when lacking direct evidence of foreknowledge. Given the connection of this kind of bias to the development of Theory of Mind (i.e., the ability to attribute beliefs and desires to others), it is surprising to see that this bias is not necessarily tied to direct evidence of foreknowledge. Leslie, Knobe, and Cohen (2006) describe the circumstances in which children demonstrate a bias in attributing intentionality to actions that have harmful (or helpful) side effects. The authors found that pre-school children (4 and 5-year-olds) claim that a foreseen effect is brought about "on purpose" if it has morally bad consequences, but it was not considered brought about "on purpose" if the effects were morally good. Thus, they argue that the two prerequisites for the appearance of this kind of bias in children are that the actor knows that the side effect will occur and that the actor does not care about the side effect. In our, study participants did not know whether the actor knows the side effect of his action or whether the actor cares about causing the effect. Contrary to Leslie, Knobe, and Cohen's (2006) findings, our results suggest that this kind of bias can appear without direct evidence of foreknowledge and desire. The finding in our study of the presence of this bias when there is a lack of direct evidence of foreknowledge suggests an even greater flexibility in the way people attribute (or not) intentionality. Paharia, Kassam, Greene, and Bazerman (2009) have shown the presence of this same kind of flexibility in the use of foreknowledge in the case of indirect agency (i.e., how observers perceive the harmful action of a person whose intentions are carried through the actions of other agents). This same kind of flexibility of intentionality attribution seems to be supported by developmental studies. Pellizzoni, Siegal, and Surian (2009) found that 4and 5-year-olds showed this bias in attributing intentionality to behaviors that have harmful effects when the agent had knowledge or desire/care for the outcome. What our study adds to this discussion is the presence of an even more extreme form of flexibility. Our results lead us to believe that people will exhibit this kind of bias not only in the absence of direct evidence of foreknowledge or desire, but also in © Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 2016, 12(2) 108 HOW MUCH SHOULD THE PEOPLE KNOW the absence of direct evidence of both foreknowledge and desire. This suggests that the attribution of intentionality is a flexible process that can be used in contexts in which the agent's mental states such as foreknowledge is explicit as well as in contexts in which mental states are unknown. The results of this study also confirm our second prediction: The lack of direct evidence of foreknowledge has an effect on the attributions of blame. Our results show that participants in the harm condition with foreknowledge ascribed higher levels of blame to the agent in the vignette than did participants without foreknowledge. As described earlier, previous studies (Guglielmo & Malle, 2010; Malle, 2006; Malle & Nelson, 2003; Nadelhoffer, 2006) have consistently demonstrated that if the behavior of an agent has harmful consequences, participants will ascribe intentionality and blame, even when the agent provides direct evidence that s/he did not intend those harmful consequences. Our findings are consistent with these earlier studies. What is different and intriguing about our results is that participants attributed more blame to the agent when they had direct evidence that the agent could foresee but did not intend the harmful consequences (e.g. foreknowledge condition) and attribute less blame when they have no direct evidence of the agent's intentions and desires. This was the case even when the agent's behaviors brought forth the same kinds of harmful consequences. These findings have important implications for the legal applications of the concept of intentionality in mens rea (Cushman, 2008), where it is necessary for a jury to distinguish between an action being intentional and the degree of blameworthiness of that action. Some authors (Malle, 2006; Malle & Nelson, 2003; Nadelhoffer, 2006) have claimed that the bias found in attributions of intentionality and blame poses a serious problem for the legal system. Judgments may be more biased against the defendants because of the negative behaviors that are attributed to them. The results in our study suggest that if prosecutors are able to demonstrate clearly the beliefs and desires of the accused, jurors will attribute blame based on the degree to which these effects are harmful. However, if there is doubt about what the accused believes and desires, then it seems that jurors will not be as biased towards harmful effects. This, in turn, allows us to have more faith in the way people on a jury will ascribe blame to defendants. Moreover, we found that people who agree with the death penalty attribute blame in the same way as those who do not agree with the death penalty. This suggests that the people's ability to determine the degree of blameworthiness will not be biased in trials where the death penalty is a possibility. At this point, we are interested in answering this question: Why does the absence of direct evidence of foreknowledge have as an effect a decrease in blame attribution for a harmful consequence? Shaver (1985) argues that there are two kinds of foreseeability: Subjective foreseeability (what the person actually knows) and reasonable foreseeability (what the person should know). Shaver argues that blame attributions should only be affected by reasonable foreseeability and not by subjective foreseeability. Following Shaver, the differences between the foreknowledge and no foreknowledge conditions should only have an effect on subjective foreseeability and, since only reasonable foreseeability should © Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 2016, 12(2) BOTERO, ET AL. 109 have an effect on attributions of blame, the presence or absence of foreknowledge should not have an effect on ascriptions of blame. However, our results indicate that subjective foreseeability (what the actor actually knows) drives blame ascriptions. Meanwhile, for Alicke (2000), foreseeability modulates the degree of control that a person has, and for that reason it has a direct effect on blame attributions. For Alicke, both subjective and reasonable foreseeability will have an effect on attributions of blame. Our results seem to be in accordance with Alicke's analysis of blame; the evidence presented in the vignette on subjective foreseeability (i.e., foreknowledge or no foreknowledge) has an effect on ascriptions of blame. However, we could not use the elements found in the CMM to explain this effect. If Alicke (2000) is right, we should have found differences in the reasons that participants chose to justify ascriptions of blame: Mental states, behaviors, and consequences among the foreknowledge and no foreknowledge groups, since foreknowledge and desire have an impact in personal control and blame attributions. We found that there are no significant differences, however, between the reasons participants provided to justify ascriptions of blame between the foreknowledge and no foreknowledge groups. Alicke (2000) also claims that, besides using the three reasons described above when attributing blame, people also may use spontaneous evaluations, that is, affective reactions to the people performing that action and the harmful consequences that this behavior brought about. In a previous paper, Alicke and colleagues (Alicke, Davis, & Pezzo, 1994) argue that this kind of negative reaction to the consequence of the behavior can influence and distort ascriptions of intentionality and blame. Thus, following Alicke (2000), participants may have provided a spontaneous evaluation, that is, an affective reaction to the features of the harmful effect that altered the evidence (i.e., lack of direct evidence of foreknowledge and desire) in order to justify their ascriptions of blame. Our final and unexpected discovery involved the bias towards ascribing intentionality for an action that resulted in harmful consequences. We found two significant differences between the reasons offered by participants who displayed this bias to justify their answers, and the reasons offered by those who did not. First, participants who did not exhibit this bias consistently attribute praise in helpful conditions. This is an unexpected and surprising finding because, as Alicke argues, "Whereas blaming reckless people has obvious instrumental value, there is little to be gained in praising inadvertent do-gooders" (2008, p. 181). In other words, this group of participants is surprising, because compared to the majority of participants, not only did they not follow this bias, but they praised the agent for helpful consequences. Second, the participants who did not exhibit this bias consistently used more behavioral elements to justify their ascriptions of blame/praise. We think that this small group was able to escape this bias by focusing on the behavioral elements of the vignette. Meanwhile, participants who exhibit the bias do not have a consistent strategy. They use a variety of interpretations to justify ignoring direct evidence (the agent's claim that he did not intend the harmful consequences). This finding suggests that people who "escape" the bias have a more consistent and coherent strategy when © Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 2016, 12(2) 110 HOW MUCH SHOULD THE PEOPLE KNOW evaluating a moral action. Meanwhile, people who fall under the influence of the bias do not seem to follow a consistent strategy when providing a justification for a moral judgment. Instead, they exhibit a form of flexibility to justify what may be considered a bias against harmful consequences. A question that remains for future research is whether empathy also plays a role in this spontaneous affective attribution of blame. Hanson, Terrance, and Plumm (2015) found that empathy plays a fundamental role in social punishment. In their study, empathy was negatively correlated with blame and responsibility. In the context of our study, it may be fruitful to investigate whether or not spontaneous affective attributions of blame in the absence of direct evidence of foreknowledge are driven by empathy towards agents who perform actions that result in a helpful outcomes and agents whose actions that result in harmful outcomes. Finally, our results did not confirm our last prediction. The results in this study showed that there are no significant differences between the general attributions of intentionality and blame by the students and the Huntsville community. To our surprise, age and familiarity with the topic do not seem to have a significant effect on the subjects' responses. These results suggest that concerns about potential differences between community members and students in ascriptions of intentionality appear to be unwarranted. REFERENCES Alicke, M. (2000). Culpable control and the psychology of blame. Psychological Bulletin, 26(4), 556-674. Alicke, M. (2008). Blaming badly. 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The folk concepts of intention and intentional action: A cross-cultural study. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 6, 113-132. Lagnado, D. A., & Channon, S. (2008). Judgments of cause and blame: The effects of intentionality and foreseeability. Cognition, 108, 754-770. Langer, E. J. (1975). The illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 311-328. Lerner, M. J. (1980). The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. New York, NY: Plenum. Leslie, A., Knobe, J., & Cohen, A. (2006). Acting intentionally and the side-effect effect: 'Theory of Mind' and moral judgment. Psychological Science, 17, 421-427. Malle, B. F. (2006). The relation between judgments of intentionality and morality. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 6, 61-86. Malle, B., & Nelson, S. (2003). Judging mens rea: The tension between folk concepts and legal concepts of intentionality. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 21, 563-580. Mawson, A. (2005). Intentional injury and the behavioral syndrome. 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Philosophical Explorations: An International Journal for the Philosophy of Mind and Action, 9, 203-219. Paharia, N., Kassam, K., Greene, J., & Bazerman, M. (2009). Dirty work, clean hands: The moral psychology of indirect agency. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 109, 134-141. Pellizzoni, S., Siegal, M., & Surian, L. (2009). Foreknowledge, caring and the side-effect in young children. Developmental Psychology, 45, 289-295. Rosset, E. (2008). It's no accident: Our bias for intentional explanations. Cognition, 108, 771-780. Shaver, K. G. (1985). The attribution of blame: Causality, responsibility, and blameworthiness. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag. Sverdlik, S. (2004). Intentionality and moral judgments in commonsense thought about action. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 24, 224-236. Wegner, D. M. (2002). The illusion of conscious will. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Received: 6/2016 Accepted: 10/2016 Suggested Citation: Botero, M., Buccafurni-Huber, D., & Desforges. D. (2016). How much should the people know? Implications of methodological choices in the study of intentionality and blame ascriptions. [Electronic Version]. Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 12(2), 101-113. © Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 2016, 12(2) 112 HOW MUCH SHOULD THE PEOPLE KNOW APPENDIX NO FOREKNOWLEDGE VIGNETTES Harm Condition John is robbing a store. John recognizes the clerk as an old neighbor and knows that the clerk is a single parent who takes care of his children. Responding to John's demand, the clerk opens the cash register. John thinks the clerk has a gun and is going to shoot him. John shoots the clerk and kills him. After their father's death, the clerk's children are forced to live in the streets. Help Condition John is robbing a store. John recognizes the clerk as an old neighbor and knows that the clerk physically abuses his children. Responding to John's demand, the clerk opens the cash register. John thinks the clerk has a gun and is going to shoot him. John shoots the clerk and kills him. After their father's death, the clerk's children are adopted by a loving, non-abusive family. FOREKNOWLEDGE VIGNETTES Harm Condition John is robbing a store. John recognizes the clerk as an old neighbor and knows that the clerk is a single parent who takes care of his children. John knows that without their father, the children will be forced to live in the streets, but that isn't what matters to him. He just wants money. Responding to John's demand, the clerk opens the cash register. John thinks the clerk has a gun and is going to shoot him. John shoots the clerk and kills him. After their father's death the clerk's children are forced to live in the streets. Help Condition John is robbing a store. John recognizes the clerk as an old neighbor and knows that the clerk physically abuses his children. John knows that without their father, the children will be adopted by their uncle and his wife, a loving and non-abusive couple, but that isn't what matters to him. He just wants money. © Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 2016, 12(2) BOTERO, ET AL. 113 Responding to John's demand, the clerk opens the cash register. John thinks the clerk has a gun and is going to shoot him. John shoots the clerk and kills him. After their father's death, the clerk's children are adopted by their uncle and his wife, a loving and non-abusive couple. ENDNOTES 1. Out of the first group of participants (i.e., Huntsville community members), 44 participants answered the survey after reading the harm condition, and 43 participants answered the survey after reading the help condition. Out of the second group of participants (students), 87participants answered the survey after reading the harm condition, and 83 participants answered the survey after reading the help condition. 2. All of the participants completed high school, with slightly over half of them completing college degrees (58%). A total of 44 were in the harm condition; 43 were in the help condition. Race/ethnicity of the sample was as follows: 6% Asian-American; 5% Black/African-American; 9% Hispanic/Latino; 1% Native American/ Alaskan Native; 80.5% White; and 3% Other. Religious affiliations were: 6% agnostic; 10% atheist; 1% Buddhist; 9% Catholic; 59% Christian; 2% Jewish; and 13% Other. Because of the sample size, no significant differences were found among these different demographic categories. 3. Race/ethnicity of the sample was as follows: 1.8% Asian-American; 19.2% Black/African-American; 17.4% Hispanic/Latino; 0.6% Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander; 0.6% Native American/Alaskan Native; 59.9% White; and 3.6% Other. Religious affiliations were: 7.8% agnostic; 2.4% atheist; 0.6% Buddhist; 16.8% Catholic; 60.5% Christian; and 12% Other or not reported. Because of the sample size, no significant differences were found among these different demographic categories. 4. Race/ethnicity of the sample was as follows: 1.4% Asian-American; 25.5% Black/African-American; 16.6% Hispanic/Latino; 0.7% Native American/Alaskan Native; 51.7% White; and 4.1% Other. Religious affiliations were: 11% agnostic; 3.4% atheist; 16.6% Catholic; 61.4% Christian; and 7.6% Other or not reported. Because of the sample size, no significant differences were found among these different demographic categories. | {
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© Symposion, 2, 4 (2015): 505–514 Contemporary Representations of the Female Body: Consumerism and the Normative Discourse of Beauty Venera Dimulescu Abstract: In the context of the perpetual reproduction of consumerism in contemporary western societies, the varied and often contradictory principles of third wave feminism have been misunderstood or redefined by the dominant economic discourse of the markets. The lack of homogeneity in the theoretical debates of the third wave feminism seems to be a vulnerable point in the appropriation of its emancipatory ideals by the post-modern consumerist narratives. The beauty norm, particularly, brings the most problematic questions forth in the contemporary feminist dialogues. In this paper I will examine the validity of the concept of empowerment through practices of the body, practices that constitute the socially legitimized identity of women in a consumerist western society. My thesis is that the beauty norm is constructed as a socio-political instrument in order to preserve the old, patriarchal regulation of women's bodies. Due to the power of invisibility of the new mechanisms of social control and subjection, the consumerist discourse offers the most effective political tool for gender inequality and a complex discussion about free will and emancipation in third wave feminism debates. This delicate theoretical issues question not only the existent social order, but the very political purposes of contemporary feminism. Keywords: third wave feminism, the beauty myth, consumerism, corporeality, empowerment, gender equality Introduction In the context of our present digital age, new technologies and the widespread of consumerist marketplaces, cultural norms about gender relations have been reconstructed and dispersed through new ways of communication. Mass-media, advertising and popular culture are perpetuating and reinventing gender roles that penetrate every home in this world that is familiar with mass communication devices. The mechanical reproduction of images, videos and words has fastened the diffusion of the dominant discourses and transformed them into implicit symbolic laws. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: This paper is supported by the Sectoral Operational Programme Human Resources Development (SOP HRD), financed from the European Social Fund and by the Romanian Government under the contract number POSDRU/159/1.5/S/133675. Venera Dimulescu 506 Gender relations have been a key element in every dominant discourse in human history. The grand narratives of modern thought, as Lyotard (Lyotard 1979) called them, were constructed within hetero-normative principles of identity, principles that were founded in dichotomous patterns of thought that gave birth to the major opposite and hierarchical concepts between mind/body, nature/culture, respectively, masculine/feminine. The evolution of feminist theories and gender studies has allowed theoreticians of the 20th century to explore the masculine/feminine opposition and analyze its role in the shaping of social, political and economic structures. The concept of the body, particularly, of the female body, has been thoroughly discussed and constructed throughout centuries under the authority of philosophy and Christian morality. It is now common knowledge that philosophical tradition devalued corporeality and femininity and denounced the deceptiveness of the senses as obstacles on the path to authentic knowledge (Spelman 2014). Women's bodies have long been the docile and passive recipients of male's will to knowledge and obsession for order and meaning. Until the second part of the 19th century, the cultural representations of female corporeality have been reduced to women's role within the domestic contract and the social institution of the family, role that was filled with the duties of reproduction and motherhood. Thus, the body never belonged to women per se, but to diverse forms of male domination that described, coerced and controlled it (King 2004). However, the rise of feminism and activism at the turn of the 20th century and the expansion of capitalism, have created a fertile ground for new gender representations. Consequently, the right questions to ask are what kind of inscriptions are there to be seen on the female body in contemporary western societies? Whose bodies are those which appear to represent and practice patterns of gender identity in postmodern modes of thought? In order to answer to these questions, I shall focus my research on the contemporary beauty discourse, as it appears to be significant in the construction of women's identity and cultural representations. Gender Identity, the Beauty Norm and the Practice of Choice Through Consumption According to Wolf, the feminine ideal of physical beauty is a relatively new cultural representation of women. Until the 1830s, the physical properties of the female body were not socially perceived as gender norms. Moreover, the traditional gender roles distributed to women were shaped within the domestic space as practices of the physiological heritage where fertility and nurturing skills were considered to be two necessary conditions to be a woman, which consequently meant to be a mother. Virginity and youth were two vital conditions for the social gratification of women as well, and sexual ignorance Contemporary Representations of the Female Body 507 was an essential feature of legitimate female representation (Wolf 2008). This way, the universal identity of women was defined as cultural interpretations of biological functions. Social selection and discrimination of women were made according to strict behavior rules that envisaged the hegemonic representation of gender relations. However, during the first decades of the 19th century, women's physical appearance became an object of documentation and admiration: In the 1840s the first nude photographs of prostitutes were taken; advertisements using images of beautiful women first appeared in mid-century. Copies of classical artworks, postcards of society beauties and royal mistresses, Currier and Ives prints and porcelain figurines flooded the separate sphere to which middle-class women were confined (Wolf 2008, 15). For a century and a half, the concept of beauty has been an instrument in the cultural representations of women as objects of knowledge and the product of three major historical revolutions: industrial, technological and sexual. The industrial revolution belittled the authority of the family as a social institution and gave women the opportunity to join the work force (Wolf 2008, Bordo 1995, Vance in Snitow, Stansell and Thompson 1983). Hence, physical beauty evolved as a substitute for women's maternal status and former exile in the domestic space. It became a new type of discourse in gender identity representations (Wolf 2008). The technological revolution strengthened the female beauty discourse by improving, highlighting and perpetuating cultural representations through photographs, ads, videos, books and TV shows. Ultimately, the sexual revolution regained women's right to sexual expression and sexual knowledge and encouraged a shift in gender relations and identity, one which would advocate for sexual liberation of women beyond marital contracts and social stigmatization. That implied a new definition of female beauty, one that would also incorporate the sexual expression as part of women's identity (Gill and Scharff 2011, Gill 2007, Gill 2008, Wolf 2008). Contemporary representations of female beauty within western societies are by-products of multiple economic, political and cultural factors. Under the emerging forces of consumerism, female beauty has become an industry and has penetrated all economic areas. In the context of redefining sex as a pleasurable practice and a viable financial resource regardless of gender identity, the beauty industry redefined female corporeality as the main object of discourse and observation. Thus, beauty became what Rosalind Gill named "a bodily property" (Gill 2007, 6). There is a significant cultural shift in the public discourse of gender identity, from the representation of woman as reproductive force and object in the preserving power of the social institution of the family, to the image of woman as a sexually assertive subject for whom physical beauty is a form of empowerment: Instead of caring or nurturing or motherhood being regarded as central to femininity (all of course, highly problematic and exclusionary) in today's media Venera Dimulescu 508 it is possession of a sexy body that is presented as women's key (if not sole) source of identity (Gill 2007, 6). Moreover, the identity of women was not only redefined, but also presented as an available, approachable and desirable model for all female subjects, regardless of class, race or age. It was transformed, in Michelle Lazar's terms, into "the right to be beautiful" (Lazar in Gill and Scharff 2011, 39). The right to be beautiful is conceived in terms of the now traditional practices of body shaping, particularly hair removal and weight loss, and it is represented as the freedom to wear anything, that is, equal access for all women to the universal discourse of female beauty in contemporary western societies. The association between women's personal identity, beauty and style is a contemporary construct within the consumerist hegemonic discourse (Lazar in Gill and Scharff 2011, Wolf 2008, Bordo 1995, McRobbie 2008). There are several concerns which have to be taken into account when we talk about the intersection of normative beauty and consumerism. Firstly, in contemporary popular culture and mass-media the act of engaging in the prescriptive beauty norm is constructed as a performed personal choice. It implies that the act of consumption is a practice of empowerment on a personal level (independent lifestyle choices) and on a social one (one's choice contributes to the emancipation of women and the abolition of gender inequalities). Hence, we may ask how can an individual distinguish between personal choice and consumerist commitment and how can it become an improvement in women's lives by reclaiming autonomy over their own bodies? Secondly, the contemporary concept of female beauty is defined as a human right, as a practice of social equality among all women of what it seems to be an emancipatory lifestyle: a way of being, looking and acting that makes one socially and culturally intelligible as a woman. The accessibility of the right to be beautiful, by involving the eradication of privilege among women and stressing the promise of social recognition, represents more than just another practice of femininity, it becomes the feminine ideal par excellence. If contemporary representations of the female body are articulated solely in terms of physical beauty, then physical beauty is the reference of what a woman not only should look like, but also be like, as one's personal look requires certain acts of behavior to authorize it. Consequently, being a woman implies, according to the present discourse of gender identity, that one must be beautiful, and what is defined as an equal right becomes a non-discriminating obligation, regardless of race, class or nationality. Under those circumstances, another matter would involve the practice of control that cultural representations manifest over its subjected individuals and the question, in this case, would be how can empowerment become a tool for women's social and political awareness and gender equality? Contemporary Representations of the Female Body 509 First of all, the intercrossing of consumerism and the concept of personal choice is an effect of the assimilation and re-contextualization of feminist ideas and identity politics within the public discourse. In a consumerist global economy the assimilation of feminism was possible in the context of privatization, deregulation and the increasing power of corporations over the economic sector of a state. The main factors that facilitated the conjugation of the two discourses are the diminished authority of state apparatuses and the reorientation of neoliberalism to the politics of recognition, due to the growing voices of minorities and their political awareness: The turn to a politics of recognition, women pouring into the labor force replacing expensive male workers, the emphasis on self-determination over state tutelage and the disproportionate attention in international struggles on violence against women at the expense of fighting poverty – all this resonated well with neoliberal prescriptions. Feminism's elective affinity with capitalism including a shared distrust of traditional authority facilitated its co-optation into capitalist projects. The result was an enmeshing of feminist ideas with neoliberal agendas and feminism providing legitimacy to the neoliberal transformation of capitalism. (Prugl 2014, 4-5). Mainstreaming ideas about gender equality and female emancipation was the key element in the creation of economic projects that would respond to greater markets and carry the promise of economic growth of the companies. The feminist messages which are used in the consumerist discourse belong to the anti-essentialist perspectives of the third wave political discourse that emphasizes women's right to agency and free choice (D'Enbeau and Buzzanell 2011, Lazarus 2010, Klein 1999). The integration of commodities into specific narratives of gender politics has a major role in the shaping of customers' needs and perceptions. Miller describes the subject-object relation in consumerist societies as the process of objectification, which implies the transformation of the object seen as an external, standardized valuable good, into an internalized value shaped by the needs of the customer. This way, the object can be represented as part of the individual's personal development (Miller 1987). Through objectification, the very act of consumption becomes an actual life choice, an individual choice that constructs personal identity. The role played by advertisers, for example, resembles the work of storytellers which makes even more confusing to determine agency. Ads do not only sell commodities, they sell fictions, often personal ones, that seduce the customer and invites him to access their realm through the act of consumption. Thus, the beauty industry has constructed similar commodities and practices that can be incorporated into the private lives of women and satisfy their most urgent needs, such as the need for autonomy and free will. Cosmetics, plastic surgeries, diet medication and other body shaping rituals have been taken over the consumerist markets for decades now: Venera Dimulescu 510 Culture not only taught women how to be insecure bodies, constantly monitoring themselves for signs of imperfection, constantly engaged in physical improvement; it also is teaching women (and let us not forget, men as well) how to see bodies. As slenderness has consistently been virtually glamourized, and as the ideal has grown thinner and thinner, bodies that a decade ago were considered slender have now come to seem fleshy (Bordo 1995, 57). Being beautiful, feeling beautiful and looking beautiful are social and cultural practices associated with women's identity and self-worth. By performing them, one is integrated within the social and cultural meaning of gender. Moreover, the beauty ritual is socially instituted as a practice of taking care of one's body and self through acquiring goods, making the distinction between personal choice and consumption more problematic. The contextualization and objectification of commodities as personal stories is explained by Wolf as women's constant need for models, nourished by diverse mechanisms of lowering self-esteem and public shaming. The entering of women's identity into the public discourse is made through the careful surveillance of media culture. Hence, images of idealized empowered women accompanied by the all too mediatized discourse of the obligation to be beautiful are mechanisms of lowering women's self-esteem and intensify their hunger for social and personal approval. The ritual of taking care of one's body becomes, as Gill argues, a disciplinary practice of the self, "a narcissistic self-surveillance" controlled by normative representations of what it is prescribed as female and feminine (Gill 2007, 10). Consequently, the beauty industry becomes another process of subjection that claims to give women back their property over their own bodies but instead it is selling them images of liberation and gender equality at the cost of starvation, physical mutilation and constant need for approval. Yet one will ask how does the narrative of the empowered beauty become a form of male domination since the obsession for body surveillance has reached not only femininity but also masculinity? Chancer argues that the ideology of look-ism, as she defines the fetishization of corporeal beauty, is not essentially gender specific. Having transgressed the cultural representation of reproductive force and motherhood, women's identity is now placed within a complex narrative than begins to construct physical beauty as a normative principle of identity that is gender blind. Thus, body shaping and its preservation of youthfulness are manifested as an effect of the human fear of death: (...) insofar as look-ism manifest itself in the form of attraction to youth, this may reflect human beings' still very immense fear of death, a fear related to biology that, unlike concerns about reproductive survival, there is no reason to think it has or will become less well-founded in the foreseeable future (Chancer 1998, 107). Contemporary Representations of the Female Body 511 This paradigm not only changes our perspective on gender inequality but also transforms women's bodies into incidental cultural constructions. The reconstruction of the beauty myth into a gender blind commodity has, however, different social effects on femininity and masculinity. As corporeality is never defined only in terms of aesthetic principles, but also as patterns of behavior linked to sexual expression and gender performativity, the ways in which men and women experience beauty are not identical within contemporary western societies as they are continuously dependent upon patriarchal representations. For example, although female and male sexuality are both represented as forms of empowerment, the former is systematically reproduced as a legitimized consent of the latter: female beauty is not rehearsed as an act of expressing one's sexual desire, but as the act of making oneself desirable (Gill 2008). Moreover, the problematic discourse of choice in the context of gender representations is discussed within contemporary feminist debates, as an effect of internalized structures of power: Feminine bodily discipline has this dual character: on the one hand, no one is marched off for electrolysis at the end of a riffle, nor can we fail to appreciate the initiative and ingenuity displayed by countless women in an attempt to master the rituals of beauty. Nevertheless, in so far as the disciplinary practices of femininity produce a subjected and practiced and inferiorized body, they must be understood as aspects of a far larger discipline, an inegalitarian system of sexual subordination. This system aims at turning women into the docile and compliant companions of men just as surely as the army aims to turn its raw recruits into soldiers (Bartky 1990). According to Bartky's statement, female sexual agency is the product of the hetero-normative discourse of gender which becomes, through the active, participative subjects, an indirect form of male domination. The exclusion of direct practices of domination of women's bodies and sexuality from the public discourse has made it difficult to recognize the instances of authority and thus, the process of subjection. There is no imposed figure of authority, no coercive law that sanctions your actions, yet there is a pattern of conformity that can be traced in the unification of the majority of women's choices: The contemporary backlash is so violent because the ideology of beauty is the last one remaining of the old feminine ideologies that still has the power to control those women whom second wave feminism would have otherwise made relatively uncontrollable: it has grown stronger to take over the work of social coercion that myths about motherhood, chastity and passivity no longer can manage (Wolf 2008, 10). What Wolf asserts is that the male gaze, as the regulatory force which describes and monitors women's appearance and behavior has materialized, beginning with 19th century, into specific surveillance devices which could replicate, extend and maintain male domination over the social, cultural and political representations of women. The various photographic techniques, the Venera Dimulescu 512 birth of cinematography and the new technological apparatuses of contemporary mass-media have produced different forms of normative female beauty that were more precise, explicit and thus, more restrictive and essentialist. With their direct and arresting representations, the power of control and authority of such devices located in popular culture and the media are hidden behind the consumerist discourse of choice and empowerment, discourse that borrowed its principles from the non-judgemental policy of third wave feminism repackaged as object of consumption (Chancer 1998, Klein 1999, Gill and Scharff 2011, Snyder-Hall 2010). Wolf articulated this idea very clear using the metaphor of the iron maiden (Wolf 2008). At origin, the iron maiden is considered to be a former German medieval instrument of torture used to punish victims by incarcerating them into a vertical vault with the shape of a maiden. The insides of the vault were decorated with metal spikes that would pierce through the naked body of the convicted and induce slow, painful death often by starvation or simply due to the sharp wounds. The two words that describe the instrument, iron and maiden, suggest a relation between two opposites, the strong, immune metal and the fragile, infantile and youthful virgin. Hence, the iron maiden is the innocent and joyous display of the ideal female body that hides a long and hurtful process of compliance, a process that shapes the body by mutilation. The fact that it is recognized as a former medieval instrument of torture is a good reference for both the present and past intention of its usage: punishment and shame. According to the author, like in the medieval ritual, women are being punished for non-conformity through painful procedures, shame and low self-esteem (Wolf 2008, 17). Wolf's metaphor seems crucial in the context of contemporary practices of beauty. Yet its foundation seems invalid as the iron maiden is just a cultural carcass that imprisons the body, as if the body, its natural state of being, is suffocated and cannot manifest itself. But what does the natural body mean in those circumstances? What sort of natural aesthetics and practices of behavior are violated? If there is a natural body therefore there is a truly free and autonomous choice to be made towards its manifestation. Following Butler, I would argue that cultural norms are not mere uncomfortable masks that we are seduced to wear, but the very invisible actors of our identity formation or what the author calls "restriction in production:" The prison acts on the prisoner's body, but it does so by forcing the prisoner to approximate an ideal, a norm of behavior, a model of obedience. (...) he becomes the principle of his own subjection. This normative ideal inculcated, as it were, into the prisoner is a kind of psychic identity, or what Foucault would call a soul. Because the soul is an imprisoning effect, Foucault claims that the prisoner is subjected in a more fundamental way than by the spatial captivity of prison, which provides the exterior form or regulatory principle of the prisoner's body (Butler 1997, 85). Contemporary Representations of the Female Body 513 Consequently, when you are imprisoned and aware of your captivity, you know that you are imprisoned. You witness your body's mutilation and pain. That makes the iron maiden visible. Yet when you don't acknowledge your deprivation of freedom, the iron maiden with metal spikes doesn't exist, hence the illusion of freedom. The assumption that there is a pre-discursive body prior to disciplinary practices of subjection implies that there is an attested and recognizable identity to which we must return, that is, an already established hegemonic order of the body. What makes Butler's argument sustainable is her account about the process of internalizing disciplinary practices that makes the body natural and her insistence upon the fact that we do not have a prior and natural state of the body to return to. The body becomes natural by its submission to the normative symbolic order and so it is forced into becoming real: (...) what we take to be an internal feature of ourselves is one that we anticipate and produce through certain bodily acts, at an extreme, a hallucinatory effect of naturalized gestures (Butler 1990, 15). Indeed, the beauty myth isn't a capsule in which the body passively dwells, but the very action through which the latter is socially recognized as real. Conclusions Contemporary practices of disciplining the body, their power of invisibility, reside in their wondrous display of agency and free will and their simultaneous discreet force of unconscious determinism. The sexualized female body becomes abstract through rituals of transforming it into an ideal or a fetish, rituals that disconnect it from their right to freedom of expression. Women's right to sexual liberation is thus, jeopardized and their control over their own corporeality is unsecure and bashful as their internalized social stigma demands. However, the concept of women's empowerment should also be discussed as a question of the possibilities of free will. The discourse concerning freedom of choice is deeply complex and problematic due to modern forms of domination and subjection that make personal choice seem intangible. On the other hand, along all the political achievements of feminism there is one essential goal that third wave feminists have pointed out, a goal that rather became a matter of ethics within contemporary postmodern thought: the promise of non-judgemental feedback (Snyder-Hall 2010). Poststructuralist thought has rendered us the necessary instruments to acknowledge how power and legitimized prescriptions function and in this respect, feminism, as a poststructuralist theory, should show women that they're not mere objects of knowledge, but subjects that can own their meaning. That ownership cannot be prescribed by anyone but the conscious subject, for we must be careful not to create a new symbolic order that would proclaim its own methods of censorship and domination. Venera Dimulescu 514 References Bordo, Susan. 1993. Unbearable Weight, Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berkeley Los Angeles London: University of California Press. Butler, Judith. 1997. The Psychic Life of Power. Theories in Subjection. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Butler, Judith. 1999. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge. Chancer, Lynn S. 1998. Reconcilable Differences: Confronting Beauty, Pornography, and the Future of Feminism. Berkeley: University of California Press. D'Enbeau, Suzy and Patrice M. Buzzanell. 2011. Selling-Out Feminism: Sustainability of Ideology-Viability Tensions in a Competitive Marketplace, England: Routledge. Gill, Rosalind. 2007. Postfeminist media culture: elements of a sensibility. European journal of cultural studies, 10 (2). Gill, Rosalind. 2008. Empowerment/Sexism: Figuring Female Sexual Agency in Contemporary Advertising. SAGE Publications Ltd. Gill, Rosalind and Christina Scharff. 2011. New Feminities. Postfeminism, Neoliberalism and Subjectivity. London: Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. King, Angela. 2004. The Prisoner of Gender: Foucault and the Disciplining of the Female Body. Journal of International Women's Studies, 5(2). Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol5/iss2/4. Klein, Naomi. 2000. No Logo. Great Britain: Flamingo. Lazarus, Margaret. 2001. Producing Feminism, Feminist Media Studies, 1:2, 245249. Lyotard, Jean-François. 1979. The Postmodern Condition. United Kingdom: Manchester University Press. McRobbie, Angela. 2009. The Aftermath of Feminism. Gender, Culture and Social Change. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.. Prugl, Elisabeth. 2014. Neoliberalising Feminism. England: Routledge. Snitow, Anne, Christine Stansell and Sharon Thompson. 1983. Powers of Desire. The Politics of Sexuality. New York: Monthly Review Press. Snyder-Hall, Claire. 2010. Third-Wave Feminism and the Defense of "Choice". Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 8, No. 1. American Political Science Association. Spelman, Elizabeth. 1982. Woman as Body: Ancient and Contemporary Views. Feminist Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1. Feminist Studies Inc. Wolf, Naomi. 2008. The Beauty Myth. How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women. Harper Collins e-books. | {
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Politiske ideer i Platons Phaidon: Sokrates' argumenter for sjaelens udødelighed som et forsvar for menneskelig frihed I denne artikel argumenteres der for, at døden i Phaidon primaert skal forstås metaforisk, som sjaelens adskillelse fra kroppen i den rene taenkning. Artiklens hovedtese er, at de fire argumenter for sjaelens udødelighed, der findes i dialogen, skal laeses som en fremadskridende afklaring af, hvilken vaeremåde sjaelen har, når den isolerer sig fra kroppen, snarere end at laeses bogstaveligt som beviser for, at sjaelen er udødelig. Tillige argumenteres der for, at den såkaldt anden sejlads – Sokrates' beskrivelse af, hvorledes han for at forstå virkeligheden søgte tilflugt i argumenter og ideer snarere end i sanserne – skal forstås som et forsvar for en bestemt opfattelse af menneskelig frihed. Når Sokrates indfører ideerne som årsager i løbet af Phaidon, skal dette først og fremmest ses som en forklaring på, hvordan den rene taenkning kan erkende virkeligheden og derigennem kontrollere vores umiddelbare tilbøjeligheder. Det er mulighedsbetingelsen for menneskelig frihed som Platons Sokrates forstår den. Frihed skal da primaert forstås som mulighed, nemlig mulighed til at handle i overensstemmelse med det, den fornuftsbestemte indsigt tilsiger en, at man skal gøre, uden hensyntagen til umiddelbare, kropsligt bestemte tilbøjeligheder, herunder tilbøjeligheden til selvopretholdelse for enhver pris. Den foreslåede laesning peger dermed på en politisk dimension af Phaidon, der ofte overses som følge af, at argumenterne for sjaelens udødelighed tages for bogstaveligt.* *** Indledning * Jeg ønsker at takke Vigdis Songe-Møller, Hallvard Fossheim, samt den eksterne laeser for mange gode forslag til aendringer og forbedringer, samt Knud Larsen og Vivil Valvik Haraldsen både for nøje korrekturlaesning og diskussion af artiklens indhold. Endelig vil jeg gerne takke tilhørerne til et foredrag holdt ved det Internationale Platonselskabs Symposion i Brasília, sommeren 2016, hvor jeg praesenterede en tidligere version af denne artikel, for mange gode og interessante spørgsmål. The article was written as part of the postdoctoral project DICTUM. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 750263. 2 7 af Platons dialoger udmaerker sig ved at finde sted i 399 f.v.t. i månederne op til Sokrates' domsfaeldelse og død og de kan laeses som en sammenhaengende serie, der reflekterer over Sokrates' skaebne og, mere praecist, over forholdet mellem sokratisk filosofi og det athenske samfund, den udfoldede sig i. Serien åbnes med Theaitetos, dernaest følger dialogerne Eutyphron, Sofisten, Statsmanden, Sokrates' Forsvarstale og Kriton, og den afsluttes endelig med Phaidon.1 Phaidon skildrer Sokrates' død, ikke direkte, men som et erindringsprodukt; Phaidon, som dialogen er opkaldt efter, er en beundrer af Sokrates og han genfortaeller hele forløbet i dialogen til en anden af Sokrates' beundrere, Echekrates. Inde i denne rammefortaelling har vi så en diskussion Sokrates har med to af sine filosofiske venner, Simmias og Kebes, der er viet spørgsmålet, hvad døden i det hele taget er for en størrelse. Denne diskussion fører til, at Sokrates leverer fire argumenter, der tilsyneladende skal bevise, at sjaelen er udødelig og at han derfor, som alle andre, der har filosoferet rigtigt, kan gå i døden uden frygt, da han har levet et retfaerdigt liv. Diskussionen må til sidst afsluttes, ikke fordi Sokrates har andre gøremål, som han har i flere andre af Platons dialoger, men fordi han må drikke den gift, athenerne har tvunget ham til at indtage som konsekvens af et kompromisløst filosofisk liv, der for det meste har vaeret på kollisionskurs med det samfund, det udfoldede sig i. Alle Platons dialoger kan siges at kredse om spørgsmålene, hvad filosofi er og hvorledes denne erkendeform passer ind i det samfund – den polis – filosofien udfolder sig i. Men disse to spørgsmål bliver saerligt braendende i de syv naevnte dialoger. De udfolder en flersidig konfrontation af en sokratisk forståelse af opdragelse, indsigt og dyd, og det mere konventionelle begreb herom, der ser dyd som identisk med god og korrekt opførsel og dermed noget enhver kan laere, hvis blot de vil (Sokrates' Forsvarstale 24d3-25a11, Menon 92d7-93a4, sammenlign med Protagoras 323a5-323c2, 324d2-326e5). I Theaitetos, Sofisten og Statsmanden udspilles denne konfrontation som en raekke subtile undersøgelser af forholdet mellem sofistik, politisk kundskab og filosofi, i Euthyphron, Sokrates' Forsvarstale og Kriton som en diskussion af forholdet mellem Sokrates og det athenske samfund han lever i. 1 Se Joseph Cropsey, Plato's World. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press 1995, ix-x; og Jacob Howland, The Paradox of Political Philosophy: Socrates' Philosophic Trial. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield 1998, vii-ix. Howland ser Kratylos som hørende til denne serie. 3 Selv Phaidon, der ved første øjekast kan virke som den mindst politiske af disse dialoger, kan laeses som en refleksion over forholdet mellem Sokrates og det politiske samfund, han befinder sig i. Fra starten af dialogen tematiseres Athen som en politisk-religiøs størrelse filosofien står i potentiel opposition til. Tidspunktet for Sokrates' død, får vi at vide, blev udsat fordi athenerne dagen før retssagen havde sendt et helligt skib af sted mod Delos for at aere Apollon. Mens denne rejse fandt sted, skulle byen holdes ren (58b5-6), og per konvention eller lov kunne man derfor ikke slå nogen ihjel i dette tidsrum (58a6-c5). Som modsvar til denne haendelse skildrer Sokrates i løbet af dialogen filosofien som en anden type renselse (katharsis), en renselse, der saetter sjaelen fri fra sine kropslige bindinger samt de begaer, der knytter sig hertil, og muliggør en anden type rejse, der ideelt set resulterer i, at filosoffen opnår virkelig dyd (se 67c5-d2, 69b8-c3). Denne renselse og rejse er, som Sokrates senere antyder, den virkelige måde at aere Apollon på (se 85a8-b9). Hvor den athenske lov, der forhindrer blodsudgydelser under Apollons festival, altså er centreret om den fysiske død og kroppen, dér er Sokrates' bestemmelse af filosofien centreret om en metaforisk død, en adskillelse af sjael og krop i livet. Denne adskillelse resulterer i frihed, forstået som muligheden for at lade fornuften vaere bestemmende for, hvorledes man lever sit liv, samt i en afvisning af, at det kropsligt orienterede liv, herunder begaeret efter sex, materielle goder og politisk anerkendelse, har den forrang, Sokrates haevder de fleste af hans medborgere antager at det har (se 64e8-65a2). Fra Sokrates' perspektiv lever flertallet af hans medborgere ufrie liv som resultat af den vaegt, de tillaegger ydre goder og politisk magt, på trods af at de som borgere i Athen, centrum for det største imperium i datidens Graekenland, ofte netop så sig selv som de mest frie blandt graekere. Modsaetningen mellem et filosofisk liv, orienteret mod sjaelen, og et almindeligt borgerliv, orienteret mod kroppen og dens behov, understreges yderligere af, at Sokrates i løbet af dialogen afviser, at den dyd, folk flest besidder, er virkelig dyd. I optakten til dialogens filosofiske kerne drager Sokrates et skarpt skel mellem den, der elsker visdommen (philosophos) og den, der elsker kroppen (philosômatos). Den, der elsker kroppen, haevder han, vil også vaere en, der begaerer penge, aere, eller begge dele (68b8-c3, se tillige 82c2-8). Udsagnet gør det klart, at Sokrates i sin fordømmelse af vores holdning til kroppen ikke så meget taenker på kroppen som den fysiske side af vores eksistens, som på de vurderinger af tings relative vaerdi, en orientering mod vores kropslige eksistens ifølge ham medfører. Dermed får Sokrates' kritik af den kropsorienterede holdning, han ser som 4 fremherskende i sit samfund, et klart politisk sigte. Som det fremgår af adskillige af Platons dialoger, herunder Phaidon, er filosofi en måde at leve på, der radikalt vender op og ned på vores almindelige forståelse af, hvad der taeller i livet. Det kendetegner det filosofiske liv, i modsaetning til det politiske, at den sjaelelige sundhed og erkendelsen af sandhed får forrang for tilfredsstillelsen af kropslige begaer og den politisk motiverede kamp om aere og anerkendelse (se Phaidon 81b-c og sammenlign med Sokrates' Forsvarstale 29d-e). Men det betyder også, at mennesket uden filosofien i bedste fald kan besidde det, folk flest kalder dyd, ikke virkelig dyd: Virkelig dyd må basere sig på indsigt (Phaidon 68d2-69b8). Den blot tilsyneladende dyd kalder Sokrates også senere for folkelig eller borgerlig dyd (82a11-b1), og det, der motiverer folk til denne type dyd – det må vi formode ud fra Sokrates' tidligere beskrivelse af kropselskeren – er frygten for fysisk afstraffelse, begaeret efter penge og kaerligheden til aere og politisk anerkendelse. Sokrates' kritik af traditionel, borgelig dyd og dens tvivlsomme motivationskilder har en klar parallel i Sokrates' Forsvarstale. Her femhaever Sokrates, at selv hvis athenerne skulle frikende ham, så ville han ikke holde op med at filosofere eller med at klandre sine medborgere for at gå op i penge, ry og aere, uden at kere sig om visdom, sandhed eller sjaelen (29b9-e3). Forskellen på det filosofiske liv, Sokrates står for, og det politisk eller "borgerligt" orienterede liv, de fleste athenere lever, er altså ifølge den Sokrates vi møder både i Sokrates' Forsvarstale og Phaidon at finde i deres respektive forhold til sjaelen: Hvor folk flest ifølge Sokrates ikke drager rigtig omsorg for sjaelen og fornuften, der er dette det eneste egentlige anliggende for Sokrates. Det kan også formuleres således, at Sokrates anklager det Athen, han lever i, for kun overfladisk at opfordre til mod, retfaerdighed og mådehold – traditionelle politiske dyder, der skal sikre et godt samfund – uden reelt set at interessere sig for, hvorledes disse kvaliteter kan fremelskes i byens borgere. Årsagen er, at de athenske politikere ikke i tilstraekkelig grad interesserer sig for, hvad den menneskelige sjael er og hvorledes den påvirkes. I denne artikel argumenteres der for, at man bør laese de fire argumenter for sjaelens udødelighed Sokrates leverer i Phaidon på denne baggrund. Deres formål er ikke at bevise, at sjaelen er udødelig, men at vise, at sjaelen er vigtigere end legemet og dermed er noget, der kraever omsorg, ikke med henblik på et muligt efterliv, men med henblik på livet 5 her og nu.2 Tillige er det et mål at vise, at argumenterne har en politisk relevans, der let overses, hvis man kun laeser dem for at vurdere deres kvalitet som argumenter for sjaelens udødelighed. Artiklen får dermed to mål. Det første er at vise, at dialogens overordnede sigte er at få afklaret, hvilken kraft sjaelen besidder i isolation fra kroppen i livet, samt at døden, Sokrates taler om, primaert skal forstås metaforisk; dette kraever en diskussion af dialogens indledning samt dens forhold til det andet og tredje argument Sokrates fremsaetter. Det andet mål er at vise, at de fire såkaldte beviser for sjaelens udødelighed skal illustrere måden hvorpå de såkaldte ideer fungerer som et ontologiske fundament for taenkningen; her vil navnlig det fjerde argument stå i centrum. Mere praecist vil udlaegningen af dette sidste argument søge at vise, at det først og fremmest skal vise hvordan ideerne, forstået som kausale kaefter, kan sikre taenkningen mod at blive vildledt af sin bundethed til kroppen og af den egeninteresse, der følger heraf. Artiklen falder i tre hovedafsnit. Det første behandler spørgsmålet, hvad det i det hele taget er Sokrates skal vise eller bevise i Phaidon. Det naeste giver en kort oversigt over det andet og tredje argument for sjaelens udødelighed og redegør for, hvilken rolle Simmias' og Kebes' indvendinger mod dem har. Det sidste koncentrerer sig om Sokrates' svar til Simmias og Kebes, det vil sige det fjerde argument for sjaelens udødelighed, og søger at vise at dette argument først og fremmest skal ses som et forsvar for en bestemt opfattelse af menneskelig frihed samt hvilke politiske konsekvenser svaret har. 2 Om Platon har fremsat argumenterne i Phaidon for at bevise, at sjaelen er udødelig, eller ej, har vaeret diskuteret fra antikken og frem til i dag. Afgørende for dette spørgsmål er, hvorledes man vaegter Platons brug af dialogformen: er den et blot kunstnerisk middel, der benyttes til at fremsaette filosofiske doktriner i mere spaendende iklaedning, eller er den affødt af paedagogisk og erkendelsesteoretiske overvejelser angående filosofiens vaesen? At argumenterne er seriøst ment som beviser fremføres ofte af fortolkere, der primaert laeser dialogerne doktrinaert, som f.eks. Reginald Hackforth, Plato's Phaedo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1955, 3-5 og David Sedley, Plato: Meno and Phaedo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2011, xxiv-xxv, mens fortolkere, der vaegter dialogernes dramatiskpaedagogiske og dialektiske karakter, som f.eks. Hans-Georg Gadamer (se «Die Unsterblichkeitsbeweise in Platos >Phaidon<» i Hans-Georg Gadamer, Gesammelte Werke 6 – Griechische Philosophie II. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr 1991, 187-200) og Paul Friedländer (Paul Friedländer, Platon – Band III. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 1960, 29-54), typisk forstår arguemnternes formål anderledes. Nyere fortolkere inden for sidstnaevnte fortolkningstradition, som også denne artikel indskriver sig i, er Kenneth Dorter, Plato's Phaedo: An Interpretation. Toronto: University of Toronto Press og Ronna Burger, The Phaedo: A Platonic Labyrinth. New Haven: Yale University Press 1984. 6 I: Sjaelens kraft, adskilt fra legemet, og Sokrates' opgave i Phaidon Som flere fortolkere har bemaerket3 kan Phaidon laeses som Sokrates' anden forsvarstale, en tale leveret "som om det var i retten", nu ikke overfor de athenske dommere, men derimod overfor hans filosofiske venner (se 63b4-5 og 69d7-e4). I en raekke platonske dialoger diskuterer Sokrates forskellige moralsk-politiske egenskaber eller dyder så som mod, mådehold og fromhed med medborgere, der formodes at besidde disse egenskaber. Her kraever Sokrates, at de må vaere i stand til at aflaegge regnskab for disse egenskaber, hvis de faktisk besidder dem. Det er naerliggende at se Phaidon som en dialog, hvor det er Sokrates, der må aflaegge regnskab, ikke bare for sit liv, men også for hvad der naermere skal forstås ved den indsigt (phronêsis), han haevder filosofferne primaert begaerer (se 68a2).4 Under alle omstaendigheder: spørgsmålet, hvad indsigt er, kommer til at dominere dialogen. Det formuleres i første omgang som spørgsmålet, hvorledes indsigt erhverves (65a9), og Sokrates' første, tentative svar herpå er vaerd at naerlaese, da det antyder, at døden ikke er en entydig størrelse i Phaidon. Svaret tager afsaet i Sokrates' tidligere indførte definition af døden (64c4-8), nemlig at den er en adskillelse af sjael fra krop, hvor kroppen, idet den saettes fri fra sjaelen, bliver adskilt (chôris), alene for sig selv (auto kath' hauto), og sjaelen, idet den saettes fri fra kroppen, er adskilt (chôris), alene for sig selv (autên kath' hautên). Den møjsommelige gentagelse af ordet adskilt (chôris), samt af formlen "alene for sig selv", foregriber Sokrates' bestemmelse af, hvornår sjaelen "får fat i" sandheden (65b9) og opnår indsigt (66a6). Det gør den, haevder han, når den ikke inddrager kroppen i sine undersøgelser af virkeligheden (65e9-11), en følge af, at det vaerende eller de ting, der er, kun åbenbarer sig i vores taenkende overvejelser (65c2-3), mens taenkningen, ifølge Sokrates, udføres bedst, når sjaelen er alene 3 Se e.g. Friedländer, Platon – Band III, 32; Hackforth, Plato's Phaedo, 41-42. 4 Platon bruger her og andre steder (se f.eks. 70b4, 76c12-13 og 79d6-7, se også Phaidros 250d, Menon 98c og Theaitetos 176b) termen phronêsis for den samme type indsigt, han i andre sammenhaenge kalder sophia og identifiserer som dialektikkens mål. Aristoteles adskiller disse to i den 6. bog af den Nikomakaeiske Etik og med afsaet heri oversaetter man ofte den første term med praktisk visdom, den anden med (teoretisk) visdom. At Platon bruger termen phronêsis om det, vi ville kalde teoretisk indsigt (nemlig indsigt i tingenes sande vaesen eller beskaffenhed, som dialektikken i hvert fald ideelt leverer), bevidner ifølge Gadamer, at Platon aldrig adskiller filosofisk indsigt fra en direkte tilknytning til praktisk handlen, se Hans-Georg Gadamer,ss. 147-148 i Die Idee des Guten zwischen Plato und Aristoteles i Hans-Georg Gadamer, Gesammelte Werke 7 – Griechische Philosophie III. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr 1991, 128-227. 7 for sig selv (65c5-9) og begriber de ting, der er, alene for sig selv (66a2-3). Det er derfor kun når sjaelen undersøger vaesenet eller essensen (ousia) af de ting, der findes, så som det retfaerdige, det skønne og det gode, uden at inddrage nogle af sanserne i sine overvejelser, at den opnår indsigt, phronêsis (65d4-66a6). Efter at have fremsat disse argumenter, der i mange henseender kan siges i koncentreret form at sammenfatte Sokrates' hovedargument i resten af Phaidon,5 kommer Sokrates med følgende, bemaerkelsesvaerdige påstand: på baggrund af alt dette – Sokrates må mene det, han lige har sagt om måden, vi opnår indsigt på6 – vil der nødvendigvis opstå en vis opfattelse blandt nogen, han kalder de aegte filosoffer, der medfører, at de vil fortaelle visse ting til hinanden (66b1-3), så som det følgende (66b3-67b5): Det er muligt, at der findes en genvej, nemlig døden, der fører til det, vi efterstraeber, erkendelse af sandhed. For her slipper sjaelen endelig af med kroppen, der ellers bestandigt står i vejen for opnåelsen af indsigt. Centralt for denne opfattelse er følgende raesonnement: Hvis det ikke går an at erkende noget rent med kroppen følger et af to (se 66e4-6), enten at vi aldrig er i stand til at opnå erkendelse, eller også at det først er i døden, at det er muligt. Før vi slutter til, at Sokrates er enig i dette syn, bør vi bemaerke tre ting. Sokrates angiver klart, at det er de aegte filosoffer, der har denne opfattelse, han praesenterer derfor opfattelsen som en lang tale holdt af andre end ham selv,7 og han angiver klart, at opfattelsen opstår blandt dem som følge af de forhold angående taenkning og indsigt, han netop har gennemgået i eget navn (66b1-2). Det betyder, at vi ikke har tekstuelt belaeg for at haevde, at Sokrates selv står inde for deres syn. Det eneste Platon klart angiver, at Sokrates står inde for, er at sjaelen erkender virkeligheden bedst, når den isolerer sig fra legemet fordi virkeligheden kun åbenbarer sig for tanken, at erkendelsen af virkeligheden giver indsigt, og endelig at disse forhold afføder det syn, han tilskriver de aegte filosoffer. Med andre ord står Sokrates selv inde for et syn, ifølge hvilket erkendelse kun er mulig, når sjaelen er fri – i første omgang ikke til noget bestemt, men først og fremmest fra kropslig bestemmelse. Som vi skal se vil Sokrates 5 Se Friedländer, Platon III, 37. 6 Se John Burnet, Plato's Phaedo. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1911, kommentar ad loc. og Christopher J. Rowe, Plato: Phaedo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1993, kommentar ad loc. 7 Varianter af udtrykket "aegte filosoffer" findes i 64a4-5, 64b9, 64e2-3, 66b2, 67b4, 67d8, 67e4, 68b2-3, og 69d2. For diskussion af dette udtryk, se Burger, The Phaedo: A Platonic Labyrinth, 37-50. 8 senere argumentere for, at denne frihed først realiseres til fulde, når sjaelen, idet den saetter sig fri af legemets bindinger, lader sig bestemme gennem de ideer, den erkender gennem sin rene erkendebestraebelse. Hvad angår de såkaldt aegte filosoffer kan vi også bemaerke, at de synes at begå en fejlslutning: selv hvis det skulle vaere sandt, at vi ikke kan opnå ren erkendelse i samkvem med legemet (66e5), som Sokrates haevder (65b9-11), følger det ikke, at en sådan erkendelse først er tilgaengelig i døden. Det følger kun, hvis sjaelen ikke er i stand at udføre raesonnementer mens vi lever uden negativ indflydelse fra legemet, hvis den ikke kan opnå frihed fra legemet, og dermed realisere sin egen vaeremåde, i livet. Som vi skal se argumenterer Sokrates netop i resten af dialogen for at dette er muligt.8 Laeser man Sokrates' definition af døden i lys af, at der er forskel på, hvad han siger om erkendelsen i eget navn og hvad han siger som talerør for de aegte filosoffer, bliver det naerliggende at antage, at definitionen også kan forstås på to måder. Da døden blot defineres som adskillelsen af sjael fra legeme kan definitionen rent formelt laeses som en definition både af den biologiske død, og af det "psykiske" faenomen, at sjaelen koncentrerer sig om at isolere sig fra legemet i sin bestraebelsen på at udøve ren taenkning. Hvis det er korrekt, at Sokrates' definition af døden og hans diskussion af erhvervelsen af indsigt kan laeses på to plan, er det sandsynligt, at de argumenter, Sokrates efterfølgende giver, også kan det. Da Sokrates slutter første runde af sit forsvar (69d7-e5) indvender Kebes, at der stadig behøves en del overtalelse og overbevisning (70b2) hvad angår det syn, at sjaelen efter døden fortsaetter med at vaere til og besidde en kraft og indsigt (70b34). Det er den opgave, Sokrates påtager sig at løse i resten af dialogen gennem de fire argumenter han praesenterer for sjaelens udødelighed. Det første (70c4-72e2), som ofte kaldes det cykliske argument, argumenterer for, at sjaelen er udødelig ud fra den kosmologiske opfattelse, at modsaetninger i naturen opstår ud af hinanden i en evig cyklus. Det andet (73c1-77a5), der kendes som generindringsargumentet, søger at vise, at sjaelen må have eksisteret forud for fødslen, ud fra en bestemt opfattelse af, hvorledes erkendelse og erindring haenger sammen. Det tredje (78b4-81a11) argumenterer for sjaelens udødelighed ud fra en ontologisk overvejelse af, hvorledes de ting, der findes, er beskafne. Det fjerde (99d4-107b10) søger endelig at 8 At dette er en fejlslutning betones kraftigt og overbevisende af Barbara Zehnpfennig, Platon: Phaidon. Hamburg, Felix Meiner Verlag 2007, xxi-xxii, samt 182, note 50. 9 argumentere for, at sjaelen er udødelig, ud fra en undersøgelse af, hvad årsager er. Spørgsmålet er, hvordan vi skal forstå argumenternes betydning for den overordnede opgave, Sokrates skal løse. Der kan ikke vaere tvivl om, at Kebes og Simmias – Sokrates primaere samtalepartnere i dialogen – diskuterer ud fra den antagelse, at Sokrates søger at bevise at sjaelen er udødelig. Men det følger ikke nødvendigvis, at det er det Sokrates gør. Forud for det fjerde argument angiver Sokrates f.eks. klart, at det er Kebes, snarere end ham selv, der mener, at man må bevise at sjaelen er udødelig, hvis man skal kunne retfaerdiggøre at gå i døden uden frygt (95b9-c4 og 96a2-4). Ud fra dette udsagn er det naerliggende at antage, at Sokrates søger at gøre to ting på samme tid i løbet af dialogen. På den ene side søger han at bevise, at sjaelen evner at udfolde sin vaeremåde fri eller isoleret fra kroppen, samt at den besidder kraft til at opnå indsigt, når den gør dette. På den anden side søger han at overtale eller overbevise Kebes og Simmias om, at muligheden af denne indsigt tyder på, at sjaelen måske kan "leve videre i det hinsides". At dette skal ses som et retorisk, snarere end et filosofisk bevis understøttes af, at Sokrates flere steder i dialogen antyder, at det af etiske grunde er bedst at antage, at sjaelen er udødelig, selv om det naeppe er menneskeligt muligt at bevise det (se e.g. 77e3-78a9 sammen med 107a8-c5, samt 85c1-4 sammen med 85e1-2). Lad os, for at understøtte dette forslag, nu se naermere på Sokrates' andet og tredje argument, samt de indvendinger, Simmias og Kebes fremfører mod dem. II: Problemer med Sokrates' argumenter og Simmias' og Kebes opfattelse af sjaelen Mange fortolkere har fremhaevet, at Sokrates' såkaldte beviser for sjaelens udødelighed strengt taget ikke fungerer.9 Flere har også foreslået, at Platon ikke lader Sokrates fremsaette dem som om de var gyldige beviser – for at sjaelen er udødelig, vel og maerke.10 Jeg deler 9 Argumenterne blev allerede angrebet af peripatetikeren Straton og blev diskuteret livligt af både stoikere og platonikere. For nyere fortolkere, der betvivler argumenternes gyldighed, se e.g. Paul Natorp, Platos Ideenlehre – eine Einführung in den Idealismus. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag 2004 (optryk af andenudgaven, oprindeligt udgivet i 1921), 130. En rigorøs gennemgang af alle argumenterne, samt de mange logiske problemer, de er behaeftet med, findes i David Bostock, Plato's Phaedo. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. 10 E.g. Gadamer, s 187-188 i «Die Unsterblichkeitsbeweise in Platos >Phaidon<». Det modsatte syn fremsaettes af David Sedley, Plato: Meno and Phaedo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2011, xxiv-xxv, som mener, at det ville vaere maerkeligt, hvis Platon selv skulle have troet at argumenterne var svage, som mange haevder, i og med at de skal fungerer som svar på 10 sidstnaevnte opfattelse. Vi kan i denne sammenhaeng tillade os at styre udenom de mere komplekse sider af diskussionen og nøjes med at pege på to steder i det andet og tredje argument, hvor det bliver klart, at Platon fremstiller Sokrates som bevidst om, at de to argumenter er utilfredsstillende – som beviser for at sjaelen er udødelig. Da Sokrates afslutter det andet argument, klager Simmias over, at det kun beviser at sjaelen er til, før vi bliver født, ikke at den fortsaetter med at vaere til, når vi dør (77b1-5). Sokrates bedyrer, at det allerede er bevist, hvis man blot forbinder første og andet argument (77d6-9).11 Dermed medgiver han, at det andet argument i sig selv beviser noget helt andet end sjaelens udødelighed. Et lignende billede tegner sig i det tredje argument. I dets anden halvdel foreslår Sokrates, at sjaelen er mere lig (homoioteron) det usynlige (79b16), det vil sige de uforanderlige og evige ting, sjaelen straeber efter at erkende, som traditionelt kaldes platonske ideer eller former. Det medgiver Kebes (79e2-5) og Sokrates slutter, at det derfor karakteriserer sjaelen, i modsaetning til legemet, at vaere "helt uopløselig eller taet på" (80b910). Men at sjaelen er mere lig det uforanderlige og evige og naesten uopløselig beviser selvfølgelig ikke, at sjaelen er udødelig, højst at den kan fortsaette med at eksistere et stykke tid efter døden. Når det gaelder evigheden er en komparativ og et "naesten" afgørende.12 Det synes derfor mere frugtbart at antage, at andet og tredje argument tjener et andet formål end at bevise sjaelens udødelighed. Mit forslag er, at deres mål er at belyse sjaelens evne til at opnå indsigt, når den udfolder sin vaeremåde frit fra legemet – det tema, der blev lanceret som dialogens anliggende allerede i 65a9 – fra et henholdsvis erkendelsesteoretisk og et ontologisk perspektiv. spørgsmålet, hvorfor Sokrates med sindsro gik i døden: det gjorde han, fordi han troede på at sjaelen var udødelig. Men Sedley underkender for det første, at det er muligt, at Sokrates siger noget andet til sine samtalepartnere, for at trøste dem, end Platon siger til sine laesere, og for det andet at Platon fremstiller Sokrates som villig til at gå i døden uden sådanne beviser i Sokrates' Forsvarstale og Kriton. 11 Jeg tillader mig i denne sammenhaeng at springe det første argument over der, efter min opfattelse, ikke beviser andet, end at sjael som sådan, forstået som livgivende princip, ikke kan forgå, uden at bevise, at individuelle sjaele, så som Sokrates', ikke forgår. 12 Michael Bordt SJ, «Philosophieren als Sterben-Lernen», i Jörn Müller, Platon: Phaidon, Klassiker Auslegen. Berlin: Akademie Verlag 2011, 33-45, foreslår, ss. 42-43, at disse to angivelser, at sjaelen er mere lig det evige, samt naesten uopløselig, skal laeses som problemangivelser, snarere end problemløsninger. Se også Olympiodoros, In Phaedonem 13.34. 11 Det andet argument undersøger, hvilke erkendelsesteoretiske forudsaetninger erkendelsen har. Der argumenteres for at sjaelen, med afsaet i en sanselig erfaring af virkeligheden (se 74b4-6, 74c 7-9, 75a5-8), ser de sansbare ting som det, de er, på baggrund af noget andet, som sjaelen aldrig kan have sanset: selve det lige, selve det skønne, selve det gode (75c10-d3). Ifølge argumentet er forudsaetningen herfor, at sjaelen må have opnået viden om disse ting, før den blev inkarneret.13 Det tredje argument belyser fra en ontologisk vinkel skellet mellem de ting, vi kan sanse og som saetter erkendelsen i gang, og de ting, vi kun kan taenke, og som muliggør erkendelsen. Det fremhaever, hvorledes de synlige ting og de usynlige ting er konstitueret og samtidig søger det at indordne sjael og legeme under disse to ontologiske kategorier. Det er også vaerd at bemaerke, at begge argumenter klart modsiger den opfattelse af indsigt, som lanceret indledningsvist som de aegte filosoffers, at den kun kan erhverves efter døden. Det andet argument betoner, at vores sjael, i det øjeblik den via sanserne bliver opmaerksom på noget, evner at vurdere dette noget ud fra noget andet. Sjaelen genvinder hermed en viden om dette andet, de sansbare tings vaesen, som er det vi søger at afklare i filosofisk diskussion (se 75d1-3). Det er denne proces, der normalt betegnes som laering, som Sokrates omtolker som erindring; det afgørende i vores sammenhaeng er, at processen skildres som noget der finder sted mens vi lever. I tredje argument får vi at vide, at når end sjaelen undersøger noget for sig selv, så når den frem til det rene og evige (altså tingenes vaesen). Da den er beslaegtet hermed forbliver den ved det, når end den evner at vaere alene for sig selv; det er i disse situationer, at den opnår den indsigt (phronêsis). Også her er det klart, at der er tale om en proces der sker, mens vi lever. Tillige angiver argumentet, ved gentagne gange at betone, at indsigt er noget der sker når end sjaelen er ved ideerne, at indsigt er noget sjaelen kun opnår i glimt og perioder, så laenge den evner at opholde sig ved tingenes vaesen. Endelig bør et yderligere traek ved det tredje argument fremhaeves. Idet Sokrates argumenterer for, at legemet er mere lig de synlige ting, sjaelen mere lig de usynlige, angiver han, at mennesket indtager en mellemposition mellem synligt og usynligt. Selv om 13 Den logiske struktur af alle argumenterne i dialogen, navnlig det andet og fjerde, har vaeret analyseret grundigt i sekundaerlitteraturen. Da mit mål ikke er at komme med en nyfortolkning af argumenterne, men kun at pege på deres funktion i dialogens overordnede problemstilling, tillader jeg mig at sammenfatte dem i hovedtraek. 12 argumentet således i udgangspunktet bygger på en dualistisk ontologi (79a6) peger dets konklusion på en treledet ontologi, hvor mennesket traeder frem som et "mellem-vaerende". Mennesket kan forholde sig til såvel synligt som usynligt og påvirkes af den type af ting, det forholder sig til, uden at det kan henregnes til den ene eller den anden type.14 Snarere end at give en klar bestemmelse af den menneskelige sjael som noget, der er identisk med det evige og usynlige, lader det tredje argument spørgsmålet om, hvad sjaelen er, stå åbent. I lys af, at Sokrates i det meste af den forudgående dialog tilsyneladende har argumenteret for, at sjaelen er udødelig, er det påfaldende, at han hidtil ikke har stillet spørgsmålet, hvad sjaelen i det hele taget er. Det er tankevaekkende, fordi det synes at vaere en sokratisk grundtanke, at man, for at afgøre om en bestemt egenskab tilkommer noget, først må afgøre, hvad dette noget er (se Menon 71b3-8 og Staten 354b1-c3) – i hvert fald når det viser sig at vaere omstridt, om denne egenskab faktisk tilkommer dette noget.15 Og det er jo netop ikke klart, om udødeligheden er noget, der tilkommer sjaelen eller ej. Vi kunne derfor forvente, at en principiel afklaring af sjaelens vaesen er en forudsaetning for at afgøre, om egenskaben "udødelig" overhovedet kan siges at tilkomme den. Men faktum er, at sjaelen i dialogens hidtidige forløb stiltiende er blevet forstået som livsprincip, som det, der giver kroppen liv, uden at det naermere er blevet undersøgt, hvad sjaelen, som livgivende princip, er. Netop dette spørgsmål bringes ind i dialogen, idet Kebes og Simmias fremsaetter to modargumenter mod Sokrates' tre første argumenter (84d4-88b8). Deres indvendinger udgør dermed et dramatisk vendepunkt i dialogens forløb. Der sker et skift i det niveau, diskussionen nu føres ud fra:16 deres indvendinger bygger eksplicit på bestemmelser af 14 Se Bordt, «Philosophieren als Sterben-Lernen», 42. 15 Denne praecisering er vigtig. Som Vasilis Politis argumenteret for i The Structure of Enquiry in Plato's Early Dialogues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2016, er Platons Sokrates ikke uden videre fortaler for det, der i sekundaerlitteraturen kendes som "the priority of definition", altså det syn at du, for at kunne have viden om noget, først må kunne definere dette noget. Kravet til definition, påpeger Politis, melder sig først i Platons dialoger når det bliver klart, at det ikke uden videre er til at afgøre, om den ting, der diskuteres (f.eks. dyd) har egenskaben x eller ej (f.eks. at kunne laeres). Der er således ikke noget usaedvanligt i, at spørgsmålet om, hvad sjaelen er, ikke rejses med det samme i Phaidon. Snarere synes det at vaere i overensstemmelse med Sokrates' almindelige praksis, at dette spørgsmål først dukker op i løbet af diskussionen, når samtalepartnerne støder på en afgørende vanskelighed – det er netop den vanskelighed, Simmias og Kebes artikulerer. 16 Se Friedländer, Platon III, 38, 41-42 og 47-48; Burger, The Phaedo: A Platonic Labyrinth, 7 og 12. 13 sjaelens vaesen, som Sokrates efterfølgende søger at gendrive ved at indføre et alternativt syn på sjaelen. Det er vigtigt at bemaerke, at de opfattelser af sjaelen, som Kebes og Simmias gør sig til talsmaend for ikke bare umuliggør, at sjaelen kan vaere udødelig. De sår også principiel tvivl om gyldigheden af Sokrates' opfattelse, at sjaelen er et selvstaendigt noget, der har sin egen vaeremåde og netop af den grund kraever omsorg. Dermed sår de tvivl om hele fundamentet for den Sokratiske filosofi og for hans opposition til det bestående, athenske samfund. Hvis sjaelen ikke evner at handle frit og uafhaengigt af legemet, falder et vigtigt argument for at afvise det traditionelle, politisk motiverede ideal om dyd som Sokrates' anklagere står for. Det betyder endelig, at Sokrates' afvisning af de sjaelssyn, hans to dialogpartnere fremfører, kan ses som et vigtigt led i den saerlige form for politisk kritik, Sokrates bedriver.17 De to dialogpartnere udtrykker deres syn på sjaelen som følger. Simmias foreslår, at sjaelen er som en harmonisk stemthed (harmonia) og blanding af kropslige elementer, så som det varme og det kolde (86c5-c2); den er usynlig og guddommelig, men den går dog til grunde som det første når vi dør (86d2-4), på samme måde som lyrens stemhed forsvinder, i samme øjeblik lyrens strenge kappes. Kebes foreslår, at sjaelen er som en vaever, der nok i løbet af sit liv vil kan vaeve og benytte sig af mange kapper, der slides op før han dør, men som dog til sidst vil dø, således at hans sidst vaevede kappe "overlever" ham (87b3-d8). Det afgørende ved begge opfattelser er, at de ser sjaelen som et faenomen, der er intimt knyttet til kroppen, enten blot som en harmonisk blanding af de kropslige elementer, eller som et noget, der knytter eller vaever disse elementer sammen. Ingen af dem medgiver, at sjaelen har en selvstaendig funktion eller vaeremåde, i isolation fra kroppen.18 Med andre ord underkender både Simmias og Kebes Sokrates' påstand, at sjaelen er beslaegtet med det evige og usynlige (79d3) og derfor er til på en anden måde end det synlige og forgaengelige. Alternativt kan man sige, at de begge udfordrer Sokrates til at give en naermere bestemmelse 17 Som Hans-Georg Gadamer har foreslået, efter min mening med rette, er afvisningen af dette sjaelssyn dialogens egentlige hovedanliggende, se Gadamer «Die Unsterblichkeitsbeweise in Platos >Phaidon<», 193-196. Se også Zehnpfennig, Platon: Phaidon, 190, note 103. 18 At begge indvendinger bygger på en underkendelse af, at sjaelen har en radikal anden vaeremåde end det synlige, betones med rette af Friedländer, Platon III, 45. 14 af, hvad vi skal forstå ved sjaelens måde at vaere på.19 For det kan ikke siges at vaere klartgjort tilstraekkeligt i den forudgående del af dialogen. Før vi vender os mod Sokrates' svar til Simmias og Kebes bør vi bemaerke, at Simmias forud for sin indvending kommer med følgende udsagn: at opnå klar indsigt angående spørgsmålet om sjaelens udødelighed er enten umuligt eller saerdeles svaert i dette liv. Alligevel bør man fortsaette med at undersøge sagen på alle måder – alt andet ville vaere tegn på svaghed. For hvad angår sådanne ting må man enten laere, hvorledes de forholder sig eller, hvis det ikke er muligt, så i det mindste holde sig til den menneskelige logos – det raesonnement eller argument – der er staerkest, for at sejle på den gennem livet som på en tømmerflåde (85c1-d4). Udsagnet foregriber på den ene side Sokrates' skildring af sin såkaldt anden sejlads i det fjerde argument for sjaelen udødelighed, altså hans grundtanke om, at det er sikrere at tage udgangspunkt i en hypotese om, at der findes ideer, som forklarer verden omkring os, samt at disse nås gennem den rene taenkning, end i en hypotese om, at sanserne giver os reel erkendelse. For denne hypotese er netop også en antagelse, der gør det nemmere for Sokrates at navigere i livet, men som han dog ikke af den grund mener er uangribelig. På den anden side kan Simmias' udsagn laeses som et direkte modsvar til de såkaldt aegte filosoffers opfattelse, at det er umuligt at opnå viden eller, hvis det muligt, så kun i døden. Den opfattelse er en slap holdning, der forhindrer filosofisk undersøgelse, på samme måde som Menons paradoks gør det ved at haevde, at man ikke kan lede efter noget, som man ikke allerede ved, hvad er (se Menon 80d5-e5 og 81d5-e1). Ved klart at fremsaette sit alternativ til den opfattelse, viser Simmias sig – på trods af at han skal til at fremføre et radikalt modargument mod Sokrates' sjaelssyn – som Sokrates' allierede. For Sokrates har jo netop gennem hele dialogen undersøgt, hvorledes det forholder sig med sjaelen og døden, uden på noget tidspunkt at haevde, at dette kun har vaerdi, såfremt de når frem til viden om sagen. Helt generelt kan Sokratisk filosofi også ses som en bestraebelsen på at opnå så stor klarhed som det er menneskeligt muligt om de afgørende spørgsmål i livet, ved brug af argumenter og hypoteser. Mellem alternativet uvidenhed/absolut indsigt, som er det eneste 19 Kenneth Dorter «The Objections of Simmias and Cebes (84c-89c)» i Jörn Müller, Platon: Phaidon, Klassiker Auslegen. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 97-110 foreslår, 97, at de to argumenter udfordrer den form for analogitaenkning, det tredje argument bygger på, ved at fremsaette andre analogier som alternativ til Sokrates' analogi mellem ide og sjael. 15 alternativ de aegte filosoffer anerkender, indfører Sokrates dermed et ideal om relativ, og foreløbig, indsigt, der principielt set altid er mulig at korrigere, såfremt bedre argumenter skulle dukke op. For Sokrates er filosofi ikke besiddelse af apodiktisk viden, opnået gennem uafviselige beviser, men derimod en bestandig bestraebelse på at opnå så stor indsigt i vanskelige anliggender, som vi kan, ved hjaelp af de bedste argumenter, vi kan finde. III: Sokrates svar: sjaelens vaeremåde som frihed Sokrates' svar til de to indvendinger kan ses som en trinvis afklaring af sjaelens specifikke måde at vaere på. Selv om det navnlig er tilbagevisningen af Kebes, der har stået i centrum af den filosofiske fortolkning af Phaidon, hvor Sokrates giver en slags selvbiografi og beskriver den ovenfor naevnte anden sejlads, er Sokrates' modsvar til Simmias lige så vigtigt for at forstå Sokrates' forsvar for sit filosofiske projekt til bunds. Vigtigheden heraf ses bla. af at Simmias tidligere har fremført, at det han siger om sjaelen er det noget "vi" antager om den (86b6-7), en påstand, der spejles i Echekrates' udbrud i dialogens rammefortaelling, at han på saelsom vis nu gribes af, og altid har vaeret grebet af, det syn, at sjaelen er en harmoni (88d3-5). Harmonitanken signaliseres dermed som en alment accepteret opfattelse af sjaelen, der i et eller andet omfang appellerer til Simmias og Echekrates.20 Vi behøver i denne sammenhaeng ikke at redegøre for alle momenterne ved Sokrates' modsvar, men kan nøjes med at fremhaeve to punkter. Det første er, at modsvaret tager udgangspunkt i at Simmias accepterer konklusionen på det andet argument – at laering er det samme som erindring (se 91e2-92a5). Sokrates fremhaever, at Simmias må opgive en af sine tanker (logoi), i) at laering er erindring eller ii) at sjaelen er en harmoni, fordi et harmonisk forhold ikke kan bestå forud for de elementer, den er et forhold mellem (92b4-c4), mens sjaelen, såfremt den skal kunne erindre tidligere erhvervet viden, må have eksisteret forud for kroppen. Simmias medgiver med det samme, at han vaelger at fastholde i), altså tanken om at laering er erindring. Grunden er, at denne tanke følger af en hypotese om sjaelen og ideerne, der er vaerd at antage (92d6-7); for denne hypotesen er funderet i et filosofisk argument, nemlig det, Sokrates udfoldede som sit andet argument for sjaelens udødelighed. Denne diskussion illustrerer, hvad Simmias forstår 20 Det er omstridt, i hvilket omfang tanken kan knyttes til den pythagoraeiske "skole". Det afgørende her er ikke, om harmoni-tanken som sådan kan tilskrives Pythagoras, men blot at Platon klart angiver, at Sokrates' samtalepartnere er tiltrukket af den. 16 ved at holde fast i det bedst mulige menneskelige raesonnement og foregriber klart den metode, som Sokrates beskriver som sin anden sejlads. Modsvaret antyder tillige, at det er forholdet mellem ideerne og sjaelen, der danner omdrejningspunktet for Sokrates' modsvar til begge indvendinger. Det andet er, at Sokrates i sit modsvar påpeger, at Simmias' syn på sjaelen vanskeliggør al tale om menneskelig dyd. Sokrates' noget komplekse indvending er som følger: én harmoni kan måske siges at vaere mere harmonisk end en anden (se dog 94a1-4), men én sjael kan ikke vaere mere sjael end en anden (93a14-b6). Men det haevdes med rette, at nogle sjaele har fornuft og dyd og dermed er gode, mens andre ikke er har det og derfor er slette (93b8-c1). Under forudsaetning af, at sjaelen er en harmoni, og under forudsaetning af, at alle sjaele er lige meget sjael, følger imidlertid det paradoksale forhold, at alle sjaele er lige harmoniske, hvilket vil sige, at de alle er lige gode – hvis ellers en sjaels godhed skal forklares som det, at den er harmonisk (93c3-e10). Med dette argument viser Sokrates, at sjaelens vaesen ikke kan forstås som en harmoni mellem kropslige elementer, men at harmoni derimod bør forstås som en tilstand, der kan vaere kendetegnende for sjaelens måde at vaere på. Sjaelen er ikke harmoni, den er derimod noget, der kan vaere mere eller mindre harmonisk. Det synes tillige at følge af Sokrates' argument, at sjaelen må vaere et forhold – ikke mellem kropslige elementer, hvad han jo afviser, men mellem andre momenter eller elementer ved den selv, hvis det ellers er korrekt at haevde, at sjaelen kan vaere harmonisk og at harmoni er et forhold, der består mellem elementer af noget. Ud fra den forudgående dialog synes det rimeligt at antage, at sådanne momenter kunne vaere fornuften (inklusiv dens forhold til de ideer, den søger at erkende) og de kropslige impulser, sjaelen modtager gennem sanserne (se 94b7-e1). Er det korrekt kan vi sige, at sjaelen er et forhold mellem disse, der, netop i måden det forholder sig til dette forhold, kan vaere mere eller mindre harmonisk.21 Harmoni er altså ikke sjaelens vaesen, som Simmias foreslår, men en opgave, en opgave, der er identisk med den, Sokrates har viet sit liv til. Og den opgave kan netop ikke forklares hvis man antager, at sjaelen kan reduceres til et forhold mellem legemlige elementer. 21 Allusionen til Kierkegaard er bevidst; at selvet, som Anti-Climacus siger, "er et Forhold, der forholder sig til sig selv, eller er det i Forholdet, at Forholdet forholder sig til sig selv; Selvet er ikke Forholdet, men at Forholdet forholder sig til sig selv" (SKS 11, 129) forekommer mig netop at vaere en indsigt, som Kierkegaard har fra sit forbillede, Sokrates. 17 For da afskriver man tanken om at sjaelen kan have en kraft og indsigt i sig selv, uafhaengigt af legemet, som den kan udøve når den traeder i forhold til kroppen – da må den nødvendigvis, som Sokrates siger, vaere ude af stand til at gøre eller påvirkes af noget, ud over det, legemet gør eller påvirkes af (93a4-5). Kritikken af et materialistisk syn på sjaelen fortsaettes i Sokrates' svar til Kebes. Også hvad dette svar angår er det nok at fremdrage et par traek, der har betydning for at vurdere det etisk-politiske budskab, Sokrates fremsaetter som sit filosofiske testamente. Svaret starter med en slags selvbiografi, hvor Sokrates forklarer, hvorledes han som ung opgav naturfilosofiske undersøgelser af, hvad årsager er, og i den forbindelse stødte på Anaxagoras og hans laere om, at fornuften er årsag til alting (95e9-99d2). Hovedpointen i denne selvbiografi er at adskille det, vi nu (med afsaet i Aristoteles) ville kalde materielle årsager22 og formålseller teleologiske årsager. Hvad Sokrates søgte hos Anaxagoras var at få forklaret, hvordan fornuften (nous) er en formålsårsag for alt, der er, en forklaring, der ville indebaere, at man som årsag til noget må angive, hvordan det er bedst for det enten at vaere eller handle eller påvirkes (97c8-d). Sokrates haevder, at han ikke fandt en sådan type forklaring hos Anaxagoras, samt at han derfor begav sig ud på den anden sejlads på jagt efter årsager (99c6-d1). Denne "sejlads" består netop i antagelsen om, at ideerne er årsager til alt. Formuleret i Aristoteliske termer kunne man fristes til at sige, at han i stedet for en teleologisk årsag til det hele nu stillede sig tilfreds med formelle årsager for alt, der er. Men helt så simplet forholder det sig ikke. Før vi forlader Sokrates' diskussion af Anaxagoras er det derfor vaerd at fremhaeve Sokrates' illustration af, hvad han fandt skuffende hos Anaxagoras. Her (98c299a4) drager han en analogi mellem sig selv og verden: Anaxagoras' måde at forklare verden på, som ifølge Sokrates ender med kun at appellere til det materielle grundlag for det, der findes, uden egentlig at anvende fornuften, svarer til at ville forklare, hvorfor Sokrates nu sidder i dødscellen blot ved at henvise til hans muskler, scener og knogler, uden at angive den virkelige årsag, "at netop fordi athenerne har fundet det bedre at dømme mig, så har det også forekommet mig bedre at blive sidende her, og mere retfaerdigt at vente og lide den straf, som de har befalet" (98e2-5; min oversaettelse). 22 Sokrates bestemmer ikke det materielle som årsager, men blot som det, foruden hvilket årsagen – nemlig fornuften – ikke kunne vaere årsag: 99b3-4. 18 Analogien illustrerer, at hvad der måske ikke kan lade sig gøre for naturen som helhed – at forklare hvorledes fornuften kan vaere en årsag, der ordner alt efter hvad der er bedst – bedre lader sig gøre på det menneskelige plan. For vores handlinger er ikke blot et resultat af vores legemlige beskaffenhed, men først og fremmest af vores overvejelser vedrørende det, vi anser som bedre eller mere retfaerdigt. Lad os derfor prøve at overføre, hvad Sokrates har sagt om årsagsforklaringer, der orienterer sig efter fornuften – de skal angive, hvordan det er bedst for noget at 1) vaere, 2) påvirkes 3) handle (97c8-d) – på forholdet mellem Athen og Sokrates, den dramatiske ramme for diskussionen i Phaidon. Vi får da følgende billede: Athenerne anser det for bedst for byen, at den forbliver som den er (vaeren), hvilket indebaerer, at den bør undgå at blive påvirket af Sokrates' udspørgende aktivitet, hvorfor den må handle ved at dømme ham til døden. Sokrates på sin side mener, at det er bedst for ham, at han forbliver den filosof, han er (vaeren), at han derfor må lade sig slå ihjel (altså påvirkes) og følgelig vaelger at blive siddende i sin dødscelle (og dermed handler). For både athenerne og Sokrates er deres fornuftsaffødte opfattelser årsager til de handlinger, de foretager sig. At Sokrates ikke mener, at athenerne har ret i deres forståelse af, hvad der er bedst for Athen, og at de dermed ikke bruger deres fornuft rigtigt, er klart ud fra Forsvarstalen, hvor han betoner, at det han gør for Athen er en art gudstjeneste, og at han selv er det bedste, der er haendt byen (se 30a5-7). Men når athenerne først har besluttet sig for at handle, som de har, anser han det alligevel for bedst at gå i døden, som han fremhaever i Phaidon. Begrundelsen for dette tilsyneladende paradoks, som man finder i Forsvarstalen,23 er, at Sokrates ikke kunne have undgået dødsdommen, uden at have gået på kompromis med sig selv ved at opføre sig på en måde, der er uvaerdig for et frit menneske, nemlig at trygle og bede om nåde med gråd og klage, på samme måde som han ikke ville have kunnet undgået anklagen, uden at have gået på kompromis med sig selv ved at leve et uretfaerdigt liv (38d339b8). Hellere gå vaerdigt i døden grundet en vaerdig og retfaerdig livsførelse end uvaerdigt at søge at undslippe døden gennem en uvaerdig opførsel og et uvaerdigt og uretfaerdigt levet liv. 23 I Kriton giver Sokrates en mere konventionel og mindre konfronterende begrundelse, nemlig at det ville vaere uretfaerdig ikke at ville lade sig dømme af det samfund, han har nydt godt af hele sit liv (se 50a-54d). Jeg laeser dette som det mindre filosofisk interessante svar, der bevidst henvender sig til den knap så taenksomme, men saerdeles bekymrede ven, Kriton, der forstår konventionel moral, men naeppe dybere filosofiske overvejelser af, hvad der i sandhed er retfaerdigt. 19 Billedet der tegner sig her er da, at den, der først og fremmest søger at overleve i et uretfaerdigt samfund som Athen efter Sokrates' opfattelse var, kun kan gøre det ved at leve uretfaerdigt, mens den, der virkelig søger at vaere retfaerdig, altid må vaere beredt på at møde en anklage og en dødsdom, samt at acceptere sidstnaevnte, fordi alt andet ville vaere uvaerdigt. På baggrund af disse overvejelser forekommer det ikke urimeligt at antage, at Sokrates' formål med at skildre sin anden sejlads ikke bare er at give et generelt bud på, hvad en årsagsforklaring indebaerer (det er det selvfølgelig også), men tillige at give en forklaring på hans egne handlinger i konfrontation med den anklage om at fordaerve byens unge, hans anklagere har fremført mod ham. Det er ikke nødvendigt ar gå i detaljer med skildringen af den anden sejlads: det er tilstraekkeligt at angive et enkelt traek, som peger direkte på dens politiske relevans. Sokrates starter med at fremhaeve, at han, efter at han opgav både naturfilosoffernes og Anaxagoras' tilgang til årsager, mente at det var nødvendigt at søge tilflugt i raesonnementer (logoi) for herigennem at betragte sandheden om de ting, der er (99d4-6). Det er det, han hele dialogen igennem har argumenteret for er den rette vej til indsigt. Nu forklarer han, at denne tilflugt indebaerer, at han til enhver tid har antaget den logos – det raesonnement – som forekom ham mest standhaftig, som et grundlag eller hypotese, samt at han har fastsat alle de ting, der forekom ham at stemme overens dermed, som vaerende sande, både hvad angår årsager og hvad angår alt andet (100a3-6). Og den grundantagelse, han er gået ud fra som mest standhaftig, er ingen anden end den, at der findes noget, der er skønt og godt og stort i sig selv (100b5-6). Sigtet med resten af Sokrates' argument er nu at forklare, hvorledes denne antagelse kan bruges som årsagsforklaring for de synlige ting, der omgiver os, samt hvorledes dette kan sandsynliggøre (men ikke bevise), at sjaelen er udødelig. I stedet for at gå ind i detaljerne af dette saerdeles komplekse argument vil jeg her blot fastholde Sokrates' grundantagelse, i al sin simpelhed, at der findes noget, der er, hvad det er, i sig selv, herunder det gode, det skønne – og det retfaerdige, den første ide eller form, der naevnes i hele dialogen (se 65b4-5). Det er afgørende at se, at en sådan antagelse er ikke bare en metafysisk eller ontologisk tese, som vi kan betegne som begrebsrealisme eller platonisme og afvise som et stykke antikveret taenkning, vi i den såkaldt postmetafysiske tidsalder er kommet ud over. Antagelsen er først og fremmest en metafysisk tese med vidtfavnende politiske konsekvenser. 20 At der er noget, der i sig selv er retfaerdigt og godt vil netop sige, at det findes noget, der helt uafhaengig af politiske konventioner og gaengse opfattelser er retfaerdigt og godt, noget, der kan fungere som målestok for vores vurdering af, om vores handlinger og politiske institutioner er gode og retfaerdige eller ej – hvis ellers vi kan nå til en erkendelse af det. Den tese, Sokrates har forsvaret fra begyndelsen af dialogen, er, at det er muligt for mennesket at nå frem til en sådan erkendelse, i hvert fald til dels, hvis vi ellers er villige til at give slip på vores kropslige bindinger og de dertil knyttede begaer efter rigdom, magt, og aere. Men det betyder omvendt, at det først er idet vi laegger vores normale perspektiv på tilvaerelsen, som den traditionelle politik ifølge Sokrates styres af, bag os, at vi vil vaere i stand til at erkende, hvad der virkeligt er retfaerdigt og dermed handle i overensstemmelse hermed, idet vi påvirkes af denne ide. At Sokrates forbliver i dødscellen kan dermed ses som en illustration af, at sjaelen er i stand til at påvirkes uafhaengigt af det legeme, den er inkarneret i, ved at erkende ideer så som retfaerdighed og skønhed, og til at handle på baggrund af dette, uden at tage hensyn til kroppens fortsatte eksistens. At Sokrates forbliver i cellen, efter at athenerne har dømt ham, på trods af, at han grundlaeggende mener, at dommen er uretfaerdig, kan dermed ses som udslag af en radikal frihed, en frihed, der beror på at lade det, fornuften hele ens liv har tilsagt en er ret og godt, og kun det, determinere ens handlinger. Ideerne fungerer dermed som det ontologiske fundament for det Kant senere kaldte autonomi: evnen til at lade ens fornuft, og kun den, vaere determinerende for ens frie handlinger. At udfoldelsen af denne frihed kan saette en på kollisionskurs med det samfund, man er en del af, er ingen hemmelighed. Sokrates udtrykker det klart i Forsvarstalen – den, der vil kaempe for det retfaerdige, kan ikke holde sig i live i mere end kort tid, hvis vedkommende gør det i fuld offentlighed (31c4-32a3). Phaidon bevidner, at selv den, der vier sit liv til at kaempe for retfaerdigheden uden at gå ind i det politiske liv, risikerer at dø. | {
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Husserl et la logique des signes Denis Fisette Université du Québec à Montréal Au tout début du Cours de linguistique générale, Ferdinand de Saussure se demande : "Pourquoi la sémiologie n'a-t-elle pas existé jusqu'ici ?". C'était au début du XXe siècle et l'on sait l'influence que la sémiologie de Saussure a exercée depuis sur la linguistique. Mais cette question, outre le fait qu'elle manifeste la volonté de Saussure d'affirmer le caractère original de sa réflexion sur le signe et les systèmes de signes dans le champ de la linguistique, oublie, par le fait même, la contribution importante de la philosophie, depuis John Locke, à la science des signes. Pour les fins de la présente étude, il sera utile de distinguer deux grandes traditions qui ont contribué à l'élaboration d'une science des signes. La première, que nous appellerons tout simplement "sémiologie'', remonte bien évidemment à Saussure ; nous appellerons la deuxième "sémiotique" (ornietanKrj) en raison de son appartenance à cette longue tradition qui remonte au moins aux Grecs, mais dont l'histoire est pourtant récente, pourrait-on dire, puisqu'elle commence avec la parution, à la fin du XVIIe siècle, de l'ouvrage de John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, dans lequel plusieurs pages sont consacrées au langage et au signe. Cette distinction ne nous concerne ici que dans la mesure où notre étude porte principalement sur la contribution d'Edmund Husserl, le père de la phénoménologie, et que cette contribution en est une à la tradition sémiotique. Le nom de Locke revient souvent dans l'oeuvre de Husserl, mais sa connaissance des écrits de Locke sur le signe semble indirecte et peut-être de seconde main ; il l'a vraisemblablement acquise des nombreux commentaires que lui consacre la Wissenchaftslehre du philosophe pragois Bernard Bolzano. Qui plus est, le titre du premier écrit de Husserl sur le signe : "Zur Logik der Zeichen (Semiotik)"1, reprend presque intégralement celui d'une section de la Wissenchaftslehre dans lequel l'usage du terme Semiotik renvoie bien évidemment à Locke. On pourrait suivre cette piste Jusqu'à Leibniz et Johann Heinrich Lambert, à qui nous devons d'ailleurs le terme "phénoménologie'', et qui a consacré 146 Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry plusieurs pages de son Neues Organon à la question du signe - la troisième partie s'intitule d'ailleurs : "Semiotik, oder die Lehre von der Bezeichnung der Gedanken und Dinge". Lambert y commente abondamment les idées de Locke sur le signe et nous savons que Bolzano connaissait bien cet ouvrage de Lambert, qu'il cite souvent. En aval, cette piste nous conduirait peut-être jusqu'à Charles Sanders Peirce, qui appartient à la même tradition que Husserl, quoique sa contribution à la sémiotique, il va sans dire, soit de beaucoup la plus imposante. Husserl, qui connaissait pourtant et estimait beaucoup2 les travaux de Peirce en logique, ne mentionne pourtant jamais le nom de Peirce dans ses textes où il est question du signe ; son oeuvre, en dépit d'une parenté évidente avec la philosophie de Peirce, ne porte aucune trace d'une influence quelconque du philosophe américain3. Le titre de notre étude et surtout le nom d'Edmund Husserl évoqueront peut-être de vieilles querelles et controverses qui opposèrent, au milieu des années 1960, la phénoménologie et le structuralisme. On se rappellera en outre la critique sévère de Jacques Derrida, dans son livre La Voix et le phénomène, à l'endroit de la conception husserlienne du signe. Et cependant, la contribution de Husserl à la sémiotique ne se limite pas aux quelques pages de la première des Recherches logiques que privilégie Derrida. L'intérêt de Husserl pour les systèmes de signes remonte à son premier ouvrage, Philosophie de l'arithmétique, et il est entretenu jusqu'à la fin de son oeuvre, notamment dans la Krisis qui en fait un thème central. De plus, les Recherches logiques ont exercé une profonde influence sur les débuts de la linguistique structurale et nous montrerons que la phénoménologie a continué d'exercer cette influence au moins jusqu'à la mort de Maurice Merleau-Ponty en 19614. Cela dit, notre étude vise à délimiter l'espace dans lequel la question du signe s'est posée à la tradition phénoménologique depuis Husserl. Cette étude largement historique ne prétend aucunement à l'exhaustivité ; il s'agit d'abord et avant tout d'identifier certains aspects de la question qui ont suscité l'intérêt de la phénoménologie. Elle se divise en quatre parties : dans la première, nous examinerons le texte de 1890 intitulé Semiotik en le situant dans le contexte des recherches du jeune Husserl sur la philosophie des mathématiques ; la deuxième section est principalement consacrée à l'étude de la première des Recherches logiques ; la troisième partie vise à rendre compte des changements qui ont marqué l'évolution de la pensée de Husserl sur le signe à partir des Recherches logiques jusque dans "Origine de la géométrie'' ; finalement, nous esquisserons à grands traits la contribution de la phénoménologie post-husserlienne à la sémiotique, de Martin Heidegger à Maurice Merleau-Ponty, et au-delà. Husserl et la logique des signes 147 Petit précis de phénoménologie Une enquête historique sur le concept de signe dans une perspective phénoménologique se doit d'abord d'identifier clairement ses paramètres. Car, en effet, non seulement la phénoménologie désigne un ensemble très vaste et mal défini, mais ses champs d'intérêt sont nombreux et extrêmement diversifiés. Aussi, la question du signe intervient dans des contextes aussi différents que l'interprétation de la logique, l'élaboration d'une grammaire universelle, une analyse de la signification, voire même le sens de l'histoire. Ce qui complique singulièrement notre enquête, c'est que cette diversité caractérise non seulement les champs d'intérêt, mais encore les conceptions du signe de Husserl à Merleau-Ponty. La question est alors de savoir ce qu'il y a de spécifique à une approche phénoménologique du signe, et d'abord ce qu'il y a de spécifiquement phénoménologique dans cette approche. Nous excluons d'entrée de jeu le sens que la notion a pris dans la tradition kantienne depuis Lambert, et que Peirce, dans ses écrits de 1902 à 1904, a utilisé à des fins taxinomiques pour lui préférer ensuite d'autres termes comme "phaneroscopy" (voir Spiegelberg 1981). Pris dans son sens le plus général, le terme désigne ce courant de pensée auquel appartiennent tous ceux qui, au XXe siècle, se sont inspirés de l'oeuvre de Husserl et qui revendiquent une appartenance à la phénoménologie. La référence à l'oeuvre de Husserl, si elle rend possible un premier découpage de notre champ d'étude, demeure cependant largement indéterminée en raison des nombreux changements qui ont marqué sa conception de la phénoménologie, changements qui concernent principalement l'interprétation philosophique de sa phénoménologie. C'est d'ailleurs ce qui explique que son oeuvre ait pu susciter l'intérêt de philosophes, linguistes, psychologues et mathématiciens aussi différents que Martin Heidegger, Kurt Gödel, Roman Jakobson ou Jean-Paul Sartre, par exemple. On peut néanmoins délimiter d'une manière plus précise le champ de la phénoménologie en faisant abstraction de ces interprétations philosophiques et en recherchant un terrain neutre, quelque chose comme l'invariant des différentes approches dites "phénoménologiques" du signe. Or, cet invariant, nous serons à même de le constater dans cette étude, est celui-là même que le linguiste russe Roman Jakobson a identifié comme étant la phénoménologie telle que Husserl la présente dans un ouvrage dont nous célébrons cette année le centenaire de la publication : les Recherches logiques. Dans son texte "Relations entre la science du langage et les autres sciences", Jakobson y voit même les origines de la linguistique structurale : Au début de notre siècle la pensée de Husserl, développée dans le second volume de ses Logische Untersuchungen [Recherches logiques] et en particulier le chapitre qui traite de "la différence entre les significations indépendantes et dépendantes et l'idée de la grammaire pure", est devenue un facteur puissant pour les débuts de la linguistique structurale, en opposant 148 Recherches sémlotiques / Semiotic Inquiry "l'Idée de la grammaire générale et a priori" à la grammaire "exclusivement empirique" qui était la seule en vogue (1973 : 12). L'intérêt de cette remarque de Jakobson réside moins dans le renvoi aux travaux de Husserl sur la grammaire, la méréologie et la signification que dans la référence implicite au contexte intellectuel plus général auquel appartient cet ouvrage. Ce contexte est celui de la philosophie autrichienne de la fin du XIXe siècle et nous sommes d'accord avec Jakobson que l'ouvrage fondateur de la phénoménologie, autant par son style que par son intérêt pour le langage et les questions logico-sémantiques, appartient davantage à cette tradition inaugurée par Bernard Bolzano et par le philosophe autrichien Franz Brentano qu'à celle qui s'est imposée sur le continent sous le nom de phénoménologie herméneutique. Cela nous importe ici parce que, comme nous le constaterons plus tard, la contribution des étudiants de Brentano aux débats linguistiques jusque dans les années 1930 est majeure5. Husserl ne dit-il pas d'ailleurs de la phénoménologie des Recherches logiques qu'elle est "philosophiquement neutre", ce qu'on pourrait comprendre comme une certaine indifférence face aux débats et enjeux qui motivaient la métaphysique classique et qui motivent aujourd'hui encore de grands pans de la phénoménologie post-husserlienne ? En revanche, la phénoménologie y est définie dans les termes mêmes par lesquels Brentano, dans sa Psychologie d'un point de vue empirique, désigne sa propre contribution à la philosophie, à savoir comme une "psychologie descriptive". Dans ses cours de la fin des années 1880, Brentano utilise indifféremment les notions de "phénoménologie descriptive" et de "psychognosie" pour désigner cette science dont la tâche première est d'étudier les phénomènes psychiques. Elle consiste à déterminer les caractères communs à tous les phénomènes psychiques, à rechercher "les éléments ultimes de la vie psychique d'où résultent les phénomènes plus complexes" (1874 : 63). En cela, cette entreprise s'apparente au projet de Leibniz d'élaborer une characteristica universalis et elle a une portée directe sur la question du signe, comme le suggère le passage suivant : Tous les autres phénomènes psychologiques sont dérivés des relations de ces éléments psychologiques ultimes, comme la totalité des mots peut être dérivée de la totalité des lettres. L'accomplissement de cette tâche jetterait les bases pour une characteristica universalis semblable à celle qui a été conçue par Leibniz et, avant lui, par Descartes (1895 : 34-35). Cela dit, Husserl n'adhère pas entièrement à cette caractérisation de la phénoménologie, pas plus d'ailleurs que les autres étudiants de Brentano. Il y a en effet des différences majeures qui ont trait à la notion d'intentionnalité et à la méthode, par exemple, et nous savons que dans ses travaux après les Recherches logiques, Husserl conservera l'idée de description, mais retirera à la psychologie le statut qu'elle avait dans cet ouvrage. Néanmoins, cette définition de la phénoménologie est parHusserl et la logique des signes 149 faitement légitime dans le cadre de la présente étude puisque sa légitimité se mesure au premier chef à sa capacité de subsumer les contributions principales de ce courant de pensée à la question du signe. Or, puisque les Recherches logiques représentent pour la présente étude notre point d'ancrage et que Husserl les présente comme une contribution à la psychologie descriptive, cette caractérisation ainsi élargie de la phénoménologie ne risque pas de nous égarer. Ce retour aux origines de la phénoménologie n'a pas seulement un intérêt pour les questions relatives au langage et à la signification, mais il s'impose à toute tentative visant à comprendre la doctrine des Recherches logiques. Husserl et la question du langage Il est difficile de porter un jugement éclairé sur la valeur de la contribution husserlienne à la sémiotique parce qu'il a peu écrit sur la question, et de ce qu'il a écrit, on ne connaît qu'une infime partie, notamment les passages pertinents des Recherches logiques. D'autres textes moins connus et pour la plupart posthumes, notamment Semiotik et "Origine de la géométrie", présentent un intérêt pour la sémiotique en même temps qu'ils témoignent de l'intérêt de Husserl pour notre question6. Ce qui ajoute à la difficulté, c'est le fait que ces textes appartiennent à des périodes différentes dans l'évolution de la pensée de Husserl et qu'ils sont porteurs des nombreux changements qui ont marqué le développement de la phénoménologie. Dans son texte "Sur la phénoménologie du langage", Maurice Merleau-Ponty relève le plus important de ces changements et parle d'un contraste frappant entre les premiers et les derniers textes de Husserl sur le langage : Dans la 4e Logische Untersuchungen, Husserl propose l'idée d'une eidétique du langage et d'une grammaire universelle qui fixeraient les formes de signification indispensables à tout langage, s'il doit être langage, et permettraient de penser en pleine clarté les langues empiriques comme des réalisations "brouillées" du langage essentiel [...]. Par contre, dans des textes plus récents, le langage apparaît comme une manière originale de viser certains objets, comme le corps de la pensée (Formale und Transzendentale Logik) ou même comme l'opération par laquelle des pensées qui, sans lui, resteraient phénomènes privés, acquièrent valeur intersubjective et finalement existence idéale ("Ursprung der Geometrie''). La pensée philosophique qui réfléchit sur le langage serait dès lors bénéficiaire du langage, enveloppée et située en lui (1960 : 106-107). Merleau-Ponty a raison de parler de contraste entre les textes de ces deux périodes, et nous verrons qu'il s'explique entre autres choses par une valorisation de ce qui est appelé dans les Recherches logiques la "fonction indicative" du signe. Ce qui ne l'empêche pas de demeurer fidèle au projet d'une eidétique du langage et, surtout, à l'idée d'une grammaire universelle à laquelle revient le statut de soubassement de sa logique, et ce Jusque dans ses derniers écrits. Ce contraste en est peut-être un d'Insistance, le thème des Recherches logiques étant logico150 Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry sémantique alors que celui des derniers écrits sur le signe concerne l'idéalité du langage et la genèse du sens. Nous y reviendrons. Cette remarque de Merleau-Ponty soulève la question de la genèse de la phénoménologie du langage. Il sera utile pour les fins de la pré-sente étude de distinguer quatre moments dans la conception husserlienne du langage et de regrouper les textes principaux sur cette question sous quatre périodes. La première, que nous qualifierons de préphénoménologique, comprend les textes contemporains de la publication du premier ouvrage de Husserl : le premier volume de Philosophie de l'arithmétique, les textes préparatoires au deuxième tome de ce même ouvrage, notamment Semiotik (1890a), et les autres non moins importants, publiés ou rédigés avant les Recherches logiques, soit avant 1900, notamment la recension de l'opuscule de Twardowski. La deuxième période est celle des Recherches logiques et nous ne tiendrons compte ici que des recherches I, III et IV. La troisième période se situe quelque part entre la première (1900/01) et la deuxième édition des Recherches logiques et la publication du premier livre des Idées directrices (1913). Les textes importants sont les Leçons de 1908 sur la théorie de la signification, les §§124-127 de Ideen I et les remarques critiques de Husserl en marge du texte de la première édition de la première des Recherches logiques à l'occasion de la préparation de la deuxième édition de l'ouvrage. La dernière période couvre les derniers textes de Husserl, le plus pertinent pour la question qui nous intéresse étant "Origine de la géométrie". Nous porterons une attention particulière à la première des Recherches logiques en raison de l'intérêt qu'elle a suscité et de l'influence qu'elle a exercée sur la sémiotique après Husserl. La période pré-phénoménologique La publication depuis quelques années des écrits de la période préphénoménologique dans les Husserliana7 a suscité un vif intérêt dans le commentaire de la phénoménologie, un intérêt nourri à l'époque par la question de l'influence de Gottlob Frege sur l'élaboration du projet phénoménologique. Mathématicien de formation, tout comme Frege et Bolzano, étudiant des célèbres mathématiciens Kronecker et Weierstrab, Husserl connaissait bien les travaux de Frege comme en témoignent sa correspondance de même que les nombreuses références qui lui sont faites dans Philosophie de l'arithmétique. On a retenu de cet échange entre les deux pères de la philosophie du XXe siècle la critique dévastatrice à laquelle se livre Frege dans son compte rendu du premier livre de Husserl, une critique dénonçant pour l'essentiel les prétentions de la psychologie, comprise comme science empirique, à fonder la logique et les mathématiques. Quoi qu'il en soit de l'issue de ce débat et en dépit des réserves que Husserl exprimera plus tard face aux positions défendues dans son premier ouvrage, notamment en regard du rôle de la psychologie en matière de fondement, les écrits de cette période préHusserl et la logique des signes 151 sentent un intérêt qui est dissociable de la question du psychologisme logique. Nous pensons ici à Semiotik, cet écrit posthume dans lequel Husserl élabore entre autres choses une "logique des signes" et que nous voudrions maintenant examiner. Commençons par situer ce texte dans le contexte des recherches et préoccupations de Husserl durant cette période. Husserl s'y réfère à deux reprises dans Philosophie de l'arithmétique : dans une note du chapitre XI où il annonce la publication prochaine, "dans l'appendice au tome II de ce livre", de ses recherches sur les "représentations symboliques" (1970[ 189lc] : 215, n. 1)8 et dans la préface à cet ouvrage où il précise que ces recherches devaient porter "sur la logique générale des méthodes symboliques (sur la 'sémiotique'), et [qu'il] essayerai[t] d'y combler une lacune essentielle de la logique telle qu'elle s'est présentée jusqu'à maintenant" ( 1970(189lc] : VI). Or, ce deuxième volume de Philosophie de l'arithmétique n'a jamais vu le jour. Husserl y travailla néanmoins jusqu'en 1894 avec le projet, auquel contribue Semiotik, d'accomplir les trois tâches suivantes9 : effectuer une recherche logique sur l'arithmétique générale comprise comme science du calcul ; résoudre le problème de la justification du calcul avec les nombres négatifs, imaginaires, irrationnels, etc. ; entreprendre une recherche psychologique sur l'origine des représentations symboliques en commençant par l'étude du domaine conceptuel "qui commande l'arithmétique générale au sens premier et originaire" (1891b : 6). Ce n'est pas le lieu d'examiner ce programme, mais il est important d'en indiquer les grandes lignes pour bien comprendre les préoccupations qui sont à l'oeuvre dans Semiotik. Une lettre de 1890 adressée à Stumpf résume bien ce programme et précise ainsi le sens de Semiotik. Le point de départ est la thèse centrale de son écrit d'habilitation (1887) sur le concept de nombre, suivant laquelle le concept de nombre cardinal constitue le fondement de l'arithmétique générale. Faisant allusion à ses recherches sur la justification de l'élargissement du domaine des nombres, Husserl confie à Stumpf que cette thèse s'est révélée fausse en raison justement des problèmes soulevés par toute tentative visant à dériver les nombres complexes, négatifs, rationnels et irrationnels du concept de nombre cardinal (Anzahtbegriff). Le problème de l'élargissement (Erweiterung) du domaine des nombres, si important à l'époque dans les recherches de Weierstrab, Cantor et Dedekind, est en fait le problème de la justification du calcul avec des nombres imaginaires (les nombres négatifs, fractionnaires, irrationnels, complexes, etc.). Pour le dire rapidement, l'hypothèse avancée par Husserl dans cette lettre est que la justification de l'élargissement du domaine des nombres ne dépend pas d'un fondement conceptuel, ici d'une représentation, mais seulement de la technique arithmétique, c'est-à-dire des signes et des règles du calcul. Se référant cette fois à Hermann von Helmholtz10, Husserl se demande si l'arithmétique n'a pas affaire qu'à des signes, si l'arithmétique n'est 152 Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry pas un simple "jeu de signes". L'identification du nombre cardinal (Anzahl) au signe [Anzeichen) rendrait possible la dérivation de tout l'algorithme de l'arithmétique et de l'analyse en général au moyen de simples définitions de signes, c'est-à-dire à l'aide de simples équivalences (3+2 = 7-2 = 5 = V25, etc.). Ce qui nous intéresse dans cette hypothèse, c'est que cette identification conduirait, selon la lettre, à la subordination de l'arithmétique à la logique : L'arithmetica universalis n'est pas une science, mais une partie de la logique formelle, laquelle elle-même je définirais comme un chapitre particulier, un des plus importants de la logique comprise comme doctrine formelle [Kunstlehre] de la connaissance". C'est dans ce contexte que Husserl souligne l'urgence d'une réforme en profondeur de la logique et l'importance d'une logique des signes ou sémiotique. Une de ses tâches est de mettre au jour les procédés algorithmiques et d'établir les règles d'une telle méthode. D'après celle-ci, l'analyse ne serait pas une théorie, mais un ars ou une technique. Apparemment, cette explication logique de l'arithmétique générale comme science du calcul et des opérations algébriques comme jeu de signes ferait de Husserl un formaliste. De plus, dans une lettre à Frege datée du 18 juillet 1891, Husserl défend une position formaliste en ce qui a trait à la méthode de justification des nombres imaginaires en arithmétique. Et cependant, dans la même lettre, Husserl acquiesce à la critique du formalisme que développe Frege, et dans sa recension du livre de Schröder parue la même année, il prend position pour une logique intensionnelle et affirme la primauté du concept sur son extension12. Non seulement y prend-il position en faveur d'une logique intensionnelle, mais il reproche à la tradition philosophique depuis Descartes de confondre langage (le langage naturel des mots) et algorithme (langage de signes). On reconnaît là l'opposition fameuse de Leibniz entre calculus ratiocinator et lingua characteristica13 et la question du statut de la logique comme langage ou comme algèbre et calcul, cette dernière option étant celle des formalistes et des constructlvistes. Or, dans un passage de sa recension du livre de Schröder, Husserl se démarque clairement de ces derniers : L'oeuvre propre du langage, c'est d'exprimer symboliquement les phénomènes psychiques, expression dont nous avons besoin en partie pour communiquer ces phénomènes, en partie comme appui sensible pour développer intérieurement le mouvement propre de nos idées. L'art correspondant à la désignation (Bezeichnung) linguistique, c'est la grammaire [...]. D'autre part, l'oeuvre propre du calcul, c'est d'être, pour une certaine sphère de la connaissance, une méthode de déduction symbolique des conséquences ; donc un art pour substituer, par une désignation (Signierung) appropriée des idées, à la déduction effective, un calcul, c'est-à-dire une conversion (Umsetzen) et une substitution (Ersetzen) réglées de signes par des signes, et ensuite, en vertu de la correspondance entre les idées et les signes, pour faire découler, à partir des formules finales résultantes, les Jugements souhaités. Husserl et la logique des signes 153 Et même cette correspondance, qui constitue une partie du processus symbolique de déduction, n'a pas le caractère d'une désignation (Bezeichnung) linguistique : car la fonction des signes n'est absolument pas ici d'accompagner les idées comme leur expression (Ausdruck) (1891a : 31-32). Retenons de ce passage l'argument contre le formalisme de Schröder qui repose sur la double fonction du signe, la fonction expressive du signe linguistique et la fonction substitutive du signe mathématique, de même que la distinction relative à la fonction de ces deux systèmes de signes, celle de communiquer pour le langage, celle de la déduction des conséquences pour le calcul. Cet argument sera repris et développé dans Semiotik et nous aurons l'occasion d'y revenir. Mais nous ne devons pas conclure de la position anti-formaliste que Husserl conçoit avec Frege, par exemple, la logique comme une lingua characteristica. Car reconnaître le bien-fondé de cette distinction est une chose, déterminer le statut de la logique en est une autre qui est d'autant plus compliquée que la logique semble appartenir à la psychologie. Encore ici, il faudra attendre les Prolégomènes (1975[1900]) pour obtenir une réponse claire à cette question14. Semiotik ou la logique des signes Semiotik tient donc pour acquis qu'il est impossible de dériver les nombres négatifs, irrationnels, etc., du concept de nombre cardinal au moyen du concept de représentation impropre et pose la question de savoir comment ces concepts nous sont donnés, comment l'arithmétique a pu se développer en utilisant des opérations sur des signes en l'absence d'une compréhension logique ou conceptuelle de ses procédés algorithmiques. D'où la tâche de cette logique des signes : Une logique formelle vraiment féconde se constitue d'abord comme une logique des signes, qui, quand elle sera suffisamment développée, formera une des parties les plus importantes de la logique en général (en tant qu'art de la connaissance). La tâche de la logique est ici la même qu'ailleurs : se rendre maître des procédés naturels de l'esprit qui juge, en faire l'examen, faire comprendre la valeur qu'ils ont pour la connaissance [...]. La compréhension approfondie de l'essence des signes et des arts de signes la rendra au contraire capable d'imaginer aussi des processus symboliques auxquels l'esprit humain n'a pas encore pensé, et d'établir les règles pour les inventer. (1890a : 443) Semiotik ne remplit certes pas cette commande, il n'a pas non plus cette ambition, mais il contient suffisamment d'informations pour que nous puissions en comprendre les grandes lignes. Le texte s'organise autour de la double tâche que ce passage assigne à la logique : elle se veut une réflexion générale sur le signe (sa définition, ses différentes fonctions et sa taxinomie) ; mais la principale préoccupation de Husserl dans ce texte consiste à élucider l'usage mécanique des représentations symboliques (linguistiques comme mathématiques) et la tâche ultime de la logique dans ce texte est de "faire d'un processus naturel et 154 Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry non justifié, un processus artificiel et logiquement justifié" (1890a : 444). On comprend pourquoi les considérations sur la nature psychologique et métaphysique de ces processus occupent autant de place dans Semiotik. Qu'est-ce qu'un signe (Zeichen) ? Husserl y répond à l'aide d'une définition du concept de signe : "Le concept de signe est précisément un concept de rapport : il renvoie à un signifié" [Bezeichnetes] (1890a : 416). En première approximation, un signe est un concept qui rend possible la relation ou le renvoi d'une représentation à quelque chose de représenté, ce qu'il appelle dans ce passage un désigné [Bezeichnetes) ou ce qu'on pourrait appeler un réfèrent. Une étude sur le signe est donc pour Husserl une étude des différents modes de renvoi ou de relation d'une représentation à quelque chose. La première distinction qui s'impose est celle qu'il emprunte à Brentano entre représentations propres et représentations impropres ou symboliques. Nous avons une représentation propre d'un concept lorsqu'il nous est donné en tant que tel, alors que nous en avons une représentation impropre lorsqu'il nous est donné indirectement par la médiation de signes. À la première correspondent les modes de donation intuitifs (sensible ou imaginaire) alors que les représentations impropres sont des représentations symboliques. Laissons de côté pour le moment la question importante pour la psychologie descriptive de la caractérisation du concept de représentation et concentrons-nous sur les modes de renvoi des représentations par signes. La deuxième distinction importante est celle entre signes extérieurs, qui sont dans un rapport de désignation, et signes conceptuels [Begriffszeichen ou Merkzeichen) ou marques distinctives, lesquels codésignent leurs référents à l'aide d'une caractérisation ou d'une description. Appartiennent à la première catégorie les noms propres alors qu'un nom général ou commun comme "aluminium", qui sert de marque distinctive [Merkmal) pour repérer une espèce naturelle et qui sert en cela de signe, renvoie à un objet au moyen de ses traits caractéristiques ou de ses propriétés. Il convient ici de distinguer entre ce qu'un signe signifie (bedeutet) et ce qu'il désigne [bezeichnet). Ces deux traits se confondent dans le cas du nom propre, par exemple, parce qu'il est un signe direct et, à ce titre, l'objet qu'il désigne ou dénomme n'est pas médiatisé par un contenu ou une signification. En revanche, cette distinction s'impose dans le cas des noms généraux comme "aluminium" qui désignent un objet "par la médiation de certaines marques distinctives conceptuelles"15. Ils appartiennent à la classe des signes indirects tout comme les signes mathématiques qui sont des signes de signes de signes, etc. Ce qu'il y a de commun à ces différentes catégories de signes, ce qui fait d'un signe le signe d'une chose, est leur fonction de distinguer les choses, l'une à l'aide de descriptions, l'autre en la fixant directement, cette fonction étant essentielle pour la reconnaissance d'un objet sur lequel portent un ou plusieurs jugements. Husserl et la logique des signes 155 Mais pour remplir adéquatement cette fonction, ces signes devront aussi être univoques, par opposition aux signes plurivoques, et ce en raison du rôle qu'ils sont appelés à jouer dans la logique. Husserl examine cette distinction dans sa recension du livre de Schröder. Il y re-proche à ce dernier d'amalgamer ce type d'expression (table) avec celles comme "carré rond" ou "montagne d'or", deux expressions auxquelles ne correspond aucun objet, et de confondre ainsi la signification d'une expression avec l'objet qu'il désigne ou son extension. Un signe plurivoque, d'autre part, est un signe dont la signification dépend "des circonstances réelles hic et nunc", il appartient à la classe de ce que les Recherches logiques appelleront les expressions essentiellement occasionnelles dont nous reparlerons plus loin. Deux signes plurivoques peuvent être des signes identiques (table et table) dans la mesure où ils ont la même extension, et ce par opposition aux signes équivalents (Lucien Bouchard = actuel premier ministre du Québec) qui désignent un même réfèrent mais de manière différente. Les signes équivalents sont importants puisque ce sont eux qui entrent dans les définitions de la, logique. "Une définition, écrit Husserl, est une proposition qui exprime la signification d'un signe extérieur par la médiation d'un signe équivalent du même genre" (1890a : 344). Par exemple, les mots "König", "rex" et "roi" sont équivalents, de même que les équations 2+3 = 7-2 = V25. Le nom propre, comme tous les noms qui tiennent lieu d'abstracta, c'est-à-dire les substantifs, ne tombe pas sous cette catégorie en ce qu'ils ne peut être défini. Il est autonome (hinreichend) ou, comme le dira Husserl à partir de ses "Psychologische Studien" (1894a), il est selbstständig ou indépendant. Une autre catégorie de signes sur laquelle je n'insisterai pas ici s'articule sur la distinction forme/matière, les signes formels (les syncatégorèmes) et les signes matériels (catégorèmes), les signes de contenu (substrats ou contenus des opérations logiques) et les signes d'actes (Operationszeichen : +, -, etc.). Plus importante pour cette sémiotique est la distinction au sein des représentations symboliques entre les signes qui sont des représentations impropres, lesquelles sont donc dérivées de représentations propres, et ceux qui n'en sont pas. Il revient bien sûr une priorité psychologique aux représentations dérivées des représentations propres, ce qui ne veut pas dire que ces dernières épuisent l'ensemble des représentations symboliques. Toute représentation impropre est bien un signe, mais la converse n'est pas vraie, car Husserl admet un type de signes ou de représentations qui appartient à une classe à part, ce qui revient à dire que les représentations impropres ne constituent qu'un sous-ensemble des représentations symboliques. On reconnaît là la difficulté à laquelle nous faisions allusion plus haut concernant l'explication du concept de nombre à l'aide de celui de représentation impropre et l'hypothèse de la lettre à Stumpf suivant laquelle la technique arithmétique est indépendante d'un fondement conceptuel. Pour comprendre cette nouvelle distinction, il nous faut Introduire une nouvelle fonc156 Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry tion du signe, la fonction de remplacement ou de suppléance (Stellvertretung). Il faut distinguer les représentations symboliques qui remplacent momentanément les représentations propres, comme c'est le cas des insignes conventionnels, des suites de mots mnémotechniques ou des vers appris de manière mécanique et qui servent à générer des représentations propres. Mais une représentation symbolique peut aussi prendre la place d'une représentation propre à titre de représentation substitutive (Surrogatvorstellung), soit d'une manière temporaire lorsque le substitut est disponible de manière intuitive ou propre, soit d'une manière durable. Cette distinction ressort clairement de la différence entre un récit de voyage qui décrit avec force détails un pays, son peuple, ses moeurs, sa géographie, son climat, etc. et une accointance directe avec ce que décrit le récit. Quiconque lit un tel récit peut, en principe, visiter les lieux et se faire une représentation de ce pays. Dans le premier cas, nous avons une représentation impropre, une simple description, dans l'autre, nous en avons une représentation propre. Il en va autrement des représentations symboliques qui appartiennent à la classe de représentations substitutives qui se rapportent à des objets dont même la représentation impropre nous est inaccessible. C'est le cas de la plupart des concepts scientifiques, de celui de sphère géométrique ou d'homme au sens de la physiologie, mais aussi de Dieu ou de concepts contradictoires comme "fer en bois". C'est le cas a fortiori des nombres imaginaires. Les représentations substitutives se divisent en substituts naturels et substituts artificiels et elles forment une classe particulière des signes naturels et artificiels. Husserl dit peu de choses des signes naturels dans ce texte et nous devrons attendre la première des Recherches logiques pour en savoir davantage. En revanche, il y a quelques remarques importantes sur les signes artificiels qui présentent un intérêt particulier puisqu'ils subsument les signes linguistiques et les symboles mathématiques. Contrairement aux signes naturels, les signes artificiels sont le résultat d'une invention. Il revient aux signes artificiels un statut que n'ont pas les autres signes car ils conditionnent le développement psychique et celui de la connaissance scientifique, et ce contrairement aux autres signes qui ne font que l'accompagner. En servant de support à la mémoire, en déchargeant la pensée de plusieurs opérations, le signe artificiel donne accès à des concepts dont la représentation propre et directe nous est refusée. Aussi, le recours à un système de signes artificiels, qu'il soit linguistique ou arithmétique, est compris comme une somme de moyens artificiels permettant de surmonter les "imperfections essentielles de notre intellect". Les symboles ou les signes artificiels obéiraient donc à ce qu'Ernst Mach appelait à la même époque le principe d'économie de la pensée16. Pour reprendre une comparaison de Husserl, ils sont à l'accomplissement du travail intellectuel ce que l'outil est à la machine. Husserl et la logique des signes 157 Husserl reconnaît plusieurs fonctions à ce type de signes, notamment de "servir de marques pour la mémoire" (les nombres), de "soutiens sensibles pour l'activité psychique" (une figure géométrique), "de moyen de communication et d'échange", etc. (1890a : 418). Les signes linguistiques remplissent cette dernière fonction puisque, selon Husserl, ils ont été inventés dans le but d'un "échange mutuel". Il écrit à ce propos : "Leur aptitude à donner des informations (Kundgabe) sur les événements extérieurs ou sur les états internes fut le motif qui conduisit à les employer à dessein afin de communiquer" (ibid. : 439). On retrouve ici l'idée avancée dans sa recension de Schröder suivant laquelle le signe linguistique sert des fins de communication, et nous aurons l'occasion d'y revenir plus tard. Comme le signe linguistique, le symbole arithmétique est aussi une invention, mais le système de l'arithmétique, "la machine spirituelle la plus admirable qui ait jamais été formée" (ibid. : 424), diffère du langage naturel tant par sa fonction que par son origine ; il est le produit d'un "développement naturel". De nombreuses pages de Semiotik sont consacrées à cette question de l'origine des systèmes de signes et elles s'articulent sur cette tâche de la logique qui porte sur l'explication des mécanismes naturels et des procédés mécaniques aveugles qui sont à l'oeuvre dans notre pratique quotidienne du langage et dans les procédés algorithmiques. Dans Philosophie de l'arithmétique ( 1970[189le] : 235), Husserl pose la question suivante : "Comment irions-nous construire un système pour désigner les nombres, fondé sur quelques signes de base, sans que lui corresponde, dans un parallélisme rigoureux, un système pour former les concepts, fondé sur certains concepts de base ?" (ibid. : 287). Semiotik répond en évoquant cette même idée de parallélisme entre un "système de signes" et un "système conceptuel" et explique, dans une perspective naturaliste, qu'avec l'évolution de ce système conceptuel, une fois que le système conceptuel eut atteint sa maturité, "le processus mental de la formation des concepts dut battre en retraite devant le mécanisme reproductif extérieur de la formation des noms" (1890a : 436). Husserl utilise indifféremment les expressions "systèmes de signes" et "systèmes de noms" parce que seuls les signes artificiels et univoques ont la fonction de substitut, et nous avons vu que le modèle du signe univo-que est le nom propre. Telle est la condition première pour que la forme de relation systématique des mots puisse refléter celle des pensées (ibid. : 436). On sait que cette idée d'un parallélisme entre pensée et langage sera reprise et exploitée par Husserl jusqu'à la fin de son oeuvre et qu'elle est au centre du litige qui l'oppose à Anton Marty, comme nous le verrons plus loin. L'étude de la pensée et du jugement, qui ressortit durant cette période à une étude psychologique, montre assez le rôle que joue la psychologie pour cette logique des signes. Si bien que l'on peut qualifier cette étude dans les termes mêmes utilisés par les Prolégomènes à la logique pure afin de critiquer le psychologisme, d'autant que les lois de la logique se réduisent clairement dans Semiotik aux lois 158 Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inqulry psychologiques de l'association. Vont dans le même sens les réflexions métaphysiques de Husserl sur le développement naturel des systèmes arithmétiques qu'il explique en termes "d'instinct mécanique", de la "sagesse générale de la nature", de "principes darwiniens" (ibid. : 431) et notamment de la sélection naturelle (ibid. : 441)17. Finalement, il y aurait beaucoup de choses à dire sur le rôle paradigmatique que joue le nom propre dans cette logique du signe - on pourrait parler d'une logique des noms propres pour reprendre le titre d'un ouvrage de Saul Kripke -, mais laissons cela de côté pour nous concentrer sur la doctrine des Recherches logiques. Pour conclure notre examen de cette première période de la réflexion husserlienne sur la logique des signes, nous pouvons revenir brièvement sur chacune des tâches que lui assignait Semiotik et opérer la transition avec la position qui sera défendue dans les Recherches logiques. En ce qui concerne le problème de la justification et l'élargissement des nombres imaginaires, la solution proposée durant cette période sera rejetée au profit de celle qu'il propose dans une conférence contemporaine de la publication des Recherches logiques et qu'il emprunte de son collègue Hilbert à Göttingen18. Plus importante dans le présent contexte est la question du rapport entre logique et mathématiques, plus précisément la question du statut de la logique comme langage ou calcul. Nous avons des raisons de penser que cette question demeurera insoluble tant et aussi longtemps que Husserl défendra une conception psychologisante de la logique et qu'il n'exploitera pas systématiquement le concept de signification qu'il reproche à Schröder de confondre avec la dénotation19. Quoi qu'il en soit de cette question, un des concepts fondamentaux de Semiotik, que nous avons délibérément laissé indéterminé et qui subira des transformations majeures durant cette période, est le concept de représentation. L'élaboration de ce concept durant cette période va de pair avec le développement de la doctrine de l'in-tentionnalité, la pièce maîtresse de la phénoménologie, et elle témoigne en même temps d'un certain détachement par rapport à la théorie immanentiste de l'intentionnalité de Brentano20. Mentionnons le texte "Psychologisme Studien" de 1894 où sont utilisés pour la première fois les concepts d'intention et de remplissement, et dans lequel le concept vague de représentation propre ou intuitive prendra le sens d'intentionnel21. Cette question, on le sait, représente un enjeu majeur de la discussion qui a eu lieu à la fin du siècle dernier entre Husserl et Twardowski, un autre étudiant de Brentano. L'opuscule de Twardowskl Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstand der Vorstellungen : eine psychologische Untersuchung, un exercice exemplaire de psychologie descriptive, paraît à Vienne en 1894, soit la même année que le compte rendu par Frege de Philosophie der Arithmetik. Un manuscrit de Husserl rédigé la même année et connu sous le nom de "Vorstellung und Gegenstand" dont une partie a été publiée récemment par Karl Schuhmann sous le titre "Intentionale Gegenstände", non seulement Husserl et la logique des signes 159 porte les traces de l'ouvrage de Twardowski, mais une lettre de Husserl à Meinong (1902) indique clairement qu'il porte principalement sur la position que défend Twardowski dans cet ouvrage22. Se référant à Bolzano, Husserl soulève à nouveau le problème des représentations sans objet ("carré rond") qu'il étend aux objets fictifs de la mythologie et aux nombres imaginaires, dans la mesure où le nombre imaginaire est un nombre auquel ne correspond aucun référent. Pour le dire rapidement, la solution à ce problème repose sur la distinction entre le sens ou la signification d'un nom, l'objet qu'il désigne et la représentation de l'objet. Cette distinction et les analyses de ce texte seront reprises mot pour mot dans les Recherches logiques. Les Recherches logiques Au tout début de son introduction aux Recherches logiques, Husserl se réfère à John Stuart Mill et souligne l'importance de commencer une étude phénoménologique de la logique par une réflexion sur le langage. Cette étude est qualifiée de "logique philosophique" et sa tâche consiste à accomplir le travail préparatoire visant à délimiter le thème proprement dit de la logique. Ce travail préparatoire consiste, d'une part, à expliciter certains concepts logiques en partant de leurs sources et origines phénoménologiques ; d'autre part, l'analyse de la signification consiste à extraire ce concept de ses liens grammaticaux et psychologiques. Ce travail préalable, qui consiste à extraire "l'armature idéale" du discours, est nécessaire, soutient Husserl, dans la mesure où la logique, et d'abord la grammaire, prend appui entièrement dans le discours ; elle est la pensée qui s'exprime dans le langage. Ce point de départ explique l'intérêt de cette "phénoménologie analytique" pour le signe linguistique, plus particulièrement pour sa fonction expressive dont le corrélat est justement la signification logique. Cependant, pour la phénoménologie des Recherches logiques, le langage n'est pas une fin thématique, mais un index qui renvoie à des thèmes proprement phénoménologiques. C'est en cela que sa tâche diffère de celle du logicien. Car la tâche du philosophe n'est pas d'élaborer une logique pure, mais d'acquérir une clarté philosophique ou "une évidence intellectuelle" sur les concepts, lois, principes, etc. de la logique. C'est en ce sens qu'il faut comprendre la maxime du retour aux choses elles-mêmes (1984[1901b] : 6) : "amener à la clarté et à la distinction" ce qui n'est donné que de manière indirecte, par exemple les lois et concepts logiques qui sont donnés au moyen du langage. C'est le cas au premier chef des concepts de signification et d'expression qui sont les deux thèmes principaux de cette recherche. On pourrait résumer l'étude de la première des Recherches logiques en disant qu'elle consiste, d'une part, à extraire le concept de signification de ses liens grammaticaux et psychologiques et, d'autre part, à déterminer l'essence de la signification. Le succès de cette entreprise 160 Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry dépend directement de la possibilité de réduire le langage, et d'abord le signe, à sa fonction expressive, laquelle représente en fait le corrélat de la signification logique. C'est pourquoi on a dit de cette recherche qu'elle pratiquait une forme de réduction qui s'opère en quatre étapes. La première consiste à restreindre l'extension du terme "expression" (Ausdruck) à la sphère des signes linguistiques, ce qui entraîne la mise hors circuit du concept courant d'expression qui inclut la gestualité, l'expression corporelle, etc. (§5). La deuxième étape vise à isoler la fonction indicative (Anzeichen) du signe puis à l'exclure d'une recherche sur la signification. Le signe indicatif, en effet, n'exprime rien et n'a donc pas de signification au sens strict du terme (chapitre 1). Il s'agit, troisièmement, de mettre hors circuit tout ce qui est subjectif dans la langue, c'est-à-dire ce qu'il appelle les expressions essentiellement occasionnelles ou les expressions indexicales qui, contrairement aux expressions objectives, "servent des besoins pratiques de la vie commune" (chapitre 3). Finalement, Husserl met entre parenthèses la face physique du signe (signifiant) de même que tout ce qui concerne la communication, autrui et le monde en général. L'argument du soliloque (1984[1901b] : 28) vise précisément à montrer l'indépendance de l'expression eu égard à la fonction indicative du signe et du signifiant en général. Le résultat de ce travail préparatoire est le concept proprement logique de signification que Husserl conçoit en termes d'essence d'acte, c'est-à-dire comme la propriété ou le moment individuel d'un acte. La signification est donc à concevoir, comme chez Frege et Bolzano, comme une entité idéale qu'il définit au sens de généralité d'essence (d'extension), c'est-à-dire comme ce qu'ont en commun tous les actes de signifier positionnels et non positionnels (chapitre 4). Examinons brièvement chacune des étapes de cette réduction, en commençant par celle qui consiste à restreindre l'extension du terme "expression" à la sphère des signes linguistiques. Il s'agit de la mise hors circuit des gestes, des expressions corporelles et de toutes extériorisations dans la mesure où ces expressions n'ont pas, à proprement parler, de signification ou, ce qui revient au même ici, ces expressions ne sont pas empreintes d'intention de signifier. C'est le cas, par exemple, d'un mot étrange ou d'une suite de sons inarticulés ou qui nous semblent tels, lorsque la perception de ce phénomène n'est pas accompagnée de contenu ou de signification. Husserl mentionne le cas des arabesques qui n'ont sur nous qu'un effet esthétique tant et aussi longtemps que nous ne les considérons pas comme des symboles empreints de signification. Au moment où l'arabesque passe à l'état de signe, où elle acquiert donc le caractère d'un contenu re-présentatif, la situation psychique s'est totalement modifiée. Nous voyons sans doute le signe, mais nous ne le visons pas, nous ne l'intuitionnons pas (1894a : 155). Husserl et la logique des signes 161 Ce passage des "Études psychologiques" ouvre une nouvelle dimension au problème du signe, à savoir celle de son identification en tant que signe. Il indique clairement, au moyen d'un changement d'attitude vis-à-vis d'un phénomène quelconque, notamment d'une arabesque, le caractère indissociable de la perception et de l'objet perçu. Dans un cas, naturellement, il est regardé sans être appréhendé, alors que dans l'autre cas, il n'est plus regardé pour lui-même, c'est-à-dire comme un objet pur et simple, mais comme un signe qui exerce sa fonction expressive et qui, par définition, est porteur de signification. La deuxième étape est beaucoup plus importante puisqu'elle repose sur la division entre la fonction indicative et la fonction expressive du signe. L'enjeu est tout aussi important puisque la logique n'a affaire qu'à des significations et que le signe expressif en est le seul véhicule. L'indice est défini de la manière suivante : Au sens propre, quelque chose ne peut être appelé indice que si et dans le cas où ce quelque chose sert effectivement à un être pensant d'indication pour une chose quelconque. (1984[1901b] : 29) Cette définition recoupe en partie celle du signe dans Semiotik puisque l'indication (Anzeige) est un concept de relation et une forme de renvoi [Hinweis). Cependant, il ressort clairement du §2 que la fonction de désignation est limitée aux signes artificiels (les stigmates, une marque à la craie, le drapeau d'une nation par exemple), c'est-à-dire aux "signes formés dans l'intention d'indiquer" (1984[1901b] : 28). Le signe indicatif subsume également l'ensemble des signes naturels comme certains fossiles qui sont les signes de la présence passée d'animaux préhistoriques ou les canaux de Mars qui renvoient à l'existence d'une forme de vie sur cette planète, par exemple. L'indice recoupe donc le concept de Merkzeichen ou de marques distinctives de Semiotik et la fonction de ces signes demeure la même, à savoir de distinguer et de rendre possible la reconnaissance des objets auxquels ils renvoient, comme c'est le cas du noeud de mouchoir, des monuments ou des signes mnémotechniques. Revenons maintenant à la distinction entre l'indice et l'expression. La différence essentielle entre ces deux fonctions que peut jouer le signe réside principalement dans la relation qu'il entretient avec le signifié. La relation que le signe indicatif entretient avec son signifié est une relation causale ou une relation de motivation. Pour prendre un autre exemple, on dira que l'existence de A, des brûlures d'estomac, motive la présomption de l'existence de B, un ulcère d'estomac, ce qui signifie, inversement, que l'ulcère serait la cause présumée des brûlures d'estomac. Le renvoi indicatif en est donc un de motivation et l'origine de l'indication est recherchée dans le §4 dans les lois psychologiques de l'association23. Par contre, la relation du signe expressif au signifié est une relation intentionnelle. 162 Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry Suivons d'un peu plus près le texte de la première recherche. Au §6, Husserl s'en prend à la conception traditionnelle de la signification qui repose sur la distinction entre le signe physique et les vécus qui sont censés lui conférer un sens, un peu à la manière d'Aristote qui conçoit le langage, sinon la signification, comme le symbole de nos états d'âme. Il lui oppose la triple distinction au sein d'une expression entre a) ce qu'elle manifeste [kundgibt] (certains vécus psychiques), b) ce qu'elle signifie (son sens ou contenu) et c) ce qu'elle nomme (l'objet). Le premier problème que soulève cette trichotomie concerne le lien entre a) et b), problème qu'il aborde par le biais de la communication. Dans la communication, en effet, les expressions fonctionnent comme des indices et elles ont la fonction de manifester quelque chose à quelqu'un d'autre. Husserl se réfère ici explicitement à son débat avec Twardowski et à la distinction entre trois fonctions de l'expression : 1) elle indique à l'auditeur qu'il s'agit d'un type particulier d'acte ; 2) elle éveille chez l'auditeur un contenu psychologique particulier (que Twardowski identifie à la signification) ; 3) elle nomme, au moyen de cette signification, un objet. Husserl lui reproche d'identifier la signification dans 3) au contenu psychologique de 2) et montre que ce concept de signification est insuffisant pour les fins logiques qu'il poursuit ici. Reprenons le cas de la communication afin de mieux démarquer la fonction indicative du signe de sa fonction expressive. Pour qu'il y ait communication, il faut qu'un locuteur parle dans l'intention de s'exprimer sur quelque chose, qu'il n'émette pas de simples sons ou ne gesticule de manière mécanique, mais qu'il prête sens à ses paroles ; il faut, d'autre part, que l'auditeur comprenne l'intention de celui qui parle. D'où la distinction dont il a été question dans Semiotik entre Kundgeben et Kundnehmen, entre manifester ou faire part de quelque chose à quelqu'un et la préhension de ce quelque chose par ce dernier. Ainsi, le locuteur manifeste certains actes au moyen de signes et l'auditeur appréhende ces actes par la médiation de la face physique du signe (son, écriture) et il saisit, le cas échéant, le sujet comme celui qui s'exprime sur quelque chose. Pour citer Husserl : L'auditeur perçoit que le sujet parlant extériorise certains vécus psychiques, et, dans cette mesure, il perçoit aussi ces vécus ; mais il ne les vit (erlebt) pas luimême, il n'a d'eux aucune perception "interne", mais une perception "externe" (1901 : 39-40). L'exemple du soliloque que Husserl introduit au § suivant est en fait un argument servant à dissocier la signification de l'expression de la fonction de manifestation qu'elle acquiert dans la communication. Le §9 nous conduit directement au thème principal de cette recherche, et d'abord au concept d'expression et de ce qu'il exprime comme étant sa signification. La caractéristique phénoménologique de l'expression, c'est l'intention de signification, ce qui fait que tel mot n'est pas simplement vide, mais qu'il acquiert une relation à un objet ou référent. Husserl et la logique des signes 163 Au sens fort donc, une expression n'a de signification que dans la mesure où quelqu'un s'exprime sur quelque chose par son moyen. Il faut distinguer, au sein de l'expression, le phénomène physique (le token) de ce qu'elle exprime comme étant sa signification. La différence entre une expression comme "ceci est une table" et une séquence de mots comme "vert est ou" ou tout autre complexe phonique [bleub) que nous ne comprenons pas, c'est que la première a une signification. Qu'est-ce à dire ? Pourquoi la phrase "cette table est orange" a-t-elle un sens et que "vert est ou" n'en a pas ? En première approximation, le critère phénoménologique des Recherches logiques consiste à doubler l'usage d'un signe de l'intention de signifier par un locuteur sur quelque chose. Autrement dit, ce serait un acte qui prêterait signification à l'expression, le terme "exprimer" désignant dans les Recherches logiques une couche particulière d'actes qui entretient un rapport privilégié avec l'objectivité. D'où la distinction fondamentale entre a) l'acte donateur de sens (intention de signification), b) la signification (ce que l'expression exprime comme sa signification) et c) l'objet visé au moyen de la signification. La description de l'acte fait l'objet de la cinquième des Recherches dont le thème central est l'intentionnalité. Ne nous intéresse pour le moment que b) dans sa relation à c). Le thème de la relation entre la signification et la dénotation est abordé aux §§12-15 dont l'essentiel tient dans les six thèses suivantes. (1) Une expression (Pégase) peut avoir une signification sans que lui corresponde un objet (§15). Il s'agit du problème des expressions sans objet dont nous avons déjà parlé. (2) La signification d'une expression est toujours distincte de son référent. Comme l'indique Husserl (1984[1901b] : 53), toute expression énonce quelque chose (signification) et énonce sur quelque chose (objet), mais l'objet ou le référent ne coïncide jamais avec la signification. C'est que deux noms peuvent avoir des significations différentes, mais énoncer la même chose (vainqueur de Iena et vaincu de Waterloo, triangle équila-téral et triangle isogone, par exemple). Ces expressions ont bien la même extension, elles visent le même objet, mais elles le font de manière différente. De même, A > B et B < A visent le même état de choses, mais elles le visent de manière différente. (3) La référence est fonction de la signification (§13). En d'autres mots, la signification médiatise notre référence à l'objet comme le montre l'exemple classique, la planète Venus, que les Anciens concevaient comme "étoile du soir" et comme "étoile du matin". Ce qui ne veut pas dire que la signification est l'objet premier d'un acte. En 164 Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry fait, elle ne le devient qu'au moyen d'un acte réflexif (1984[1901b] : 45): Quand nous accomplissons cet acte, et quand nous vivons pour ainsi dire en lui, nous visons naturellement son objet, et non sa signification. Quand, par exemple, nous faisons un énoncé, nous portons un jugement sur la chose dont il s'agit et non pas sur la signification de la proposition énonciatrice, sur le jugement au sens logique (1984[1901b] : 119). Il s'ensuit une quatrième thèse qui établit la correspondance entre les modes de présentation que sont l'étoile du soir et l'étoile du matin, par exemple, et la signification : (4) La signification réside dans la manière de référer à l'objet. Pour Husserl, comme pour Frege d'ailleurs, signification et mode de donation (Gegebenheitsweise) sont synonymes. (5) Différents sens peuvent référer à la même entité (§§12-13). C'est ce que montrent nos exemples précédents. Toutefois, à un même sens, ne peut correspondre qu'un seul objet comme le suppose la thèse du rôle médiateur de la signification. (6) La signification est objective. Il y a plusieurs manières de rendre compte de l'objectivité de la signification. Dans les Recherches logiques, Husserl défend une forme de platonisme et conçoit la signification dans un sens proche des idées platoniciennes. Mais cette interprétation ontologique fera place dans les derniers écrits à une interprétation fondée sur l'idée d'intersubjectivité. La troisième étape de cette recherche sur la signification consiste à réduire les expressions essentiellement occasionnelles. Tombent sous le concept "expression essentiellement occasionnelle" les pronoms personnels, les démonstratifs, les adverbes de lieu et de temps, les noms propres de même que toutes les expressions "de perceptions, de convictions, de doutes, de voeux, d'espérances, de craintes, d'ordre, etc." (ibid. : 98). Elles sont qualifiées d'"occasionnelles" parce qu'elles ne peuvent être comprises qu'en tenant compte des circonstances dans lesquelles elles sont prononcées, c'est-à-dire "suivant l'occasion, suivant la personne qui parle ou sa situation" [ibid. : 93). Ce trait est particulièrement frappant dans l'usage d'expressions comme "devant", "derrière", "près", "lointain", etc. dont la signification dépend de la position que l'agent linguistique occupe dans l'espace et des circonstances dans lesquelles elles sont prononcées. C'est le cas a fortiori du pronom personnel "je" : "Quand nous lisons ce mot (je] sans savoir qui l'a écrit, nous avons un mot, sinon dépourvu de signification, du moins étranger à sa signification normale" (ibid. : 94). Ces expressions se présentent d'entrée de jeu comme équivoques puisqu'une seule et même expression, par exemple un déictique, désigne, à un moment x, tel objet, et à un moment y, en désigne un autre. C'est pourquoi la relation à l'objet ne Husserl et la logique des signes 165 dépend pas entièrement de la fonction indicative de cette expression et que, pour l'auditeur, la compréhension de son sens dépend de facteurs qui sont extérieurs à sa signification, c'est-à-dire des circonstances réelles et concrètes. Ces expressions sont "essentiellement" occasionnelles parce que, contrairement aux cas d'équivocité, on ne peut, comme le fait Frege, éliminer cette relativité par des conventions arbitraires sans affecter leur signification24. Pour expliquer le caractère indéterminé de ce genre d'expressions et leur dépendance aux circonstances, Husserl introduit une distinction entre anzeigende Bedeutung, que nous traduisons par fonction de signification, et angezeigte Bedeutung (signification spécifique). Par exemple, la fonction de signification du mot "ici" consiste à "nommer l'environnement spatial de la personne qui parle" alors que sa signification spécifique "se constitue seulement sur la base de la représentation variable de ce lieu". Il en va de même des phrases contenant des pronoms personnels puisque la signification de ces expressions "inclut la représentation de la personne qui se trouve en face de l'autre" (1984[1901b] : 92) ; les démonstratifs, pour les mêmes raisons, ne peuvent être pleinement compris que sur la base de la représentation "de ce à quoi on se rapporte objectivement", alors que les adverbes de lieu et de temps ne peuvent être compris que sur la base de la représentation de la position et de la localisation de cette personne. Dans la sixième des Recherches logiques, Husserl revient sur cette question en adoptant le point de vue du tiers et en associant la représentation indéterminée d'une certaine chose visée par un déictique à la signification spécifique et la fonction de signification à l'acte de l'indication orientée d'une manière déterminée. Ce qui veut dire que la perception, comme on l'a souvent remarqué, n'est pas ce qui prête signification à un acte qui en serait autrement dépourvu ; sa contribution à la signification proprement dite consiste uniquement à spécifier "sa relation déterminée à l'objectivité visée" (ibid. : 32), à lui donner le caractère déterminé de l'orientation vers l'objet dans le cas d'un déictique. Cela revient à dire, comme nous le verrons à l'instant, que Husserl admet que le concept de signification de la première recherche ne peut rendre compte de la relation déterminée à un objet. La quatrième étape de la réduction, la plus importante et la plus problématique, est la réduction de la face physique du signe (signifiant). En effet, Husserl est amené à exclure tout ce qui concerne la communication, c'est-à-dire autrui et le monde en général. Le cas du soliloque, qui revient à quelques reprises (notamment : ibid. : 24), est censé montrer que l'expression (la signification) est indépendante non seulement de la fonction indicative du signe, mais du signifiant en général. Les raisons évoquées par Husserl dans les Recherches logiques en laisseront plus d'un perplexes. Il fait valoir en effet que dans le discours solitaire. Je ne me communique rien car, étant donné l'accès pri166 Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry vilégié du locuteur à ses propres vécus, il serait absurde de soutenir que l'existence de quelque chose comme le signe puisse motiver la conviction de la présence de vécus psychiques, en l'occurrence du locuteur lui-même. Husserl remarque également que dans le discours solitaire, nous nous contentons généralement de mots imaginaires ou représentés et nous n'avons pas besoin de mots réels ! Cela dit, les §§124-127 du premier livre des Idées directrices fournissent des arguments plus convaincants en faveur de ce qu'il appelle alors le caractère improductif de la couche expressive, quoique Husserl reconnaisse au médium de l'expression la propriété de refléter toute autre intentionnalité quant à sa forme et à son contenu. L'idéalité de la signification Rappelons que l'objectif principal du chapitre trois (§24 sq.) est de savoir si les expressions occasionnelles sont susceptibles d'ébranler cette conception de la signification comprise comme une entité idéale. Car, explique Husserl au §29 intitulé "La logique pure et les significations idéales", la logique n'a affaire qu'à ces entités idéales que l'on appelle significations et la logique n'est rien d'autre qu'un complexe de significations. L'enjeu sous-jacent à la thèse du caractère objectif de la signification est l'anti-psychologisme que défend Husserl dans ses Prolégomènes à la logique pure, dans la mesure où son argument principal contre la position qu'il a lui-même défendue dans son premier ouvrage repose précisément sur le caractère idéal de la signification et des lois de la logique. Pour le dire rapidement encore ici, nous devons retenir les trois points suivants : la signification n'est pas une représentation, mais une entité idéale ; Husserl la conçoit comme une essence et la relation aux actes psychiques est à concevoir en termes d'individua-tion. Comme le montre tout le chapitre 4, la signification est une entité idéale et objective, et cette idéalité est à concevoir comme une essence d'acte, c'est-à-dire comme un moment individuel ou une propriété qui s'individualise dans des actes singuliers de signifier (1984[1901b] : §§29-31). Lisons l'important passage de la première des Recherches logiques : Or, cette véritable identité que nous affirmons ici n'est autre que l'identité de l'espèce (Species). C'est ainsi mais seulement ainsi, que [la signification] peut, en tant qu'unité idéale, embrasser [...] la multiplicité dispersée des singularités individuelles. Les singularités multiples formant la signification idéalement une sont naturellement les moments d'acte correspondant du signifier, les intentions de signification. La signification se comporte ainsi par rapport à chacun des actes du signifier [...] en quelque sorte comme le rouge in specie par rapport aux bandes de papier que j'ai devant les yeux et qui "ont" toutes le même rouge (1984[1901b] : 115-116). Remarquons d'abord l'analogie suivante entre le rapport acte/signification et celui entre le prédicat rouge et les objets qui le satisfont. Husserl signale que dans l'identification d'un objet donné, on doit présupposer quelque chose d'identique et d'idéal qu'il appelle ici essence. Husserl et la logique des signes 167 Par exemple, dans la proposition "cette bande de papier est rouge", le prédicat rouge tient lieu d'un concept, la rougeur, qui demeure identique malgré les différents tons de rouge que l'on peut voir sur les différentes bandes de papier auxquelles on attribue la couleur rouge. Husserl attribue par ailleurs un statut ontologique à cette entité ou species et affirme que la relation entre la rougeur, par exemple, et la multiplicité des singularités individuelles est à concevoir en termes d'indivi-duation : chaque bande de papier réelle exemplifie ou individualise le rouge in specie. Inversement, dans la multiplicité des actes individuels de signifier, des actes qui sont réels, datés et qui diffèrent d'une personne à l'autre, nous devons présupposer un invariant. Par exemple, je peux percevoir, juger, exprimer, me remémorer, halluciner, souhaiter, "que ce papier est rouge", le contenu ou la signification demeure le même (type), alors que les actes ou vécus diffèrent (token). Encore ici, les actes de signification, c'est-à-dire ceux des actes qui sont liés au langage comme le jugement et le récit, dans la mesure où ils visent le même objet, instancient la même signification. L'idée de grammaire pure logique Le résultat de la réduction sémantique est le concept pur (ou non empirique) de signification logique et nous avons dit que la logique opère uniquement avec ces entités idéales que sont les significations. Nous avons vu également que ces entités idéales trouvent leur expression dans des propositions fixes, univoques et objectives. Elles s'opposent, comme nous venons de le voir, aux expressions subjectives et essentiellement occasionnelles de même qu'à la fluctuation des actes de signifier. Le projet qui guide Husserl dans la quatrième des Recherches logiques est l'idée d'une morphologie des significations ou grammaire logique qui s'apparente à l'idée de grammaire universelle de Port-Royal. Cette grammaire représente le soubassement de la logique husserlienne et elle s'articule sur les catégories de signification et d'objet. Sa première tâche est purement normative, elle consiste à distinguer sens et non-sens. Son point de départ est le concept très général de jugement, si général qu'il ne connaît ni la non-contradiction, ni la vérité (par exemple : "cette couleur + 1 = 3" ou "tous les A sont B parmi lesquels certains ne sont pas des B"). Ces énoncés seront filtrés au deuxième niveau de la logique avec l'introduction de la logique de la non-contradiction. À ce niveau-ci, la tâche de la grammaire se limite à fournir les conditions minimales auxquelles doit satisfaire la simple unité de sens. Elle répond à la question de savoir pourquoi la réunion de différentes catégories de significations forme une seule signification et pas un non-sens chaotique. Cela dit, si cette grammaire peut être appelée morphologie, c'est que sa tâche consiste "à fixer les catégories de signification, d'objet, et leur complication réglée par des lois" (1984[1901b] : §67). Dans l'intro168 Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry duction à cette recherche, Husserl précise qu'il vise par là ce qui sous-tend la différence entre les expressions syncatégorématiques et catégorématiques. Il s'agit de la différence mise en place dans la troisième recherche entre le concept de signification dépendante, qui est ergänzungsbedürftig ou requiert un complément ("...est égal à..."), et celui de signification indépendante qui constitue "la signification pleine et entière" d'un acte concret de signification (par exemple, le nom propre et la proposition)25. Les formes primitives de signification sont, par exemple, la forme nominale, la forme adjective et la forme propositionnelle. Comme nous l'avons dit, toutes les formes de signification doivent pouvoir s'intégrer dans la proposition dont la forme primitive est l'énoncé prédicatif "S est P". Aux formes de signification correspondent les formes de composition des significations comme la négation, la disjonction, la conjonction ou l'implication. Ressortissent aussi à l'étude de cette grammaire, les formes primitives de transformation des significations dont la principale consiste à enchâsser une proposition dans un terme. Cette opération ressemble à ce que les scolasliques nommaient la suppositio materialis, l'idée que toute expression peut se présenter comme son propre nom. Et un nom n'est rien d'autre, pour cette grammaire, qu'une expression "pouvant remplir dans un énoncé la fonction simple de sujet". Par exemple, "et" est une signification dépendante ; "et" est une conjonction ; "la terre est ronde" est un énoncé, etc. Les guillemets indiquent que nous n'avons plus affaire désormais à la signification normale de l'énoncé, mais à sa signification indirecte. C'est en pensant à cette loi de nominalisation que Husserl affirme que le jugement est créateur d'objets. Ces quelques remarques devraient suffire pour donner une idée générale de cette grammaire26. Nous devons cependant ajouter une remarque concernant une présupposition commune à la première et à la quatrième des Recherches logiques, à savoir le concept d'acte dont l'analyse est prise en charge par la cinquième recherche. La transition avec cette dernière est parfaitement justifiée lorsqu'on sait que le terme "exprimer" désigne une couche particulière d'actes qui se caractérise par son rapport à l'objectivité. Ces actes sont appelés dans cette recherche des "actes objectivants" et nous savons par ailleurs que l'universalité du jugement prédicatif pour la logique est redevable de celle des actes objectivants. Or, c'est précisément cette question qui intéresse Husserl dans la recherche suivante, et c'est au moyen de sa doctrine de l'intentionnalité qu'il cherchera à y répondre. La distinction entre la matière d'un acte et sa qualité mérite d'être mentionnée dans le présent contexte parce que l'étude de la qualité des actes a suscité, comme nous le verrons plus loin, un certain intérêt de la part des phénoménologues, et surtout parce qu'elle anticipe à maints égards la théorie des actes de langage élaborée, dans les années 1960, par Austin et Searle (voir Smith 1988). Husserl et la logique des signes 169 Des Recherches logiques à la Krisis On le voit, l'intérêt de Semiotik et des Recherches logiques pour le signe linguistique est relativement marginal. Semiotik se préoccupe des procédés algorithmiques et s'étend davantage sur la métaphysique des mécanismes naturels de la production de signes que sur le signe en tant que tel. Les Recherches logiques marquent certainement un pas dans le sens d'une réflexion plus circonspecte sur le langage et la signification, mais pour des raisons qui ont trait à son thème, à savoir la signification logique, ses analyses de la signification et du langage leur imposent des contraintes extrêmement lourdes qui ne sont pas autrement justifiées. Ce sont précisément ces restrictions qui seront examinées et critiquées durant la troisième et la quatrième périodes de l'oeuvre. Ces remarques critiques étant de valeur inégale, et puisque le découpage en deux périodes n'a d'intérêt que pour le commentaire de la phénoménologie et de l'oeuvre de Husserl, nous résumerons, dans ce qui suit, quelques-uns des changements qui ont marqué la réflexion de Husserl sur la logique des signes et qui méritent d'être mentionnés. Commençons par l'idée de grammaire. Dans la préface à la deuxième édition des Recherches logiques, répondant ainsi à une critique que Anton Marty (1908) adressa à sa conception de la grammaire27, Husserl écrit : Dans la première édition, j'ai parlé de grammaire pure, nom qui était conçu par analogie avec la "science pure de la nature" chez Kant, et expressément désigné comme tel. Mais dans la mesure où il ne peut nullement être affirmé que la morphologie pure des significations englobe tout l'a priori gram-matical dans son universalité, puisque par exemple les relations de communication entre sujets psychiques, si importantes pour la grammaire, comportent un a priori propre, l'expression de grammaire pure logique mérite la préférence. (1984[1901b] : 136) Husserl restreint considérablement le champ de cette morphologie et admet désormais que les relations de communication "comportent un a priori propre", un a priori "matériel" qui se constitue au moyen des relations intersubjectives. La question de la communication est importante à plusieurs titres. Premièrement, parce qu'elle représente, dans la dernière période de l'oeuvre, dans "Origine de la géométrie" en particulier, la condition dernière de l'objectivité des objets idéaux. En effet, ceux-ci ne sont plus compris comme des entités idéales qui transcendent la pensée, mais ils doivent leur présence objective au langage qui, comme l'écrit Husserl, leur procure leur chair linguistique (1954[1935] : 407). Par cette "incorporation", ces objets idéaux acquièrent valeur intersubjective et leur présence (Dasein) objective dans le monde. C'est ce que Husserl appelle dans "Origine de la géométrie" la "fonction de consignation" et la "forme documentaire du langage" qui rend possible l'identification intersubjective de ces objets idéaux (1974[1929] : 48 et 38-39) et la communication "sans allocution personnelle". 170 Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry La reconnaissance d'un "un a priori propre" aux relations de communication importe aussi dans une perspective phénoménologique puisqu'il correspond à ce que Husserl appelle, dans le deuxième livre de Idées directrices, le monde environnant, l'ancêtre du concept de Lebenswelt dans la Krisis. Or, cet intérêt pour le thème de la communication et du monde environnant coïncide avec une valorisation de la fonction indicative du signe. C'est que, suivant les analyses de la première des Recherches logiques et de Semiotik, dans la communication, toute expression fonctionne comme un indice (1984[1901b] : 138) et elle a la fonction de manifester (kundgeben). L'argument du soliloque, on s'en souvient, visait à montrer que l'acte d'exprimer peut fonctionner indépendamment de l'acte d'indiquer dans la mesure précisément où sa fonction dans le discours solitaire n'est pas de manifester ou d'informer, mais uniquement de signifier. Or, non seulement Husserl rejette le principe même de cette dissociation (entre ces deux fonctions du signe), mais il voit dans l'interprétation du phénomène d'indication l'origine même de sa phénoménologie constitutive28. On se rappellera aussi que cette interprétation reposait sur le fameux concept de motivation dans lequel Husserl vit d'abord l'essence de l'indication puis, dans le deuxième livre des Idées directrices, la loi structurale de la vie de l'esprit29. Ce concept ouvre une nouvelle dimension à la phénoménologie en ce qu'il lui donne accès aux structures qui rendent possible le commerce entre les personnes et, plus généralement, aux relations intersubjectives que semble présupposer l'usage des indexicaux. Qu'en est-il justement des indexicaux après les Recherches logiques ? Certaines indications suggèrent fortement que ce type d'expression risque de mettre en péril la conception étroite de la signification logique qu'y défend Husserl. La première indication (1984[1901b] : XVII) nous informe que l'échec des Recherches logiques est d'abord attribuable à sa conception de la vérité. Ce serait cet idéal de vérité en soi qui l'aurait amené à envisager la possibilité de concevoir la signification des indexicaux comme des essences d'acte et à leur substituer des expressions fixes et objectives, ce qui présuppose, comme nous l'avons dit, la possibilité de "maintenir identique l'intention de signification". Mais cette substitution est irréalisable dans les faits et la seule justification dont disposaient les Recherches logiques était le recours à "l'absence de limites de la raison objective" (ibid : 103). Mais en l'absence d'une justification proprement phénoménologique, le problème des indexicaux de-vient le problème de la signification elle-même comprise comme essence d'acte, un problème dont Husserl a reconnu toute l'ampleur dès 1908 dans ses Leçons sur la signification. Pour le dire très rapidement, la signification empirique, contrairement à la signification pure, se caractérise en ceci qu'elle ne peut être prélevée que sur des actes positionnels non modifiés (1987[1908] : 209). Car, explique Husserl (ibid. : 209. 213), dans le passage par l'imagiHusserl et la logique des signes 171 naire, on perd la possibilité de conserver non seulement l'identité de l'objet, mais la référence déterminée à l'objectivité empirique. Autrement dit, le concept d'essence ne peut rendre compte, ni garantir la référence à un objet déterminé, il "ne peut jamais produire la relation à un objet déterminé" (ibid. : 219). Dans ces conditions, une distinction s'impose entre ce qui est commun ou général, au sens d'extension ou d'espèce ("rougeur" par exemple), et l'identique, qui est visé par une multiplicité d'actes. Ainsi, lorsque le même objet est désigné par des expressions différentes et lorsque nous cherchons la signification dans l'orientation vers l'objet (et non vers l'acte), nous devons alors distinguer l'objet qui est désigné (Was) de l'objet dans la manière dont il est désigné (Wie) - ce que Husserl appelle également le "thème" - ou, plus simplement, le référent de la référence. Pour reprendre notre exemple, les expressions "Romain Gary" et "Émile Ajar" visent certes le même objet, mais ces expressions disent (besagen) quelque chose de différent. Et c'est précisément la formule : "manière différente d'énoncer" qui fait que la signification n'est pas simplement référence à l'objet, mais référence à l'objet "de la manière même que [la signification] la prescrit (déterminée ou indéterminée)" (1987[1908] : 182). Je n'insisterai pas ici sur les nombreux arguments qui sont avancés pour étayer la distinction entre signification empirique et essence, ni sur la portée de cette distinction sur le rapport entre phénoménologie et ontologie. Ce qui importe pour notre propos, c'est que le nouveau concept de signification des Leçons, ce qu'il appelle la signification phénoménologique, doit minimalement satisfaire deux conditions : il doit rendre compte des conditions de possibilité de l'identification d'un objet déterminé et être sensible au caractère empirique et réel de son référent, ce que Husserl exprimait dans les Recherches logiques en termes d'occasion, de situation et de contexte immédiat de l'agent linguistique. C'est ce que signifie également le terme Gegebenheitsweise (mode de donation). Revenons maintenant au problème des indexicaux. Nous avons dit d'une expression qu'elle est subjective et essentiellement occasionnelle lorsque sa signification varie suivant l'occasion, la personne et sa situation. L'usage de ces expressions est donc relatif au contexte. Comment devonsnous maintenant expliquer cette relativité et cette dépendance en l'absence du concept de signification compris comme essence d'acte ? La solution que propose Husserl dans ses Leçons de 1908 et dans le deuxième livre des Idées directrices est de concevoir cette relativité comme un trait positif des indexicaux, comme l'indication d'un système de renvois, et d'abord comme un système de coordonnées spatio-temporelles. Comme l'a suggéré Aron Gurwitsch, les indexicaux doivent être conçus comme des "concepts relationnels qui n'existent que dans un rapport mutuel et dans un système invariant et formel" (1950 : 124). C'est par cette structure ou système de renvois, qui est fixe, que l'on peut rendre compte du caractère relatif des indexicaux. C'est aussi dans cette perspective que prend tout son sens l'idée de "corps propre", si 172 Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry chère à Merleau-Ponty, et qui s'est imposée à la phénoménologie en réponse à la question de savoir quel devait être le point d'ancrage, le centre à partir duquel s'organise ce réseau de renvois. C'est que toutes les directions dans lesquelles un membre du système s'oriente dépendent de, et varient avec la position d'un ici central dont le porteur est le corps. Le corps propre représente ainsi le "point zéro" de toutes ces orientations et toutes les choses du monde de la perception se donnent comme étant localisées, c'est-à-dire qu'elles dépendent de l'ici du corps propre : près/loin, haut/bas, gauche/droite sont des directions qui n'ont de sens que relativement à la position spatio-temporelle de notre propre corps. La relation à autrui présuppose aussi ce système de coordonnées spatiotemporelles, ce qui veut dire qu'autrui ne se donne d'entrée de jeu, ou ne se constitue ici et maintenant, que comme "support de sensations localisées". Il a donc le mode du là-bas. Cette orientation du là-bas est, grâce à mes kinesthésies, sujet à un libre changement. Car je peux, en me déplaçant, transformer un là-bas en ici et cela repose sur la possibilité d'occuper corporellement un autre lieu spatial. Par ce déplacement, les modes de donation spatiaux sont ceux que j'aurais si j'occupais le même lieu. Ce qui ne veut pas dire que les modes d'apparition spatiaux, qui sont propres à mon ici, sont identiques à ceux de l'autre, ni qu'il soit possible de permuter l'ici avec le là-bas. Car autrui ne serait alors que la réplique de moi-même. Il faut plutôt y voir la dépendance réciproque du proche et du lointain, etc., et concevoir le mode de donation d'autrui comme étant nécessairement médiatisé par la place qu'il occupe dans ce système30. Or, dans ses annotations en marge de la première édition des Recherches logiques et dans l'esquisse de la deuxième édition de la première recherche, Husserl cherche à comprendre le concept d'intention de signification en rapport avec le "je peux" kinesthésique. C'est que l'écriture, par exemple, est un acte et, à ce titre, elle ne diffère pas de n'importe quel mouvement corporel volontaire. Par ailleurs, suivant Bernet (1988) qui présente une partie de ces manuscrits, ce que propose Husserl dans ces textes, n'est rien de moins qu'une nouvelle conception du signe. Par exemple, Husserl fait clairement la distinction entre signum et verbum et reconnaît à ces deux catégories une légitimité dont seul jouissait le signe linguistique ou la fonction expressive du signe dans le texte de la première édition. Bernet relève d'autres changements importants dans ces manuscrits que nous n'examinerons pas ici. Ces changements qui concernent principalement la communication et la fonction indicative du signe, en discréditant l'argument du soliloque, montrent clairement que le signe, en particulier le verbum, représente désormais une donnée phénoménologique importante et joue donc un rôle central dans la philosophie de Husserl31. Husserl et la logique des signes 173 Le legs de Husserl La contribution de la phénoménologie à l'histoire de la sémiotique ne s'arrête pas avec la mort de Husserl en 1938. Son oeuvre, comme on le sait, a exercé une influence majeure sur la philosophie du XXe siècle (voir Spiegelberg 1982). On peut dire que la partie de l'oeuvre qui traite des questions relatives aux systèmes de signes a marqué, d'une manière significative, non seulement les penseurs rompus à cette tradition, mais aussi certains Cercles linguistiques de l'Europe centrale, notamment le Cercle de Copenhague et surtout le Cercle de Prague durant les années 1930, de même que le développement de la logique et de la sémiotique en Pologne. Compte tenu de l'ampleur et de la diversité des renvois à l'oeuvre de Husserl durant la première moitié du XXe siècle, nous devrons nous contenter d'une cartographie des lieux, un outil dont l'utilité, dans le présent contexte, est de situer, en les identifiant, les figures qui présentent un intérêt pour les questions relatives à la sémiotique. Commençons par quelques remarques sur la réception contemporaine des écrits de Husserl sur le langage et le signe. Nous avons déjà mentionné la critique virulente de Jacques Derrida dans son livre La voix et le phénomène parce qu'elle a contribué à discréditer l'apport des Recherches logiques à la linguistique structurale. Un de ceux qui ont résisté à la vague structuraliste de la fin des années 1960 est Paul Ricoeur (1963). Ricoeur a adopté une attitude critique à l'endroit du structuralisme des Derrida, Lacan, Foucault et Deleuze dont le slogan, on s'en souviendra, était la mort du sujet, sinon de l'homme, et il en avait contre l'idée de sacrifier le sujet à un système impersonnel, à un système de signes ou de traces dont le sujet, pour reprendre la formule connue, peut s'absenter. Ricoeur est peutêtre un des seuls avec Merleau-Ponty qui voyaient dans le structuralisme un allié de la phénoménologie, mais sa contribution à cette question appartient beaucoup plus à l'herméneutique, laquelle ne nous concerne pas dans cette étude. Cela dit, dans sa critique de Husserl, Derrida pouvait compter sur des alliés dans le camp de la phénoménologie, et capitaliser sur cette remarque de Eugen Fink (1959), reprise par Suzanne Bachelard (1957) dans son commentaire de Logique formelle et logique transcendantale, suivant laquelle Husserl ne se serait jamais posé la question d'un "langage trans-cendantal", c'est-à-dire d'un langage non pas adapté aux descriptions transcendantales, mais d'un langage constituant en regard de l'objectivité idéale. Cette remarque est importante puisqu'en l'absence d'une telle réflexion, la phénoménologie transcendantale court le risque de retomber dans "l'attitude naturelle", le langage ignorant bien sûr la réduction phénoménologique. Husserl considérait-il que les précautions, les guillemets, les néologismes, etc., offraient une garantie suffisante contre un tel risque ? À la décharge de Husserl, on peut mentionner les derniers travaux de Maurice Merleau-Ponty, notamment quelques tex174 Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry tes réunis dans Signes et ses cours de 1959/60 sur "Origine de la géométrie", qui s'inspirent eux-mêmes des derniers travaux de Husserl en exploitant une phénoménologie du signe qui n'a pas grand chose à voir avec ce qu'on reproche à cette version de la phénoménologie. Comme nous l'avons suggéré dans la section précédente, et pour reprendre le mot de Merleau-Ponty : "Les signes organisés ont leur sens immanent, qui ne relève pas du 'je pense', mais du 'je peux'" (1960 : 111)32. Dans le même ordre d'idées, il convient de mentionner la critique de Karl-Otto Apel (1973), elle-même motivée par la sémiotique de Peirce, dans la perspective d'un programme ambitieux de transformation sémiotique de la philosophie transcendantale, et surtout celle de Ernst Tugendhat qui prend parti pour la philosophie du langage ordinaire contre la phénoménologie husserlienne, et ce en dépit d'une sympathie avouée pour l'ontologie heideggerienne. Tugenghat (1976) soutient qu'en raison de son point de vue intentionnaliste initial, la phénoménologie, comme la théorie de l'objet, génère ses propres apories et que seule une méthode appropriée, à savoir la philosophie du langage, est en mesure de mener à bien le projet qui consiste à faire de la philosophie une science rigoureuse. Ces critiques sont importantes et elles ne doivent pas être ignorées. Cependant, l'oeuvre de Husserl n'est pas le dernier mot de la phénoménologie sur le langage et les systèmes de signes. Le premier nom qui s'impose en raison du rôle que son enseignement a joué dans le développement de la logique et de la sémiotique en Pologne, celui que d'aucuns considèrent comme le père de la philosophie polonaise du XXe siècle, est Kazimir Twardowski (voir l'anthologie préparée par Pelc 1979). Pensons aux logiciens Kotarbinski et surtout à Ajdukiewicz et Lesniewski dont les travaux sur la grammaire sont di-rectement inspirés de la quatrième des Recherches logiques. L'influence de Husserl sur les logiciens de Varsovie (dont Tarski) et sur la logique contemporaine n'aurait pas été possible sans Twardowski dont l'enseignement a été beaucoup plus florissant que ses travaux sur la psychologie et le langage. Il en va autrement des travaux de Meinong qui, en raison de la série d'articles que lui a consacrée Bertrand Russell dans la revue Mind (18991907) et de l'intérêt que lui portait G. E. Moore, étaient connus des philosophes anglo-saxons. Meinong défend une conception de la signification, développée dans son ouvrage de 1902, Über Annahmen, qui s'articule essentiellement sur sa théorie de l'objet33. Non loin de la frontière polonaise, à Prague plus précisément, un bastion de la psychologie descriptive et de la phénoménologie durant les années 1930, on assiste à la naissance de la linguistique structurale. Le nom le plus connu dans le contexte de la sémiotique est Roman Jakobson, un des pères du structuralisme et un des membres principaux du Cercle linguistique de Prague34. Comme le suggère le linguiste Pos (1939) dans son article "Phénoménologie et linguistique", la phénoménologie et le structuralisme de Prague ont ceci en commun qu'ils Husserl et la logique des signes 175 tiennent pour acquis quelques thèmes qui sont par ailleurs attribuables aux Recherches logiques de Husserl, à savoir l'idée de grammaire universelle, une forme d'anti-psychologisme (rejet du rôle fondationnel de la psychologie en linguistique et en logique), l'idée de méréologie et l'idée de signification. La méréologie et l'idée d'une ontologie formelle sont fondamentales non seulement pour le structuralisme de Jakobson, comme l'a bien montré Holenstein (1974), mais aussi pour d'autres philosophes qui fréquentaient le Cercle de Prague à l'époque, notamment Anton Marty, résidant alors à Prague, et Christian von Ehrenfels, un autre étudiant de Brentano, le père de la Gestaltpsychologie, qui y enseignait aussi à la même époque. En 1935, Husserl y prononça la conférence "Phänomenologie der Sprache" devant les membres du Cercle et l'on sait que plusieurs phénoménologues étaient présents, dont Thomas Masaryk (qui deviendra quelques années plus tard président de la République tchèque), Jan Patocka, Roman Ingarden, Aron Gurwitsch, Felix Kaufmann, Alfred Schutz et Ludwig Landgrebe35. Landgrebe était peut-être le seul membre actif du Cercle, mais il ne faut pas sous-estimer l'apport historique des noms que nous venons de signaler, même s'ils sont rarement mentionnés par les spécialistes de la sémiotique et de la philosophie du langage. Mais signalons, en premier lieu, l'apport des premiers lecteurs des Recherches logiques, les jeunes phénoménologues du Cercle de Munich, Johannes Daubert et surtout le brillant Adolf Reinach, mort prématurément durant la Première Guerre mondiale, à qui nous devons une théorie originale des actes de langage inspirée de la doctrine husserlienne des actes objectivants36. Dans le même ordre d'idées, il faut mentionner le psychologue Karl Bühler et son ouvrage de 1934, connu des linguistes de l'époque, Sprachtheorie (1934), dans lequel il développe, entre autres, une théorie des actes de langage qui s'inspire largement des idées de la phénoménologie, en ce qui a trait notamment à l'idée de grammaire universelle (1934 : 9-11)37. Une figure plus connue du mouvement phénoménologique qui s'est directement inspirée de la conception du signe dans les Recherches logiques est Martin Heidegger. La réflexion de Heidegger sur le signe remonte en effet à son ouvrage de 1916, Traité des catégories et de la signification chez Duns Scotus. Dans Sein und Zeit (§§32-35), Heidegger étudie le signe en relation avec le phénomène de renvoi et il conçoit le signe comme un "Zeug", c'est-à-dire comme un outil, et le réseau de renvois comme un réseau élargi de significations. Dans cet ouvrage, cette structure est celle de l'In-derWelt-sein, alors que dans les ouvrages ultérieurs, et donc après le tournant, le langage, plus précisément le discours (die Rede), occupe une place centrale dans la philosophie de Heidegger (voir le commentaire de Arion Kelkel, 1980). Mais par-delà Heidegger, dans la lignée de la tradition phénoménologique dont nous avons tracé le portrait au début de la présente étude, il est important de mentionner quelques étudiants de Husserl dont le» noms sont moins connus que celui de Heidegger, mais 176 Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry dont la pensée n'est pas moins éclairée. Le nom du philosophe polonais Roman Ingarden, étudiant de Husserl et de Twardowski, dont l'étude sur l'oeuvre d'art littéraire consacre tout un chapitre au langage (1931 : chapitre 4). Mentionnons, pour terminer, les noms de Jan Patocka, le philosophe pragois38, d'Aron Gurwitsch (1935)39 et celui d'Alfred Schutz, qui est associé en Amérique à ses études sociologiques, mais à qui nous devons aussi une théorie originale du signe40. Tous les noms propres que nous nous sommes contenté d'énumérer dans cette section sont autant d'index qui renvoient à des contributions riches et originales qui mériteraient bien davantage que les quelques lignes dont dispose la présente étude. Notes 1 Le texte que nous appellerons au cours de la présente étude Semiotik a été publié sous le titre "Zur Logik der Zeichen (Semiotik)" dans le volume XII des Husserliana (p. 340-373) et, en traduction française, sous le titre "Sur la logique des signes (Sémiotique)" dans le recueil Articles sur la Logique (p. 415-444). Toutes les références à ce texte et à l'oeuvre de Husserl sont tirées des traductions françaises dont on trouvera la liste dans la bibliographie. 2 Un témoignage de cette estime se trouve dans un passage de la dernière page de son compte rendu de l'ouvrage d'Ernst Schröder où il dit de la méthode de Peirce qu'elle "en impose par son originalité, par sa simplicité et par son élégance particulières" (1891a : 60). 3 L'article de Spiegelberg (1981) fournit quelques informations utiles sur la question du rapport Husserl/Peirce. Le récit de l'histoire de ce que nous appelons ici la sémiotique s'inspire des articles de Haller (1959) et de Jakobson (1979). 4 Vincent Descombes a montré que les alliés de la phénoménologie durant les années cinquante, principalement la linguistique saussurienne et l'anthropologie structurale, "s'étaient changés, après la mort de Merleau-Ponty, en 1961, en adversaires de la phénoménologie en général, formant le camp hétéroclite baptisé 'structuralisme'" (1979 : 89). 5 Il importe donc, dans le cadre de la présente étude, de tenir compte du contexte plus général et du réseau de références auquel appartiennent les Recherches logiques. Faute d'espace et de temps pour reconstituer ce réseau, nous suggérons la lecture de l'ouvrage de Barry Smith (1994). 6 Mentionnons les études de Norbert Schmuck (1980) et Giovanna Cosenza (1990) qui portent en partie sur Semiotik, la longue introduction de Jacques Derrida à sa traduction française de "Origine de la géométrie" de même que les Notes de cours de Maurice Merleau-Ponty sur le même texte. 7 La plupart des textes de cette période ont été publiés dans les volumes XII, XXI et XXII des Husserliana et quelques-uns ont été publiés en traduction française dans le recueil Articles sur la logique (voir la bibliographie). 8 Signalons en passant que dans son compte rendu de cet ouvrage, Frege (1894 : 159) souligne l'intérêt du chapitre XI et attire l'attention des psychologues sur le thème développé la même année par Ehrenfels concernant "la possibilité de saisies d'ensemble instantanées". Il s'agit du fameux concept de "moment figurai" qui a joué un rôle important dans le développement de la psychologie de la forme et auquel Husserl a toujours accordé la plus grande importance comme en témoignent les nombreux renvois à ce chapitre dans les Recherches logiques I. II, III, et VI. Husserl et la logique des signes 177 9 À comparer avec l'Introduction de Elisabeth Strohmeyer à son édition du volume XXI des Husserliana. 10 Husserl se réfère ici explicitement à l'article de Helmholtz (1887) "Zählen und Messen" et à la thèse que Helmholtz y formule de la manière suivante : "Ich betrachte die Arithmetik, oder die Lehre von der reinen Zahlen, als eine auf rein psychologischen Tatsachen aufgebaute Methode, durch die die folgerichtige Anwendung eines Zeichensystems (nämlich der Zahlen) von unbegrenzter Ausdehnung und ungegrenzter Möglichkeit der Verfeinerung gelehrt wird. Die Arithmetik untersucht namentlich, welche verschiedene Verbindungsweisen dieser Zeichen (Rechnungsoperationen) zu demselben Endergebnis führen (...]. Abgesehen von der damit gemachten Probe auf die innere Folgerichtigkeit unseres Denkens würde freilich ein solches Verfahren zunächst ein reines Spiel des Scharfsinns mit eingebildeten Objekten sein [...]" (1887 : 303-304). On consultera aussi l'annexe à la première partie de Philosophie de l'arithmétique qui porte sur la conception du nombre chez Helmholtz. 11 Voici le passage complet de la lettre à Stumpf : "Nach all dem darf ich sagen : Die arithmetica universalis ist keine Wissenschaft, sondern ein Stück formaler Logik, diese selbst würde ich definieren als Kunst der Zeichen (etc. etc.) und sie als ein besonderes, und eines der wichtigsten Kapitel der Logik als Kunstlehre der Erkenntnis bezeichnen. Überhaupt scheinen diese Untersuchungen zu wichtigen Reformen der Logik anzuregen. Ich kenne keine Logik, die auch nur der Möglichkeit einer gemeinen Rechenkunst gerecht würde" (1890b : 248). 12 Dans cette recension, Husserl écrit à ce propos : "Le calcul logique est donc un calcul des pures conséquences, mais n'est pas leur logique. Il ne l'est pas plus que l'arithmetica universalis, qui embrasse le domaine des nombres dans son ensemble, n'offre une logique de ce domaine. Sur les processus mentaux qui déduisent, nous n'apprenons pas plus dans un cas que dans l'autre" (1891b : 15). Sur le parti pris intensionnaliste de Husserl, il est intéressant de comparer avec l'article paru la même année : "Le calcul de la conséquence et la logique du contenu" (1891b). 13 Dans cette même lettre (datée du 18juillet 1891), Husserl conteste la pertinence du sous-titre de Begriffsschrift et manifeste son attachement à la "distinction essentielle" entre calculus ratiocinator et lingua characteristica (Frege 1977[1879) : 39). À cet égard, la révision du sous-titre de son Begriffsschrift : "eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen Denkens" ("une logique formelle de la pure pensée construite d'après l'arithmétique") est significative. En effet, quelques années après la publication du Begriffsschrift, Frege précise : "Je n'ai pas voulu donner en formules une logique abstraite, mais donner l'expression d'un contenu au moyen de signes écrits et d'une manière plus précise et plus claire au regard que cela n'est possible au moyen des mots. En fait, je n'ai pas voulu créer seulement un calculus rattocinator mais une lingua characteristica au sens de Leibniz étant bien entendu que le calcul de la déduction est à mon sens partie obligée d'une idéographie". "Sur le but de l'idéographie" (1892[1971) : 70-71). À comparer avec "La science justifie le recours à une idéographie" (ibid. : 66) où Frege affirme que ce qu'il manque aux logiques de Boole et de Schröder, c'est précisément le contenu. 14 Mais il faudra attendre davantage pour une réponse définitive puisque Husserl ne dispose pas, dans les Prolégomènes, de sa théorie des multiplicités définies. Or, comme l'explique Husserl dans l'esquisse d'une préface aux Recherches logiques, cette théorie est particulièrement importante pour l'élucidation de l'arithmétique et de l'analyse en général. "Ce furent surtout leurs [les mathématiques pures] procédés purement symboliques, dans lesquels le sens propre, originairement visionné, apparaissait sous le titre du 'passage par l'imaginaire', brisé et 178 Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry inversé en contresens, qui dirigèrent ma pensée sur le caractère signitif et pure-ment linguistique du processus de la pensée et de la connaissance, et qui m'obli-gèrent, à partir de là, à faire des recherches générales concernant un éclaircis-sement universel du sens, de la délimitation correcte et de l'effectuatlon particulière de la logique formelle. Pendant toute ma formation préparatoire, je considérais comme allant de soi, quand je commençais, que dans une philosophie des mathématiques 11 s'agit avant tout de faire une analyse radicale de l''origlne psychologique' des concepts mathématiques fondamentaux" (1950[1913b] : 125-6). Le thème du statut de la logique comme langage ou calcul fait l'objet du livre de Martin Kusch (1989) dont la première partie est consacrée à Husserl. En dépit de la qualité de cet ouvrage et des nombreuses informations qu'il contient sur la période pré-phénoménologique, il ne réussit pas à nous convaincre que Husserl conçoit la logique comme un calculus ratiocinator. Pour comprendre la position de Husserl sur cette question, nous croyons qu'il est nécessaire de dépasser l'alternative langage/calcul et de considérer l'option qu'il propose sur le tard et qui consiste à intégrer la théorie des multiplicités définies dans un cadre plus large où elle occupe la place de la logique des conséquences ou de la non-contradiction entre la grammaire et la logique de la vérité. Quoi qu'il en soit, le passage de l'esquisse d'une préface confirme que c'est bien cette réflexion sur l'arithmétique générale et le problème de l'imaginaire qui l'a amené à accorder autant d'importance à la question du signe, et c'est ce qui nous importe pour le moment. 15 Sur cette même question, il est important de signaler les commentaires de Frege dans sa lettre à Husserl datée du 24-05-91. Frege y compare sa doctrine de la signification et de la référence avec celle de Philosophie de l'arithmétique et note une différence fondamentale, d'une part, entre le nom propre et le nom commun dans cet ouvrage, et d'autre part, sur la question de la relation d'un terme conceptuel avec les objets. 16 La référence à Ernst Mach n'est pas fortuite, comme le démontre de manière fort convaincante l'excellent ouvrage de Manfred Sommer (1984). Husserl critiquera ce même principe au §54 de ses Prolégomènes. 17 Je m'en voudrais de ne pas signaler les tentatives de Holenstein (1988) et de Münch (1993 : dernier chapitre) de mettre en parallèle les idées philosophiques de Husserl dans ce texte avec les recherches contemporaines en intelligence artificielle, plus particulièrement avec le computationnalisme classique. 18 Il s'agit de la conférence "Das Imaginär in der Mathematik" prononcée à Göttin-genen 1901. 19 Ce qui ne veut pas dire que ce concept de signification correspond à celui qu'il utilise dans les Recherches logiques. Car si Husserl affirme que la logique a affaire à un contenu conceptuel, c'est pour aussitôt préciser que "l'activité du jugement porte non pas sur les signes mais sur les objets eux-mêmes symbolisés par ces signes" (1970[1891c] : 17). 20 Dieter Münch (1993 : 11) défend la thèse suivant laquelle Husserl ne sera en mesure de répondre de manière satisfaisante à la question de la possibilité de la connaissance symbolique qu'en introduisant le concept d'intention remplie qu'il exploite dans les Recherches logiques. Cet ouvrage est particulièrement utile pour suivre le développement du concept husserlien d'intentionnalité durant cette période. 21 Husserl y définit l'intention de la manière suivante : "'simplement lntentlonner' veut dire ici autant que : tendre, au moyen de n'importe quels contenus donnés à la conscience, vers d'autres contenus qui ne sont pas donnés, renvoyer (hindeuten) à eux d'une manière compréhensive ceux-là comme re-présentants de ceux-ci ; et cela sans qu'il y ait une connaissance conceptuelle du rapport Husserl et la logique des signes 179 existant entre la représentation et l'objet intentionné. Nous allons appeler de telles représentations (Vorstellungen) des re-présentations (Repräsentationen). Par opposition à elles, il y a d'autres vécus psychiques, appelés également 'représentations' dans le langage de nombreux psychologues, qui n'intentionnent pas simplement leurs 'objets', mais qui les contiennent effectivement en eux-mêmes comme des contenus immanents. Nous appelons les représentations comprises dans ce sens des intuitions" (1894a : 143-144 ). 22 Husserl en fera d'ailleurs la recension deux ans plus tard sans toutefois la publier. L'importance que Husserl accordait à la discussion des thèses de Twardowski dans ces deux textes est attestée par plusieurs facteurs. Mentionnons tout d'abord que le texte "Intentionale Gegenstände", dont de larges extraits sont repris intégralement dans les Recherches logiques, est un texte que Husserl a annoté à deux reprises, en 1902 puis en 1906 à l'occasion d'une relecture de l'ouvrage de Meinong, Über Annahmen, et il semble que Husserl l'ait offert à Meinong (voir la lettre de Meinong du 10-04-1902) et à Daubert (lettre à Daubert du 17-11-1904). Pour ce qui est de la recension de 1896, une lettre de Twardowski à Husserl datée du 17-08-28 accuse réception de ce compte rendu. 23 Concernant le rôle et la genèse du concept d'association dans l'oeuvre de Husserl, des Recherches logiques jusque dans les derniers écrits, l'ouvrage de Elmar Holenstein Phänomenologie der Association est particulièrement instructif. 24 Comme l'explique Husserl : "Que l'on retranche de notre langue les mots essentiellement occasionnels, et qu'on essaye de décrire d'une façon univoque et objectivement fixe une expérience subjective quelconque : toute tentative de ce genre est manifestement vaine" (1984[1901b] : 104). 25 Comme chez Frege, la proposition se présente dans cette recherche comme la plus petite composante du sens. C'est pourquoi elle représente "l'élément" de cette morphologie en ce sens que toute signification, ou bien est une proposition, ou bien s'intègre comme membre possible d'une proposition. En ce qui concerne le rapport entre la troisième et la quatrième Recherches logiques, entre grammaire et ontologie formelle, nous nous contentons encore ici de renvoyer le lecteur au texte de Barry Smith (1987 : 209 sq.). 26 Pour une idée plus précise, on consultera deux classiques sur la question, l'article de Bar-Hillel (1957) et celui de Edie (1972) qui établit un parallèle avec l'idée de grammaire générative de Chomsky. 27 Concernant le débat opposant Husserl et Marty sur le langage et la grammaire, on consultera l'article de Hermann Parrett (1976) et les textes recueillis par Kevin Mulligan (1990). 28 Dans ce passage de Expérience et jugement (1970[1939] : 87-88) auquel nous faisons allusion ici, il est surtout question de l'association : "Que l'association puisse devenir un thème général de description phénoménologique et non seulement de psychologie objective, cela est lié au fait que le phénomène de l'indication (Anzeige) est quelque chose qu'il est possible de montrer du point de vue phénoménologique (cette interprétation, élaborée dès les Recherches logiques y constituait déjà le noyau de la phénoménologie génétique). (...] L'association vient ici en cause exclusivement en tant qu'elle est le lien [Zusammenhang] purement immanent du : ceci rappelle cela, l'un renvoie à l'autre". 29 Il s'agit en fait d'un seul et même concept puisque le corrélat objectif de la motivation est compris dans les Recherches logiques comme "parce que" : "certaines chose pourraient ou doivent exister parce que telles autres sont données". Cependant, Husserl le conçoit dans cet ouvrage en termes de causalité. Il se dit d'accord avec Meinong que "dans la perception de la motivation, il ne s'agit de rien de moins que de perception d'un rapport de causalité [Kausatton]" (1984|1901b| : 33). 180 Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry 30 Cette idée d'un système de coordonnées spatio-temporelles et d'un réseau de renvois articulé linguistiquement sur les expressions indexicales a été développée par Alfred Schutz (voir la présentation qu'en font Bentele et al. [eds] 1978) et bien sûr par Heidegger dans Sein und Zeit. 31 On pourrait poursuivre cette étude en examinant attentivement les premiers §§ de Logique formelle et logique transcendant/aie, l'annexe au §9 de Krisis de même que plusieurs §§ de Expérience et jugement. 32 Sur Merleau-Ponty et la sémiologie, on consultera l'ouvrage de Lanigan (1972). 33 Il n'est pas question de soulever la question du rapport de Meinong à Husserl en raison de sa complexité. Néanmoins, en relation avec le thème sémiotique, signalons deux références importantes de Husserl aux travaux de Meinong : la première intervient dans cette même note du début du chapitre XI de Philosophie de l'arithmétique où il annonce Semiotik et se réfère aux travaux de Meinong (Humestudien II) sur les représentations symboliques. La deuxième référence à Meinong se trouve au §3 de la première des Recherches logiques où il est question de la motivation et du renvoi du signe dans sa fonction indicative. Une dette de Husserl à l'endroit de Meinong en ce qui a trait notamment à l'idée de motivation est à envisager. 34 Cette question est très bien documentée grâce aux travaux de Elmar Holenstein sur le rapport entre la phénoménologie de Husserl et la linguistique structurale. Voir en particulier Holenstein (1973, 1974). 35 Schuhmann (1977 : 470) rapporte que c'est Jakobson lui-même qui invita Husserl à prononcer cette conférence au Cercle de Prague. D'autres informations utiles concernant cette conférence de Husserl se trouvent dans l'introduction de R. N. Smid au volume XXIX des Husserliana. 36 Plusieurs études ont été consacrées à la théorie des actes de langage de Reinach, dont celles colligées par Kevin Mulligan (1987). 37 L'ouvrage collectif préparé par Achim Eschbach (1988) représente une excellente introduction à la théorie du langage de Bühler. 38 Sur la philosophie du langage de Jan Patocka, voir l'article de Jan Sebestik (1990). 39 Ce texte de Gurwitsch de 1935 est en fait un long compte rendu des 24 contributions (dont celles de Bühler, Gelb, Goldstein, Cassirer et Guillaume) publiées dans les numéros 1-4 du Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique (1933). 40 La théorie du signe de Schutz est analysée et critiquée par Bentele (1978 : 64-74). Bibliographie APEL, Karl-Otto (1973) Transformation der Philosophie. Bd. I. Frankfurt : Suhrkamp. BACHELARD, Suzanne (1957) La Logique de Husserl Paris : Presses universitaires de France. BAR-HILLEL, Yehoshua (1957) "Husserl's Conception of a Purely Logical Grammar". 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SOMMER, Manfred (1984) Husserl und der frühe Positivismus. Frankfurt : Klostermann. SPIEGELBERG, Herbert (1982) The Phenomenological Movement. La Haye : Nijhoff. (1981) "Husserl's and Peirce's Phenomenologies : Coïncidence or Interac tion". In The Context of the Phenomenological Movement. The Hague : Nijhoff : 27-50. TUGENDHAT, Ernst (1976) Vodesungen zur Einführung in die Sprachanalytische Philosophie. Frankfurt : Suhrkamp. TWARDOWSKI, Kazimir (1982[1894]) Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstang der Vorstellungen. Wien : Philosophia Verlag ; trad. J. English (1993) Sur la théorie du contenu et de l'objet des représentations. Paris : Vrin. Résumé Notre étude vise à délimiter l'espace dans lequel la question du signe s'est posée à la tradition phénoménologique depuis Edmund Husserl. Cette étude est largement historique et elle n'a d'autres ambitions que d'identifier certains aspects de la question du signe qui ont suscité l'intérêt de la phénoménologie. Elle se divise en quatre parties : dans la première, nous examinons le texte de 1890 intitulé Semiotik en le situant dans le contexte des recherches du jeune Husserl sur la philosophie des mathématiques ; la deuxième section est principalement consacrée à l'étude de la première des Recherches logiques ; la troisième partie vise à rendre compte des changements qui ont marqué l'évolution de la pensée de Husserl sur le signe, des Recherches logiques (1900/1) à "Origine de la géométrie" (1936) ; finalement, nous esquisserons à grands traits la contribution de la phénoménologie post-husserlienne à la sémiotique, de Martin Heidegger à Maurice Merleau-Ponty, et au-delà. Recherches Sémiotiques – Semiotic Inquiry, 2000, Volume 20, nn.12-3, Histoire de la sémiotique – History of Semiotics. Montreal, (Quebec) Canada. Husserl et la logique des signes 185 Abstract This study seeks to trace the boundaries of the sign in the phenomenological tradition of Edmund Husserl. The approach adopted here is largely historical and has no other ambition that to identify those questions that pertain to the sign and have been of interest for phenomenology. The article is divided in four parts : the first examines an essay from 1890 entitled Semiotik and situates it in the context of the young Husserl's work in the philosophy of mathematics ; the second part concerns the first section of the Logical Investigations ; the third one seeks to account for the changes that testify to the evolution of Husserl's thinking regarding the sign between the Logical Investigations (1900-01) and "Origins of Geometry" (1936) ; the last part considers the contribution of post-Husserlian phenomenology, from Martin Heidegger to Merleau-Ponty and beyond, to semiotics. DENIS FISETTE est professeur de philosophie allemande contemporaine au département de philosophie de l'UQÀM. Il s'intéresse principalement à la métaphysique et à la tradition phénoménologique, de Bolzano à nos jours. Il est l'auteur de Lecture frégéenne de la phénoménologique (Éclat, 1994), co-auteur de Philosophie de l'esprit : état des lieux (Vrin, 2000) et responsable de plusieurs ouvrages collectifs, dont Consciousness and Intentionality (Kluwer, 1999). | {
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)Blame and Ethics: a)Guilt and Anger as Intimate Violence: When we examined the way in which discourses characterized meaning's duplicitous play of difference, the adjectives they chose to capture the dynamics of meaning's relation to itself as presence and absence, pleasure and pain, and other such dualities of effect, marking the possibility of making sense, we were able to note in their terms a certain relative neurosis, an unreduced substantiality of presence-absence. Such moments of an always re-invented ethical development or `affective desubstantialization evince a certain constipated, polarized ploddingness of play. Let us use something like guilt as an example. We could draw up a sketch of the way that guilt might be articulated across a range of discourses: we could link it to such ideas as culpability and blamefulness, wherein we are said to feel guilty for letting someone down, shirking our responsibility, personal negligence. It has been said that we can't look the other in the eye in guilt. We don't have to be accused by another to feel we have failed her or him. The other need not be disappointed in us, nor even be aware of our failure at all. Guilt as self-blame would be the realization of our failure to behave in the way we expected of ourself, the hurt and disappointment we feel when we are not quite what we thought we were. It would originate in a being-other-than what we expected, the sense of missed opportunity, of a mourning of a better fork in the road not taken. Guilt would register a sense of seeming self-regression or decadence in the momentum of one's experience. What, preliminarily, might we comment concerning the structure we've just sketched of a `twinge of guilt, the feeling of `letting oneself down? Let us at first locate the peculiar edge of guilt, as we have described it above, as its `I ought to have, should have, could have way of thinking, our awareness that we failed to do what we were capable of, what we assumed we would. The proximity between that which one expected of oneself and ones apparent failure to live up to that standard would mark guilt as a gnawing, teasing puzzlement or surprise. Our falling away from another we care for could then be spoken of as an alienation of oneself from oneself. When we feel we have failed another, we mourn our mysterious dislocation from a competence or value which we associated ourselves with. It follows from this that any thinking of guilt as a `should have, could have blamefulness deals in a notion of dislocation and distance, of a mysterious discrepancy within intended meaning, separating who we were from who we are in its teasing gnawing abyss. Guilt and sadness would seem to represent a plunge into the darkness of separation. As we have seen, for Derrida there would be guilt as an always implied within-trace effect determined by the origin of every event as other than itself in the instant of being itself. This within-trace sense of mourning would be an irreducible quasi-transcendental condition of experience. One disturbs and disappoints oneself in a certain sense at every moment. Then there would also be for Derrida the possibility of guilt, sadness and mourning as a momentum of between-trace relation marking our stumbling into experience marked by a sparse density of change. This disappointing, guilty field of eventness could be the death of a friend one should have spoken to more often or better, or the encounter of a repressively authoritarian regime that one should have or could have resisted, or done so more effectively. Just as we can fall away from the relative contentment of an intimate experience of self-motility and progress, we can seem to find ourselves recovering from our slide into the relative regressiveness of interruption. Wherever this disappointment is thought via a language of alterity, violation and guilt, recovery seems to imply the justice and violence of resistance, condemnation and punishment. Philosophies which believe, to various degrees, in meaning's moody self-distancing would seem to be not only a thinking of guilt and despondency but also a thinking of anger, recompense and forgiveness. Anger would be a commentary on guilt, on the proximity we perceive between what was and what should have been. Anger would act on the `should have, could have of guilt as an accusation of culpability. What does such a judgement imply? Anger would proceed from the recognition of a blameful proximity between a thematic unfolding of experience and that which fails that thematic. The other who interacts with us (and this other can be ourselves) can respond in such as way as to fall afoul of our expectations; they (or we) `should have known better than to do what caused our pain. We don't become angry when we believe another had no way of knowing, could not have been expected to know that his actions would be responsible for our distress; in such a case our prior expectations of them would not have been violated. But when we believe that the object of our wrath shares a certain empathy with us or with himself which appears to have been breached, anger wants to remedy and resist that breach. The other who `knew better than to do what disturbs us is seen, via our anger, as herself hostile, annoyed or irritated with us, as wanting to punish us, as believing we were deserving of her disrespect. When we believe we were in fact deserving of the others hostility, we become guilty. However, when we believe ourselves to be undeserving of the others rejection, we turn their hostility back at them. Our anger acts to promote guilt and blame in the other; it remedies, resists, wants to transcend. Anger is a faith in the ability to minimize the abyss of blame. Anger would be a confidence, an insight into how to remedy guilty, disappointed experience. Hostility as a Question: If terms like punishment and condemnation point to a momentum of desubstantialization, of increasing proximity and intimacy with the other, of reducing the fat contentfulness and violent distance of the other from us, then why would retribution seem to want to degrade the other, to inflict pain and destruction? Why would the infliction of pain on another be desirable to us in revenge, and what would the desiring of another's suffering even mean? We have to remember that for now we have allowed that there would be two ways of thinking desire (we will reduce these later). Firstly, there would be desire as within-trace play, desire as nothing but eventness itself; the twofold mechanics of momenting not as sequence but as simultaneity. If an event is a self-exceeding, it is in the same breath a self-decadence. If we say that the origin of desire, need, craving, affectivity as the duplicity of a singular event is the preferring of presence over dislocation we do not capture a sequential order. To find oneself wanting is to experience at the same time two poles, but it is not to be able to say which came first and which came second. What seems to be a `moving toward is more originally a `having both , an equivocal-singular awareness that is in the same `instant both the better and the worse. That desire `wants the depowering minimization of distance is only to state a redundancy. Words like desire, prefer, privilege, precedence, minimization and order fail to do anything more than remind us of this a-sequential twofoldness of motive that structures each event within itself. The goodness of proximity and the undesirability of effacement would not reveal anything about each other besides the fact that they occupy the same space in each moment of experience. If proximity is good and separation bad, they are good and bad for no reason besides the fact that without this minimal dyssymetry between a having and a losing there would be no world. Being informed that the goodness of possession is that feature we prefer contributes nothing further to our understanding since an instant of preference simply reinstates the dual poles presence-absence. To ask the question `the presence or absence of what? is to fail to understand that the object or content of a moment experience can never be isolated as anything more substantive than `this particul ar event which is a new instantiation of presence-absence. To prefer is only to state that one exists in transit. We don't choose to be motivated. We are already motivated because we are already in motion. Another way to understand desire, quasi-transcendentally co-essential with the previous account of desire as within-trace, is as a between-event trope or thematic expressing the variable rhythm of repetition of events. Since we are in motion before we could ever choose to motivate ourselves, the variability of motive resides in the relative coherence of the movement of our experience, event to event. In coming back to itself moment to moment as non-self-identical but nonetheless integrally, unsubstantially self-similar, desire can continue to reaffirm `almost exactly what it wants, and it can make progress toward or find itself being distanced from what it wants, even as the very basis of that objective is gently re-invented in each intended instantiation of it. Because we find ourselves choosing rather than controlling our choice, what desire chooses has already altered us before we can duplicate and recover what we choose. It would always be a new sense of desire and progress or disappointment of desire that return moment to moment in the unfolding of experience. Nevertheless, in its non-self-identical journey, desire can find or re-discover itself (rather than simply willing itself) making progress toward the furthering of itself, its culture, its world. We can only intend to welcome the Other who saves us from chaos; we intend to reject the Other who offers the oppression of incommensurability. Freedom from incoherence implies a sense of liberation, whereas freedom from the order of intelligibility and intimacy implies a sense of subjection. We always have desired to welcome, give ourselves to, sacrifice ourselves for the intimate Other, and always disliked, `chose against the incommensurate Other. We only `want to escape from that which is indoctrinating, repressive, and we only know such conventions in these terms to the extent that we are alienated from them, disconnected, impoverished, deprived. What is repressive to us is what we cannot establish connection, intimacy of relation with. What is `boring, stagnant and redundant in what we label as totalitarianisms is what refuses us, keeps us at a distance, leaves us in banishment. Boredom is always a symptom of dislocation and incipient incoherence. As counterintuitive as it may seem, repetition of experience is only perceived as redundant to the extent that such `monotonous experience disturbs us by its resistance to intimate intelligibility. Boredom and monotony herald the failure of comprehension rather than its success. To choose to love the impossible, the unforeseen and unpredictable is to prefer that aspect within unforeseen experience which is foreseeable, which offers us the hope of avoidance of the abyss of violation and disconnection. To the extent that we can say that we look forward to the unknown, it is only to that degree that we ANTICIPATE the unanticipatable that there is the h ope of godliness, love, intimacy in that otherwise meaningless unknowable. We cannot get beyond this link between the lovable and the recognizable without losing the basis of any ethics, which is the ability to distinguish between, even if without yet defining, what is preferred and what is not. What would it mean to attempt to circumvent the structure of preference by a sacrifice of intention? What would we be effecting in `choosing to welcome without knowing what or whom we welcome; in acting so that our left hand does not know what the right hand is doing? As long as we speak of a volunteeristic `choice or `act of sacrifice of desire, of generosity, selflessness, or even of choosing not to intend at all, neither as benevolence or malevolence, we are still in-desire. To attempt to do what we don't want to do, or to act before we understand why we are acting, is still to prefer, and preference is always the finding of ourselves in a movement of desubstantializing intimacy. In desire's progress, in re-inventing what a progress would mean, desire is always a same-different movement away from destruction and suffering for itself and `deserving others, a minimization of the pain of incoherence and absence. One wants to destroy only the `undeserving; one prefers to prefer against disruption, that which threatens with greater perceived harm. Thus the instant of motive is as a minimization-depowering of perceived harm and violence. To punish would be in the first place to act for the sake of a faith in the metaphysics of the foreign or the mysterious, but to minimize the force and substance of that gulf of alterity and disturbance. It would be to transfer our pain to the other in order to achieve the others remorse and repentance. We want him to identify with our suffering because, more centrally, our anger wants to coax him to understand that relational intimacy of experience which was disappointed and damaged for us via his actions, that which we mourn but which he apparently has failed to understand in the first place and thus does not appreciate was destroyed. It is not his suffering we want for its own sake but his understanding, his contrition, his desubstantializing movement toward what we deem he should have thought and felt in the first place. Whereas in our own guilt we discover ourselves seemingly regressing from or disappointing the intimacy of our remembered, preceding experience, our anger is the transcendence of this momentum of apparent deceleration and reversal. We deem that the target of our indignation should have known what he failed to act on; we insist that he used to acknowledge the importance for us of what he now apparently disregards in his thoughtlessness. Our anger wants to rekindle this spark, to move him to a recollection of the consideration we believe he once had for us or our concerns. But why would we want to inflict punishment if we assume he already knows of our distress, already empathizes but chooses to ignore or forget this empathy? Our indignation wants us to reinstate for the other the pain we believe he didn't feel keenly enough originally. The angered wants to teach the guilty party a lesson, remind him, shame him, make him feel the guilt he inexplicably failed to feel as a result of his regressive actions. Why do we say the criminal should suffer what the victim suffered, get a `taste of his own medicine? If he really knows the ethical rigor of what was lost to us in our disappointed suffering, we think, then he may see the error of his ways and return to what we believe he knew all along. Our hostility wants to provoke the others pain only in order to gain the opportunity to ask "How do YOU like it?" and hear him empathetically link his pain with ours by linking his thinking more intimately with ours. The angry accuser believes the accused knew his actions were responsible for the accuser's suffering. The accuser's anger, then, depends on an unanswered question concerning the perpetrator, which is the same question the guilt-ridden person asks himself: `Why did he fail to do what he knew he should do? The accuser wonders:`Why does the perpetrators hostility put the victims thinking into question when it is the perpetrators assessment of his relationship to the victim which needs to be interrogated and forced to a more intricate and desubstantialized space?`Why does the perpetrator not feel guilty? According to the indignant persons original axes of understanding, the very contemplation of the sort of nasty behavior he or she is presently witnessing should have produced a sufficiently amount of guilt in the perpetrator as to have prevented the translation of those vindictive plans into action. After all, thinks the angered party, "Ive been tempted by that sort of indulgent acting out, too, but Ive controlled myself." Unable to come up with any workable alternative explanation of the nonconformists actions, the offended person attempts to inculcate the other with the feeling of remorse that the indignant one initially assumed the offender should feel, but inexplicably fell short of. The goal of angers punishing intent is not to destroy but to return the other closer to ourselves, to save him and us from his decadence, his falling short of a more condensingly depowering thinking which would allow him to see our behavior not as an obstacle to his movement but as a precipitation of it. Our anger wants to prompt him to an indication of insightful empathy with the pain he knows we feel and knows he was responsible for in his need to punish us. The others dest ruction will not satisfy angers urge for the perpetrator to bridge the taunting abyss between what he did and what he `knew better than to do. Our anger only begins to dissipate to the extent that we believe the other directly identifies the `retaliatory teaching we inflict on him with the suffering he was responsible for in us, and more fundamentally with our thinking he failed to embrace. Angers gesture, as any instant of desire, is the preferring of what we indulge ourselves in preliminarily referring to as a depowering minimization of otherness. But since we dont know why he violated our expectation of him, why and how he failed to do what our blameful anger tells us he `should have according to our prior estimation of his relation to us, this guilt-inducing process is tentative, unsure. It is precisely the interruptiveness and intermittency of the `knowing what to do of anger which is potentially manifested as explosiveness, violence and destructiveness because the behaviors associated with these terms represent the limited repertoire of responses which mark the incipience of angry insight. Angers impulsive, potentially explosive character would mark it as a delicate confidence, an ambivalent insight. Anger would be ambivalent in its force; a composition of vulnerability, tentativeness, questioning, a residing with alterity even as it attempts to desubstantialize its effect. Forgiveness as Acknowledgement of Transcendence: The dissipation of anger is closely tied to forgiveness, seen as the faith that our intervention may have succeeded in moving the other's thinking depoweringly closer to himself and to us. Considered in this way, we can only forgive a trespass of the other to the extent that we recognize a sign of the desubstantializing transformation of their thinking. Ideals of so-called unconditional forgiveness, of turning the other cheek, loving one's oppressor, could be understood as actually conditional in various ways. In the absence of the other's willingness to atone, we may forgive evil when we believe that there are special or extenuating circumstances which will allow us to view the perpetrator as less culpable (the sinner knows not what he does). We can say the other was blinded or deluded, led astray. Our offer of grace is then subtly hostile, both an embrace and a slap. We hold forth the carrot of our love as a lure, hoping thereby to uncloud the other's conscience so as to enable them to discover their culpability. In opening our arms, we hope the prodigal son will return chastised, suddenly aware of a need to be forgiven. Even when there is held little chance that the sinner will openly acknowledge his sin, we may hope that our outrage connects with a seed of regret and contrition buried deep within the other, as if our `unconditional forgiveness is an acknowledgement of Gods or the subliminal conscience of the others apologizing in the name of the sinner. As the forgiving one, we are proud of our `courageous and `compassionate response, but the important term here is response. To forgive is to acknowledge willingness to change ones attitude of condemnation only in RESPONSE to and acknowledgement of indications of potential repentance, at a conscious or unconscious level, on the part of the sinner. Perhaps the simplest kernel of forgiveness, then, is a mere experience of relieved awareness on our part, prior to any volition or declaration of intent to forgive, of the others renewal of intimacy with themselves and us. In any case, our forgiving renewal of relationship with the other never succeeds in fathoming the other's initial disappointment of our experience, their apparent `forgetting of the intimacy of their previous relationship with us. The `resolution of our anger in successfully achieving the others transformation, in moving them depoweringly and desubstantializingly closer to us and to themselves by reminding them of what they should have remembered, is an ambivalent progress due to its failure to understand why and how the perpetrator surprised us and fell short of our expectations in the first place. Repentance cannot ameliorate the mystery of this seeming forgetting; the others sense of culpability is their internalization of this same mystery. They become angry with themselves to the extent that they fail along with the accuser to penetrate the violent mystery of their self-disappointing `sin. Let's look at anger and forgiveness in the context of deconstructive thinking. Anger, beyond the within-trace tension intrinsic to every event, is tied to a particular momentum of between-event experience, reinventing itself subtly differently instant to instant. In general terms, it belongs to the precipitant recovery from regions of experience, from texts which disappoint in their tarrying with tropes of programmatic ideality. Deconstruction can be angry in its need to resist a thinking which it sees as violent, oppressive and destructive in a misguided faith in a purported institutional stasis of history. But as we have seen, anger may be said to be more specific in its effect than this general response to the other's regressiveness. We don't find ourselves angry with any and all texts which tarry with polarizing language. We condemn the other who more or less irritatingly disappoints our prior expectation of them. Our anger acts to remedy a rift in a certain intimacy of relationship with the other; it acts to remind in cases where it would seem the other has subtly forgotten, fallen just short of, a former proximity-density of contact with us and with themselves. This exquisitely teasingly, gnawingly subtle delay of movement would express a `could have, `should have quality of blame. What presumably has been forgotten or interrupted is not a specific content but a momentum of self-deconstructive change. For Derrida, it would never be a question of returning to a supposed self-present conceptual scheme, but of precipitating back into movement a self-deconstructive iteration which had stalled or suffered paralysis. And in saying that it is a momentum of transformation rather than a content which is being recovered, we must add that for Derrida this shift from `less to `more depowering movement which decon struction wants to coax is not a simple oscillation from one template to the other but a returning differently. Experience gathers and disperses itself, modalizes itself as more or less each time via a differently reinvented sense of more and of less, of forgetfulness and recovery. Where it finds a text slipping into a hostile, forgetful mode, its anger concentrates itself as a response to the specific parlaying of this forgetfulness into a weapon of violence and punishment. The other who grieves has in a sense forgotten the previous intimacy of their motile comportment with experience, but our engagement with this mourning is empathetic rather than hostile. But this is not quite true. It is not that we are less empathetic in our hostility toward the accused than in our consolation of the mourner, but that, from our vantage, the accused has lost less depowering momentum than the grieving one. There is less to remind and recover in the case of the guilty party than in the case of the mourner. Our helpless incomprehension in the face of another's depression and grief distances us more from the other than does the comparatively minor puzzlement of our angry disapproval of those we accuse. Anger is nothing but an intimate, aggressively and ambivalently confident reminder to the one who we believe is so close to his/her prior momentum (with which we empathize) in their present waywardness that a push in the `right (desubstantializing) direction may do the trick. Consolation of the grieving, on the other hand, is a process of reminding and recovery that has farther to travel in order to repair the gaping, fat rift between the prior other and the mourning other who sits in their place. In setting a `stubbornly exhausted thinking back to work, deconstructions anger expresses itself as an accelerated momentum of desubstantializing change, a release from relative paralysis toward a greater density of inventive eventness. Deconstructive anger, at the same time as accelerating momentum of change, does not hav e any better way to understand the forgetful text it wants to precipitate back to work than via accusations of abusive, plodding, repressive, thinking. As a result, the deconstructive response to a text seen this way is necessarily violent in the minimal extent that it `resists, `intervenes and `forces the text back to work. We mentioned that anger accompanies or effectuates the recovery of a certain thematic intimacy which has been breached by a guilty perpetrator. It might seem, though, that it is precisely the attempt at a concentrated gathering which is being resisted by a deconstructive response. Isn't it the attempt to turn experience (in myriad ways and degrees) into a fortress of self-identity which is being resisted in the name of an otherness keeping itself free of conceptual imprisonment? In other words, isn't a certain violence being encouraged here, a violence in complicity with putting a stalled and paralyzed thinking back to work? Yes, but remember that according to our reading, what characterizes a text in need of deconstruction is not that it lacks any internal movement, but rather that as a certain naive deconstruction of itself, it represents, moment to moment, a peculiarly lugubrious, inefficient, weary, and thus intrinsically polarizing and violent form of self-transformation. To this sickly progress a deconstructive intervention contributes acceleration; in rendering the stalled moments fluid, it converts programmatic violence into a more (differently) intimate and in an important sense a lesser violence. Deconstructive anger fights to precipitate a thinking both more intricately thematic and more radically critical than that it questions. But why is this relationship of deconstructer to deconstructed hostile? The hostility asks a question it cannot answer: Why and how does anyone fall short of a more rigorous deconstructive thinking? Of course a quick answer is available. We need only explain that deconstruction is, like all writing, historical; it is born of specific conditions implicating a complex intersection of theological, ethnic, political, economic and social influences, among many others. Deconstruction as an overtly articulated activity depends, then, on conditions available only in a certain cultural interval. But, as we pointed out, we don't become angry at the text which doesn't understand itself overtly in deconstructive terms. Our anger responds to the other's surprising but subtle disappointment of our expectations of them, regardless of what those original expectations entailed. In order to address our question, then, we need to probe more deeply into the way in which historical circumstances and conditions iterate and transform themselves. Specifically, we need to examine the more fundamental terms of the general dynamics of the unfolding of the textuality of experience instant to instant. Deconstruction is hostile to the extent that experience as iteration of differance doesn't trust itself. To ask why one fails more or less to think deconstructively is to ask how deconstruction itself fails to think deconstructively, which is to say, how meaning wanders from itself in the act of instantiating itself within and between moments. Experience is doomed to be always (each time differently) more or less disappointing, more or less infuriating, more or less deviant and disturbing. Deconstruction is in this way constantly disturbed by and forgiving of itself and others. Attempts to transcend this deviance within us and between us via politico-ethical or therapeutic analysis will run up against a universal limit of conciliation. Derrida believes that to forgive is always to forgive the unforgivable, that is to say, to be obliged to respect the secret of radical evil which remains inaccessible, which no amount of reconciliation and attempts at mutual understanding can alleviate. The origin of this radical evil is the dehiscence within the Derridean trace, determining an event's play of absence and presence to be dominated by a certain qualitative otherness. Whether in frightened surprise, guilty mourning, angry resistance or joyful furthering, moment to moment experience depends on and perpetuates a minimal violence. Answering the Question:Before the Ethics of Disturbance: How would we answer this question which we say deconstruction cannot: how do we conceive disappointment emanating from experience with others or ourselves as less-than-blameful, less-than-angering, less-than-deviant? When the shifting fortunes of experience are burdened with the heaviness of alterity, the momenta of moods etched by expansions and contractions, disappointments and recoveries could never escape the implications of hostility and guilt. To think of a mysterious rift between my own need and that of another, and within myself, is precisely the origin of the possibility of such a thing as blame, anger, guilt, as well as a certain fatness of pleasure-joy. To want, to desire, to mean would involve an inherent self-distancing or otherness, a bastardization which would limit my reconciliation with myself or with another. Justice would be cruel, as Nietzsche says. To feel cruel is to feel blamefully responsible, culpable, guilty. If we inhabit different social worlds, if our own `individual world is itself an endless iteration of differential cultures of self, then we must say that desire itself can only want to further one of an infinity of different realms, in asymmetric contradiction to the others. To think this way is to believe in the perversity of want. As distinct as Nietzsches notion of will to cruelty may be from metaphysical concepts of evil and divine righteousness, he has in common with such tropes a faith in the possibility of my obliviousness to anothers suffering. If meaning repeats itself as a trace of moody affirmative-negational difference, then to say that my hostility and desire to punish is the attempt at bringing the other closer to me is to also imply the dislodgement or violation of the others desire. A world of suffering, anxiety, guilt and contempt is implied by a philosophy w hich sees moody otherness at the origin of meaning. All philosophies and psychologies which allow quality to dominate the essence of meaning are in a fundamental sense philosophies of blame, to the extent that to blame is to grant to meaning the fundamental power of mystery, which underlies the force of suffering. Levinas' notion of the Other, Heidegger's primordial anxiety, Derrida's differance, and any thinking which depends on faith in otherness as meaning's double core, maintains a remnant of blamefulness. Levinas writes: "God does evil to me to tear me out of the world, as unique and ex-ceptional-as a soul(TE182)...Suffering qua suffering is but a concrete and quasi-sensible manifestation of the non-integratable, the non-justifiable. The `quality of evil is this very non-integratability...In the appearing of evil, in its original phenomenality, in its quality, is announced a modality, a manner: not finding a place, the refusal of all accomodation with..., a counter-nature, a monstrosity, what is disturbing and foreign of itself. And in this sense transcendence!"(TE180) The thought that, as Levinas characterizes it, thinks beyond what it thinks, beyond thematization and being and negation, older than consciousness and intentionality, nevertheless relies on, and in fact is centrally defined by, a certain substantiality of mood which demands a justice imprisoned by its blindness. Heidegger says: Understanding is never free-floating, but always moody. Having a mood brings Dasein face to face with its thrownness...not known as such, but disclosed far more primordially in `how one is(BT339-340). He argues that a primordial anxiety is the authentic mood of Dasein. Fundamental anxiety, he says, is not anxiety in the face of this or that `thing. It reveals the nothing, the indeterminateness of that for which we feel anxious. This mood is `older (ontologically), more primordial than all other moods. And what is the quality of this feeling of fundamental anxiety? Heidegger says it is pervaded by a peculiar calm. It is an anxiety "of those who are daring", and "stands in secret alliance with the cheerfulness and gentleness of creative longing". Desire seen as alterity is a boundary of mystery and secrecy, of the alien. It is the seed of contamination and disturbance which projects a world of violence and injustice as well as the hope of redemption and conciliation. It is at the heart of terms which speak of a willful, forgetful, repressive `knew better than to,`could have, `should have. The unjust or pathological other is that which is the opposite of my understanding and desire, that which opposes me, thwarts me, makes me suffer. The criminal or pathological act is another name for that which subverts our desire, that which causes our suffering. Thoughtless, lazy, selfish, inconsiderate, contemptible, greedy, cruel, guilty, evil, dishonorable, condemnable, decadent, conscienceless, malicious, ungrateful, psychopathological, misbehaving, erroneous, unadaptive, violator, criminal, deviant, abusive, arrogant; these names would have in common a measure of the undermining or repressing of desire. When we are thwarted, surprised, our anger is the impetus of our moving past and resisting the repression. Rehabilitation, punishment, Nietzschean cruelty and revenge, therapy, subversion and emancipation, justice are some names for the impetus of recovery from violation and hegemonic repression. Recovery maintains the mysterious senselessness which a violation of desire marks, just as a feeling of joy preserves the mysterious senselessness of a despair which it would be a recovery from. Guilt, blame, punishment, apology and forgiveness implicate each other as the movement through a culture of irreducible otherness. A possibility of justice that depends on a fulcrum of deviation or decentering at the heart of meaning drives the `should and `could of responsibility and projects, in innumerable degrees through different discourses, a world torn by suffering as well as by a peculiarly heavy, indulgent joy. When anothers intent is seen as grossly inconsonant with mine, he is my enemy. My enemy is a threat I have no choice but to protect myself from. I need to overcome, censure or escape the evil in the other or myself, to depower a harm. Murder and genocide name acts directed at me which seem to be behaviors of destruction, but similar acts directed from me are heroic attempts to lessen the harmful abyss of incoherence. The harshness of my protective efforts will be a reflection of the severity, that is, the substantiality, of this threat. Our desire to minimize deviance, separation, loss implies the punishment, condemnation, reconditioning, violation and subversion of the culpable other. The criminal, the inflicter of genocide, the murderer, the rapist, the torturer, the psychopath: these labels depend on faith in a break or separation between them and us. What kind of understanding no longer needs to think of meaning's inhabiting different worlds from event to event, no longer needs the thinking of `should have, of blame and alterity, of qualitative disruption, of hegemony and subversion, of regimes of language and their mutual incommensurability, of moody deconstructive resistance and dissemination? The radicality of thinking is evidenced most precisely by its penetration beneath the affective substantiality of a range of thinking of blame and anger (and equally implicated in those discourses' treatment of joy and pleasure). The moodiness of these terms, thought in various and particular ways, hide within themselves a more insubstantial mark or move, which has little room for affective appellation. To be a thinking of blame is to have faith in any of a variety of notions of Otherness, but my actions are more insubstantial, and therefore, in a certain peculiar sense more ordered with respect to me and my world than is overtly understood by philosophies, psychologies and aesthetics which fail to reduce the metaphysics of qualitative alterity (which locates blame in meaning's self-distancing) to a structure of radically unformidable linkage. Such a reductive thinking undermines the feelings of alienation and anger (as well as from too-substantial notions of joy) which accompany our conclusion concerning the alterity of the other, the irreducible manner in which we and `they do not belong, feelings which betray our reluctant failure to penetrate beneath this assumed alterity at the core of experience to the double edge of a gentle intricacy which preserves its gentleness even as it is instantiated as the wild contingency of all possible senses-moods. When the dynamic space of choice, desire, need, motive is seen as a mark which barely exceeds itself, which in fact is itself only as an impossibly inconsequential iteration of twoness, then a social world no longer has the power, and never did, to project deviance and violence, punishment and condemnation, psychopathology and therapy, error and correction, incommensurability and hegemony, the tensions of power. If a choice does not have the power to violate then it is no longer a deliberation. Desire without the passion and disruption of mystery needs nothing. Responsibility which does not risk failure to anticipate is no longer a response. A more radical thinking does not move beyond but within the thickness and remoteness of relation which the blameful `could and should have of anger, guilt and forgiveness convey. If the effect of desire is a subliminal linkage of moments of meaning, if the moment of meaning is itself defined as a barely registering dissymmetry less formidable than duality of subject-object or presence-absence, then morality and justice can no longer be understood by reference to violence, polarity, contamination, paradox. To recognize the genesis of a phenomenal world as an exquisitely variating desubstantializing gesture is to locate the origin of the arbitrary, the accidental, the repressed, the forgotten, the chaotic, the painful and tragic, in an infinitesimal dichotomy which never did have room for the affective fatness these terms imply. Any way of thinking which expresses a residual `fatness of mysterious content finds a remnant of irreducible suffering in the world, the qualitative negation or disturbance of understanding. But to know that in the same instant we point to a `this, an entity, an edge, we have moved beyond-within it in the most impossibly imbecilic and intimate way, is to see the meaningful edge of experience not as a suffering alterity but as (almost) a no longer affective-sensate gesture, a venue too insubstantial for pain and pleasure except as these terms are now understood as mere ghosts (but not hauntings) of an asymmetry almost too small to measure, the preservation of an extraordinary thread of linkage. This thread has no room for the breakage and alienation of despair and darkness, or the heaviness of substantial joy and happiness, except as these terms reveal within themselves an impossible richness and density of relation which are too intricate to suffer or celebrate. To render a social world of discordances, deviances, violations between-within people, to believe in anger and guilt, is to fail to penetrate beneath a certain mystery masking a radical intricacy inhering in the self-transforming motives of self and other. Such terms as legal, social and individual codes of justice and forgiveness reveal themselves variously as faiths in the other's redemption from the void of difference, but retribution's impetus, in thinking itself the remedy of a violation, a deviance, the subversion of a dominating hegemony, the countering of a discrepancy, an incommensurability, a parology, lingers with violence in its response to perceived oppression. In coaxing the perpetrator's contrition and conformity to expectations, contempt and condemnation is a success which represents a progress in the insight of the accuser and thus for him a desubstantializing gesture, but in relation to a more rigorous thinking it is exposed as a perpetuation of the blameful violation it resists. The very faith in `resistance or subversion, projects the world as a fundamental battlefield of tensions of various sorts. In poststructuralist accounts such as that of Foucault emancipation is no longer naively thought as a correction of error or progress toward or of the good;it is the movement, incessantly occurring in any span of culture, from one to another region of temporary stability, an island of relative coherence with no moral justification outside of this tentative, historically contingent belonging to local practices of language. Desire is no more that a pole of attraction belonging to the intersection of forces of domination. Knowing my `self as a mere strategy or role in social language interchange, I can know longer locate a `correct value to embrace, or a righteous cause to throw my vehemence behind. The only ethics that is left for me to support is the play between contingent senses of coherence and incoherence as I am launched from one local linguistic-cultural hegemony to another. To the extent that I know what such a thing as guilt or anger is beyond the bounds of local practices, these affectivities would have resonance as my experience of relative belonging or marginalization in relation to conventionalities that I engage with in discourse. I am always guilty, blameful in the extent to which I am a stranger in respect to one convention or another, including those that I recall belonging to in the past. I am always guilty in existing as a dislodgement from my history. Even in my ensconsement within a community of language, my moment to moment interchange pulls and twists me away from myself, making me guilty with respect to myself (my `remembered self) and my interlocutor. Similarly, I am always hostile in my engagements with others in the sense that I coerce (not willfully but prior to volition) another into my orbit in interchange. The non-directional vector of my desire, as the minimization of the distance between myself and the other, necessarily commits the violence of tearing him away from his past, which is in some measure a mystery to me. Because moment to moment interchange implies a mutual subversion of language, this is true in some small fashion even when we move within shared commitments. As we have seen, experience viewed from Derrida's deconstructive vantage already contains the basis of both hegemony and its subversion in each moment, radicalizing the schematic basis of a Foucaultian poststructuralism . Even this deconstructive discourse which refuses to allow a trace of meaning to be simply present to itself so as to be recognized as either organized or disorganized, perpetuates blameful justice of a minimal sort. A Derridean `psychoanalysis would move within the margins of a Freudian thinking as a less consequential and severe justice than that which would deal in an empirically punitive language of neurotic and psychotic pathology. Such a thinking would also find lingering assumptions of ontological self-presencing in the texts of Heidegger. Nevertheless, the relentless Derridean equivocal decentering of presence and absence itself protects a remnant of blameful otherness at meanings double core, invoking its own psychoanalysis of culpability and justice. For Derrida, justice implies non-gathering, dissociation, heterogeneity, nonidentity with itself, being unequal to the other, endless inadequation, infinite transcendence. It is that which is always reinvented in a singular-equivocal situation. The impetus of justice, then, is none other than the impetus of the deconstructive trace of meaning itself. Derridean justice is not one value among others, not that which would be opposed to injustice, but the very affirmational-negational tension that infest's meaning's origin as writing. If justice as Derrida understands it no longer reveals a self-present particularity, a `this thing which would be just, it shares with other philosophies a reliance on a certain moody remoteness of distance as its very basis. The irreducible play or tension which founds a world is necessarily cruel, guilty, and indignant as well as joyful and loving. Even as these affective terms do not locate themselves as preservable (non-deconstructed) senses, they would be tied to the modalizing repetition of a general-specific effect, the disseminative mark as always more or less just, more or less forgiving, more or less disappointing. Desire, throughout its various fortunes and misfortunes maintains itself for Derrida as the tension-play of an ought, a should, an obligation, responsibility, guilt, a risk. To think a text further as a subliminal edge of moreness is to effect a most gentle continuation-alteration, an engagement of familiar anticipation and predictiveness which no longer feels its movement (and never did) as incorporating the mystery of blame and guilt. A thinking of meaning's double site as this moreness is a notion of difference so insubstantial as to precede any sense of blame as the expression of a rift or distance between we and they, between me and myself. It is a notion of content so minimal as to barely repeat itself as `two more names. As we will soon show, it is less consequential than even the minimal stability of names such as presence and absence, structure and genesis, positivity and negativity, distance and proximity. | {
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Commentary Chimeras intended for human gamete production: an ethical alternative? César Palacios-González * The Centre of Medical Ethics and Law, The Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London, London, UK A B S T R A C T Human eggs for basic, fertility and stem-cell research are in short supply. Many experiments that require their use cannot be carried out at present, and, therefore, the benefits that could emerge from these are either delayed or never materialise. This state of affairs is problematic for scientists and patients worldwide, and it is a matter that needs our attention. Recent advances in chimera research have opened the possibility of creating human/ non-human animal chimeras intended for human gamete production (chimeras-IHGP). In this paper, I examine four arguments against the creation of such chimeras and prove that all of them are found wanting. I conclude by showing that there is a strong moral reason for scientists to pursue this research avenue. © 2017 Reproductive Healthcare Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Different strategies have been proposed for increasing the supply of human eggs for research purposes: compensating women for egg donation, obtaining human eggs from aborted fetuses, posthumous egg donation, and in-vitro gametogenesis. Serious research efforts are dedicated to in-vitro gametogenesis at the moment (Hendriks et al., 2015). Each of these options, however, is faced with different ethical dilemmas and regulatory constraints (Baylis, 2009; Ellison and Meliker, 2011; Greely, 2016). One possible avenue for solving the egg shortage problem is to create human/non-human animal chimeras intended for human gamete production (chimeras-IHGP). One way in which this can be achieved is through interspecies blastocyst complementation. In this technique, a non-human animal blastocyst is obtained from a mutant strain in which 'a gene critical for the development of a particular lineage is disabled' (Wu et al., 2016, 2017). Afterwards, this blastocyst is complemented with human stem cells, which will compensate for the existing niche. Despite ongoing research and scientific and ethical discussions about the development of chimeras capable of producing solid organs, such as kidneys and hearts for transplantation purposes, no wide discussion of the possibility of creating chimeras-IHGP has taken place. Scientists have only discussed how to avoid creating chimeras capable of producing human gametes (Rashid et al., 2014). A possible explanation for this is that many scientists consider that developing such chimeras is so 'ethically and politically problematic', that it is not even worth discussing this option. For example, Rashid et al. (2014), while discussing interspecies complementation for organ generation, have stated that: [We are] sensitive to the fact that research with the potential to present the following hypothetical scenarios warrants particularly thorough consideration prior to commencement. (. . .) (2) Situations wherein functional human gametes (eggs or sperm) might develop from precursor cell types in an animal, and where fertilization between either human (or human-derived) gametes and animal gametes might then occur. (Rashid et al., 2014, p. 408) In order to avoid the above, scientists are developing methods of target-organ generation that would preclude the accidental generation of human gametes within human/non-human animal chimeras (Kobayashi et al., 2015; Rashid et al., 2014). Owing to space constraints in this paper, I only discuss creating chimeras-IHGP for obtaining human gametes for research purposes. The ethical issues concerning use of chimera-generated human gametes for reproductive purposes, * E-mail address: [email protected]. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rbmo.2017.06.007 1472-6483/© 2017 Reproductive Healthcare Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. just as with in-vitro generated gametes for reproductive purposes, are important and need further exploration. For an up-to-date review of the scientific state of in-vitro gametogenesis, see Hendriks et al. (2015); for an up-to-date review of the ethics debate on in-vitro gametogenesis, see Smajdor and Cutas (2015) and Segers et al. (2017). At this point, we must ask: why might developing chimerasIHGP be so morally problematic that it should not be attempted? Four arguments against the creation of chimeras IHGP seem promising: human dignity would be violated by their creation; the value of human gametes would be debased by being generated within chimeras; generating such creatures is problematic because a human, or hybrid, pregnancy could ensue; and the research benefits of using such gametes do not outweigh the harms (death or pain) that the chimera would suffer. In what follows, I assess these arguments and show that they are found wanting, and then present an argument in favour of creating such type of chimera. Human dignity Appeals to human dignity when objecting to new biomedical research are common. It, therefore, seems natural that some may claim that the creation of chimeras-IHGP would constitute a violation of human dignity, and consequently that such creatures should not be created. The problem with this position is that it is not at all clear how human dignity could be violated by the mere creation of such creatures, as the claim that the creation of any human/non-human animal chimera (of which chimeras-IHGP are a subset) inherently violates human dignity is just false. We do not consider that the existence of a NOG mouse with engrafted human cells violates human dignity, even when it is a human/ mouse chimera. Neither, do we consider that human dignity is violated when someone receives a pig heart valve, which effectively turns them into a chimera. A more charitable reading of this kind of argument would rest upon the claim that creating a chimera-IHGP would create a being with human dignity. Therefore, it may be claimed that given this, and the belief that creatures in possession of a dignity ought not be used merely as a means to an end, chimeras IHGP should not be created. If this is what it is meant, then what would actually follow is that how we treat such creatures determines whether their dignity is violated, or not (Palacios-González, 2015a). From this position, it would also follow that we have the same moral obligations towards such chimeras as we have towards other human persons. If human dignity is tied to the possession of certain higher mental capacities, then as long as the chimeras-IHGP lack them, there would be no danger of violating their human dignity, as they would not possess it in the first place. Precluding the generation of human brain cells through genetic engineering, a strategy examined by Rashid et al. (2014), when creating chimeras-IHGP would highly reduce the possibility of accidentally creating a chimera with human brain cells. Therefore, as long as the chimeras-IHGP that we create do not possess higher mental capacities, it is simply not true that creatures with human dignity would be created, and even less that human dignity would be violated. The value of human gametes It may also be argued that chimeras-IHGP ought not be created because to do so would debase the value of human gametes. In order to answer this question, we first need to specify the kind of value that human gametes possess. Human gametes could possess two different types of value: inherent value or instrumental value. This means that they could be valuable in themselves or that they could be valuable as a means to achieve others' ends (Palacios-González, 2015b). To defend the proposition that human gametes have intrinsic value is to assert that they have interests, that we have obligations towards them, and that the obligations we have towards them are based, at least partly, on their interests (DeGrazia, 2008). This position is implausible. What interests could a gamete have? To create an embryo? And if this were so, are we morally required to help gametes create embryos so they can fulfil their interests? If it is held that human gametes do not have intrinsic value, they may still possess instrumental value. This means that they can have value as tools that we could use to achieve other ends. For example, most people resorting to IVF value their gametes not for themselves but as means to create a child. If it is true that human gametes only possess instrumental value then we have to ask if the value of chimera generated human gametes should be considered inferior to that of human-generated human gametes. The answer to this question, however, does not seem likely to be positive. Given that instrumental value is task-dependent, we have to assert that the instrumental value of chimera-generated human gametes should be assessed by examining how they perform as tools for achieving a certain goal. It is in relation to their capacity to achieve certain ends that we should judge them as valuable or not. For example, the instrumental value of chimera-generated human gametes for human embryonic stem-cell research should be assessed by establishing if they achieve the purpose intended by the researchers. Given that (a) human gametes do not possess intrinsic value (that could be debased) and that (b) they can only possess instrumental value (which is task-dependent), we must conclude that the debasement of value argument is found wanting and thus fails to provide moral reasons for not creating chimeras-IHGP. Chimera human pregnancy A third argument against the creation of chimeras-IHGP is that generating them is morally problematic because a human, or hybrid, pregnancy could ensue. Even if we accept, for the sake of argument, that we should not attempt, or allow, for chimeras to become pregnant with a human conceptus, it does not follow from this that we should not create chimeras-IHGP. This argument depends on the likelihood of a human or hybrid pregnancy ensuing, and this is a practical issue that can be easily dealt with. Henry T. Greely (2013) has proposed five courses of action to avoid these scenarios: creating chimeras of only one sex; using chimeras that are reproductively immature and euthanizing them before they reach reproductive maturity; sterilizing them; euthanizing them if they become pregnant; physically segregating them by sex. If our intention is to create chimeras-IHGP for their human eggs, then the first course of action seems the most appropriate in order to avoid 'human pregnancies': we should only create female chimeras. This would be the most sensible thing to do given that there is no shortage of human sperm for research purposes. In a scenario in which it is desirable to create chimeras capable of producing both female 388 R E P R O D U C T I V E B I O M E D I C I N E O N L I N E 3 5 ( 2 0 1 7 ) 3 8 7 – 3 9 0 and male human gametes, we could just take the appropriate measures for them to be segregated by sex. As long as we are reliably capable of avoiding human or hybrid pregnancies the strength of this argument is insufficient for ruling out the creation of chimeras-IHGP. Animal welfare A final argument against the creation, and use, of chimeras-IHGP is that the harms that they would be subject to would not be outweighed by the benefits that they would produce; and given that nonexistence is not a harm, then we should not create them. In order to address this argument, we must first emphasise that the chimeras that we are considering here possess animal-proper mental capacities: meaning that they would possess the mental capacities of the non-human component. For example, a mouse-human chimera capable of producing human eggs would possess mental capacities that are species-typical for mice. This is important if we consider that the moral value of human persons, and thus the protections against unwanted harmful interventions, is related to their possession of higher cognitive capacities (Palacios-González, 2016). It is true that certain research aims morally justify causing pain, or terminating, certain non-person sentient animals (e.g. mice). It is also true that other research aims fall short of justifying such harms (e.g. developing a new cosmetic eyelash). Also, it is uncontroversial that saving people's lives, or ameliorating people's great suffering, are aims that justify harming or killing certain sentient animals, when there are not other means available to us. Therefore, if the research aims for using chimeras-IHGP are geared towards saving people's lives, or ameliorating people's great suffering, then creating them and later on extracting their human eggs is morally justifiable. On the other hand, the moral permissibility of using chimeras-IHGP in research that is not geared towards saving people's lives, or ameliorating people's great suffering, will depend, partially, on the fact if the harms imposed are proportional to the expected net benefits (DeGrazia and Sebo, 2015). Discussing, specifically, if it is morally permissible to create human/non-human primate chimeras for generating human gametes would require much more space than available; see Shaw et al. (2014), Palacios-González (2016), and Dondorp et al. (2016) for a recent debate on the creation and use of human/non-human primate chimeras. Two important caveats must be mentioned. First, we should extract the chimera's eggs in the least harmful way possible. Second, if other morally permissible methods were available for obtaining human eggs (e.g. in-vitro gametogenesis) that would not require creating and experimenting on sentient creatures, then we should choose those other means. Given the urgency of the human egg shortage problem, at this point in time we should simultaneously explore the chimera route and the in-vitro one, and only give up the former route if the latter one, or another one, is capable of adequately dealing with the human egg shortage problem. We can confidently assert that the animal welfare argument is not successful in presenting a principled argument against creating, and using chimeras-IHGP if other forms of research which involve causing harm to non-human animals for the purpose of saving the lives of or ameliorating the suffering of people are considered permissible. Indeed, given that research aimed at saving people's lives or ameliorating the great suffering of people is generally deemed not only permissible but morally urgent, we can assert that there may in fact be strong moral reasons to pursue research into chimeras-IHGP. Even when it is true that the force of this positive argument depends on the utility of chimera-produced human gametes, and thus it is open to empirical verification, we cannot rule out in principle this research avenue. Conclusion In conclusion, I have questioned in this paper the morality of a chimera solution to the human egg shortage problem. I examined four possible arguments against this option and showed that all of them are found wanting. The first concerned the claim that human dignity would be violated by the creation of chimeras-IHGP. This argument fails because what would follow, if true, is that a creature with dignity would be created. I also pointed out that given that most chimeras-IHGP would not possess higher mental capacities then they would not possess human dignity in the first place. The second suggested that the value of human gametes would be debased and that we should therefore not proceed down this path. This argument also fails because human gametes, either generated by humans or chimeras, do not possess intrinsic worth capable of being debased. Human gametes only possess instrumental value and this value is task-dependent. Third, arguments suggesting that the possibility of a human or hybrid pregnancy in fact requires from us not to create such chimeras were considered. These were also determined to fail because we can easily and effectively prevent such pregnancies from happening by, for example, only creating female chimeras. Lastly, the claim that the aims of such experiments do not morally justify creating and using such chimeras was explored. It was found, however, that this argument cannot successfully ground a principled case against creating and using chimeras-IHGP, because there are certain aims that morally justify harming sentient animals, for example saving a person's life. Finally, it was noted that there is a strong moral reason to create and use chimeras-IHGP: forwarding research capable of saving people's lives and ameliorating people's great suffering. Scientists should accept that there is nothing particularly morally problematic with creating chimeras-IHGP and should start actively looking into this direction. For a previous in depth exploration of the philosophical topics concerning the creation of chimeras-IHGP see Palacios-González (2015b). Acknowledgement I am grateful to the Wellcome Trust for supporting part of this research via a Senior Investigator Award in Ethics and Society: The Donation and Transfer of Human Reproductive Materials (grant no: 097897/Z/11/Z). I also owe many thanks to Nicola J Williams, the editors of the journal and to the anonymous peer reviewers for their very valuable comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this paper. Received 16 February 2017 Received in revised form 4 May 2017 Accepted 16 June 2017 Declaration: The author reports no financial or commercial conflicts of interest. 389R E P R O D U C T I V E B I O M E D I C I N E O N L I N E 3 5 ( 2 0 1 7 ) 3 8 7 – 3 9 0 Keywords: Chimeras Eggs Oocytes Human/Non-human animal chimeras intended for human gamete production Human/Non-human chimeras R E F E R E N C E S Baylis, F., 2009. For love or money? 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Nature 540, 51– 59. doi:10.1038/nature20573. Wu, J., Platero-Luengo, A., Sakurai, M., Sugawara, A., Gil, M.A., Yamauchi, T., Suzuki, K., Bogliotti, Y.S., Cuello, C., Valencia, M.M., Okumura, D., Luo, J., Vilariño, M., Parrilla, I., Soto, D.A., Martinez, C.A., Hishida, T., Sánchez-Bautista, S., Martinez-Martinez, M.L., Wang, H., Nohalez, A., Aizawa, E., Martinez-Redondo, P., Ocampo, A., Reddy, P., Roca, J., Maga, E.A., Esteban, C.R., Berggren, W.T., Delicado, E.N., Lajara, J., Guillen, I., Guillen, P., Campistol, J.M., Martinez, E.A., Ross, P.J., Belmonte, J.C.I., 2017. Interspecies chimerism with mammalian pluripotent stem cells. Cell 168, 473– 486, e15. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2016.12.036. 390 R E P R O D U C T I V E B I O M E D I C I N E O N L I N E 3 5 ( 2 0 1 7 ) 3 8 7 – 3 9 | {
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Social Externalism and the Knowledge Argument TORIN ALTER [email protected] According to social externalism, it is possible to possess a concept not solely in virtue of one's intrinsic properties but also in virtue of relations to one's linguistic community. Derek Ball (2009) argues, in effect, that (i) social externalism extends to our concepts of colour experience and (ii) this fact undermines both the knowledge argument against physicalism and the most popular physicalist response to it, known as the phenomenal concept strategy. I argue that Ball is mistaken about (ii) even granting (i). The knowledge argument and the phenomenal concept strategy might have to be modified to make them consistent with social externalism but not in fundamental or detrimental ways. You might possess the concept of arthritis even if your conception of that disease- roughly, your set of associated beliefs-is highly inaccurate or deeply impoverished. The concept is yours but, if you are like most people, you are willing to defer to experts regarding its extension. Such claims are associated with social externalism (Burge 1979, 1982, 1986, 1993, Putnam 1970, 1975a), which for present purposes may be stated as follows: it is possible to possess a concept not solely in virtue of one's intrinsic properties but also in virtue of relations to one's linguistic community.1 Proponents of social externalism argue that it extends to a great many of our concepts. But they rarely discuss phenomenal concepts. Derek Ball (2009) adapts arguments for social externalism to show that no such concepts exist. That result, he argues, undermines both the knowledge argument against physicalism (Jackson 1982, 1986, 1995) and the most popular physicalist response to it, known as the phenomenal concept strategy (e.g. Loar 1997).2 I will defend an objection to Ball's argument that he considers and rejects: the concept-mastery objection. The objection turns on formulating his opponents' claims in terms of concept mastery instead of concept possession. If my arguments are sound, then the knowledge argument and the phenomenal concept strategy might have to be modified to make them consistent with social externalism but not in fundamental or detrimental ways. 1. The knowledge argument and the phenomenal concept strategy The knowledge argument is directed against physicalism, which is roughly the view that the world is completely physical. In Frank Jackson's (1982, 1986, 1995) classic version, the argument begins with the case of Mary, a scientist who is raised in a black-and-white room. She has a perfect reasoning capacity and learns the complete physical truth by watching science lectures on black-and-white television. Then she leaves the room and sees colours for the first time. For example, she sees a red rose. Intuitively, when that happens she learns something, including truths about what it is like to see red. The rest of 1 Ball does not use the term 'social externalism'. But it seems apt for relevant aspects of the views of Putnam and Burge to which he appeals. 2 Tye (2009) argues similarly. Jackson (1998a, 2003, 2007) now rejects the knowledge argument and embraces physicalism. 2 the argument tends to proceed in one of two ways. On one formulation, the epistemic progress Mary makes upon leaving the room is used to establish that there are nonphysical truths about human colour vision. It is then argued that physicalism cannot accommodate the existence of such truths. On the other formulation, Mary's progress is used to establish non-deducibility, the claim that there are truths about consciousness that cannot be a priori deduced from the complete physical truth. Non-deducibility is then used to establish non-necessitation, the claim that those truths are not metaphysically necessitated by the complete physical truth, which in turn is used to establish physicalism's falsity. Ball focuses on the first formulation. I mention the second mostly because some of my claims will concern how concept possession and concept mastery relate to a priori deducibility and necessitation (see Sect. 3 below). But my main arguments apply to both formulations.3 On the phenomenal concept strategy, Mary's post-release epistemic progress can be explained in a way that is compatible with physicalism, in terms of special features of phenomenal concepts. The idea, as Ball understands it, could be put roughly as follows. Mary acquires knowledge because she acquires phenomenal concepts. For example, she learns what it is like to see red because she acquires PHENOMENAL REDNESS. So, her progress shows that phenomenal concepts have distinctive possession conditions. But that is consistent with the physicalist's claim that the properties phenomenal concepts pick out are wholly physical. So construed, the strategy depends on the new-concepts explanation: the claim that Mary makes epistemic progress when she leaves the room because she acquires concepts of colour experience that she did not previously possess. Ball argues the knowledge argument too depends on (what I call) the newconcepts explanation. He reasons roughly as follows. According to the knowledge argument, there is some content Q that pre-release Mary does not know. If there is such a content, then while she is still in the room either (i) she can entertain and even believe Q but her belief does not constitute knowledge or (ii) she cannot even entertain Q. Ball illustrates type (i) situations with Martine Nida-Rümelin's (1995) Marianna case. The latter is just like the Mary case except instead of leaving the black-and-white room Marianna is led into an empty room with differently coloured, unlabelled splashes of paint on the walls. She can entertain but does not know Q. But that is only because she lacks physical information, such as information about the chemical composition of the paint. If she had such physical information, then she could know Q. More generally, Ball writes, ... it does not seem possible to develop a type (i) situation in which the protagonist knows all of the physical facts about colour vision and all of the physical facts about her environment. A protagonist who knew these facts could deduce the relevant phenomenal truths. (Ball 2009, p. 942) Therefore, 'no knowledge argument can be developed on the basis of a type (i) situation' (Ball 2009, p. 942). So, Mary's pre-release situation must instead be of type (ii): she cannot even entertain Q before leaving the room. That, Ball reasons, must be because Q 3 Both formulations are firmly rooted in Jackson's work (1982, 1986, 1995), but the second has been developed in more detail by Chalmers (2004, 2010a). 3 contains some concept that she does not possess until she leaves the room. That in turn suggests the new-concepts explanation.4 2. Ball's main argument Ball's main argument can be stated initially as follows. Phenomenal concepts have strong possession conditions. Social externalist arguments show that none of our concepts of experience satisfy those conditions. Therefore, there are no phenomenal concepts and so the new-concepts explanation is false. The knowledge argument and the phenomenal concept strategy both depend on the new-concepts explanation. Thus, both fail. We saw in the preceding section why Ball thinks that the knowledge argument and the phenomenal concept strategy depend on (what I call) the new-concepts explanation. Let us now examine the rest of his main argument, beginning with the idea that phenomenal concepts have strong possession conditions. He proposes what he calls The Phenomenal Concepts Criterion (PCC). It says that if there is a phenomenal concept C then: 1. There is some phenomenal experience type e, and some property p, such that experience tokens fall under e in virtue of their relation to p 2. C refers to p 3. Under normal circumstances, a human being can possess C only if she has had an experience of type e (Ball 2009, p. 938) Ball adduces three considerations in favor of PCC. First, many phenomenal concept theorists-proponents of either the knowledge argument or the phenomenal concept strategy-endorse PCC or a similar criterion. Second, most popular theories of phenomenal concepts commit their adherents to it. For example, on the quotational theory (Papineau 2002, 2007, Block 2006) phenomenal concepts refer by sampling a phenomenal property, and 'in normal cases such a sample could do its job only by being experienced' (Ball 2009, p. 939). Third, (what I call) the new-concepts explanation depends on PCC. Let us now turn to social externalism. On this view, one could acquire ARTHRITIS without knowing much about arthritis, simply by acquiring a word that expresses that concept in one's linguistic community. In Tyler Burge's (1979) well-known example, a man believes he has developed arthritis in his thigh. When his doctor explains that arthritis is a disease of the joints and so cannot occur in the thigh, he will presumably concede that his earlier belief was false. Even before she enlightens him about the nature of arthritis, the doctor and her patient can agree that he has arthritis in his ankles. As Ball emphasizes, the possibility of such agreement seems to require that the two share a single ARTHRITIS concept. It is no mystery how that came about. Presumably, both picked up a public-language term that expresses the concept-a term such as 'arthritis'. 4 Ball considers and rightly rejects two other possible explanations of why pre-release Mary cannot entertain Q. One is that although she possesses the concepts in Q she cannot combine them appropriately. That cannot be correct because it would entail a limitation on her reasoning ability. The other is that Q contains indexical concepts and 'Every context in which Mary could use these concepts in her room is such that these concepts do not express [Q]' (Ball 2009, p. 942). Knowledge argument proponents cannot appeal to this explanation either because 'there is no obvious reason that the indexical concepts in question should not refer to physical entities' (Ball 2009, p. 943). 4 Ball argues that similar reasoning applies to our concepts of experience. While still in the black-and-white room, Mary might share various beliefs about colour experiences with colour-sighted interlocutors outside the room. For example, she might agree, perhaps based on their testimony, that seeing red is phenomenally more similar to seeing black than to hearing a trumpet play middle C. Because she has such beliefs, she must be able to entertain their contents. This in turn implies that she possesses all the concepts those contents contain, despite her impoverished conception of what it is like to see red. And as in the ARTHRITIS case, there is no mystery about how she acquires concepts of colour experience: she acquires words that express them. Such words might occur in the science lectures she watches or in conversations with outside interlocutors.5 We are now in a position to summarize Ball's main argument in more detail than we did at the beginning of this section, as follows: 1. PCC. 2. Our concepts of experience all conform to social externalism (specifically, they can be acquired by acquiring words others use to express them). 3. If (i) PCC and (ii) our concepts of experience all conform to social externalism, then there are no phenomenal concepts. 4. If there are no phenomenal concepts, then the new-concepts explanation is false. 5. If the new-concepts explanation is false, then the knowledge argument and the phenomenal concept strategy fail. 6. Therefore, the knowledge argument and the phenomenal concept strategy fail. 3. The concept-mastery objection For the sake of argument, I grant premises 2-4. 6 The concept-mastery objection challenges premisses 1 and 5. It can be stated as follows. Phenomenal concept theorists can reject PCC, (i.e. premiss 1) by arguing that it is mastery, not mere possession, of 5 One might think that Burgean arguments are not needed to establish that Mary can acquire concepts of colour experience before leaving the room, reasoning as follows: 'Anything can cause anything. So, why couldn't watching black-and-white lectures cause Mary to have a vivid red after-image, thus supplying her with a concept of colour experience?' However, Mary's having a vivid red after-image while in the room, whatever the cause, would plainly violate the presuppositions of the thought experiment. The point of putting her in a black-and-white room is, after all, to prevent her from having colour experiences. By contrast, social externalism seems to provide a way for pre-release Mary to acquire concepts of colour experience that does not entail her having colour experiences. 6 However, I will mention one objection to premiss 4. The science lectures Mary watches are presented in the language of completed science, and it is far from clear that this language would include terms that express concepts of colour experience. Further, the addition of such terms to that language can hardly be regarded as innocent in light of social externalism. In the dialectical context of the knowledge argument, we cannot at the outset rule out the possibility that the concepts those terms express encode non-physical information. So, given social externalism, adding such terms might inadvertently supply Mary with relevant non-physical information. Based on those considerations, one might argue as follows: 'If prerelease Mary lacks access to terms that express concepts of colour experience, then she does not acquire such concepts until she leaves the room. That gives rise to the possibility that the new-concepts explanation is true even though, because no concepts satisfy PCC, there are no phenomenal concepts.' There may be something to that objection. But it depends on controversial assumptions about the commitments of physicalism that I cannot pursue here, such as whether all physical truths can be expressed in a fully objective language (Alter 1998, Chalmers and Jackson 2001, and Howell forthcoming). For an important challenge to social externalism, and thus to premiss 2, see Pereboom 1995. 5 phenomenal concepts that normally requires having relevant experiences. As Ball puts the point, phenomenal concept theorists could reject PCC in favor of PCC*, a criterion that replaces clause 3 of PCC with the following: 'Under normal circumstances, a human being can non-deferentially or fully possess C only if she has had an experience of type e' (Ball 2009, p. 955). Social externalism is perfectly consistent with the existence of phenomenal concepts in the sense of PCC*. Phenomenal concept theorists can also reject premiss 5. They invoke phenomenal concepts in order to explain the epistemic progress Mary makes when she leaves room. But they need not claim that she then acquires such concepts. They can reject the new-concepts explanation in favor of the concept-mastery explanation: the claim that Mary makes epistemic progress when she leaves the room because she comes to master phenomenal colour concepts.7 The concept-mastery objection relies on a distinction between (a) knowledge under concepts that the knower possesses with mastery and (b) knowledge under concepts that the knower possesses with or without mastery. Let us refer to (a) and (b) respectively as knowledgeM and knowledgeP ('m' for 'mastery' and 'p' for possession). The distinction is not specific to phenomenal knowledge; it is perfectly general. Consider Joe and Josie. Joe knows practically nothing about chemistry. For example, although he has heard of atoms and molecules, he could not begin to explain what they are, how the two are related, or how chemical bonding works. By contrast, Josie is an expert chemist. Now take the truth that water is H2O. Josie knowsM that truth. Joe might know it too, despite his poor grasp of chemistry. After all, he might possess the H2O concept by acquiring a term for it. But if he knows that water is H2O, he knows it only in the sense of knowledgeP. Unlike Josie, he does not knowM that water is H2O.8 Concept mastery is not an all-or-nothing matter. Also, there are borderline cases, in which it is indeterminate whether knowledge qualifies as knowledgeM. But this does not create problems for applying the distinction to the Mary case. Mary's preand postrelease epistemic states are not borderline. After leaving the room, her mastery of phenomenal colour concepts reaches a high level comparable to that of ordinary coloursighted folk. Before leaving, she does not have anything close to that level of mastery. For simplicity, I refer to her as having mastery of phenomenal colour concepts only after she leaves. In other words, by 'mastery' I mean 'substantial mastery'.9 It is also important to note that possessing a concept with mastery does not exclude the possibility of misapplying that concept. Josie possesses chemical concepts with mastery, but she might none the less misapply them at least in unusual cases. There might also be cases in which she does not know whether a chemical concept C applies to a sample. In such cases she 7 The idea that phenomenal concept theorists are committed to the new-concepts explanation might have seemed suspicious from the start. These theorists often focus less on concept possession than on the inferential relationship between physical concepts and phenomenal concepts. For example, Hill (1997) develops his version of the phenomenal concept strategy by arguing roughly that physical and phenomenal concepts play distinct functional roles in relevant cognitive systems and that the knowledge argument confuses distinct roles for distinct properties playing those roles. 8 In distinguishing between knowledgeM and knowledgeP, I am not proposing that the term 'knowledge' is ambiguous. That is one possibility, but it seems more natural to say that knowledge claims are context dependent. They refer to knowledgeM in some contexts and to knowledgeP in others. However, the semantics of 'knowledge' raises complex issues that I cannot settle here. 9 Even if Mary's preand post-release epistemic states were borderline, it would still be plausible that when she leaves the room she moves towards greater understanding of the relevant truths. Arguably, that change would constitute epistemic progress in the sense relevant to the knowledge argument (Howell 2011). 6 might defer to another expert or to an authoritative publication. She may nevertheless possess C with mastery. Mastery of a concept does not require omniscience concerning its extension. The same points apply to mastery of phenomenal concepts.10 We could express the concept-mastery objection by saying that the knowledge argument and the phenomenal concept strategy should be formulated in terms of knowledgeM and related epistemic notions. For example, to learnM is to acquire knowledgeM.11 On the objection, the claim about Mary that demands explanation is not merely that, when she leaves the room, she comes to know relevant phenomenal truths in some sense or other. After all, she can knowP those truths before leaving the room (assuming she then possesses phenomenal colour concepts). Rather, the explanandum is that she comes to knowM them: to know them in a way that involves mastery of concepts they contain. Suppose Mary's epistemic progress were construed in terms of her gaining mere knowledgeP, that is, in terms of her acquiring rather than mastering phenomenal colour concepts. In that case, her progress would fail to provide even prima facie grounds for inferring non-deducibility-or any epistemic claim that might plausibly entail strong metaphysical conclusions such as non-necessitation. Instead, it would be clear that a psychological explanation is called for. The inference from epistemic to metaphysical claims that the knowledge argument involves is complex and controversial, but it is not a non-starter. Yet it would be a non-starter if we construed Mary's progress in terms of her gaining mere knowledgeP instead of knowledgeM.12 To see this, consider someone who has heard talk of prime numbers and so possesses the PRIME NUMBER concept without mastery, in the way someone who has heard talk of arthritis might possess the ARTHRITIS concept without mastery. Such a person will not be in a position to deduce that there are infinitely many prime numbers, even if her reasoning capacity were in all other respects ideal. It does not follow that it is not a priori that there are infinitely many prime numbers. Now consider someone who has mastered the PRIME NUMBER concept, and assume her reasoning capacity is ideal. If she could not deduce that there are infinitely many prime numbers, this would be strong evidence that it is not a priori that there are infinitely many prime numbers. This brings out the general point that concept mastery is tied to apriority in a way that concept possession is not. It seems that the knowledge argument must be construed in terms of knowledgeM, or else it would not even get off the ground (at least, this seems true of the 10 For these reasons, Ball's formulation of clause 3 of PCC* is potentially misleading. On the conceptmastery objection, Mary's epistemic progress involves her acquiring mastery of phenomenal colour concepts. This requires neither that she comes to possess them 'non-deferentially', if this implies that she never defers regarding their application, nor that she comes to possess them 'fully', if this implies anything more than that her mastery is comparable to that of ordinary colour-sighted folk. 11 We could likewise define a notion of deductionM as follows: to deduceM is to deduce from propositions entertained under mastery of the concepts contained therein to propositions so entertained. But it is worth noting that the concept-mastery objection does not require doing so. For example, proponents of the objection could formulate the key claim about the Mary case using the familiar, unqualified notion of deduction, as follows: Mary cannot arrive at the phenomenal knowledgeM of what it is like to see in colour by deducing truths from both her knowledgeM of the complete physical truth and her knowledgeP of phenomenal truths about what is like to see in colour. 12 For a forceful defense of the inference, see Chalmers 2010a. 7 non-deducibility/non-necessitation formulation). And if it and the phenomenal concept strategy are so construed, then they face no threat from Ball's arguments.13 In response to the concept-mastery objection, Ball writes that it could result in two different versions of the knowledge argument: one based on a type (i) situation, in which pre-release Mary can entertain but does not know certain contents, and another based on a type (ii) situation, in which she cannot even entertain those contents. However, he argues, both versions fail. The version based on a type (i) situation fits best with the concept-mastery objection as I have developed it, and so I will focus on it.14 On that version, 'Mary can entertain the relevant contents; but since she can only possess the relevant concepts deferentially or partially ... she cannot entertain these contents in a way that would enable her to know them' (Ball 2009, p. 956). Against that reasoning, Ball argues as follows: The putative phenomenon that this argument appeals to is unprecedented in the sort of cases typically appealed to in discussions of 'deference' and 'partial understanding'. For example, although Burge's Arthritis-man fails to believe that arthritis is a disease of the joints, there is nothing that prevents him from coming to know this fact. He is perfectly capable of learning that arthritis is a disease of the joints by testimony. The proponent of this version of the knowledge argument would have to hold that some feature of Mary's grasp of the relevant contents prevents her from gaining knowledge by testimony, even though she grasps the content expressed by the relevant sentences, knows the source to be reliable, and so forth. ... This would involve an ad hoc denial of widely accepted closure principles for knowledge ... These positions are coherent but highly unattractive. (Ball 2009, pp. 956-57) 13 The prime number case illustrates the point that apriority is more closely tied to concept mastery than to concept possession, but it is not intended as a perfect analogy to the Mary case. One disanalogy is that Mary does not have mastery of phenomenal colour concepts inside the room. This raises the possibility of what we might call the missing-mastery reply to the knowledge argument (a variation of the missingconcept reply due to Kirk 2005, Tye 2000, and others): phenomenal truths are deducible in principle from physical truths, but Mary cannot deduce certain phenomenal truths because she has not mastered relevant phenomenal concepts (for a related reply, see Rabin 2011). This reply may be a version of the phenomenal concept strategy, and if it is then it is doubtful that Ball could endorse it. In any case, it can plausibly be answered in the way that the missing-concept reply has been answered. For example, following Chalmers (2004), one can argue that even once Mary masters the relevant phenomenal concepts, she will not automatically know whether or not other creatures (bats or Martians, say) are having experiences of the relevant sorts, even given a complete physical description of them. See also Stoljar 2005. 14 However, I will mention one issue that arises in connection with the other version. In the process of criticizing that version, Ball imagines Lonely Mary, who is just like Mary except she lacks a linguistic community. He argues that Lonely Mary would be able to acquire the concepts relevant to knowing what it is like to see in colour by stipulatively introducing them. He writes, 'we can imagine Lonely Mary working to develop a detailed theory of the neural correlates of consciousness. She knows that brain state R would correlate to some phenomenal state, even though she has never been in brain state R. Burge-style arguments of the sort I developed above suggest that she could introduce the putatively phenomenal concept Q by stipulating that Q is to refer to what it is like to be in R' (Ball 2009, p. 956). But it is unclear that Q is one of the concepts that is relevant to knowing what it is like to see in colour. Granted, Q co-refers with one such concept. But so might the concept JOHN'S FAVORITE PHENOMENAL QUALITY. Yet the latter is not a phenomenal concept in the relevant sense. 8 But on the concept-mastery objection, phenomenal concept theorists can agree that pre-release Mary can acquire knowledge of the relevant contents through testimony: she can acquire knowledgeP of those contents. These theorists need deny only that she thereby gains knowledgeM of them. The latter denial is motivated by a strong intuition- arguably the same intuition that phenomenal concept theorists had in mind all along. What prevents her from gaining knowledgeM of the relevant through testimony is her lack of mastery of concepts that those contents contain. Nor must phenomenal concept theorists deny any plausible closure principles. Consider, for example, a closure-undertestimony principle such as this: 'If proposition P is true and subject S is told that P by someone she knows to be highly reliable, then S can thereby come to know that P-even if S possesses some of the concepts P contains without mastery.' That principle is plausible if it is construed in terms of knowledgeP, but it is implausible if it is construed in terms of knowledgeM. Phenomenal concept theorists need reject only the knowledgeM version. So, there is no problem for them here. The foregoing points about closure apply no less to Arthritis-man than to Mary. However, those cases differ in at least one notable way with respect to the possibility of acquiring knowledge through testimony. The Mary case seems to show that there are phenomenal truths that cannot be learnedM through testimony. By contrast, there might be no non-phenomenal truths about arthritis that cannot be learnedM through testimony (though there might well be phenomenal truths about experiences associated with arthritis that cannot be so learnedM). But it is surely no objection to the knowledge argument if it exploits an epistemic phenomenon that is unique to phenomenal truths. That phenomenal truths appear to have unique epistemic features is, after all, part of what makes the knowledge argument seem so compelling and significant in the first place. Michael Tye (2009) presents an argument that is nearly the same as Ball's main argument. He too anticipates the concept-mastery objection, and he offers a different response. In his view, the objection has a consequence that its proponents cannot accept: that Mary makes no discovery when she leaves the room. That is because the truths she knows before leaving the room are the same as those she knows after she leaves. He writes, The trouble with this suggestion is that it entails that what Mary knows later is just the same as what she knew before, for there is no change in the finegrained facts she knows. So there is no new propositional knowledge. Here is a parallel: Consider my remarking, to a friend of mine who is the world's leading authority on elm trees, "That's an elm over there." I can know that this is the case...but my grasp of the concept ELM is deferential. My friend also knows that that is an elm over there, but his grasp of the concept ELM is non-deferential. What he knows is the same as what I know. There is no difference in the fact we know here ... but the way we grasp what we know is different. If later I become the world's leading authority on elm trees, and I repeat my earlier remark in the same situation, what I know is what I knew earlier. I make no discovery. So this strategy seems to me to offer no real progress. (Tye 2009, p. 129) But on the concept-mastery objection, phenomenal concept theorists can agree that as in Tye's elm case (i) there is no difference in the facts Mary knows before and 9 after leaving the room and (ii) it is the way she grasps what she knows that changes. This does not clearly imply that she makes no discovery. On the concept-mastery objection, her discovery consists in her acquiring knowledgeM. Perhaps Tye would not count her acquiring knowledgeM as a discovery. But that judgement seems unwarranted. Consider Thomas Nagel's (1974) thought experiment about a pre-Socratic philosopher being told that matter is energy. At first the source does not explain any of the physics that underlies that important truth. But let us suppose that the pre-Socratic philosopher knows her to be reliable and authoritative. So, we might conclude, he thereby comes to knowP that matter is energy. Suppose that later she explains the underlying physics in detail, so that he comes to master the relevant concepts. He thus comes to knowM the same truth that he already knewP. It seems plausible to describe his gain in knowledgeM as a discovery. If so, then there would seem to be no reason not to describe Mary's post-release gain in knowledgeM as a discovery too.15 But suppose I am wrong about that. Even so, Mary's acquisition of knowledgeM would constitute epistemic progress of a sort suitable for the purposes of the knowledge argument. So, phenomenal concept theorists can agree with Tye that the (fine-grained) object of Mary's knowledge is the same before and after she leaves the room, just as the object of knowledge is the same for the botanical novice and the elm expert. But phenomenal concept theorists could argue that she cannot arrive at the relevant phenomenal knowledgeM by deducing truths from her knowledgeM of the complete physical truth and her knowledgeP of phenomenal truths about what it is like to see in colour. That claim suffices for the purposes of the knowledge argument. Indeed, one moral of the concept-mastery objection is that, in trying to understand Mary's epistemic progress, it is a mistake to focus solely on the propositional object of her knowledge and thereby ignore the way in which her grasp of that object changes when she leaves the room.16 4. Conclusion I have argued that phenomenal concept theorists can block Ball's main argument by recasting their key claims in terms of concept mastery instead of concept possession. I have also argued that the concept-mastery objection does not fall prey to his or Tye's counter-arguments. The issues Ball raises about phenomenal concepts bear not only on the knowledge argument but also on related arguments such as the conceivability argument (e.g. Chalmers 2010a) and the explanatory gap argument (Levine 1983). Those arguments too employ epistemic notions that, I would argue, are best understood in a sense that requires mastery of relevant phenomenal concepts. Consider, for example, a premiss in a muchdiscussed version of the conceivability argument: that if zombies (creatures that lack 15 Consider again the prime number example. Suppose someone hears from a source she knows to be reliable, 'There are infinitely many prime numbers', but only later comes to master the concept PRIME NUMBER, thereby acquiring knowledgeM of that truth. It seems reasonable to classify her gain in knowledgeM as a discovery, or at least as significant epistemic progress. 16 To say that Mary's epistemic state changes from having knowledgeP to having knowledgeM is in a certain sense to say she learns an old fact in a new way. But this does not undermine the knowledge argument, at least in the non-deducibility/non-necessitation formulation. The gap with respect to knowledgeM suggests that, as in the prime number example, the fact in question is not a priori deducible from (or necessitated by) microphysical facts. 10 consciousness but are physically identical to conscious human beings) are conceivable, then they are metaphysically possible. It is hard to see why the conceivability of zombies would even begin to indicate that they are metaphysically possible if it were not assumed that the conceiver had mastery of relevant concepts.17 Thus, Ball's main argument is significant if only because it prompts us to refine epistemic claims that are central to influential anti-physicalist arguments. But these refinements, though non-trivial, do not radically change the landscape of the debate. The anti-physicalist arguments in question are fundamentally about whether physicalism can be reconciled with the existence of phenomenal consciousness-and more generally about the metaphysical implications of the hard problem of consciousness. On the face of it, the issues that social externalism addresses, which concern possession conditions for concepts, enter into the debate about those enduring problems only tangentially. My arguments, if sound, add support to that judgement.18 TORIN ALTER Department of Philosophy The University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0218 References Alter, Torin 1998: 'A Limited Defense of the Knowledge Argument'. Philosophical Studies, 90, pp. 35-56. Alter, Torin and Walter, Sven (eds) 2007: Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press. 17 The notion of knowledgeM may have relevance for epistemological matters that are far removed from the knowledge argument. I will mention one example. In discussing Putnamian transcendental arguments against external-world skepticism, Brueckner (1986, p. 165) writes, '[C]onsider a case in which a trustworthy set theorist tells me that the sentence "Omega is not a regular cardinal" expresses a true proposition. Knowing very little about set theory, I do not understand the technical terminology in the sentence. So, even though I can claim to know that the sentence expresses a true proposition, I do not know which proposition. Hence I cannot claim to know that omega is not a regular cardinal, given only my metalinguistic knowledge that the relevant sentence is true.' Donnellan (1977) makes similar claims in criticizing Kripke's (1972) views about contingent a priori knowledge. However, the sorts of Burgean considerations to which Ball appeals might be taken to indicate that, in such cases, the knower has not just metalinguistic knowledge but also knowledge of the relevant object-level truths. Brueckner and Donnellan might be able to respond by arguing that the knower does not knowM the object-level truths, even if she knowsP them. 18 I presented versions of this paper at Southern Methodist University, The University of Alabama, The University of California at Riverside, University of Birmingham (U.K.), and New York University; and at the 2010 Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association. I thank the participants in discussions at those events. In particular, I thank Ned Block, Amy Kind, Brian McLaughlin, Gabriel Rabin, Seth Shabo, Charles Siewert, Michael Tye, and Chase Wrenn. I owe special thanks to my APA commentators Derek Ball and Martin Hahn; to the editor of and two referees for Mind; and to David Chalmers, Robert Howell, and Derk Pereboom. 11 Ball, Derek 2009: 'There Are No Phenomenal Concepts'. Mind, 118, pp. 935-62. Block, Ned, Flanagan, Owen, and Güzeldere, Güven (eds) 1997: The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates. Cambridge: MIT Press. Block, Ned 2006: 'Max Black's Objection to Mind-Body Identity'. In Zimmerman 2006, pp. 3-78. Brueckner, Anthony 1986: 'Brains in a Vat'. Journal of Philosophy, 83, pp. 148-67. Burge, Tyler 1979: 'Individualism and the Mental'. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 4, pp. 73-121. --1982: 'Other Bodies'. In Woodfield 1982, pp. 97-120. --1986: 'Intellectual Norms and the Foundations of Mind'. Journal of Philosophy, 83, pp. 697-720. --1993: 'Concepts, Definitions, and Meaning'. Metaphilosophy, 24, pp. 309-25. Chalmers, David J. and Jackson, Frank 2001: 'Conceptual Analysis and Reductive Explanation'. Philosophical Review, 110, pp. 315-61. Chalmers, David J. 2004: 'Phenomenal Concepts and the Knowledge Argument'. In Ludlow, Stoljar, and Nagasawa 2004, pp. 269-98. --2010a: 'The Two-Dimensional Argument Against Materialism'. In his 2010b, pp. 141-205. --2010b: The Character of Consciousness. New York: Oxford University Press. Donnellan, Keith S. 1977: 'The Contingent A Priori and Rigid Designators'. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 2, pp. 12-27. Harman, Gilbert and Davidson Donald (eds) 1972: The Semantics of Natural Language. Dordrecht: Reidel. Hill, Christopher S. 1997: 'Imaginability, Conceivability, Possibility, and the Mind-Body Problem'. Philosophical Studies, 87, pp. 61-85. Howell, Robert J. 2011: 'The Knowledge Argument and the Implications of Phenomenal Knowledge'. Philosophy Compass, 6, pp. 459-68. --forthcoming: Subjective Physicalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jackson, Frank 1982: 'Epiphenomenal Qualia'. Philosophical Quarterly, 32, pp. 127-36. --1986: 'What Mary Didn't Know'. Journal of Philosophy, 83, pp. 291-95. --1995: 'Postscript'. In Moser and Trout 1995, pp. 184-89. --1998a: 'Postscript on Qualia'. In his 1998b, pp. 76-79. --1998b: Mind, Method, and Conditionals: Selected Essays. London: Routledge. --2003: 'Mind and Illusion'. In O'Hear 2003, pp. 251-71. 12 --2007: 'The Knowledge Argument, Diaphanousness, Representationalism'. In Alter and Walter 2007, pp. 65-76. Kirk, Robert 2005: Zombies and Consciousness. New York: Oxford University Press. Kripke, S. 1972: 'Naming and Necessity'. In Harman and Davidson 1972, pp. 253-355. Levine, Joseph 1983: 'Materialism and Qualia: The Explanatory Gap'. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 64, pp. 354-61. Loar, Brian 1997: 'Phenomenal States'. In Block, Flanagan, and Güzeldere 1997, pp. 597-616. Adapted from a version in Philosophical Perspectives, 4, 1990. Ludlow, Peter, Stoljar, Nagasawa, Yujin, and Stoljar, Daniel (eds) 2004: There's Something about Mary: Essays on Phenomenal Consciousness and Frank Jackson's Knowledge Argument. Cambridge: MIT Press. Metzinger, Thomas (ed) 1995: Conscious Experience. Exeter: Imprint Academic. Moser, Paul K. and Trout, J. D. (ed) 1995: Contemporary Materialism: A Reader. New York: Routledge. Nagel, Thomas 1974: What Is It Like To Be a Bat? Philosophical Review, 83, pp. 435-50. Nida-Rümelin, Martine 1995: 'What Mary Couldn't Know: Belief about Phenomenal States'. In Metzinger 1995, pp. 219-42. O'Hear, Anthony (ed.) 2003: Minds and Persons: Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 53. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Papineau, David 2002: Thinking about Consciousness. New York: Oxford University Press. --2007: 'Phenomenal and Perceptual Concepts'. In Alter and Walter 2007, pp. 111-44. Pereboom, Derk 1995: 'Conceptual Structure and the Individuation of Content'. Philosophical Perspectives, 9, pp. 401-26. Putnam, Hilary 1970: 'Is Semantics Possible?'. In his 1975b, pp. 139-51. Originally published in Metaphilosophy, 1, 1970. --1975a: 'The Meaning of "Meaning"'. In Putnam 1975b, pp. 215-71. Originally published in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 7, 1975. --1975b: Mind, Language, and Reality: Philosophical Papers Volume 2. New York: Cambridge University Press. Rabin, Gabriel 2011: 'Conceptual Mastery and the Knowledge Argument'. Philosophical Studies, 154, pp. 125-47. Stoljar, Daniel 2005: 'Physicalism and Phenomenal Concepts'. Mind and Language, 20, pp. 469-94. Tye, Michael 2000: Consciousness, Color, and Content. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 13 --2009: Consciousness Revisited: Materialism without Phenomenal Concepts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Woodfield, Andrew (ed) 1982: Thought and Object: Essays on Intentionality. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Zimmerman, Dean (ed) 2006: Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, Volume 2. New York: Oxford University Press. | {
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Navigating between Chaos and Bureaucracy: Backgrounding Trust in Open-Content Communities Paul B. de Laat Faculty of Philosophy, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands [email protected] Abstract. Many virtual communities that rely on user-generated content (such as social news sites, citizen journals, and encyclopedias in particular) offer unrestricted and immediate 'write access' to every contributor. It is argued that these communities do not just assume that the trust granted by that policy is well-placed; they have developed extensive mechanisms that underpin the trust involved ('backgrounding'). These target contributors (stipulating legal terms of use and developing etiquette, both underscored by sanctions) as well as the contents contributed by them (patrolling for illegal and/or vandalist content, variously performed by humans and bots; voting schemes). Backgrounding trust is argued to be important since it facilitates the avoidance of bureaucratic measures that may easily cause unrest among community members and chase them away. Keywords: access, bots, bureaucracy, etiquette, open content, trust, vandalism, Wikipedia 1 Introduction Online communities that thrive on user-generated content come in various formats. Contents may vary considerably-from text, photographs, videos, designs and logos to source code. Furthermore, cooperation may range from 'loose' interaction: uploaded contents are presented as-is-to 'tight' interaction: an evolving product is being worked on collectively. This distinction in patterns of cooperation is referred to by Dutton (2008) as 'contributing 2.0' vs. 'co-creation 3.0'. Typical examples of the former are Flickr and YouTube, of the latter Wikipedia and open source software. These communities face the dilemma of determining which contributors are to be accepted as members and how contributions are to be processed and published. Some communities take a cautious approach: only some categories of people are allowed to contribute, and their contributions are critically examined, by filtering before reception or moderating afterwards. A typical example is the Encyclopedia of Earth which only accepts input from acknowledged experts. Moreover, their appointed 'topic editors' decide who is to write the entries and who is to participate in reviewing them. In the end they have to approve of entries appearing in a public version. Other communities, though, prefer to hand out a generous invitation to their 'crowds' in order to maximize possible returns. This consists of two parts: (1) Anyone is invited to contribute content without any restrictions on entry; accordingly, access is fully open to anyone who cares to contribute; (2) Contents contributed are subsequently accepted with no questions asked and appear right away in the appropriate place. Publication proceeds without review and without delay. In terms of Goldman (2008): no filtering is applied at the reception stage. Which communities typically practice this two-fold institutional gesture? Let me mention some of them in so far as they predominantly revolve around soliciting and reworking of text. I select these since it seems especially with text that the whole spectrum from contribution (2.0) to co-creation (3.0) unfolds; activities in communities which focus on other kinds of content most often remain at the level of contributing. 1 The first category is 'social news' sites that focus on creating a collective discussion about topics in the news that are deemed to be relevant. The formula is basically the same for all: users are invited to submit news stories and/or news links that will be put up for public discussion (comments). In this category we find Digg (http://digg.com; started in 2004) and Reddit (http://www.reddit.com; 2005) which focus on news of all kinds, and Slashdot (http://slashdot.org; 1997) and Hacker News (http://news.ycombinator.com; 2007) which focus on technology-related issues. 2 The second category is user-generated newspapers that have been around since 2004. NowPublic (http://www.nowpublic.com; 2005), Digital Journal (http://www.digitaljournal.com; 2006) and GroundReport (http://www.groundreport.com; 2006) invite everybody to become a citizen journalist and contribute their own articles, blog entries and/or images to the site, as well as leave comments on 1 These communities will be enumerated with their URL and year of foundation in brackets. 2 All websites referred to in text, footnotes, and references were last accessed on 21 September 2012. those of others. These contributions essentially remain unaltered. Wikinews (http://en.wikinews.org; also in language versions other than English; 2004) goes one step further: in the so-called 'news room' articles which have been submitted are polished further by fellow contributors (by means of a wiki). As soon as criticisms have been met, the article can officially appear on the 'front page'. The third and final category consists of user-generated encyclopedias. Many such communities exist (cf. de Laat 2012a), but only a few have adopted policies of open access and immediate publication. British h2g2 (http://h2g2.com; 2001) invites everybody to compose entries; these are put up on the site for public commentary. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org; also in many languages other than English; 2001) and Citizendium (http://en.citizendium.org; 2007) lean more towards co-creation by publishing new entries in an open-access wiki that allows other participants to instantaneously insert their own textual changes. 3 2 Trust This gesture of unrestricted and immediate access to the community platform (to be denoted 'write access') 4 can be interpreted as a form of 'institutionalized' trust towards prospective participants. 5 The italics are employed in order to stress two particular points. On the one hand, the gesture is an institutional one: we are dealing here with the ways in which an institution approaches the members it depends on, not with interpersonal trust. On the other hand, the gesture embodies the presumption that prospective participants are willing to contribute content with good intentions and to the best of their capabilities. Their trustworthiness in terms of moral intentions and capabilities is taken for granted. Notice that different capabilities are involved across the various communities. Social news sites aim to stimulate lively debates about current issues. Therefore, the required capabilities concern being able to take a normative stand and provide supporting arguments. Mastering the rules for discussion (rhetoric) is vital. Encyclopedic projects, on the other hand, aim to produce state-of–the-art knowledge about issues that are deemed relevant. Hence, participants should have adequate capabilities to contribute knowledge; their epistemic qualities are sought after. Citizen journals occupy a position in between. They are looking for both kinds of capabilities, since journal articles usually require both reporting of the facts and commenting on them. Good news is a judicious blend of fact and opinion. That trust is at issue here can easily be seen from the fact that all the communities concerned are exposing their respective repositories of content and entrusting them as it were to the whims of the masses. They have decided to rely fully on their volunteers, thereby making themselves vulnerable and taking risks. Discussion sites, published news reports and encyclopedic entries can easily be polluted and spoiled by all kinds of disruptive actions. As Wikipedia defines the matter, 'cranks' may insert nonsense, 'flamers' and 'trolls' may enjoy fomenting trouble, 'amateurs' may ruin factual reporting, 'partisans' may smuggle in their personal opinion where this is inappropriate, and 'advertisers' may just try to promote their products anywhere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:RCO). Repositories polluted in this way undermine the viability of any community, and necessitate laborious cleanups. Given this gesture of fully trusting potential participants and giving them write access accordingly, what mechanisms of trusting others may be relied on in the process? What processes possibly lie behind it? In the sequel I discuss three well-known mechanisms to handle the trust problem: the assumption, inference, and substitution of trust. Subsequently, I argue for a fourth mechanism that seems to have been neglected in the literature thus far: backgrounding trust. In this approach the gesture of full trust is underpinned by developing support mechanisms in the background that render the trust-as-default rule rational in a reductionist way. First and foremost, the trust involved may be the simple assumption that the crowds are trustworthy. Trustworthiness is assumed without any particular evidence to support that assumption. This assumption is not made without reason; its rationale, as observed by Gambetta decades ago, is that precisely by acting as if trust is 3 These communities will serve as cases to be analysed further on in this article. Note that while they practiced unrestricted and immediate access from the outset, some of them recently have been pondering-or actually resorted to-more restrictive editorial policies: filtering before reception (to be commented on below). 4 This term is in use among developers working together on open source software. As a rule, anyone may access the site and inspect the contents ('read access'). When participants have proven their skills, they may acquire the additional right to directly contribute code to a project's source code tree: they have obtained 'write access'. 5 Note that such usage of the term 'trust' as exercised by institutional actors harks back to Alan Fox, who proposed to interpret organizational regimes ('work role patterns') in terms of the amount of trust granted by organizations to their members (Fox 1974). In this instance the institution is neither conceived of as a producer of trust ('institutional-based trust'; Zucker 1986), nor as an object of trust ('system trust'; Luhmann 1979). Instead, the analysis casts the institution in the role of a trusting party, a 'trustor'. present, one may actually produce it in the process (Gambetta 1988). In Luhmannian terms: the gesture of trust creates a normative pressure to respond likewise. The act of trust can thus be seen as an investment that it is hoped will pay off (Luhmann 1979). Can any good reasons be advanced for the assumption? What mechanism may be argued to underlie the said normative pressure? In line with Luhmann, Pettit (1995) argued that esteem is the driving force. Since people are sensitive to the esteem of others, they will answer an act of trust with trust as it enables them to reap the esteem that is being offered to them. As elaborated before (de Laat 2010: 332), this interpretation of the normative force of trust does not seem wholly convincing in the case of open-content communities. While esteem surely is a driving force, it would seem to be an underlying one, not a paramount one. A more forceful interpretation obtains if we move away from this calculating conception of as-if trust to another conception that is based on a vision of and hope in the capabilities of others. As argued by McGeer (2008), showing trust may be rooted in the hope of challenging others to apply their capabilities in return. These others are not manipulated but empowered to show their capacities and further develop them. The trusting party puts his/her bets on a utopian future. 6 Such reasoning can in a straightforward fashion be applied to our open-content communities since the capabilities that are the cornerstone of this McGeerian vision have quite specific connotations here. By granting unrestricted and immediate access, crowd members are challenged to show their capacities of commenting, reporting news, or contributing reliable knowledge. They are invited to fulfil the promise of a community of exciting, newsworthy, or encyclopedic content. A second way to handle the tensions that a trusting gesture generates is to infer trustworthiness. One looks for indicators that inspire confidence in the other(s) as a trusted partner: perceived individual characteristics like family background, sex, or ethnicity, belonging to a shared culture, connection(s) to respected institutions, or reputation based on performance in the past (this argument can be traced back to Zucker (1986). Moreover, the calculative balance of costs and benefits may seem to preclude a non-cooperative outcome. As argued before (in de Laat 2010: 330-31), I do not believe that an open-content community operating in cyberspace has many reliable indicators to cling to. Virtual identities are always precarious; the anonymity of contributors only aggravates this problem. Even the common requirement to register and choose a user name (or even disclose one's real name) hardly alleviates the problem (cf. de Laat 2012a). Moreover, contributors often just enter and leave, precluding any stable identity let alone the formation of a reputation. To sum up: signalling trustworthiness cannot be implemented in a reliable way. While the inference of trust has rightly been regarded a central component of processes of trust formation in real life, I do not think it has much value in the virtual surroundings of open-content communities. 7 A third way to handle the problem of trust may be referred to as the substitution of trust. Wherever people interact continuously and some kind of community emerges, rules, regulations, and procedures tend to be introduced. Often these enact restrictions on behavioural possibilities. As a result, reliance on participants' wisdom and judgment in contributing is reduced; their actions become less discretionary. As a corollary, the need to grant them trust is lessened; the problem of trust is partly eliminated. The introduction of a bureaucratic structure of the kind effectively substitutes for the need to estimate-or assume-participants as being trustworthy. Below, evidence is presented on some of our open-content communities recently instituting restrictive rules and regulations: filtering incoming content prior to publication. Write access thus becomes circumscribed and regulated. However, a fourth mechanism to deal with the tensions of an all-out policy of trust is to be distinguished. It embodies efforts, in the absence of reliable inference, to create a middle road between relying on the normative power of trust on the one hand, and (partly) eliminating the problem by substitution on the other hand. In this approach the default rule of all-out trust is kept intact by underpinning it in the background with corrective mechanisms that contain the possible damage inflicted by malevolent and/or incapable contributors. To my knowledge, this approach, to be referred to as backgrounding trust, has been neglected in the literature up to the present. As we will see, the supportive mechanisms themselves are not unknown, but their corrective function for keeping the default rule of trust intact has largely gone unnoticed. 3 Backgrounding Trust 6 McGeer uses the term 'substantial' trust, as opposed to the shallow trust Pettit is supposed to refer to. I prefer to avoid the former term since, in my view, not another type of trust is being defined, but just a different mechanism for generating trust ex post that actors may supposedly rely on ex ante. 7 To be fair, though, it should be remarked that in many virtual trading communities reputation systems have been built that do provide more solid grounds for inferring trust. I propose that several types of backgrounding can be distinguished (to be elaborated below in further detail). First, a cultural offensive can be launched to curb potential vandals: legal terms of use and an etiquette of sorts that defines proper behaviour are developed and propagated. Secondly, these standards of behaviour can be underscored by defining sanctions and disciplinary measures. Participants who deviate too much from the ground rules for constructive cooperation may be punished and ultimately expelled from the community. Thirdly, structural schemes can be introduced that aim to guarantee the quality of the community's contents. These range from relatively simple vandalism patrol schemes up to voting and quality enhancement programs. The bottom line for all three activities is that they may-at least partly-contribute to sustaining the rationality of the decision to maintain an editorial policy of all-out trust. They serve to keep the default rule of full trust in place. 3.1 Legal Terms and Etiquette As a consequence of their full-trust write access policy, our open-content communities are quite vulnerable to disruptive behaviour, from posting illegal content to vandalist actions. As a way of defence they are first of all trying to lay down legal guidelines. Plagiarism, libel, defamation, illegal content and the like are strictly forbidden. This is considered the baseline for proper behaviour since deviations from them would land the site in legal trouble. Interestingly, though, our communities under study also promote 'good manners' beyond these legal terms of use. An etiquette is formulated for regulating mutual interactions on their sites. Leaving Wikinews and Wikipedia aside for the moment (see below), all of them stress the same kind of exhortations in their 'community guidelines', 'house rules', 'netiquette', or 'rediquette'-albeit to varying degrees. 8 On the positive side, members are urged to always remain respectful, polite, and civil; to stay calm; to be patient, tolerant, and forgiving; to behave responsibly; and/or to stay on topic at all times. On the negative side, the list of interdictions is much longer. One is urged to refrain from calling names, offensive language, harassment, and hate speech. Flaming and trolling are sharply condemned. Commercial spam and advertisements are declared out of bounds. Flooding a site with materials that are offensive, objectionable, misleading, or simply false only amount to an objectionable waste of the site's resources (nicknamed 'crapflooding'). Finally, let us consider Wikinews and Wikipedia. Both under the umbrella of the Wikimedia Foundation, they have adopted virtually the same etiquette (called: Wikiquette). It is in fact the most extended set of rules for polite behaviour in open-content communities to be found anywhere on the Net. Assuming good faith on the part of others-and showing it yourself- is the starting point. Help others in correcting their mistakes and always work towards agreement. Remain civil and polite at all times: discuss and argue, instead of insulting, harassing or personally attacking people. Be open and warm. Give praise, and forgive and forget where necessary. Overall, several pages are devoted to the subject (http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Etiquette; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiquette). 3.2 Enforcement Both legal rules and etiquette cannot operate without some mechanism of enforcement. With all the communities above, without exception, sanctioning of deviant users has become the normal state of affairs. Users who (repeatedly) flout the rules of etiquette-let alone the legal rules-can be banned from the community for some period of time, or even forever. As a rule the professional editors employed by the site ('editorial team') simply assume these judicial powers themselves. With others, site volunteers are entrusted with the task. At h2g2, these are appointed for the job (as 'moderators') by the staff of the company which owns the site (formerly the BBC). The pair of Wikipedia and Wikinews appoints candidates with a procedure that relies on public consultation of the community ('administrators'). Citizendium does likewise ('constables'). 8 The observations that follow are based on a range of sources: digg.com.tos, http://www.reddit.com/help/reddiquette, http://slashdot.org/faq, http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, http://www.nowpublic.com/newsroom/tips/fine_print/flaming_policy, http://www.nowpublic.com/newsroom/community/code_of_conduct, http://digitaljournal.com/article/179808, http://www.groundreport.com/content.php?section=editorial, http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:About, http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/A901838, and http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/A87523211. The mechanisms of rules and sanctions taken together send the message: respect legal terms of use and be civil and polite-otherwise risk expulsion. Notice how these may impact on the employed policy of unrestricted and immediate access. That policy assumes the trustworthiness of the participants from the outset. Inculcating respect for legal issues and rules of etiquette then may serve to create trustworthiness where it is found to be lacking-afterwards. Whenever the assumption of trustworthiness appears unwarranted, that defect can (at least partly) be repaired afterwards. As a result, the full write-access policy is underpinned and can possibly remain in force after all. 'Backgrounding', as I shall call this phenomenon, keeps confidence in full-trust as the default intact. I would argue, however, that these mechanisms can do just so much. They can only possibly 'educate' participants who are staying longer. Newcomers, who are the most likely source of mischief, can hardly be supposed to have read let alone internalized the rules involved upon entry. As a result, the campaign for legal and civil conscience has no effect on them, and the full-trust policy remains vulnerable to their abuse. Therefore we now turn to structural means that may support the full-trust policy. No longer the dispositions of people but the contents they actually contribute come into focus. I shall argue that these tools are ultimately able to do a more powerful job of sustaining that policy. 3.3 Quality Management The term 'quality management' is used with quite a broad meaning: it refers to both rating and (for dynamic entries) raising the quality of contributed content, throughout the whole quality range, from low to high. At the lower end, the mess of clearly inappropriate content that flouts basic legal terms of use or etiquette has to be cleaned up. Beyond these tasks of 'basic cleaning' (as I shall label them) the quality of the content-as far as it has passed the former test of scrutiny-can be monitored continuously and (in case of dynamic content) raised ever further. Such quality schemes may already be the normal modus operandi (cf. the wiki format); they may also be developed as additional mechanisms by the communities involved since they consider their basic mode to be an insufficient guarantee of quality. Social News Sites and Citizen Journals. Social news sites and citizen journals (apart from Wikinews) are usefully treated together since all operate in the 'contributing 2.0' mode. These solicit stories (whether existing-for social news sites, or newly composed-for citizen journals) and comments on them. The tasks of basic cleaning are performed (afterwards) by the editorial teams involved: they scout their sites continuously for illegal and inappropriate content. Usually, site visitors are also solicited to report 'violations'. Any content of the kind-whether illegal content, flooding, spamming, advertising, hate speech or abusive language-is immediately dealt with and deleted; those who posted them are reprimanded or, after repeated violations, banned from the site. 9 Such basic cleaning can however just achieve so much: the quality of the contents above the baseline of appropriate content remains an issue. In order to tackle this thornier problem these sites have pioneered a novel approach: stories and comments can be voted on, usually as either a plus or a minus. As a rule, all users are entitled to vote. Note, though, that some communities require registration, and in Slashdot the right to vote obtains for a limited amount of time only. Let me elaborate these schemes. Digg has pioneered 'digging': if a user 'likes' the content, it is digged (+1), if (s)he 'dislikes' it, it is buried (-1). GroundReport has adopted the very same scheme. Reddit, Hacker News, and Slashdot use the more neutral wording of voting for the process: a plus if entries are found to be 'helpful', 'interesting', or 'constructive', a minus if they are not. Finally, NowPublic and Digital Journal only allow plus votes, for articles deemed 'newsworthy'. The sum total of votes then determines the prominence of articles on the site. By default, stories (on the front page) and comments on them (below each story) are displayed in chronological order of submission, with the most recent ones on top. Entries thus have a natural rate of decay. Voting data, fed into one algorithm or another, then force the liked items to remain longer on top of the page (countering natural decay), while at the same time forcing the disliked items-at least as far as 'dislikes' are part of the scheme-to plunge down the page quicker (accelerating natural decay). 10 Slashdot uses a slight variation: with vote totals for items being limited to the range -1 to + 5, readers can choose their own personal threshold level to determine whether items become visible to them or not when they enter the site. Thus articles of bad repute are no longer punished by being pushed down the page, but by being 'deleted' for all practical purposes. 9 In Reddit, those who start a 'subreddit' usually are awarded the same powers for their particular subreddit. 10 Some basics of these algorithms are elaborated in http://www.seomoz.org/blog/reddit-stumbleupondelicious-and-hacker-news-algorithms-exposed. Encyclopedias and Wikinews. The remaining communities in my sample operate in proper 'co-creation 3.0' mode (Wikinews and encyclopedias). They also resort to basic cleaning concerning illegal or inappropriate content; in addition they have introduced elaborate quality schemes that go beyond simple voting. Let me start with h2g2 that does not use the wiki format, but just old-fashioned commenting. Tasks of basic cleaning are executed by the aforementioned volunteer 'moderators' (as appointed by the owner). As they phrase it, someone has to 'clean the flotsam'. In addition, they decide on banning users who are found to be in violation. Higher up the quality scale, authors may strive for their article to appear in the 'edited guide'. To that end, it has to be put up for public review, be recommended by a 'scout', and edited by 'subeditors'. Notice that these two roles (volunteer roles one has to apply for) are intended to support authors, as opposed to control them. They are urged to operate as 'first among equals'. Citizendium, Wikipedia, and Wikinews have the wiki mode of production in common. This wiki is the place to carry out basic cleaning of illegal and inappropriate contents. Users are always on the alert regarding the content, allowed to immediately correct new edits in the wiki, and invited to 'report' any transgressor to the authorities concerned (constables and administrators respectively). The three communities have quite similar procedures as well for identifying and promoting high quality content (apart from normal 'wikiing'). In Citizendium an entry may gain the status of 'approved'. To that end, an appointed moderator (denoted 'editor') has to give his/her approval. This role incumbent is also to exercise 'gentle oversight' concerning matters of evolving content. So here again, as in h2g2, a non-authoritarian role, a 'primus inter pares'. Wikinews and Wikipedia, on their part, elaborated wholly public procedures for entries to gain the status of 'good' article, or even 'featured' article: an article that meets 'professional standards of writing, presentation and sourcing' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_criteria). As a preliminary step towards acquiring such a status an entry may be put up for public 'peer review' first. Wikipedia in particular, though, over time has come to develop additional efforts of quality management that supplement the basic wiki mode of production. The most extended quality-watch program anywhere in our communities is to be found here. It revolves around a kind of permanent mobilisation of Wikipedians who are invited to focus their energies on quality enhancement. In their fight against 'vandalism' basic cleaning is high on the agenda. Users can maintain personal 'watch lists': listed entries are kept under surveillance for new edits coming in. 'New Pages Patrol' is a system for users to scan newly created entries for potential problems right after they are submitted. Furthermore hundreds of software bots have been developed for the purpose. After severe testing and public discussion within the Wikipedian community, these may be 'let loose' on a 24 hours basis. A famous example is Cluebot, which is instructed to intervene whenever suspicious words are inserted ('black lists') or whole pages deleted (http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/~carter11/ClueBot.pdf). The 'new generation' CluebotNG operates along quite different lines: as a neural network. The bot has to be fed with both constructive and vandalist edits. By interpreting those data it is hoped that it will learn in the long run to correctly diagnose instances of vandalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ClueBot_NG). Close watch also extends beyond the issue of vandalism. Wikipedian pages and articles are under constant surveillance whether they should be kept, deleted, merged, redirected, or 'transwikied' (meaning: transferred to another Wikimedia project). More importantly, in order to raise the quality of entries further, 'WikiProjects' (with subordinate 'taskforces') are formed in which people focus on specific themes (such as classical music or Australia). Each project takes the relevant entries under its wing and promotes improvement. In particular they are entrusted with the task of grading the articles in their purview by quality (7 degrees, the highest being featured and good, cf. above) and importance (4 degrees) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide). Last but not least, tools are made available to users which allow judging the credibility of entries from their revision histories. The WikiDashboard displays the edit trends of an article, and the editing activities of the most active contributors to it (Suh et al. 2008). Furthermore, the WikiTrust extension colours words in an entry according to their 'age', as proxy for their credibility (Adler et al. 2008). The colour chosen is orange: the 'younger' the text, the darker the orange it is rendered in. Contributors to Wikipedia may use these indicators for focussed quality enhancement of entries. Intensity of Quality Control. Before embarking on a discussion of the relationship between measures of quality control and trust, let me first put them in a comparative perspective across the whole range of the open-content communities under study. Legal rules and etiquette (3.1 and 3.2) seem to be emphasized throughout, in about equal measure. This stands to reason, since these revolve around behavioural norms of trust and respect which are universally applicable to all communities of open textual content. Not so however for quality management efforts: these are clearly intensifying if we move towards the encyclopedic end of the range. For one thing, patrolling for improper content is increasing. For another, voting schemes make way for a variety of teams that focus on quality within the wiki mode. Why this more intense mobilisation? I want to argue that this is mainly due to the different types of content involved. Social news sites aim to foster discussions; an exciting exchange of opinions is what they are after. These discussions, moreover, have a kind of topicality-in the long run their importance simply fades away. To that end, a 'contributing 2.0' mode is sufficient. In order to guarantee quality in this mode, scouting for inappropriate content combined with voting schemes is good enough: good discussions will remain in view (longer), while bad discussions will disappear out of sight (quicker). The natural tendency for time to produce 'decay' is intensified. To citizen journals, furthermore, similar arguments apply. Encyclopedias, however, aim to render the 'facts' about particular matters. Such entries cannot be produced in one go, but have to evolve over time. Moreover, such entries are to remain permanently visible, ready to be consulted. For the purpose, 'co-creation 3.0' is the preferred mode: Wikipedia, Wikinews, and Citizendium have chosen the interactive wiki format as their mode of production (which does not necessarily have to be so: h2g2 prefers a 'contributing' approach). Obviously, such a dynamic mode is susceptible to disruptions. Watching over quality therefore becomes a more urgent and permanent task. For that purpose, the wiki is turned into a space of intense patrolling and quality enhancement efforts. Backgrounding Trust by Quality Control. After this assessment of quality management efforts across our sample of open-content communities, their connection with the default rule of full trust concerning write access finally remains to be specified. To what extent may this institutionalized trust be said to be 'backgrounded' by quality control? As far as this control is concerned with basic cleaning tasks, there is a connection. Scouting for inappropriate or outright vandalist contributions-whether inside a wiki or not, whether by special volunteer patrol teams or the editorial team only, whether by humans or bots-combined with appropriate corrective action and disciplining of transgressors, is a contribution to keep the policy of full write access viable. Since disruptive contributions can always be sifted out afterwards, the gates may remain open to all. 'Backgrounding' of the kind may effectively allow unrestricted and immediate write access to remain the default. The same may apply to voting schemes in order to push high quality articles to a prominent and/or visible position (social news and citizen journals). To the extent that the communities involved consider it a basic aspect of quality that contributions display a minimum amount of decency and relevance, such schemes do contribute to keep their practice of full write access intact. 11 However, remaining efforts under the rubric of quality control-which aim to promote really high quality-are not likewise connected to trust: the efforts to promote articles to the 'edited guide' (h2g2), to develop 'approved' articles (Citizendium), or to produce 'good' or 'featured' articles (Wikinews, Wikipedia). These on-going initiatives cannot be considered to support the institutional trust exhibited. Instead, rather the reverse applies: they profit from and thrive on this policy of full-write access for everybody, since it solicits a maximum inflow of contributions. 4 Discussion As regards quality management (3.3) critics may object that the relevant rules, regulations, and procedures cannot neatly be sorted into those that either substitute or background trust (or, in reverse fashion, profit from it); they are just variations on the same theme of concern for quality that only differ in the temporality of their application. I would argue, however, that the distinction is sound and important. My argument proceeds along the following lines. On the one hand, schemes for quality control can aim directly at the discretion of participants and reduce it (e.g., filtering). This reduction of discretion by definition leaves less-than-full-trust to participants. As a corollary, hierarchical distinctions among participants need to be defined (such as determining who is entitled to carry out 11 Backgrounding trust in this fashion has an analogue in the epistemology of testimony. A default rule of accepting speakers' utterances as true (under normal conditions) may be adhered to for non-reductionist, a priori reasons (cf. the acceptance principle). Reductionist reasoning though may also support the default rule: background evidence from our testimonial practice (like truthfulness as the norm, or reputations and sanctions) is considered to provide sufficient reasons for acceptance (for all this cf. Adler 2006). Note though that in the classic epistemological case, backgrounding has to do with the perception of mechanisms that operate within the community of speakers who send the messages. In our case, it has to do with the active creation of filtering and grading mechanisms within the community of readers who receive the messages. filtering, and who is to be subjected to it). 12 If so, some amount of bureaucracy proper has been introduced into the community. Note finally, that the substitution of trust as effectuated is precisely the intention of such schemes. On the other hand, measures of quality control can also buttress policies of write access for all (e.g., scouting and patrolling for vandalism, whether by humans or bots; voting schemes). Institutionalized full trust remains a viable option because of the 'damage repair options' that are unfolding. As long as these schemes take care to mobilize the whole community, they can avoid introducing hierarchical distinctions. Furthermore, the supporting effect on institutionalized trust towards participants is more properly a side effect; the main focus of such campaigns is quality overall. Obviously, besides these two categories, quality management initiatives can be discerned that do not likewise touch upon our issue of institutional trust. The above mentioned quality rating schemes are cases in point: they more properly thrive on the full-trust-policy. The contrast can best be captured in terms of the trust assumptions embodied in the various write access policies involved. In the case of patrolling new inputs and new contributors and of voting schemes (as well as quality watch schemes more generally), the assumption of full trust of potential participants is left intact and untouched. The default remains: 'we trust your inputs, unless proved otherwise.' In the case of filtering which reduces the trust offered, this default is exchanged for quite another one: 'we can no longer afford to trust your inputs, and accordingly first have to check them carefully.' In line with the above I want to underline that backgrounding trust in open-content communities is very important for their functioning. The mechanism allows the full-trust write access policy to remain in force. By the same token, other available mechanisms to manage the trust problem do not have to be resorted to. In particular, the substitution of trust by installing bureaucratic measures can be avoided. Before elaborating this point let me first provide some examples of steps towards bureaucracy as considered or actually taken by our communities. The Slashdot editorial team routinely scans incoming stories and only accepts the 'most interesting, timely, and relevant' ones for posting to the homepage (http://slashdot.org/faq). Furthermore, since 2009, Now Public and GroundReport filter incoming news before publication (http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2009/06/citizen-journalism-networks-stepping-upeditorial-standards158.html). With the former, first articles from aspiring journalists are thoroughly checked by the editorial team; subsequent ones may go live immediately and are only checked afterwards (http://www.nowpublic.com/newsroom/community/faq). With the latter, the site's editors have to give their approval to all proposed articles prior to publication. Only reporters with a 'strong track record' have full write access (http://www.groundreport.com/info.php?action=faq&questionID=1). In the Wikimedia circuit, finally, proposals for checking incoming edits for vandalism before publication have been circulating for several years; only after approval are edits to become publicly visible. Such review is to be carried out by experienced users. In this fashion, evidently, trust in newcomers gets restricted. The proposal is actually in force in a number of their projects from 2008 onwards: Wikipedia and Wiktionary (German versions), as well as Wikinews and Wikibooks (English versions). 13 14 Why then would it be important to avoid bureaucracy? The answer is that such measures may meet a chilly reception and cause unrest and trouble among community members. A conspicuous example of such unrest is the heavy contestation of the system of reviewing edits prior to publication (called Flagged Revisions) in English Wikipedia: the proposal encountered fierce resistance and finally had to be abandoned (cf. de Laat 2012b). Community members may simply detest bureaucratic rules and threaten to withdraw their commitment accordingly. That is why backgrounding trust is such an important mechanism. 15 Note also in this context the conspicuous role of software bots in Wikipedia. These have been and still are very active in detecting vandalism-often ahead of flesh and blood patrollers. The home page of Cluebot is full of 'barn stars' from coWikipedians, awarded since the bot had detected vandalist edits before them, in just a few seconds. Reportedly it 12 Cf. by way of analogy the common distinction between developers and observers in open source software projects. 13 The proposal is also in force in several smaller language versions other than English, German, or French (cf. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Flagged_Revisions). 14 In our sample it is editorial teams (social news sites, citizen journals), moderators (h2g2), constables (Citizendium) and administrators (Wikipedia, Wikinews) who hold the powers to clean up messy content and/or to discipline members. Obviously, these power holders also represent bureaucracy-the difference from the filtering measures mentioned being, that no community members seem to be opposed to such a baseline of bureaucracy. 15 Note in this respect how some of our communities try to bolster the quality process by introducing specific supportive roles that are intended as 'prime among equals' (cf. 'editors' in Citizendium, and 'subeditors' in h2g2). Their intention is clearly to avoid introducing hierarchical relations in this fashion. But trying to operate as such a 'primus' is walking a tight rope: in his/her performance, the role occupant may easily come to be perceived as an ordinary boss. identifies, overall, about one vandalist edit per minute (over a thousand per day). Due to Cluebot and its like, Flagged Revisions were not inevitable and the plans could be shelved. Recently both Simon (2010) and Tollefsen (2009) asked themselves the question: can users rely on Wikipedia? In their affirmative answers they pointed to editorial mechanisms in place that may ensure high quality: the wiki format with associated talk pages (Simon 2010: 348), and the procedure for acquiring 'good' or 'featured' status (Tollefsen 2009: 22). My question has been a slightly different one: can Wikipedia trust their users and grant them unrestricted and immediate write access? No wonder my answer-though equally affirmative-turns out to be slightly different. Contributors can fully be trusted since swift procedures to filter low quality submissions afterwards are in place. In complementary fashion, a continuous campaign among participants promotes respect for etiquette and basic rules of law. References Adler, B. T., Chatterjee, K., de Alfaro, L., Faella, M., Pye, I., Raman, V. Assigning trust to Wikipedia content. Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Wikis (WikiSym '08), 8–10 September 2008, Porto, Portugal. Obtained from http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1822258.1822293 (2008). Adler, J. Epistemological problems of testimony. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Obtained from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/testimony-episprob/ (2006). Dutton, W.H. The wisdom of collaborative network organizations: Capturing the value of networked individuals. Prometheus, 26(3): 211-230 (2008). Fox, A. Beyond Contract: Work, Power and Trust Relations. Faber and Faber, London (1974). Gambetta, D. Can we trust trust? In Gambetta, D. (ed.), Trust: Making and breaking cooperative relations, Blackwell: Oxford, pp. 213-237 (1988). Goldman, A.I. The social epistemology of blogging. In van den Hoven, J., Weckert, J. (eds.), Information Technology and Moral Philosophy, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge etc., pp. 111-22 (2008). de Laat, P.B. How can contributors to open-source communities be trusted? On the assumption, inference, and substitution of trust. Ethics and Information Technology, 12(4): 327-341 (2010). de Laat, P.B. Open source production of encyclopedias: Editorial policies at the intersection of organizational and epistemological trust. Social Epistemology, 26(1): 71-103 (2012a). de Laat, P.B. Coercion or empowerment? Moderation of content in Wikipedia as 'essentially contested' bureaucratic rules. Ethics and Information Technology, 14(2): 123-135 (2012b). Luhmann, N. Vertrauen: Ein Mechanismus der Reduktion sozialer Komplexität. 4th edition, Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart (2000; originally 1968). English translation published in Luhmann, N. Trust and Power. John Wiley, Chicester (1979). McGeer, V. Trust, hope and empowerment. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 86(2): 237-254 (2008). Pettit, Ph. The cunning of trust. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 24(3): 202-225 (1995). Simon, J. The entanglement of trust and knowledge on the Web. Ethics and Information Technology, 12(4): 343-355 (2010). Suh, B., Chi, E.H., Kittur, A., Pendleton, B.A. Lifting the veil: Improving accountability and social transparency in Wikipedia with WikiDashboard. Proceedings of the Twenty-sixth Annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 5–10 April 2008, Florence, Italy. Obtained from http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1357054.1357214 (2008). Tollefsen, D.P. Wikipedia and the epistemology of testimony. Episteme, 6(1): 8-24 (2009). Zucker, L.G. Production of trust: Institutional sources of economic structure, 1840-1920. Research in Organizational Behaviour, 8: 53-111 (1986). | {
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Michael Trestman The Cambrian Explosion and the Origins of Embodied Cognition Indiana University, Cognitive Science Cognitive Science Program 819 Eigenmann 1900 E. 10th St. Indiana University Bloomington, IN 47406-7512 [email protected] 1 912 856 4988 Keywords: Cambrian Explosion; Cognition; Evolution; Evolution of Cognition; Evo-devo; Animal Evolution; 2 The Cambrian Explosion and the Origins of Embodied Cognition Abstract Around 540 million years ago there was a sudden, dramatic adaptive radiation known as the Cambrian Explosion. This event marked the origin of almost all of the phyla (major lineages characterized by fundamental body plans) of animals that would ever live on earth, as well the appearance of many notable features such as rigid skeletons and other hard parts, complex jointed appendages, eyes, and brains. This radical evolutionary event has been a major puzzle for evolutionary biologists since Darwin, and while our understanding of it has recently improved with new fossil finds, richer molecular phylogenies, and better grasp of ecological, evolutionary, and developmental processes generally, unanswered questions remain. In this paper I argue that a basic cognitive toolkit for embodied, object-oriented, spatial cognition (what I call Basic Cognitive Embodiment) is a practical necessity for control of a large, mobile, complexly articulated body in space. This hypothesis allows us to relate the complexification of animal bodies to the complexification of perception, cognition and behavior in a way that can help to fill in gaps in our emerging picture of the Cambrian Explosion, as well as shed light on the deep evolutionary origins of the mind. What was the Cambrian explosion? It seems that until about 540 mya, all animals on Earth were small, slow, squishy, and stupid-in that they lacked brains (Northcutt 2012). Fauna from the preceding time period, the Ediacarian, reveal a diversity of animal body forms, most of which are completely unlike anything today. All of the Ediacarian animals were relatively simple in that they had few tissue types, lacked rigid skeletal elements, and probably had extremely limited capacities for energetic motion. Most of these animals were sessile filter-feeders with frond-like, tube-like or sac-like bodies, although some (e.g. Bomakellia, Kimbarella, Praecambridium sigillum, and Spriggina) have been interpreted-controversially-as early bilaterians with primitively segmented slug-like or worm-like bodies. Exotic forms of bodily symmetry existed which have no 3 counterparts among animals of the last half-billion years, such as the trilateral symmetry of the trilobozoans, or the pentamerous symmetry of Arkarua. All of these animals are difficult to place with any confidence on phylogenetic trees with living animals, because of the strangeness of their anatomies as well as the sketchy nature of the fossils. Classification remains controversial, with some authors assigning them to extant phyla, others proposing extinct phyla (e.g. proarticulata) within the metazoan crown group, and still others interpreting them as stem1 metazoa or even as belonging to a separate kingdom, vendobionta (Seilacher 1992). The only fossils from the Ediacarian that can be unambiguously assigned to a crown group are sponges (Narbonne 2005). The Chengjiang fauna, dated to only 15 million years later, in the early Cambrian, includes a diverse assemblage of animals among which an astounding array of bodies with complex, jointed appendages (including legs, fins, swimming lobes, antennae and complex feeding apparatuses), rigid skeletons, hard armored plates and spines, and sophisticated image-forming eyes (including both camera eyes and a variety of compound eyes) could be found. Although classification of many animals from this period remains controversial, probable representatives of every extant phylum can be found, except those that cannot be expected to leave fossil traces (Erwin 2011). The disparity between the Ediacarian and Cambrian faunas is striking, and cries out for explanation. In On the Origin of Species, Darwin noted the sudden appearance of the diverse Cambrian fauna2 as a 'grave difficulty' for his theory, and appealed to the possibility that earlier fossils had been obscured by geological processes (Darwin 1859 p. 306-310). However, we now have described fauna from before the lower Cambrian boundary, and the discontinuity cannot be ascribed to incompleteness in the fossil record. To make things even stranger, estimates of the time of ancestral divergence between extant clades, based on 'molecular clock' methods, tend to point to a much 1 The distinction between the stem and crown of a lineage of animals refers to whether or not a group is more distantly related to living members of the group than any other living members. So, for example, crown birds are all of the living birds, and all extinct birds that are as closely related to a living bird as the latter is to any other living bird. Stem birds like archaeopteryx diverged, by definition, from the lineage leading to living birds before the lineages of living birds diverged from each other. 2 Ediacarian fauna were not recognized until the mid 1900s (Narbonne 2005). 4 earlier origin of these groups of animals. Estimated divergence times vary widely3, but even conservative estimates point to a divergence of extant lineages well before the Cambrian boundary-i.e. before they appear clearly in the fossil record. The lineages leading to the phyla apparently diverged during the Ediacarian (as argued, e.g. by Peterson et. al. 2008) but were mostly represented by morphologically simple stem groups until the Cambrian. After the lower Cambrian boundary, crown metazoan groups began to radiate and evolve their characteristic modern morphologies to an extent that is recognizable in the fossil record. This remarkable time period-the Cambrian Explosion-marked the discernable appearance of all of the major 'bauplans'-fundamental modes of building a bodily architecture during development- characteristic of animals from then until the present. Each animal phylum4 would continue to evolve and diversify (with a few exceptions5), but in this initial radiation of form, each of the great lines would irreversibly take on a basic pattern of the development of form, which would both scaffold and constrain the evolutionary possibilities of the future. Deuterostomes, an idiosyncratic group defined by their development of an anus prior to developing a mouth, would soon give rise to the first vertebrates, our own lineage of animals with spines; by 530 MYA, Haikouichthys swam the ancient seas, an inch long fish-like animal with gills and proportionally large eyes, a chordate and perhaps even a crown vertebrate (Shu 2008). Arthropods had already devised their versatile signature developmental leitmotif of duplicating and differentiating body segments; by the middle of the Cambrian a spectacular diversity of arthropods inhabited the seas, including early crustaceans, tribolites, and fantastical creatures unlike anything found today, such as opabinia-which had five eyes and a striated trunk-like proboscis with a grasping claw at the end, and the ferocious anomolocarids, which were the largest known animals of 3 As an extreme example, Blair and Hedges (2005) argue, based on molecular evidence, that the deuterostome lineage originated 900 mya, and that jawed vertebrates had already split from agnathans (the group that includes lampreys and hagfish) some 652 mya, deep in the pre-Cambrian. Such early divergence estimates as well as the methods used to infer them are, however, highly controversial. 4 Phyla are major monophyletic lineages corresponding more or less to the fundamental bauplans. The exceptions being groups characterized by a common bauplan that are probably paraphyletic, such as porifera, which probably encompasses bilateria, and rotifera, which encompasses acanthocephalan (Collins and Valentine 2001). 5 This is not entirely true. Incredibly, some phyla are represented by only one or a few species and are extremely simple. Perhaps these remarkable animals have remained largely unchanged since the Cambrian earlier. Examples include Placozoa, Micrognathozoa, Xenoturbella, Cycliophora and Phoronida. 5 the Cambrian and among Earth's first superpredators (Paterson et. al 2011; Parker 2003). Of particular interest for my purposes here, the Cambrian Explosion marks the appearance of animals with complex, active bodies (CABs). This is a cluster of related properties including: o articulated and differentiated appendages o many degrees of freedom of controlled motion o distal senses (e.g. 'true' eyes) o anatomical capability for active, distal-sense-guided mobility (fins, legs, jet propulsion, etc.) o anatomical capability for active object manipulation (e.g. chelipeds, hands, tentacles, mouth-parts with fine-motor control) Today, these characteristics can be found together in only 3 lineages out of the (approximately) 34 described phyla of animals6: arthropods, chordates, and mollusks (especially and perhaps exclusively cephalopods, e.g. squid, octopi and cuttlefish). Arthropods seem to have been the first lineage to cross this threshold of bodily complexity, at the very dawn of the Cambrian. They achieved a spectacular diversity of complex, active bodily forms during the Cambrian era, with a wide array of different anatomical means of locomotion (swimming, crawling and burrowing), and object manipulation (mouthparts and appendages for complex prey handling). They dominated Cambrian ecosystems as apex predators and occupied niches across the entire spectra of trophic level and spatial scale available to animals. While Cambrian chordates are known (Shu 2008), they remained relatively modest in diversity, disparity and apparent ecological dominance until the Ordovician, when conodonts and vertebrates emerged as ecologically important predators. Cephalopods evolved these characteristics last; though mollusks were numerous and diverse in the Cambrian, they did not reach their apogee of bodily and behavioral complexity until much later, with the radiation of coleoid 6 One extinct group of animals, the nectocarids, represent a fascinating possible fourth origin of CABs. Though some authors place nectocarids within cephalopoda, this is unlikely for many reasons, and nectocaris may well be the only described animal from an otherwise unknown phylum (Kroger, Vinther and Fuchs 2011; Mazurek and Zaton 2011). 6 cephalopods in the Ordovician, during which these extremely active, large-brained animals (e.g. squids, cuttlefish, octopi) rose to global ecological dominance, coming to occupy nearly every marine habitat, as they do today (Kroger, Vinther and Fuchs 2011). Phylogenetic and morphological diversification during the Cambrian Explosion were by no means restricted to animals with this sort of large complex body. The Cambrian diversification included the appearance of the fundamental body plans for all of the major groups of animals (phyla) that would live on earth until the current time. Many of these lineages would never evolve CABs, but would diversify in other ways- for example, changes in size and shape, metabolic and ecological specializations, symbioses and parasitisms, chemical, visual or mechanical defenses, complex multi-stage life-cycles, and elaborate reproductive systems. In sum, the Cambrian Explosion was a rapid simultaneous diversification and complexification of many lineages of animals, which included the first appearance of all of the animals that bear discernable phylogenetic relationships to modern animals. It also marked a dramatic increase in the bodily-and correspondingly, behavioral- complexity of animals, although the evolution of complex active bodies was restricted to a small handful of phyla. What explains this phenomenon? Why, at the Cambrian Boundary, did many lineages simultaneously begin to radiate, diversify, increase in morphological complexity, and take on stable morphodevelopmental identities that would persist for hundreds of millions of years, until the present? This is the puzzle of the Cambrian Explosion. What does it mean to explain the Cambrian Explosion? What does it mean to try and explain something like the Cambrian Explosion? This is a fraught and complex issue, largely because the target itself is so complex and multifaceted. What are we trying to explain? The Cambrian Explosion is many things at once: 7 • Phenomenologically, from our perspective of paleontologists, it is the appearance of certain kinds of fossils in the record, which is then interpreted to signify various sorts of biological changes7. • It is the increase in average maximum body size of multicellular animals. • It is the origin of certain features of animal bodies: hard parts (e.g. armored plates and spines); differentiated body segments; complex articulated appendages; perceptual organs; movable skeletal elements; complex internal organ systems. Before the Cambrian boundary, there were no animals with these features (or, at best, very few animals with very rudimentary such features). • It is the appearance of the phyla-of animals that can be recognized as sharing fundamental developmental processes for generating bodily form, and which can therefore be interpreted confidently in terms of their phylogenetic relationships to later animals. Of particular interest is the fact that no new phyla are known to have originated since this period. • It is the origin of certain developmental technologies/processes capable of giving rise to these sorts of more complex, differentiated bodies, and which correspond to and characterize the phyla. • It is a radiation or diversification in two senses: o An increase in phylogenetic diversity or biodiversity at various taxanomic levels. In particular, the number of phyla and classes increased dramatically from the Ediacarian to the Cambrian (Erwin et al. 2011). o An increase in 'disparity' or the diversity of animal form. Animal bodies evolved that were more different from one another, filling 'morhpospace' (the mathematical conception of the range of possible bodily forms). This almost surely coincided with an increase in diversity of ecological roles, and the origin of a multi-tiered trophic ecology with herbivores and carnivores. • It is also a complexification of bodily form-it is an increase in the maximum complexity and average complexity of animal bodies. This is different from an 7 This interpretation has not been without its own controversies. Fortey (2001), for example, argued that the apparent 'explosive' radiation of form is an artifact of the fossil record. However, majority that approaches consensus now exists that the Cambrian Explosion was a real phenomenon. 8 increase in disparity, either of which could in principle have happened without the other. Complexity is of course a vexed notion, but some of the evolution innovations listed above should count as clear examples. The case I am most interested in, again, is what I call 'complex active bodies', bodies with distal senses and strong, articulated limbs capable of active locomotion and object manipulation. I interpret this as corresponding to an increase in the complexity of behavior, and probably an increase in its average energy output as well. However we choose to single it out, the Cambrian Explosion was a massively distributed event-distributed over space (the entire biosphere) and time (tens of millions of years, and probably several pulses of mass extinction and adaptive radiation (Shu 2008)). This single event was composed of many events-trillions of individual instances of birth, development, organism-interactions such as competition for resources, predation and sexual reproduction, every aspect of life history, and death. Our conception of the Cambrian Explosion largely concerns high-level statistical trends over this vast collection of spatiotemporally localized events. As highlighted above, there are many aspects of it that we could single out for causal-historical explanation, different high-level properties or trends that it seems to exhibit and which make it unique among other stretches of the history of life on planet Earth. As is generally true of complex historical events, rather than singling out a single well-defined cause-'The Cause'-for the CE, we should see the project of explaining it in terms of identifying causal dependency relations between different events or patterns of events that constitute or precede it. And as with other temporally extended, complex historical events, we can also explore causal relationships within the Cambrian Explosion (i.e. how parts of it depended on other parts of it as it unfolded over time) as well as between parts of the CE and events that preceded it. It is worth distinguishing between a few different sorts of broad categories of things we might try to explain by picking out causal relationships, which we can concisely label whether, when, how and who explanations: Whether? 9 Numerous conditions had to be in place for the Cambian Explosion to occur. For example, it is trivial that if environmental conditions, for example temperature, had not remained within the tolerance range of life on earth, the Cambrian Explosion would not have occurred (because everything would have died). Picking out a condition that was necessary for the CE amounts to identifying a 'whether' cause-since whether the Cambrian Explosion occurred depended on whether this condition occurred. There are many suggestions in the literature for whether causes. When? On what previous events did the timing of the Cambrian Explosion depend? What events prior to the start of the C.E. satisfy the following condition: If x had happened earlier/later, the C.E. would have started earlier/later. On what contingencies (either prior or during the C.E. itself) did its duration, i.e. the timing of its end, depend? If we can identify distinct component events within the C.E., what temporal dependencies hold between them? Two of the most striking properties of the Cambrian Explosion are temporal properties: its suddenness and its uniqueness in the history of life; indeed these are to large extent what define the C.E., and single it out as an event in the history of life. The fact that so many of the phyla suddenly (in only a few tens of millions of years) and simultaneous appear is remarkable, and is what merits the moniker of 'explosion.' At least as important is the fact that is the only such event-a small number of animal phyla may have appeared outside of this temporal window, but never before or after was there such a radical increase in the overall diversity and disparity of animal life. Even following the dramatic mass extinction events at the end of the Permian (which killed off some %95 of the earth's total biodiversity) or the end of the Cretaceous (which wiped out most of the earth's ecologically dominant megafauna, including the non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs, mozasaurs and plesiosaurs) there was not a marked increase in the array of morphological diversity exhibited by animals, the way there was in the Cambrian. Many taxa, such as mammals (cites), birds (cites), and teleost fishes (Friedman 2010) increased in intrinsic diversity and disparity following the end Cretaceous extinction, as they expanded to take on ecological roles that had been filled 10 by the previously dominant but now extinct non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and marine reptiles. For example, mammals took on a variety of novel morphologies as the bats gained winged flight, the whales and pinnipeds took to the sea, and other clades as different as ungulates, carnivores, elephants and primates walked, flapped, swam, crawled and climbed their separate trajectories through morhpospace. However, animals as a whole did not increase in phylogenetic or morphological diversity (disparity) in this transition, as they did during the Cambrian Explosion. How? Why did the Cambrian Explosion occur the way it did? What factors affected, not whether or when the CE happened, but how it happened-i.e. which patterns of radiation and/or complexification manifested? As discussed above, there are many aspect or features of this phenomenon. During this time period, many notable changes occurred in the composition of the fossil record, which we take to indicate changes in the nature of life on earth. We see the appearance of the recognizable phyla that contain all the animals alive today and a rapid increase in taxanomic diversity (number of distinct taxa-classes, orders, genuses, species-within in these larger taxa) and diversity of form or 'disparity'; we see the appearance of larger animals, animals with hard parts, more complex bodies with larger numbers of tissue types, with hard parts, with complexly articulated skeletons and differentiated appendages, animals with distal sense organs (eyes), animals that were capable of active locomotion and manipulation of objects. How are these various trends related causally? Are they all due to some common cause, or do they somehow cause each other? It is worth noting here another distinction between kinds of causes. On the one hand we might have causation of one event by another event that occurred before the other-call this 'triggering' causation. But another kind of causation is relevant for explaining temporally extended complex historical processes: causation of one ongoing process by another. We might call this 'fueling' causation, rather than 'triggering' causation. What were the triggers of the Cambrian Explosion, and what fueled it as it proceeded? 11 Who? We can also seek to identify causes that explain who was involved. Why was there simultaneous radiation in several lineages? Why do we see the particular phylogenetic pattern of radiation that we do? There was diversification of many lineages, but there was the sort of complexification I identified, the evolution of complex, active bodies, in only a small subset-two out of the roughly thirty-four phyla that emerged either leading up to, or during, the Cambrian. Why did complex active bodies evolve in the lineages they did and not others? Even now are there only 3 (extant) lineages that have evolved the above suite of characteristics-what was special about them that allowed them to make this transition? Moreover, we might ask whether the evolution of complex active bodies in arthropods (which seems to have occurred first, very early in, or leading up to, the dawn of the Cambrian), or, later, chordates and cephalopods, had a causal role in driving the wider evolutionary radiation across many lineages that made up the Cambrian Explosion. Arthropods were the largest, most ecologically dominant, most morphologically diverse and most complex-bodied animals in the Cambrian. Did their radiation somehow drive radiation in the other lineages? Did arthropods have a privileged causal role in fueling the Cambrian Explosion? Explanatory factors proposed by other authors In this section I'll review a number of explanatory hypotheses that authors have advanced for various aspects of the C.E. I'll highlight what these explanations can and can't explain, which will help set the stage for my own proposal. Environmental explanations A variety of changes in the abiotic environment have been identified, which may have been crucial in provided conditions conducive to the Cambrian Explosion. The levels of available oxygen in the air and sea apparently increased markedly towards the 12 end of the Ediacarian (Fike and Grotzinger 2006). Higher levels of oxygen made it possible for animal bodies to grow larger, their metabolic, developmental and behavioral processes to be more energetically ambitious. As new, energetically expensive forms of behavior (e.g. locomotion and prey handling), probably played important roles in the Cambrian Explosion (see below), the increase in oxygen levels was probably a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for the Cambrian Explosion. If so, it was certainly a 'whether' cause, since whether or not the C.E. happened depended on whether or not the O2 levels increased. Some authors (cite) have suggested it may have also been a 'when' cause, i.e. the timing of the Cambrian Explosion may have depended on the timing of this environmental change. However, there was a lag of some *** million years between the apparent rise of O2 levels and the appearance of the Cambrian fauna, which makes it doubtful that it specifically determined the timing. Other authors have suggested that a warming of the globe, ending a lengthy period of extreme glaciations-referred to as 'Snowball Earth', and from which the very name of the Creogenian geologic era is derived-may have been crucial in triggering the Cambrian Explosion (Kirschvink 1992). As with the increase in free oxygen, the warming of the globe was probably a practical requirement (if not a strictly necessary condition) for the Cambrian Explosion, but, similarly, a lag of many millions of years between the end of the last pre-Cambrian glaciation event and the onset of the Cambrian Explosion casts doubt on the importance of the event as a triggering cause. While large-scale changes in the abiotic environment may be important in understanding how conditions on earth became conducive to complex multicellular animal life, and perhaps helpful in understanding the timing of the Cambrian explosion, there are limits on how much such factors can explain. They may bear on the 'how' of the C.E., in that, if complexification and increase in metabolic ambition and body size were key in also explaining the phylogenetic and morphological diversification (which is plausible), then, in a sense, the increased oxygenation of the environment both triggered and fueled the Cambrian Explosion. However, the details of how this complexification and diversification unfolded are more intimately rooted in the biology of the animals involved, so we must delve into the evolutionary-developmental and ecological details in order to gain a fuller understanding. 13 Genetic/Developmental explanations An important class of explanations focuses on evolutionary innovations in the genetic control of development. Many of the elements of the genetic regulatory networks that control spatial patterning and tissue differentiation in animal development are highly conserved among all bilateria. This makes it natural to suppose that some of these may have fueled the Cambrian Explosion, by making possible the increases in complexity and diversity. Clearly, the genetic capacity to control the development of morphologically complex bodies was a precondition for complexification, so in that sense, the bilaterian toolkit of genetic regulatory networks was a 'whether' cause of the Cambrian Explosion, as well as a 'how' cause (in that it bears on complexification). The origin and assembly of genetic regulatory networks may also help to explain one temporal property of Cambrian Explosion: it's uniqueness in the history of life. Early on, these regulatory networks offered a vast unconstrained potential for differently structured modes of development. Over evolutionary time, which, ex hypothesi corresponded to the Cambrian Explosion, this potential became realized as networks of gene regulation evolved to produce more complex developmental processes yielding more complex animal bodies. Genetically, this largely involved the addition of noncoding micro-RNAs which regulate the translation of messenger-RNAs, which actually code for proteins; though most of the toolkit of messenger-RNA is shared among all animals, including all bilaterians as well as the morphologically simpler cnidarians, increase and (conversely) secondarily loss in micro-RNA complexity are correlated with increase and (conversely) loss in morphological complexity, across all animals (Erwin et al. 2011). In this process, the very genetic-regulatory specificity that produced this morophological complexity constrained the changes in development (and hence morphology) that were later available, through evolution, to a given lineage. Features of development became locked in or 'generatively entrenched' (Wimsatt 1986). Each of the animal phyla are characterized by distinctive, fundamental modes of development; once established, these allowed for the stable development of complex animal bodies, but thereafter they could not be altered at a fundamental level, as any change to the genetic 14 regulatory networks that control development at a fundamental level (especially processes early in development) would be catastrophically disruptive to development, and lead to an ontogenetic-and therefore evolutionary-dead end. So the origin of developmental gene regulatory networks may help to explain the uniqueness of the Cambrian Explosion, as well as, in part, how the complexification of animal bodies was possible at all, but can it explain the timing of its onset? Here things are more problematic. Many of the core elements of genetic regulatory networks are conserved across all bilaterian animals, but these lineages apparently diverged well before the Cambrian Explosion began. As in the case of the environmental conditions (sufficient O2 levels, conducive temperature), all of the essential background conditions seem to have been in place at least tens of millions of years before things really took off. Estimates of divergence times between the major bilaterian clades (e.g. deuterostome, ecdysozoa and lophotrocozoa) vary rather widely, but, as noted earlier, even conservative estimates (e.g. Erwin et al. 2011) place this tens of millions of years prior to the start of the Cambrian Explosion. For tens of millions of years, the lineages that would lead to the crown phyla gave way to little phylogenetic or morphological diversification, and to little qualitative complexification. In particular, no animals with complex active bodies were around. Then, quite suddenly, there was an explosive radiation of phylogenetic and morphological diversity in many phyla simultaneously, and a radical increase in complexity in multiple phyla, including the evolution of complex active bodies in at least two taxa (chordates and arthropods). What explains this lag? Was there some more specific trigger that was needed to set off the 'explosion', even after all of the materiel was in place? As well, it is unclear how this sort of genetic/developmental explanation might bear on the problem of explaining the 'who' of the Cambrian Explosion. As previously noted, much of the system of developmental gene regulatory networks is shared among all bilaterian phyla. Why then are there such marked differences between phyla in the degree of bodily complexification that unfolded during the Cambrian and afterwards? Why did only three phyla (excluding nectocarids as a possible fourth) evolve complex active bodies with large brains and articulated skeletal-muscle systems? This degree of bodily complexification correlates somewhat (although imperfectly) between phyla with 15 increase in complexity of the micro-RNA toolkit (Erwin et al. 2011), but is the genetic change cause or effect at the evolutionary level? Ecological explanations It is likely that the Cambrian Explosion corresponded to a dramatic increase in richness and complexity of the ocean's trophic ecology, i.e. to an increase in the number of levels in the Eltonian pyramid and to the interconnectedness of food webs. The primitive state of bilateria was probably benthic, and either detritivorous or filterfeeding (Collins and Valentine 2001; Erwin et al. 2011)8. Prior to the lower Cambrian boundary, animals in various bilaterian lineages left the benthos and evolved planktonic forms, thereby gaining access to the rich food source offered by phytoplankton. Butterfield (1997) argues that this may have been crucial in triggering the Cambrian Explosion by dramatically increasing the quantity of biomass available to animals. Erwin et al. (2011) also suggest that the ecosystems engineering activities of animals may have helped to drive the Cambrian Explotion by increasing the biomass available to animals in a couple of ways: a proliferation of filter-feeding sponges late in the Ediacarian may have transferred a large amount of organic matter from the water column to the sediment, and the advent of vertical burrowing by bilaterians early in the Cambrian may have further increased the amount of food available in the sediment by increasing its oxygenation. All or any of these processes would have relaxed food availability as a constraint on metazoan lifestyles, allowing animal lineages to increase in size and metabolic activity. Though this does not imply complexification, it allows it. Like the global increase in available oxygen, and the thawing of 'snowball earth', this helped to provide conditions under which subsequent complexification was possible for animal life. As bilateria evolved that were big and active enough to prey on other animals, this likely drove a runaway arms race between the predators and their prey, leading to selection for more sophisticated means of catching and killing, as well as better defenses 8 Cnidarians were probably predators much earlier, as evidenced by the commonality of the cnidocyte (the stinging cell used to kill prey) to all crown cnidaria, which diverged around 680 MYA (Erwin et al. 2011), 16 (Conway Morris 2000). Charles Marshall (2006) argues, based on theoretical arguments and computer simulations by Karl Niklas (1994, 1997, 2004) that the roughness of a fitness landscape, sensu Wright (1932), is at least partly determined by the number of distinct needs an organism must satisfy in order to survive and reproduce. The rougher the fitness landscape, the more local 'peaks' there are, i.e. the more different ways there are for a lineage to evolve and still be relatively fit. Over evolutionary timescales, roughening of fitness landscapes can therefore drive increases in both diversity and disparity as lineages are driven through morphospace toward local fitness peaks. Marshall argues that by increasing the number of needs that animals had to satisfy in order to survive in a more hostile environment, the advent of predation roughened the fitness landscape for animals in general, and hence drove the increases in diversity and disparity as various lineages evolved different means of exploiting new food sources and protecting themselves from the changing array of predatory threats. This narrative offers considerable explanatory power, much of which is nonredundant with what is offered by abiotic environmental and genetic/developmental explanations. A widespread predatory arms race could help to explain why the Cambrian Explosion was phylogenetically widespread (i.e., spanning many lineages). It can also help to explain aspects of 'how' animals evolved, in that animals in many different lineages quickly evolved a variety of mechanical defenses (e.g. spines and armor plates), mechanically sophisticated apparatuses for killing and feeding, and more sophisticated means for rapid locomotion. No doubt ecological considerations (along with the abiotic environmental and genetic/developmental conditions that had to be in place) will play a role in any adequate explanatory narrative about the Cambrian Explosion, but questions remain. In particular, if predatory arms races were important, as many authors have claimed, what kicked off the predatory arms races at the beginning of the Cambrian Explosion? What could explain a qualitative shift in the complexity of the trophic ecology in a way that could drive a roughening of the fitness landscape? Apparently, the basic essential conditions, both in terms of the abiotic environment (e.g. temperature and 02), and the developmental gene-regulatory network technology available to bilaterians, had been in place for some time. Was there some specific innovation in a particular lineage (e.g. the dominant and diverse Arthropods) 17 that allowed them to assume the role of predator in such a way as to escalate predatorprey competition to qualitatively new heights, cascading across global ecosystems and driving explosive diversification in many lineages at once? Specific innovation explanations What specific evolutionary innovations, i.e. novel traits, could have had the power to so significantly alter the ecology of the ancient oceans that they could have driven the Cambrian Explosion? Vision/Eyes Andrew Parker has argued forcefully (Parker 2003) that the origin of imageforming eyes was a powerful trigger of the Cambrian Explosion. On his view, the origin of true eyes in early arthropods9 (other animals at that point had proto-eyes, capable of detecting light intensity, direction and gradient, but not forming images) allowed this group to rapidly rise to ecological dominance and to exert a powerful and novel array of selective forces on other organisms in virtue of this new ability. For example, other animals upon which visually guided arthropods preyed were now selected for visual crypsis (e.g. camouflage) in order to avoid predator encounters. Prospective prey would have also been more heavily selected for additional mechanical and/or chemical defenses because of the increased probability per time unit of encountering a predator, since predators could now be guided by vision, rather than passively wandering or following chemical gradients. In addition, prey animals that employed chemical defenses would now be selected for warning coloration, which might also select for Batesian mimicry on 9 Parker's views on arthropod phylogeny are heterodox, or at best, controversial. He claims that all crown arthropods, as well as extinct groups such as anomalocaris and opabinia, are derived from trilobites (Parker 2003, p. 217). This is contrary to most recent reconstructions, which consider trilobites to be crown arthropods (Rota-Stabelli, Omar, et al. 2011), and consider anomalacaris, opabinia, and other Cambrian 'oddballs' with well developed eyes to be stem arthropods (Budd and Telford 2009; Giribet and Edgecombe 2012; Paterson, John R., et al 2011). This does not undermine the basic thrust of his argument for the importance of arthropod eyes in driving the C.E., although it does problematize aspects of the narrative he articulates (Parker 2003). 18 non-toxic animals that looked roughly similar. Other types of visual anti-predation mechanisms could also be employed, such as false eye-spots, motion dazzle. On top of all of this, any lineage employing visual mechanisms, either by relying on vision, or using visual anti-predatory defenses, might be especially prone to sympatric speciation, as the selective filtering of light frequencies by water creates zones of depth at which different color palettes are present in the environment-so, for example, a coloration that is cryptic at a depth of 300 meters might not be cryptic at a depth of 30 meters, and a coloration that is cryptic at 30 meters might not be cryptic at 3 meters. (Parker 2003, p 103-104). Arthropods themselves, having eyes, could now also be subject to sexual selection for visual features such as the courtship displays of seedshrimp which employ both iridescence and chemical bioluminescence (Parker 2003, ch 5). Sexual selection can be a potent driver of speciation, especially alongside other mechanisms (Ritchie 2007). All of these aspects of selection for visual properties create additional phenotypic constraints on the 'fitness landscape' for an evolving lineage, which may cause increased diversity and disparity over time, as discussed earlier (Marshall 2006). I think Parker's insight is important, and makes a non-redundant contribution to our understanding of the Cambrian Explosion, but it leaves open questions. Parker waffles between identifying the cause as the origin of vision and the origin of eyes, which he distinguishes from proto-eyes by saying that they form images, but the difference is important. As Parker himself highlights, it was visually guided, and hence active predatory behavior-which Parker characterizes as 'search and destroy' predation, rather than ambush predation, or random movement through the environment-by the early arthropods that plausibly drove the predator-prey arms race that cascaded through the world's ecosystems, driving the Cambrian Explosion. But having image forming eyes is not sufficient for active predatory behavior: graft an eye onto a sponge, a placozoan or a houseplant, and it will not become an active predator. Less hypothetically, some lineages have image forming eyes but not active predation, such as ark clams, fan worms, and some gastropod mollusks (Parker 2003 p. 212). Moreover, while Parker seems to think that having eyes also drove the increase in morphological disparity and complexity in arthropods, many lineages of animals have image forming 19 eyes and are active predators, such as alciopid bristle worms, box jellyfish, and velvet worms (Parker 2003, p 212), but never achieved morphological disparity or complexity remotely comparable to that of the arthropods. So something is clearly missing. Vision, or visually guided predation, is part of the story, over and above just the anatomical feature of an image-forming eye; but what is vision? Parker defines it as "the formation of an image or picture from light waves" (Parker 2003 p. 188), but this cannot be right, for the above reasons. An image is formed by an eye grafted onto a sponge, as is one by a camera, but neither the sponge nor the camera can see. In no case can the formation of images per se go very far in explaining the core features of the Cambrian Explosion. For a conception of vision that bears on the problem at hand, I propose: pick up of information about the environment from patterns in ambient light arrays, and use of that information for control of behavior. Vision in the relevant sense is largely a matter not of the eye per se, but of the brain's ability to extract information from patterns in light, and to make use of that information for controlling behavior in more sophisticated ways. If this is right, than an important question is, what sort of information was most important in driving the Cambrian Explosion? What information must the brain be able to extract from the patterns of light made available by the eye, track over time, integrate or synthesize, and bring to bear on the control of behavior, in ways that can qualitatively change the dynamics of predator-prey relationships sufficiently to drive a cascade of adaptive radiation? Parker claims that, with the origin of the eye, the biological world suddenly became full of color, and identifies some ways in which color information per se was important for applying novel selection pressures on animals, such as crypsis, warning colorations, mimicry, and sexual selection (Parker 2003, Ch 9). However, this assumption is problematic, as color vision depends on having several different kinds of photoreceptors with different peak response frequencies. Cones and pigments do not fossilize, so it is impossible to know whether Cambrian arthropods had color vision. Moreover, much of the information delivered by vision that is useful for controlling behavior does not require color at all. What may have been most important for the Cambrian Explosion was the spatial information that animals could suddenly see. Just like color, space had always been 20 there. Animals, other living things, and features of the abiotic environment had always had spatial properties such as position, size, distance from each other, occlusion (in between-ness), trajectories, etc., but these properties had existed unknown, in the 'darkness' of having no one to understand them, detect them or track them. The Cambrian Explosion marks the appearance of animals that could perceive, cognize, and move intelligently in space. The evolution of more sophisticated eyes was part of this important shift, but only part-mostly what had to evolve was a suitably equipped brain. This was largely a cognitive change (in a broad sense of the word 'cognitive').10 All of a sudden, the living world became flooded not just with color, but with the information about space that light can carry. Parker tacitly acknowledges this; as he says, "Importantly (an animal with vision) could easily identify the other animals sharing its environment. It could determine how far away they were, where they were heading, and how fast they were moving. (Parker 2003 p. 273, emphasis added.) However, while acknowledging the importance of spatial properties such as distance, heading and speed, Parker does not pursue the consequences of this line of reasoning. Vision is not the only sense that carries spatial information. Olfaction is capable of giving information about direction, and even in very simple animals and single-celled organisms, can drive chemotaxis, which involves orientation in space toward the source of the detected chemical, via very simple reflex dynamics and without necessitating a cognitive capacity to pick up or track spatial properties (see Braitenberg, 1986, Chapters 3 and 4). But a far richer palette of spatial properties is carried by light, and in real-time- light moves at the speed of light (or almost at the hypothetical speed of light, when moving through a medium, but the difference is negligible compared to the processing speed of organic brains), and this means that visual arrays change as quickly as the layout of objects in a scene. This is obviously crucial in the context of agonistic behavioral interactions such as those between predator and prey. Audition, and in 10 Parker is dismissive of the importance of brain evolution in the Cambrian Explosion: "For an eye to work, sizeable brain and nerve cables are required, and these were in part borrowed from other senses. This is the most conceivable way in which an eye can suddenly achieve vision, after its leap from simple progenitors, the light perceivers. What does this borrowing tell us? It indicates that at least some senses had evolved to a reasonable degree of sophistication before the Cambrian, so that they had established a nerve network including brain space. In turn this means they could not have triggered the Cambrian explosion." Parker 2003 p 285 21 particular echolocation can also be spatially rich (even more so in some cases), but for whatever reason, no animals seem to have developed echolocation before vision. Echolocation has in every case been a secondary adaptation by an animal already keen at spatial cognition to situations where the spatial information carried by light can be greatly supplemented by that carried by sound (e.g. night time for bats, underwater for whales, blindness for some humans (Schenkman and Nillson 2010). But beyond the ability to detect patterns of energy, such light or sound, from which spatial information can be extracted, the ability to use this information to control behavior requires the ability to integrate information from multiple exteroceptive modalities with proprioceptive information about the spatial relations of parts of the animal's own body to each other and feature of the environment. It also requires the ability to predict the sensory changes caused by the body's own powered movements, in order to cancel them out, delivering a stable, meaningful perception of the spatial layout of the environment (Merker 2005). For these reasons, the capacity to perceive space and use spatial information to control behavior is largely cognitive; the evolution of this capacity required not just the appearance of image-forming eyes, but suitable brains. Associative learning and neurohormonal stress Ginsburg and Jablonka (2010) argue that the origin of the capacity for associative learning may have been a cause of the Cambrian Explosion. Associative learning enhances adaptability during the lifetime of an animal, allowing it to exploit new resources. They claim that this could have played a key role in driving the predatory arms races that fueled the adaptive radiations across the animal phyla. Further, they argue that associative learning can drive increases in morphological and phylogenetic diversity through genetic assimilation (a.k.a. the Baldwin effect). This effect occurs when some novel behavior is consistently learned by animals in a population when exposed to some new environmental stimulus. Over time, the acquisition of this behavior becomes developmentally canalized, which allows it to be acquired faster and more reliable until it ultimately becomes 'innate' or 'instinctive', requiring very little exposure to the environmental stimulus before being expressed (Baldwin 1896; Waddington 1957; West-Eberhard 2003; Bateson 2005). This can drive 22 speciation, when different populations of the same species are consistently exposed to different learning environments (Jablonka and Ginsburg 2010; Hardy 1965; Wyles 1983; West-Eberhard 2003). Further, this sort of stabilized behavioral plasticity can have important long-term ecological and evolutionary effects through nicheconstruction (Avital and Jablonka 2000). Ginsburg and Jablonka argue that as oxygen levels increased through the Ediacarian, animals increased in size, longevity and activity level. The increases in size and activity level drove a centralization of the nervous system, in order to allow integration of sensory inputs and coordination of motor outputs between regions of the body (2010 p. 14), even as the increase in longevity put a premium on learning from past experience, as the probability of situations recurring during a lifetime increased (2010, p. 15). Associative learning emerged simultaneously in many lineages (due to shared features of developmental gene-regulatory networks and neural net architecture) as the constraints on body size, metabolism and longevity due to oxygen availability were relaxed. This opened the door for adaptive behavior in the realms of habitat selection, niche construction, predation and anti-predation, driving the Cambrian Explosion. Ginsburg and Jablonka also emphasize the potential importance of neurohormonal stress as a factor. Stress is a state of high metabolic activity in response to perceived danger, facilitating adaptive response to that danger (e.g. fight or flight). Although the relationship between stress and associative learning is a bit unclear in their narrative, the two are related, in that stressful situations are powerfully conducive to associative learning, and can facilitate rapid long term learning, for example in cases like fear conditioning or taste aversion. Furthermore, it is plausible that neurohormonal stress evolved early in the Cambrian explosion with the complexification of bodies and nervous systems, as 1) animals first became capable of energetic, coordinated, wholebody behavioral responses to danger, and 2) the importance of predation as a selection increased radically. Ginsburg and Jablonka argue that early in the Cambrian, phylogenetic diversification may have been extremely rapid because physiological stress had evolved, but physiological stress management had not. They marshal evidence that neurohormonal stress can increase levels of genetic transposition, which can increase 23 evolvability (Zeh et al. 2009; Oliver and Greene 2009), as well as by destabilizing the genome through changes in epigenetic marks, "which can lead to altered patterns of mitotic and meiotic pairing, to chromosomal re-patterning, to mutation-prone repair, as well as triggering transposition." (Ginsburg and Jablonka 2010) Extant organisms have systems to ameliorate and suppress the genome and epigenome destabilizing effects of stress, but during the Cambrian Explosion, these systems probably had not evolved. Thus, the evolutionary explosiveness of the Cambrian may have been in part due to the fact that stress had evolved, but stress management had not. I think Ginsburg and Jalonka offer some important insights here, but I think their line of reasoning can be continued by considering that there are different sorts of associative learning, some more complex than others. This may help to shore up a major weakness of their account, which is that it does not take any special notice of the privileged role arthropods played in the Cambrian Explosion. If associative learning and neurohormonal stress are phylogenetically widespread, why is there such a markedly uneven distribution of complexification, diversification, and ecological dominance throughout the Cambrian Explosion? This issue is especially acute, since Ginsburg and Jablonka's explanation largely hinges on the relevance of associative learning for increased efficacy in complex behaviors, in connection with increased selection for bodily complexity. I suggest that, while associative learning may be widespread, a more specific type of associative learning (and perception and cognition more broadly), objectoriented associative learning, perception and cognition, is restricted to only a handful of taxa. It is a crucial component of the suite of cognitive capacities I call Basic Cognitive Embodiment (see below). My proposed explanation: Basic Cognitive Embodiment I propose that a fundamental cognitive/perceptual toolkit for tracking certain spatial properties and relations, what I'll call Basic Cognitive Embodiment (BCE), is required for effective control of a complex active animal body (CAB). When the first animals evolved BCE, it first allowed the rich, real-time spatial information provided by compound or lens eyes to guide active mobility and object manipulation; this created intense selection pressure for the increased power and articulation of skeletomuscular 24 systems, and hence was a driver of morphological diversification and also bodily complexification, in a way that bears directly on the predator-prey arms races widely thought to be important in fueling the Cambrian Explosion. Arthropods seem to have acquired BCE first, which explains their uniquely explosive diversification, active bodily complexification, and rise to dominance of Cambrian ecosystems. The appearance of spatially savvy, visually guided predators with complex active bodies radically changed the array of selection pressures for animals in general, across many phyla, putting a premium on mechanical defenses, crypsis, chemical defense, remote sensing, mobility, selective movement, and choice and construction of safe micro-habitats, driving the widespread adaptive radiation that makes up the Cambrian Explosion. Chordates seem to have acquired BCE not long after -as evidenced by the presence in Cambrian strata of complex, large-eyed, active chordate bodies streamlined for efficient powered swimming (Shu 2008). Their diversification was likely surpressed by the already dominant arthropods, but their presence in the Cambrian fauna represents a disproportionate contribution to overall complexity and disparity of animal bodies. Cambrian chordates such as Haikouichthys were the first animals to take on a 'fish-like' morphology-streamlined, visually guided swimmers powered by undulation of the body along its main axis (Shu et al. 2008), a body morphology that would characterize many vertebrate lineages over the course of history (e.g. placoderms, sharks, teleost fish, several lines of Mesozoic marine reptiles, cetaceans and pinnipeds). They were some of the only animals of their size in the Cambrian to lack obvious mechanical defenses like hard shells or spines, so they probably survived by being able to out-swim larger, less streamlined arthropod predators (as do thousands of species of small fish today). BCE is a cognitive toolkit for pickup, tracking, and use (for control of behavior) of certain information from the environment. The defining properties of BCE are that it is 1) spatial, 2) object-oriented, and 3) agentive (or 'action-oriented'): BCE is an awareness of spatial properties such as: o Orientation to body (relative to the body's structural axes and axes of active motion), and also to body's trajectory through space and other action capacities. 25 o Distances (relative to action capacities) o Trajectories, rates of travel, and other spatial propensities o Occlusion, concealment (including partial) BCE is also the ability to perceive and cognize in a way that is object-oriented. Objects, in the relevant sense, are co-tracked clusters of associated properties including: o Nonspatial properties such as colors, scents, flavors, and pitches o Affordances (opportunities for behavioral exploitation, relative to bodily capacities and needs) o Spatial properties-see above; for the purposes of action, it is co-location and spatial co-tracking (at least as much as robust association) that bind a cluster of properties into an object, and also govern almost every aspect of the animals interaction with it. BCE is also an agentive or action-oriented bodily self-awareness, i.e. an awareness of the animal's own capacities for moving through space and influencing objects around it. Examples include: o Judging distances relative to one's own capacity for movement o Canceling out sensory change caused by one's own movements in order to build stable perception of the world. o Judging relevance of objects and situations in the environment relative to they body's needs and capacities. BCE is an interrelated suite of cognitive capacities, the origin of which represents a kind of qualitative 'complexity threshold' in evolution, because it is required for control of a complex, active body11. Without the ability to pick up and track spatial track information about spatial properties and relations, in relation to the body's own axes and ranges of motion and capacities for motion, both distal senses and 11 See Merker (2005) for a discussion of similar considerations of control of complex, active bodies, albeit one with a different focus and very different explanatory aims. 26 anatomical capacities for powered locomotion and object manipulation would be useless. Further, these capacities can only be adaptively brought to bear if information about the environment is organized into clusters related to salient objects, such as food items, potential predators, competitors and mates, or features of the habitat (e.g. hiding places). In order to be brought to bear on control of behavior, such object-oriented clusters of information must include spatial properties and relations (e.g. distances, sizes, shapes, trajectories, internal structure of hard and soft parts) relative to the action capacities of the animal's body. The origin of this suite of capacities in a lineage of animals can cause dramatic adaptive radiation in that lineage as well as shape entire ecosystems, as evidenced by the fact that the three extant lineages that possess it-vertebrates, arthropods, and cephalopods-display enormous morphological diversity and disparity compared with the other thirty or so phyla of animals, and have dominated the world's ecosystems from the Cambrian until today. When the brain of the ancestral arthropod first attained BCE, this opened up a vast array of new evolutionary-developmental possibilities for more complex bodies and coherent, complex, intelligent behavior. This put selection pressure on this lineage for variations that realized these possibilities. In particular, this drove up the adaptive value of: • Body structures facilitating locomotion, such as legs for walking or crawling, and fins, legs, lobes and general musculature for swimming. • Body structures facilitating manipulation of objects, in particular in the context of food-handling, such as anterior limbs, mouth parts, chelicerae and antennules12. • Fancy distal exteroceptors such as improved eyes, better hearing, etc. • Improved capacity for memory, i.e. for learned associations between properties of salient objects and contexts. • Canalization of development of adaptive perception/action patterns. 12 See Waloszek et al. (2007) for a fascinating review of the early diversification of arthropod head structures, most of which apparently functioned in food handling of one sort or another. The authors claim that this was an important driver of arthropod evolution, in line with my hypothesis. 27 This radiation in the arthropods created a cascade of novel selection pressures on other lineages, due largely to the novel capacities of arthropods as complex, active bodied predators. This introduction of strong selection pressure due to diverse, formidable predators restructured the fitness landscape for animals in other lineages as well as arthropods themselves. Predators and prey co-evolved in a kind of run away arms race, driving a phylogenetically widespread process of explosive diversification. My proposal makes a non-redundant contribution to the landscape of explanations of the Cambrian Explosion, in that it unifies and builds upon the merits of existing proposals, in particular those of Parker (2003) and Ginsburg and Jablonka (2010), as well as the widely shared premise that predator-prey coevolution was important. It bears on explaining aspects of when, how, and who questions about the Cambrian Explosion in the following ways. When: The first acquisition of BCE by animals was a triggering cause of explosive adaptive radiation as well as complexification and diversification of complex, active morphology, in the relevant lineages (arthropods first). It also caused extensive adaptive radiation in others due to selection pressures. This explanation identifies a particular evolutionary event (the origin of BCE in arthropods) as a triggering cause, an event on which the timing of the onset of the Cambrian Explosion depended. If arthropods had acquired BCE later or earlier, then the Cambrian Explosion would have begun later or earlier. It also identifies internal causal dependence relations, i.e. between the arthropod radiation and complexification, and the wider metazoan radiation. Who/How: My hypothesis would also explain the phylogenetic patterns of radiation and complexification that we see in the Cambrian Explosion. BCE is difficult to evolve. It does not simply follow along from selection pressure due to predation or ecological competition, but requires some (unkown) set of preadaptations in neural control architecture, which must be to some extent fortuitous-there is no foresight in evolution, so BCE cannot evolve 'in order to allow' bodily complexification. It therefore represents a strong constraint on the evolution of complex, active animal bodies-a lineage of animals cannot evolve CABs without first acquiring BCE. Therefore, the chief constraint determining whether or not a lineage evolves complex active bodies is 28 cognitive, rather than essentially genetic13 or environmental. Once animals in a lineage have the developmental capacity for brains capable of picking-up spatial information (as outlined above in the description of BCE) and bringing it to bear on the control of behavior, this makes a wide range of morphological possibilities available to that lineage. If ecological conditions are ripe, some of these morphological possibilities will be strongly selected for. However, the effects of this 'opening up' of a new array of evolutionary-developmental possibilities are not limited to the taxon that experiences it. As that taxon radiates and the animals that make it up complexify, this exerts strong ecological pressures on the rest of the biosphere. This hypothesis of constraint helps to explain the pattern of radiation and complexification seen during the Cambrian Explosion (and indeed afterward), which none of the other hypotheses reviewed here can explain: despite phylogenetic and morphological diversification across nearly all of the phyla, complex bodies appear in exactly three extant phyla. In each of the crown groups with complex active bodies (arthropods, chordates, and cephalopod mollusks), BCE, and indeed more sophisticated forms spatial cognition built upon the foundation of BCE (such as visual place recognition, multimodal path integration, and cognitive maps), are widespread or universal. While other animal lineages possess image-forming eyes, associative learning, and developmental gene-regulatory networks, no lineage possesses CABs without BCE, or BCE without CABs. 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Revista Colombiana de Filosofía de la Ciencia Vol. 19 No 38 (2019): 67-90 ISSN: 0124-4620 (papel) & 2463-1159 (electrónico) Fecha de aceptación: 22/06/2018 Fecha de aprobación: 14/09/2018 https://doi.org/10.18270/rcfc.v19i38.2297 expliCaCiones geométriCo-diagramátiCas en físiCa desde una perspeCtiva inferenCial1* An inferential approach to geometric-diagrammatic explanations in physics Javier Anta logos, Universitat de Barcelona Barcelona, España [email protected] resumen El primer objetivo de este artículo es mostrar que explicaciones genuinamente geométricas/matemáticas e intrínsecamente diagramáticas de fenómenos físicos no solo son posibles en la práctica científica, sino que además comportan un potencial epistémico del que sus contrapartes simbólico-verbales carecen. Como ejemplo representativo utilizaré la metodología geométrica de John Wheeler para calcular cantidades físicas en una reacción nuclear. Como segundo objetivo, pretendo analizar la garantía epistémica de este tipo de explicaciones en términos de dependencia sintáctica y semántica entre el contenido de las premisas y la conclusión, lo que denominaremos 'Criterio de Validez Inferencial'. Palabras clave: explicaciones matemáticas; diagramas físicos; inferencialismo; John Wheeler; representación geométrica. * Este artículo se debe citar: Anta, Javier. "Explicaciones geométrico-diagramáticas en física desde una perspectiva inferencial". Rev. Colomb. Filos. Cienc.19.38 (2019): 67-90. https://doi.org/10.18270/rcfc.v19i38.2297 1 El trabajo de investigación que origina este artículo ha sido posible gracias al apoyo institucional de logos (grupo de investigación en filosofía analítica), la Universitat de Barcelona y el grupo de investigación Laws, Explanation and Realism in Physical and Biomedical Sciences (ffi2016-76799-p). Agradezco también el soporte financiero del Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia del Gobierno de España (fpu16/00774). Revista Colombiana de Filosofía de la Ciencia 19.38 (2019 enero – junio): Págs 67-90 ISSN: 0124-4620 (Imp) & 2463-1159 (Elec).68 Javier Anta abstraCt The main purpose of this paper is to show that geometrical and diagrammatical explanations of physical phenomena are both possible within real-world scientific practices and epistemically advantageous regarding their symbolic-linguistic counterparts. As a way of illustrating these theses, I will analyze John Wheeler's geometrical procedure for computing relativistic quantities in a nuclear physics scenario. Additionally, I will assess (from an inferential perspective) the epistemic reliability of these particular explanations in terms of an Inferential Validity Criterion, which established a semantic-syntactic dependence relation between explananda and explanandum. Keywords: mathematical explanations; physics diagrams; inferentialism; John Wheeler; geometric representation. 1. introduCCión ¿Sería capaz de explicar un físico teórico el fenómeno de dilatación del tiempo de la teoría de la relatividad especial a un físico experimental sin tener que recurrir a complejas fórmulas usando exclusivamente diagramas? ¿Pueden representaciones o pruebas geométricas dar cuenta rigurosamente de cómo la energía y el momento se conservan en una reacción nuclear? Y en caso de que sea posible, ¿cómo se garantizaría que la información adquirida visualmente mediante diagramas matemáticos nos pueda proporcionar conocimiento empírico? Preguntas de esta índole y sus tentativas respuestas serán el eje del presente artículo. La cuestión de si las representaciones diagramáticas (figuras geométricas, esquemas formales, animaciones digitales, entre otras) cumplen con un rol decisivo a la hora de explicar hechos intrínseca o genuinamente matemáticos, como pueden ser teoremas o corolarios, se plantea en la actualidad como el tema clave dentro del área disciplinar que se conoce como epistemología del razonamiento visual en matemá69 Are you a Selective-realist Dialetheist Without knowing It? 2 Para un análisis exhaustivo de esta área de investigación, véase Giaquinto (2015). 3 "... no appeal to geometrical intuitions abstaining from introducing any diagram in the book" (Diedonné Foundations of Modern Analysis, citado en Giaquinto 2015 s.p.). ticas,2 especialmente motivado y en ocasiones eclipsado por el intenso debate acerca de las explicaciones matemáticas, tanto en el propio ámbito de la matemática como en el contexto empírico. En este artículo pretenderemos enfrentar los dos debates mencionados de forma simultánea, defendiendo que existen explicaciones geométrico-diagramáticas de fenómenos físicos genuinas. Dicha tesis será justificada desde una perspectiva inferencialista acerca de cómo el contenido empírico válidamente inferido por medio de recursos gráficos y espaciales ofrece una garantía epistémica en la explicación multimodal (Shimojima 2004). El hecho de que las explicaciones visuales en el ámbito de las ciencias formales y empíricas se presente como una cuestión de pleno interés epistemológico exclusivamente dentro de las dos o tres últimas décadas, y no antes, responde a varios factores vinculados a la evolución intelectual de diferentes disciplinas, a la cual nos acercaremos brevemente en la siguiente sección. En el tercer apartado, nos aproximaremos a la relación entre pruebas y explicaciones diagramáticas en las matemáticas, especialmente en la geometría; en el cuarto, abordaremos la concepción inferencial tanto de la geometría en sí como de su aplicación empírica en el dominio de la física (Bueno & Collyvan 2011). En la quinta sección, expondremos el procedimiento genuinamente geométrico desarrollado por el físico John Wheeler para calcular cantidades de manera diagramática en una reacción nuclear (Wheeler & Taylor 1963). Mediante un criterio de validez inferencial (CVI), desarrollaremos un marco inferencialista para dar cuenta, semántica y sintácticamente, de cómo sería posible ofrecer genuinas explicaciones geométrico-diagramáticas mediante el método de Wheeler de mayor virtuosidad epistémica (simplicidad, potencial descriptivo, accesibilidad, etcétera) que su contraparte verbal. Revista Colombiana de Filosofía de la Ciencia 19.38 (2019 enero – junio): Págs 67-90 ISSN: 0124-4620 (Imp) & 2463-1159 (Elec).70 Javier Anta 2. el renaCimiento de la visualizaCión en CienCia y filosofía A mediados del siglo xx, y en pleno giro lingüístico, se consolidó profundamente la vieja idea de que el pensamiento, el conocimiento y la racionalidad humana eran fenómenos intrínsecamente simbólicos en su naturaleza, sobre todo en lo que a nosotros nos concierne en el ámbito de la lógica formal (entendida de modo hegemónico como "lógica simbólica") o de la matemática abstracta más algebraicista (vívidamente encarnado en el desprecio de los Bourbaki por el uso de imágenes). Ello queda reflejado con claridad en esta sentencia de Ayer: Our knowledge that no observation can ever confute the proposition '7 + 5 = 12' depends simply on the fact that the symbolic expression '7 + 5' is synonymous with '12', just as our knowledge that every oculist is an eye-doctor depends on the fact that the symbol 'eye-doctor' is synonymous with 'oculist' (1936 113). Dentro de este amplio contexto intelectual, una prueba matemática (aunque lo mismo se podría decir de una deducción natural lógica) no es otra cosa que una derivación sintáctica de sentencias o cadena de símbolos; por esto un diagrama o una imagen solo podrían desempeñar un papel de mero soporte visual o muleta cognitiva dentro de cualquier práctica en cuanto representaciones epistemológicamente inertes o superfluas, como lo sostiene Tennant (1986). Por supuesto en ello subyace la premisa de que solo las representaciones lingüísticas pueden ser explicativamente relevantes. Sin embargo, el deshielo del simbolocentrismo en ciencias formales llegaría ya al alba del siglo. En primer lugar, debemos entender que a partir de la década de 1990 se produce lo que Mancosu (2005) denomina "renacimiento en visualización"; que no es otra cosa que un cambio de foco de la atención teórica desde las formas de representación simbólicas hacia las visuales. En el ámbito de la lógica formal, Barwise y Etchemendy (1996) abrieron por primera vez la senda de los estudios semánticos 71 Are you a Selective-realist Dialetheist Without knowing It? sobre los sistemas diagramáticos formales, defendiendo (y demostrando) la importante tesis de que las propiedades metalógicas más fundamentales (completitud, corrección o decidibilidad) son independientes del aparato representacional, sea este simbólico o diagramático. De hecho, la equivalencia metalógica entre aparatos de representación visual, como el sistema de representación de Grafos Existenciales de Peirce, y la lógica simbólica de predicados ha sido varias veces demostrada, aunque no celebrada, a lo largo del siglo xx (Peirce 1931). Siguiendo la brillante estela peirceana, Sun-Joo Shin (1991) mostró cómo los mecanismos de validez lógica pueden ser implementados a la perfección en sistemas deductivos puramente diagramáticos, entre los cuales cabe mencionar su Venn ii (bautizado así por él lógico y diagramático decimonónico). Si ya en el ámbito lógico el denominado "renacimiento en visualización" rompe enérgicamente con los prejuicios simbolicistas antediluvianos, en la disciplina matemática revolucionó por completo cualquier asunción acerca de cómo hemos de representar visoespacialmente estructuras formales, cómo hemos de derivarlas/ probarlas o cómo obtenemos conocimiento a partir de estas. Nótese que la prueba matemática, como explícita derivación sintáctica, constituye el principal mecanismo de esta disciplina para justificar sus teoremas, postulados o principios, y con ello obtener lo que, sin ahondar, denominamos "conocimiento matemático". De la era del "diagrams cannot be proof" (Tennant 1986), ya en el ocaso de esta hegemonía iconoclasta en matemáticas, llegamos en un breve periodo de tiempo al rompedor "proofs without words" de Nelsen (1993) o al contundente "proofs and pictures" de Brown (1999), lo cual encarna el paso entre dos formas de comprender la semántica de la representación matemática. Por supuesto, a comienzos del siglo xxi las pruebas matemáticas llevadas a cabo mediante operaciones diagramáticas no solo se considerarán legítimas dentro de gran parte de la comunidad matemática, sino además formalmente rigurosas. En este contexto, Miller (2007) desarrollará un sofisticado sistema formal exclusivamente diagramático para probar teoremas de geometría euclídea. El solo hecho de que las pruebas diagramáticas posean un valor intrínseco en la práctica matemática nos sugiere que la visualizabilidad de contenido matemático Revista Colombiana de Filosofía de la Ciencia 19.38 (2019 enero – junio): Págs 67-90 ISSN: 0124-4620 (Imp) & 2463-1159 (Elec).72 Javier Anta pueda ser en cierta forma relevante a la hora de producir conocimiento matemático (aquí entran en juego diversos y variadas cuestiones, como el debate a priori-a posteriori en la adquisición de conocimiento matemático o las implicaciones ontológicas del argumento de indispensabilidad, que por motivos de extensión obviaremos) o la pregunta que es más importante para la primera parte de nuestro argumento en este artículo: ¿es posible ofrecer explicaciones de fenómenos matemáticos por medio de representaciones y operaciones diagramáticas? 3. expliCaCiones diagramátiCas, expliCaCiones matemátiCas Antes de proseguir con esta cuestión, debemos tener en cuenta que la minusvaloración epistémica del formato visual que acabamos de señalar brevemente en la sección anterior tiene su inmediato impacto en la reflexión filosófica de su tiempo. El modelo deductivo-nomológico de explicación científica de Nagel, así como sus múltiples variantes, como la versión inductivo-estadística y muchas de sus alternativas cercanas asociarán explicatividad con verbalización y formulación: The legacy of the dn model, and the focus on linguistic representations in general, in that philosophers have studied scientific explanation without thinking about the contribution of visual representations as if guided by the assumption that only linguistic (or mathematical) representations could be relevant to scientific explanation. Such assumption would be fatal to a study of whether diagrams can play a role in scientific explanation (Perini 2005 258). A pesar de realizar lo que a mi juicio es un diagnóstico bastante certero, Perini asume implícitamente otra de las tesis que pretenderemos desmontar a lo largo de este artículo: las representaciones matemáticas son siempre representaciones lingüísticas. En sus mismos términos, aceptar esto sería fatal para cualquier estudio acerca de si los diagramas matemáticos cumplen algún rol dentro de la explicación científi73 Are you a Selective-realist Dialetheist Without knowing It? ca. Si las explicaciones genuinamente diagramáticas empiezan a ser un tema candente dentro de la biología (el propio Perini 2005 es un caso de esto), en matemáticas se abordará únicamente de manera colateral a asuntos relacionados con la explicación matemática, y no como un tema de interés propio. Steiner (1978) recuperó, en términos modernos, la ahora incipiente cuestión de si existen explicaciones matemáticas genuinas. En su planteamiento original, hace referencia al caso específico de aquellas explicaciones matemáticas encargadas de fenómenos puramente matemáticos; o lo que es lo mismo, a aquel tipo de explicación en el que tanto su explanandum como su explanada son de naturaleza intrínsecamente matemática. Su foco se centra en esclarecer, por un lado, cuáles pruebas matemáticas son explicativas y cuáles no, y por otro, señalar por qué razón son explicativas estas últimas; lo interesante es que en el primer ejemplo de pruebas aritméticas acaba involuntaria y colateralmente abarcando el tema de las explicaciones visuales diagramáticas. Tomemos el siguiente teorema: 1. S(n) = 1 + 2 + 3 + ... + n = n (n + 1)/2 S(n + 1) = S(n) + (n + 1) = n(n + 1)/2 + 2(n + 1)/2 = (n + 1)(n + 1)/22. Steiner ofrece una primera prueba por inducción de (1) con carácter exclusivamente simbólico: Una segunda prueba simbólica (3) es dada, esta de un carácter más abstracto (se cuantifican secuencias de números y no números individuales) pero más comprensible que la anterior. 1 + 2 + 3 + ... + n = S n + (n – 1) + (n – 2) + ... + 1 = S' = S (n + 1) + (n + 1) + (n + 1) + ... + (n + 1) = n(n + 1) 3. Revista Colombiana de Filosofía de la Ciencia 19.38 (2019 enero – junio): Págs 67-90 ISSN: 0124-4620 (Imp) & 2463-1159 (Elec).74 Javier Anta Por último, Steiner admite que la prueba de (1) con mayor capacidad explicativa es aquella que se presenta completamente diagramática y no hace uso de recurso simbólico alguno. El motivo de que la prueba diagramática (4) sea más explicativa que (3) y sobretodo que (2) es que esta primera permite visualizar el proceso derivativo en el que se prueba la conclusión de (1).4 Sin embargo, el propio Steiner rechaza la visualizabilidad, como hace también por diferentes motivos con la generalidad y la capacidad de descubrimiento matemático, como criterio explicativo por ser según sus palabras un criterio "demasiado subjetivo". Nosotros defenderemos más adelante que dicho criterio merecería ser reconsiderado bajo la luz de las últimas evidencias empíricas o al menos analizar por qué la así llamada "visualizabilidad" es explicativamente eficaz con respecto a ciertos teoremas matemáticos. De hecho, en este mismo ejemplo el uso de recursos visuales podría dar cuenta del hecho epistemológico de que la prueba simbólica (3) (cuyos términos aparecen espacialmente desplegados) sea más comprensible que la simbólica-comprimida (2), tal como Steiner apunta. Dos décadas después del famoso artículo de Steiner, y ya en pleno auge del acercamiento teórico a lo visual desde diferentes ámbitos, Brown (1999) popularizó lo que ahora se conoce técnicamente como "picture-proof", que no son otra cosa que 4 Por otra parte, y contrariando a Steiner, Brown (1999) no reconoce el potencial explicativo de (4), pero defiende que la inducción simbólica (1) sea la más explicativa de las tres. 4. 75 Are you a Selective-realist Dialetheist Without knowing It? pruebas matemáticas del estilo de (4) en las que se emplean principalmente recursos visuales para derivar el contenido formal. Nótese que la forma correcta para referirse a este tipo de pruebas, también empleada en la literatura concerniente,5 es la de "pruebas diagramáticas" (diagrammatic proofs) debido a que las representaciones diagramáticas se caracterizan precisamente por su combinación de elementos visuales con una sintaxis definida, mientras que las representaciones pictóricas no poseen este último ingrediente, clave en la derivación de estructuras formales. Sin embargo, no todas las pruebas diagramáticas poseen ni mucho menos un claro y definido carácter explicativo. Pero, ¿en qué sentido una prueba formal puede ser explicativa? Varias han sido las respuestas a esta pregunta, y las más destacadas serían: 1) en la capacidad de realzar elementos característicos del fenómeno a derivar (modelo de explicación local de Steiner) y 2) en remarcar visualmente elementos estructurales clave en la derivación (Brown 1999). Más allá de estas respuestas iniciales, Giaquinto establece un criterio teórico algo más sofisticado para saber cuándo una prueba formal explica: • Criterio de Explicación en Pruebas Formales (cepf): una prueba formal es explicativa si y solo si cualquier agente cognitivo que comprende la prueba podría llegar a saber el motivo de por qué el contenido de la conclusión se deriva sintácticamente de la prueba. Es decir, lo que Giaquinto propone con su criterio sería reconocer que una explicación de este tipo no es otra cosa que la capacidad de obtener conocimiento válido sobre cómo el contenido formal de la conclusión se basa en la comprensión de dicha derivación. Es decir, (4) es explicativo con respecto a (1) debido a que los motivos que me llevan a comprender cómo se derivan diagramáticamente las líneas diagonales me llevan también a saber cómo funciona la progresión aritmética (1). Seguiremos profundizando en esta idea. Para aplicar este o cualquier otro criterio de 5 Véase Giaquinto (2015). Revista Colombiana de Filosofía de la Ciencia 19.38 (2019 enero – junio): Págs 67-90 ISSN: 0124-4620 (Imp) & 2463-1159 (Elec).76 Javier Anta explicación (o mejor de capacidad explicativa o "explicatividad"), tomemos como caso estas tres pruebas del sempiterno teorema de Pitágoras: 5. 6. 7. Figura 1. Tres pruebas visuales del teorema de Pitágoras. Fuente. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_theorem La primera (5) es la famosa prueba del teorema de Pitágoras que encontramos en el I.47 de los Elementos de Euclides, que representa sincrónicamente cada uno de los pasos requeridos. A pesar de comportar una pulcrísima derivación formal del teorema en cuestión (claro ejemplo de lo que podríamos calificar inferencialmente como "deducción diagramática") sería difícil justificar que tal derivación gráfica explica de alguna forma el teorema: comprender cómo se lleva a cabo dicha derivación no genera ningún conocimiento relevante con respecto al teorema. En cuanto a las virtudes epistémicas de la prueba diagramática (6), podríamos hablar al menos de potencial intuitivo o "facilitación comprensiva" sobre cómo se deriva el teorema [de la misma forma que (3) facilitaba más la comprensión de (1) que (2)]. Sin embargo, ¿podríamos hablar de prueba explicativa según Giaquinto? A pesar de facilitar la comprensión geométrica del teorema de Pitágoras, la construcción de (6) no nos aporta información significativa acerca de por qué es posible derivar el teorema. 77 Are you a Selective-realist Dialetheist Without knowing It? Por último, pero no por ello la menos importante, la prueba (7) puede llegar a presentarse a primera vista como contraintuitiva. Sin embargo, una vez el agente cognitivo ha comprendido cómo se deriva la prueba (es decir, que el área combinada de los lados menores coincide con el área adjunta al lado mayor), esto propicia en él un conocimiento justificado sobre esta derivación no rígida del teorema. Como apoyo intuitivo bastaría con recrear materialmente o por medio de imágenes mentales las dos áreas grisáceas menores como recipientes repletos de líquido y el área mayor como un recipiente vacío, de manera que al verter el líquido de los dos primeros sobre el último, este se llenaría exactamente en su capacidad. 4. inferenCias diagramátiCo-matemátiCas y su Contenido físiCo Hemos de reconocer que el cepf de Giaquinto da cuenta satisfactoriamente de por qué una prueba formal puede llegar a ser explicativa en términos de la dinámica de estados cognitivos en el agente epistémico; sin embargo, ni determina ni aclara cuáles son los mecanismos inferenciales subyacentes a este fenómeno. En este último sentido, no sería deseable incorporar el componente inferencial (es decir, cómo la información contenida al inicio del proceso se deriva por medio de operaciones discretas y algorítmicamente delimitadas hasta obtener un estado final) al cognitivo en nuestra propuesta naturalista, buscando clarificar de qué manera es epistemológicamente ventajoso en ciertas prácticas científicas usar inferencialmente representaciones visuales en vez de simbólicas.6 Entre los autores que siguen esta línea metodológica a la que nos adscribimos encontramos a Norman (2004), quien nos sugiere que los diagramas constituyen soportes inferenciales sintácticamente sólidos que justifican ciertas creencias visual6 Véase Suárez (2002) para comprender las representaciones científicas (en general) desde una perspectiva inferencial. Revista Colombiana de Filosofía de la Ciencia 19.38 (2019 enero – junio): Págs 67-90 ISSN: 0124-4620 (Imp) & 2463-1159 (Elec).78 Javier Anta mente generadas en la práctica matemática (como construcción de pruebas y derivación de corolarios). No podemos obviar la interesante interpretación inferencialista por parte de Mumma (2010) de los procedimientos diagramáticos que uno puede encontrar desde hace veintitrés siglos en los Elementos de Euclides. Mientras Miller, como ya hemos mencionado, construye un aparato deductivo formal a partir de los diagramas euclídeos, Mumma asume que las inferencias informales (aquellas que operan sobre piezas de información parcial, por ejemplo, la abducción de información geométrica mediante la postulación de líneas secantes) también cumplen un rol epistemológico importante en la misma obra. En este punto cabe preguntarse cuál es el particular comportamiento inferencial de las representaciones y operaciones diagramáticas. Según Atsushi Shimojima (1996), discípulo intelectual de Barwise y Etchemendy, dedicado a la investigación tanto teórica como empírica de la condición inferencial de los diagramas, las transformaciones diagramáticas (genéricas, de cualquier índole) se basan en el uso de propiedades espaciales del medio representacional de donde adquieren su potencial inferencial frente a las representaciones simbólicas. El uso de recursos espaciales, carácter fundamental y constitutivo de las inferencias diagramáticas, tal y como señala Shimojima, no se restringe a las propiedades geométricas del espacio (por ejemplo, nótese que el poder explicativo de (4) depende de que exista la misma distancia entre todos los puntos de la red) sino que también las propiedades espaciales más abstractas o topológicas cumplen con un rol sintáctico-semántico, cuyo caso paradigmático se encuentra en los diagramas de Venn o su reformulación en Shin (1991), en donde las relaciones topológicas entre áreas tienen un significado algebraico-booleano definido: intersección por conjunción, unión por disyunción, etc. Dicha distinción entre el uso de recursos geométricos y topológicos se recuperará ortogonalmente con la propuesta de Manders (2008) de distinguir entre propiedades exactas (o "métricas"), como puede ser la relación de congruencia entre dos figuras (nótese como la prueba (6) depende de la congruencia de los cuatro triángulos rectángulos) y propiedades co-exactas (o "topológicas"), como es el caso de intersecciones entre elementos o el hecho de que el área de las regiones sombreadas en (7) sea independiente de su forma. 79 Are you a Selective-realist Dialetheist Without knowing It? Hasta ahora solo nos hemos dedicado a explorar el carácter inferencial de las explicaciones diagramático-matemáticas de fenómenos matemáticos (mem), sin embargo, sería interesante plantearnos la pregunta acerca de si el rango disciplinar de dichas formas explicativas solo se restringe al ámbito de las ciencias formales o, por el contrario, también se encontraría aplicación en las ciencias empíricas. ¿Existen las mep o explicaciones matemáticas de fenómenos físicos? Pocos temas han despertado mayor controversia que este en los últimos años dentro de la filosofía de la ciencia en general7 y de la epistemología de la matemática aplicada en particular. Sin embargo, la cuestión específica que nos concierne en este artículo no sería sino dilucidar si existen explicaciones intrínsecamente diagramático-matemáticas de fenómenos físicos, lo cual, por supuesto, complica aún más el escenario del que debemos hacernos cargo. Curiosamente, nuestro acento en el carácter inferencial de las explicaciones no solo nos brinda luz sobre cómo la información contenida en el explanandum es derivada desde el explananda, sino que también puede dar cuenta de la relación aplicativa entre matemáticas y el ámbito empírico. Entre las varias y diversas posiciones teóricas desarrolladas en torno al debate sobre si las mep existen y de qué manera lo hacen, nos encontramos la conocida como concepción inferencialista de la aplicabilidad de las matemáticas promovida por Ottavio Bueno y Mark Colyvan (2011). En ella se defiende la idea de que las estructuras matemáticas pueden llegar a contener información empírica por medio de relaciones interestructurales, tales como homeomorfismos o isomorfismos entre el ámbito formal y el ámbito físico. Uno de los puntos más interesantes de esta propuesta es que aquellos mecanismos inferenciales llevados a cabo sobre estructuras matemáticas se transfieren (vía homeo/isomorfismo) al medio empírico, o lo que es lo mismo, la derivación sintáctica que comportan las inferencias matemáticas ha de interpretarse como manipulación operacional sobre cierto contenido físico. En una línea argumental similar encontramos la propuesta de Molinini (2016) en relación con el valor epistemológico de los aquí omnipresentes diagramas 7 Para un análisis exhaustivo del debate, véase Molinini (2016). Revista Colombiana de Filosofía de la Ciencia 19.38 (2019 enero – junio): Págs 67-90 ISSN: 0124-4620 (Imp) & 2463-1159 (Elec).80 Javier Anta euclídeos. Este autor propone que se recurre al potencial inferencial de las representaciones geométrico-diagramáticas con contenido físico en lo que él denomina "inferencias inherentes", en donde se posibilita que las propiedades matemáticas codifiquen información de carácter físico. Tomemos como ejemplo el proceso de inferir cuál será la dirección que seguirá un cuerpo con velocidad constante tras colisionar elásticamente con un segundo cuerpo. Mediante la suma de dos vectores podremos obtener diagramáticamente un tercer vector, correspondiente a la diagonal del paralelogramo construido a partir de los dos vectores iniciales (véase figura 2); la inferencia inherente de esta operación diagramática nos muestra cómo a través de emplear recursos geométricos podemos obtener información física sobre cuál será la dirección que tomará el primer cuerpo tras la colisión: Figura 2. Inferencia inherente de la dirección de un cuerpo tras una colisión. Dirección original del cuerpo incidente Dirección original Dirección resultante Lo más atractivo de la concepción inferencialista de la aplicabilidad matemática, tanto en la vertiente de Bueno y Colyvan como en la de Molinini, es que supone una base teórica sólida para desarrollar un modelo multimodal acerca de cómo las estructuras matemáticas se ajustan a la realidad empírica, no exclusivamente mediante aparatos simbólicos, sino también mediante representaciones y operaciones diagramáticas. De este modo, podremos analizar en un plano cognitivo cómo es posible obtener explicaciones epistemológicamente valiosas desde este particular formato inferencial. 81 Are you a Selective-realist Dialetheist Without knowing It? 5. inferenCias geométriCas de fenómenos físiCos El físico teórico John Wheeler desarrolló en uno de los capítulos de su libro Spacetime Physics (Wheeler & Taylor 1963) un método intrínsecamente visual-diagramático, el cual no requería de codificar información empírica mediante fórmulas simbólicas para calcular con precisión valores cuantitativos dentro del ámbito experimental de colisiones de alta energía en física relativista de partículas. Como ejemplo ilustrativo, Wheeler toma una reacción nuclear en la que un deuterón (isótopo del hidrógeno compuesto por un protón y un neutrón) acelerado, y en consecuencia altamente energético, colisiona contra un deuterón en reposo, produciendo en consecuencia un protón y un tritio (otro isótopo del hidrógeno, este compuesto por un protón y dos neutrones). Tras la colisión se generan los valores de energía y momento de los dos deuterones reactantes, con lo que por medio de las leyes de conservación se obtiene relativistamente la masa de ambos y del protón resultante. Sin embargo, para calcular o inferir la masa del tritio resultante se requeriría una computación algo más compleja de los valores disponibles. Por supuesto, y como es habitual, dicha computación se llevó a cabo por medio de manipulación algebraica de fórmulas simbólicas. La novedad metodológica de Wheeler recae en llevar a cabo esa misma computación por medio de operaciones diagramáticas con elementos geométricos. En primer lugar, se construye un sistema tetradimensional de coordenadas, desde donde se representan las cantidades tanto de energía (eje vertical) o, lo que es relativistamente equivalente, masa en reposo, como de las tres dimensiones del momento (eje horizontal y de profundidad). Con el objetivo de evitar representar contenido físico redundante y de economizar los recursos visuales empleados en el sistema diagramático, una de las dimensiones del momento (Pz) será suprimida; por lo que partiríamos de un sistema diagramático tridimensional proyectado en las dos dimensiones del formato del libro original o el presente artículo. En segundo lugar, la masa-energía o (por acortar) masa de cada una de las cuatro partículas que intervienen en la colisión, codificada en la física relativista por 4-vectores, queda representada mediante segmentos. Como punto de partida (valores Revista Colombiana de Filosofía de la Ciencia 19.38 (2019 enero – junio): Págs 67-90 ISSN: 0124-4620 (Imp) & 2463-1159 (Elec).82 Javier Anta iniciales) contamos con tres segmentos: AB se presenta como la masa del deuterón "bombardero", 0A como la masa del deuterón en reposo (que su segmento-masa coincida con el eje de energía/masa en reposo "E" significa o representa el hecho físico de que este segundo deuterón no contiene energía cinética) y 0B como la masa total de la reacción. Además de los segmentos mencionados, tenemos también los ángulos abiertos entre los segmentos, los cuales codifican información sobre las "velocidades relativas" existentes entre las partículas en cuestión (por ejemplo, el ángulo φ0AB representa la velocidad relativa entre los dos deuterones). En este mismo sentido, el triángulo 0AB representa de modo visual y diagramático las cantidades físicas del escenario previo a la reacción. A partir de estos elementos geométricos se ha de derivar el segmento correspondiente a la masa del tritio. ¿Cómo se llevaría esto a cabo? One determines the triton mass value by using the conservation laws much as a surveyor finds the length of one side of a polygon from the other measurements of the polygon by using Euclidean geometry (Wheeler & Taylor 1963 225). La clave, tal y como el propio Wheeler confiesa en la cita anterior, está en la geometría euclídea, donde encontraremos las reglas diagramáticas necesarias para obtener el dato final requerido. A partir de los segmentos CP y CE (que representan los componentes "y-momento" y "energía", respectivamente, del 4-vector masa del protón resultante) y por medio del teorema de Pitágoras, es posible obtener el segmento C0 que codifica la masa-energía del protón. Es entonces cuando uniendo CB se puede derivar el buscado segmento cb (coloreado en rojo en la figura 3), el cual encapsula por medio de su longitud el valor correspondiente a la masa-energía del tritio. 83 Are you a Selective-realist Dialetheist Without knowing It? Es, cuanto menos, semánticamente interesante, que en el contexto semántico de este sistema diagramático la geometría euclídea representa la geometría física lorentziana propia del espaciotiempo especial relativista. Desde una perspectiva inferencial como aquí hemos defendido, realizar inferencias diagramáticas por medio de la geometría euclídea en este contexto supone (o "inhiere", en términos de Molinini 2016) manipular información física sobre la estructura geométrica del espacio-tiempo. Esto es fundamental, no solo en la dimensión sintáctico-formal sino también en el plano semántico, de forma que toda operación diagramática correcta (es decir, que sea desarrollada según la geometría euclídea) implica la preservación del contenido físico de sus elementos geométricos: por ejemplo, al derivar el segmento CB, el contenido de AB, la masa del deuterón incidente, no se ve modificado. 6. haCia un modelo de expliCaCiones diagramátiCo-geométriCas en físiCa Una vez ha sido esbozada la metodología visogeométrica wheeleriana como caso paradigmático, podemos apuntar que lo verdaderamente importante que subyace a cualquier explicación, tal y como defendemos en este artículo, se formularía como E A A A B B CP C C CE 0 00 Px Px Px B Aplicación del teorema de pitágoras Masa del tritio ConclusiónPremisa / Datos iniciales Figura 3. Inferencia diagramática de la masa del tritio en la reacción nuclear por medio de la metodología geométrica de Wheeler y Taylor (1963). Revista Colombiana de Filosofía de la Ciencia 19.38 (2019 enero – junio): Págs 67-90 ISSN: 0124-4620 (Imp) & 2463-1159 (Elec).84 Javier Anta pregunta de la siguiente manera: ¿constituye la derivación diagramática del segmento CB a partir de los elementos geométricos iniciales un proceso inferencial válido? Si con "inferencialmente válido" nos referimos a "lógica o deductivamente válido", entonces la respuesta es No; pues tal y como dice Molinini "not all thinking is a matter of making inferences in the same way that logic-based systems do" (2016 418). Por otro lado, si nos referimos más bien a un tipo de inferencia informal sobre fragmentos de información parcial, como es común en la enorme mayoría de la práctica científica, entonces sería necesario formular: • Criterio de Validez Inferencial (cvi): una inferencia es válida si como consecuencia de realizar correctamente todas operaciones necesarias para derivar sintácticamente la conclusión, entonces la información contenida en la conclusión deriva semánticamente de la información contenida en las premisas. O, dicho de otra forma, una inferencia es válida si el contenido informacional de la conclusión depende tanto sintáctica como semánticamente del contenido informacional de las premisas. No es posible dar cuenta de ninguna inferencia explicativa si no tenemos antes una mínima, pero suficiente garantía de que lo inferido sea consecuencia, no lógica pero sí semántica y sintáctica, de las premisas. Solo a partir de esta mínima garantía podemos hablar de explicación o cualquier otro fenómeno epistemológico con una arquitectura de inferencia. En este punto, y con base en lo argumentado expondré directamente mi tesis con respecto al procedimiento wheeleriano: es posible explicar un fenómeno físico tan significativo como la conservación de la energía-momento relativista en una reacción nuclear por medio exclusiva y genuinamente de representaciones diagramáticas y operaciones geométricas. Con ello estoy afirmando simultáneamente: 1) que las explicaciones genuinamente matemáticas de fenómenos físicos se dan en la práctica científica, y 2) que las explicaciones diagramáticas son herramientas epistemológicas clave en muchos ámbitos y disciplinas. Otras alternativas previas a la nuestra, por ejemplo el CEPF de Giaquinto (analizado en la sección 2) parecen no dar cuenta, 85 Are you a Selective-realist Dialetheist Without knowing It? más allá de lo que ocurre a nivel psicológico, de las condiciones de posibilidad de tal explicación o prueba geométrica explicativa. • Aplicación de Modelo Cognitivo de cepf (Giaquinto 2015): comprender por qué el segmento 0B sea una arista tanto para el triángulo ∆0AB como para el triángulo ∆0CB (lo cual es un hecho incontrovertida y genuinamente geométrico) posibilita en el agente cognitivo una explicación sobre por qué la cantidad de masa-energía antes de la colisión es equivalente a la cantidad de masa-energía después de la colisión. Más allá de ofrecer una historia cognitiva de cómo ocurre una explicación diagramática (la comprensión del contenido visual de una representación mental del explanandum geométrico genera los recursos cognitivos requeridos para explicar el explananda físico) sería deseable contar con un modelo que analizase cuáles son las condiciones inferenciales que garantizan el valor explicativo de un soporte genuinamente diagramático-geométrico con respecto a un fenómeno físico. Con base en el cvi como condición explicativa, nuestra propuesta es la siguiente: "Every application of the law of conservation of momentum and energy is a statement about a polygon built of 4-vectors in space-time." (Wheeler; 1963) M1 + M2 = M3 + M4 (Conservación de masa) E1 + M2 = E3 + E4 (Conservación de energía) P1 x + 0 = 0 + P4 x (Conservación de x-momento) 0 + 0 = P3 y + P4 y (Conservación de y-momento) 0 + 0 = 0 + P4 z (Conservación de z-momento Explanandum Geométrico / diagramático Explananda Físico / simbólico Figura 4. Explicación geométrica-diagramática (Wheeler & Taylor 1963) de la validez de la ley relativista de conservación de la masa, representada mediante fórmulas en una reacción nuclear. E A B C 0 0 0 B Px Revista Colombiana de Filosofía de la Ciencia 19.38 (2019 enero – junio): Págs 67-90 ISSN: 0124-4620 (Imp) & 2463-1159 (Elec).86 Javier Anta • Aplicación del Modelo Inferencial de Explicación (mep): abducir válida y visualmente por medio de representaciones diagramáticas que el segmento 0B (resaltado en negro) sea una arista tanto para el triángulo ∆0AB como para el triángulo ∆0CB signifique que la cantidad de masa-energía antes de la colisión es equivalente a la cantidad de masa-energía después de la colisión posibilita explicar este fenómeno físico (independientemente de cómo esté representado) a partir de los recursos espaciales-geométricos que codifican diagramáticamente las leyes relativistas de conservación de la masa-energía. El que un aparato diagramático (que forma parte representacional de una prueba o no) resalte la visualización y uso de recursos espaciales a la hora de representar su contenido formal o empírico, y sin que por ello disminuya su expresividad o rigor sintáctico, es una condición necesaria pero no suficiente, tal y como defendía Steiner (1978), para su explicatividad. Por ello la prueba (6) del teorema de Pitágoras, a pesar de expresar intuitivamente su contenido y gozar de la virtud epistémica de la visualización, no posee la condición que nosotros consideramos constituyente de toda explicación: la validez inferencial (cvi). Esta fuerte condición semántico-semántica hace posible que una representación diagramática puede explicar genuinamente y con garantías epistémicas un fenómeno físico. Al igual que en la práctica matemática, los diagramas en física cumplen con diferentes funciones según sus características estructurales y representacionales, y por supuesto no todos ellas son explicativas. En el caso de los famosos diagramas de Feynman, su valor científico (en contra de la creencia popular) reside en su capacidad de simplificar computacionalmente conjuntos de integrales multivariables complejas y no en explicar cómo sucede en diversas interacciones fundamentales, precisamente porque tales mecanismos de interacción no quedan diagramáticamente codificados en las propiedades visoespaciales del mismo. Abducir visualmente que un diagrama de Feynman representa una interacción fundamental constituye una inferencia inválida, y por tanto cualquier explicación basada constitutivamente en tal inferencia sería cuanto menos epistémicamente inerte. Por otro lado, tenemos 87 Are you a Selective-realist Dialetheist Without knowing It? Figura 5. Representaciones diagramáticas empleadas en física: diagrama de Feynman (izquierda), diagrama de Minkowski (centro) y diagrama de Wheeler (derecha). que existen diagramas con gran capacidad de codificar visualmente el contenido físico de determinadas teorías, como es el caso de los diagramas de Minkwoski, cuyo potencial explicativo, si alguno, depende de aprovechar su alta complejidad representacional (por ejemplo, la superficie de los conos de luz no representan ninguna estructura espacio-temporal sino un límite máximo en la aceleración). Fuente. imagen de la izquierda y central tomadas de <http://cort.as/-Q_Ew>. Imagen de derecha: elaboración propia. 0 AC E B Px De este modo, las posibilidades epistémicas de cada tipo de diagrama en las ciencias físicas, al igual que en matemáticas, tal y como vimos la tercera sección, dependen no exclusivamente del agente cognitivo (en oposición a Giaquinto 2015) sino sobre todo de cómo se emplean representacionalmente los recursos visoespaciales para codificar información sobre el fenómeno empírico en cuestión. ConClusión Para concluir cabría recalcar una vez más, sin riesgo a ser repetitivo, una de las tesis principales que hemos venido defendiendo hasta aquí: el potencial epistémico, en Revista Colombiana de Filosofía de la Ciencia 19.38 (2019 enero – junio): Págs 67-90 ISSN: 0124-4620 (Imp) & 2463-1159 (Elec).88 Javier Anta general, y la capacidad explicativa, en particular, de un diagrama geométrico-topológico viene determinada por la forma en la que se usan los recursos visoespaciales para codificar información genuinamente matemática o intrínsecamente empírica, según el explananda sea un fenómeno matemático o físico, respectivamente. Desde el marco inferencial desplegado y a partir del cvi, hemos analizado cómo el componente de garantía epistémica que comporta nuestro ejemplo de explicación diagramático-geométrica de la conservación de energía y momento bajo la metodología wheeleriana puede ser satisfactoriamente evaluado en términos de independencia representacional (simbólica, verbal, diagramática...) del contenido informacional y dependencia sintáctica y semántica del contenido informacional diagramáticamente derivable del contenido informacional de las premisas o datos iniciales, independientemente del formato en las que estos se presenten. También hemos de mencionar (como tema colateral) el hecho de que una de las características epistémicas más interesantes de este tipo de diagramas es la de poseer, en términos generales, un nivel de inteligibilidad mayor que sus versiones simbólicas, debido precisamente al uso de mecanismos gráficos que incentivan la comprensibilidad directa del fenómeno físico. De esta forma, y con este ilustrativo caso, hemos mostrado cómo las explicaciones diagramático-geométricas de fenómenos físicos no solo son posibles (respondiendo simultáneamente tanto al debate sobre las explicaciones visodiagramáticas como al debate sobre las explicaciones matemáticas) sino que además en muchos casos son epistémicamente superiores a sus contrapartes verbales. Aún queda mucha labor que realizar, tanto en lo filosófico como en lo empírico, para entender la vital importancia de las representaciones diagramáticas a la hora de generar y gestionar conocimiento en las prácticas científicas del día a día. trabajos Citados Ayer, Alfred. Language, Truth and Logic. London: V. Gollanczm, 1936. Brown, James. Philosophy of Mathematics: an Introduction to the World of Proofs and Pictures. London: Routledge, 1999. 89 Are you a Selective-realist Dialetheist Without knowing It? Barwise, John y Jon Etchemendy. "Visual Information and Valid Reasoning". Logical Reasoning with Diagrams. Eds. Gerard Allwein y John Barwise. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. 3-25. Bueno, Octavio y Mark Colyvan. "An Inferential Conception of the Application of Mathematics". Noûs 45.2 (2011): 345-374. Giaquinto, Marcus. "The Epistemology of Visual Thinking in Mathematics". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Edward N. Zalta, 2015. < http:// cort.as/-Q0h9>. Mancosu, Paolo. "Visualization in Logic and Mathematics". Visualization, Explanation and Reasoning Styles in Mathematics. Eds. Paolo Mancosu, Klaus Jorgensen y Stig Pedersen. Dordrecht: Springer, 2005. 13-30. Manders, K. "The Euclidean Diagram". The Philosophy of Mathematical Practice. Ed. Paolo Mancosu. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. 80-133. Miller, Nathaniel. "Euclid and his Twentieth Century Rivals: Diagrams in the Logic of Euclidean Geometry". Studies in the Theory and Applications of Diagrams. Stanford California: csli Publications, 2007. 8-119. Molinini, Daniele. "The Epistemological Import of Euclidean Diagrams". Kairos. Journal of Philosophy and Science 16.1 (2016):124-141. <https://doi. org/10.1515/kjps-2016-0012>. Mumma, John. "Proofs, Pictures, and Euclid". Synthese 175.2 (2010): 255-287. <https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-009-9509-9>. Nelsen, Roger. Proofs without Words: Exercises in Visual Thinking. Washington dc: The Mathematical Association of America, 1993. Norman, Jesse. "Can Diagrams Have Epistemic Value? The Case of Euclid". Diagrammatic Representation and Inference. Eds. Alan F. Blackwell, Kim Marriott y Atsushi Shimojima. Berlín: Springer, 2004. 14-17. < https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-540-25931-2_2>. Peirce, Charles S. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931. Perini, Laura. 2005. "Explanation in Two Dimensions: Diagrams and Biological Explanation". Biology and Philosophy 20.3 (2005): 257-269. Revista Colombiana de Filosofía de la Ciencia 19.38 (2019 enero – junio): Págs 67-90 ISSN: 0124-4620 (Imp) & 2463-1159 (Elec).90 Javier Anta Shin, Sun-Joo. Valid Reasoning and Visual Representation. Dissertation, Stanford University, 1991. Shimojima, A. "Operational Constraints in Diagrammatic Reasoning. Logical Reasoning with Diagrams. Eds. Gerard Allwein y Jon Barwise. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. _______. "Inferential and Expressive Capacities of Graphical Representations: Survey and Some Generalizations". Diagrammatic Representation and Inference. Eds. Alan F. Blackwell, Kim Marriott y Atsushi Shimojima. Berlín: Springer, 2004. 18-21. < https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-25931-2_2>. Steiner, Mark. "Mathematical Explanation". Philosophical Studies 34.2 (1978): 135-151. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/4319237> Suárez, Mauricio. "An Inferential Conception of Scientific Representation". Philosophy of Science 71.5 (2002): 767-779. Tennant, Neil. "The Withering away of Formal Semantics?" Mind and Language 1.4 (1986): 302-318. Wheeler, John y Edwin Taylor. "Spacetime Physics: Introduction to Special Relativity". A Series of Books in Physics. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1963. are you a seleCtive-realist dialetheist Without knoWing it?1* | {
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chapter three The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting1 Barry C. Smith Most wine tasters and many wine critics will tell you that tasteis subjective. It is a matter of what you like or dislike, of whatis right for you. In matters of taste your opinion is sovereign. You should simply not allow yourself to be persuaded that you have not fully appreciated this or that wine: there is no such thing as getting it right or wrong. It is your opinion that counts. Such is the oft-propounded wisdom that it is somewhat difficult for others to get a hearing. However, a closer examination of the business of taste and tasting will show us that things are not so clear-cut. To begin with, the reasons people offer for saying that taste is subjective vary considerably and not all of them are compatible with one another. Moreover, the considerations most often advanced in favour of subjectivity are not always consistent with the attitudes or practices of those who advance them. (It is harder than one thinks to live up to the belief that taste is subjective.) In the end, so many different things come to be listed under the heading of subjectivity that one begins to suspect that there is no common view or single opinion about what it means to say that taste is subjective. In the light of this, just how convincing are the arguments for the subjectivity of taste? And if we can no longer give good reasons for endorsing subjectivity what should we say instead? In particular, what scope is there for thinking that there may be such a thing as the taste (or tastes) of a wine, and that judgements about taste may be objective? These are the issues I will explore in what follows. Let us start with the claim that taste is subjective. 41 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page 41 ences we have as tasters. On this view tastes are the exclusive properties of individual tasters. Another way to construe subjectivity is to see our judgements about how a wine tastes as answerable to nothing except our subjective states. How the wine tastes just is how it tastes to me at this moment. Other notions of subjectivity have to do with the difficulty of capturing the indefinable quality of our experiences in words. Even if we could put our subjective experience of a wine into words, there would be nothing we could get right or wrong about the wine, since we would merely be describing our own experiences. Finally, we have the view that judgements of taste are matters of opinion and not matters of fact; that each taster is the final arbiter, and no person's opinion of a wine is better than anyone else's. I have only my own assessment of a wine's quality to rely upon. That is because, so the thought goes, there is no standard of taste for evaluating the quality of wine, and if there were objective facts to get right there would be no divergence of opinion between expert wine critics. These claims concern different senses of subjectivity and to pursue the general issue, we shall need to look at each of them more closely. Taste, Tastes and Tasting A potential distraction in these discussions is the use of the word 'taste' to indicate a certain discerning sensibility or refinement of judgement. Here is where we find ideas of good or bad taste, of improvement in, and of criticism of, one's taste by others. Questions of taste, in this sense, dominate discussions of philosophical aesthetics. Taste can be cultivated and educated; it qualifies for assessment and evaluation. Undoubtedly, knowledge and experience are required, but showing taste in the appreciation of wine is about exercising judgement and preference. It is controversial, however, whether there are standards of taste, whether we could all equally recognise them, whether there are good judges of such matters-as the philosopher David Hume thought-better able to say what counts as good taste and able to criticise the taste of others.3 I shall return to the role of wine critics below, but for the moment let us adopt the view of taste proposed by art historian Michael Baxandal. Here is how he characterises taste in Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting 43 What is the Case for Subjectivity? People are inclined to say that all we can be sure of is how a wine tastes to us personally; and that how a wine tastes to us personally is a purely subjective matter. It is on this basis that we make up our minds about what we like and dislike. So, they will say, taste is subjective. What is interesting, here, is how quickly we pass here from what looks like a commonplace observation to a philosophical thesis: a thesis that requires further discussion and defence. It is also surprising that many wine tasters and wine critics are so ready to accept this controversial doctrine, especially in the light of their practice of assessing and recommending wines to others. For example, Michael Broadbent tells us that: After fifty years of tasting and teaching I am convinced that to talk about, let alone claim, total objectivity-'relating entirely to the external object'-in tasting is nonsense. Moreover, to be a subjective taster is nothing to be ashamed of. One can even argue that that a subjective approach-'arising out of the senses'-is the most enriching approach to fine wine. (M. Broadbent, Wine Tasting, p.95) He goes on to declare that 'in the ultimate analysis, "I, the taster", am the final arbiter'. Though like most critics Broadbent appears to be in two minds on this issue. For he tells us 'The problem is, as usual, to note or convey subjective and objective impressions' (p.95). This is surely right, and yet despite this concession, Boradbent, like many other critics, places strong emphasis on subjectivity. 2 Why does subjectivism about taste have such a strong appeal? Or to put it in a more philosophical vein: how subjective are taste and tasting? To address this question properly we first have to understand what is meant by the subjectivity of taste. Many different claims are made under that heading and they target subtly different things; not all of them incompatible with objectivity. Talk of subjectivity as 'arising out of the senses' helps to stress the experiential dimension of taste but this does not preclude tasting giving us objective knowledge of the world. After all, the senses of sight, touch, and hearing give us knowledge of the external world, so why not taste and smell also? A stronger notion of subjectivity would equate the tastes we discover with the sensory experiQUESTIONS OF TASTE42 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page 42 what sense then are such taste properties subjective? Of course, you cannot be sure that someone else will detect the same tastes you do. But there is every reason to think tastes are there to be detected. We draw each other's attention to what we have noticed in a wine. 'Do you get the pear?' we may say when tasting a white Burgundy, or 'Fig?' when tasting a Rhône. Any of these descriptions may be spurned of course, but usually they help to improve one another's perceptual awareness of the taste of the wine, leading to finer disciminations. Neither person may be a better taster than the other. Their efforts are more collaborative, and through such interactions their perceptions become keener, their discriminations and responses finer, and they gain more satisfaction from their responses, their decisions and choices: Finer perceptions can both intensify and refine responses. Intenser responses can further heighten and refine perceptions. And more and more refined responses can lead to further and finer and more variegated or more intense responses and perceptions. (Wiggins 1991, p.196)5 Saying that the experience of tasting is a personal one need not prevent us from saying that it acquaints us with how a particular wine tastes, or from supposing that other people can be acquainted with that taste too. Some of the flavours and aromas we notice may so well-known that they serve as reference points of reference for the varietal: the smell of rose petals in Gewürztraminer, for instance. Acknowledging the role of subjective experience in tasting, by itself, provides no case for saying that that taste or tasting are subjective. The Sensation of Taste We assume that other people see what we see and hear what we hear, when they are in the same immediate environment. So why do we not assume that other people taste what we taste? Perhaps because taste is said to be the most subjective of the senses, requiring actual bodily contact with a substance. But isn't touch a contact sense also? It is, however, touch that allows one to explore the contours of the external world, while taste consumes and destroys its object inside us. Taste is a chemical sense like smell, requiring interactions between gases and receptors in us. And each of taste, touch and smell contributes to wine The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting 45 Much of what we call 'taste' lies in this, the conformity between discriminations demanded by a painting and skills of discrimination possessed by the beholder. We enjoy our own exercise of skill, and we particularly enjoy the playful exercise of skill which we use in normal life very earnestly. If a painting gives us opportunity for exercising a valued skill and rewards our virtuosity with a sense of worthwhile insights about that painting's organisation, we tend to enjoy it: it is to our taste. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1972, p.34) So with painting, also with wine!4 Increasing one's powers of discrimination, one's skills as a taster, is part of exercising taste, but it also requires that there be something worthy of one's attention, something that affords an opportunity for the exercise of a skill. This means a fine wine. Another potential stumbling block in these discussions is the failure to distinguish between taste as a sensation and the taste of something; between the sensations I have when I eat a strawberry, on the one hand, and the taste of the strawberry, on the other. To avoid confusion, I will make a distinction between tastes, which I shall argue are properties a wine has, and tasting, which is an experience a subject has. Wine tasting is the way each of us personally encounters the tastes of a wine. The key question will be whether the sensations we have when tasting are good guides to the tastes of a wine. How Convincing is the Case for Subjectivity? Are tastes just each individual taster's sensory experiences? Can we equate tastes with the subjective experiences of tasting? We certainly rely on subjective experiences to know how a wine tastes. For even if we know a great deal about its objective chemical properties or vinification, we would not know what it tastes like without tasting it. The experience of tasting provides the only route to such knowledge. But my experience of how a wine tastes need not rule out the possibility of others experiencing the same thing. Why suppose the taste I discover to be available only to me? Surely, I discover something about the wine: its floral character, say, or its sharp acidity. These are properties I attribute to the wine, not just to my experience. But what sort of properties are they? Not chemical properties: we were assuming I knew those already. The properties I discover through the experience of tasting are the tastes of the wine. In QUESTIONS OF TASTE44 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page 44 jective if there were no gap between how things seemed to us, on an occasion, and how they were, because that was only how they seemed to us. But we do admit a gap, on occasions, between how things strike us and how they are. We are happy to grant a distinction, for example, between the way a wine tastes, and the way it tastes to us after sucking a lemon. We are not tempted to equate the taste of a Meursault with how it tastes to us after brushing our teeth. How a wine tastes is not exhausted by how it tastes to an individual at any given moment. We distinguish between good and bad conditions for tasting, where these involve the condition of the wine as well as the condition of the taster. And we apply these distinctions to ourselves and to others. I can predict that you will not notice the tender raspberry fruit of Nicolas Potel's 2001 Volnay Les Caillerets if you have just eaten a plate of kippers. Nor will I be surprised that a bottle of 2000 Beaucastel Châteauneuf du Pape tastes soupy given the sweltering temperature of the place in which it has been kept. So long as there is room for a distinction between the taste of a wine and how it tastes to someone under certain condition there will be no reason to conclude that a taste is constituted by the individual experience of a taster, and so no convincing case yet for saying that tastes are subjective. The stubbornly persistent view that when we speak about a wine's taste we can only be speaking about our response to it is based on the idea that tastes can only be experienced as sensations, and that sensations, being utterly subjective, cannot provide any basis for drawing conclusions about the world, or other people's experiences. But this overstates the case. I can tell by the sensations on my lips and tongue that a wine has been severely chilled. On this basis I readily conclude something about the wine that enables me to predict how others will experience it. Tasting requires me to attend to my sensory experience but this does not prevent me from knowing about the world around me. Sensations are narcissistic in telling us how things are with us. But they are also revelatory: telling us how things are around us. In this way, they are Janus-faced. The temperature of my skin tells me how hot or cold I am, but in normal conditions it also tells me about the ambient temperature of the room. Why should it be any different for taste sensations? My tasting experience can tell me: whether a wine has too much alcohol because of the slight burning sensation at the back of my throat; whether it has too little The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting 47 tasting. All three are thought to be more subjective than audition and vision, which allow us to contemplate distant and unchanging objects. For instance, visual experience enables me to see a church on the hillside. And whereas the church I see is separate from my experience of seeing it, the taste of the Chablis is not so clearly separable from the experiences I am having when drinking it.6 Perhaps it is this closeness of a taste to the immediate experience of the taster that makes taste appear so irreducibly subjective? In other words, must we think of tastes as being in us rather than being in the wine? To say this is to concede that people cannot literally encounter the same tastes. An argument for subjectivity can now be constructed as follows. Tastes seem to be inextricably bound up with the personal experiences of tasters, so they cannot be part of the external world? The taste of a wine is made known to me at the place where the liquid enters my mouth. The site of the taste is on my taste receptors in my mouth and on my tongue. The experience of taste occurs within me, crucially involving my conscious states. So the taste I am having is not the taste you are having: we each taste separately. Therefore taste is subjective. The reasoning here is a little quick. The feel of a velvet fabric on my fingers is an experience that occurs to me at a specific site on my body, but this does not make the feel of the velvet available to me only. Touch allows us to discover properties of objects but leaves room for others to discover the same properties by means of their tactile experiences. Why not the same with taste? It may be said that taste is more internal than touch because it is focused on what goes on inside our bodies. But subjectivity cannot be characterised in terms of what is literally going inside us or else the circulation of blood around my brain would count as subjective. The subjectivity we are interested in-the kind that threatens objectivity-is one in which there is nothing independent of our opinions to which they are answerable. It is only when there is room for a contrast between opinions and matters of fact that that we have an objective subject matter. A wholly subjective opinion is one that is answerable to nothing more than how things seem to the subject. What about our opinions of wines? It may depend whether we are talking about evaluations of a wine's quality or judgements about its particular characteristics. A judgement about a wine's characteristics would be subQUESTIONS OF TASTE46 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page 46 out from experiencing the pleasures of fine wines? The assumption that gives rise to this dilemma is the view that tastes are just what is immediately experienced. The idea that there is no more to the taste of a wine than is revealed to us directly in sensation leads to a credibility gap between those who claim to detect a large range of flavours and aromas in a wine and those who don't. But when we separate out initial or immediate sensations from further responses we can see a difference between the kinds of experience had by the novice and the expert, and that we are not comparing like with like. Compare the undifferentiated responses of someone tasting as a matter of their immediate, overall impression of a wine, and the more componential, taste impressions of the analytic taster who mentions ripe fruit, balancing acidity, judicious use of oak, and soft-grained tannins. The analytical taster is doing something quite different from the novice. It is not his immediate or overall taste sensations he is attending to. Instead, he guides his attention towards certain aspects of his experience, selecting some for peculiar scrutiny. To begin with, he pays a good deal of attention to impressions of smell. Novice tasters pay scant attention to the aromas of wine, sniffing quickly then getting down to what they take to be the real business of tasting. However, a great deal can be learned from the nose of a wine. First, the experienced taster notices the volatile aromas that arise from the glass when still, then the somewhat reluctant aromas that arise after a little agitation. He concentrates on the sequence and intensity of his olfactory sensations. Are there base, earthy notes and higher menthol notes? Is there a smooth transition or an abrupt change from the odours at the beginning to those at the end? Does any note dominate? The wine's olfactory profile usually gives clues as to its taste profile that may be confirmed in the sequences of taste sensations. A wine of age is easily recognisable by the nose. And until recently there were considerable differences between Old and New World wines. However, there are also interesting mismatches between taste and smell, giving the lie to the claim that taste is almost entirely due to smell. There may be little on the nose and yet one can be pleasantly surprised at how full and sumptuous a young wine is. The nose may be very promising but the wine be a little short. The nose can also be misleading about the taste, thus thwarting our expectations. The citrus notes can lead one to expect piercing acidity but one can be surprised by how round the wine The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting 49 acidity because of the flatness in the finish; whether there is an excess use of wood by the slight irritation of the gums; whether the tannins are still too firm by the mouth puckering sensations of dryness and astringency. Experienced tasters will learn more from their sensations about the texture of the wine-about whether the tannins are fineor coarsegrained-by paying attention to particular aspects of their sensory experience. In similar fashion, wine-makers use sensations of smell to indicate faults or problems with the fermentation. The sulphurous smell from a barrel sample can tell me that the reduction has been too severe, that the wine is starved of oxygen and will need to be racked. So the fact that tasting sensations are the conscious experiences of individual tasters does not thereby prevent them out from providing information about the objective characteristics of the wines tasted. The more discerning I am as a taster, the more discriminatingly will I use my sensations to tell me something about the properties of the wine and the way it has been made. Fine Wine The character of the sensations I enjoy in tasting depends on the qualities of the wine I taste. A dull and shapeless wine cannot produce the complex amalgam of sensations a great wine gives rise to, however interesting and imaginative the taster. The better the quality of the wine, the better the quality of the experience I can have in drinking it. Only a fine or great wine will repay the attention given to it, because only a sufficiently rich and complex wine will exercise our discriminative powers in a rewarding way. If finer wines are responsible for finer experiences, are all the properties of fine wines available to just anyone? To answer negatively is to risk not only accusations of elitism, but, beyond this, a general scepticism about what experts claim to discover through tasting. For how can there be aspects of a wine revealed to some tasters but not others when tasting is such a direct and immediate experience? These questions bring us to the heart of tastes and tasting. Either the aromas and flavours of a wine are there for all to recognise, or there are flavours and aromas available only to those who enjoy particular taste sensations, who have special sensory equipment, as it were.7 Neither of these is an easy option to take. Are normal tasters ruled QUESTIONS OF TASTE48 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page 48 and undifferentiated experiences reveal none of the elements the connoisseur mentions, then they simply cannot be there. But on the contrary, time must be taken to build up the experience of the wine gradually. The elements for a final assessment take shape and begin to show themselves only after the novice has sipped and swallowed. Are these further judgements and assessments open to the novice? Yes, but not without training in the art of tasting. The novice is often surprised to discover this fact about the different modalities he is employing, but after learning he becomes better able to attend selectively to each of these aspects of his experience, and set expectations at the outset. It is perhaps the idea that we have to learn about our experience, that we have to learn to taste-or learn by means of tasting-that bemuses people and leads to scepticism. There is a kind of democracy of tasting: everyone can experience wine by tasting it; you just put the wine to your lips and drink. But thereafter the course of experience of the novice and the expert differs. For the latter, the experience is far from undifferentiated. It has to be segmented, selectively attended to, weighed, and categorised by comparisons with other experiences and memories. (The less experienced among us will do some of this but to a lesser extent.) A wine can, of course, speak to us straight away, and may even lead us quickly to something that we then focus on. But focus is what matters and the more definition a wine has the easier this will be. The discriminations good tasters make on the basis of perceptually attended experiences require considerably more cognitive effort and concentration than is required by an immediate sensory response. 'Taste invites reflection.' as Voltaire put it.9 And there is an important insight here because wine tasting is not exhausted by first perceptual reactions and also because the nature of the invitation crucially depends on those initial perceptions. Many people will, alas, have had little to invite them to further reflection, drinking wines of no particular distinction that offer limited pleasure. As the great Bordeaux oenologist Emile Peynaud put it: ...there are still millions of hectolitres of neutral, shapeless, and impersonal wines about which the taster can say nothing once he has spat them out. The birth of a taster's vocabulary dates from the advent of quality wine. (E. Peynaud, 1987 p.215) The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting 51 is. The experienced taster attends to individual flavours and their intensities at different stages. Something may be present in the taste that does not show on the nose and could not have been anticipated. In addition, the experienced taster performs retro-nasal breathing to bring to life further aromas, and so see the quality and persistence of flavours in the finish. Going back and forward one can settle on a more precise identification of aromas and flavours. One can come to understand better what is going on in the wine. The comparison is instructive; it may tell us something about the potential development of the wine, in the glass or in the bottle. In this way taste and smell collaborate rather than collapse in tasting a wine. As well as smell, tasting involves touch, the wine's mouthfeel, and the way it travels across the mouth. Perhaps sight too has a role to play in setting expectations.8 Wine tasting is a multimodal experience in which taste sensations are just one component, and where attention to, and reflections on, all aspects of that experience can lead to increasingly refined judgements. There is a focus on the fruit-which kind?-the level of acidity-is there enough?-the amount and quality of the oak used-too intrusive?-and, perhaps the quality of the tannins. Each judgement requires selective attention to a particular aspect of the overall experience, and repeated attempts may be necessary to settle on the right judgement of both taste and smell. All of this goes far beyond the immediate sensations produced by sipping and swallowing. The tasting impressions on which a considered assessment of a wine are based are first sought out and highlighted by selective attention. We need to prepare ourselves and be receptive to certain kinds of experiences. We need to know what we are looking for. Tasting is not, as many think, a passive experience. We are seeking out particular type of experiences, and this requires knowledge and training. Not everything about the taste of a wine is surrendered at first, or is accessible without a skilful search. A great bottle will not yield everything all at once, or to just anyone. It will reveal more if we take our time and let our experience develop like a photograph. Now we see why we are not comparing like with like. The person who is sceptical about the elaborate descriptions given by wine connoisseurs thinks that all there is to taste is given in immediate sensation. It is just a matter of how things taste to him at a moment. And if his initial QUESTIONS OF TASTE50 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page 50 room was just right; one was somehow more receptive, open to the unexpected; a moment when everything in the rush of experience is briefly stilled. (Am I imagining things when I say that good wine makes a different, gentle gurgling, surging sound when poured from the bottle?) You taste and at that moment you know the difference between this experience of drinking and all those that you have had before. The senses are dazzled. You are stunned by the intoxicating power of the experience; the pleasure is exhilarating and hypnotic. The velvet feel of the wine in your mouth, the lingering flavours and aromas when you swallow. It is an intensely hedonistic moment, and encounter with a fine and elegant thing. There is a desire to be still and to focus on what is happening. There is the swoon of something great entering your system. The body has no struggle in accepting this harmonious liquid-it feels good for us, like a blood transfusion with several vital elements in it. You delight in your experience, and in that of those with whom you share the bottle. The moment is fleeting, ephemeral and transitory, and yet utterly memorable. And you know, at that moment, that you want more opportunities like this, not to drink this very wine again, because this is an unrepeatable experience. (As the French say, there are not great wines, just great bottles.) You want opportunities to drink other wines as great as this and to share them with others, You will search for such wines and for such moments again and again because now you know great wines exist and that you that you are capable of recognising and responding to them. At that moment you learn something about wine and something about you. You are astonished that wine can reach such heights, can provide such a complex and yet harmonious experience. And in understanding that wine can do this, you want to know more. There is something so intense about these experiences. The quickening of the senses tell you something special is happening. The wine demands your attention: it gives you an experience so memorable that you take in and retain much of the detail around you: who you were with, the room you were in, particular aspects of your surroundings. A definite sense of place and time, and what you felt at that time all help to create powerful taste memories. But the creation of the memory began with a taste experience so pleasurable and uplifting that your attention was grabbed: you were forced to attend to what the wine revealed to you. It is an experience that cannot be repeated and will not be forgotten. The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting 53 Good Features of Subjectivity: Immediate Experience and the Epiphany So far, I have been arguing that tastes are not fully revealed by our immediate sensory responses. Nevertheless-and here I wish to emphasise the importance of the immediate experience we have in tasting-there has to be a way to know whether a wine deserves our attention and will reward our efforts to understand it. And this invitation to pay greater attention must come in the initial tasting experience. We instantly recognise when something is worthy of reflection, when it is great. So we should not think of the immediate experience as just the novice's domain in contrast with the reflective judgements of experts. Some wines immediately grab our attention, and reveal their stature straight away, as they do in those unique, memorable occasions in which we first become aware of the incredible poise and beauty of great wine. One suspects that those who show no interest in carefully attending to what they are drinking have not yet had the heart-stopping moment when they first taste a great wine: they have not yet had their epiphany. As every wine lover knows, there was a time when they were unaware of the power, depth and beauty some wines possess. That came in an epiphany. Most wine lovers will remember it: the first time they encountered a rare and astonishing wine. Until that moment they had simply drunk wine, noticing some to be more pleasing than others. Why do we even start drinking wine? It doesn't attract us immediately; we have to acquire the taste. The reason we start isn't hard to seek. As Jamie Goode once put it: it's alcohol and it gets you drunk; what greater lure is there for teenagers than that? There were the embarrassing pretensions of youth; the moments of soi-disant sophistication when one turned one's back on beer and said, 'No, I'll have the Hirondelle, thanks.' But one swallow does not a summer make and progress towards something finer was gradual. It happened at inauspicious restaurants on first dates, when one was nervously keen to impress the other party with one's savoir-faire, desperately trying to remember one's parent's wine choices in front of an intimidating head waiter. There are student years when one drinks indifferent wines, mainly for the company and the conversation. And then comes the epiphany. We always remember it: an unusual moment; the temperature of the QUESTIONS OF TASTE52 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page 52 character that make this a wine of such quality. It may be surprising that I say that among the first things we are aware of is the quality of a wine. Assessments of quality may seem to call for considered judgement. And yet the recognition of quality does appear to precede a detailed understanding of what is going on in the wine. The immediate recognition of quality also explains why an epiphany is possible for someone who lacks analytic tasting skills. The significance of these moments is due to a perception of quality that transforms our ideas about wine from that time on. In tasting an exceptional wine we are aware of something both very fine and very complex; of the purity and harmony of its many elements, or their being all there at once and in perfect unity. We are often made most aware of this by the way the different elements of a complex wine are resolved in the finish. The richness at first, then the slight austerity: the elegant final note. The sweet fruit is balanced by good acidity; the structure is there but does not disrupt the delicacy of the fruit. The alcohol does not show too strongly. Combined effects of aroma and flavour reveal a thing of real beauty. Properties of such wines, their definition, purity, finesse, unity and balance-clearly signs of quality-are given to us almost immediately and strikingly in our first overall taste impressions; though are only recognisable as being the elements by experienced tasters. The most important of these properties are unity and balance: Quality is always related to a certain harmony of tastes, where no one taste dominates another. (E. Peynaud, 1987, p.192) Further tasting impressions, such as a wine's roundness its weight, its length or persistence of flavours may be assessed by attending to sensory experiences in us. We note these after the initial reaction to how great or otherwise the wine is. In this way, wine tasting is a continuous evolution from initial perception, reworked and developed into a final opinion that confirms, or modifies our initial impression. Initial impressions can be misleading, of course: some wines can be false and seductive, falling apart, or disappointing under further scrutiny. The initial impression is just an impression. Final assessment requires judgement. Claims about tastes being subjective often fail to separate these different stages of tasting. We can all easily say in the initial swallow The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting 55 The momentary nature of these experiences is important. Epiphanies are all about moments that change us for good and for life. We realise that the tastes of wines have dimensions and depth, and can fix themselves in the memory with such incredible precision and power that days or weeks later a taste image or memory will return unbidden. Wines with this power, wines of such purity, precision, and finesse can only be wines of terroir: wines of place, tradition and culture. The depth of flavour that age lends them is not only in this bottle, or that vintage- each one expressive of its season-but in the vines, the soil and the wisdom of those who have learnt how to express what nature gives them, differently each year.10 When we understand this we will have understood what fine or great wines are. Though we remain surprised that out of soil and sun, vines and human endeavour come wines of such outstanding beauty, balance, definition and complexity. Even when one knows more about how wines are made it is still a staggering proposition to accept that such inauspicious elements could be cultivated into such soaring examples of richness and grandeur.11 The description of the epiphany amounts to a possible autobiography, yours or mine, and shows why the enjoyment and love of wine is not restricted to the precious few. It is through personal experience that each of us comes to learn of the greatness of wine. And it is due to the greatness of a wine that we have the quality of sensory experience just described. An ordinary wine cannot do this for us. Only a carefully handmade wine of such purity, harmony and depth can lead to these epiphanies. What is philosophically significant is the way these momentary but lasting experiences can be immediate, transitory, highly personal and yet revelatory of something beyond us: something of whose staggering power and elegance we are made suddenly and lastingly aware. For the experienced wine taster too, it is the immediate encounter with a wine that tells him or her whether it is worth the attention. But how do these initial experiences mark out some wines for special attention? It appears to be the immediately recognisable quality of the wine that impresses itself so forcefully upon the mind. Our judgement that something can afford us pleasure and fascination is due to a prior perception of its quality. Quality somehow impresses itself immediately on the mind, and only after comes attention to the specific features and QUESTIONS OF TASTE54 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page 54 all wines have to reveal will be equally accessible to just anyone at any time. But there is a further consideration in favour of subjectivity that exerts a considerable pull; namely, that in tasting there is some pure and irreducible residue of subjective experience that cannot be put into words or shared with anyone else. Notice that this kind of subjectivity is entirely compatible with our experience revealing real properties in the wine, so we have come a long way from stronger claim that tastes are the subjective experiences of tasters. On this more liberal notion of subjectivity there is the qualitative feel of an experience: what it is like to taste the last mouthful of 1986 Château Margaux while looking down at the Île St. Louis. Can anyone else really know what that experience was like? Can every aspect of those sensations be put into words and conveyed to others? Perhaps this is the stubbornly subjective part of wine tasting that cannot be dismissed. Several things are run together here that need to be kept apart. There is whether we can describe the taste of wines, whether there is some way to communicate what it is like to drink them, and whether others are able to share the pleasure we take in drinking them. These are three separate issues. If I could describe the taste of Château Margaux to you, you may still not know what it was like to drink it. Conversely, if you share the bottle with me, you may enjoy the same heady experience without either of us being able to describe the taste of the wine. Nevertheless, we want to speak about the exceptional bottles we drink, want to note the tastes we find in them, hone our powers of discrimination.14 However, we lack a precise vocabulary to describe tastes and smells. It is a common feeling that our experience of these outstrips our language and we struggle to find any way to describe them. I may want to tell you about the subtle range of flavours in a 2001 Clos de Tart but capturing its tastes in words may defeat me. I could speak of the firm structure cloaked in fruit, the purity of expression, the slight pruneaux taste, the rustic, earthy notes, the supple roundness in the mouth, the touch of réglisse in the finish. It all helps but none of it uniquely pinpoints this wine's taste. A factor in this difficulty is the subtle combination of flavours in good wines. Well-made wines with age take on a complexity of flavours that blend and harmonise. The components having been somewhat distinct, finally knit together and are less clearly separable than before. We lack names for these complex yet beautifully harmonious tastes. Similarly, we The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting 57 whether we like something or not. Pleasure is something anyone should be able to recognise straight away. But saying what it is about the wine that is so pleasurable, what is good about it, and what makes it preferable to another is less easy. This requires practice and concentration: weighing things in the mind as one holds a little wine in the mouth. Nevertheless, the immediate impressions of an exceptional wine already signal the difference. The bouquet is more beguiling, the feel in the mouth more luxurious. All of this prepares us for the greatness of the wine. Does the expert's knowledge also make a difference in tasting? Surely it does. Knowledge comes into play as soon as we reflect on what we are experiencing. One realises something about the wine that was not obvious at first. Thus knowledge doesn't simply add to the overall experience of tasting, it changes the intensity of one's tasting impressions. It can lead to better focus, through which we revise our initial impressions. The expert knows that the immediately apparent bitterness of a Viognier is part of the essential apricot kernel taste of the wine; so is its viscosity. Coming to understand this grape and its typical expression, may lead one to appreciate a style of wine that would have at first been off-putting were one expecting something similar to say a Chardonnay. Through knowledge of what is aimed at we can acquire a taste for what we did not at first appreciate.12 In this way knowledge changes the way a wine tastes to us, affecting our experience and enjoyment of the wine.13 Not only should we reject the idea that everything there is to the taste of a wine is available to just anyone, we should reject the idea that we are always ready to taste anything. Knowing what we are tasting, and knowing what to look for in tasting it, may have a great impact on the quality and pleasure of the experience. Initial impressions are seldom neutral. Accuracy in tasting is often set by prior knowledge and expectations, though knowledge does not guarantee the extraordinary recognition skills some have in blind tasting. This is an exceptional ability and partly depends on large amounts of prior experience of, and memory for, wines not tasted blind. Wine Tasting: Describing, Communicating or Sharing the Experiences? We have rejected the line of reasoning that says all there is to the taste of a wine is given by our immediate, undifferentiated responses, and that QUESTIONS OF TASTE56 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page 56 are a good guide to the objective properties of the wines. The properties they detect, in the case of tannins, are not just the wine's polyphenols. Tannin is a texture but it also has a taste. Wine writers speak of savoury tannins, of the difference between fruit and wood tannins, of bitter and astringent tannins, or of aromatic tannins. By talking about the quality of the tannins we are speaking about the tastes of the wine we perceive in tasting. The case of tannin is straightforward. It has a distinctive experiential profile. But the rarer tastes will be harder to identify through our experience of them, and the experiences may be less easily sifted and discriminated by the novice. The best we can do to convey a wine's flavour is to try to highlight the nuances of our experience. The trouble is that they are notoriously difficult to put into words. Yet this is what most of us have to go on in attending to the tastes of the wine we are drinking. How, then, can we convey to someone else what it is like to drink this particular wine? Sometimes the answer is metaphor. As poets and novelists know, metaphor serves very well to allude to these elusive features of our subjectivity, the changing moments in consciousness. Metaphors are their stock in trade for conveying different aspects of moments in the inner lives to others.16 So too gifted wine writers often resort to metaphors to allude to features of their tasting experience, How successful they are depends on how apt the metaphor is. Good wine metaphors set off chains of associations that give us clues about our own likely experiences. We know what to expect when a wine is described as 'monumental'. We are being told something about the wine and how it will strike us. Jancis Robinson provides an excellent example in her tasting notes for a 1945 Château Pétrus: 'Like velvet. But with a pattern on it.' In these few words she conveys something majestic about the wine and something about the experience of drinking it. In similar vein, Andrew Jefford, talking about a rich and ripe Moulin à Vent, writes that the fruit 'comes helicoptering into the mouth.' Very different wines, but both ones we want to taste on the basis of their metaphors. More expectations are set by these surprising words than by the frequent talk of 'Asian spices and pain grillé notes'-much beloved of Robert Parker in describing Bordeaux. Metaphors are exceptionally good at capturing aspects of subjective experience, but as acts of creativity they demand exceptional skill and ingenuity. Some will be better at this than others. The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting 59 may search in vain for the words to convey the particular aromas we attend to before drinking. Here I disagree with Peynaud when he says: ...it is easy to describe what one senses provided one has made sufficient effort to notice it. (Peynaud, 1987 p.215) We constantly face this problem: how to label the elements we can distinguish in tasting? We can attend to them and even recognise them, but we do not name them. This is also the case for pain sensations. We are not used to describing taste sensations. How then do we indulge our shared love of wine? And how do wine critics succeed in writing about wines? There are ways to overcome the limits of literal description. We often use similes, as when we say the wine tastes of stone fruits, or honey, or smells of asparagus, or rose petals. We are saying the wines smell and taste like these things, not that these are elements of the wine. Riesling has the smell of kerosene and limes but it does not contain them. A well-aged Bordeaux will smell of antique furniture polish, but there is none in the wine. We need to make a distinction here between the intrinsic and extrinsic properties of tastes and smells.15 Consider smells. When we say a flower smells fragrant we can say it is fragrant. Though when we say a wine smells of leather we are not saying it is leather. Kerosene and limes are extrinsic properties of the Riesling's bouquet. Similarly, if a wine tastes acidic, or sweet or tannic, these are intrinsic tastes of the wine, while its tasting of liquorice, or of raspberries, or of vanilla are simply extrinsic properties: things the wine tastes like. That intrinsic taste properties are real properties of a wine is not compromised in the least by the fact that they may only be detected by creatures like us with our sensory apparatus. All this means is that it is through the subjective experience of tasting that we gain personal access to what is objectively there in the wine. By distinguishing the tastes in a wine and our experience of them, we see that sometimes we talk about one, and sometimes about the other. Wine writers work this way, mentioning either properties in the wine or their characteristic effects on the experiences of tasters. They may speak about a wine's having firm tannins, or prefer to talk about the mouth-puckering feel. Through such experiences tasters can correctly identify what they drink as a tannic wine. Their subjective experiences QUESTIONS OF TASTE58 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page 58 people, places and things at a moment. The desire to share part ourselves with another, to share the intensity of delight at a moment, is an important part of our social natures, and great wine, affords us this opportunity. 17 The wines we drink in company unite us through a common experience, which at time can be very close. And in this way we retain a fleeting moment of intense experience as a fixed point in our lives and our memories of others. However satisfying such moments are, it is also disappointing to recognise people with whom we cannot share such experiences. Why are they not stirred by this remarkable wine? Are they just unmoved, or is it that they do not taste what we do? To concede as much may seem to put pressure on the view of tastes as real and objective properties. Though it may simply mean that we have to recognise that there are different populations of tasters, and that they will not all have the same range of tastes available to them. Where there is similarity of response among a population of tasters does this indicate that they are getting something objectively right about a wine or does it simply indicate agreement in opinion? If people fail to have such experiences, is it right to say any they missing something? Perhaps there is just a restricted intersubjectivity-a mere matching, among some individuals, in their subjective reaction to wines. But such a view offers no explanation of why they have such similar responses. Why does their experience have the form it does if not in response to the features and qualities of the wines they are tasting? Their experience can only have the degree of complexity or interest the wines afford them. And how could we draw one another's attention to aspects of a wine's taste, and value the accuracy and precision of such comments unless we are doing more than just commenting on our own experiences? Unless it is simply a matter of suggestion-which would have limited success- there must be something in the wines these individuals are tasting which gives rise to these common responses. Why not say it is the tastes in the wines that give rise to the variety of experience we enjoy as tasters? Objectivity and Realism about Tastes The length of a wine, the persistence of flavours in the mouth, the aromas one detects by retro-nasal breathing. Sensations of this sort are often reliable guides to features of the wines we taste and to what others The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting 61 To resort to conveying something of our experiences need not preclude us from giving information about the wine. To convey something accurately about our experience in tasting a wine is to convey something about the wine. Its objective properties are known to us though the distinctive experiences the tastes of the wine give rise to in us. The same is true of colours. The colour of objects is known to us through our experience of those objects in normal lighting conditions. We take an object to be red when it looks red under normal conditions. We do not take everything that looks red to be red: the lighting conditions may be abnormal. So it is only under certain conditions that our experiences serve as guides to the colour of things. It is reasonable to suppose that normally colour-sighted others have similar experiences when looking at things in good light. If I know you are looking at a red door I know the kind of subjective experience you will be having In similar fashion, the tastes of a wine are identified by the sensory experiences they produce in tasters in good conditions. And if I know the taste of a particular wine- by the experiences it gives rise to in me-I may know the experiences you are likely to have when tasting it too. This thought makes sense of the care we take in choosing wines for others, and why we look forward to tasting the wines they selected for us. There is something important here not to be missed. When I taste a wine of extraordinary beauty I want to share this experience with someone else. I may have a specific person in mind. Through the experiences we have each had when tasting together I may know that you will appreciate the exquisite poise and elegance of this wine. By reference to the bottles we have drunk together, the qualities we have noticed and commented upon, we come to know of each others' subjective responses. The common pleasure we take in these wines connects us to one another at a basic level. Our perceptions, pleasures and preferences coincide. And as these things form part of who we are, part of our inner world, we learn that we are to this extent alike. By responding similarly to the fineness and beauty of this 1994 Méo-Camuzet Vosne Romanée, we understand something very elemental about one another. We understand something about the wine and about each other. We feel recognised at the level at which we take pleasure in things, and we know others have that pleasure too. This deeply social aspect of wine helps to explain why the experience of tasting a great wine involves intense feelings, why it connects us to the QUESTIONS OF TASTE60 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page 60 The gap that realism opens up between tastes and our experience of them gives tastes some life of their own. They are not constituted or exhausted by the tasting experiences of individuals, and may exist independently of them. This is surely what we want to say. A trophy wine may be traded at higher and higher prices until it disappears into the cellar of a speculator, never to be tasted by anyone. But we still think of it as having a taste and we wonder what it is like. Of course, we could think of its taste in terms of the experiences that would be available to someone were they to taste it. But what would give any such taster the exquisite experiences they would have in tasting it except the tastes of the wine? But why say that it is the tastes rather than the chemical properties of the wine that would give rise to these experiences? The answer is that it is not the chemical properties themselves but how they taste that matters. Which of the many chemical properties in wine we select for attention and promote depends on which ones gives rise to the desired responses in us. They may be quite diverse and there may be no way to identify them save by our experience of them in tastings. Through the knowledge and skill of the wine-maker we select and promote a heterogeneous collection of chemical properties of a wine, and we choose them because of how they taste. Tastes are real properties of wines even though they bear an essential relation to the subjective experiences of creatures like us. We cannot think about or identify them save in terms of our subjective experiences, but they exist whether we experience them or not. They are there for us to experience. They are not in us, they are in the wine: the pleasures they give us are not in the wine, they are in us.20 Tastes are what enable wines to produce certain kinds of pleasurable experience in us. Sometimes our sensations reveal the tastes of a wine directly, sometimes they only indicate these properties at one remove. Not every feature of a wine's taste is directly given in experience. For example, we seem to 'taste what isn't there' on occasion, as when we taste that a wine is hollow in the mid-palate, or that it lacks acidity, or structure. We look for a something in our tasting experience, and when it is missing from experience we conclude it is missing from the wine. Experienced tasters can tell that a wine is closed: that we cannot get at all the flavours it has. Similarly, we may taste that a wine is too young to drink at present, tasting how things are now, and judging how they may be later. A nice The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting 63 are likely to encounter in them. There are seldom disputes over whether a wine is 'short' or 'long'. From tasting impressions we assemble a view of the qualities and characteristics of the wine we taste. These judgements concern real features of the wine even though they are based on our experiences as tasters. To say this is to defend a form of realism about tastes. Tastes are properties a wine has that give rise to certain experiences in us; and they cannot be reduced to, or equated with, those experiences. If tastes were no more than subjective experiences it would be literally false to say that a wine was long, or rich or sumptuous. These would be mere projections of our responses onto the wine, and it would be as mistaken to say these things about the wine as it for children to think that being disgusting is a quality of broccoli just because it tastes disgusting to them. A subjectivism which regarded attributions of tastes to wines as projections from our experiences would have to deny that some of our taste impressions could be more accurate than others, since it sees all claims we make about tastes being features of the wine itself as mistaken. But we saw above that we do distinguish between sensory experiences that are good guides to the taste of a wine and those that are not. There are optimal conditions for tasting that have to obtain for our experience to relate us to the real taste of a wine. The optimal conditions are both internal and external to us: the temperature and odours in the room, the condition of the bottle, the shape of the glass, the time of day, what one has just eaten or drunk, one's level of attention and one's mood are all important in creating conditions in which to appreciate what is there to be discovered in a wine.18 Realism about tastes makes room for such a distinction between how things strike us and how they really are- between the appearance and reality of tastes. Subjectivity does not. We accept that not all experiences of tasting are on a par, or are equally valid: one's tastes sensations at each moment are not the sole arbiter of how something tastes. Tastes are not exhausted by our sensory experiences: to taste a wine after eating watercress is not to experience what the wine tastes like.19 If other people fail to respond enthusiastically to tasting a very fine Château Palmer a likely explanation is that they are not in the right tasting conditions to appreciate the wine properly. Similarly, if our reaction to a wine surprises them, they may ask us to entertain the idea that we are not in the right condition for tasting correctly. QUESTIONS OF TASTE62 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page 62 by David Hume in his famous essay, Of the Standard ofTaste.21 Here, two wine connoisseurs are drinking from a hogshead of wine. One says the wine tastes of leather. The other says it tastes of iron. They contest each other's descriptions while drinking more and more of the wine. When they reach the bottom of the barrel they discover a key on a leather thong. The right conclusion to draw should be that both were right and we should accept the existence of a plurality of tastes. The connoisseurs did not really disagree: there was no genuine conflict. They were mistaken to criticise one another's opinions since they were both right. Both the taste of iron and the taste of leather were in the wine. Notice that this is not to subscribe to relativism about truth. We do not need to say that what one connoisseur says is true only relative to his subjective tasting experience. Relativism would lead us to say that each was right to deny the other's opinion: that truth was relative to a point of view, and that from the point of view of the one who tastes leather it is true relative to that point of view that the wine does not taste of iron. But pluralism denies this. It tastes of leather and iron. Each taster is only sensitive to one of these tastes. Pluralism and realism are the best option to explain these facts. Realism about tastes makes room for each person's tasting judgements to provide objective assessments of a wine: good tasters are those who get matters right. In assessing a wine our judgements are not simply answerable to how things are with us, and to our natures, or our perspectives as tasters. Judgements of taste go beyond our sensory experience to how things are in the wine itself. But what about assessments of the quality of a wine? Should the properties by which we classify wines as mediocre, exceptional, delightful, outstanding, hedonistic equally be seen as properties of the wines to which our judgements are answerable? Or are they just matters of intersubjective agreements within populations of tasters? Interestingly, there is little disagreement when a wine is awful. But saying what makes a wine good or better than another can lead to deep disagreements. Can some or any of these judgements about quality be getting something objectively right? Perhaps the properties of quality these judgements reflect are related to easily identifiable properties like being tannic or having persistence. For example, take the property of balance in a wine. Balance can be thought of as the unity and harmony of its parts, comprising fruit, The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting 65 example is given by Andrew Jefford, writing about Château Latour 2000 in 2004 (note again the use of metaphor): At the moment, it is a kind of velvet bomb quietly ticking. Inside it, curled up like nascent ferns, lie the densely backed black fruits that characterise young Bordeaux. (The World of Fine Wine, Volume 1, 2004, p.58) Tastes extend beyond our experience of them. We encounter them, or recognisably fail to do so on occasion. Through the experience of tasting we feel for their shape and dimension. They are not matched to simple sensations: they can be many-layered. They develop in time and at times may elude us. Our experience of tasting (including sensations of touch and smell) can point to qualities not presently accessible in a closed or a young wine, just as vision and hearing can point to things over the horizon or out of earshot. Tastes are what tasting under the right conditions gets at. Under these conditions, tasting discloses something objective. What should we say, then, about tasters who in equally good conditions disagree about what they taste? Should these disagreements lead us to abandon objectivity? Not necessarily. Take the case of phenol-thio-urea. In most populations it tastes bitter to about seventy-five per cent of people and tasteless to the other twenty-five per cent. Should we say that the twenty-five per cent are mistaken? It seems right to say they missing a bitter taste that phenol-thio-urea has. But suppose that the twenty-five per cent became the dominant population and that eventually there were no more people to whom it used to taste bitter, should we say it no longer has a bitter taste? Why say that? After all, there was no change in the substance, only a change in those tasting it. Instead we should say we can no longer perceive the bitter taste phenol-thio-urea has. In other cases too, where there are different populations of tasters, perhaps some populations will be able to perceive some tastes but not others, with different degrees of overlap between the populations. A wine may have more tastes than any given taster, or population of tasters, can discern. All may exist in the wine awaiting detection by a discriminating palate. Hence the right view is to embrace pluralism about tastes and assert the co-existence of such tastes in the same wine. Take the example from Don Quixote, presented QUESTIONS OF TASTE64 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page 64 he/she is a good judge of the wine's properties in that population. We may even find out, to our cost, that we are slightly out of the normal range of the surrounding population, just as many men find out that their colour judgements are not discriminating enough for clothes shopping. However, if you always claim to find wines acidic, or sweet, then I know you may not be in the statistically normal range. (As Peynaud showed, different sensitivity thresholds to these features can be measured.) Do we have to say that a wine's balance, finesse, purity, along with more descriptive characteristics like roundedness, weight, or structure consist in its having dispositions to produce different experiences in diverse populations of tasters? Why say this, rather than saying that these properties are in the wines? It is not just that we have particular responses to the wine: we respond in precisely the way we do because our experiences are responsive to characteristics of balance, finesse and roundness and so on in the wine. We are appropriately sensitive to these features in a good wine. It is true that our concepts of qualities such as body or suppleness or balance are, as philosophers say, response-dependent: we cannot conceive of such qualities save in terms of the kind of responses they give rise to in us. But the properties our concepts apply to are there in the wine: it is these characteristics we recognise or fail to recognise on occasions, Finesse, balance, purity and definition are the sorts of properties that call for the responses of pleasure and recognition we have. If the tastes of a wine only consist in dispositions to produce effects in us, which ones should count? A wine tastes less agreeable when combined with certain foods, or tasted at the wrong temperature. Are we to countenance all these dispositions to taste different ways to different people under a variety of circumstances-as tastes the wine has? All the variations would have to be included if we thought of tastes as interactions between us and the wine.22 Why stop at one set of conditions as the crucial ones concerning our interaction with the wine? Why not include them all? To do so would lead to a proliferations of tastes and offer no definitive criteria for talking about the tastes of a wine. And yet we are more inclined to think of getting the best out of the wine by creating the optimal conditions to experience the flavours and aromas it has. We think of a fine wine as having integrity, precision and purity. In The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting 67 alcohol, acidity and tannins in red wines. Each of these properties can be detected by good tasters, but what about a judgement that no one dominates the other and that they are harmoniously combined? Is this just a subjective impression of the taster? Surely not; balance is something that is difficult to achieve and which wine-makers strive for, even if it is a property that it takes human tasters to pick out. Even when a wine is balanced, there may be several points at which the alcohol levels, the acidity, the fruit and the tannins could have been brought into harmony. One taster may be blind to one level because of underor over-sensitivity to some of these elements, and yet be able to appreciate its balance had the wine had slightly more alcohol, or acidity or wood. This is not to say that any combination will produce balance: balance is difficult to achieve and there are still objective facts about when it does and does not occur. But there may be more points at which a wine will be balanced, and some tasters recognise one of these points and other tasters recognise another. What of properties like finesse: the subtle way a wine produces its elegant effects on us? It too can be treated as an objective property in the wine, albeit one identified solely by the quality of experiences it gives rise to in us. In philosophical parlance, such properties are secondary qualities: the sort of qualities only detectable through characteristic experiences in creatures like us. At this point, some of my fellow philosophers will insist that such properties amount to mere dispositions of the wine-at certain times and under particular conditions-to produce a certain pleasurable taste experience in normal perceivers. By 'normal' they do not mean 'those who get matters right,' they mean what is statistically normal among a population of tasters who are not hypoor hyper-sensitive to one or more of the basic taste elements or alcohol. What is statistically normal in a given population is often cultural. Cultures raised on a spicy cuisine, or diets that include or exclude dairy products, or which are constantly exposed to Coca-Cola and sweet foods, may have different thresholds of sensitivity to different basic taste elements of sweetness, sourness, bitterness, etc, or their combination, even though the basis for the sensitivity thresholds will themselves be physiological. Perhaps within these cultures there will be statistically normal perceivers and it is by reference to them that we can establish whether someone is a reasonably reliable taster. From what a person purports to find in a wine under good conditions, we can tell whether QUESTIONS OF TASTE66 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page 66 prefer drinking it to drinking something more complex and interesting. Titian is a better painter than Jack Vettriano but that does not prevent some people from preferring the latter to the former. Bach is better than Barry Manilow but some people will prefer to listen the lesser musician.24 These personal preferences cannot be criticised, people have the right to chose what they wish: it is up to them. But it is not up to them, or a mere matter of personal inclination, to determine who is the better painter or musician, or which is the better wine. There are standards by which we can judge a wine, or musical score, or painting to be better than another, and these reflect discernible properties of those objects, properties that it may take practice and experience to recognise and which we need experts to direct our attention to. Once our perceptions and discriminations are sufficiently refined we can appreciate the reasons for evaluating wine as we do. The issue of preference, or personal taste, as I will call it, is very important in wine. I may have no personal liking for Chenin Blanc and however enthusiastically you may describe the qualities of the very best Savennière, I will remain unmoved. Critics are right to praise the virtues of a Coulée de Serrant, to prize and value it highly as a fine and exceptional wine, but as a matter of personal taste I will always prefer a premier cru Chablis from Dauvissat or Raveneau. Wine critics understand that they cannot overrule an individual's personal tastes and it is in this limited sense that they take taste to be subjective. They still make recommendations and they are predicting a certain experience for those that take their advice. They also know that the wines they select and admire are not to everyone's taste. The moral is that we must find the right critic to advice us, the one whose personal tastes or preferences more nearly align with ours. In this way, we can use critics like fine scientific instruments to test and select those tastes that will give us exceptional pleasure. A good critic or taster will be able to identify and recommend the best wines of a given kind or style even when he or she does not favour that style of wine. Having the ability to assess and describe wines is one thing; having certain personal tastes is another. That we, and the wine critics, have personal tastes does not imply that all taste is subjective. A popular reason for doubting critics' competence in assessing wine is their lack of success, on occasion, in identifying a wine by blind The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting 69 taste it is not the kaleidoscope of interaction effects we are after. With a wine of terroir we will consider it to have a very definite profile of flavours and aromas that characterise it uniquely. And by thinking about the taste (or tastes) of the wine as the tastes it has, we can then see the various experiences we can have under different, non-optimal, conditions as the way that taste is masked or distorted by interfering factors. On this picture there is the taste the wine has and the way it tastes when presented to us. We can often sense (by tasting or by smell) what has to be changed (temperature, for example) to get closer to the real taste of the wine-to access its full expression of flavours.23 Wine Critics and Divergence in Opinions Finally, if tastes are real, objective properties of wines, then what is the role of the wine critic? Are they always the best judges of the character and quality of wines, and should we subscribe to their opinions? Resistance to this idea comes from many quarters: from doubts about critics' abilities given their differences of opinion; from refusal to have one's own opinions about taste overruled; and not least from wine critics themselves who tend to stress the subjectivity of taste. The last two points are connected. Critics do not claim that tastes amount to no more than their subjective experiences of wine: if they did their writings would simply be narrations of their experiences, and amount to nothing more than autobiography. Such a view would make a nonsense of their recommending wines. It is because their experiences of drinking wine-undoubtedly subjective experiences-tell them about something about the character and qualities of the wine, that we can benefit by what they write. Critics, too, take their experiences to reveal something about the wines they taste and to have implications for the experiences others could have. They use their tasting experiences as guides to how we may enhance our drinking pleasures. However, wine critics will insist that their recommendations and opinions cannot overrule the personal preferences of individuals; a view shared by the public. But does this view not challenge the objectivity of taste judgement? Can a critic really tell us a wine we do not like is exceptional, or that a wine we do like is of poor quality or little interest? The answer is yes, for there is a difference between the quality of a wine and people's personal preferences. A wine may not be very interesting or very well made but some people may QUESTIONS OF TASTE68 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page 68 We also need to know whether the difference in opinion between critics is about the merits of the wine, how appealing it is, its comparative standing with respect to other wines, or about the actual flavours or features it has. Differences in opinion with respect to preference or overall assessments of quality may leave untouched an underlying agreement about the properties and characteristics of the wine so assessed. Personal tastes may make the difference and yet there may be considerable overlap and agreement between tasters about what they are tasting, i.e. about what a wine tastes like.26 Being objective in one's judgements, getting something right, may be a matter of stating with considerable accuracy what a wine is like, what it tastes like. Beyond that there may be differences in opinion about what is most appealing about a wine, what gives more pleasure. These disputes over and above a certain standard of quality are perhaps due to personal preferences, and then again, preferences may be due to particular sensitivities of particular populations of tasters to certain aspects of a wine: to its alcohol, or acidity, its tannins or the use of oak. It should be possible to separate out these differences and thus reach some objective agreement on the properties of a wine. Different critics may pick out different tastes, some may be more sensitive to one taste than to another. So why not avail ourselves of all these opinions so long as they do not conflict? We have now arrived at a view of tasting as an objective exercise that relies on our subjective responses to the real and many tastes in a wine. Astute critics or cavistes may lead one to refine and develop one's perceptual experiences and responses. Some of them may be more sensitive to one range of tastes than another, and to the different points at which a wine can be brought into balance, so we have to find the best guide to the tastes in which we take particular pleasure. There is objective knowledge to be had here. But the chance to know one's own tastes, to develop one's palate and discriminate more and more finely depends on the opportunities for drinking that are presented or can be sought out, and these depend on both the advice of critics and the skill of winemakers. The danger is where too many people rely on just one critic, and one set of tastes and preferences comes to dominate the wine market because of commercial pressures and financial speculation. The emergence of a super-critics who favour big, ripe fruit, high alcohol wines with high extraction and the use of new oak-a simplified and The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting 71 tasting. Is it guesswork or precise judgement that enables them to get it right on occasion? Without the ability to identify the wines they are drinking why should we trust that they know what they are talking about? Should we take them to be reliable tasters at all? There is a widespread mistake in popular thinking here. Why should we suppose that appreciating a beautiful painting depends on first being able to identify it either as Piero della Francesca or a Fra Angelico? Why suppose that a music critic can only respond critically to a piece of music when they can identify the composer?25 A highly developed musical appreciation does not await precise identification of a particular piece of music. Why should it be different with wine? Winemakers have been noted, on occasions, not to recognise one of their own wines when it is presented blind at a dinner party. Why should this matter? Perhaps this makes them able to assess the qualities of the wine fairly and objectively. However, if wine critics really are good judges of taste why are there differences of opinions among them? Novice tasters may doubt their own powers of discrimination but they will wonder why, if there are objectively correct judgements to be made, wine critics disagree about the qualities of certain wines. After all, they are trained to recognise flavours and aromas, and have tasted widely. If they can reach different opinions about a wine's character and quality is there such a thing as getting matters of taste right? Or are judgements of taste just matters of opinion rather than matters of fact? This line of thought puts in doubt the claim that there is something in the wine to which critics' judgements are answerable. For if the judgements of experts is unimprovable, how can they be responding to the taste of the wine and yet coming to different conclusions? Surely, these judgements are answerable to something in them, not just something in the wine. And this would make their opinions to a large extent subjective, where one opinion is as good as any other. However, when we say that critics vary in their opinions about a particular wine we need to be cautious. It may be the case that critics diverge from one another in their assessment of a particular wine. But divergence is not always disagreement or conflict. There are cases where we might want to say that each critic is detecting and reporting a different taste the wine has and that it has both of these tastes. QUESTIONS OF TASTE70 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page 70 understanding them better we gain the satisfaction and reward of choosing well. And through the intoxicating pleasure great wines afford us we learn to recognise what is there for all. The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting 73 easily replicated world-style of wine-making-may lead to a simplification in tastes or in measures of quality. The market may welcome these simplifications, where giving scores replaces the careful descriptions and the slow acquisition of knowledge. For those who trade but know little about wine this may be vitally important, but it is also potentially distorting, and there is a great risk that something will be lost, not just in judgement but also in opportunities to taste. Wines will be made to give quick and easy pleasure, and to collect the ratings that traders and their clients will understand. Over-reliance on a single critic's preferences, by buyers or traders, or consumers may lead to the erosion of discrimination and difference, the loss of a sense of a place and of culture: the terroir that sums up the history and geography of a people who have laboured in particular vineyards to express wines of individual character, given personality by nature. Such wines, like people, behave differently at different ages, and to get to know them in all their variety and diversity makes us richer for it. When critics, willingly or not, come to dominate the style of wine that is preferred by the markets, and hence produced by more and more wine-makers, they are dominating our tastes and as a result limiting our experience and opportunities. When this occurs, we will have fewer evocative memories of the sort that Proust knew could at times bring back a whole world: a walk up to the hill of Corton, a late evening tour through the villages of the Côte de Nuits. Fewer and fewer of us will delight in discovering the multiple layers of taste simultaneously present in a bottle of 1996 Méo-Camuzet Vosne-Romanée. These experiences can give us intense feelings, can bring us closer to others. We must seek them out and not lose sight of them. However many wines of a similar style and easy pleasure people drink, they will eventually seek out something new, something different. People and their palates are easily bored and markets are never static. People want interest and diversity, and it is to be hoped this will still be available to them. The local matters. Wines of terroir are worth fighting for. Taste as well and as widely as you can, enjoy the best experiences available to you. This advice need not mean an oenological tour of the world: the vineyards of Bordeaux and Burgundy contain enough diversity and interest to last a lifetime. We should get to know them, for they are wines which at their best call for an intensity of experience and a delicacy of response, by which we refine our exercise of taste. By QUESTIONS OF TASTE72 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page 72 Notes: 1 A previous version of this paper was presented at the University of London conference on 'Philosophy and Wine' Dec. 2004, and I would like to thank members of that audience for the discussion that followed. I owe a considerable debt to Michael Dwyer for his excellent editorial suggestions. I am also very grateful to Jean Hewitson for so many helpful discussions of these topics, and to Ophelia Deroy for acute critical advice and comment on previous versions of the paper. 2 See also Hugh Johnson telling us that he does not ' think that taste should be a great cause of argument. We each have our own taste'. Though he goes on, 'as long as we account for it and make it available for other people to enjoy, that's all we can do.' (Decanter interview Oct.2005). Jancis Robinson tells us, 'I know that all wine tasting is a subjective business' (Decanter interview March 2006). The Michelin guide to The Wine Regions of France states that, 'Taste is subjective, individual, and yet experts seem to understand each other, know what to look for, and recognise the same sensations their fellow experts find.' (p.58) 3 In his famous essay, On The Standard of Taste, Hume tells us that good critics, or judges of taste must show delicacy of judgement, be free from prejudice, able to draw on a wide range of experience for comparisons, pay due attention, and be unclouded by mood. 4 I am indebted to Louise Page for bringing this quote to my attention and suggesting the analogy with wine. 5 Here I am deeply indebted to David Wiggins' paper, 'A Sensible Subjectivism'. I do not know if he would approve of the uses to which I am putting the subtle and wise things he says there. 6 For a good account of how the hierarchy of the senses has been presented through the ages see Kosmeyer 1999. 7 There are of course super-tasters and those with gustatory disorders such as agueusia who lack all sense of taste. But the issue addressed here goes beyond these cases. 8 The French psychologist Frederic Brochet (2001) conducted experiments with experienced wine tasters asking them to describe the characteristics of a white and a red wine. The next day he gave them the white wine coloured by a tasteless red dye. The same tasters now used descriptors of the red wine to characterise the white wine. We may see this as showing that sight is also a component of 'tasting'. 9 Voltaire's view is discussed at greater length by Eva Schaper (1983) 10 No better example is there of such expression of vintages and terroir than the great wines of Burgundy. In different vineyards, different parcels, different growing seasons, the gifted wine-maker will adapt to what is there and help transmit these expressions of difference in wines that show power and restraint. The elegance, harmony and purity of the wines allow them to retain their personality and differences. 11 John Locke was struck by just these facts about Château Haut Brion on his agricultural tour of France: 'It grows on a rise of ground, openmost to the west, is pure white soil, mixed with a little gravel [...] One would imagine it scarce fit to bear anything.' (John Locke 1677 from Observations on Vines, In The Works of John Locke, Vol. X, p.329) 12 Although as a maker of Scotch once explained to me: if you have to acquire the The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting 75 Bibl iography Baxandal, Michael (1972), Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy (Oxford: Clarendon Press) Broadbent, Michael (2003), Wine Tasting, 9th edition (London; Mitchell Beazley) Brochet, Frédéric (2001), 'Tasting: chemical object representation in the field of consciousness', http://www.academie-amorim.com/us/laureat_2001/brochet.pdf Denham, A.E. (2000), Metaphor and Moral Experience (Oxford: Clarendon Press) Hume, David, 'Of the Standard of Taste', from the Essays, Moral, Political and Literary (1776) reprinted in David Hume: Selected Essays, (1998) edited by S. Copley and A. Edgar, (Oxford World's Classics) Kosmeyer, Christine (1999), Making Sense of Taste (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press) Locke, John (1823), The Works of John Locke, New Edition, Vol. X. (G. Shaw and Son) Lyas, Colin (1998). 'Art Criticism', in E. Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (London: Routledge) Peynaud, Emile (1987), The Taste of Wine, translated by Michael Schuster (New York: J. Wiley) Reid, Thomas (1758), Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, edited by D. Brookes (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press) Schaper, Eva (1983), 'The Pleasures of Taste', in Pleasure, Preference and Value, (1983) edited by Eva Schaper (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) Wiggins, D. (1987), 'A Sensible Subjectivism', in Needs, Values, Truth (Oxford: Blackwell) QUESTIONS OF TASTE74 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page 74 of the pleasure to be afforded by drinking this wine in the future, were criticised by Robinson as symptoms of excess and a lack of respect for Bordeaux-style wine making. The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting 77 taste you don't really like it. 13 Here I am at odds with Kent Bach (see Chapter Two) who thinks that knowledge of a particular wine cannot affect your enjoyment of it. 14 'Great wine has that marvellous quality of immediately establishing communication between those who are drinking it. Tasting it at table should not be a solitary activity.' (Peynaud, 1987 p.214) 15 The distinction in this form is due to P.M.S Hacker in Appearance and Reality (Oxford: Blackwell 1987) to which I am also indebted for his discussion of secondary properties. 16 See A.E. Denham, Metaphor and Moral Experience (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000). 17 When considering whether wine is an aesthetic object the comparison is usually made with the contemplation of music or painting. But neither of these provides the right analogy, I believe. The right comparison with tasting a great wine is more like to be the rather 1960s idea of a happening: a one off event in which everything came together and where all the details conspire to create the exalted moment of experience. 18 Mood is important because it connects or divides us from others and may divide us from better parts of ourselves. 19 In the Middle Ages monks regarded watercress as a substance with medicinal powers that purified the blood. People who drank to excess could be put on a diet of watercress for a week. Whatever the wisdom of this remedy it is true that wine and watercress do not mix. 20 This the view the Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid held: 'I cannot say what it is in a sapid body that pleases my palate but there is a quality in the sapid body which pleases my palate and I call it a delicious taste' Chapter 1 Section I, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1758). 21 From Hume's Essays, Moral, Political and Literary, (1776) reprinted in David Hume: Selected Essays, edited by S. Copley and A. Edgar (Oxford World's Classics 1998) 22 Even if we claim that tastes are interactions between the wine and the taster, the issue of how subjective or objective they are remains open. If our reactions to a given wine differ then tastes will be, to that extent, subjective; whereas if, as normal tasters, we respond in similar ways, under similar conditions, tastes will be objective, or at any rate, inter-subjective. Therefore, nothing about the current issue is settled by taking the interactionist view. 23 For a robust defence of the dispositional view against these objections see Deroy's chapter in this volume. 24 This point is well made by Colin Lyas. 25 Of course, someone may confuse two painters or composers that are so different that it reveals a certain incompetence in judgements of similarity that undermines the credibility of that person to judge. However, even in blind tasting critics will not mistake an Alsace Riesling for a Puligny-Montrachet. 26 In a famously sharp-edged dispute between Robert Parker and Jancis Robinson about the merits of 2003 Château Pavie the protagonists' highly contested statements were concerned with the relative standing or overall quality of that wine. However, the clear disparity in their verdicts tended to obscure the level of agreement there was between them about the actual characteristics of the wine. The very same qualities in the wine, identified by Parker and singled out for praise as signs QUESTIONS OF TASTE76 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page 76 03 wine (041-078):03 wine (041-074) 29/11/06 14:21 Page | {
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An exceptionally simple argument against the many-worlds interpretation Shan Gao∗ November 11, 2011 Abstract It is shown that the superposed wave function of a measuring device, in each branch of which there is a definite measurement result, does not correspond to many mutually unobservable but equally real worlds, as the superposed wave function can be observed in our world by protective measurement. According to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, each branch of the wave function of a measuring device in which there is a definite measurement result corresponds to each world among the many worlds (see, e.g. Vaidman 2008; Barrett 2011). One important property of these worlds is that they are separate and mutually unobservable; in one world there is only one branch of the superposed wave function in which there is a definite measurement result, and the other branches do not exist in this world. The mutual unobservability of the many worlds also means that in every world the superposed wave function of the measuring device cannot be observed. If the whole superposed wave function of the device can be measured in one world, then obviously there is only this world relative to the superposed wave function. It is unsurprising that the existence of such many worlds may be consistent with the results of conventional impulse measurements1, as the many-worlds interpretation is just invented to explain the emergence of these results, e.g. the definite measurement result in each world always denotes the result of a conventional impulse measurement. However, this does not guarantee consistency for all types of measurements. It has been known that there also exists another type of measurement, the protective measurement (Aharonov and Vaidman 1993; Aharonov, Anandan and Vaidman 1993; Aharonov, Anandan and Vaidman 1996; Vaidman 2009). Like the conventional impulse measurement, protective measurement also uses the standard measuring procedure, but with a weak, adiabatic coupling and an appropriate protection. Its general method is to let the measured system be in a nondegenerate eigenstate of the whole Hamiltonian using a suitable protective interaction, and then make the measurement ∗Unit for HPS and Centre for Time, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]. 1It should be noted that the consistency is still debated. For more discussions see Saunders et al 2010 and references therein. 1 adiabatically. This permits protective measurement to be able to measure the expectation values of observables on a single quantum system. In particular, the wave function of the system can also be measured by protective measurement as expectation values of certain observables. It can be seen that the existence of the many worlds defined above is inconsistent with the results of protective measurements. The reason is that the whole superposed wave function of a quantum system including a measuring device can be measured by protective measurement2. The result of the protective measurement will show that all branches of the superposed wave function of the measuring device exist in the same world where the protective measurement is made. Therefore, according to protective measurement, the branches of the superposed wave function of a measuring device, in each of which there is a definite measurement result, do not correspond to many mutually unobservable but equally real worlds; rather, the whole superposed wave function of the device, if it exists, only exists in one world, namely our world. In this way, protective measurement provides a strong argument against the many-worlds interpretation3. Three points are worth stressing. First of all, the above argument does not require protective measurement to be able to distinguish the superposed wave function of a measuring device (in each branch of which there is a definite measurement result) from one of its branches, or whether the superposed wave function collapses or not during a conventional impulse measurement. Since the determination demands the distinguishability of two non-orthogonal states, which is prohibited by quantum mechanics, no measurements consistent with the theory including protective measurement can do this. What protective measurement tells us is that such a superposed wave function, which existence is assumed by the many-worlds interpretation, does not correspond to many mutually unobservable but equally real worlds as the many-worlds interpretation assumes. In other words, protective measurement reveals inconsistency of the many-worlds interpretation. Next, the above argument is not influenced by environment-induced decoherence. On the one hand, even if the superposition state of a measuring device is entangled with the states of other systems, the entangled state of the whole system can also be measured by protective measurement in principle (Anandan 1993). The method is by adding appropriate protection procedure to the whole system so that its entangled state is a nondegenerate eigenstate of the total Hamiltonian of the system together with the added potential. Then the entangled state can be protectively measured. On the other hand, environmentinduced decoherence is not an essential element of the many-worlds interpretation. Even for a measuring device isolated from environment, the interpretation also requires that each branch of the wave function of the measuring device in which there is a definite measurement result corresponds to each world among the many worlds; otherwise the many-worlds interpretation will not give the 2Note that protective measurement in general requires that the measured wave function is known beforehand so that an appropriate protective interaction can be added. But this requirement does not influence our argument, as the superposed wave function of a measuring device can be prepared in a known form before the protective measurement. 3This objection does not apply to the de Broglie-Bohm theory, according to which the wave function of a measuring device does not collapse either, but it exists only in one world. Besides, it does not apply to the many-minds interpretation either. 2 same predictions of measurement results as standard quantum mechanics (so long as the latter gives unambiguous predictions). Lastly, we stress that the mechanism of protective measurement is irrelevant to the controversial process of wavefunction collapse and only depends on the linear Schrödinger evolution of the wave function. As a result, protective measurement can be used to examine the no-collapse solutions to the measurement problem, e.g. the many-worlds interpretation, before experiments give the last verdict. For a more detailed analysis of the implications of protective measurement see Gao (2011). Acknowledgments I am grateful to Lev Vaidman for helpful discussions. This work was supported by the Postgraduate Scholarship in Quantum Foundations provided by the Unit for HPS and Centre for Time (SOPHI) of the University of Sydney. References [1] Aharonov, Y., Anandan, J. and Vaidman, L. (1993). Meaning of the wave function, Phys. Rev. A 47, 4616. [2] Aharonov, Y., Anandan, J. and Vaidman, L. (1996). The meaning of protective measurements, Found. Phys. 26, 117. [3] Aharonov, Y. and Vaidman, L. (1993). Measurement of the Schrödinger wave of a single particle, Phys. Lett. A 178, 38. [4] Anandan, J. (1993). Protective Measurement and Quantum Reality. Found. Phys. Lett., 6, 503-532. [5] Barrett, J. (2011). Everett's Relative-State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2011 /entries/qm-everett/. [6] Gao, S. (2011). Interpreting Quantum Mechanics in Terms of Random Discontinuous Motion of Particles. http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/8874. [7] Saunders, S., Barrett, J., Kent, A. and Wallace, D. (eds.) (2010). Many Worlds? Everett, Quantum Theory, and Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [8] Vaidman, L. (2008). Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/ qm-manyworlds/. [9] Vaidman, L. (2009). Protective Measurements, in Greenberger, D., Hentschel, K., and Weinert, F. (eds.), Compendium of Quantum Physics: Concepts, Experiments, History and Philosophy. Springer-Verlag, Berlin. pp.505507. | {
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MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN IN EPISTEMOLOGY 1 J. DRAKE It is an intriguing time to be thinking about the factivity of reasons. As factive views of reasons are gaining favor in epistemology, practical philosophy has been increasingly considering the possibility of nonfactive views. This paper is part of a larger project that encourages more exchange between theorists of practical and epistemic reasons. Such an exchange would be especially fruitful, I think, vis-á-vis the issue of factivity. The primary aim of this paper will be to slow the factive turn in epistemology, as it were, by appealing to points about the factivity of practical reasons. I suspect that the implication of the main argument of this paper will strike many as surprising; it shows that, in order to successfully establish the view that normative epistemic reasons are facts, one must discredit the view that motivating practical reasons need not be facts. The course of the paper is as follows. I begin in the first section with some preliminary remarks about two standard distinctions in the theory of reasons: that between motivating and normative reasons, and that between practical and epistemic reasons. I also briefly spell out what the Factive and Nonfactive View of each of these looks like. I proceed in the second section of the paper to lay out an important claim on which my argument relies: the claim that our positions on the factivity of epistemic and practical normative reasons should agree. I defend this claim of uniformity from an initial concern, namely, that epistemic reasons owe their distinctive character precisely to their relation to the truth. That being the case, one might think that we have a special reason to think that epistemic reasons are facts –– one which does not also lend support to the idea that practical reasons are facts. But I show that this concern is misguided. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Factive Turn in Epistemology Workshop in Vienna, 1 and it has benefited from my interactions with those who attended –– especially Tim Williamson. I owe thanks to Veli Mitova and an anonymous referee for helpful feedback on a draft of the paper; and also to Maria Alvarez and Juan Comesaña for discussion of earlier materials. I am above all indebted to Dan Bonevac, David Sosa, and Jonathan Dancy for discussing these ideas with me as I developed them and transitioned through several drafts of the paper. MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN With this claim of uniformity on board, I spend the next three sections of the paper establishing the following claim: if motivating reasons need not be facts, then normative reasons need not be facts. Focusing my attention on practical reasons, I begin in the third section by explaining why one might think that motivating reasons need not be facts. I then move in the fourth section to motivate the thought that in some cases where A Φs for the reason that r and it is not the case that r, A's Φing is rational; not only can an agent act in the light of a falsehood, but an agent can also act rationally in the light of a falsehood. I also claim that a plausible conception of rationality is one on which A's Φing can be rational only if A's Φing is done for some good reason. If this is all correct, then some false reasons for which agents act must also be good reasons –– and so some normative reasons must not be facts. I connect all of the dots in the fifth section by briefly laying out my main argument against the factive turn in epistemology. In conjunction with the claim of uniformity from the second section, the previous three sections give us what we need to mount a somewhat surprising argument against factive views of epistemic normative reasons. In the sixth section I address three objections. I first address the common argument that motivating reasons cannot be falsehoods due to the role they play in explaining actions. I then treat two further objections that try to thread the needle a bit, by forcing a wedge between rationality and reasons-responsiveness. According to the first of these, since in the cases of interest A has no good reason to Φ, we must stop short of attributing rationality to A's Φing. According to the second of these, we might concede that in these cases A's Φing is rational, but not in any sense that implies that A Φs for a good reason. I conclude in the seventh section by expressing some hesitation about where my arguments are leading. One might grant the core argument of my paper –– that the factivity of motivating and normative reasons rise and fall together –– and simply use it as a reductio against the view that practical motivating reasons need not be facts. I suggest that this is not as easily done as one might initially suppose. 2 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN I. PRELIMINARY REMARKS As I said, I am primarily concerned to establish the claim that: if motivating reasons need not be facts, then normative reasons need not be facts. I have also said that my demonstration of this claim will operate primarily on "practical" reasons, but with clear implications for "epistemic" reasons. Such a project calls for clarifications on three fronts. First, there is the standard distinction between motivating and normative reasons. 2 Borrowing from the literature, we can say that a motivating reason is a consideration in the light of which an agent acts. For example, suppose you see me running through the halls. You might ask me why I am running through the halls. I would likely respond by presenting the consideration(s) which motivated me to run through the halls (for example, the consideration that I am late to give my eleven o'clock lecture). You would likely be satisfied with such a response, as it would help you to make sense of my action. But you might also be interested in whether there is, as we might say, any good reason for me to be running through the halls. Here you are looking for what is called a normative reason: a consideration that counts in favor of a response. In normal cases (such as the one considered here), the agent's motivating reason will be a normative reason. In telling you that I am late to give my lecture, I have presented you with that consideration which casts my action in a favorable light; I have told you not only why I am running, but also, perhaps, why I should be running. Recently, there has been debate concerning the "factivity" of both kinds of reasons. In practical philosophy and action theory, there has been much more debate about the factivity of motivating reasons. In that debate, there are two main views. One is the Factive ViewM: in order for A to Φ for the reason that r, it must be the case that r. Too many to name employ this common distinction, which is perhaps owed to Michael Smith [1992: 2 329]. For relevant introductions to the distinction, though, see Jonathan Dancy [2000: 1ff] for something brief, and Maria Alvarez [2010] for something more thorough. Cases like the ones I will discuss might impress upon us the idea that we need a third class: explanatory reasons. Alvarez [2010; 2016] has done well to argue for this position, but I cannot treat it here. 3 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN The competitor to this view is the Nonfactive ViewM, which is just the denial of the Factive ViewM. According to the Factive ViewM, I cannot be running through the halls for the reason that I 3 am late unless I really am late. The Nonfactive ViewM denies this, and holds that my reason for running might be that I am late even if I am not really late. The debate about such claims is distinct from the debate about the factivity of normative reasons, which has received more attention in recent epistemology. In that debate, there are also two main views. One is the Factive ViewN: in order for r to be a reason for A to Φ, it must be the case that r. The competitor to this view is the Nonfactive ViewN, which is just the denial of the Factive ViewN. Of course, in this context, the phrase "be a reason for A to Φ" should be taken not 4 motivationally, but rather as, roughly, "count in favor of A's Φing". So, independent of what my (motivating) reason is for running through the halls, proponents of the Factive ViewN will hold that my being late can only count in favor of my running if I really am late. Those who endorse the Nonfactive ViewN will deny this claim, holding that my being late might count in favor of my running regardless of whether I really am late. These clarifying remarks have so far involved an example of so-called "practical" reasons; but, as I have noted, these issues manifest vis-á-vis so-called "epistemic" reasons as well. This is I have modified the labels here from Dancy [2011], who has argued [2000; 2003; 2011; 2014] for the 3 Nonfactive ViewM extensively. Juan Comesaña and Matthew McGrath [2014], as well as Mark Schroeder [2008], defend a nonfactive view of having reasons; but the connection to acting for a reason is not completely clear. Constantine Sandis [2013] claims to endorse the view; but since he denies that false motivating reasons have explanatory power, it is not clear that his position should be grouped with Dancy's. In epistemology, David Enoch [2010: 984] seems to express sympathy for the view in passing. The Factive ViewM is far and away the dominant view in the literature on practical reasons. A relevant sample includes Alvarez [2010], Donald Davidson [1980], Jennifer Hornsby [2008], John Hyman [2011], and John McDowell [2013]. In epistemology, Timothy Williamson [2000; 2014] falls in the Factivist camp; and Clayton Littlejohn [2012: 149ff] also seems sympathetic to a kind Factive View. In the literature on practical and moral reasons, the Factive ViewN is so far in the majority that it is often 4 assumed without argument. Indeed, the assumption is often that reasons for acting are facts, and the debate is about what kind of facts they might be. See Parfit [2011: 31] for an example. In the literature on epistemic reasons, things are a bit different; and the debate about the factivity of epistemic normative reasons might be hiding under the label "the factivity of evidence." On that topic, the Factive ViewN of epistemic reasons is only recently coming in to some favor, with the work of those like Williamson [2000] and Littlejohn [2012; 2013a; 2013b]. See Thomas Kelly [2008] for a nice discussion on how this debate has developed. 4 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN the third and final front on which my project is in need of clarification. Borrowing from the literature is less useful in making this distinction, but I shall try to follow roughly the distinction as laid out by Joseph Raz. The distinction between practical and epistemic reasons is most easily 5 thought of as a distinction between two kinds of normative reasons. According to this framework, practical reasons are considerations that owe their normative force to their relation to values. Epistemic reasons, on the other hand, are considerations that owe their normative force to their relation to the truth. For example, my being late to give my eleven o'clock lecture seems to be a practical reason: it favors my running through the halls, and it so favors in virtue of its relation to certain values (such as that of being punctual). As such, this is a practical reason; but there are epistemic reasons nearby. Suppose that you ask me why I believe that I am late, and I respond that the clock in my office reads quarter-past eleven. As such, this fact about my clock seems to be an epistemic reason: it favors my believing that I am late, and it so favors in virtue of its relation to the truth (about what time it is). II. UNIFORMITY So much for preliminaries. I said at the outset that this paper is a part of a larger project that encourages more exchange between theories of practical and epistemic reasons. But, given the deep difference in the respective natures of practical and epistemic reasons, one might worry about the prospective fruitfulness of such an exchange. If there is legitimate reason to worry, the main argument of this paper might be robbed of some of its force. That is because the argument relies in part on the claim that I will call Uniformity: ceteris paribus, the best theory of reasons will hold just one position about the factivity of reasons, which is true of every kind of reason. See Raz [2011: 36-58] for a particularly nice explication of this distinction, which I take to be standard. 5 Notice that this crucial distinction remains intact even on views according to which truth is a kind of value (and epistemic reasons can therefore be thought of as a kind of practical reason). The distinction would then be grounded in a distinction between two kinds of values. Thanks to an anonymous referee for encouraging me to address this possibility. 5 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN I mean this claim to apply within each of the realms of motivating and normative reasons independently, but across normative realms (moral, epistemic, practical, aesthetic, or otherwise) therein. Suppose, for example, that we become convinced that the Factive ViewN of epistemic reasons is correct. Then, according to the principle of uniformity, there is theoretical pressure to endorse the Factive ViewN of practical reasons. Similarly: if one becomes convinced that the Nonfactive ViewM of practical reasons is correct, then one is under some theoretical pressure to endorse the Nonfactive ViewM of epistemic reasons. For my part, I find this commitment to uniformity to be simply intuitive. I also know of no good argument against it; and so I will treat it as a kind of working assumption. Plausible though the principle of uniformity may be, one may have doubts about it because of the difference between practical and epistemic reasons just laid out. The distinguishing mark of epistemic reasons is supposed to be their relation to the truth (practical reasons stand in no such special relation); and the debate about the factivity of reasons is, essentially, a debate about whether something must be true in order to be a reason. Should we not, then, expect a deep difference between practical and epistemic reasons on the issue of factivity? I think not. There are two questions that need to be separated here. One is the question of what makes something a reason at all; another question is what makes something a reason of a particular kind. The distinction just laid out, of course, gives a standard answer to the second question. But that answer does not imply any answer to the first question. Suppose that r is an epistemic reason for some agent A to Φ (where Φing is, say, believing that p). The standard distinction tells us that what makes r an epistemic reason to Φ, rather than a practical reason to Φ, is the relation that r bears to the truth of p (for example, r might make it more likely to be true that p). This, of course, says nothing about whether r itself is true; it is not the truth of r, but rather the effect that r has on the truth of p, that is important for making the standard distinction. But the debate over the factivity of reasons, applied here, would be a debate about whether r itself must be true in order to be a reason. So we can see clearly that the special relation that epistemic 6 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN reasons bear to the truth is really no reason at all to suspect that they will be deeply different from practical reasons vis-á-vis the issue of factivity. If the principle of uniformity is correct, there may be serious implications for theorizing about reasons –– especially if the natures of motivating and normative reasons can be connected in the manner I shall go on to claim in this paper. Together, these two claims amount to the thought that theories of reasons must take just one position on factivity, which holds for all kinds of reasons: motivating, normative, practical, and epistemic. Consequently, someone who sets out to establish the factivity of normative epistemic reasons, for example, will be saddled with defending the factivity of these other varieties of reasons as well. III. ACTING IN THE LIGHT OF A FALSEHOOD With these initial remarks in mind, I move in this section toward my main claim that if motivating reasons need not be facts, then normative reasons need not be facts (or, in other words, if the Nonfactive ViewM is correct, then the Nonfactive ViewN is also correct). In this section I will explain why one might think that motivating reasons need not be facts –– or (alternatively), that in order for A to Φ for the reason that r, it need not be the case that r. To help with this, I will employ variations of a case that has become somewhat standard in the literature on the factivity of practical motivating reasons. 6 SKATING: Imagine a pond that has thin ice in the middle. Edna takes it that the ice in the middle of the pond is thin. So, when she skates, Edna keeps to the edge of the pond. You are on a nearby hill, and you see Edna skating. You ask her why she is skating as she is, and she tells you that the ice in the middle of the pond is thin. I take it to be rather natural and uncontroversial to understand this case such that Edna's reason for skating near the edge of the pond is that [THIN ICE]: the ice in the middle of the pond is thin. I am adapting this example from Hornsby [2008: 251], which, as far as I know, traces back to Gilbert Ryle 6 [1949: 117-118] –– although its more contemporary usage may be due to Peter Unger [1975: 209-211]. 7 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN When I say that I take it to be natural and uncontroversial, I am speaking pre-theoretically: there is, pre-theoretically, no reason to deny this understanding of the case (or to privilege another understanding over it). At the very least, we can say that in skating near the edge of the pond, Edna is responding to the consideration that [THIN ICE]. But independent theoretical reason for taking the case in this way can be provided. In SKATING, you are observing Edna's behavior with no view about how things are with the ice. You ask Edna why she is skating near the edge of the pond. Insofar as, when we ask such questions, we take ourselves to be asking for what reason the agent in question is so acting, we express some sympathy for the claim that motivating reasons play an explanatory role: if A Φs for the reason that r, then r can play an explanatory role with respect to A's Φing. 7 When we ask this sort of "Why?" question, I think we are looking for a particular kind of explanation of the action. We are looking for an explanation that will make the action rationally intelligible. When Edna responds to our inquiry with some appeal to or presentation of the consideration that [THIN ICE], our inquiry has been satisfied. Edna has given the kind of response that puts her skating in a rationally intelligible light. Now consider a slightly different case. TWO SKATERS: Imagine two adjacent ponds. Edna takes it that the ice in the middle of one pond is thin. So, when she skates on it, she keeps to the edge of the pond. Edmund takes it that the ice in the middle of the other pond is thin. So, when he skates on it, he keeps to the edge of the pond. You are on a nearby hill, and you see both skaters skating –– but you have no view about Sandis [2013: 30] rightly refers to this claim as a common "assumption" in the literature; resultantly, it is 7 rarely explicitly stated or endorsed (although one can find hints of it in those like Alvarez [2011: 41n9] saying that "because" is factive). Kieran Setiya [2007: 39-47] provides a nice defense of the axiom if one is needed, even going so far as to argue that taking something to be a motivating reason just is taking it to be explanatory. Contemporary roots of this axiom are perhaps found in G. E. M. Anscombe [1957: 9ff]. 8 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN how things are with the ice. As they finish, you ask them both why they keep to the edge while they skate. They both tell you that the ice in the middle of the pond is thin. When you get home, your sister tells you that the ice in the middle of Edmund's pond is just fine. Now, as with SKATING, I think that the natural way to understand this case is such that both Edna and Edmund act for the reason that [THIN ICE]. In TWO SKATERS, I think you would accept both responses to your "Why?" question without a fuss. Both Edna and Edmund have presented you with their reason for acting, which you can use to make sense of their actions. Furthermore, the information your sister gives you when you get home makes no difference to this. What your sister tells you about Edmund's pond does not leave you confused as to what Edmund was doing or why he was doing it. Despite the fact that Edmund was wrong about the way the world is, you can still understand his behavior by the thought that "His reason for keeping to the edge was that the ice in the middle of the pond is thin." I am well aware that what I have just said is controversial (though in my view it should not be), and I will treat a serious objection to this analysis in the sixth section of the paper. Right now I want to treat an initial but ultimately superficial worry about what I have just said. Someone resisting my analysis might say: "I would not accept Edmund's answer to my 'Why?' question, since I do not accept that [THIN ICE]." My initial response to this worry is a simple reminder that in the case, you have no view about how things are with the ice at first. So I think you would accept his answer. Now, one might think, "But when I get home to my sister, I will realize that I should not accept his answer –– since surely at that point I do not accept that [THIN ICE]." One might think this; but it would be puzzling. Of course, the information your sister gives you should lead you to reject Edmund's utterance "that [THIN ICE]" as an assertion. But what you learn from your sister should not prevent you from taking Edmund's answer as a statement of his reason, anymore than it should prevent you from receiving his answer as a statement of something he takes to be the case. Evidence for this is that, as I pointed out in the last paragraph, the 9 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN information from your sister does not leave you reeling, in search of a (new) explanation of Edmund's action. It is not important to settle what exactly to say about Edmund at this juncture. For now, one need only realize that it is not so unintuitive, pre-theoretically, to take Edmund's reason to be that [THIN ICE] even though it is not the case that [THIN ICE]. Indeed, I think that these previous considerations might suggest that the Nonfactive ViewM is more intuitive than the Factive ViewM. But it is enough for now to acknowledge that it seems possible, as I will say, to act in the light of a falsehood. IV. ACTING RATIONALLY IN THE LIGHT OF A FALSEHOOD As theorists, though, we might be interested not only in what agents' reasons for acting are or could be. We might also be interested in whether, when an agent acts for some reason or another, the agent is acting rationally in so doing. We might allow that, for example, Edmund acts for the reason that [THIN ICE] even though it is not the case that [THIN ICE]. But when he so acts, is his action rational? To get at this question, consider a second pair of cases. JUST SKATING: Imagine that Edmund is about to go skating. As he heads out, Edna tells him that the ice in the middle of the pond is thin. When Edmund goes out to the pond, the ice in the middle of the pond looks thin to him. Edmund takes it that the ice in the middle of the pond is thin. So, when he skates, Edmund keeps to the edge of the pond. Meanwhile, you are on a nearby hill, and you see Edmund skating. You approach him and ask him why he is skating as he is. He responds by saying that the ice in the middle of the pond is thin. There is nothing unusual about this case. This is the kind of situation that any of us living near a pond might find ourselves in on a nice winter day. I think that any of us in this case would accept Edmund's response to our inquiry. If it occurred to us to ask the question at all (which, quite tellingly, I think, it would not), we would deem Edmund's action to be rational. I also think we 10 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN would be right on both counts: Edmund does act for the reason that [THIN ICE], and Edmund's skating near the edge, in light of the consideration that [THIN ICE], is rational. Suppose though, that I add one detail to the case: SKATING IN IGNORANCE: Imagine that Edmund is about to go skating. As he heads out, Edna tells him that the ice in the middle of the pond is thin. When Edmund goes out to the pond, the ice in the middle of the pond looks thin to him. Edmund takes it that the ice in the middle of the pond is thin. So, when he skates, Edmund keeps to the edge of the pond. Meanwhile, you are on a nearby hill, and you see Edmund skating. You approach him and ask him why he is skating as he is. He responds by telling you that the ice in the middle of the pond is thin. Unbeknownst to Edna, Edmund, and you, the ice in the middle of the pond is not thin. Now, it seems to me that this second pair of cases is dialectically analogous to the first pair of cases, in the following way. We have the intuition about JUST SKATING that Edmund's skating is rational. Just as with the transition from SKATING to TWO SKATERS, adding the last detail here does nothing to alter our initial judgment. In moving from JUST SKATING to SKATING IN IGNORANCE, Edmund goes from having a true belief about the pond to having a false belief; but so far as the rationality of his action is concerned, nothing has changed. Some may be tempted to deny what I have just said. That is, some will want to uphold the (intuitive) claim that Edmund's action is rational in JUST SKATING, but deny it in SKATING IN IGNORANCE. But doing this requires not just denying the intuitive verdict in such cases, but also denying plausible general claim about rationality. This is the claim that error need not create irrationality: in some cases, the difference between A's being right about some bare empirical fact p and A's being wrong about p is not the kind of difference that can, on its own, make a difference to whether A is Φing rationally. 8 Thanks to an anonymous referee here, whose comments helped me to formulate the claim in this way.8 11 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN There are some facts such that an agent's being wrong about them pretty clearly does impugn that agent's rationality. If Edmund thought that there being five clouds in the sky was reason to keep to the edge of the pond, for example, and this was the only consideration that he could mention in giving an account of his skating, we might have our doubts about the rationality of his action. But Edmund's being wrong about whether [THIN ICE] does not seem to fit this bill –– especially in cases like SKATING IN IGNORANCE, where Edmund seemingly has good reason to believe that [THIN ICE]. In the light of these considerations, I think that the plausible thing to say is that Edmund's skating near the edge is rational –– even in SKATING IN IGNORANCE. It is possible, as I have said, to act rationally in the light of a falsehood. But what does this have to do with the factivity of normative reasons? To make the connection, consider one final case: SENSELESS SKATING: Imagine that Edmund is about to go skating. As he heads out, Edna tells him that the weather is nice, and that it is a great day for skating. When Edmund goes out to the pond, he does not notice anything strange about the ice. So, when he skates, Edmund keeps to the edge of the pond. Meanwhile, you are on a nearby hill, and you see Edmund skating. You approach him and ask why he is skating as he is. He responds by telling you that the weather is nice, that it is a great day for skating, and that he noticed nothing strange about the ice. Now, I think that any of us in this case would have our doubts as to the rationality of Edmund's action. Indeed, we may find it difficult to even make his action intelligible. I think that the most plausible explanation of these reactions is that we cannot find, anywhere in Edmund's account of his action, any good reason for doing what he is doing. This makes it hard to suppose that his action is rational; for an action to be rational, it is natural to think, it must be done for some good reason. Even independent of our judgments about cases like SENSELESS SKATING, this claim follows from a plausible (even if naive) conception of rationality itself. We naturally conceive of 12 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN rationality as some kind of appropriate reasons-responsiveness. If acting rationally 9 is, inter alia, responding appropriately to reasons, then an action must at least be an appropriate response to some consideration in order to be rational. But unlike his action in JUST SKATING and SKATING IN IGNORANCE, Edmund's action in SENSELESS SKATING shows no signs of this appropriate responsiveness. V. MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN We now have in place the materials for my master argument against the Factive ViewN of epistemic reasons. The argument goes as follows. [1] In some cases where A Φs for the reason that r, it is not the case that r. [2] In some cases as described in [1], A's Φing is rational. [3] A's Φing can be rational only if A Φs for a good reason. [4] In such cases as described in [2], r must be a good reason for Φing. [5] Some good reasons for Φing are things that are not the case. [6] If the Nonfactive ViewN is true of practical reasons, then it is true of epistemic reasons. [C] Some epistemic normative reasons are things that are not the case. Premise [1] was provided by the intuitive claim that Edna and Edmund act for the same reason in TWO SKATERS. Premise [2] was provided by analogous judgments about Edmund in JUST SKATING and SKATING IN IGNORANCE, as well as the plausible principle that error need not create irrationality. Premise [3] was provided by a plausible explanation of our confusion about Edmund's action in SENSELESS SKATING, as well as the plausible analysis of rationality as some kind of appropriate reasons-responsiveness. Claim [4] follows from premises [1]-[3], on the simplifying assumption that, for example, [THIN ICE] is the only consideration Edmund is See Comesaña and McGrath [2014] for an example of a specification of this conception. There are some 9 who, like Niko Kolodny, try to distinguish between rationality and reasons-responsiveness. I address an objection based on such a distinction in the sixth section. Thanks to Veli Mitova for pointing out the relevance of such views. 13 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN responding to in IGNORANT SKATING. Claim [5] follows from claim [4]. Premise [6] is an application of the principle of uniformity argued for in section two. The conclusion, [C], follows from claims [5] and [6]: epistemic reasons for belief –– or evidence, if you like –– need not be 10 facts. The philosophical value of this argument, I hope you will agree, is not limited to its being a challenge to the Factive ViewN of epistemic reasons. As I said at the outset, it also demonstrates an important connection that some may find surprising: in order for one to defend the Factive ViewN of epistemic reasons, one must also defend the Factive ViewM of practical reasons. VI. CAN THE FACTIVE TURN BE FORCED? I now want to briefly address three serious objections to this argument. My argument starts, in premise [1], with the thought that A can Φ for the reason that r even if it is not the case that r. But there has recently come a strong challenge to this claim in the literature on practical motivation. According to this challenge, the Nonfactive ViewM is at odds with the axiomatic claim that explanation is factive. The argument goes something like this: 11 [O1] All motivating reasons are explanatory. [O2] All things that are explanatory are facts. [O3] Therefore, all motivating reasons are facts. The first premise here is recognizable from earlier. Any time A Φs for the reason that r, r can play an explanatory role vis-á-vis A's Φing; there is a certain sense of the question "Why?" that will only be satisfied by appeal to the agent's motivating reason. The second premise is the axiomatic Here I follow Kelly [2009] in assuming that evidence is something like good epistemic reason to believe. A few 10 have tried to challenge this conception, but as Kelly [2009: 5] notes, most assume that "'reason to believe' and 'evidence' are more or less synonymous." This seems to be the main argument responsible for garnering the Factive ViewM of practical reasons the 11 support it currently enjoys. For a relevant sample of the discussion around this argument, see Alvarez [2010], Dancy [2011; 2014], Hornsby [2008], Hyman [2011], James Lenman [2011], McDowell [2013], and Sandis [2013]. 14 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN claim that explanation is factive. Together, these two claims are supposed to show that the Nonfactive ViewM cannot be right; so my master argument has an implausible first premise. This argument from the factivity of explanation deserves much more careful attention than it has so far received –– careful attention that I cannot give it here. Instead, I want to cut right to the core of the argument, showing why I think it will ultimately fail as an objection to the Nonfactive ViewM. If this argument is sound, then the Nonfactive ViewM cannot give good reasons-explanations of actions done by agents like Edmund. That is: according to this argument, if it is not the case that r, r is not capable of playing an explanatory role vis-á-vis any agent's Φing. But it seems quite clear to me that this is not so. In the third section, we observed that in the case of TWO SKATERS, we could explain Edmund's skating by appeal to his reason –– despite his reason being a falsehood. I now press a bit more on this issue. To see that this argument is faulty, all we need is an example of a satisfying reasons-explanation that makes use of a false reason. To that end, I think we can answer the question "Why is Edmund skating near the edge?" by saying that His reason is that [THIN ICE]. This answer seems to me to be at least equal in explanatory power to the response that He believes that [THIN ICE]. Both of these answers to the relevant "Why?" question seem perfectly natural and satisfying (though perhaps importantly different). Furthermore, the consideration that [THIN ICE] is indispensable to both of these explanations of Edmund's action. But neither of these answers implies or requires –– in their own right, or as explanatory claims –– that it is the case that [THIN ICE]. If the first explanation really is successful, it seems to follow that we can explain Edmund's 15 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN action by appeal to his reason for acting, even though his reason is a falsehood. But if that is right, then the objection in question must be flawed. 12 This first objection only challenges the Nonfactive ViewM of practical reasons. Recall, though, that my central purpose is to show that the Nonfactive ViewM of practical reasons and the Factive ViewN of epistemic reasons are at odds. The next two objections, if successful, might provide a way to sever the connection here, and so resolve any potential tension. The first of these is an argument against premise [2]. According to this objection, although there might be something praiseworthy about what Edmund is doing, we should stop short of saying that his action is rational. In order for his action to be rational, it must be a response to some good reason for acting. But in cases like TWO SKATERS, for example, there are no good reasons for Edmund to do what he is doing. We know this because there is no feature of the world that favors his doing what he is doing. There is a feature that Edmund might think favors his skating near the edge, but alas, that feature is not a real feature of the situation. Since rationality consists in some appropriate reasons-responsiveness, we must stop short of saying that his action is rational. I will address the second half of the objection below. I want now to address only the suggestion that we can stop short of saying that Edmund's action is rational. I have two things to say in response to this suggestion. The first is that, while Edmund's action may be ill-informed, it seems to be very difficult to say that it is irrational –– that it is rationally impermissible. Aside from the plain intuitive judgment that this is so, the principle that error need not create irrationality supports this claim. So if we must say either that his action is rationally permissible or that it is rationally impermissible, we should surely say the former. My second response is to ask those hesitant to ascribe rationality to Edmund's action to consider what terms of appraisal they might find applicable in its stead. We might naturally say, for example, that his action is reasonable; that A completely satisfying rebuttal of the argument would include an account of the flaw in the argument. I 12 do not have the space to fully treat this issue here, since a full treatment, I think, would require a robust theory of explanation. But allow me to briefly sketch what I take the problem to be. The complication is that the notion of being explanatory is ambiguous. If being explanatory just means being the explanation, for example, the argument may be difficult for the Nonfactivist to maneuver around. But this seems to me not a very promising analysis. Being explanatory might also mean, for example, contributing to an explanation. On this understanding of the notion, the Nonfactivist can make use of the kind of maneuver I have just laid out. 16 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN his action is perfectly sensible; his action is easily intelligible; his action is understandable; it is what any rational agent in his position would do; and so on. Indeed, I think that we can say all of these things without hesitation –– and we would be correct in saying them. But with this cluster of concepts before me I now feel puzzled about the initial hesitation: it would be a fairly foreign, and perhaps somewhat artificial notion of rationality such that all of these things can truly be said of Edmund's action, and yet we cannot truly describe his action as rational. So I would invite anyone making this objection to provide and motivate that further conception of rationality. 13 I will address a third and final objection before concluding. A third line of resistance is to concede premise [2], but not in any sense that implies that Edmund had good reason to do what he did. For example, we may be able to pinpoint considerations or features that allow us to give a rationalizing explanation of Edmund's action, or perhaps pick out some rational requirement that he satisfies. But these things do not strictly imply that there is any good reason for Edmund to be skating near the edge of the pond. So we can admit that Edmund's action is in some sense rational while resisting premise [3]. I have only one thing to say in response to this objection, which seems to me a hard point to maneuver around. It is, in many ways, the thought that makes the central argument of this paper compelling (if indeed it is compelling). The thought is this: if we grant that Edmund is acting for the reason that [THIN ICE], and that he is responding appropriately to that consideration, it requires a great deal of subtlety to proceed to say that he has no good reason for doing what he is. It seems to me undeniable that Edmund is responding to the consideration that the ice in the middle of the pond is thin. That is more or less a stipulation of the case. It also seems undeniable that Edmund is responding appropriately to this consideration. The appropriate thing to do, in the light of the consideration that [THIN ICE], is avoid the middle of the pond. We can ask the question: What makes this response appropriate? The very natural thought is that the consideration in question counts in favor of the response in question. I suppose, in a way, I can I do not want to create the impression that this is an impossible task. Littlejohn [2017], for example, has 13 tried his hand at teasing some of these notions apart (thanks to an anonymous referee for bringing this to my attention). Adjudicating whether such projects are successful is beyond the scope of this paper. 17 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN leave a challenge here similar to that which I left to the previous objection. The challenge is to provide and motivate accounts of being the favored response and being the appropriate response such that one can cleanly tease these things apart when dealing with characters like Edmund. I am skeptical that this can be done. VII. CONCLUDING REMARKS There is one way out of my main argument that I have not discussed, and I should like to end by commenting on it. It is the piece of the second objection which I previously set aside for later. I know that there are many who have a sort of bedrock intuition that something that is not the case simply cannot favor anything. Some of those who have this thought may even find it to be more intuitive and plausible than each of the premises of my argument. Instead of resisting the validity or soundness of the argument directly, then, one might claim the conclusion of my argument constitutes a reductio of it; the link that I worked to establish between practical motivating reasons and epistemic normative reasons could possibly be used against me in this way. I can see two general ways in which this might be tried. The first is that one might treat my argument as a kind of paradox: even though it cannot be said exactly what the flaw is in the argument, we know that something must be wrong with it given the conclusion it arrives at. The second possibility is that one might think that the implausibility of the conclusion of my argument should lead us to reject one of the premises in the argument –– perhaps whichever seems to be the weakest link. Now, I am not sure how substantively I could proceed to debate my opponent who takes the first option here; but I also suspect that most will not be satisfied with that option. So I would like to close by making a couple of remarks about the second option. I anticipate that most of my opponents will find the first premise to be the weak link here. So, adopting the reductio strategy, one might say that my argument shows not that the Factive ViewN of epistemic reasons is false, but rather that the Nonfactive ViewM of practical reasons is false. I myself feel the pull of the thought that something that is not the case cannot favor anything –– though not as strongly as I 18 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN feel the pull of the thought that one can act for a reason that is not the case. But in any event, both claims on either end of the argument have some initial pull to them. This is part of what makes this way of refusing my argument unpersuasive to me. It seems that, in order to take my argument as a reductio of the Nonfactive ViewM, one must, in a way, privilege the favoring role of reasons in their ontology. That is, the thought must be something like this: any reason, whatever else it is, must be something that is capable of favoring. But this kind of favoring-first view of reasons is not at all appealing to me. It seems clear to me that the concept of a reason picks out the kind of thing that should, in principle, be capable of playing three roles: one motivational, one normative, and one explanatory. Of course, when things go well, one and the same consideration can play all three of these roles. But I see no reason at all to privilege one of these aspects over the others. I have also began to wonder just how intuitive it is that something that is not the case cannot favor anything. I am increasingly tempted to think of the favoring relation as analogous, vis-á-vis factivity, to the logical implication relation. The fact that P entails Q, for example, is not sensitive to the truth-value of P or Q. That is: P can stand in the entailment relation to Q regardless of whether P is true or Q is true. The claim that "If it is raining, then it is wet" can 14 be true whether or not it is raining (or wet). It is not unreasonable to imagine that the favoring relation might work similarly. Consider the claim "If it is raining, then I should bring an umbrella." It seems obvious to me that this claim can be true whether or not it is raining. But this is just a natural way of putting a thought about what I have good reason to do. I might as well have said, "Its raining favors my bringing an umbrella." But if that is so, then one claim can be placed in the favoring relation to another independent of the truth-value of either claim. In any event, even one who does try to resist my argument by this kind of reductio has made a concession with which I would be pleased. I said at the outset that I had two main goals for this paper. One goal was to establish a surprising connection between the factivity of practical motivating reasons and the factivity of epistemic normative reasons. A second goal was to use For those sensitive to such things, this seems to me true also of probability relations: we can place P and Q 14 in certain probability relations without thinking that either P or Q is true. 19 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN this connection to construct a novel argument against the Factive ViewN of epistemic reasons. The one who adopts this kind of reductio strategy has at least conceded that I have accomplished my first goal. As to the second goal: I hope that the argument of this paper can do something to slow the factive turn in epistemology, even if it cannot bring it to a full stop. 20 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN REFERENCES ALVAREZ, MARIA [2010]. Kinds of Reasons: An Essay in the Philosophy of Action. Oxford University Press. ALVAREZ, MARIA [2016]. "Reasons for Action: Justification, Motivation, Explanation." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Spring Edition. ANSCOMBE, G. E. M. [1957]. Intention. Harvard University Press. Second Edition, 1963. COMESAÑA, JUAN AND MATTHEW MCGRATH [2014]. "Having False Reasons." In Clayton Littlejohn and John Turri (eds.), Epistemic Norms. Oxford University Press: 59-80. DANCY, JONATHAN [2000]. Practical Reality. Oxford University Press. DANCY, JONATHAN. [2003]. "Replies." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (2): 468-490. DANCY, JONATHAN [2011]. "Acting in Ignorance." Frontiers of Philosophy in China 6 (3): 345-357. DANCY, JONATHAN [2014]. "On Knowing One's Reason." In Epistemic Norms. Clayton Littlejohn and John Turri (eds.). Oxford University Press, 2014: 81-96. DAVIDSON, DONALD [1980]. Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford University Press. Second Edition, 2001. ENOCH, DAVID [2010]. "Not Just a Truthometer: Taking Oneself Seriously (but not Too Seriously) in Cases of Peer Disagreement." Mind 119 (476): 953-997. HORNSBY, JENNIFER [2008]. "A Disjunctive Conception of Acting for Reasons." Birkbeck ePrints. Also published in Disjunctivism: Perception, Action, Knowledge. Adrian Haddock and Fiona Macpherson (eds.). Oxford University Press, 2008: 244-261. HYMAN, JOHN [1999]. "How Knowledge Works." The Philosophical Quarterly 49 (197): 433-451. HYMAN, JOHN [2010]. "The Road to Larissa." Ratio 23 (4): 393-414. HYMAN, JOHN [2011]. "Acting for Reasons: Reply to Dancy." Frontiers of Philosophy in China 6 (3): 358-368. KELLY, THOMAS [2008]. "Evidence: Fundamental Concepts and the Phenomenal Conception." Philosophy Compass 3 (5): 933-955. KELLY, THOMAS [2009]. "Evidence." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Spring Edition. KOLODNY, NIKO [2005]. "Why Be Rational?" Mind 114 (455): 509-563. 21 MOTIVATING REASON TO SLOW THE FACTIVE TURN LENMAN, JAMES [2011]. "Reasons for Action: Justification vs. Explanation." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Winter Edition. LITTLEJOHN, CLAYTON [2012]. Justification and the Truth-Connection. Cambridge University Press. LITTLEJOHN, CLAYTON [2013a]. "No Evidence is False." Acta Analytica 28 (2): 145-159. LITTLEJOHN, CLAYTON [2013b]. "The Russellian Retreat." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 113 (3): 293-320. LITTLEJOHN, CLAYTON [2017]. "A Plea For Epistemic Excuses." Forthcoming in F. Dorsch and J. Dutant (eds.), The New Evil Demon. Oxford University press. MCDOWELL, JOHN [2013]. "Acting in the Light of a Fact," in Thinking About Reasons: Themes from the Philosophy of Jonathan Dancy, David Bakhurst, Brad Hooker, and Margaret Olivia Little (eds.). Oxford University Press: 13-28. PARFIT, DEREK [2011]. On What Matters. Oxford University Press. PRYOR, JAMES [2007]. "Reasons and That-Clauses." Philosophical Issues 17 (1): 217-244. RAZ, JOSEPH [2011]. From Normativity to Responsibility. Oxford University Press. RYLE, GILBERT [1949]. The Concept of Mind. 60th Anniversary Edition. Routledge, 2009. SCANLON, T. M. [1998]. What We Owe to Each Other. Harvard University Press. SCHROEDER, MARK [2008]. "Having reasons." Philosophical Studies 139 (1): 57-71. SMITH, MICHAEL [1992]. "Valuing: Desiring or Believing?" In Charles, David and Kathleen Lennon (eds.), Reduction, Explanation, and Realism. Oxford University Press, 323-360. UNGER, PETER [1975]. Ignorance: A Case for Scepticism. Oxford University Press, 2002 Edition. WILLIAMS, BERNARD [1981]. Moral Luck. Cambridge University Press. WILLIAMSON, TIMOTHY [2000]. Knowledge and its Limits. Oxford University Press. WILLIAMSON, TIMOTHY [2014]. "Acting on Knowledge", in J. A. Carter, E. Gordon, and B. Jarvis (eds.), Knowledge-First. Oxford University Press. | {
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THE DEATH OF SCIENCE A COMPANION STUDY TO MARTÍN LÓPEZ CORREDOIRA'S THE TWILIGHT OF THE SCIENTIFIC AGE ANDREW HOLSTER Universal-Publishers Boca Raton 2 The Death of Science: A Companion Study to Martín López Corredoira's The Twilight of the Scientific Age Copyright © 2016 Andrew Thomas Holster All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Universal Publishers Boca Raton, Florida • USA 2016 ISBN-10: 1-62734-076-9 ISBN-13: 978-1-62734-076-2 www.brownwalker.com Publisher's Cataloging-in-Publication Data 3 Names: Holster, Andrew. | López Corredoira, M. (Martín), 1970The twilight of the scientific age. Title: The death of science : a companion study to Martín López Corredoira's The twilight of the scientific age / Andrew Holster. Description: Boca Raton, FL : Universal Publishers, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016935687 | ISBN 978-1-62734-076-2 (pbk.) | ISBN 978-1-62734-077-9 (PDF) Subjects: LCSH: Science--Philosophy. | Science--History. | Science-Political aspects. | Science--Methodology. | Peer review. | BISAC: SCIENCE / History. | SCIENCE / Philosophy & Social Aspects. | SCIENCE / Research & Methodology. Classification: LCC Q174.8 .H65 2016 (print) | LCC Q174.8 (ebook) | DDC 500--dc23. 4 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. ...................................................................................................6 PART 1. THE TWILIGHT OF SCIENTIFIC PHILOSOPHY. ................................24 López Corredoira's perspective. .................................................................24 Heterodoxy and orthodoxy. ........................................................................28 Philosophy of science and philosophy in sciences...................................36 Scientific realism and truth. .........................................................................39 The tragic example of Pavel Tichy. ............................................................43 López Corredoira's fundamental problem. ...............................................46 Explanation as the key quality criterion.....................................................52 Kantianism versus empiricism. ...................................................................56 The ether: an exception in López Corredoira's examples.......................65 Heterodox water science. .............................................................................67 Heterodox brain science. .............................................................................69 The prospect of revolutionary science.......................................................72 The scope of science.....................................................................................75 Scientific bigotry and the scientistic ideology. ..........................................82 Materialism and naturalistic metaphysics...................................................91 PART 2. DEATH BY PEER REVIEW. ................................................................107 López Corredoira on peer review.............................................................109 Background of peer review examples. .....................................................111 Peer review example 1. ...............................................................................113 The power of precedent.............................................................................137 Peer review example 2. ...............................................................................140 Summary of peer reviews...........................................................................154 The general failure of peer review. ...........................................................155 Preprint sites: arXiv.org. ..............................................................................158 Preprint sites: philsci-archive. ........................................................................162 Proposal for a new journal publication system. .....................................168 PART 3. DEATH BY BUREAUCRACY. ..............................................................172 The social context: bureaucratisation of science and society. ..............172 Mediocrity and the stratification effect....................................................174 The scarce resource driver of mediocrity. ...............................................182 A real example: NZ Ministry of Education Research. ..........................187 The state-corporate context of science....................................................196 Corporatisation of NZ public science. ....................................................199 Neo-liberal reform of NZ science............................................................200 The dominance of elite power-cliques.....................................................204 The voodoo science of neo-liberal business management. ..................206 The rule-based world view and moral philosophy.................................209 Drivers of the rule-based world view.......................................................216 5 Reflections of the rule-based world view in science..............................222 Wasting the time of our lives. ...................................................................236 PART 4. RESPONSES TO THE CRISIS OF SCIENCE. .......................................249 PART 5. APPENDICES. ......................................................................................262 Appendix 1. T.D. Lee. Symmetries, Asymmetries, and the World of Particles.........................................................................................................262 Appendix 2. Einstein's view of the Aether. ............................................269 Appendix 3. The time reversal operator in quantum mechanics.........273 Appendix 4. A realist interpretation of time in Special Relativity. ......274 Appendix 5. A logical contradiction in positivist semantics.................280 Appendix 6. Possible world metaphysics. ...............................................283 Appendix 7. The Alvarez Controversy. ...................................................293 Appendix 8. Evolving Peer Review Processes. ......................................297 Appendix 9. Predatory publishers: Beall's List. ......................................300 Appendix 10. Open Access Journals: paying for the privilege. ...........303 Appendix 11. ORCID: Meta-organisation of researchers. ...................305 Appendix 12. Nicky Hager: politically modified science. .....................307 Appendix 13. Rupert Sheldrake: ten dogmas of science.......................315 REFERENCES. ......................................................................................................98 WEB REFERENCES. ..........................................................................................101 WEB REFERENCES HOLSTER. ........................................................................102 6 INTRODUCTION. "In the temple of science are many mansions, ... and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them there. Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes. Were an angel of the Lord to come and drive all the people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, it would be noticeably emptier but there would still be some men of past and present times left inside... If the types we have just expelled were the only types there were, the temple would never have existed any more than one can have a wood consisting of nothing but creepers." Albert Einstein, 1918. Address for Max Plank's 60th Birthday. Modern science is in a state of unprecedented crisis. It is suffering from a chronic illness that has been advancing steadily since 1960's, finally accelerating to fatal proportions in the last decade. While technology runs rampant today, transforming our physical and social worlds beyond recognition, the creative vocation of scientist and the institutions of science that originally produced the platforms for this technology are in a death-spiral. This is testified by a growing flood of criticism from leading scientists in recent years, about the failures of scientific institutions, and their corruption by larger ideologies of power and wealth and bureaucracy that have come to rule our world. Martín López Corredoira's The Twilight of the Scientific Age (2013, Brown Walker) is a particularly striking critique, giving a vivid and scathing analysis of the state of modern science. López Corredoira is both a serious scientist and a philosopher, and it is this combination that gives his account a depth and resonance beyond the more conventional critiques of ordinary scientists simply lamenting their working conditions. I take López Corredoira's text as the starting point of this book, and explore key themes in greater detail, following his style of putting forward frank criticism, informed by personal examples. The result is a grim prognosis for the survival of science in its present institutionalised structures. These are not structures suited to science, but forced on it by the larger bureaucratised organisation of a state-controlled capitalist society. Science is fatally corrupted by the forces that flourish in this mode of organisation: ambition, greed, power politics, mass propaganda and intellectual mediocrity. López Corredoira concludes that science, in this modern institutionalised form, is a on its death-bed. Here I analyse the process of its death. In the remainder of this Introduction I briefly recapitulate key themes and conclusions. 7 López Corredoira's account is part sociology, part history and part philosophy. He recounts a breakdown in scientific culture, seen through examples of cultural syndromes at one level (mediocrity, bureaucracy, greed, competition); but also considered as the inevitable passage of a stage of civilisation in the larger panorama of history. He suggests that the most meaningful scientific research has now been completed in many core sciences, and the bulk of 'new research' being undertaken is largely derivative, a waste of time, and increasingly expensive. He sees a lack of scientific imagination, and a lack of scientific leadership, with the executive decisions of science ruled by bureaucratic mediocrity. He sees a conformist senior scientific community, and a powerful influence of scientific censorship and propaganda, working for the exclusion of heterodox or challenging or original ideas. He laments the flood of useless information drowning out wisdom or philosophy, and thinks science as we know it is in its twilight. This will surely conflict with popularist perceptions of the success of science. Most people no doubt think science today is strong, mainly because they see new technology – shiny new computerised machinery and production systems, spawned on a vast scale. These are systems locking us into dependency on global networks of industry, finance, communications, energy, transport, food production, medicine; and harnessing our human lives to goals imposed by wealth and power elites. But while this technology looks like advanced science to outsiders, it is not science at all: it is merely the crude beginnings of an era of robotic automation. The scientific revolutions and discoveries that enabled this technology occurred some decades ago: it has just taken industry these decades to develop the machinery these discoveries make possible. Science itself is forgotten, and our scientific institutions are now converted to industrial-bureaucratic corporates, dominated by swarms of technologists and managers of the most mediocre scientific ability. In the meantime, the real scientists, the rare creative talents intent on science as a form of intellectual discovery, have left the building. There is both an intellectual and a pragmatic dimension to this crisis. Intellectually, we see the corruption of the ideals of science, the exile of its most gifted personalities, and a fatally diminished intellectual culture. This may appear an abstract concern to most people, but it is a tragedy for the tiny minority of intellectuals who find themselves excluded from their natural vocation. And without the contribution of this tiny minority of creative genius, science as an intellectual and idealistic pursuit dies. This book, like López Corredoira's, is in fundamentally support of these intellectuals and ideals. This corruptions of ideals is also entwined with pragmatic failures of science. The question we must ask is this: can we afford to let the intellectual 8 spirit of science die so soon after spawning such vast technological power? Our technologies are far from sustainable: they are still crude and transitional, and dependence on them in their current fragile state will be disastrous. The corporatisation of science transfers power over the scientific endeavour to a corporate management elite, with the vision of engaging a vast work-force of standardised, interchangeable scientific technicians in a 'science factory', controlled by prescribed rules and processes. But this excludes the scientific intellect, the critical role of the creative intellectual. Without the ongoing application of real scientific intellect, we are trapped in a half-built building that will eventually collapse on our heads. More generally, it should be stressed that technological power does not solve any of the serious problems we face, unless used intelligently and benevolently. Our present system delivers tools of vast power, produced by the efforts of our rarest intellectuals, into the hands of spoilt children: the domineering personalities who rule business, politics and bureaucracy, egocentrically obsessed with their personal success, trapped in their sense of their own importance, ruled by simplistic visions of competition and superiority. Without intelligent guidance, advanced technology is more dangerous than helpful. The death of the scientific intellect recounted here leaves us without the critical intellectual function, in either scientific or public or corporate institutions, to address our real problems. These are real and urgent problems for the very survival of our civilisation entering a period of unprecedented globalisation and cultural turmoil. The immediate source of failure is evident to scientists themselves: the bureaucratic-corporate-capitalist system is a failure when applied to the creative intellectual domain of science. Recent years have seen a growing flood of criticism from leading figures within science – including many aging Nobel laureates of the past, who can see how dramatically science has declined in quality in their own life-times. Science today is variously criticised from within its own ranks as being obsessively bureaucratised and institutionalised; commercialised and corrupted by greed; drowning in mediocrity; exhausted in imagination; trapped in authoritarian dogmas; bigoted and exclusive of heterodoxy; and failing to meet multiple challenges of our time. These are not exaggerations. On the philosophical side, science is a system of thought that is meant to help us make sense of our lives as human beings, to help us to understand the natural world and our place in it. This was its explicit aim when it originated as natural philosophy, in the 17th – 19th centuries, before it became compartmentalised into the specialised technical silos of today. But here modern science has also become a dismal failure. The 'scientific philosophy' that gained dominance over science institutions in the C20th, propagandised by leading Establishment figures as the 'scientific world view', has long appeared empty of meaning or wisdom. This modern 'scientific philosophy' is an incoherent kludge of Positivist-Materialist-Empiricist doctrines, long 9 abandoned by serious philosophers themselves. But it remains a distinct integument of the scientific culture, providing a powerful ideological function, ensuring conformity and a sense of superiority and solidarity. It is an intractable intellectual failure of our time, and has offered nothing useful to real philosophy or real science for many decades. Although in the 192030's 'scientific philosophy' originally sparked valuable developments in logic and technical analysis, it soon became bogged down in scientistic dogmas. Transplanted from Europe to America, the second wave of C20th Positivism emerged as a doctrinal worship of scientific authority, and a contempt for any other systems of thought. The philosophy of science proper, the academic forum where such questions are meant to be discussed, has now become an archaic tea ceremony; a specialist self-referring field that makes little contact with real philosophy or real science or real life. It is fixated on abstract dogmas (called "my position" by philosophers), and bogged down in trivialities. It primarily reflects a dismal failure to solve mid-20th Century problems of semantics. As a popularist ideology, 'scientific philosophy' is now strongly associated with atheist attacks on religions (militant atheists falsely claiming Science in their cause), and with technocratic contempt for traditional moral, social or religious philosophy. Within science, this official 'philosophy' represents a powerful force for conformity, legitimating hostility to heterodox ideas and original thinkers within science, and ridicule of challenging subjects on the borders of science. The crisis in science itself stems intellectually, I believe, from the separation of the philosophy of science and the philosophy of specific sciences to a specialist subject outside the sciences themselves – starting in the late C19th, when Natural Philosophy was replaced by scientific specialisations. (Lord Kelvin, the great polymath C19th scientist, and incidentally a religious man, was Professor of Natural Philosophy through his long career, up to the end of the century: the last of his era.) Subsequently, science has been compartmentalised on an industrial model, akin to a factory production line, with little integration between sciences, and a huge rift between sciences and humanities. Natural scientists today do not think they need any understanding of the philosophy and history of their own subject, and are socialised in their training to be deeply contemptuous of it. This is analogous to a police force being contemptuous of psychology and morality and human understanding, believing their job is simply to apply brute force to enforce their goals. This arrogance leads to mistrust and eventually hatred of the police in the general community, and they end up in the role of a paramilitary force trying to dominate a hostile civilian population. The prominent scientific leaders of today – the propagandists for the scientistic ideology – similarly believe that they have the brute 'scientific force' to override philosophical concerns, having no need to consider 10 conceptual subtleties or heterodox theories or recognise a diversity of ideas. ("When I hear of Schrodinger's cat," says arch-Positivist Stephen Hawking, "I reach for my gun", echoing a notorious Nazi propagandist.) But the conditioning role of philosophical paradigms in science does not disappear just because it is ignored and suppressed from conscious recognition: it is merely unconsciously replaced by simplistic dogmas, acting as doctrines of faith. Principles of conceptual analysis, semantics and epistemology that are routinely taught in core physical sciences of physics and chemistry as scientific philosophy, and saturate the subtext of science textbooks, are based on a startling ignorance of real philosophy. They represent a hopelessly incoherent kludge of the Positivist-Empiricist-Materialist ideology long discredited by serious philosophers. These are presented as foundational doctrines. Critical discussion of philosophical principles and issues is generally out of bounds in university science courses. On the other hand, it is also quite understandable why scientists have become contemptuous of academic philosophy. The separation of 'scientific philosophy' from the scientific disciplines has equally led to its degradation, and it has now become an intellectual fantasy world. Intellectual standards in philosophy, it may be fairly said, are generally dismal. Academic 'philosophers of science' rarely have any working experience or competence as scientists. What they teach appears of no practical use to real scientists. As well as being scientifically incompetent, they also fail to address social issues of science, disdaining life outside their offices in the ivory tower. What do we pay them for? Serious scientists, whatever philosophical naivety they may have, are still generally hard-working teachers and researchers, and rightly contemptuous of such academic drones. López Corredoira thinks the academic philosophy of science is so futile it should be abandoned. I sympathise, but we should recognise that there are some modern philosophers of great ability, and the philosophy of science and of specific sciences has achieved some results of fundamental importance. They are merely buried in the vast academic dross of philosophy. I think philosophy should be transferred back into the sciences proper. Science departments should teach philosophy of science and the philosophy of their own science as part of their core curriculum. Indeed, I think this is the only way academic sciences will be restored to health. But this is unlikely to happen. There is no longer any tradition of philosophy in the natural sciences, and simply no competent academics for such roles. For example, in my central area of interest, there is probably not a single competent philosopher of physics in NZ, in either philosophy or physics departments, across half a dozen traditional universities. And then what about the philosophy of biology, evolution, chemistry, information sciences, social sciences, etc? Where would you find people competent to teach the philosophy of all these subjects in science departments? Such people simply don't exist – certainly not in my country. 11 Anyway, most science professors would strongly oppose this idea. For any realistic course must lead to science students questioning the naïve philosophies of their professors. Far from regarding the vacuum of philosophy in science as a problem, the scientific establishment is intent on destroying philosophy, in an act of intellectual genocide. But I believe that a philosophical dimension of thought, including analysis of fundamental concepts, is critical to doing science – especially to discovery and creation and evaluation of new theories. If you cannot embrace conceptual novelty, you can only become a technician working within a fixed paradigm. This is what the core Science Establishment is now dedicated to. This is a profound change in the culture of science since the heyday of Lorentz, Plank, Curie, Einstein, Bohr, Schrodinger, Dirac, and their colleagues who created modern physics in the early C20th. Science also has a critical role in reflecting back on philosophy – including social, metaphysical and ethical beliefs. A number of sciences profoundly influence our world-view: in particular, the sciences of physics and chemistry, geology and astronomy, biology and evolution, psychology and consciousness, information theory and semantics. Pragmatists and utilitarians may see science as merely a technology factory, producing product technologies, and not care about the 'ultimate truth' of scientific theories. They may care only about the practical use of science to make us richer, more powerful and more comfortable. For them, that is the only reality. But there is far more to it than this. Modern sciences profoundly inform our metaphysical views whether we know it or not. These are our beliefs about fundamental nature of the world and our selves, our meaning and purpose, our origins and fate. Here of course we have the classic modern 'War of World Views'. The 'scientific philosophy' is claimed (by the Scientific Atheists and anti-philosophers) to prove Materialist Reductionism, to deny the existence of a spiritual identity, to make human life an essentially meaningless accident, and morality a subjective delusion. This contradicts traditional religious and philosophical views, which embrace a transcendental reality of spirit or personal identity, and affirms meaning, purpose and morality as intrinsic and real aspects of existence. This has become a bitter divide between the science culture and the humanities. However (although apparently unbeknownst to most scientists), all the major programs in C20th 'scientific philosophy' have dismally failed – and failed to prove any of their metaphysical doctrines – Materialism, Positivism, Reductionism, etc. The characteristic view of the scientistic philosophers is that science is true. Or, since scientific theories sometimes change, that science is usually true, and when it is false it corrects itself, and leads to true theories. But there has always been a chasm between reality and ideology here. After a century of work trying to prove that science is true, the scientistic philosophers have failed to prove any such thing. In fact, it became very evident a long time ago that there is no guarantee, nor 12 indeed even much likelihood, that any general scientific theories of our era are true, and certainly none are complete! This applies particularly to very general and abstract theories, like fundamental theories of physics. This may seem strange: almost everyone who is open to science recognises that science makes progress – and what can this progress be except progress towards truth? What can progress mean except finding true theories? And yet, most scientific theories in the past have proved to be false, and have been abandoned and replaced at a fundamental level. But despite this series of false theories, scientific understanding has clearly progressed. Indeed, many false theories – e.g. Newtonian mechanics and gravity – represent decisive advances in scientific knowledge. But if they are ultimately false, what do they really tell us about the nature of reality? The first part of this book addresses this classic conundrum in the philosophy of science, an issue that also underpins López Corredoira's account. The answer given here is that science really progresses in giving robust explanations. They are robust precisely when they are robust against future theory change. But there is no reason at all to think that our current theories provide us with anything resembling the ultimate truth about the metaphysics of the natural world. This contradicts the claims of scientistic propagandists that science has now irrevocably established the fundamental nature of the world: e.g. that quantum mechanics and General Relativity truly identify the fundamental nature of space and time and matter, with no reasonable doubt possible. This attitude is dismissed here as arrogance, and almost certainly false. But in this attitude we see two powerful destructive drives within modern science. On one hand, the belief that science has reached the ultimate truth about fundamental questions provides the rationale for suppression of heterodox thinkers – those who would question fundamental paradigms of present science (like quantum mechanics or relativity theory or materialist reductionism), who typically have their work suppressed and their careers destroyed by powerful establishment scientists, for the heresy of questioning the truth of science, or scientific authority. And the other hand, we see an insistence by the same establishment scientists – acting as philosophical interpreters of science – on drawing vast metaphysical certainties from shaky scientific theories and superficial reasoning – and treating sceptics about their metaphysical fantasies as anti-scientific heretics. These are two powerful negative syndromes characterising the social and philosophical dimension of modern science. The scientific community cannot blame this on outsiders: it is a form of intellectual fascism engendered from within science. The discussion goes on to consider the wider social context of science. Although 'science' now saturates our culture at many levels, it is in a most peculiar position, as it has been throughout its brief history: it is almost entirely dependant on public funding for its existence. It produces no 13 saleable products. Its only significant commercial product is science education, but that too is dependant on public funding and on a public education system that forces its consumers (mainly school children) to take science courses. Most purchasers of science textbooks are not willing consumers. Barely one percent of adults takes any interest in science – only a small fraction of one percent become 'professional scientists', and most of these are no more than technicians, not research scientists. Science is deeply esoteric to the general public, and completely uninteresting to outsiders in its detail – including scientists from other fields. Of course people do like to see 'science headlines' like the discovery of a new planet, or a new cancer drug, or a new species of hominid – but this is not an interest in science as such, it is an interest in strange and wonderful facts, or in technology that may be personally useful. The shallowness of public interest in science is seen by comparing with other cultural fields. While people today can typically name dozens or hundreds of musicians, actors, writers, artists, sports stars, politicians, and even business personalties, probably few could name more than one modern scientist off the top of their head – Super-Scientist Albert Einstein – with perhaps Stephen Hawking or David Attenborough as the other two widely recognised modern scientists (in the Anglo world at least, where they are TV celebrities). Science in its detail is very esoteric to ordinary people. I think academic scientists do not realise how esoteric it really is. Few adults understand what a single equation in physics means – not even Pythogoras' theorem, although they learned it in school. 'E = mc2' may be widely quoted, but it rolls off most tongues only as a noise: few people have any idea what it means. Few people can cross the abstract divide from arithmetic to algebra, where numbers are replaced by variables – even though everyone is supposed to learn this in high school too. There is a good reason: science is actually a very unnatural, very uninstinctive mode of thought. It is not simply an extension of 'common sense', as Bronowski and other science popularisers have tried to portray. On the contrary, it is distinctly tangential to 'common sense'. It is very abstract, and requires a peculiar discipline of thought: the discipline of formulating explanatory hypotheses and refining explanatory judgements, as well as the peculiar hobby of inventing theoretical entities, and the peculiar behaviour of suppressing emotive reactions to beliefs. Science is a distinctive and peculiar cultural invention, the most recent major cultural institution to develop in Western civilisation. People are interested in results of science – in 'scientific facts' and discoveries – which is to say, in implications of science. But this is quite different to scientific enquiry itself, which means an interest in the nitty-gritty of scientific explanations and evidence. It is like being interested in the content of a program on TV – 'The News' say without any interest in how the TV works – or how The News is produced. And why should we be interested in how the 14 TV works? Most of us are never going to try fix one, or look inside one ourselves. The vast majority of people are likewise never going to do any science themselves. They are never going to use science methods or enquiry to investigate anything. They are never realistically going to exercise independent scientific judgement to evaluate anything. Nonetheless it is important, in a world of propaganda and half-truths, to understand something about how science is produced – just as it is important to understand how The News is produced. I think people are really interested in philosophy rather than science – and science has its human interest only because it informs our philosophical outlook. By philosophy I mean a natural curiosity about the nature of the world; a desire to understand ourselves, our meanings and purposes; extending to an interest in theoretical ideas, and to rational processes behind our beliefs. The natural intellectual genius of the human race is really for the great smorgasbord of philosophy, not the thin gruel of science. It is driven by our need to self-consciously rationalise our own belief systems. We have complex beliefs systems, fraught with fallacies, incomplete knowledge, contradictions, change and instability. We are self-conscious of our own rational processes and beliefs, and there is a huge mental churn required to keep this in order. Although much of this rationalising work no doubt takes place unconsciously, and in dreams, we also consciously obsess about it. People constantly philosophise about their beliefs, discussing judgements of behaviour and morality, puzzling over implications of facts, trying to make sense of discordant information, and so forth. We are trying to understand the meanings of things. This process is partly centred around an intuitive sense of explanation – we want to know why things happen as they do, what their meanings and implications are. But this is not scientific explanation. It is far more intuitive and psychological, calling on agencies and propensities, referring to symbolic meanings and motives and values, making intuitive observations of patterns, triggering off emotive reactions, and so on. The step from this to abstract philosophy, as a systematic rationalisation of ideas, developed independently in many cultures, long before Western Philosophy evolved a branch called 'natural philosophy'. The latter is based on a specific mode of causal explanation that eventually became 'modern science', but it forms only a small part of philosophy as a whole. This 'scientific mode of rationality' cannot possibly replace our general capacity to think philosophically. In this respect, ordinary people are much more philosophically thoughtful and sophisticated than academics typically realise. People are constantly philosophising about the meanings and explanations of things. Not in an academic mode, but in an intuitive way. The radio talk-back host, mulling over topical questions and inviting responses from the public, is philosophising. The worker discussing frustrations of dealing with management, and trying to decide how to respond to the system, is 15 philosophising. Academic philosophy, at the level of mediocrity generally taught to undergraduates, destroys rather than enhances people's intuitive abilities to think about meaningful philosophical questions. On the other hand, people are much less scientific than scientists expect – including most academics and professionals. Very few people, including few science graduates, can make meaningful independent scientific judgements on their own. It is not because of a lack of intelligence: it is because science is counter-intuitive, it draws on a very complex web of background beliefs, and it requires a very specific mental discipline. As a result, 'scientific belief' among science students as much as ordinary people is overwhelmingly based on authority, not on evidence (as claimed by scientistic propagandists). Indeed, the most valuable talent in a world awash with false information and propaganda is to be able to identify the reliability of sources of information – and modern science is now full of propaganda to convince us that science is the only reliable source. This is rationalised by the idea that scientists themselves base their beliefs directly on explicit evidence, but this is entirely a myth. Scientists base their beliefs overwhelmingly on what they read in textbooks – trusting that the textbook is based on evidence somewhere down the line. When the line breaks down, as it has today, science too is degraded to dogma. We are urged to trust science, but when there is a scientific controversy, whose science do we trust? The 'science' with the best propaganda. Science is a faith-based discipline, embodying faith in the (Text) Book and the High Priest ('expert opinion'). Exercising your own independent judgement in a scientific discipline will get you in big trouble if it conflicts with Scientific Authority. The meaningful aspect of science does not lie in its empirical data as such, but in its power to inform our personal systems of beliefs, or philosophy. The modern scientistic propagandists, preaching a MaterialistAtheistic ideology, exploit this philosophical dimension of interest in the same way as religious demagogues, just with a different aim: the aim of destroying belief in meaning. In fact, most individual sciences per se, as specialised enquiries, have no intrinsic human interest at all. This reflects the very peculiar position of science as the subject almost no one is actually interested in. Music, literature, drama and art are all creative intellectual activities too: but they can all support themselves, at least partially, in a capitalist world, by selling their products. This is because people like them. Pure science cannot support itself commercially from its products at all. Its products are scientific theories, observational data, and explanations – and there is no popular or commercial market at all for scientific theories, for scientific knowledge, as such. (Just try to sell a scientific theory to someone! "How would you like to buy my theory that: T = 2ħ2/memp2Gc? Isn't that lovely? No? Not even a dollar? Oh why not? You don't have any use for it?") There is no market outside the circles of other scientists – and scientists cannot pay for science simply by buying it off each other in a circular economy. 16 Iconic modern science projects – like the LHC, the Hubble telescope, the Apollo missions – are of course vastly too expensive to be possible except as large national or international projects. But even small-scale, routine laboratory-type science has become an expensive activity, and the cost of pure science in most fields today is beyond anyone not funded by governments or corporates. 'Independent scientists' who typically work as consultants generally make their incomes from routine commercial science – gathering and analysing information of specific commercial interest to some business. Such work uses scientific technology and methods, but it is usually of no scientific interest as such: only of short-term practical interest, as specific information. (In fact, if you do discover something of genuine scientific interest in the course of such work, it is unlikely your employer will have any interest in it. It is more likely to make the project manager angry that you have gone 'off task': for they are only interested in what they have commissioned you to report on.) Thus pure science is in a very awkward position in our society economically, and it has no natural place among more traditional activities and professions. Professional science as we know it is a very recent – by far the most recent generic profession. There have been doctors and lawyers, engineers and architects, mathematicians and accountants, bureaucrats and planners, merchants and bankers, philosophers and priests, soldiers and sailors, artists and musicians, prostitutes and tax collectors, across many millennia and many civilisations. But natural science has barely existed for 400 years in the West, and is only about a hundred years old as a professional career path for significant numbers of people. It appeared only sporadically in other cultures before that and only as an anomaly, an expression of a certain rare and eccentric personality. It remains the natural vocation of only a rare type of personality. Until the later C19th, science was very much a self-appointed vocation, largely restricted to hobbyists with independent means, and a few independent researchers who could find wealthy patrons. The modern organisation of specialist sciences in professionally-taught university faculties only emerged in the later C19th. For the first few decades of the C20th, science was limited in scope, and survived on a relative pittance compared to the vast budgets of today. It was really only when physics became a critical prop for military technology, with the nuclear arms race, and subsequently a nationalist competition in the cold-war space race, that science started getting the huge levels of public funding it enjoys today. In the same era, politicians began to recognise the value of science as the foundation for advanced technology, and realised that public investment in science would pay off economically down the line – although it might be ten or twenty or thirty years later. Commercial economics has no place for projects of such 17 long-term value – it is based on short-term values, trading of goods with immediate demand. So science does not fit within the natural categories of the commercial world, or capitalist economics, where profit from sales of products and services is the driving value for an enterprise. Yet it has been forced to fit, because capitalist economics is the overwhelming principle of modern social organisation. But the true value of pure scientific knowledge is impossible to measure economically. It is both ephemeral, and uncertain, and largely belongs to the future. A symptom of this is an artificial construct of value and productivity within modern science. 'Scientific productivity' is measured by a surrogate: numbers of peer-reviewed papers published. Science has consequently become a competition to publish as many papers as possible (with something like one and a half million peer reviewed papers published per year – and presently doubling about every 15 years – which implies some ten million unpublished papers submitted per year, to about 25,000 officially indexed peer-reviewed journals – a number also steadily expanding ). Yet most published papers have no apparent value – about 90% are never referenced again – while a tiny number have a large impact, with hundreds of citations . This peer-reviewedpaper-productivity measure, despite its huge distortions of scientific value, has been the fundamental organising principle for the scientific-academic bureaucracy for decades now. It has led to a serious crisis of quality and to manipulative power-politics. The failure of peer review is now recognised as a major crisis in science, and a lot of recent material has appeared on this issue. López Corredoira also has an interesting discussion of this. In Part 2, I put forward a series of examples from my own work, from some 15 years ago, that illustrates the severe lack of objectivity and the abuse of peer reviews in the game of academic power politics. These examples are also chosen to illustrate the themes addressed in the Part 1: the powerful role of metaphysical paradigms in science, projected as ideological contests. The examples I give here concern the metaphysics of time in modern physics, and attempts to suppress realism about time flow. Following López Corredoira, I also propose a reformation of the system of journal publications, to address the problem of bias and manipulation by reviewers. Another major feature of modern science is the pressure on pure science (producing knowledge of intangible value, with no capitalist measure) to become technology science (producing tangible products). Today, corporates as well as governments fund extensive 'scientific research and development', primarily aimed at product technology. Of course there must be a domain for this kind of applied science. But nowadays, 'pure science research' is rarely done without also being motivated by potential product opportunities. As such, this research activity loses the primary intellectual values that drive 18 pure science. The spirit of science dies. My own country, a second-world scientific nation, provides a dismal example of this corruption of science to profit-making commercialism, with the conversion of public scientific institutes to business enterprises, under the spell of a neo-liberal capitalist ideology. Pure science research institutes in New Zealand were converted in the 1990s to 'CRIs' – crown research institutes – specifically tasked with making profits. The scientific value of their subsequent work appears to have diminished to practically zero. In fact, I think they now have a negative value, stifling private competition from outside the Government sector, and suppressing the function of providing public-good science, in favour of trying to establish their own competitive advantage. Their performance is so poor that senior academics and independent scientists now repeatedly call for various CRIs to be disbanded. The ongoing pretence of having scientific institutions is more harmful than having nothing, as well as more expensive. These institutions have proved impossible to reform. If we want a science sector in NZ, it must be started again from scratch. Science of course has now become a key Public Institution in our society, with huge public funding and infrastructure. It has developed a mythological status, being treated as a kind of god: an official Oracle that society calls on to answer certain kinds of questions. "Scientists say that ..." is the stock phrase in news bulletins when reassurance of objective knowledge is needed. But there is increasing popular doubt about its reliability, effectiveness and value. One telling sign is that where science in the past had this largely unchallenged role of Oracle, of representing scientific conformity, of answering controversial questions with authoritative evidence, we now see conformity breaking down, and science impotent to resolve numerous controversies. It now provides little intellectual leadership on difficult topics. This is an inevitable result of its degradation into mediocrity. The authority of Science as Oracle has diminished most among the most highly educated classes, with well-informed people today routinely sceptical and cynical of 'scientific experts'. They appear as just more talking heads on TV, with a message to sell from their respective institutions. We know now that 'scientific facts' frequently change, just like 'legal facts', and 'scientific conclusions' depend on who the scientists are – which side of a debate they are on, which industry they work for. There are also many people today, well-informed without being scientists, with intense personal interests in niche subjects – ranging from health to energy to farming and genetic engineering to UFOs and parapsychology – who have grown contemptuous of the views of the 'Scientific Establishment' in their own areas of special interest. Such 'amateurs' who question scientific orthodoxy are dismissed as cranks by academic scientists; but their weight of numbers grows; and 'professional science' is often proved incompetent in such areas – and prone 19 to corruption when commercial profit is involved. What should be even more alarming to the Scientific Establishment, many of the best creative and original professional scientists feel the same way about their scientific colleagues too. The best heterodox scientists often see the Establishment scientists (who typically attack their new ideas) as dull, mediocre, conformist and dogmatic. The best creative scientists do not trust the bastions of modern science either! There is no doubt that thousands of the most creative young students, who would have become the premier scientists in an earlier age, have withdrawn from science in recent decades, because they find its culture so stifling and conformist. Thus we see the authority and prestige of science under threat on multiple fronts. Science – or a scientific methodology – is also supposed to be applied within the business functions of corporates and bureaucracies – tasked as they are with critical planning and research functions. This is a joke. And not the funny kind of joke. The death of science is nowhere more evident than in the research, analysis and planning functions of government departments. Here we find 'science' reduced to its utterly lowest quality – where it is no longer recognisable as science at all. In Part 3 I illustrate this, again with examples from personal experience. In the NZ Ministry of Education I observed 'education research' reduced to a state of farce, a farce perpetuated decade after decade. There is nothing unique about this example: this failure is universal across government bureaucracies. These also act as public Oracles, controlling official information and peddling government propaganda, as well as controlling state funding of wider research communities. They dominate every sector of society – education, justice, health, science, environment, welfare, finance, business, transport, housing, farming, security, defence; every major institution in every developed country is under the control of such monolithic government departments. Their scientific capability can only be described as farcical. Here we find the death sentence on science completed. If the future success and survival of our society and civilisation is dependant on the scientific competence of government institutions, we are doomed. I also try to relate these syndromes to the socio-psycho dynamics of these institutions. Why are such bureaucracies such dismal failures? It is not just one or two, but all of them, practically without exception. It is not just a phenomenon in New Zealand: similar complaints about incompetence, malevolence, and invasive encroachment of public bureaucracies on personal lives seem to be heard from most developed countries. And it is not just government departments: large corporate bureaucracies may not be quite as hopelessly incompetent as government departments, but they are similarly fraught with bureaucracy and ham-strung by intellectual mediocrity. The banking and finance sector, for example, is an intellectual vacuum at the highest executive level, and completely incapable of addressing the systemic 20 problems of the global financial system. Of course its executives don't care as long as they continue to make vast fortunes. I attempt to identify some core mechanisms at work here. One is to relate the hierarchical power structures that define these organisations as cultural ecologies, to the characteristic adaptive behaviours of their members. The power-roles defining the power hierarchies are the definitive common feature of all such organisations. I argue that these power structures are instinctively exploited by power cliques of management, working for their own ends. The dynamics of competition in the environment they have designed for themselves inevitably leads to the degradation of these organisations, through a severe degradation of talent. They are doomed to failure by the mediocrity and exploitative attitudes of their management. A second theme is the dominance of a specific cultural paradigm, reflecting a certain kind of shared social metaphysics characterising our age. This is an intense drive to a rule-based model of social behaviour. This rule-based mentality is not new: it is seen throughout the long history of institutional tyranny, from the Spanish Inquisition to Nazi Germany. It is a characteristic of a distinctively fascist vision of morality that many people seem preconditioned to adopt. It has always been the dream of politicians, moralists and bureaucrats to have centralised control of people's behaviour in total detail; the world of Orwell's 1984. In the past this was prevented by natural technological limitations; but it has taken on a new virulence today, empowered by the use of computerised information-and-decision-making technology, to exhaustively encode rules of behaviour, and to monitor and control behaviour, and administer punishments. I note that the same rulebased metaphysics underpins a number of distinctive modern scientific paradigms: those that characterise the new tyrannies within science. Scientific institutions have been overtaken by the same general syndrome as public bureaucracies – forced on them by the bureaucratic masters who fund and control them. They are obsessed with 'management processes' and 'business models' and 'methodological rules' and neo-liberal commercial reforms – obsessions destructive of the pursuit of science. The creative individual at the heart of the scientific enterprise has been trampled to death in this managerial scrum. "But Modern Business Science shows that this is the only rational way to organise large-scale enterprises!" the neo-liberal management scientist tells us. "We must control and measure our Inputs and Outputs and use our economic theory to Optimise Outcomes!" In their vision, scientists are "Inputs" to an industrial machine, just as factory workers are "Inputs" to an industrial machine – a raw resource just like other material resources. Human capital is interchangeable and replaceable, productivity has a one-dimensional measure, value is reduced to money, and the System runs by pre-defined Rules imposed by executive decision-makers. 21 The first thing these neo-liberal business executives fail to recognise is that they themselves and their peers – the managerial elite and the 'business scientist' gurus – are actually the most mediocre and incompetent, relative to their roles, among all the worker hierarchies, and setting themselves in charge of such organisations dooms them to failure from the start. In any case, although this industrial-type business model succeeds up to a point in massproduction factories (albeit denigrating the conditions of the enslaved human work force), it simply does not work at all in science. Science has no paintby-numbers rule-based methodology. It cannot be automated by business process. It cannot be done by people who do not have a creative scientific intellectual drive. The institutionalised model of science cannot identify genuine scientific talent, cannot give it the creative freedom to work, and cannot retain it. This raises the question of whether there is a practical prospect of rejuvenating science in its current forms. Should we try to save the failing institutions of modern science? Of course the Establishment assumes that we must keep fiddling with reforms to preserve their System. The System is their God. They would be children lost in the wilderness without it. But I believe it is too late to save this bureaucratised incarnation of science, and futile to keep supporting its failed institutions. It should be allowed to die. I believe it is time to allow our corrupted science industry to collapse, as a bankrupt institution, and trust the scientific spirit – by which I mean the spirit of natural philosophy rather than that of scientific technology – rejuvenates real science anew. Science will one day be resurrected, at a grass-roots level, through the efforts of those with a natural vocation to be scientists. But the time has come when real scientists should now abandon our failed scientific institutions, cease supporting the bureaucratic tyranny that sweeps across our world, cease working as technology slaves for state-corporate management; and find new places to work, new roles to define themselves, and new ways to fulfil their natural vocation. Creative scientists were once called natural philosophers, and sought a deeper understanding of nature and our place in it, in an integrated view combining the technical sciences and the social sciences, metaphysics and social morality. This quest for understanding has been destroyed in the modern era of science. I think it is time to reinvent that occupation, and for real scientists to return to that role once again. In the last part of this book I make some comments about the challenges for independent scientists, who wish to withdraw from the present system, and work instead for a future resurrection of science. However this book is not about the resurrection of science, but about its death. The final part of this book is a set of Appendices, containing exhibits to illustrate certain key points. These contain technical detail that goes beyond 22 the style of the main text. They correspond to specific points made in the main text. I briefly explain the rationale for these. Appendix 1 is an extract from a brilliant monograph of philosophical observations about physics by the great pioneering particle physicist, T.D. Lee, in 1988, made not in the tradition of academic philosophy of science, but by applying his natural intuition. He makes many lucid observations. Relates to the example of time reversal and time symmetry in Part 2, and to the value of genuine philosophical reflection within science. Appendix 2 is an extract from an article by Einstein, in 1920, 'The Aether and Relativity'. Einstein in his mature years took the concept of an Aether seriously, and even affirms its reality in a certain sense in the context of the General Theory of Relativity – contrary to popularist ridicule of the concept in physics. Relates to the example of the Ether in Part 1, and temporal metaphysics in Part 2. Appendix 3 gives some technical background to the issue of time reversibility of quantum mechanics, relating to the first peer review example in Part 2. Requires basic quantum mechanics. Appendix 4 illustrates what is meant by a realist semantic interpretation, illustrated first with the example of Pythagoras' theorem, and then with the metric equation of Special Relativity. This is for scientists who are mystified by what philosophers mean by 'semantic analysis'. Relates to the case in Part 1 for realist philosophical analysis to be taught in science. Appendix 5 goes a step further into logic, and presents an important proof in semantics, a reductio ad absurdum of the core Positivist principle of meaning. This is to illustrate that technical philosophy is a real subject, with analysis backed by formal techniques of proof. Appendix 6 goes another step again, and presents core concepts of possible world semantics, illustrating the real metaphysical dimension of debates over foundational concepts of science. Metaphysics is encapsulated in the construction of the logical space, required for the formal representation of concepts. Scientific theories implicitly postulate theories of the logical space. Appendix 7 presents various extracts on the Alvarez controversy, over the astroid-impact theory of the extinction of dinosaurs. This is a classic illustration of how scientific debates are often fraught with controversy and spite. Relates to example of explanations in Part 1, illustrating that evidence for well-accepted explanations is not necessarily straightforward. Appendix 8 provides material on the evolution of peer review, illustrating the open review system, and giving a further example of 23 conflicting peer reviews about an interesting heterodox theory in physics. Appendix 9 provides material on the recent phenomenon of 'predatory publishers', and issues about the commercial corruption of the scientific and academic journal industry. Appendix 10 provides further material on the evolution of the academic journal industry, and the trend to open access journals. Appendix 11 provides material on a new system or surveillance on researchers, imposed through a universal identification scheme called ORCID. This prevents independent researchers, without approved institutional affiliations (with academic, government or corporate institutions) from even submitting scientific papers. Appendix 12 is an extract from NZ writer Nicky Hager's 2002 book Seeds of Distrust, about a notorious incident of political manipulation of science in NZ. A model of investigative reporting into political corruption of science, containing many insightful observations. Appendix 13 presents arch-heretic Rupert Sheldrake's Ten Dogmas of Science, and the virulent personal attacks on him, started by Sir John Maddox, the arch-conservative editor of Nature, and continued by many other scientistic propagandists from sceptic and debunker groups. 24 PART 1. THE TWILIGHT OF SCIENTIFIC PHILOSOPHY. López Corredoira's perspective. López Corredoira sees a corruption of science in a larger framework, as part of a more general degradation inherent in modern society: a loss of individuality and humanity to the gods of money and power, bureaucracy and institutionalisation. I begin with an extended quote that sets the general framework for his point of view. "In general one has the impression when reading about the history of civilization that human beings were behind the dynamics of the societies... Nowadays, however, one has the impression that individuals are just simple marionettes whose strings are pulled by some abstract and superior entity. I am not talking about the Christian god but about that almighty god of modern capitalist times: money. Money is the great boss of our society. It governs the decisions of individuals and has much more power than the different nation-states or other human organizations... [I am talking about] the generation of structures in our society which have become automatic in some sense, and thus have become selfsustaining autonomous structures. Once implemented, they may work independently of the will of human individuals. The economy, our present financial system, appears in my opinion as the most important of the autonomous structures to have emerged in our civilization. A monster, Frankenstein's Creature, which once created, emancipates itself from its creators and turn against the interests of individuals, pushing them to slavery. We could live in a society in which individuals worked much less than they do now, but capital and its interest in unstoppable growth, pushes individuals to produce more and more, far beyond their needs. People ask for more and more work in a time when the work force is more dispensable than ever, given the high industrialization of our society; an absurd situation according to some thinkers, including myself. We are destroying our environment; our towns are becoming uglier and uglier, with so many factories, cars, concrete, etc.; our forest, seas, rivers, etc., are becoming contaminated; but we cannot stop the advance of the destruction because money pushes people to follow the career path of progress, technology and destruction, and few people want to be outside that system, few people want to live without money in their pockets. In my opinion, knowledge has become another autonomous structure within our society, although it is less important than money. In this new system of gods, money will be like Zeus, the major god, while the rest of the autonomous structures will be minor gods, depending always on the great god of money. Indeed, we must recognize that most of the people 25 working as scientists in our society regard their research as a job, in order to earn a salary, and in most of the cases the obtaining of that salary and its associated status are the only things which keep them in their boring and passionless research fields. (p.101-102). What makes López Corredoira's critique most interesting and valuable is that he brings this large claim to life by exploring its details through illustrations from the real practice of science, giving a psycho-social account of how individuals respond to the cultural framework imposed on them. The framework is fixed by the larger 'autonomous structures' of bureaucracy, hierarchical power and money that govern the organisation of science, as they govern all modern social institutions. But the modern scientific bureaucracy is implemented in its detail by the adaptive behaviour of individual scientists, locked in a struggle for careers. The result is the triumph of mediocrity and self-serving pettiness in the social elite, with the genuine creative heterodox thinkers, who created science in the first place, being driven from the field. Over the last half-century or so, orthodox scientific institutions have increasingly been left in the hands of a feudal mafia of power-hungry gate-keepers, a controlling conformist mediocrity of incompetent researchers. Yes: evolving exactly into the form of a government bureaucracy or capitalist corporation. The result is tyranny. "The evolution of science towards a tyranny of knowledge is unavoidable, because of the logic of the construction of knowledge itself, both because the knowledge is becoming more and more solid, and also because the dominant groups within the dominant ideas in science are becoming more and more powerful. The distinction between power and truth in science is difficult. p.117 López Corredoira emphasises the confusion of truth with power, and the gulf between the perception and the reality of success. Although science has descended into failure over the preceding decades, scientific institutions have become far more powerful, fuelled by perceptions of success controlled through media propaganda. "The point is that there are strong economical interests surrounding the business of science, and the publicity in the mass media is used to create the illusion of great science, supported by huge investments of public money. The spirit of science is already in decline, close to death; but the body of science, the hierarchy around the business of research, is still very much alive and will not decline simply because of a lack of interesting results. P.97. 26 He laments the corresponding degradation of science to technical specialisations, tasked with gathering information, but lacking any kind of wisdom. This reflects the business model of an industrial production line imposed on science. "Scientists have been specializing for quite a long time, but it is now a question of micro-specialization... It is a case of converting the scientific process into an industrialized mass-production system. p.103. "Science has abandoned wisdom and become a mere technical profession. It is supposed that humanity has become wiser because of the greater amount of knowledge gained, but it is not so. In general, scientists and philosophers in the past were much wiser, even with less knowledge. p.104. Despite his outspoken criticism of scientific institutions, he is a scientific traditionalist at heart, with tolerant but relatively conservative views about what science means. He speaks for the value of science, and believes it is the proper method to real knowledge about the natural world. "Scientific knowledge is something good; I think I have expressed this idea with sufficient clarity in Chapter 2. But anything in excess is bad. Water is good for living beings, but an excess of water drowns them. ... Science is not being eroded by the limits of knowledge but by unlimited knowledge. Certainly, there is a limit to the number of really interesting questions that can be answered, a limit which we have already surpassed, but society will not stop its activity just because of that limit; rather, I think society will stop the obsessive collection of knowledge when it feels lost among the information, when it gets fed up with getting drunk after so many science parties, when it falls down exhausted and wonders whether we are servants of the structures we have created or we control them, whether man was made for science or science made for man, as Unamuno said. p.105. He is careful to contrast his position with simple anti-science views: "A more aggressive attack on present-day science comes from some authors who talk not only about the end of science but also about whether we should do anything to save it because of the way it has behaved in the last few decades (e.g., Oblomoff, Ségalat). p.100. "In my opinion, science is still of great value and should not be confused with present-day scientific institutions, in the same sense that religion should not be confused with the church. I think we must not level the 27 charge against science but against the capitalist system which currently supports it. P.100. Here he conforms to a popular sentiment among scientists themselves. There is an outpouring of criticism by scientists of all walks against the bureaucratisation of their culture. This general phenomenon can probably be traced back to the cold war and the rise of corporate capitalism in the US. Following the Second World War, scientific institutions in the US became dominated by the twin organisational model of corporate elitism and government bureaucracy. Their elite bureaucrats fulfilled the Capitalist vision of science as a technology factory, providing slaves for the military-industrial estate. It is obvious to everyone engaged in real science that this capitalist business model for scientific organisation does not work. I will come back to this question at the end of this study: what should or could our response be to the corruption and degradation of science? Should we try to 'fix' or 'save' its failed institutions? Or as more radical critics hold, should we leave it behind, as we left the political institutions of feudal aristocracy behind, and find a new way? But before approaching that essentially political question, I review López Corredoira's views, and give some pertinent examples of my own, both in support, and in some cases in contrast. 28 Heterodoxy and orthodoxy. López Corredoira recognises the key, traditional goal of scientific research is the exploration of new knowledge, and the key problem lies in making judgements of the quality of novel ideas, in fields with apparently diminishing returns. What new research should be funded and supported? What new ideas should be investigated? The research enterprise itself depends on the potential for new or revolutionary ideas to be found. But as time goes on, the most obvious veins of research are explored, and new ideas are harder to come by. It is a bit like a gold mine. The first prospectors strike it rich and find nuggets in easy reach; but when the first strikes have been panned, you need to switch to industrialised methods to extract what is left. And when there is no gold in the ground left to find at all, it doesn't matter how big you make your industrial gold mine, you will only find microscopic grains. The spirit of gold mining changes too. The first prospectors are individualists, exploring new frontiers. The first gold miners are adventurers, prepared to undertake hazardous journeys with serious risks and endure harsh conditions. They are individualists, and entrepreneurs, working for themselves. Later the mine becomes an industrialised factory, run by production-line wage-workers, requiring expensive heavy equipment, needing large capital investment, with the enterprise and the profits controlled by executives and accountants from comfortable offices. Gold miners are always keen to determine if there is likely to be gold in a certain piece of ground. But scientists have no way of telling if there is any scientific gold to find in a certain area or not. In this respect, scientific discovery – the process of finding ideas, theories, concepts, possibilities is not a part of the 'scientific method'. Orthodox philosophy of science (positivism, empiricism, Popperianism, etc), which proclaims the triumph of the 'empirical method', says nothing about the creation of scientific ideas – or the pre-scientific judgement of the quality of new ideas. The conventional account of the 'scientific method' is an arm-chair rationalisation, designed to justify scientific knowledge. It is primarily a banal account of a method to test a given empirical hypothesis. But it assumes hypotheses, theories, ideas, are given: plucked out of thin air. This is where the 'scientific method' has a yawning chasm: it has no method for either the creation of ideas, or for the judgement of value . Given that science has the task of extending knowledge (rather than just accumulating more facts to support present theories), then science must explore new ideas. Genuinely new ideas are notoriously difficult to judge – and impossible to judge for the vast majority of 'scientific technicians' churned out of our academic institutions. For new ideas, by their very nature, are discovered by scientists with rare talents and by rare accidents. They are ideas 29 hiding behind the facades of conventional paradigms, hiding in the gaps of the textbook explanations and exam exercises that define 'scientific reality' for academics. They require novel thoughts, concepts, models, formalisms and solutions. Ordinary science students struggle to understand and recite even the conventional text-book problems that have been solved for them. If they cannot verify even these by themselves without following and trusting a textbook, they have no capacity at all to make judgements of new solutions at the forefront of their field. How many scientists mature from the state of science students to develop any kind of mature scientific judgement, when confronted with novelty? The answer is obvious enough from history and experience: very few. The present scientific ideology and mediocrity that dominates scientific institutions often reduces this to: none. I think most NZ science institutions actually have no scientists capable of making meaningful judgements of novel scientific ideas. López Corredoira laments that the mediocrity of modern science – built into the logic of its modern mass-production culture – swamps out genuinely new, ambitious, or 'revolutionary' ideas, when they do appear, in favour of safe, trivial, pointless research projects, based on old and failed ideas. He gives the following hilariously sarcastic image. "There are many naïve persons, scientists or non-scientists, around the world who still believe that science is an open process in which the best ideas are quickly recognized and accepted, while the wrong ideas are immediately discarded. This kind of individual thinks that achievement in science nowadays depends on intelligence, on genius. They think that someone could be working hard in a laboratory, or developing some theoretical idea and, if they were to make a revolutionary discovery, they would open the door of the room in which they was cloistered and shout along the corridors "Eureka! Eureka!"; then, colleagues would approach and say: "Have you made a revolutionary discovery? Come in! Come in! We were waiting for you ..." and the genius would have the chance to show their new discoveries and their colleagues would open their mouths, surprised by the new idea, recognizing its merit, and carrying the genius on their shoulders while shouting "Torero, torero,...!" ("Bullfighter" in Spanish). This was never the way in which general ideas were accepted. p.108. "The reality is that nobody is waiting for revolutionary ideas, they are not welcome, now less than ever, and the difficulties that professional researchers have when they want to challenge dominant ideas (e.g., Campanario & Martin) are enough to dissuade them in their enterprise or cause to be rejected as outsiders by the system. p.111. 30 The same point has been reiterated over and again in recent times by many original scientists – including Nobel laureates who have made significant breakthrough discoveries. Many testify to being attacked and excluded by their colleagues, for years or decades, precisely for being original and challenging. It is not so surprising, for at the end of the day, they are competing with their orthodox academic colleagues. Academics are notoriously ruthless when their self-interest and self-image is at stake. This is precisely what it means for science to adopt a corporate bureaucratic culture. Corporate executives and government bureaucrats are the model of ruthlessness in defending their self-interest – pragmatism overrides truth and the institutionalisation of academics in a corporate culture produces the same result. This distinction between the thankless mission of developing new and challenging or revolutionary ideas, and the often pointless but well-funded grind of the routine science industry, is a crux of the problem. On one hand, López Corredoira is somewhat conservative, in expressing scepticism that there are many 'revolutionary ideas' out there to find. He suspects that, like an exhausted gold field, much of our significant scientific knowledge has already been found. In this respect, research science is in a death-spiral, devoting more and more resources to find more and more trivial knowledge, and leaving behind a growing slag-heap of useless information, like the vast charnels of consumerist waste our society cranks out in a hopeless quest to improve the quality of life through consumption instead of recognising that there are natural limits to consumption, and coming to terms with the meaning of what we have. On this point I will disagree somewhat though: I think there is far more real scientific knowledge to discover – indeed, that our scientific world view will undergo a dramatic transformation before it discerns what the world of nature really encompasses. I will return to this. On the other hand, he recognises that insofar as there are really new or revolutionary discoveries to be made, modern science suppresses real attempts to develop significant knowledge. He presents this with a contrast between 'orthodox' with 'heterodox' science. "Science is not a direct means for reaching the truth. Science works with hypotheses rather than with truths. This fact, although recognized, is usually forgotten. It gives rise to the creation of certain key groups within science which think that their hypotheses are indubitably solid truths, and think that the hypotheses of other minority groups are just extravagant or crackpot ideas. These are usually referred to as the orthodox and heterodox positions in a given field. p.107. "On the one hand, heterodox scientists are possessed by a feeling of being an unappreciated genius, have too much "ego", normally working alone/individually or in very small groups, creative, intelligent, non31 conformist. A vast majority of them are men. Their dream is to create a new paradigm in science, something which completely changes our view of the field of science in which they are working. For instance, there are many of them who are trying to show that Einstein was wrong, maybe because he is the symbol of genius and defeating his theory would mean that they are greater than Einstein. Most of them are crackpots. On the other hand, orthodox scientists, who constitute the majority of the community, are dominated by groupthink and snowball effect, following a leader's opinion as in the story of the emperor's new clothes, are good workers performing monotonous tasks without ideas of their own in large groups, are specialists in a small field which they know very well, conformist, domestic. Their dream is to get a permanent position at a university or research centre, to be the leader of a project, to be a recognized science administrator. Most of them are like sheep, some of them with the vocation of shepherds as well. Luminet compares these people doing "normal science" to craftsmen, and compares those scientists who pursue a revolutionary science to imaginative artists. p. 109 – 110. López Corredoira's description here is something of a stereotype, and he does not tell us what 'crackpots' are. However, there is some basic truth in this description of heterodoxy and orthodoxy within science. In ordinary life, people come with a spectrum of orthodox and heterodox beliefs and impulses there is no simple distinction of personality types on this basis (although openness is one major psychological trait, it interacts with half a dozen other major traits). But in the community of science a clear and critical distinction has formed: a great divide between 'us' (the professional scientists: people with titles and offices) and 'them' (the ignorant public, including amateur 'crackpots'). It echoes throughout the rhetoric of scientific propagandists attacking heterodox thinkers. ("Sheldrake is not a scientist, he is a crackpot, a pseudo scientist, any real scientist will tell you that his ideas are scientific nonsense..."). In their private beliefs, not all orthodox scientists are so prejudiced; but for those with official power roles, things are indeed very black and white. Scientific culture forces conformity, designed to make an orthodox 'class solidarity' the norm, and heterodoxy and creative individuality the enemy. Conformity takes comfort in a shared mediocrity. There is also deeper kind of personality trait related to the difference between science as an exploratory activity of discovery, and science as an academic activity of mastering a domain of pre-existing knowledge. It is parallel to the difference between explorers and tourists. Both are travellers, and there are lots of people today for whom 'travel' is a major hobby. But most of us travel as tourists, visiting places and cultures that are novel and exciting to us personally, but are actually well-known, thoroughly explored, and essentially safe. Travelling to experience other cultures is a good thing to do, but it is 32 quite different to the traditional role of explorers: visiting unknown and dangerous lands, driven by an excitement of discovering new and unexplored frontiers. The real explorers in history typically endured great hardship and real danger. But the age of the intrepid explorer is essentially over on the Earth's surface, because it has been systematically explored. Nowadays, travelling has become the popular middle-class hobby of tourism. And few modern tourists would have been explorers in the old days. Conversely, few genuine explorers are interested in tourism. They seek other challenges. There is really no role left for true explorers, in the geographical sense. Their age has gone. I think the scenario painted in the Twilight of Science is analogous to this. Science is seen as having already explored most of the dangerous and exciting places. Scope for new discoveries is increasingly limited for modern scientists, and most are now professional 'scientific experts', tourist guides through textbooks who take their pride in mastering existing knowledge. The spirit of science has changed in the process, and this makes science unattractive for the explorers: the people wired for novelty and discovery, and typically some kind of heroic individuality. Thus science changes its nature when it has been fully explored, and scientists of the present age are now quite unlike the explorers of the past in spirit. The scientific culture changes its fundamental values when it becomes dominated by this different type of personality, just as frontier outposts change their personality when they become settlements, and then towns, and then urban environments. In the first phase of 'civilisation', the original jungle or prairie is rendered into farms by pioneers – those able to tame nature from its raw and untamed state. In the next phase, the farms are taken off the pioneers by carpetbaggers, lawyers and bankers – those able to dominate the system of legal ownership. And then the whole environment is subsequently incorporated into the estates of the wealthy and powerful: who have learned how to dominate the entire social jungle. Colonial towns often retain a sentimental nostalgia celebrating the deeds of the pioneers: but this is a false image, designed for a sense of social solidarity, and themes for tourist attractions. López Corredoira illustrates how this cultural shaping in modern corporatised science works, through a number of concepts, such as the snowball effect, groupthink, supervedettes. "The snowball effect ... is a feedback loop: the more successful a line of research is, the more money and scientists are dedicated to working on it, and the greater the number of experiments on observations that can be explained ad hoc, such as in Ptolemaic geocentric astronomy; this leads to the theory being considered more successful. In some cases, the system supports conservative views, but there are also cases of speculative lines of 33 research that have been converted into large enterprises. For instance, in theoretical physics, string theory has absorbed a lot of people and funds, as well as marginalizing and deprecating other approaches... p.85-86. Groupthink is a widely recognised phenomenon in social psychology: "In a sociological analysis, Janis categorizes the symptoms of groupthink as: 1) An illusion of invulnerability, shared by most or all the members, which creates excessive optimum and encourages the taking of extreme risks. 2) An unquestioned belief in the group's inherent morality, allowing the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions. 3) Collective efforts at rationalization in order to discount warnings or other information that might lead the members to reconsider their assumptions before they recommit themselves to their past policy decisions. 4) Stereotyped views of enemy leaders as too deviant to warrant genuine attempts to negotiate, or as too weak and stupid to counter risky attempts made at defeating their purposes. 4) Self-censorship of deviations from the apparent group consensus, reflecting each member's inclination to minimize to himself the importance of his doubts and counterarguments. 5) A shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgments conforming to the majority view (partly resulting from self-censorship of deviations, augmented by the false assumption that silence means consent). 6) Direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group's stereotypes, illusions, or commitments, making clear that this type of dissent is contrary to what is expected of all loyal members. 7) The emergence of selfappointed mindguards-members who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions (Dolsenhe). P. 110. These are essentially mechanisms of adaptive cultural evolution. They show how personality traits are shaped to sustain a cultural environment in a selfsupporting feed-back loop. In fact there is an obvious adaptive evolution at work in institutions that everyone knows. People have different natural personality types, and institutional structure reflects this. There is a distinct sub-set with a primary will to power, who seek powerful positions and status, and become managers and executives. They intrinsically understand each others' motivations as egocentric, which is why they can form a coherent power elite. Those with a primary intellectual drive seeking interesting intellectual challenges – challenges of exploration and discovery become researchers or technologists. They intrinsically understand each other's motivations as creative performance. The latter have no social power and the former have no intellectual vision. 34 As workers in bureaucracies often say: anyone who wants to be the manager should be disqualified for that reason. Managers are the people who wave their hands furiously when a position of authority is in the offering, saying: Pick me! Pick me! I'm no good at technical stuff, my talent is for making decisions! I am a natural leader! This of course reflects the concept of the leader as the person in authority. This forms a stable eco-system when the organisational structure can sustain the division of roles. This is the primary function of the bureaucratic power structure: to allow the strata of power-seekers, who have limited appetite for the real tasks of the organisation, to dominate and control those with the talent to work. It is exactly the analogue of the feudal power structure, and at a deep level, the essential structure of a slave society. Heterodox intellectuals have no natural place within such systems: they are frontier explorers stuck in the urban jungle. They have no chance working outside the power system either. "Without fame, without money and without the recommendation of, or support from, a prestigious team of researchers, even the best of scientists, working in the most important fields, would be not listened to. "An individual with few resources, achieving what we could not do with billions of Euros. This is a scandal, and we cannot allow it". This is the message of the real capitalist society where money exerts its power. A new Einstein working in a patent office would be a scandal. Unzicker (2010, ch.1) thinks that in physics there are no longer idealistic individual thinkers, only large organizations, political interests and the rules of the science market. The role of the genius is being filled by the average technocrat. P. 86. Now here is a crux of the problem. Heterodox science contains the subset of creative geniuses capable of making real progress. Orthodox science contains few of these. But to orthodox scientists the geniuses appear indistinguishable from 'crackpots', as saints may appear indistinguishable from lunatics to ordinary 'sane' people. López Corredoira himself says of heterodox scientists that "most of them are crackpots". He assumes he himself can identify 'crackpots' too. I am sure he can up to a point – but can he – or anyone else – systematically tell crackpot ideas from radical discoveries of real value? On this point, I do not like the term 'crackpots'. Many people with wildly unconventional ideas are sane and creative; and generally speaking I think heterodox thinkers have the same spectrum of rationality as orthodox conformists. The latter are just as much 'crackpots', it is just that their 'crackpot ideas' are not original, but popular irrationalities that are too familiar to detect. The fact is that everyone is irrational and a-rational in large degree. Our primary judgements are overwhelmingly made first by reference to authority, 35 and when we try to think through consequences for ourselves, we overwhelmingly think by 'intuition' and feeling, not by 'logical rational calculation'. I also don't see much difference in the egoism stakes – although I think what is involved is perhaps a drive to individualism, as much than simple egoism. Anyway, heterodox and orthodox scientists are both inclined to intense egoism. Egoism is a universal condition of the human race. Barring a few saints or prophets perhaps, everyone is at the center of their own world view, whether we recognise it or not. What is required is tolerance and respect and empathy for the ideas of others despite our egoism. Nonetheless, there is this phenomenon that scientists are effectively divided, by personality and culture, into 'heterodox' and 'orthodox' thinkers, somewhat as López Corredoira describes. The unsuccessful or misguided heterodox thinkers who go off in pursuit of theories with no realistic chance of creating successful science vastly outnumbers the small group of gifted – or lucky heterodox thinkers who make genuine scientific discoveries. The central point is that the orthodox scientists cannot distinguish the latter from the former and do not want to. Thus we have one psycho-social dynamic that pushes modern science to its deathbed: it excludes its primary creative explorers. These people are rare, and without them science dies. 36 Philosophy of science and philosophy in sciences. López Corredoira talks not only about science but about philosophy at length, and sees problems besetting science originating in part as philosophical failures. He is keen to distinguish his approach from that of contemporary philosophy academics. "It is probable that some will identify the present book as a philosophical criticism, a charge made by many philosophers against science. Certainly, I think that the way of thinking in this book is philosophical. However, it must not be confused with the type of presentations made by self-claimed professional philosophers. Philosophy of science done by scientists or philosopher-scientists is not the same thing as philosophy of science done by pure philosophers without direct contact with the profession of scientific researcher. In my opinion, when talking about science or nature, listening to active scientists who produce their own philosophical reflections is the best option; and when talking about Philosophy with a capital P I prefer to listen to the great philosophers, that is, to the important classical philosophers rather than the mediocre specialized academicians of our own epoch. We may wonder whether the present-day philosophers of science may help science to be better, and my answer is negative; paying attention to them is a waste of time. P. 149. He is scathingly critical of the modern academic philosophy of science, but still supportive of the need for a mode of philosophical reflection in science. I will address this point in some detail. To me, a central cause of the failure of modern sciences is precisely the failure of philosophy in sciences – the exclusion of philosophical thought from science, in favour of technocratic specialisation. Indeed, this is a prime cause behind the exclusion of heterodox thinkers, who are naturally philosophical, sceptical rather than authoritarian, able to question conceptual assumptions. For philosophy requires a different type of thinking to technical learning or 'puzzle solving'. Science used to be called natural philosophy before this specialisation came to dominate, and in earlier eras, physicists were free to discuss issues of philosophical complexity. Over the last 50 years especially, the quality of philosophy in physics has been extremely degraded – killed deliberately in fact from the 1940's by an orthodox ideology. Today you find ready expressions of contempt for philosophy among physicists. Few have any idea of what philosophy means. López Corredoira recognises the difference between the general philosophy of science and philosophy in or of specific sciences, e.g. the philosophy of 37 physics, the philosophy of biology, etc. The philosophy of science is a generalised study of 'scientific method', typified by foundational programs justifying why science works, why science progresses, how the scientific method guarantees truth, how scientific theories have meaning, etc. These are typified by programs like Positivism, Instrumentalism, Empiricism, Pragmatism, Popperianism, Kuhnianism, Structuralism, etc, consolidating in the early-mid C20th, now fragmented into a thousand philosophical programs ('isms'), ranging from extreme scientistic philosophies insisting on science as the only valid means to any kind of knowledge, to equally radical critiques of scientific 'truth' as subjective, culturally relative, or merely a pragmatic form of behaviour with no meaning or truth at all. The foundational problems, of scientific method, epistemology and semantics, have most conclusively not been solved, and there is no consensus about anything in this field, except within ideological cliques. Like modern philosophy generally, it is a mess (and a paradigmatic example of the extremes of mediocrity that science itself does not want to descend into). For all the different programs or isms (positivism, instrumentalism, operationalism, Popperianism, rationalism, empiricism, relativism, constructivism, etc etc ... there are hundreds) are intimately connected with larger metaphysical systems and semantic theories, and no one agrees on these. To the outsider, the philosophy of science looks like a mess, and it is a mess. This is not to say there had been no progress in the philosophy of science over 100 years. In fact, there are a lot of real results – but they are mostly negative, especially showing the failure of all the foundational programs. There are practically no positive solutions to the fundamental problems, and the best work is buried in a morass of triviality and nonsense. If you think modern science produces trivia, try looking at the philosophy of science! Of course, scientists shudder to think their own subjects could descend to this state of mediocrity – and yet there is work of great genius scattered in this mud too. López Corredoira's attitude that "paying attention to [philosophers of science] is a waste of time" is a little too harsh. We need to extract the real insights of philosophy of science, because they have been generations – centuries actually in the making, they have been painful to establish, and they will not be reinvented from scratch except by going back over this painful process. We see this in the repeated rise and fall and rise and fall of variations of positivism, for example – a philosophy dominating in the C19th, with anti-realism about atoms, overthrown in the early C20th with the atomic realism of Plank and Einstein and Rutherford, etc, then re-established in the early-mid-C20th through instrumentalist interpretations of quantum mechanics, then partially overthrown again in later C20th, and now with multiple divisions and no consensus. 38 Philosophy within specific sciences does not have to try to solve these grandiose methodological problems: it concentrates on analysing specific concepts and assumptions, the metaphysical preconceptions underlying specific theories of a science, providing logical analysis of fraught topics. E.g. the philosophy of physics is typically about things like the possibility of a realist interpretation of quantum mechanics, the completeness of quantum mechanics, the meaning of fundamental probabilities, the reality of spacetime and time flow, the nature of reversibility and time symmetry, the meaning of physical symmetries, etc. It is not distinct from physics proper: it is an extended critical analysis of the conceptual foundations of theories, and leads to reformulations of theories and to new theories. E.g. the famous EPR (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen) paper on the incompleteness of quantum mechanics, Bell's theorems, and subsequently the Aspect experiments represents a famous episode in the philosophy of physics, leading from conceptual analysis and philosophical debate (featuring Einstein and Bohr) to a more rigorous theory (Bell, Kochen-Specker), and thence to a certain degree of resolution by experiment (Aspect). The larger debate is still alive, but many of the possibilities have been closed off, and the concepts sharpened. The many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics of Everrett and the deterministic interpretation of de BroglieBohm are related philosophical developments, addressing the same conceptual problem. I believe this kind of critical philosophy of physics is at the heart of theoretical creativity in physics. It is what thinkers like Lorentz, Plank, Bohr, Einstein, Schrodinger, Dirac, Bohm (to name some instinctive realists who were central in the early development of modern physics), excelled at naturally and intuitively. Now physicists may scoff at the idea that this requires philosophical thinking that is anything special in comparison to 'scientific thinking'. But in the same way, some physicists have scoffed at the idea that mathematics is anything special that physicists could not have simply invented for themselves. This is simply arrogance. Pure mathematicians think in a different way to most ordinary physicists, and without mathematical theories at hand, physics would never have advanced. Natural philosophers also think in a different way to most ordinary physicists, and without philosophical conceptions at hand, ordinary physics would never have advanced. Natural mathematicians and natural philosophers were once found within the ranks of physicists and scientists. The great problem now is that physics has excluded those who think philosophically from its midst, and it has been left with a truly impoverished sense of philosophy, lacking insight into conceptual analysis, logic, semantics. To return to López Corredoira's own distinction, for a great example of philosophy in physics, which is practical and accessible and enlightening for physicists themselves, without getting into dense abstractions of analysis, see 39 (Lee, 1988), Symmetries, Asymmetries, and the World of Particles. I have included a section of his observations in Appendix 1. I think this is the kind of philosophy in physics that López Corredoira also admires, and it should be compulsory reading for physicists. However, it does not address other issues that philosophers are preoccupied with, and these are real issues, central to López Corredoira's account, commented on next. Scientific realism and truth. I will now try to illustrate in some detail how these problems in both the general philosophy of science and the specific philosophy of physics dovetail into López Corredoira's account. López Corredoira is a kind of scientific traditionalist and is in some respects quite conservative in his philosophical views, and this comes out in his positive vision of scientific knowledge, as well as his negative evaluation of the philosophy of science. He is a realist in the sense that he believes science makes claims about a real world, and its propositions are objectively true or false, and science progresses by improving the truth of its claims, and makes realistic advances in discovering truth. "I must clarify explicitly that my view of science in general is realist rather than constructivist/relativist. I may accept some degree of constructivism in a few speculative areas in science, but in general I think that science is talking [to] us about truth in nature, not merely a truth based on social consensus. I should clarify my position because a postmodern philosopher might interpret my criticism of the system of science as an attempt to defend constructivism. One might wonder why, in spite of all the problems that scientific institutions possesses, all the corruption and biases, we should trust that science is talking about truth. My answer is that science in general, all through its history, has shown the robustness of many scientific ideas as solid absolute truths about nature, independent of the social context. There is no doubt from my side that science talks about truths. Nonetheless, science is a slow process and it is quite possible that wrong ideas may dominate science for a long time. P. 151-2. But justifying this kind of view is exactly the problem that the philosophy of science has failed to solve for two centuries! How does science give any guarantee of truth about anything? If it could be shown it has a method that, properly enacted, does indeed guarantee a progression to truth, then the realist position would be justified. But no one has been able to do this. In my view, it is impossible. There is no such method available to human beings and human society, and there is no such guarantee. 40 Rather than guaranteeing a progression to truth, this is an ideal of science. It is a good ideal and the right ideal, but it may not succeed in the end, and it will at best only succeed partially. It is like democracy, which is supposed to bring freedom and justice, but fails repeatedly to achieve its ideals. There are political philosophers who try to prove that democracy has some internal logic that guarantees its ideals: but there is no such guarantee. It depends on the quality of its practice. In a corrupted society, democracy guarantees nothing, and in a corrupted institution, science guarantees nothing. The institutions of NZ society I live in are deeply corrupt, corrupted by mediocrity and incompetence and self-interest of the managerial elite, and the practice of democracy dramatically fails its ideals for large numbers of people. And in all the various institutions in NZ I have studied in and worked in, the practice of science is corrupt, and pathetically fails its ideals. On the positive side, we can only say that the present institutions are better than some alternatives – but they are still failures. Whether there are better alternatives again, whether these systems can be reformed or revolutionised, is an open question I return to at the end of this essay. López Corredoira says in the quote above that: "My answer is that science in general, all through its history, has shown the robustness of many scientific ideas as solid absolute truths about nature, independent of the social context. P. 152. The key problem is that physics (more than any other science) proposes general laws of nature – Newtonian mechanics and gravitational theory for instance, or Special Relativity or General Relativity or quantum mechanics, etc. These general laws correspond to even more general metaphysical frameworks, conceptions of the fundamental nature and contents of reality. E.g. modern physics assumes the theatre of all reality is a space-time manifold. But such general laws and their corresponding ontologies can never be proved to be universally true. And when such laws are overthrown, the entire metaphysical framework of the theories is overthrown. Even the very entities they refer to appear to disappear from reality. Today physicists think that Newtonian point particles, and classical (indivisible, point-like) atoms are not real – they are merely idealisations or approximations to quantum particles, ghostly wave functions that are absolutely unlike classical material particles or atoms. The intuitive and characteristic move is to say that earlier theories are approximately true, and science progresses through approximations to truth, but never establishes the absolute truth of general theories. This was Popper's main idea: to replace the ideal of absolute truth of general theories with one of a progression through approximately true theories. López Corredoira is unjustly critical of Popper , and does not give him credit for his real 41 achievement in philosophy of science, which was to help overthrow the dominant Positivist philosophy of his age (which is fundamentally wrong in every respect, and inculcates a totalitarian philosophy), and try to replace it with a modified form of realism. López Corredoira is most impatient when he discusses main-stream philosophy of science and semantics, and I think he does not entirely appreciate either the real difficulties or real achievements in this subject, as I will briefly try to illustrate. It is very easy to slip into thinking that this move from truth to approximate truth is just a simple matter of degree, and realism is retained. To illustrate, consider the claim: "All natural numbers are divisible by 2". The immediate response may be: "No, that is only 50% true, because every second number is not divisible by 2." But it is not 50% true: it is simply false. Mathematical statements are not partially true and partially false. What if we try: "All natural numbers are divisible by 2 or 3". Well now there are fewer exceptions – only 1/3 of examples fail instead 1⁄2 and we might say "that is more approximately true". What if we improve it with: "All natural numbers are divisible by 2 or 3 or 5". Now there are fewer exceptions again, and we might say it is more approximately true again. But what does approximately true mean? Given that none of these statements is actually true at all? Taken literally, these statements are not 'approximately true' at all: they are simply false. For they are universal generalisations: they start with "All cases of ...". What does it mean for a universal generalisation to be false? That there is at least one exception. However there is some intuitive sense in which the second statement is more 'approximately true' than the first statement – there are less exceptions but this is only a relative concept. I.e. the propositions taken literally, in themselves, are not 'approximately true': they are simply true or false. The concept of 'approximately true' only applies to relative comparisons. And it does not apply to the universal generalisation as such. It involves a reformulation of the statements to refer to the number of true or false cases of the sub-statement within the universal generalisation. If this sounds a little nit-picking, it is deliberate: it is a crucial part of the philosophical method to specify claims precisely and accurately. If we allow ourselves to uncritically say that these statements are 'approximately true', instead of identifying that they are false, we immediately get into a bog of intuitive thinking that leads to nonsense. If we want to bring out some sense in which they are 'approximately true', we must formulate this precisely. It is not the universal generalisations that are approximately true at all: as I keep saying, those statements are false. They have no intrinsic property of 'a degree of approximate truth' at all. It is only some construction around the inner clause of the universal generalisations that may be said to have a measure of 'approximate truth'. I make this point as an example of the 'nit-picking' concern over stating things with literal precision that philosophical or logical analysis really requires. Physicists are used to a rough-and-ready intuitive 42 mode of thought, and become very impatient with the method of precise logical analysis. It takes a long time to teach physics students to grasp the mode of thought that real logical analysis requires. Popper's idea was that general scientific theories – universal generalisations progress by becoming more approximately true. It should be emphasised that this threatens to throw out the concept of truth as such. It threatens the idea that we can infer any general properties of nature from such theories. E.g. Newtonian mechanics is approximately true – in terms of predicting certain phenomenon with approximate accuracy – but it is actually, literally, false, and it does not tell us the fundamental nature of space or matter. The statement that "Newtonian mechanics is approximately true" tells us something about empirical predictions – but the Newtonian laws per se do not tell us truths about the fundamental entities, e.g. the symmetries of space and time and forces and motion etc. Analogously, if the statement that "All natural numbers are divisible by 2 or 3 or 5" was true, it would tell us something very profound about the natural numbers – but it is false, and it tells us absolutely nothing true about the properties of the natural numbers. It does not tell us that "most numbers are divisible by 2 or 3 or 5" – that is a completely different statement. In the mathematical example, we might say that these false approximations are ultimately converging to a real truth, i.e. that "All natural numbers (except 1) are divisible by a prime number". But we never reach this true statement by continuing the progression of including more prime numbers in the statement. And in foundational physics, the real hope is not that we will find closer and closer approximations in an infinite series: it is that we will find the ultimate true theory of the universe. And this will tell us the fundamental truths of nature – everything about the fundamental nature of reality itself, for a naturalist or materialist. So Popper's theory of a progression of 'approximate truth' first of all makes truth relative in the sense that we can only compare the 'approximate truth' of a theory against another theory. And secondly it removes the idea that we can ever find real truth, as far as general theories describing the general nature of physical reality are concerned. And as long as general theories remain uncertain or mere approximations, what metaphysical lessons – truths about the nature of reality can we draw from them? Popper's theory also suffered from a fatal logical error. To be more than just a suggestion of a theory, it requires a precise method for defining degrees of approximate truth – defining when one theory is "more approximately true" than a rival theory. Popper proposed such a method, and defined it precisely. Good work, Popper. At face value it looked sensible, but it is logically inconsistent, essentially because there are many different ways of counting the cases that conform to an 'approximately true theory'. This inconsistency was shown in a proof by Pavel Tichy, about whom I say more below. Tichy 43 presented his critique in a seminar attended by Popper himself, and (legend has it) he concluded with a statement to the effect that "therefore Popper's theory of verisimilitude (approximation to truth) is of no value". Sir Karl apparently sat silent for some minutes, while everyone held their breath waiting for the great man to respond, and he finally said: "Tichy's demonstration of the failure of my theory is sound, but I disagree with his conclusion that it has no value. If I had not presented my wrong theory, Tichy could not have presented his beautiful disproof of it." This is an example of what I mean by the statement earlier that the philosophy of science does have valuable results – and results of genius – but they are primarily negative, showing the failure of multiple attempts, in the C19th and C20th, to give foundational solutions to the problems of scientific epistemology and semantics. Now there are positive results from philosophy too, but as illustrated next, real achievements of the first order are often lost in the great swamp of trivia that academic philosophy churns over. The tragic example of Pavel Tichy. Pavel Tichy, who disproved Popper's theory, is a tragic example of a brilliant heterodox thinker. He was a Czech political refugee to NZ, and spent most of his mature working life at Otago University in Dunedin. He was the greatest philosophical logician to work in NZ – indeed one of the handful of great logician-semanticists of the modern era, in company with Frege, Russell, Goedel, Tarski, Turing, Church, Carnap, Montague. He created a formal system of logical semantics in the 1970s-80s called TIL (transparent intensional logic) that represents the fundamental breakthroughs needed to solve a host of problems that have plagued the foundations of logic and formal semantics since Frege created the subject in the late C19th, and continue to plague it to this day. He committed suicide in 1994, aged 54 and still at the height of his powers. Practically no one in NZ philosophy even remembers him today. Among NZ philosophers, I think only a couple of his graduate students (including myself), and a couple of his professional colleagues at Otago University ever appreciated his ground-breaking work in his life time. The problem is that his theories are too technically demanding for practically any of the 50-odd professional philosophers in NZ – even though many teach courses on the same problems of semantics that he solved, focussing on any number of inferior theorists from the earlier C20th, tying their students up in knots, and continuing to hash up their own naïve theories of the same subject. He has a handful of dedicated supporters in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and one or two Easterly European countries, among whom he is considered a legend. But the wider Anglo-American community of logicians and philosophers of science – a 44 large domain within Western philosophy – has almost completely ignored his work. This is a perfect example of the death of science that López Corredoira presents: a rare heterodox genius, ignored by an extremely mediocre academic community preoccupied with their own trivia, and too incompetent to recognise ground-breaking solutions to fundamental problems when presented with them. Philosophy is often accused of this preoccupation with trivia. But it is in the most developed branches of natural science that there is now the same problem. As a footnote to this, in 2003, Tichy's supporters initiated a project to publish a collection of his published papers. To complete this, they needed to raise $20,000 for publication costs. I wrote a letter to the Vice Chancellor at Otago University, supporting their application for a grant towards this. I described Tichy as one of the seminal figures of C20th philosophy and logic, the most outstanding philosopher-logician to work in NZ, and his work as of enduring quality and importance. I emphasised the importance of having an accessible collection of his papers for scholarly research. The curt reply I received back declined funding on the grounds that Otago University had already funded a graduate student scholarship into TIL (Tichy's main theory), as well as funding a couple of visits to Otago sometime past by Pavel Materna, professor of logic and philosophy at Charles University in Prague, and Tichy's closest supporter and research colleague over his lifetime. The letter concluded with a message that if I was looking for funding for myself, I should go through appropriate university research grant channels. I gained the distinct impression I was not welcome to do so, although I had no intention of this in any case. Some time later, this position was apparently reversed, and some funding was granted. The Collected Papers of Pavel Tichy's Collected Papers in Logic and Philosophy, edited by Vladimir Svoboda, Bjorn Jesperson and Colin Cheyne, was published in 2004 jointly by Filosophia, The Institute of Philosophy at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, and Otago University Press. It is 901 pages and contains 46 papers. That is not a great many papers by academic standards: competitive academics today publish many hundreds or even a thousand papers. But these are all papers of quality and originality, filled with dense, complex and lucid analyses, original theoretical developments. The response from the VC reflects the attitude of bureaucratic administration that López Corredoira objects to so strongly. As an academic bureaucrat, removed from the subjects he oversees as a business CEO, the VC's problem is balancing funding priorities. He regarded awarding a scholarship for a graduate student as equivalent to the value of publishing 45 the life's work of a rare genius. He even saw the fact that the student scholarship was on the subject of the theory of the genius as a reason to deny further funding! The student scholarship represented a similar funding amount, so therefore, for the CEO, it represented a similar value donated to philosophy. There is also no appreciation that Tichy himself is the one who has given the real value to philosophy, through long years of hard and lonely work. There is instead the attitude that Tichy (or his supporters in his name) are asking for some kind of hand-out for his benefit. The VC might also say that, in retrospect, funding was not justified after all, because despite Tichy's Collected Papers being published, it did not succeed in bringing any advantages for Otago University, Tichy remains as obscure as ever, and the reputation of OU has hardly been enhanced. Did this publication bring in any new students, or raise the profile of OU? Scholarly work pursuing Tichy's TIL theory is primarily limited to about 20 papers, mainly by Marie Duzi, Bjorn Jesperson and Pavel Materna (working in the Czech Republic), published in a volume Procedural Semantics for Hyperintentional Logic, 2010. However the story of Tichy's achievement is not over yet. We should remember that Frege's theory of logic in the C19th is now considered the great watershed in the history of logic, and every logician and semanticist in the world knows who he is. But Frege was just as obscure as Tichy, almost totally ignored in his own life time. He was rescued from obscurity by Bertrand Russell in the early C20th, and it was a couple more decades before he became widely known. He is now at the center of a vast industry of academic philosophical trivia, an industry of anachronistic misinterpretations of his theories – something Tichy tried to redress too. As a final footnote to this story, at the same time I wrote a paper, intended as an introductory article to Tichy for the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (for which I had just written an article on time in relativity theory (Holster, 2003, B)). The IEP had no article on Tichy. I should add these articles are free contributions, and I was invited by the editor, Brad Dowden, to propose further article topics to contribute. The peer reviewer for IEP, undoubtedly a good academic in Montague logic, had never heard of Tichy, and was unsympathetic to his objectual or realist approach. He came from a competing philosophy of logical semantics. He did not think Tichy deserved an article in the Encyclopedia. He rejected publication, not because of the quality of my article, but because he did not like the ideas or approach that it effectively advertised for a competing school of thought. The article is now posted at (WebRef Holster (k)). The IEP still has no article on Tichy. The quality of his theories goes unrecognised. 46 López Corredoira's fundamental problem. The foregoing is partly to set the context for what as I see as the fundamental problem in López Corredoira's account: the problem of judging heterodox ideas is left unsolved. He is quite aware of this. "Who decides what is or is not an absolute truth in science? That is the key question. On the one hand, conservative sectors which have the power to control science will always claim that their ideas are undeniably absolute truths; on the other hand, the few voices of the revolutionary creators of new ideas, mixed with the many voices of crackpots, will cast doubt on anything claimed as absolute truth. Think, for instance, about extreme ideas, such as creationism, which claims that the earth is only six thousand years old and denies the evolution of the species. The fact is that there is no absolute criterion for separating absolute truths from false hypotheses, although there are some quite clear cases. P. 115. López Corredoira implicitly and explicitly makes such judgements himself – "there are some quite clear cases". You can't even be a scientist without making such judgements for yourself. But the problem of judging other people's heterodox ideas is that they all look like crackpot ideas to the outsider. How does he judge? He emphasises that there is a problem with the stability of scientific knowledge – wrong theories accepted for long periods, true theories rejected for long periods but still thinks that science achieves certain absolute objective truths. "False theories may last for centuries or even more than a thousand years and still be accepted without any doubts. In Chapter 2, I gave some examples of this, Ptolemaic geocentric astronomy being one example. There have also been many other theories which were important for a long time, but which were eventually demonstrated to be wrong: the phlogiston theory, the caloric theory, Newtonian optics, the proposal of the existence of an "ether", etc. The opposite thing is also true. There are ideas which have been rejected, and forgotten for a long time, until they are later recovered and become successful ways of explaining phenomena, examples being the heliocentric theory, tectonic plate theory, etc. P.107. Now how does he know that these specific ideas – the phlogiston theory, the caloric theory, Newtonian optics, the 'ether' theory – are really wrong? López Corredoira thinks science eventually accepts good theories, and conclusively dismisses bad ones. 47 "Science has achieved some truths which will possibly last forever, and no revolution will be able to deny them. Atomic theory will last forever, I guess; I think Archimedes' principle of hydrostatics in incompressible fluids will persist forever; the bacteriological origin of some illnesses will be certain forever; etc. This explains why science is a more conservative system than other human affairs. Only in some fields where the truth is not so immediately clear-for instance, the origin of life, cosmology, the final components of matter, etc.-is there the possibility for some kind of revolution, and this is the place where conservative scientists try to defend their power against the possible revolutions of progressive ideas. p.113. Here he seems to suggest that in most fields "the truth is immediately clear", and that "only in some fields where the truth is not so immediately clear ... is there the possibility for some kind of revolution". But this is the problem: heterodox scientists will strongly disagree about what "truth is immediately clear". Who decides and by what criterion? Now López Corredoira considers himself a materialist, reductionist, empiricist and atheist – so conservative in some ways about the limits of science. He believes the world is purely physical. "We live with illusions in order to cheat our fears. At present, we live with the illusion that a longer life with a lot of medicine and surgical operations is better than a shorter life without visiting physicians. However, we are going to die, and there is no life after death; that is the most important truth, for which science cannot produce anything more. P.169. He rejects 'metaphysics' (I think meaning 'speculative metaphysics') as a form of objective knowledge – although without dismissing its value as a human activity. He is passionate about the value of philosophy as a part of cultural heritage – but he means traditional philosophy, and he is dismissive of 'modern philosophy' as having a role within science proper. He is a reductionist, careful to emphasise for example that his realist language for abstract entities like 'knowledge' do not commit him to any metaphysical beliefs that abstract entities exist in themselves. "Indeed, the consideration of "knowledge" as an entity is an artefact but so is the concept of "person", and many others which are useful in shaping our vision of the world. In fact, the only entity in nature is nature itself, in the form of matter-energy, but we can carry out an exercise in thought by isolating some particular structures and treating 48 them as if they were autonomous entities, self-organized structures which make their own decisions. In my opinion, free will is an illusion, and all organisms or beings are simply fragments of nature, driven by its laws. His metaphysical belief in materialism (which he sometimes states as naturalism) already sets powerful limits for him about what ideas can be taken seriously in science. For instance, he is dismissive of research into spirituality or psi or paranormal phenomenon, and thinks this is essentially an area for cranks, since he believes these things have been scientifically ruled out with practical certainty. "Wallace would move towards spiritualism (even geniuses get lost in stupid ideas; Newton also dedicated an important part of his life to alchemy or theology), and he maintained that natural selection cannot account for mathematical, artistic, or musical genius, as well as metaphysical musings, and wit and humour. Wallace eventually said that something in "the unseen universe of Spirit" had interceded at least three times in history. The first was the creation of life from inorganic matter. The second was the introduction of consciousness in the higher animals. And the third was the generation of the higher mental faculties in mankind. He also believed that the raison d'être of the universe was the development of the human spirit. These views greatly disturbed Darwin, who argued that spiritual appeals were not necessary and that sexual selection could easily explain apparently non-adaptive mental phenomena. P. 45-46. López Corredoira thinks we already essentially have the permanent scientific truth about the nature of consciousness and mind and spirit: i.e. whatever we refer to by these terms are really material entities or material processes. But here we already have a contentious judgement. On this point, and other points of scientific judgement, I disagree with him – and there is no broad scientific consensus. To me, consciousness has never been explained by materialist science, indeed there is no prospect in sight for its explanation in current physical science; and to me, psi is a perfectly valid area for scientific research, whatever you think its prospects of success are, because the host of psi phenomenon have never been satisfactorily explained by natural science, and certainly not in a way capable of achieving a broad consensus. From his faith in evolution to give a materialist explanation of the origin of life he also says: "Ideas like 'intelligent design' or similar are not science. P.46. 49 And yet to me this is an open question. For a popular point these days: how do we know we were not 'designed' in part by an alien species that deliberately colonised earth with life since we seem to be on the cusp of being able to send genetically pre-designed organisms to colonise other planets ourselves? If we ever achieve a high-level mastery of genetic design, how many end-features would we pre-design to evolve in a scenario of transferred evolution? Of course, for many scientists, 'intelligent design' means something more specific: the direct intelligent design of humans by God, with a connotation of creationism. But in reality, many shades of 'design' and many types of 'designers' are possible. Scientific evidence for 'intelligent design' should revolve around isolating features of genetic code and environment that could not plausibly have just appeared by chance, and that point to a deliberate intention. Intelligent design is an identifiable feature of our own technology (e.g. a clock). What we can subsequently infer about the designer – whether God or alien or human – is another question, and preconceptions about this should not prevent us examining various structures, environments, or indeed the world as a whole, for evidence of intelligent design. Stephen Meyer's (2009) The Signature in the Cell is an extended argument that the hypothesis of intelligent design is an open scientific question – and Meyer gives a sophisticated treatment of central issues in the philosophy of science, especially the nature of explanation. Now if we plan to liberalise the sciences to more readily encompass heterodox ideas, who is going to make the judgement calls on which heterodox ideas have some scientific quality, and which are 'crackpot' theories? This is the fundamental problem – the problem that philosophy of science has never been able to solve, and barely even tries to address: that the pre-scientific judgement of ideas (before they are subject to close scientific scrutiny, evaluation, or experiment) is not covered by the scientific method. The orthodox solution to this is peer-review by experts: but of course the peer review of heterodox ideas by orthodox scientists is precisely the original problem. It falls back on subjective judgement, not objective evaluation. López Corredoira has a number of suggestions to redress this problem. His fundamental impulse is to give judgement and decision making back to the individual scientists, and take it back from the bureaucratic system of 'expert peer reviewers' and power hierarchies of 'scientific authorities'. He starts with a proposal to liberalise publications. "We have too many people doing science, and few of them who have the power do not want to be mixed up with the vast hordes of creators. It is all a question of the will to power. Therefore, they prefer to maintain the barriers which separate the good science from the bad science, with all the consequent biases introduced in this selection: Lots of mediocre misguided ideas are published in important journals, 50 whereas many bad papers and a few genuine ideas are left aside unpublished or published in minor publications which almost nobody reads. My suggestion would be to allow the important media to publish all kind of contributions, at least in an electronic version on the internet, which is cheaper. For instance, arXiv.org could stop the filtering of papers and allow the posting of all kinds of publications related to the scientific topics they cover, even papers from amateurs. Some scientists think this would be terrible because important knowledge would be drowned by huge numbers of papers by amateurs, but this is not true: It can be shown that before 2004, the date at which the filtering of papers was introduced on arXiv.org, the number of papers produced by crank amateurs was a small portion of the total; they do not disturb the flow of information produced by professional scientists, and they introduce some fun touching on questions which are not usually dealt with by paid researchers. P.186-187. arXiv.org is the major preprint site for physics, and he is really only suggesting it return to its former, pre-2004 model of being self-regulating. (And he is right: its filtering process has only led to its manipulation by editors to censor ideas.) But he has a more radical proposal in mind. "For major journals, instead of a peer review system to ensure quality, I would suggest that anybody with a Ph.D. in any scientific discipline may publish; something similar is also proposed by Gillies. It might be supposed that a Doctor of Philosophy already has sufficient maturity to know what he is doing , although the journals could ask experts to recommend revisions of the papers, but only to improve them with constructive criticism, not to reject them unless the author decides to withdraw the paper; or they could allow experts to post their comments on the published papers (Ietto-Gillies). P. 187. This doesn't seem realistic to me – won't academics just send rafts of papers to the highest-ranked journal in the field? Anyway, most major journals are privately owned commercial enterprises , and the owners certainly would not consider this viable. It undermines their whole function and purpose and rationale. Far more appealing I think would be to provide alternative free on-line self-regulating pre-publication journals in all fields. We have free preprint sites such as arXiv.org for physics, and philsci-archive for philosophy of science. There is a problem that these two sites in particular are controlled by private interest groups, with distinct ideologies, and they are prone to abuse – not in general perhaps, but specifically in the context of publishing heterodox ideas in the specialist fields of the editors. 51 General sites provided by an independent authority, with censorship only of abusive or offensive material, or material entirely outside the scope of the subject (e.g. publishing political diatribes or novels as science preprints) would have real value. The philpapers.org site is a good model for this – it does not have the censorship of philsci-archive, which is an instrument of the Pittsburg University Department of Philosophy and History of Science, in conjunction with the Philosophy of Science journal, and used to control the subject to their agendas. I will return to this example later in Part 2. López Corredoira then makes a number of further suggestions in regard to funding and resource-sharing mechanisms. They are interesting ideas, but I do not see most them as practical – although probably he does not either: they illustrate the need for reforms, not the practicality of such reforms. My favourite one however is the following radical proposal. "The assigning of positions, either Ph.D. grants or postdocs or permanent positions, is more difficult to solve, given that there are more applications than positions. This should be addressed with an appropriate education system, and a new direction in the job of researcher. Indeed, many of the present-day researchers do not have a true vocation for science and natural philosophy; they are mostly technocrats who might be redirected to jobs as engineers or computer experts or something similar. A reduction in the salaries of researchers would also reduce very significantly the number of people who want to do research; perhaps, the State could offer a free house and food and a small salary for other expenses, to encourage an austere way of life, dedicated to study and thinking rather than linking business and conference-tourism with science. Once this regulation is done, I am sure that the number of people who would want to do research would be much lower, and with a higher passion for science; there would be a place for all of them without need of a competitive selection system. There would also be fewer papers and conferences, less knowledge in which to be drowned, which would also be a positive outcome. I like that suggestion a lot, especially in the NZ context. However, the point I want to make here is that none of López Corredoira's suggestions addresses the fundamental problem of how to judge the value of heterodox ideas themselves: how to tell the ideas of 'cranks' and 'crackpots' from those of geniuses; how to tell which current scientific laws or theories are 'truths that will last forever', and which will be subject to revision or revolution in the future; how to tell which heterodox ideas have enough value to be worth pursuing. If he could solve that problem, he would solve the fundamental problem of philosophy of science. Without solving this fundamental problem, the 52 options to find a methodological solution to the problem of organizing scientific research to appropriately value heterodox ideas are limited. But I do not believe that problem has a methodological, i.e. rule-based, solution – it inevitably comes back to individual human judgment: the application of 'refined intuition'. However, I do think there is an alternative concept to the simplistic realist goal of achieving truth that helps analyze our intuitions about scientific robustness and progress, which I make a brief detour to explain next. Explanation as the key quality criterion. I posed the question earlier: how does López Corredoira know that "the phlogiston theory, the caloric theory, Newtonian optics, the proposal of the existence of an 'ether', etc" have been conclusively excluded from science – and will not be revived at some later date to haunt us? Alternatively, how does he know that theories of "the origin of life, cosmology, the final components of matter, etc" are still open to revision? I think the answer lies in the ability to judge the quality of explanation achieved in these areas, not the ability to judge the 'objective truth' of proposed general laws of nature or theories. In the case of phlogiston, for example, it was proposed to explain the nature of fire. The accepted explanation of fire is now that it is a chemical process, essentially of oxidisation. Now our present explanation of fire may not be entirely right in all its details, there may be important things still missing from the account, but it is surely correct in its basic identification of cause and effect. Fire results when some unstable compounds react chemically with oxygen, forming new compounds, and releasing heat. The heat comes from the molecular bonding energies. This general explanation is so well-tested experimentally it is scientifically conclusive. As a result, the whole purpose of the phlogiston hypothesis is redundant. Now phlogiston has never been detected, but how do we know it might not one day be revived as a substance? What if the chemical theory is one day found to be wrong? Well, that might happen – in fact it did happen! The original classical chemical theory was wrong – a lot wrong it was replaced by better classical theories and eventually the quantum theory but the essential causal explanation for fire still did not change. Phlogiston was not reinstated. The chemical explanation is a causal explanation. It identifies the causes of fire. It lets the fire investigator say: "this particular fire started because there was fuel and oxygen present and a source of ignition (activation energy) and consequently the compound in the fuel oxidised into the new compound ...". Now the causal nature is related to the fact that this supports counterfactuals. "If (counterfactually) the situation was different and there was 53 no fuel, or no oxygen, or no ignition source, then there would have been no fire." It is widely recognised in the philosophy of science that laws of nature must support counterfactual reasoning. This goes hand in hand with the fact that good explanations must equally support counterfactuals. Note that the explanation is not just a set of facts: "There was fuel, there was oxygen, there was ignition. There was fire." It is also not a logical derivation (as in Hempel's positivist theory of explanation, widely taught in philosophy of science): i.e. it is not a derivation like: There was fuel, there was oxygen, there was ignition. [Facts] When there is fuel, oxygen and ignition there is always fire. [Universal law] Therefore: There was fire. [Logical conclusion] It is a statement of causation: this is what the term 'because' signifies. And causal inference is not captured by propositional logic. Explanations can be stated as propositions of course: "there was fire because there was fuel, oxygen and ignition". This states a proposition, and it may be true or false in a particular case. They can be quantified to give general scientific truths: e.g. "all the planets, asteroids, comets, etc, in the solar system rotate around the sun because they are attracted by its gravity." But this is not a simple quantified proposition, like laws of physics, or a simple fact, like statements of initial conditions. It contains a special logical operator: Because. This acts as a counterfactual implication. Few outside the circles of philosophical logic know this, but the logic of counterfactuals – which is essential for the logic of causal explanations – has proved extremely troublesome, ever since the time of John Stuart Mill in the C19th, and still has no accepted formalisation (as quantificational logic has) . The term because has no accepted formal logical analysis. Yet statements of causation are surely the most durable and objective scientific truths we have. Now there is indeed an insurmountable problem, exactly as Popper and many others have argued, in conclusively justifying the universal truth of general (universalised) laws or theories. You may believe that quantum mechanics or GTR (the general theory of relativity) gives us exactly true universal laws of nature – but is it possible to prove that? How do you know they will not be replaced in the future, found to have exceptions, to be approximations, just as classical physics turned out be an approximation? Well we just can't know – as Popper holds, we can only verify that general theories are false, when they are found to fail: we can never conclusively prove they are true. In fact, all the evidence is that there must be a 'unified theory' that goes beyond these two partial theories – since they contradict each other and it is an open question whether either QM or GTR will turn out to be exactly true in the new framework theory, or whether they will be 54 reduced to approximations within a larger theory, as happened with the classical theories of mechanics, gravity and electromagnetism. And it is not simply a matter of proving factual observations: these large theories bring their own theoretical ontologies, of unobservable hypothetical entities, and when they are overthrown, their whole ontology goes out of the window. Personally I believe QM and GTR are both approximations – which means their fundamental theoretical ontologies are wrong. Most physicists seem to believe they are exactly true – that we live in an historically privileged era, when our fundamental theories are finally absolute, unlike every other era in history. I think this is delusionary. But it has a huge effect on how you look for a unified theory. If you constrain the theory to render GTR in exactly its present form or to render QM in exactly its present form, then you place a huge constraint on the possible theories you can consider. If you allow theories that generate GTR and QM as approximate theories (as happened in the change from classical to modern physics), then there are far more possibilities. Most orthodox physicists seem committed as a scientific dogma to retaining GTR and QM in exactly their present forms, and they consequently snub attempts to formulate a theory that renders them as approximations. They think that this is delusional, and refuse to contemplate it. Hence we find a very real and insurmountable barrier to heterodox unified theories of physics. Any theory that revises the foundational framework of QM and GTR steps outside the orthodox paradigm, and is rejected from consideration in the pre-scientific evaluation, before it can be scientifically evaluated at all. But in any case, returning to the original question: I agree with López Corredoira that the phlogiston theory, the caloric theory, and Newtonian optics are all wrong and have been made permanently redundant concepts in science – because conclusive and quite comprehensive explanations have been given, using alternative theories, for the phenomenon they are proposed to explain. And these theories have no role other than to explain these phenomenon. There is no other reason to consider them as viable theories. I also agree with him that theories of the origin of life, cosmology, and the final components of matter are still wide open for revision – because the explanations offered are far from being conclusive or comprehensive. To see what I mean, try to complete the following six sentences: The dinosaurs died out because __________________________ The Earth rotates around the Sun because __________________ Life appeared on Earth because __________________________ The universe has its cosmology because ____________________ The electron and proton exist because _____________________ Humans have consciousness because ______________________ 55 I would say science knows the answer to the first two with effective certainty – not absolute certainty, but as much as certainty has any meaning for human science. But science does not have any conclusive answers to the last four questions at all. Note also that science discovered the answer to the second question in Newton's time: the sun's gravity attracts it... This answer remains true even though we have changed from the Newtonian theory of gravity to Einstein's theory, i.e. GTR. This shows that theoretical explanations can be robust against changes of foundational theories. And even if the detailed theory of gravity changes again, the answer to this will still be the same. This is why I think scientific knowledge can, in certain cases, be effectively certain, and science makes definitive progress over time. Even though general (universalised) scientific laws are never certain, this stable core of scientific knowledge is also theoretical, and is more than just an accumulation of simple facts. This stable core of scientific knowledge lies in generalised causal explanations. All real scientists have a powerful intuition that science makes progress. It cannot be confirmed as a definite progression to true theories. I think it can only be confirmed as a definite progression to good explanations. From this point of view, a key question to ask about any scientific claim (beyond simple facts of observation) is: what is its explanatory value? This is what I ask about the claim of Materialism, for example, that tells us that consciousness is purely a material phenomenon. What explanatory value does this have? In fact: none that I can see. "Your thoughts are generated purely by the activity of the atoms in your brain". This may or may not be true: but what explanatory value does it have? How does it explain my consciousness to me? It doesn't. It doesn't do anything to give a causal explanation of why we are conscious. It is just a hand-waving claim that whatever explanation is given it will be materialistic. To me, this is merely a metaphysical claim (in a negative sense), and a claim that no one in the present state of science can verify – there simply being no good causal explanation for consciousness at all yet. In fact many scientists assume something stronger: a functionalist explanation of consciousness. The assumption is that if you map all the 'logical connections' between the firing of neurons in a brain (the 'neural net') into another representation (e.g. a digital representation on a computer), the result will be a simulation of consciousness – an artificial consciousness. There is absolutely no evidence for this – yet it is widely assumed by materialist physicists and computer scientists that this must represent consciousness. Here science turns into science fantasy. But this passes as sound scientific sense in many circles; while sceptics who question this dogma will typically be scorned as unscientific, anti-materialistic mystics. 56 Before going back to López Corredoira's discussion, and some examples of heterodox science, I pause to introduce some other general concepts that are central to understanding the philosophical debate. Kantianism versus empiricism. I will briefly recount another central controversy in the philosophy of science and epistemology, which has a long history. This is useful to gain a perspective on the deep flaws in the empiricist philosophy which leaves modern scientists with a completely misleading theory of science. The fundamental point is that scientific theories are not simply derived by a logical process of 'induction' from atomic empirical observations. Theories are intrinsically based in the capacity of the human mind to apply conceptual systems, and scientific theories are limited to the kinds of models or conceptual structures the human mind is prefabricated to visualise. The simplistic empiricist-inductivist philosophy takes it as an axiom that all empirical knowledge – knowledge of the external physical world comes ultimately from empirical perceptions, or sequences of sensory impressions. Such perceptions are limited to specific facts, and it is thought that we make generalisations from such facts, discovering patterns in phenomenon, encoded in general laws, to eventually give larger scientific theories. This empiricist philosophy was elaborated largely by British empiricists, with the iconic figures of Locke and Hume in the C18th, John Stuart Mill in the C19th, followed notably by Bertrand Russell in the early C20th – before being overrun by the more extreme Logical Positivist (also called Logical Empiricist) philosophy after the 1920s. Other European philosophy remained more open to rationalist and metaphysical traditions, reflecting a very Anglo versus Continental philosophy divide. The primitive empiricist theory is often referred to as the 'tabla rasa' theory – that the human mind is a 'blank slate', on which facts are written by perception. Generalisations are then determined by logical operations, abstraction and generalisation. (We 'abstract' common features of individual facts, and 'generalise' them as patterns or rules). Russell and other early C20th empiricists were most concerned to develop logical theories justifying theoretical scientific knowledge as a structure built on top of empirical 'atoms'. But this tabla rasa theory is utterly misleading. It has no scientific evidence at all. It is a metaphysical arm-chair rationalisation, itself based on 'logical introspection', or the projection of a conceptual vision. (When philosophers say: "Things must be this way, because it is the only way that makes rational sense", they are invariably in the grip of a metaphysical vision, and they are telling us about the limits of their imagination.) The scientific fact is that the 57 human mind is not a 'blank slate': it is born with highly structured perceptual and conceptual structures pre-formed. These already determine its capacity to perceive and think and project conceptual models and represent them in language. In evolutionary terms, the human mind is already a highly-evolved perceptual device, attuned to its empirical environment. Thus it is perfectly logical that it has inherited knowledge – indeed it is inevitable that certain types of representational models are innate in our mental structures. We cannot remember specific factual experiences from our ancestors – but we have inherited more or less specific structures to represent and process knowledge. Given that these have evolved to be accurate to represent the external world (an assumption of empiricism), they already represent a lot of pre-conceived assumptions about the world. These are preconceptions about the way the world is logically structured. We see this in geometry, a classical example famous from Plato's time. Geometry appears to defy empiricism. For it is an a priori science, worked out from fundamental principles (axioms) that appear given to us by our own rational faculties. Euclidean geometry, explicitly based on logical reasoning from axioms, has the qualities of mathematics: and yet it quite accurately describes the geometry of the physical world. For straight lines and areas and volumes and so on, defined by empirical objects (rules and strings and light-beams and material surfaces), behave in accordance with mathematical geometry. The Egyptian pyramids and Greek temples were built using geometric principles, and they work. Thus it appears that some empirical knowledge is provided by our innate 'logical' ability to conceive of geometry. Now of course you might object that geometry has since been generalised to non-Euclidean geometries, famously by Riemann in the C19th. And it is then an open question which variation of geometry is actually exactly empirically accurate. So physical geometry is not fully determined by a priori mathematics after all. But this is not a real objection to the point. First, non-Euclidean geometries were also worked out a priori, as logical refinements of Euclidean geometry (generalising the 'parallel axiom' of Euclid). It is not as if we discovered nonEuclidean geometries empirically, by finding that Euclidean geometry is not quite accurate. And second, the critical point: our ability to formulate theories of physical geometry is dependant on our innate ability to conceive of these mathematical geometries in the first place. Now I agree that this innate ability does not determine truths about empirical geometry – rather, it is necessary for us even to begin conceiving empirical theories. If we could not consciously conceive geometric structures and reason about them mentally, we could never create scientific theories about physical geometry, no matter how many 'perceptual facts' about material objects we collected. 58 In fact, we cannot create a language to represent perceptual facts about geometry without first having innate conceptual structures to host them. The very idea that human perceptions are themselves some kind of 'atomic language' for 'empirical facts' to be imprinted on the 'tabla rasa' of the mind is a fantasy. Modern psychology shows that perceptions are highly constructed entities. Perceptions may be sparked by sensory inputs (light beams for instance), but what we experience and report in our perceptions are constructed images. We construct an imagistic world appearing to us as a world of 'solid objects', not a field of light-beams. We have no direct contact with external 'physical reality' in this sense. What we 'see' is an internal theatre, constructed by our minds. It is already rendered in a kind of mental language. We fail to see the vast bulk of detail in our environment – the eye only perceives a small band of wavelengths, the ear only hears a small range of frequencies. When it comes to secondary perceptions – of secondary physical qualities like colour and temperature – and even more so of human behaviour, social facts, qualities of other minds – our constructions of 'facts' are extremely subjective, and culturally dependant. This failure of empiricism should be obvious to any scientist today, because our modern scientific theories are so explicitly dependant on something we bring from our minds: mathematical models. Modern theories of physics are expressed as complex mathematical models – so complex they are only just within the capacity of the best mathematical intellects to visualise. What if reality is a little more complex than any humans can visualise? Then no matter how much more 'data' we collect, we will never conceptualise the right theory. What if the nature of reality is of a different kind to the mathematical models we can visualise? Those models are suited to atomistic reductionist structures – a projection of the mind. What if the real structures are fundamentally different? "How could they be?" You may demand. Well there are many inklings. One example is the discovery of fractal structures, like the Mandelbrot set, and closely associated chaotic structures, which lie outside of conventional dynamics to describe. Many scientists have become entranced by the possibility that reality may be based on fractal structures, fundamentally different to the atomistic models now pursued in main-stream physics. Another example is the experience of mystics, who report perceptions of 'reality' as having distinct 'holistic', 'timeless', 'interpenetrating' qualities that are inexpressible in normal language. "Oh nonsense, they are fantasying! There is no scientific evidence! Religious buffoons!" the scientistic empiricists say. But they are not listening. These mystical experiences are real and common; and this is exactly what we might expect if the human mind has evolved to have some deeper innate perception of the nature of reality, that goes beyond reductionist models of mathematical physics, or of normal language to express. This is to say, our very paradigm of physical ontology used in normal 59 science may prove inadequate to describe the essence of reality – it may describe only superficial patterns that we are adapted as physical creatures to live with. And the idea that reality may be more complex than we can comprehend mathematically is strongly supported in mathematics itself: for it is clear we can conceptualise only the tiniest fragments of mathematical structure. The real number line (or geometric continuum), apparently simple to our intuitions, actually has a second-order infinity of points: this infinity is so huge and its properties so unimaginable that we cannot hope to understand more than a tiny fragment of its properties in our finite and discrete languages. Another example, of special interest to me, is the dimensionality of space. We are hard-wired to visualise three-dimensional spatial images. This appears to be evolutionarily selected by our environment: for in normal life, we move and act in three dimensions. Euclidean geometry not only encodes the assumption of a 'flat' geometry (which Riemann generalised to curved geometries), but the assumption of three dimensional geometry. The most revolutionary realistic proposal of modern physics is that space has more than three dimensions. We cannot visualise hyper-dimensional structures mentally: we can only work with them using mathematics, at the cusp of human ability. If we (or rather: if at least a few people) did not have this mathematical ability, we could not even ask this question about reality from an empirical perspective. Science is constrained by our innate mental abilities: it is not a boundless logical power, constrained only by data collection. All the applied sciences now require substantial mathematical-statistical modelling to make progress, to express theories. But they have outstripped the mathematical abilities of the vast bulk of their own practitioners. Few applied scientists in practice today can work with the mathematics required to comprehend their empirical data in meaningful theoretical structures – or to understand the work of the few who have created the most advanced mathematic models. This is a practical crisis in science, and empiricism comes to a shuddering halt: for scientists can and do keep endlessly collecting data, without having the capacity to make sense of it. Empiricist philosophy fails to justify scientific progress, or to serve as any foundation for scientific method, because it ignores the fact that human science involves bringing the human mind, with its pre-determined capacity for mental visualisations and for imposing its own rationality on the world, to the party. The capacities and limitations of the human mind are intrinsic to scientific discovery and judgement. There is no automated logical method of scientific discovery apart from this. A philosophy of science that ignores and overlooks this fundamental fact is too crude to be taken seriously. 60 C18th philosophers, as exemplified by Immanuel Kant, were well aware of this, and put it in terms of a distinction between phenomena and noumena – a distinction going back in essence to the earliest philosophers in all traditions; for philosophy was born with the conscious realisation that reality is different to appearance: that the world presented to our senses is transcended by another world, hidden from our perception. In Kantian terms, 'phenomena' are what we perceive and measure empirically, but they are only the appearance of things. 'Noumena' ('things-in-themselves') refers to the 'ultimate reality' underlying appearances: the being of things. The question for science is whether it can tell us only about phenomena, or whether it can penetrate to the noumena, and tell us how reality is ultimately represented. If you believe science identifies fundamental causes, fundamental irreducible essences of things, then you believe it brings us metaphysical truths about noumena. If you think this is beyond it, then you think it beings knowledge only of phenomena. The C19th Positivists – the most famous figure being Mach, who had an early influence on Einstein thought that scientific knowledge is limited to phenomena. Scientific laws and generalisations, and their theoretical ontologies (like imperceptible 'atoms'), in their view, are merely systems of rules telling us about regularities among phenomena: ultimately, connections of regularity among empirical observations. They denied the reality of atoms and fields and forces and so forth – calling them 'intervening variables'. Their terms – the key terms in most scientific equations have no realistic reference to anything in nature. They are to be understood instead through an anti-realist semantics: as meaning their 'observational' content. Thus the huge debate in C19th philosophy of science was about the reality of atoms, with most taking the positivist view that they are unreal and unverifiable. This view was not overthrown until the early C20th – Einstein's (1905) theory of Brownian motion was a turning point in establishing atomic realism. The victory of realism over positivism was short-lived however: the logical positivists or logical empiricists soon appeared with a new brand of anti-realism, in the 1920's, and swamped scientific philosophy through the medium of quantum theory. This left an enduring stamp on C20th scientific philosophy: the dominance of the empiricist-inductivist-positivist-materialist philosophy. The dogma of 'inductivism' is a major strand in this philosophy of scientific method, which I briefly comment on next. One of the persisting delusions of the empiricist ideology lies in a parallel belief in induction. Induction refers to a (mythological) method conceived of as: (i) collecting factual observations, and 61 (ii) subsequently discovering patterns in them, and (iii) generalising these to formulate general empirical laws, and (iv) generalised these further to create higher-level theories. 'Theories' here mean comprehensive explanatory frameworks, with theoretical ontologies, covering large domains, as opposed to individual 'empirical laws of regularity'. You will see 'induction' referred to constantly, like 'scientific method' itself, when scientistic philosophers start pontificating about epistemology. But 'induction' is not a real method: scientific discovery and inference does not resemble this pattern, except in very limited cases. There are cases where discoveries have been made by deliberate use of an 'inductive' method – where scientists deliberately collect data, and subsequently find patterns that turn out to represent significant 'laws'. Certainly collecting data and looking for patterns is a valid technique in certain middle-stages of a scientific investigation. But it is only a very partial and inadequate method in general. Referring to the points above: (i) You have to start with some reason for collecting data, for recording certain variables from the vast number of possible variables; this is usually only when concepts and hypotheses have already matured enough to deserve careful testing; (ii) there is no logical reliable way of discovering 'patterns' from observational data – sure, sometimes you find significant simple patterns; but usually patterns of causality remain hidden because they are multi-layered, multi-causal, they require a deeper framework to conceptualise; the science of pattern recognition, as pursued in AI studies, is still extremely primitive, and has no general methods that could possibly be used as a general basis for scientific discovery and theory creation; (iii) science rarely progresses by formulating law-like generalisations; far more commonly it progresses by discovering explanations, primarily causal explanations; and these are made by intuitively identifying causes, often from single phenomenon, not by subsuming effects under 'inductive generalisations'; (iv) high-level theories – which are explanatory theories, explaining complex phenomenon through simpler ontologies of entities are never discovered inductively: they are creations of the human mind. They involve creations of theoretical languages and ontologies. Perhaps the area where 'induction' is most hyped today is in Artificial Intelligence (AI) studies – the use of automated computer programs to discover patterns in data. This is a very interesting field of study, no doubt 62 about that, and it is of practical importance. But so far it is very naïve, and has no prospects for the kind of success in creating 'thinking machines', that can outstrip humans in scientific ability, that its proponents boast of. Computers are effectively programmed in ad hoc ways that use low-level pattern recognition as a basis for taking actions – e.g. flying machines, responding to their environments. But these programs are developed and tested by humans, using human intuition, and hard-programmed into the machines. There is nothing even remotely resembling the flexible conceptual ability of human beings to think, to construct novel languages, novel concepts – which we do by growing an organic neuronal network. This is seen easily enough because AI programmers have not made a dent in the fundamental problem of programming machines to interpret and process natural language semantics. The domain of AI is dominated by enthusiastic technocrats fixated on a paradigm of syntactic programming – i.e. manipulation of symbols – without realising that syntactic models must capture semantics to succeed. But perhaps this failure is a good thing at this point in history: we should all shudder at the prospects for harm of successful AI programs under the control of our present generation of technocrats and bureaucrats. The most famous critique of empiricism, and the major philosophical tradition for most Western philosophers outside the Anglo-empiricist world, goes back to the German philosopher Kant in the C18th, mentioned above. Most European scientists of previous generations – such as Einstein – were familiar with the Kantian view, and this helped them keep a perspective on the Anglo-empiricist dogmas. I will not try to introduce Kant's philosophy here, it is far too involved for any summary. But one main legacy, known to practically all philosophers today, lies in a distinction he made between the four-fold classification of knowledge illustrated below. I present this here, as it is extremely helpful for understanding the philosophical discussions. Table 1. Kantian classification of propositions. Kantian classifications Analytic Synthetic A priori Analytic a priori Synthetic a priori A posteriori Analytic a posteriori Synthetic a posteriori The analytic/synthetic distinction is about semantic content: does a proposition refer to facts about external reality (synthetic) or merely to logical or definitional facts about the meanings of terms (analytic). 63 The a priori/a posterioiri distinction is about source of knowledge: is a proposition known from external empirical evidence (a posteriori), or from rational intuition or reasoning (a priori). This 2 X 2 classification generates four possible categories of propositions. The first two are allowed by both empiricists and rationalists. Analytic a priori knowledge is non-empirical, but tells us nothing substantive about the world. E.g. logical tautologies, like: If P and Q are true then P is true. Truths by definition, like: All bachelors are unmarried. These follow from the semantics of the terms alone. Synthetic a posteriori knowledge is empirical, and tells us substantive facts about the world. E.g. ordinary perceptual observations: the sky is blue. Empirical scientific observations: The earth is the third planet from the sun. Empiricists insist that these are the only two classes of genuine propositional knowledge. They wish to identify: a priori = analytic = vacuous, and synthetic = a posteriori = empirical. But there is also the third combination: Synthetic a priori knowledge is non-empirical (being known by reason alone, not observation), but still tells us something substantive. For Kant, mathematics: 5 + 7 = 12 and geometry: the shortest distance between two points is a straight line are examples of this. Also, for Kant, principles of ethics are in this category. It is this class of the synthetic a priori that is contentious, at the center of long philosophical disputes. Empiricists want to rule it out, but Kant embraces it. It allows the possibility of metaphysics, in this specific sense: such truths would be available to us from our rationality alone, without empirical observation. Rationalists generally believe that there are such a priori truths. The empiricists deal with apparently synthetic a priori propositions by reassigning them to one of the other two categories, or rejecting them as 'meaningless metaphysics'. E.g. most empiricists take mathematics and geometry to be analytic a priori, denying it has any content – variously holding it is 'logical knowledge' (Russell logicism), or 'true by definition' (Russell – conditionalism), or merely represents a 'syntactic game of symbols' (Hilbert – formalism – maths is not propositional at all). However John Stuart Mill, the leading empiricist of the C19th, took the view that mathematics is empirical, and thus synthetic a posteriori. Propositions about ethics, aesthetics, etc, are rejected as objective knowledge by empiricists on the basis of materialist reductionism, being dismissed as merely 'subjective belief'. 64 The traditional war in epistemology is between rationalism and empiricism. Plato is the most famous Rationalist, and mathematical Platonists (including Frege and Tichy) believe mathematics is real knowledge about a realm of abstract or non-physical entities, i.e. mathematical objects like numbers. My point is not to embrace the Kantian classification as such, or hold that there is a genuine class of synthetic a priori knowledge. Rather, it is that the class of synthetic a posteriori (i.e. purely empirical) propositions is certainly not adequate as a foundation for science – for scientific knowledge is really an inextricable combination of empirical information perceived through mental constructions. However my aim here is not to argue over this abstract philosophy, but rather to alert the reader that there are serious defects in the simplistic empiricist-inductivist dogmas. Note that there is also the possible fourth combination of: Analytic a posteriori knowledge tells us nothing substantive about the world, but is gained from empirical observation. I do not know any examples claimed of this – Kant thought it vacuous. Note also there are two other categories commonly used by philosophers: contingency and necessity. A proposition is necessarily true if it is true in 'all possible worlds' – if there is no possible situation in which it can be false. It is contingent if there are possible worlds where it is false. Logical tautologies (e.g. If P and Q, then P) and truths of mathematics (e.g. 1+2=3) are examples of necessary truths. Empirical facts (e.g. the Earth is the third planet from the sun; the dinosaurs were made extinct by the effects of an asteroid strike) are contingent, because there are possible (counterfactual) worlds where these are false. There is a close connection between these and the Kantian categories. Generally a posteriori propositions are contingent propositions, and often called empirical propositions. Alternatively, a priori propositions are necessary propositions and are called non-empirical. Although the classes may be co-extensive, the concepts are distinct however. E.g. contingency refers to a concept of possibility (a modal concept), while a posteriori refers to a concept of epistemology (how a proposition is known). (In Kantian terms, the claim that a posteriori propositions are contingent propositions would itself be a synthetic a priori proposition.) Most important, there are multiple concepts of necessity and possibility. For logicians, logical necessity is the central concept, but in science, nomic necessity is paramount. 'Nomically necessary' just means 'entailed by the laws of nature'. Fundamental physics and some other theoretical sciences are attempts not merely to record facts, or regularities, but to discover principles of nomic 65 necessity, to discover laws of nature. Of course it is a metaphysical claim that there is such a thing, and even more contentious that we can determine it. It is also generally assumed that nomic necessity is itself logically contingent. This means the laws of nature can only be established empirically, not deduced by reason alone. Here we begin to get into the twilight zone of metaphysics – in this case, the metaphysics of empiricism. For this is now a metaclaim about the nature of scientific knowledge itself, not a scientific claim per se. Empiricists of course want to deny that there is significant metaphysical knowledge – but what is the status of that claim? Most attempts to state such claims are prone to internal logical contradictions – e.g. see Appendix 5. The main modern technical tool for reasoning about these concepts is called possible world theory. Because this is central to modern metaphysics, but practically unknown outside a small group of philosophers, I present some details in Appendix 6. It is the only way presently known to philosophers to make many fundamental metaphysical and semantic disputes clearer. Having clarified some basic concepts of philosophy that often cause confusion, I now return to the main stream of the discussion. The ether: an exception in López Corredoira's examples. Now I have left out one of López Corredoira's examples of "wrong scientific ideas", viz. the proposal of an 'ether'. Unlike orthodox physicists, I do not think there is conclusive proof that this is wrong at all. There are a number of reasons. It can be a little vague what an 'ether' is, but I will take it as equivalent to the claim that there are absolute facts about spatial position. This is also equivalent to saying there are facts about absolute velocity w.r.t. space, rather than merely relative velocities of objects w.r.t. each other, as claimed in Special Relativity. Now practically every text-book on mechanics and every popular presentation of physics tells us that motion is relative, and that this was proved by the Special Theory of Relativity. How could this possibly be wrong if all these scientific experts agree on it? Here are nine possible reasons: (1) The Special Theory of Relativity is empirically wrong and incomplete. (2) The interpretation of STR is conceptually wrong. (3) The CMBR defines a unique universal stationary frame for the universe. (4) A closed curved universe typically requires a unique frame of reference for its consistent global description of space. (5) Quantum wave collapse is super-luminal and thus requires an absolute frame. 66 (6) The phenomenon that would be causally explained by an ether is not causally explained by any other theory – merely postulated as a fact. (7) Time flow (implying an absolute frame of simultaneity, and absolute distinction of past, present and future) is real, and combined with the empirical content of relativity theory, this forces an absolute frame for space. (8) A higher-dimensional theory of space forces a closed finite local boundary, and this is equivalent to an absolute space or "ether". (9) There is something fundamentally wrong with the two partial theories of QM and GTR, and when they are unified, the resulting theory may result in surprising and unforeseen consequences, which may require the reinstatement of an absolute space or "ether". How plausible are these possibilities really? Well, they are all plausible. They are not just academic possibilities. For instance, the first one is true. STR postulates a flat space-time metric, and this is explicitly contradicted by GTR, which entails a curved space-time metric. STR is empirically false, and strictly speaking, no inferences from STR are sound (since the premise is false). I will not go through all of these here: rather, the point is that I believe there is ample room for real doubt in this case. Why? Because, unlike phlogiston, the explanations in this area are still not stable scientific truths. The foundational theory of physics (in the opinion of other physicists too) is still prone to revolutionary change. The phenomenon the "ether" was meant to explain still have no conclusive causal explanations, and if the whole framework of relativity theory is disrupted, who knows what might eventuate. Now López Corredoira might say: "Yes it is academically possible, perhaps, but I still think it is highly unlikely". Fair enough. That is his intuition. We all have our intuitions. We can only state things as we see them. But with heterodox views in physics, we are talking exactly about the fact that certain possibilities remain open despite strong orthodox intuitions to the contrary. López Corredoira is a tolerant person and would likely say: "Well if you have strong arguments about such a thing, then by all means go ahead and investigate it. It is your time and effort after all." But most orthodox scientists are the opposite. They will say: "I do not want your silly ideas corrupting my science!". And if a suspicion of real doubt creeps in, their inner voice will shout: "... this heterodoxy would be a disaster for me if anything comes of it ... it will undermine my prestige ... people will question my work ... this must not be taken seriously ... at least until after my retirement ... ". What is the real subject of their science? The personal pronoun? About phlogiston, I don't think there is any plausible scientific doubt it is wrong. It has indeed become a trivial historical example. But what about 67 when we encounter more realistic heterodox beliefs – for example, closely connected to the ether example, the proposition that there may be an absolute frame of simultaneity for time, and hence, an absolute frame of rest for space? Who is going to judge such cases? Remember López Corredoira used the ether as an example that he believes is effectively beyond question. López Corredoira emphasises that such cases of heterodox theories exist – otherwise successful heterodox science, or revolutionary science, is not possible. Because he is relatively more conservative than I am about fundamental physics, or at least about relativity theory , he sees the plausible limits of heterodoxy as more limited than I do. Most orthodox physicists are far more dogmatically conservative than either of us. So again: who is going to judge such cases? What methodological principles can we use to make our pre-scientific judgements of plausibility? I do not think there are any such principles, certainly none in the practise of science. In practise today, it is left to the raw power-struggle between individuals and ideological cliques: the law of the jungle. If we do not want to live by the law of the jungle, we must instead have some principles of tolerance for ideas and beliefs of others that we do not believe in ourselves. The power brokers of modern science lack such tolerance. They wish to destroy the natural diversity of ideas, just as cultural supremacists wish to destroy the natural diversity of cultures. Heterodox water science. I mention another real recent example – an especially vivid one among a number of possible examples from recent science. I agree with the phlogiston example, that conventional chemistry has explained the phenomenon of burning adequately and robustly enough to rule out phlogiston. But how robust is conventional chemistry in general, really? What about, for instance, the theory of Brownian motion, osmosis, capillary transport, the structure of liquid water, the formation of clouds, the process of freezing, and other such common phenomenon involving water? Now the modern theories of these subjects are about 100 years old. Water, you would think, has been intensively investigated to death. If science has any claim to produce certain and stable knowledge, it should surely be written in an area such as this. And yet a revolutionary theory of water appeared in 2013 that contradicts orthodox theories on so many fundamental points it is shocking. Gerald Pollack's The Fourth Phase of Water makes astonishing claims in the context of orthodox water science – backed up by careful, replicated experiments, and many references to other heterodox and marginalised scientists. There have been many water scientists who have discovered various of these anomalous phenomenon over the decades, and advanced 68 alternative theories about water, and been professionally destroyed for their trouble. Pollack is not some marginal heterodox 'crackpot' – heterodox certainly, but he is an eminent, award-winning professor from Washington State University in Seattle, with numerous publications and his own research laboratory. He has multiple empirical demonstrations that liquid water takes on a quasi-crystalline structure, a 'fourth phase', in certain common conditions, and this state is the essential cause of numerous phenomenon, including Brownian motion, capillary action, osmosis, freezing, and many others. These are phenomenon that were assumed to have good scientific explanations already, for decades. See (Pollack, 2013, Preface, Section 1) for some account of the controversial history behind this too. I pose this as a real, recent, highly surprising example of revolutionary science. If Pollack is right, then many basic explanations given in orthodox water science, as taught for decades in high schools and universities, are fundamentally wrong; and moreover, the science has been paralysed by dogmatic intolerance – and quite deliberately so, for personal and political motives. For a personal connection to this subject, in 2014 I became intrigued by these claims, including a related controversy over effects of radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation treatment of water, which specifically goes back to a controversy over 'magnetic water memory' that started in the 1990's. Such claims are widely dismissed as 'bunk', 'crackpot', 'pseudo-science' by establishment scientists today. It is widely claimed by the 'sceptic' community that any such effects are quite impossible on the basis of known physics. (They are driven by enmity to 'alternative' health movements, fearing such results will legitimise enemies there). But the 'scientific literature' is so contradictory, polarised and biased between opposing views, that I finally decided the only way to make any realistic judgement would be to test the claim myself. I spent about three months doing a simple experiment that involved reviving about 1500 pairs of wilted dandelions in EM water treatments, to see if there are detectable effects on the speed of revival. Revival of wilted flowers involves water transport through the vascular system, and osmosis into dehydrated cells. I found strong effects on revival times, and conclude that radio frequency EM treatment of water has very distinct effects on properties of water, lasting for at least several hours. See: (WEBREF Holster (a)) for a report of the experiment and (WEBREF Holster (b)) for an account of some recent controversy. An example of results is shown in the graph insert below, comparing treated and untreated samples. I have little doubt that the EM treatment in suitable conditions has a major effects on water transport properties. 69 Experiment 2. Light, Medium and Severe Wilting. 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 1 10 19 28 37 46 55 64 73 82 91 10 0 10 9 11 8 12 7 13 6 14 5 15 4 16 3 17 2 18 1 19 0 19 9 20 8 21 7 Individual stems, ordered by revival time R ev iv al ti m e (m in s) A Treated Time: BORE + GRIT : VA BOTH B Untreated Time: BORE + GRIT : No VA That such a simple amateur experiment can empirically contradict the theoretically based opinion of orthodox scientists on the subject is a big red flashing light: the 'orthodox scientific view' has been formulated from theoretical beliefs, and lacks basic empirical verification. The familiar scientistic propaganda claiming that science is evidence-based – that scientists are constantly testing their claims beyond reasonable doubt is starkly contradicted. Scientific claims are usually based on authority. In case the reader is sceptical about this, it also recently came to light that this low-energy radio frequency treatment allows salt water to burn – apparently releasing sufficient amounts of hydrogen to create a steady flame. The EM treatment appears to cause dissociation of H2O into hydrogen and oxygen – only the second method discovered, the first being by applying electric voltage, discovered some 180-odd years earlier. " Faraday in 1831 first established that water could be dissociated in a DC electric field with hydrogen emitted at the cathode and oxygen at the anode. To the best of the authors' knowledge, besides the use of the electric field current in some form, no other vectors have been found to dissociate liquid water into hydrogen and oxygen near room temperature. The use of weak electromagnetic radiation to completely dissociate water into hydrogen and oxygen is, therefore, the key innovation discovered by Kanzius." Roy et alia, 2008, p.5. The fact this effect was not noticed until the C21st should be a scientific scandal! It also reinforces questions raised about effects of EM radiation on health. Our brains and organs are now exposed to low-energy amplitudemodulated radiation from many common electrical devices: how do we know it is safe? The main scientific argument is that the EM energy is too low to have any effects. But this argument now appears to be false. Heterodox brain science. I briefly relate a second example that I think is of personal interest to many people, especially those who have had multiple hangovers, watched a lot of daytime tv, or spent a long time in management meetings, and may be concerned that an excessive number of their neurons have perished as a result, never to be replaced. From at least the 1970's it was widely touted as scientific fact that all organs regenerate cells, except neurons in the brain. Your quota of neurons, the story went, is fixed once your brain has developed its full quota (apparently by very early childhood), and your neuron count is all downhill after that. As a young student I found this concerning; having also seen alarming estimates of the number of brain cells killed per glass of beer. I also found it odd, but I accepted it implicitly because it was repeated with 70 such scientific authority. More exactly, the claim was that the brain does not produce new neurons; and even when that began to be overthrown from the late 1990's, the claim that the human brain has no neural stem cell pathway, no way to deliver new cells to brain areas needing repair. But this has recently been dispelled as a scientific myth – after some half a century as a widely popularised Modern Science Fact. Recently Professor Richard Faull and his small research team at the University of Auckland, in collaboration with Professor Peter Eriksson and his team at the Arvid Carlsson Institute for Neuroscience, in Gothenburg, Sweden, showed that the human brain does have a pathway to deliver neural stem cells – the Rostral Migratory Pathway. This was a scientific heresy in 2007 when they submitted their findings, based on eight years of careful research, to Nature. Their landmark paper was rejected by the peer reviewers, leading authorities in brain research, who maintained this was impossible. Eventually it was accepted by Science, making the front cover (Faull et alia, 2007). What seems especially peculiar is that it was already accepted at this stage that other mammals, like rats, have a distinct pathway for neural stem cells: the human brain was considered a unique exception! Faull and his team found that the same pathway also exists in humans; it has simply been distorted a little as the brain has evolved and enlarged. It seems the longstanding myth never had any real scientific evidence in the first place. Yet many scientific experts refused to contemplate that their long-standing myth could be wrong when presented with real evidence. This kind of dogmatism, I would say, is the typical behaviour of real scientists. The fact our brain can regenerate neurons is a result that I find personally comforting, and I expect some readers will too. But the main point is that this example shows that a small team working at an obscure university even in sleepy NZ can still make radical discoveries that overthrow the orthodoxy of powerful scientific gatekeepers at prestigious international institutions. It may be hard to get such heterodox discoveries past the gatekeepers; but radical discoveries still remain to be made. This example is also interesting to me from another vantage. Brain science has a huge theoretical gap, in that there is no network model to understand the logic of neuronal wiring. There is no 'wiring model' of how neurons, which are highly interconnected, logically represent information. At least, there is no model that I am aware of. Computational scientists have long assumed that the logic of information representation in the brain will follow a digital programming logic. The simplistic assumption is that it will map to some equivalent of the Boolean logic of computer circuits. This assumption is seen repeatedly in academic discussions of artificial intelligence - "once we map the neurons of a human brain into a digital computer simulation, the computer will become intelligent and conscious in the same way as the human". 71 I sincerely doubt this is any more possible than flying pigs. There are many possible information coding methods beyond the simplistic Boolean logic of a digital computer. 'Quantum logic', using entangled quantum states, is one example of a fundamentally different kind of representational method – and proven to work technologically in the last few years. But there remains a longstanding assumption among materialists that the human brain is functionally equivalent to a classical digital computer representing a Universal Turning Machine. Turing and von Neumann were influential in establishing this idea in the early period of digital computer development, in the 1940s and '50s. This paradigm has lasted about three academic generations purely on the basis of flimsy a priori assumptions, without a shred of scientific evidence. I have come to think instead that the logical representation of information in natural systems will have a quite distinctive functional network model, based on a specific kind of lattice-like network, built on a specific type of recursive mosaic element. I have found this structure acts as a generalised information model – and one that precisely reflects Tichy's theory of recursive logical constructions. As far as I know, this kind of formal network structure, although ideal for representing Tichy's higher-level logic, and thus natural language capability, has not been considered before, either in information theory or brain science. Indeed the possibility is presently beyond the imagination of experts in these fields, because they have not yet stumbled upon the paradigmatic network model required. The Faull discovery confirms suspicions that despite impressive brain scanning technology and such like, brain science is still very primitive. I am sure there is a real possibility that such alternative network models are viable. I think progress will be limited until some such theoretical model is established. This also illustrates an important point about drawbacks of scientific specialisation. Such network models can be conceived as abstract structures by mathematical logicians. Information theory and brain science are driven in their different ways by applied scientists (computer scientists, neuroscientists), with only a limited vocabulary of such models to bring to the party. Few genuine mathematical logicians will cross the boundaries into these disciplines – and few computer scientists or brain scientists will learn the advanced mathematical logics required. An outsider proposing a novel underlying mathematical model will have great difficulty being taken seriously in such subjects. Professional opposition to outsiders crossing boundaries of specialisations is one of the defining features of modern science, and one of the most powerful forces against heterodox thinkers. But combining insights from multiple fields is often the essential ingredient for making progress. In any event, brain science, cognitive science and information science are still in their infancy, and there will be major theoretical revolutions – and philosophical revelations before good, stable scientific explanations of 72 cognitive abilities can be claimed in these fields. This is a huge area of real importance and interest for the immediate future. The prospect of revolutionary science. Pollack of 'exclusion zone water' fame has also started an Institute for Venture Science (WEBREF), specifically to fund high-risk, revolutionary research proposals. He has a simple, sensible, and clearly stated practical philosophy in place for his own research laboratory. But most important, he has the conviction that revolutionary scientific ideas remain a realistic prospect. By contrast, I think López Corredoira's suggestions that most scientific gold in the natural sciences has been mined, and there is not much of real significance left to find, is too conservative. The example of a new age of water science is a striking example, and I think that foundational science in many domains is far more dubious than orthodox scientists generally think is possible. This is especially true of foundational physics, which prescribes a framework of possibilities for other natural sciences. The situation to my mind is now very similar to that at the end of the C19th, when classical physics appeared to most scientists as the fundamentally correct foundational theory of nature. Lord Kelvin, one of the greatest scientists of the final era of classical physics, is often mistakenly quoted as declaring foundational physics to be settled in the 1880's. This is unsubstantiated, but other physicists, like Michelson, made such declarations, and it was a common article of faith in the final phase of classical mechanics that the classical foundation for physics was final and irrevocable. In the same period, similar sentiments were expressed that mathematics was effectively complete, and others thought that all useful technology had been invented, and suggested closing patent offices. How wrong can you be? These sentiments were expressed by leading scientists of the day. We might think this view was justified at the time, but closer inspection shows that such opinions were completely unfounded on the basis of available evidence. By the 1890's, classical physics was fraught with unresolved anomalies, and classical physics actually left the vast bulk of familiar phenomenon without any real explanation – it left almost every detail of atomic structure and chemistry, optics, electromagnetism, astronomy and cosmology unexplained. Science in 1890 was profoundly ignorant of practically everything we would come to take for granted over succeeding decades – including electrons, protons and neutrons, sub-atomic structure, Plank's constant h and quantum theory, radioactivity, relativity theory, the strong and weak nuclear forces (two of only four fundamental forces known today), the energy source of stars, the existence of galaxies, the expanding universe and Big Bang cosmology, the vast bulk of modern medical science, the vast bulk of cellular 73 biology and genetics, the vast bulk of chemistry and materials science, tectonic plate theory and continental drift, geological processes and the internal structure and age of the Earth, genetics and detailed mechanisms of evolution; the list goes on indefinitely. We easily forget how recent all the major discoveries of science are. How could the late-C19th scientists be so wrong – and so blind to the glaring gaps in their account of nature? It is partly because of a mistaken arrogance, found in all ages of modern scientific culture, that we now represent the most sophisticated culmination of knowledge in history. It is also because of a particular arrogance among physicists about the finality of foundational theories of physics. Scientists had developed a powerful belief in classical physics as the foundational framework, translated into a misguided dogma that all phenomenon must ultimately be explained in such terms as classical atoms interacting through classical forces in classical space and time. Shortly afterwards, physics began on the path to a profound revolution. This was advanced by a tiny group of heterodox physicists, resisted by the orthodox professors of the time. My view, that science is far more vulnerable to revolutionary change today than orthodox scientists think, is partly because I believe foundational physics of our day is overdue for another fundamental revolution. Its vastly overcomplicated and paradoxical theoretical superstructure will collapse, and be replaced by a radically different conception of nature as a whole. It is also partly because I believe that the simplistic materialist 'scientific world view', which still dominates the scientific imagination in the same form as it did at the end of the C19th, is radically wrong as a vision of nature and certainly wrong as a vision of scientific method. It is based on a simplistic idea of the part-whole structure of objects, and a simplistic idea of the causal connectivity found in nature. The materialist paradigm explains nothing about mind and consciousness, and yet these are intrinsic to the natural world. An account of nature that leaves them out cannot be taken seriously as a basis for a comprehensive metaphysical belief system, such as ideological materialists prescribe. I believe science must undergo a radical transformation to incorporate mind into its theories. When scientists are forced to look again at the real world, instead of at their text-books, they will find that what they thought was a mechanical world is really more like a magic reality. In fact, a transformation of scientific metaphysics has already begun, through quantum mechanics. QM shows the world is interrelated in ways that are commonly described by leading physicists as 'weird', 'magical', 'spooky', or simply incomprehensible. This 'weirdness' has led to numerous conflicting interpretations of what quantum mechanics means – what it implies about the nature of reality. Some interpretations are metaphysically very radical. The best example is Everett's 'many worlds' quantum theory, which holds that the world continuously divides into an infinity of different 74 realities, and that everything physically possible happens in some world. There is no longer a single actual world being realised from among the host of possible futures: every possible future relative to our present state will happen. The division of worlds happens every time a microscopic probabilistic quantum event – a 'collapse of the wave function' – occurs. This is one of the most radical metaphysical visions ever seriously contemplated in science or philosophy. Nonetheless it is a brilliant piece of creative scientific speculation, and is taken very seriously by many physicists. But it sparks strong emotions, and most physicists today would still scoff at it (as if they personally know the answers to these controversies that the leading specialists admit to being baffled by). Its initial reception in physics was scorn by the dominant Positivists, and it took some decades to achieve any recognition. But whatever the resolution turns out to be, quantum mechanics shows empirically and theoretically that the physical universe is far weirder than 'scientific common sense' of today can imagine. What practically every specialist in the field agrees on is that quantum mechanics cannot be simply reconciled with our 'common sense' vision of classical materialist reductionism. Yet the latter persists as the archetypal metaphysical vision among the large majority of scientific materialists. Equally, attempts to reconcile quantum theory with relativity theory have led thousands of leading mathematical physicists to believe in string theory, which postulates that physical space has nine or ten dimensions, instead of just the three dimensions we see. It must be emphasised that string theory is only a mathematical speculation, not an empirical theory of physics. It has no empirical evidence, and it has appeared for many years now to be a failed research program. Nonetheless it is a profound idea, and the prospect that space is multi-dimensional must be taken seriously. The failure of string theory may give multi-dimensional space a bad reputation – especially because string theorists themselves dogmatically maintain their theory is only realistic possibility of this kind. But there are many other possibilities for a hyper-dimensional model of the universe, overlooked because of string theory and I believe many features of modern physics indicate that the dimensionality of space must be generalised. Again physicists have strong personal opinions on this subject. Personally I think it would be very surprising if space turned out to be only three dimensional, as it appears to us phenomenologically just as it would have been very surprising if the phenomenal material substances (like stone, wood, water, snow, clouds, air, blood, flesh, leaves, gold, copper, iron, etc) that appear as natural categories to our senses, had turned out to be the fundamental types of matter. I do not believe in string theory, but I think that space is multi-dimensional, and this will be the most radical scientific revolution of all time, because we will discover there is far more of the structure of the universe hidden in the hyper-dimensions than revealed to 75 our senses or to reductionist physics. Just as microscopes revealed an astonishing world of structure in the realm of the very small, crawling with microscopic life, eventually fundamental physics will reveal an equally astonishing structure in other dimensions of space, rich with order and information. And I believe this must be central to consciousness too; showing that the present materialistic paradigm is as misguided as classical atomism was. Because of the number of severe and unexplained anomalies in modern physics and cosmology, foundational physics is open to revolutionary change. Indeed, I believe it would have gone through such a revolution over the last few decades, were it not for the severe repression of ideas in modern physics. And any such revolution will deeply affect other natural sciences, including theories of mind. Yet while I believe a revolution is immanent, I also think it is unlikely to be made through our present scientific institutions. It will be made by outsiders. The new approach required to advance physics will be attacked from within conventional physics, because it has to revolutionise certain foundational concepts of quantum theory and relativity theory, but this goes profoundly against the interests of professional physicists. Having painted themselves into a corner, prominent scientists cannot emotionally afford to allow new ideas they have ridiculed to be recognised. They have too much to lose personally. And this brings us to the second crux of the problem. Scientists typically complain of the bureaucratisation of their subject, and of attacks on science by forces of 'pseudo-science' and anti-scientific culture from outside. But the greatest enemy of science is from within: the bigotry and mediocrity in the professional culture of science. The scope of science. One important subject that López Corredoira does not talk about much is the scope of science: the different kinds of sciences, the different roles and functions of science. He focuses mainly on pure sciences, using physical or natural sciences (physics, astronomy, biology) as core examples. He is most concerned at how the bastions of pure science have been corrupted, in spirit and practice. But the vastly expanded scope of science in the modern world is central to understanding its death-spiral into mediocrity, and the corruption of its values and quality. I briefly talk about this as part of the broader social context. Science like art has a number of different functions, and is seen in quite different ways by different people and in different sub-cultures. As broad categories we can identify the following. 76 (i) The non-scientific public including corporate executives and government bureaucrats, financiers and politicians, the sub-cultures of power, business and finance – have little knowledge of science, and see it in a cartoon-like image as technology. (ii) Applied scientists usually see its function as accumulating factual knowledge in their specialist domains, providing an authoritative system of proven beliefs, and enabling technologies. (iii) 'Pure scientists' in more abstract fields, notably theoretical physicists and cosmology, as well as some chemists, evolutionists and microbiologists, often see its function as discovering knowledge of 'fundamental natural laws', describing the 'essence of physical reality', including the nature of life. But specialist researchers in the pure and applied sciences rarely work on anything outside their own specialisations, and often take their own field as representative of the scientific model. They often deprecate other fields of science. (iv) Generalist science teachers and educators usually have broader views, presenting science as a general method of enquiry, that can be adapted to multiple fields of knowledge. But they teach from textbooks, rely on scientific authority, and usually have little first-hand experience of scientific research or discovery. Thus while they emphasise the source of scientific belief as experiment and observation, they are prone to actually teaching science in a dogmatised fashion, as a set of established scientific facts within a curriculum. Of course students in science classes are rarely actually doing science, they are learning what has been done before. (v) Scientistic propagandists are a special prominent group today, preaching 'science' as the final and ultimate form of knowledge, and seeking to replace philosophy, metaphysics, religion, and other traditional systems of meaning, with their own brand of 'scientific metaphysics', combining materialism, reductionism, positivism, nihilism, atheism and an intellectual elitism. They have gained the central power within scientific culture over recent decades, and now have unprecedented influence over the presentation of science, proliferating books, documentaries, magazines, journalism and internet blogs. (vi) Most other intellectuals, outside science – writers, dramatists, artists, anthropologists, social and political philosophers, political economists, historians, educationalists, journalists, moral philosophers, metaphysical philosophers, theologians, social activists, psychologists, spiritualists see science as having a limited sphere of validity. Most feel naturalistic science has little to say directly about larger questions of morality, value, political 77 organisation, economics, social justice, art and aesthetics, spirituality and meaning. Many today have become negative about science. Many ordinary people today also see science negatively, as a set of dogmas preached by elitist academics, and used to attack their own social, moral, religious or spiritual beliefs. Thus there is a wide spectrum of beliefs about what science is and what it means – and not just by the general public, but in different scientific and intellectual sub-cultures. Science as technology is of course the stereotypical image in our culture. Think of all those TV ads for toothpaste, cars, tyres, breakfast cereals, painkillers ... with people in white laboratory coats representing Scientific Authority. Science is often proclaimed as the modern cornucopia, giving us all sorts of consumer goodies, medical technologies, weapon technologies, etc. That is the function that makes sense of science to bureaucrats and executives and marketers. After all, if science doesn't give us new technology to increase production, new power to dominate nature, new ways to increase consumption, then how is it going to make money or enhance power? And if it doesn't make money or power, what value could it possibly have? "What is it going to do for me?" is what people in our modern ego-centred culture instinctively ask. Few people are really interested in knowledge for its own sake: most are satisfied they already understand the nature of the world perfectly well without reference to science. For most, it is not science but social ideologies that define their meaning and values and importance. The rich and powerful also resent the potential of science to question their beliefs, which are already fixed to their satisfaction, and see it primarily as a technology factory, enhancing their material wealth or power. But of course that is a purely exploitative materialistic view of science. It ignores the real transformational power of knowledge. This modern corruption of science to a technology slave already sounds alarm-bells. Roman civilisation gives us a powerful image of the dead-end of technology when it is isolated from 'pure science'. The Romans inherited science and natural philosophy from the Greeks (and other cultures). They established a technological civilisation of great power from this, with an Empire based on bureaucracy, law and order, material comfort and military security. But they failed to develop pure science – or natural philosophy – any further, and that fundamentally limited their technology. They were on the cusp of developing modern science, with its advanced technology of complex machinery, steam power, metallurgy, electricity, crop science, medicines, etc, but they failed to take the opportunity. Their materialistic, hedonistic, militaristic, technocratic culture killed openness to intellectual discovery, as exemplified by the Classical Greeks. The Romans thought they knew it all already. They came to exemplify an extreme and fatal arrogance. 78 Our own materialistic culture, the global syndrome of the modern West, resembles the Roman arrogance. Technology is enabled by pure science, as the by-product of intellectual discovery: the result of a deeper understanding of causality. The deeper technological implications are rarely envisioned when new science is being discovered. For the most iconic example of our time, atomic weapons of mass destruction, developed in the 1940's by the US, were enabled in theory by the abstract relationship we know as: E=mc2, first proposed by Oliver Heaviside in 1889, and famously established as a general law of physics by Einstein in 1905. But for the next three decades after this equivalence of mass and energy was established, no one dreamed that the energy locked up in fundamental particle masses could be harnessed to create the most destructive weapons in history. The same is true of every major branch of pure science: physics, chemistry, geology, biology, genetics, and so on. They all began as discoveries of abstract knowledge, long before their insights gave rise to practical technologies. Science starts with the development of knowledge, understanding, comprehension, insight, explanation – ephemeral and unquantifiable goods. Such knowledge provides a platform to understand the deeper possibilities inherent in nature, leading to a new mastery of cause and effect, which can be exploited for practical goals. But pure science rarely originates as technology goals. For discoveries about the possibilities inherent in nature cannot be prescribed, like product developments. You can demand that your technologists (using their scientific training and scientific knowledge) develop a more powerful bomb, a new vaccine, or find a way to reduce cattle flatulence (a top priority scientific project in NZ). But they have to start from a place defined by present science. You can't demand that your scientists develop an antigravity compound, or find a new fundamental force, or create a new form of energy any more than you can demand that your explorers discover a new continent. You can only discover what the fundamental forces are, you can't develop new ones. You might discover an 'anti-gravity compound', but only if the possibility for such a thing actually exists in nature – which on the basis of present fundamental physics is unlikely – but who knows what will happen in a new unified theory? But in any case, you are not going to develop such a thing directly from a 'technology project' – there is only a potential to discover it indirectly, by first discovering a deeper set of natural laws than we presently know. When the function of developing knowledge is overridden by the function of developing products for money and power, the ideal of science as knowledge is lost, and the organisation of scientific research is lobotomised. This is the reality today. Modern bureaucracy, politics and business controls the funding and goals of science, and the arrogance and ignorance of authorities in these 79 domains is partly responsible for the decline of science as a form of knowledge. But that is hardly news: every genuine scientist of every era has probably lamented this corruption; and a significant number of executives and politicians and bureaucrats also understand the importance of pure science as a form of knowledge, too. Pure science today commands huge resources, in name at least. Not everyone is so crass as to think science is purely utilitarian. Science has had many benefactors from business tycoons, aristocrats, and politicians in the past and present. The utilitarian force for the corruption of science has always been with us, but science has survived for three hundred years in the present era. What is fatal today is the combination of such forces with the corruption of pure science from within its own ranks: its corruption as an open domain of knowledge by the scientific community itself. When we consider the most central function of science, as a domain of knowledge, the striking feature is its vast expansion over the last century. From roughly the start of the C20th, core natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, geology) expanded to take in social sciences, political sciences, psychological sciences, anthropological sciences, business sciences, computer sciences, information sciences, sports sciences, media sciences ... By the mid-twentieth century, it seemed that every domain of human activity could be turned into a 'science'. This also reflects the idea that science is not limited to a naturalistic subject matter, but is characterised by a generic method of investigating and organising knowledge. Natural sciences led the way, but soon any systematic and methodical investigation into any subject became claimed as a 'science'. Thus we now have 'sciences' of sports, war, law, business, farming, marketing, politicking, sales, management, and everything else under the sun. We must wonder whether this generic extension of science to cover every activity is realistic. Is there really a 'science of management'? Or a 'science of business'? Or a 'science of war'? Certainly there are principles and techniques that can improve our performance in these areas. But how does that count as science? Indeed, are the 'social sciences' really science? 'Political science'? 'Economic science'? 'Sociology'? 'History'? Their methods are very different to the natural sciences. They are similar up to a point: they set up systems of technical concepts, and sometimes attempt to make models, and try to measure some things. But does that make them 'sciences'? The big difference with the natural sciences is that their subject matter is itself a result of human artifice: they describe systems of human organisation, cultural constructions and ideologies, deliberately created by conventions of law and social agreement, and varying from culture to culture. Are there really 'scientific generalisations' or 'laws' about such things? Well, the 'social sciences' so far are very unsuccessful in producing theories of any predictive or explanatory power. They lack causal explanations, and they lack clear ontologies (models; systems of theoretical entities). Theories 80 of social science or business or economics are intimately tied up with ideologies or 'philosophies', with social interpretation. How exactly is 'political science', for example, separable from 'political philosophy' or 'political history'? How do historical explanations, which appeal to motives and goals and intentions behind human actions, count as scientific explanations? Where are the counterfactually valid causal laws of history, sociology, economics? Such laws really don't exist. Once we go outside the core natural sciences, and into social sciences, what we have are culturally relative frameworks for the description and interpretation of complex high-level systems of behaviour. Of course these subjects can benefit by an application of scientific discipline, but that doesn't make them into 'sciences'. Rather, they use some 'scientific' techniques, but their central modes of thought are not 'scientific' in the normal sense: for the subjective realities they deal with cannot be 'scientifically' objectified. This is not to say that subjective realities cannot have objective descriptions – of course they can – cognitive psychology is about such things. Rather, what is important and meaningful to us in these domains are interpretations and judgements based intrinsically on subjective points of view – subjective human points of view. By the mid-C20th, it became a fad to call every realm of interest a 'science', but it is misleading. All the 'social sciences' require judgement of values and ideologies and psychology; subjective interpretations through our empathic understanding of human motives and behaviours; teleological explanations in terms of goals and aims. They are closer in many respects to literary interpretation or historical interpretation than to the natural sciences. Indeed, the best work in 'sociology' to my mind is presented through novels and drama. I feel that good social novels give me a better intellectual understanding of past culture and society than practically all the millions of academic papers churned out as 'sociological research' in conformity to a fake quasi-scientific tradition. Over the first half of the C20th, science become a victim of its own popular success – or its own propaganda. It had grown in popular credibility over the previous century to become a positive term for a progressive system of knowledge that was carefully worked out, and systematically verified by experts, and so on. The function of the modern Oracle. Science became very much the authority against superstition and bigotry. It became a force for enlightened civilisation, for progress. But it overreached itself, and the scientific outlook, where science informed popular opinion about social, medical and technological issues soon enough turned into the scientistic world view, where scientific opinion is used to prescribe beliefs about the nature of reality, meaning and purpose, taking over the role of philosophy, mythology and religion of past eras. Instead of remaining a specialist sphere of human activity, suited primarily to studying objective questions about 81 nature, and informing social debate with reason and evidence, it turned into an ideology of its own, as its proponents began to claim the 'scientific method' as the only legitimate method of obtaining knowledge about anything. We can see two major effects in the second half of the C20th. First, the sheer proliferation of 'sciences' and expansion of the 'scientific professions' led to a mechanical specialisation into trivialities for their own sake, and a degradation of intellectual quality – the kinds of degradation that López Corredoira describes. It is as if we expanded the number of professional athletes from a few thousand to a few million – and paid them all comfortable salaries, regardless of their performance. Or likewise with musical composers, or artists – domains with critical performance quality, where a few gifted persons clearly outshine everyone else in quality. What would be the result of rampant proliferation of these fields? Severe decline in quality of course. This decline of quality is fatal for science. Universities and research institutes are now swamped with incompetent academics who en masse destroy quality. Science and academia in general today is dominated by the equivalent of karaoke bar singers and Sunday social football players. If you add such people into professional bands or professional football teams, they do not enhance power by adding numbers: they destroy quality. Likewise the huge amassment of numbers does not add to the creative power of science: it destroys it. Many physical scientists (typically physicists and chemists) also criticise other sciences – economics, social sciences, and the like – as failures of quality. Well, they are failures as pure sciences, if taken on the model of physics – because their subject matter is far more difficult than that of physics. But the same critics also express scientistic sentiments that only the scientific method can provide any valid form of knowledge. So on the one hand, they see social science as the only valid form of knowledge about society – and yet they denigrate the achievements of social science in practice. They are often very mocking about subjects outside their own – they are elitists. They will reject social science as science because of its failure. But this is surely hypocritical. If science provides the valid method for developing knowledge, then why hasn't it worked for social sciences too? If science is meant to be a universal method for successful research, you can't just pick the areas where it has worked and call them 'sciences' and pick the areas where is has failed and call them 'nonsciences'. The scientistic elitists tend to blame researchers in other disciplines, and denigrate their efforts. The problem, they think, is that these other areas attract poor scientists – only their own disciplines, of physics and chemistry, produce the 'intellectual geniuses' of science. But this is nonsense. Economics, social sciences and humanities attract just as much 'intellectual genius' as the pure physical sciences. Given 'economic science' has failed for 100 years, surely we must ask: does the scientific method work? There is no point 82 making the excuse that it wasn't done right. If it doesn't work for human scientists in practice, then it doesn't work. If it doesn't work except in the hands of rare geniuses then how is it a systematic method of enquiry? I turn now to the hypocritical attitude of scientism. Scientific bigotry and the scientistic ideology. A major phenomenon of modern science is the dominance of a popularist scientistic ideology within the scientific professions. The project of expanding 'science' to cover every domain of human activity is reflected in the juvenile ideology that science is the only valid form of knowledge. This gave rise to the distinctly modern 'scientistic world view', based on a prescription of materialism, reductionism, nihilism and atheism as a 'scientific philosophy', and belief that these ideas should also dominate theories of value and ethics, economics and politics, metaphysics and religion – thereby making these subjects 'scientifically valid'. This scientistic ideology has gained increasing popularity within mainstream science today, and combines a number of ideologies – or what may be called secular theologies. One is empiricist epistemology, the banal idea that physical observation, measurement and experiment is the sole basis for real knowledge. A second is materialist reductionism, the idea that the only real things are material, and consequently all domains of enquiry and understanding must be reduced to materialist terms to be meaningful. A third is nihilism, the belief that value, morality, and purpose are subjective illusions, or social conventions, and have no objective reality, as they do not reduce to a material reality. A fourth is atheism, in recent decades expanded into a militant movement, culminating in the 'New Atheist' attack on religions and spiritual beliefs generally. This attitude is expressed in attacks on moral philosophy, metaphysics, religion and spiritual belief in the name of science. These are attacked because they provide competing forms of intellectual authority to materialistic scientism, and encourage realism about mind, value, ethics, morality and purpose in nature. Here we see science flagrantly overreaching itself, and becoming increasingly arrogant, dogmatic and authoritarian. The foundational movements in C20th philosophy of science – logical positivism, empiricism, instrumentalism, behaviourism, reductionism, nihilism, all various forms of anti-realism are central props for the explosion of the scientistic ideology we see today. As apologetics for science, the 'scientific philosophies' provide legitimacy for the increasing arrogance of an authoritarian scientific culture. Thus we see science turn from a legitimate domain of enquiry into nature, and become trapped by a metaphysical ideology: the scientistic world view. This 83 thrives today within scientific institutions – it has become the norm of science educators, journalists, broadcasters and academics. A typical prominent example of this is Leonard Mlodinow, with statements reeking of arrogant condescension like this: "I don't normally quote long-dead physicists, for a couple of reasons. For one, unlike religion, physics doesn't put much weight on authority. Certainly physicists listen carefully to the arguments of brilliant colleagues, but then we check their equations. More important, because science marches forward, every decent physics graduate student today knows far more than Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Bohr, Planck, Einstein, or any other pioneer of quantum theory ever knew about quantum theory, or any other fundamental theory in physics." Leonard Mlodinow in Mlodinow and Chopra, 2011, P. 98. Mlodinow is an archetype of the extreme 'scientistic evangelist', and his statements here are quite absurd if you stop to think about them for a moment. Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Bohr, Planck, Einstein were among the most brilliant scientific minds of any age; they discovered and developed the concepts of quantum mechanics for themselves, and they spent their whole lives thinking very deeply about the conceptual problems involved. Einstein et alia are a couple of standard deviations ahead in creative intellect than Mlodinow and his 'decent graduate students': you don't make up that kind of intellectual gulf by any amount of text-book learning! Mlodinow's statement that "every decent physics graduate student today knows far more than Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Bohr, Planck, Einstein, or any other pioneer of quantum theory ever knew about quantum theory, or any other fundamental theory in physics" seems so ignorant that it is hard to credit. He makes this ridiculous statement because he is imagining physics as a simple accumulation of facts – of scientific truths. He wants to make the point that science progresses, but he lacks the subtlety to articulate it in any reasonable manner, and he lacks the insight and honesty to see that physics has deep conceptual problems. So he ends up making a strident statement denigrating the greatest scientists in the field in trying to claim supremacy for his own knowledge. A recent physics graduate should indeed know more facts about certain things today than scientists 50 years ago – e.g. about the families of subatomic particles, discovered by modern particle accelerators – but this does not constitute knowledge and understanding of the fundamental concepts and conceptual problems that beset theoretical physics today. Most physics graduates have specialised into narrow domains, and remain ignorant of areas outside that; they have spent years memorising 'facts' and rehearsing known solutions to text-book problems in their sub-domains, but they have very little opportunity to contemplate the deep conceptual problems of physics – 84 and especially not if they have teachers like Mlodinow, intolerant of conceptual questions. By the time they become graduates themselves, they have generally had all the intellectual curiosity beaten out them. In reality, Einstein, Schrodinger, et alia – and we can add Paul Dirac and David Bohm as two other pioneers of modern physics who were profound critical thinkers uncovered fundamental conceptual problems in the heart of physics that deeply disturbed them, and remain unsolved. These conceptual problems challenge the positivistic ideology espoused by technocrats like Mlodinow. He wants to discredit their critical and philosophical views as being unworthy of attention because he cannot understand them himself, and these thinkers all became highly critical of the shallow scientific positivism in quantum mechanics that he supports. There are many prominent scientists with the same extreme scientistic attitudes as Mlodinow – Richard Dawkins, Peter Atkins, Daniel Dennett, Lawrence Krauss, Stephen Hawking are prominent examples. They are high priests of 'New Atheism'. These people should be regarded as a disgrace to atheism itself, because they have advanced a false view of science in an attempt to force their own pseudo-religious view on society. It is important to separate religion from science and politics – not to conflate them. This scientistic movement is comparable to the rise of fundamentalist religious ideologies. Scientistic ideology has been deliberately politicised and emotionalised, and reaches its most reactionary form through militant groups like the 'guerrilla sceptics', an intellectual terrorist gang specialising in internet attacks on dissenting thinkers; or in the silliness of the 'Brights', a cringingly geekish atheist club. The scientistic ideology now has huge influence over scientific media, with its language of scientistic faith becoming the editorial stock-in-trade of publications, from popular magazines like Scientific American to serious journals like Nature and Science. You have to speak in the scientistic rap to become the editor of an orthodox science journal today. The leaders of this ideology are notably ignorant of philosophy and history, but they do understand one principle very well: the power of personal ridicule and abuse of opponents as a propaganda weapon. Thus the 'scientific philosophy' that started way back in the Enlightenment as a positive force for realism and sanity, has ended up becoming a self-destructive ideology, a virulent nihilistic metaphysics, led by atheist propagandists. The community of 'scientistic atheists' is philosophically and socially naïve in the extreme – the equivalent of extreme religious fundamentalists on the opposite side of the spectrum. The 'science wars' they have created, of 'science versus religion', does huge damage to the image of science in the general community. This radicalised scientistic movement is now widely popularised through 'sceptic' and 'debunker' communities that spawn across the internet on 'science community sites'. They attract immature science students and immature academics. They 85 worship the authority of science, and their stock insult is to brand opponents as pseudo-scientists, the equivalent of religious blasphemers. This movement is a betrayal of the very spirit of science itself, which originally sought to separate objective and dispassionate evaluation of factual questions about the natural world from emotive and political and metaphysical judgements. The scientistic movements of our day, spawned from within mainstream scientific institutions – by science academics, teachers and philosophers radicalising their students – seeks to emotionalise the debates about philosophical and scientific issues, to demonise their opponents, using a stock vocabulary of contempt and ridicule; the common tricks of political ideology. The rise of modern 'sceptic' groups is a prime example of the power of propaganda. The term 'scepticism' has reversed its traditional meaning, of questioning theories and claims made on the basis of authority, and demanding an evaluation of evidence, and come to mean the opposite: insisting on positive belief in materialism and atheism as ultimate 'scientific truths'. This extends into attacks on any genuinely sceptical heterodox challenges to conventional scientific authority. We now find virulent scientistic dogmatism popularised as 'scepticism' in numerous subjects. Bloggers in this sphere eagerly denounce independent intellectuals as 'pseudo-scientists'. This is their signature phrase: every heterodox idea is attacked as pseudo-science. You only have to sound suggestive of having an open mind about subjects like electromagnetic effects on water , alternative health and medicine, organic farming, alternative archaeology, theories of mind and consciousness, the completeness of evolutionary theory, non-materialist metaphysics, psi phenomenon, nonterrestrial origins of life, ufos and aliens, mysterious creatures like Big Foot, homeopathy, not to mention spirituality, God, religion or mysticism, to be branded as a 'pseudo scientist' and become an object of sceptical contempt. And yet these subjects of attack either lie outside scientific evaluation at all and depend on personal experience and faith – like beliefs in God and spirituality – or they provide challenging examples of perplexing empirical phenomenon that science has been unable to resolve – areas where science has so far failed to establish conclusive explanations or consensus including the explanation of consciousness, esp, psychic phenomenon, NDEs (near death experiences), the origin of life, the existence of aliens. The pathetic quality of sceptic and debunker material is well illustrated by the following extract. 86 New Age Atheism: The New Frontier of Scientific Ideology http://www.ted.com/conversations/16141/new_age_atheism_the_new_front.html There is criteria which one should follow in order to be a neoatheist: *Understanding science, rel igion, supernatural and atheism ~Science is trying to figure out what is true through methods of logic and rationality, while religion does the same thing but through dogmas and old scriptures. ~Supernatural is the silly notion things cannot be explained by science but religion, and sometimes pseudoscience (which is fake science). ~Atheism is the lack of belief in deities ~Religions are the enemy. Buddhism gets a pass because they are hardly a religion more of a philosophy. *Make sure to know prope r arguments to distinguish atheism from religion: ~"So by the lack of belief in God, I have a belief? So my lack of belief in Santa Claus is "Aclausian?" ~"Is being bold, a hairstyle?" ~"The television being off, a channel?" *Check out Dawkins, Rosenberg, Dennet and Harris: ~These guys pave the way for what it is be a rational, logical and non dogmatic person. ~They demonstrate how belief in a God is just nonsensical through s cience! ~They prove logic is EVERYTHING to how to think properly. *Being militant does not mean physical actions ~Only extremist harm others for their beliefs, and since we have none there is no need for violence. ~Never allow 'faith' to be an acceptable reason for the other person to avoid an argu ment. ~Don't be afraid to debate, you are right! Religion is a destructive practice! ~The burden of proof is on those who claim truth! Always keep in mind something a leader of our movement had to say, which proves powerful: That which can be asserte d without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. Christopher Hitchens Let's how a strong discussion here on what it REALLY means to be the neo atheist everyone should be! As an active blogger and forum user to discuss new age atheism, there are a couple of websites I can share. Once a week we have a podcast for lectures with live com menting! Join in the movement! Related Talks: Richard Dawkins: Militant atheism Alain de Botton: Atheism Nicholas Lukowiak B e lleville, NJ United States You might think this is just some purile rant by a crackpot science student. But it is a very popular leading conversation piece from TED Conversations – it came up as the third Google search result on 'New Atheism and Science'. This excerpt is representative of the dismal quality of thousands of such 'conversations' carrying on in 'science blogger' forums. These forums have become very popular with science students and academics seeking validation for a belief system. This is also a very mild piece compared to levels of abuse often found on sceptic and debunker sites. The scientistic sentiment dotes on the authority of orthodox materialistic science, and denigrates entire subjects and domains it is prejudiced against. The hit-list of 'pseudo-scientific subjects' is steadily extended, to rule out more 87 and more traditional questions of philosophy, and rule out sceptical doubts about present scientific certainties. Of special interest to me is the encroachment of this kind of ideology into the philosophy of time, one of most poorly understood subjects of modern philosophy, where the central question is about the nature of time flow and temporal directionality. In the philosophy of physics, there are now powerful attempts to denigrate questions about time flow to the status of 'meaningless metaphysics'. Most of the leading authorities from the philosophy of science now ridicule it as a pseudo-scientific concept. The concepts of past, present and future, so deeply embedded in our language, and universal to our experience of existence as temporal, are ridiculed as pseudoscientific and nonsensical by leading physicists and philosophers of science. Beyond any arguments about specific ideas, this is a deep mistake about the nature of science itself. It is not subject matter per se that defines science: it is method and principles. You cannot possibly define science by prescribing subject matter unless you believe science is finished, because new science introduces new subjects and concepts. Science can study false beliefs as well as true ones – being discovered to be false does not turn a theory into 'pseudoscience'. You can do a 'scientific study' of Santa Claus if you want. "Oh that is surely meaningless pseudo-science, everyone knows Santa Claus doesn't exist!" Well, I agree that Santa doesn't exist: and that is the factual conclusion you should reach when you objectively evaluate the evidence. But this conclusion is not 'pseudo-science' – it is a factual claim, just too trivial to count as significant knowledge for adults. And in fact, everyone doesn't know it – there are millions of pre-school children who don't know it. For them, it becomes a serious problem of empirical belief when they come to question it. Indeed, it is an iconic intellectual puzzle for young children in the West. They must engage their rationality to decide what to believe about Santa. More significantly and controversially, you can do a scientific study of esp or psychic phenomenon. A number of serious scientists have. "Oh that is pseudo-science, done by crackpots, everyone knows esp doesn't exist!" the sceptics will angrily retort. Well, first of all, everyone doesn't know that, and the empirical evidence is actually very difficult to judge. It is not a pseudoscientific question: it is a perfectly real question, and one that prima facie should be able to be studied scientifically. "But it is pseudo-science because esp would contradict fundamental physics! It appeals to mystical powers!" cries the sceptic. But that is wrong. As a widely reported empirical phenomenon, esp does not necessarily imply 'mystical powers' at all, any more than consciousness itself does. If the phenomenon of information transfer by esp was strongly empirically verified, many scientists would expect it have a purely naturalistic explanation – they would look for causal connections beyond the normal senses. Of course it would raise questions about the nature of consciousness, and it would encourage some to propose 'mystical' or non88 materialist explanations. But consciousness simply is mysterious anyway; and if esp was validated, finding an explanation would be a genuine challenge to materialist science. A non-materialist explanation may still be causal. The sceptics' claim that esp is impossible because it would 'contradict fundamental physics' is a characteristic fallacy. When exactly did scientists establish that it contradicts fundamental physics? The year 1600? But no scientists had any real idea of what fundamental physics allows as possible at all then. By 1700? But no scientists had any scientific idea of the nature of life then, let alone any idea of the functioning of the brain or consciousness. By 1800? But as well as the previous lack, there was not even a theory of electromagnetism then – Coulomb's description of the static electric force was only a decade old, there was no theory of magnetism, and there was no idea that electromagnetic radiation could be used for communication-at-adistance. By 1900? But no scientists had any idea of quantum theory then, with its strange and 'spooky' effects that are central to every detailed phenomenon of chemistry. By 1950? But there was still no understanding by then of two of the four present fundamental forces, or of quarks, or of the 'Standard Model' of particle physics and forces – how could anyone know if there might be some other fundamental interaction that could be involved in consciousness, and potentially give rise to esp? From our present point of view, no scientist could have realistic arguments to rule out esp on the grounds of fundamental physics until at very least the 1960s-70s. And in fact, fundamental physics is still so incomplete today that it rules out nothing conclusive about the possibility of esp. Indeed, the vast majority of 'sceptics' who would claim esp is ruled out by 'fundamental physics' have no understanding of fundamental physics themselves. This opinion is based purely on science gossip. It is parroting authority. The only meaningful scientific evidence for or against esp has to be direct evidence of phenomenon, such as evidence from replicated scientific attempts to try demonstrate esp effects under controlled conditions. Sceptics typically appeal to 'fundamental facts of physics' to attack threatening concepts, ignoring the scientific principle that empirical evidence of phenomenon has to be more primary than theoretical arguments. Whenever you read claims by sceptics that some phenomenon or other is 'ruled out as impossible by basic physics', you are almost always having the wool pulled over your eyes. The typical contemptuous attitudes towards esp, alternative health, and a host of other scientific border-line subjects, illustrates how a dogmatic bigotry in the name of science, and a hypocritical attitude to scientific principles, has become dominant within mainstream science culture. It also illustrates a culture of extreme judgementalness. 'Sceptics' present it as stupid and despicable to believe in certain concepts – or even to rationally question them or discuss them. By making such claims they back themselves into a corner: 89 when evidence does come to light for various heterodox ideas, as it inevitably does in some cases, those who have ridiculed these ideas cannot allow the evidence to be recognised. Their emotional egos override scientific objectivity. This investment in emotional egocentricity is the primary mechanism behind the abuse of heterodox ideas within conventional science. I think this reflects a general flood of emotionalised judgementality in our society. It reflects the deeply ideological pattern of thinking that has become the norm of our fake modern 'enlightenment'. The C20th was the century of ideology. Political thinking is dominated by ideologies: Fascism, Nazism, Communism, Marxism, Capitalism, Socialism, Individualism, Democratism, Bureaucratism, Conservatism, Liberalism, Globalism, Nationalism, Internationalism, Patriotism, Anarchism, Racism, Feminism, Environmentalism, Egalitarianism, Utilitarianism, Secularism, as well as Atheism and other militant religious fundamentalisms. The list goes on through a host of philosophical ideologies; and we find science deeply infected with Scientism, based on Positivism, Materialism, Physicalism, Empiricism, Inductivism, Nominalism, Verificationalism, Falsificationism, Instrumentalism, Operationalism, Pragmatism, Behaviourism, Logicism, Formalism, Nihilism, Atheism, on one hand; and in various degrees of opposition to these, Realism, Platonism, Rationalism, Kantianism, Intuitionalism, Structuralism, Cultural Relativism, Subjectivism, Idealism, Phenomenalism, Scientific Anarchism, Post-Modernism, Irrationalism, etc. Most ideologies start with some core positive values, and typically as reactions against extremes of other philosophies; they have to provide something positive to get off the ground. But all ideologies are prone to Extremism, to having their positive values corrupted by Fundamentalism, to excessive Literalism, where their core principles are taken as universal laws. It is certainly necessary to appeal to more fundamental principles of one sort or another to counter destructive ideologies. But it is dangerous to use these to create new anti-ideologies, and impose these in turn as foundational moral principles. For all ideologies are prone to abuse. The error lies in thinking that we can rationalise all our judgements and beliefs from fundamental principles – like a logical axiom system. Chess gives a good illustration of the futility of this. The principles or rules of chess are explicit and simple: there are a small number of moves, and an explicit goal. But people are incapable of rationally calculating their best moves in chess, even though they do have such simple principles to start from. We are too limited intellectually. We can rationally calculate one or two, perhaps three or four moves ahead – but it is impossible for us to calculate 10, 20, 30 ... moves ahead, which is what we would need to do to give a rational solution to chess. It has proved exceedingly difficult even to program computers to play chess adequately, despite their vast calculating power. Chess-playing by 90 human beings relies on judgement and intuition. It is not just rational calculation. Some people have a special gift for this. They will always beat people without that gift. Ideological thinking is similarly a drive to reduce individual judgement to calculation from a set of prescribed rules. In public life it is seen in the cult of bureaucracy – the attempt to create totalitarian systems of rules to take over all our decision-making. In scientism it is seen in the cult of a mythological 'scientific method', meant to take over the individual judgement and creativity of gifted intellectuals. Ideological thinking is so deeply embedded in our culture that its unnaturalness has become largely invisible; we now are trained to conform and rationalise our behaviour and feelings to social ideologies throughout our lives. We learn as teenagers that our taste in music or fashion will see us admitted or ostracised from 'in-groups'. Education is insidiously designed to engineer ideological conformity. Television advertising, news and current affairs programs are saturated with ideological messages, overt and subliminal. As adults, political or religious conformities come to replace music and fashion as central to our social identities. The power of this identity can hardly be over-estimated. The result is that people today are extraordinarily judgemental about each other's beliefs. These are not just causal judgements, or abstract disagreements. In key social interactions you will be scrutinised for whether you might be a Communist or a Capitalist or a Socialist or a Nationalist or a Globalist or a Democrat or a Republican or a Feminist or an Environmentalist or a Christian or a Muslim or an Atheist, and so on and on. And on the basis of prejudices for or against these isms, you will be morally judged – with powerful prejudice if you are suspected to fail in some ideological conformity. It is a recipe for petty-minded neuroticism. Academics are the most intensely neurotic about such things – with bitter wars waged for years between academic philosophers and scientists, over variations of ideological belief that seem utterly meaningless to outsiders. It is pathetic to see grown-up adults squabbling like this. Demanding such conformity is part of forming the social solidarity of groups. It is not only that your judges hold personal feelings about such beliefs themselves – it is also that they cannot afford to let others in their ingroup think they will associate with those holding alternative beliefs. People are emotionalised into public displays of approving and disapproving beliefs for social acceptance. Thus it is within the professions of science. The claim of science to objectivity is really a myth. Objectivity is an ideal of science, but it is overridden by egocentric psychology – sustained more than ever by the scientistic ideology. What is most striking is how insidious this phenomenon is in modern society, and how quickly and easily people are sparked to strong emotions of 91 judgement, especially negative emotions, contempt, anger and hatred, about very abstract beliefs. In the academic world such judgements are virulent. There are surely psychological or cognitive reasons for this that should be central to understanding social behaviour. I think it is partly because we take emotions as perceptions of value, and conversely, we perceive values as emotions. (If we like something it is good. If we hate something it is bad. If something is good we like it. If something is bad we hate it. ) So we cannot separate our value judgements from our emotions about them, or at least not without great effort. In any case, these overpowering and irrational judgements are hardly mitigated by modern education. On the contrary, they are prominent within intellectualised professions – academics, scientists, executives, teachers, lawyers, bureaucrats those who have taken the social engineering messages of our education system most to heart. This mentality has now taken over in the domain that was meant to be separated from emotionalism, and science has become saturated with emotional ideology. What is also evident is that the orthodox academic philosophy of science has dismally failed to be of any help. It is more responsible for creating ideological conflicts than resolving them. I agree with López Corredoira that it has ceased to have any positive value within scientific practice. It has abdicated interest in the real problems of science in relation to society. It has failed to give any meaningful guidance on the problem of incorporating scientific knowledge into a wider philosophical understanding. Exiling philosophy outside science has left a terrible vacuum within science. It is nowhere more evident than in the modern attitudes to Materialism and naturalistic metaphysics, as noted next in the concluding section to this Part. Materialism and naturalistic metaphysics. Science is a system of factual knowledge, and primarily suited to developing empirical knowledge of the physical world. But its most important and fascinating implications are in metaphysics. Science informs key aspects of our larger world view: questions about where we came from, what we are, what our fate is. Particle physics, astronomy, cosmology, thermodynamics, chaos theory, evolutionary theory, biology, genetics, micro-biology, cognitive science, information theory, logic and linguistics, all have a deep impact on our understanding of the nature of ourselves and the world we live in. These sciences have transformed our views about fundamental laws of nature and causation, the nature of matter, the nature of time and space, the origin of the physical universe, the nature of living processes, the origins of life, the basis of intelligence, the nature of cognition, thought and language. These are areas of pure science that have the deepest interest for our larger metaphysical conception of the world 92 and our place in it. Philosophy and metaphysics cannot be done in a vacuum, without recognising knowledge we have gained from science. Making sense of scientific knowledge is a crucial part of philosophy. But it is very difficult to make sense of science. The intrinsic difficulty is because science is in process: it is fundamentally unfinished and unstable. Thus far in history, scientific metaphysics has proved to be the most unstable aspect of science. For this relates to its formulation of broad comprehensive theories, proposed as theoretical ontologies. We have made steady progress in giving scientific explanations of many phenomenon – and these can certainly become stable. But science has only partial theories, and is far from having a complete view of the nature of physical reality at a deep level. The instability of scientific theories is obvious when we look back over the last 350 years of Western science – from the time of Newton's theory of mechanics and gravity. It is obvious when we look back over the last 80 years, or the span of one person's life-time. Science has changed dramatically in this short period. Practically all the 'modern views' about the subjects listed above have formed within this short period – the expanding universe, Big Bang cosmology, Standard Model of particle physics, DNA and genetics, neo-Darwinian evolution theory, information theory, chaos theory, modern logic and linguistics, cognitive psychology and neuroscience. We should remember that the proton was not identified until 1919! (Rutherford). The neutron was not identified until 1932! (Chadwick). (But then within 13 years we had started using nuclear bombs). The fact that the Milky Way is only one galaxy among numerous others was not established until 1920s. The concept of an expanding universe was not established until 1929. It seems amazing to me that the CMBR was not identified until the 1960's! Cosmology today is full of anomalies and paradoxes and speculative 'dark substances'. It should be stressed that there is no understanding of the ultimate origin or fate of the physical universe at all. It is completely unknown whether our universe is in a cyclic expansion-and-collapse process, or due to expand forever, or to collapse permanently in the future. Physicists will pontificate on their 'best guess' about this, and today usually tell you that it will keep expanding; but in fact they have no more realistic idea than you do. No scientist has a clue about where the universe came from. Even the dimensionality of space is completely unknown. Fundamental particle physics today is similarly incomplete, with multiple anomalies, conflicting theories, and a basic failure to tackle foundational issues. Progress in the life sciences has historically been even slower. The double-helix structure of DNA, and encoding of genes, were not discovered until the 1950s! The origin of life on Earth remains unknown, and the existence of extraterrestrial life is unknown. It is clear that species evolve, but detailed mechanisms, including interaction with intelligence, are unknown. 93 Neuroscience is also in its early infancy, with no good theory yet of the logical structure of the neuronal network. The example noted in Part 2 below of Richard Faull shows that neurologists were unaware until very recently (2007!) even of the basic fact that the human brain reproduces and replenishes neurons – with leading scientific authorities refusing to admit it when scientifically demonstrated. The basis of consciousness remains completely opaque to physical science – particularly the interaction of consciousness with the physical machinery supporting intelligence – two quite distinct concepts that are regularly conflated by scientists. Mainstream research into linguistics and natural language – theories of the 'deep structure' of natural language – has stalled since the 1970s, and represents a failed paradigm. This translates into a profound failure in AI (artificial intelligence) research paradigms, because attempts to generate recursive intelligence in computer programs must be able to solve the problem of natural language semantics. What we have so far in AI are just elaborate pattern-recognition machines based on ad hoc programming techniques in an application of brute force and ignorance. So what metaphysical conclusions can we draw from science? Despite its radical incompleteness, which realistic scientists will admit to, there is nonetheless one metaphysical view widely drawn from science: Materialism. This holds that everything real reduces to a material reality. There is surely a problem claiming this as a scientific conclusion given the incompleteness of so many fundamental sciences claiming to support it. But the first problem to my mind is that it is itself is a very vague idea, encoding a number of different conceptions under one umbrella. I think the claim that many scientists really want to express is a principle of 'causal unification': that everything real is causally connected in a single framework of natural laws and substances. The point is that science has continued to expand the boundaries of what counts as 'material things', or 'substances', to incorporate expanded evidence of causality. E.g. in the C19th, Faraday and Maxwell and others introduced the idea of electromagnetic fields. These appeared be ghostly non-material entities, diffused through space. They literally represent potentialenergy fields. As such they met resistance from Materialists of the time, who did not believe in things that were not 'material substances'. They might allow 'fields' as mathematical constructions perhaps, but not as referring to real physical things. Eventually these objections were overcome (and it was recognised as a metaphysical dogma to identify: material = corpuscular), notably when light was shown to be a free electromagnetic field. Individual particles of light can be transmitted across space, and it seems the 'free electromagnetic fields' representing them must be real material things. Today of course physics is full of 'fields' – EM fields, quantum fields – indeed the quantum vacuum is full of virtual particles, representing vacuum fields, so there is not even such a thing as 94 'empty space' any more. Indeed, some philosophers think that there are no particles, only fields (e.g. there is a paradox in quantum field theory, that your count of particles in a volume of space depends on your state of motion.) These fields seem suspiciously ethereal, non-material – but they have a role in unifying the causal connections, providing the mechanism for quantum particles to exchange energy and momentum. So materialists simply expand their definition and call them 'material'. Thus science will expand its conception of what is 'material' according to whatever is required to model causality. How could we hope to prescribe what kinds of 'materiality' physical things have, before empirically investigating them? Nowadays, cosmology proposes 'dark matter', 'dark energy', 'quintessence', mysteriously undetectable 'substances'. Quantum mechanics is defined by quantum waves which have disturbingly non-materialistic properties – they are spread over space, they can 'jump' instantaneously from one place to another, they can be entangled with each other over large distances. And relativity theory postulates curved space-time, defined by what is called a metric field. Is space-time a 'material substance'? Most relativists would say that it is physically real: it is quite distinct in kind from the material particles embedded in it, but it affects their motions, and is affected by them. So what does 'materialism' mean any more, when such a host of ephemeral 'substances' are inferred to be real? The classical concept of material substances has long broken down. The classical vision of materialism was a simplistic one of 'atoms-in-a-box', a simple common-sense dualism of matter (atoms) in space (container). This is based on a simplistic concept that the part-whole composition of physical objects is simple spatial decomposition – defined by breaking things down into smaller and smaller bits, that are mutually impenetrable, and cannot overlap. Causality is seen in this vision as being strictly local – things only affect each other when they 'touch'. It is a simplistic conception derived from ordinary perception of macroscopic objects. Nowadays, physical objects are seen as intrinsically interpenetrating, overlapping fields. And causality is distinctly non-local: in principle, every physical system in the universe can instantaneously affect any other system. In this sense, the simplistic materialist vision that most Materialists still visualise has actually been long overthrown in physics. Modern Materialists cannot define their belief in terms of prescribing the material of the universe, because no one knows what it is any more! It is easier to ask what kinds of things Materialists reject. The first thing they reject are 'transcendental causes' or 'supernatural agencies', such as 'life forces', anima, interactions with spirits, souls, God or gods, etc. They reject these as having any place in a unified causal account of physics. In traditional thought, such agencies lie outside 'laws of nature', and are said to cause things by a mysterious exertion of will or intelligence. It is this kind of ad hoc explanation that scientists primarily reject as being scientific. 95 But it is a big jump from rejecting ad hoc causal agencies in physics, to the vast metaphysical implications claimed by Materialism. For rejecting appeal to 'supernatural agencies' in causal laws of physics does not rule out that souls, spirits or God may yet still exist; that some entities that appear supernatural to us might end up having real causal physical connections to us after all. Esp, as mentioned earlier, is an example: the demand that physics is causally unified by general laws does not rule out the possibility of esp, or a nonmaterial source of personal identity, or many similar things rejected by Materialists. What Materialism certainly does not do is to scientifically explain the phenomenon of subjectivity: consciousness, mind, personal identity. This is what ideological Materialists claim: that science has explained how these reduce to 'brain activity'. This claim is just not true. What Materialism claims is that there must be a purely physical explanation of subjective phenomenon, given in the same terms as other physics, referring only to fundamental particles and forces. It does not follow that science has given such an explanation. It most certainly has not. And while the nature of subjectivity lacks any real scientific explanation or model, so does value, morality, purpose, and so on, i.e. the concepts of moral philosophy that Materialists so much want to destroy in their eagerness for a nihilistic doctrine. Another claim implicit in Materialism is monism, the idea that there is ultimately only one kind of substance, which is physical. Today this is often described as energy (or mass-energy), rather than just 'matter'. We will be told that everything that exists is really a form of physical energy. Again, this contradicts the classical Materialist dualism that the universe consists of matter in space and time. For space (or now space-time) is not itself reduced to 'energy' in conventional physics, it is a container for energy. I would also object to the idea that monism implies any of the traditional implications drawn from Materialism. In this respect, I support a heterodox theory of physics, which is a strong form of monism, where everything is actually composed of 'space' – shapes and wave-motions of an underlying 'aether', which appears to us as both space and matter. It is similar in a way to the C19th theory of 'vortex atoms', which goes back to Descartes' vortex theory of matter. Similar suggestions that a form of monism will be the ultimate end of physics have been suggested regularly, e.g. by Wheeler in the 1970's . The aether-based theory I have proposed is a genuine type of monism, it is causally unified, and it has simple precise mathematical laws. So if this was established, one might think it would justify Materialism. And yet this theory contradicts all the usual prescriptions of Materialism! It is a causally unified theory but it entails far more physical connectivity than recognised in conventional physics, identifying real structures lying outside ordinary three-dimensional space – for it requires a multi-dimensional theory of space to model particle physics and gravity. See (Holster WEBREF (c), (e). ) 96 I think this is an essential kind of theory to consider – not just as physics, but because it shows that radical metaphysical possibilities remain entirely consistent with our present knowledge of fundamental physics. For it allows realistic correlates for entities such as 'souls' or 'spirits' and even 'God'. The ideological Scientistic Materialists dislike this because they have obnoxious views about metaphysics. They believe they have conclusively solved all the problems of philosophy and metaphysics through their materialistic 'scientific' doctrine, and they want to close down any debate, declaring 'metaphysics' to be nonsense. But there are many areas of real metaphysics, traditional and modern, that are central to understanding. Metaphysics may be thought irrelevant within narrowly defined scientific specialities: but it is central to natural philosophy, to the larger goal of drawing out a philosophical understanding from science. I have illustrated the major form that modern metaphysics takes, in the form of possible world theory, in Appendix 6. This is a point where modern logic, analysis, and naturalistic science all meet. It is not some kind of abstract speculation about meaningless pseudo-scientific generalities: it is a way of making the analysis of central concepts of physics, as well as theories of mind and existence and logical semantics, precise and explicit. In summary, there are different shades of 'materialism', and different shades of 'metaphysics'. Many ordinary people and many scientists have a general conviction that reality is all based in material reality, i.e. in the physical world. Thus they say consciousness is based in the brain, and not in some transcendental realm of spirits or souls. And methodologically: when we come to investigate consciousness, we should start with what we know and can measure, the brain. We do not start with assumptions about something transcendental. I think this is a reasonable belief, even though I do not believe the reality is ultimately so simple myself. But as far as I am concerned, people are perfectly entitled to adopt such beliefs – and brain science is a primary starting point to investigate consciousness (only not the only one). This is 'materialism' with a small m. I would say López Corredoira is a materialist in this sense. But the philosophy is dominated by much more radical ideological Materialists, with a big M. These are ideological extremists (typified by the New Atheists or NeoAtheists), who believe fervently in a bundle of scientistic Positivist-Materialist doctrines, and want to force their world-view on everyone. They want to rule the domain of Science itself under the iron hand of their own orthodoxy. They claim Science as proof of Materialism. They openly despise metaphysics, philosophy, morals, religion. Like political ideologues, they are usually impassioned, arrogant, intolerant and loud. Turning science into a domain of personal ideology, they destroy the fundamental principles of scientific objectivity. 97 These people are a powerful destructive force within orthodox science, and within orthodox philosophy of science. They are the real enemies of creative heterodox scientists, and the true enemies of philosophy. Over decades, they have taken increasingly control of scientific culture, dominating propaganda, media, gate-keeping roles and power structures. They have destroyed the philosophy of science. They represent one kind of the death of science. The death of the spirit that comes from driving true scientists from Einstein's Temple. 98 REFERENCES. 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Journal of Consciousness Studies, 23, No. 3–4, 2016, pp. 101–27 Brentyn J. Ramm 1 Dimensions of Reliability in Phenomenal Judgment Abstract: Eric Schwitzgebel (2011) argues that phenomenal judgments are in general less reliable than perceptual judgments. This paper distinguishes two versions of this unreliability thesis. The process unreliability thesis says that unreliability in phenomenal judgments is due to faulty domain-specific mechanisms involved in producing these judgments, whereas the statistical unreliability thesis says that it is simply a matter of higher numbers of errors. Against the process unreliability thesis, I argue that the main errors and limitations in making phenomenal judgments can be accounted for by domain-general factors: attention, working memory limits, and conceptualization. As these factors are shared with the production of perceptual judgments, errors in phenomenal judgments are not due to faulty domain-specific processes. Furthermore, this account defends phenomenal judgments against general scepticism by providing criteria for distinguishing between reliable and unreliable phenomenal judgments. 1. Introduction Eric Schwitzgebel (2011) claims that introspective judgments about conscious experience are generally unreliable, and are far less reliable than perceptual judgments about the world. Some of the cases 1 Portions of this work were completed while the author was a visiting scholar at the Department of Philosophy, Ohio State University (USA). Correspondence: Brentyn J. Ramm, School of Philosophy, The Australian National University, Australia. Email: [email protected] C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n 102 B.J. RAMM Schwitzgebel presents against reliability include the failure to distinguish details about our own phenomenology, such as the basic details of visual imagery (Chapter 3). In Chapter 7, he highlights the uncertainty we have about the character and location of our emotions and that sometimes we may not notice our emotions at all such as feelings of grumpiness. Another case is that we tend to fail to notice broad features of our visual experience such as the fact that it is not clear all the way to the edges. Rather, there is only a small central region of clarity. Philosophers also disagree about what visual patterns manifest when one's eyes are closed (ibid., Chapter 8). Based upon the weight of such problem cases, Schwitzgebel draws the pessimistic conclusion that naïve introspection2 is 'faulty, untrustworthy, and misleading - not just sometimes a little mistaken, but frequently and massively mistaken' (ibid., p. 129). More specifically Schwitzgebel makes the comparative claim that phenomenal judgments are in general far less reliable than perceptual judgments. He holds, 'Descartes, I think, had it quite backward when he said the mind - including especially current conscious experience - was better known than the outside world' (ibid., p. 136) and 'Our judgements about the world tend to drive our judgements about our experience. Properly so, since the former are the more secure' (ibid., p. 137). It is this comparative claim that I will be focusing on here. What does Schwitzgebel's comparative pessimistic thesis amount to? We can distinguish between two pessimistic theses: The Process Unreliability Thesis: Errors in the formation of phenomenal judgments are due to factors specific to the formation of phenomenal judgments. The Statistical Unreliability Thesis: Phenomenal judgments are less reliable than perceptual judgments overall in terms of proportion of errors. Here I will argue against the process unreliability interpretation of introspective pessimism by showing how a domain-general framework can account for the main introspective errors and limitations. My alternative claim will be: 2 Naïve introspection involves phenomenal judgments which have not been supplemented by training or first-person methods. These are the type of phenomenal judgments I will focus on in this paper. In what follows I drop the term 'naïve' and simply refer to phenomenal judgments. C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n RELIABILITY IN PHENOMENAL JUDGMENT 103 The Domain-General Thesis: Errors and limitations in the formation of phenomenal judgments are due to factors that are domaingeneral in the sense that they are shared with the formation of perceptual judgments. The domain-general thesis is compatible with a statistical version of the comparative pessimistic thesis. I will not be arguing against the statistical unreliability thesis here. It is not clear in Schwitzgebel (2008; 2011) which thesis the problem cases are meant to provide evidence for. That it is the statistical unreliability thesis is implicit in Schwitzgebel (2012) where he argues for a domain-general account of introspection. The distinction between process unreliability and statistical unreliability needs to be made explicit, as this has important consequences for questions about the reliability of phenomenal judgments. In particular, if the process unreliability thesis is true, then the errors are likely to infect introspection alone. If the alternative domain-general thesis is true, then perceptual judgments will be prone to the very same errors as phenomenal judgments. I propose that the production of phenomenal judgments involves a number of domain-general factors such as attention, working memory, and conceptualization. In the domain-general framework developed here attention selects experienced features or objects,3 and activates/ forms concepts in working memory which produce (or perhaps partly constitute) judgments about the experience. Previous authors have suggested that attentional and conceptual processes can account for many introspective processes (Bayne and Spener, 2010; Block, 2007; Carruthers, 2011; Engelburt and Carruthers, 2010; Hill, 2011; Prinz, 2004; Schwitzgebel, 2012; Watzl and Wu, 2012), with a central role for domain-general processes (Carruthers, 2011; Prinz, 2004; Schwitzgebel, 2012). It remains unclear, however, whether such explanations are capable of accounting for most errors and limitations in making phenomenal judgments. The best defence of the reliability of introspection may be to give up on a separate introspective process altogether, and rather just talk of phenomenal judgments that involve the same domain-general 3 I am neutral here as to whether experience is transparent such that the features and objects which engage attention are only ever external (perhaps represented) properties and objects (Harman, 1990; Tye, 1995; 2000), or whether properties of experience can (at least sometimes) be directly attended (Block, 1996; Kind, 2003). C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n 104 B.J. RAMM processes as perceptual and rational judgments. One may well think that a domain-general account puts pressure on the need to posit a special domain-specific self-monitoring mechanism (Armstrong, 1968; Goldman, 2006; Lycan, 1996; Nichols and Stich, 2003). Previous authors use a domain-general account to motivate scepticism about the existence of a special introspective process (Carruthers, 2011; Prinz, 2004; Schwitzgebel, 2012). However, I do not pursue this question here. The aim of the paper will not be to assess arguments for and against particular philosophical theories of introspection. Rather, here I focus upon discussing empirical evidence for and against the domain-general thesis. Furthermore, a domain-general account of errors is consistent with the existence of domain-specific introspective processes, as long as these are not strongly modular and hence preclude a role of domain-general processes in producing phenomenal judgments. Here I attempt to give a scientifically informed account of domaingeneral processes that could plausibly account for the major classes of introspective errors and limitations. Accounting for all errors is obviously beyond the scope of a single paper. The aim here is rather to develop a general framework which could in principle account for most of the introspective errors and limitations. This project should also be of general interest to cognitive scientists as the assumption is that the same processes are also involved in making conscious judgments in general, and will hence be involved in most psychological tasks ranging from perceptual judgment to moral judgment, to mathematical calculation. As an empirical hypothesis I cannot claim to establish the necessary truth of the domain-general thesis. Evidence which undermines the hypothesis can be uncovered at any time. Rather, my claim is that there is currently enough supporting evidence to make the thesis more sufficiently probable than the process unreliability thesis. The aim of the paper will not be to argue for an exhaustive theoretical account of every problem case considered here, thus deciding whether it is definitely an error or not. Rather, the goal is to argue for the disjunction: problem cases for phenomenal judgments either do not count as errors or if they do count as errors then they can be accounted for by domain-general factors. The plan for the paper is as follows: in Section 2, I discuss the motivation for using a domain-general approach as a response to introspective scepticism. In Section 3, I characterize the difference between phenomenal and perceptual judgments. In Sections 4, 5, and C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n RELIABILITY IN PHENOMENAL JUDGMENT 105 6, I investigate in detail how domain-general factors (respectively, attention, working memory, and conceptualization) can account for problem cases for phenomenal judgments. I discuss cognitive dissociations and their challenge to a domain-general framework in Section 7. In Section 8, I argue against general scepticism towards phenomenal judgments. In Section 9, I conclude by summarizing the case for the domain-general thesis. 2. Background Motivations That phenomenal judgments are generally untrustworthy (or at least exhibit very high levels of unreliability) are motivations for Daniel Dennett's (1991; 2001a) rejection of first-person methods and in Schwitzgebel taking a pessimistic position towards the possibility of reliable methods (Hurlbert and Schwitzgebel, 2007; Schwitzgebel, 2011, pp. 129, 167, though see Chapter 4). Philosophers, in conversation with me, have also professed pessimism about first-person methods on the basis of Schwitzgebel's problem cases, presumably because they interpret them as establishing the general untrustworthiness of introspection. One motivation for the paper is to provide an initial defence of the possibility of reliable first-person methods as part of a science of consciousness.4 That there can be reliable first-person methods is compatible with holding that naïve introspection is statistically less reliable than perceptual judgments. Hence the truth or falsity of the statistical unreliability thesis is not a concern from the point of view of a researcher in the science of consciousness. This seemed to be the position held by Titchener (Schwitzgebel, 2011, Chapter 5). If Schwitzgebel's cases are taken as establishing that all phenomenal judgments are untrustworthy - 'introspective scepticism' (Bayne and Spener, 2010) - then this result arguably undermines the possibility of reliable first-person methods. This may be the case because phenomenal judgments stem from pervasively faulty processes. Thus no amount of training nor use of methods would be expected to improve them. Introspective scepticism also presents a danger to the many everyday phenomenal judgments that are prima facie highly reliable: for 4 For examples of previous defences of the use of introspection in science, see Goldman (2004) and Hatfield (2009, Chapter 16), and Kriegel (2013). C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n 106 B.J. RAMM example, judging that I feel hungry, feel an intense toothache, foveal colour judgments, and similarity judgments such as orange seems more similar to yellow than to blue. As Bayne and Spener (2010, p. 8) point out, it seems perverse to doubt the reliability of these phenomenal judgments. No amount of philosophical argument will convince someone, for example, that they should doubt the fact that they are experiencing a severe toothache. Even Schwitzgebel (2011, p. 139) pulls back from distrusting these judgments, yet without a positive reason for trusting these judgments general introspective scepticism looms as threat. Introspective scepticism based upon faulty processes can be undermined (or at least rendered unattractive) by showing that errors in phenomenal judgments stem from domain-general processes. However, if the number of errors was high enough then this could still provide a reason for introspective scepticism. I respond to this further threat in Section 8. 3. Phenomenal Judgments and Perceptual Judgments The term 'introspection' originates from ordinary language, and suggests some sort of 'inner looking' as opposed to perception or 'outer looking'. However, I have doubts that there is a substantially separate faculty of introspection apart from those processes which produce perceptual and intellectual judgments. So as to remain neutral about the underlying processes, following Chalmers (1996, pp. 173– 6), I generally use the term 'phenomenal judgment' rather than introspection. For the purposes of this paper, a 'phenomenal judgment' is a judgment about one's current phenomenology, formed using attentional resources, on the basis of (or intended to be on the basis of) current relevant experience.5 This includes judgments about thoughts, emo- 5 The standard view of the basing relation is that it is a type of causal relation between the reason for having the belief (here the experience) and the belief (Korcz, 2010). An alternative to a causal relation is a constitutive relation, for instance if the concept of 'red' is partly constituted by a presently experienced phenomenal character of red. This direct phenomenal concept can in turn be part of a direct phenomenal belief such as 'the apple looks red' (Chalmers, 2010). Though this constitutive relation would only apply to a small set of beliefs. This is not the place to defend a theory of the basing relation. It should be sufficient for current purposes if the reader understands 'basing' as a form of C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n RELIABILITY IN PHENOMENAL JUDGMENT 107 tions, pain, mental imagery, and sensory experiences (for example, how things seem, look, appear, feel). Some examples of judgments about experience are 'the rose looks red', 'the stove feels hot', 'the town looks far away'. Thus one may judge that 'the stove feels hot' on the basis of the stove feeling hot. I say 'intended to be on the basis of' because I want to allow that one could base their judgment upon the wrong experience such as the stove feeling cold. Otherwise the possibility of erroneous phenomenal judgments may be ruled out by definition. I say 'relevant experience' because that the stove feels hot should not be based upon the stove looking hot, but rather upon the stove feeling hot. The relevant class of 'perceptual judgment' are judgments about objects, events, and properties of the world, formed using attentional resources, on the basis of (or intended to be on the basis of) current relevant conscious perception. For example, 'the rose is red', 'the stove is hot', and 'the town is far away'. Thus one may judge that 'the stove is hot' on the basis of the stove feeling hot (perhaps 'looking hot' also counts, if HOTNESS is a property of visual experience). However, for the purposes of this paper judging that 'the stove is hot' on the basis of seeing smoke coming from the chimney would not count, as the conscious perception does not include the stove and HOTNESS, but rather these are derived by inference from a conscious perception. Schwitzgebel (2012, pp. 34–5) points out that it is easy to confuse judgments about sensory experience and properties of the world. For example, in a psychophysics experiment one may make repeated judgments about colour experience (the colour things look to have). In this case it is easy to slip into making a judgment about properties of the world (e.g. about the stimuli on the screen). Thus a judgment that the rose 'looks red' and 'is red' are often interchangeable in ordinary circumstances. Importantly for present purposes, even though confusion can happen, phenomenal and perceptual judgments are nevertheless conceptually distinct. With enough effort or when I think an illusion may be involved, 'looks red' and 'is red' are sharply distinguishable. When I look at a white rose through red tinted glasses I may judge that 'the rose looks pink' but, having seen it without the glasses, nevertheless also believe that 'the rose is actually white'. causal relation or constitutive relation between the reason for the belief (i.e. experience) and the belief. C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n 108 B.J. RAMM 4. Attention In the next three sections I discuss how errors and limitations in making phenomenal judgments can be accounted for by domaingeneral factors. I discuss attention in this section. Inattention is responsible for errors in both perceptual and phenomenal judgments. The effect of failing to attend in making judgments about the world is dramatically evident in studies of inattentional blindness in which subjects fail to notice unexpected events such as a gorilla walking through a basketball game when their attention is distracted (Simons and Chabris, 1999: see also, Mack and Rock, 1998; Most et al., 2005; Simons, 2000). An introspective case that is plausibly explained by inattention is my failure to notice the degree of acuity of my visual field. Schwitzgebel (2011) and Dennett (1991, pp. 53–4, 68; 2001b; 2002) point out that many people believe that their visual field is clear all the way to the edges, whereas objects in the periphery actually appear indistinct and blurry. Furthermore there is only a small central region of clarity of two degrees, whereas most would judge it to be a large window of clarity. That subjects possess a false belief about their visual field is evidenced by the surprise people express upon being shown the low resolution for shapes and colours of peripheral vision (Dennett, 1991, p. 68; 2001b). This case seems to be at least in part a failure in attentional orienting, in particular a failure to attend to that location while keeping their eyes fixated (Schwitzgebel, 2011; Engleburt and Carruthers, 2010; Hill, 2011; Waltz and Wu, 2012). It is has also been previously argued that subjects' belief in a large window of clarity is due to them making a judgment about dynamic vision in contrast to gaze-fixed vision (see Hill, 2011, p. 27; Engelburt and Carruthers, 2010, p. 251). In normal vision, the eyes perform a saccade a few times a second (e.g. Land, 1999), which the visual system combines into a single visual scene. We would not expect subjects to be aware of information at such short durations any more than we would expect them to see the images of a film as static rather than moving, or a spinning flame on the end of a pole as a point of light rather than a circle of flame. Dennett's and Schwitzgebel's subjects were only mistaken, then, if their beliefs were about fixed-gaze vision. If their belief in a large window of clarity referred to typical, dynamic vision, then they (and most of us) were correct after all. C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n RELIABILITY IN PHENOMENAL JUDGMENT 109 Interestingly, both Schwitzgebel and Dennett provide first-person methods for keeping one's eyes fixated while orienting attention to the periphery. An example would be focusing on one's thumbnail held at arm's length while attending to peripheral vision (Hill, 2011, p. 27). Upon doing this, the lack of acuity becomes highly evident. This shows that, while naïve first-person observations often fail, more sophisticated first-person techniques can succeed. Another challenge to the reliability of first-person judgments is the apparent fact that I often fail to notice some of my experiences, such as being angry, sad, depressed, or anxious. Schwitzgebel (2011, pp. 122–3) gives the case of my partner mentioning that I seem to be grumpy about doing the dishes. I carefully reflect on this and deny that I am feeling grumpy. But from the look on my face, and the way I bang the dishes about, it is evident that I am grumpy. Perhaps upon further reflection I do actually detect feelings of grumpiness. It seems that my initial judgment was mistaken. Even though I attempt to carefully reflect, it is likely that the anger will cause me to be disposed to reject the accusation that I am grumpy without attending sufficiently carefully. If I am repressing the emotion then I may be disposed (have an attentional bias) to attend briefly to the emotion and then rapidly disengage attention, hence inhibiting explicit recognition of its presence (Derakshan, Eysenck and Myers, 2007). Alternatively no error may have occurred at all. Other possibilities are that the emotion did not reach consciousness, or was merely dispositional, or perhaps I did not really feel grumpy at T1, but only felt so after the fact when my partner suggested that I am grumpy. Also even if I retrospectively recall that I did seem to feel grumpy at the time, my initial judgment may still be correct, as this may be a false memory created by the suggestion that I am grumpy. Even if the above explanations of errors are correct, it does not follow that the attention used in making phenomenal judgments is a domain-general faculty. Perhaps there is a special faculty of 'introspective attention' that is responsible for these errors. For examples of the use of this term see Bayne and Spener (2010, p. 12), Hohwy (2011, p. 270), Schwitzgebel (2011, pp. 126, 175). A reason for rejecting this hypothesis is the observation that attending to visual images, pains, thoughts, and emotions can distract someone from making correct perceptual judgments and vice versa. If there is a separate introspective attention then I should be able to fully attend to my thoughts and the world simultaneously without any interference. For example, on this view it is difficult to account for why I C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n 110 B.J. RAMM am more likely to walk into street poles when I am absorbed in my thoughts. This strongly suggests that in attending to my thoughts I was withdrawing attention from the world. There is also evidence for a single attentional mechanism in the domains of emotion and pain. For example, it has been found that felt pain is reduced when attention is distracted (e.g. Buhle and Wager, 2010; Legrain et al., 2009) and high working memory load reduces negative affective responses to negative images (Schmeichel, Volokhov and Demaree, 2008; Van Dillen and Koole, 2007) and reduces attentional capture by pain (Legrain et al., 2011). The best explanation of these findings seems to be that judgments about emotions and pains (so-called introspections) utilize the same attentional system. Of course, there are exceptions when I do not seem to be interfered with by attending to multiple domains, for instance when attending to my thoughts or feelings and the traffic as I am driving. Musing that I feel happy today does not always seem to interfere with my ability to drive efficiently. However, such cases do not necessitate that there are domain-specific attentional mechanisms, as they can be explained by rapid switches of attention between the two activities, or by one of the activities continuing 'on autopilot' while the other consumes my attention. Furthermore, on a resources theory, attention is a single limited resource that can be spread between multiple domains. On this view significant interference only occurs when attentional resources are exhausted. For example, it has been found that talking on a hands-free cell phone while driving significantly reduces driving performance even though the two activities rely upon different sensory modalities (Strayer and Johnston, 2001). Finally, while there is empirical evidence in favour of a single domain-general selection process, I am unaware of any empirical research which supports the existence of a special introspective attentional mechanism. 5. Working Memory Limitations What about unreliability in judging aspects of experience that I am in fact currently attending to, such as thoughts and emotions? My claim here is that the limitations of working memory explain the difficulty of judging features of complex and dynamic events such as emotions and much of our mental imagery. C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n RELIABILITY IN PHENOMENAL JUDGMENT 111 Working memory is usually thought to have a central capacitylimited component or an upper limit in processing resources (e.g. Baddeley, 2000; 2003; Cowan, 2001; Just and Carpenter, 1992; Halford, Wilson and Phillips, 1998), and time-limited short-term memory stores (e.g. phonological, visual-spatial) which are subject to decay and interference. Some theorists include a short-term store for affective information (Mikels et al., 2008). I suggest that limits in judging complex phenomena stem from an upper limit to the number of concepts that can be formed/activated at any one time in working memory (Block, 2007, pp. 487–9).6 Furthermore, the unreliability in judging dynamic phenomena stems from the failure to maintain concepts active in working memory. 5.1. Complexity and the Capacity Limits of Working Memory Unsurprisingly in vision and other modalities, when phenomena are highly complex, it is more difficult to categorize all of their properties. For instance, it is difficult to report all of the items in a complex scene. This can be explained by the limits of working memory. Cowan (2001) presents a large amount of experimental evidence that there is a capacity limit to working memory of approximately four items (chunks). For example, there is a limit of approximately four items in visual working memory (Luck and Vogel, 1997), recall of verbal material (Broadbent, 1975), in the discrimination of complex aromas (Laing and Francis, 1989), and in recalling items from visual iconic memory (Sperling, 1960). That a capacity limit of four holds between so many domains, including at least some paradigmatically introspective processes, suggests a single central capacity limit. An alternative interpretation is to posit that there are modalityspecific resources such as separate capacities for visual and auditory information rather than a central attentional resource (Wickens, 1984; 2002). However, importantly Saults and Cowan (2007) found that for a simultaneously presented visual and auditory array recall was limited to 3–4 items, thus providing evidence for a single capacity limit which goes across sensory modalities. This finding is difficult to account for by a multiple capacities view. 6 Ramm and Halford (2012) provide evidence that conceptual combination draws upon capacity-limited processing resources, and thus that new concepts are formed in working memory. C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n 112 B.J. RAMM As discussed above, research in emotion and pain provides some evidence for the domain-general hypothesis. There has been far more extensive research in visual imagery and iconic memory, and hence more evidence supporting the hypothesis that these draw upon the same capacity-limited resources as visual perception. For example, it has been found that mental imagery is associated with many of the same brain areas as high-level visual perception (Ishai and Sagi, 1995; Kosslyn, Ganis and Thompson, 2001; Kosslyn, Thompson and Alpert, 1997), and so it is plausible that mental imagery relies upon the same capacity limits as visual perception. It has also been found that it takes longer to generate a more complex imagined letter or shape than a simple one (Bruyer and Scailquin, 1998; Kossyln, 1980; Dror and Kosslyn, 1994). Furthermore, the generation and rotation of images is interfered with more by random letter generation (a task that requires capacity-limited resources) than articulatory suppression (which is considered to be a relatively automatic process) (Bruyer and Scailquin, 1998). The capacity limits in extracting information from experiences also accounts for the classic problem case of why I do not know how many spots are on an imagined speckled hen. Studies on subitizing (automatic recognition of number) show a limit of approximately four in subitizing items in briefly viewed displays (Mandler and Shebo, 1982; Trick and Pylyshyn, 1994) and after-images (Atkinson, Campbell and Francis, 1976; Simon and Vaisnavi, 1996). Again, whilst such evidence shows that knowledge of experience is not infallible, neither in such cases is there a reason to believe that it is more fallible than perceptual knowledge in similar cases. Judging the number of spots on a briefly perceived speckled hen is just as difficult as judging the number of spots on an imagined hen (although the instability of mental images probably contributes an additional source of errors/ limits). The evidence suggests, then, a capacity limit to making phenomenal judgments. Importantly, this limit applies to both phenomenal and perceptual judgments (see also Hill, 2011, pp. 28–31). This hypothesis also partly explains the variability in subjects' reports regarding the patterns seen when one's eyes are closed. As these visual patterns are both complex and dynamic, inaccuracy and variability would be expected in reports. This is no different from the fact that we would not expect subjects to give a perfectly accurate account of the colours and patterns of a fireworks display. When the 'inner light show' and 'outer light show' share the same degree of complexity one would C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n RELIABILITY IN PHENOMENAL JUDGMENT 113 expect both to lead to similar levels of inaccuracy in reports. One may also expect more individual variability in eyes-closed patterns than fireworks, due to differences in lighting conditions, and perhaps even differences in visual systems. Of course, this cannot be the whole story. It is odd for instance that historically Goethe, Purkinje, Muller, and Helmholtz all report 'wandering cloudy stripes', but such descriptions disappear after the early nineteenth century (Schwitzgebel, 2011, pp. 142–9). It seems like theory must have been driving these descriptions, in particular influence from reading previous authors such as Purkinje. 5.2. Dynamicity and the Failure to Maintain Activation of Concepts If a phenomenon is rapidly changing over time this adds further difficulties to making a phenomenal judgment. In fact, emotions, thoughts, and pains seem to be more like sounds in their dynamically changing character. Visual imagery also seems to be unstable, which can be considered a form of dynamicity. Schwitzgebel asks, what are the gross and fine features of emotion and pain? We seem to be reliable at identifying broad features of emotions, pleasures, and pains such as intensity, pleasantness, unpleasantness, and often use dynamic terms such as surging, crescendo, fading, etc. (Lambie and Marcel, 2002, p. 230). I propose here that limitations in making phenomenal judgments about dynamic experiences are due to failures in retaining concepts active in short-term memory. Suppose that there are rapidly flashing coloured lights (green, red, yellow, blue, green, yellow, red). I am attending to them and they are not so brief that I am unaware of them.7 Yet I fail to judge that 'there was a blue light'. One possibility is that BLUE was not encoded in short-term memory and thus I was unable to report it. Another possibility is that BLUE was encoded in short-term memory, but it was interfered with by preceding or subsequent concepts such as RED. Or finally BLUE was encoded but the information was lost due to decay. In all cases, it is a failure to maintain a concept active which explains the oversight. The same limitations also would presumably apply to comparable perceptual judgments about the 7 At very short durations the phenomena may be masked and not even reach consciousness at all: Breitmeyer and Ogmen (2006); Kouider and Dehaene (2007). C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n 114 B.J. RAMM dynamically changing shape of ripples on a lake, the topology of flame shape, and the number of forks on flashes of lightning.8 Overall, then, errors and limitations involving complexity and dynamicity do not seem to derive from domain-specific introspective processes. 6. Conceptual Errors I have proposed that working memory places a limit on how many concepts can be formed/activated at a time, and thus how much information I can extract from an experience, and how long concepts remain active. Two other ways in which conceptual errors/limitations may occur include: 1. missing concepts, 2. uncertainty in using concepts.9 6.1. Missing Concepts As Schwitzgebel points out there are many aspects of the character of emotions that I cannot decide upon. Even holding fixed working memory limitations there are many details of my emotion and pain experiences that I simply cannot categorize. The main reason for this is that I usually lack the appropriate concepts for delineating the details of these experiences. For example, I may not possess adequate concepts for distinguishing between annoyance and jealousy, and thus think that I am merely feeling annoyed rather than jealous. It's not a matter of just possessing the words. It may come as a surprise to me when I realize that I feel jealous. I may have an incomplete concept of JEALOUSY, for example I know how people act when jealous, but presumably I do not know what it's like to feel jealous until I actually experience it (and realize what it is I'm feeling). The same applies to feelings such as love, grief, awe, aesthetic pleasure, etc. I can possess the words for these without possessing a phenomenal concept for these feelings. Does the difficulty in acquiring concepts of certain emotions suggest that there is a domain-specific limitation here? In a sense it does, but this does not entail the existence of a faulty or more limited 8 Watzl and Wu (2012) also emphasize this point. 9 A third type of conceptual error which I do not discuss here is the activation of incorrect concepts. For example, suppose I am exposed to something cold such as ice, but I have been primed to expect a sensation of heat and hence I briefly mistakenly judge that I am feeling heat. Again this type of error affects both phenomenal and perceptual judgments. C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n RELIABILITY IN PHENOMENAL JUDGMENT 115 domain-specific process. As to why we may possess fewer concepts in one domain than another it is helpful to consider how we often acquire phenomenal concepts. An example is colour experience. I can easily acquire the phenomenal concept of turquoise because someone can point to something that is turquoise, such as a turquoise opal. By doing this I am provided with a phenomenal sample of turquoise. I learn what it is like to experience it, how it relates to other colours (e.g. that it is a greenish-blue) and I can then identify it again on other occasions. Emotions on the other hand are more difficult to learn presumably because it is more difficult to provide a phenomenal sample. Someone cannot simply flick a switch and turn on my feeling of tenderness. They may set up the appropriate situation or show a scene from a movie where characters are portraying this feeling, but it is not guaranteed that I will thereby feel tenderness, and certainly not as reliably as I can be made to experience turquoise. Thus it seems that I will be unlikely to acquire concepts for the myriad affective subtleties, like anger 22 versus anger 23, as I can potentially do for colour experience. This does not show that there is a unique process for making judgments about emotions that is less reliable or more limited than for making judgments about colours. Rather, there is a nonintrospective limitation here. If colours were as difficult to manipulate as emotions, and as unstable, then they would be just as difficult to learn. 6.2. Uncertainty in Using Concepts On other occasions, I possess the appropriate concept, and it is currently activated, but I am uncertain as to how to employ it. An example, given by Schwitzgebel, is in making judgments about visual imagery. Schwitzgebel asks if you can give medium-level details of your mental image of a house (Schwitzgebel, 2011, Chapter 3). How clear is it? How detailed is it? How stable is it? Your uncertainty in answering these questions suggests that you are an unreliable introspector.10 10 Contrary to Schwitzgebel's claim, Pearson, Rademaker and Tong (2011) used an ingenious binocular rivalry task to show evidence that subjects are reliable at judging the vividness of their mental images. Using the same paradigm, Rademaker and Pearson (2012) found that subjects can improve this metacognitive ability with training. My thanks to Helen Yetter-Chappell for pointing me towards these studies. C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n 116 B.J. RAMM Even though we presumably do get such questions wrong on occasion, there are analogous examples of perceptual judgments where there are similar amounts of uncertainty. For example: 'Where exactly does that haystack begin and end?' 'How large is that bus?' 'How bushy is that tree?' These are difficult questions to answer. Yet this does not show that my perception of haystacks, buses, or trees is unreliable, only that I am not always sure how to apply these categories. Of course, the instability and low resolution of mental images most likely makes answering many questions about them more difficult than many visual perceptions. 7. Cognitive Dissociations Cognitive dissociations present a challenge to a domain-general theory as they provide examples of deficits in making judgments within specific modalities, while leaving general cognitive abilities intact. For example, visual associative agnosia is the inability to identify visually perceived ordinary objects such as cups despite intact visual perception (Farah, 2004). Subjects with this condition can also recognize a familiar object as a cup if they are allowed to touch it, thus showing that the conceptual system is intact, and that the deficit is specific to visual recognition. Such neurological conditions suggest that there are domain-specific informational links between different sensory modalities and the activation of concepts in working memory. One particularly relevant example for the present enquiry is alexithymia, which is a clinical condition which literally means 'no words for feelings' (Samur et al., 2013).11 It is characterized by a subject's difficulty in describing emotions. For example, sufferers may not be able distinguish whether they are feeling angry, sad, or anxious, or distinguish whether they are feeling a bodily sensation or an emotional state, and they also may not be able to identify others' emotions. Alexithymia is a challenge for a domain-general cognitive theory because sufferers have difficulties describing their emotions even though their attentional and working memory systems and other conceptual abilities remain intact, thereby suggesting the existence of a domain-specific process. In fact, two types of alexithymia have been distinguished (Larsen et al., 2003). Type I is associated with a lack of emotional experience. 11 Thank you to an anonymous reviewer for pressing me on this case. C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n RELIABILITY IN PHENOMENAL JUDGMENT 117 Since sufferers feel a blunting or an absence of emotions, this has a follow-on effect to the cognitive processing of emotions in general. An analogy here is colour-blindness (Lane et al., 1996). A subject that is colour-blind has problems identifying colour, but this is due to not experiencing them in the first place, not due to a general attentional or conceptual malfunction. Hence this form of alexithymia is not problematic for the current hypothesis. Type II alexithymia appears to be analogous to visual associative agnosia. It is characterized by no deficit in feeling emotions, but predominantly in identifying and describing them. This form of alexithymia is associated with damage to the person's corpus callosum and hence a disorder in interhemispheric communication. This suggests that there can be a domain-specific disruption between the experiencing of an emotion and the activation of a concept for the emotion in working memory. This is compatible with the present domain-general framework for three reasons: firstly, it does not entail that identifying emotions relies upon a special introspective attentional mechanism, working memory resource, or conceptual system, only that there is an additional domain-specific informational link (particularly in interhemispheric communication). Secondly, the existence of domain-specific processes does not invalidate the present framework because the hypothesis was that most errors can be accounted for by domain-general processes (not that there are no domain-specific processes which contribute to phenomenal judgments). This is consistent with domain-specific processes also contributing to the judgment as long as their role in producing errors in neurally typical individuals is relatively small. While I cannot conclusively prove that this is in fact the case, I think that there can be indirect evidence for this hypothesis. In particular, in accounting for the unreliability of different phenomenal judgments I have drawn upon attentional, working memory, and conceptual factors, as well as properties of the target phenomenal states such as complexity and dynamicity. There has so far been no need to posit any other significant sources of error in accounting for problem cases in typical individuals. Thirdly, alexithymia is also associated with a difficulty in identifying others' emotional states (a judgment about the world) as well as one's own emotional states (a phenomenal judgment). Lane et al. (1996) present evidence that individuals with alexithymia have difficulty in recognizing the emotions displayed by faces. That is, it is not C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n 118 B.J. RAMM just a deficit unique to identifying one's own emotional states, but in emotion processing in general. Goldman (2006) also reviews evidence that a deficit in feeling a specific emotion is paired with a deficit in recognizing the same specific emotion in others. This suggests that making judgments about one's own emotions and those of others share underlying processes, which is a version of the domain-general thesis. Thus, even if evidence was found that these informational links were significantly unreliable in neurally typical subjects, alexithymia still does not provide evidence for a separate introspective process apart from processes involved in making judgments about the world. Rather it is consistent with the domain-general thesis. 8. Against Introspective Scepticism In Sections 4–6, I argued that most errors and limitations of phenomenal judgments can in principle be accounted for by the domaingeneral dimensions of attention, working memory limitations, and conceptualization. If true then this account undermines the process unreliability thesis. I provide reasons in support of the domain-general thesis in the next section. What about the statistical unreliability thesis? It can still be held that phenomenology is in general more complex, dynamic, and elusive, and thus we will always be less reliable at judging it than facts about the world. The statistical unreliability thesis is compatible with the domain-general account. According to the current framework, the greater unreliability of phenomenal judgments (if they are indeed less reliable) is typically due to properties of the target of the judgment such as complexity and dynamicity, or other factors such as a lack of expertise in making phenomenal judgments, rather than a fault in specific processes which produce the judgment. This can lead to statistical differences in the reliability of phenomenal judgments, but this uniqueness does not imply that the errors stem from separate domain-specific processes. Perhaps a type of scepticism can be based upon statistical unreliability. In this section I consider some motivations for holding the statistical unreliability thesis. I then present an argument for blocking a move from statistical unreliability to introspective scepticism. In my view, Schwitzgebel's (2011, p. 136) claim that experience is almost always 'gelatinous, disjointed, swift, shy, changeable' is incorrect, especially when it comes to perceptual experience. For C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n RELIABILITY IN PHENOMENAL JUDGMENT 119 example, my visual experience of desks, the sky, and trees are very stable. In general, however, the dynamicity of thoughts, emotions, and mental imagery is a point in favour of comparative statistical unreliability. Another consideration in favour of this thesis is the possibility that we are experts when it comes to making judgments about the world as social factors and biological survival depend upon this.12 Since we have far more practice at getting these judgments right perhaps we are more likely to attend more effectively and to acquire more finegrained concepts like expert wine tasters (Ballester et al., 2008; Solomon, 1990) than for untrained judgments about experience. Perhaps we can also chunk items of the world more efficiently and thus can make more accurate judgments about complex situations such as being in traffic in comparison to the patterns when one's eyes are closed, just as chess experts are better at assessing and memorizing positions on a chess board than novices (Chase and Simon, 1973). Also there may be few negative consequences if we get details of our emotional phenomenology, visual acuity, visual imagery, and eyesclosed phenomenology incorrect, and so perhaps we tend to be novices particularly when it comes to these experiences. This being said, judgments about sensory experience such as 'the rose looks red' are intimately related to perceptual judgments such as 'the rose is red'. In making both types of judgment, I attend outwardly to the rose and its perceptible properties. I do not shift my attention inwards to decide how the rose looks. Schwitzgebel (2012, pp. 34–5) makes a similar point when he discusses how we easily slip between judgments about our perceptual experience and properties of the world, and takes it as evidence for overlapping processes in making judgments. However, he does not mention the implication of this - that this is a reason for thinking that a large number of phenomenal judgments and perceptual judgments (in the veridical case) are hence equivalent in reliability. Furthermore, expertise in one would then be expected to entail an equivalent level of expertise in the other. Overall, then, the novice argument is another point in favour of statistical unreliability for some though not all phenomenal judgments. The flipside of this argument is that it should be possible (at least in principle) to train subjects to overcome these errors. 12 Thank you to Eric Schwitzgebel for suggesting this argument to me. C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n 120 B.J. RAMM Assuming that the statistical unreliability of phenomenal judgments was sufficiently high (although this seems unlikely), one might hold that this justifies a form of scepticism in which one should mistrust all of these judgments. Thus it may be that a strong form of pessimism is still viable based upon their statistical unreliability. I think that the current account blocks the threat of scepticism based upon statistical unreliability by providing criteria for distinguishing between reliable and unreliable phenomenal judgments. The proposal is that identifying the dimensions involved in making phenomenal errors vindicates the apparently trustworthy cases of phenomenal judgments such as foveal colour judgments, knowing that I am in intense pain, etc. by showing why they are so often correct. These highly trustworthy, virtually undoubtable judgments are characterized by the stability and high intensity of the experience, and the high degree of attentiveness at the time of the judgment, as well as the possession of appropriate concepts. This enables us to locate the reliability of a particular phenomenal judgment in reliability space (Figure 1). I will provide an example using wine tasting judgments (for the sake of simplicity I do not include all of the relevant factors in the figure).13 For example, the judgments of a wine taster who is inattentive and with a low degree of conceptual adequacy would be located at A (e.g. an inattentive novice taster); inattentive but high conceptual adequacy at B (e.g. an inattentive expert taster); attentive but low conceptual adequacy at C (e.g. an attentive novice taster); and attentive and high conceptual adequacy at D (e.g. an attentive expert taster).14 As there are principled criteria for distinguishing between reliable and unreliable phenomenal judgments, there is no reason to doubt judgments that reside in a superior position in reliability space, thus undermining the potential slide into introspective scepticism. A response to this account by the pessimist is to move the pessimism to a higher level and ask: how do you know that you are in a 13 Errors due to the complexity or dynamicity of the experience can be incorporated into this simplified reliability space as these tend to cause a failure of the appropriate concepts to either be activated or maintained in working memory. A more explanatorily adequate figure would also include these factors. 14 In a study by Solomon (1990) it was found that wine experts are better at picking the odd wine out of three glasses of wine than novices, which suggests that it is the possession of concepts, rather than terminology, that differentiates experts from novices (see also Ballester et al., 2008). C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n RELIABILITY IN PHENOMENAL JUDGMENT 121 situation where you are being appropriately attentive and have adequate concepts, etc.? However, this question also applies to perception, reasoning, and mathematics so one cannot be a higher-order pessimist about phenomenal judgments without also generalizing this pessimism to these other domains. This argument works independently of the truth of the domain-general thesis. Suppose evidence arose that there are multiple domain-specific attentional mechanisms. Nevertheless, by identifying a type of error as attentional, this provides criteria for deciding if a phenomenal judgment is likely to be erroneous. Figure 1. Reliability space for phenomenal judgments on the dimensions of attentiveness and conceptual adequacy. (A) Low attentiveness and low conceptual adequacy, (B) low attentiveness and high conceptual adequacy, (C) high attentiveness and low conceptual adequacy, (D) high attentiveness and high conceptual adequacy. 9. The Case for the Domain-General Thesis The primary aim of the paper was to argue against the process unreliability thesis which holds that phenomenal judgments are unreliable due to faulty domain-specific processes. The strategy was to argue that problem cases for phenomenal judgments can either be discounted as non-errors or accounted for by domain-general factors such as attention, working memory, and conceptualization. Thus it is not that mechanisms involved in making phenomenal judgments are unreliable per se, but any judgment in which there are attentional and conceptual errors or working memory limits are exceeded, including C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n 122 B.J. RAMM phenomenal, perceptual, mathematical, and rational judgments. If true then this account undermines the process unreliability thesis. Furthermore, this would significantly limit the scope of pessimism about phenomenal judgments because perceptual judgments would also suffer from the same errors and limitations as phenomenal judgments. One outcome of the current account, if true, is that theorists who claim that phenomenal judgments are generally unreliable must mean that they are unreliable in terms of overall numbers, not that the underlying processes are unreliable. If they mean that the underlying processes themselves are generally unreliable, then the claim would overgeneralize, such that perceptual and intellectual judgments would also be generally unreliable. This is presumably an outcome that no one wants. Should we accept the domain-general account of errors and limitations? As it is an empirical hypothesis it is always open to defeating evidence, so I cannot claim to have proved the hypothesis here. I do, however, think that it is sufficiently probable enough to warrant assenting to this thesis over a domain-specific account. The reasons in favour of the present thesis are: (1) Attentional distraction between different modalities, suggesting that there is a single focus of attention. If there was a separate introspective attention then I should be able to attend to my thoughts and the world simultaneously without distraction. (2) A working memory capacity-limit of approximately four chunks for many different domains (Cowan, 2001) (including stereotypically introspective cases), as well as direct empirical evidence for a single capacity across sensory modalities (Saults and Cowan, 2007). (3) Phenomenal judgments and perceptual judgments are subject to the same types of conceptual errors. (4) That most errors and limitations for neurally typical individuals stem from a domain-general system is compatible with cognitive dissociations such as alexithymia. (5) The domain-general framework is more parsimonious than positing multiple domain-specific systems that are responsible for the same types of errors and limitations. Why posit special types of attention, working memory capacity, and conceptualization when a single system could perform the same functions? This arguably shifts the burden of proof onto the proponent of the process unreliability thesis. C op yr ig ht ( c) Im pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 6 F or p er so na l u se o nl y -n ot fo r re pr od uc tio n RELIABILITY IN PHENOMENAL JUDGMENT 123 At the very least this paper blocks an argument for the process unreliability thesis. However, I claim that we can draw a stronger conclusion than this. The above reasons do not prove the hypothesis, but I think that they provide sufficient support, in conjunction with being the simpler hypothesis, for provisionally accepting the domain-general thesis over the process unreliability thesis barring evidence arising to the contrary. 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See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329572822 Interpretation in Muslim Philosophy Book * January 2012 CITATIONS 0 READS 323 1 author: Abduljaleel Alwali United Arab Emirates University 3 PUBLICATIONS 0 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE All content following this page was uploaded by Abduljaleel Alwali on 11 December 2018. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. Interpretation in Muslim Philosophy By Prof. Abdul Jaleel Kadhim Al Wali Philosophy Department Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences United Arab Emirates University Al Ain Abu Dhabi UAE Phone: +971-50-663-6703 [email protected] Abstract Muslim philosophers had been preoccupied with the question of interpretation since the Islamic Philosophy was first developed by its founder Al Kindi till its interpretative maturity by Ibn Rushd who represents the maturity of rationalism in Islamic Arab philosophy. Rational option was the most suitable for Arab Muslim civilization as it expresses the vitality of civilization and its ability to interact with other contemporary civilizations and trends. Islamic philosophy interpretation themes are various as they adopted the following terms: 1. Interpreting the approval of the Greek philosophy in Muslim culture. 2. Interpreting the relationship between religion and philosophy. 3. Interpreting the relationship between Mind and Mind ( Plato and Aristotle ) 4. Interpreting the relationship between nature and Metaphysics. The goals of interpretation for Muslim philosophers are different as Al Kind pointed that they are oriented towards the Greek philosophy in general and towards religion and philosophy in particular while Al Farabi pointed that they are oriented towards the Greek philosophy in general and towards Plato and Aristotle. Ibn Rushd opposed Al Ghazali ,the interpretation was focused on Aristotle's texts. He presented a legal verdict in working in philosophy. My Article will illustrate and construct such opinions which I think they deserve consideration and analysis. The Author Prof. Abduljaleel .K. Alwali is Iraqi. Now he is working as a Professor of Philosophy at United Arab Emirates University since 2001. He is the author of nine perreviewed books and three Textbooks. He has written more than eighteen Journal Articles and twenty-five Articles for Daily Newspapers and weekly Magazines. He has participated in nine International Conferences. Professor Alwali was listed in 2000 as an Outstanding Intellectual of the 21st century by the International Biographical Center of Cambridge, England, he is listed in the Academic Keys Who's Who in Humanities Higher Education (WWHHE), and in Who's Who in the World , 22nd edition, 2005. Interpretation in Muslim Philosophy Introduction The goals of interpretation for Muslim philosophers were different as was pointed out by Al Kindi (801870AC)1 , in that they were oriented towards Greek philosophy in general and towards religion and philosophy in particular. Meanwhile, Al Farabi (870950AC)2 stated that the goals of interpretation were oriented towards Greek philosophy in general and towards Plato and Aristotle in particular; and subsequently nature and Metaphysics. The difference reached its uttermost in interpreting the relationship between religion and philosophy. The same goal remained valid for Ibn Sina(9801037AC)3 who excluded the theme of conciliation between the Mind, Mind and nature and Metaphysics. Al Ghazali(10591111AC)4 took a different approach, as his concern focused on the philosophy presented by Muslim philosophers viewing them from the perspective of Greek philosophers. Accordingly, the orientation of interpretation for him focused on viewing the ego, and Muslim philosophers, through the id and Greek philosophy. His book 'The Incoherence of the Philosophers' (Tahāfut al-Falāsifah) is a good example. However, this situation was not sustained over a long period as Ibn Rushd (11261198AC )5 opposed Al Ghazali and restored the state of affairs to its former path. For him, the interpretation was focused on the text by Aristotle and the incapability of Prince Almohd to understand such text; his need for someone to explain it advantaged him. 1 Abu Yusuf Yaqub b. Ishaq al-Kindi,the 242 works attributed to him by Ibn al-Nadim ,according to that bibliographer's classification, logic, metaphysics, arithmetic, spherics, music, astronomy , geometry, medicine, astrology, theology, politics, meteorology, topography, prognostics, and alchemy. See Ibn alNadim, Kitab al-Fihrist, pp371-79. 2 Muhammad b.Muhammad b.Tarkhan al-Farabi(Latin;Abunaser). He was the founder of Arab NeoPlatonism . His contributions in physics, metaphysics, and politics, as well as in logic.He came to be known as the 'Second Teacher' (al-Mou'allim al-Thani) Aristotle being the First. 3 Abu Ali al-Husain Ibn Sina (Latin Avicenna). Ibn Sina's major philosophical treatise is Kitab al-Shifa or book of healing , Latin's title Sufficientia. It is an encyclopedia of Islamic – Greek learning in the eleventh century, ranging from logic to mathematics. 4 Al-Ghazali is the greatest figure in the history of the Islamic reaction to New-Platonism by his book Tahafut al-Falasifah. He was jurist, theologian , philosopher , and mystic. 5 Abul-Walid Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Rushd had become the symbol of Greek philosophy in the eastern part of the Muslim world. Thus, the preoccupation of Ibn Rushd with interpretation was a consequence of the desires of the Almohd prince, who was fond of philosophy and followed the instruction of Ibn Tufail. However, Ibn Rushd utilised his position to found interpretative philosophy, or so-called jurisprudence of interpretation. He presented a legal verdict in working in philosophy and presented a reply to Al Ghazali that he had a position with an audience, woman and society, as well as an understanding of the truth and the difficulty of realising it. The outcome of this was a book entitled 'Incoherence of the Incoherence' (Tahāfut al-Tahāfut). In addition there were further attempts at interpretation made by Ibn Bajjah (?1138AC )6, Ibn Tufail (?-1185AC) 7and Ibn Sabin (1217-1268AC)8, most of which were based on openness with regards to foreign cultures and trends i.e. openness towards the other. Thus this research will illustrate and construct an approach by focusing on those opinions that require consideration and analysis according to the following themes: 1. Interpretation of the approval of the Greek philosophy in Muslim culture. 2. Interpretation of the relationship between religion and philosophy. 3. Interpretation of the relationship between Mind and Mind (Plato and Aristotle). 4. Interpretation of the relationship between nature and Metaphysics. 1. Interpretation of approving Greek philosophy in Muslim Culture: Greek Philosophy began in 585BC, the year in which Thales predicted a solar eclipse which lasted till 529AC when the Roman Emperor Gestan closed all philosophical schools. These philosophers discussed multiple and contrasting themes; including existence and related themes: human beings, their multiple and various details, animals, plants and solids. All their opinions in this regard remain pertinent and form the basis for much argument amongst philosophers and theorists. The Arabs communicated with the Greeks, 6 Abu Bakr Muhammad b al-Sayigh, better known as Ibn Bajjah( the Avempace of Latin source). His famous book is Tadbir al –Mutawahid ( The Conduct of the Solitary). 7 Abu Bakr B.Tufayl wrote a numerous works on medicine , astronomy, and philosophy. His philosophical work survive is Hayy b. Yaqsan. 8 Abu Mohammed Abd el-Hakh Ibn Sabin. He was known for his replies to questions sent to him by Frederick II, ruler of Sicily. as well as with other nations, through means such as trade or religious missions and through the establishment of those cities neighbouring Persia and the Roman Empires. As a result of this contact, cultural schools were established within the Arab context which included: • The Antakya School in Aleppo. • The school of Edessa and Nusaybin in Iraq. • The Baghdad School. • The Harran School in Iraq. • The Alexandria School. The Arabs were introduced to Greek philosophy at these cultural schools, as Greek was the main teaching language. The views taught concentrated on man, the universe and God and disregarded the translation of Greek texts. Concentration on translation came at a later date when Islam appeared and encouraged the openness of other cultures. Translation specifically began in the Abbasid Caliphate during the reign of Al Ma'mun (786 – 833AC) when he established the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. The orientation in translation was more towards translation of philosophical texts than literature. The most famous translators of philosophy books including: • Hunayn ibn Ishaq (810873AC): He was appointed by Caliph Al Mamun as a head of Wisdom House after Yahi ibn Masweh the first head of Wisdom House. He was talented in Persian, Greek, Arabic and Syric. His translations for Plato included; Politics, and Timaeus. His translations for Aristotle included; Categories and Physics. • Ishaq Ibn Hunayn ; He helped his father to administrate Wisdom House. He translated Plato's Sophistica and for Aristotle , the Universe, the Corruption and Psyche and some of the Letters Book. • John Ibn Batriq (? – 815AC): He translated Plato's Timaeus, Natural history, Book of animals and parts of book of Physics by Aristotle. • Qusta ibn Luqa (820900AC ): Translated Alexandare d'Aphrodisses' explanation of physics and Alexandare's explanation of Aristotle's book of Universe and Corruption. • Abdul Massiah ibn Abdullah Al Naamah Al Hamsi(886-939AC): He translated the following; Sophistica written by Aristotle, The explanation of Yehai al Nahwy for Physics, Athulogia Aristotle which is an explanation of the fourth, fifth and sixth Enneads written by Plotinus not Aristotle. • Thabit ibn Qurrra (826-900AC): He translated the explanation of Physics written by Aristotle.9 However, this translation was oriented towards philosophy not literature. From a personal perspective the author suggests there was a greater need for philosophy than for literature. Thus philosophy represented a gap in thought that they sought to bridge. Al Kindi, for example, translated the Greek philosophical texts and corrected associated bad translations presenting many summaries, but he did not translate any literary texts. Therefore, it was the case that Muslim philosophers adopted Greek philosophy, which was admired and supported; they also tried to adapt it according to the teachings of Islam. However the following question becomes apparent: Could Islamic civilization absorb Greek civilization? This represents a point of dispute amongst theorists. For instance Badawy has argued that the Islamic spirit did not derive from the original Greek spirit rather it was the Greek spirit that was derived from the oriental spirit. This is the secret to the success of reviving Platonism in the Muslim world10. Some believe that it was this spirit that was found in Dialectical Theology as claimed by Badawy, Nicholson, De Boer, Goldziher, and Ernest Renan; but we oppose such Dialectical Theology as it does not represent philosophical thought. Another team excluded scholastic theology and Sufism from philosophy; whilst an additional one argued that true Islamic philosophy had been found in scholastic theology and jurisprudence, as both first originated from Islam. Thus the argument raised by this team depended on the origins of scholastic theology and jurisprudence. Originality does not necessarily require the evaluation of thought as philosophy because philosophical thought does not have clear properties or a specific approach. 9 For more details see; Delisle J and Woodsworth J(1995), Translators through History, John Benjamins Publishing Company Unesco Publishing, Chapter .4, Baghdad center of Arabic translation, p.112-115. 10. Badawy; Abdul Rahman. (1980) The Greek Heritage in Islamic Civilization; Publications Agency, Introduction, ppf (later on). There is also a further opinion that Arab Muslim culture has refuted: the contrast between natural and historical. This considered that all beings share a single nature and that interpretation and analysis as such was neither natural nor historical. Rather it goes beyond, making them the basis of their unity11. However this warrants greater explanation. If the theorists from this perspective had determined the essence or nature of this source which they named unnatural and unhistorical; the matter would have been clearer. Therefore, their perspective lacks absolute clarity and decisive argument. As a result of such clear disagreements between contemporary theorists, it more useful to render the views of the philosophers themselves regarding Greek philosophy for our purposes. At first, Al Kindi in his interpretation of the approval of Greek philosophies called for disregard of the early disciplines and the failure to address these was deemed unacceptable. Therefore he pointed out that the reason for returning to the early disciplines was that truth could not be fulfilled by a single person; but rather everyone could fulfil a portion of it. Therefore, taking all philosophers as one package was much better than depending on one in isolation (if one could collect as few opinions as possible from such philosophers, then a tremendous amount could be collected)12. Accordingly, we have to express our thanks to our ancestors who fulfilled truth as they helped us through their introductions and paved the way for the understanding of later generations. Without their efforts we would not have acquired such breadth of knowledge. In addition Al Kindi does not distinguish between peoples and nations seeking truth, 'we should not be ashamed of appreciating truth and verifying the way it came through even if it came from people who are farther from us or contrasted to us. Truth seeker should pay no attention but to truth itself. He must not depreciate truth; humiliate its supporter or bringer. None depreciated truth but everyone is honoured by 11. Al Marzouki, Abo Ya'reb. (2001) The unity of Religious and Philosophical Thought; Modern Thought House, Beirut, Lebanon, p. 122-3. 12. Al Kindi,(1984) Al Kindi book to Al Mutasim Bellah in the first philosophy, investigation made by Ahmed Fouad Al Ahwani, Resurrection Arab books house, Cairo, p. 80 truth.'12F13 Thus Al Kindi's stand is a reaction to the jurists and scholars of his time who forbade the studying of earlier works. With regard to Farabi, one of the well-known Mashayeen (peripatetic) in Islamic philosophy, he realised that he lived and experienced a different civilization than that experienced by the Greeks. He also realised that there was a certain level of balance or consistency between the Greek and Arab Muslim experiences. This does not necessarily mean that they can be merged and bypassed by a theoretical system that seeks to collect and transcends them at the same time13F14. He trusted Greek philosophy to a great extent; especially Plato and Aristotle. His book 'Kitab al-jam baina rayai al-hakimain aflatun alilahi wa aristutalis' (The Book of Harmony Between the Ideas of the Two Sages, Plato the Divine and Aristotle) presented their views as being in agreement with Arab philosophers. A greater level of detail will thus be provided in this regard within this research. In addition to the issues described above, the problem of accepting Greek philosophy in Arab culture is presently known in terms of the debate on originality versus modernism. Originality means accepting Greek philosophy or rational science, which faced an element of rejection in line with what was currently encountered by fundamentalism. As for the approval standpoint, it is modernism that considers truth as the first reference. Al Ghazali did not personally examine Greek philosophy; but depended on Ibn Sina in this regard to find information. Accordingly, most of his information was incorrect because he did not receive it from its original sources; and because he misrepresented the Greek text so as to accuse his theorists of non-belief, and accordingly to accuse those Muslim philosophers who followed this Greek philosopher of non-belief. Therefore Al Ghazali rejected the philosophy related to Plato and Aristotle and also omitted the 13 Ibid. 14 Al Jabril Mohamed Abid. (1977) An introduction to Fasul al Makal in determination of the connection between jurisprudence and wisdom, Beirut, p. 38. writings of other Greek philosophers. He accused Muslim philosophers of non-belief because Greek philosophers were found guilty of this. This will be further illustrated in greater detail when the consistency between religion and philosophy is discussed. Ibn Rushd was well informed about Greek philosophy and therefore he represented modernism i.e. rationality in Arab thought. Conversely Al Ghazali represented the fundamentalist trend, and thus Ibn Rushd called for the rendering to Greek philosophy and the need to depend on it especially when rational argument was considered superlative15. Ibn Rushd considered that earlier philosophers preceded us in searching for reason and so we must take them into account to discover whether they share our faith or not, "by sharing I mean those who lived before Islam whose books must be read and we must consider all their views and accept the correct ones and to warn about the incorrect ones."16 In addition, Ibn Rushd spoke about creatures and the requirements of proofing "to consider their views in this regard and what they had proved in their texts so that we can accept what coincides with truth and express our thanks to them and to warn about what does not coincide with truth and give them some excuse."17 He also stated that the studying of earlier books was legally permissible because he considered their sense as that associated with jurisprudence; the matter of which means the consistency between both the goal of philosophy and the goal of religion. 2. Interpreting the Relationship between Religion and Philosophy Al Kindi interpreted the relationship between religion and philosophy as that which depended on his own definition of philosophy, "human artifacts are supreme and philosophy occupies the most honourable amongst them. Accordingly he defined philosophy as: the science of knowing things in their real sense according to man's 15 More details see; Stewart, Olivia(1993), Ibn Rushed, Chapter, Resonning, The American University in Cairo Press ,p.92. 16 Ibn Rushd, Abu Al Walid, Fasul al Makal, a previous reference, p 91. 17 Ibid, p. 93. capability because the objective of the philosopher is to reach truth in his science and to work according to this truth".18 The most honourable philosophy is the earliest one, by which I mean the first truth science is the origin of any truth. Therefore, the philosopher should be aware of all matters relevant to this honourable science. Accordingly, philosophy and religion are similar because philosophy aims to discover truth; whilst religion aims to determine the reality of everything. Therefore, there is no contradiction between philosophy and religion. For Al Kindi philosophical knowledge depended on the mind and this differed from prophetical and Sufi knowledge because the source of prophetical knowledge was revelation; whereas the only tool supporting Sufi knowledge was intuition. With regards to Al Farabi his adaptation between philosophy and religion was based on the belief that Greek philosophy represented the sovereignty of reason. Accordingly, Muslims must be aware of the rational arguments about God, man and the world. Al Farabi defined philosophy as 'the knowledge of creatures as they exist'18F19; and the utmost objective of philosophy 'is to understand about Lord the Creator and that he was the creator of everything and therefore does not contradict with religion'. Rapport and harmony prevail in life through the rapport and harmony which is associated between religion and philosophy because what is determined by religion is similar to what is proved by philosophy; just as utopia, resembles the cosmism and its correlation. Thus, there is no contradiction between religion and philosophy as "philosophy expresses truth directly through arguments and proofs while religion expresses it with resemblance and ideals.'19F20 In his book "The Letters" Al Farabi stated: "when it is proved that religion is a version equivalent to the message of philosophy, then philosophers would not reject religion while men of 18 Al Kindi, Al Kindi's book to Al Mu'taism bellah in the first Philosophy, a previous reference, p.77. 19 Al Farabi, Abo Nasr.(1986) Kitab al-jam baina rayai al-hakimain aflatun al-ilahi wa aristutalis (The Book of Harmony Between the Ideas of the Two Sages, Plato the Divine and Aristotle; an investigation made by Albert Nasry Nader, Al Mashreq House, Beirut, Lebanon, p. 80. 20 Al Jabri as cited in an introduction to his investigation of Fasul Al Makal's book by Ibn Rushd, p. 35. religion would reject philosophy. Therefore, both philosophy and philosophers will be rejected instead of playing the leading role in facilitating and adopting religion. As a result, religion will not receive any support from philosophy. Rather, religion and its followers will cause huge harm to philosophy and philosophers. In front of such threat, philosophers may have to oppose the men of religion while they would not dare to reject the religion itself. They may reject the idea raised by men of religion that religion contradicts with philosophy. Also, they will attempt to eradicate such an idea through bringing to the knowledge of men of religion that the message of their religion is an equivalent representation for philosophy."21 Ibn Tufail's view-point regarding the relationship between religion and philosophy was in agreement with that of Al Farabi in his book "The Letters" as he had considered the right philosophy as self-sufficient; and as presenting a truth similar to religion, despite the different language of both and the construction of the correspondence of religious experience to Hai and Asal i.e. the correspondence of religion to philosophy. Ibn Rushd stated that philosophy and jurisprudence are two siblings that are fed from one source: truth. Accordingly truth is not contradicted by truth; rather both agree and certify each other as well as seek to fulfil one objective, which is virtue.22 Finally we can conclude that Ibn Rushd's method to adapt religion with philosophy was a matter that did not undertake the same function as that made by Al Kindi in the same regard; or by Al Farabi in attempting to combine the views of both Plato and Aristotle. It would appear that he may have issued a legally applicable judgment. Philosophy is a legal duty and does not contradict religion; rather one completes the other. In general, the grace of Muslim Arab thought, as assumed by certain theorists, attempts to integrate both 21 Al Farabi, The letters, as quoted by G K Bergl in his research about Ibn Tufail and the book of Hai Ibn Yaqzan "A turning point in Arab Philosophical writing", p. 1162. 22 Ibn Rushd, Fasul al Makal, a previous reference, p. 50. philosophical and religious thought. The logic of Islamic philosophy says that both are united in essence. 3. Interpretation of the relationship between Mind and Mind (Plato and Aristotle). Abū Nasr al-Fārābi, Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Tarkhan His attempt to combine the views of Plato and Aristotle are considered one of the most famous interpretive attempts in the history of Islamic Philosophy. He wrote a separate book where he made clear, in its introduction, that the goal of such an attempt was to "clarify the method is to clear the right path to the student as not to go stray and to judge the sayings of those two philosophers without deviating the right path to imagine the problem sounds."23 Accordingly he interpreted the difference between them according to the following themes: • Life choices: Aristotle was married and had children; whilst Plato refused this choice. This meant that Aristotle enjoyed the material life whilst Plato refused such a life. • Oral tradition versus written: Plato refused documentation and preferred memorising to documentation; whilst Aristotle adopted the scientific method in documentation. • Essences: Plato thought that essences were closer to the soul and further away from the senses; whilst Aristotle believed that people were the essences. • Division of things: Plato began with the whole and deconstructed this into parts; whilst Aristotle began with the parts to reconstruct the whole. • Vision: Plato interpreted vision as something derived from sight requiring a meeting with the mind; whilst Aristotle thought that vision was the outcome of sight. • Ethics: Aristotle thought that ethics were changeable customs and that he did not need them; whilst Plato observed that nature overcame habits. • Knowledge: Plato thought that knowledge was memorised; whilst Aristotle thought that is was acquired. 23 Al Farabi, Kitab al-jam, a previous reference, p. 105. • Longevity of the universe: Aristotle thought that the universe was old; whilst Plato thought it was modern. • Idealism: Plato believed in the possibility of an ideal world; whilst Aristotle rejected it. Al Farabi's concern was concentrated on attempting to find an interpretation or construction of some of the ideas associated with both Plato and Aristotle; however, he stated that there was no difference them. Unfortunately, most interpretations presented by Al Farabi in were later rejected by Muslim philosophers and did not find any support; principally because the disagreements between Plato and Aristotle were fundamental philosophical differences. Aristotle was a factual philosopher whilst Plato was an idealistic philosopher. In addition, Al Farabi depended on the 'Enneads' by Aristotle which he attributed to him; whilst in reality it belonged to Plotinus. He completely depended on the book in order to interpret the disagreements about the ideals of Plato. It has been suggested that Aristotle in his book "Enneads" proved the spiritual images which he said were available in the Godhood domain. In fact it was Plotinus who first mentioned this and not Aristotle. Al Farabi went on to say that such sayings had three possibilities which may either contradict one another; some may belong to Aristotle whilst others may not, or they may have some meanings and interpretations that are either inwardly consistent or outwardly inconsistent. Al Farabi denied any contradiction and rejected the suggestion that some of the ideas belonged to Aristotle, whilst others did not. Therefore this led to different interpretations leading to meaning that the possibility that their exploration will raise doubts and confusion.24 4. Interpretation of the relationship between nature and Metaphysics. 4.1Abū Yūsuf Ya'qūb ibn Ishāq al-Kindī 4.1.1: His interpretation of the 'Trusting the Mind' the theme differed from the interpretation given by Aristotle who provided an absolute trust in the Mind. However, he agreed with Aristotle with regards to the consideration of the philosophy of theology 24 Details of Al Farabi opinions, see a previous reference, pp. 91-109. being greater than the philosophy of physics and mathematics. In research associated with the Mind he presented the views of Greece and divided intelligence into: Active intelligence; Material intelligence, Actual intelligence and Acquire intelligence. This division was first made by Aristotle with the exception of the beneficiary of Mind or absolute or introverted Mind made by Al Kindi. Muslim philosophers later followed him as he defined Mind "as a simple essence that is aware of things and their reality."25 4.1.2: In his interpretation of the aspects of philosophy to students he did not bypass Plato and Aristotle. He emphasised determining pronunciation; studying mathematics; studying the philosophy of Aristotle; telling the truth; expressing thanks to previous theorists; adopting methodology and believing that philosophy is scientific and work. 4.1.3: His interpretation of the definition of the Soul was that of 'a whole natural living germ. It is said that the Soul is a primary completion of the natural living viable body. Also, it is said to have a self-movable rational essence with composite number.'26 These definitions are those which were provided by Aristotle and Pythagoras. Aristotle defined the Soul as a primary perfection of an automated natural body; whereas, the notion of a composite number was provided by the definition given by Pythagoras. 4.2. Ibn Sina, Aba Ali ibn Al Hassan Ibn Sina's interpretation attempts are crystallised as follows: 4.2.1: He based his interpretation of soul eternity and its existence before the body on Plato's idea of an 'Ideal World'. This is apparent at the very beginning of his real Alayn poem: 'It came onto you from the highest stand, 25 Al Kindi, (1966),The message of borders and drawings; an investigation made by Al Amir Al A'ssam, Al Manahel House, Lebanon , p. 62. 26 Ibid, p. 62. A life which is valuable and strengthened It is veiled from the eyes of beholders, It is the one which goes unveiled without yashmak, It arrived unwillingly to you, It may hate your desertion and may be agonized.'27 Plato divided the universe into two worlds: The earthly and the ideal world. The latter represented the truth; whilst the former was transient and changeable. In addition, Plato considered that the soul had been living in the ideal world before its incarnation in the body. The body was represented as the jail or the grave of the soul. Plato thought that death was simply a process in which the soul returned back to the original place from which it had come. In this poem written by Ibn Sina, he considered that the soul was living in another world before its incarnation into the body. Therefore he stated that it had come down to the individual from the highest place. Its fall was not willingly and therefore death was joy for the self because it would return back to its original place. 4.2.2: Ibn Sina in his interpretation of Mind theory, agreed with Al Kindi and Al Farabi. This point has been previously made clear during the discussion related to Al Kindi and Al Farabi. 4.2.3: Ibn Sina discussed the question of the whole and the part for both Plato and Aristotle. He tried to interpret their ideas as he adopted the approach of Al Farabi in reconciling between Plato and Aristotle. Therefore his attempt was reconciliatory. 4.2.4: Ibn Sina made a bold attempt at interpretation which included: • An interpretation of Al Ma'ad in which he presented two characters: Ibn Sina, the Muslim man who believed in physical and spiritual return; and Ibn Sina, the 27 Muheb Al Den Al Khateeb. (1910), Ibn Sina, The Orientals logic and the double poem in logic, Fundamental Library Bulletin, , Cairo, p. 4. philosopher who only believed in spiritual return. The significance of Ibn Sina in philosophical thought lay in his role as a philosopher, not as a Muslim. • The interpretation of destiny as presented in a dissertation in which he discussed the question of fate and destiny in which there were three characters: Ibn Sina's friend, Ibn Sina the sheikh (old) and Hai Ibn Yaqzan. He was fatalist rather than being a man of free will. • He interpreted some quranic verses using symbols in his dissertation entitled 'Proofing the Prophecies'. In this way he has agreed with Al Farabi as he thought that jurisprudence did not contradict with philosophy; but rather it was a theoretical science which had been framed in terms suitable to laymen. Ibn Sina attempted to prove these prophecies through decoding the codes of prophets and interpreting their sayings. He acknowledged that jurisprudence had an interior side and the men of thought were the only persons allowed to interpret it. For example he interpreted the verse, 'And the angels will be on its sides, and eight angels will, that Day, bear the Throne of your Lord above them.' He also interpreted 'the eight by the eight orbits and the carriage by natural carriage not human carriage such as our saying that water is carried by earth and fire is carried by air.'28 He also attempted in all his interpretive efforts to establish an oriental philosophy from which he went on to define wisdom as 'wisdom is completing the human soul with matter imagination and believing the theoretical and practical facts as much as human beings can.'29 This was the oriental philosophy that was considered the weak point from which Al Ghazali attacked philosophers. 4.3. Al Ghazali; Abo Hamed Ibn Mohammad Ibn Ahmed With regards to Al Ghazali the interpretation took another direction. He did not follow the path that philosophers before him had taken from Greek philosophy. He suggested 28Ibn Sina.(1968) A message in proving prophecies, investigation Mitchell Marmora, Dar Al Nahar Beirut, p. 49-61. 29Ibn Sina, (1980) Eyes of Wisdom, investigation Abdul Rahman Badawy ,Publications Agency, Kuwait, p. 16. that Plato and Aristotle must be criticised because they were people not prophets. However, he did not bypass the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. In his discussion, he presents the world as whole, attacking philosophers and judging them as heterodoxies, which was an idea first made by Aristotle. He made this clear in his famous book 'Tahafut al-Falasifa' (The Incoherence of the Philosophers); whereby he interpreted the texts of Aristotle in order to criticise Muslim philosophers, and to accuse them of unbelief. In the introduction to his book 'Incoherence of Philosophers' he explained that the cause of writing this book resulted from a disagreement between philosophers. He mentioned that explaining such disagreements would take a long time but that he would be satisfied with explaining the contradiction between the opinion of the absolute philosopher and the first teacher, Aristotle, as he is considered the philosopher who arranged sciences and replied to all his ancestor philosophers and apologised for deviating his master Plato. He said "Plato is a friend and the truth as well. However, Truth is more truthful than him."30 Aristotle's approach meant that there was neither confirmation nor agreement between philosophers; but rather that they judged through guesswork and supposition. They also used narrow reasoned people to assert and categorise their opinions on the divine using mathematical and logic sciences. Al Ghazali also criticised the philosophy of those who translated the philosophy of Aristotle as they depended on misrepresentation and alterations. Those translators included Ibn Sina and Al Farabi as he considered both as translators who dealt with the text of Aristotle. Accordingly, when Al Ghazali replied to philosophers, he replied to Aristotle claiming that he represented all philosophers. However this is actually untrue. Moreover, he did not use the literature of Aristotle, but made use of the translations available to him and interpreted what he liked. Therefore, his method of depending on the original text of Aristotle was not fruitful as there were certain questions regarding it. Thus he would depend on Al Farabi and Ibn Sina to learn more about the philosophy of Aristotle. Al Ghazali aimed to eradicate trust from philosophy and called for all theologies to consolidate with him in order to attack philosophers and philosophy. He 30 Al Ghazali, Abo Hamed, (1980), Tahafut al-Falasifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), an investigation carried out by Soliman Donia, House of Knowledge, Cairo, p. 76. considered it a battle. This approach is a somewhat vulgar one, as he said, "Let us conquer them as through disasters malice goes away."31 In addition, his interpretive thought depended on hypothecation and the building of results according to such a hypothesis. His hypothesis was the definition of positivism: "It is the science in which the known is exposed openly in such a way that makes no doubt about it and drives away any possibility of mistake and illusion. There is no sufficient space in one's reason to assess this" or his requirements of clarity, excellence and exposition. Thus he began with examining the thought through this hypothesis. His journey of suspicion took two paths: cognitive suspicion (family, teachers, sensory knowledge, mental knowledge and the conclusion that Sufi knowledge was right); and suspicion at the level of scholars (theologists, intrinsicists and philosophers). Finally he concluded that Sufi knowledge was right. As for the theory of Mind, he accepted the views of Al Kindi, Al Farabi and Ibn Sina (they followed the Aristotelians in their view of the id). However, Al Ghazali did not criticise them within this theory; although the ultimate outcome revealed that Al Ghazali was more Sufi than philosopher. Al Ghazali warned about taking from the whole philosophical sciences at once. He refuted mathematics because the correlation of the mathematical argument would lead people to believe in what the philosopher said about the divine. He also disputed the primacy of logic as it was a clear-cut science with its arguments and those who trusted it would believe what the philosophers said about disbelief. As for physics, it was based on causality, thus believing it would mean denying the miracles of the prophets. 4.4. Ibn Tufail; Abo Bakr Mohammad Ibn Abdul Malak Ibn Mohammad 4.4.1: Ibn Tufail's interpretation in the book of Hai Ibn Yaqzan was based on the possibility of only depending on Mind, reaching an acquaintance with God and reaching the absolute knowledge. He represented orientalism in his philosophical island. This was 31Ibid p. 83. the philosophy first proposed by Ibn Sina, but Ibn Sina wanted to merge religion with philosophy and establish a religious philosophy or a philosophical religion; whilst Ibn Tufail asked to separate both. In his interpretation, Ibn Tufail refused the cognitive approach which was based on listening to the teacher during his lectures; and the discussions undertaken in the learning settings: reading of text, undertaking of research and following up on developments in science. All these areas were time consuming as man could depend on his own mind to reach his goals. This suggests that Ibn Tufail agreed with Aristotle on the limitless powers of human mind.32 4.4.2: Ibn Tufail discussed the Aristotelian question: Is the world old or modern? His answer was compromising as he mentioned that all beings alive on the earth were mortal; but that the motion of the heavens was immortal. 4.4.3: Ibn Tufail interpreted from Asal to Hai and learned about how a philosopher could interpret things; as the latter neglected many things in his religion therefore the former could make use of him in order to interpret them. 4.5.Ibn Rushd; Abo Al Walid Mohammed Ibn Ahmed Ibn Rushd laid down the principles of interpretation which are summarised in the following manner: • If a religious text is understood superficially or interpreted correctly, it will not contradict with reason. • Religious text explains itself. • Ibn Rushd differentiates between what should be interpreted and what is prohibited from interpretation. 32 See the details of the Hai Ibn Yaqzan story, Ahmed Amin, (1966), Hai Ibn Yaqzan to Ibn Sina, Ibn Tufail and Al Sahroudi, House of Knowledge, Cairo, p. 52-122. As for the requirements of interpretation: • To respect the aspects of the Arabic style. • To respect the internal unity of the religious text. • To take into consideration the mental level of the people to whom the interpretation is given33. According to the terms of Ibn Rushd "We decide that every outcome proved by argument and contradict superficially with jurisprudence should be construed according to the Arabic interpretation. This is an issue that no Muslim would doubt and no believer would suspect."34 He also classified religious discourse as that which could be interpreted; whilst that of the other could not be. For example the following quranic verses 'but none knows its hidden meanings save Allah,"35 and "And they ask you (O Muhammad SAW) concerning the Ruh (the Spirit); Say: "The Ruh (the Spirit): its knowledge is with my Lord. And of knowledge, you (mankind) have been given only a little."36 These verses cannot be interpreted and declared to the public. The right interpretation is a moral responsibility entrusted to man to bear while other creatures were afraid of it. This is mentioned in the verse "Truly, We did offer Al Amanah (the trust or moral responsibility or honesty and all the duties which Allah has ordained) to the heavens and the earth, and the mountains, but they declined to bear it and were afraid of it (i.e. afraid of Allah's Torment). But man bore it. Verily, he was unjust (to himself) and ignorant (of its results).'37 Thus the interpretation determines when, how and to whom. People divide jurisprudence into three categories: the people who cannot interpret, the addressees (the great majority of people) and the people of construction and interpretation. The latter are those deemed controversial. Further, he categorised the people of interpretation/construction into the positivist evidentialist people of interpretation who were the people of industry, i.e. the makers of wisdom. 33 Mahmoud Khudrah.(1999) The time of Ibn Rushd and the legitimacy of interpretation, Thought world, Vol. 27, Issue 4, April, p. 203. 34 Ibn Rushd, Fasul Al Makal, a previous reference ,p. 98 and other details p. 97-100. 35 Holy Quran, Surat Al-Imran (The family of Imran) chapter 7. 36 Holy Quran, Surat Al-Isra (The Journey by Night), 85. 37 Holy Quran, Surat Al-Ahzab (The Confederates), 122. Ibn Rushd argued that it was from interpretations that Islamic schools came into existence. They began to accuse each other of disbelief, such as Mu'tazili who interpreted religion and made such interpretations public. In addition, Ash'ari schools one of which declared its disbelief in the existence of God the Creator, Praise to Him, through the methods they adopted in their books. Thus, they are the real unbelievers and deviants38. References; Ahmed Amin, (1966), Hai Ibn Yaqzan to Ibn Sina, Ibn Tufail and Al Sahroudi, House of Knowledge, Cairo. Al Farabi, Abo Nasr.(1986) Kitab al-jam baina rayai al-hakimain aflatun al-ilahi wa aristutalis (The Book of Harmony Between the Ideas of the Two Sages, Plato the Divine and Aristotle; an investigation made by Albert Nasry Nader, Al Mashreq House, Beirut, Lebanon. Al Farabi, The letters, (1998) as quoted by G K Bergl in his research about Ibn Tufail and the book of Hai Ibn Yaqzan "A turning point in Arab Philosophical writing". Al Ghazali, Abo Hamed, (1980), Tahafut al-Falasifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), an investigation carried out by Soliman Donia, House of Knowledge, Cairo. Al Jabril Mohamed Abid. (1977) An introduction to Fasul al Makal in determination of the connection between jurisprudence and wisdom, Beirut. Al Kindi,(1984) Al Kindi book to Al Mutasim Bellah in the first philosophy, investigation made by Ahmed Fouad Al Ahwani, Resurrection Arab books house, Cairo. Al Kindi, (1966),The message of borders and drawings, an investigation made by Al Amir Al A'ssam, Al Manahel House, Lebanon . 38 Ibn Rushd, Fasul Al Makal, a previous reference, p. 118-122. Al Marzouki, Abo Ya'reb. (2001) The unity of Religious and Philosophical Thought, Modern Thought House, Beirut, Lebanon. Badawy; Abdul Rahman. (1980) The Greek Heritage in Islamic Civilization; Publications Agency. Delisle J and Woodsworth J(1995), Translators through History, John Benjamins Publishing Company Unesco Publishing, Chapter .4, Baghdad center of Arabic translation . Holy Quran, Surat Al-Imran (The family of Imran) chapter 7. Holy Quran, Surat Al-Isra (The Journey by Night), 85. Holy Quran, Surat Al-Ahzab (The Confederates), 122. Ibn al-Nadim,(1991) Kitab al-Fihrist, Cairo. Ibn Rushd, Abu Al Walid, (1977) Fasul al Makal, Beirut. Ibn Sina.(1968) A message in proving prophecies, investigation Mitchell Marmora, Dar Al Nahar Beirut. Ibn Sina, (1980) Eyes of Wisdom, investigation Abdul Rahman Badawy ,Publications Agency, Kuwait. Mahmoud Khudrah.(1999) The time of Ibn Rushd and the legitimacy of interpretation, Thought world, Vol. 27, Issue 4, April. Muheb Al Den Al Khateeb. (1910), Ibn Sina, The Orientals logic and the double poem in logic, Fundamental Library Bulletin, , Cairo. Stewart, Olivia(1993), Ibn Rushed, Chapter, Resonning, The American University in Cairo Press . View publication stats | {
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G. Schiemann, Plurale Wissens grenzen Plurale Wissensgrenzen: Das Beispiel des Naturbegriffes Gregor Schiemann Institut für Philosophie der Humboldt-Universitit zu Berlin Vom Wissen kann ebenso im Plural gesprochen werden wie von seinen Grenzen. Es präsentiert sich in vielfältigen, teils deutlich voneinander unterschiedenen, teils sich überschneidenden Fonnen, die keinesfalls nur auf mehr oder weniger differente, sondern sogar auch auf identische Anwendungsbereiche bezogen sein mögen. Dass dieses komplexe Beziehungsgeflecht Elemente einer pluralen Struktur aufweist, die Grenzen setzt und Grenzüberschreitungen erfordert, soll am Beispiel des Naturbegriffes in einer modellhaften Betrachtung gezeigt werden. Plural nenne ich die Verwendung eines Wortes, wenn seinen unterschiedlichen Bedeutungen jeweils Kontexte zugeordnet werden /r:(jnnen, in denen sie ihre LeistungsjtJhigkeit am besten entfalten, ohne in ihnen notwendig ausschliesslich vorzukommen. Pluralität meint also sowohl die kontextbezogene Ausdifferenzierung von Bedeutungen als auch das kontextimmanente Vorkommen verschiedener Bedeutungen. Das Nebeneinander unterschiedlicher Begriffe lässt sich rechtfertigen, indem man deren spezifische Leistungsfähigkeit herausarbeitet. Leistungsmhig ist ein Begriff in dem Mass, wie er auf mögliche Erfahrungen angewendet werden kann. In diesem Vortrag möchte ich die plurale Anwendbarkeit von Naturbegriffen exemplarisch nur an einem Ausschnitt des naturphilosophischen Diskurses, an der speziellen Klasse der antithetischen Bestimmungen erörtern. Ihnen kam traditionell eine beherrschende und kommt, wie ich meine, gegenwärtig noch erhebliche Bedeutung zu. Sie definieren Natur auf sehr unterschiedliche Weise durch die Entgegensetzung zu einem NichtnatürIichen, wie dem Übernatürlichen, der Technik, dem Geist, der Freiheit, der Kultur etc. Die heutige Bedeutung dieser Dichotomien ist keinesfalls unumstritten. Gegen ihre Geltung wird vor allem eingewandt, dass die vorgenommenen Grenzziehungen fraglich geworden sind. Teils seien die ehemals als Natur vorgegebenen Bereiche zunehmend unter die Verfiigungsgewalt des MenSchen geraten, teils könnten die venneintlichen Bestimmungen des Nichtnatürlichen auch der Natur zugeschrieben werden und umgekehrt. Gegenüber einer verbreitet pauschalen Ablehnung steht die Befiirwortung in der Situation begrifllicher Vielfalt. Ihr Interesse an der Auszeichnung natürlicher Wirklichkeitsbereiche reicht von ökologischen und politischen Absichten des Naturschutzes über technikskeptische Orientierungen in der Alltagspraxis und wahrnehmungstheoretische Fragen des ästhetischen Diskurses bis zu erkenntnistheoretischen Interessen im Zusammenhang der wissenschaftlichen Arbeit. Im Unterschied zu ihrem traditionellen Anspruch auf Ausschliesslichkeit sind die Antithesen im gegenwärtigen Sprachgebrauch einer Geltungsrelativierung unterworfen. Einerseits haben sich die Erfahrungsbereiche verengt, in denen die durch sie bezeichneten natürlichen Gegenstände noch vorkommen. In diesen "bevorzugten Verwendungskontexten" entfalten die extensionalen Bestimmungen der Begriffe ihre LeistungsOOiigkeit am besten. Andererseits lässt sich eine gegenläufige Tendenz zur Anwendungsausweitung nachweisen. Sie hängt vermutlich damit zusammen, dass die Abgeschlossenheit von Verwendungskontexten abnimmt. Ausserdem haben sich ehemals exklusiv der Natur zugeschriebene Eigenschaften auf Gegenstände übertragen, die ursprünglich nicht unter den jeweiligen Naturbegriff fielen. Hauptsächlich dadurch sind Verwendungen in neuen Kontexten zustande gekommen. Sie berücksichtigen (intensionale) Bestimmungen der jeweiligen Begriffe und sehen teilweise von ihrer Extension ab. Zur Erläuterung der durch diese Verschiebungen möglichen Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Begriffen und Verwendungskontexten werde ich mit drei Antithesen ein Modell entwerfen. Zur Betonung der Gleichzeitigkeit des Ungleicbzeitigen wähle ich Definitionen, die in unterschiedlichen Epochen entstanden und bis heute diskursbestimmend geblieben sind: Die aristotelische Entgegensetzung von Natur und Technik, die cartesische von Natur und Denken und die rousseausche von Natur und Gesellschaft. Bei ihrer Rekonstruktion suche ich, Erfahrungen herauszuarbeiten, auf die sich die extensionalen Festlegungen jeweils stützen, um in erster Näherung drei "bevorzugte Verwendungskontexte" abzugrenzen. Die Definition dieser Kontexte nehme ich anschliessend unabhängig von den Naturbegriffen vor. Im Resultat findet vorzugsweise die aristotelische Naturdefinition in einem lebensweltlichen Kontext, die cartesische in einem subjektiven und die Sektion 2 105 ISSc~sclile in einem öffentlichen Kontext VelWendung. Bei diesen Kontexten handelt es sich um I1ihltl.Ül,gsb,ere:lCl1le, die rur das Verhältnis des Menschen zur Natur von grundlegender Bedeutung Ic.I;lieMcigHcru.eIt, traditionelle Naturbegriffe in ihnen anwenden zu können, lässt umgekehrt darauf dass in diesen Begriffen heute noch elementare Erfahrungen zum Ausdruck kommen. V,eiIW,emlunlg der Antithesen in bevorzugten Kontexten nenne ich Pluralittit ersten Grades (in an W. Welsch). Würde man die VelWendung der Begriffe auf diese Bereiche beschränken, "hiesse Pluralität kontextgebundene Bedeutungsdifferenz und Vielfalt der von Natur fiir Personen, die sich in unterschiedlichen bewegen. Pluralität der Natur meint aber auch, dass ein Begriff in Kontexten und verschiedene Begriffe in einem Kontext vorkommen. Um diese .ail[jJeIlsle,n zu erfassen, prüfe ich die Anwendbarkeit der drei Begriffe in den Bereichen, die den C."'." :J.<>:"'''''~ anderen Begriffen zum besonders geeigneten Ge.brauch zugeordnet sind. Da die Struktur der durch die Begriffe vorgegeben bleibt, verstärkt sich der modellhafte Charakter der .~tWniuCllung. Er gewinnt Plausibilität allein durch den grundlegenden Status der drei Kontexte. 'kontextinterne Pluralität der Naturbegriffe bezeichne ich als Pluralittit zweiten Grades. Ihre **Jo!.>1UU ' .. ", erfordert eine Beschränkung der Anzahl von Begriffen schon aus pragmatischen Gründen: Bei Begriffen liegt die Menge der möglichen neun VelWendungen bereits am Rand des Vö'rtfaJ~svlernlünftig(:n Rahmens. Werden innerhalb eines Kontextes mehrere Begriffe velWendet, ist tMe bei der ersten Stufe noch nicht vorhandene Möglichkeit konkurrierender Naturauffassungen ,;:,.eben. Im bevorzugten VelWendungskontext eines Begriffes muss den dort vorkommenden anderen Co, ~eutungen dabei nicht eine schlechtere Leistungstahigkeit eigen sein. Die angenommene plurale ~r sCliliesst nicht eimnal die faktische Dominanz eines Begriffes in allen Kontexten aus. Doch *\2:.\;~ ist schon eine Frage, deren Beantwortung nicht eigentlich Gegenstand meiner Untersuchung ist. Sielamn über die Anwendungspotentiale der Naturbegriffe Auskunft geben, vermag aber nicht einmal *******m.;beurteilen, welche Perspektive in einem Kontext sinnvolleIWeise einzunehnlen ist. Entscheidungen mt. die. VelWendung eines Begriffes sind von lebenspraktischen Erfordernissen und normativen vorgaben abhängig, die über die drei Naturdefinitionen, soweit ich sie hier einfiihre, hinausgehen. Historisch waren die Definitionen nie frei von Wertsetzungen mit handlungsleitender Kraft und hätten Ohne diese vermutlich auch gar nicht geschaffen werden können. Sie wurden aber auf unterschiedliche, ~ter auch gegensätzliche Weise normativ verstanden, ohne dass sich dabei die betreffende 'ßI:enzziehung zwischen Natur und Nichtnatur verändert hätte. Dieser Umstand spricht nicht rur die Irrelevanz von Naturbegriffen, sondern rur die Möglichkeit, ihre deskriptiven Elemente analytisch zu isolieren. t. Der Chronologie der Entstehung meiner drei Modellbegriffe folgend beginne ich mit dem 'ariStotelischen. Dieser steht dem modernen Common sense so nalle, dass seine grundlegenden ßestinlmungselemente unter de~ Lemma ''Natur'' heute noch Eingang in den gebräuchlichen Konversationslexika finden. So heisst es zu Beginn des Artikels ''Natur'' in der "Brockhaus Enzyklopädie": Natur ist der "zentrale[ ... ] Begriff der europäischen Geistesgeschichte, im Sinne von dern, Wag,wesensmässig von selbst da ist und sich selbst reproduziert" (Bd. 15. Mannheim 1991). Eine entsprechende Stelle findet sich bei Aristoteies im zweiten Buch seiner Physik, wo er zur Natur nur diejenigen Dinge zählt, die "in sich selbst einen Anfang bzw. ein Prinzip von Veränderung und !ll:stand" haben (phys. 192b13 f.). Demgegenüber gehörten künstliche bzw. technische Dinge zu denen., die "auf Grund anderer Ursachen da" seien (phys. 192b8 f.). Die Unbestimmtheit der yerursachung nichtnatürlicher Dinge kontrastiert mit der Festlegung der natürlichen, ein Bewegungsbzw. Beharrungsprinzip in sich zu haben. Im Anschluss an Wolfgang Wieland (Die aristotelische Physik. Göttingen 1962) möchte ich den Singular als Minimalbedingung interpretieren: Was auch nur einen Anfang dauerhaft in sich hat, muss zum Bereich des Natürlichen gerechnet werden. Die Selbstbewegung bzw. -beharrung natürlicher Dinge kann von aussen angestossen sein oder zu ihrem Unterhalt einer beständigen äusseren Ursache bedürfen, wie beispielsweise des organische Leben auf Sonnenlicht angewiesen ist. Während die äusseren Bedingungen bzw. Ursachen als solche bestimmbar ~ind; bleibt ihre Wirkungsweise auf die Naturkörper genauso dunkel wie das in diesen Körpern jeweils 106 G. Schiemann, Plurale Wissens grenzen wirkende immanente Prinzip. Bei den Organismen legt Aristoteies den Ursprung und die Organisation der Selbstbewegung in die körperlose Seele, die er im wesentlichen zur Natur rechnet. Wenn Aristoteies die Kunst durch das Fehlen eines inneren Bewegungsbzw. Beharrungsprinzips charakterisiert, orientiert er sich an der Produktion handwerklicher Gegenstände, die man vergleichbar heute noch in lebensweltlichen Kontexten vorfindet. Diesen technischen Konstrukten eignet ein inneres Prinzip nur insofern, als sie aus selbstbewegten Elementen bestehen. Aristoteies setzt ihrer stofflichen Natürlichkeit die der künstlichen Form entgegen und erltebt letztere zum Unterscheidungskriterium von Natur und Technik. Die Differenz von partieller Eigenund gänzlipher Fremdbewegtheit wird damit zur Frage der Wahrnehmung differenter Gestalten und Bewegungsformen. Das technische, vor allem handwerkliche Produkt wird nicht nur einem Bereich der ungeformten, sondern auch einem der anders geformten, gewachsenen und lebendig bewegten, Gegenstände gegenübergestellt. Die soweit skizzierte Unterscheidung ist noch sehr rudimentär. Wichtige Fragen, wie die vermeintlich poietische und teleologische Struktur der Narurgegenstände, sind noch nicht einmal erwähnt. Doch rur eine erste Durchfiihrung meines PluraIitätsmodells reicht das Angesprochene aus. Zwei Merkmale, die mir rur seine Aktualität besonders relevant zu sein scheinen, möchte ich hervorheben. Zum einen gestattet die MinimaIbedingung, auch kulturell überformte Wirklichkeiten der Natur zuzurechnen, zum anderen wird zur Unterscheidung von Natur und Technik auf die in unmittelbarer Anschauung gegenwärtige Präsenz eines Gegenstandes rekurriert. Es muss also nicht auf die Entstehungsbedingungen reflektiert werden, um eine Zuordnung vorzunehmen. Der Mangel an kontextübergreifendem Bezug beschränkt freilich den Anwendungshorizont, der aber eben deshalb hauptsächlich in den Bereich des uns Bekannten und Vertrauen tallt: der gezüchtete, vielleicht genetisch manipulierte Hamster im Gegensatz zum Spielzeugauto, das Unkraut im Gegensatz zur Plastikrose usw. Die hiermit schon angedeutete Zuordnung eines lebensweltlichen Kontextes als bevorzugten Anwendungsbereich stützt sich auf ein kulturbzw. wissenschaftshistorisches Argument, das den Einfluss der aristotelischen Unterscheidung auf die vorneuzeitliche Naturwissenschaft bet.riftt. Dem nichtnatürlichen Charakter des Hergestellten entsprach die Ansicht, dass es sich bei der technischen Mechanik nicht um eine Naturwissenschaft handele. Mechanische Bewegungen waren als geschwindigkeitskonstante nur unter beständigem Kraftaufwand denkbar. Die aristotelische Mechanik lehnte Ideaiisierungen ab und kannte vermutlich auch deshalb nicht den Satz von der gleichfOrmig kräftefreien Bewegung. Wissenschaftshistoriker . sprechen in diesem Zusammenhang vom Alltagsverständnis der aristotelischen Wissenschaft. Den ihr zugrundeliegenden Horizont "wirklicher Erfahrungsbekanntheit" (Husserliana VI, 360) hat Husserl als Lebenswelt der idealisierenden und experimentellen neuzeitlichen Wissenschaft entgegengesetzt. Der Ausdruck "Lebenswelt" bezeichnet in diesem Sinn keine transzendentale Erkenntnisbedingung, sondern eine wie es bei Husserl heisst - "anschauliche Umwelt", die als ''Weit der Sinnlichkeit" in "natürlicher Einstellung" erfahren wird (Ebenda, 22, 360 und 151). Aber ein Bereich des unmittelbar Gegebenen ist selbst nur eine idealtypisch angenommene Konstante. Um die historisch-kulturellen Wandlungen oder gar Auflösungen der Alltagswelt zu berücksichtigen, bedarf es weiterer Kriterien. Ich möchte hierfiir die auf Alfred Schütz zurückgehenden soziaIwissenschaftlichen Bestimmungen heranziehen, mit denen die Lebenswelt im Rahmen eines Schichteumodells unterschiedlich strukturierter Sozialerfahrungen charakterisiert wird. Es gibt Bedingungen an, unter denen die von Husserl behauptete sinnliche Präsenz von Gegenständen in der Modeme alltagspraktisch vorkommt. Zu ihnen gehört die unmittelbare Erfahrung vertrauter WirBeziehungen und eine durch die Reichweite direkter Handlungen ungetahr abgesteckte Wirkzone. Lebenswelt benennt damit eine Schicht des Privaten, die sich von anderen gesellschaftlichen Beziehungen graduell, ntJmlich durch Minimierung der Anonymittit und des Umkreises handlungsrelevanter Situationen abhebt und in der gegensttindliche Phtinomenalittit erfahrbar ist. Sie findet gegensätzliche Bestimmungen nicht nur im experimentellen Verfahren der Wissenschaften, sondern auch im räumlich weitestgehend entgrenzten gesellschaftlichen Gesamtzusammenhang, wie er beispielsweise in den öffentlichen Diskurs eingeht. Im so definierten lebensweltlichen Erfahrungskontext greifen die aristotelischen Naturoestimmungen am ehesten. Wir kÖnhen Sektion 2 107 alltagspraktisch in aller Regel angeben, wo technische Konstrukte und Umwelten in sinnlicher Anschaulichkeit mit aristotelischer Natur kontrastieren und wo die Differenz nicht mehr feststellbar ist. 2. Gegenüber dem argumentativen Aufwand zur Auszeichnung eines bevorzugten Verwendungskontextes des aristotelischen Begriffes hat der cartesische den Vorteil, dass er seine ersten Anwendungsvarianten schon impliziert. Descartes' dualistische Naturbestimmung findet sich im Kontext seiner Frage nach Wahrheitssicherung. Weil die Schaffung eines über alle Zweifel erhabenen Erkenntnissystems sein oberstes Ziel und nichts in der Welt so gewiss sei wie die Tätigkeit des eigenen Denkens, setzt er das Denken als Antithese zum Inbegriff aller körperlichen, bloss ausgedehnten Dinge. Dem Ausgedehnten fehlt nicht nur jedes Bewusstsein, es müssen ihm bei den organischen Wesen zudem keine Empfindungen und Gefiihle zugeschrieben werden. Bekanntermassen resultiert daraus nicht notwendig eine negative Schätzung des aussermenschlichen Lebendigen. Denn auch unter der Bedingung, dass diese Organismen empfindungslose Mechanismen sind, hätte der Mensch um seiner eigenen Moralität willen Pflichten gegen sie einzuhalten. Die Grenze von Natur und Nichtnatur verläuft nunmehr ausschliesslich mitten im Menschen, der zweigeteilt in Bewusstsein und Körper zerfiillt. Während die Körpermaschine so lückenlos berechenbar gedacht ist wie der ganze seelenlose Naturmechanismus, erschliesst sich die Struktur der denkenden Substanz durch Introspektion. Das sich seiner Existenz gewisse Subjekt wird mit dem denkenden Ich identifiziert, dem Gedanken verschiedener Art präsent sind. Die ihm allein zugängliche rationale Sphäre konstituiert eine Innenwelt, der gegenüber die Natur als Äusseres ontologisch geschieden ist. Von dieser hat das Subjekt nur Zeichen als Ergebnis von Empfindungen oder Gefiihlen in Verbindung mit bestimmten Körperzuständen. Man muss hierbei Descartes nicht darin folgen, dass es mentale Ereignisse, wie die Einsicht in allgemeine Prinzipien, gibt, denen keine physischen Vorgänge entsprechen. Für Schmerz-, Hungerund Durstempfindungen und die Gefiihle des Zorns, der Freude oder Traurigkeit leugnet Descartes keinesfalls durchgängig eine Beziehung mit dem Körperlichen. Bei solchen Empfindungen und Gefiihlen handle es sich um Zustände, in denen das Ich "aufs innigste mit dem Körper verbunden und gleichsam vermischt" sei (Med. VI, 13). Der cartesische Dualismus ist insofern durchaus mit der Vorstellung kompatibel, dass geistige Zustände mit physischen korreliert sind, was zu seiner jüngsten Renaissance im Feld der Geist-Gehirn-Debatten beigetragen haben dürfte. Ungeachtet des leibseelischen Ganzheitsmomentes bleiben die dem denkenden Ich allein zugänglichen Erlebnisse bei Descartes jedoch in der Sphäre naturloser Bewusstheit. Das Bewusstsein hat von den angenommenen physischen Korrelaten keine Wahrnehmung, die einer Aussenperspektive auf sie vergleichbar wäre. Seine Leibgebundenheit reduziert sich auf die von der räumlichen Positionierung des Subjektes abhängige Perspektivität der Wahrnehmung. Solange Zeichen der Aussenwelt allerdings unter Zweifelsvorbehalt stehen, ist nicht einmal dieser letzte Rest der Körperabhängigkeit gesichert. In der drohenden Gefahr zum Einschluss im eigenen Gehäuse der Geistigkeit scheint die Problematik der cartesischen Antithese auf Durch diese anwendungsbegrenzende Schwierigkeit wird die Auffassung der Aussenwelt als spezieller Fall der Naturbeziehung in einem subjektiven Kontext jedoch nicht ausgeschlossen. Den subjektiven Kontext möchte ich als Bereich der Gesamtheit von Erlebnissen, zu denen jeweils nur ein Individuum privilegierten Zugang hat und sich mit dem Anspruch auf Wahrhaftigkeit Ciussern kann, einfiihren. Subjektivität bleibt damit auf die Sphäre des empirischen Subjektes und die Gegenstände seines inneren Sinnes beschränkt. In seinem Kontrast zur Aussenwelt, die das Individuum mit anderen teilt, muss dieser Bereich nicht wie bei Descartes als eine dem Natürlichen entgegengesetzte Sphäre begriffen werden. Ferner muss er dem Individuum nicht ständig präsent sein. Seine Bestimmung impliziert lediglich, dass andere Personen nicht zu recht behaupten können, von ihm unmittelbare Kenntnis zu haben. Diese Festiegung gestattet die Verwendung weiterer Naturbegriffe im subjektiven Kontext und die Verwendung des cartesischen Begriffes ausserhalbdes subjektiven Kontextes, also Pluralität zweiten Grades, wofiir bisher der aristotelische Begriff und der lebensweltliche Erfahrungsbereich zur Verfiigung stehen. Zur Betrachtung der aussersubjektiven Leistungsfähigkeit des cartesischen Begriffes ist ein historisches Argument von Nutzen. Er war nämlich fiir die neuzeitliche. 108 G. Schiemann, Plurale Wissensgrenzen Wissenschaftsauffassung typisch, die sich gegen das aristotelische Alltagsverständnis von Bewegungen durchsetzte. Das anschaulich Gegebene wurde cartesisch nicht nach seinen Formen qualitativ differenziert, sondern objektiviert und nach seinen quantifizierbaren Merkmalen erfasst. Die dadurch bewirkte Aufhebung der aristotelischen Entgegensetzung von Natur und Technik vollzog sich aber weniger als unterschiedslose Behandlung der beiden Sphären, sondern vielmehr als Technisierung der Natur. Lebensweltlich bleibt dieser Prozess nachvollziehbar, wenn elementare Abstraktionsleistungen bzw. Idealisierungen an den phänomenal gegebenen Naturgegenständen vollzogen werden. Beispiel rur die Wirkung einer formalisierenden Betrachtungsweise sind die in verwissenscbaftlichten Lebenswelten vorgenommenen Messoperationen, die das nach Aristoteies Geschiedene (z.B. Salat und Vitamintabletten) auf Vielfache gemeinsamer Einheiten reduzieren. Nicht ganz so selbstverständlich, wie sich die Lebenswelt heute cartesisch betrachten lässt, kann der subjektive Kontext aristotelisch aufgefasst werden. Bei Aristoteies findet sich keine auf die menschliche Existenz zugeschnittene Scheidung von Aussenund Innenwelt. Sein Seelenbegriff umgreift die gesamte belebte Natur, und die im Zusammenhang der seelischen Vermögen behandelten Sinneswahrnehmungen, Empfindungen und Geruhle erfahren bei ihm eine zum cartesischen Dualismus vollständig entgegengesetzte Interpretation. Aus nichtnatürlichen mentalen Zuständen werden Bestandteile eines die jeweiligen körperlichen Organe umfassenden Ganzen. Bei den auf äussere Veranlassung zurückgehen4en Seelenzuständen kommen die spezifischen Merkmale der wirkenden Gegenstände sowie die zwischen ihnen und den Lebewesen liegenden Medien hinzu. Wahrnehmung ist die gemeinsame Wirklichkeit des Wahrgenommenen und des Wahrnehmenden. Angewandt auf den subjektiven Kontext entfiillt damit die Distanz, aus der heraus das Individuum seine Wahrnehmungen, Empfindungen und Geruhle auf Richtigkeit hin überprüft. Sie werden als unmittelbare Teilhabe an einem die Seele einbegreifenden Naturgeschehen gedeutet, ohne dass dabei die Trennung zwischen Körperlichem und Geistigem je aufgehoben wäre. Descartes' partielle Relativierung seines Dualismus liesse sich vermutlich ein Stück weit mit einer aristotelischen Terminologie rekonstruieren. Der Wegfall der bewussten und beurteilenden Ich-Instanz entspricht der lebensweltlichen Vertrautheit und endet entsprechend mit ihr. Beide Beispiele rur eine Pluralität zweiter Stufe zeigen, wie extensionale Bestimmungen in nicht bevorzugten Verwendungskontexten ausgeblendet werden. Bei seiner quantitativen Erfassung der Welt braucht sich das cartesische Subjekt, wenn es einmal die Gewissheit der mathematischen Erkenntnis festgestellt hat, um die Innen-Aussenwelt-Scheidung nicht mehr zu kümmern. Gegenüber der bereichskonstitutiven Differenz zwischen Natur und Technik ist die aristotelische Seelenlehre nicht minder indifferent. Die eigene Extensionsblindheit trägt zur Aufhebung der durch den jeweils anderen Begriff gesetzten Antithese bei. 3. Der Rousseausche Begriff, den ich als letzten Begriff vorstelle, fuhrt auf eine sowohl zu Descartes als auch zu AristoteIes alternative Naturbeziehung im subjektiven Kontext. Rousseau geht in seiner Naturphilosophie aber weder von lebensweltlich vertrauten Phänomenen noch von subjektiven Erlebnissen, sondern vom Gegensatz von Natur und Gesellschaft aus, der diese beiden Kontexte transzendiert. In seiner Darstellung der menschlichen Naturbeziehungen von ihren Ursprüngen bis zu ihren hochzivilisierten Erscheinungsformen entwickelt er vielgestaltige und teilweise auch widersprüchliche Naturvorstellungen. Was ich als seinen Naturbegriff bezeichne, soll ausschliesslich durch das antithetische Verhältnis zur Gesellschaft gekennzeichnet sein. Als Nichtgesellscbaftliche umfasst Natur die vom menschlichen Handeln unabhängig bestehenden Prinzipien der äusseren Wirklichkeit und die von gesellscbaftlichen Einflüssen freie, innere Geruhlswelt eines autonomen Subjektes. Die Naturprinzipien wirken uneingeschränkt nur in einem hypothetisch angenommenen stabilen Urzustand, wo die menschlichen Individuen in maximaler Weise voneinander isoliert sind. Das gesellschaftliche Gegenstück ist durch den soziablen Menschen charakterisiert. Erst er hat Vernunft und eine ausgebildete innere Natur des Gefiihls, die seine Identität gegenüber der Gesellschaft begründet. Die innere Natur enthält dann neben ursprünglichen Naturbestimmungen auch die kontingenten Merkmale der je individuellen Existenz. Bewertungsmassstab der gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung ist der Grad der Realisation der dem Wesen des soziablen Menschen einzig angemessenen freiheitlichen Verfassung. Sektion 2 109 Unter gesellschaftlichen Bedingungen ist die äussere Wirklichkeit durch Bereiche unterschiedlich Stäl:ker Wirlcsamkeit von Naturprinzipien charakterisierbar. Das Spektrum reicht von Orten ihrer dem ftypothetischen Naturzustand nahen Dominanz bis zu den Zentren der Zivilisation, die Rousseau mit Grossstädten identifiziert. Natur erfährt durch gesellschaftliche Tätigkeit keine Veränderung, sondern Verstärkung oder Minderung ihrer Wirksamkeit. Wirklichkeiten können in unterschiedlichem Mass naturgemäss gestaltet bzw. kultiviert werden. Der Kultivierung von Mensch und Natur steht Rousseau bekanntermassen ambivalent gegenüber. Einerseits bewertet er jeden Schritt, der über die erste Stufe nach dem Urzustand hinausgeht, negativ, obwohl er keinen Zweifel an der Unumkehrbarkeit des Gesarntprozesses lässt. Am gesellschaftlichen Ideal orientiert begrüsst er andererseits jede Entfernung vom Ursprung. Aus dieser Perspektive entwickelt der Mensch seine wahren Bestimmungen erst im Zuge seiner Zivilisation durch Denaturierung. Ursprung und zukünftiges Ideal sind von der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft gleichermassen weit entfernt. Die damit vorgenommene doppelt negative Bewertung der Gegenwart rechtfertigt die innere Emigration des Einzelnen und fiihrt zur Aufwertung von dessen innerer Natur. Der sich durch freien Entschluss von der Gemeinschaft zeitweise absondernde "Mensch der Natur" findet die Naturbestimmungen weniger in der äusseren Wirklichkeit als vielmehr durch Introspektion. Die innere Natur zu erkennen, heisst, sich selbst zu erkennen. Die zentrale Rolle, die Rousseau im Rückzug von der Gesellschaft der. inneren Natur zuweist, könnte es nahelegen, seinen Begriff ebenfalls vorzugsweise mit dem subjektiven Kontext zu verbinden. Jedoch wird die Konzeption der inneren Natur nur aus ihrer Herkunft aus der Antithese von Natur und Gesellschaft verständlich. Der mit ihr ges~ fiktive Ausgangspunkt menschlicher Geschichte entzieht sich sowohl subjektiven (nur die Stellung der eigenen Person normalerweise reflektierenden) als auch lebensweltli<?hen (nicht historisch reflexiven) Erkenntnishorizonten. Er gestattet eine Darstellung des historischen Prozesses sukzessiver Zurückdrängung der zivilisationsfreien Wirklichkeit. Die zukünftige Form und Geschwindigkeit dieses Prozesses werden zum Gegenstand von politischen Entscheidungsfmdungen. Natur wird nicht nur faktisch als ein von menschlicher Zivilisation noch nicht oder nur bedingt beeinflusster Bereich erfasst, sondern möglicherweise als solcher auch erst freiund festgelegt. Von menschlichen Einflüssen relativ unabhängige Bereiche sind heute nun vor allem in Debatten Thema, die ökologische Fragestellungen zum Gegenstand haben. Die weltweite Nutzung, Belastung und Veränderung von ehemals rousseauscher Natur hat solche Ausmasse angenommen, dass die materiellen Grundlagen der Zivilisation zu wertvollen Gütern geworden sind, denen gegenüber sehr differente Haltungen eingenommen werden. Man kann sie schützen, wirtschaftlich nutzen oder auch technisch ersetzen wollen: Zur sachgemässen Formulierung der verschiedenen Handlungsziele bilden fachwissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse zwar eine unerIässliche Basis. Rein spezialwissenschaftlich verfasste Lösungsstrategien haben sich aber gegenüber der disziplinenübergreifenden Struktur der Umweltproblematik als unzureichend erwiesen. Ihre globalen und politischen Dimensionen haben die Umweltproblematik statt dessen zunehmend zum öffentlichen Gegenstand werden lassen. Deshalb möchte ich den bevorzugten Verwendungskontext des Rousseauschen Begriffes im öffentlichen Diskurs über die naturalen Bedingungen der menschlichen Zivilisation sehen. Der Begriff der Öffentlichkeit bezeichnet in diesem Zusammenhang die allgemein zugtlngliche Sphtire der gesellschaftlichen Kommunikation. Ihre Gegenstände betreffen, mit Kant zu sprechen, "was jedermann notwendig interessiert" (KdrV, B 868). Für den öffentlichen Diskurs sind nicht Naturverhältnisse aus subjektiver oder lebensweltlicher Perspektive, sondern die des menschlichen Gattungswesens typisch. Letztere brauchen als öffentliche weder lebensweltlich noch subjektiv relevant zu sein. Rousseaus Naturbegriff dem öffentlichen Kontext als besonders geeignetem zuzuordnen, kann sich auf die mit seiner Sozialphilosophie im Einklang befindliche Überzeugung stützen, dass im Zustand fortgeschrittener Zivilisation ein vernünftiges Verhältnis des Menschen zur Natur eigentlich nur unter den Bedingungen der Volkssouveränität denkbar ist. 4. Erst eine genauere Untersuchung würde zeigen, in welchem Mass die drei Verwendungskontexte differieren und wechselwirken. Subjektive InnenwelterIebnisse, lebensweltliche Alltagserfahrungen und öffentliche Diskurspraxis sind selbst mehrdeutige Ausdrücke, die auf komplexe Realitäten Bezug llO G. Schiemann, Plurale Wissensgrenzen nehmen. Die hier intendierten Bestimmungen liessen sich alternativ aus einer egologischen Konzeption gewinnen. Diese würde um die hmenwelt eines Einzelnen einen angrenzenden bekannt-vertrauten Kreis vornehmlich privater Sozialbeziehungen legen und als deren gemeinsame Umgebung die lokal entgrenzte gesellschaftliche Kommunikation annehmen. Mit der Zuordnung bevorzugter Verwendungskontexte ergibt sich ein erstes Bild der Pluralittit ersten Grades. Ein Naturgegenstand (pflanze) kann von einer Person in nichtnatürlich verstandener Subjektivität wahrgenommen, lebensweltlich der Natur zugerechnet und im öffentlichen Diskurs als Teil einer kulturellen Wirklichkeit vorgestellt werden. Pluralität ersten Grades entwickelt das Spektrum der Thematisierungsmöglichkeiten von Natur in unterschiedlichen Lebenszusammenhängen. Im zweiten Grad treten die Thematisierungen kontextimmanent zugleich auf, wie die bereits erörterten lebensweltlichen und subjektiven Alternativen. Kombinatorisch betrachtet, ergeben sich durch die Hinzunalune des rousseauschen Begriffes und des öffentlichen Kontextes vier weitere Anwendungsfiille. Ich beginne mit der Frage nach der Leistungsfii.lJ.igkeit des aristotelischen und des cartesischen Begriffes im öffentlichen Kontext. Im Hinblick auf die Extension fiillt rur beide Begriffe die Antwort, wenn sie denn knapp sein soll, negativ aus. Sowohl der Bereich der ausgedehnten Körper als auch die im Gegensatz zu technischen Konstrukten bestimmte Natur enthält keine hinreichende Differenzierung. um ökologische Probleme öffentlich angemessen zu erfassen. Beide Begriffe unterscheiden noch nicht einmal zwischen kulturell überformter und einer von der menschlichen Zivilisation noch nicht oder nur bedingt beeinflussten Natur. In intensionaler Hinsicht scheinen hingegen begrenzte Verwendungen möglich, die teilweise komplementär ansfallen. Auf den cartesischen Begriff geht der Objektcharakter, mit dem die formalisierende Rede über Natur im öffentlichen ebenso wie im lebensweltlichen Kontext versehen werden kann, zurück. Komplementär lässt sich mit Bezug auf Aristoteies der rur Orientierungsleistungen in modemen Zivilisationen dienliche Subjektcharakter von Natur hervorheben (1. Mittelstrass). Zu den weiteren Eigenschaften des aristotelischen Begriffes, die rur den Kontext der öffentlich thematisierten Problematik des Stoffwechsels der menschlichen Gattung mit Natur dienlich sind, gehören Endlichkeit, Bewertungsqualität und Erfahrungsunrnittelbarkeit (L. Schäfer). Diese Aspekte verweisen auf Beziehungen zwischen der globalen ökologischen Problematik und der lebens weltlichen Erfahrungsweise von Natur. Vor dem Hintergrund der gesellschaftlich induzierten Umweltproblematik wird unmittelbare Naturwahrnehmung wieder in kleinräurnigen Bereichen relevant. Mit dieser Bemerkung möchte ich zur Anwendungswirkung von Rousseaus Begriff im lebensweltlichen Kontext übergehen, wo dessen Beziehung zum aristotelischen Begriff besonders augenfii.llig hervortritt. Was aristotelisch gesehen unproblematisch zur Natur zählt (die Zimmerblume), mag aus rousseauscher Perspektive in seiner Naturzugehörigkeit bereits fragwürdig erscheinen. In sich ein Prinzip der Bewegung zu haben, ist rur Rousseau nur notwendiges, aber nicht hinreichendes Kriterium rur Naturgegenstände. Als Teil von kulturellen Wirklichkeiten verlieren sie den Status des Natürlichen. Der Rousseausche Begriff nimmt Ausschnitten lebensweltlicher Naturwahrnehmung ihre Selbstverständlichkeit und rückt, was noch als Natur anerkannt wird, allermeist in entferntere Regionen. Über die Anwendung des rousseauschen Begriffes im subjektiven Kontext ist das Wichtigste schon im Zusammenhang mit der inneren Natur gesagt worden. Dass sich der Einzelne qua innerer Natur von der Gesellschaft abgrenzt, hat als Gegenentwurf vor allem zur cartesisch verstandenen Subjektivität Relevanz behalten. Descartes begründet das menschliche Selbstverständnis als Nichtnatürliches durch die innere Selbsterfahrung des Denkens. Rousseau bezweifelt demgegenüber, dass elementare Denkoperationen dem Menschen im Verhältnis zu den Tieren exklusiv zukommen, weist skeptisch auf Schranken der Geltung jeder rationalen Erkenntnis hin und betont die unersetzbare Rolle des Gefiihls in der individuellen Handlungsorientierung. In meinem Pluralitätsmodell, dessen Darstellung ich hiermit abschliesse, ergeben sich somit mehrfach konkurrierende MiJglichkeiten zur Thematisierung von Natur. Im subjektiven Kontext scheinen sich die antithetischen Thematisierungen wechselseitig auszuschliessen: Die hmenwelt wird entweder ausnahmslos als nichtnatürliche oder partiell als gemeinsame Wirklichkeit von Individuum und Sektion 2 111 äusserer Natur oder als letztes Residuum einer in der äusseren Wirklichkeit längst nicht mehr vorfindlichen ursprünglichen Naturbestimmung erlebt. In der alltäglichen Lebenswelt besteht zwischen der quantitativ nivellierenden cartesischen und der qualitativ differenzierenden aristotelischen Auffassung ebenfalls dort ein Ausschliessungsverhältnis, wo die Natur-Technik-Differenz nicht völlig cartesisch vergleichgültigt ist. Die aristotelische und rousseausche Bestimmung ergänzen sich hingegen, indem sie lebensweltlich gemeinsam wie ein begrifflicher Zoom wirken, der Natur in unterschiedliche Distanz zur aristotelischen Technik bringt. Die grösste Distanz zur Lebenswelt bezeichnet dabei zugleich den kleinsten gemeinsamen extensionalen Nenner der drei vorgestellten Begriffe. Es sind die von menschlicher Kultur mittlerweile entferntesten Wirklichkeitsstücke, die letzten Reste oder Fiktionen einer von Menschen unberührten, wilden Natur. Diese mit der rousseauschen Vorstellung partiell identische Natur wird von allen Begriffen zum Natürlichen gerechnet. Erst in der Modeme hat sich das Verhältnis des Menschen zur Natur zum drängenden Problem zugespitzt. Im Rahmen des Modells reflektiert sich dieser Vorgang darin, dass sich normative Elemente im öffentlichen Kontext am deutlichsten zeigen. Wie bei ihrer historischen Entstehung so sind auch heute die antithetischen Wahrnehmungen von Natur generell in praktische Kontexte eingebunden. Aber keinem Begriff lassen sich bestimmte Handlungsanweisungen entnehmen. Als Umgrenzung von Wirklichkeitsbereichen gehören die Antithesen nur zu den Voraussetzungen rationaler Erörterung naturtheoretischer und -praktischer Fragestellungen. Meine Behauptung war, dass in den vorgestellten Kontexten sich nicht nur noch bestehende Leistungsfiihigkeiten der ausgewählten Naturbegriffe erweisen, sondern auch deren Grenzen bereits erkennbar sind. Das Verhältnis des Menschen zur Natur scheint sich so weitgehend gewandelt zu haben, dass die Unanwendbarkeit der Antithesen zwar noch nicht generell, aber doch schon partiell gegeben ist. Dass die Unterscheidungen in anderen Erfahrungsbereichen bereits gänzlich aufgehoben sind, wäre Thema eines anderen Vortrags. Nachbemerkung Die plurale Verwendung ersten und zweiten Grades stellt sich rur die drei ausgewählten Begriffe und Kontexte schematisch folgendermassen dar: Kontext: lebensweltlich subjektiv öffentlich Begriff: Natur vs. Technik Einheit von Seele, Div. Eigenschaften aristotelisch KiJrper und dusserer (Subjektcharakter, Natur Endlichkeit, etc.) Objektcharakter und Natur vs. Denken Objektcharakter cartesisch elementare quantitative Betrachtungen Entfernung der Innere Natur als Natur vs. Gesellschaft rousseausch aristotelischen und ursprüngliche cartesischen Natur Allgemeine Gesellschaft rur Philosophie in Deutschland e.V. in Verbindung mit der Universität Konstanz Die Zukunft des Wissens XVIII. Deutscher Kongress für Philosophie Konstanz 1999 Workshop-Beiträge Hrsg. von Jürgen Mittelstrass UVK Universitätsverlag Konstanz | {
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Forthcoming in Philosophical Psychology Title: A Property Cluster Theory of Cognition Author: Cameron Buckner Visiting Assistant Professor University of Houston 513 Agnes Arnold Hall Houston, TX 77204-3004 Phone: 713-743-3010 Fax: 713-743-5162 Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow Ruhr-University Bochum [email protected] 1 A Property Cluster Theory of Cognition Abstract: Our prominent definitions of cognition are too vague and lack empirical grounding. They have not kept up with recent developments, and cannot bear the weight placed on them across many different debates. I here articulate and defend a more adequate theory. On this theory, behaviors under the control of cognition tend to display a cluster of characteristic properties, a cluster which tends to be absent from behaviors produced by non-cognitive processes. This cluster is reverse-engineered from the empirical tests that comparative psychologists use to determine whether a behavior was generated by a cognitive or a non-cognitive process. Cognition should be understood as the natural kind of psychological process that non-accidentally exhibits the properties assessed by these tests (as well as others we have not yet discovered). Finally, I review two plausible neural accounts of cognition's underlying mechanisms-one based in localization of function to particular brain regions and another based in the more recent distributed networks approach to neuroscience-which would explain why these properties nonaccidentally cluster. While this notion of cognition may be useful for a number of debates, I here focus on its application to a recent crisis over the distinction between cognition and association in comparative psychology. 1. Introduction What is cognition? Thus far, cognitive science has gotten by with highly vague answers to this question. At the onset of the cognitive revolution, cognitivism could be distinguished as the approach to the mind that appeals to the internal psychological states forbidden by radical behaviorism. Successive research programs have since defined cognitive processes as those that involve rules and representations, behavioral flexibility, skillful coping, and generally intelligent behavior. Regardless of doctrinal affiliation, we should all admit that none of these definitions were ever particularly good at issuing verdicts about the numerous non-paradigm cases-from animats to zombies-that have cropped up in internal disputes amongst the cognitivists. The problem has progressively worsened, as each new revolution expanded the reach of cognitive explanation by offering an account even vaguer than the last. The increasing unclarity of 'cognition' has not prevented theorists from engaging in entrenched debates as to whether associative learning, perception, emotion, extended processes, or purportedly nonrepresentational dynamical agents could count as cognitive. Granted, the increasingly toothless definitions opened up space for an explanatory pluralism in which different research methodologies could be explored (Chemero & Silberstein 2008). However, this methodological pluralism suggests a corollary taxonomic pluralism: that different sub-areas of cognitive science now presume distinct notions of 'cognition', and participants in these debates are talking past one another. The problem is that existing 2 theories are too nebulous to determine whether these borderline disputes are empirical or merely terminological disagreements. To do so, our notion of cognition must acquire more substantial empirical bite. The trick is to turn the question "Is X cognitive?" into a question with specific empirical consequences without repeating the mistakes of behaviorism by defining 'cognition' in terms of particular operational criteria. To complicate matters, philosophers of science increasingly reject the deductive-nomological approach to explanation presumed by prior functionalist accounts of cognition. Instead, the critics argue, explanation in cognitive science appeals to underlying mechanisms or structures that cause the behaviors that result from cognitive processing (Bechtel 2009; Piccinini & Craver 2011). If this story is correct, then cognitive explanation requires a specific account of cognition's underlying nature-a challenge to which the vague conceptions are unequal. In short, not only has the need for a precise account of cognition never been more pressing, but the bar for the adequacy of such an account has never been higher. Perhaps what is now needed is not yet another shiny new paradigm, but rather a more careful examination of what has come before. In this paper, I articulate one such worked-out account of cognition. I will not argue here that this is the only defensible notion of cognition, or that this notion should be applied to all extant debates- theses that are both well beyond the scope of a single paper, and moreover probably false. In some cases, one means little more by "X is cognitive" than that cognitive scientists should be allowed to study X. I take it, however, that many participants in these debates believe themselves to be engaged in genuine disagreements over the degree of underlying similarity between X and paradigm cases of human and animal cognition. If these debates are worth pursuing, then they must be framed with renewed clarity and precision. Here, I will focus exclusively on the implications my theory holds for one such debate, a recent crisis in comparative psychology over the distinction between cognition and association. Nevertheless, I hope the example both demonstrates that the notion articulated here has much to offer other debates, and illustrates what form other empirically adequate theories might take. 3 Devising any suitable theory of cognition is a daunting challenge, for by now many different capacities have been called 'cognitive', including at least conceptual abilities, cognitive mapping, transitive inference, episodic memory, numerical competence, sequence and serial position learning, causal inference, analogical reasoning, language use, imitation, mindreading, and metacognition. On the surface, these capacities appear diverse. Nevertheless, a minimally adequate account must show what they have in common in virtue of being cognitive-in short, that cognition is a natural kind. There is hope that this challenge can be answered, but only if we abandon the goal of analyzing cognition into a simple set of necessary and sufficient conditions. Some have argued that searching for a simple "mark" of cognition is wrong-headed, as cognitive processes are united only by family resemblance rather than by a shared essence (e.g. Allen 2006). But this worry does not entail eliminativism about cognition-for we may still apply an account of kindhood which allows cognition to be unified by a "cluster of marks" that establish the family resemblance. The most promising and developed such account is the homeostatic property cluster (HPC) approach to natural kinds, a type of view endorsed by many but most associated with the work of Richard Boyd (1991; 1999). The HPC approach provides a way to distinguish categories suitable for empirical study from those that are not without relying upon essences. "Objects currently in the trunk of my car," "people whose surnames start with the letter 'N'," and "things about the size of a toaster" are probably not promising candidates for scientific study, whereas glial cells, episodic memories, earthquakes, chimpanzees, and uranium probably are. The latter sort of category are precious because they are (purportedly) loci of inductive potential, given that a large number of scientifically interesting properties non-accidentally cluster in instances of the kind. The HPC approach distinguishes itself by imposing the requirement that to count as a natural kind, a category must be the maximal class of items in which a significant number of scientifically interesting properties cluster due to the operation of at least one shared causal mechanism. On my theory, cognition is identified by eight specific types of representational flexibility that enable agents to pass typical tests for cognition.1 These properties constitute a scientific "stereotype" 4 which comparative psychologists use to distinguish cognitive from noncognitive processes. To ensure that the properties attributed to cognition are scientifically important, the cluster has been reverse-engineered from empirical practice in the area where this kind of diagnostic enterprise has reached its highest degree of sophistication: comparative cognition research. For if there is a problem of "demarcating" cognition, comparative psychologists face it every time they walk into the lab. In Section 2, I sketch the structure of an HPC approach to cognition and distinguish it from lesspromising alternatives such as purely behavioral or model-based strategies. In Section 3, I review the crisis over the distinction between cognition and association. In Section 4, I explain cognition's current scientific stereotype, reverse-engineered from influential experimental paradigms in comparative psychology. In Section 5, I review evidence that the properties comprising this stereotype nonaccidentally cluster due to shared neural mechanisms, and thus mark out a natural kind, and in Section 6 I return to the crisis between cognition and association to show how the completed theory can help arbitrate difficult cases. Before proceeding, two dialectical comments. First, in the interests of space I will not here defend the commonly-held assumption that cognition must be a natural kind to be empirically significant. Second, important questions have recently been raised about the HPC approach to natural kinds (e.g. Craver 2009); I adopt this approach despite these outstanding worries because putting the view in escrow until they can be answered in the abstract is the wrong way to proceed. Rather, the approach's viability should be assessed by seeing whether it can deliver verdicts on difficult cases, as cognition surely is. Thus, to work. 2. Preliminaries: How It All Hangs Together Any adequate account of cognition must incorporate psychology's many moving parts- behavioral criteria, models, and underlying mechanisms-and show how they fit together. My goal in this section is to briefly explain how an HPC approach to cognition integrates these pieces by distinguishing it from two less promising alternatives: purely behavioror model-based approaches (both of which are represented in the previous vague accounts). 5 A purely-behavior-based approach to cognition explicitly operationalizes cognition by defining it in terms of specific behavioral criteria, and anything that satisfies those behavioral criteria-regardless of how it satisfies them-counts as cognitive. There are a variety of well-known problems facing such approaches (Buckner 2011, p. 338-342; Adams & Aizawa 2008, p. 79-81), the general moral being that an adequate theory of cognition must specify not only what cognition enables agents to do, but also how it enables them to do it. A second type of model-based approach may thereby initially seem more plausible, where cognition would be defined in terms of specific styles of model, such as those built from rules and representations, links and nodes, or Bayesian networks. However, highly abstract model-based approaches offer little guidance on how to empirically assess the presence of cognition, for they are typically notational lingua franca with enough representational power to model any nonpathological inference (Buckner 2011, 326-329; Penn & Povinelli 2007, p. 105). The solution to this dilemma is a proper integration of both behavioral and modeling criteria. The HPC approach is well-suited for this task, for HPC kinds are defined by an accommodation between our inductive and explanatory practices and the underlying mechanistic structures that explain how those practices could be at least approximately true or successful. In short, particular behavioral benchmarks grant us (imperfect) epistemic access to kinds of real phenomena, but only when constrained by specific models of how systems generate the relevant activity; and models can achieve the right degree of specificity by being selected as (plausible) minimal models of the underlying mechanisms that pass those specific behavioral benchmarks. Applied to cognitive science, the idea goes something like this (Figure 1): cognitive scientists should collect the behaviors that they are interested in explaining as the result of cognition. They should then theorize about a minimal set of capacities that would allow systems to display these behaviors, and see whether agents possessing capacities that allow them to pass one set of behavioral tests also tend to possess the others. If it is plausible that they do, then scientists should attempt to develop a model of the underlying mechanisms that could produce those capacities and explain why they would tend to cluster together. The attempt to do so will spur an iterative process of multi-level theory revision which is robust 6 against limited numbers of counterexamples; scientists may find, for example, that one of the capacities produced by distinct mechanisms, and so should be excluded from the cluster (a "modest embarrassment"-Boyd 1999, p. 74); and having so reformed the cluster, they can in turn develop a more accurate view of the underlying mechanisms responsible for that flexibility. Cognition is defined by the limit of this iterative process of accommodation, by the minimal model depicting the kind of actual shared mechanism(s) that could satisfy the relevant behavioral tests. Whether cognition can be associative3, extended, or non-representational4 on this approach becomes the question of whether an associative, extended, or non-representational system could achieve accommodation with a relevant property cluster. Whether one adopts the specific theory offered here, precisely articulating such property clusters and models of underlying mechanisms remains an essential step in determining whether borderline disputes amount to merely terminological or genuinely empirical disagreements.6 To demonstrate the challenges facing such an account, I move to consider one of cognitive science's most difficult recent crises: the breakdown of the traditional distinction between cognition and association in comparative psychology. 7 Figure 1. A schematic view of relationships between experiments, behavioral tests, representational flexibility, and underlying mechanisms. Typically, multiple tests exist to assess the same type of flexibility; and any one benchmark may require multiple forms to pass. 3. Cognition and Association: The Recent Crisis Since the inception of comparative psychology, its methodology has relied upon a distinction between cognitive processes and those that stand "lower in the scale of psychological evolution and development"7-with the latter category including reflexes, innate-releasing mechanisms, imprinting, and, especially, associative learning (Wasserman & Zentall, 2006). This methodology can be characterized by three features. First, there is a default preference for associative explanations: producing a plausible associative explanation of some behavior is seen as a trump card which calls into question any cognitive interpretation of the results. Second, there is a default concern for associative explanations: since they are presumed to be ubiquitous in the Animal kingdom, associative processes must always be considered and ruled out for a cognitive explanation of some behavior to be regarded as legitimate. Third, these practices are only cogent if cognitive and associative explanations of behavior are mutuallyexclusive alternatives-for if they are not, attempting to experimentally distinguish them would be confused. Let us call the approach to comparative psychology characterized by these three features its "Standard Practice." Recently, some heavyweights of Standard Practice have challenged the viability of the distinction presumed by this methodology (Papineau & Heyes, 2006; Penn & Povinelli, 2007). For present purposes, it is enough to note that the tensions now surrounding the distinction largely stem from its supposed inability to neatly classify the most recent generation of psychological models. A number of these models are based in "associative principles" like spatiotemporal contiguities between stimulus cues, but can purportedly account for a variety of paradigm cognitive capacities like transitive inference and causal reasoning (e.g. Frank et al., 2003; Denniston et al., 2001). If these models are deemed 'associative' in the sense mutually-exclusive with 'cognition', then their expanded reach threatens the explanatory role of cognitive hypotheses in comparative psychology. 8 To consider a specific example, Penn & Povinelli wonder whether Denniston et al.'s Extended Comparator Hypothesis (ECH) should be classified as associative or cognitive. The ECH appears able to model higher-order backward blocking, an effect once thought to be a clear indicator of causal cognition. In the first phase of a backward blocking task, an animal is conditioned to learn that a compound of two cues (represented as 'AB') will be followed by another stimulus such as a reward (with the cue compound followed by the reward represented as 'AB+'). In the second phase, the animal is exposed to only one of the cues with the reward (i.e. A+). The backward blocking effect occurs when the exposure to the individual cue with reward (A+) in the second phase leads to diminished responding to the other cue in the original compound (B) during the final, test phase of the experiment. The cognitive interpretation of backward blocking supposes the animal to have learned that only one of the cues (A) was the true cause of the reward. Previous associative models could not exhibit backward blocking because they only allowed the modification of associations between cues presented together on a trial, whereas in backward blocking, learning in the second phase affects the strength of association to cues not present on that trial. Several associative models were eventually able to exhibit the backward blocking effect, by exploiting the fact that A and B had spatiotemporally co-occurred in the past. Cognitivists upped the ante by demonstrating that these same animals exhibited the even more sophisticated higher-order backward blocking involving a third intermediary cue 'X' (e.g. AX+, XB+, B- | A?), feeling certain that it would not in turn fall to an associative analysis, since the blocked cue (A) never actually co-occurs with its blocker (B). The ECH, however, can model this effect, for it takes an animal's response to a given stimulus to be computed via a series of higher-order comparisons between associations amongst present cues and associations amongst other cues with which the reward has co-occurred in the past. This result might lead some associationists to triumphantly conclude that, once again, an apparently cognitive psychological process has been revealed to be instead associative in nature. 9 Figure 2. The Extended Comparator Hypothesis (Denniston et al., 2001). At the time of action, the likelihood that a given conditioned stimulus (e.g. a light) is the cause of an unconditioned stimulus (e.g. a reward) is computed via a higher-order comparison involving associations with other cues which have cooccurred with the unconditioned stimulus in the past. The problem is that the ECH seems to satisfy criteria for both cognition and association. Penn & Povinelli note that on the associative side, the model is "based firmly on traditional associative principles like spatio-temporal contiguity and 'semantically-transparent associations'"; on the cognitive side, the model also "posits the kind of performance-focused, structured information processing that associationists have traditionally eschewed," such as an ability to understand the "'web of possibilities' that connects causes to effects" (2007, p. 100). While some may urge that the model's associative basis in contiguities between cues ought to settle the matter, it has long been accepted that cognitive processes may be accurately described by associative models at a "lower level of analysis" without this threatening their cognitive status (Fodor & Pylyshyn, 1988). Moreover, any model offers only a partial sketch of real mechanisms, and distinguishing "how possibly" from "how actually" models requires reference to real mechanisms (Craver, 2006). Associationists may hold that the ECH demonstrates that animals possessing only simple associative processing can clear a typical behavioral benchmark for cognition; but the real question is whether animals actually implement the ECH using a mechanism that is unable to satisfy other characteristic benchmarks for cognition. 10 In short, if the mechanisms described by this new generation of associative models can only pass behavioral tests for cognition by implementing cognition, then they do not impugn those tests' status as evidence for cognitive processing. Working out this compatibility as a conceptual possibility provides little methodological guidance for comparative psychologists, however, who must actually decide whether a proposed associative model ought to count as a deflationary alternative to some cognitive hypothesis or rather a description of a cognitive process at a lower level of analysis. In short, comparative psychologists need criteria that can be applied to determine whether a candidate associative model implements a cognitive process. Criteria have famously been offered in this context-Fodor & Pylyshyn champion compositionality and systematicity-but these criteria have found little uptake in comparative psychology as distinguishing marks of cognition. Moreover, it is not clear how to relate these criteria to those on which the scientists do rely-such as those described in the next section. 4. Meet the Cluster In this section, I review eight properties commonly attributed to cognitive processes by comparative psychologists in their experimental practice. The general characteristic that nearly every test for cognition is meant to elicit is behavioral flexibility. The notion of behavioral flexibility simpliciter is too vague for our purposes, however, so I review the specific forms popularly assessed by comparative psychologists when they want to determine whether a behavior is caused by a cognitive or non-cognitive process. These tests assess not just any forms of flexibility-in some sense, random behavior is flexible- but rather forms that demonstrate an ability to adaptively and efficiently shape behavior to fit environmental contingencies. Three orienting comments before reviewing the cluster: First, the cluster is offered not as a radical break with previous accounts of cognition, but rather as an explication of them. These properties are what enable a cognitive agent to master rules, flexibly satisfy goals, and cope skillfully. Second, it is a feature of the HPC view that not every property in the cluster need be present for a process to count as cognitive, nor will a process count as cognitive in virtue of exhibiting only one or two forms of flexibility in isolation. For example, basic forms of associative learning like conditioned taste aversion can occur 11 very rapidly. These processes will not count as cognitive on my scheme, however, for the range of cues eligible for contextual variation and rapid learning appear to be highly-constrained (taste-nausea links), and they appear to lack other forms of flexibility such as the capacity to be rapidly inhibited (cf. property 4.3). Moreover, the properties need only manifest on tasks which offer the right raw materials; so we should not expect to find e.g. monotonic integration (cf. property 4.7) on tasks that offer no monotonic orderings. Third, this list is not offered as an exhaustive account of the properties which cluster in cognitive processes; indeed, it is a corollary of the HPC approach to kinds that there be many more interesting inductive generalizations "waiting to be discovered" for a category to count as a natural kind. The current list is rather an inventory of cognition's current scientific stereotype-tentative, but sufficient to mark out a kind. 4.1 Context-sensitivity One of the most important ways that a flexible strategy can differ from a stimulus-bound approach is by enabling its bearer to react differently to the same cue in different contexts. In contemporary psychology, context-sensitivity is a prerequisite for many of the most-studied cognitive capacities. Episodic memory is precisely a matter of putting experienced events in a what-when-where, autobiographical context. Cognitive mapping requires an organism to know where it is going, where it has been, and to be able to place its location in the context of visible landmarks. Transitive inference and serial position learning require attunement to contextual information of what comes before and after in the sequence. Complex tool use and manufacture often require the repetition of particular movements, in context, until a sub-goal has been achieved. Social cognition is especially context-sensitive, for the attention and mood of conspecifics can comprise a context of life or death importance. Thus, experiments designed to distinguish cognitive from non-cognitive strategies often rely on tests of context-sensitivity. For example, consider Cheney and Seyfarth's well-known body of work on the predator calls of vervet monkeys (for a review, see Radick, 2007). Vervet monkeys emit distinct calls in the presence of pythons, eagles, and leopards. Cheney and Seyfarth argue that the emission and comprehension of these calls are governed by a genuinely semantic, cognitive competence, rather than 12 being purely instinctual or associative. Their argument is based on evidence that the calls-rather than being emitted invariantly to detected predators and producing rigid behavioral responses in listeners-are produced and consumed in contextually-appropriate ways. Using hidden loudspeakers, they played recorded predator calls in a variety of contexts. They found that responses to alarm calls depend on the current location of the monkey; an eagle call heard while in the treetops prompts running out of the tree, whereas monkeys located in the bushes hunker down for deeper cover. Vervets take into account the reliability of the signaler, generalizing appropriately to other contexts-repeatedly unreliable signalers of pythons (i.e. the "monkey who cried snake") are ignored not only when emitting that particular call, but also when emitting acoustically dissimilar calls with the same purported referent. Emission also depends on social context-isolated monkeys tend not to emit predator calls, high-ranking troop members are more likely to emit calls, and calls are more likely to be emitted when immature kin are nearby. All of these comparisons assess whether the vervets are able to vary the emission of and response to alarm calls appropriately by contextual cues. 4.2 Speed The rapidity of learning and problem solving on novel tasks is also treated as an indicator of cognition. In contemporary psychology, rapidity criteria especially feature in problem-solving and tooluse experiments; the sudden emergence of a successful strategy on a complex task is still taken as a mark of "insight," "innovation," and "creativity" (Taylor, 2007). Hihara et al. (2003), for example, take a rapid spike in learning curves on complex tool-use tasks as evidence that their macaques solved a task through cognition rather than trial-and-error. The assumption is that trial-and-error and rote conditioning tend to be slow, whereas cognitive strategies make more efficient use of available evidence. Speed alone is not decisive of cognition-less flexible forms of learning like imprinting, conditioned taste aversion, and fear conditioning can be very rapid. But in conjunction with other forms of flexibility and on novel problems, speed can be the key to dissociating cognitive from non-cognitive strategies. A venerable appeal to rapidity criteria is found in the "learning set" paradigm-which assesses an increasingly rapid error-rate reduction over a series of problems with different stimuli but governed by 13 similar logic. The increasingly rapid mastery of each new problem is taken as evidence the subject has "learned how to learn" by forming a "learning set," or category of problems sharing a similar structure. For example, Harlow showed that monkeys presented with successive trial blocks of two-object visual discrimination tasks improved their error-reduction rate over trial blocks, eventually achieving nearly effortless learning on new problems (Harlow, 1949). Though the cues which predicted reward varied from block to block, the monkeys learned to use the first trial on a new problem to figure out which features were important for that task. This improvement was taken to distinguish the subject that "adapts to a changing environment by trial and error" from one that achieves goals by "seeming hypothesis and insight." Such improvement in error-rate reduction is thought unavailable to simple associative and other strategies because the cues diagnostic of correct discrimination differ on each problem. For years, learning set formation was considered by many psychologists to be the strongest evidence of cognitive ability in non-human animals, and the error-reduction effect has since been observed in a wide variety of species, including cats, rats, rooks, and jays, to name a few (Slotnick, Hanford, & Hodos, 2000). Figure 3. Improved rate of error reduction over a series of trials in a learning set task; different lines indicate different problem sets (Harlow, 1949). 4.3 Class formation Another characteristic commonly attributed to cognition is the ability to group objects and situations into classes governed by a firm member/non-member distinction rather than by superficial perceptual 14 similarity. In comparative psychology, the persistent challenge has been to distinguish genuine conceptual abilities from associative stimulus generalization. Even the most radical behaviorists predict generalization from learned S-R links to novel stimuli, but this generalization should occur only along a gradient defined by psychophysical similarity of the stimuli. An empirical technique used to distinguish genuine categorization from stimulus generalization is thus to look for "rectangular" generalization gradients. Whereas subjects categorizing by stimulus generalization will show a gradual diminishment in response rate based on raw perceptual similarity of exemplars, the response rate of subjects imposing a member/non-member distinction should show a sharp drop-off when faced with stimuli that lack threshold values for core features. Moreover, animals that have learned a member/non-member distinction should fully generalize information learned about one category member to others, but not at all to perceptually similar non-members. As an example, Watanabe tested whether pigeons could learn the concept of a triangle (Watanabe, 2006). Pigeons trained to discriminate a single triangle from three randomly placed lines showed a gradual diminishment of responding to exemplars along a perceptual similarity gradient, and thus did not provide evidence of concept acquisition. The response rates of pigeons trained on multiple exemplars, however, did show a sharp drop-off. In extensions of this research, Watanabe found that once trained on sufficient exemplars, pigeons could sharply discriminate the styles of particular artists (e.g. Picasso or Van Gogh), unfocused from focused pictures, and multi-chromatic from monochromatic canvasses- categories that require a complex integration of multiple cues to master. Pigeons also appeared capable of learning functional categories by demonstrating a rectangular generalization gradient in distinguishing "food" and "non-food" items, categories which are not united by any specific perceptual similarity but rather by core functional features like edibility. 15 Figure 4. Rectangular generalization gradient on pigeon "triangle concept" task (from Watanabe, 2006). 4.4 Higher-order and Abstract Learning Another property used as a key indicator for cognition is the ability of subjects to master higher-order or abstract relationships in stimuli. In current psychology, such abilities have again been thought unavailable to non-cognitive strategies, since higher-order and abstract relationships cannot be learned by mechanisms sensitive only to first-order contingencies. A classic example involves a series of experiments in which Premack and colleagues attempted to teach Sarah the chimpanzee the concepts same and different (Gillian, Premack, & Woodruff, 1981). Sarah was given a series of analogy problems where correct choice was based on abstract relations between stimuli; examples included "banana is to banana peel as orange is to orange peel" (rather than peeled orange) and "marked paper is to marker as painted, closed can is to paint brush" (rather than can opener). In a modification of the experiment, Sarah was given two sets of objects, and correct responding required her to determine whether the objects in the two sets bore the same or a different relation to one another-another kind of task which cannot be solved by focusing on only first-order perceptual similarity. Sarah did well on both sets of experiments, leading Premack and colleagues to conclude that she possessed sophisticated cognitive abilities including analogical reasoning and the higher-order concepts of same and different. To further control for associative mechanisms, researchers commonly rely upon a transfer test in conceptual discrimination problems, in which animals are trained on one set of stimuli and then tested on another which shares no systematic first-order perceptual similarities to the training stimuli. In influential work on concept-learning in pigeons, for example, Cook and colleagues trained pigeons to discriminate between arrays of six icons which were either all identical or on which one icon was different (Cook 2002). Pigeons routinely passed transfer tests involving same and different arrays containing entirely 16 novel icons, leading Cook to argue that they possess cognitive abilities which allow them to learn about higher-order relations amongst stimuli. Figure 5. Example icon arrays used in same/different task by Cook (2002). 4.5 Multi-modality Multi-modality is the capacity to integrate and process cues across different sensory channels. Philosophers and psychologists have often treated multi-modality as an indicator of flexible, centralized processing which occurs in a "common code," rather than peripheral processing bound to a particular type of cue. Contemporary psychologists have often agreed, taking multi-modal navigation strategies (e.g. combining vision, touch, and smell) as evidence of the true comprehension of space required for cognitive mapping (Arleo & Rondi-Reig, 2007). Integrating visual and haptic information is also required for complex tool manufacture and use, to monitor and coordinate subgoals. Developmental psychologists have long viewed cross-modal transfer as a crucial cognitive milestone in the understanding of space, number, and object location, and early multi-modal impairments predict broader cognitive deficits in both humans and macaques (Gunderson et al., 1990). These lines of thought all suggest that cognition is at least potentially multi-modal, and as such cross-modal transfer has been used as a distinguishing mark. For example, Proops et al. recommend a cross-modal paradigm to distinguish true recognition of individual conspecifics from associative conditioning (Proops, McComb, and Reby, 2008). Proops et al. conducted an experiment on horses in which a familiar conspecific was lead past the subject and away from view. A vocalization was then played from a loudspeaker in the direction where the observed horse had exited. In the congruent condition, the vocalization was recorded from the horse that had been seen, and in the incongruent condition, the vocalization was from a different horse. Horses looked significantly more quickly, longer, and more often in the incongruent condition than in the congruent condition, 17 leading Proops et al. to suggest that the data are better explained by a cross-modal faculty of individual recognition than mere uni-modal association of cues. Whereas cross-modal recognition was long thought to be a uniquely human capacity, this paradigm has since been successfully applied to several primates, to crows, and is even being investigated in octopods (Kondo, Izawa, and Watanabe 2012; Tricario et al. 2011). 4.6 Inhibition The ability to inhibit behavioral strategies in the face of changing environmental circumstances also suggests a strategy characterized by cognitive flexibility. Today, psychologists suppose that behaviors under cognitive control can be flexibly inhibited or reversed on the fly in response to evidence of changing environmental contingencies. As a result, good performance on "reversal tests"-in which a creature is trained to criterion on some discrimination problem, and contingencies governing correct response are then reversed-has been taken to indicate that a behavior is under cognitive control (Watanabe, 2006). Heyes & Dickinson explicitly make the case for reversal criteria to determine whether behavior is truly 'intentional' (in the "caused by contentful psychological states" sense) or has merely appeared consistent with such an interpretation (Heyes & Dickinson, 1990). Specifically, they consider the behavior of Fodor's anecdotal "Graycat," who reliably approaches his food bowl during the usual feeding time in a way that facilitates digestion. To determine whether this behavior is actually caused by a desire for food together with the belief that the food bowl (at that time) is the place to find it, they recommend what they call the "looking glass" criterion: Suppose we placed Graycat in the world faced by Alice when she went through the looking glass; a world in which goals recede when you walk towards them, but draw nigh when you attempt to retreat from them...if Graycat's action is intentional he should, like Alice, adapt...by no longer attempting to walk towards his food bowl. (p. 90) For desire, Heyes and Dickinson recommend an "irrelevant incentive" criterion, which assesses the diminishment of the target behavior when the purported desire responsible for the behavior has been 18 sated. The ability to adapt to changing circumstances by reversing previously learned responses in these ways, Heyes & Dickinson argue, would supply grounds for asserting that the behavior is mediated by causal beliefs and motivational states sensitive to environmental contingencies, rather than being a hardwired response. 4.7 Monotonic Integration One of the most sophisticated tests for cognition relies upon the ability to distinguish elemental conditioning from strategies that organize cues along monotonic dimensions. A monotonic dimension is one along which stimuli can be ordered by increasing value-whether a "natural" dimension like size, intensity, distance, order, or duration, or a more dynamic one like a social dominance hierarchy. The ability to master such orderings plays a key role in a variety of cognitive competences. For example, the "short-cutting" test for cognitive mapping relies on the ability of animals to flexibly find a novel route to a goal in a maze when a familiar path has been obstructed; the information required to flexibly re-route is supposedly derived from a spatial ordering of locations and landmarks in an integrated, map-like representation of the environment. Monotonic integration also underlies a variety of timing and sequencelearning capacities, which depend upon the ability of the animal to detect patterns in temporal orderings of stimuli (Fountain & Doyle, 2011). Since monotonic ordering of cues across learning episodes has been thought beyond the reach of elemental associative learning, sensitivity to task-relevant orderings has been taken to be prima facie evidence that a psychological process is cognitive. Work on transitive inference has especially focused on monotonic integration. In transitive inference tasks, animals are trained to make discriminations on successive sets of stimuli ordered along a monotonic dimension. The test phase of the experiment then presents the animal with a novel choice option and the experimenters assess whether the animal's choice is consistent with the ordering. For many years, the gold standard test for transitive inference was the five-element series. In the 5-element series, subjects are trained on equal numbers of four discrimination problems involving five successive stimuli (i.e. A, B, C, D, and E), each time with the stimulus prior in the sequence being rewarded. In other words, the animals are presented with equal numbers of AB, BC, CD, and DE discriminations, with A rewarded over B 19 (represented as 'A+B-'), B over C (B+C-), and so on. Once reaching criterion on these four dyads, the subject is then tested on the novel BD dyad. Since B and D have been rewarded an equal number of times in the past, the organism responding on the basis of elemental associative conditioning should show no preference for B over D-and so an above-chance preference for B is taken as evidence that animals are capable of transitive inference. Attention to monotonic integration highlights even more subtle concomitants of cognition such as the Symbolic Distance Effect (or SDE). The SDE is demonstrated when subjects can more rapidly and accurately make discriminations between exemplars which are distant along a monotonic ordering than between those that are nearby. For example, in the five-element series, animals demonstrating the SDE will make discriminations amongst A and E more quickly and accurately than those between B and D, even though the animal had not previously evaluated either pair, and even when there are no natural orderings amongst stimuli. SDE stands out as one of the few protocols to test an indirect "side effect" of the way information has been represented by an organism, and it has been demonstrated in humans, several primates, and corvids (Matsuzawa, 2009). Figure 6. Reaction time evidence for the SDE; subjects demonstrating the SDE make discriminations amongst stimuli further apart in the monotonic sequence (larger no. of steps) more quickly and accurately than those amongst stimuli nearby in the ordering (McGonigle and Chalmers, 2010). 4.8 Expectation generation and monitoring I round out cognition's stereotype with the formation and monitoring of robust expectations regarding complex environmental regularities. Today, psychologists assess surprise by monitoring the amount of time a subject looks at an outcome, on the assumption that subjects will look longer at stimuli they 20 perceive as novel or unnatural. Preferential looking experiments are thought to dissociate cognitive from associative processes because learning takes place in the absence of any reward or unconditioned stimulus, and because the environmental regularities learned are thought too complex to be acquired by associative learning. One area of research which has used looking times to assess causal understanding pertains to the "support principles" governing physical objects. Such principles include the idea that only certain types and amounts of contact between the surfaces of objects are sufficient for one to support the other. A good example in this line of work was conducted on rooks by Bird and Emery (2010). In these experiments, rooks could look through a hole at images which depicted a cylindrical plastic container standing in various spatial relations to a wooden platform. Bird and Emery varied the presence, type, and amount of contact between the cylinder and platform, exploring a variety of possible and impossible combinations. Images depicting the cylinder floating stationary above the wooden platform or hugging the side of the container should be perceived as impossible, whereas the cylinder resting on its long or short edge on top of the platform should be perceived as possible. Rooks looked significantly longer and more often at stimuli which showed physically impossible types and amounts of physical contact for support, leading Bird and Emery to conclude that their birds possess sophisticated cognitive understanding of support principles. 5. But Do They Cluster? In the previous section, I characterized cognition by extracting a set of characteristics that comparative psychologists rely upon to distinguish cognitive from non-cognitive causes of behavior. If these practices are cogent, cognition will tend to produce behaviors exhibiting these forms of flexibility in relevant circumstances. Even if this is cognition's scientific stereotype, however, we have not yet secured the conclusion that this notion of cognition picks out a natural kind. The experiments canvassed so far provide little reason to suppose that these properties cluster. Given the overhead required to master a new experimental paradigm, most research groups have specialized in the study of only one or two kinds of test for cognition. This leaves little direct evidence of correlations between properties. 21 As a result, here is a skeptical view that has initial plausibility upon surveying the work discussed thus far: the term 'cognitive' is now applied to a motley crew of at least a dozen distinct capacities that share few commonalities. These capacities operate on different kinds of information and according to different principles; for example, a transitive inference problem requires the subject to order the relative values of multiple stimuli, whereas a concept learning task requires the identification of abstract features governing category membership. Furthermore, these capacities have been studied across a wide variety of species with different underlying neuroanatomy and facing different ecological pressures. Surveying all this apparent diversity, we might conclude that these capacities have only been grouped together for social or historical reasons-e.g., because none could be predicted by behaviorist theory circa 1970. While 'cognition' might have played an important role in liberating psychologists from the constraints of radical behaviorism, those strictures are now dead and gone, and we no longer need the label to protect us from them. Thus, scientists should eliminate 'cognition' from psychological theorizing-together with debates about its penumbra-and simply theorize directly about the various psychological capacities themselves. To rebut this skepticism, we must provide evidence that, by and large, the properties grouped together in cognition's current scientific stereotype do in fact cluster, while at the same time making sense of the obvious diversity amongst capacities studied as cognitive. This is a challenge that even staunch proponents of cognitive approaches have not yet adequately appreciated. To discharge this burden on an HPC-style view, we must show both that the properties in the cluster are in fact mutually correlated, and identify a mechanism that explains why these properties non-accidentally co-occur (i.e. by reliably causing them to cluster). In short, what is needed is an account of cognition as a "superordinate" natural kind that groups together a variety of more specific natural kinds of psychological process. Such superordinate kinds are common and can be useful to retain in theorizing and methodology even in mature sciences. Consider the classificatory term 'metal' in chemistry-a term that groups together many more specific natural kinds (gold, nickel, iron, lithium, etc.). Metals are distinguished from non-metals and semiconductors by their 22 tendency to display a core set of characteristic properties: they are good conductors of electricity and heat, and tend to be solid, opaque, lustrous, dense, and ductile at room temperature. Though metals were studied as a category long before the underlying explanation for these properties was known, we now know these properties cluster due to the operation of common causal mechanisms (Mizutani, 2001). Specifically, partially-filled outer electron shells cause atoms of metallic elements, at room temperature, to form a lattice governed by metallic bonds in which the outer electron energy bands of neighboring atoms overlap (e.g. allowing electrons to flow freely about the lattice). Despite the fact that different metals vary widely in their specific nuclear configurations, their outer electron shells all instantiate a more abstract kind of mechanistic structure that explains why they all tend to exhibit the characteristic properties of metals. At the same time, the theory predicts that metals will differ in the degree to which they exhibit these characteristic properties-for example, some metals are better conductors than others, and mercury is a liquid at room temperature. However, these variations and exceptions enhance the utility of the category-for the differences in e.g. conductance and melting point systematically arise from differences in these shared underlying causes (i.e. outer electronic configuration). In other words, the generality of a superordinate kind can enhance our ability to learn about the differences between its more specific children by generating hypotheses about the ways a child will differ from its siblings and how modulation of shared underlying mechanisms explains that variation. So, the rebuttal to this skepticism is as follows: 'cognition' is a superordinate natural kind term that applies to a variety of more specific kinds of psychological capacities such as transitive inference, cognitive mapping, and conceptual abilities. Cognitive capacities are distinguished from non-cognitive capacities by supporting the specific forms of behavioral flexibility discussed above. They enable behavioral flexibility by operating on a distinctive kind of representation-one that is potentially contextsensitive, configural, abstract, multi-modal, highly-plastic, and responsive to perceptual evidence. The common thread here is the rapid and efficient encoding of interstimulus relations-whether contextual, higher-order, temporal, spatial, or multi-modal-to predict environmental outcomes. These representations are to be contrasted with the more hardwired, elemental, stimulus-response and stimulus23 stimulus representations which drive innate-releasing mechanisms, imprinting, and elemental forms of associative conditioning. There will of course be variation in the degrees of flexibility exhibited by cognitive processes across tasks, species, and individuals, but these differences can be explained by systematic variation in these underlying representational structures. Let us begin with the evidence that these properties reliably co-occur. Meta-analyses have investigated correlations between the various forms of behavioral flexibility in the cluster, producing a body of knowledge is both vast and, at present, inconclusive. However, there are already enough data to justify optimism that the different forms of behavioral flexibility associated with cognition do in fact cluster and are enabled by shared mechanisms, for this hypothesis generates predictions that appear to be confirmed by the data. In a review of this literature, Lefebvre and Sol (2008) note that capacities for tooluse, innovation, imitation, learning latency, and reversal learning correlate across a variety of avian and mammalian species; test batteries run within species also show within-subjects correlations amongst different measures of cognitive ability. Moreover, if cognition were not a kind, one would expect to find a variety of inverse correlations between cognitive abilities, based on the assumption of biological tradeoffs between distinct capacities competing for resources. Such negative correlations appear to be rare (Lefebvre & Bolhuis, 2003). Though suggestive, these behavioral correlations are agnostic on the question of whether there are shared underlying mechanisms that enable the various forms of representational flexibility. It could still be that organisms utilize entirely unrelated mechanisms to represent e.g. spatial and transitive relations, and the apparent clustering of spatial and transitive abilities may be due to statistical coincidence or definitional gerrymander. Indeed, the correlational studies have been dogged by just such worries (Giraldeau, Lefebvre, & Morand-Ferron, 2007). If this were the case, the different forms of behavioral flexibility might yet be supported by entirely distinct mechanisms, and cognition's current scientific stereotype would fail to mark out a natural kind. Unsurprisingly, there has thus been intense interest in the neuroanatomical correlates of cognitive flexibility. Candidates include a variety of volumetric and connectivity ratios between body, whole brain, 24 pallium, cortex, and hippocampus. Many of these ratios offer impressive correlations with cognitive flexibility, but no clear winner has yet emerged. Moreover, mainstream empirical work on the neural correlates of cognition is currently divided between two dissenting camps: the traditional "lesion and localize" approach to neuroscience and the more recent "distributed networks" approach. As such, at present I sketch two optimistic lines of reasoning supported by current evidence that would rebut the skeptical hypothesis by homing in on the underlying mechanisms responsible for cognitive flexibility in animals. While readers may strongly prefer one or the other of these two views depending upon their attitudes towards this emerging controversy in neuroscience, I ultimately conclude this section by arguing that, when the details are filled in, there is less disagreement between them on the central question of this paper than may initially seem. 5.1 Proposal 1: The MTLs The first approach bases the distinction between flexible and inflexible representations in the theory of multiple memory systems in neuropsychology-a linkage which has recently grown in popularity in comparative psychology (Smith et al., 2010; Fountain & Doyle, 2011). On this view, most animals possess dissociable memory systems which are specialized for the acquisition of representations of different degrees and kinds of flexibility. Procedural and declarative memory have long been dissociated at the behavioral level, with the former thought a more inflexible form of memory supporting habits and motor skills and the latter specialized for the rapid encoding of more abstract, fact-based knowledge. More recently, different memory systems have been localized to different neuroanatomical circuits, with architectural and neurobiological features adduced to explain the functional differences between systems (Squire & Schacter, 2002; Eichenbaum & Cohen, 2001; Rolls, 2000). Thus, perhaps cognition's shared underlying mechanism-required by the HPC approach to natural kinds-can be identified with a particular neural circuit. In mammals, the medial temporal lobes (MTLs)-which include the entorhinal cortex, hippocampus, dentate gyrus, and subiculum-are repeatedly singled out as the crucial component of the neural system responsible for representations that enable cognitive flexibility. In one of the most influential such views, Eichenbaum and Cohen (2001) 25 argue that while many different brain regions are capable of elemental associative learning, the MTLs are uniquely specialized for detecting and encoding interstimulus relations. Scores of lesion studies support this hypothesis; since Hirsh (1974) first suggested that hippocampal lesions convert cognitive rats into stimulus-response automata, MTL structures have specifically been implicated in context-sensitivity, spatial learning, knowledge of temporal orderings and seriations, behavioral inhibition, relational learning, multi-modal integration, and configural learning (Gluck, Meeter, & Myers, 2003; Sweatt, 2004; Toates, 1998). Where the relevant neuroscience is known, these structures have also been directly implicated in a variety of cognitive capacities, especially transitive inference, declarative memory, conceptual abilities, and cognitive mapping (Dusek & Eichenbaum, 1997; O'Keefe & Nadel, 1978; McClelland, McNaughton, & O'Reilly, 1995). Strong evidence in favor of the anatomical memory systems view also comes from findings of competition between different responses on tasks that simultaneously activate different systems (Poldrack & Packard, 2003). A focus on the MTLs, however, raises the question of whether we have adopted an unduly "mammalocentric" criterion for cognition. But here comparative neuroscience provides some solace; while much of the preceding evidence has been obtained from mammals, the basic framework may generalize to other classes. The best established extension is expressed in the verdict of homology between the mammalian and avian hippocampus, which reflects a recent sea change in thinking about the neural substrates of cognitive flexibility in birds (Columbo & Broadbent, 2000). Further bolstering this extension, a body of excellent, interdisciplinary comparative work has been conducted by Kamil, Balda, Bond, and associates investigating correlations between multiple forms of behavioral flexibility and hippocampal volume in corvids (Kamil, Balda, & Olsen, 1994; Bond, Balda, and Kamil, 2007). A recognizable form of the hippocampal formation dates back to fish, and Day presents a cladogram summarizing evidence that the formation supports a cluster of cognitive capacities across a swathe of vertebrates (Day, 2003). Where relevant forms of behavioral flexibility are found in even more phyletically distant species, such as the sophisticated problem-solving abilities of octopods or configural learning of bees, multiple forms of behavioral flexibility co-occur and have been found to depend upon 26 neural structures with architectures and patterns of connectivity explicitly declared similar to the mammalian MTLs by the researchers who study them (e.g. the octopod vertical lobe and the bee mushroom bodies-see Hochner, Shomrat, & Fiorito, 2006; Giurfa, 2003). Whether these neural structures are similar enough to those of more paradigmatic cognitioncapable organisms, remains, to be sure, an open empirical question. Perhaps octopods and insects will remain, like mercury with respect to metals, persistent but intelligible borderline cases. The challenge is to find the appropriate grain of detail to describe an underlying mechanism that could plausibly be shared across these diverse organisms. Popular connectionist or mathematical models of MTL function, such as that of Gluck & Myers (1993) or Howard et al. (2005) may offer the right grain. Nevertheless, given that neuroscientists are already making progress on these comparisons-and especially have already reached a consensus regarding the case of mammals and birds (Reiner et al., 2004)-optimism here is reasonable. 5.2 Proposal 2: A Cognitive Connectome? The second type of optimistic view arises out of a recent paradigm shift away from the "lesion and localize" methodology favored by mainstream neuropsychology and towards a "distributed networks" approach to neuroscience (Anderson, 2010). Proponents of the latter approach are particularly unimpressed with the double dissociation criteria used as neuropsychology's stock and trade (Van Orden, Pennington, & Stone, 2001). A double dissociation occurs when a lesion in area A diminishes psychological capacity X but leaves Y intact, and a lesion in area B diminishes Y but leaves X intact. This is often assumed to provide evidence that capacity X can be localized to A and Y to B. But as even proponents of double dissociation concede, this reasoning only goes through if we can already presume that X and Y are distinct psychological modules which could be localized in distinct neural circuits-an assumption network theorists are typically not willing to grant. This creates an apparent problem for Proposal 1, for by calling into question the ability of lesion and localize to identify neural circuits responsible for cognitive processing, the network theorists would challenge much of the evidence that traditional neuropsychology could offer in support of the thesis that cognition is an HPC kind. 27 The alternative view they recommend-supported by meta-analyses of neuroimaging studies- holds that the neural substrates of most cognitive capacities are widely-distributed throughout the brain. Rather than expecting a one-to-one correspondence between psychological capacities and neural regions, any particular neural circuit may underlie a variety of distinct, domain-specific psychological systems. This thesis may appear to entail eliminativism about cognition because it denies that a simple neural region could serve as the shared underlying mechanism uniting cognitive processes. However, this view does not necessarily entail that there is no underlying mechanism responsible for the clustering of various forms of cognitive flexibility, for its proponents might identify this type of mechanism with an abstract network structure instantiated by many different networks throughout the brain. In other words, "cognitive process" might be an abstract superordinate kind term (cf. the discussion of "metal" above) that applies to the dynamics exhibited by many distinct distributed networks because they all instantiate a shared higher-order network structure that enables the forms of flexibility in the cluster. Though our knowledge of the computational principles governing distributed networks is still in its infancy, there may be a type of network connectivity (a "motif" or "connectome" signature) distinguishing cognitive from non-cognitive distributed networks. For example, the networks supporting cognitive processing might be more widely distributed, involve more hierarchical integration of segregated resources, and feature more coordinating "hub" nodes than those supporting non-cognitive capacities (Sporns 2010, p. 179-206). Perhaps they offer the optimal distributions of in-degree and outdegree nodes-"talkers" and "listeners" (Zhao et al., 2011)-to facilitate synchronization between distant cortical regions required to learn the kinds of complex interstimulus relations involved in the cluster of representational abilities described above. Whatever the critical feature, the brain-body correlations discussed above would seem on the surface to offer stronger support for this kind of hypothesis compared to Proposal 1, given that hippocampal volumes are not nearly as well correlated with cognitive flexibility (predicting only 11.5% of variance in cognitive abilities) as are more inclusive ratios involving the entire cortex (which capture 99.5% of variance in birds and 98.5% in humans – Lefebvre, 2010). 28 Figure 7. Different types of network connectivities (from Zhao et al., 2011). Arrows indicate synapses, and αdiv and αchain indicate the frequencies of high in-degree and longer multi-node synapse chains, respectively. The authors found that synchrony tends to increase with the relative frequency of chains and decrease with the relative frequency of convergence. An apparent problem with this proposal, however, is that the connectivity factors (like αdiv and αchain) feature in these models as continuous variables. Rather than marking out the boundaries of cognition as a natural kind, they suggest a gradual progression from inflexible to flexible processing, and thus the failure of any neat accommodation between a cluster of cognitive properties and a unitary type of underlying neural mechanism. Perhaps this is the correct perspective-whether it is remains an empirical question-but before giving up on this approach to cognition, we should remember that network models such as Zhao et al.'s are pitched at a high level of abstraction from actual physical systems. Notably, these models do not explain how certain neurons or neural assemblies might exhibit higher or lower in-degree and out-degree, and are silent on the constraints that different connectivity patterns impose on real physical systems that instantiate them. Viable widely-distributed networks must address a variety of challenging implementation constraints, including sufficiently powerful signaling mechanisms (e.g. why the MTL's perforant path contains mossy fibers), interference from nearby networks (e.g. why many axons are myelinated), and accessibly located coordinating nodes (e.g. why integration zones tend to be located in spatially central brain regions). Moreover, evolved agents can only satisfy such constraints by iteratively building upon or rewiring the architectures of their forebears. The next step, then, is to flesh out the neurobiological mechanisms that could feasibly implement such networks-an important possibility 29 being that the only networks capable of such flexible coordination will crucially involve the same areas of the brain highlighted by traditional localization methods. 5.3 Proposal 1 & 2: Ecumenical Coda? Despite appearances, then, Proposals 1 and 2 may not really be at odds. Indeed, the MTL-centric theories of cognition already predict that the neural substrates of episodic memories and cognitive skills will be distributed, through the process of consolidation, to distant areas of the brain (McClelland, McNaughton, & O'Reilly, 1995). Thus, the two views could be mutually consistent to a large degree if there were a behaviorally-relevant difference in connectivity patterns between distributed networks which involve at least initial participation of the MTLs and those that do not. Indeed, the various "distributed networks" theories should not and need not deny the behavioral implications of the distinctive neuroanatomy found in MTL tissues. Anderson's reuse theory, for example, is based on the idea that while a particular anatomical circuit may have many different domainspecific functions, it has only one common domain-general "working." These low-level workings are best uncovered through anatomical studies, and the data in this area suggest that the type of neurochemical dynamics in the MTLs uniquely predispose the area to rapidly attune to coactivations of input synapses along a variety of temporal scales (Nicoll & Schmitz, 2005). This working would leave the region uniquely well-suited to the discovery of complex interstimulus relations, which could be packaged into flexible representations and consolidated to diverse cortical networks. Moreover, reuse may be required to explain why so many different domain-specific cognitive capacities have been associated with the same neural circuit (Petrov, Jilk, & O'Reilly, 2010). For example, suppose the hippocampal formation originally evolved to learn spatial relations amongst stimuli for the purposes of cognitive mapping. The neural workings required for such mapping would leave the system well-placed to learn temporal, transitive, and sequential mappings as well. These relations would in turn bootstrap a further reuse in episodic memory, since such memory is characterized by the ability to place events in spatial and temporal context. Indeed, such a sequence of reuse is now espoused by prominent members of the old guard (Nadel & Hardt, 2004). Finally, if this were the right story, it is 30 unclear that improved cognitive ability would require larger MTLs. Better or more representational abilities may not require bigger MTLs so much as better wiring (Roth et al., 2010), and at any rate studies of amnesia suggest that cognitive representations (such as episodic memories and concepts) only require MTL resources until consolidated to distributed cortical networks.8 6. Application and Conclusion Supposing the view of the preceding sections to be coherent, let us apply it to the crisis over the distinction between cognition and association. This crisis was precipitated by our inability to determine whether recent psychological models ought to count as depicting implementations of cognitive processes, or rather deflationary associative alternatives to them. My proposal offers a way to answer this question: we should assess whether the new models depict mechanisms that can acquire and manipulate the kind of interstimulus representations that would enable the forms of flexibility in the cluster described above. Consider the model of transitive choice developed by Frank et al. (2003) mentioned above in Section 3 (Figure 8). The model's creators offer it as a deflationary associative alternative to cognitive accounts of transitive inference because it construes animals in transitive inference tasks as making choices based on gradients of elemental associative strength rather than rule-based inferences. However, the model only exhibits transitive-like behavior on novel options because its network structure-inspired by the neuroanatomy of the MTLs-enables it to encode conjunctive representations of stimuli. This allows some of a stimulus' associative value to "transfer" to absent stimuli with which it has co-occurred in the past (Von Fersen et al., 1991). Granted, Frank et al.'s model makes different predictions than some other specific cognitive models based on SDE (e.g. on a 6-element series), and that is a good thing. But in implicating the MTLs, and especially by trafficking in conjunctive stimulus representations, their model predicts that organisms capable of transitive-like choice would also be capable of many of the other forms of flexibility in the cluster. So, while the model may offer a genuine advance over other cognitive models, it is not clear that it should be counted as associative in the deflationary sense. It rather counts as a description of a (perhaps distinct) cognitive strategy pitched at a lower level of analysis (see also Howard et al. 2005, p. 35). The same goes for the other problematic models such as the ECH (recall its higher31 order comparisons), which all distinguish themselves by trafficking in more complex interstimulus relations than traditional elemental models of associative learning (e.g. Estes, 1950). Thus, rather than demonstrating that characteristically cognitive tasks can be solved by less flexible, non-cognitive mechanisms, these models should be regarded as (partial) sketches of underlying mechanisms capable of satisfying the other common benchmarks for cognition. Figure 8. Frank et al.'s model of rat performance on transitive choice tasks. The hippocampal network forms conjunctive stimulus representations that allow the model to build an ordered associative gradient of stimulus values. I conclude by noting that while the current account holds that cognitive processes are united by shared underlying neural mechanisms, the view does not require there to be anything magic about brains beyond their workings. In particular, we can envision prosthetics and artificial agents trafficking in representations that were flexible in all the right ways. As I suggested above, however, there are more constraints on actually building such systems than we might initially suppose. The current account moves such discussions away from vague notions of information processing or skillful coping to more specific models of plausible mechanisms that achieve a specific behavioral profile. Thus while recommending a critical attitude towards borderline cases of cognition, the present view rebuts charges of conservative prejudice by offering a principled account against which such claims can be empirically assessed. Though this yardstick for cognition may not be suitable for all purposes, it offers a precedent for others to consider in crafting alternative accounts. 32 Acknowledgments I am grateful to Colin Allen, Jacob Beck, Jose Luis Bermúdez, Aaron Blaisdell, Robert Briscoe, Carl Craver, Fred Dretske, Jim Grau, Mitchell Herschbach, Celia Heyes, the attendees of the 2010 Winter Conference on Animal Behavior and Learning and a 2011 Pacific APA symposium, and several anonymous reviewers for discussion and feedback on earlier drafts of this paper. This work was supported in part by a grant from the Center for the Integrative Study of Animal and Behavior at Indiana University and by the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung. 1 In this paper, I will write in terms of "representations" and "representational abilities," but nothing turns on whether we construe these abilities as representational or in terms of the causal relationships that representations bear to their purported referents. Indeed, if naturalists such as Dretske have succeeded in reducing representation to types of causal covariation, then these are simply two different ways of describing the same thing. The important point is that cognitive processing allows agents to track specific types of environmental structure in the relevant ways. Hopefully, this account of representational flexibility articulates what is meant by those who suggest that "original" or "non-derived" representations are central to cognition (e.g. Adams & Aizawa, 2008). However, my own view of the explanatory work done by representational attributions in comparative psychology may surprise critics of representationalism (e.g. Ramsey, 2007), for I take the relationship to be more complex than one of mere "causal relay" (Buckner, forthcoming). 3 The remainder of the paper might appear to defend the traditional distinction between cognition and association as strictly mutually exclusive. However, the current account holds rather only that at least some associative processing is non-cognitive, offering specific guidelines as to how to decide when a system built from associative principles would be sophisticated enough to count as cognitive. For more on this subtle issue, see Buckner (2011, p. 321-323). 4 Some authors worry that representationalists take it to be analytic that cognition is representational, and so doing places undue constraints on empirical discovery (Ramsey, 2007). To clarify, the current account holds not that the kind of cognition discussed by comparative psychologists is necessarily (i.e. by definition) representational, but rather that it is contingently representational, that representationalism is the most plausible empirical hypothesis as to how humans and animals are able to pass the behavioral benchmarks that comparative psychologists associate with cognition. 6 One may worry that the HPC approach's reliance on the identification of underlying mechanisms rules out nonrepresentational dynamical models at the outset. While there is clearly some tension between dynamical and mechanistic approaches to explanation, recent work suggests that they can in some ways be complementary (Bechtel & Abrahamsen, 2010) and that dynamics themselves can constitute a mechanism (Zednik, 2011). 7 This language comes from Morgan's Canon (Morgan 1903, p. 59). 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ESP, CZYLI PRACOWNIK NA ZAKRĘCIE OUTPLACEMENT DLA PRACOWNIKÓW Białystok 2015 Redakcja naukowa Michał Skarzyński Autorzy Anna Azevedo: rozdział: 2.2 Andrzej Klimczuk: rozdziały: 2.1, 3.1, 3.2 Michał Skarzyński: rozdziały: 1, 2.2, 2.3, 3.3 Agnieszka Walczak: rozdział: 2.2 Copyright © by Narodowe Forum Doradztwa Kariery Białystok 2015 www.nfdk.pl ISBN 978-83-941065-4-6 Niniejsza publikacja jest efektem badań i analiz przeprowadzonych w ramach współpracy ponadnarodowej, w projekcie innowacyjnym PO Kapitał Ludzki PI-PWP: INNOWACJE NA ZAKRĘCIE − testowanie i wdrażanie nowych metod outplacementu, finansowanym ze środków Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego. Projekt okładki Łukasz Popko Druk i oprawa Drukarnia Cyfrowa Partner Poligrafia, ul. Zwycięstwa 10, Białystok egzemplarz bezpłatny SPIS TREŚCI WPROWADZENIE ........................................................................................... 5 ROZDZIAŁ 1. INNOWACYJNY MODEL WSPARCIA PRACOWNIKA .... 9 1.1. Model EKWIWALENTÓW pracownika ......................................... 14 1.2. Model STEROWNOŚCI pracownika ............................................... 35 1.3. Model PRZYŚPIESZENIA rozwoju pracownika ............................. 53 ROZDZIAŁ 2. UZASADNIENIE I OCENA MODELU ................................ 67 2.1. Bariery i potrzeby outplacementu podlaskich pracowników ............. 67 2.1.1. Ocena wsparcia doradczego ................................................... 84 2.1.2. Ocena wsparcia psychologicznego ......................................... 91 2.1.3. Ocena wsparcia szkoleniowego w reorientacji zawodowej ..... 96 2.2. Inspiracje portugalskie dla modelu ESP_Pracownik ....................... 103 2.3. Ewaluacja modelu ESP_Pracownik ............................................... 136 ROZDZIAŁ 3. WDRAŻANIE MODELU..................................................... 175 3.1. Korzyści dla pracowników ze stosowania outplacementu ............... 175 3.2. Bariery i czynniki rozwoju outplacementu dla pracowników .......... 180 3.3. Rekomendacje wdrożeniowe ......................................................... 185 3.3.1. Rekomendacje dla DORADCÓW ZAWODOWYCH .......... 185 3.3.2. Rekomendacje dla PSYCHOLOGÓW ................................. 192 3.3.3. Rekomendacje dla TRENERÓW ZAWODU ....................... 196 BIBLIOGRAFIA ........................................................................................... 203 SPIS TABEL .................................................................................................. 205 SPIS WYKRESÓW ....................................................................................... 205 WPROWADZENIE Publikacja prezentuje innowacyjny model wsparcia PRACOWNIKA zagrożonego bezrobociem lub zwalnianego w wyniku restrukturyzacji firmy w czasach dekoniunktury gospodarczej wypracowany i testowany w ramach projektu badawczo-wdrożeniowego „PI-PWP: INNOWACJE NA ZAKRĘCIE − testowanie i wdrażanie nowych metod outplacementu", realizowanego na zlecenie Wojewódzkiego Urzędu Pracy w Białymstoku. Liderem projektu było Narodowe Forum Doradztwa Kariery realizujące badania i przeprowadzające eksperyment społeczny wraz z partnerami ponadnarodowymi i partnerami krajowymi: Izbą Rzemieślniczą i Przedsiębiorczości w Białymstoku oraz Open Education Group Sp. z o.o. Celem projektu było adaptowanie, utworzenie, testowanie, a następnie upowszechnienie i wdrożenie na terenie województwa podlaskiego do VI 2015 r. dwóch modeli outplacementu dla pracodawców oraz pracowników przedsiębiorstw przechodzących procesy modernizacyjne i adaptacyjne. W publikacji zaprezentowano jeden z dwóch modeli, jakim jest model wsparcia zwalnianych pracowników, w kontekście wyników badań regionalnych, portugalskich inspiracji będących efektem trzyletniej współpracy ponadnarodowej z Instituto de Soldadura e Qualidade (ISQ) z Lizbony oraz wyników rocznego testu w podlaskich instytucjach rynku pracy z udziałem zwalnianych pracowników opisanych w drodze ewaluacji narzędzi składających się na model ESP_Pracownik. W wyniku tych badań określono trzy etapy modelowej interwencji outplacementu (ESP): Instrumenty EWALUACYJNE (E): diagnostyczno-doradcze, związane z oceną (bilansem) kompetencji pracownika w obliczu zmiany zawodu lub stanowiska pracy. Instrumenty STRATEGICZNE (S): planistyczne i psychologiczne, związane z planowaniem kierunków i działań w oparciu o przewartościowane, zbilansowane w pierwszym kroku zasoby pracownika. Instrumenty PRZYŚPIESZAJĄCE (P): szkoleniowe (innowacyjne metody szybkiego uczenia się) wspierające strategię i plan działania, opracowane w drugim kroku zmiany w aktywności zawodowej pracownika. 6 Wprowadzenie Publikacja stanowi praktyczny instruktaż zastosowania innowacji wraz z rekomendacjami wdrożeniowymi wynikającymi z oceny modelu. Adresatami wskazówek wdrożeniowych są w tym przypadku trzy grupy specjalistów potencjalnych użytkowników trzech pakietów narzędzi składających się na model: DORADCY – stosujący narzędzia ewaluacyjne i diagnostyczne związane z pierwszym etapem modelu, w szczególności doradcy zawodowi i doradcy kariery, pośrednicy pracy diagnozujący ekwiwalenty kompetencyjne klienta w kontekście nowych wyzwań zawodowych. Diagnoza i bilans ekwiwalentów pracownika przesuwa akcenty z doradztwa kariery w obszar poradnictwa adaptacyjnego oraz doradztwa kompetencji z uwzględnieniem zadań zawodowych opisujących rzeczywiste wymagania przyszłego stanowiska pracy wykraczającego niejednokrotnie poza wąsko zdefiniowany zawód. PSYCHOLODZY – stosujący narzędzia strategiczne i planistyczne, w szczególności instrumenty kształtujące postawy zwiększające poczucie kontroli nad procesem zmiany oraz wpływu na przyszłość zawodową. Trening sterowności przesuwa akcenty ze wsparcia psychologicznego związanego z pocieszaniem czy motywowaniem do zmiany na działania o charakterze wychowawczym, kształtującym pożądany sposób interpretowania rzeczywistości oraz umiejętności społeczne kluczowe w radzeniu sobie z sytuacją trudną i realizacją planu reorientacji zawodowej. TRENERZY – stosujący narzędzia edukacyjne wykorzystujące metody szybkiego uczenia się (siebie) oparte na autonomii i odpowiedzialności ucznia oraz uwzględniające jego specyficzne potrzeby i predyspozycje zgodnie z założeniami metody Colina Rose adaptowanej innowacyjnie do obszaru nauki nowego zawodu czy reorientacji zawodowej. Powyższe zestawienie etapów modelowej interwencji ukazuje bogactwo wypracowanych rozwiązań i kompleksowość przyjętego w projekcie podejścia do złożonego i trudnego problemu gospodarczego i społecznego. Podejście to sprawia, że zaproponowany model outplacementu zewnętrznego stanowi działanie o charakterze interwencyjnym, niwelującym społeczne skutki zwolnienia w przypadku niepowodzeń działań profilaktycznych podejmowanych w FIRMIE w ramach modelu outplacementu wewnętrznego opisanego w analogicznej publikacji kierowanej do specjalistów wspierających procesy restrukturyzacyjne w organizacji. 7 Wprowadzenie Interdyscyplinarność prezentowanego modelu jest w istocie zaproszeniem szerokiej grupy potencjalnych użytkowników – szerokiego spektrum specjalistów i instytucji − do lektury i zastosowania w praktyce niniejszego podręcznika. Walor użytkowy opracowania zwiększono dzięki wskazówkom dotyczącym możliwych zmian i modyfikacji w zaproponowanych rozwiązaniach, wtedy gdy będzie trzeba je dostosować do nowych realiów gospodarczych czy finansowych lub kryteriów wyboru projektów unijnych, które mogłyby w przyszłości nawiązywać do wypracowanych rozwiązań. Potencjalny użytkownik znajdzie także informacje na temat przybliżonych kosztów czy działań niezbędnych do zastosowania zaproponowanych innowacji. Rekomendacje kierowane są zatem do zespołu specjalistów wspierających monitorowane zwolnienia grupowe w restrukturyzowanych firmach lub też interdyscyplinarnych zespołów wspierających klientów indywidualnych zgłaszających się do instytucji rynku pracy z potrzebą zmiany pracy lub zawodu. Wysoki potencjał kooperacyjny modelu w zakresie rozwiązań internetowych, tworzący zachęty i warunki do współpracy różnorodnych instytucji rynku pracy i pomocy społecznej (doradczych, wsparcia psychologicznego czy szkoleniowych) tworzy nową perspektywę wykorzystania zaprezentowanego w tej publikacji modelu, jako nowego instrumentu wsparcia osób w trudnej sytuacji życiowej i zawodowej w regionie w ujęciu popytowym, w którym kluczowe jest dostosowanie kompetencji do potrzeb pracodawców bilansujących kompetencje organizacji z wykorzystaniem komplementarnego pakietu narzędzi dedykowanych dla firm. Mamy nadzieję, iż publikacja czytana w tym kontekście stanie się dla specjalistów instytucji rynku pracy zachętą do ściślejszej współpracy z pracodawcami rozumiejącymi wagę kompetencji swoich pracowników. Michał Skarzyński ROZDZIAŁ 1. INNOWACYJNY MODEL WSPARCIA PRACOWNIKA „INNOWACJE NA ZAKRĘCIE – testowanie i wdrażanie nowych metod outplacementu" to przedsięwzięcie projektowane w okresie, gdy Polska ogłoszona została „Zieloną Wyspą". Dobre nastroje powinien był psuć fakt, że wyspy w istocie nie oblewało morze, ale wszechobecny kryzys, który z czasem miał dotknąć polskich przedsiębiorców. Widmo kryzysu skłaniać musiało do zmiany kierunków i celów obranych w czasach prosperity oraz beztroskiej konsumpcji podsycanej szerokim strumieniem środków pomocowych płynących z Unii Europejskiej. Stanęliśmy na zakręcie. Projekt ten pokazuje bezpieczne i skuteczne metody wyjścia z zakrętu, a kontestacja utartych definicji, schematów i stereotypowych reakcji w kryzysie jest punktem wyjścia zaproponowanych innowacji. Piosenka „Na zakręcie" ze słowami Agnieszki Osieckiej stanowiąca motto projektu (A ja jestem, proszę pana, na zakręcie. Moje prawo to jest pańskie lewo. Pan widzi: krzesło, ławkę, stół,a ja – rozdarte drzewo...) ukazuje problem rozbieżności postrzegania tej samej rzeczywistości przez uczestnika i obserwatora sytuacji kryzysowej ujętej w metaforze „bycia na zakręcie". Definicja systemu bezpieczeństwa jazdy, stanowiąca drugie motto projektu (ESP – Electronic Stability Program – układ stabilizujący tor jazdy samochodu podczas pokonywania zakrętów oraz jazdy po nawierzchniach o zróżnicowanej przyczepności) ukazuje naukowe podejście do problematyki pokonywania zakrętów. Eksperci bezpiecznej jazdy wskazują na trzy kroki pokonywania zakrętu: przed zakrętem zwolnij i oceń sytuację, wykonaj łagodny skręt odpowiednio do narzuconego i nowego toru jazdy, a wychodząc z zakrętu, przyśpiesz. Na potrzeby słabszych kierowców lub zaskoczonych nagłą koniecznością manewru opracowano system kontroli trakcji ESP zapewniający optymalne bezpieczeństwo przy możliwie największej prędkości na zakręcie. ESP, początkowo stosowany w rajdach samochodowych, przeszedł do codziennych zastosowań i używany jest dziś nieświadomie przez większość kierowców. Czy podobny system ESP można zastoso10 Rozdział 1. wać poza motoryzacją w pokonywaniu zakrętów życia? Zacytowany tekst Agnieszki Osieckiej ukazuje poznawczą i emocjonalną przemianę uczestnika trudnej sytuacji w modelu trzech kroków wychodzenia z zakrętu – od zwolnienia w pesymizmie „rozdartego drzewa" poprzez dostrzeżenie „świateł rozmaitych możliwości" po duchowo odświeżony pośpiech a nawet konkurencję „przetrzeć oczy, umyć zęby, nim (inni) robotnicy wstaną". Wypracowanie nowego modelu wychodzenia z zakrętu FIRMY w kryzysie lub PRACOWNIKA zwalnianego z pracy w oparciu o szerokie inspiracje poezji i motoryzacji a także innowacyjne zastosowanie światowych metod sprawdzonych w innych obszarach kształcenia to kluczowe wyzwanie prezentowanego przedsięwzięcia, określające dwa kierunki działań badawczych, testujących i wdrożeniowych podjętych w projekcie: Badania prowadzone w projekcie wskazały, iż gospodarka UE stoi w obliczu największego w jej historii kryzysu, który wymusi w najbliższych latach restrukturyzację 20% firm, w tym zwolnienia grupowe i wzrost bezrobocia. W momencie przygotowani projektu w ciągu roku bezrobocie wzrosło w 12 krajach Unii łącznie o blisko milion osób. W województwie podlaskim bezrobocie do grudnia 2012 r. wzrosło z 13,2% do 14,6%, a liczba osób tracących pracę z powodów leżących po stronie pracodawcy wzrosła w ciągu roku o 36%. Polska jako „zielona wyspa" w Unii może korzystać z doświadczeń innych krajów w redukcji zatrudnienia i poszukiwać dobrych praktyk outplacemnetu w Grecji czy Portugalii, zmuszonych z powodu zadłużenia publicznego (Portugalia 84,6% − czwarte co do wielkości w Unii, w Polsce 57%) do zwolnień monitorowanych czy programów wsparcia restrukturyzacji małych i średnich przedsiębiorstw. Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych zakładało dalszy spadek PKB w Portugalii o 2,8% w 2012 r. i wzrost bezrobocia. Obserwowanie tych procesów jest szansą i prawem wynikającym z członkostwa w UE i nie można go zaniechać w obliczu kryzysu. Spo11 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika glądanie na północ Europy w poszukiwaniu klasyki outplacementu (UK) oraz najnowszych rozwiązania outplacementu na południu (Portugalia) daje woj. podlaskiemu szansę szybszego pokonania zakrętu, jakim jest nadchodzący kryzys i zdobycie przewagi konkurencyjnej w skracaniu dystansu do Polski i Europy. W wyścigach bolidów bez najmocniejszego silnika nie da się wyprzedzić konkurentów na prostej, a można ich pokonać tylko odpowiednim manewrem na zakręcie. Powyższy paradygmat uzasadnia wysiłek poszukiwania skuteczniejszych metod outplacementu w UE. Przewidywanie zmiany gospodarczej oraz przygotowanie się do rozwoju w nowych warunkach jest działaniem charakterystycznym dla regionów opartych na wiedzy. „Wiedza dla rozwoju" płynąca z dobrych praktyk i testów zwiększa szansę poprawnego manewru oraz poprawienia pozycji za zakrętem. Wypracowanie nowych rozwiązań outplacementu wymaga analizy dotychczasowych i zrozumienia przyczyn ich niskiej skuteczności. Najprostsza definicja outplacementu1 wskazuje na „łączenie w jeden program" doradztwa zawodowego, szkolenia czy pośrednictwa pracy (obligatoryjne) oraz wsparcia psychologicznego czy dotacji na firmę (dodatkowe). Dzięki kompleksowości programu zwiększa się efektywność wsparcia, jest to już standard wszystkich projektów realizowanych w ramach PO KL, lecz jego efektywność (20-50%), niestety, nie jest większa niż innych projektów dla osób bezrobotnych. Niestety, firmy coraz częściej traktują outplacement jako odprawę dla pracownika poprawiającą jej PR i relacje ze związkami zawodowymi. Outplacement staje się „ofertą pocieszenia" dającą poczucie doraźnej korzyści, ale w istocie nie rozwiązuje ani problemów firmy, ani pracownika. Dlatego właśnie tak dużo firm utworzonych z dotacji unijnych zakończyło działalność w ciągu 3 lat. Tymczasem programy outplacementu kuszą dotacjami na firmę i zbliżają się w swej efektywności do historycznych „odpraw dla górników" w większości wydanych na zakup aut czy sprzętu AGD RTV. Doraźne rozładowanie napięć społecznych i ochrona wizerunku firmy nie mogą być celem outplacementu, który powinien kreować długofalowe korzyści dla rynku pracy. Równolegle do wsparcia firmy należy szukać rozwiązań outplacementu dla pracownika poprzez diagnozę barier efektywności outplacementu. Uzupełnienie usług doradczo-szkoleniowych o wsparcie psychologiczne i społeczne stało się dziś standardem, jednak nadal w praktyce nie gwarantuje się wyższej efektywności outplacementu, która w odroczonych pomiarach 1 Podręcznik Outplacementu w ramach Programu Operacyjnego Kapitał Ludzki, MRR, Warszawa 2010, s. 11-12. 12 Rozdział 1. spada na ogół poniżej 20%. Problemem jest także sytuacja kobiet, które ze względu na macierzyństwo „są większym kosztem" dla firm i nadal mogą być zwalniane w pierwszej kolejności. Kobiety pełnią role rodzinne i opiekuńcze, a przez to mają utrudniony dostęp do usług outplacementu realizowanych po godzinach pracy. Z powyższego wynika, że pomimo teoretycznego standardu uwzględniającego wsparcie psychologiczne i społeczne konieczne są nowe usługi outplacementu, dostępne i szybkie, dostosowane do problemów płci i wieku, odpowiadające na specyficzne problemy pracowników. Tymczasem brak było na rynku ogólnodostępnych narzędzi bilansowania kompetencji na rzecz reorientacji wewnętrznej w firmie oraz zewnętrznej na rynku pracy, w tym potwierdzania kwalifikacji nieformalnych. Typowe usługi outplacementu są czasochłonne, krępujące i etykietujące oraz niedostępne dla osób zagrożonych zwolnieniem. Doradztwo outplacementu orientuje się na tradycyjnych szkoleniach, które są trudno dostępne dla osób pracujących, będących w okresie wypowiedzenia. Nadal w wielu regionach i mniejszych miastach brakuje ogólnodostępnych usług psychologicznych zwiększających poczucie kontroli i sterowność osób zwalnianych. Psycholodzy, jeżeli w ogóle angażowani są w usługi outplacementu, koncentrują się najczęściej na emocjach, samopoczuciu i motywacji, a nie doceniają wagi sterowności, która jest kluczowa w modelu pokonywania zakrętu. Dlatego opracowano kwestionariusze i ćwiczenia w tym zakresie, także zdalne, do samodzielnego użytku, oraz „samoobsługowe" metody szkoleniowe, które zwiększają sterowność uczestnika, a jednocześnie są bardziej dostępne dla osób pracujących czy intensywnie poszukujących nowej pracy. Pracodawcy często nie akceptują faktu absorbowania zwalnianych pracowników, w okresie wypowiedzenia, szkoleniami w trakcie pracy, co wydłuża proces outplacementu. Dlatego wypracowano rozwiązania zdalne przyśpieszające szkolenie pracujących, co nie tylko zwiększy ich udział w usługach rynku pracy w modelu rozgrupowanym, lecz także bardziej odpowiada potrzebom pracowników w trudnej sytuacji zawodowej. Zważywszy na zdefiniowane trzy typowe grupy barier w obszarze interwencji przetestowano model kompleksowych działań (ESP): diagnostyczno-oceniających (E jak ekwiwalenty), planistyczno-doradczych (S jak sterowność) oraz edukacyjno-motywacyjnych (P jak przyśpieszenie). W tym sensie zintegrowane instrumenty outplacementu służą przede wszystkim pracownikom, a trzy poziomy interwencji rozszerzają grupę potencjalnych użytkowników o specjalistów w dziedzinie oceny i audytu (doradca zawodowy), planowania strategicznego (psycholog) 13 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika oraz szkoleń (mistrz w zawodzie). Dlatego też w modelu outplacementu dla pracowników zaproponowano 3 pakiety innowacyjnych narzędzi: „E" jak EKWIWALENTY Model Ekwiwalentów Pracownika (PF4) Innowacja tego modelu związana jest zastosowaniem modelu bilansowania zamiennych kompetencji (ekwiwalentów) w doradztwie indywidualnym dla osób pracujących wymagających innego wsparcia, niż osoby bezrobotne. Innowacja odpowiada na zdiagnozowany brak narzędzi oceny drugoplanowych, nieformalnych kompetencji osoby zagrożonej utratą pracy lub przygotowującej się do reorientacji zawodowej. Drugoplanowe kompetencje oraz wiedza nieformalna to ekwiwalenty oceniane i odnoszone do pozostałych zasobów pracownika. Program komputerowy może współpracować z Drzewem Kompetencji, co daje możliwość odniesienia ekwiwalentów pracownika do kompetencji firmy, a to z kolej jest podstawą do poszukiwania nowego obszaru zawodowego w ramach outplacementu wewnętrznego. Innowacją jest więc w tym przypadku łączenie indywidualnych ekwiwalentów pracownika z Drzewem Kompetencji w firmie. Także tutaj dodatkową innowacją jest angażowanie w proces oceny nowych specjalistów (przełożonych, menadżerów obok doradcy zawodowego czy psychologa), a więc zwiększenie możliwości zastosowania doradztwa indywidualnego w firmie. Dodatkowym obszarem innowacji jest wypracowanie komputerowych oraz zdalnych (internetowych) aplikacji dla tego etapu modelu. Efektem testowania innowacji w tym zakresie jest innowacyjny produkt (PF4): Model Ekwiwalentów Pracownika. „S" jak STEROWNOŚĆ Model Sterowności Pracownika (PF5) Innowacja tego modelu związana jest z poszerzeniem tradycyjnego obszaru doradztwa zawodowego i planowania kariery o zagadnienia i formy aktywności specyficzne dla osób w okresie wypowiedzenia lub przygotowujących się do reorientacji zawodowej. W praktyce doradców zawodowych brak było narzędzi przeznaczonych dla osób pracujących (zagrożonych bezrobociem). Stosowanie wobec tej grupy typowych narzędzi planowania kariery w niewystarczającym zakresie uwzględnia sytuację psychologiczną, zawodową i rodzinną tej grupy. Innowacją tego modelu jest także unikalne łączenie usług zdalnych, w tym zdalnego, wirtualnego treningu sterowności, z warsztatami wyjazdowymi (integra14 Rozdział 1. cyjnymi) zwiększającymi wewnętrzne umiejscowienie kontroli osób po traumie utraty pracy. Efektem testowania innowacji w tym zakresie jest innowacyjny produkt (PF5): Model Sterowności Pracownika. „P" jak PRZYŚPIESZENIE Model Przyśpieszenia Rozwoju Pracownika (PF6) Innowacja tego modelu związana jest z zaadaptowaniem w nowym obszarze wsparcia metody Colina Rosa (szybkie i samodzielne, wewnątrzsterowne uczenie się) do reorientacji zawodowej oraz treningu sterowności. Przyśpieszenie edukacji osób mało dyspozycyjnych (okres wypowiedzenia) i umożliwienie im nauki po pracy lub w domu zwiększa dostępność usług outplacementu oraz chroni przed przerwą w aktywności zawodowej związanej z nauką nowego zawodu. Efektem testowania innowacji w tym zakresie jest produkt (PF6): Model Przyśpieszenia Rozwoju Pracownika z portalem edukacyjnym. 1.1. Model EKWIWALENTÓW pracownika Model Ekwiwalentów Pracownika rozumiany jako modelowy schemat działań outplacementowych dla zwalnianych pracowników, osób w okresie wypowiedzenia lub poszukujących nowej pracy jest produktem finalnym w zakresie rozwiązań diagnostyczno-doradczych kierowanych do pracownika. Program komputerowy wraz z aplikacją zdalną jest produktem finalnym w zakresie rozwiązań bilansowania ekwiwalentów pracownika na rzecz nowych zadań, stanowisk pracy w firmie lub re orientacji poza firmą. Narzędzia diagnozy i oceny ekwiwalentów (kwalifikacji alternatywnych i nieformalnych, niezwiązanych ściśle z obecnym stanowiskiem pracy) kierowane będą do specjalistów z publicznych instytucji rynku pracy, jak też z instytucji szkoleniowych i doradczych. W instytucjach tych brakuje narzędzi diagnostycznych przeznaczonych dla osób pracujących zagrożonych bezrobociem, a stosowanie narzędzi opracowanych z myślą o osobach bezrobotnych zmniejsza efektywność wsparcia. W praktyce stosuje się wobec tej grupy typowe narzędzia planowania kariery, rozwoju zawodowego, które w niewystarczający stopniu uwzględniają sytuację życiową, zawodową i rodzinną osób pracujących w okresie wypowiedzenia lub w sytuacji kryzysowej, przez co grupa ta nie otrzymuje optymalnego wsparcia i ma utrudniony dostęp do usług rynku pracy oraz zatrudnienia. Model powstał jako odpowiedź na zdiagnozowany brak na rynku ogólnodostępnych narzędzi bilansowania kompetencji na rzecz reorientacji oraz form i procedur potwierdzania 15 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika kwalifikacji nieformalnych. Typowe usługi outplacementu są czasochłonne, krępujące i etykietujące oraz niedostępne dla osób zagrożonych zwolnieniem. Doradztwo outplacementowe orientuje się na tradycyjnych szkoleniach, które są trudno dostępne dla pracujących. Model ten skierowany jest do pracowników, osób zagrożonych zwolnieniem lub na wypowiedzeniu, a także do osób bezrobotnych. Innowacja odpowiada na zdiagnozowany brak narzędzi oceny drugoplanowych, nieformalnych kompetencji osoby zagrożonej utratą pracy lub przygotowującej się do reorientacji zawodowej. Drugoplanowe kompetencje oraz wiedza nieformalna to ekwiwalenty oceniane i odnoszone do pozostałych zasobów pracownika w modelu Drzewa Kompetencji. Program komputerowy i jego zdalna aplikacja współpracują z modułem Drzewo Kompetencji, co daje możliwość odniesienia ekwiwalentów pracownika do kompetencji firmy, a to z kolei jest podstawą do poszukiwania nowego obszaru zawodowego w ramach outplacementu wewnętrznego. Innowacją jest więc w tym przypadku łączenie indywidualnych ekwiwalentów pracownika z drzewem kompetencji w firmie. Także tutaj dodatkową innowacją jest angażowanie w proces oceny nowych specjalistów (przełożonych, menedżerów obok doradcy zawodowego czy psychologa), a więc zwiększenie możliwości zastosowania doradztwa indywidualnego w firmie. Dodatkowym obszarem innowacji jest wypracowanie komputerowych oraz zdalnych (internetowych) aplikacji dla tego etapu modelu. Model ten wspiera zastosowanie kolejnych innowacyjnych produktów związanych ze wsparciem procesu reorientacji zawodowej zwalnianego pracownika, jakimi są: (PF5): Model Sterowności Pracownika oraz (PF6): Model Przyśpieszenia Rozwoju Pracownika. Narzędzia te współpracują poprzez odzwierciedlenie (uwzględnienie) wyników zastosowania jednego narzędzia w drugim, według logiki działania: oceń zasoby podejmij strategiczne decyzje na podstawie wyników oceny rozwijaj szybciej swoje zasoby w kierunkach dostosowanych do własnych możliwości i sytuacji rynkowej. Dlatego też narzędzia te należy stosować łącznie w celu pełnego wykorzystania ich potencjału, zgodnie z poniższym schematem: 16 Rozdział 1. Metoda oceny ekwiwalentów pracownika (rozumianych jako alternatywne, dodatkowe zasoby) uruchamiana w sytuacji kryzysowej lub na potrzeby reorientacji zawodowej jest narzędziem o charakterze ewaluacyjnym, czyli w modelu projektu krokiem inicjującym zmianę. Komputerowy (samoobsługowy oraz intuicyjny) czy zdalny charakter narzędzia umożliwia rozpoczęcie procesu reorientacji samodzielnie przez pracownika, gdy doradca zawodowy nie jest dostępny lub spotkania z doradcą są odbierane przez pracownika jako etykietujące − szczególnie w przypadku, gdy grupa pracowników zagrożona jest zwolnieniem, a jakiekolwiek działania na rzecz reorientacji mogłyby być odebrane jako przyzwolenie czy akceptacja zwolnienia. Możliwość skorzystania z narzędzi oceniających „bez rozgłosu" przyśpiesza reakcje pracowników na kryzys w firmie, stwarza szansę reorientacji wewnątrz firmy (outplacement wewnętrzny), a tym samym zwiększa profilaktyczny charakter całego modelu wsparcia. Model Ekwiwalentów Pracownika jest programem komputerowym, a także aplikacją zdalną w zakresie rozwiązań ewaluacji (oceny) kompetencji alternatywnych pracownika na rzecz poszukiwania nowych możliwości pracy czy zatrudnienia w czasach kryzysu. Są to zatem narzędzia oceny kompetencji kierowane do pracowników zagrożonych utratą pracy, zwolnionych oraz pozostających w okresie wypowiedzenia, czy też wreszcie planowanych do przesunięć na inne stanowiska pracy. W instytucjach publicznych brakuje narzędzi diagnostycznych przeznaczonych dla osób pracujących zagrożonych bezrobociem, a stosowanie narzędzi opracowanych z myślą o osobach bezrobotnych zmniejsza efektywność takiego wsparcia dla osób pracujących. W praktyce stosuje się wobec tej grupy typowe narzędzia planowania kariery, rozwoju zawodowego, które w niewystarczający stopniu uwzględniają sytuację życiową, zawodową i rodzinną osób pracujących w okresie wypowiedzenia lub w sytuacji kryzysowej, przez co grupa ta nie otrzymuje optymalnego wsparcia i ma utrudniony dostęp do usług rynku pracy oraz zatrudnienia. Komputerowy i zdalny charakter narzędzi obniża koszty zastosowania wsparcia doradczego w firmach borykających się zwolnieniami oraz zwiększa dostępność usługi dla osób pracujących, poszukujących alternatyw zawodowych przy ograniczonej dyspozycyjności (godzenie działań rozwojowych z dotychczasową aktywnością zawodową lub innymi działaniami na rzecz nowej pracy – na przykład aktywne poszukiwanie pracy). Dlatego też w opracowaniu nowych, samoobsługowych narzędzi diagnostyczno-doradczych skupiono się na dopasowaniu obszarów diagnozy (możliwych ekwiwalentów oraz barier) do potrzeb osób zwalnianych 17 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika i pracujących oraz na opracowaniach informatycznych i internetowych zwiększających dostępność narzędzi. ELEMENTY modelu W ramach pierwszego etapu modelu zaproponowano pakiet narzędzi związanych z oceną zasobów pracownika oraz identyfikacją ekwiwalentów kompetencyjnych, czyli równowartościowych zamienników w kontekście nowych wyzwań zawodowych. Narzędzia opracowano w dwóch wersjach: w wersji OFF-line w postaci programu komputerowego do zastosowań w firmie w przypadku zwolnień monitorowanych lub w instytucji szkoleniowej, bez konieczności korzystania z Internetu z możliwością wspierania się ankietami papierowymi oraz w wersji ON-line w postaci specjalnej platformy internetowej zwiększającej dostępność klientów i pracowników do narzędzi oceny. W dalszej części rozdziału przedstawiono poszczególne wersje narzędzia wraz z warunkami ich zastosowania. PROGRAM KOMPUTEROWY Ekwiwalenty (OFF-line) Program komputerowy Ekwiwalenty to program do bilansu kompetencji uzupełniający model Drzewa Kompetencji dla Firm (narzędzia te mogą się wzajemnie wspierać w przypadku przesunięć na nowe stanowiska pracy w ramach outplacementu wewnętrznego). Opracowana została bateria papierowych i komputerowych kwestionariuszy diagnostycznych uwzględniających specyfikę grupy docelowej: osób pracujących i zagrożonych bezrobociem. Opracowanie narzędzia w formie programu komputerowego ułatwia samodzielne zastosowanie go przez jego odbiorców, co zwiększa szanse jego zastosowań w sytuacji zagrożenia lub wypowiedzenia pracy, gdy osoba zagrożona (zwolniona) pracuje i nie chce ujawniać przed pracodawcą swoich działań związanych z poszukiwaniem nowych możliwości pracy, a doradca zewnętrzny jest trudno dostępny (koszty, czas, brak motywacji, wycofanie, ukrywanie problemu). Narzędzie to zawiera pakiet 5 narzędzi diagnostyczno-oceniających dla pracownika oraz doradców wspierających reorientację zawodową osób zagrożonych bezrobociem: Hobby, Kompetencje, Wartości, Zdrowie, Zainteresowania. KWESTIONARIUSZ HOBBY – kwestionariusz składający się z 27 itemów, określający kompetencje miękkie pracownika w trzech skalach opisujących preferencje w zakresie aktywności oraz dodatkowo w dwóch skalach dotyczących temperamentu, mających zasadniczy wpływ na preferowane aktywności i styl życia. Maksymalnie można uzyskać 15 18 Rozdział 1. punktów w każdym z trzech obszarów oceny oraz 65 punktów w skali dotyczącej temperamentu. Program komputerowy automatycznie zlicza punkty w skalach i wyświetla wynik (niski, średni, wysoki) wraz z interpretacją dla każdej skali. LUDZIE – do tej grupy należą preferencje, takie jak sporty i gry uprawiane grupowo lub hobby związane z ludźmi: taniec towarzyski, taniec grupowy; gry karciane, szachy, gry planszowe; piłka nożna, piłka ręczna, gry zespołowe; facebook, portale społecznościowe, fora dyskusyjne; działalność społeczna lub charytatywna, wolontariat; harcerstwo, skauting, turystyka grupowa; psychologia, socjologa, parapsychologia; polityka, związki zawodowe, rozwój lokalny (działacz, lider społeczny); śpiew, chóry, schole. Osoba wybierająca takie hobby lubi spędzać czas z ludźmi, interesują ją sprawy społeczne, uczucia, poglądy innych osób, dobrze czuje się i lubi pracować w zespole, interesują ją role grupowe, współpraca lub rywalizacja. Takie preferencje dotyczące sposobu spędzania wolnego czasu wskazują na to, że zawody społeczne, związane z umiejętnościami interpersonalnymi, komunikacją i współpracą są naturalnym obszarem rozwoju. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Lubisz spędzać czas z ludźmi. Interesują się sprawy społeczne, uczucia, poglądy innych osób. Dobrze czujesz i lubisz pracować w zespole. Interesują Cię role grupowe, współpraca lub rywalizacja. Twoje preferencje dotyczące sposobu spędzania wolnego czasu wskazują, iż zawody społeczne, związane z umiejętnościami interpersonalnymi, komunikacją i współpracą są naturalnym obszarem Twojego rozwoju. Planuj swój rozwój zawodowy tak jak lubisz, wtedy praca będzie dla Ciebie przyjemnością". RZECZY – do tej grupy należą preferencje, takie jak czynności, które wykonuje się z reguły samodzielnie, indywidualnie, z przewagą prac wykonywanych ręcznie: modelarstwo, majsterkowanie; zbieranie grzybów, łowiectwo, wędkarstwo; gry komputerowe − gry logiczne, gry zręcznościowe; fitness, siłownia, zajęcia gimnastyczne; bieganie, jogging, nordic walking; zbieranie znaczków, kolekcjonerstwo; szycie, szydełkowanie, robótki ręczne; gra na instrumencie muzycznym; malarstwo, rzemiosło artystyczne, konstruowanie, naprawianie. Osoba wybierająca takie hobby lubi prace manualne, rzemiosło, sztuki plastyczne, przyjemność sprawiają jej konkretne rzeczy i zajęcia, gdy od razu widać efekt prac, gdy można pokazać swoje zdolności. Cierpliwość, dokładność i perfekcjonizm mogą sprawiać przy19 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika jemność, a jednocześnie mogą stać się kluczowym atutem w pracy zawodowej. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Lubisz prace manualne, rzemiosło, sztuki plastyczne. Przyjemność sprawiają Ci konkretne rzeczy i zajęcia, gdy od razu widać efekt Twoich prac, gdy możesz pokazać swoje zdolności. Cierpliwość, dokładność i perfekcjonizm mogą sprawiać Ci przyjemność, a jednocześnie mogą być Twoim kluczowym atutem w pracy zawodowej. Po porostu takie rzeczy się ceni. Nie stronisz od logicznego myślenia, planowania, wytrwałego dążenia do celu. Planuj swoją karierę zgodnie ze swoim sposobem spędzania wolnego czasu. Wykorzystaj swoje atuty". WYOBRAŹNIA – Świat wirtualny kojarzy się z literaturą, czytelnictwem; grami komputerowymi − akcji, zespołowe; kinem, filmem, teatrem; nauką języków obcych; kulturą lokalną, folklorem, sztuką alternatywną; modą, życiem gwiazd, śledzeniem trendów; astrologia, horoskopem, wróżbiarstwem, tarotem; fotografią, grafiką komputerową, komiksem; muzyką do słuchania (audiofil, meloman). Osoby takie często uciekają w wyobraźnię i fantazję. Lubią tworzyć, odwiedzać nowe światy, czasem ciekawsze i lepsze od rzeczywistości, interesują się sprawami niecodziennymi. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Wyobraźnia i fantazje są Twoim azylem. Lubisz tworzyć, odwiedzać nowe światy, które mogą być ciekawsze i lepsze od rzeczywistości. Interesują Cię sprawy niecodzienne, męczy Cię szarość codzienności. Być może masz wielką wyobraźnię i cechujesz się kreatywnością. Wynik powyżej 36 punktów w tej skali może jednak świadczyć o tym, że uciekasz od rzeczywistości, być może unikasz ludzi lub wyzwań. Pamiętaj wtedy, że prawdziwe życie też może być przygodą, do której możesz się przygotować, którą możesz przeżyć ciekawie i z sukcesem. Planuj swoje życie zawodowe realnie, ale wykorzystaj swoją wyobraźnię − poszukuj zawodów artystycznych i kreatywnych". EKSTRAWERSJA – kojarzona jest z „zainteresowaniem i energią skierowanymi do zewnątrz". Wymienia się tu taniec towarzyski, taniec grupowy; gry komputerowe − gry akcji, gry zespołowe; piłkę nożną, piłkę ręczną, gry zespołowe; facebook, portale społecznościowe, fora dyskusyjne; kino, film, teatr; fitness, siłownię, zajęcia gimnastyczne; działalność społeczną lub charytatywną, wolontariat; bieganie, jogging, nordic walking; harcerstwo, skauting, turystykę grupową; kulturę lokalną, folklor, sztukę alternatywną; modę, życie gwiazd, śledzenie trendów; 20 Rozdział 1. politykę, związki zawodowe, rozwój lokalny (działacz, lider społeczny); śpiew, chóry, schole. Osoba taka jest energiczna, lubi sytuacje, w których dużo się dzieje. Dopiero przy wysokim pobudzeniu funkcjonuje naprawdę dobrze, dlatego gdy uczy się, słucha muzyki, a gdy musi się skupić lub pomyśleć, chodzi po pokoju. Sytuacje społeczne, kontakty z innymi ludźmi, relacje interpersonalne, gra, rywalizacja, współpraca − to także źródła pobudzenia. Osoby takie uchodzą za towarzyskie, a nawet za społeczników. W pracy preferują zadania wymagające częstych kontaktów z innymi, ruchu i zgiełku. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Jesteś osobą energiczną. Lubisz sytuacje, w których dużo się dzieje. Czym więcej, tym lepiej. Dopiero przy wysokim pobudzeniu funkcjonujesz naprawdę dobrze, dlatego gdy uczysz się, słuchasz muzyki, a gdy musisz się skupić lub pomyśleć, chodzisz po pokoju. Sytuacje społeczne, kontakty z innymi ludźmi, relacje interpersonalne, gra, rywalizacja, współpraca − to także źródła pobudzenia, do których dążysz. Dlatego uchodzisz za osobę towarzyską, a nawet za społecznika. W pracy będziesz więc preferować zadania wymagające częstych kontaktów z innymi, ruchu i zgiełku. Planuj swoje życie zawodowe w obszarach pełnych energii, wyzwań i ludzi, a praca da Ci naturalną satysfakcję". INTROWERSJA – związana jest ze skierowaniem energii i zainteresowania do wewnątrz, upodobaniem do czynności wykonywanych w spokoju (niska energia) oraz indywidualnie, a nawet samodzielnie. Zalicza się do nich zbieranie grzybów, łowiectwo, wędkarstwo; gry komputerowe − gry logiczne, gry zręcznościowe; naukę języków obcych; zbieranie znaczków, kolekcjonerstwo; szycie, szydełkowanie, robótki ręczne; astrologię, horoskop, wróżbiarstwo, tarot, fotografię, grafikę komputerową, komiks; grę na instrumencie muzycznym; muzykę do słuchania (audiofil, meloman); malarstwo, rzemiosło artystyczne, konstruowanie, naprawianie. Osoba taka z reguły jest spokojna; uczy się w ciszy i potrzebuje samotności, by przemyśleć ważne sprawy. Dlatego może uchodzić za osobę mało towarzyską, a nawet za odludka, choć ta cecha temperamentu nie określa predyspozycji ani zdolności społecznych, a tylko optymalny dla mózgu poziom pobudzenia. W pracy preferowane są zadania wymagające ciszy, skupienia i uporządkowanej przestrzeni. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Jesteś osobą spokojną. Tylko wtedy, gdy odetniesz się od zewnętrznych bodźców, funk21 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika cjonujesz naprawdę dobrze. Właśnie dlatego uczysz się w ciszy i potrzebujesz samotności, by przemyśleć ważne sprawy. Z tego powodu możesz uchodzić za osobę mało towarzyską, a nawet za odludka, choć ta cecha temperamentu nie określa Twoich predyspozycji ani zdolności społecznych, a tylko optymalny dla Twojego mózgu poziom pobudzenia. Pamiętaj, że cisza i spokój to także dobra przestrzeń do budowania prawdziwych relacji z innymi. W pracy będziesz więc preferować zadania wymagające ciszy, skupienia i uporządkowanej przestrzeni. Planuj swoją karierę w zawodach wymagających skupienia, ciszy, koncentracji, a będziesz się dobrze czuć w pracy". KWESTIONARIUSZ KOMPETENCJE – kwestionariusz składający się z 54 itemów, określający kompetencje miękkie pracownika w trzech skalach. Maksymalnie można uzyskać 90 punktów w każdym z trzech obszarów kompetencji. Program komputerowy automatycznie zlicza punkty w skalach i wyświetla wynik (niski, średni wysoki) wraz z interpretacją dla każdej skali. Kompetencje SPOŁECZNE – do tej grupy kompetencji zalicza się autoprezentację; budowanie relacji z innymi; dzielenie się wiedzą i doświadczeniem; identyfikację z firmą; komunikację pisemną; komunikatywność; kulturę osobistą; negocjowanie; obsługę klienta; obycie międzykulturowe; orientację na klienta; otwartość na innych; proces sprzedaży; prowadzenie prezentacji; relacje z klientem; relacje z przełożonymi; współpracę w zespole; wywieranie wpływu. Poziom kompetencji społecznych decyduje o jakości wykonywanych zadań związanych z kontaktem z innymi ludźmi oraz wpływa na nie. Poziom tych kompetencji decyduje o skuteczności współpracy, porozumiewania się czy też wywierania wpływu na innych. Oznacza, w jakim zakresie badana osoba sprawdza się w pracy z innymi ludźmi. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Masz wysoki poziom kompetencji społecznych, które wpływają na jakość wykonywanych zadań związanych z kontaktem z innymi ludźmi. Poziom tych kompetencji decyduje o skuteczności współpracy, porozumiewania się czy też wywierania wpływu na innych. Możesz pracować z ludźmi". Kompetencje MENEDŻERSKIE – do tej grupy kompetencji zalicza się kierowanie; kontrolę menedżerską; motywowanie; myślenie; strategiczne; ocenę i rozwój podwładnych; organizowanie; planowanie; przywództwo; rozwiązywanie konfliktów; zarządzanie informacją; zarządzanie procesami; zarządzanie pro22 Rozdział 1. jektami; zarządzanie przez cele; zarządzanie zmianą. Kompetencje menedżerskie związane są z zarządzaniem pracownikami. Kompetencje te dotyczą zarówno miękkich obszarów kierowania oraz organizacji pracy, jak i strategicznych aspektów zarządzania. Poziom tych kompetencji decyduje o sprawności pracowników, zespołów lub części organizacji podległych badanej osobie. Określa, w jakim stopniu badający się może ponosić odpowiedzialność za większe zespoły. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Masz wysoki poziom kompetencji menedżerskich, związanych z zarządzaniem pracownikami. Kompetencje te dotyczą zarówno miękkich obszarów kierowania oraz organizacji pracy, jak i strategicznych aspektów zarządzania. Poziom tych kompetencji decyduje o sprawności podległych Ci pracowników, zespołów lub części organizacji. Możesz być kierownikiem". Kompetencje OSOBISTE – do tej grupy kompetencji zalicza się: dążenie do rezultatów; elastyczność myślenia; gotowość do uczenia się; kreatywność; myślenie analityczne; organizację pracy własnej; orientację na rozwój zawodowy; otwartość na zmiany; podejmowanie decyzji; przedsiębiorczość; radzenie sobie z niejednoznacznością; radzenie sobie ze stresem; rozwiązywanie problemów; samodzielność; sumienność; wytrwałość; zarządzanie czasem; zdyscyplinowanie. Kompetencje osobiste związane są z indywidualną, osobistą realizacją zadań. Poziom tych kompetencji wpływa na ogólną jakość wykonywanych zadań oraz decyduje o szybkości, adekwatności i rzetelności podejmowanych przez oceniającą się osobę zadań. Wskazuje, w jakim zakresie samodzielnie dana osoba może planować zmianę i własny rozwój. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Masz wysoki poziom kompetencji osobistych, które związane są z indywidualną, osobistą realizacją zadań. Poziom tych kompetencji wpływa na ogólną jakość wykonywanych przez Ciebie zadań oraz decyduje o ich szybkości, adekwatności i rzetelności. Możesz planować zmianę i własny rozwój". KWESTIONARIUSZ WARTOŚCI – kwestionariusz składający się z 24 itemów, określający kluczowe wartości, rozumiane jako kotwice kariery czy rozwoju zawodowego, w ośmiu skalach. Maksymalnie można uzyskać 15 punktów w każdym z ośmiu obszarów. Program komputerowy automatycznie zlicza punkty w skalach i wyświetla wynik (niski, średni wysoki) wraz z interpretacją dla każdej skali. PROFESJONALIZM – określają go odniesienia do przewagi jakości pracy nad jej ilością; profesjonalizmem w wykonywaniu 23 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika pracy oraz chęci bycia w życiu profesjonalistą. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Dążenie do bycia fachowcem w konkretnej dziedzinie, potwierdzenia bycia najlepszym i niezastąpionym. Dlatego też awans pozbawiający obecnego stanowiska i dający nowe, nieznane obowiązki może być odbierany jako zagrożenie dla wypracowanej pozycji eksperta. Podstawą sukcesu i satysfakcji jest raczej dobrze wykonana praca i szacunek niż wspinanie się po stopniach kariery kierowniczej". PRZYWÓDZTWO – określają je całkowite zaangażowanie w pracę i odpowiedzialność za pracę innych przy pracy zespołowej; stopień zaangażowania w pracę, dzięki któremu można kierować innymi i koordynować działania podległego zespołu oraz „bycie prezesem" − rady nadzorcze i zebrania, marzenia o zarządzaniu wielką organizacją i podejmowaniu decyzji wpływających na pracę innych ludzi. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Celem kariery jest zdobywanie nowych doświadczeń w zakresie zarządzania, zwiększanie zakresu władzy, szacunek oraz wysokie zarobki wynikające z wysokiej pozycji na szczeblach kierowniczych. Podejmowanie decyzji i decydowanie o innych jest źródłem poczucia satysfakcji i własnej wartości". AUTONOMIA – autonomia lub niezależność określana jest poprzez stopień niechęci do nadzoru pracy i udzielania rad; samodzielności w wykonywaniu pracy; umiejętności samodzielnego organizowania własnej pracy. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Celem zawodowym jest pozycja samodzielnego specjalisty. Dążenie do zwiększania własnej swobody, możliwości samodzielnego decydowania o metodach własnej pracy bez konieczności przestrzegania sztywnych reguł i poleceń przełożonych. Silna autonomia uniemożliwia awans i podjęcie obowiązków kierowniczych związanych ze stosowaniem regulaminu i biurokracji". BEZPIECZEŃSTWO – bezpieczeństwo i stabilizacja przejawiają się w przewadze pewności pracy, trwałości zatrudnienia i zarobków nad niezależnością i autonomią w pracy. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Głównym motorem działania jest w tym przypadku emocjonalny związek z firmą, poczucie dwustronnej lojalności pracownika wobec firmy i firmy wobec pracownika. Stabilność i trwałość zatrudnienia są ważniejsze niż wyższe zarobki związane z ponoszeniem ryzyka na stanowiskach kierowniczych. Celem zawodowym jest więc bezpieczna pozycja 24 Rozdział 1. w firmie, gwarantująca zatrudnienie i stałe zarobki, nawet kosztem awansu". KREATYWNOŚĆ – kreatywność i przedsiębiorczość to cechy osób, które mogą powiedzieć o sobie: „Nie lubię rutyny i przyzwyczajenia. Lubię wymyślać nowe rozwiązania i zmieniać pracę. Zdecyduję się na nowe pomysły, zmiany i udoskonalenia nawet kosztem poczucia bezpieczeństwa"; „Wolę własny biznes niż stanowisko kierownicze w cudzej firmie. Jeżeli wypruwać żyły, to raczej dla siebie. Nawet gdy jesteś kierownikiem, firma może Ci mówić, co dobre, a co złe"; „Marzę o stworzeniu własnej firmy. Mam tyle dobrych pomysłów, że trudno mi będzie je zrealizować w pracy u kogoś. Jak pracować, to na własny rachunek". Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Dążenie do zmian, innowacji, rozwiązywania problemów i modernizowania stanowiska pracy oraz sposobów jej wykonywania. Zdobywanie różnorodnych doświadczeń, poszukiwanie nowych informacji i nowatorskich rozwiązań, podwyższanie kwalifikacji i mobilność stanowią o wartości pracownika. W przypadku gdy firma nie promuje i nie docenia postaw przedsiębiorczych ani nie daje możliwości twórczych działań, drogą zawodową staje się własna działalność gospodarcza". WYZWANIE – wysoki wynik uzyskają tu osoby, które mają duszę wojownika, lubią rozwiązywać trudne problemy lub stawać wobec wyzwań, rywalizacja staje się motywatorem do pracy. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Podłożem działania jest chęć przeciwstawiania się trudnościom, potrzeba rywalizacji, walki i nieustannego potwierdzania własnej wartości w działaniach na granicy ryzyka kosztem poczucia bezpieczeństwa i stabilizacji. Celem zawodowym jest zwycięstwo i pokonanie trudności zarówno w sferze rywalizacji pracowniczej, jak i w pokonywaniu obiektywnych trudności stojących przed firmą. Wizerunek specjalisty od spraw beznadziejnych otwiera możliwość awansu w zwrotnych momentach firmy". STYL ŻYCIA – styl życia i idące za tym wartości rodzinne, przedkładanie rodziny na plan pierwszy ponad pracę, utrzymanie równowagi pomiędzy życiem osobistym a zawodowym. Usługi i poświęcenie dla innych pracowników oznaczają karierę w służbie innym ludziom. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Podstawową wartością w życiu zawodowym jest rodzina, której podporządkowana jest praca, traktowana jako źródło utrzymania i stabilizacji osobistej. Konflikty pomiędzy życiem zawodowym 25 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika i rodzinnym często przybierają dramatyczną formę, w której bardzo trudny jest kompromis odbywający się kosztem rodziny. Praca nie jest zatem celem, lecz traktowana jest instrumentalnie, jako narzędzie rozwoju osobistego i rodzinnego. Skłonność do rezygnowania z awansu i wyższych zarobków na rzecz realizacji własnych marzeń i spędzania większej ilości czasu z przyjaciółmi, bliskimi i rodziną". USŁUGI – usługi i poświęcenie dla innych w pracy związane z pełnieniem ról opiekuńczych, społecznych, w których pomaganie innym jest ważniejsze niż dobre zarobki czy władza – w skrajnych przypadkach wartości te mogą być realizowane w ramach wolontariatu czy w organizacjach pozarządowych. Wartości te są podstawą budowania kariery w zawodach wysokiego zaufania społecznego, takich jak nauczyciel, pielęgniarka, ksiądz, pracownik socjalny, które nie kojarzą się wysokimi zarobkami. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Głównym celem w życiu jest w tym przypadku pomaganie innym, leczenie, nauczanie, ulepszanie świata poprzez działalność polityczną. Poczucie misji do spełnienia i konieczność realizowania podstawowych wartości humanistycznych lub etycznych stają się motorem działania i podstawą satysfakcji zawodowej. Sukces finansowy i awans często schodzi na drugi plan". KWESTIONARIUSZ ZAINTERESOWANIA – kwestionariusz składający się z 30 itemów, określający zainteresowania i preferencje dotyczące aktywności zawodowej w pięciu skalach. Maksymalnie można uzyskać 30 punktów w każdej skali. Program komputerowy automatycznie zlicza punkty w skalach i wyświetla wynik (niski, średni wysoki) wraz z interpretacją dla każdej skali. PRZEPIS – lubię przepis i metodę – przepis i metoda to pewność w pracy co do oczekiwań ze strony przełożonych z systemem wytycznych i poleceń; system pracy rutynowej, ze stałym tempem; jednozadaniowość. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Interesują Cię zawody metodyczne. Lubisz działać według jasnych zasad i sprawdzonych metod realizacji zadań. Preferujesz pracę pod kierunkiem i kontrolą innych, według otrzymanych instrukcji. Pracujesz nad jednym zadaniem, dopóki go nie skończysz. Pracujesz rutynowo, nie lubisz niespodzianek. Przykładowe czynności i zadania zawodowe: porządkowanie, sprzątanie, podliczanie, obliczanie, weryfikowanie, sprawdzanie, ocenianie, pilnowanie, ochranianie". 26 Rozdział 1. ZARZĄDZENIE – wolę kierować i rządzić – kierowanie i rządzenie przejawia się nakłanianiem innych do pracy według wytycznych ocenianej osoby; chęcią pilnowania i kierowania innymi. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Interesują Cię zawody kierownicze. Lubisz podejmować obowiązki i mieć kontrolę nad rzeczami. Bierzesz odpowiedzialność za zadania wymagające planowania, podejmowania decyzji i koordynowania pracy innych. Potrafisz dawać instrukcję i wskazówki. Lubisz organizować swoją własną działalność. Spostrzegasz siebie jako osobę o dużej niezależności. Przykładowe czynności i zadania zawodowe: organizowanie, zarządzanie, nadzór, motywowanie, delegowanie, ocena, negocjowanie, planowanie, podejmowanie decyzji, instruowanie, kontrolowanie". POMYSŁ – chcę wymyślać i usprawniać – chęć wymyślania i usprawniania to przede wszystkim różnorodność i nieprzewidywalność pracy. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Interesują Cię zawody innowacyjne. Lubisz zgłębiać problemy i eksperymentować w trakcie pracy nad ich rozwiązaniem. Interesujesz się wymyślaniem i wdrażaniem nowych rozwiązań, lubisz przedmioty ścisłe. Łatwo przystosowujesz się do zmiennych warunków. Przykładowe czynności i zadania zawodowe: badanie, poszukiwanie, eksperymentowanie, usprawnianie, wymyślanie, kreowanie, tworzenie, ozdabianie, upiększanie, wdrażanie, dostosowanie się, zdobywanie". KONKRET – wolę konkret i realną pracę – konkret i realna praca to preferowanie wykonywania prac ręcznych z użyciem narzędzi i maszyn nad umysłowymi. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Interesują Cię zawody przedmiotowe, rzemieślnicze i czynności manualne. Chętnie pracujesz za pomocą narzędzi, maszyn, urządzeń technicznych. Lubisz naprawiać lub wytwarzać przedmioty z różnych materiałów, wykorzystując sprawdzone technologie. Przykładowe czynności i zadania zawodowe: obsługa, wytwarzanie, obrabianie". LUDZIE – chcę pracować z ludźmi – chęć pracy z ludźmi wiąże się z angażowaniem się w działalność społeczną; bezinteresowne pomaganie innym; z pracą polegającą na częstych kontaktach i rozmowach z ludźmi. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Interesują Cię zawody społeczne. Lubisz mieć do czynienia z ludźmi w sytuacjach zawodowych, udzielać im pomocy, doradzać, konsultować. Chętnie opiekujesz się innymi, pomagasz 27 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika w rozwiązywaniu problemów. Preferujesz działania wymagające współpracy i kontaktów interpersonalnych. Przykładowe czynności i zadania zawodowe: doradzanie, sprzedawanie, opiekowanie się, współpraca, komunikowanie się, rozmawianie, naradzanie się". KWESTIONARIUSZ ZDROWIE – kwestionariusz składający się z 27 itemów, określający kompetencje miękkie pracownika w trzech skalach. Maksymalnie można uzyskać 45 punktów w każdym z trzech obszarów oceny. Program komputerowy automatycznie zlicza punkty w skalach i wyświetla wynik (niski, średni wysoki) wraz z interpretacją dla każdej skali. KŁOPOTY ZDROWOTNE – zdrowie to jeden z ważniejszych zasobów radzenia sobie w trudnej sytuacji. Kłopoty zdrowotne diagnozowane są poprzez odniesienie się do typowych objawów, jak: nieostre widzenie lub zamglenia, lub podwójne widzenie, lub łzawienie, lub suchość oczu, lub ból oczu; szybkie bicie serca lub arytmia, lub ból w klatce piersiowej; problemy ze słuchem lub bóle ucha, lub zawroty głowy, lub problemy z równowagą; omdlenia lub zasłabnięcia, lub duszności; opuchlizna lub uczulenia, lub wysypki; zgaga lub niestrawność, lub nudności; zaparcia lub biegunki, lub kłopoty z trzymaniem moczu; bóle mięśni lub bóle stawów, lub bóle kręgosłupa; bóle głowy lub drgawki, lub nerwobóle, lub drętwienie, lub kłopoty z pamięcią. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Wysoki wynik w tej skali świadczy o tym, że masz kłopoty zdrowotne, więc koniecznie omów to ze swoim lekarzem, jeżeli do tej pory nie było takiej okazji. Zadbaj o profilaktykę, pomyśl o diecie, ruchu, aktywności. Twoje zdrowie to Twoja mapa, która pokazuje, jak masz wytyczyć swoją ścieżkę zawodową. Możliwości zdrowotne są tak samo ważne w karierze, jak zainteresowania czy pasje. Chodzi przecież o to, by praca zawodowa nie była wbrew Tobie. Naucz się godzić życie zawodowe i zdrowie. Porozmawiaj z doradca zawodowym i lekarzem rodzinnym lub lekarzem medycyny pracy. Żyj i pracuj zdrowo". STRES I DEPRESJA – stres i depresja mogą być efektem sytuacji kryzysowej i utrudniać reorientację zawodową. Mogą zostać zdiagnozowane (zasygnalizowane) na podstawie takich objawów, jak rozdrażnienie bez wyraźnego powodu; brak radości życia; przekonanie o bezsensowności życia; poczucia zagrożenia; kłopoty ze snem; obawy o przyszłość; myśli samobójcze; odczuwanie różnych dolegliwości, takich jak bóle głowy czy 28 Rozdział 1. brzucha; przeżywanie chwil niepokoju, lęku. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Wysoki wynik w tej skali może świadczyć, że przeżywasz silny lub długotrwały stres. Twój organizm jest już zmęczony, funkcjonujesz coraz gorzej. W wielu przypadkach możesz zredukować stres. Skorzystaj z porady, jak to zrobić w Twoim przypadku. Wysoki wynik w tej skali może świadczyć o tym, że poczucie zagrożenia dominuje w Twoim samopoczuciu. Zbyt często odczuwasz lęk lub niepokój. To poczucie może utrudniać Ci działanie i podejmowanie wyzwań. Nie zawsze musi być racjonalne, związane z faktami. Być może to trwały ślad po złym przeżyciu, które jest już przeszłością. Porozmawiają z osobą, której ufasz, o tym, co czujesz. Chwilowy smutek to naturalna rzecz. Jeżeli jednak radość dawno nie gościła w Twoim życiu, a smutek lub brak motywacji trwa od dłuższego czasu, poszukaj wsparcia w bliskich. Nie pogrążaj się w tym stanie. Czym szybciej otrzymasz pomocną dłoń, tym szybciej zapomnisz o sprawie". UZALEŻNIENIE LUB PRZEMOC – są ważnym czynnikiem powodzenia wysiłków w obszarze zmiany zawodowej. Czynnik ten może się uaktywnić w sytuacji kryzysowej i zacząć odgrywać większą rolę niż w sytuacji stabilnej pracy. Ludzie ich doświadczający zgodzą się ze stwierdzeniami: „Niestety, wiem z własnego życia, co to poniżanie i upokarzanie"; „Żeby być lubianym przez innych, trzeba palić papierosy, pić alkohol lub używać narkotyków"; „Głupio mi odmówić, gdy znajomi proponują papierosa, alkohol lub narkotyk"; „Kary fizyczne nie są mi obce"; „Myślę, że nie ma nic złego, niebezpiecznego w używaniu substancji psychoaktywnych". Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Wysoki wynik w tej skali może świadczyć o tym, że możesz mieć problem z uzależnieniem od używek. Być może jesteś zbyt mało asertywny, niezależny. Być może zbyt łatwo ulegasz innym. Uwierz w siebie. Doceń wolność i niezależność. Porozmawiaj o tym z bliskim, doradcą lub psychologiem. Możesz też skorzystać z pomocy anonimowo, w specjalistycznych miejscach gwarantujących Ci bezpieczeństwo i dyskrecję. Być może cierpisz z powodu przemocy w najbliższym otoczeniu lub nawet jesteś ofiarą przemocy. Tak nie musi być. Krąg przemocy można przerwać łatwiej, niż myślisz. Nawet gdy nie jesteś bezpośrednio ofiarą lub sprawcą, a tylko uczestnikiem lub obserwatorem, stajesz się ofiarą przemocy, cierpisz. Nie musisz się oswajać z takim stanem rzeczy, nie musisz tego akceptować. Pomóż sobie i 29 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika innym. Wysoki wynik w tej skali może też świadczyć o tym, że masz pewne problemy z wyrażaniem uczuć lub kontrolą emocji. Być może zbyt dużo wymagasz od siebie. Porozmawiaj z osobą, której ufasz, a będzie Ci lżej". Skorzystanie z kwestionariuszy w programie komputerowym wymaga wcześniejszej rejestracji. Program powiązano z bazą danych modułu Firma, dzięki czemu możliwe używanie narzędzia także przez pracowników korzystających z narzędzi ewaluacyjnych czy intermentoringu w modelu modernizacji firmy. Połączenie funkcjonalności modułu dla firmy i pracownika pozwala w outplacemencie wewnętrznym poszukiwać ekwiwalentów do skutecznego przesunięcia pracownika na nowe stanowisko. Rejestracja pracownika umożliwia powrót do wyników wcześniejszych ocen lub wgląd w wyniki innych kwestionariuszy. Pozwala to na zastosowanie narzędzia w instytucjach rynku pracy – przez doradców w urzędach pracy. Komputerowa wersja programu oferuje formularz na oknie ekranu komputera, w którym wystarczy zaznaczyć odpowiednie pola, by otrzymać wynik wraz z interpretacją. Formularz komputerowy zapisuje i archiwizuje dane, co umożliwia w przyszłości generowanie statystyk dla grupy, pozwalających na przygotowanie trafniejszych programów warsztatów i szkoleń miękkich. KONTENT ZDALNY e-Ekwiwalenty (ON-line) Dodatkowo przygotowana została internetowa (zdalna) wersja baterii testów opracowanych w ramach narzędzia komputerowego „Ekwiwalenty". Wersja internetowa zwiększa dostępność narzędzia, które może być zastosowane przez pracownika (klienta) w dowolnym czasie i miejscu. Wersja internetowa obok walorów typowych dla programu komputerowego (wszystkie kwestionariusze w jednym miejscu, łatwe do użycia, automatycznie liczące i generujące wyniki z interpretacją oraz baza danych dla klienta) oferuje dodatkowe korzyści związane ze społecznościowym charakterem narzędzia (ocena może być wpisana w proces społeczny grupy wsparcia, wzajemne motywowanie, moderator zewnętrzny). Opracowanie aplikacji realizuje założenia e-Edukacji i e-Biznesu w zakresie udostępniania treści i narzędzi dla wszystkich mieszkańców woj. podlaskiego, w szczególności zamieszkujących obszary o słabej infrastrukturze edukacyjnej, co stanowi wartość dodaną narzędzia. Osoba chcąca korzystać z aplikacji powinna wejść na stronę http://www.innowacjenazakrecie.pl, następnie wybrać strefę Pracownik i zakładkę Platforma. Aplikacja zdalna umożliwia nadanie uprawnień doradcy dla specjalistów zarządzających procesem oceny i udzielającym dodatkowego wsparcia (mail, skype) oraz nadanie uprawnień klienta. 30 Rozdział 1. Kwestionariusze zdalne obok walorów narzędzi komputerowych oferują dodatkowe korzyści platformy internetowej. Ocena zintegrowana z platformą edukacyjną. Kwestionariusze doradcze realnie wspierają edukację zawodową i trening psychologiczny. Ocena wpisana w proces społeczny. Diagnoza i bilans zasobów to proces moderowany w otwartej społeczności wzajemnego wsparcia (forum). Interaktywna ocena z paskiem postępu. Rozbudowane i długie kwestionariusze diagnostyczne są przyjazne dla klienta – nie straszą – program dawkuje pytania i pokazuje pasek postępu. Forma pracy przypomina grę i może być przeniesiona na urządzenia mobilne i smartfony. Atrakcyjna i dynamiczna wizualizacja. Kolejne etapy diagnozy ukazane są w procesie aktywizacyjnym, zachęcają i pobudzają do działania: poprawiają nastrój, motywują do rozwoju osoby będące w trudnej sytuacji życiowej. Wyniki kwestionariuszy zapisywane są osobno dla każdego klienta, co daje możliwość przygotowania raportów zbiorczych oraz statystyk dla całych społeczności (firm, gmin, instytucji), a to może być podstawą do przygotowania na rzecz tych grup trafnych projektów edukacyjnych, warsztatów umiejętności miękkich czy szkoleń zawodowych. Udostępnienie narzędzia instytucjom rynku pracy oraz generowanie wspólnej, dużej bazy danych o pracownikach i osobach poszukujących pracy w połączeniu z możliwościami oceny szczegółowych kompetencji z wykorzystaniem modułu ewaluacyjnego dla firm (PF1) to okazja do tworzenia specjalistycznych zestawień potrzeb kompetencyjnych i rozwojowych dla instytucji rynku pracy w regionie oraz projektodawców. Interaktywna formuła narzędzia internetowego nie ogranicza się do samodzielnych aktywności klienta, ponieważ oferuje kontakt z prawdziwym człowiekiem. We wsparciu osób w trudnej sytuacji zawodowej i życiowej nie można zapomnieć o walorach spotkania z drugim człowiekiem w rozwiązywaniu kryzysu życiowego. Zwiększanie dostępności narzędzia nie powinno odbywać się kosztem obniżania jakości usługi doradczej, która zawsze związana jest z indywidualnym wsparciem osoby w spotkaniach typu face to face. Portal doradczy daje więc proste narzędzie (poprzez wybranie przycisku) do wysłania wiadomości, kontaktu mailowego lub bezpośredniego Skype z doradcą zawodowym lub psychologiem opiekującym się platformą oraz kontaktów z innym uczestnikami platformy poprzez forum. 31 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika Dlatego też narzędzia zdalne opracowano i przygotowano jako uzupełnienie tradycyjnego doradztwa oraz zachętę do dalszych spotkań w przypadku osób, które w sytuacji kryzysu (stresu lub depresji w obliczu utraty pracy) nie znajdują czasu lub odpowiedniej motywacji do skorzystania ze wsparcia specjalisty. Narzędzie zdalne staje się bezpiecznym wejściem w świat aktywizacji zawodowej. UŻYTKOWNICY, którzy mogą stosować narzędzie Narzędzie było używane przez pracowników modernizowanych firm i osoby bezrobotne, które zgłosiły chęć udziału w Teście ESP_Pracownik. W testowanym modelu zapewniono pomoc doradcy zawodowego, a także opiekuna zdalnego. Osobom zgłaszającym się do testu zapewniono na samym wstępie czterogodzinne bilansowanie kompetencji. Interdyscyplinarny oraz intuicyjny charakter narzędzia umożliwił jego samoobsługowe zastosowanie, gdzie klient będzie decydował o zakresie i częstotliwości kontaktów z doradcą. Testowano w ten sposób zasady organizacji doradztwa na życzenia. Oceniające się osoby mogły skorzystać z kontaktu z doradcą zawodowym poprzez otrzymanie wyjaśnień do interpretacji wyników. Dodatkowo w ramach projektu zapewniono 4 godz. spotkania indywidualnego. Zagwarantowano też opiekę opiekuna zdalnego podczas realizowanych 100 godz. opieki zdalnej, czyli 5 godzin przypadających na jednego uczestnika (w tym konsultacje badawcze w ramach eksperymentu dotyczące testowanego narzędzia). Docelowo, po zakończeniu projektu, narzędzie kierowane jest do: Doradców zawodowych, doradców kariery oraz pośredników pracy, pracowników środowiskowych oraz innych specjalistów instytucji rynku pracy, instytucji szkoleniowych oraz pomocy społecznej – osób wspierających planowanie kariery klientów w trudnej sytuacji zawodowej. Narzędzie zostało przygotowane w ten sposób, że nie wymaga angażowania specjalistów z uprawnieniami do stosowania narzędzi psychometrycznych. Pracowników zatrudnionych w modernizowanej, restrukturyzowanej firmie rozumianych jako uczestników oceny, w zakresie oceny obligatoryjnej (ocena okresowa, przygotowanie do przesunięć w ramach formy lub zwolnień) oraz spontanicznie dokonujących oceny w ramach oceny fakultatywnej – planowanie własnego rozwoju w firmie, intraprzedsiębiorczość – w tym przypadku narzędzie jest uzupełnieniem i wspiera model outplacementu wewnętrznego i narzędzia do bilansowania kompetencji w modelu dla firm (PF1). 32 Rozdział 1. Byłych pracowników oraz pracowników w okresie wypowiedzenia poszukujących nowych kierunków rozwoju zawodowego – planowanie reorientacji zawodowej. Kandydatów do pracy w procesie rekrutacji wewnętrznej (na nowe stanowiska w firmie – awans poziomy) oraz rekrutacji zewnętrznej – w tym przypadku narzędzie służy do przygotowania profilu kandydata oraz wstępnej oceny kandydatów do pracy przed rozmową kwalifikacyjną. Grupa użytkowników narzędzia wykracza poza grupę docelową wskazaną w strategii wdrażania projektu innowacyjnego i ukazuje szersze, nowe zastosowania narzędzia w obszarach wykraczających poza usługi instytucji rynku pracy (rekrutacja personelu, rozwój firmy, indywidualny rozwój pracowników, instytucje pomocy społecznej oraz instytucje szkoleniowe). Obszary te i związane z nimi grupy użytkowników rekomendowane zostały przez uczestników testu oraz w drodze ewaluacji produktu finalnego. DZIAŁANIA i NAKŁADY niezbędne do zastosowania narzędzia Przetestowany w ten sposób produkt finalny kierowany jest do pracowników modernizowanych firm, osób pracujących zagrożonych bezrobociem, osób w okresie wypowiedzenia lub po utracie pracy. Narzędzia opracowane są w taki sposób, aby mogły bez konieczności zmiany przepisów prawa zostać zastosowane przez doradców z instytucji rynku pracy czy NGO. By poprawnie użytkować narzędzie, warto zapewnić opiekę zdalną. Sprawować ją może doradca zawodowy, który poprzez Platformę będzie miał kontakt z osobą wypełniającą kwestionariusze. W celu wykorzystania produktu finalnego w formie programu komputerowego przez osobę pracującą, zagrożoną bezrobociem, w okresie wypowiedzenia lub bezrobotną nie jest konieczne ponoszenie dodatkowych nakładów finansowych. Osoba taka musi jednak przynajmniej w minimalnym zakresie posługiwać się komputerem. Uzyskane wyniki mogłyby zostać dodatkowo omówione na spotkaniu z doradcą zawodowym. Rozwiązaniem bezkosztowym mogłoby być ich omówienie podczas spotkania z doradcą w Powiatowym Urzędzie Pracy. W celu wykorzystania produktu finalnego w postaci programu komputerowego przez pracownika instytucji służb zatrudnienia do diagnozy osoby pracującej, zagrożonej bezrobociem, w okresie wypowiedzenia lub bezrobotnej także nie jest konieczne ponoszenie dodatkowych nakładów finansowych. Pracownik służb zatrudnienia powinien przynajmniej w minimalnym zakresie posługiwać się komputerem i mieć dostęp do komputera. Do33 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika radca powinien poświęcić swój czas na szersze omówienie uzyskanych wyników. Kosztem w takim przypadku jest czas poświęcony przez doradcę zawodowego oraz ewentualny koszt wynajęcia sali. W celu wykorzystania produktu finalnego w formie aplikacji zdalnej przez osobę pracującą, zagrożoną bezrobociem, w okresie wypowiedzenia lub bezrobotną nie jest konieczne ponoszenie dodatkowych nakładów finansowych. Osoba taka musi jednak dysponować aktywnym adresem e-mail oraz przynajmniej w minimalnym zakresie posługiwać się komputerem. Niezbędny jest też dostęp do komputera z podłączonym Internetem. W niektórych przypadkach może się pojawić komunikat o kontakcie z doradcą zawodowym. W takich przypadkach należałoby pokazać wyniki i kwestionariusze doradcy. Można to bez kosztów zrobić z doradcą zatrudnionym w Powiatowym Urzędzie Pracy lub poszukać doradcy udzielającego prywatnych porad. Koszt takiego spotkania szacowany jest na około 50-100 zł za godz. W celu wykorzystania produktu finalnego w aplikacji zdalnej przez pracownika instytucji służb zatrudnienia do diagnozy osoby pracującej, zagrożonej bezrobociem, w okresie wypowiedzenia lub bezrobotnej także nie jest konieczne ponoszenie dodatkowych nakładów finansowych. Osoba badana musi jednak dysponować aktywnym adresem e-mail. Pracownik służb zatrudnienia powinien przynajmniej w minimalnym zakresie posługiwać się komputerem i mieć dostęp do komputera z podłączonym Internetem. Niezależnie od uzyskanych w aplikacji interpretacji doradca powinien omówić uzyskane wyniki. Kosztem w takim przypadku jest czas poświęcony przez doradcę zawodowego oraz ewentualny koszt sali i użycia Internetu. Wskazane jest także zaangażowanie zdalnego doradcy do zarządzania narzędziem i oceny wielu osób (wsparcie indywidualne poprzez mail i skype, pomoc techniczna, komentarze przy skrajnych wynikach, odpowiedzi na pytania klientów dotyczące przedmiotu oceny). Koszt zaangażowania zdalnego doradcy wspierającego 30 użytkowników Platformy może być ograniczony do minimum, jeżeli organizacja administrująca portalem doradczym ma specjalistę na etacie (oddelegowanie w 1/8 etatu). Miesięczny koszt zaangażowania zdalnego doradcy nie powinien przekroczyć kosztu 16 godzin pracy specjalisty w danym regionie i może być ograniczony do okresu funkcjonowania platformy (na przykład w ramach konkretnego projektu lub akcji sezonowej). Możliwe MODYFIKACJE i zmiany narzędzia Model Ekwiwalentów Pracownika (PF4) można modyfikować, jednak w zakresie treści merytorycznych dokonać tego mogą tylko dyplomowani doradcy zawodowi lub psycholodzy z doświadczeniem w psy34 Rozdział 1. chometrii doradztwa zawodowego (stąd też nie jest zalecana modyfikacja narzędzia, a jedynie sposób jego wykorzystania). Osoby takie mogą otrzymać specjalny status administratora platformy doradczej, z możliwością korekty treści itemów (w przypadku gdy użytkownicy zgłaszają nieprawidłowości, niejasności) lub też przygotowywania dodatkowych interpretacji dla różnych poziomów wyników w skalach. Procedury te testowanie były w ramach projektu, a platforma oferuje specjalny panel dla doradców doskonalących i rozwijających narzędzia diagnostyczne. Dodatkowo w celu wprowadzenia modyfikacji od strony technicznej niezbędna jest specjalistyczna wiedza informatyczna pozwalająca na odpowiednie modyfikacje w środowisku informatycznym. Powyższy zakres modyfikacji uwzględnia potencjał sieci wiedzy użytkowników internetowej wersji narzędzia, doskonalących i rozwijających narzędzie bazowe oraz elastyczność rozwiązań informatycznych w interaktywnym programie komputerowym, reagującym na wybory i decyzje użytkownika oraz oferującym alternatywne ścieżki działania. Zatem konstrukcja narzędzia uwzględnia daleko idące modyfikacje ostatecznych kwestionariuszy, w zakresie, jaki nie jest możliwy do osiągnięcia w przypadku tradycyjnych opracowań bazujących na „formach papierowych" narzędzi. Zakres modyfikacji i uprawnienia użytkowników do realnego wprowadzania zmian jako alternatywy do możliwości zgłaszania przez instytucje doradcze lub klientów potrzeb zmian czy nowych opracowań interpretacji lub progów w skalach zależeć będzie w istocie od docelowego administratora platformy, który określi charakter dalszych działań rozwojowych. Instytucja pełniąca rolę przyszłego administratora platformy powinna być ściśle związana z instytucjami działającymi na rzecz grupy docelowej, projektodawcami i doradcami zawodowymi (na przykład stowarzyszenia doradców zawodowych, fora organizacji i specjalistów). Modyfikacje i dalszy rozwój narzędzia powinny dostosowywać interpretacje do zawodów strategicznych w regionie oraz progi w skalach do specyfiki różnych grup docelowych (osoby po 50. roku życia, osoby niepełnosprawne, mniejszości kulturowe lub religijne) – w tym przypadku platforma może wygenerować raporty statystyczne dla poszczególnych grup klientów, co zwiększy trafność narzędzia (wykorzystanie potencjału internetowej bazy danych w dalszych pracach normalizacyjnych). Wymaga to jednak uzupełnienia formatki rejestracyjnej o dane ważne dla tego typu norm (zmienne niezależne). W produkcie finalnym testu doradca ze statusem administratora platformy doradczej może ustalać (korygować) progi dla poziomów wyników (niski, średni, wysoki) dla poszczególnych skal we wszystkich kwestionariuszach z uwzględnieniem rozkładu wyników pozyskanych w trakcie sto35 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika sowania narzędzia oraz korygować, uzupełniać lub dodawać opisy lub interpretacje dla poziomów wyników, w szczególności poprzez nawiązania do zawodów strategicznych w regionie lub oferowanych w ramach projektów, w których zastosowana będzie platforma. Także w tym aspekcie dalsze prace rozwojowe narzędzia mogłyby umożliwić różnicowanie interpretacji i zaleceń doradczych adekwatnie do statusu klienta (przynależność klienta do konkretnego projektu z konkretną ofertą szkoleń zawodowych, zamieszkanie klienta na obszarze o popycie na konkretne zawody). W ten sposób narzędzie może być modyfikowane na rzecz projektów, regionów – zwiększając swoją komplementarność z innymi działaniami rynku pracy oraz dostosowując zalecenia i rekomendacje do potrzeb lokalnego rynku pracy. 1.2. Model STEROWNOŚCI pracownika Model Sterowności Pracownika rozumiany jako modelowy schemat działań outplacementowych dla zwalnianych pracowników, osób w okresie wypowiedzenia lub poszukujących nowej pracy, jest produktem finalnym w zakresie rozwiązań treningu psychologicznego kierowanych do pracownika. Model zawiera pakiet narzędzi do treningu sterowności oraz planowania kariery osoby zagrożonej utratą pracy, pracującej lub też bezrobotnej z programem komputerowym Trening Sterowności, zdalną aplikacją e-Trening Sterowności oraz warsztatów wyjazdowych Trening Sterowności – Grupy Wsparcia. Model Sterowności Pracownika − program komputerowy wraz z aplikacją zdalną jest produktem finalnym w zakresie rozwiązań wzmacniania sterowności pracownika w procesie outplacementu i planowania działań. Komputerowy i zdalny charakter narzędzi obniża koszty zastosowania, co istotnie zwiększa szanse planowania alternatywnych form aktywności zawodowej osób pracujących. Model powstał jako odpowiedź na zdiagnozowany brak na rynku ogólnodostępnych usług psychologicznych zwiększających poczucie kontroli i sterowność takich osób. Psychologia społeczna wskazuje, że w kryzysie zaburzone są sterowność i poczucie kontroli, co zmniejsza szansę wyjścia z zakrętu. Dziś psycholodzy koncentrują się w outplacemencie na emocjach, samopoczuciu i motywacji, a nie doceniają wagi sterowności, która jest kluczowa w modelu pokonywania zakrętu. Konieczne było zatem opracowanie odpowiednich kwestionariuszy, w tym zdalnych, do samodzielnego użytku. Model ten skierowany jest do pracowników, osób zagrożonych zwolnieniem lub na wypowiedzeniu, a także do osób bezrobotnych. 36 Rozdział 1. Innowacja tego modelu związana jest z poszerzeniem tradycyjnego obszaru doradztwa zawodowego i planowania kariery o zagadnienia i formy aktywności specyficzne dla osób w okresie wypowiedzenia lub przygotowujących się do reorientacji zawodowej. W praktyce doradców zawodowych brakuje narzędzi przeznaczonych dla osób pracujących (zagrożonych bezrobociem). Stosowanie typowych narzędzi planowania kariery w niewystarczającym stopniu uwzględnia sytuację psychologiczną, zawodową i rodzinną tej grupy docelowej. Innowacją tego modelu jest także unikalne łączenie usług zdalnych, w tym zdalnego, wirtualnego treningu sterowności, z warsztatami wyjazdowymi (integracyjnymi) zwiększającymi sterowność (wewnętrzne umiejscowienie kontroli) osób po traumie utraty pracy. Model ten wspiera zastosowanie innych produktów związanych ze wsparciem procesu reorientacji zawodowej zwalnianego pracownika, jakimi są: (PF1): Model Ekwiwalentów Pracownika oraz (PF6): Model Przyśpieszenia Rozwoju Pracownika. Narzędzia te współpracują według logiki działania: oceń zasoby podejmij strategiczne decyzje na podstawie wyników oceny szybciej rozwijaj swoje zasoby w kierunkach dostosowanych do własnych możliwości i sytuacji rynkowej. Dlatego też narzędzia te należy stosować łącznie w celu pełnego wykorzystania ich potencjału, zgodnie z poniższym schematem: Metoda treningu psychologicznego w zakresie zwiększania sterowności pracownika jest niezbędnym krokiem w aktywizacji osoby w sytuacji kryzysowej oraz przygotowuje do szkoleń realizowanych metodą Colina Rosa, wymagającej samodzielności i przedsiębiorczości w procesie edukacyjnym. Pakiet kwestionariuszy diagnostycznych ma ułatwić planowanie własnego rozwoju w perspektywie długoterminowej oraz planowanie szkoleń, treningów umiejętności miękkich, prowadzonych w formie weekendowych zjazdów integracyjno-motywacyjnych, co zwiększa ich trafność i skuteczność. Model Sterowności Pracownika jest programem komputerowym, a także aplikacją zdalną w zakresie rozwiązań diagnozy na rzecz rozwoju i treningu psychologicznego (wsparcie rozwoju) w procesie poszukiwa37 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika nia nowych możliwości pracy czy zatrudnienia w czasach kryzysu. Są to zatem narzędzia kierowane do pracowników zagrożonych utratą pracy, zwolnionych oraz pozostających w okresie wypowiedzenia czy też wreszcie planowanych do przesunięć na inne stanowiska pracy. W instytucjach publicznych brakuje ogólnodostępnych usług psychologicznych zwiększających poczucie kontroli i sterowność. Psycholodzy, jeżeli w ogóle angażowani są w usługi outplacementu, koncentrują się na emocjach, samopoczuciu i motywacji, a nie doceniają wagi sterowności, która jest kluczowa w modelu pokonywania zakrętu. Konieczne jest opracowanie kwestionariuszy i ćwiczeń w tym zakresie, także zdalnych, do samodzielnego użytku oraz „samoobsługowych" metod szkoleniowych, które zwiększałyby sterowność uczestnika, a jednocześnie byłyby bardziej dostępne dla pracujących. Dlatego też w opracowaniu nowych, samoobsługowych narzędzi diagnostyczno-rozwojowych skupiono się na dopasowaniu obszarów diagnozy (oraz treningu psychologicznego) do potrzeb osób zwalnianych i pracujących oraz na opracowaniach informatycznych i internetowych zwiększających dostępność tych narzędzi, bez konieczności bezpośrednich spotkań z psychologiem czy psychoterapeutą. ELEMENTY modelu W ramach drugiego etapu modelu zaproponowano pakiet narzędzi związanych z kształtowaniem postaw oraz sposobów interpretowania rzeczywistości, w szczególności treningiem sterowności niezbędnej do planowania przyszłości z przekonaniem o posiadaniu wpływu na swój los. Narzędzia opracowano w dwóch wersjach: w wersji OFF-line w postaci programu komputerowego do zastosowań w firmie lub w instytucji szkoleniowej, bez konieczności korzystania z Internetu z możliwością wspierania się ankietami papierowymi oraz w wersji ONline w postaci specjalnej platformy internetowej zwiększającej dostępność klientów i pracowników do narzędzi diagnozy i treningu psychologicznego. W dalszej części rozdziału przedstawiono poszczególne wersje narzędzia wraz z warunkami ich zastosowania.. PROGRAM KOMPUTEROWY Trening Sterowności (OFF-line) Program komputerowy Trening Sterowności to program do oceny zasobów psychologicznych klienta w kontekście treningu samokontroli i sterowności (brania odpowiedzialności za swoją przyszłość i zarządzania własnym rozwojem). Opracowana została bateria kwestionariuszy uwzględniających specyfikę grupy docelowej projektu: osób pracujących 38 Rozdział 1. i zagrożonych bezrobociem, a także osób bezrobotnych. W ramach narzędzia, baterii testów i ćwiczeń opracowano narzędzia dotyczące takich obszarów, jak: poczucie kontroli, sprawczość, sukces, samoocena, motywatory, rozumianych jako czynniki sterowności niezbędne do reorientacji zawodowej. Opracowanie narzędzia w formie programu komputerowego, aplikacji komputerowej ułatwiło samodzielne zastosowanie narzędzia przez badające się osoby, co zwiększa szanse jego zastosowań w sytuacji kryzysowej, gdy doradca zewnętrzny jest trudno dostępny. Narzędzie to zawiera pakiet 5 narzędzi diagnostyczno-rozwojowych dla pracownika oraz doradców wspierających reorientację zawodową osób zagrożonych bezrobociem. Kluczowe jest to, że diagnozowane poniższymi kwestionariuszami obszary osobowości i postrzegania świata nie są wrodzone, lecz zależne od doświadczenia, a więc mogą być przedmiotem i celem treningu: kwestionariusz kontrola, motywatory, samoocena, sprawczość, sukces. KWESTIONARIUSZ KONTROLA – kwestionariusz składający się z 30 itemów, określający poczucie kontroli pracownika w dwóch skalach (umiejscowienie kontroli mające zasadniczy wpływ na powodzenie działań rozwojowych i radzenie sobie z kryzysem). Składa się z wyrażeń wskazujących na poczucie kontroli zewnętrznej i wewnętrznej. Maksymalnie można uzyskać 75 punktów w każdym z dwóch obszarów oceny. Program komputerowy automatycznie zlicza punkty w skalach i wyświetla wynik (niski, średni wysoki) wraz z interpretacją dla każdej skali: KONTROLA ZEWNĘTRZNA – poczucie kontroli zewnętrznej można określić przez utożsamianie się z takimi stwierdzeniami, jak: „Nie warto planować przyszłości, gdyż zbyt wiele zależy od losu lub decyzji innych ludzi, na które nie mamy wpływu"; „Pozyskanie dobrej pracy jest możliwe tylko na drodze dobrych znajomości, niezależnie od dobrego wykształcenia"; „Jeżeli do pracownika przylgnie zła opinia, to żadne starania nie pomogą, by ją zmienić"; „Los i przeznaczenie mają większe znaczenie niż ciężka praca i starania"; „Nie osiągniesz sukcesu zawodowego bez tzw. szczęścia"; „Większość moich niepowodzeń jest efektem pecha lub braku szczęścia"; „Nasz awans zależy bardziej od potrzeb i interesu pracodawcy niż naszych starań czy dobrych pomysłów"; „Niezależnie od planów i starań i tak będzie to, co ma być"; „Często mam wrażanie, że mam niewielki wpływ na to, co mnie spotyka w życiu"; „Ludzie sukcesu zawdzięczają większość szczęściu i dobrym układom"; „Pracownik zawsze jest tylko pionkiem w rękach przełożonych"; „Ludzie nie zdają 39 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika sobie sprawy, jak naprawdę ich życiem rządzi przypadek"; „Bez wygranej w totka nie mam szans na wspaniałe i bogate życie"; „Szczęśliwy traf jest w życiu ważniejszy od ciężkiej pracy czy zdolności"; „Nie można zrobić kariery bez sprzyjających okoliczności". Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Kontrola zewnętrzna, czyli zewnętrzne umiejscowienie kontroli − charakteryzuje osoby przekonane, że świat zewnętrzny i inni ludzie mają kluczowy wpływ na ich życie. Przekonania takie często powstają w efekcie tragedii lub częstych niepowodzeń, i są w istocie mechanizmem ochrony własnej oceny o sobie. Z czasem takie myślenie może się utrwalać i utrudniać branie odpowiedzialności. Osoby te stają się bardzo wrażliwe na informację z zewnątrz, opinie i oceny, które wyznaczają ich poczucie wartości. Często charakteryzuje je rezygnacja, brak wiary w siebie i pesymistyczna wizja przyszłości, przez co są mało przedsiębiorcze i nie wierzą w sens podejmowania wysiłku". KONTROLA WEWNĘTRZNA – poczucie kontroli wewnętrznej związane jest z przekonaniem o posiadaniu wpływu na swoją przyszłości i braniem odpowiedzialności za swój los. Poczucie wewnętrznej sterowności jest zaś określane przez utożsamianie się z: „Należy planować swoją przyszłość, gdyż nikt o nas nie zadba i nie będzie planować za nas"; „Tylko dobre przygotowanie zawodowe gwarantuje dobrą pracę niezależnie od znajomości i układów"; „Opinia na temat pracownika zawsze zależy od jego pracy i zaangażowania"; „Więcej osiągniesz we współpracy niż przez znajomości"; „Szczęśliwy traf nie ma wpływu na awans"; „Niepowodzenia i porażki zawsze są zależne od naszych błędów czy zbyt małego zaangażowania w pracę"; „Jeżeli nie osiągasz sukcesu pomimo zdolności, to znaczy, że po prostu zbyt mało się angażujesz"; „Szczęściarz to po prostu ten, kto daje okazję szczęściu"; „Każdy problem i przeciwność losu można pokonać, gdy podejdzie się do niej profesjonalnie"; „Możesz zapracować na swój szacunek"; „Awans zawsze zależy od Twojej pracy"; „Ludzie są samotni tylko dlatego, że nie zadbali o przyjaźń"; „Gra w totka to po prostu kolejna szansa na wygraną, robię to na wszelki wypadek"; „Warto mieć przyjaciół, gdyż z nimi więcej osiągniesz"; „W pracy zawodowej i awansie szczęśliwy traf nie istnieje" Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Kontrola wewnętrzna, czyli wewnętrzne umiejscowienie kontroli − charakteryzuje osoby przekonane, że przyszłość leży w ich rękach, osoby te są kowalami własnego losu i wierzą, że 40 Rozdział 1. ostatecznie wszystko zależy od posiadanych zdolności i dobrze wykonywanej pracy. Na ogół takie osoby doświadczały pozytywnych zdarzeń i odniosły je do własnych starań i działań. Stąd przekonanie o własnej skuteczności i wartości, co wpływa na aktywność i przedsiębiorczość oraz wiarę w sens podejmowania wysiłku. Osoby te widzą przyszłość optymistycznie i lepiej radzą sobie w trudnych sytuacjach. KWESTIONARIUSZ MOTYWATORY – kwestionariusz składający się z 27 itemów, określający czynniki i źródła motywacji do rozwoju czy zmiany w trzech skalach. Maksymalnie można uzyskać 45 punktów w każdym z trzech obszarów kompetencji. Program komputerowy automatycznie zlicza punkty w skalach i wyświetla wynik (niski, średni wysoki) wraz z interpretacją dla każdej skali. MOTYWUJĄCE MYŚLENIE – wypełniając ten kwestionariusz, poznaje się czynniki wpływające na motywację. W jakim stopniu motywacja jest wewnętrzna, a w jakim wypływa z otaczającego świata (motywacja zewnętrzna). Odpowiedzi udziela się na następujące stwierdzenia: „Dobrze wiem, co mi da szczęście w życiu i wierzę, że to osiągnę"; „Zanim wezmę się do pracy, wyobrażam sobie pozytywne efekty jej zakończenia"; „Optymizm to połowa sukcesu. Wiara czyni cuda"; „Nie widzę problemów tam, gdzie widzą je inni, gdy zależy mi na czymś"; „Gdy mam bardzo dobry pomysł, czuję się wspaniale"; „Dobry nastrój dodaje mi skrzydeł, dlatego staram się myśleć pozytywnie przed trudnym zadaniem"; „Marzenia to połowa sukcesu"; „Myślę dobrze o przyszłości. Inaczej nic nie chciałoby mi się robić"; „Kto nie kupuje losu na loterię, nie zgarnia głównej nagrody". Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Twoja motywacja oparta jest przede wszystkim na pozytywnym myśleniu. Pozytywne myślenie to połowa sukcesu. Dobre myślenie dodaje Ci sił, gdy naprawdę robi się ciężko. Optymizm, przekonanie o sukcesie pomaga Ci podejmować się trudnych zadań w sytuacjach, gdy inni się poddają lub wycofują. Można powiedzieć, że masz motywację we krwi. To motywacja wewnętrzna". MOTYWUJĄCE OTOCZENIE – to poszukiwanie motywacji do działania na zewnątrz, poza swoim wnętrzem: „Zawsze szukam porady i wsparcia w realizacji swoich planów"; „Gdy praca jest nużąca i długa, wyznaczam sobie jakąś nagrodę za ukończenie kolejnego etapu"; „Czasami osiągam trudne cele tylko dlatego, by nie przyznać się do słabości przed innymi"; „Praca zespołowa dodaje mi sił i chęci do pracy. Głupio jest odstawać od innych, 41 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika gdy inni się starają"; „Aby utrzymać motywację do wykonania trudnego zadania, wymyślam sobie jakąś nagrodę na koniec pracy"; „Staram się, gdyż ważne jest dla mnie zadowolenie moich bliskich"; „Gdy stawiam sobie trudne cele, szukam wsparcia u przyjaciół lub specjalistów"; „Wolę pracować w grupie, gdyż zespół dodaje mi sił do pracy"; „Wstyd przed porażką i złą opinią innych motywuje mnie do rzeczy niemożliwych". Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Twoja motywacja płynie z otoczenia. Potrzebujesz kibiców, wtedy strzelasz piękne bramki, biegniesz szybciej do mety. Ważna jest dla Ciebie ocena innych, to, co ludzie pomyślą o Twoim sukcesie lub porażce. Potrafisz zrobić dużo więcej dla kogoś, niż dla siebie. Czasami po prostu chcesz uciec i masz motywację, by biec szybciej, dla świętego spokoju, dla wolności. Twoja motywacja jest jak kij lub marchewka. To motywacja zewnętrzna". MOTYWUJĄCE CELE – związane są z podejmowaniem decyzji pod wpływem analizy za i przeciw, stawiania sobie celów: „Zawsze stawiam sobie realne cele"; „Wiem, czego potrzebuję, by zrealizować swoje cele. Znam swoje cele życiowe"; „Wyznaczam cele i etapy realizacji moich planów na przyszłość"; „Zawsze analizuję za i przeciw, zanim podejmę decyzję"; „Lubię, gdy stawia mi się konkretne cele. Spontaniczność bywa stresująca"; „Bez planu pracy i małych celów po drodze nie porywam się na rzeczy wielkie"; „Gdy wiem, czego chcę, mogę pracować ponad siły. Cel uświęca środki"; „Podejmując decyzję, analizuję jej plusy i minusy"; „Staram się angażować tylko w realne i pewne przedsięwzięcia". Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Twoja motywacja związana jest z wizją celu. Biegniesz szybciej, wytrwale do tego, czego pragniesz. Wysiłek bez celu nie ma sensu. Twoja motywacja w dużej mierze zależy od Twoich potrzeb i pragnień. To motywacja racjonalna, zaplanowana, instrument do osiągania celów. Zarządzasz swoją motywacją poprzez cele. Twoja motywacja to ryba i wędka jednocześnie. Twoja motywacja jest przede wszystkim Twoja". KWESTIONARIUSZ SAMOOCENA – kwestionariusz składający się z 27 itemów, określający poziom, źródła i obszary samooceny, która ma zasadnicze znaczenie w przezwyciężaniu trudności oraz budowaniu realnych planów rozwojowych. Samoocenę można wzmacniać i budować. Maksymalnie można uzyskać 45 punktów w każdym z trzeh obszarów oceny. Program komputerowy automatycznie zlicza punkty w ska42 Rozdział 1. lach i wyświetla wynik (niski, średni wysoki) wraz z interpretacją dla każdej skali. SAMOOCENA OSOBISTA – to coś w rodzaju inwentaryzacji zachowania w kontaktach z innymi ludźmi, własna samokrytyka. „Gdy mi na czymś naprawdę zależy, umiem manipulować innymi"; „Gdy na to zasługuję, bez problemu przyjmuję pochwały"; „Jest mi miło, gdy ktoś mi prawi komplementy, i nie czuję skrępowania w takich sytuacjach"; „Jestem co najmniej tak samo dobrym specjalistą jak inni w mojej firmie"; „Nie pozwalam się wykorzystywać"; „Potrafię postawić na swoim, gdy czegoś bardzo chcę"; „Umiem walczyć o swoje racje"; „Zawsze mam prawo do swoich przekonań"; „Zawsze potrafię odmówić, gdy ktoś proponuje mi coś, czego nie chcę". Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Samoocena dotycząca Twojej osoby nie jest zaniżona. Cenisz siebie i wiesz, co to asertywność. Potrafisz dążyć do swoich celów, gdyż uważasz, że masz do tego prawo. Twoja siła w życiu zależy więc w dużej mierze od tego, jak cenisz swoją osobę, siebie jako człowieka, jako członka społeczności. Jeżeli jednak wynik w tej skali jest wyższy niż 38 punktów, znaczy to, że możesz przeceniać swoje miejsce i rolę w życiu, a Twoje zachowanie i poglądy mogą być odbierane jako przejaw egocentryzmu, agresji czy zuchwalstwa. W tym przypadku nie zaszkodzi odrobina pokory". SAMOOCENA SPOŁECZNA – to nic innego jak analiza swojej osoby w relacjach z innymi ludźmi: „Jak ktoś czegoś nie chce, zawsze mogę przekonać innych do swoich racji. To tylko kwestia trafionych argumentów"; „Nie mylę się co do innych"; „Potrafię tak załatwić sprawę, że wszyscy są zadowoleni"; „Umiem postawić się w czyjejś sytuacji"; „Umiem pracować z ludźmi"; „Umiem przekonać innych do swoich racji"; „W grupie mogę zrobić więcej niż sam"; „Z łatwością dzielę się zadaniami"; „Zawsze coś wnoszę w pracę grupy". Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Samoocena dotycząca Twoich zdolności społecznych nie jest zaniżona. Czujesz się dobrze w relacjach i sytuacjach społecznych, dlatego nie unikasz ludzi i nie boisz się konfrontacji z nimi. W dużej mierze zależy to od Twoich umiejętności interpersonalnych, ale przede wszystkim od pewności siebie. Jeżeli jednak wynik w tej skali jest wyższy niż 40 punktów, znaczy to, że możesz przeceniać swoje kompetencje społeczne, a Twoje zachowanie może być postrzegane jako egoistyczne lub aroganckie 43 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika czy wręcz jako manipulacja. W tym przypadku nie zaszkodzi odrobina empatii". SAMOOCENA PRAKTYCZNA – związana jest z umiejętnościami praktycznymi i kompetencjami: „Bez problemu potrafię wyjaśnić na piśmie, o co mi chodzi"; „Logiczne myślenie jest moją mocną stroną"; „Mam uzdolnienia plastyczne"; „Nie mam większych problemów z nauką języków obcych"; „Potrafię obsługiwać urządzenia"; „Sprawność manualna jest moją mocną stroną"; „Umiem sobie wyobrazić to, czego nie widać"; „Zadania techniczne są moją mocną stroną"; „Zanim oddam coś do serwisu, próbuję naprawić usterkę". Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Samoocena dotycząca Twoich zdolności praktycznych nie jest zaniżona. Czujesz się pewnie w różnorodnych zadaniach, nie boisz się wyzwań zawodowych i raczej dobrze oceniasz swoje zdolności do pracy. Może to zależeć od Twoich doświadczeń zawodowych czy prawdziwych talentów, ale tak naprawdę najważniejsze, by nie zaniżać swoich możliwości przez niepotrzebną skromność. Jeżeli jednak wynik w tej skali jest wyższy niż 36 punktów, znaczy to, że może jesteś samochwałą i grozi Ci porażka w pracy, gdy przecenisz swoje możliwości. Pamiętaj w takim przypadku, że lepiej innych miło zaskoczyć niż rozczarować". KWESTIONARIUSZ SPRAWCZOŚĆ – kwestionariusz składający się z 27 itemów, określający źródła poczucia i realnego wywierania wpływu na swoje życie – geneza i czynniki faktycznego bycia kowalem swojego losu. Maksymalnie można uzyskać 45 punktów w każdej skali. Program komputerowy automatycznie zlicza punkty w skalach i wyświetla wynik (niski, średni wysoki) wraz z interpretacją dla każdej skali. NIEZALEŻNOŚĆ – sprawczość związana z autonomią, określają ją pozytywne odniesienia do stwierdzeń dotyczących niezależności badanej osoby: „Zależy mi na tym, by inni nie musieli się o mnie bez przerwy martwić"; „Wolę mieć własną firmę niż pracować na etacie u kogoś"; „Niezależność finansowa jest warunkiem zmiany mojej sytuacji życiowej"; „Chcę się rozwijać głównie po to, aby w przyszłości osiągnąć samodzielność"; „Jednym z moich celów na przyszłość jest samodzielność"; „Staram się samodzielnie wykonać zadanie, by potwierdzić swoją niezależność"; „Założę własną firmę, gdyż nie chcę zależeć od innych"; „Staram się zawsze, by sukces był moim sukcesem"; „Staram się pracować samodzielnie do końca, by nie prosić innych o pomoc". Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „To, że 44 Rozdział 1. będziesz kowalem swojego losu, zależy przede wszystkim od Twojej predyspozycji do bycia osobą niezależną. Zależy Ci na niezależności i autonomii. Samodzielność to przede wszystkim wolność. Masz dość ciągłego decydowania przez innych o Twoim losie. By mieć wpływ na swoje życie, należy mieć przede wszystkim własne poglądy, własne decyzje, własne wybory. Twoje życie musi być przede wszystkim Twoje...". KOMPETENCJE – sprawczość związana z kompetencjami dotyczy przede wszystkim przekonania, że bez wiedzy i ciężkiej pracy nie można w życiu osiągnąć sukcesu. „Bez treningu i nauki nie da się wykonać bardzo trudnego zadania"; „Osiągnę sukces, gdy wykorzystam swoje umiejętności i wiedzę"; „Bez pracy nie ma kołaczy. Nic nie przychodzi za darmo"; „By osiągać sukcesy, trzeba znać się na rzeczy"; „Tylko fach w ręku gwarantuje pewną przyszłość"; „Wierzę, że jeśli będę się mocno starać i wykorzystywać swoje umiejętności i zdolności, osiągnę sukces"; „Zdobycie zawodu i praca zawodowa zależy od kompetencji i wysiłku"; „Myślę, że bycie fachowcem w jakiejś dziedzinie gwarantuje pewną przyszłość". Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „To, że będziesz kowalem swojego losu, zależy przede wszystkim od Twojej predyspozycji do bycia osobą samowystarczalną, która potrafi zrobić to, co ma zrobić. Samodzielność opierasz więc przede wszystkim na kompetencjach praktycznych i wiedzy. Samodzielność to siła. Wystarczy wiedzieć, co i jak, by radzić sobie samemu. Każdy prawdziwy fachowiec, profesjonalista jest samodzielny. Dlatego samodzielność można osiągnąć przede wszystkim przez naukę i doświadczenie życiowe. Twoje życie musi być przede wszystkim dobre, bez fuszerki...". PRZEKONANIA – sprawczość związana ze stylem poznawczym czy przekonaniami dotyczy deklaracji przekonań typu: „Chętnie mówię innym o tym, co mi się udało osiągnąć"; „Uważam, że mam wpływ na swoje życie"; „Mam pewność, że zdołam osiągnąć cele, które sobie stawiam"; „Lubię siebie, dostrzegam swoje zalety i możliwości"; „Potrafię wymienić swoje mocne strony"; „Wierzę w siebie"; „Wiem, że mi się uda, tak jak zawsze"; „Wiem, co chcę w życiu osiągnąć, i osiągnę to"; „Ciężka praca i wytrwałość gwarantują dojście do celu" Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „To, że będziesz kowalem swojego losu, zależy przede wszystkim od Twojej predyspozycji do bycia osobą skuteczną. Najważniejsza jest wysoka samoocena oraz przekonanie o własnej skuteczności. Samodzielność to wła45 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika dza. Budujesz swoją samodzielność na ocenie swoich możliwości i przekonaniu lub wierze o swojej skuteczności. Czujesz, że możesz i że warto być kowalem swojego losu. Sukces to tylko kwestia wytrwałości. Twoje życie ma być przede wszystkim spełnieniem marzeń i celów, bez porażek". KWESTIONARIUSZ SUKCES – kwestionariusz składający się z 27 itemów, określający czynniki sukcesu oraz wiary w sukces (optymizm) w trzech skalach. Maksymalnie można uzyskać 45 punktów w każdym z trzech obszarów oceny. Program komputerowy automatycznie zlicza punkty w skalach i wyświetla wynik (niski, średni wysoki) wraz z interpretacją dla każdej skali. STRES ŻYCIOWY – związany może być ze śmiercią, ciężką chorobą w rodzinie; opuszczeniem przez dzieci domu rodzinnego; kłopotami w pożyciu seksualnym; rozwodem lub separacją; kredytem lub hipotekę ponad 50 tys. złotych; zawarciem małżeństwa, narodzinami dziecka; awansem lub istotną podwyżką; zmianą mieszkania, przeprowadzką; zwolnieniem z pracy lub konfliktami z szefem. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Twoje doświadczenia życiowe wskazują na duży stopień zdarzeń uznawanych za stresujące. Duża liczba tego typu zdarzeń, szczególnie nagromadzonych w przeciągu kilku ostatnich lat, może być przyczyną problemów zdrowotnych, przewlekłego stresu. Doświadczenia takie mogą obniżać Twój nastrój, samoocenę oraz wiarę w siebie. Może to w rezultacie prowadzić do nieuzasadnionego pesymizmu, widzenia świata w szarych kolorach oraz wycofania się z życia, wyzwań, starania się o własne szczęście. Pamiętaj, że to kwestia bardziej emocji niż faktów. Zadbaj o swoje samopoczucie, poszukaj pomocy przyjaciela, skonsultuj się z lekarzem. Zadbaj o zdrowie, zmień dietę, zacznij uprawiać sport. W zdrowym ciele zdrowy duch. To działa także w drugą stronę. Pamiętaj: myśl pozytywnie, a osiągniesz sukces". W CZEPKU URODZONY – czynniki optymizmu związane są z przekonaniem o swoim szczęściu i poczuciu sukcesu. Zatem: „Myślę, że kiedyś trafię główną wygraną"; „Mam szczęście w życiu"; „Myślę, że inni mnie doceniają"; „Są rzeczy, w których osiągam prawie doskonałość"; „Przeżywanie sukcesu nie jest mi obce"; „Wierzę w Opatrzność Bożą, mam swojego Anioła Stróża"; „Jestem osobą w czepku urodzoną"; „Życie jest piękne"; „Wygrywam w grach losowych, po prostu mam szczęście". Mówią tak osoby szczęśliwe, z poczuciem własnej wartości, op46 Rozdział 1. tymiści. Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Jesteś urodzonym optymistą. Pozytywne myślenie o sobie i świecie jest łatwiejsze, gdy ma się w swojej historii kilka sukcesów. Statuetki na półce pomagają uwierzyć w siebie. Nie zawsze jest to kwestia samych zdolności i talentu, czasami po prostu jest to kwestia szczęścia. Ale szczęście sprzyja lepszym i tym, którzy naprawdę się starają. Dlatego warto pamiętać o swoich sukcesach, gdyż pomaga to osiągać kolejne zwycięstwa. Jeżeli jednak wynik w tej skali jest wyższy niż 36, to może znaczyć, że jesteś niepoprawnym optymistą, a inni mogą postrzegać Cię jako osobę butną, arogancką i zbyt pewną siebie. Udowodnij sobie i innym, jak jest naprawdę. Wiara czyni cuda. Wiara to połowa sukcesu...". WYUCZONA BEZRADNOŚĆ – wyuczona bezradność cechuje osoby, które są pesymistami. „Nie chce mi się wysilać ponad konieczność, bo i tak nikt tego nie doceni"; „Nie warto losować ani wyliczać, i tak wypadnie na mnie"; „Jestem ofiarą"; „Jeżeli ktoś ma wyciągnąć złamaną zapałkę, będę to ja"; „Nadzieja matką głupich"; „Tak wiele razy mi się nie udało, że nie mam już złudzeń"; „Życie jest niesprawiedliwe. Wszyscy myślą tylko o sobie"; „Życie dało mi w kość"; „Życie obróciło się przeciwko mnie". Przykładowa interpretacja wyników: „Jesteś pesymistą? Czy to kwestia poglądów na życie, czy też może efekt życiowych porażek? Czy naprawdę tak wiele spraw nie udało Ci się w życiu? Porównaj się z innymi, czy masz naprawdę wyjątkowego pecha? Zły sposób myślenia o świecie, wiara w pecha i spiskowe teorie są często efektem porażek. To jest naturalny mechanizm, który chroni Twoją samoocenę – bo przecież Twoja porażka nie musi być z Twojej winy. Jednak zbyt częste myślenie w ten sposób nie jest dobre, tak samo jak nie jest dobre obwinianie siebie za wszystko, co w życiu złe. Warto zachować umiar w złym myśleniu, nie poddawać się, a przede wszystkim z przyjacielem lub doradcą prześledzić faktyczne przyczyny niepowodzeń. Może się okazać, że wystarczy poprawić kilka spraw i życie ułoży się inaczej. Spróbuj odmienić swój świat na lepsze. To tylko kwestia metody radzenia sobie z niepowodzeniami. Skup się na swoich sukcesach". Skorzystanie z kwestionariuszy możliwe jest w programie komputerowym. Wymaga wcześniejszej rejestracji pracownika w programie, a następnie wyboru obszaru do treningu psychologicznego. Program powiązano z bazą danych z modułu Firma, dzięki czemu możliwe jest rejestrowanie się pracowników korzystających z narzędzi 47 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika ewaluacyjnych czy intermentoringu w modelu modernizacji firmy. Połączenie funkcjonalności modułu dla firmy i pracownika pozwala korzystać z narzędzia w przypadku outplacementu wewnętrznego w zakresie poszukiwania zasobów osobowościowych do zmiany zawodowej czy wyłaniania liderów wiedzy (mentorów) w procesie samokształcenia firmy. KONTENT ZDALNY e-Trening Sterowności (ON-line) Dodatkowo opracowana została wersja internetowa (zdalna) baterii testów opracowanych w ramach narzędzia komputerowego Trening Sterowności. Opracowanie narzędzia w formie aplikacji internetowej ułatwi samodzielne zastosowanie narzędzia przez osoby poszukujące nowych obszarów aktywności zawodowej w modernizowanej formie (outplacement wewnętrzny), jak też poza nią (outplacement zewnętrzny). Wersja internetowa zwiększa dostępność narzędzia, które może być zastosowane przez pracownika (klienta) w dowolnym czasie i miejscu. Obok walorów typowych dla programu komputerowego (wszystkie kwestionariusze w jednym miejscu, łatwe do użycia, automatycznie liczące i generujące wyniki z interpretacją oraz baza danych dla klienta) oferuje ona dodatkowe korzyści związane ze społecznościowym charakterem narzędzia (ocena może być wpisana w proces społeczny grupy wsparcia, wzajemne motywowanie, moderator zewnętrzny). Osoba chcąca korzystać z aplikacji powinna wejść na stronę http://www.innowacjenazakrecie.pl, następnie wybrać strefę Pracownik i zakładkę Platforma. Aplikacja zdalna umożliwia nadanie uprawnień doradcy specjalistom zarządzającym procesem oceny i udzielającym dodatkowego wsparcia (mail, skype) oraz nadanie uprawnień klienta. Kwestionariusze zdalne obok walorów narzędzia komputerowego oferują dodatkowe korzyści platformy internetowej: Trening zintegrowany z platformą edukacyjną. Trening psychologiczny powiązany jest z edukację zawodową oraz planowaniem kariery. Trening wpisany w proces społeczny. Samoocena i samopoznanie wpisane w plan grupy (zjazdy integracyjne i motywujące oraz forum). Interaktywna ocena. Rozbudowane i długie kwestionariusze diagnostyczne są przyjazne dla klienta. Forma pracy przypomina grę i może być przeniesiona na urządzenia mobilne i smartfony. Dynamiczna wizualizacja oraz architektura. Kolejne etapy diagnozy i ćwiczenia zachęcają i pobudzają do działania: popra48 Rozdział 1. wiają nastrój, motywują do rozwoju oraz kształtują aktywność własną uczestnika i zachęcają do samodzielnej i wytrwałej pracy. Podobnie jak w przypadku kwestionariuszy ekwiwalentów, wyniki zapisywane są dla każdego klienta, co daje możliwość przygotowania raportów zbiorczych oraz statystyk dla całych społeczności. Statystyki takie mogą być wykorzystywane na zjazdach integracyjnych, a to zwiększy trafność programów tych zjazdów poprzez diagnozowanie potrzeb ćwiczeniowych grupy. Narzędzia zdalne opracowano i przygotowano jako uzupełnienie tradycyjnych warsztatów treningowych, zgodnie z rekomendacjami Colina Rosa oraz metodą blended learning. WARSZTATY WYJAZDOWE Trening Sterowności Grupy Wsparcia Opracowany i testowany był program warsztatów wyjazdowych Trening Sterowności − Grupy Wsparcia. Zaplanowano cztery dwudniowe warsztaty realizowane w odstępach średnio comiesięcznych. Przeplatane są one warsztatami Reorientacja związanymi z ostatnim krokiem modelu (PF6). Ich realizacja w formie grupowej (tradycyjnej, bezpośredniej) jest koniecznym uzupełnieniem zajęć (treningu) prowadzonych metodą zdalną zgodnie z metodologią Colina Rosa. Zajęcia miały dodatkowo charakter integracyjny realizujący zadania grup wsparcia dla osób w kryzysie. Zajęcia powinny być realizowane w formie wyjazdowej, w miejscu sprzyjającym relaksowi, z dala od stresogennego środowiska dotkniętego kryzysem, restrukturyzacją, co będzie miało charakter terapeutyczny dla uczestników outplacementu nabierających sił przed etapem Przyśpieszenia. W ramach każdego warsztatu oprócz zajęć merytorycznych przewidziano czas na relaks i kontakt z przyrodą. UŻYTKOWNICY, którzy mogą stosować narzędzie Narzędzie było używane przez pracowników modernizowanych firm i osoby bezrobotne, które zgłosiły chęć udziału w Teście ESP_Pracownik. W testowanym modelu zapewniono pomoc psychologa, także opiekuna zdalnego. Interdyscyplinarny oraz intuicyjny charakter narzędzia umożliwił jego samoobsługowe zastosowanie, gdzie klient będzie decydował o zakresie i częstotliwości kontaktów z psychologiem. Testowano w ten sposób zasady organizacji doradztwa psychologicznego na życzenia. Oceniające się osoby mogły skorzystać z kontaktu z psychologiem poprzez otrzymanie wyjaśnień do interpretacji wyników. Dodatkowo w ramach projektu zapewniono 4 godz. spotkania indywidualnego 49 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika z psychologiem oraz opiekę zdalną podczas realizowanych 100 godz. dyżurów, czyli 5 godzin przypadających na jednego uczestnika. Narzędzie używane było przez pracowników modernizowanych firm z udziałem psychologa, trenera osobistego, także w formule opiekuna zdalnego. Testowane były rozwiązania zdalnych usług doradczych oraz wirtualnych treningów sterowności i kompetencji społecznych, jak również harmonogramu prac dostosowanego do dyspozycyjności osoby pracującej, łączenia doradztwa zdalnego z indywidualnym i grupowym. Interdyscyplinarny oraz intuicyjny charakter narzędzia umożliwił samoobsługę, gdzie klient sam decydował o zakresie i częstotliwości kontaktów z psychologiem lub trenerem osobistym. Docelowo, po zakończeniu projektu, narzędzie kierowane jest do: Psychologów, trenerów osobistych, doradców zawodowych, doradców kariery oraz pośredników pracy, pracowników środowiskowych i innych specjalistów instytucji rynku pracy, instytucji szkoleniowych oraz pomocy społecznej – osób wspierających trening umiejętności miękkich i trening psychologiczny na rzecz planowania kariery klientów w trudnej sytuacji zawodowej. Narzędzie zostało przygotowane w ten sposób, że nie wymaga angażowania specjalistów z uprawnieniami do stosowania narzędzi psychometrycznych. Pracowników zatrudnionych w modernizowanej, restrukturyzowanej firmie rozumianych jako uczestników oceny, w zakresie oceny obligatoryjnej (ocena okresowa, przygotowanie do przesunięć w ramach formy lub zwolnień) oraz spontanicznie dokonujących oceny w ramach oceny fakultatywnej – planowanie własnego rozwoju w firmie, intraprzedsiębiorczość – w tym przypadku narzędzie jest uzupełnieniem i wspiera model outplacementu wewnętrznego i narzędzia do bilansowania kompetencji w modelu dla firm (PF1). Byłych pracowników oraz pracowników w okresie wypowiedzenia poszukujących nowych kierunków rozwoju zawodowego – planowanie reorientacji zawodowej. Kandydatów do pracy w procesie rekrutacji wewnętrznej (na nowe stanowiska w firmie – awans poziomy) oraz rekrutacji zewnętrznej – w tym przypadku narzędzie służy do przygotowania profilu kandydata oraz wstępnej oceny kandydatów do pracy przed rozmową kwalifikacyjną. Wskazana grupa użytkowników narzędzia wykracza poza grupę docelową wskazaną w strategii wdrażania projektu innowacyjnego i uka50 Rozdział 1. zuje szersze, nowe zastosowania narzędzia w obszarach wykraczających poza usługi instytucji rynku pracy (rekrutacja personelu, rozwój firmy, rozwój indywidualny pracowników, instytucje pomocy społecznej oraz instytucje szkoleniowe). Obszary te i związane z nimi grupy użytkowników rekomendowane zostały przez uczestników testu oraz w drodze ewaluacji produktu finalnego. DZIAŁANIA i NAKŁADY niezbędne do zastosowania narzędzia Narzędzia opracowane są w taki sposób, by mogły być zastosowane przez psychologów z instytucji rynku pracy czy NGO bez konieczności zmiany przepisów prawa. By poprawnie użytkować narzędzie, warto zapewnić opiekę zdalną. Sprawować ją może psycholog, który poprzez platformę będzie miał kontakt z osobą wypełniającą kwestionariusze. W celu wykorzystania produktu finalnego w formie programu komputerowego przez osobę pracującą, zagrożoną bezrobociem, w okresie wypowiedzenia lub bezrobotną nie jest konieczne ponoszenie dodatkowych nakładów finansowych. Osoba taka musi jednak przynajmniej w minimalnym zakresie posługiwać się komputerem. Uzyskane wyniki mogłyby zostać dodatkowo omówione na spotkaniu z psychologiem. Rozwiązaniem bezkosztowym mogłoby być ich omówienie podczas spotkania z psychologiem np. w Powiatowym Urzędzie Pracy, MOPR lub innej publicznej instytucji, która zatrudnia psychologów. W celu wykorzystania produktu finalnego w postaci programu komputerowego przez pracownika instytucji służb zatrudnienia do diagnozy osoby pracującej, zagrożonej bezrobociem, w okresie wypowiedzenia lub bezrobotnej także nie jest konieczne ponoszenie dodatkowych nakładów finansowych. Pracownik służb zatrudnienia powinien przynajmniej w minimalnym zakresie posługiwać się komputerem i mieć dostęp do komputera. Psycholog powinien poświęcić swój czas na szersze omówienie uzyskanych wyników. Kosztem w takim przypadku jest czas poświęcony przez niego oraz ewentualny koszt wynajęcia sali. W celu wykorzystania produktu finalnego w formie aplikacji zdalnej przez osobę pracującą, zagrożoną bezrobociem, w okresie wypowiedzenia lub bezrobotną nie jest konieczne ponoszenie dodatkowych nakładów finansowych. Osoba taka musi jednak dysponować aktywnym adresem e-mail oraz przynajmniej w minimalnym zakresie posługiwać się komputerem. Niezbędny jest dostęp do komputera z podłączonym Internetem. W niektórych przypadkach pojawić się może komunikat o kontakcie z psychologiem. W takich przypadkach należałoby pokazać te wyniki i kwestionariusze psychologowi. Można to bez kosztów zrobić z psy51 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika chologiem pracującym w publicznych instytucji rynku pracy, np. w Powiatowym Urzędzie Pracy, lub poszukać psychologa udzielającego prywatnych porad. Koszt takiego spotkania szacowany jest na około 100150 zł za godz. W celu wykorzystania produktu finalnego w aplikacji zdalnej przez pracownika instytucji służb zatrudnienia do diagnozy osoby pracującej, zagrożonej bezrobociem, w okresie wypowiedzenia lub bezrobotnej także nie jest konieczne ponoszenie dodatkowych nakładów finansowych. Osoba badana musi jednak dysponować aktywnym adresem e-mail. Pracownik służb zatrudnienia powinien przynajmniej w minimalnym zakresie posługiwać się komputerem i mieć dostęp do komputera z podłączonym Internetem. Psycholog powinien, niezależnie od interpretacji uzyskanych w aplikacji, omówić uzyskane wyniki. Kosztem w takim przypadku jest czas poświęcony przez niego oraz ewentualny koszt wynajęcia sali i użycia Internetu. Wskazane jest także zaangażowanie zdalnego psychologa do zarządzania narzędziem i oceny wielu osób (wsparcie indywidualne poprzez mail i skype, pomoc techniczna, komentarze przy skrajnych wynikach, odpowiedzi na pytania klientów dotyczące przedmiotu oceny). Koszt zaangażowania zdalnego psychologa wspierającego 30 użytkowników platformy może być ograniczony do minimum, jeżeli organizacja administrująca portalem doradczym ma specjalistę na etacie (oddelegowanie w 1/8 etatu). Miesięczny koszt zaangażowania zdalnego psychologa nie powinien przekroczyć kosztu 16 godzin pracy specjalisty w danym regionie i może być ograniczony do okresu funkcjonowania platformy (na przykład w ramach konkretnego projektu lub akcji sezonowej). Koszt ten można też minimalizować przez zlecenie opieki zdalnej psychologom prowadzącym wyjazdowe warsztaty integracyjne, jako dodatkowe zadanie. Dodatkowym kosztem są szkolenia wyjazdowe w ośrodkach wypoczynkowo-edukacyjnych lub ośrodkach kształcenia praktycznego. W tym przypadku koszty będą się wahać w zależności od standardu ośrodka, okresu realizacji (ceny sezonowe) oraz liczebności grup. Koszt jednorazowego zjazdu z wyżywieniem i transportem 20-osobowej grupy może nie przekroczyć 200 PLN za udział jednej osoby. Wskazane jest łączenie narzędzia ze standardowymi projektami aktywizacyjnymi, warsztatami psychologicznymi, wówczas koszty zastosowania narzędzia mogą ograniczyć się do czasu pracy zdalnego psychologa oraz standardowych kosztów administrowania portalem (wynajęcie serwera, pomoc techniczna). 52 Rozdział 1. Możliwe MODYFIKACJE i zmiany narzędzia Model Sterowności Pracownika (PF5) można modyfikować podobnie jak narzędzia do oceny ekwiwalentów (PF4), jednak w zakresie treści merytorycznych dokonać tego mogą tylko psycholodzy lub dyplomowani doradcy zawodowi z doświadczeniem w psychometrii (stąd też nie jest zalecana modyfikacja narzędzia, a jedynie sposób jego wykorzystania). Osoby takie mogą otrzymać specjalny status administratora platformy doradczej, z możliwością korekty treści itemów (w przypadku gdy użytkownicy zgłaszają nieprawidłowości, niejasności) lub też przygotowywania dodatkowych interpretacji dla różnych poziomów wyników w skalach. Procedury te testowane były w ramach projektu, a platforma oferuje specjalny panel dla doradców doskonalących i rozwijających narzędzia diagnostyczne. Dodatkowo w celu wprowadzenia modyfikacji od strony technicznej niezbędna jest specjalistyczna wiedza informatyczna pozwalająca na odpowiednie modyfikacje w środowisku informatycznym. Modyfikacje te uwzględniają potencjał sieci wiedzy użytkowników internetowej wersji narzędzia doskonalących i rozwijających narzędzie bazowe. Zatem konstrukcja narzędzia uwzględnia daleko idące modyfikacje ostatecznych kwestionariuszy w zakresie, jaki nie jest możliwy do osiągnięcia w przypadku tradycyjnych opracowań bazujących na „formach papierowych" narzędzi. Zakres modyfikacji i uprawnienia użytkowników do realnego wprowadzania zmian jako alternatywy do możliwości zgłaszania przez instytucje doradcze lub klientów potrzeb zmian czy nowych opracowań interpretacji czy progów w skalach zależeć będzie w istocie od docelowego administratora platformy, który określi charakter dalszych działań rozwojowych. Instytucja pełniąca rolę przyszłego administratora platformy powinna być ściśle związana z instytucjami działającymi na rzecz grupy docelowej, projektodawcami i doradcami zawodowymi (na przykład stowarzyszenia doradców zawodowych, fora organizacji i specjalistów). Modyfikacje i dalszy rozwój narzędzia powinny dostosowywać interpretacje do zawodów strategicznych w regionie oraz progi w skalach do specyfiki różnych grup docelowych (osoby po 50. roku życia, osoby niepełnosprawne, mniejszości kulturowe lub religijne) – w tym przypadku platforma może wygenerować raporty statystyczne dla poszczególnych grup klientów, dzięki czemu zwiększy się trafność narzędzia (wykorzystanie potencjału internetowej bazy danych w dalszych pracach normalizacyjnych). Wymaga to jednak uzupełnienia formatki rejestracyjnej o dane ważne dla tego typu norm (zmienne niezależne). W produkcie finalnym testu doradca ze statusem administratora platformy doradczej może ustalać (korygować) progi dla poziomów wyników (niski, średni, wysoki) dla poszczególnych 53 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika skal we wszystkich kwestionariuszach z uwzględnieniem rozkładu wyników pozyskanych w trakcie stosowania narzędzia oraz korygować, uzupełniać lub dodawać opisy lub interpretacje dla poziomów wyników − w ten sposób narzędzie może być modyfikowane na potrzeby grup docelowych, społeczności czy firm. Dodatkowo dowolnie można korygować program warsztatów wyjazdowych, reagując na specyficzne potrzeby grupy, okoliczności lokalnego rynku pracy czy wskaźniki innych projektów realizowanych z zastosowaniem tego narzędzia. Zakres zmian jest nieograniczony i zależy od inwencji trenera, jednak każdorazowo należy pamiętać o komplementarności wsparcia z pozostałymi narzędziami i krokami modelu. 1.3. Model PRZYŚPIESZENIA rozwoju pracownika Model Przyśpieszenia Rozwoju Pracownika rozumiany jako modelowy schemat działań jest produktem finalnym w zakresie rozwiązań edukacyjnych. Model to pakiet narzędzi do szybkiej edukacji i reorientacji zawodowej opartej na metodzie Colina Rosa z portalem edukacyjnym e-Reorientacja, szkoleniami wyjazdowymi Reorientacja – Grupy. Model Przyśpieszenia Rozwoju Pracownika − aplikacja zdalna wraz z programem wyjazdów Reorientacja – Grupy. Program komputerowy wraz z aplikacją zdalną zintegrowany z Drzewem Ekwiwalentów oraz Treningiem Sterowności w formie portalu edukacyjnego kojarzącego kompetencje formalne oraz alternatywne i nieformalne (ekwiwalenty zmiany) z Drzewa Ekwiwalentów w modelu szybkich szkoleń usamodzielniających. Program jest produktem finalnym w zakresie rozwiązań przyśpieszenia reorientacji. Model powstał jako odpowiedź na konieczność opracowania „samoobsługowych" metod szkoleniowych, jednocześnie bardziej dostępnych dla pracujących. Pracodawcy korzystający z outplacementu nie akceptują faktu absorbowania szkoleniami pracowników w trakcie pracy, co wydłuża proces outplacementu. Konieczne są rozwiązania zdalne przyśpieszające szkolenie pracujących, dzięki czemu zwiększy się ich udział w usługach rynku pracy w modelu rozgrupowanym, co bardziej odpowiada realiom podlaskiej gospodarki oraz celom strategii e-Podlaskie w zakresie e-Edukacji. Model ten skierowany jest do pracowników, osób zagrożonych zwolnieniem lub na wypowiedzeniu, a także do osób bezrobotnych. Innowacja tego modelu związana jest z zaadaptowaniem w nowym obszarze wsparcia metody Colina Rosa (szybkie i samodzielne wewnątrzsterowne uczenie się) do reorientacji zawodowej oraz treningu sterowności w obszarach zawodowych. Przyśpieszenie edukacji osób 54 Rozdział 1. mało dyspozycyjnych (okres wypowiedzenia) i umożliwienie im nauki po pracy lub w domu zwiększa dostępność usług outplacementu oraz chroni przed przerwą w aktywności zawodowej. Innowacją tego modelu jest także unikalne łączenie edukacji zdalnej z warsztatami wyjazdowymi (integracyjnymi) z udziałem doradców zawodowych, psychologów oraz autorów opracowań zdalnych dostępnych na platformie edukacyjnej. Model ten finalizuje dwa poprzednie produkty związane ze wsparciem procesu reorientacji zawodowej zwalnianego pracownika, jakimi są: (PF1): Model Ekwiwalentów Pracownika oraz (PF5): Model Sterowności Pracownika. Narzędzia te współpracują według logiki działania: oceń zasoby podejmij strategiczne decyzje na podstawie wyników oceny rozwijaj szybciej swoje zasoby w kierunkach dostosowanych do własnych możliwości i sytuacji rynkowej. Dlatego też narzędzia te należy stosować łącznie w celu pełnego wykorzystania ich potencjału, zgodnie z poniższym schematem: Obok metody nauki zdalnej (e-learning) w narzędziu oferowana jest komplementarnie metoda treningu zawodowego oraz planowania kariery w zakresie wybranych modułów zawodowych z udziałem mistrzów zawodu (autorów opracowań) oraz doradców i trenerów pracujących z klientem na etapach bilansu ekwiwalentów oraz treningu psychologicznego zwiększającego samodzielność i sterowność pracownika. Konstrukcja platformy edukacyjnej wymusza podejmowanie decyzji przez ucznia, planowanie własnej aktywności edukacyjnej, zarządzanie czasem a przede wszystkim trenuje odpowiedzialność i sprawczość poprzez techniki aktywizujące na platformie społecznościowej. Model Przyśpieszenia Rozwoju Pracownika jest programem komputerowym, a także aplikacją zdalną w zakresie rozwiązań edukacyjnych (wsparcie edukacji i samokształcenia) w procesie poszukiwania nowych możliwości pracy czy zatrudnienia w czasach kryzysu. Są to zatem narzędzia kierowane do pracowników zagrożonych utratą pracy, zwolnionych oraz pozostających w okresie wypowiedzenia, czy też wreszcie planowanych do przesunięć na inne stanowiska pracy. Model ten powstał w odpowiedzi na konieczność opracowania „samoobsługowych" metod 55 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika szkoleniowych, jednocześnie bardziej dostępnych dla pracujących. Pracodawcy korzystający z outplacementu nie akceptują faktu absorbowania szkoleniami pracowników w trakcie pracy, co wydłuża proces outplacementu. Konieczne są rozwiązania zdalne przyśpieszające szkolenie pracujących dzięki czemu zwiększy się ich udział w usługach rynku pracy w modelu rozgrupowanym, co bardziej odpowiada realiom podlaskiej gospodarki oraz celom strategii e-Podlaskie w zakresie e-Edukacji. ELEMENTY modelu W ramach trzeciego etapu modelu zaproponowano pakiet narzędzi związanych z przyśpieszonym uczeniem się pracownika z wykorzystaniem metody Colina Rose w reorientacji zawodowej. Metoda ta dodatkowo wzmacnia sterowność pracownika, bazując na autonomii w uczeniu się oraz dostosowaniu tempa i hamornogramu nauki do specyficznych potrzeb i predyspozycji pracownika, ułatwiając łączenie naukę nauki nowego zawodu z pracą w przypadku okresu wypowiedzenia. Narzędzia opracowano w dwóch wersjach: w wersji OFF-line w postaci programu komputerowego do zastosowań w firmie w przypadku zwolnień monitorowanych lub w instytucji szkoleniowej, bez konieczności korzystania z Internetu oraz w wersji ON-line w postaci specjalnej platformy internetowej zwiększającej dostępność klientów i pracowników do narzędzi oceny. W dalszej części rozdziału przedstawiono poszczególne wersje narzędzia wraz z warunkami ich zastosowania. PROGRAM KOMPUTEROWY Reorientacja (OFF-line) Program komputerowy Reorientacja to prosty panel kierujący użytkownika programu komputerowego (zarówno w strefie Firma, jak i w strefie Pracownik) do oferty platformy zdalnej. Dodatkowo obok oferty 5 kursów zdalnych panel przekierowania oferuje opisy tych kursów w formie zestawień bloków tematycznych składających się na każdy kurs. Po wybraniu kursu w oknie panelu, użytkownik może zapoznać się z jego ofertą oraz połączyć się bezpośrednio z platformą edukacyjną. Połączenie panelu z pozostałymi funkcjami programu komputerowego łączy spójnie wszystkie trzy kroki modeli outplacementu, zamykając logiczną strukturę wsparcia. W tym przypadku funkcja ta może ograniczać się do przekierowania zainteresowanego użytkownika bezpośrednio do platformy edukacyjnej z pełną funkcjonalnością charakterystyczną dla platform e-learningowych. W dalszych pracach rozwojowych nad narzędziem możliwe jest wykorzystanie kart rejestracyjnych klientów 56 Rozdział 1. programu komputerowego do automatycznego rejestrowania klienta w platformie edukacyjnej z opcją (fakultatywną) przeniesienia danych (eksportu) z ocen i kwestionariuszy do bazy danych platformy. KONTENT ZDALNY e-Reorientacja (ON-line) Opracowany został portal zdalnej nauki na potrzeby przyjętego planu działania e-Reorientacja, komunikacji i współpracy z opiekunami zdalnymi szkoleń oraz psychologami wspierającymi trening sterowności w ramach e-Treningu Sterowności. Opracowanie narzędzia w formie komputerowej aplikacji internetowej ułatwiło samodzielne zastosowanie narzędzia przez grupę docelową, co zwiększa szanse jego zastosowań, gdy osoba pracująca nie chce lub nie może korzystać z tradycyjnych szkoleń i doradztwa edukacyjnego. W ramach portalu dostępnych jest 5 kontentów do 5 zawodów (księgowość, telepraca, projektowanie stron www, grafika komputerowa, obsługa sekretariatu). W ramach testu opracowano treści programowe, ćwiczenia, materiały szkoleniowe zgodnie z metodologią Colina Rosa. Opracowanie aplikacji realizuje założenia e-EDUKACJI w zakresie udostępniania treści i narzędzi dla wszystkich mieszkańców województwa podlaskiego, w szczególności zamieszkujących obszary o słabej infrastrukturze edukacyjnej, co stanowi wartość dodaną narzędzia. Wersja internetowa zwiększa dostępność narzędzia, które może być zastosowane przez pracownika (klienta) w dowolnym czasie i miejscu. Obok walorów typowych dla programu komputerowego (wszystkie materiały szkoleniowe w jednym miejscu) oferuje ona dodatkowe korzyści związane ze społecznościowym charakterem narzędzia (szkolenie jest wpisane w proces społeczny, wzajemne motywowanie, moderator szkolenia). Osoba chcąca korzystać z aplikacji powinna wejść na stronę http://www.innowacjenazakrecie.pl, następnie wybrać strefę Pracownik i zakładkę Platforma. Aplikacja zdalna umożliwia nadanie uprawnień trenera dla zarządzających procesem nauki zdalnej (opiekunowie konwentów) udzielających dodatkowego wsparcia poprzez komunikatory (mail, skype). Program automatycznie generuje adresy wysyłkowe oraz połączenia telefoniczne, korzystając z danych zawartych w formularzach rejestracyjnych opiekunów i uczestników grup szkoleniowych. W dalszych pracach rozwojowych nad narzędziem można wykorzystać bramki sms do powiadamiania uczestników grupy o ważnych wydarzeniach lub komunikatory skype automatycznie łączące rozmowy pomiędzy uczestnikami grup szkoleniowych (warsztatów wyjazdowych). Moduł e-Reorientacji składa się z 5 kontentów szkoleń zdalnych oraz dodatkowo z 4 narzędzi zarządzania procesem szkoleń zdalnych oraz 57 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika wspierających wymianę wiedzy pomiędzy członkami grup szkoleniowych na zasadzie intermentoringu. SZKOLENIA ZAWODOWE oferowane w wersji zdalnej opracowano z mistrzami zawodu i specjalistami. Materiały dydaktyczne i prezentacje, testy i sprawdziany ukazują praktyczne zagadnienia następujących zawodów: KSIĘGOWOŚĆ – kurs zawiera 11 tematów (modułów) oraz 18 lekcji wraz z materiałami szkoleniowymi i testami dla każdego modułu. PROGRAM KURSU: Moduł 1: Podstawowe informacje o rachunkowości, środki gospodarcze; Lekcja 1. Rachunkowość − definicja, zakres, zasady; Lekcja 2. Środki gospodarcze oraz źródła ich finansowania; Moduł 2: Budowa i zasady funkcjonowania konta księgowego, zasady prowadzenia ksiąg rachunkowych; Lekcja 3. Ewidencja operacji gospodarczych; Lekcja 4. Zasady prowadzenia ksiąg rachunkowych; Moduł 3: Środki pieniężne jako składnik majątku obrotowego; Lekcja 5. Aktywa pieniężne i ich ewidencja; Lekcja 6. Podatek od towarów i usług; Moduł 4: Podstawowe informacje o aktywach obrotowych, podatku od towarów i usług; Lekcja 7. Wycena i ewidencja rzeczowych aktywów trwałych; Lekcja 8. Rzeczowe aktywa obrotowe – zapasy; Moduł 5: Określenie wartości firmy, rozrachunków z dostawcami, odbiorcami i urzędami; Lekcja 9. Wartości niematerialne i prawne; Lekcja 10. Rozrachunki w księgach rachunkowych; Moduł 6: Działalność operacyjna jednostki, sprawozdania finansowe; Lekcja 11. Przychody podstawowej działalności operacyjnej; Lekcja 12. Podatek dochodowy od osób prawnych; Moduł 7: Instalacja programu Comarch ERP Opt!ma; Lekcja 13. Rozpoczęcie pracy z programem Comarch ERP Optima; Moduł 8: Rozpoczęcie pracy z programem Comarch ERP Optima; Lekcja 14. Konfiguracja programu Comarch ERP Optima; Moduł 9: Moduł Kasa/Bank; Lekcja 15. Moduł Kasa/Bank; Moduł 10: Księga Handlowa i Środki Trwałe. Lekcja 16. Księga Handlowa i Środki Trwałe; Lekcja 17. Księga Podatkowa; Moduł 11: Moduł Książka Przychodów i Rozchodów; Lekcja 18. Książka Przychodów i Rozchodów. TELEPRACA – kurs zawiera 9 tematów (modułów) oraz 30 lekcji wraz z materiałami szkoleniowymi i testami dla każdego modułu. PROGRAM KURSU: Moduł 1: Telepraca na świecie i w Polsce; Lekcja 1. Historia i rozwój telepracy; Lekcja 2. Telepraca z perspektywy rynku pracy; Lekcja 3. Praca zdalna a stosunki pracy; Moduł 2: Kodeks pracy a różne formy zatrudnienia; 58 Rozdział 1. Lekcja 4. Telepraca w prawodawstwie – kodeks pracy; Lekcja 5. Rozwiązania prawne dotyczące telepracy w Polsce; Moduł 3: Telepraca i jej formy organizacyjne; Lekcja 6. Pojęcie terminu telepraca, telepracodawca, telepracownik; Lekcja 7. Dziedziny zastosowania telepracy; Lekcja 8. Koncepcja elastycznej pracy; Lekcja 9. Formy organizacyjne i zasady stosowania telepracy; Moduł 4: Telepraca – korzyści i koszty dla pracodawcy; Lekcja 10. Korzyści dla pracodawcy; Lekcja 11. Korzyści dla pracującego; Lekcja 12. Korzyści makroekonomiczne; Lekcja 13. Wady i zalety telepracy; Moduł 5: Zarządzanie telepracownikami; Lekcja 14. Zmiana metod w zarządzaniu. Telezarządzanie – produkt, nie proces; Lekcja 15. Style i metody zarządzania telepracownikiem; Lekcja 16. Rekrutacja i dobór pracowników; Lekcja 17. Wpływ telepracy na zarządzanie zasobami ludzkimi. Motywowanie pracowników zdalnych; Moduł 6: Pomiary efektywności i wyników pracy zdalnej; Lekcja 18. Efektywność a styl pracy telepracownika; Lekcja 19. Telespotkania, telekonferencje i informacje zwrotne w pracy; Lekcja 20. Zaufanie w pracy: pracodawca – pracownik. Skoncentrowanie się na produkcie, czyli efekcie pracy; Moduł 7: Zasady bezpieczeństwa i higieny pracy; Lekcja 21. Telepraca a wymagania BHP; Lekcja 22. Niebezpieczeństwa dla pracodawców; Moduł 8: Telepraca w praktyce; Lekcja 23. Cechy socjodemograficzne telepracowników; Lekcja 24. Teleologie teleinformatyczne wykorzystywane w telepracy; Lekcja 25. Przyczyny wyboru pracy w systemie zdalnym; Lekcja 26. Telepraca dla osób niepełnosprawnych; Moduł 9: Zarządzanie bezpieczeństwem danych w pracy zdalnej; Lekcja 27. Polityka bezpieczeństwa IT; Lekcja 28. Systemy jakości i systemy bezpieczeństwa; Lekcja 29. Ochrona danych osobowych w pracy zdalnej; Lekcja 30. Kontrola systemu danych. PROJEKTOWANIE STRON WWW – kurs zawiera 10 tematów (modułów) oraz 40 lekcji wraz z materiałami szkoleniowymi i testami dla każdego modułu. PROGRAM KURSU: Moduł 1: Podstawowe informacje dotyczące budowy stron internetowych; Lekcja 1. Terminologia i składnia języka HTML; Lekcja 2. Elementy i semantyka języka HTML; Lekcja 3. Omówienie użytecznego oprogramowania; Lekcja 4. Struktura dokumentu HTML; Moduł 2: Struktura treści dokumentu HTML; Lekcja 5. Model pudełkowy; Lekcja 6. Klasy i identyfikatory; Lekcja 7. Nowe znaczniki semantyczne; Lekcja 8. Hiperłącza; Moduł 3: Elementy wizualne w dokumencie HTML; Lekcja 9. Elementy 59 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika graficzne, audio i wideo; Lekcja 10. Tabele; Lekcja 11. Formularze; Lekcja 12. Ramki pływające; Moduł 4: Wygląd dokumentu HTML; Lekcja 13. Kaskadowe arkusze stylów CSS; Lekcja 14. Definiowanie wyglądu przy użyciu arkusza CSS; Lekcja 15. Animacje i transformacje elementów; Lekcja 16. Dostosowywanie strony dla różnych rozdzielczości ekranu; Moduł 5: Elementy interaktywne i publikacja dokumentu HTML w Internecie; Lekcja 17. Wykorzystanie języka JavaScript; Lekcja 18. Podstawy SEO; Lekcja 19. Walidacja kodu HTML; Lekcja 20. Publikacja strony; Moduł 6: Tworzenie prostego dokumentu HTML; Lekcja 21. Prosty dokument HTML; Lekcja 22. Stosowanie nagłówków; Lekcja 23. Stosowanie akapitów; Lekcja 24. Stosowanie znaczników liniowych; Moduł 7: Tworzenie zaawansowanej struktury treści dokumentu HTML; Lekcja 25. Podział dokumentu na obszary; Lekcja 26. Nadawanie obszarom klas i identyfikatorów; Lekcja 27. Wykorzystanie nowych znaczników semantycznych; Lekcja 28. Tworzenie hiperłączy; Moduł 8: Dodawanie elementów wizualnych do dokumentu HTML; Lekcja 29. Dodawanie grafiki, plików audio i wideo; Lekcja 30. Tworzenie tabel; Lekcja 31. Tworzenie formularzy; Lekcja 32. Dodawanie ramek pływających z zewnętrzną zawartością; Moduł 9: Definiowanie wyglądu dokumentu HTML; Lekcja 33. Wykorzystanie kaskadowych arkuszy stylów CSS w praktyce; Lekcja 34. Definiowanie wyglądu przy użyciu arkusza CSS; Lekcja 35. Wprowadzanie animacji i transformacji elementów; Lekcja 36. Dostosowywanie strony dla różnych rozdzielczości ekranu; Moduł 10: Elementy interaktywne i publikacja dokumentu HTML w Internecie – ćwiczenia; Lekcja 37. Wykorzystanie podstawowych możliwości języka JavaScript; Lekcja 38. Optymalizacja dokumentu HTML; Lekcja 39. Walidowanie kodu dokumentu HTML; Lekcja 40. Publikowanie dokumentu HTML w Internecie. GRAFIKA KOMPUTEROWA – kurs zawiera 12 tematów (modułów) oraz 13 lekcji wraz z materiałami szkoleniowymi i testami dla każdego modułu. PROGRAM KURSU: Moduł 1: Grafika komputerowa; Lekcja 1. Definicja, historia, zastosowanie grafiki komputerowej; Lekcja 2. Grafika wektorowa i rastrowa; Moduł 2: Grafika komputerowa − istotne zagadnienia; Lekcja 3. Kolor; Moduł 3: Corel Draw – wprowadzenie; Lekcja 4. Corel Draw – wprowadzenie; Moduł 4: Rysowanie, Wypełnienia; Lekcja 5. Rysowanie, Wypełnienia; Moduł 5: Praca z tekstem; Lek60 Rozdział 1. cja 6. Praca z tekstem; Moduł 6: Interakcyjne efekty; Lekcja 7. Interakcyjne efekty; Moduł 7: Mapy bitowe, import, eksport; Lekcja 8. Mapy bitowe; Moduł 8: Adobe Photoshop – wprowadzenie; Lekcja 9. Adobe Photoshop – wprowadzenie; Moduł 9: Selekcja; Lekcja 10. Selekcja; Moduł 10: Warstwy; Lekcja 11. Warstwy; Moduł 11: Narzędzia malarskie i dopasowanie kolorystyczne; Lekcja 12. Narzędzia malarskie i dopasowanie kolorystyczne; Moduł 12: Tekst, filtry, optymalizacja obrazu; Lekcja 13. Tekst, filtry, optymalizacja obrazu. OBSŁUGA SEKRETARIATU – kurs zawiera 11 tematów (modułów) oraz 33 lekcje wraz z materiałami szkoleniowymi i testami dla każdego modułu. PROGRAM KURSU: Moduł 1: Zasady funkcjonowania sekretariatu; Lekcja 1. Miejsce sekretariatu w strukturze organizacyjnej firmy; Lekcja 2. Specjalistyczne wyposażenie sekretariatu; Lekcja 3. Charakterystyka pracy biurowej oraz rola sekretariatu w biurze, zasady savoir-vivre; Lekcja 4. Zadania i obowiązki sekretarki, cechy psychofizyczne, kultura osobista, elementy wizażu; Moduł 2: Organizacja stanowiska pracy i zarządzanie biurem; Lekcja 5. Planowanie, organizowanie, przywództwo i kontrolowanie pracy w sekretariacie. Funkcje i umiejętności kierownicze; Lekcja 6. Style kierowania; Moduł 3: Kreowanie wizerunku firmy; Lekcja 7. Budowanie pozytywnego wizerunku własnego oraz firmy – public relations; Lekcja 8. Zachowanie się w różnych okolicznościach. Reguły przyjmowania interesantów oraz gości; Moduł 4: Skuteczna komunikacja interpersonalna; Lekcja 9. Zasady efektywnej komunikacji; Lekcja 10. Komunikacja werbalna i niewerbalna; Lekcja 11. Bariery w komunikacji; Moduł 5: Obsługa klienta i udzielanie informacji; Lekcja 12. Kontakt bezpośredni z interesantem. Biznesowe rozmowy telefoniczne; Lekcja 13. Działania w przestrzeni biurowej. Przepisy bezpieczeństwa i higieny pracy; Moduł 6: Asertywność w biurze i umiejętność radzenia sobie w trudnych sytuacjach; Lekcja 14. Istota i zasady zachowań asertywnych. Postawa asertywna w zachowaniu i relacjach z innymi ludźmi; Lekcja 15. Asertywność w miejscu pracy. Asertywne wyrażanie poglądów; Lekcja 16. Skuteczna walka ze stresem. Opanowanie i dystans. Techniki radzenia ze stresem. Techniki radzenia ze zdenerwowanym klientem; Moduł 7: Redagowanie pism; Lekcja 17. Pojęcie i rodzaje pism; Lekcja 18. Zasady redagowania pism biurowych. Elementy składowe pisma; Lekcja 19. Blankiety korespondencyjne i adresowanie kopert; Lekcja 20. 61 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika Protokoły, sprawozdania, notatki służbowe; Moduł 8: Organizacja obiegu korespondencji w firmie; Lekcja 21. Instrukcja kancelaryjna. Systemy kancelaryjne; Lekcja 22. Dziennik korespondencyjny; Lekcja 23. Przechowywanie i archiwizowanie dokumentów; Moduł 9: Korespondencja przychodząca i wychodząca z firmy; Lekcja 24. Przyjmowanie, otwieranie, sprawdzanie korespondencji; Lekcja 25. Wysyłanie korespondencji; Lekcja 26. Obsługa przesyłek przychodzących i wychodzących z firmy; Moduł 10: Korespondencja służbowa; Lekcja 27. Korespondencja w sprawach osobowych i administracyjnych; Lekcja 28. Korespondencja w sprawach handlowych i transportowych.; Lekcja 29. Korespondencja w sprawach finansowych; Lekcja 30. Korespondencja tajna i poufna; Moduł 11: Organizacja spotkań służbowych; Lekcja 31. Typy spotkań firmowych. Organizacja zebrań; Lekcja 32. Organizacja konferencji. Relacje biznesowe podczas ważnych spotkań; Lekcja 33. Organizacja podróży służbowych. NARZĘDZIA EDUKACYJNE, materiały szkoleniowe obok walorów narzędzia komputerowego oferują dodatkowe korzyści platformy internetowej: FORUM – to narzędzie komunikacyjne pozwalające zamieszczać użytkownikom swoje wypowiedzi, porządkować je ze względu na temat (czyli rozpoczynać nowe wątki i wypowiadać się w wątkach już istniejących) oraz komentować wypowiedzi innych uczestników. Jest to forma wypowiedzi zazwyczaj publiczna i bez ograniczeń czasowych − każdy może przejrzeć wątki forum wtedy, kiedy jest mu wygodnie − miejsce wymiany informacji i poglądów przez uczestników grupy szkoleniowej. OPIS KURSU – to narzędzie motywujące do udziału w kursie. W krótkiej formie opisuje cele kursu oraz znaczenie zawodu na rynku pracy. MODUŁY – to narzędzie porządkujące moduły (tematy) kursu. Uczestnik kursu zalicza kolejne moduły poprzez realizowanie składających się na nie lekcji. Każdy moduł kończy się testem, a jego zaliczenie jest warunkiem przejścia do kolejnego modułu. OPIS MODUŁU – to narzędzie służące do zapoznania się z celem edukacyjnym, zawartością każdego modułu poprzez krótki opis. MATERIAŁY – to narzędzie do gromadzenia informacji na temat danego modułu. Materiały multimedialne, szkoleniowe oraz 62 Rozdział 1. informacyjne przyporządkowane są do modułów. Narzędzie umożliwia nie tylko przeglądanie materiałów, lecz także gromadzenie i porządkowanie nowych dokumentów. TEST – to narzędzie do sprawdzenia wiedzy na koniec modułu. Zaliczenie testu jest warunkiem przejścia do kolejnego modułu. Narzędzie oferuje przyjazny sposób odpowiadania na pytania testu z paskiem postępu ukazującym stan realizacji testu. WYNIKI – to narzędzie porządkowania informacji o postępach edukacyjnych i zakończonych modułach i lekcjach, które są prezentowane w formie wyników z testów. Funkcjonalność narzędzia korzysta ze sprawdzonych i popularnych rozwiązań portali społecznościowych (co zwiększa przyjazność narzędzia) oraz realizuje postulaty metody Colina Rosa w zakresie zwiększania sterowności (poczucia kontroli wewnętrznej, odpowiedzialności, samodzielności i przedsiębiorczości) uczestników procesu edukacyjnego. Elastyczność narzędzia umożliwia dostosowanie tempa i czasu edukacji do indywidualnych predyspozycji związanych z trybem życia lub wiekiem, co zwiększa efektywność nauki oraz umożliwia godzenie życia zawodowego i rodzinnego. Narzędzia zdalne opracowano i przygotowano jako uzupełnienie tradycyjnych warsztatów treningowych, zgodnie z rekomendacjami Colina Rosa oraz metodą blended learning. WARSZTATY WYJAZDOWE Reorientacja – Grupy Opracowany i testowany był program warsztatów wyjazdowych Reorientacja – Grupy. Przygotowano cztery dwudniowe warsztaty realizowane w odstępach średnio comiesięcznych. Warsztaty te przeplatane są z warsztatami Trening Sterowności, czyli z drugim krokiem modelu (PF5). Realizacja szkoleń wyjazdowych w formie zjazdów realizowanych w odstępach średnio comiesięcznych, w formie grupowej (tradycyjnej, bezpośredniej) jest koniecznym uzupełnieniem szkoleń zawodowych prowadzonych zgodnie z metodologią Colina Rosa. Zajęcia miały dodatkowo charakter integracyjny, realizujący zadania grup wsparcia dla osób w kryzysie, co uzasadnia koszty związane z dojazdem na zajęcia psychologiczne. Zajęcia realizowane w formie wyjazdowej, w miejscu sprzyjającym relaksowi, z dala od stresogennego środowiska dotkniętego kryzysem, restrukturyzacją, miały charakter terapeutyczny. W ramach każdego warsztatu oprócz zajęć merytorycznych przewidziano czas na relaks i kontakt z przyrodą. Warsztaty pełniły też dodatkowo funkcję zajęć praktycznych 63 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika uzupełniających naukę teoretyczną, co zwiększa efektywność całego narzędzia. Uczestnicy mogli z udziałem autora opracowania zdalnego (mistrza zawodu, specjalisty, trenera) ćwiczyć praktyczne umiejętności, w tym manualne, związane z danym zawodem. UŻYTKOWNICY, którzy mogą stosować narzędzie Narzędzie było używane przez pracowników modernizowanych firm i osoby bezrobotne, które zgłosiły chęć udziału w Teście ESP_Pracownik. W testowanym modelu zapewniono pomoc opiekuna zdalnego, trenera. Testowane były rozwiązania zdalnych usług edukacyjnych oraz harmonogramu (zdalnego, grupowego) dostosowanego do dyspozycyjności osoby pracującej lub intensywnie poszukującej pracy, jako alternatywa do szkoleń tradycyjnych uniemożliwiających działania na rynku pracy. Dodatkowo w ramach projektu zapewniono udział trenerów opracowujących materiały szkoleniowe jako trenerów na zjazdach i opiekunów kontentów, pełniących dyżury zdalne. Narzędzie używane było przez pracowników modernizowanych firm z udziałem trenera osobistego, także w formule opiekuna zdalnego. Docelowo, po zakończeniu projektu, narzędzie kierowane jest do: Trenerów zawodu, e-edukatorów, pracowników instytucji szkoleniowych oraz innych osób zajmujących się promocją kształcenia ustawicznego i szkoleń e-learningowych. Doradców zawodowych, trenerów osobistych, doradców kariery oraz pośredników pracy, pracowników środowiskowych oraz innych specjalistów instytucji rynku pracy, instytucji szkoleniowych oraz pomocy społecznej – osób wspierających proces reorientacji zawodowej osób zwalnianych z pracy. Narzędzie zostało przygotowane w taki sposób, że nie wymaga angażowania specjalistów z uprawnieniami do stosowania narzędzi psychometrycznych. Pracowników zatrudnionych w modernizowanej, restrukturyzowanej firmie rozumianych jako uczestników oceny kompetencji w modernizowanej firmie w ramach oceny obligatoryjnej (ocena okresowa, przygotowanie do przesunięć w ramach formy lub zwolnień) oraz spontanicznie dokonujących oceny w ramach oceny fakultatywnej (planowanie własnego rozwoju w firmie) – w tym przypadku narzędzie jest uzupełnieniem i wspiera model outplacementu wewnętrznego, w szczególności portal Intermentoringu (PF3). 64 Rozdział 1. Byłych pracowników oraz pracowników w okresie wypowiedzenia poszukujących nowych kierunków rozwoju zawodowego – planowanie reorientacji zawodowej. Ta grupa użytkowników narzędzia wykracza poza grupę docelową wskazaną w strategii wdrażania projektu innowacyjnego i ukazuje szersze, nowe zastosowania narzędzia w obszarach wykraczających poza usługi instytucji rynku pracy (rekrutacja personelu, rozwój firmy, indywidualny rozwój pracowników, instytucje pomocy społecznej oraz instytucje szkoleniowe). Obszary te i związane z nimi grupy użytkowników rekomendowane zostały przez uczestników testu oraz w drodze ewaluacji produktu finalnego. DZIAŁANIA i NAKŁADY niezbędne do zastosowania narzędzia Narzędzia opracowane są w taki sposób, by mogły mieć zastosowanie przez psychologów z instytucji rynku pracy czy NGO bez konieczności zmiany przepisów prawa. By poprawnie użytkować narzędzie, warto dodatkowo zapewnić zdalną opiekę trenera. W celu wykorzystania produktu finalnego w formie aplikacji przez osobę pracującą, zagrożoną bezrobociem, w okresie wypowiedzenia lub bezrobotną nie jest konieczne ponoszenie dodatkowych nakładów finansowych. Osoba taka musi jednak przynajmniej w minimalnym zakresie posługiwać się komputerem i posiadać aktywny adres e-mail Wskazane jest także zaangażowanie zdalnego opiekuna kursu do zarządzania narzędziem oraz wsparcia uczestników (wsparcie indywidualne poprzez mail i skype, pomoc techniczna, komentarze przy skrajnych wynikach, odpowiedzi na pytania klientów dotyczące przedmiotu szkolenia). Koszt zaangażowania zdalnego opiekuna dla 30 użytkowników platformy może być ograniczony do minimum, jeżeli organizacja administrująca portalem doradczym ma specjalistę na etacie (oddelegowanie w 1/8 etatu). Miesięczny koszt zaangażowania zdalnego opiekuna nie powinien przekroczyć kosztu 16 godzin pracy specjalisty w danym regionie i może być ograniczony do okresu funkcjonowania platformy (na przykład w ramach konkretnego projektu lub akcji sezonowej). Koszt ten można też minimalizować dzięki zleceniu opieki zdalnej trenerom prowadzącym wyjazdowe warsztaty edukacyjne, jako dodatkowe zadanie. Dodatkowym kosztem są szkolenia wyjazdowe w ośrodkach wypoczynkowo-edukacyjnych lub ośrodkach kształcenia praktycznego. W tym przypadku koszty będą się wahać w zależności od standardu ośrodka, okresu realizacji (ceny sezonowe) oraz liczebności grup. Koszt jednorazowego zjazdu z wyżywieniem i transportem 20-osobowej grupy może 65 Innowacyjny model wsparcia pracownika nie przekroczyć 200 PLN za udział jednej osoby. Wskazane jest łączenie narzędzia ze standardowymi projektami szkoleniowymi, wówczas koszty jego zastosowania mogą ograniczyć się do czasu pracy opiekuna zdalnego oraz standardowych kosztów administrowania portalem (wynajęcie serwera, pomoc techniczna). Możliwe MODYFIKACJE i zmiany narzędzia Model Przyśpieszenia Rozwoju Pracownika (PF6) można modyfikować, podobnie jak pozostałe zdalne narzędzia modelu, w zakresie typowym dla platform e-learningowych. Narzędzia stanowiące produkt finalny można modyfikować. W zakresie treści merytorycznych dokonać tego powinni specjaliści, eksperci z danej dziedziny, trenerzy. Osoby te powinny być odpowiedzialne za przygotowanie treści merytorycznych i przekazanie ich administratorowi platformy. Dodatkowo w celu wprowadzenia modyfikacji od strony technicznej niezbędna jest specjalistyczna wiedza informatyczna pozwalająca na odpowiednie modyfikacje w środowisku informatycznym (stąd też przede wszystkim nie jest zalecana modyfikacja narzędzia, a jedynie sposób jego wykorzystania). Osoby takie mogą otrzymać specjalny status administratora platformy edukacyjnej, z możliwością korekty treści edukacyjnych lub testów (stałe elementy stanowiące bazę edukacyjną kursu). Ponadto każdy opiekun kontentu ma możliwość przygotowywania dodatkowych materiałów szkoleniowych na życzenie uczestników szkolenia. W celu wprowadzenia modyfikacji od strony technicznej niezbędna jest specjalistyczna wiedza informatyczna pozwalająca na odpowiednie modyfikacje w środowisku informatycznym. Modyfikacje materiałów szkoleniowych uwzględniają potencjał sieci wiedzy użytkowników internetowej wersji narzędzia, doskonalących i rozwijających narzędzie bazowe. Zatem konstrukcja narzędzia uwzględnia daleko idące modyfikacje ostatecznych kwestionariuszy, w zakresie, jaki nie jest możliwy do osiągnięcia w przypadku tradycyjnych opracowań bazujących na „formach papierowych" materiałów szkoleniowych. Zakres modyfikacji i uprawnienia użytkowników do realnego wprowadzania zmian jako alternatywy do możliwości zgłaszania przez instytucje doradcze lub klientów potrzeb zmian czy nowych opracowań zależeć będzie w istocie od docelowego administratora platformy, który określi charakter dalszych działań rozwojowych. Instytucja pełniąca rolę przyszłego administratora platformy powinna być ściśle związana z instytucjami działającymi na rzecz grupy docelowej, projektodawcami, doradcami zawodowymi (na przykład stowarzyszenia doradców zawodowych, fora organizacji i specjalistów) oraz instytucji szkoleniowych, co zapewni zaplecze do zajęć praktycz66 Rozdział 1. nych oraz doradcze wsparcie procesu edukacyjnego i całego procesu reorientacji. Dodatkowo dowolnie można korygować program warsztatów wyjazdowych, reagując na specyficzne potrzeby grupy, okoliczności lokalnego rynku pracy czy wskaźniki innych projektów realizowanych z zastosowaniem tego narzędzia. Zakres zmian jest nieograniczony i zależy od inwencji trenera, jednak każdorazowo należy pamiętać o komplementarności wsparcia z pozostałymi narzędziami i krokami modelu. ROZDZIAŁ 2. UZASADNIENIE I OCENA MODELU 2.1. Bariery i potrzeby outplacementu podlaskich pracowników Rozdział ten stanowi podsumowanie badań jakościowych i ilościowych, które zostały przeprowadzone w odniesieniu do tematu wdrażania outplacementu w organizacjach, wśród pracowników i byłych pracowników organizacji oraz przedstawicieli instytucji wspierających rynek pracy z województwa podlaskiego. W oparciu o analizę literatury przedmiotu przyjęto, że w ramach metod wspierających osoby zagrożone bezrobociem pracodawcy oprócz usług doradczo-szkoleniowych, obejmujących doradztwo zawodowe i szkolenia przekwalifikujące, powinni udzielać także wsparcia psychologicznego ułatwiającego poradzenie sobie z sytuacją trudną, zarówno w kontekście wyzwań zawodowych, jak i osobistych. Celem głównym badań była identyfikacja barier i potencjałów rozwoju narzędzi outplacementowych w podlaskich przedsiębiorstwach. Wyniki badania mają być podstawą do opracowania tzw. innowacyjnych produktów finalnych w ramach obszarów wsparcia pracowników. Badania przeprowadzone metodą CATI (ang. Computer Assisted Telephone Interview) zostały zrealizowane w okresie od października do listopada 2012 roku. Objęły one 200 osób reprezentujących dwie grupy osób obecnych na rynku pracy. Mianowicie: pracowników przedsiębiorstw i osób bezrobotnych z doświadczeniem zwolnienia z pracy. Ze względu na specyfikę badań dotyczących zagadnienia outplacementu w doborze respondentów za istotne przyjęto wskazanie kryteriów, jakimi są wiek i płeć. Ze względu na to badaniami zostali objęci pracownicy, w przypadku których sytuacja na rynku pracy najczęściej jest szczególnie trudna, a zatem mogą być też potencjalnie wspierani przez instrumenty programów outplacementowych. Grupy te to: kobiety, które bardzo często ze względu na macierzyństwo „są większym kosztem" dla pracodawcy i są zwalniane w przypadku poszukiwania pierwszych oszczędności. Ponadto kobiety, po68 Rozdział 2. nieważ pełnią jednocześnie role rodzinne i opiekuńcze, mają utrudniony dostęp do usług outplacementowych często realizowanych poza godzinami pracy. Są to też niekiedy osoby samotnie wychowujące co najmniej jedno dziecko, które mogą być postrzegane jako niepoświęcające wystarczającej uwagi pracy w stosunku do obowiązków rodzicielskich; osoby w wieku 50+, które są postrzegane jako posiadające nieaktualną wiedzę i umiejętności, niestanowiące rdzenia działalności organizacji oraz jako osoby, które wkrótce i tak przypuszczalnie odejdą na emeryturę; osoby z krótkim stażem pracy w danej firmie, w tym osoby –25. Zachodzi co do nich przypuszczenie, że nie są jeszcze zbyt dobrze zintegrowane z działalnością organizacji i że będą w stanie znaleźć sobie inną pracę. Powyższe grupy są nie tylko w trudniejszej niż pozostałe sytuacji na rynku pracy, lecz także narażone na zwolnienia, a co za tym idzie, uzasadnione jest ich wsparcie jeszcze na etapie wymówienia pracy przez pracodawcę czy w momencie, gdy istnieje duże potencjalne ryzyko zwolnienia. Badania jakościowe stanowiły uzupełnienie badań ilościowych. Zostały one przeprowadzane metodą zogniskowanych wywiadów grupowych (ang. Focus Group Interview – FGI). Zarówno jedne, jak i drugie badania były realizowane w okresie od listopada do grudnia 2012 r. W ramach badania FGI przeprowadzono 3 wywiady. Uczestnikami wywiadów byli: a) w obszarze dotyczącym oceny oferowanego pracownikom wsparcia psychologicznego oraz oceny stopnia efektywności wsparcia psychologicznego − osoby pracujące jako psycholodzy; b) w obszarze oceny działań z zakresu doradztwa zawodowego oferowanego pracownikom oraz oceny stopnia zainteresowania pracowników wsparciem doradczym umożliwiających bilansowanie kompetencji i potwierdzaniem kwalifikacji nieformalnych − doradcy zawodowi, c) w obszarze oceny wsparcia szkoleniowego oferowanego pracownikom oraz oceny stopnia zainteresowania pracowników wsparciem szkoleniowym umożliwiających bilansowanie kompetencji i potwierdzaniem kwalifikacji nieformalnych − pracownicy firm oraz osoby pracujące jako trenerzy. Przed przystąpieniem do opisu wyników badań niezbędne jest bliższe opisanie respondentów. W pierwszej kolejności pytano o status zawodowy i przynależność do wybranych trzech kategorii osób znajdujących się na rynku pracy. 69 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Status zawodowy 66,0% uczestników badania to osoby pracujące. W grupie tej przeważali mężczyźni (71,4%). Wśród osób bezrobotnych z doświadczeniem zawodowym nieznacznie przeważały natomiast kobiety, stanowiły 36,9% tej części próby. Jeśli chodzi o wybrane w kontekście projektu kategorie osób w szczególnej sytuacji na rynku pracy, to główną część respondentów stanowiły osoby w wieku 50+ (40%), następnie osoby z krótkim stażem pracy w firmie (34%) oraz kobiety wychowujące dzieci (26%). Jednocześnie w dwu pierwszych grupach przeważali mężczyźni – odpowiednio 55,7% oraz 44,3%. Ogólnie wśród respondentów w strukturze próby przeważały kobiety: 130 z 200 osób (65%), wobec 70 mężczyzn (35%). Pod względem wieku najliczniejsze były dwie grupy: od 26 do 30 lat (25,5%, jednocześnie tu wystąpiła przewaga kobiet 29,2%) oraz osób od 51 do 55 lat (23,5%, z przewagą mężczyzn 31,4%). Jeśli chodzi o miejsce zamieszkania i miejsce pracy, to w obu przypadkach przeważał Białystok (odpowiednio 56,5% i 37,5%). Istotne miejsca stanowiły też Sokółka (12,0% i 5,5%) i Wasilków (11% i 4,5%). Pozostali uczestnicy wskazywali na inne miejscowości, przy czym respondenci byli bardziej zróżnicowani pod względem miejsca zatrudnienia niż zamieszkania. Pod względem wykształcenia wśród respondentów przeważały osoby, które ukończyły studia wyższe (53,0%) oraz te, które zdobyły w toku edukacji wykształcenie średnie (18%). Wśród osób z wykształceniem wyższym przeważały kobiety (60,8%). Jeśli chodzi o zawód uzyskany, to respondenci wskazywali głównie na zawody typowo ekonomiczne (około 28 osób), pedagogiczne (około 9 nauczycieli) oraz prawnicze (7) i administracyjne (6). W dalszej kolejności były to profesje techniczne i rzemieślnicze (m.in. elektryk, mechanik, ślusarz, cukiernik, krawcowa). Tymczasem w odpowiedzi na pytanie o wykonywany zawód, respondenci wskazywali głównie na nazwy swoich stanowisk w organizacjach. Przeważali tu pracownicy niższego szczebla w działach produkcyjnych, administracyjnych i biurowych, jak również osoby zajmujące się księgowością (około 18), sprzedażą towarów (13), elektrycy (7), nauczyciele (7), sekretarki (6), kucharze (5), spawacze (5) i różnego rodzaju specjaliści oraz technicy. Osoby, które przy wstępie do ankiety podały, że są bezrobotne, dopytano dodatkowo o ich rejestrację w powiatowym urzędzie pracy. Okazuje się, że osoby takie stanowią 60,3% tej kategorii społecznej. Mężczyźni są w tej kwestii mniej podzieleni niż kobiety – 70% spośród panów i 56,3% spośród pań rejestruje się w urzędzie pracy. Ponadto wśród 70 Rozdział 2. bezrobotnych przeważają osoby krótkotrwale pozbawione pracy, mianowicie: od około 1 miesiąca (5 osób), 2-5 miesięcy (16), od 6 do 12 miesięcy (6) oraz około 1 roku (19). Pracy od 1 do 2 lat nie ma 14 osób, a powyżej 2 lat − 7 osób. Zatrudnionym spośród respondentów zadano szereg dodatkowych pytań. Pierwsze dotyczyło długości stażu pracy w obecnym miejscu zatrudnienia. Wynosił on przeważnie 5 lat i więcej (32%) oraz od 2 do 5 lat (12,5%). Pracujący zostali też zapytani o to, czy w ciągu dotychczasowej kariery zawodowej byli pozbawieni pracy i zarejestrowani w powiatowym urzędzie pracy. Okazuje się, że 66,7% spośród tych osób takiego doświadczenia nie posiada. Nie ma tu większych różnic w rozkładzie odpowiedzi ze względu na płeć. Dodatkowo zapytano o okres, w jakim osoby te miały status bezrobotnych na rynku pracy. Dominujące okresy, na jakie wskazywano, stanowiły kolejno: lata 2001-2005 (11 osób), 2006-2007 (10) 1990-1995 (7), 2008-2012 (4) oraz 1996-2000 (3). Pracujących zapytano ponadto o ich obecną sytuację zawodową w firmie, w której są zatrudnieni. Zdecydowana większość osób była zatrudniona na podstawie umowy o pracę (87,1%). Nie było osób, które jednoznacznie wiedziały, że znajdują się w trybie wypowiedzenia umowy. Jeśli chodzi o wielkość zakładu pracy, w których pracowali respondenci, to przeważały przedsiębiorstwa zatrudniające od 50 do 149 osób (40,9%) oraz od 10 do 49 pracowników (25%). Podmioty, w których pracowali badani, zostały podzielone na: rzemiosło, kluczowe branże województwa podlaskiego, startery podlaskiej gospodarki i sektor publiczny. Druga i trzecia kategoria przedsiębiorstw zostały wyodrębnione zgodnie z branżami, które dotyczą prowadzonych przez Wojewódzki Urząd Pracy w Białymstoku badań w ramach Podlaskiego Obserwatorium Rynku Pracy i Prognoz Gospodarczych. W podziale przedsiębiorstw, w których byli zatrudnieni respondenci, przeważały przedsiębiorstwa zakwalifikowane do sektora rzemiosła (34,1%, w tym 52% mężczyzn). Następnie były to firmy reprezentujące kluczowe branże województwie podlaskiego (28%, w tym przeważały kobiety − 31,7%) oraz sektor publiczny (22,7%, w tym głównie kobiety − 30,5%). W sektorze rzemiosła przeważali pracownicy reprezentujący firmy z branży budowniczej, administracji, edukacji, przetwórstwa żywności oraz obróbki metalu i materiałów pokrewnych. Jeśli chodzi o kluczowe branże rozwoju województwa podlaskiego, to respondenci reprezentowali głównie branżę spożywczą, budowlaną i turystyczną. Spośród branż zaliczanych do starterów podlaskiej gospodarki najliczniejszą reprezen71 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu tację wśród respondentów miały kolejno firmy z sektora oprogramowania komputerowego, artykułów medycznych i sprzętu medycznego oraz handlu i usług elektronicznych. Reprezentanci sektora publicznego wywodzili się głównie z branży oświaty i edukacji, administracji publicznej oraz służby zdrowia. Uwzględniając podział na profil działalności, respondenci wskazywali przeważnie, że podmioty gospodarcze, w których są zatrudnieni, zajmują się świadczeniem usług (25,8%), produkcją (22,7%) i działalnością handlowo-usługową (15,9%). By wprowadzić respondentów w tematykę badania, poproszono ich o odpowiedź na pytanie o znajomość pojęcia outplacementu. Ponad połowa badanych stwierdziła, że pojęcie to jest dla nich zupełnie obce. Nie potrafili oni odnieść go do żadnej z proponowanych definicji tego zagadnienia. Co czwarty badany wskazał, że outplacement kojarzy mu się z rynkiem pracy i z zarządzaniem zasobami ludzkimi. Zaś 16% badanych wskazało, że spotkali się z tym pojęciem i mają wiedzę teoretyczną w tym zakresie. Jedynie 3 respondentów stwierdziło, że miało do czynienia z tym zagadnieniem, i to od strony praktycznej. Wykres 1. Znajomość pojęcia outplacement Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. Uwzględniając rozkład odpowiedzi ze względu na płeć, zauważa się, że większą znajomością pojęcia wyróżniają się kobiety. Szczególnie więcej − nawet trzykrotnie − pań niż panów kojarzyło pojęcie z rynkiem 54,5% 24,5% 16,0% 1,5% 3,5% 59,6% 75,5% 68,8% 33,3% 71,4% 62,9% 17,1% 14,3% 2,9% 2,9% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% nie znam, jest to dla mnie nowe pojęcie kojarzę je z rynkiem pracy i zarządzaniem zasobami ludzkimi mam teoretyczną wiedzę o outplacemencie mam doświadczenie w prowadzeniu działań outplacementowych brak odpowiedzi mężczyźni kobiety łącznie 72 Rozdział 2. pracy i zarządzaniem zasobami ludzkimi lub posiadało teoretyczną wiedzę w tym zakresie. Następnie respondenci zostali zapoznani z pojęciem outplacementu, które zostało zdefiniowane następująco: „Outplacement to zwolnienia pracowników, którym towarzyszy podejmowanie przez organizację działań służących pomocą odchodzącym pracownikom. Są to przede wszystkim: doradztwo, przekwalifikowanie i poszukiwanie nowego miejsca pracy. Dzięki temu możliwe jest złagodzenie skutków odejścia z pracy". By zbadać poziom wiedzy respondentów badań CATI w zakresie istotności różnych form wsparcia, jakie mogą być stosowane w ramach outplacementu, została sformułowana prośba o ocenę różnych form wspierania zwalnianych pracowników. Respondenci mogli ocenić poszczególne typy wsparcia doradczego, szkoleniowego, psychologicznego i innego rodzaju, w skali od 0 do 5, gdzie 0 oznaczało, że dana forma jest „bez znaczenia" dla zwalnianego pracownika, zaś 5 − że ma „bardzo duże znaczenie". Najwyżej ocenianą formą wsparcia były odprawy pieniężne (średnia ocena 4,8). Na drugim miejscu znalazło się wsparcie o charakterze szkoleniowym, w tym szczególnie szkolenia mające na celu podwyższanie kwalifikacji zawodowych (średnia 4,6) oraz szkolenia zawodowe przekwalifikujące (średnia 4,4). Atrakcyjnym wsparciem dla zwalnianych pracowników może być oferowanie im – w opinii badanych − interesujących ofert pracy, które nie zawsze są ogólnodostępne (średnia ocena 4,1). Najniżej oceniane pod względem przydatności dla zwalnianych pracowników były takie formy wsparcia, jak możliwość dalszego korzystania z biura (sprzęt, pracownicy) dawnego pracodawcy podczas poszukiwania pracy (średnia ocena 2,8) oraz organizowanie specjalnej wewnętrznej komórki organizacyjnej do obsługi zwalnianych pracowników w siedzibie pracodawcy (średnia ocena 2,8). Oznaczać to może, że osoby pracujące, jak i obecnie bezrobotne, uważają, że tego typu działania ze strony pracodawców nie są dla zwalnianych pracowników atrakcyjne. 73 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Wykres 2. Ocena form wsparcia ważnych dla zwalnianych pracowników Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. Również dość nisko oceniano możliwość oferowania przez dotychczasowego pracodawcę propozycji współpracy z firmą w innej formie. Może to wynikać przede wszystkim z jednej strony z braku wiedzy o takich możliwościach wsparcia, jak i z braku dobrych praktyk w tym zakresie, które byłyby rozpowszechnione w regionie. Również ewentualne inne formy współpracy z byłym pracodawcą nie są postrzegane jako 3,4 3,5 3,6 3,6 3,6 3,8 3,9 3,9 3,6 3,8 3,7 3,7 3,7 3,8 3,9 3,8 4,0 4,1 4,1 3,9 4,0 3,9 3,0 3,1 3,3 3,2 3,3 3,4 3,5 3,5 3,1 3,4 3,2 0,0 0,5 1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0 3,5 4,0 4,5 umiejętności podejmowania decyzji trudności związane z podejmowaniem decyzji skuteczne podejmowanie decyzji konflikty i postawy w sytuacji konfliktów konstruktywne rozwiązywanie konfliktów praca nad szukaniem rozwiązań w sytuacji utraty pracy praca nad pozytywnym wizerunkiem własnej osoby – trening dobrego samopoczucia umiejętności komunikacji interpersonalnej umiejętności intrapsychiczne (rozpoznawania, wyrażania i nazywania własnych przeżyć emocjonalnych) i kreatywności trening radzenia sobie z sytuacją zmian postawy wobec pracy i zatrudnienia mężczyżni kobiety łącznie 74 Rozdział 2. pomocne w zaistniałej sytuacji rozwiązania stosunku pracy. Poza tym nisko oceniane były również takie działania, jak pomoc prawna czy coaching oraz spotkania z psychologiem. Porównując różnice w odpowiedziach uzyskanych od kobiet i mężczyzn, należy stwierdzić, że kobiety częściej oceniały wyżej przydatność różnych form wsparcia niż mężczyźni. Szczególnie widać, że kobiety biorące udział badaniu w zasadzie podobnie typowały istotne formy wsparcia, jak było to w przypadku mężczyzn, jednak zdecydowanie wyżej oceniały formę wsparcia, jaką jest „specjalistyczna pomoc w szukaniu ofert pracy" – średnia ocena 4,0, gdy w przypadku mężczyzn było to 3,61. Kolejne pytanie dotyczyło rodzaju osób i instytucji, które według respondentów powinny zajmować się wprowadzeniem różnych form wspierania działań skierowanych do zwalnianych pracowników. Najczęściej wskazywano, że odpowiedzialność za tego rodzaju działania powinien ponosić pracodawca – na odpowiedź taką wskazało 91% badanych, w tym 90% kobiet i 94,29% mężczyzn. Drugą w kolejności była odpowiedź: „pośrednik pracy z Powiatowego Urzędu Pracy". Odpowiedzi takiej udzieliło 69% badanych. Oznacza to, że w tego typu sytuacjach w organizacji dostrzegana jest odpowiedzialność nie tylko po stronie pracodawcy, lecz także instytucji rynku pracy, w tym w szczególności urzędów pracy. Niemal podobna liczba respondentów wskazała na konieczność wspierania tego procesu przez pracownika działu personalnego pracodawcy (67,5%) oraz doradców zawodowych/zewnętrznych konsultantów zatrudnionych w firmie doradczej (67%). Najmniej odpowiedzi dotyczyło wsparcia ze strony psychologów, którzy tylko przez połowę respondentów zostali uznani za osoby potencjalnie odpowiedzialne za organizację programu outplacementu. W ramach uzupełnienia wcześniejszych wypowiedzi poproszono respondentów o wskazanie osób i podmiotów, które powinny odpowiadać za poniesienie kosztów związanych ze wsparciem pracowników w obliczu działań związanych ze zwolnieniami pracowników w organizacji. Jak się okazuje, i w tym przypadku przede wszystkim wskazano na pracodawcę jako tego, który powinien ponosić finansowe konsekwencje zaistniałej sytuacji. Na drugim miejscu znalazły się wskazania na Powiatowe Urzędy Pracy. Niemal co trzeci badany uznał, że w takim przypadku możliwe jest dzielenie kosztów pomiędzy pracodawcę i urząd pracy. Zaledwie 8,5% badanych wskazało na możliwość ponoszenia takich kosztów przez zwalnianego pracownika czy też osobę już bezrobotną. 75 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Wykres 3. Osoby i instytucje potencjalnie odpowiedzialne za organizację programów outplacement – tylko opinie pozytywne Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. Wykres 4. Potencjalny podział kosztów realizacji programów outplacement − tylko opinie pozytywne Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. 91,5% 67,5% 50,0% 69,0% 67,0% 57,5% 2,5% 90,0% 73,1% 55,4% 70,8% 72,3% 61,5% 3,9% 94,3% 57,1% 40,0% 65,7% 57,1% 50,0% 0,0% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% pracodawca pracownik działu personalnego pracodawcy psycholog pośrednik pracy z powiatowego urzędu pracy doradca zawodowy / zewnętrzny konsultant zatrudniony w firmie doradczej doradca zawodowy / zewnętrzny konsultant zatrudniony w organizacji pozarządowej inne (jakie?) mężczyżni kobiety łącznie 93,5% 8,5% 91,5% 32,5% 5,0% 93,9% 10,0% 94,6% 36,9% 6,9% 92,9% 5,7% 85,7% 24,3% 1,4% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% pracodawca zwalniający pracownika zwalniany pracownik / osoba bezrobotna Powiatowy Urząd Pracy dzielenie kosztów między pracodawcą a urzędem pracy inny podmiot (jaki?) ...... mężczyźni kobiety łącznie 76 Rozdział 2. Jeśli chodzi o płeć respondentów, należy stwierdzić, że kobiety częściej niż mężczyźni wskazywały na inne podmioty, które powinny ponieść koszt wsparcia w zakresie outplacementu. Jednocześnie warto zauważyć, że kobiety częściej niż mężczyźni wskazywały na odpowiedzialność urzędów pracy. Ponadto była im bliższa koncepcja dzielenia kosztów pomiędzy zwalniającego pracodawcę i Powiatowy Urząd Pracy. W pytaniu otwartym respondenci zostali poproszeni o opisanie własnymi słowami, jakie korzyści może przynieść wsparcie przez firmę pracownika przed jego zwolnieniem. Spośród badanych 43 respondentów wskazało na korzyść z wprowadzania outplacementu, jaką jest „szybsze znalezienie nowego zatrudnienia" przez osoby zwalniane. Takich korzyści badani upatrywali w pomocy ze strony pracodawców. Generalnie jednak nie wskazywali, na czym taka pomoc miałaby polegać. Działania takie odnoszą się, ogólnie rzecz biorąc, do „odpowiedniego ukierunkowania" zwalnianych osób. Inne pozytywne efekty wdrażania tego typu programów w opinii respondentów mają stanowić „nowe kwalifikacje zawodowe", które mogą zostać dostarczone zwalnianym. Na odpowiedzi typu: „podwyższenie umiejętności", „przekwalifikowanie", „zmiana predyspozycji zawodowych" – wskazało 27 osób. Kolejnym rodzajem pozytywnego wpływu outplacementu, jaki można wskazać spośród otrzymanych odpowiedzi, jest „zwiększenie oceny samoświadomości" osób uczestniczących w takim programie, a także „wzrost samooceny" czy „szybsza ponowna motywacja". Pracownik objęty takim procesem „nie czuje się pozostawiony sam sobie, ma wsparcie, które pomoże mu znaleźć zatrudnienie", a w związku z tym, jak zauważył inny badany, „pozwoli to uniknąć trudnej sytuacji związanej z utratą poczucia własnej wartości". To także będzie ułatwiać „szybsze psychiczne odbudowanie się po utracie pracy". Takie działania są ważne, szczególnie że jak zauważyło kilku badanych, zwolnienia wiążą się ze stresem, depresją, złym samopoczuciem czy niską samooceną osób, które taka sytuacja dotknęła. Odpowiedzi odnoszące się do powyższych zagadnień zostały wskazane przez 23 osoby. Pozostałe pojedyncze odpowiedzi, jakie otrzymano w trakcie przeprowadzana badania, dotyczyły korzyści w postaci „spokoju w firmie". Konieczne jest, aby „zająć się zwalnianymi pracownikami, bo zrobią 'zadymę', firma straci dobre imię". Dzięki podjęciu odpowiednich działań możliwa jest także poprawa wizerunku podmiotu, który będzie odbierany przez otoczenie jako interesujący się losem zwalnianych pracowników. Na odpowiedzi takie wskazało 6 badanych. Innych 3 wska77 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu zało na korzyść w postaci odprawy pieniężnej, zaś 4 − na korzyści dla zwalnianego pracownika w postaci sfinansowania szkoleń przez dotychczasowych pracodawców. Podsumowując: można stwierdzić, że zdecydowanie częściej dostrzegane są korzyści, jakie z wprowadzania outplacementu może uzyskać pracownik, którego spotyka sytuacja zwolnienia z pracy. Zaledwie kilkakrotnie w trakcie badania wskazywane były korzyści, jakie z prowadzenia działalności outplacementowej zyskują podmioty wprowadzające tego typu rozwiązania. Następnie respondenci mieli za zadanie dokonać oceny wagi korzyści, jakie może przynieść wsparcie przez firmę pracownika przed jego zwolnieniem. Korzyści z tego tytułu, zgodnie z literaturą przedmiotu, mogą być związane z kilkoma kwestiami, które podlegały ocenie badanych. Są to: zmiana sytuacji osoby zwalnianej na rynku pracy, poprawa jej kwalifikacji i kompetencji czy też wzrost motywacji zwalnianego pracownika do aktywności. Poza tym wyróżniono grupę korzyści innych, które trudno było zaklasyfikować do trzech wcześniejszych. Ocena taka mogła zostać dokonana w skali od 0 do 5, gdzie 0 oznaczało, że dana korzyść jest „bez znaczenia", zaś 5 − że jej znaczenie jest „bardzo duże". Analiza wyników badań w odniesieniu do korzyści z outplacementu wskazuje, że najwyżej zostały ocenione korzyści związane z podnoszeniem kwalifikacji i kompetencji zwalnianych pracowników. Na drugim miejscu znalazła się grupa korzyści związanych z sytuacją zatrudnionych na rynku pracy. Nieco niższe oceny były przypisywane korzyściom polegającym na motywacji osób do aktywności zawodowej. Szczególnie wysoko ocenione zostały korzyści w postaci odprawy indywidualnej w ramach pakietu outplacementowego (średnia ocena 4,6), które zostały wpisane do innych korzyści związanych z wdrażaniem koncepcji outplacementu. Innymi słowy w opinii respondentów ważne jest wsparcie krótkoterminowe i raczej nieprowadzące bezpośrednio do zmiany zatrudnienia osoby zwolnionej. Na drugim miejscu pod względem wysokości oceny znalazło się „uzyskanie nowych kwalifikacji dzięki kursom i szkoleniom" (średnia 4,4). Następne w kolejności było korzystanie z bezpłatnych programów szkoleniowych i wsparcia indywidulanego nawet do roku od momentu zwolnienia z pracy (średnia ocena 4,2). 78 Rozdział 2. Wykres 5. Ocena korzyści ze wsparcia przez firmę pracownika przed jego zwolnieniem Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. 4,2 4,1 3,6 4,0 4,4 4,2 4,0 3,9 3,6 3,7 3,5 3,6 3,7 4,3 4,6 4,3 4,1 3,8 4,0 4,4 4,3 4,1 4,0 3,8 3,9 3,7 3,8 3,9 4,4 4,6 4,1 4,0 3,2 3,9 4,5 4,1 3,9 3,7 3,3 3,4 3,1 3,2 3,4 4,1 4,7 0,0 0,5 1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0 3,5 4,0 4,5 5,0 wzrost szans na szybkie ponowne zatrudnienie dostęp do aktualnych informacji dotyczących sytuacji na rynku pracy wzrost motywacji do aktywnego działania w środowisku lokalnym oszczędność czasu w poszukiwaniu pracy – skrócenie czasu pozostawania bez pracy uzyskanie nowych kwalifikacji dzięki kursom i szkoleniom uzyskanie informacji o możliwościach rozwoju zawodowego poznanie aktywnych metod i sposobów poszukiwania pracy pomoc w przygotowaniu do procesu rekrutacji konsultacja dokumentów aplikacyjnych np. CV ułatwienie zrozumienia nowej sytuacji i łagodzenie skutków zmian (obniżenie stresu, wygaszenie agresji, wskazanie szans) zwiększenie samoświadomości zarówno osobistej, jak i zawodowej, poprzez analizę własnych atutów i słabszych stron poczucie kontroli nad sytuacją poczucie pewności siebie wzrost samooceny i motywacji do aktywnego działania w zakresie poszukiwania pracy korzystanie z bezpłatnych programów szkoleniowych i wsparcia indywidulanego nawet do roku od momentu zwolnienia z pracy odprawa indywidualna w ramach pakietu outplacementowego mężczyźni kobiety łącznie 79 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Dość nisko oceniona została korzyść w postaci wzrostu poczucia kontroli nad sytuacją u zwalnianych pracowników (średnia ocena 3,4). Nieco wyżej oceniono wzrost motywacji do aktywnego działania w środowisku lokalnym (3,5). Jeśli przyjrzeć się wynikom otrzymanym w trakcie badań, okazuje się, że mężczyźni częściej przyznawali niższe oceny różnym rodzajom korzyści niż kobiety. Mężczyźni nieco wyżej niż kobiety ocenili tylko dwa rodzaje korzyści – te wynikające z odpraw indywidualnych oraz uzyskania nowych kwalifikacji dzięki kursom i szkoleniom. Jednak pozytywne oceny mężczyzn nie różniły się znacząco od odpowiedzi kobiet. Można też zauważyć, że największe różnice w odpowiedziach między mężczyznami i kobietami dotyczyły takich korzyści, jak: wzrost samooceny i motywacji do aktywnego działania w zakresie poszukiwania pracy, wzrost poczucia pewności siebie, wzrost pewności kontroli nad sytuacją, a także zwiększenie samoświadomości, zarówno osobistej, jak i zawodowej, poprzez analizę własnych atutów i słabszych stron oraz ułatwienie zrozumienia nowej sytuacji i łagodzenie skutków zmian (obniżenie stresu, wygaszenie agresji, wskazanie szans). Kolejna część ankiety CATI dotyczyła barier wdrażania programów typu outplacement przez podmioty gospodarcze. Respondenci zostali poproszeni o wypowiedzenie się w tej kwestii. Zadano im w tym celu pytanie otwarte pozwalające na zebranie swobodnych wypowiedzi. Jak się okazuje, 65 osób jako podstawową barierę wdrażania programów outplacementowych w firmie wskazało aspekty finansowe. Pojawiały się tu najczęściej takie odpowiedzi, jak: „brak środków finansowych" czy też „brak środków finansowych na tego typu działania". Poza tym 5 badanych wskazało na „koszty outplacementu". Ponadto 3 respondentów stwierdziło, że problemem jest „kryzys gospodarczy", co przekłada się na trudną sytuację badanych podmiotów. Kolejnych 4 badanych stwierdziło, że często powodów nierealizowania takich programów poszukuje się w sytuacji finansowej podmiotu, gdy tak naprawdę jest to „tłumaczenie się [pracodawców] jak zwykle brakiem środków finansowych" czy powodowane „niechęcią do wydawania pieniędzy firmy na zwalnianych pracowników". Inny badany dostrzegł, że „pracodawcy w obecnych czasach, szukając oszczędności w firmie, nie chcą inwestować w pracowników, których mają zamiar zwolnić". Kilku respondentów usprawiedliwiało pracodawców faktem, że „znajdują się w trudnej sytuacji na rynku", a zatem sami mają „niewystarczające środki", a w związku z tym istnieje konieczność „szukania 80 Rozdział 2. oszczędności, na czym się da". Jednocześnie inny z badanych zauważył, że „jak zwykle to bywa największą barierą − jest bariera finansowa, ale coraz częściej outplacement realizowany jest z programów unijnych". Inną grupą barier, które były wskazywane przez respondentów, są ograniczenia w zakresie wiedzy na temat outplacementu, i to zarówno w kontekście tego, na czym miałyby polegać takie działania, jak i w odniesieniu do korzyści, jakie można odnieść dzięki wdrożeniu takiego programu dla organizacji. Na brak wiedzy wskazało 37 badanych. W tej grupie odpowiedzi pojawiały się takie wskazania, jak: „brak wiedzy na ten temat" czy też „niski poziom wiedzy wśród kadry zarządzającej". Na odpowiedzi takie wskazało 10 badanych. Dostrzeżono, że często po prostu występuje „zacofanie pracodawców i brak [znajomości] trendów i metod rozwiązywania sytuacji związanych z procesem zwalniania pracowników" czy też „brak wiedzy na temat nowoczesnych form wsparcia zwalnianych". W skrócie stwierdzić można, że po prostu często zdaniem badanych pracodawcy w ogóle nie znają tej metody wspierania zwalnianych pracowników. Wiedza ta może również dotyczyć kwestii finansowych: „pracodawcy nie mają świadomości, że instytucje publiczne rynku pracy dysponują wiedzą oraz środkami finansowymi, które mogłyby zminimalizować nakłady kosztów ze strony firmy we wdrażaniu programu outplacementu w firmie". Trzecia grupa czynników, które w opinii badanych ograniczają wdrażanie outplacementu w firmach, to niechęć pracodawców do inwestowania „w zwalnianych pracowników". Takich odpowiedzi udzieliło 14 badanych. Dostrzega się problem, jakim jest „małe zainteresowanie pracodawcy zwalnianym personelem" czy też „pracodawcy rzadko interesują się losem zwalnianych pracowników i ewentualną pomocą". W związku z powyższym pracodawcy po prostu „nie mają zamiaru inwestować w taką osobę, która i tak zostanie zwolniona". By poszerzyć wiedzę na temat barier wdrażania koncepcji outplacementu, poproszono respondentów o ocenę znaczenia różnych barier. Bariery te zostały podzielone na znajdujące się po stronie pracodawcy, po stronie pracowników, po stronie instytucji rynku pracy oraz inne. Badani mogli je ocenić w skali od 0 do 5, gdzie 0 oznaczało, że dana bariera jest „bez znaczenia", zaś 5 − że ma „bardzo duże znaczenie". 81 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Wykres 6. Ocena barier wdrażania outplacementu w firmie − bariery po stronie pracodawcy Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. 4,7 4 3,6 4 3,9 3,9 4,1 3,5 3,9 4,5 3,6 3,6 4,7 3,9 3,6 4 3,9 4 4,1 3,5 3,9 4,4 3,6 3,7 4,7 4 3,4 4,1 4,1 3,9 4,1 3,4 3,8 4,5 3,6 3,6 0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 4,5 5 brak środków finansowych na pokrycie kosztów outplacementu nieodpowiednio przeprowadzona kampania informacyjna nt. outplacementu w firmie niedoinformowanie pracowników na temat powodów i sposobu wprowadzania outplacementu brak wybranego przez pracowników przedstawiciela załogi oddelegowanego do kontaktów z zarządem przedsiębiorstwa niedostateczne poinformowanie pracowników o możliwościach uzyskania wsparcia nieprzeprowadzenie rozmów przez kadrę kierowniczą z pracownikiem, który ma odejść z pracy niedostateczna znajomość dostępnych rozwiązań w zakresie adaptacyjności przedsiębiorstw brak umiejętności i praktyki w stosowaniu metod outplacementu ograniczenia kadrowe działu kadr w firmie brak doświadczenia w pozyskiwaniu środków z UE przez firmę pogarszanie się kondycji przedsiębiorstwa brak zastępstwa dla pracownika korzystającego ze wsparcia (np. szkolącego się) udział w działaniach outplacementowych koliduje z pracą, gdyż są one prowadzone w godzinach pracy mężczyźni kobiety łącznie 82 Rozdział 2. Najwyżej ocenione, jako szczególnie istotne, zostały bariery związane z działalnością w zakresie zwalnianych pracowników, które leżą po stronie pracodawców. Przede wszystkim zwrócono uwagę na brak środków finansowych na pokrycie kosztów outplacementu – średnia ocena tego czynnika wyniosła 3,9. Na drugim miejscu pod względem wpływu czynnika na trudności we wdrażaniu wsparcia znalazło się pogarszanie się kondycji przedsiębiorstw. Jeśli chodzi o czynniki najniżej oceniane – mające mniejszy wpływ na utrudnienie wprowadzania outplacementu w przedsiębiorstwach, znalazły się wśród nich: „zła opinia na temat wyników stosowania outplacementu" (średnia ocena 3,1) oraz „ograniczenia kadrowe PUP i innych instytucji rynku pracy" (średnia ocena 3,2). Bliższy opis oceny poszczególnych barier outplacementu z perspektywy pracowników przedstawiają poniższe wykresy. Wykres 7. Ocena barier wdrażania outplacementu w firmie − bariery po stronie pracowników Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. 3,7 4,0 3,7 3,6 3,8 4,0 3,7 3,7 3,6 4,0 3,6 3,4 3,0 3,2 3,4 3,6 3,8 4,0 4,2 bierna postawa osób zwalnianych niskie zainteresowanie zwalnianych pracowników oferowanymi formami wsparcia, które wymagają aktywności uczestników niedostateczna świadomość korzyści płynących z przeprowadzenia outplacementu niskie zainteresowanie pracowników możliwościami przekwalifikowania się niski potencjał adaptacyjny pracowników zagrożonych zwolnieniem znaczna część zwolnień dotyczy zawodów podstawowych mężczyźni kobiety łącznie 83 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Wykres 8. Ocena barier wdrażania outplacementu w firmie − bariery po stronie instytucji rynku pracy Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. Wykres 9. Ocena barier wdrażania outplacementu w firmie − inne bariery Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. 3,3 3,5 3,6 3,2 3,6 3,8 3,4 3,5 3,6 3,2 3,7 3,8 3,3 3,5 3,7 3,1 3,4 3,8 0,0 0,5 1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0 3,5 4,0 4,5 mała liczba podmiotów zarejestrowanych w regionie jako agencje zatrudnienia niewielkie doświadczenie agencji zatrudnienia i innych instytucji rynku pracy w prowadzeniu projektów outplacementowych brak dostępu do specjalistów ograniczenia kadrowe PUP i innych instytucji rynku pracy brak standardów stosowanych w procesach outplacementu brak współpracy różnych instytucji działających w obszarze wspierania osób bezrobotnych i rozwoju przedsiębiorczości mężczyźni kobiety łącznie 3,7 3,1 4,0 3,8 3,2 4,0 3,7 3,1 4,1 0,0 0,5 1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0 3,5 4,0 4,5 przepisy prawne utrudniające agencjom zatrudnienia udział w projektach dofinansowanych ze środków UE polegających na doradztwie zawodowym zła opinia na temat wyników stosowania outplacementu niski poziom świadomości społecznej nt. korzyści z outplacementu mężczyźni kobiety łącznie 84 Rozdział 2. Trzeba jednak zauważyć, że generalnie żaden z czynników nie został oceniony poniżej poziomu 3 punktów – czyli oceny średniego wpływu na wdrażanie outplacementu. Można stwierdzić zatem, że w zasadzie badani uznają, że wszelkie wykazane w kwestionariuszu badawczym bariery wdrażania outplacementu są istotne i stanowią o niskim poziomie stosowania tej koncepcji w trakcie przeprowadzania zwolnień w organizacji. Ponadto można zauważyć, że kobiety i mężczyźni byli w zasadzie zgodni co do oceny poszczególnych barier i ich wpływu na wdrażanie outplacementu w przedsiębiorstwach. Zgodnie z modelem outplacementu testowanego w ramach przedmiotowego projektu, o sukcesie outplacementu może decydować komplementarne i konsekwentne uwzględnianie w działaniach outplacementowych trzech etapów: doradztwa (mającego na celu zbilansowanie ekwiwalentów kompetencyjnych pracownika), treningu psychologicznego zwiększającego sterowność pracownika i trafność decyzji związanych ze zmianą pracy i zawodu oraz działań szkoleniowych wykorzystujących nowe zasoby pracownika z przyśpieszonym przygotowaniu się do nowych wyzwań zawodowych. Outplacement w ujęciu tym zyskuje cechy reorientacji zawodowej służąc w istocie zmianie pracodawcy lub zawodu adekwatnie do możliwości rynku pracy. Powyższa logika działań outplacementowych oraz związane z nią czynniki skuteczności były dodatkowo przedmiotem badań ilościowych i jakościowych prowadzonych w projekcie, których wyniki miały potwierdzić zasadność planowanych w dalszym etapie projektu działań eksperymentalnych i wdrożeniowych. 2.1.1. Ocena wsparcia doradczego W opinii respondentów uczestniczących w badaniach jakościowych FGI w procesie outplacementowym szczególną rolę odgrywają doradcy zawodowi. Co prawda, nie są to sytuacje częste, gdyż „statystycznie raz w roku zdarza się firma, która wychodzi z inicjatywą pomocy doradców zawodowych z urzędu pracy do działań mało przyjaznych, takich jak zwalnianie i nakierowanie zwalnianych pracowników na ich aktywność zawodową". Generalnie jednak wsparcie doradcze „nie jest popularne w mniejszych ośrodkach, natomiast we wszystkich projektach wsparcie doradcze, wsparcie psychologiczne jest standardem". Dostrzeżono, że firmy będące w sytuacji zwolnień grupowych mają obowiązek zapewnienia pracownikom kontaktu z doradcą zawodowym, co zostało wysoko ocenione przez respondentów. Proces doradczy dla pracowników zwalnianych z reguły obejmuje wsparcie co najmniej kil85 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu kumiesięczne. „W cukrowni [w Łapach] byli doradcy przez 4 miesiące zatrudnieni. 4 osoby zatrudnione: doradcy zawodowi i pośrednik pracy. Naszym celem było zaktywizowanie, zapoznanie tych osób z rynkiem pracy, pokazanie również możliwości pracy na własny rachunek, pokazanie możliwości przejścia na wcześniejszą emeryturę osób, które mogły mieć uprawnienia i tak naprawdę nawiązanie kontaktu z ZUS-em. Myśmy też organizowali szkolenia, każdy pracownik miał pokaźną sumę, którą można było wykorzystać na szkolenia". W opinii uczestników badań FGI najskuteczniejsze narzędzia doradcze to: „poznaj siebie", własne predyspozycje zawodowe, osobowościowe, IPD, warsztaty, SWOT, bilans potencjału, kompetencji, coaching. Uczestnicy stwierdzili, że doradztwo zawodowe stanowić jednak może kolejny krok w procesie outplacementu, gdyż najważniejsza jest praca psychologa i przygotowanie do pracy doradcy zawodowego. Kolejna część ankiety CATI dotyczyła opinii respondentów na temat wagi wsparcia doradczego w odniesieniu do procesu zwalniania pracowników w organizacji. Badanych poproszono o wskazanie, czy kiedykolwiek korzystali z tego rodzaju pomocy. Zaledwie co czwarty respondent wskazał na korzystanie z wsparcia doradczego. Najczęściej te usługi były dostarczane przez pracowników powiatowych urzędów pracy – odpowiedzi takiej udzieliło 10% badanych. Następne w kolejności według częstotliwości wskazań znalazło się skierowanie na doradztwo przez obecnego pracodawcę (5%), skierowanie przez poprzedniego pracodawcę lub własna inicjatywa badanego (po 4,5%). Odpowiedzi pozytywne częściej były wskazywane przez kobiety. W tej grupie respondentów 26,1% osób miało do czynienia z doradztwem zawodowym, zaś w grupie mężczyzno było to 20% badanych. 86 Rozdział 2. Wykres 10. Wykorzystanie doradztwa zawodowego i źródło skierowania do doradcy zawodowego Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. Osoby, które kiedykolwiek uczestniczyły w doradztwie zawodowym, zostały poproszone o wskazanie, jaka była tematyka tego doradztwa. Jak się okazuje, wykorzystane w przeszłości przez respondentów doradztwo zawodowe najczęściej dotyczyło udzielania informacji o zawodach i rynku pracy. Na odpowiedź taką wskazało 81,2% osób, które korzystały z doradztwa zawodowego. Drugim w kolejności tematem była ocena kwalifikacji zawodowych (68,7% osób z tej grupy), zaś trzecim − ocena umiejętności pracownika (64,5%). W dalszej kolejności znalazły się wskazania na udzielenie informacji o możliwościach szkolenia i kształcenia czy wsparcie w zakresie kwalifikacji zawodowych. Najmniej wskazań na formy doradztwa, w których uczestniczyli respondenci, dotyczyło przygotowania indywidualnego planu działań, który umożliwiłby skuteczne znalezienie pracy (27%). Dość rzadko wskazywano również na uzyskanie informacji o możliwościach przeszkolenia się w zawodach, na które istnieje aktualnie duże zapotrzebowanie (39,5%). W celu poszerzenia wiedzy na temat wsparcia doradczego w kwestionariuszu badawczym sformułowano pytanie na temat oceny przydatności różnych tematów doradztwa wobec osób zagrożonych zwolnie10,0% 5,0% 4,5% 4,5% 76,0% 11,5% 5,4% 4,6% 4,6% 73,8% 7,1% 4,3% 4,3% 4,3% 80,0% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% pracownik PUP obecny pracodawca poprzedni pracodawca była to moja własna inicjatywa nigdy nie korzystałem/am z usług doradcy zawodowego mężczyźni kobiety łącznie 87 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu niem z pracy. Ocena mogła zostać dokonana w skali od 0 do 5, gdzie 0 oznacza „brak wpływu" tej tematyki, zaś 5 − „bardzo wysoką" jej przydatność dla tej grupy osób. Jak oceniono, szczególnie ważna jest zmiana kwalifikacji zawodowych (średnia ocena 3,9). Na drugim miejscu w kolejności znalazły się podjęcie lub zmiana zatrudnienia (średnia ocena 3,9) oraz ocena kwalifikacji zawodowych, a także udzielenie informacji o możliwościach szkolenia i kształcenia (średnia ocena po 3,8). Dość wysoko była oceniana tematyka doradztwa dotyczącego przygotowania wspólnie z doradcą indywidualnych planów działań (średnia ocena 3,7), co podkreśla wagę tej formy doradztwa w kontekście faktu, że znalazła się ona wśród tych form doradztwa, w których brało udział niewiele badanych osób. Podobnie relatywnie wysoko zostały ocenione możliwości uzyskania od doradcy informacji o możliwościach przeszkolenia się w zawodach, na które jest aktualnie duże zapotrzebowanie (średnia ocena 3,8). Porównanie odpowiedzi kobiet i mężczyzn pozwala stwierdzić, że kobiety nieco wyżej oceniały przydatność poszczególnych tematów spotkań z doradcą zawodowym niż mężczyźni. Ponadto przywiązują one większą niż mężczyźni uwagę do właściwej oceny kwalifikacji zawodowych, odpowiedniego doboru kandydata na stanowisko pracy, uzyskania pomocy w określeniu celów zawodowych i kierunków własnego rozwoju czy też znaczenia przygotowania indywidualnego planu działań. 88 Rozdział 2. Wykres 11. Tematyka wykorzystanych w przeszłości rodzajów doradztwa zawodowego − tylko opinie pozytywne Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. 81,3% 64,6% 68,8% 60,4% 58,3% 43,8% 62,5% 54,2% 52,1% 56,3% 56,3% 47,9% 41,7% 41,7% 43,8% 39,6% 27,1% 72,7% 48,5% 54,6% 51,5% 54,6% 36,4% 66,7% 54,6% 45,5% 48,5% 45,5% 36,4% 39,4% 36,4% 36,4% 24,2% 18,2% 100,0% 100,0% 100,0% 80,0% 66,7% 60,0% 53,3% 53,3% 66,7% 73,3% 80,0% 73,3% 46,7% 53,3% 60,0% 73,3% 46,7% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%100% udzielanie informacji o zawodach i rynku pracy ocena umiejętności pracownika ocena kwalifikacji zawodowych zmiana kwalifikacji zawodowych podjęcie lub zmiana zatrudnienia dobór kandydata na stanowisko pracy udzielanie informacji o możliwości szkolenia i kształcenia konsultacje z zakresu przygotowania dokumentów aplikacyjnych (cv i list motywacyjny) uzyskanie pomocy w rozpoznaniu obszarów własnych zainteresowań zawodowych lepsze poznanie własnych predyspozycji zawodowych oraz wskazanie możliwości pracy zgodnej z kwalifikacjami oraz predyspozycjami uzyskanie pomocy w określeniu celów zawodowych oraz możliwych kierunków własnego rozwoju wskazanie możliwości zdobywania doświadczenia zawodowego zdobycie wiedzy i praktycznych wskazówek dotyczących procedur poszukiwania pracy identyfikacja cech osobowości pracownika identyfikacja zainteresowań pracownika uzyskanie informacji o możliwościach przeszkolenia się w zawodach, na które istnieje aktualnie duże zapotrzebowanie przygotowanie indywidulanego planu działań, który umożliwi pracownikowi skuteczne znalezienie pracy mężczyźni kobiety łącznie 89 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Wykres 12. Ocena przydatności tematów doradztwa zawodowego dla osób zagrożonych zwolnieniem z pracy Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. 3,5 3,5 3,8 4,0 3,9 3,6 3,8 3,7 3,4 3,6 3,5 3,6 3,5 3,4 3,2 3,8 3,7 3,6 3,7 4,0 3,9 4,0 3,7 3,9 3,8 3,6 3,7 3,7 3,7 3,6 3,5 3,3 3,8 3,9 3,2 3,3 3,5 3,7 3,7 3,3 3,6 3,4 3,1 3,4 3,2 3,4 3,3 3,2 3,0 3,7 3,4 0,0 0,5 1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0 3,5 4,0 4,5 udzielanie informacji o zawodach i rynku pracy ocena umiejętności pracownika ocena kwalifikacji zawodowych zmiana kwalifikacji zawodowych podjęcie lub zmiana zatrudnienia dobór kandydata na stanowisko pracy udzielanie informacji o możliwości szkolenia i kształcenia konsultacje z zakresu przygotowania dokumentów aplikacyjnych (CV i list motywacyjny) uzyskanie pomocy w rozpoznaniu obszarów własnych zainteresowań zawodowych lepsze poznanie własnych predyspozycji zawodowych oraz wskazanie możliwości pracy zgodnej z kwalifikacjami oraz predyspozycjami uzyskanie pomocy w określeniu celów zawodowych oraz możliwych kierunków własnego rozwoju wskazanie możliwości zdobywania doświadczenia zawodowego zdobycie wiedzy i praktycznych wskazówek dotyczących procedur poszukiwania pracy identyfikacja cech osobowości pracownika identyfikacja zainteresowań pracownika uzyskanie informacji o możliwościach przeszkolenia się w zawodach, na które istnieje aktualnie duże zapotrzebowanie przygotowanie indywidulanego planu działań, który umożliwi pracownikowi skuteczne znalezienie pracy mężczyźni kobiety łącznie 90 Rozdział 2. Najmniejsze rozbieżności w odpowiedziach osób obu płci co do poziomu oceny przydatności poszczególnych tematów doradztwa wobec osób zagrożonych zwolnieniem z pracy można zidentyfikować w przypadku wsparcia, jakim jest uzyskanie informacji o możliwościach przeszkolenia się w zawodach, na które istnieje aktualnie duże zapotrzebowanie na rynku pracy. Uczestnicy spotkania FGI stwierdzili, że w procesie zwolnień pracodawcy powinni podejmować działania wspomagające pracowników. Do działań takich należą: „ściągnięcie doradcy zawodowego, pośrednika pracy z urzędu pracy, aby ułatwić dostęp do doradcy zawodowego, zadbanie o dostęp do wszelkiej informacji, informacji od pracodawcy o stanie rzeczy, bardzo jawna i taka sensowna", „zapewnienie doradców lub czegoś innego zespołu pomagającego", „pracodawcy muszą odpowiednio wcześnie informować o zwolnieniach grupowych", „szkolenia grupowe". Podobnie kolejne pytanie w kwestionariuszu CATI dotyczyło form doradztwa. Osoby, które uczestniczyły w doradztwie, poproszono o wskazanie, jakie to były formy doradztwa. Najczęściej wskazywano na indywidualne doradztwo dla pracowników wykonawczych. Odpowiedź taką podało 56,2% badanych z tej grupy. Drugi w kolejności był typ szkoleń mieszanych, które składały się z doradztwa indywidualnego oraz grupowego. Wykres 13. Forma wykorzystanego w przeszłości doradztwa zawodowego − tylko opinie pozytywne Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. 12,5% 6,3% 56,3% 12,5% 45,8% 6,1% 3,0% 48,5% 12,1% 39,4% 26,7% 13,3% 73,3% 13,3% 60,0% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% grupowe – dla pracowników jednej firmy grupowe publiczne – dla pracowników różnych firm jednocześnie indywidualne – pracownik wykonawczy indywidualne – menedżerskie mieszane – indywidualne i grupowe mężczyźni kobiety łącznie 91 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Następnie badani zostali poproszeni o ocenę skuteczności różnych form doradztwa. Respondenci oceniali przydatność różnych form doradztwa w skali od 0 do 5, gdzie 0 oznaczało „brak znaczenia", zaś 5 dotyczyło „bardzo wysokiej przydatności" doradztwa. Ocenę na poziomie wysokiej przydatności otrzymało doradztwo indywidualne dla pracowników wykonawczych (średnia ocena 3,9). Na drugim miejscu znalazło się doradztwo indywidulane dla menedżerów (3,8). Niżej oceniane były grupowe formy doradztwa, w tym najniżej − doradztwo grupowe publiczne dla pracowników z różnych firm jednocześnie (średnia ocena 2,8). Warto zwrócić uwagę, że jeśli chodzi o odpowiedzi kobiet i mężczyzn, kobiety każdorazowo nieco wyżej niż mężczyźni oceniały przydatność poszczególnych rodzajów doradztwa. Wykres 14. Ocena skuteczności poszczególnych form doradztwa zawodowego dla osób zagrożonych zwolnieniem z pracy Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. 2.1.2. Ocena wsparcia psychologicznego Uczestnicy FGI stwierdzili, że wsparcie psychologiczne nie jest realizowane w trakcie zwolnień: „nie funkcjonuje, można rzec, że w ogóle nie funkcjonuje, wsparcie typowo psychologiczne". Inny z badanych stwierdził, że „bardziej to poradnictwo ma charakter wsparcia doradczego niż wsparcia psychologicznego". Uznano, że takie wsparcie jest ważne, ponieważ sytuacja zwolnienia dla wielu osób jest sytuacją kryzysową. Osoby takie przeżywają poczucie straty oraz następuje obniżenie 3,2 2,9 3,9 3,8 3,2 3,3 3,0 4,1 3,9 3,3 3,0 2,6 3,7 3,4 3,1 0,0 0,5 1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0 3,5 4,0 4,5 grupowe – dla pracowników jednej firmy grupowe publiczne – dla pracowników różnych firm jednocześnie indywidualne – pracownik wykonawczy indywidualne – menedżerskie mieszane – indywidualne i grupowe mężczyźni kobiety łącznie 92 Rozdział 2. ich własnej wartości. Niezbędne jest więc wsparcie psychologiczne, by „podbudować człowieka, by wyszedł z tej straty". Uczestnicy spotkania wskazali, że wsparcie psychologiczne powinno rozpoczynać proces doradczy dla osób zwalnianych. Prawidłowo skonstruowany proces wsparcia psychologicznego powinien doprowadzić „do obniżenia napięcia, jest zredukowane poczucie wartości". Ponadto ważne jest „budowanie zaufania". Należy zwrócić uwagę na sposób, w jaki przekazywana jest informacja o zwolnieniu i o możliwości uzyskania wsparcia. Odpowiedzi na pytania odnośnie wsparcia psychologicznego, jakie otrzymano w badaniach CATI, niestety, wskazują, że jest to bardzo rzadko stosowana metoda. Ponad 85% respondentów uznało, że nigdy nie korzystało z tego rodzaju wsparcia. Zaledwie 27 badanych miało taką możliwość. Osoba, która je skierowała na takie spotkanie z psychologiem, to najczęściej pracownik PUP. W zasadzie pojedyncze osoby wskazywały kolejno na: poprzedniego pracodawcę, obecnego pracodawcę i własną inicjatywę w tym zakresie. Pomiędzy respondentami płci żeńskiej i męskiej nie wystąpiły istotne różnice w udzielonych odpowiedziach. Wykres 15. Wykorzystanie wsparcia psychologicznego i źródło skierowania do doradcy zawodowego Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. 5,5% 2,5% 3,5% 2,0% 86,5% 6,9% 3,1% 4,6% 2,3% 83,1% 1,4% 1,4% 1,4% 1,4% 94,2% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% pracownik PUP obecny pracodawca poprzedni pracodawca była to moja własna inicjatywa nigdy nie korzystałem/am ze wsparcia psychologicznego mężczyźni kobiety łącznie 93 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Osoby, które kiedykolwiek otrzymały wsparcie psychologiczne, zostały poproszone o wskazanie, jaka była tematyka spotkań w ramach tego wsparcia. Wykres 16. Tematyka wykorzystanych w przeszłości rodzajów wsparcia psychologicznego − tylko opinie pozytywne Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. Jeśli chodzi o tematykę spotkań z psychologiem, najwięcej spośród respondentów wskazało na pracę nad pozytywnym wizerunkiem własnej osoby. Następnym rodzajem prac z psychologiem były umiejętności 29,6% 29,6% 29,6% 33,3% 29,6% 40,7% 55,6% 44,4% 22,2% 29,6% 22,2% 27,3% 27,3% 27,3% 31,8% 31,8% 36,4% 54,6% 45,5% 22,7% 31,8% 27,3% 40,0% 40,0% 40,0% 40,0% 20,0% 60,0% 60,0% 40,0% 20,0% 20,0% 0,0% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% umiejętności podejmowania decyzji trudności związane z podejmowaniem decyzji skuteczne podejmowanie decyzji konflikty i postawy w sytuacji konfliktów konstruktywne rozwiązywanie konfliktów praca nad szukaniem rozwiązań w sytuacji utraty pracy praca nad pozytywnym wizerunkiem własnej osoby – trening dobrego samopoczucia umiejętności komunikacji interpersonalnej umiejętności intrapsychiczne (rozpoznawania, wyrażania i nazywania własnych przeżyć emocjonalnych) i kreatywności trening radzenia sobie z sytuacją zmian postawy wobec pracy i zatrudnienia mężczyzni kobiety łącznie 94 Rozdział 2. z zakresu komunikacji interpersonalnej. Zaś trzecie w kolejności wskazywane były techniki poszukiwania rozwiązań w sytuacji utraty pracy. Najmniej wskazań dotyczyło takich tematów spotkań, jak: praca nad umiejętnościami intrapsychicznymi czy nad postawą wobec pracy i zatrudnienia. W dalszej kolejności badani zostali poproszeni o ocenę przydatności poszczególnych tematów wsparcia psychologicznego w sytuacji osób zagrożonych zwolnieniem z pracy. Wykres 17. Ocena przydatności tematów wsparcia psychologicznego dla osób zagrożonych zwolnieniem z pracy Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. Należy zwrócić uwagę, że wszystkie ze wskazanych w kwestionariuszu badawczym rodzajów wsparcia psychologicznego były dość podobnie oceniane. Nieco wyżej niż pozostałe została oceniona „praca nad 3,4 3,5 3,6 3,6 3,6 3,8 3,9 3,9 3,6 3,8 3,7 3,7 3,7 3,8 3,9 3,8 4,0 4,1 4,1 3,9 4,0 3,9 3,0 3,1 3,3 3,2 3,3 3,4 3,5 3,5 3,1 3,4 3,2 0,0 0,5 1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0 3,5 4,0 4,5 umiejętności podejmowania decyzji trudności związane z podejmowaniem decyzji skuteczne podejmowanie decyzji konflikty i postawy w sytuacji konfliktów konstruktywne rozwiązywanie konfliktów praca nad szukaniem rozwiązań w sytuacji utraty pracy praca nad pozytywnym wizerunkiem własnej osoby – trening dobrego samopoczucia umiejętności komunikacji interpersonalnej umiejętności intrapsychiczne (rozpoznawania, wyrażania i nazywania własnych przeżyć... trening radzenia sobie z sytuacją zmian postawy wobec pracy i zatrudnienia mężczyżni kobiety łącznie 95 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu pozytywnym wizerunkiem własnej osoby" oraz „umiejętności komunikacji interpersonalnej" (średnie oceny 3,9). Podobnie (średnia ocen 3,8) za przydatne uznano zajęcia z zakresu pracy nad szukaniem rozwiązań w sytuacji utraty pracy oraz treningu radzenia sobie z sytuacją zmian. Najniżej oceniona została przydatność wsparcia psychologicznego z zakresu umiejętności podejmowania decyzji (średnia ocena 3,4) oraz praca nad trudnościami związanymi z podejmowaniem decyzji (3,6). Generalnie kobiety często znacznie wyżej oceniały przydatność poszczególnych tematów prac z psychologiem niż mężczyźni. Respondenci uczestniczący w spotkaniu FGI wskazali, że doradztwem psychologicznym może zajmować się firma zewnętrzna, zaś „po stronie pracodawcy powinien być zespół ekspertów, powinna być też informacja, że jest restrukturyzacja w firmie, będą zwolnienia grupowe. Trzeba zatrudnić psychologa w firmie, można wynająć psychologa na zewnątrz". Psycholodzy w trakcie wsparcia psychologicznego korzystają przede wszystkim z rozmowy, wywiadu, testów samooceny i testów poczucia wartości. Powinno być badane poczucie koherencji, sprawczości, temperament, osobowość, umiejętności radzenia sobie ze stresem, asertywność. Jednocześnie respondenci nie mogli uzgodnić wspólnego stanowiska, ile godzin wsparcia psychologicznego średnio powinno przypadać na jednego uczestnika. Jak stwierdził jeden z badanych: „jeżeli pojawi się depresja, to trzeba będzie dużo więcej przepracować", inny zaś powiedział, że powinno to być „trzy godziny razy 10 spotkań", kolejni zaś, że „półtorej godziny i wielokrotność" lub „od trzech do dziesięciu spotkań godzinnych, cyklicznych, co tydzień, by był czas, żeby przepracować". Psycholodzy przychylnie wypowiedzieli się na temat chęci wykorzystania narzędzi zdalnych. Szczególnie że „czasami jest to dobre narzędzie, szczególnie gdy jest duża odległość", a ponadto, „jeżeli ktoś posługuje się testami podczas spotkań, nie widzę przeszkód, by te testy zaadaptować do wersji elektronicznych, by nie tracić czasu na sesji, klient robi je w domu". Podsumowując: respondenci stwierdzili, że wsparcie psychologiczne powinno być nieodzownym elementem outplacementu. Niezbędne jest jednak podjęcie pewnych działań z tym związanych: „trzeba pokazać korzyści, jaki będzie wizerunek pracodawcy w oczach otoczenia i pracowników zostających, ale i zwalnianych. Idzie taki sygnał, że pomimo że muszę was zwolnić, to interesuję się wami, chcę wam zapewnić poczucie bezpieczeństwa, że coś gwarantuję". 96 Rozdział 2. 2.1.3. Ocena wsparcia szkoleniowego w reorientacji zawodowej Zdaniem uczestników spotkania FGI to samokształcenie jest bardzo istotnym elementem rozwoju pracownika i przekłada się na korzyści dla pracodawców. „Ma ogromny wpływ przede wszystkim na przynależność pracownika do firmy, pracownicy samokształcą się w konkretnych zawodach, przez co mają możliwość samorozwoju, ale i awansu w przyszłości. Są lepiej doceniani w przedsiębiorstwach, wzrasta ich samoocena, są bardziej pewni siebie, wzrasta wydajność pracy, a tym samym zadowolenie pracodawcy". Poza tym pozwala na „podniesienie jakości świadczonych usług" oraz na „oszczędność dla firmy". Jednocześnie zwrócono uwagę, że pracodawcy nie doceniają jednak tego procesu. „Duży nacisk jest na dokształcanie nieformalne, nie jest doceniane samokształcenie pracowników w różnych formach. Często zapominają, że ten rozwój dotyczy umiejętności, postaw, dzieje się poprzez czytanie fachowej literatury, kontakty z bardziej doświadczonymi pracownikami i naukę umiejętności na stanowiskach pracy od swoich bardziej doświadczonych kolegów. Jest to mało uchwytne, bo nie ma na to papierka". Uczestnicy stwierdzili, że pracownicy jednak niechętnie podchodzą do procesu samokształcenia. „Jest to zbyt rzadkie zjawisko występujące w firmach. Dotyczy to grup podstawowych pracowników fizycznych, w bardzo niewielkim stopniu i w niewielkim procencie. Znacznie więcej kształcą się kadry średnie i menedżerowie". Jak się jednak okazało, co trzeci respondent CATI nie korzystał nigdy z żadnych szkoleń. Pozostali nie tylko brali w nich udział; w dodatku co piąty z badanych uczestniczył w szkoleniach w ciągu ostatnich 6 miesięcy. W okresie do roku korzystała ze szkoleń jedna trzecia badanych. Natomiast w okresie powyżej jednego roku korzystała z nich kolejna jedna trzecia badanych, przy czym dość znaczny odsetek, bo 13% badanych, brał udział w szkoleniach w okresie 5 i więcej lat. Warto zwrócić uwagę, że w grupie kobiet większy udział miały te osoby, które korzystały ze szkoleń, w porównaniu z mężczyznami – w tym drugim przypadku dwie piąte badanych z tej grupy nigdy nie korzystało ze szkoleń. Udział w szkoleniach w ostatnim roku brał co czwarty mężczyzna uczestniczący w badaniu. W przypadku kobiet ten odsetek okazał się większy i wyniósł 36,9% osób. 97 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Wykres 18. Udział w szkoleniach Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. Odpowiedzi na pytanie o to, kto skierował respondentów na szkolenia, wskazują, że najczęściej był to obecny pracodawca – odpowiedzi takiej udzieliło łącznie 45,2% badanych. Na drugim miejscu pod względem liczby odpowiedzi znalazło się wskazanie na własną inicjatywę pracownika (25,3% respondentów). Trzeci w kolejności podmiot często kierujący pracowników na szkolenia to poprzedni pracodawca. Jedynie co dziesiąty badany został skierowany na szkolenia przez pracownika Powiatowego Urzędu Pracy. W zasadzie brak większych różnic w odpowiedziach kobiet i mężczyzn. Trzeba jednak zwrócić uwagę, że nieco częściej to kobiety wskazywały na skierowanie na szkolenia otrzymane przez pracownika PUP (13,2%) niż mężczyźni (8,3%). Jednocześnie mężczyźni nieco częściej wskazywali na udział w procesie rekrutacji na szkolenia obecnego pracodawcy (47,9%) niż kobiety (43,8%). 20,0% 13,5% 12,0% 7,0% 13,0% 32,5% 2,0% 22,3% 14,6% 13,1% 4,6% 13,1% 29,2% 3,1% 15,7% 11,4% 10,0% 11,4% 12,9% 38,6% 0,0% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% w okresie do 6 miesięcy w okresie od 6 miesięcy do 1 roku w okresie od 1 roku do 2 lat w okresie od 2 do 5 lat w okresie 5 lat i więcej nigdy nie korzystałem/am ze szkoleń brak odpowiedzi mężczyźni kobiety łącznie 98 Rozdział 2. Jak zauważyli uczestnicy spotkania fokusowego – FGI − tematyka szkoleń różni się w zależności od firmy, od działu, w jakim jest zatrudniona osoba, oraz jej stażu. „Najczęściej szkolone są osoby z najkrótszym stażem". Istotne znaczenie ma również rodzaj wybieranych szkoleń i kursów, a w konsekwencji to, czy wpływają one na podnoszenie kwalifikacji pracowników, czy na ich kompetencje. Wśród szkoleń kwalifikacyjnych szczególnie często przez badanych metodą CATI były wskazywane szkolenia dotyczące zagadnień prawnych – 37% badanych brało w nich udział. Na drugim miejscu były szkolenia z zakresu obsługi komputera, na które wskazał co trzeci badany. Najmniej badanych wskazywało na szkolenia z zakresu zarządzania projektami oraz menedżerskie. Wykres 19. Źródło skierowania na szkolenia Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. Jeśli chodzi zaś o podnoszenie kompetencji, wysoki odsetek osób wskazał na uczestnictwo w szkoleniach z zakresu komunikacji i pracy w zespole. Co czwarty badany wskazał zaś na szkolenia z zakresu asertywności. Najmniej badanych szkolonych było w zakresie zakładania własnej firmy. Jedynie co dziesiąty badany wskazał na taką odpowiedź. Co interesujące, jeśli dokonać analizy wyników badań z punktu widzenia płci respondentów, okazuje się, że kobiety częściej wskazywały na udział w szkoleniach podnoszących kwalifikacje. Przy czym mężczyźni częściej brali udział w szkoleniach językowych niż kobiety. W szkoleniach mających na celu podnoszenie kompetencji częściej uczestniczyli mężczyźni niż kobiety. Szczególnie zwraca uwagę fakt, że co trzeci mężczyzna wskazał na branie udziału w szkoleniach z zakresu 11,6% 45,2% 17,8% 25,3% 13,3% 43,9% 17,3% 25,5% 8,3% 47,9% 18,8% 25,0% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% pracownik PUP obecny pracodawca poprzedni pracodawca była to moja własna inicjatywa mężczyźni kobiety łącznie 99 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu zarządzania czasem, gdy wśród kobiet tylko 16,3% wskazało na taką tematykę szkoleń. Wykres 20. Tematyka wykorzystanych w przeszłości szkoleń i kursów − tylko opinie pozytywne Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. Respondenci mieli ponadto okazję wypowiedzieć się na temat tego, jakie tematy szkoleń są szczególnie przydatne dla pracowników przedsiębiorstw, którzy są zagrożeni utratą pracy. Najwyżej ocenione zostały szkolenia językowe (średnia ocena 4,2). Drugie w kolejności znalazły się kursy z zakresu obsługi komputera (średnia ocena 4,1). Najniżej ocenione były szkolenia z zakresu zarządzania projektami (średnia ocena 3,3), jednak różnica w ocenie ich przydatności w porównaniu do innych rodzajów tematów szkoleń i kursów nie była znacząco niższa. 25,2% 31,9% 37,0% 24,4% 11,1% 24,4% 11,9% 24,4% 31,1% 21,5% 16,3% 9,6% 21,7% 35,9% 43,5% 30,4% 9,8% 26,1% 13,0% 27,2% 29,4% 16,3% 14,1% 7,6% 32,6% 23,3% 23,3% 11,6% 14,0% 20,9% 9,3% 18,6% 34,9% 32,6% 20,9% 14,0% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% szkolenia językowe obsługa komputera zagadnienia prawne finanse/księgowość menedżerskie obsługa klienta i sprzedaż zarządzanie projektami asertywność w komunikacji komunikacja i praca w zespole zarządzanie czasem radzenie sobie ze stresem zakładanie własnej firmy mężczyźni kobiety łącznie 100 Rozdział 2. Wykres 21. Ocena przydatności tematów szkoleń i kursów dla osób zagrożonych zwolnieniem z pracy Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. W zasadzie kobiety oceniały wyżej przydatność niemal wszystkich tematów szkoleń. Wyjątek stanowi szkolenie z zakresu zagadnień prawnych, które zostało ocenione przez mężczyzn najwyżej ze wszystkich rodzajów tematów szkoleń, na poziomie średniej oceny 4,4. Ostatnie pytanie kwestionariusza odnosiło się do formy szkoleń i kursów. Respondenci mogli wskazać, w jakiej formie szkoleń i kursów brali udział. 4,2 4,1 3,7 3,7 3,5 3,9 3,3 3,6 3,6 3,5 3,6 3,5 4,2 4,2 3,2 3,8 3,6 3,9 3,5 3,7 3,8 3,7 3,9 3,5 4,1 4,0 4,4 3,5 3,4 3,8 3,0 3,3 3,3 3,3 3,2 3,3 0,0 0,5 1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0 3,5 4,0 4,5 5,0 szkolenia językowe obsługa komputera zagadnienia prawne finanse/księgowość menedżerskie obsługa klienta i sprzedaż zarządzanie projektami asertywność w komunikacji komunikacja i praca w zespole zarządzanie czasem radzenie sobie ze stresem zakładanie własnej firmy mężczyźni kobiety łącznie 101 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Wykres 22. Charakterystyka wykorzystanych w przeszłości szkoleń i kursów − tylko opinie pozytywne Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. Jak wskazują wyniki badania, szkolenia, w jakich uczestniczyli respondenci, najczęściej były prowadzone poza stanowiskiem pracy oraz były to szkolenia grupowe realizowane w dni robocze. Nieco rzadziej były to szkolenia w godzinach pracy, aczkolwiek 57% pytanych wska28,9% 68,9% 25,9% 73,3% 35,6% 37,8% 53,3% 33,3% 60,0% 57,0% 54,8% 39,3% 37,0% 81,5% 31,1% 25,0% 66,3% 23,9% 77,2% 31,5% 32,6% 48,9% 32,6% 54,4% 58,7% 52,2% 39,1% 38,0% 79,4% 30,4% 37,2% 74,4% 30,2% 65,1% 44,2% 48,8% 62,8% 34,9% 72,1% 53,5% 60,5% 39,5% 34,9% 86,1% 32,6% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% na stanowisku pracy poza stanowiskiem pracy e-szkolenia, e-learning grupowe indywidualne na terenie firmy w miejscu zlokalizowania firmy wyjazdowe w godzinach pracy poza godzinami pracy jednodniowe 2-3 dniowe wielodniowe w dni robocze w weekendy mężczyźni kobiety Łącznie 102 Rozdział 2. zało na szkolenia, które odbywały się poza godzinami pracy. Dość często były to szkolenia prowadzone w miejscu zlokalizowania firmy pracodawcy. Najrzadziej wskazywano na szkolenia na stanowisku pracy oraz na takie, które były prowadzone metodami e-learning. Ponadto co trzeci respondent wskazywał na udział w szkoleniach w trakcie weekendów. Z punktu widzenia zwalniania pracowników szkolenia mogą w znacznym stopniu przyczynić się do utrzymania dalszej aktywności zawodowej. Respondenci oceniali formy szkoleń i kursów dla pracowników zagrożonych zwolnieniami w skali od 0 do 5, gdzie 0 oznacza brak znaczenia, a 5 − bardzo wysokie znaczenie poszczególnych form szkoleń i kursów dla osób zagrożonych zwolnieniem z pracy. Szczególnie wysoko oceniona została przydatność szkoleń indywidualnych (średnia ocena 4,2). Najlepiej, aby były to szkolenia na terenie firmy czy też w miejscowości, w której działa firma. Zwrócono uwagę, że mogłyby to być szkolenia na stanowisku pracy, w godzinach pracy. Co interesujące, najniżej zostały ocenione szkolenia, które miałyby odbywać się w czasie weekendu. Nisko ocenione zostały ponadto szkolenia o charakterze e-learningowym. W ramach badań FGI respondenci stwierdzili zaś, że formy zdalne samokształcenia „dają wielkie możliwości". „Formy zdalne, internetowe dają także oszczędność czasu, są idealne dla osób niepełnosprawnych, matek wychowujących dzieci, daleko zlokalizowanych w odległych regionach". „Dzięki takiemu narzędziu ja mogę siedzieć w domu i nikt o tym nie wie, jak ja podnoszę swoją wiedzę, kwalifikacje". Jednak oprócz serwisu YouTube i płyt multimedialnych nie wskazali „narzędzi zdalnych", które mogą służyć procesowi samokształcenia. Stwierdzono natomiast, że narzędzia zdalne stanowią przyszłość. Szczególnie, że „młode pokolenie ma inną percepcję, patrząc na siebie chyba jestem krok w tyle, (...) Zmieniać się będzie w kierunku tych metod zdalnych, bo takie pokolenie wchodzi na rynek". 103 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Wykres 23. Ocena skuteczności poszczególnych form szkoleń i kursów dla osób zagrożonych zwolnieniem z pracy Źródło: Badania własne, CATI, N=200. 2.2. Inspiracje portugalskie dla modelu ESP_Pracownik Opisane poniżej metody rozpoznawania, walidacji i potwierdzania kompetencji oraz metody działań outplacementowych prowadzonych w instytucjach publicznych, jak też profesjonalnych firmach doradczych, świadczących usługi komercyjne dla firm, oddają szerokie spektrum problemowe projektu „PWP: INNOWACJE NA ZAKRĘCIE − testowa4,0 3,7 3,0 3,6 4,2 4,1 4,0 3,4 4,0 3,4 3,5 3,6 3,7 3,8 3,1 4,1 3,8 3,1 3,7 4,2 4,1 4,1 3,4 4,1 3,5 3,6 3,6 3,8 4,1 3,1 3,9 3,7 2,8 3,5 4,2 4,1 4,0 3,3 3,9 3,3 3,3 3,4 3,7 4,0 3,1 0,0 0,5 1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0 3,5 4,0 4,5 na stanowisku pracy poza stanowiskiem pracy e-szkolenia, e-learning grupowe indywidualne na terenie firmy w miejscu zlokalizowania firmy wyjazdowe w godzinach pracy poza godzinami pracy jednodniowe 2-3 dniowe wielodniowe w dni robocze w weekendy mężczyźni kobiety łącznie 104 Rozdział 2. nie i wdrażanie nowych metod outplacementu". Z jednej strony przykłady ukazują problematykę wsparcia indywidualnego pracownika (zwalnianego z pracy lub przechodzącego na inne stanowisko w wyniku modernizacji), koncentrującą się na kwestiach psychologicznych, motywacyjnych i edukacyjnych jednostki, z drugiej zaś strony pokazują działania przeznaczone dla firm, związane z budowaniem lub ochroną wizerunku firmy przechodzącej modernizację, koncentrujące się na kwestiach zarządzania kompetencjami w firmie czy relacjami społecznymi firmy z otoczeniem. Przegląd dobrych praktyk zaprezentowanych poniżej potwierdza więc zasadność dwubiegunowego modelu outplacementu wypracowanego w projekcie, uwzględniającego zarówno aspekt PRACOWNIKA (wraz z przygotowanymi dla niego narzędziami i działaniami na rynku pracy) oraz aspekt FIRMY, której oferowane są odrębne działania na poziomie ponadjednostkowym, związane z zarządzaniem kompetencjami w firmie w procesie jej modernizacji. BILANSOWANIE KOMPETENCJI W PROCESIE RVCC PRO1 Proces operacjonalizacji rozpoznawania, walidacji i poświadczania kompetencji zawodowych (RVCC Pro) jest przeprowadzany i rozwijany w Centrach Nowych Możliwości i stanowi pole interwencji przede wszystkim w przypadkach osób zatrudnionych i bezrobotnych w wieku od 18 lat wzwyż. Pozwala on na poświadczanie umiejętności zawodowych zdobytych w drodze pozaformalnej i nieformalnej edukacji oraz na identyfikację potrzeb szkoleniowych w celu pozyskania nowych umiejętności w ramach procesu uczenia się przez całe życie. Jak napisano w Rozporządzeniu nr 370/2008 z 21 maja, kandydat starający się o przyjęcie do Centrum Nowych Możliwości musi przejść proces rejestracji, diagnozy oraz wyznaczenia kierunku dalszego działania. Podobny proces, poza innymi alternatywami, odbywa się także w przypadku RVCC Pro. W kontekście metodologii, proces RVCC Pro składa się z trzech głównych kroków, które, w swoim ogólnym zarysie, odpowiadają etapom akademickiego RVCC. Są to: rozpoznawanie kompetencji, walidacja kompetencji oraz poświadczanie kompetencji. W poniższej tabeli zawarto charakterystykę każdego z tych etapów, ich uczestników oraz kolejno używane narzędzia i produkty. 1 Rozdział przygotowany przez partnera ponadnarodowego ISQ na podstawie: A. Azevedo (red.), Recognition, Validation and Certification of Professional Competences: Handbook & Guidelines, ISQ, Lizbona 2013. 105 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Tabela 1. Etapy procesów RVCC Pro przeprowadzanych w Centrach Nowych Możliwości. Etapy A. Rejestracja B. Diagnoza C. Wyznaczanie kierunku Struktura procesu RVCC D1. Rozpoznawanie kompetencji D2. Walidacja kompetencji D3. Poświadczanie kompetencji Dział ania • Zapis kandydata do Centrum Nowych Możliwości w celu wzięcia udziału w procesie • Informacje: misja Centrum Nowych Możliwości, różne etapy procesu, możliwość przekierowania na szkolenie lub rozpoznania, walidacji i poświadczenia kompetencji, • Analiza profilu kandydata podczas sesji zbierania informacji, analiza życiorysu, indywidualne lub grupowe rozmowy bądź inne odpowiednie strategie, przeprowadzane zgodnie z metodologią rejestracji i diagnozy, przeprowadzane w Centrach Nowych Możliwości. • Identyfikacja najtrafniejszych odpowiedzi, mająca na względzie wcześniej rozwinięty profil kandydata oraz wszelkie formy edukacji i szkoleń, zarówno na poziomie lokalnym, jak i regionalnym; • Rezultat procesu wyznaczania dalszego kierunku działania osiągnięty w wyniku porozumienia/negocja cji pomiędzy zespołem Centrum Nowych Możliwości oraz kandydatem. • Umowa pomiędzy kandydatem do procesu RVCC a Centrum Nowych Możliwości, zgodnie ze wzorem; • Ustalenie harmonogramu zajęć, który wypracowany zostanie pomiędzy specjalistą RVC a kandydatem; • Wypracowanie procesów identyfikacji oraz polepszania wiedzy i umiejętności zdobywanych przez całe życie, poprzez działania oparte na metodologii równoważenia umiejętności, uży- • Wypełnienie formularza samooceny; • Analiza kompetencji oparta na formularzu kariery i szkoleń, portfolio oraz formularzu samooceny; • Wypełnienie formularza analizy portfolio; • Organizacja portfolio zgodnie z obserwacjami dotyczącymi wiedzy i umiejętności zdobytych w różnych kontekstach oraz groma- • Podsumowanie posiadanych umiejętności przez kandydata, istotnych dla dorobku zawodowego, oraz ich weryfikacja przez doradcę RVCC; • Ocena zewnętrzna oraz samoocena umiejętności oparta na portfolio oraz, jeśli zachodzi taka potrzeba, na wywiadzie technicznym lub praktycznej demonstracji; • Identyfikacja posiadanych i/lub brakujących umiejętności; • Skiero- • Poświadczenie kompetencji opartych na Portfolio; • Zapis poświadczonych kompetencji w protokole; • Wydanie PPQ (jeśli osiągnięto częściowe poświadczenie), co jest najlepszą odpowiedzią na zdobycie umiejętności, których brakowało w trakcie procesu RVCC; • Wydanie certyfikatu kwalifikacji lub, w innych przypad106 Rozdział 2. Etapy A. Rejestracja B. Diagnoza C. Wyznaczanie kierunku Struktura procesu RVCC D1. Rozpoznawanie kompetencji D2. Walidacja kompetencji D3. Poświadczanie kompetencji wyznaczenie etapu diagnozy. waniu narzędzi mediacji podczas tworzenia portfolio, a także poprzez metody diagnostyczne; • Wypełnienie formularza dotyczącego kariery i szkoleń; • Tworzenie portfolio (do pewnego stopnia z pomocą) dzenie jak największej liczby istotnych zaświadczeń; • Aplikacja innych narzędzi oceny, w tym skryptu wywiadu technicznego, formularza dotyczącego obserwacji zachowania w miejscu pracy oraz ćwiczeń symulacyjnych w celu ewaluacji wiedzy i zdobytych umiejętności, a także w celu weryfikacji adekwatności, istotnowanie kandydata do kontynuacji procesu RVCC lub na sesję certyfikacyjną; • Zdefiniowanie szkicu Osobistego Planu Kwalifikacji (PPQ); • kacja/walida cja zdobytych kompetencji zdefiniowanych w PPQ, dokonywana, gdy kandydat wraca do Centrum Nowych Możliwości po odbytym szkoleniu; • Przygotowanie sesji certyfikacyjnej kach, dyplomu. 107 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Etapy A. Rejestracja B. Diagnoza C. Wyznaczanie kierunku Struktura procesu RVCC D1. Rozpoznawanie kompetencji D2. Walidacja kompetencji D3. Poświadczanie kompetencji ści i wiarygodności zebranych dowodów/i nformacji; • Ogłoszenie wyników procesu na platformie komputerowej. Narzędzia i produkty • Formularz zapisu (dostępny na platformie SIGO) • Materiały promocyjne (np. dokumentacja Centrum Nowych Możliwości i charakterystyka jego działań oraz różne metody • Metodologia, diagnoza i wyznaczanie kierunku działania kandydatów; • Materiały promocyjne; • Portfolio (jeśli kandydat już takie ma.) • Metodologia, diagnoza i wyznaczanie kierunku działania kandydata; • Materiały promocyjne. • Szablon umowy (dostępny na platformie SIGO); • Metodologia/narzęd zia mediacji; • Ramy odniesienia RVCC Pro; • Formularz dotyczący kariery i szkoleń; • Portfolio; • SIGO. • Portfolio; • Formularze wypełnione na etapie diagnozy; • Formularz dotyczący kariery i szkoleń; • Formularz samooceny; • Formularz analizy portfolio; • Rodzaje dowodów poświadświadczają- • Portfolio; • formularz analizy portfolio • skrypt wywiadu technicznego; • formularz obserwacji zachowania w miejscu pracy oraz ćwiczenia symulacyjne; • Komputerowa platforma oceny. • Portfolio; • "pakiet ewaluacyjny"; • protokoły poświadczenia kompetencji; • Osobisty Plan Kwalifikacji; • Certyfikat kwalifikacji oraz dyplom; • Osobisty Plan Rozwoju; • Komputerowa platforma oceny; • Platforma 108 Rozdział 2. Etapy A. Rejestracja B. Diagnoza C. Wyznaczanie kierunku Struktura procesu RVCC D1. Rozpoznawanie kompetencji D2. Walidacja kompetencji D3. Poświadczanie kompetencji kształcenia i szkoleń.) cych umiejętności kandydata dotyczące wykonywania danych zadań; • Skrypt wywiadu technicznego; • Formularz obserwacji zachowania w miejscu pracy oraz ćwiczenia symulacyjne; • Komputerowa platforma oceny . SIGO. Ucze stnicy • Pracownik administracyjny. • Doradca/diagno styk • Doradca/diagnost yk • Doradca/specjali sta RVC. • Trener RVC (często doradca/specja lista RVC udziela mu wsparcia przy formularzu samooceny) • Zespół walidacyjny (doradca/specjali sta RVC + trener RVC + wewnętrzny weryfikator RVC) • Zewnętrzny weryfikator (w • Zespół certyfikacyjny (doradca/specja lista RVC + trener RVC + wewnętrzny weryfikator RVC + zewnętrzny 109 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Etapy A. Rejestracja B. Diagnoza C. Wyznaczanie kierunku Struktura procesu RVCC D1. Rozpoznawanie kompetencji D2. Walidacja kompetencji D3. Poświadczanie kompetencji trakcie przygotowań do sesji certyfikacyjnej) weryfikator RVC); • Dyrektor Centrum Nowych Możliwości. Źródło: A. Azevedo (red.), Rozpoznawanie, Walidacja i Poświadczanie Kompetencji Zawodowych: Podręcznik i Wskazówki, ISQ, Lizbona 2013, s. 21 i nast. Etapy A, B i C − Rejestracja, Diagnoza i Wyznaczanie kierunku Na etapie rejestracji kandydat wypełnia w Portugalii formularz aplikacji (dostępny w Zintegrowanym Systemie Zarządzania Finansowego – SIGO) i nawiązuje pierwszy kontakt z Centrum Nowych Możliwości; wyjaśniona mu zostaje misja Centrum oraz podejmowane tam działania. To właśnie na tym etapie Centrum powinno zacząć zbierać, konsultować z kandydatem i analizować informacje o nim, celu potrzebnych do wydania jak najlepszej opinii, zgodnej ze specyficznymi cechami kandydata. Informacje te są podstawą procesu diagnozy. Dzięki ich analizie, pogłębianiu oraz uzupełnianiu poprzez wywiady oraz wypełnianie formularzy diagnostycznych przygotowanych w tym celu, doradcy diagnostycy i specjaliści zajmujący się wyznaczaniem kierunku komponują profil kandydata oraz identyfikują jego potencjalne kwalifikacje. Podczas indywidualnego wywiadu, cel związany z identyfikacją odpowiednich kwalifikacji jest dyskutowany, co może prowadzić do jego przedefiniowania. Kiedy decyzja o skierowaniu kandydata do wzięcia udziału w procesie RVCC Pro zostanie podjęta, osoba przeprowadzająca diagnozę informuje kandydata o celu i charakterze tego procesu. Etap D1 – Rozpoznawanie kompetencji Kiedy decyzja o rozpoczęciu procesu RVCC Pro zostanie podjęta, kandydat wiąże się z Centrum Nowych Możliwości umową (umowa dostępna na platformie SIGO). Następnie doradca, specjalista RVC, przy pomocy trenera RVC, rozpoczyna proces rozpoznawania umiejętności zawodowych kandydata. Następnie przechodzi do identyfikacji, oceny oraz rozpoznawania posiadanych przez niego umiejętności, w oparciu o 110 Rozdział 2. metodologię bilansu umiejętności i/lub poprzez użycie zestawu specyficznych narzędzi diagnostycznych. Dzięki tym działaniom kandydat tworzy swoje Portfolio, składające się z zestawu dokumentów poświadczających posiadane umiejętności, które (łącznie z diagnozą i procesem RVCC Pro) będzie podstawą późniejszego procesu ewaluacji. Portfolio − zbiór dowodów i zaświadczeń dotyczących zdobytych kompetencji − ma charakter dynamiczny, jako że samoistnie rozbudowuje się i wzbogaca w trakcie procesu RVCC. Na etapie rozpoznawania kompetencji doradca oraz trener RVC pracują wspólnie, by doprowadzić do jednego celu – utworzenia portfolio przez kandydata. Ich udział w tym procesie różni się jednak w kilku punktach: specjalista, doradca RVC ma globalne podejście do procesu, używa więc metodologii bilansu umiejętności oraz bierze pod uwagę całą historię życia kandydata, podczas gdy trener, który jest technicznym fachowcem w danej dziedzinie zawodowej, koncentruje się na kompetencjach (cząstkowych), odpowiadających wykonywaniu danego zawodu. W tym sensie tworzenie Portfolio rozpoczyna specjalista, doradca RVC, który współpracuje z kandydatem w celu identyfikacji jego wiedzy zdobytej w procesie uczenia się przez całe życie, wykorzystuje też informacje dostarczone przez diagnostę oraz zaczerpnięte z formularzy dotyczących kariery i szkoleń. Portfolio jest zatem ustrukturyzowanym zbiorem dokumentów wspierających proces zbierania informacji/ewidencji i odkrywania posiadanych przez kandydata umiejętności, które mogą być cenne w procesie RVCC Pro. Wzbogacaniem portfolio zajmuje się natomiast doradca, trener RVC, który gromadzi narzędzia oceny znajdujące się w „pakiecie ewaluacyjnym", by dostarczyć odpowiednie dowody poświadczające posiadane przez kandydata kompetencje lub wzmocnić te, które już udało się zebrać. Wspomniane narzędzia oceny to: formularz samooceny, formularz analizy portfolio, skrypt wywiadu technicznego, formularz obserwacji zachowania w miejscu pracy oraz ćwiczenia symulacyjne. Etap D2 – Walidacja kompetencji Walidacja umiejętności zawodowych koncentruje się na współpracy wewnętrznego doradcy asesora RVC, trenera oraz specjalisty (w trakcie sesji walidacyjnej), którzy wraz z kandydatem analizują i oceniają portfolio, zgodnie z wytycznymi RVCC Pro. Dzięki tej ocenie zidentyfikowane zostają kompetencje wymagające walidacji, czyli te, których posiadanie nie jest w żaden sposób udowodnione, oraz kompetencje, których kandydat w ogóle nie posiada. Na tym etapie wewnętrzny doradca RVC odgrywa kluczową rolę, ponieważ prowadzi on analizę i ocenę zadań/kompetencji, które kandydat jest w stanie poświadczyć. Bazuje 111 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu przy tym na analizie i walidacji dokonanej uprzednio wspólnie przez kandydata, trenera i doradcę, specjalistę RVC. Do tego momentu ocena/walidacja dokonywana jest przez wewnętrznego asesora RVC, w oparciu o materiały zawarte w portfolio, jednak w razie jakichkolwiek wątpliwości jest ona wsparta przez zastosowanie różnych narzędzi oceny znajdujących sie w "pakiecie ewaluacyjnym". Etap walidacji ma bardzo dynamiczny i elastyczny charakter, co przejawia się w jego wzajemnym połączeniu z etapem rozpoznawania kompetencji. Dzieje się to, gdy podczas prac nad rozpoznawaniem kompetencji pojawiają się momenty, w których kandydat sam dokonuje walidacji części kompetencji/zadań, co przyspiesza dalszy proces ich rozpoznawania. Te momenty wzajemnego połączenia dwóch etapów są rozwiązaniem opcjonalnym, co oznacza, że uznawane są przez zespół, a w szczególności przez trenera i asesora, doradcę RVC, jedynie, jeśli uważają oni, że jest efektywne. Jednak po zakończeniu etapu rozpoznawania kompetencji, tzn. w momencie, gdy wszystkie kompetencje składające się na ramy odniesienia RVCC Pro zostały ocenione, przeprowadzenie sesji walidacyjnej w zespole walidacyjnym (specjalista RVC, trener i wewnętrzny weryfikator) jest obowiązkowe. Finalna sesja procesu walidacji kończy się skierowaniem kandydata na sesję certyfikacyjną odbywającą się w obecności komisji certyfikacyjnej, w której skład wchodzą (poza trzema osobami z zespołu Centrum Nowych Możliwości) zewnętrzny weryfikator, akredytowany członek komisji państwowej. Etap walidacji umiejętności przewiduje także sytuację, w której kandydat zostaje skierowany na dodatkowe szkolenie, by uzyskać potrzebne umiejętności zawodowe (zdefiniowane w Osobistym Planie Kwalifikacji), co daje mu późniejszą możliwość powrotu do Centrum Nowych Możliwości w celu walidacji nowo zdobytych kwalifikacji. W takich przypadkach kandydat przedstawia podczas sesji walidacyjnej w Centrum Nowych Możliwości (w obecności specjalisty RVC, trenera i wewnętrznego weryfikatora) dowody zrealizowania Osobistego Planu Kwalifikacji. Weryfikacja/walidacja jest dokonywana poprzez analizę portfolio (teraz bardziej rozwiniętego, zawierającego nowo zdobyte umiejętności), dopełnionego poprzez wywiad lub praktyczną demonstrację, tzn. użycie pewnych instrumentów oceny odnoszących się do istotnych umiejętności. Ten proces walidacji powinien zakończyć się włączeniem do portfolio nowych elementów/dowodów w celu wyjaśnienia, demonstracji i poświadczenia zdobycia nowych umiejętności. Po walidacji kompetencji kandydat skierowany zostaje do komisji certyfikacyjnej. Jeśli, zgodnie z Osobistym Planem Kwalifikacji (OPK), kandydat ma odbyć dodatkowe szkolenia (kursy dla dorosłych, szkolenia modułowe) w akredytowanej instytucji szkoleniowej, nie wra112 Rozdział 2. ca już do Centrum Nowych Możliwości, by uzyskać ocenę. W tej sytuacji to instytucja szkoleniowa, po ukończeniu procesu szkolenia, wydaje kandydatowi stosowny certyfikat, w tym certyfikat kwalifikacji, który poświadcza umiejętności zdobyte na odbytym szkoleniu, oraz dyplom, jeśli umiejętności zdobyte podczas szkolenia wraz z umiejętnościami zdobytymi wcześniej zapewniają możliwość otrzymania podwójnego certyfikatu. Na samym końcu etapu walidacji Centrum Nowych Możliwości powinno we współpracy z zewnętrznym weryfikatorem zwołać sesję certyfikacyjną. Etap D3 – Poświadczanie kompetencji Proces RVCC kończy się etapem poświadczenia kompetencji, który skupia się na przeprowadzeniu sesji certyfikacyjnej oraz późniejszego wydania certyfikatu kwalifikacji oraz dyplomu zaaprobowanego przez dyrektora Centrum Nowych Możliwości. Sesja certyfikacyjna odbywa się w obecności komisji wyznaczonej przez dyrektora Centrum Nowych Możliwości w obowiązkowym składzie specjalisty RVC, trenera oraz wewnętrznego i zewnętrznego weryfikatora. Podczas sesji przeprowadzana jest analiza portfolio kandydata oraz, na życzenie komisji, ustna lub praktyczna demonstracja jednej z wybranych kompetencji posiadanych przez kandydata. Wykonanie tego zadania w obecności komisji nie wpływa jednak na ogólne rezultaty procesu wypracowane poprzednio wspólnie przez kandydata i zespół Centrum Nowych Możliwości ani, w szczególności, na proces walidacji wcześniej zaprezentowanych umiejętności zawodowych. W rzeczywistości pomiędzy etapem walidacji a sesją certyfikacyjną zewnętrzny weryfikator ma możliwość przeanalizowania/oceny portfolio kandydata pod kątem jego kompetencji/wykonanych zadań, a także może sprawdzić przebieg całego procesu RVCC. Rezultaty takiej ewaluacji powinny być przedyskutowane z zespołem technicznym oraz pedagogicznym podczas spotkania zwołanego specjalnie w tym celu. Zewnętrzny weryfikator powinien uprzednio dostarczyć wszelkie pytania związane z kompetencjami/wykonanymi zadaniami, które chce zadać, w celu jak najlepszego wyjaśnienia i umotywowania wyborów dokonanych przez zespół. Jeśli wątpliwości nie zostaną rozwiane, może pojawić się potrzeba głębszego zapoznania się z dowodami i zaświadczeniami przedstawionymi przez kandydata w trakcie procesu rozpoznawania kwalifikacji. W ramach swojej funkcji, zewnętrzny weryfikator zapewnia ogólne rozpoznanie i społeczną legitymację procesu RVCC dla każdego z kandydatów oraz, w konsekwencji, poświadcza ich certyfikaty uzyskane podczas sesji certyfikacyjnej. Bierze także udział we współpracy z kandydatem na jego dalszej drodze 113 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu rozwoju kompetencji przewidzianej w Osobistym Planie Kwalifikacji oraz Osobistym Planie Rozwoju. Rodzaje wyników sesji certyfikacyjnej: Jeśli kandydat jest w stanie poświadczyć kompetencje wymagane na 2. lub 4. poziomie narodowych ram kwalifikacji, otrzymuje certyfikat kwalifikacji zawierający wszystkie poświadczone kompetencje oraz dyplom [dyplom wydawany jest jedynie, jeśli spełnione są dwa warunki: kandydat ma certyfikat ukończenia poziomu zawodowego i edukacyjnego – co prowadzi do otrzymania podwójnego certyfikatu RVCC − lub ukończył jedynie poziom zawodowy (zgodnie z Krajowym Katalogiem Kwalifikacji opartym o ramy odniesienia RVCC Pro), ale już wcześniej ukończył edukację, np. uczęszczał do szkoły i ukończył 9 klas]. Jeśli kandydat jest w stanie poświadczyć wszystkie kompetencje konieczne do otrzymania certyfikatu zawodowego, ale nie ma odpowiedniego poziomu edukacji, otrzymuje jedynie certyfikat kwalifikacji (który wskazuje na poświadczone kompetencje). Jeśli kandydat nie jest w stanie poświadczyć wszystkich wymaganych kompetencji zawodowych, otrzymuje certyfikat kwalifikacji (certyfikat częściowy, wskazujący tylko na kompetencje poświadczone) wraz z Osobistym Planem Kwalifikacji wskazującym na brakujące kwalifikacje i kierującym na dalsze szkolenia. Jeśli Centrum Nowych Możliwości nie ma stosownych uprawnień dotyczących wydawania certyfikatów, certyfikaty kwalifikacji i dyplomy podpisane przez dyrektora muszą zostać zaaprobowane przez odpowiednie władze poprzez podpisanie protokołu zgodnie z prawnymi uregulowaniami zawartymi w Ustawie nr 370/2008 z 21 maja. Rezultaty sesji certyfikacyjnej są wiążące i zapisane w protokołach. Uczestnicy Proces RVCC przeprowadzany jest przez specjalistów, którzy współpracują ze sobą i posiadają następujące kwalifikacje: Specjalista RVC – ma wyższe wykształcenie, wiedzę i doświadczenie z zakresu metodologii szkoleń osób dorosłych, głównie w dziedzinie metodologii równoważenia umiejętności oraz tworzenia port folio. Trener RVC – ma specjalistyczną wiedzę w dziedzinie obejmującej proces RVCC, spełnia wymagania dotyczące wyko114 Rozdział 2. nywania zawodu trenera, najlepiej jeśli ma wiedzę i doświadczenie specjalistyczne z zakresu edukacji i szkoleń dla osób dorosłych; w wypadku procesów RVCC związanych z zawodami ograniczonymi specyficznymi regulacjami prawnymi lub w sytuacjach, gdy posiadanie licencji lub dostępu do wykonywania danej działalności gospodarczej wymaga wyszkolonych profesjonalistów, profil zawodowy trenerów RVC musi spełniać wymagania zdefiniowane w odpowiednich regulacjach. Trener pełniący funkcje walidacji (wewnętrzny weryfikator RVC) – wewnętrzny lub zewnętrzny pracownik techniczny Centrum Nowych Możliwości, który ma profil zawodowy odpowiadający trenerowi RVC Zewnętrzny weryfikator – akredytowany członek National Qualification Agency (NQA) (Narodowej Agencji Akredytacyjnej) oraz zespołu zewnętrznych ewaluatorów posiadający uznany lokalny/regionalny tytuł; według ustalonych zasad, standardów oraz procedur przyczynia się do transparentności, wiarygodności i społecznej legitymacji procesu. Przed specjalistą RVC działa diagnosta, który musi mieć wyższe wykształcenie, wiedzę dotyczącą różnych ofert edukacyjnych i szkoleniowych dla osób dorosłych oraz znać techniki i strategie oceny, diagnozy i poradnictwa zawodowego. W poniższej tabeli podsumowano główne czynności wykonywane przez uczestników procesu RVCC Pro. Tabela 2. Uczestnicy i główne czynności procesu RVCC Pro Uczestnicy Główne czynności Diagnosta • wprowadzenie, informowanie, diagnozowanie i, w zależności od profilu kandydata, nakierowywanie na odpowiedni wynik procesu; • wspieranie kandydata w kształtowaniu swojego kursu RVCC Pro oraz, jeśli zajdzie taka potrzeba, kursu edukacyjnego (jeśli kandydat woli wziąć udział w obydwu procesach: zawodowym i edukacyjnym); • zapisywanie na sesje diagnostyczne w SIGO. Specjalista RVC • zawieranie umowy pomiędzy kandydatem a Centrum Nowych Możliwości; • analiza, wraz z kandydatem, ram od115 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu niesienia RVCC Pro; • wspieranie rozwoju procesu rozpoznawania i demonstracji zdobytych kompetencji zawsze, gdy kandydat wyraża taką potrzebę; • wspieranie kandydata w systematyzacji informacji dotyczących jego kariery zawodowej, w oparciu o informacje dostarczone przez diagnostę oraz zawarte w formularzu dotyczącym kariery i szkoleń; • wspieranie kandydata w tworzeniu i konsolidacji portfolio oraz, ewentualnie, w wypełnianiu formularza samooceny wspólnie z trenerem RVC; • rejestrowanie w SIGO sesji rozpoznawania kompetencji, które są opracowywane wraz z kandydatem. Trener RVC • identyfikacja umiejętności kandydata zgodnie z ramami odniesień RVCC Pro; • analiza portfolio kandydata i wspieranie go w procesie jego rozwijania; • wykorzystanie pięciu narzędzi oceny oraz integracja „pakietu ewaluacyjnego" w celu demonstracji kompetencji przez kandydata; • zapis rezultatów ewaluacji na platformie komputerowej, specjalnie do tego przeznaczonej; • informowanie kandydata o etapach procesu walidacji i poświadczania kompetencji oraz o przygotowaniu do nich; • zapewnienie zespołu i zaplecza logistycznego niezbędnego do procesu ewaluacji kandydata, jeśli zachodzi taka potrzeba, we współpracy z koordynatorem Centrum Nowych Możliwości. Zespół walidacyjny (specjalista RVC, trener RVC, wewnętrzny weryfikator RVC) • analiza portfolio i weryfikacja liczby oraz jakości dowodów, zgodnie z ramami odniesienia RVCC Pro; • walidacja przedstawionych umiejętności przy użyciu, w razie potrzeby, narzędzi oceny zawartych w „pakiecie 116 Rozdział 2. ewaluacyjnym"; • zapis wyników procesu walidacji na platformie komputerowej do tego przeznaczonej, jeśli ocena jest inna niż ta wystawiona wcześniej przez trenera RVC na etapie rozpoznawania kompetencji; wpis powinien zostać dokonany przez trenera RVC zgodnie z ustaleniami poczynionymi z pozostałymi członkami zespołu; • przekazanie wyników walidacji kandydatowi; • sprawdzanie/walidacja, na dalszym etapie wyznaczania kierunku, zdobycia brakujących umiejętności zgodnie z zawartością Osobistego Planu Kwalifikacji; jeśli zachodzi taka potrzeba, mobilizacja instrumentów „pakietu ewaluacyjnego" (ta weryfikacja/walidacja ma miejsce jedynie w przypadkach, kiedy kandydat został skierowany na dodatkowe samodzielne szkolenia lub szkolenia w miejscu pracy, w wyniku których wraca do Centrum Nowych Możliwości w celu walidacji zdobytych umiejętności; • skierowanie kandydata na sesję certyfikacyjną; • opracowanie wstępnego projektu PPQ. Komisja certyfikacyjna (specjalista RVC, trener RVC, wewnętrzny weryfikator RVC, zewnętrzny weryfikator) • przygotowanie sesji certyfikacyjnej; • poświadczanie umiejętności oparte na portfolio kandydata w celu przyznania certyfikatu kwalifikacji lub Dyplomu; • przygotowanie protokołów z sesji certyfikacyjnej; • przygotowanie ostatecznej wersji Osobistego Planu Kwalifikacji (kiedy kandydat nie uzyskał walidacji kompetencji wymaganych do otrzymania certyfikatu zawodowego), wynegocjowanej z kandydatem. Koordynator • stymulowanie, koordynowanie i ocenianie działań Centrum Nowych Możliwości, procesów RVCC oraz odpowiedzialnych za nie zespołów; • dokonywanie diagnozy potrzeb lokal117 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu nych; • promowanie zawierania spółek, głównie zorientowanych na identyfikację i mobilizację kandydatów do podjęcia nauki w ramach różnych programów edukacyjnych i szkoleniowych; • wspieranie procesu wyznaczania kierunku działania kandydata po przejściu procesu RVCC, głównie poprzez kontakty z instytucjami szkoleniowymi; • wybór zespołu Centrum Nowych Możliwości (specjalista RVC, trener RVC, wewnętrzny weryfikator RVC); głos w sprawie każdego z kandydatów; • rozpowszechnianie procesu RVCC wśród potencjalnych kandydatów; • zapewnienie przestrzegania wskazówek metodologicznych oraz technik ogłoszonych przez NQA i instytucje patronackie. Dyrektor • wyznaczanie zewnętrznego weryfikatora, który bierze udział w sesji certyfikacyjnej każdego kandydata; • wydawanie certyfikatów kwalifikacji oraz dyplomów po pozytywnie zakończonej sesji certyfikacyjnej; • gdy dane Centrum Nowych Możliwości jest instytucją posiadającą uprawnienia do wydawania certyfikatów − akceptacja certyfikatów kwalifikacji oraz dyplomów wydanych przez Centra, które nie mają takich uprawnień. Źródło: A. Azevedo (red.), Rozpoznawanie, Walidacja i Poświadczanie Kompetencji Zawodowych: Podręcznik i Wskazówki, ISQ, Lizbona 2013, s. 30 i nast. Diagnosta wykonuje swoje obowiązki na wcześniejszym etapie procesu RVCC Pro wśród kandydatów, którzy dołączą do Centrum Nowych Możliwości. W zależności od wydanej diagnozy (ze względu na wykształcenie oraz doświadczenie zawodowe, a także potrzeby i zainteresowania każdego kandydata), diagnosta jest odpowiedzialny za skierowanie kandydata do dalszych etapów procesu RVCC lub na szkolenie edukacyjne lub zawodowe poza Centrum Nowych Możliwości. Rola, jaką odgrywa specjalista RVC w każdym z Centrów Nowych Możliwości, powinna być przekrojowa – oznacza to, że każdy ze specjalistów jest 118 Rozdział 2. przygotowany do pracy z kandydatami do procesów RVCC, zarówno zawodowych, jak i edukacyjnych. Podstawowe umiejętności zawodowe wymagane od trenera oraz weryfikatora RVC są jednakowe (trenerzy z różnych dziedzin szkoleń technicznych), co oznacza, że jedna osoba może pełnić te dwie funkcje naprzemiennie, ale nie może pełnić obydwu funkcji jednocześnie w ramach procesu RVCC jednego kandydata. Weryfikator RVC działa na etapie walidacji oraz certyfikacji (jako że jest jednym z członków komisji certyfikacyjnej) i może pełnić rolę zarówno wewnętrznego, jak i zewnętrznego pracownika Centrum Nowych Możliwości. Dokonuje on wstępnej analizy zadań/kompetencji, które kandydat chce poświadczyć zgodnie z ramami odniesienia RVCC, co jest podstawą procesu ewaluacji. Patrzy także na sytuację kandydata „technicznym okiem", w sposób bardziej zdystansowany niż trener RVC, i zapewnia tym samym większą obiektywność, na której proces rozpoznawania i walidacji umiejętności musi się opierać. W niektórych wypadkach rozległość i złożoność szkolenia technologicznego wykracza poza ramy odniesień RVCC Pro, w szczególności poza pewne umiejętności w nich zawarte. W takiej sytuacji, w ramach jednego procesu RVCC może być wymagane zaangażowanie więcej niż jednego pracownika pełniącego funkcje trenera RVC lub/i weryfikatora RVC. Taka sytuacja ma najczęściej miejsce, kiedy kompetencje Centrum Nowych Możliwości pokrywają się z kompetencjami specjalistycznych jednostek szkoleniowych, które mają status dodatkowych. Możliwość urozmaicenia składu trenerów i weryfikatorów RVC podczas procesu ewaluacji jednego kandydata powinna być ograniczona jedynie do przypadków, w których nie da się tego uniknąć. Zabieg taki może bowiem wprowadzić zamieszanie i spowodować utratę spójności procesu. By ograniczyć to ryzyko, za każdy proces odpowiada jeden trener RVC, który w razie potrzeby konsultuje się z innym wykwalifikowanym pracownikiem. Interwencja takiego pracownika (który może nie mieć doświadczenia w przeprowadzaniu procesu RVCC, ale wymaga się od niego specjalistycznego doświadczenia w kwestiach zawodowych) musi być odpowiednio ukształtowana i przeprowadzana wspólnie z odpowiedzialnym za proces trenerem, który korzysta z jego pomocy i mediacji na każdym etapie pracy z kandydatem. Weryfikator zewnętrzny, jak sama nazwa wskazuje, jest osobą spoza Centrum Nowych Możliwości. Wybiera go dyrektor Centrum spośród osób zajmujących się weryfikacją. Działa on w trakcie sesji przygotowawczej i certyfikacyjnej, która następuje zaraz po etapie walidacji. Osoba ta nie tylko skupia się na ogólnej analizie portfolio i ścieżce RVCC każdego z kandydatów, lecz także zapewnia, jak w przypadku RVCC edukacyjnych, ogólne rozpoznanie i legitymację społeczną proce119 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu su, co wiąże się z wydaniem certyfikatu kwalifikacji/dyplomu w wyniku pozytywnie przeprowadzonej sesji certyfikacyjnej. Weryfikator zewnętrzny przyczynia się także w znaczącym stopniu do wypracowania Osobistego Planu Kwalifikacji i Osobistego Planu Rozwoju każdego z kandydatów, w zależności od ich potrzeb i oczekiwań wyrażanych po zakończeniu procesu RVCC, jednak uwzględnia przy tym także potencjał i możliwości zapewnione na poziomie lokalnym/regionalnym. Dyrektor i koordynator Centrum Nowych Możliwości powinni wykonywać te same funkcje, zarówno w przypadku procesu RVCC Pro, jak i RVCC edukacyjnego. Czas trwania Czas trwania procesu RVCC Pro jest zmienny i może być wyznaczany zgodnie z poniższą charakterystyką: Tabela 3. Referencyjny czas trwania czynności Od 5 do 16 godzin Od 5 do 15 godzin Od 1 do 4 godzin Do 2 godzin na kandydata Do 1 godziny na kandydata Specjalista RVC Trener RVC Zespół walidacyjny (specjalista RVC, trener RVC, wewnętrzny weryfikator RVC) Komisja certyfikacyjna (specjalista RVC, trener RVC, wewnętrzny weryfikator RVC, zewnętrzny weryfikator) Komisja certyfikacyjna (specjalista RVC, trener RVC, wewnętrzny weryfikator RVC, zewnętrzny weryfikator) Rozpoznawanie kompetencji Sesje walidacyjne Przygotowanie do sesji certyfikacyjnej Sesja certyfikacyjna Równoważenie umiejętności. • Wypełnienie formularza dotyczącego kariery i szkoleń. • Stworzenie i konsolidacja portfolio. • Analiza i konsolidacja portfolio (możliwość dodania większej ilości elementów/dowodów). • Aplikacja narzędzi oceny „pakietu ewaluacyjnego" potrzebnych do zamieszczenia w portfolio. • Opublikowanie wyników procesu rozpoznawania • Ocena Portfolio i możliwa aplikacja narzędzi ewaluacyjnych w celu walidacji kompetencji. • Zamieszczenie walidacji na platformie komputero- • Analiza/ewaluacja portfolio kandydata. • Przygotowanie sesji certyfikacyjnej • Konsolidacja PPQ • Poświadczenie kompetencji oparte na portfolio, wydanie certyfikatu kwalifikacji oraz dyplomu. • Przygotowanie protokołów z sesji certyfikacyjnej • Wydanie PPQ (skierowanie na szkolenie) wynegocjowa120 Rozdział 2. kwalifikacji na platformie komputerowej. wej • Skierowanie kandydata na sesję certyfikacyjną, jeśli spełni warunki. • Sporządzenie wstępnej wersji PPQ. • Weryfikacja zdobycia umiejętności zgodnie z zawartością PPQ. nego z kandydatem. Źródło: A. Azevedo (red.), Rozpoznawanie, Walidacja i Poświadczanie Kompetencji Zawodowych: Podręcznik i Wskazówki, ISQ, Lizbona 2013, s. 34 Różnice w liczbie godzin da się w większości wyjaśnić etapem rozpoznawania kompetencji, który jest zależny od stopnia kompletności zaaplikowanej metody równoważenia umiejętności; tym, czy kandydat ma, czy dopiero tworzy portfolio zawierające zaświadczenia o posiadaniu istotnych kompetencji zawodowych; stopniem autonomii, jaką kandydat ma przy gromadzeniu dowodów oraz/lub mniejszą lub większą potrzebą mobilizacji instrumentów „pakietu ewaluacyjnego". W tym kontekście, jeśli istnieje potrzeba pełnego zaangażowania pewnych działań, czas trwania procesu rozpoznawania kompetencji może wykraczać poza granice wyznaczone w powyższej tabeli. Studium przypadku – firma PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers jest wiodącą globalną organizacją świadczącą profesjonalne usługi doradcze. PwC zatrudnia około 180 000 pracowników w 158 krajach. Buduje relacje z klientami dzięki usługom świadczonym w oparciu o zasady najwyższej jakości, przejrzystości i uczciwości w działaniu. W Lizbonie PwC zatrudnia ponad 900 pracowników, a w niedługiej przyszłości planuje zwiększenie liczby pracowników do 1000. PwC cieszy się opinią znakomitego pracodawcy, ponieważ dba o rozwój swoich pracowników. Firma zatrudnia przede wszystkim osoby, które nie mają jeszcze doświadczenia zawodowego. Daje im w ten sposób szansę na poszerzenie zakresu swoich kompetencji. PwC dba o kształcenie swoich pracowników, jednak 98% zatrudnionych osób 121 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu opuszcza firmę w ciągu 10 lat od rozpoczęcia pracy. W związku z dużą rotacją pracowników PwC stosuje techniki outplacementu wewnętrznego oraz zewnętrznego. Mobilność wewnątrz firmy jest szeroko stosowanym rozwiązaniem w PwC. Dzięki technikom coachingu indywidualnego coach lub pracownik mogą dojść do wniosku, że dalsza praca na danym stanowisku przestaje być satysfakcjonująca dla jednej ze stron. Pracownik może też sam poinformować firmę, że rozważa zmianę stanowiska lub miejsca pracy. Wówczas można przenieść taką osobę wewnątrz firmy − dzięki zastosowaniu rekrutacji wewnętrznej na określone stanowisko − lub na zewnątrz firmy. W przypadku wystąpienia outplacementu zewnętrznego PwC zapewnia kompleksowe wsparcie mające na celu pomoc odchodzącym pracownikom w odnalezieniu się na rynku pracy. Bardzo ważny jest w tym czasie self assessment, czyli samopoznanie pracownika, tak żeby zrozumiał, jakie ma mocne i słabe strony. Stosuje się też testy psychometryczne, które pomagają lepiej zrozumieć sytuację danej osoby. Pracownicy wprowadzani są również w świat networkingu, poznają strony internetowe i fora, gdzie mogą szukać pracy. Ponadto uczą się, w jaki sposób mogą opisać swoje umiejętności w CV skierowanym do potencjalnych pracodawców. W związku z dużą rotacją pracowników PwC bardzo często stosuje rozwiązania outplacementowe. Jednak idea outplacementu jest skupiona na osobie, a nie na firmie. Uwzględnia się tu najczęściej osoby, które chcą rozwijać się w innej dziedzinie lub muszą odejść z firmy z przyczyn osobistych. PwC wykorzystuje sieć własnych kontaktów, aby pomóc pracownikom w znalezieniu pracy w firmach, z którymi współpracuje, może też wysłać pracownika na szkolenia uzupełniające, które przeprowadzają instytucje szkolące. PwC, wykorzystuje swoje wieloletnie doświadczenie zdobyte podczas pracy przy projektach restrukturyzacji, a także ma dostęp do najnowocześniejszych narzędzi zarządzania zmianą, dzięki temu wspiera firmy podczas procesu reorganizacji zatrudnienia. Obniża koszty procesu restrukturyzacji, który przebiega w płynny sposób oraz w założonym terminie. PwC dba o utrzymanie, a nawet podnoszenie stopnia zaangażowania pracowników danej firmy w realizację bieżących celów biznesowych. PwC przeprowadza audyt produktywności i etatyzacji, czyli obiektywny pomiar produktywności poszczególnych grup pracowniczych, wskazuje w ten sposób mocne i słabe strony organizacji, a także rekomenduje likwidację zbędnych etatów. Dzięki takiej analizie opracowywane są plany etatów w oparciu o ocenę rzeczywistej pracochłonności procesów, a na tej podstawie − opracowuje się efektywną strukturę organizacyjną danej firmy. Ważnym elementem całego procesu reorganizacji jest ogłoszenie rozpoczęcia takiego procesu. Dzięki wieloletnie122 Rozdział 2. mu doświadczeniu w procesach restrukturyzacji pracownicy PwC potrafią dotrzeć z taką informacją do wszystkich zainteresowanych grup zawodowych poprzez odpowiednio przygotowane listy, prezentacje oraz oficjalne pisma. Gwarantują też pełne zrozumienie i akceptację zmian przez wszystkich pracowników. Przeprowadzają także negocjacje ze związkami zawodowymi i zapewniają pełne wsparcie negocjacji w celu uzyskania całkowitej akceptacji celów i metod restrukturyzacji zatrudnienia. Pracownicy PwC oferują też doradztwo w zakresie utrzymania kluczowych pracowników w firmie. PwC towarzyszy również swoim klientom w prowadzeniu zwolnień monitorowanych (ang. outplacement). Wspiera ich w zakresie pełnej komunikacji procesu zmian w stosunku do wszystkich pracowników organizacji, przygotowuje kadrę kierowniczą do prowadzenia indywidualnych rozmów ze zwalnianymi pracownikami, prowadzi warsztaty i szkolenia dla zwalnianych pracowników z zakresu opracowywania CV, listu motywacyjnego oraz metod poszukiwania pracy. PwC pomaga też w opracowaniu szczegółowych planów rozwoju zawodowego dla poszczególnych pracowników ze wskazaniem propozycji ukończenia niezbędnych szkoleń, kursów, uzyskaniem wsparcia instytucji rządowych w oparciu o specyfikę regionalnego rynku pracy i jego perspektyw. W przypadku zwolnień grupowych PwC pomaga swoim klientom w przejściu przez ten proces za pomocą określonych procedur. Najważniejszym narzędziem w takim procesie będzie zastosowanie modelu drzewa kompetencji. Drzewiasta struktura kompetencji pozwala odróżnić kompetencje wspólne (związane z działalnością podstawową) od kompetencji specyficznych. Każdy element drzewa reprezentuje określone kompetencje. Podczas przeprowadzania procesu restrukturyzacji lub zwolnień grupowych trzeba więc ostrożnie podchodzić do redukcji etatów, tak, żeby nie odciąć gałęzi, które mogą okazać się decydujące dla danej firmy. Najczęściej redukuje się stanowiska osób, które mają najmniejsze doświadczenie w firmie lub które mogą być zastąpione przez inną osobę z zespołu. W ocenie PwC najważniejsza jest właściwa ocena kompetencji pracowników oraz odnalezienie pracowników, których cechuje wielozadaniowość i których kompetencje są niezwykle istotne dla funkcjonowania firmy. Troska o pracowników oraz ich rozwój sprawia, że pracownicy, którzy opuszczają firmę, stają się ambasadorami PwC. PricewaterCoopers stara się utrzymywać dobre kontakty z byłymi pracownikami, którzy bardzo często stają się klientami PwC, co generuje zyski dla obu stron. Ponadto raz w roku odbywają się spotkania, na które zapraszani są byli pracownicy. Dzięki dbałości o relacje z byłymi i obecnymi pracownikami powstaje pozytywna opinia o PwC. Podkreśla to szczególnie myśl Platona, która przyświeca firmie Pricewa123 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu terCoopers: „Ustawienie żagli, a nie kierunek wiatru wyznacza drogę, którą podążamy". Zgodnie z mottem firmy zarówno statek, czyli firma, jak i wiatr, czyli uwarunkowania, są ważne, ale najważniejszym elementem na statku jest żagiel, czyli każdy pracownik firmy.. Usługi doradcze oferowane w ramach publicznego systemu zatrudnienia Instituto de Emprego e Formacao Profissional Instituto de Emprego e Formacao Profissional (Urząd Pracy i Dokształcania Zawodowego) w Portugalii jest instytucją promującą tworzenie miejsc pracy oraz jakości zatrudnienia, a także walczącą z bezrobociem poprzez wdrażanie polityki aktywnego poszukiwania pracy, w sposób szczególny w zakresie szkoleń zawodowych. IEFP wspiera osoby poszukujące pracy: oferuje odpowiednio dobrane szkolenia, doradztwo zawodowe, podnoszenie kwalifikacji młodzieży i dorosłych, dynamizację procesu poszukiwania pracy oraz pomoc w odnalezieniu się na rynku pracy, zwłaszcza osobom, które mają trudności ze znalezieniem pracy np. niepełnosprawnym. Początki IEFP sięgają lat 30. XX wieku, kiedy to podjęto pierwsze próby rozwiązania problemów związanych z zatrudnieniem, wynikających z kryzysu ekonomicznego, i stworzono pierwszą instytucję, która zajęła się zagadnieniem bezrobocia. Wówczas publiczne lub prywatne jednostki mogły skorzystać ze zwrotu 50% wynagrodzenia przez okres maksymalnie 3 dni w tygodniu, jeżeli dołączyły pracownika do stałego personelu firmy. W latach 60. przemysł stał się strategicznym sektorem gospodarczym w Portugalii. W tym czasie nastąpił wzrost liczby przedsiębiorstw oraz rozwój już istniejących. W związku z procesem przemysłowej reorganizacji powstała kwestia bezrobocia związanego z niedoborem pracowników posiadających kwalifikacje techniczne oraz potrzeba zatrudniania profesjonalistów, którzy sprostają wymaganiom nowych miejsc pracy. Powstał więc fundusz FDMO, zajmujący się bezrobociem wynikającym z reorganizacji przemysłu. W 1962 roku powstał Instytut Przyspieszonego Szkolenia Zawodowego (IFPA – Accelerated Vocational Training Institute), którego celem były m.in. promocja kwalifikacji zawodowych mało wykwalifikowanych pracowników, współpraca z firmami w zakresie przeszkolenia ich zasobów ludzkich oraz polepszenie przystosowania człowieka do zmian technologicznych. System Przyspieszonych Szkoleń Zawodowych został wdrożony przez pierwsze Centra Szkoleń Zawodowych, których liczba wzrosła do 18 w ciągu 2 lat od ich utworzenia. W latach 70. zaczęły zanikać tradycyjne bariery pomiędzy wykształceniem, szkoleniami i pracą. Wzrosła też świadomość, że szkolenia nie odpowiadają już na potrzeby i oczekiwania rynku pracy oraz osób indywidualnych. W 1974 roku w wyniku rewolucji nastąpiła 124 Rozdział 2. zmiana ustroju politycznego. Powstały wówczas dwie instytucje: Generalny Departament ds. Zatrudnienia (DGE – Directorate-General for Emplyment) i Generalny Departament ds. Promocji Zatrudnienia (DGPE – Directorate-General for the Promotion of Employment). Funkcje obu tych instytucji przejął Urząd Pracy i Dokształcania Zawodowego (IEFP − Instituto de Emprego e Formacao Profissional), który działa na rzecz promocji zatrudnienia do chwili obecnej. IEFP stale podejmuje działania mające na celu zmniejszenie bezrobocia w Portugalii, zwłaszcza poprzez promocję szkoleń zawodowych oraz rozpoznawanie potrzeb pracowników i pracodawców. By wyjść naprzeciw potrzebom osób bezrobotnych oraz zmianom technologicznym, IEFP wykorzystuje specjalne zdalne narzędzia w postaci portalu internetowego, zwanego urzędem pracy online (vi@s O Portal de Orientacao; http://vias.iefp.pt). Osoba poszukująca pracy może zarejestrować tam swoje CV. Na tej podstawie powstaje profil osoby poszukującej pracy oraz dokonuje się automatyczna kategoryzacja profili. System dzieli osoby na 3 grupy: osoby bezrobotne, które posiadają duże doświadczenie oraz odpowiednie kursy, w związku z czym powinny szybko wrócić na rynek pracy; osoby, które mają niewielkie trudności ze znalezieniem pracy; najtrudniejszą grupę stanowią osoby, które mają problem z odnalezieniem się na rynku pracy i prawdopodobnie pozostaną długotrwale bezrobotne. Pośród tych, którzy mają doświadczenie odpowiednie do wymogów rynku pracy, wyróżnia się osoby bez zasiłku dla bezrobotnych oraz te otrzymujące zasiłek dla bezrobotnych. Dla osób bez świadczeń dla bezrobotnych można przygotować indywidualny plan zatrudnienia bez konieczności osobistego spotkania oraz zaproponować im podjęcie odpowiednich środków interwencyjnych w ramach indywidualnego planu zatrudnienia. Natomiast ci, którzy otrzymują zasiłek dla bezrobotnych, przechodzą przez kolejny etap w postaci wywiadu. Na podstawie takiego wywiadu zostaje przygotowany indywidualny plan zatrudnienia, a w konsekwencji zostają podjęte działania interwencyjne w ramach indywidualnego planu zatrudnienia, mające na celu znalezienie pracy. 125 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Wykres 24. Przebieg usługi udzielanej w Urzędzie Pracy. Źródło: Opracowanie Instituto de Emprego e Formacao Profissional Drugą kategorię stanowią osoby, które mają niewielkie braki w doświadczeniu zawodowym, co może powodować problemy w znalezieniu zatrudnienia. Taka grupa kierowana jest na wywiad przeprowadzany przez doradcę zawodowego, kończący się opracowaniem Indywidualnego Planu Zatrudnienia oraz podjęciem odpowiednich środków interwencyjnych w ramach indywidualnego planu. Ostatnią grupę tworzą osoby, które wymagają intensywnego wsparcia. Osoby bezrobotne kierowane są na sesje grupowe, których celem jest sporządzenie Indywidualnego Planu Zatrudnienia. Plan ten przygotowuje się we współpracy osoby bezrobotnej z pracownikiem urzędu i dostosowuje się go do osobistej sytuacji danego bezrobotnego oraz sytuacji na lokalnym rynku pracy. Intensywne wsparcie opiera się na trzech filarach, a są to: rozwój osobisty, kwalifi126 Rozdział 2. kacje oraz nastawienie wobec rynku pracy. W ramach rozwoju osobistego podejmowane są środki interwencyjne mające na celu zwiększenie motywacji, zrównoważenie umiejętności osobistych i zawodowych, zwiększenie poczucia własnej wartości oraz rozwój osobistych i społecznych umiejętności. W kontekście kwalifikacji przeprowadzane jest rozpoznanie umiejętności na podstawie wywiadu oraz szkolenie w postaci wsparcia psychologicznego. Natomiast nastawienie wobec rynku pracy opiera się na promocji ducha przedsiębiorczości oraz zaprezentowaniu strategii i technik poszukiwania pracy. IEFP dokłada wszelkich starań, żeby osoby bezrobotne jak najszybciej odnalazły się na rynku pracy, zwłaszcza że w wyniku kryzysu bezrobocie w Portugalii wzrosło do 19%, z czego 37% stanowią młodzi ludzie. IEFP weryfikuje doświadczenie zawodowe danej osoby i sprawdza, jakie szkolenia byłyby niezbędne w danym przypadku. Jeżeli IEFP nie dysponuje odpowiednim sprzętem do przeprowadzenia szkolenia zawodowego, wysyła daną osobę na odpowiednie szkolenia, np. do ISQ lub innej organizacji zajmującej się szkoleniami zawodowymi. W trakcie procesu poszukiwania pracy bardzo ważne są także działania IEFP dotyczące zwiększenia motywacji, zwłaszcza jeżeli osoba pozostaje długotrwale bezrobotna. IEFP zapewnia więc wsparcie psychologiczne oraz pełne rozpoznanie kompetencji osoby bezrobotnej. IEFP kładzie duży nacisk na działania, które odbywają się przy użyciu serwisu online, gdzie osoby poszukujące pracy są niejako uczone, w jaki sposób same mogą szukać pracy. IEFP udziela wsparcia nie tylko bezrobotnym, lecz także osobom będącym na wypowiedzeniu. Takie osoby mogą zarejestrować się w systemie IEFP, a doradcy zawodowi po przeanalizowaniu sytuacji danego pracownika zaproponują szkolenia, które będą najbardziej adekwatne w określonej sytuacji. Osoba będąca na wypowiedzeniu może wziąć udział w szkoleniach, które zazwyczaj odbywają się w ciągu dnia, w godzinach popołudniowych. W przypadku zwolnień grupowych w firmie pracodawca musi poinformować organ nadzorujący – Direccao-Geral do Emprego e das Relacoes de Trabalho (DGERT – Główny Urząd do spraw Zatrudnienia), którego zadaniem jest wspieranie koncepcji polityki zatrudnienia, szkoleń zawodowych oraz relacji z przedsiębiorstwami (tu można wymienić warunki pracy, bezpieczeństwo i ogólne zasady dobrego funkcjonowania w miejscu pracy), jak również monitorowanie i rozwijanie zatrudnienia grupowego, zapobieganie konfliktom dotyczącym zatrudnienia oraz promowanie certyfikacji instytucji szkolących. DGERT jest odpowiedzialny za przygotowanie polityki zatrudnienia oraz rozporządzeń dotyczących zatrudnienia i szkoleń zawodowych, jak również za ocenianie programów i środków podejmowanych w wyżej wspomnianym zakresie. Po127 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu nadto urząd ten przeprowadza negocjacje z pracodawcami w momencie zwolnień grupowych. Natomiast IEFP może zorganizować spotkanie w takiej firmie w celu przedstawienia możliwości, jakie mają jej pracownicy. Instytucją zajmującą się małymi i średnimi przedsiębiorstwami jest Instituto de Apoio às Pequenas e Médias Empresas e à Inovação (IAPMEI − Instytut Wspierania Małych i Średnich Przedsiębiorstw). IAPMEI jest portugalską agencją rządową działającą z ramienia Ministerstwa Gospodarki. Misją IAPMEI jest projektowanie i wdrażanie polityki, która wspiera przedsiębiorstwa i umożliwia im rozwój. IAPMEI skupia się w szczególności na wprowadzaniu innowacji w małych i średnich przedsiębiorstwach, działających w drugim i trzecim sektorze. Zapewnia też techniczne wsparcie i profesjonalne szkolenia dla MŚP. Uczestniczy również w definiowaniu i realizowaniu działań, mających na celu promowanie zrównoważonego rozwoju MŚP. IAPMEI finansowo wspiera krajowe oraz zagraniczne inwestycje, w oparciu o długotrwałe strategie, poprzez zarządzanie różnorodnymi systemami na skalę krajową, regionalną oraz w ramach danego sektora. Wsparcie może przybierać formę dotacji, nieoprocentowanej pożyczki lub pożyczki ze specjalną stopą oprocentowania. Poprzez specjalne zintegrowane programy IAMPEI udziela pomocy przedsiębiorcom, którzy opracowali innowacyjne lub potencjalnie mogące przynieść sukces idee i pomaga takim przedsiębiorcom w realizacji danego projektu. Dzięki współpracy z różnymi wyspecjalizowanymi organizacjami, takimi jak centra technologiczne, centra biznesowe i innowacyjne, IAPMEI ma dostęp do sieci usług nastawionych na zapewnienie firmom technicznego i technologicznego wsparcia. IAPMEI dostrzega również wagę zasobów ludzkich w usprawnianiu firm, promuje więc profesjonalne szkolenia dla małych i średnich przedsiębiorstw z zakresu kluczowych zagadnień dotyczących zarządzania korporacją. Studium przypadku – programy SZYBKI START Programy Szybki Start umożliwiają efektywne zarządzanie kosztami, aby zwiększyć zakres korzyści wynikający z zastosowania rozwiązań outplacementowych w stosunku do większej grupy pracowników. Z programów mogą korzystać przede wszystkim następujące podmioty: Pracodawcy, którzy nie oferowali usług outplacementowych dla niezwolnionych pracowników przesuniętych z jednego stanowiska na drugie lub nisko opłacanych pracowników. Mniejsze firmy i organizacje non-profit, których nie było dotąd stać na programy outplacementowe dla pracowników. 128 Rozdział 2. Pracownicy, którzy mają ograniczony czas realizacji usługi, ale ich pracodawcy nadal chcą uczestniczyć w zmianie kierunku ich kariery. Zdalni pracownicy – pracujący w oddziałach firmy lub w terenowych oddziałach sprzedaży – którym usługi dotyczące outplacementu mogłyby przynieść ogromnie korzyści. Programy outplacementowe Szybki Start – oferują osobiste i skuteczne przygotowanie do szukania pracy, zaprojektowane, aby dostarczyć usługę tam, gdzie i kiedy kandydat tego potrzebuje. Programy podzielone są na etapy. Pierwszy poziom programów Szybki Start oferuje: miesiąc intensywnego przygotowania do szukania pracy; 4 spotkania z coachem; 2-miesięczny dostęp do systemu OI Solutions®, który zawiera najlepsze oferty pracy online oraz materiały dotyczące rozwoju kariery – wszystko w jednym miejscu; podręcznik „Droga do sukcesu" lub „Poza horyzont"; kompletne profesjonalne CV. Drugi poziom programu Szybki Start zawiera: dwa miesiące intensywnego przygotowania do szukania pracy; 8 spotkań z coachem; 3-miesięczny dostęp do systemu OI Solutions®, który zawiera najlepsze oferty pracy online oraz materiały dotyczące rozwoju kariery – wszystko w jednym miejscu; podręcznik „Droga do sukcesu" lub „Poza horyzont"; kompletne profesjonalne CV. Oba programy zawierają materiały online. Poprzez portal online OI Solutions® zapewniamy dostęp do bogatego zbioru materiałów, gdzie można znaleźć: dostęp do przyjaznej użytkownikowi wyszukiwarki, która umożliwia kandydatom organizację i realizację działań związanych z poszukiwaniem pracy; ocenę temperamentu, zainteresowań, wartości, mocnych stron i tego, w jaki sposób są związane z możliwościami dotyczącymi pracy i kariery; pomoc w przygotowaniu CV; dostęp do ofert pracy i rekruterów; obszerną bazę danych, z której można korzystać wyłącznie po wykupieniu do niej dostępu; umożliwia ona też wyszukanie organizacji, które chcą zatrudnić pracowników, zrozumienie tendencji gospodarczych, przygotowanie się do rozmowy kwa129 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu lifikacyjnej i przygotowanie kandydatów do szybkiego podjęcia działań; rozbudowane treści związane z networkingiem, rozmową kwalifikacyjną, negocjacjami i relokacją w celu uzupełnienia informacji dostarczonych przez przydzielonego coacha/doradcę. Tabela 4. Charakterystyka programów Szybki Start. Programy outplacementowe OI Partners Szybki Start Miesięce przygotowań do szukania pracy Spotkania z coachem Miesiące dostępu do OI Solutions Podręcznik dotyczący zmiany kierunku kariery CV dostosowane do wymagań klienta Materiały online Poziom pierwszy 1 miesiąc 4 spotkania 2 miesiące √ √ √ Poziom drugi 2 miesiące 8 spotkań 3 miesiące √ √ √ Współpraca z klientami rozpoczynana jest od zrozumienia potrzeb każdego kandydata i zaznajomienia go z materiałami, do których ma dostęp, a następnie przygotowanie programu, który może zawierać: ocenę polegającą na zrozumieniu mocnych stron, wartości i temperamentu klienta; ocenę rynku pracy pod kątem umiejętności klienta; przygotowanie planu marketingowego; skompletowanie CV; określenie celów; określenie docelowych pracodawców; dostęp do reklamowanych ofert pracy i ofert, które nie są powszechnie dostępne oraz dostęp do rekruterów i agentów; uzupełnienie aplikacji; techniki networkingu, zastosowanie portali społecznościowych w celu zwiększenia zakresu poszukiwań pracy; zakontraktowanie i samozatrudnienie; praktykę związaną z rozmową kwalifikacyjną; ustalanie celu i konsekwentną realizację obranej drogi; organizowanie poszukiwań pracy; 130 Rozdział 2. wykorzystanie wsparcia rodziny i społeczności; negocjowanie i podejmowanie decyzji; e-learning dla rozwoju kariery; opcje związane z aktywnością na emeryturze. Główną zaletą programu jest oferowanie „szybkiego wsparcia", w którym przyśpieszenie wiąże się przede wszystkim z wykorzystaniem technik internetowych wspierających klienta pomiędzy sesjami z coachem. Dzięki temu rozwiązaniu klient pracuje intensywniej, a co najważniejsze, może godzić edukację na rzecz nowej pracy z obowiązkami zawodowymi (gdy jest w okresie wypowiedzenia lub szuka lepszej pracy) i rodzinnymi w sytuacji, gdy dotychczasowy brak pracy związany był z trudnościami w godzeniu życia zawodowego i rodzinnego. Aspekty te zwiększają więc efektywność i dostępność wsparcia outplacementowego. Dobre praktyki portugalskie w kontekście modelu ESP_Pracownik Rozkodowanie znaczenia tytułu projektu „INNOWACJE NA ZAKRĘCIE" oraz nazw wypracowywanych modeli interwencji „ESP" wskazuje na wartość praktyczną przedstawionych w niniejszej publikacji metod i dobrych praktyk. Jedne z nich dotyczą przecież trafnej ewaluacji kompetencji, inne wskazują na metody przyśpieszenia wsparcia outplacementowego, inne wreszcie − na indywidualne podejście do klienta, zwiększające jego sterowność, czy też do firmy, w oparciu o uwzględnienie strategii zmiany lub rozwoju. Obszary problemowe projektu uzasadniają więc tak różny katalog przedstawionych rozwiązań. Szczególnie interesujące w tym przypadku są dobre praktyki modelu SZYBKI START, potwierdzające zasadność stosowania rozwiązań internetowych w outplacemencie, wpływających na przyśpieszenie procesu. W innowacyjnym modelu przedstawionym powyżej akcent postawiono na zwiększenie kontroli nad procesem edukacji (budowanie sterowności uczącego się) oraz przesuwanie uwagi na różnicę leżącą między „nauczaniem" a „uczeniem się". Różnica ta była aksjomatem opracowania rekomendacji, celów i działań w strategii Program Rozwoju Społeczeństwa Informacyjnego Województwa Podlaskiego do roku 2020 „e-Podlaskie" w priorytecie „e-Edukacja", co ukazuje długoterminowe horyzonty zastosowania podobnych praktyk edukacyjnych i doradczych w regionie (strategia ta została przyjęta przez Zarząd Województwa Podlaskiego i może istotnie wpłynąć na zasady wydatkowania środków unijnych w nowej perspektywie finansowej na lata 2014−2020). Opisane metody wsparcia, szczególnie w modelu SZYBKI START (system OI 131 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Solutions®), ale także w modelu działań instytucji publicznych (portal internetowy „Urząd pracy on-line" w działaniach Instituto de Emprego e Formacao Professional) czy też w zakresie walidacji kompetencji (platforma internetowa w ramach RVCC Pro). Rozwiązania informatyczne, a w szczególności przedstawiona funkcjonalność portali internetowych, mogą być inspiracją do rozbudowy portali edukacyjnych i doradczych wypracowanych w projekcie INNOWACJE NA ZAKRĘCIE, ale także, w ramach realizacji strategii „e-Edukacja" w województwie podlaskim w latach 2014−2020. Osobne procedury dla różnych grup klientów, uruchamiane automatycznie po rejestracji on-line w zależności od statusu, sytuacji zawodowej i życiowej klienta − to ciekawe rozwiązanie, które może być inspiracją dla podobnych platform w naszym regionie, tworzonych przez publiczne instytucje rynku pracy oraz instytucje szkoleniowe. Może być też uwzględnione (na przykład w zakresie proponowanych kwestionariuszy doradczych, konwentów edukacyjnych) w platformach edukacyjnych wypracowanych w przedmiotowym projekcie. Ciekawe są również przykłady dotyczące zawartości treściowej platform internetowych przygotowujących klientów do wejścia na rynek pracy (zawartości OI Solutions® oraz vi@s) oraz metody łączenia wsparcia zdalnego ze wsparciem doradców, coachów (zgodnie z ideą metody blended learning, w tym metody Colina Rosa adaptowanej w przedmiotowym projekcie), co gwarantuje przyśpieszenie, ale także zindywidualizowanie wsparcia bez straty wartości dodanych płynących z „elementu ludzkiego" w doradztwie indywidualnym i motywowaniu do zmiany, a także „obserwacji" w ocenie kompetencji praktycznych ocenianego pracownika. Zgodne z przedstawionym modelem outplacementu wewnętrznego i zewnętrznego oraz wykorzystania technologii internetowych są doświadczenia PricewaterhouseCoopers, przedstawione w rozdziale V. Dobre praktyki tej firmy potwierdzają zasadność oraz efektywność działań podejmowanych w zakresie outplacementu wewnątrz firmy, związanego z przesuwaniem pracowników na nowe stanowiska pracy. Co istotne, zgodnie z modelem stosowanym przez PricewaterhouseCoopers pracownicy wspierani w ramach działań outplacementu wprowadzani są w świat networkingu, co zapewne obniża koszty wsparcia, ale zwiększa jego dostępność. To z kolei uzasadnia przygotowanie dostępnych narzędzi internetowych nie tylko do pracy zdalnej, lecz także do zdalnej edukacji − która mogłaby być realizowana w ramach intermentoringu w firmie − na rzecz takiej pracy. Doświadczenia tej firmy komercyjnej o światowej skali działania mają charakter uniwersalny, łatwy do zastosowania w warunkach naszego regionu, dlatego wskazane jest łączenie 132 Rozdział 2. usług bezpłatnych, które są dostępne na portalach internetowych wypracowanych w ramach projektu INNOWACJE NA ZAKRĘCIE, czy innych podobnych rozwiązań wdrażanych przez instytucje publiczne z ofertą komercyjną dopełniającą propozycje kierowane do firm i zwalnianych pracowników. Ważną rekomendacją jest w tym przypadku przemyślenie nowych obszarów współpracy administracji z partnerami prywatnymi, w ramach partnerstw publiczno-prywatnych czy kontraktów budujących całkowicie nowe i bardziej realne perspektywy rozwoju eEdukacji, w sytuacji gdy zabraknie środków unijnych na finansowanie tego typu rozwiązań. Można się także spodziewać, że udział firm komercyjnych zwiększy poziom innowacyjności oferty dla firm i pracowników w kryzysie, a być może także podniesie wiarygodność lub skuteczność proponowanego wsparcia w opinii pracodawców. Parafrazując myśl Platona, która przyświeca firmie Pricewatercoopers: „Ustawienie żagli, a nie kierunek wiatru wyznacza drogę, którą podążamy", można powiedzieć, że w szczególnie trudnych sytuacjach, gdy wiatr wieje w oczy lub gdy trzeba dokonać skutecznego zwrotu NA ZAKRĘCIE, ważne jest już nie tylko ustawienie żagli, lecz także ich rozmiar i krój (nowy układ kompetencji w firmie w oparciu o efekty bilansowania drzewa kompetencji i intermentoring), a także i to, by tych żagli było więcej (łączenie oferty publicznej i komercyjnej w jednym modelu wsparcia i rozwoju nowych, zdalnych instrumentów edukacyjno-doradczych). Spośród dobrych praktyk, jedna zasługuje na szczególną uwagę. – poświęcona portugalskim metodom walidacji i potwierdzania kompetencji. Przykłady te są szczególnie aktualne i niezmiernie inspirujące w pracach nad dokumentami strategicznymi dla naszego regionu na lata 2014−2020. W pracach tych coraz większą wagę przywiązuje się do kwestii kompetencji mieszkańców regionu, co zostało odzwierciedlone w Strategii Rozwoju Województwa Podlaskiego do roku 2020 (Cel operacyjny 1.3. rozwój kompetencji do pracy i wsparcie aktywności zawodowej mieszkańców regionu, w którym wskazuje się na kwestie dopasowania kompetencji mieszkańców do potrzeb rozwojowych regionu) w strategiach lokalnych typu ZIT dla obszarów funkcjonalnych, w których wskazuje się na rolę „kompetencji do pracy", czy wreszcie w projekcie Regionalnego Programu Operacyjnego Województwa Podlaskiego 2014−2020 (oś priorytetowa III: kompetencje i kwalifikacje, w tym uwagi zgłaszane w ramach konsultacji dokumentu na przełomie 2013−2014 − na przykład przez Białostocką Fundację Kształcenia Kadr – dotyczące roli prawidłowego definiowania, rozpoznawania i walidowania kompetencji praktycznych w systemie edukacji zawodowej i usługach rynku pracy). Prace w tym zakresie w dużej mierze dotyczą więc 133 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu podniesienia rangi dobrze rozumianych kompetencji, w modelu popytowym, tj. na potrzeby regionalnej gospodarki. Dobre rozumienie kompetencji oraz uchwycenie aspektów popytowych kompetencji wymaga z jednej strony metody walidacji, opisu i certyfikacji, z drugiej zaś − budowania systemowego wsparcia pracowników i pracodawców w modelu Centrum Kompetencji, którego zadaniem byłoby dostarczanie kompetencji dla gospodarki, a więc kojarzenie pracowników i inwestorów kluczowych dla rozwoju regionu. Metody walidacji i potwierdzania kompetencji składające się na Portugalski System Rozpoznawania, Walidacji i Poświadczania Kompetencji (RVCC) oraz model Centrów RVCC wpisują się trafnie w regionalne potrzeby i poszukiwania, stanowią więc nie tylko inspirację, lecz także być może gotowe narzędzie dobrego zarządzania kompetencjami w regionie. Szczególnie ciekawe są kwestie związane z potwierdzaniem kompetencji, a dotyczące praktycznych aspektów kompetencji i przedstawionych metod ich walidacji i oceny, nie tylko w drodze samooceny, lecz także „obserwacji" czy „symulacji". Stawia to nowe wyzwania przed regionalnym Centrum Kompetencji, które obok wsparcia kwestionariuszowego (diagnoza, doradztwo, tworzenie indywiduach planów działania), obok atmosfery biblioteki z zapachem książek, zdecydowanie powinno podążać w kierunku prawdziwego środowiska pracy, pachnącego smarem, mlekiem lub drewnem − w zależności od branży kluczowej dla regionu. Doświadczenia portugalskie, ale także metody obserwacji i symulacji kompetencji w procedurze potwierdzania, inspirują i zachęcają do tworzenia nowego modelu CENTRUM KOMPETENCJI, lokowanego bliżej pracodawcy, wykorzystującego zaplecze edukacyjne i merytoryczne rzemiosła – łączącego francuskie modele bibliotecznych miasteczek zawodowych (La Cité des Métiers) oraz niemieckich czy skandynawskich centrów kształcenia praktycznego, istotnie wspartych przez pracodawców czy izby rzemieślnicze. Łączenie tych dwóch modeli daje efekt synergii, gwarantujący zrozumienie, walidowanie i certyfikowanie kompetencji w „ujęciu popytowym", niejako na styku psychologów i doradców kariery oraz pracodawców i znawców zawodu. Nowy model Centrum Kompetencji obok aktualnych zasobów doradczych i diagnostycznych dostosowanych do branż kluczowych w regionie (zgromadzonych w przyjaznej i dostępnej bibliotece otwartej dla każdego, bez zbędnych formalności i „urzędowych skierowań" oraz w zdalnych zasobach w ramach internetowych platform edukacyjnodoradczych) powinien oferować także „stanowiska symulacyjne" wyposażone po szczegółowej konsultacji z pracodawcami, na których będzie 134 Rozdział 2. można nie tylko potwierdzić kompetencje zdobyte w sposób nieformalny lecz także, co najważniejsze, poznać i zrozumieć je w praktyce, poprzez „dotknięcie nowego zawodu". Ten ostatni aspekt może okazać się kluczowy w wysiłkach związanych z promocją edukacji zawodowej i rehabilitacją szkolnictwa zawodowego, gdyż Centrum Kompetencji mogłoby stać się miejscem prawdziwej orientacji zawodowej młodzieży − orientacji opartej na doświadczeniu zawodu, a nie tylko na wynikach pisemnych testów lub efekcie zbyt dużego optymizmu doradcy kariery i jego wiary w zasoby i zdolność klienta do rozwoju. Tak rozumiane Centrum Kompetencji mogłoby być miejscem przewartościowania doradztwa zawodowego, z modelu afirmującego potrzeby i potencjały klienta na model popytowy działający w służbie pracodawcy i gospodarki regionu. W modelu tym nowe miejsce, obok psychologów i doradców kariery, znaleźliby „doradcy zawodu", będący zdecydowanie bliżej praktyki, mistrzów zawodu oraz prawdziwych potrzeb pracodawców i gospodarki. Tak rozumiane Centrum Kompetencji stwarza warunki do rzetelnej promocji zawodów i wykształcenia w zawodzie, gdyż staje się miejscem kojarzenia potrzeb pracodawców i kompetencji do pracy mieszkańców, ludzi młodych wybierających szkołę czy też osób bezrobotnych posiadających niedoceniony kapitał kompetencji nieformalnych zdobytych w biegu życia. Nowa rola Centrum Kompetencji, rozpisana pomiędzy możliwości pracownika i potrzeby pracodawców, odpowiada ściśle dwóm obszarom innowacji wypracowywanej w ramach projektu INNOWACJE NA ZAKRĘCIE, a narzędzia związane z oceną i opisem kompetencji stworzone w tym projekcie, mogą być decydujące do wypełnienia tej nowej roli. Narzędzie do pomiaru kompetencji w 12 branżach kluczowych dla regionu, 144 zawodach oraz kilkudziesięciu tysiącach zadań zawodowych może być niezbędnym wyposażeniem Centrum Kompetencji oraz jego specjalistów udających się do firm w roli audytorów rozpoznających potrzeby firmy, które są nadrzędne wobec dalszych działań ośrodka. Oferowanie możliwości potwierdzenia kwalifikacji dla części zawodu w ramach zadań zawodowych zgodne z jest duchem portugalskiej dobrej praktyki w Systemie Rozpoznawania, Walidacji i Poświadczania Kompetencji (RVCC). Także w województwie podlaskim należy odnotować dobre praktyki w tym zakresie, w ramach dwóch edycji projektu POKAŻ SWOJE KWALIFIKACJE realizowanego przez Białostocką Fundację Kształcenia Kadr oraz Izbę Rzemieślniczą i Przedsiębiorczości w Białymstoku. W projekcie tym wypracowano narzędzia do potwierdzania kwalifikacji nieformalnych w ramach kilkuset zadań zawodowych w 10 zawodach, jako interesującą alternatywę dla procedury po135 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu twierdzania kwalifikacji w systemie czeladniczym i mistrzowskim. Z oceny tych projektów wynika kluczowa dla regionu rekomendacja, według której prace na opisem zadań zawodowych i standardów ich potwierdzania są szansą rozwojową dla samego rzemiosła, jak też kreują nowe obszary działalności dla szkolnictwa zawodowego, cierpiącego wskutek niżu demograficznego. Potwierdzanie kompetencji praktycznych w zawodach otwiera nową ofertę szkół zawodowych oraz zasoby merytoryczne i techniczne szkół zawodowych na klientów kształcenia ustawicznego, w modelu uczenia się przez całe życie, w tym na osoby powracające na rynek pracy. Ten kierunek myślenia przyświeca pracom grup roboczych działających w ramach projektu ponadnarodowego PRZYSZŁOŚĆ EDUKACJI ZAWODOWEJ, realizowanego przez Izbę Rzemieślniczą i Przedsiębiorczości, Solidarność Oświatową z kluczowym udziałem Wojewódzkiego Urzędu Pracy w Białymstoku i Białostockiej Fundacji Kształcenia Kadr. Przykłady te dowodzą, że inspiracje portugalskie są zbliżone do innowacji i pilotaży podejmowanych w regionie, a szczegółowe rozwiązania i narzędzia mogą istotnie zwiększyć jakość i efektywność tych przedsięwzięć, w szczególności w zakresie metodologii walidacji kompetencji, jak też modelu i oferty centrów RVCC. Powyższe zestawienie instytucji i projektów działających w obszarze kompetencji do pracy w województwie podlaskim wskazuje na jeszcze jeden bardzo ważny aspekt rozwiązania portugalskiego, który występujące jako cecha wspólna modelu francuskiego oraz rozwiązań niemieckich i skandynawskich. Cechą tą jest lokalna współpraca instytucji rynku pracy oraz pracodawców, stanowiąca fundament Centrum Kompetencji. W Portugalii, by otrzymać certyfikat, Centra RVCC muszą pokazać, że utrzymują kontakt z siecią lokalnych partnerów, którzy wyrażają zgodę na ich działalność w danej społeczności. Ta sieć kontaktów daje potencjał do wytworzenia lokalnej synergii w zakresie HR oraz zasobów materialnych i jednocześnie ułatwia nawiązywanie współpracy z potencjalnymi kandydatami oraz organizacjami, do których należą. Współpraca ta pozwala na wdrażanie strategii docierania do wszystkich, co daje pracownikom Centrów szanse bliskiego kontaktu z kandydatami w ich miejscach pracy, w ich domach oraz tam, gdzie spędzają swój wolny czas. Dzięki lokalnym partnerom Centra RVCC współpracują z władzami lokalnymi, przedsiębiorstwami, szkołami, urzędami pracy, ośrodkami zatrudnienia i szkoleń zawodowych, stowarzyszeniami handlowymi, związkami zawodowymi oraz lokalnymi agencjami rozwoju. Taki sposób budowania Centrum Kompetencji oraz jego strategiczne otwarcie na pracodawców i szkolnictwo zawodowe kreuje nowe prze136 Rozdział 2. strzenie pracy doradców kompetencji, działających w pierwszej kolejności w firmach i na potrzeby kluczowych dla regionu inwestorów, po to, by kształtować realną ofertę dla mieszkańców regionu, w pokojach doradców zawodu, na stanowiskach symulacyjnych i w pracowniach praktycznej nauki zawodu, a także w klasach szkół zawodowych. Tylko taka ZMIANA FRONTU − metodyczne „odwrócenie się od ucznia lub osoby bezrobotnej w kierunku pracodawcy", po to, by powrócić do tych osób z rzetelną ofertą doradztwa i edukacji − stwarza warunki do lepszego wykorzystania środków publicznych na rozwój gospodarczy regionu w ramach nowego okresu programowania na lata 2014−2020. Dobre praktyki Portugalii, Francji, Niemiec i krajów skandynawskich w tym zakresie oraz innowacyjne narzędzia wypracowane w ramach projektu INNOWACJE NA ZAKRĘCIE w zakresie walidacji kompetencji mogą być kluczowym orężem na tym nowym froncie, na którym walka idzie nie tylko o dobre pokonanie zakrętu dziejowego, ale o lepszą prędkość rozwoju regionu, gdy ten znajdzie się już na prostej. 2.3. Ewaluacja modelu ESP_Pracownik Przeprowadzone badanie ewaluacyjne pozwala na stwierdzenie wysokiej oceny przydatności i zasadności w odniesieniu do wszystkich kryteriów ewaluacyjnych analizowanego modelu outplacementu dla pracowników. Przeprowadzony przegląd uzyskanych wyników badania w podziale na kryteria ewaluacyjne pozwala na twierdzenie, iż model outplacementu dla pracowników cechuje wysoka trafność 4,26, wysoka skuteczność (średnia wszystkich ocen w tym kryterium to 4,00) oraz wysoka użyteczność (średnia wszystkich ocen w tym kryterium to 4,21). Przegląd średnich ocen w odniesieniu do poszczególnych produktów finalnych wchodzących w skład tego modelu również pozwala na pozytywną ocenę użyteczności metody (1 Ekwiwalent Bilans kompetencji średnia ocena 4,10; 2 Sterowność Program poczucia kontroli średnia ocena 4,39; 3 Przyśpieszenie Samokształcenie średnia ocena 4,32) oraz uniwersalności metody (1 Ekwiwalent Bilans kompetencji średnia ocena 3,94; 2 Sterowność Program poczucia kontroli średnia ocena 4,05; 3 Przyśpieszenie Samokształcenie średnia ocena 4,05). Powyższe wnioski uzasadniają konieczność szerszego zastosowania wypracowanych produktów. Wyniki badań wskazują, iż test wstępnych wersji produktów finalnych został przeprowadzony rzetelnie czego rezultatem są trafne, skuteczne i wysoko użyteczne produkty finalne, które posiadają wysoki potencjał wdrożeniowy. 137 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Ewaluacja modelu ESP_Pracownik w badaniach ilościowych W badaniach ilościowych zastosowano badanie CATI kierowane do potencjalnych odbiorców produktu finalnego z woj. Podlaskiego oraz badanie CAWI kierowane do potencjalnych użytkowników modelu z terenu całej Polski. Ekwiwalent – Bilans kompetencji (nowe metody diagnozy) Badana próba potencjalnych odbiorców (badanie CATI, woj. podlaskie) obejmowała 50 respondentów w tym: 48,0% osób w wieku od 30 do 50 lat, 34,0% poniżej 30 lat oraz 18,0% powyżej 50 lat. Próba obejmowała 78,0% kobiet oraz 22,0% mężczyzn. Podział zawód – stanowisko prezentował się następująco: doradca zawodowy (30,0%), pracownik firmy (24,0%), psycholog (22,0%), trener mistrz zawodu (12,0%), instytucja szkoleniowa (8,0%), instytucja rynku pracy (4,0%). Dokładnie dwie osoby deklarowały posiadanie orzeczenia o niepełnosprawności. Badana próba potencjalnych użytkowników (badanie CAWI, cała Polska) obejmowała 100 respondentów w tym: 61,0% w wieku od 30 do 50 lat, 37,0% poniżej 30 lat oraz 2,0% powyżej 50 lat. W podziale na płeć w próbie uczestniczyło 62,0% kobiet oraz 38,0% mężczyzn. Żaden z uczestników badania nie deklarował posiadania orzeczenia o niepełnosprawności. W odniesieniu do oceny narzędzi z kategorii „Ekwiwalent – Bilans kompetencji (nowe metody diagnozy)" uzyskano odpowiedzi na następujące pytania skierowane do potencjalnych odbiorców (badanie CATI, woj. podlaskie): 1) Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny kompetencji w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 2) Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny wartości w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 3) Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny zainteresowań w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 4) Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny zdrowia w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 5) Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny hobby w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 6) Oceń przydatność bezpłatnych internetowych narzędzi bilansowania kompetencji pracownika w Twojej pracy zawodowej. oraz do potencjalnych użytkowników (badanie CAWI, cała Polska): 138 Rozdział 2. 7) Oceń przydatność bezpłatnych internetowych narzędzi bilansujących kompetencje w wykonywanym zawodzie dla osób zwalnianych z pracy. 8) Oceń przydatność bezpłatnych internetowych narzędzi bilansujących kompetencje zawodowe w innych zawodach dla osób zwalnianych z pracy. 9) Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny kompetencji w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 10) Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny wartości w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 11) Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny zainteresowań w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 12) Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny zdrowia w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 13) Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny hobby w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 14) Oceń możliwość/zasadność zastosowania tych metod dla pracowników firm modernizowanych muszących zmienić stanowisko pracy. 15) Oceń możliwość/zasadność zastosowania tych metod dla pracowników chcących rozwijać się zawodowo lub awansować w firmie. W oparciu o powyższe pytania ewaluacyjne i przeprowadzoną ankietyzację uzyskano wyniki oceny opisane w dalszych podrozdziałach. Ocena została przeprowadzona w skali od 1 do 5, gdzie 1 oznaczało, iż dana cecha jest nie ważna, nie przydatna lub nie zasadna, zaś 5 iż jest bardzo ważna, bardzo przydatna lub bardzo zasadna. Użyteczność metody Potencjalni odbiorcy i użytkownicy mieli okazję do oceny wagi, przydatności oceny kompetencji w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. Pierwsza grupa oceniła tą cechę narzędzia Bilans kompetencji na średnio 4,50 punkty, zaś druga na 4,33 punkty. 139 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Wykres 25. Ocena wagi oceny kompetencji w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy Źródło: Badania własne. Wykres 26. Ocena wagi oceny wartości w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy Źródło: Badania własne. Zarówno potencjalnych użytkowników, jak i potencjalnych odbiorców poproszono o ocenę wagi, przydatności oceny wartości w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. Pierwsza grupa oceniła tą cechę średnio na 4,22 punkty, zaś druga na 4,04 punkty. Kolejną cechą przedstawioną do oceny obu grupom respondentów była waga, przydatność oceny zainteresowań w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. Zdaniem potencjalnych odbiorców ocena ta jest przydatna (średnia ocena 4,20), zaś w opinii potencjalnych użytkowników raczej przydatna (średnia ocena 3,80). 4,50 4,33 4,2 4,25 4,3 4,35 4,4 4,45 4,5 4,55 CATI 1. Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny kompetencji w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. CAWI 3. Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny kompetencji w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 4,04 4,22 3,95 4 4,05 4,1 4,15 4,2 4,25 CATI 2. Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny wartości w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. CAWI 4. Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny wartości w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 140 Rozdział 2. Wykres 27. Ocena wagi oceny zainteresowań w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy Źródło: Badania własne. Wykres 28. Ocena wagi oceny zdrowia w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy Źródło: Badania własne. Analizie poddano także wagę, przydatność oceny zdrowia w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. Zdaniem potencjalnych użytkowników cecha ta zasługuje na średnią ocenę 4,68. Zaś według potencjalnych odbiorców na 4,16 punkty. Obie grupy respondentów opiniowały także wagę, przydatność oceny hobby w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. Potencjalni odbiorcy cechę tą oceniali średnio na 3,86 punkty, zaś potencjalni użytkownicy na 3,18 punkty. Wykres 29. Ocena wagi oceny hobby w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy Źródło: Badania własne. 4,20 3,80 3,6 3,7 3,8 3,9 4 4,1 4,2 4,3 CATI 3. Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny zainteresowań w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. CAWI 5. Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny zainteresowań w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 4,16 4,68 3,9 4 4,1 4,2 4,3 4,4 4,5 4,6 4,7 4,8 CATI 4. Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny zdrowia w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. CAWI 6. Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny zdrowia w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 3,86 3,18 0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 4,5 CATI 5. Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny hobby w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. CAWI 7. Oceń wagę, przydatność oceny hobby w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 141 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Podsumowując najwyżej ocenianą cechą Bilansu kompetencji była ocena wagi, przydatności oceny zdrowia w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy (średnia ocena 4,68 wśród potencjalnych użytkowników). Jednocześnie ta sama cecha stanowiła relatywnie najniżej ocenianą cechę narzędzia w opinii potencjalnych użytkowników (średnia ocena 3,18). Niemniej różnica ta nie ma znacznego wpływu na pozytywną ocenę wszystkich cech narzędzia jako przydatnych. Uniwersalność metody Potencjalnych odbiorców narzędzia z woj. podlaskiego poproszono o ocenę przydatności bezpłatnych internetowych narzędzi bilansowania kompetencji pracownika w pracy zawodowej respondentów. Narzędzia te zostały uznane za przydatne (średnia ocena 4,34). Tymczasem potencjalnych użytkowników poproszono o ocenę przydatności tych narzędzi w odniesieniu do bilansowania kompetencji w wykonywanym zasadzie dla osób zwalnianych z pracy (średnia ocena 3,65) oraz w odniesieniu do bilansowania kompetencji zawodowych w innych zawodach dla osób zwalnianych z pracy (średnia ocena 3,70). W przypadku potencjalnych użytkowników uznano zatem to narzędzie za częściowo przydatne. Wykres 30. Ocena przydatności bezpłatnych internetowych narzędzi bilansowania kompetencji pracownika Źródło: Badania własne. Dodatkowo potencjalnych użytkowników poproszono o ocenę możliwości, zasadności zastosowania tych metod dla pracowników chcących rozwijać się zawodowo lub awansować w firmie oraz w odniesieniu do 4,34 3,65 3,70 3,2 3,4 3,6 3,8 4 4,2 4,4 CATI 6. Oceń przydatność bezpłatnych internetowych narzędzi bilansowania kompetencji pracownika w Twojej pracy zawodowej. CAWI 1. Oceń przydatność bezpłatnych internetowych narzędzi bilansujących kompetencje w wykonywanym zawodzie dla osób zwalnianych z pracy. CAWI 2. Oceń przydatność bezpłatnych internetowych narzędzi bilansujących kompetencje zawodowe w innych zawodach dla osób zwalnianych z pracy. 142 Rozdział 2. pracowników firm modernizowanych muszących zmienić stanowisko pracy. W pierwszym przypadku uzyskano średnią ocenę 4,09, zaś w średnią ocenę 3,93. Wykres 31. Ocena zasadności zastosowania tych metod dla pracowników firm Źródło: Badania własne. Podsumowując stwierdza się, że najwyżej ocenioną cechą Bilansu kompetencji w odniesieniu do uniwersalności metody jest przydatność bezpłatnych internetowych narzędzi bilansowania kompetencji pracownika w pracy zawodowej respondentów (średnia ocena 4,34 według potencjalnych odbiorców). Zaś relatywnie najniżej ocenioną cechą jest przydatność bezpłatnych internetowych narzędzi bilansujących kompetencje w wykonywanym zawodzie dla osób zwalnianych z pracy (średnia ocena 3,65 według potencjalnych użytkowników). Zasadniczo zatem wszystkie cechy metody zostały ocenione jako przydatne. Sterowność Program poczucia kontroli (nowe metody wsparcia) Badana próba potencjalnych odbiorców (badanie CATI, woj. podlaskie) obejmowała 50 respondentów w tym: 52,0% w wieku od 30 do 50 lat, 30,0% poniżej 30 lat oraz 18,0% powyżej 50 lat. W skład próby w 80,0% wchodziły kobiety i w 20,0% mężczyźni. Ponadto dwie osoby deklarowały posiadanie orzeczenia o niepełnosprawności. Badana próba potencjalnych użytkowników (badanie CAWI, cała Polska) obejmowała 100 respondentów w tym: 66,0% w wieku od 30 do 50 lat, 29,0% poniżej 30 lat oraz 5,0% powyżej 50 lat. Próba obejmowała w 68,0% kobiety oraz w 32,0% mężczyzn. Żaden z uczestników badania nie deklarował posiadania orzeczenia o niepełnosprawności. 3,93 4,09 3,85 3,9 3,95 4 4,05 4,1 4,15 CAWI 8. Oceń możliwość/zasadność zastosowania tych metod dla pracowników firm modernizowanych muszących zmienić stanowisko pracy. CAWI 9. Oceń możliwość/zasadność zastosowania tych metod dla pracowników chcących rozwijać się zawodowo lub awansować w firmie. 143 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu W odniesieniu do oceny narzędzi z kategorii „Sterowność Program poczucia kontroli (nowe metody wsparcia)" uzyskano odpowiedzi na następujące pytania skierowane do potencjalnych odbiorców (badanie CATI, woj. podlaskie): 1) Oceń wagę poczucia kontroli w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 2) Oceń wagę motywacji w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 3) Oceń wagę samooceny w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 4) Oceń wagę przekonania o sprawczości w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 5) Oceń wagę wiary w sukces w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 6) Oceń wagę warsztatów psychologicznych Trening Sterowności w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 7) Oceń przydatność bezpłatnych internetowych narzędzi wsparcia psychologicznego pracownika w Twojej pracy zawodowej. 8) Oceń przydatność grupowych warsztatów psychologicznych Trening Sterowności dla pracownika w Twojej pracy zawodowej. oraz do potencjalnych użytkowników (badanie CAWI, cała Polska): 16) Oceń przydatność bezpłatnych internetowych narzędzi wsparcia psychologicznego w wykonywanym zawodzie dla osób zwalnianych z pracy. 17) Oceń przydatność grupowych warsztatów psychologicznych Trening Sterowności w wykonywanym zawodzie dla osób zwalnianych z pracy. 18) Oceń wagę poczucia kontroli w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 19) Oceń wagę motywacji w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 20) Oceń wagę samooceny w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 21) Oceń wagę przekonania o sprawczości w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 22) Oceń wagę wiary w sukces w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 23) Oceń możliwość/zasadność zastosowania tych metod dla pracowników firm modernizowanych muszących zmienić stanowisko pracy. 24) Oceń możliwość/zasadność zastosowania tych metod dla pracowników chcących rozwijać się zawodowo lub awansować w firmie. W oparciu o powyższe pytania ewaluacyjne i przeprowadzoną ankietyzację uzyskano wyniki oceny opisane w dalszych podrozdziałach. Ocena została przeprowadzona w skali od 1 do 5, gdzie 1 oznaczało, iż dana cecha jest nie ważna, nie przydatna lub nie zasadna, zaś 5 iż jest bardzo ważna, bardzo przydatna lub bardzo zasadna. 144 Rozdział 2. Użyteczność metody Zarówno potencjalnych użytkowników, jak i potencjalnych odbiorców poproszono o ocenę wagi poczucia kontroli w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. W pierwszej grupie cecha ta została oceniona średnio na 4,27 punkty, zaś w drugiej na 4,16 punkty. Wykres 32. Ocena wagi poczucia kontroli w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy Źródło: Badania własne. Obie grupy respondentów poproszono o ocenę wagę motywacji w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. W opinii potencjalnych użytkowników cecha ta oceniona została średnio na 4,65 punkty, zaś według potencjalnych odbiorców na 4,56 punkty. Wykres 33. Ocena wagi motywacji w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy Źródło: Badania własne. Zarówno potencjalnych użytkowników, jak i potencjalnych odbiorców poproszono o ocenę wagi samooceny w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. W pierwszej grupie cechę tą oceniono średnio na 4,66 punkty, zaś w drugiej na zbliżonym poziomie na 4,42 punkty. 4,16 4,27 4,1 4,12 4,14 4,16 4,18 4,2 4,22 4,24 4,26 4,28 CATI 1. Oceń wagę poczucia kontroli w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. CAWI 3. Oceń wagę poczucia kontroli w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 4,56 4,65 4,5 4,52 4,54 4,56 4,58 4,6 4,62 4,64 4,66 CATI 2. Oceń wagę motywacji w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. CAWI 4. Oceń wagę motywacji w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 145 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Wykres 34. Ocena wagi samooceny w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy Źródło: Badania własne. Wykres 35. Ocena wagi przekonania o sprawczości w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy Źródło: Badania własne. Obie grupy respondentów poproszono o ocenę wagi przekonania o sprawczości w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. Według potencjalnych użytkowników cecha ta została oceniona średnio na 4,35 punkty, zaś według potencjalnych odbiorców na 4,14 punkty. Według potencjalnych użytkowników waga wiary w sukces w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy została oceniona średnio na 4,59 punkty. Zaś według potencjalnych odbiorców średnio na 4,32 punkty. Ponadto potencjalnych odbiorców poproszono o ocenę wagi warsztatów psychologicznych Trening Sterowności w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. Cecha ta została uznana za ważną z uwagi na średnią ocenę 4,14. 4,42 4,66 4,3 4,4 4,5 4,6 4,7 CATI 3. Oceń wagę samooceny w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. CAWI 5. Oceń wagę samooceny w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 4,14 4,35 4 4,05 4,1 4,15 4,2 4,25 4,3 4,35 4,4 CATI 4. Oceń wagę przekonania o sprawczości w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. CAWI 6. Oceń wagę przekonania o sprawczości w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 146 Rozdział 2. Wykres 36. Ocena wagi warsztatów psychologicznych Trening Sterowności w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy i wagi wiary w sukces w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy Źródło: Badania własne. Podsumowując za najwyżej ocenioną cechę Programu poczucia kontroli uznano wagę samooceny w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy (średnia ocena 4,66 według potencjalnych użytkowników). Zaś relatywnie najniżej ocenioną cechą była ocena wagi warsztatów psychologicznych Trening Sterowności w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy (średnia ocena 4,14 według potencjalnych odbiorców). Poszczególne cechy produktu zostały zatem ocenione jako przydatne lub niemal bardzo przydatne. Uniwersalność metody Potencjalnych odbiorców poproszono o ocenę przydatności bezpłatnych internetowych narzędzi wsparcia psychologicznego pracownika w pracy zawodowej respondentów. Cecha ta została oceniona średnio na 4,08 punkty. Tymczasem potencjalnych użytkowników poproszono o ocenę przydatności takich narzędzi dla osób zwalnianych z pracy. Cecha ta została oceniona średnio na 3,87 punkty. Potencjalnych odbiorców poproszono o ocenę przydatności grupowych warsztatów psychologicznych Trening Sterowności dla pracownika w pracy zawodowej respondentów. Cecha ta została oceniona średnio na 4,32 punkty. Zaś potencjalnych użytkowników poproszono o ocenę przydatności tego narzędzia dla osób zwalnianych z pracy. Cecha ta została oceniona średnio na 3,96 punkty. 4,14 4,32 4,59 3,9 4 4,1 4,2 4,3 4,4 4,5 4,6 4,7 CATI 6. Oceń wagę warsztatów psychologicznych Trening Sterowności w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. CATI 5. Oceń wagę wiary w sukces w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. CAWI 7. Oceń wagę wiary w sukces w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy. 147 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Wykres 37. Ocena przydatności bezpłatnych internetowych narzędzi wsparcia psychologicznego w wykonywanym zawodzie dla osób zwalnianych z pracy Źródło: Badania własne. Wykres 38. Ocena przydatności grupowych warsztatów psychologicznych Trening Sterowności w wykonywanym zawodzie dla osób zwalnianych z pracy Źródło: Badania własne. Ponadto potencjalni użytkownicy zostali poproszeni o ocenę możliwości/zasadności zastosowania Programu poczucia kontroli dla pracowników chcących rozwijać się zawodowo lub awansować w firmie oraz pracowników firm modernizowanych muszących zmienić stanowisko pracy. W pierwszym przypadku uzyskano średnią ocenę 4,07 punkty, zaś w drugim 3,97 punkty. 4,08 3,87 3,75 3,8 3,85 3,9 3,95 4 4,05 4,1 CATI 7. Oceń przydatność bezpłatnych internetowych narzędzi wsparcia psychologicznego pracownika w Twojej pracy zawodowej. CAWI 1. Oceń przydatność bezpłatnych internetowych narzędzi wsparcia psychologicznego w wykonywanym zawodzie dla osób zwalnianych z pracy. 4,32 3,96 3,7 3,8 3,9 4 4,1 4,2 4,3 4,4 CATI 8. Oceń przydatność grupowych warsztatów psychologicznych Trening Sterowności dla pracownika w Twojej pracy zawodowej. CAWI 2. Oceń przydatność grupowych warsztatów psychologicznych Trening Sterowności w wykonywanym zawodzie dla osób zwalnianych z pracy. 148 Rozdział 2. Wykres 39. Ocena zasadności zastosowania metod Programu poczucia kontroli dla pracowników firm modernizowanych Źródło: Badania własne. Konkludując stwierdza się, że najwyżej ocenianą cechą dotyczącą Programu poczucia kontroli była ocena przydatności grupowych warsztatów psychologicznych Trening Sterowności dla pracownika w pracy zawodowej respondentów (średnia ocena 4,32 wśród potencjalnych odbiorców). Zaś relatywnie najniżej oceniono przydatność bezpłatnych internetowych narzędzi wsparcia psychologicznego w wykonywanym zawodzie dla osób zwalnianych z pracy (średnia ocena 3,87 wśród potencjalnych użytkowników). Tym samym wszystkie cechy metody zostały uznane za przydatne i użyteczne. Przyśpieszenie Samokształcenie (nowe metody edukacji) Badana próba potencjalnych odbiorców (badanie CATI, woj. podlaskie) obejmowała 50 respondentów w tym: 48,0% osób w wieku od 30 do 50 lat, 36,0% poniżej 30 lat oraz 16,0% powyżej 50 lat. Próba obejmowała w 78,0% kobiety i w 22,0% mężczyzn. Podział na zawód – stanowisko prezentował się następująco: pracownik firmy (40,0%), doradca zawodowy (28,0%), psycholog (12,0%), trener mistrz zawodu (12,0%), instytucja rynku pracy (4,0%), instytucja szkoleniowa (4,0%). Dokładnie dwie osoby deklarowały posiadanie orzeczenia o niepełnosprawności. Badana próba potencjalnych użytkowników (badanie CAWI, cała Polska) obejmowała 100 respondentów w tym: 63,0% w wieku od 30 do 50 lat, 33,0% poniżej 30 lat oraz 4,0% powyżej 50 lat. W podziale na płeć próba obejmowała w 60,0% kobiety i w 40,0% mężczyzn. Dokładnie 5 respondentów deklarowało posiadanie orzeczenia o niepełnosprawności. 3,97 4,07 3,92 3,94 3,96 3,98 4 4,02 4,04 4,06 4,08 CAWI 8. Oceń możliwość/zasadność zastosowania tych metod dla pracowników firm modernizowanych muszących zmienić stanowisko pracy. CAWI 9. Oceń możliwość/zasadność zastosowania tych metod dla pracowników chcących rozwijać się zawodowo lub awansować w firmie. 149 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu W odniesieniu do oceny narzędzi z kategorii „Przyśpieszenie Samokształcenie (nowe metody edukacji)" uzyskano odpowiedzi na następujące pytania skierowane do potencjalnych odbiorców (badanie CATI, woj. podlaskie): 1) Oceń przydatność zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu pracy. 2) Oceń przydatność zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby pracujące (na przykład w okresie wypowiedzenia). 3) Oceń przydatność zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby mniej mobilne (na przykład osoby niepełnosprawne). 4) Oceń przydatność zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby mniej dyspozycyjne (rodzice opiekujący się dzieckiem). 5) Oceń wagę zdalnego opiekuna – trenera, specjalisty w zawodzie w zdalnej nauce nowego zawodu. 6) Oceń wagę grupowych warsztatów Reorientacja uzupełniających zdalną naukę nowego zawodu. 7) Oceń przydatność bezpłatnych internetowych szkoleń do nauki nowego zawodu dla pracownika w Twojej pracy zawodowej. 8) Oceń przydatność grupowych warsztatów Reorientacja uzupełniających zdalną naukę nowego zawodu dla pracownika w Twojej pracy zawodowej. oraz do potencjalnych użytkowników (badanie CAWI, cała Polska): 1) Oceń przydatność w Twojej pracy zawodowej internetowych szkoleń do nauki nowego zawodu dla osób zwalnianych. 2) Oceń przydatność w Twojej pracy zawodowej grupowych warsztatów Reorientacja uzupełniających zdalną naukę nowego zawodu. 3) Oceń przydatność zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby pracujące (na przykład w okresie wypowiedzenia). 4) Oceń przydatność zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby mniej mobilne (na przykład osoby niepełnosprawne). 5) Oceń przydatność zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby mniej dyspozycyjne (rodzice opiekujący się dzieckiem). 6) Oceń wagę zdalnego opiekuna – trenera w zdalnej nauce nowego zawodu. 150 Rozdział 2. 7) Oceń możliwość/zasadność zastosowania tych metod dla pracowników firm modernizowanych muszących zmienić stanowisko pracy. 8) Oceń możliwość/zasadność zastosowania tych metod dla pracowników chcących rozwijać się zawodowo lub awansować w firmie. W oparciu o powyższe pytania ewaluacyjne i przeprowadzoną ankietyzację uzyskano wyniki oceny opisane w dalszych podrozdziałach. Ocena została przeprowadzona w skali od 1 do 5, gdzie 1 oznaczało, iż dana cecha jest nie ważna, nie przydatna lub nie zasadna, zaś 5 iż jest bardzo ważna, bardzo przydatna lub bardzo zasadna. Użyteczność metody Zarówno potencjalnych odbiorców, jak i potencjalnych użytkowników poproszono o ocenę przydatności zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby pracujące (na przykład w okresie wypowiedzenia). W pierwszej grupie cecha ta została oceniona średnio na poziomie 4,38 punkty. W drugiej grupie natomiast na poziomie średniej oceny 3,94 punkty. Dodatkowo potencjalnych odbiorców z woj. podlaskiego poproszono o ocenę przydatności zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu pracy. Cecha ta uzyskała średnią ocenę 4,24 punkty. Potencjalni użytkownicy i potencjalni odbiorcy mieli okazję oceny przydatności zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby mniej mobilne (na przykład osoby niepełnosprawne). W ocenie pierwszej grupy cecha ta uzyskała średnią ocenę 4,60, zaś w przypadku drugiej średnią ocena 4,50. 151 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Wykres 40. Ocena przydatności zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu pracy Źródło: Badania własne. Wykres 41. Ocena przydatności zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby mniej mobilne (na przykład osoby niepełnosprawne) Źródło: Badania własne. 4,38 3,94 4,24 3,7 3,8 3,9 4 4,1 4,2 4,3 4,4 4,5 CATI 2. Oceń przydatność zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby pracujące (na przykład w okresie wypowiedzenia). CAWI 3. Oceń przydatność zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby pracujące (na przykład w okresie wypowiedzenia). CATI 1. Oceń przydatność zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu pracy. 4,50 4,60 4,44 4,46 4,48 4,5 4,52 4,54 4,56 4,58 4,6 4,62 CATI 3. Oceń przydatność zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby mniej mobilne (na przykład osoby niepełnosprawne). CAWI 4. Oceń przydatność zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby mniej mobilne (na przykład osoby niepełnosprawne). 152 Rozdział 2. Wykres 42. Ocena przydatności zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby mniej dyspozycyjne (rodzice opiekujący się dzieckiem) Źródło: Badania własne. Obie grupy respondentów oceniały także przydatność zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby mniej dyspozycyjne (rodzice opiekujący się dzieckiem). Potencjalni użytkownicy cechę tą ocenili średnio na 4,54 punkty, zaś potencjalni odbiorcy na średnio 4,44 punkty. Zarówno potencjalni odbiorcy, jak i potencjalni użytkownicy oceniali wagę zdalnego opiekuna trenera, specjalisty w zawodzie w zdalnej nauce nowego zawodu. W opinii obu grup uczestnictwo takiego specjalisty w realizacji programu jest ważne średnie oceny odpowiednio 4,26 i 4,06. Wykres 43. Ocena wagi zdalnego opiekuna w zdalnej nauce nowego zawodu Źródło: Badania własne. 4,44 4,54 4,38 4,4 4,42 4,44 4,46 4,48 4,5 4,52 4,54 4,56 CATI 4. Oceń przydatność zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby mniej dyspozycyjne (rodzice opiekujący się dzieckiem). CAWI 5. Oceń przydatność zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby mniej dyspozycyjne (rodzice opiekujący się dzieckiem). 4,06 4,26 3,95 4 4,05 4,1 4,15 4,2 4,25 4,3 CAWI 6. Oceń wagę zdalnego opiekuna trenera w zdalnej nauce nowego zawodu. CATI 5. Oceń wagę zdalnego opiekuna trenera, specjalisty w zawodzie w zdalnej nauce nowego zawodu. 153 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Podsumowując stwierdza się, że najwyżej ocenianą cechą produktu finalnego Samokształcenie (nowe metody edukacji) jest przydatność zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby mniej mobilne (na przykład osoby niepełnosprawne) (średnia ocena 4,60 według potencjalnych użytkowników). Tymczasem relatywnie najniżej ocenianą cechą jest przydatność zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby pracujące (na przykład w okresie wypowiedzenia) (średnia ocena 3,94 według potencjalnych użytkowników). Zasadniczo zatem zdecydowana większość cech omawianego produktu finalnego została oceniona pozytywnie jako przydatne lub niemal bardzo przydatne. Uniwersalność metody Potencjalnych odbiorców poproszono o ocenę przydatności bezpłatnych internetowych szkoleń do nauki nowego zawodu dla pracownika w swojej pracy zawodowej. Zdaniem respondentów szkolenia takie są przydatne (średnia ocena 4,38). Tymczasem potencjalnych użytkowników poproszono o ocenę przydatność w swojej pracy zawodowej internetowych szkoleń do nauki nowego zawodu dla osób zwalnianych. Średnia ocena tej cechy ukształtowała się na poziomie 3,68 punktów. Wykres 44. Ocena przydatności bezpłatnych internetowych szkoleń do nauki nowego zawodu Źródło: Badania własne. Potencjalnych odbiorców poproszono o ocenę wagi grupowych warsztatów Reorientacja uzupełniających zdalną naukę nowego zawodu (średnia ocena 4,28) oraz o ocenę przydatności grupowych warsztatów Reorientacja uzupełniających zdalną naukę nowego zawodu dla pracow4,38 3,68 3,2 3,4 3,6 3,8 4 4,2 4,4 4,6 CATI 7. Oceń przydatność bezpłatnych internetowych szkoleń do nauki nowego zawodu dla pracownika w Twojej pracy zawodowej. CAWI 1. Oceń przydatność w Twojej pracy zawodowej internetowych szkoleń do nauki nowego zawodu dla osób zwalnianych. 154 Rozdział 2. nika w swojej pracy zawodowej (średnia ocena 4,28). Dodatkowo potencjalnych użytkowników poproszono o ocenę przydatności w swojej pracy zawodowej grupowych warsztatów Reorientacja uzupełniających zdalną naukę nowego zawodu (średnia ocena 3,78). Wykres 45. Ocena przydatności grupowych warsztatów Reorientacja uzupełniających zdalną naukę nowego zawodu Źródło: Badania własne. Ponadto potencjalnych użytkowników poproszono o ocenę możliwości, zasadności zastosowania tych metod dla pracowników chcących rozwijać się zawodowo lub awansować w firmie oraz dla pracowników firm modernizowanych muszących zmienić stanowisko pracy. W pierwszym przypadku uzyskano średnią ocenę 4,19, w drugim zaś 4,00. Wykres 46. Ocena zasadności zastosowania tych metod dla pracowników Źródło: Badania własne. 4,28 4,28 3,78 3,5 3,6 3,7 3,8 3,9 4 4,1 4,2 4,3 4,4 CATI 6. Oceń wagę grupowych warsztatów Reorientacja uzupełniających zdalną naukę nowego zawodu. CATI 8. Oceń przydatność grupowych warsztatów Reorientacja uzupełniających zdalną naukę nowego zawodu dla pracownika w Twojej pracy zawodowej. CAWI 2. Oceń przydatność w Twojej pracy zawodowej grupowych warsztatów Reorientacja uzupełniających zdalną naukę nowego zawodu. 4,00 4,19 3,9 3,95 4 4,05 4,1 4,15 4,2 4,25 CAWI 7. Oceń możliwość/zasadność zastosowania tych metod dla pracowników firm modernizowanych muszących zmienić stanowisko pracy. CAWI 8. Oceń możliwość/zasadność zastosowania tych metod dla pracowników chcących rozwijać się zawodowo lub awansować w firmie. 155 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Najwyżej ocenioną cechą Samokształcenia została przydatność bezpłatnych internetowych szkoleń do nauki nowego zawodu dla pracownika w pracy zawodowej (średnia ocena 4,38 wśród potencjalnych odbiorców). Tymczasem relatywnie najniżej ocenioną cechą była przydatność w pracy zawodowej internetowych szkoleń do nauki nowego zawodu dla osób zwalnianych (średnia ocena 3,68 wśród potencjalnych użytkowników). Poszczególne cechy narzędzia zostały zatem w zdecydowanej większości ocenione jako przydatne co świadczy o wysokiej uniwersalności narzędzia. Ewaluacja modelu ESP_Firma w badaniach jakoąciowych W badaniach ilościowych zastosowano badanie FGI kierowane do uczestników testu oraz potencjalnych odbiorców produktu finalnego z woj. podlaskiego. MODEL EWALUACJI kompetencji pracownika Testowane rozwiązania w postaci programu komputerowego „Kwestionariusz Ekwiwalentów" oraz zdalnej aplikacji „e-Kwestionariusz Ekwiwalentów zaspokoiły oczekiwania i potrzeby w zakresie zdiagnozowania i oceny nieformalnych kompetencji uczestników testu. Stosowanie takich rozwiązań w dalszym ciągu nie jest jeszcze popularne w naszym regionie. Szczególnie istotnym elementem było połączenie metody samodzielnego badania kompetencji poprzez uczestnika testu oraz wsparcie zdalne oferowane przez doradcę zawodowego. „Jeżeli chodzi o mnie rzeczywiście było to zaskakujące rozwiązanie. Na początku była niepewność ale mieliśmy wsparcie opiekunów, w każdej chwili był kontakt z opiekunem także można było przedyskutować różne kwestie. Był element zaskoczenia między tym, co wiedziałam a czego nie wiedziałam o sobie i swoich kompetencjach". Ankieta służąca do diagnozy Państwa nieformalnych kompetencji była czytelna i zrozumiała oraz optymalna pod kątem długości. Wszyscy respondenci potwierdzili intuicyjny sposób jej wypełniania. „Nie, pytania były akurat takie jakie mały być, bardzo szybko się je wypełniało. Były jasne i czytelne." „ Były jasne i czytelne. Można było się tez dużo z nich dowiedzieć i jakoś tak się do nich ustosunkować . Te osoby, które je układały wchodziły tak jakby w te osoby które mogłyby na nie odpowiadać." 156 Rozdział 2. Także pozytywnie określono czytelność i łatwość zastosowania „Kwestionariusza Ekwiwalentów" oraz korzystanie z aplikacji zdalnej „e-Kwestionariusze Ekwiwalentów". „Nie była taka skomplikowana. Była czytelna. Nie trzeba posiadać większej wiedzy, żeby móc poruszać się po tej platformie." „Ja to samo potwierdzam, co koleżanka. Najpierw myślałam, że będzie trudno, przybierałam się długo do tego, żeby wejść. Ale jak już weszłam, to chętnie do tego wracałam. Zdarzało się, że wracałam i przeglądałam to, co już wcześniej rozwiązałam. Czyli wciągające i czytelne." Narzędzia bilansowania kompetencji za pomocą e-kwestionariuszy ekwiwalentów i powiązanego z nimi programu kwestionariusza kompetencji w formie aplikacji zdalnej to rozwiązanie trafne i odpowiednie. Pozwala ono efektywnie zarządzać swoim czasem i skrócić czas, w porównaniu z który tradycyjnymi metodami doradczymi/diagnostycznymi. „Format był bardzo dogodny, bo mogliśmy sobie w swoim czasie dopasowywać kiedy mamy ochotę, kiedy możemy, kiedy jesteśmy jakoś tak lepiej nastawieni." „Nie było nacisku zewnętrznego, że musimy korzystać. Mamy czas korzystamy, ale kiedy jeżeli chcemy, możemy przerwać w każdej chwili i nie utracimy tego co już zyskaliśmy, tego czego się już dowiedzieliśmy." „Przede wszystkim było to wygodne, że dostęp do platformy był również w godzinach wieczornych, co nie kolidowało, z innymi zajęciami." Respondenci pozytywnie ocenili funkcjonalność platformy do zdalnego doradztwa. Jej obsługa była intuicyjna. Respondenci nie wskazali na problemy podczas korzystania. „Obsługa była oczywista. Praca jest bardzo podzielona i dzięki temu bardzo czytelna: wiadomo gdzie jest co. Nie ma możliwości, żeby zagubić się w platformie, ponieważ idąc jednym kierunkiem, jest się kierowanym odpowiednio do następnych. To było bardzo ważne dla osób, które nie mają doświadczenia w obsłudze różnych programów." „Ze szkoleniami na platformie, co najmniej męczące, ponieważ odgórnie narzucona ilość godzin, dziennie trochę trzeba tego przerobić, ale się siadało, włączało i to sobie na komputerze działało. Ja byłam przestraszona, że to będzie w tej samej formie, a przynajmniej podobnej, a nie że sama będę mogła sobie dostosować ile dziennie czasu poświęcam na przerobienie materiału na platformie." „Ja nie miałam doświadczenia i nie było dla mnie problemu, żeby cos znaleźć czy wypełnić, a później jeżeli chodzi o wypełnienie tych testów, faktycznie trzeba było przeanalizować wszystkie prezentacje i załączniki i do dopiero po zapoznaniu się, można było wypełnić ten test. Mam nadzieję, że będę mogła z czasem z tego korzystać" 157 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Ciekawe odpowiedzi uzyskano na pytanie odnośnie dopasowania narzędzi doradczych do potrzeb osób pracujących zagrożonych zwolnieniem i osób bezrobotnych. Respondenci zaskoczenie byli niekiedy swoimi wynikami. Nie zdawali sobie sprawy, że mogą realizować się w innych dziedzinach. „Na pewno tak, ja uważam, że były tam pytania związane strikte z jakimś zawodem, rzemiosłem, ja w takich pytaniach nie czułem się dobrze więc miałem to na samym końcu w wyniku; informację, że nie pasuję do tych zawodów. Tym samym te wyniki pomogły na pewno. Fajny wyszedł mi wynik, że lubię pracę w społeczności, nigdy nie myślałem, że mogę pracować społecznie i faktycznie może będę się w tym realizował" Za szczególnie trafne rozwiązanie uznano możliwość konsultacji wyników diagnozy przy pomocy zdalnej aplikacji z psychologiem, doradcą zawodowym, doradcą. „To było bardzo dobre, ponieważ byłam przerażona, że moje wyniki wypadły tak nisko. Jednak w momencie kiedy skonsultowałam się ze swoim doradcą, okazało się, że bardzo dobrze, że są takie wyniki, ponieważ jest to moja zaleta, a nie wada. Doradczyni wyjaśniła mi, że moje wyniki są zupełnie inne niż tak ja je sobie wcześniej interpretowałam" Specjaliści zatrudnieni w procesie diagnozowania, bilansowania kompetencji otrzymali wysokie oceny: „ Od jedynki do dziesiątki, ja bym dała dziesięć" „Ja się również zgadzam. Atmosfera i współpraca były wspaniałe. Miałam poczucie, że zawsze mogę się zgłosić i coś omówić, przedyskutować" „Doradcy byli dyspozycyjni. Byli dostępni prawie przez cały dzień. Bardzo nas motywowali, wspierali i nawet mobilizowali, żebyśmy pracowali, korzystali z platformy, otwierali się na grupę, chcieli coś o sobie powiedzieć, nie czując żadnego zagrożenia. Także trenerzy byli niesamowici i bardzo nas wspierali." „Ważne było dla nas poczucie, że jeżeli dla nas coś stanowiło problem, dla nich to nigdy nie był to błahy problem, zawsze podchodzili bardzo profesjonalnie do tego i zawsze można było porozmawiać, przedyskutować i zawsze to się rozwiązywało" Używane przez respondentów narzędzia doradcze należy uznać za skuteczne. Zapewniają one właściwą realizację procesu diagnostycznodoradczego ekwiwalentów, bilansowania kompetencji osób zatrudnionych lub zagrożonych zwolnieniami. „Te wszystkie narzędzia były bardzo profesjonalnie wykonane. Wcześniej myślałam, że będą to jakieś banalne narzędzia. Okazało się to nieprawdą, ponieważ były przygotowane bardzo profesjonalnie i dzięki 158 Rozdział 2. temu ja bardzo dużo się dowiedziałam i bardzo dużo się nauczyłam. Żałuję tylko, że nie mam tego w formie papierowej, żebym mogła w każdej chwili do tych wartościowych informacji wrócić. Fajnie by było, żeby móc do tego wrócić, przekartkować i znaleźć to co jest potrzebne" „Co do tych narzędzi doradczych, moim zdaniem, w mojej sytuacji były one bardzo pomocne. To taka analiza samej siebie. Zazwyczaj nie zagłębiam się, nie analizuje w taki sposób że w czy jestem lepsza w czym gorsza. A to było takie przyjrzenie się, uświadomienie sobie pewnych rzeczy, że w niektórych obszarach jest dobrze, w innym może być lepiej. Ja bardzo dużo zyskałam, dużą pewność siebie, taką większą samoświadomość" Przygotowane w ramach projektu narzędzia są pomocne w dokonaniu pewnego rodzaju samooceny i zwiększenia poziomu samoświadomości swojego potencjału i kompetencji oraz zweryfikowania wiedzy nieformalnej. „Każe pytanie dotyczące nas pogłębiało naszą samoświadomość. Nawet kiedy pytanie czasem wydawały się błahe, pozwalały nam się nam chwilę zatrzymać, zastanowić i analizować co jest w nas" „Czasem wydajemy się sobie tacy, a po analizie takiego testu okazuje się, że nasze spojrzenie na siebie jest zupełnie inne. testy pokazywały nam to jacy jesteśmy w rzeczywistości. Tak jak np. Łukasz, który nie zdawał sobie sprawy, że lubi pracować społecznie czy chociażby predyspozycje do zawodów estetycznych, o których człowiek sobie nie zdawał sprawy. Wszystko to wyłoniły te testy. W ten sposób otwierają się kolejne furtki, o których sobie nawet nie zdawaliśmy sprawy" „Zastanowiłam się chwilę, nad teatrem, czy może rzeczywiście powinnam pójść. Niby z góry odrzuciłam ta pytanie, bo nie lubię teatru, ale wymagało to dłuższego zastanowienia się" Na obecnym etapie testowania – czyli pod koniec trwania testu można już mówić o korzyściach płynących z udziału w projekcie. „Pewnie, że jest korzystne, każde doświadczenie jest korzystne, uświadamia coś człowiekowi na jego temat" „Fajnie było, że mogliśmy oderwać się od swoim codziennych obowiązków, od swojego miejsca zamieszkania, że mogliśmy się dowiedzieć o sobie wielu niesamowitych rzeczy, że mogliśmy się otworzyć na ludzi, I jeżeli chodzi o mnie, bardzo się cieszę, że się zakwalifikowałam. Jestem wdzięczna z przyjaźni, które się tu nawiązały, że trenerzy byli bardzo otwarci, że można było porozmawiać na każdy temat, to jest coś czego będzie mi bardzo brakowało" „Grupa jest wspaniała, wymieniamy się doświadczeniami i będziemy kontynuować naszą przyjaźń. Dzięki projektowi uświadomiliśmy sobie, 159 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu że pomimo że jesteśmy tacy różni i każdy z nas pochodzi z innego środowiska, a mimo to mogliśmy się do siebie zbliżyć i czegoś się nauczyć" „Ja mogłam całkowicie zajrzeć w głąb siebie, przez chwilę nie musiałam martwić się o codzienne sprawy, mogłam zadbać o siebie i być sobą" „Taka izolacja powoduje, że człowiek skupia się na tym projekcie, nad tym co tu robi, uczestniczy w tych zajęciach, rozmawia na ich temat, a nie ma jakichś pobocznych myśli, że tyle jeszcze osobistych spraw do załatwienia. Tutaj jestem i TO robię, poświęcam czas tylko temu. Także myślę, że gdyby to nie było zorganizowane właśnie tam, tylko np. w miejscu zamieszkania, to nasza praca nie byłaby taka efektywna, bo człowiek by się rozbiegał myślami. Tutaj byliśmy skupieni tylko na projekcie i na pracy nad sobą" Użytkownicy modelu specjaliści zaangażowani w proces outplacementu wysoko ocenili rozwiązania logistyczne (zdalne). „Tego typu rozwiązania w dzisiejszych czasach są bardzo wygodne, zarówno dla uczestników i trenerów. Takie forma kontaktu telefonicznego i internetowego sprawia, że można się umówić na różne godziny w zależności od potrzeb i możliwości różnych, jednej i drugiej strony. Z perspektywy osoby pracującej mogę powiedzieć, że jest to bardzo wygodne. Obie formy, forma internetowa i nasze spotkania, wzajemnie świetnie się uzupełniał i tworzy ważną całość" „Dawało to taka pewność. Był to dla nas duży komfort, ta możliwość zapytania, zweryfikowania. A każdy z nas ma inny dzień, w innym czasie robię różne rzeczy. Niektórzy mają bardzo późno, tylko wieczorem czas, ale można było to zrobić" „To było bardzo innowacyjne, i tam sobie pomyślałam, że projekt był dla nas, a nie my dla projektu. Mogliśmy poczuć się nie przedmiotowo, że pomoc była dostępna właściwie całą dobę. Ja np. nie czułam się królikiem doświadczalnym. I okazuje się, że na etapie testowania wynosimy dużo dla siebie" Jako ewentualne zmiany, które należałby wprowadzić aby proponowane rozwiązanie było bardziej trafne i skuteczne poddano kilka propozycji. „Żałuję tylko, że nie mam tego w formie papierowej, żebym mogła w każdej chwili do tych wartościowych informacji wrócić. Fajnie by było, żeby móc do tego wrócić, przekartkować i znaleźć to co jest potrzebne" „Fajnie by było, żeby w trakcie wypełniania kwestionariuszy, można było podejrzeć prawidłowe odpowiedzi. Dzięki temu mielibyśmy większą samoświadomość, w którym momencie popełniliśmy błąd" 160 Rozdział 2. „Żeby było tego jeszcze więcej. Więcej informacji dotyczących nas samych, takich osobistych. Wypełniłam kwestionariusz, dowiedziałam się czegoś wstępnie, ale można by jeszcze dogłębniej to przeanalizować, żeby wiedzieć w czym można by się dalej kształcić, jak podnieść swoje kwalifikacje i żeby jeszcze więcej skorzystać. Było kilka pytań osobistych, niby prostych ale zastawiających i czegoś dowiedziałam się na swój temat z tych pytań i to było bardzo zaskakujące. Ale dopiero po konsultacji z doradcą ta informacja na mój temat jest kompletna" Wypracowany model postępowania w zaproponowanym kształcie według respondentów FGI powinien być upowszechniany tj. prezentowany innym instytucjom „Ja uważam, że powinny być udostępniane. Według mnie wyczerpują wszystkie informacje i wiadomości, które tam były zawarte. Były bardzo trafne i są godne polecenia" „Myślę, że można to już wykorzystywać" „ Kiedyś będę dumna i zadowolona, że jako tester jak uczestniczyłam w powstaniu projektu „Mogliśmy wspólnie uczestniczyć, sprawdzać i testować ten program, to ja się czuję jakbym współtworzyła to. Bo ja wiem o co chodzi, bo ja to praktycznie wykonałam, sprawdziłam, przetestowałam" „Fajne doświadczenie, na pewno godne polecenia" „Ja też się zgadzam. Myślę, że można to już wykorzystywać dalej bo jest to dopracowane" MODEL KSZTAŁTOWANIA STEROWNOŚCI pracownika Można uznać, że testowane rozwiązania w Modelu Sterowności Pracownika zaspokoiły oczekiwania i potrzeby w zakresie planowania kariery i doradztwa zawodowego respondentów. „W moim przypadku raczej sprawdzały się odpowiedzi, które proponował dany test i wyniki, które przedstawiane były w postaci słupków. Były potwierdzeniem". „Moje wyniki były w dużej mierze uśrednione także posiłkowałam się wsparciem doradców. Konsultowałam swoje wyniki i ich interpretacje". Kwestionariusze zdalne „e Trening Sterowności" były czytelne i zrozumiałe oraz optymalne pod kątem długości. Raczej nie sprawiły problemów podczas jej wypełniania. Zdążało się jednak, że respondent nie miał jeszcze doświadczeń wskazanych w kwestionariuszu i odpowiadał wyobrażając sobie taka sytuację 161 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu „Gdzieniegdzie mogły byś stosowane inne odpowiedzi, zamiast często, rzadko itp.. które w danym momencie średnio mi pasowały łatwiej by mi się odpowiadało na pytania stosując zwykłą numerację od jednego do pięciu. Ogólnie całość była bardzo czytelna. Pojedyncze pytania były takie, że nie wiedziałyśmy jak się do nich odnieść, bo dotyczyły np. spraw typu kredyt, dzieci itd. a ja tego nie przeżyłam, nie doświadczyłam także odpowiadałam bardziej na zasadzie co by było gdyby". „To bardziej chodziło o takie spontaniczne odpowiedzi. Ja to tak odebrałam. Wiadomo, że nie każdy przeżył dane wydarzenia i nie każdy może się ustosunkować. Budziło to rozbieżne emocje. Ale budziło. Zmuszało do myślenia. To chyba dobrze". Czytelność i łatwość stosowania kwestionariuszy „Trening Sterowności" oraz korzystanie z aplikacji zdalnej „e Trening Sterowności" oceniono pozytywnie. „Dobra długość kwestionariuszy. Nie było problemów" „Wszystko było bardzo fajnie, przejrzysto. Czytelnie" „Pomagało to, że mogliśmy przerywać pracę w każdym momencie, wracać kiedy był czas. Taki ciąg dalszy pracy" Narzędzia wirtualnego treningu sterowności w formie zdalnej to rozwiązanie trafne i odpowiednie. Pozwala efektywniej zarządzać swoim czasem i skrócić czas, w porównaniu z tradycyjnymi metodami doradczymi „Każdy ma swój tryb życia i funkcjonuje w innych porach dnia i może sobie dostosować naukę do siebie, do swojego dnia – kiedy trzeba, kiedy może, kiedy ma czas – wtedy otwiera i uczy się, czy ewentualnie kontaktuje z naszymi doradcami" „To rozwiązanie elastyczne. To było dobre bardzo". „Tylko ważne jest jednak to, żeby faktycznie można się było spotkać z trenerem, czy doradcą, coś doprecyzować. I twarzą w twarz porozmawiać. To też jest mimo wszystko ważne przy tej zdalnej nauce". „Tym bardziej, że najpierw robimy coś zdalnie a potem spotykamy się z trenerem, który dużo wyjaśniał, pokazywał zastosowanie tego, czego się nauczyło na platformie. To było fajne uzupełnienie". „Pod względem czasu to dla osób zabieganych jest to duże ułatwienie, bo można się uczyć w domu, nie trzeba dojeżdżać, spędzać czas na wykładach, zajęciach, ćwiczeniach. Można uczyć się samodzielnie na platformie kiedy chce, kiedy wiem, że uczy się najwydajniej. Można kontrolować swój czas" „Projekt był skierowany również do osób, które jeszcze pracują a osoba, która pracuje od poniedziałku do piątku czy przez cały tydzień, nie ma możliwości stawiania się o konkretnej godzinie na lekcjach. Tak162 Rozdział 2. że tutaj dysponowanie czasem i określenie przez samego siebie, kiedy chcę się uczyć, kiedy chce się do tego usiąść, jest w dzisiejszych czasach rozwiązaniem odpowiednim." „Myślę, że wiele osób, gdyby kurs był zorganizowany powiedzmy tylko w weekendy, by zrezygnowało dlatego, że weekend często jest jedynym dniem wolnym w całym tygodniu żeby odpocząć. Nie wszyscy mieliby tyle motywacji i zaangażowania, żeby poświęcić ten czas." Funkcjonalność platformy do zdalnego treningu sterowności była pozytywnie oceniona przez respondentów. Jej obsługa jest intuicyjna. „Platforma była czytelna i przejrzysta" „Można było praktycznie intuicyjnie się po niej poruszać" „Dobre było to, że trzeba było zrobić jeden moduł, żeby drugi się otworzył. Gdyby było inaczej nie byłaby to wiedza rozwijająca. Trzeba było przejść jeden test, żeby móc zrobić kolejny. Trzeba było uczyć się etapami." Także dopasowanie narzędzi doradczych do potrzeb osób pracujących zagrożonych zwolnieniem i osób bezrobotnych jest wysokie. „Osoba taka dzięki tym narzędziom poznaje swoje możliwości, wewnętrzne motywatory. Na bazie tych testów dowiaduje się o sobie więcej. Również tego, w jakiej [racy mogłaby się odnaleźć najlepiej. Zgłębiając swoje wewnętrzne cechy, wartości i poczucie sterowności taka osoba może tą wiedzę wykorzystać poszukując odpowiedniej pracy." „Narzędzia pomagają się ukierunkować. Jeżeli ktoś nie ma siebie pomysłu tak do końca to dzięki tym testom poznaje siebie, widzi co można by zmienić a co wykorzystać, w jakim pójść kierunku." „Testy dotykają czasami kwestii, o których na co dzień nawet nie myślimy. Wydają się tak proste, oczywiste, że nie wymagają skupienia. A tutaj test wymaga by się na chwilę zatrzymać i zastanowić nad różnymi sprawami. I w ten sposób można poznać siebie." „Po rozwiązaniu danego testu może się okazać na przykład, że jednak jestem nie tu gdzie powinnam być. Przynajmniej się nad tym zastanowię." „Jeżeli ktoś całe życie pracował np. w finansach to rozwiązując taki test mogła mu się zaświecić taka żaróweczka, że może to jest właśnie ta kwestia, która ogranicza moje szczęście, która powoduje, że coś mi w życiu nie pasuje." Możliwość konsultacji wyników przy pomocy zdalnej aplikacji z psychologiem, doradcą zdalnym jest rozwiązaniem użytecznym, zgodnym z potrzebami uczestników testu. „To było bardzo fajne. Każdy wynik jest dla nas ważny. Ważna jest interpretacja". 163 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu „Jak u mnie wychodził ten wynik uśredniony to w tym momencie chciało się czegoś więcej. Doradca bardziej uszczegóławia poszczególne hasła i odpowiedzi. Mówi jak co można zinterpretować, jak zastosować. Także ten kontakt jest bardzo pomocny". Unikalne połączenie zdalnego treningu sterowności z warsztatami wyjazdowymi oraz indywidualnymi konsultacjami ze specjalistą jest rozwiązaniem trafnym i efektywnym z punktu widzenia osoby zagrożonej zwolnieniem. „Jeżeli nie byłoby połączenia tych trzech elementów: platformy, wyjazdów i wsparcia doradców to by to nie współgrało, nie miało sensu. Dopiero te 3 elementy razem dają naprawdę fajne wyniki, widać, ze to wszystko razem oddziałuje na nas, że zastanawiamy się nad sobą, nad naszą ścieżką zawodową. Pytania pojawiają się jak sami rozwiązujemy testy, przy wynikach, potem możemy je omówić zarówno grupowo jak i indywidualnie. Spotkania grupowe, wymiana naszych zdań i wrażeń bardzo fajnie wychodzi bo poznajmy inne spojrzenie, inne zdanie. To co nam nie przyszło do głowy, może podpowiedzieć nam ktoś inny. Takie grupowe burze mózgu dużo nas ukierunkowały." Respondenci wysoko ocenili wyjazdową formę Grupy Wsparcia, tj. dojazd, warunki pobytu, organizację zajęć oraz harmonogram. „Oceniam bardzo dobrze. Uwzględniane są tutaj nasze uwagi – co chcielibyśmy robić, co nam pasuje, co nie pasuje. Jest duża elastyczność. Harmonogram jest dostoswany w pewien sposób do naszych potrzeb." „Też samo miejsce, które zostało wybrane do przeprowadzenia tych szkoleń jest bardzo trafione. Jest tutaj cisza i spokój, przyroda. Można się zatrzymać, odpocząć od zgiełku codziennego. Oprócz tego, że pracujemy tutaj mocno nas sobą i swoimi możliwościami to jest to też mimo wszystko odpoczynek i chwila dla nas." „Nie byłoby takich efektów, gdyby to wszystko odbywało się na miejscy, w Białymstoku. Gdzie nagle musimy wrócić do domu, do codzienności i znowu nas to wszystko dopada. Wyjeżdżając mamy czas by się wyciszyć, żeby przemyśleć." „Masz okazję się odciąć, zostawić na chwile codzienne życie, wyjechać i skupić się na tym co masz do zrobienia." „Sam harmonogram zajęć też był nie przesycony zajęciami 12godzinnymi podczas których głowa nie miałaby okazji odpocząć tylko było umiarkowane połączenie spokoju i wyciszenia z nauką. I mózg pracował i człowiek odpoczywał." „Jest sporo materiału, także trzeba było rozłożyć nasze wyjazdy w czasie. Nie można było zrobić tego w ciągu miesiąca. I to było dobre. Można było zrobić jedną część, jeden moduł (z kilkunastu) i rozłożyć 164 Rozdział 2. sobie resztę w czasie. Widzieliśmy się średnio co 2 tygodnie także było to odpowiednie. Gdyby przerwy były dłuższe to by rozleniwiało a gdyby były krótsze to byłby za duży natłok informacji. Było w sam raz. Czekaliśmy na te wyjazdy." Respondentów poproszono o ocenienie zaangażowania, roli specjalisty – psychologa w procesie doradczym. „To ważne, że była taka osoba i, że zawsze służyła dobrą radą i jeżeli o coś chciałam się zapytać, coś więcej się dowiedzieć na dany temat, to zawsze można się było skontaktować" „Dobre było to, że ten projekt właśnie był wielopłaszczyznowy. Jednocześnie były prowadzone platformy, z drugiej strony był doradca czy trener od konkretnego modułu i jeszcze psycholog. Z każdej strony ta pomoc była wyraźna i bardzo odczuwalna. Nie było zderzenia z samych zaznaczaniem w testach „a, b, c, d" tylko projekt był taki pełny i kompletny". „Można było liczyć na pomoc w każdej kwestii" „Reguły na początku ustalone dawały poczucie bezpieczeństwa i zajęcia fajnie się odbywały." „Ja myślę, ze ich celem było też doprowadzenie do tego, żebyśmy się poznali. I nie tylko od strony skąd jestem, czym się zajmuję ale też jakie mam marzenia, od strony duchowej. To bardzo integrowało grupę." Testowane przez respondentów narzędzia budowania sterowności należy uznać za skuteczne tzn. takie, które zapewniają właściwą realizację procesu wsparcia osób zatrudnionych lub zagrożonych zwolnieniami. Są one pomocne w zwiększeniu samosterowności oraz planowaniu reorientacji zawodowej. „Jak najbardziej. To są narzędzia, które jakby każą mi się zastanowić nad swoją osobą, nad moją sytuacją. Ta interpretacja wyników czasami przynosiła efekty zdumiewające, czyli, tak jak wcześniej mówiliśmy – ktoś pracował w księgowości a wychodzi mu, że powinien kontaktować się bardziej z ludźmi." „Poleciłabym taką formę wsparcia, bo jest ciekawa, bo można się dowiedzieć dużo o sobie, można poznać też nowych ludzi, otworzyć się na drugiego człowieka." Podczas procesu planowania kariery uwzględnienie aspektów psychologicznych, rodzinnych jest rozwiązaniem trafnym. „Ja uważam, ze to jest podstawa ponieważ jak człowiek robi coś zgodnie z własnymi marzeniami, predyspozycjami i wartościami, które wyznaje to zupełnie inaczej się w życiu zawodowym porusza. Aspekty psychologiczne są podstawą żeby szukać jakichś własnych ścieżek." 165 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu „Siłą rzeczy – nie da się tak, żeby to co się dzieje u nas prywatnie nie przenosiło się na nasze życie zawodowe." Na obecnym etapie testowania – koniec procesu testowania, można mówić o korzyściach płynących z udziału w projekcie testującym innowacyjne metody outplacemnetu. „Mamy wpływ na to jak się zmienia narzędzie, jak będzie wyglądało. Na pewno na tym korzystamy ponieważ wyciągaliśmy wniosku, czerpaliśmy wiedzę. My wyłapujemy błędy, które potem nie powtórzą się innym uczestnikom takiego wsparcia. Oni już będą mieli łatwiejszą ścieżkę to wychwycenia swoich możliwości." Użytkownicy modelu specjaliści zaangażowani w proces outplacementu pozytywnie i wysoko oceniają Państwo rozwiązania logistyczne (zdalne) z punktu widzenia. „Rozwiązania zdalne pomagają zaoszczędzić czas bez umniejszenia roli wykonywanych zadań. Są one tak samo wykonywane z tą różnicą, że kontakt z uczestnikiem jest ułatwiony, możliwy w zasadzie w każdej chwili. Dodatkowo uczestnik czuje się bardziej zaopiekowany bo może skontaktować się z psychologiem czy doradcą kiedy tego potrzebuje." Nie wskazano ewentualnych zmian, które należałby wprowadzić aby proponowane rozwiązanie było bardziej trafne i skuteczne. Wypracowany model postępowania w zaproponowanym kształcie powinien być upowszechniany tj. prezentowany innym instytucjom. „Taki model postępowania na pewno ma przyszłość, bo teraz wszyscy jesteśmy zabiegani i ciężko jest zdobyć się by w konkretnych godzinach codziennie zjawić się na zajęciach i poświęcić konkretne godziny na to i na to. W naszym harmonogramie, rytmie dnia to staje się wręcz niemożliwe. Dlatego jeżeli możemy się rozwijać ale wybranym dla siebie momencie to myślę, że to jak najbardziej ma przyszłość i to będzie coraz częstsze." „Tym bardziej jeżeli chodzi o osoby, które będą się przekwalifikowały, czy będą zwolnione to są dalej osoby, które jeszcze pracują. Godziny pracy są różne. Mamy wyjazdy, czy soboty zajęte. W takich wypadkach spotkania z psychologiem czy warsztaty są trudne do zrealizowania. W tym modelu nic nie tracimy. Mamy możliwość korzystania z narzędzi w każdej chwili." „Model powinien być upowszechniony. Zwłaszcza w takiej formie jak tutaj to przebiegało – czyli zarówno praca na platformie, jak i spotkania, psycholog, wyjazdy. Ja brałem udział w różnych projektach i szkoleniach i uważam, ze to było najbardziej skuteczne z tych wszystkich i najwięcej wniosło. Jak najbardziej śmiało mógłbym polecić. Sama platforma nie jest tutaj jakby środkiem. Natomiast jak są zachowane te 166 Rozdział 2. wszystkie tryby to wtedy wszystko się zazębia i naprawę ma to wymierne skutki." Zwrócono jednak uwagę, że: „Nauka zdalna jest na pewno trudniejsza od zwykłej bo wymaga od nas więcej silnej woli aby usiąść i samemu zacząć coś robić, ale na pewno przyjemniejsza jeżeli chodzi o czas." MODEL PRZYŚPIESZENIA ROZWOJU pracownika Testowane rozwiązania w Modelu Przyśpieszenia Pracownika zaspokoiły oczekiwania i potrzeby w zakresie samokształcenia, reorientacji zawodowej w okresie wypowiedzenia. „Jak najbardziej, kurs grafiki komputer i teraz i dopóki jeszcze pracowałam – do zeszłego piątku – bardzo mi się przydał, chociażby z tego względu, że w pracy również tworzyłam różnego rodzaju materiały reklamowe. Kontaktowałam się z naszym trenerem (dalej jestem w kontakcie) próbowałam się dowiedzieć, dopytywać o różne informacje, jak można różne rzeczy efektywnie uzyskiwać. Także kurs był jak najbardziej dużą pomocą". „Ja myślę, że była duża różnorodność kursów, poczynając od „Obsługi sekretariatu" i kończąc na „Tworzeniu stron www". Także każdy mógł znaleźć na platformie coś dla siebie, coś co może mu się przydać w przyszłej pracy zawodowej, coś w czym chciałby się doszkolić". Usługi outplacementowe oferowane w formie zdalnej są rozwiązaniem skutecznym, oszczędzającym czas, chroniącym przed przerwą w aktywności zawodowej. „Na pewno taka forma pracy pokazuje, że są różne kierunki przy szukaniu pracy. Zetknięcie z taką platformą zdalną, jak tutaj, a w niej z kierunkami, z którymi wcześniej nie mieliśmy do czynienia, w jakiś sposób poszerza nasze zainteresowanie ofertami, na które wcześniej nie zwracaliśmy uwagi. Także dzięki temu możemy się bardziej otworzyć na rynek pracy. Zróżnicować oczekiwania. Spróbować czegoś nowego." „Takie rozwiązanie pokazuje, że można się uczyć nowych rzeczy, że na to nigdy nie jest za późno i cały czas można się rozwijać" „Przede wszystkim te usługi były bardzo profesjonalnie przygotowane, na bardzo wysokim poziomie i, jeżeli chodzi o mnie, były bardzo miłym zaskoczeniem. Nie było tutaj podejścia, że ot tak coś trzeba zrobić. Przeciwnie – trzeba się było do tego przyłożyć, zmobilizować, zapoznać z materiałem, przeczytać. Ja np. nigdy nie miałam do czynienia z sekretariatem także w kursie zdalnym było dla mnie bardzo dużo nowych wia167 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu domości, które dało się stopniowo przyswoić i w swoim czasie, tempie nauczyć czegoś nowego". „Ja kończyłam kurs „Księgowość" i w związku z tym, że pracuję w dziale księgowości to znacznie uzupełniłam swoją wiedzę. Ta forma zdalna, która polegała na tym, że mogłam sięgnąć do materiałów kiedy chcę i mogę w każdej chwili powrócić, cofnąć się czy różne rzeczy w różnym czasie porównać do tego, z czym mam do czynienia, bardzo mi odpowiadała. Myślę, że poziom był odpowiedni. Takie usystematyzowanie pewnych rzeczy, poszerzenie swoich umiejętności". Według respondentów e-learning jest lepszym, bardziej skutecznym rozwiązaniem w przypadku osób zagrożonych zwolnieniem od nauczania tradycyjnego. „Ja myślę, że to jest idealna opcja zarówno dla osób, które pracują i osób, które chcą czy muszą się przebranżowić bądź uzupełnić swoją wiedzę. Bardzo często jest to jedyna forma możliwa nauki, ze względu chociażby na czas. E-learning odpowiada na potrzeby osób, które mają jasno określony cel edukacyjny ale mają trudność, żeby go osiągnąć w formie stacjonarnej ze względu na ograniczenia czasowe właśnie" „Zależy kto się czym interesuje. Gdybym ja np. miała się uczyć księgowości, która jest dla mnie naprawdę bardzo trudna to byłoby to mało interesujące. Jeżeli natomiast chodzi o grafikę komputerową, którą lubię się bawić to dla mnie nauka zdalna jest czystą przyjemnością i lekko mi przychodzi" Za największe przeszkody w korzystaniu z e-learningu wskazano motywację. „Na pewno trudno się zmotywować, przysiąść. Ale jak już się usiądzie, zacznie się czytać, wgłębiać to już idzie" Funkcjonalność portalu edukacyjnego „e-Szkolenia Zewnętrzne oceniono wysoko. Jego obsługa jest intuicyjna. „Bardzo przejrzyście była strona skonstruowana. Myślę, że dla osób w różnym wieku jak najbardziej się nadaje. Każdy sobie poradzi. Bardzo intuicyjnie można było się poruszać po całej platformie. Bez większych problemów". „Tak oczywiście wszystko było czytelne, nie było skomplikowanych rzeczy" „Osoby, które wcześniej nie miały kontaktu nawet z internetem, bo przecież nie wszyscy mieli i nie wszyscy się świetnie po nim poruszają, to z tego, co się słyszy nie miały problemu z poruszaniem się po platformie. Świadczy to o tym, że wszystko z głową było projektowane. Nie było przesycenia grafiki, czy rozwiązań, które wymagałaby jakiejś dodatkowej wiedzy od ludzi. Wszystko jest proste" 168 Rozdział 2. „Każdy podchodził to tego indywidualnie. Każdy ma inny tryb uczenia się. Jeden szybko przyswaja materiał, drugi nie. Tak jak przykładowo w kursie „Obsługa sekretariatu", gdzie na pewnym etapie pojawiły się rozporządzenia. Jak wcześniej czytało się to szybko to przy rozporządzeniach wiadomo – pojawiło się inne słownictwo, trzeba było się bardziej skupić. Sam czas, długość trwania kursów bardzo dobrze zostały dobrane". „Świetne jest to, że w każdym momencie możemy przerwać, jak już się znudziło, czy człowiek był zmęczony albo chciał po prostu odpocząć od np. jakiegoś rozporządzenia. Wiem, że przerwę ale w każdej chwili to znajdę i do tego wrócę i będę mogła kontynuować. To było, moim zdaniem, wielki plusem. Takie wchodzenie, wychodzenie kiedy chce. Że nie muszę skończyć, męczyć się kiedy już czuję znużenie, tylko przerwać, zregenerować siły i wrócić". „Objętościowo to wszystko było dopasowane do tego ile rzeczywiście wiedzy zostało zawarte. Jeżeli miało to być profesjonalnie zrobione to nie mogło to być napisane w jakimś wielkim skrócie, 5-minutwe materiały, które się w 5 minut przerobi. Bo to wtedy nie przyniosłoby żadnych efektów. Żeby zestawić jakąś konkretną wiedzę trzeba nad tym posiedzieć chwilę, trochę na to czasu poświęcić. Także myślę, że ilość materiału była jak najbardziej w porządku" „Im więcej czasu poświęcasz to lepiej to zostaje w pamięci. Ponadto wizualnie platforma była fajnie zrobiona. Jak czegoś szukałam to od razu to wyłapywałam. Łatwo było coś znaleźć, do czegoś wrócić." Dostępność produktu edukacyjnego z punktu widzenia osób pracujących także została wysoko oceniona. „Jest to dobra forma nauki bo zawsze można wrócić do czegoś, coś sobie przypomnieć. Konkretne przykłady z pracy odnieść do zawartych w treści" Metoda uczenia się z użyciem narzędzi internetowych połączonych z możliwością lepszego zrozumienia tematyki szkolenia na wyjazdowych spotkaniach z udziałem trenerów jest rozwiązaniem trafnym z punktu widzenia pracownika zwalnianego, osoby bezrobotnej. „Sama platforma pewnie niektórym by nie wystarczyła. Ja tak mam, że każdą wiedzę, którą nabywam, chciałabym czasami omówić, szczególnie kwestie, które budzą jakieś wątpliwości. Spotkanie z trenerem, który potem pomoże czy rzeczywiście na jakimś przykładzie coś podpowie, rozwija moją wiedzę lub ją utwierdza czy ugruntowuje (że rzeczywiście miałam racje, może nie byłam do końca pewna ale tutaj się to wyjaśniło). Zawsze są jakieś pytania, które później można jeszcze wyjaśnić" 169 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu „Każda wiedza wymaga jakiegoś potwierdzenia. To jest tak, jak z nauką języka obcego – uczysz się, czytasz a w gruncie rzeczy nie słyszysz prawidłowej wymowy i niby umiesz a nie umiesz. Tak jest z tą wiedzą nie potwierdzoną przez kogoś innego tylko przeczytaną wiedzą suchą, teoretyczną" „Ważne również było to, że trenerzy powiązani z danym kursem zapoznali nas z treściami a później jeżeli ja akurat czytałam i notowałam to treści były dla mnie bardziej jasne, zrozumiałe". Wyjazdowa forma szkoleń, tj. dojazd, warunki pobytu, organizację zajęć oraz harmonogram został dobrze oceniony przez respondentów. „Świetne połączenie i teorii i praktyki i kursów zawodowych i spotkań z psychologiem. Bardzo dobrze oceniam" Przedmiot, tematyka zaproponowanych szkoleń odpowiada potrzebom i oczekiwaniom respondentów. „Mi się bardzo podobał kurs o projektowaniu stron internetowych. Trener, który to prowadził robił to bardzo profesjonalnie. Potrafił mnie wciągnąć. Ja nigdy nie miałam do czynienia z projektowaniem a później się okazało, że nawet w domu czasami zajrzałam. To, co podpowiedział żeby zobaczyć, czy to jest proste czy to nie jest proste. Na pewno nie nauczyłam się tego na perfekt ale tak jakby ziarnko się zasiało we mnie. Może jak jakaś taka oferta pracy gdzieś będzie to może do tego siądę i fatycznie zacznę robić. Na początku może z czyjąś pomocą ale sam kurs dużo mi już dał". „Ja uczestniczyłam w kursie „Obsługa sekretariatu". Informacje, które tam dostałam, z którymi się zapoznałam bardzo złamały stary stereotyp, że sekretarka nic nie robi tylko ładnie wygląda. A to jest niesamowita osoba, która musi być bardzo zorganizowana, musi mieć wiedzę pod każdym względem firmowym. Teraz zupełnie inaczej patrzę na takie osoby, z pewnym podziwem". Wysoko oceniono zaangażowanie, rolę specjalisty – trenera w procesie edukacji, reorientacji zawodowej. „Ja bym oceniła wysoko trenerów, którzy prowadzili kursy. Jeśli robiłam jakiś blok to automatycznie trener podpowiadał mi. Czasem oprócz odpowiedzi na zadane pytania jeszcze trochę więcej opowiedział. Czyli uzyskałam nie tylko wiedzę na zadane pytanie ale też trochę szerzej". „Przede wszystkim trener starał się bardzo urozmaicić spotkania, żeby one nie były monotonne i żebyśmy nie byli nużeni i znudzeni. Przy okazji mogliśmy porozwiązywać jakieś testy, popracować nad swoją spostrzegawczością. Także takie przerywniki były również bardzo cieka170 Rozdział 2. we i pomocne. Nie tylko sucha teoria ale również ta wiedza miękka, praktyczna". „Przede wszystkim bardzo kompetentni w swoich dziedzinach. Prezentacje przez nich przygotowane były dla nas bardzo jasne, dobrze zrobione" „Fajne też było to, że momentami było pokazane troszeczkę więcej niż początkowo założono. Spotkań było w sumie niewiele w ramach danego kursu, z jednym trenerem, czyli na dobrą sprawę mieliśmy mało czasu ale dana osoba potrafiła tak zainteresować, pokazać jeszcze coś ekstra powodowało, że pojawiała się myśl „trzeba będzie o tym pomyśleć, poczytać jeszcze na platformie, coś jeszcze zrobić. Tak wzbudzali zainteresowanie, że nawet jak skończymy tutaj to w tym momencie jest chęć, żeby dalej poszerzać tą wiedzę, żeby wejść w domu na platformę i jeszcze się tym pobawić, pouczyć się". Rozwiązania z użyciem Internetu podczas samokształcenia z punktu widzenia pracownika zagrożonego zwolnieniem są trafnym rozwiązaniem ułatwiającym reorientację zawodową, zwiększenie poczucia kontroli samosterowności i nie jednocześnie nie wydłużającym całego procesu outplacementu. „Tak, to dobre rozwiązanie" „Nauka nowego zawodu zawsze jest trudna. A jeżeli możemy najpierw zapoznać się ze stroną teoretyczną to potem praktyka przychodzi łatwiej". Według użytkowników modelu rozwiązania logistyczne (zdalne) są efektywnym rozwiązaniem. „Jest to fajne rozwiązanie ze względu na stałą dostępność materiału. Uczestnik kursu w każdej, sobie pasującej chwili może włączyć komputer i pouczyć się kolejnych zagadnień. My, z punktu widzenia trenera możemy monitorować naukę i pomagać w sytuacjach trudnych". Także stopień skuteczności proponowanego podejścia tj. modelu ESP_Pracownik stosunku do dotychczas stosowanych, szczególnie w kontekście potrzeb i oczekiwań grupy docelowej został wysoko oceniony. „Na pewno jest to model oparty na elastyczności i to jest jego największa zaleta. Uczysz się kiedy chcesz, w swoim tempie. Tradycyjna forma nauki nie daje takie możliwości". Testowane narzędzia Modelu Przyśpieszenia Pracownika są to rozwiązania skuteczne czyli takie, które zapewniają właściwą realizację procesu szybkiego uczenia się dla osób zatrudnionych lub zagrożonych zwolnieniami. 171 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu „Na pewno taka forma nauki da podstawy takiej osobie aby faktycznie pomyśleć o zmianie, nawet o zmianie branży. Często jest tak, że pracujemy po parę lat w jednym środowisku nie mając wyobrażenia, że dobrze by się sprawdziły w innych dziedzinach. Może się okazać, że możemy robić inne rzeczy" Jako ewentualne zmiany, które należałoby wprowadzić aby proponowane rozwiązanie było bardziej trafne i skuteczne zaproponowano: „Jak przerobimy cały materiał to przechodzimy od testu. I tutaj bym wprowadziła zmianę Jak nie robimy testu na 100%, czyli że popełniamy jakieś błędy, to nie wiemy jakie to były błędy. Dostajemy tylko informację w ilu procentach zdaliśmy test. Fajnie by było gdyby można było zajrzeć do rozwiązań i zobaczyć jakie się popełniło błędy. Żeby mieć świadomość dlaczego nie mamy 100% zaleczenia, gdzie dokładnie popełniliśmy błąd. Żeby nie utrwalać wiedzy błędnej. Mi tego brakowało" „Dobrze by było gdyby można było widzieć w testach gdzie się zrobiło błędy. Mam tu na myśli już naukę kursów a nie testy psychologiczne" Można mówić o korzyściach płynących z udziału w projekcie testującym innowacyjne metody outplacementu. „Ja zapisałam się na sekretariat i grafikę komputerową. O sekretariacie jakieś pojęcie miałam ale grafika to czarna magia tak naprawdę dla mnie. Ale zdziwiłam się bo faktycznie dałam radę i się nauczyłam tego. Co prawda moja wiedza nie jest na jakimś niesamowitym poziomie ale już w tym momencie umiem sobie poradzić z większością zagadnień. Mam poczucie, że naprawdę dałam radę i dobrze mi z tym". Wypracowany model postępowania w zaproponowanym kształcie powinien być upowszechniany tj. prezentowany innym instytucjom „Jasne, że tak. Skoro nam to, w tak dużej mierze odpowiada to myślę, że wielu osobom też się przyda. Dlaczego nie?" „Jest to narzędzie na miarę dzisiejszych czasów i obecnych potrzeb ludzi. Oczywiście nie zastąpi w 100% teorii ale bardzo ją wzbogaci i potem wystarczy tylko uzupełnić o praktykę". Badanie ewaluacyjne z użyciem kwestionariusza wywiadu grupowego FGI przeprowadzonego na grupie odbiorców jak i użytkowników narzędzi przygotowanych dla obszaru ESP_Pracownik pozwoliły na wysuniecie następujących rekomendacji wdrożeniowych w stosunku do narzędzi z zakresu Ekwiwalent: Zastosowana formuła (on-line dostępne 24h/ 7 dni w tygodniu) przygotowanych narzędzi jest idealnym rozwiązaniem dla osób 172 Rozdział 2. pracujących jak i bezrobotnych, które w dogodnym dla siebie czasie mogą wypełniać kwestionariusze doradcze. Platformy, na których zamieszczane są narzędzia kwestionariuszowe winny mieć prostą formę graficzną, nie zawierać zbędnych ozdobników i wielu zdjęć, opisów, informacji tak by nie przytłaczać osoby korzystającej z narzędzi. Należy stosować zawsze miernik postępu jako sprawdzona forma ilustracji ile jeszcze pozostało do ukończenia kwestionariusza. Należy umożliwić dokonanie wydruku z platformy wypełnionych kwestionariuszy. Niezbędne przy tego typu narzędziach jest przygotowanie bardzo szczegółowej interpretacji wyników, co często jest niemożliwe w trakcie projektowania narzędzi. Zatem pomoc doradcy zdalnego, który czuwa nad osobami korzystającymi z narzędzi wydaje się nieodzowny. Powinien on przynajmniej 1 godz. poświęcić każdej osobie interpretując uzyskane przez nie wyniki. W przypadku narzędzi ESP_Ekwiwalent także warto zorganizować zajęcia wyjazdowe, które pozwalają się oderwać uczestnikom od codzienności, wyciszyć się, spotkać inne osoby w podobnej sytuacji. Wyjazdy takie powinny być organizowane z dala od wielkich centów miast w miejscu sprzyjającym wypoczynkowi i relaksowi. Badanie ewaluacyjne z użyciem kwestionariusza wywiadu grupowego FGI przeprowadzonego na grupie odbiorców jak i użytkowników narzędzi przygotowanych dla obszaru ESP_Pracownik pozwoliły na wysuniecie następujących rekomendacji wdrożeniowych w stosunku do narzędzi z zakresu Sterowność: Zastosowana formuła (on-line dostępne 24h/ 7 dni w tygodniu) przygotowanych narzędzi jest idealnym rozwiązaniem dla osób pracujących jak i bezrobotnych, które w dogodnym dla siebie czasie mogą wypełniać kwestionariusze doradcze. Platformy, na których zamieszczane są narzędzia kwestionariuszowe winny mieć prostą formę graficzną, nie zawierać zbędnych ozdobników i wielu zdjęć, opisów, informacji tak by nie przytłaczać osoby korzystającej z narzędzi. Należy stosować zawsze miernik postępu jako sprawdzona forma ilustracji ile jeszcze pozostało do ukończenia kwestionariusza. 173 Uzasadnienie i ocena modelu Należy umożliwić dokonanie wydruku z platformy wypełnionych kwestionariuszy. Niezbędne przy tego typu narzędziach jest przygotowanie bardzo szczegółowej interpretacji wyników, co często jest niemożliwe w trakcie projektowania narzędzi. Zatem pomoc psychologa zdalnego, który czuwa nad osobami korzystającymi z narzędzi wydaje się nieodzowny. Powinien on przynajmniej 1 godz. poświęcić każdej osobie interpretując uzyskane przez nie wyniki. Zorganizowane treningi sterowności jako zajęcia wyjazdowe są świetna formą pozwalającą się oderwać uczestnikom od codzienności, wyciszyć się, spotkać z innymi w podobnej sytuacji. Rekomendowane jest organizowanie takich wyjazdów co 4-6 tyg. w liczbie 3-4, po wcześniejszym ustaleniu dogodnego terminu dla uczestników. Badanie ewaluacyjne z użyciem kwestionariusza wywiadu grupowego FGI przeprowadzonego na grupie odbiorców jak i użytkowników narzędzi przygotowanych dla obszaru ESP_Pracownik pozwoliły na wysuniecie następujących rekomendacji wdrożeniowych w stosunku do narzędzi z zakresu Przyspieszenie: Zastosowana formuła (on-line dostępne 24h/ 7 dni w tygodniu) przygotowanych narzędzi jest idealnym rozwiązaniem dla osób pracujących jak i bezrobotnych, które w dogodnym dla siebie czasie mogą korzystać z kursów e-learnigowych. Platformy, na których zamieszczane są kursy i testy winny mieć prostą formę graficzną, nie zawierać zbędnych ozdobników tak by nie przytłaczać osoby korzystającej. Jednocześnie, aby forma kursu była atrakcyjna należy w ramach poszczególnych zajęć umieszczać filmy, materiały pdf, prezentacje, zdjęcia etc. Należy stosować zawsze miernik postępu jako sprawdzona forma ilustracji ile jeszcze pozostało do ukończenia kursu. Należy umożliwić dokonanie wydruku z platformy zamieszczonych tam materiałów. Należy zamieścić podsumowanie po ukończeniu kursu i testu zawierające wskazanie, na które pytania odpowiedziano poprawnie, na które nie. Przy zaliczonym teście należy wskazać także poprawność odpowiedzi na pytania, w których popełniono błędy. Zastosowana formuła wyjazdów szkoleniowych nieprzesyconych szkoleniowymi zajęciami merytorycznymi a zawierającymi sporo zajęć integracyjnych umożliwia uczestnikom kontakt z in174 Rozdział 2. nymi użytkownikami platformy z jednej strony, z trenerami szkolącymi z drugiej. Należy pamiętać, że kursy szkoleniowe oprócz samej nauki powinny być atrakcyjne. Osoby pracujące zagrożone zwolnieniem lub bezrobotne rzadko wyjeżdżają, stąd jest to okazja by oderwały się od codzienności. Połączenie platformy on-line, wyjazdów i wsparcia doradców, psychologów i trenerów daje pozytywne efekty. Jeżeli nie byłoby połączenia tych trzech elementów: platformy, wyjazdów i wsparcia doradców to by to nie współgrało, nie miało sensu. Dopiero te 3 elementy razem dają naprawdę fajne wyniki, widać, ze to wszystko razem oddziałuje na nas, że zastanawiamy się nad sobą, nad naszą ścieżką zawodową. Pytania pojawiają się jak sami rozwiązujemy testy, przy wynikach, potem możemy je omówić zarówno grupowo jak i indywidualnie. Spotkania grupowe, wymiana naszych zdań i wrażeń bardzo fajnie wychodzi bo poznajmy inne spojrzenie, inne zdanie. To co nam nie przyszło do głowy, może podpowiedzieć nam ktoś inny. Takie grupowe burze mózgu dużo nas ukierunkowały." ROZDZIAŁ 3. WDRAŻANIE MODELU 3.1. Korzyści dla pracowników ze stosowania outplacementu W literaturze przedmiotu zwraca się uwagę, że korzyści z programów outplacementu czerpią głównie przedsiębiorstwa, w których są one wprowadzane, i pozostający w przedsiębiorstwie pracownicy, zaś dopiero na trzecim miejscu znajdują się pracownicy zwalniani. W tym miejscu omówione zostaną przede wszystkim pozytywne efekty, jakie zwolnienia monitorowane mogą przynosić pracownikom jako podmiotom o słabszej pozycji na rynku pracy. Z punktu widzenia pracowników, którzy podlegają procesowi redukcji zatrudnienia, nadrzędnym celem outplacementu jest z reguły ustanowienie dobrych relacji pomiędzy rozstającymi się stronami umowy o pracę. Istotą tego rozwiązania jest zachowanie dobrych kontaktów z byłym już pracodawcą oraz łagodniejsze przejście przez trudny okres w życiu1. J. Berg-Peer wskazuje na cztery główne typy korzyści z outplacementu dla pracowników2. Są to: (1) współpraca z przedsiębiorstwem co do określania warunków zwolnień; (2) wparcie po otrzymaniu wypowiedzenia; (3) pomoc w poszukiwaniu pracy; oraz (4) zapoczątkowanie nieformalnych procesów nauki. Innymi słowy w interesie pracowników jest wykorzystanie outplacementu jako szansy na negocjowanie warunków odejścia z firmy, zdobycie pomocy ułatwiającej adaptację do nowych warunków rynku pracy oraz uzyskanie wsparcia w zakresie kształcenia się przez całe życie. 1 K. Krawczyk-Szczepanek, Zalety outplacementu, Jobexpress.pl, www.jobe xpress.pl/artykul/104/Zalety-outplacementu [12.08.2012]. 2 J. Berg-Peer, Outplacement w praktyce, Oficyna Ekonomiczna, Kraków 2004, s. 28-31. 176 Rozdział 3. K. Schwan i K.G. Seipel proponują bardziej rozbudowaną listę obejmującą osiem wymiarów świadczących o tym, że proces outplacementu przynosi pozytywne skutki z perspektywy pracowników3. Zalety te to: pracownik ponownie poszukujący pracy czyni to z pozycji osoby, której „nie wypowiedziano" ostatniego stanowiska; doradztwo pomaga uświadomić alternatywę zatrudnienia; opieka psychologiczna zapobiega niekorzystnym, doraźnym reakcjom zwolnionego; ponownie zostaje wzbudzona mobilność zawodowa byłych pracowników; następuje finansowe zabezpieczenie przed „ofertą" przyszłego zwolnienia; zaplanowanie kariery zawodowej oraz doradztwo odbywają się na koszt dotychczasowego pracodawcy; nie ma możliwości rozwiązania umowy z dotychczasowym pracodawcą bez szans na karierę w innym miejscu; pracownik unika statusu bezrobotnego. Niezbędne jest takie promowanie zwolnień monitorowanych, które będzie określało powyższe cechy jako szansę na poprawę statusu zawodowego i społecznego zwalnianych osób i ich szybki powrót do pracy. J. Strużyna przedstawił jeszcze dłużą listę przyczyn wykorzystywania outplacementu z uwzględnieniem perspektywy odchodzących z organizacji pracowników4. Istotne korzyści, na jakie wskazał, to: osłabienie poczucia zagrożenia, frustracji, niepowodzenia; pozostawanie ciągle w sytuacji osoby zatrudnionej (wszystkie świadczenia nadal otrzymywane, możliwość korzystania z potencjału firmy); poszukiwanie pracy z pozycji osoby posiadającej pracę i pełniącej rolę zawodową; możliwość otrzymania właściwego wsparcia ze strony kierownictwa firmy (np. rekomendacje, szkolenia itd.); poznanie samego siebie i ocena swojego potencjału; możliwość skorzystania z usług profesjonalistów, kompetentnych analiz rynku pracy, ocen rozwoju branż, sytuacji gospodarczej kraju; 3 K. Schwan, K.G. Seipel, Marketing kadrowy, Beck, Warszawa 1997.s. 241. 4 Podręcznik outplacementu w ramach Programu Operacyjnego Kapitał Ludzki, op. cit., s. 16. 177 Wdrażanie modelu pomoc w podjęciu trafnej decyzji o zatrudnieniu; pomoc w przygotowaniu do aktywnego poszukiwania pracy; funkcjonowanie w klimacie odwzajemnionego zainteresowania własnych losem; wykreowanie programu zmian i bardzo często opracowanie osobistej ścieżki kariery; skrócenie ewentualnego okresu pozostawania bez pracy; finansowe zabezpieczenie krótszego lub dłuższego okresu zmian; pomoc w kierowaniu finansami podczas zmian; oszczędności na przeprowadzeniu sądowego i społecznego procesu dochodzenia swoich racji; zbudowanie „wiary w ludzi" i społeczne oblicze biznesu; zrozumienie przyczyn postępowania kierownictwa i oddalenie myśli o politycznej lub osobistej przyczynie wymówienia; podtrzymanie gotowości do pracy i angażowanie się w nią; pomoc dla rodziny. Niemniej nie wszystkie programy outplacementu są zorientowane na pobudzenie wszystkich tych korzyści, gdyż mogą się różnić celami, działaniami oraz czasem trwania. Inne korzyści dla pracowników to m.in.: zmniejszenie stresu związanego ze zwolnieniem, zwiększenie szybkości podjęcia nowego zatrudnienia, właściwie uzyskanie większej odprawy, zagwarantowanie dłuższego czasu na przygotowanie się do zmiany i przemyślenia dalszej kariery zawodowej5. Ponadto zauważa się, że poprzez outplacement pracownicy: zdobywają wiedzę na temat zasad panujących na rynku pracy, metod i technik poszukiwania pracy, nabywają pewności siebie, ustalają cele zawodowe i plan działania, opracowują strategie na potrzeby rozmowy kwalifikacyjnej oraz wiedzę o prowadzeniu działalności gospodarczej6. Outplacement może też być korzystny z perspektywy dynamiki kariery zawodowej. Pod pojęciem tym rozumie się zmiany stanowisk przez pracownika w ramach organizacji lub w ciągu całego życia7. Wsparcie 5 A. Kwiatkiewicz, K. Hernik, Outplacement – przewodnik dla pracodawców, FISE, Warszawa 2010, s. 32. 6 A. Ledwoń, Outplacement – przewodnik dla organizacji pozarządowych, FISE, Warszawa 2010, s. 19-20. 7 M. Armstrong, Zarządzanie zasobami ludzkimi, Oficyna Wolters Kluwer, Kraków 2007.s. 423. 178 Rozdział 3. dla odchodzących pracowników może przyzwyczajać ich do podejmowania nowych zawodów, wykorzystywania nowych możliwości rozwoju i ułatwiać im takie działania oraz zwiększać ich samodzielność i podmiotowość, włącznie z odpowiedzialnością i koniecznością podejmowania ryzyka. Wśród zalet outplacementu należy również wskazać korzyści dla pracowników, którzy pozostają w przedsiębiorstwie prowadzącym redukcję zatrudnienia. Nie są oni często jedynie biernymi obserwatorami działań i z tego względu działania te powinny też wskazywać na określone korzyści dla nich wynikające z ich zaangażowania w proces zmian. Takie podejście przede wszystkim sprawia, że następuje poprawa morale oraz lojalności pozostających w firmie pracowników, którzy znają trudną sytuację firmy, więc tym bardziej doceniają inicjatywę zarządu w zakresie pomocy zwalnianym osobom8. Ponadto następuje poprawa produktywności − pracownicy zostający w firmie dostrzegają działania zarządu i rozumieją, że jeżeli zajdzie taka potrzeba, oni również zostaną objęci tego typu programem − to poprawia ogólną atmosferę pracy oraz stosunków wewnętrznych w firmie. Dzięki usługom outplacementu dobra atmosfera w firmie może zostać zachowana w długim terminie: w trakcie trwania procesu restrukturyzacji klimat jest wyraźnie lepszy, odchodzący pracownicy zachowują dobrą opinię o pracodawcy, a pozostający – czują się bezpiecznie9. Pracodawca daje odczuć załodze, że o nią dba i że osób zwolnionych nie pozostawia samym sobie. W ten sposób pokazuje, że mimo redukcji zatrudnienia pracownicy są ważnym dobrem firmy. Osoby pozostające w firmie muszą być także brane pod uwagę w procesie przeprowadzania zwolnień10. Dzięki outplacementowi utrzymuje się ich motywację, zmniejsza się ich niepokój i frustrację oraz zapobiega się spadkowi wydajności. Ponadto zaproponowanie takiego programu ułatwia osiągnięcie porozumienia ze związkami zawodowymi, a przez to pozwala uniknąć sporów i strajków, które wiążą się z przestojami, dezorganizacją w firmie i spadkiem motywacji do działania. Reasumując: w literaturze przedmiotu wskazuje się na liczne pozytywne strony outplacementu dla pracowników, i to zarówno tych uczest- 8 M. Ignaczak, Organizacja pracy służby personalnej, www.pwsb.pl/images/stories /przedmioty/org_pracy.pdf [12.08.2012], s. 33. 9 Outplacement, czyli łagodne zwolnienia, http://malopolska.docelu.eu/magazyn/styczen-2012/outplacement-czyli-lagodne-zwolnienia [12.08.2012]. 10 A. Kwiatkiewicz, K. Hernik, Outplacement – przewodnik dla pracodawców, op. cit., s. 32. 179 Wdrażanie modelu niczących w procesie bezpośrednio, jak i tych, którzy nadal pozostają w miejscu pracy. Poza finansową korzyścią w postaci odpraw czy możliwości korzystania z różnych programów wspierających, w tym szkoleniowych, nieraz nawet do roku od momentu zwolnienia z pracy, można wskazać inne benefity, jakie czerpią pracownicy organizacji wprowadzającej outplacement. Zasadniczo korzyści pracowników wynikające z dostarczenia im przez przedsiębiorstwo programu outplacementu można podzielić na takie, które związane są: ze zmianą sytuacji osoby na rynku pracy; z kwalifikacjami i kompetencjami oraz z motywacją pracownika do aktywności na rynku pracy. Z punktu widzenia pierwszej grupy korzyści outplacement daje szanse między innymi na szybsze ponowne zatrudnienie, sprzyja zapewnieniu dostępu do aktualnych informacji dotyczących sytuacji na rynku pracy, prowadzi do wzrostu motywacji do aktywnego działania w środowisku lokalnym oraz sprzyja oszczędności czasu w poszukiwaniu pracy, czyli skróceniu okresu pozostawania bez pracy. Wśród korzyści związanych z kwalifikacjami i kompetencjami pracownika można wskazać takie jak: uzyskanie nowych kwalifikacji dzięki kursom i szkoleniom; uzyskanie informacji o możliwościach rozwoju zawodowego; poznanie aktywnych metod i sposobów poszukiwania pracy; pomoc w przygotowaniu do procesu rekrutacji − konsultacja dokumentów aplikacyjnych, np. CV. Jednocześnie w literaturze przedmiotu zwraca się uwagę na liczne korzyści wynikające z prowadzenia wsparcia wobec osób będących w okresie wypowiedzenia, które polegają na zmianie postaw związanych z aktywnością na rynku pracy. Jak wielokrotnie podkreślano w niniejszym opracowaniu, wraz z wydłużaniem się czasu pozostawania bez pracy dochodzi do coraz silniejszego ograniczania aktywności osób bezrobotnych na rynku pracy. Outplacement sprzyja przeciwdziałaniu takim sytuacjom. Przede wszystkim otrzymywane w jego ramach wsparcie pozwala pracownikom na zrozumienie nowej sytuacji i łagodzenie skutków zmian (obniżenie stresu, wygaszenie agresji, wskazanie szans). Współpraca z doradcami zawodowymi, spotkania z psychologiem czy szkolenia zwiększają samoświadomość osobistą, jak i zawodową, poprzez analizę własnych atutów i słabszych stron. Ponadto osoby będące w okresie wypowiedzenia dzięki wsparciu mają większe poczucie kontroli nad sytuacją oraz pewności siebie. To zaś w konsekwencji sprzyja wzrostowi samooceny i motywacji do aktywnego działania w zakresie poszukiwania pracy. 180 Rozdział 3. 3.2. Bariery i czynniki rozwoju outplacementu dla pracowników Istnieje szereg rodzajów ryzyka, które należy uwzględnić w realizacji programów outplacementowych, aby mogły przynieść pozytywne efekty dla uczestników, czyli zarówno dla zwalnianych, jak i pozostających w firmie pracowników. Z doświadczeń licznych realizowanych projektów outplacementowych należy wnioskować, że bariery w generowaniu korzyści dla uczestników zależą głównie od błędów popełnianych przez przedsiębiorców realizujących program, potencjalnych pracodawców oraz osób wybranych do udziału w programie. Według A. Downsa istotne są przynajmniej trzy główne błędy popełniane przez przedsiębiorców podczas redukcji zatrudnienia11. Można je potraktować jako bariery w stosowaniu i czerpaniu korzyści z outplacementu przez pracowników. Po pierwsze, dopuszcza się do ograniczenia myślenia o zwolnieniach pracowników w kategoriach prawnych. Prowadzi to np. do sytuacji, kiedy zwolnienie grupowe dotyczy tylko odpowiedniej liczby starszych pracowników z poszczególnych działów w odpowiednich proporcjach, aby np. spełnić wymogi prawne zwolnień grupowych, co uniemożliwia zaskarżenie decyzji jako np. osobistej dyskryminacji ze względu na wiek. Prawnicy odradzają też mówienie odchodzącym i pozostającym więcej niż jest to absolutnie konieczne, by ograniczyć składanie obietnic, które mogą później nie zostać dotrzymane. Decyzje takie nie są oparte na analizie zasobów i potrzeb przedsiębiorstwa. Po drugie, powszechnie zakłada się, że wypowiedzenia powinny być wręczane jak najpóźniej. Błąd ten motywowany jest unikaniem poczucia strachu i winy przez osoby podejmujące decyzję o redukcji zatrudnienia, obawą przed demoralizacją i spadkiem wydajności pracowników oraz sabotowaniem przedsiębiorstwa. W konsekwencji późniejsze przekazanie wypowiedzenia prowadzi jednak do wzrostu nieufności do kadry kierowniczej, zwłaszcza wśród pracowników, którzy dalej pozostają w przedsiębiorstwie, gdyż uczucie, że jako następni mogą zostać tak potraktowani, utrudnia zarówno planowanie ich własnego życia, jak i dalszą pracę w organizacji. Trzecim błędem przedsiębiorców jest postępowanie po redukcji zatrudnienia, „jak gdyby nic się nie wydarzyło". Zakłada się, że unikanie 11 A. Downs, Jak ograniczyć zatrudnienie w dobrym stylu?, [w:] K. Szczepaniak (red.), Biznes. Tom V. Zarządzanie zasobami ludzkimi, PWN, Warszawa 2007, s. 25. 181 Wdrażanie modelu rozmów o zwolnieniach sprawi, że szybciej zostaną zapomniane i nie będą utrudniać dalszej realizacji zadań organizacji. Tłumienie dyskusji prowadzi zaś do podejrzeń i obaw, że kierownictwo ukrywa jeszcze plany innych negatywnych zmian. Z perspektywy potencjalnych pracodawców zwolnionych osób zauważa się kilka typowych postaw i stereotypowych opinii, które są często wewnętrznie sprzeczne12. Są to: przekonanie, że zwalniani są najsłabsi pracownicy; osoby zwolnione będą pracownikami zmotywowanymi; zwalniani mają nieadekwatne żądania płacowe; zwalnianych korzystnie lub niekorzystnie ukształtowała poprzednia firma; uczenie osób zwalnianych autoprezentacji jest uczeniem fałszerstwa; oraz uznanie, że konsultantom prowadzącym program outplacementu zależy na liczbie, a nie jakości „sprzedanych" osób. W literaturze przedmiotu zdecydowanie najwięcej miejsca poświęca się barierom w uczestnictwie w programach outplacementu wynikającym z aktywności pracowników. Według M. Sidor-Rządkowskiej są to przeważnie: (1) nierealistyczne oczekiwania finansowe lub roszczenia związane z uzyskaniem gwarancji warunków zatrudnienia oraz żądania negocjacji i wysokości otrzymywanych świadczeń; (2) niechęć do uczestnictwa, przekonanie o doskonałych umiejętnościach zawodowych, o zbyt zaawansowanym wieku na rozpoczynanie edukacji; (3) przyzwyczajenie do stabilizacji i zainteresowanie tylko ofertami pracy gwarantującymi poczucie bezpieczeństwa i niewymagającymi mobilności13. Jak wskazuje A. Pocztowski, doświadczenia programów outplacementu w Polsce pozwalają sądzić, że zaangażowanie odchodzących pracowników do udzielenia im pomocy jest niezwykle trudne 14. Wynika to z: (1) ich nieufności wobec takich inicjatyw; (2) braku przekonania o płynących z nich korzyściach; (3) przekonania o możliwości skorzystania z wysokich odpraw, które umożliwiają przerwę w karierze; (4) braku zainteresowania aktywnym poszukiwaniem pracy; (5) wygórowanymi oczekiwaniami dotyczącymi nowej pracy, a szczególnie jej wynagrodzenia; oraz (6) rezygnowania z nowych miejsc pracy pozyskanych dla nich w ramach programów pomocy. 12 A. Flis, M. Mos, A. Zacharzewski, Outplacement. Program ułatwiania zmiany pracy dla zwalnianych pracowników, op. cit., s. 48-55. 13 M. Sidor-Rządkowska, Zwolnienia pracowników a polityka personalna firmy, Akade, Kraków 2002, s. 112. 14 A. Pocztowski, Zarządzanie zasobami ludzkimi. Strategie − procesy – metody, Wolters Kluwer, Warszawa 2010; s. 168-171. 182 Rozdział 3. Również E.J. Biesaga-Słomczewska wskazuje na szereg barier związanych z zachowaniami pracowników15. Są to: (1) postawy roszczeniowe wzmacniane przez związki zawodowe; (2) koncentrowanie się na rozwiązaniu problemu firmy, a nie pracownika; (3) pomoc udzielana jest na ogół konkretnej grupie zawodowej (np. górnikom), a nie konkretnej osobie; oraz (4) założenie, że programy outplacementu nie mają charakteru kompleksowego – jedynie odnoszą się do wybranych instrumentów – głównie pomocy finansowej, a nie np. szkoleń czy pomocy psychologicznej. Jeszcze bardziej szczegółowe wyjaśnienia wskazuje J. Meller odnośnie do niskiej skuteczności outplacementu w Polsce16. Wynika ona z kilku powodów: zewnętrzny rynek pracy oferuje bardzo ograniczoną ofertę wolnych miejsc pracy dla osób zwalnianych; postawa zwalnianych jest bierna, pozbawiona myślenia perspektywicznego, oparta na przekonaniu, „że jakoś sobie poradzą"; zwalniani są przesadnie zainteresowani wysokością odpraw; okres odprawy jest traktowany jako zasłużony odpoczynek; profil zawodowo-kwalifikacyjny zwalnianych nie stwarza szans na uzyskanie nowego zatrudnienia (m.in. pochodzenie z tradycyjnych dziedzin przemysłu, wąskie i zdeprecjonowane kwalifikacje, są w wieku niemobilnym − po 45. roku życia i są słabo podatni na rekonwersję zawodową, przyzwyczajeni do wysokich wynagrodzeń, świadczeń socjalnych i przekonani o wysokim prestiżu zawodu, np. górnicy); zauważa się niekonsekwentny i niejednoznaczny stosunek związków zawodowych do outplacementu, np. początkowy brak akceptacji zwolnień, negocjowanie minimalnej skali zwolnień i ich wydłużenia w czasie, negocjowanie wysokości odpraw, dopiero na koniec akceptacja procedur outplacementu; 15 E.J. Biesaga-Słomczewska, Marketingowe zarządzanie czynnikiem ludzkim w konfrontacji z praktyką, [w:] B. Gregor (red.), Marketing − handel − konsument w globalnym społeczeństwie informacyjnym. Tom 1, Wyd. Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, Łódź 2004, s. 317-318. 16 J. Meller, Derekrutacja jako funkcja zarządzania zasobami ludzkimi, [w:] Z. Wiśniewski (red.), Zarządzanie zasobami ludzkimi. Wyzwania u progu XXI wieku, UMK, Toruń 2001, s. 359-360; [cyt. za:] K. Makowski, A. Kwiatkiewicz, Derekrutacja i outplacement według standardów europejskich, [w:] M. Juchnowicz (red.), Standardy europejskie w zarządzaniu zasobami ludzkimi, Poltext, Warszawa 2004, s. 178-179. 183 Wdrażanie modelu w przypadku większości firm do redukcji zatrudnienia dochodzi zbyt późno, gdy kondycja finansowa firmy uległa pogorszeniu i outplacement jest zbyt kosztownym zabiegiem. Inne problemy wskazywane w literaturze przedmiotu to: małe zainteresowanie pracowników programem związane z jego niskim upowszechnieniem; trudności w dotarciu do potencjalnych uczestników; mała świadomość wśród pracowników na temat korzyści, jakie może przynieść udział w programie; zniechęcenie osób zwalnianych do jakichkolwiek działań podejmowanych przez pracodawcę; oraz zbyt duże obciążenie czasowe, niechęć do poświęcenia czasu wolnego17.Zasadne jest twierdzenie, że wszystkie wskazane bariery możliwe są do ograniczenia, gdy zachowane zostaną zasady rzetelnego komunikowania zwolnień oraz celów, warunków i zasad udziału w programie outplacementu zarówno pracowników, jak i potencjalnych pracodawców. Przeprowadzone analizy zastanych danych ze źródeł wtórnych pozwalają na sformułowanie kilku następujących wniosków na temat barier, potrzeb i czynników wdrażania działań outplacementowych w odniesieniu do pracowników przedsiębiorstw. Jeśli chodzi o bariery wdrażania outplacementu, należy stwierdzić, że: Obserwowane w Polsce bezrobocie w znacznej mierze ma charakter strukturalny − związany z restrukturyzacją całych branż, oraz długoterminowy − związany z rezygnacją z poszukiwania pracy, biernością zawodową i trudnością aktywizacji zawodowej osób zmarginalizowanych i wykluczonych społecznie. Ponadto dotyczy głównie kobiet oraz najstarszych i najmłodszych pracowników. Outplacement może być rozpatrywany jako narzędzie restrukturyzacji, ale niesłużące jej antycypacji. W tym celu zaleca się podejmowanie szeregu prognostyczno-zapobiegawczych działań ograniczających skalę derekrtuacji oraz korzystanie z programów wsparcia pracowniczego. W odniesieniu do potrzeby w zakresie wdrażania outplacementu konieczne jest, żeby: Programy outplacementowe uwzględniały dobre praktyki w komunikowaniu zwolnień przez pracodawców. Zasadne jest też wcześniejsze przygotowywanie pracowników do utrzymy- 17 Outplacement krok po kroku − podręcznik dla przedsiębiorców, Instytut Zachodni, Poznań 2011, s. 47-48. 184 Rozdział 3. wania własnej zatrudnialności i pozostawania w stanie gotowości do możliwości wystąpienia zwolnień. Istotnym wyzwaniem jest uwzględnianie w programach outplacementowych działań nie tylko wobec pracowników zwalnianych, lecz także pozostających w firmie. W szczególności istotne jest unikanie tworzenia się podziałów prowadzących do silnych konfliktów oraz stosowanie interwencji zorientowanych na zmianę form kontraktów, umów o zatrudnieniu, by dostosować pracowników i organizację do zmiennych warunków gospodarczych. Za niezbędne należy uznać promowanie dobrych praktyk w zakresie zachowań i postaw pracowników w sytuacjach zagrożenia zwolnieniami, w okresie wypowiedzenia oraz w przypadku powrotu do pracy. Korzyścią dla zwalnianych pracowników może być uwzględnianie w programach outplacementu form zatrudnienia tymczasowego oraz ich koordynowanie we współpracy z oferującymi je agencjami. Outplacement poprzez uwzględnianie technik coachingu i mentoringu może służyć nie tylko poprawie kompetencji zwalnianych i pozostających w firmach pracowników, lecz także animacji współpracy lokalnych instytucji rynku pracy. Zasadne jest też promowanie i wzmacnianie partnerstw lokalnych jako podmiotów, które mogą służyć realizacji outplacementu zaadaptowanego i środowiskowego, a przez to usprawniać też strategiczne zarządzanie polityką rynku pracy na poziomie lokalnym i regionalnym. Wśród czynników rozwoju outplacementu z punktu widzenia sytuacji pracowników przedsiębiorstw trzeba mieć na uwadze, że: Praca stanowi istotną wartość społeczną i ekonomiczną, która ulega stałym przemianom w związku z występowaniem nowych uwarunkowań technologicznych, społecznych, ekonomicznych i politycznych. Znane tendencje rozwoju społecznogospodarczego pozwalają sądzić, że restrukturyzacja całych branż i sektorów jest już zjawiskiem stałym, a co za tym idzie, programy zwolnień monitorowanych i rekonwersji zawodowej stają się koniecznością adaptacji pracowników do zmian. Duże znaczenie w adaptacji do zmian na rynku pracy ma samodzielna aktywność, podmiotowość i kultura pracy zarówno osób zwalnianych, jak i pozostających w organizacjach. Postawa wo185 Wdrażanie modelu bec pracy i odpowiedzialność za nią mają odzwierciedlenie w pozycji na rynku pracy i społeczeństwie, oddziałują na utrzymanie własnej zatrudnialności oraz efektywność przedsiębiorstw. 3.3. Rekomendacje wdrożeniowe W tym miejscu zasadne jest także sformułowanie rekomendacji na rzecz zwiększenia skuteczności działań wdrożeniowych rozpoczynających się po procesie pozytywnej walidacji produktów. Rekomendacje te odnosić się będą do działań o charakterze upowszechniającym i działań z zakresu mainstreamingu projektu zarówno na poziomie poszczególnych etapów i użytkowników modelu jak też działań regionalnych na rzecz stosowania wypracowanego modelu w praktyce społecznej pracowników firm oraz instytucji rynku pracy. 3.3.1. Rekomendacje dla DORADCÓW ZAWODOWYCH Na podstawie przeprowadzonego testu oraz badań wskazać można następujące rekomendacje kluczowe do zastosowań i wdrożeń Modelu EKWIWALENTÓW pracownika: Należy, upowszechniając narzędzie, wskazywać, że może być ono (ale nie musi) nie tylko elementem procesu outplacementu zewnętrznego, lecz także wewnątrz organizacji (zmiana stanowiska na inne w ramach tej samej firmy). Warto wskazywać, że dużą wartość dla pracowników, osób na wypowiedzeniu lub bezrobotnych nieść mogą za sobą nie tylko odprawy pieniężne, szkolenia podwyższające kwalifikacje zawodowe, szkolenia przekwalifikujące i przedstawianie interesujących ofert pracy, lecz także wsparcie doradcze. Pozwoli im ono zbilansować zasoby. Należy zachęcać do prowadzenia wsparcia, z wykorzystaniem tych narzędzi, które można skierować do zwalnianch pracowników, pracodawców (np. pracowników działów HR, kadr) oraz pracowników powiatowych urzędów pracy. Jednocześnie jednak dostrzega się duży potencjał wsparcia przez doradców zawodowych/zewnętrznych konsultantów z firm doradczych i organizacji pozarządowych, którzy mogliby wykorzystywać takie narzędzia. Jako główne korzyści ze wsparcia pracowników przed ich zwolnieniem, z wykorzystaniem tych narzędzi należy uznać: ewentualne szybsze znalezienie nowego zatrudnienia, odpowiednie 186 Rozdział 3. ukierunkowanie zwalnianych osób, wyposażenie w wiedzę o sobie i swoich predyspozycjach oraz zadbanie o wizerunek firmy. Główną barierą wykorzystania takich narzędzi może być „niechęć do nowości", a także spodziewane koszty ich wykorzystania. Należy podkreślić, że w obecnym kształcie są one znikome i ograniczają się jedynie do ewentualnej płatnej interpretacji wyników przez doradcę. Wskazano jednak na możliwość jego bez kosztowego wykorzystania. Pomimo dość szeroko propagowanego doradztwa zawodowego (szczególnie w projektach finansowanych z EFS) wciąż niewiele osób korzysta z profesjonalnego doradztwa zawodowego − głównie z inicjatywy powiatowych urzędów pracy. Użytkownicy tych form wsparcia najczęściej uczestniczą w spotkaniach dotyczących udzielania informacji o zawodach i rynku pracy, oceny kwalifikacji zawodowych oraz oceny umiejętności pracownika, najrzadziej zaś − w przygotowaniach indywidulanego planu. Za najbardziej przydatne wsparcie doradztwa zawodowego uznaje się zmianę kwalifikacji zawodowych, podjęcie lub zmianę zatrudnienia, ocenę kwalifikacji zawodowych, udzielenie informacji o możliwościach szkolenia i kształcenia oraz przygotowanie wspólnie z doradcą indywidualnych planów działania. Istotne jest zwiększenie świadomości pracowników co do możliwości skorzystania z różnych form i instrumentów zwolnień monitorowanych. Należy przy tym wskazywać na korzyści zarówno dla nich, jak i ich pracodawców, oraz na możliwości wdrażania programów outplacementowych przy poniesieniu niskich nakładów finansowych i organizacyjnych. Przykładem mogą tu być właśnie wypracowane rozwiązania. Ważne jest zwiększenie świadomości pracowników co do możliwości uzyskania takich korzyści z programów outplacementowych, jak: wzrost poczucia kontroli u zwalnianych pracowników nad sytuacją oraz wzrost motywacji do aktywnego działania w środowisku lokalnym, a nie jedynie na rynku pracy. Niezbędne jest znoszenie różnic w postrzeganiu korzyści z outplacementu, jakie wykazują kobiety i mężczyźni − w szczególności zasadne jest zwiększenie wiedzy panów m.in. na temat korzyści ze współpracy wielu podmiotów w programach outplacementowych, poprawy samooceny i motywacji do aktywnego działania w zakresie poszukiwania pracy oraz zwiększenie samoświado187 Wdrażanie modelu mości zarówno osobistej, jak i zawodowej poprzez analizę własnych atutów i słabszych stron. Warto podkreślać funkcjonalność platformy doradczo-edukacyjnej, na której umieszczone są eKwestionariusze zdalne, dającej możliwość nawiązywania połączeń typu skype z doradcą zdalnym czy innymi uczestnikami grupy, dzięki czemu zwiększy się zastosowanie narzędzia o działania o charakterze grupowym, ze wszystkimi walorami procesów grupowych. Wyzwaniem jest zwiększenie roli profesjonalnych doradców zawodowych i ukierunkowania na ich usługi tak przedsiębiorców, jak i instytucje otoczenia biznesu. Należy docenić nie tylko doradztwo indywidualne, lecz także grupowe oraz doradztwo zdalne on-line. Przykłady działań outplacementowych realizowanych w Wielkiej Brytanii 18 podkreślają rolę łączenia różnorodnych form wsparcia, w tym usług on-line (mail, telefon) łączonych ze wsparciem indywidualnym i grupowym. Podobnie skuteczne jest synergiczne łączenie różnych form i poziomów wsparcia (punkty doradcze w różnych lokalizacjach, dotacje na działalność gospodarczą, program wsparcia menedżerów prowadzących modernizację) – tak jak w kompleksowym modelu ESP. Efekt wsparcia związany jest w tym przypadku z synergią poszczególnych poziomów i etapów. Rozwiązania zagraniczne wskazują na nową jakość usług outplacementowych związanych z usługami on-line oraz charakterem relacji tworzonych w Internecie. W działaniach aktywizacji zawodowej czy poszukiwaniu pracy należy uwzględnić networking czy media społecznościowe w poszukiwaniu ukrytych rynków pracy. Istotną rekomendacją w tym przypadku byłoby uwzględnienie w funkcjonalności wypracowanej w projekcie platformy doradczo-edukacyjnej (w szczególności w obszarze grup intermentoringu) specyfiki sieci, połączeń i relacji Facebooka nie tylko w aspekcie edukacyjnym (przekazywania wiedzy, wzajemnej nauki), lecz także poszukiwania nowego obszaru aktywności społecznej i zawodowej. W tym przypadku można by podjąć próbę opracowania specjalnej aplikacji do poszukiwania pracy 18 Por. red. M. Juchnicka, Dobre praktyki outplacementu dla firm w Unii Europejskiej. Doświadczenia angielskie, NFDK, 2014r. 188 Rozdział 3. (pomysłów na pracę) w dostępnych dla klientów gronach mediów społecznościowych. Można się spodziewać się, że ten sposób komunikowania się i budowania relacji społecznych może być w przyszłości kluczowym obszarem (i instrumentem) działań outplacementowych (rynku pracy). Warty propagowania wraz z wypracowanymi rozwiązaniami jest zidentyfikowany podczas współpracy ponadnarodowej model działań instytucji publicznych (portal internetowy „Urząd pracy on-line" w działaniach Instituto de Emprego e Formacao Professional). Rozwiązania informatyczne, a w szczególności przedstawiona funkcjonalność portali internetowych 19 , mogą być inspiracją do rozbudowy portali edukacyjnych i doradczych wypracowanych w projekcie INNOWACJE NA ZAKRĘCIE, ale także, w ramach realizacji strategii „e-Edukacja" w województwie podlaskim w latach 2014−2020. Osobne procedury dla różnych grup klientów, uruchamiane automatycznie po rejestracji on-line w zależności od statusu, sytuacji zawodowej i życiowej klienta − to ciekawe rozwiązanie, które może być inspiracją dla podobnych platform w naszym regionie, tworzonych przez publiczne instytucje rynku pracy oraz instytucje szkoleniowe. Mogłoby to być w późniejszym etapie też uwzględnione (na przykład w zakresie proponowanych kwestionariuszy doradczych, konwentów edukacyjnych) w platformach edukacyjnych wypracowanych w przedmiotowym projekcie. Potwierdzeniem obranego dobrego kierunku są przykłady dotyczące zawartości treściowej zagranicznych platform internetowych przygotowujących klientów do wejścia na rynek pracy oraz metody łączenia wsparcia zdalnego ze wsparciem doradców, coachów (zgodnie z ideą metody blended learning, w tym metody Colina Rosa adaptowanej w przedmiotowym projekcie), co gwarantuje przyśpieszenie, ale także zindywidualizowanie wsparcia bez straty wartości dodanych płynących z „elementu ludzkiego" w doradztwie indywidualnym i motywowaniu do zmiany, a także „obserwacji" w ocenie kompetencji praktycznych ocenianego pracownika 20 . 19 Por. red. M. Juchnicka, Dobre praktyki outplacementu dla pracowników w Unii Europejskiej. Doświadczenia portugalskie, NFDK, Białystok, 2014 20 M. Juchnicka, Dobre praktyki outplacementu dla pracowników w Unii Europejskiej. Doświadczenia portugalskie, op. cit 189 Wdrażanie modelu Zastosowana formuła (on-line dostępne 24 h / 7 dni w tygodniu) przygotowanych narzędzi jest idealnym rozwiązaniem dla osób pracujących, jak i bezrobotnych, które w dogodnym dla siebie czasie mogą wypełniać kwestionariusze doradcze. Platformy, na których zamieszczane są narzędzia kwestionariuszowe, winny mieć prostą formę graficzną, nie zawierać zbędnych ozdobników i wielu zdjęć, opisów, informacji, tak, by nie przytłaczać osoby korzystającej z narzędzi. Należy zawsze stosować miernik postępu jako sprawdzoną formę ilustracji, ile jeszcze pozostało do ukończenia kwestionariusza. Niezbędne przy tego typu narzędziach jest przygotowanie bardzo szczegółowej interpretacji wyników, co często jest niemożliwe w trakcie projektowania narzędzi. Zatem pomoc doradcy zdalnego, który czuwa nad osobami korzystającymi z narzędzi, wydaje się nieodzowny. Powinien on poświęcić każdej osobie przynajmniej 1 godz., interpretując uzyskane przez nią wyniki. W przypadku narzędzi ESP_Ekwiwalent także warto zorganizować zajęcia wyjazdowe, które pozwalają uczestnikom oderwać się od codzienności, wyciszyć się, spotkać inne osoby w podobnej sytuacji. Wyjazdy takie powinny być organizowane z dala od centrów wielkich miast, w miejscu sprzyjającym wypoczynkowi i relaksowi. Możliwość skorzystania z narzędzi oceniających „bez rozgłosu" przyśpiesza reakcje pracowników na kryzys w firmie, stwarza szansę reorientacji wewnątrz firmy (outplacement wewnętrzny), a tym samym zwiększa profilaktyczny charakter całego modelu wsparcia. Połączenie funkcjonalności modułu dla firmy i pracownika pozwala korzystać z narzędzia w przypadku outplacementu wewnętrznego w zakresie poszukiwania ekwiwalentów niezbędnych do skutecznego przesunięcia pracownika na nowe stanowisko. Rejestracja pracownika w wersji komputerowej narzędzia (offline) umożliwia powrót do wyników wcześniejszych ocen lub wgląd w wyniki innych kwestionariuszy – wielokrotne powracanie do pakietu narzędzi oraz sporządzenie raportu zbiorczego dla pracownika (klienta). Umożliwia to zastosowanie narzędzia w instytucjach rynku pracy – na przykład przez doradców zawodowych w urzędach pracy czy w organizacjach pozarządowych 190 Rozdział 3. realizujących projekty outplacementu lub reorientacji zawodowej. Formularz komputerowy testu zapisuje i archiwizuje dane dla każdego klienta pracownika, tworząc konto danych o kliencie. Baza danych umożliwia w przyszłości generowanie statystyk dla grupy (na przykład w ramach grupy warsztatowej w urzędach pracy) pozwalających przygotować trafniejsze programy warsztatów i szkoleń miękkich. Wyniki kwestionariuszy zapisywane są osobno dla każdego klienta, co daje możliwość przygotowania raportów zbiorczych oraz statystyk dla całych społeczności (firm, gmin, instytucji), a to jest podstawa do przygotowania na rzecz tych grup trafnych projektów edukacyjnych, warsztatów umiejętności miękkich czy szkoleń zawodowych. Udostępnienie narzędzia instytucjom rynku pracy oraz generowanie wspólnej, dużej bazy danych o pracownikach i osobach poszukujących pracy w połączeniu z możliwościami oceny szczegółowych kompetencji z wykorzystaniem modułu ewaluacyjnego dla firm (PF1) to okazja do tworzenia specjalistycznych zestawień potrzeb kompetencyjnych i rozwojowych na potrzeby instytucji rynku pracy w regionie oraz projektodawców. Interaktywna formuła narzędzia internetowego nie ogranicza się do samodzielnych aktywności klienta, a oferuje kontakt z prawdziwym człowiekiem. We wsparciu osób w trudnej sytuacji zawodowej i życiowej nie można zapomnieć o walorach spotkania z drugim człowiekiem w rozwiązywaniu kryzysu życiowego. Zwiększanie dostępności narzędzia nie powinno odbywać się kosztem obniżania jakości usługi doradczej, która zawsze jest związana z indywidualnym wsparciem osoby w spotkaniach typu face to face. Narzędzia zdalne opracowano i przygotowano jako uzupełnienie tradycyjnego doradztwa oraz zachętę do dalszych spotkań w przypadku osób, które w sytuacji kryzysu (stresu lub depresji w obliczu utraty pracy) nie znajdują czasu lub odpowiedniej motywacji do skorzystania ze wsparcia specjalisty. Narzędzie zdalne staje się bezpiecznym wejściem w świat aktywizacji zawodowej. Wskazana grupa użytkowników narzędzia wykracza poza grupę docelową wskazaną w strategii wdrażania projektu innowacyjnego i ukazuje szersze, nowe zastosowania narzędzia w obsza191 Wdrażanie modelu rach wykraczających poza usługi instytucji rynku pracy (rekrutacja personelu, rozwój firmy, rozwój indywidualny pracowników, instytucje pomocy społecznej oraz instytucje szkoleniowe). Zakres modyfikacji uwzględnia potencjał sieci wiedzy użytkowników internetowej wersji narzędzia doskonalących i rozwijających narzędzie bazowe oraz elastyczność rozwiązań informatycznych w interaktywnym programie komputerowym, reagującym na wybory i decyzje użytkownika oraz oferującym alternatywne ścieżki działania. Instytucja pełniąca rolę przyszłego administratora platformy powinna być ściśle związana z instytucjami działającymi na rzecz grupy docelowej, projektodawcami i doradcami zawodowymi (na przykład stowarzyszenia doradców zawodowych, fora organizacji i specjalistów). Modyfikacje i dalszy rozwój narzędzia powinny dostosowywać interpretacje do zawodów strategicznych w regionie oraz progi w skalach do specyfiki różnych grup docelowych (osoby po 50. roku życia, osoby niepełnosprawne, mniejszości kulturowe lub religijne) – w tym przypadku platforma może wygenerować raporty statystyczne dla poszczególnych grup klientów, co zwiększy trafność narzędzia (wykorzystanie potencjału internetowej bazy danych w dalszych pracach normalizacyjnych). Wymaga to jednak uzupełnienia formatki rejestracyjnej o dane ważne dla tego typu norm (zmienne niezależne). Doradca ze statusem administratora platformy doradczej może ustalać (korygować) progi dla poziomów wyników (niski, średni, wysoki) dla poszczególnych skal we wszystkich kwestionariuszach, uwzględniając rozkład wyników pozyskanych w trakcie stosowania narzędzia, oraz korygować, uzupełniać lub dodawać opisy lub interpretacje dla poziomów wyników, w szczególności poprzez nawiązania do zawodów strategicznych w regionie lub oferowanych w ramach projektów, w których zastosowana będzie platforma. Także w tym aspekcie dalsze prace rozwojowe narzędzia mogłyby umożliwić różnicowanie interpretacji i zaleceń doradczych adekwatnie do statusu klienta (przynależność klienta do konkretnego projektu, z konkretną ofertą szkoleń zawodowych, zamieszkanie klienta na obszarze o popycie na konkretne zawody), w ten sposób narzędzie może być modyfikowane na rzecz projektów, regionów – ponieważ zwiększa swoją komplementarność z innymi działaniami rynku pracy oraz dosto192 Rozdział 3. sowuje zalecenia i rekomendacje do potrzeb lokalnego rynku pracy. 3.3.2. Rekomendacje dla PSYCHOLOGÓW Na podstawie przeprowadzonego testu oraz badań wskazać można następujące rekomendacje kluczowe do zastosowań i wdrożeń Modelu STEROWNOŚCI pracownika: Należy, upowszechniając narzędzie, wskazywać, że może być ono (ale nie musi) nie tylko elementem procesu outplacementu zewnętrznego, lecz także wewnątrz organizacji (zmiana stanowiska na inne w ramach tej samej firmy). Warto wskazywać, że dużą wartość dla pracowników, osób na wypowiedzeniu lub bezrobotnych nieść mogą za sobą nie tylko odprawy pieniężne, szkolenia podwyższające kwalifikacje zawodowe, szkolenia przekwalifikujące i przedstawianie interesujących ofert pracy, lecz także wsparcie psychologiczne. Należy zachęcać do prowadzenia wsparcia z wykorzystaniem tych narzędzi, które można skierować do zwalnianych pracowników, przez pracodawców oraz pracowników powiatowych urzędów pracy. Jednocześnie jednak dostrzega się duży potencjał wsparcia przez psychologów/konsultantów z firm i organizacji pozarządowych, którzy mogliby wykorzystywać takie narzędzia. Pomimo zdecydowanie większego zainteresowania wsparciem osób zwalnianych, mało osób korzystało ze wsparcia psychologicznego. Użytkownicy takiego wsparcia pracowali głównie nad pozytywnym wizerunkiem własnej osoby, kształtowali swoje umiejętności z zakresu komunikacji interpersonalnej oraz zdobywali techniki poszukiwania rozwiązań w sytuacji utraty pracy. Jako główne korzyści ze wsparcia pracowników przed ich zwolnieniem z wykorzystaniem tych narzędzi należy uznać: ewentualne szybsze znalezienie nowego zatrudnienia, odpowiednie ukierunkowanie zwalnianych osób, wyposażenie w wiedzę o sobie i swoich predyspozycjach oraz zadbanie o wizerunek firmy. Ważne jest zwiększenie świadomości pracowników co do możliwości uzyskania takich korzyści z programów outplacementowych, jak: wzrost poczucia kontroli u zwalnianych pracowników nad sytuacją oraz wzrost motywacji do aktywnego działania w środowisku lokalnym, a nie jedynie na rynku pracy. Niezbędne jest znoszenie różnic w postrzeganiu korzyści z outplacementu, jakie wykazują kobiety i mężczyźni − w szczególności 193 Wdrażanie modelu zasadne jest zwiększenie wiedzy panów m.in. na temat korzyści ze współpracy wielu podmiotów w programach outplacementowych, poprawy samooceny i motywacji do aktywnego działania w zakresie poszukiwania pracy oraz zwiększenie samoświadomości zarówno osobistej, jak i zawodowej, poprzez analizę własnych atutów i słabszych stron. Główną barierą wykorzystania takich narzędzi może być „niechęć do nowości", a także spodziewane koszty ich wykorzystania. Należy podkreślić, że w obecnym kształcie są one niewielkie i ograniczają się jedynie do ewentualnej płatnej interpretacji wyników przez psychologa. Wskazano jednak na możliwość jego bezkosztowego wykorzystania. Warto wskazać funkcjonalność platformy doradczo-edukacyjnej, na której umieszczony jest e-Trening Sterowności, dającej możliwość nawiązywania połączeń typu skype z doradcą zdalnym czy innymi uczestnikami grupy, dzięki czemu zwiększy się zastosowanie narzędzia o działania o charakterze grupowym, ze wszystkimi walorami procesów grupowych. Istotne jest zwiększenie świadomości pracowników co do możliwości skorzystania z różnych form i instrumentów zwolnień monitorowanych. Należy przy tym wskazywać na korzyści zarówno dla nich, jak i ich pracodawców, oraz na możliwości wdrażania programów outplacementowych przy poniesieniu niskich nakładów finansowych i organizacyjnych. Przykładem mogą tu być właśnie wypracowane rozwiązania. Wyzwaniem jest zwiększenie roli psychologów i ukierunkowania na ich usługi tak przedsiębiorców, jak i instytucje otoczenia biznesu. Należy docenić nie tylko doradztwo indywidualne, lecz także grupowe oraz doradztwo zdalne on-line. Przykłady działań outplacementowych realizowanych w Wielkiej Brytanii 21 podkreślają rolę łączenia różnorodnych form wsparcia, w tym usług on-line (mail, telefon) łączonych ze wsparciem indywidualnym i grupowym. Podobnie skuteczne jest synergiczne łączenie różnych form i poziomów wsparcia (punkty doradcze w różnych lokalizacjach, dotacje na działalność gospodarczą, program wsparcia menedżerów prowadzących modernizację) – tak jak w kompleksowym modelu ESP. Efekt wsparcia 21 Red. M. Juchnicka, Dobre praktyki outplacementu dla firm w Unii Europejskiej. Doświadczenia angielskie, op. cit. 194 Rozdział 3. związany jest w tym przypadku z synergią poszczególnych poziomów i etapów. Rozwiązania zagraniczne wskazują na nową jakość usług outplacementowych związanych z usługami on-line oraz charakterem relacji tworzonych w Internecie. Należy w działaniach aktywizacji zawodowej czy poszukiwaniu pracy uwzględnić networking czy media społecznościowe w poszukiwaniu ukrytych rynków pracy. Istotną rekomendacją w tym przypadku byłoby uwzględnienie w funkcjonalności wypracowanej w projekcie platformy doradczo-edukacyjnej (w szczególności w obszarze grup intermentoringu) specyfiki sieci, połączeń i relacji Facebooka nie tylko w aspekcie edukacyjnym (przekazywania wiedzy nauki wzajemnej), lecz także poszukiwania nowego obszaru aktywności społecznej i zawodowej. W tym przypadku można by podjąć próbę opracowania specjalnej aplikacji do poszukiwania pracy (pomysłów na pracę) w dostępnych dla klientów gronach mediów społecznościowych. Można się spodziewać, że ten sposób komunikowania się i budowania relacji społecznych może być w przyszłości kluczowym obszarem (i instrumentem) działań outplacementowych (rynku pracy). Warty propagowania wraz z wypracowanymi rozwiązaniami jest zidentyfikowany podczas współpracy ponadnarodowej model działań instytucji publicznych (portal internetowy „Urząd pracy on-line" w działaniach Instituto de Emprego e Formacao Professional). Rozwiązania informatyczne, a w szczególności przedstawiona funkcjonalność portali internetowych, 22 mogą być inspiracją do rozbudowy portali edukacyjnych i doradczych wypracowanych w projekcie INNOWACJE NA ZAKRĘCIE, ale także w ramach realizacji strategii „e-Edukacja" w województwie podlaskim w latach 2014−2020. Osobne procedury dla różnych grup klientów, uruchamiane automatycznie po rejestracji on-line w zależności od statusu, sytuacji zawodowej i życiowej klienta − to ciekawe rozwiązanie, które może być inspiracją dla podobnych platform w naszym regionie, tworzonych przez publiczne instytucje rynku pracy oraz instytucje szkoleniowe. Mogłoby to być w późniejszym etapie też uwzględnione (na przykład w zakresie proponowanych kwestionariuszy doradczych, 22 Red. M. Juchnicka, Dobre praktyki outplacementu dla pracowników w Unii Europejskiej. Doświadczenia portugalskie, op. cit 195 Wdrażanie modelu konwentów edukacyjnych) w platformach edukacyjnych wypracowanych w przedmiotowym projekcie. Potwierdzeniem obranego dobrego kierunku są przykłady dotyczące zawartości treściowej zagranicznych platform internetowych przygotowujących klientów do wejścia na rynek pracy oraz metody łączenia wsparcia zdalnego ze wsparciem doradców, coachów (zgodnie z ideą metody blended learning, w tym metody Colina Rosa adaptowanej w przedmiotowym projekcie), co gwarantuje przyśpieszenie, ale także zindywidualizowanie wsparcia bez straty wartości dodanych płynących z „elementu ludzkiego" w doradztwie indywidualnym i motywowaniu do zmiany, a także „obserwacji" w ocenie kompetencji praktycznych ocenianego pracownika. Zastosowana formuła (on-line dostępne 24 h / 7 dni w tygodniu) przygotowanych narzędzi jest idealnym rozwiązaniem dla osób pracujących, jak i bezrobotnych, które w dogodnym dla siebie czasie mogą wypełniać kwestionariusze doradcze. Platformy, na których zamieszczane są narzędzia kwestionariuszowe, winny mieć prostą formę graficzną, nie zawierać zbędnych ozdobników i wielu zdjęć, opisów, informacji, tak, by nie przytłaczać osoby korzystającej z narzędzi. Należy zawsze stosować miernik postępu jako sprawdzoną formę ilustracji, ile jeszcze pozostało do ukończenia kwestionariusza. Niezbędne przy tego typu narzędziach jest przygotowanie bardzo szczegółowej interpretacji wyników, co często jest niemożliwe w trakcie projektowania narzędzi. Zatem pomoc psychologa zdalnego, który czuwa nad osobami korzystającymi z narzędzi, wydaje się nieodzowna. Powinien on poświęcić każdej osobie przynajmniej 1 godz., interpretując uzyskane przez nią wyniki. Zorganizowane treningi sterowności jako zajęcia wyjazdowe są świetną formą pozwalającą uczestnikom oderwać się od codzienności, wyciszyć się, spotkać z innymi w podobnej sytuacji. Rekomendowane jest organizowanie takich wyjazdów co 4-6 tyg. w liczbie 3-4, po wcześniejszym ustaleniu dogodnego terminu dla uczestników. Modyfikacje i dalszy rozwój narzędzia powinny dostosowywać interpretacje do zawodów strategicznych w regionie oraz progi w skalach do specyfiki różnych grup docelowych (osoby po 50. roku życia, osoby niepełnosprawne, mniejszości kulturowe lub 196 Rozdział 3. religijne) – w tym przypadku platforma może wygenerować raporty statystyczne dla poszczególnych grup klientów, co zwiększy trafność narzędzia (wykorzystanie potencjału internetowej bazy danych w dalszych pracach normalizacyjnych). Wymaga to jednak uzupełnienia formatki rejestracyjnej o dane ważne dla tego typu norm (zmienne niezależne). W produkcie finalnym testu doradca ze statusem administratora platformy doradczej może ustalać (korygować) progi dla poziomów wyników (niski, średni, wysoki) dla poszczególnych skal we wszystkich kwestionariuszach, uwzględniając rozkład wyników pozyskanych w trakcie stosowania narzędzia oraz korygować, uzupełniać lub dodawać opisy lub interpretacje dla poziomów wyników − w ten sposób narzędzie może być modyfikowane na grup docelowych, społeczności czy firm. 3.3.3. Rekomendacje dla TRENERÓW ZAWODU Na podstawie przeprowadzonego testu oraz badań wskazać można następujące rekomendacje kluczowe do zastosowań i wdrożeń Modelu STEROWNOŚCI pracownika: Warto wskazywać, że dużą wartość dla pracowników, osób na wypowiedzeniu lub bezrobotnych mogą nieść za sobą nie tylko odprawy pieniężne, lecz także szkolenia podwyższające kwalifikacje zawodowe, szkolenia przekwalifikujące. Należy zachęcać do prowadzenia samokształcenia, z wykorzystaniem tych narzędzi, które można skierować do zwalnianych pracowników, przez pracodawców oraz pracowników powiatowych urzędów pracy. Jako główne korzyści ze wsparcia pracowników przed ich zwolnieniem z wykorzystaniem tych narzędzi należy uznać: ewentualne szybsze znalezienie nowego zatrudnienia, odpowiednie ukierunkowanie zwalnianych osób, wyposażenie w wiedzę o sobie i swoich predyspozycjach oraz zadbanie o wizerunek firmy. Ważne jest zwiększenie świadomości pracowników co do możliwości uzyskania takich korzyści z programów outplacementowych, jak: wzrost poczucia kontroli u zwalnianych pracowników nad sytuacją oraz wzrost motywacji do aktywnego działania w środowisku lokalnym, a nie jedynie na rynku pracy. Niezbędne jest znoszenie różnic w postrzeganiu korzyści z outplacementu, jakie wykazują kobiety i mężczyźni − w szczególności zasadne jest zwiększenie wiedzy panów m.in. na temat korzyści 197 Wdrażanie modelu ze współpracy wielu podmiotów w programach outplacementowych, poprawy samooceny i motywacji do aktywnego działania w zakresie poszukiwania pracy oraz zwiększenia samoświadomości zarówno osobistej, jak i zawodowej, poprzez analizę własnych atutów i słabszych stron. Główną barierą wykorzystania takich narzędzi może być „niechęć do nowości", a także spodziewane koszty ich wykorzystania. Należy podkreślić, że w obecnym kształcie są one niewielkie. Warto wskazywać funkcjonalność platformy doradczo-edukacyjnej dającej możliwość nawiązywania połączeń typu skype z trenerem zdalnym czy innymi uczestnikami grupy, dzięki czemu zastosowanie narzędzia zwiększy się o działania o charakterze grupowym, ze wszystkimi walorami procesów grupowych. Istotne jest zwiększenie świadomości pracowników co do możliwości skorzystania z różnych form i instrumentów zwolnień monitorowanych. Należy przy tym wskazywać na korzyści zarówno dla nich, jak i ich pracodawców, oraz na możliwości wdrażania programów outplacementowych przy poniesieniu niskich nakładów finansowych i organizacyjnych. Przykładem mogą tu być właśnie wypracowane rozwiązania. Blisko co trzeci respondent nigdy nie korzystał z żadnych szkoleń. Tylko co piąty z badanych uczestniczył w szkoleniach w ciągu ostatnich 6 miesięcy. Na szkolenia kierowali pracowników głównie ich obecni pracodawcy lub stanowiły one własną inicjatywę pracownika. Wykorzystywano głównie szkolenia dotyczące zagadnień prawnych, z zakresu obsługi komputera, z zakresu komunikacji i pracy w zespole oraz asertywności. Za szczególnie przydatne dla pracowników zagrożonych utratą pracy uchodzą szkolenia językowe i kursy z zakresu obsługi komputera. Respondenci uczestniczyli głównie w szkoleniach i kursach poza stanowiskiem pracy i szkoleniach grupowych realizowanych w dni robocze. Wysoko oceniono przydatność szkoleń indywidualnych, na terenie firmy czy też w miejscowości, w której działa firma, oraz na stanowisku pracy, w godzinach pracy. Rozwiązania zagraniczne wskazują na nową jakość usług outplacementowych związanych z usługami on-line oraz charakterem relacji tworzonych w Internecie. W działaniach aktywizacji zawodowej czy poszukiwaniu pracy należy uwzględnić networking 198 Rozdział 3. czy media społecznościowe w poszukiwaniu ukrytych rynków pracy. Istotną rekomendacją w tym przypadku byłoby uwzględnienie w funkcjonalności wypracowanej w projekcie platformy doradczo-edukacyjnej (w szczególności w obszarze grup intermentoringu) specyfiki sieci, połączeń i relacji Facebooka nie tylko w aspekcie edukacyjnym (przekazywania wiedzy nauki wzajemnej), lecz także poszukiwania nowego obszaru aktywności społecznej i zawodowej. W tym przypadku można by podjąć próbę opracowania specjalnej aplikacji do poszukiwania pracy (pomysłów na pracę) w dostępnych dla klientów gronach mediów społecznościowych. Można się spodziewać się, że ten sposób komunikowania się i budowania relacji społecznych może być w przyszłości kluczowym obszarem (i instrumentem) działań outplacementowych (rynku pracy). Potwierdzeniem obranego dobrego kierunku są przykłady dotyczące zawartości treściowej zagranicznych platform internetowych przygotowujących klientów do wejścia na rynek pracy oraz metody łączenia wsparcia zdalnego ze wsparciem doradców, coachów (zgodnie z ideą metody blended learning, w tym metody Colina Rosa adaptowanej w przedmiotowym projekcie), co gwarantuje przyśpieszenie, ale także zindywidualizowanie wsparcia bez straty wartości dodanych płynących z „elementu ludzkiego" w doradztwie indywidualnym i motywowaniu do zmiany, a także „obserwacji" w ocenie kompetencji praktycznych ocenianego pracownika. Zastosowana formuła (on-line dostępne 24 h / 7 dni w tygodniu) przygotowanych narzędzi jest idealnym rozwiązaniem dla osób pracujących, jak i bezrobotnych, które w dogodnym dla siebie czasie mogą korzystać z kursów e-learnigowych. Platformy, na których zamieszczane są kursy i testy, winny mieć prostą formę graficzną, nie zawierać zbędnych ozdobników, tak, by nie przytłaczać osoby korzystającej. Jednocześnie, aby forma kursu była atrakcyjna, należy w ramach poszczególnych zajęć umieszczać filmy, pliki pdf, prezentacje, zdjęcia etc. Ważne jest, by trenerzy powiązani z danym kursem także kontaktowali się z uczestnikami zarówno zdalnie, jak i podczas zajęć grupowych. Zastosowana formuła wyjazdów szkoleniowych nieprzesyconych szkoleniowymi zajęciami merytorycznymi, a zawierających sporo zajęć integracyjnych z jednej strony umożliwia uczestni199 Wdrażanie modelu kom kontakt z innymi użytkownikami platformy, a z drugiej − z trenerami szkolącymi. Należy pamiętać, że kursy szkoleniowe oprócz samej nauki powinny być atrakcyjne. Osoby pracujące zagrożone zwolnieniem lub bezrobotne rzadko wyjeżdżają, stąd jest to okazja, by oderwały się od codzienności. W ramach każdego warsztatu oprócz zajęć merytorycznych należy przewidzieć czas na relaks i kontakt z przyrodą. Warsztaty powinny też pełnić dodatkowo funkcję zajęć praktycznych uzupełniających naukę teoretyczną, co zwiększy efektywność całego narzędzia. Uczestnicy mogli z udziałem autora opracowania zdalnego (mistrza zawodu, specjalisty, trenera) ćwiczyć praktyczne umiejętności, w tym manualne) związane z danym zawodem. Rzeczywistość wirtualna oferowana przez narzędzia diagnostyczno-edukacyjne on-line może również być instrumentem tanich prób i eksperymentów edukacyjnych pracowników, a nawet całych firm. Doświadczenia angielskie 23 wskazują, że bardziej dostępne rozwiązania on-line, nawet jeżeli mniej doskonałe, poprzez większy zakres dostępnych alternatyw, zmniejszają czas poszukiwań i prób, co jest niebagatelne w przypadku finansowania tych prób ze środków publicznych. Rozwój platform doradczo-edukacyjnych dostępnych dla pracowników daje im szansę „spróbowania się w nowym zawodzie" bez konieczności porzucenia dotychczasowej pracy. Podobnie w przypadku młodych ludzi wybierających zawód bez konieczności porzucania szkoły po kilku latach nauki czy w przypadku osób bezrobotnych bez konieczności angażowania się w kolejne bezpłatne szkolenia i projekty aktywizacyjne przy jednoczesnym pozostawaniu przez wiele miesięcy, a nawet lat, poza realną pracą. Rozwiązanie takie nie tylko godzi naukę nowego zawodu z dotychczasową pracą, co jest kluczowe w przypadku osób pozostających w okresie wypowiedzenia, ale także skraca czas pozostawania na marginesie aktywności zawodowej osób tracących pracę pozostających zbyt długo pod wpływem absorbujących działań aktywizujących i edukacyjnych realizowanych w tradycyjnej formie. W tym kontekście zaproponowana metoda zmiany zawodu, utrzymująca aktywność zawodową pracownika oraz skracająca czas bierności 23 Red. M. Juchnicka, Dobre praktyki outplacementu dla firm w Unii Europejskiej. Doświadczenia angielskie, op.c it 200 Rozdział 3. zawodowej poprzez łączenia nauki z pracą lub poszukiwaniem pracy, jest działaniem profilaktycznym, szczególnie ważnym w przypadku osób starszych lub defaworyzowanych, zagrożonych trwałym wypadnięciem z rynku pracy w wyniku przerwy w pracy. Rozwiązania te mogą być więc przydatne także w projektach związanych z utrzymaniem lub wydłużeniem aktywności zawodowej oraz godzeniem życia zawodowego i rodzinnego. Jak widać zaproponowane rozwiązania mogą mieć zastosowanie w rozwiązywaniu nowych, jakże pilnych wyzwań społecznych obecnych już dziś w polityce rynku pracy. Przeprowadzona analiza opisów produktów finalnych pozwala twierdzić, iż przygotowany model działania outplacementu dla pracowników wymaga zwrócenia szczególnej uwagi na kwestię koordynacji i komunikacji działań między odbiorcami i użytkownikami produktów finalnych. Model obejmuje 3 etapy a zarazem produkty, których stosowanie zasadniczo wymaga wsparcia nieco innej grupy specjalistów. Na etapie stosowania narzędzi diagnostyczno-doradczych związanych z oceną ekwiwalentów interwencja prowadzona powinna być przez doradców zawodowych. Na etapie drugim – planistycznym, związanym z planowaniem kierunków i działań w oparciu o zbilansowane w pierwszym kroku indywidualne zasoby pracownika (ekwiwalenty) interwencja prowadzona powinna być przez psychologów rozpoczynających proces zwiększania poczucia kontroli w ramach treningu sterowności. Zaś na etapie przyśpieszenia – szkoleniowym, wspierającym indywidualny plan działania opracowany w pierwszym i drugim kroku interwencja prowadzona powinna być przez trenerów wspierających proces reorientacji zawodowej. Zasadne jest wobec tego łączne stosowanie produktów na wszystkich poziomach interwencji. Komplementarność produktów finalnych zwiększa bowiem skuteczność stosowania każdego z narzędzi oraz pozwala na uzyskanie efektu synergii związanego z interdyscyplinarnością wsparcia. Zróżnicowanie narzędzi oraz grup odbiorców i użytkowników uzasadnia także uwzględnienie wśród grup uczestników szkoleń wdrożeniowych osób i podmiotów reprezentujących wszystkie poziomy interwencji, jak również prezentację przedstawicielom poszczególnych grup całych modeli outplacementu jako szerszego kontekstu zastosowania każdego z narzędzi (produktu finalnego). Należy wobec tego rozważyć tworzenie mieszanych grup szkoleniowych, które będą obejmować osoby reprezentujące tak przedsiębiorstwa, rzemieślników, pracowników, instytucje rynku pracy, instytucje szkoleniowe, instytucje wspierające pracodawców i organizacje pracodawców, związki i stowarzyszenia 201 Wdrażanie modelu zawodowe, instytucje dialogu społecznego, organizacje pozarządowe i inne. Tworzenie takich grup może też stymulować wykorzystanie narzędzi w ramach kolejnych projektów i działań międzysektorowych. W tym kontekście należy także wskazać na wysoko ocenioną przydatność testowanych narzędzi w wersji on-line w formie platformy internetowej, która zdecydowanie uławia koordynację wdrażania procesu outplacementu. Jak wskazano kluczową kwestię wprowadzającą do skutecznego mainstreamingu wypracowanych produktów finalnych stanowi podkreślenie koordynacji i komunikacji zastosowania dwóch zintegrowanych modeli outplacementu dla firm i dla pracowników – z uwzględnieniem trzech etapów a zarazem poziom interwencji i grup użytkowników. Istotne jest tu podkreślanie w czasie upowszechniania produktów koordynacji działań za pośrednictwem platformy internetowej, jak również popularyzacja międzysektorowej współpracy przy wdrażaniu interwencji oraz upowszechnianie samej idei outplacementu. Mainstreaming produktów finalnych jako wprowadzanie, włączanie wypracowanych produktów finalnych do głównego nurtu polityki powinien być zorientowany na współpracę z wszystkimi podmiotami uczestniczącymi w kreowaniu dokumentów strategicznych województwa, powiatów i gmin, jak również dokumentów strategicznych poszczególnych firm i planów ich pracowników. Zasadne jest zgodnie z założeniami wniosku o dofinansowanie oraz strategią wdrażania projektu innowacyjnego zastosowanie dwóch schematów mainstreamingu – horyzontalnego i wertykalnego. W ten sposób możliwe będzie dotarcie do wszystkich istotnych z perspektywy rozwiązywanego problemu restrukturyzacji przedsiębiorstw i ryzyka zwolnień pracowników podmiotów działających na poziomie lokalnym i regionalnym w woj. podlaskim, w tym do Wojewódzkiej Rady Zatrudnienia, Powiatowych Rad Zatrudnienia oraz decydentów i przedstawicieli z jednostek samorządu terytorialnego. Zasadne jest także uwzględnienie zróżnicowania wewnętrznego aktorów rynku pracy w tworzeniu koalicji na rzecz mainstreamingu modeli outplacementu. Korzystnie należy ocenić planowane innowacyjne narzędzia włączania w nurt polityki na poziomie lokalnym związane ze stosowaniem komputerowych i zdalnych narzędzi każdego z etapów modeli z Podlaską Strategią Rozwoju Społeczeństwa Informacyjnego e-Podlaskie celem ich implementacji w działania i cele dwóch osi priorytetowych tej strategii (e-Biznes i e-Edukacja). Ważne jest także zwrócenie uwagi na możliwość uwzględnienia produktów finalnych w aktualizacji i konsultacji dokumentów strategicznych na okres kolejnej perspektywy finan202 Rozdział 3. sowej z uwzględnieniem udziału w pracach grup roboczych i konsultacyjnych oraz prac podkomitetów monitorujących programy operacyjne. Z uwagi na wysoką ocenę opracowanych narzędzi i ich nowatorski – także w skali europejskiej – charakter zaleca się rozważenie także możliwości promowania produktów finalnych poza terenem woj. podlaskiego, w innych regionach kraju. Zasadne jest także dostosowanie komunikatów promocyjnych do grup odbiorców poprzez przełamanie stereotypów dotyczących stosowania outplacementu, jak również współpracy pracodawców i pracowników w procesie radzenia sobie z kryzysem. Ponadto wyniki badań dotyczące barier i potencjałów outplacementu uzasadniają uwzględnienie w ramach upowszechniania produktów finalnych szerokiej promocji samej koncepcji outplacementu, która nadal jest mało znana wśród aktorów rynku pracy. Zasadne jest zwrócenie w tym kontekście uwagi na zagadnienia społecznej odpowiedzialności biznesu oraz korzyści z współpracy na poziomie lokalnym i regionalnym (outplacement zaadaptowany i środowiskowy). Kampania upowszechniająca produkty powinna także przełamywać stereotyp outplacementu jako usługi drogiej i skierowanej wyłącznie do dużych przedsiębiorstw oraz pracowników na stanowiskach kierowniczych. Istotne jest także podkreślanie innowacyjności wypracowanych narzędzi także na tle innych krajów i powiązania ich z najnowszymi osiągnięciami z zakresu doradztwa kariery, metod uczenia się. BIBLIOGRAFIA 1. Armstrong M., Zarządzanie zasobami ludzkimi, Oficyna Wolters Kluwer, Kraków 2007. 2. Azevedo A. (red.), Recognition, Validation and Certification of Professional Competences: Handbook & Guidelines, ISQ, Lizbona 2013. 3. Berg-Peer J., Outplacement w praktyce, Oficyna Ekonomiczna, Kraków 2004 4. Biesaga-Słomczewska E.J., Marketingowe zarządzanie czynnikiem ludzkim w konfrontacji z praktyką, [w:] B. Gregor (red.), Marketing − handel − konsument w globalnym społeczeństwie informacyjnym. Tom 1, Wyd. Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, Łódź 2004, 5. Downs A., Jak ograniczyć zatrudnienie w dobrym stylu?, [w:] K. Szczepaniak (red.), Biznes. Tom V. Zarządzanie zasobami ludzkimi, PWN, Warszawa 2007 6. Flis A., Mos M., Zacharzewski A., Outplacement. Program ułatwiania zmiany pracy dla zwalnianych pracowników, Akade, Kraków 2002. 7. Ignaczak M., Organizacja pracy służby personalnej, www.pwsb.pl/images/stories /przedmioty/org_pracy.pdf [12.08.2012], 8. Juchnicka M., Dobre praktyki outplacementu dla firm w Unii Europejskiej. Doświadczenia angielskie, NFDK, 2014r. 9. Juchnicka M., Dobre praktyki outplacementu dla pracowników w Unii Europejskiej. Doświadczenia portugalskie, NFDK, Białystok, 2014 10. Krawczyk-Szczepanek K., Zalety outplacementu, Jobexpress.pl, www.jobe xpress.pl/artykul/104/Zalety-outplacementu [12.08.2012]. 11. Kwiatkiewicz A., K. Hernik, Outplacement – przewodnik dla pracodawców, FISE, Warszawa 2010. 204 Bibliografia Ledwoń A., Outplacement – przewodnik dla organizacji pozarządowych, FISE, Warszawa 2010, 12. Meller J., Derekrutacja jako funkcja zarządzania zasobami ludzkimi, [w:] Z. Wiśniewski (red.), Zarządzanie zasobami ludzkimi. Wyzwania u progu XXI wieku, UMK, Toruń 2001; [cyt. za:] K. Makowski, A. Kwiatkiewicz, Derekrutacja i outplacement według standardów europejskich, [w:] M. Juchnowicz (red.), Standardy europejskie w zarządzaniu zasobami ludzkimi, Poltext, Warszawa 2004, 13. Outplacement krok po kroku − podręcznik dla przedsiębiorców, Instytut Zachodni, Poznań 2011, 14. Outplacement, czyli łagodne zwolnienia, http://malopolska.docelu.eu/magazyn/styczen-2012/outplacement-czyli-lagodnezwolnienia [12.08.2012]. 15. Pocztowski A., Zarządzanie zasobami ludzkimi. Strategie − procesy − metody, PWE, Warszawa 2007 16. Podręcznik Outplacementu w ramach Programu Operacyjnego Kapitał Ludzki, MRR, Warszawa 2010 17. Schwan K., K.G. Seipel, Marketing kadrowy, C.H. Beck, Warszawa 1997. 18. Sidor-Rządkowska M., Zwolnienia pracowników a polityka personalna firmy, Wolters Kluwer, Warszawa 2010 SPIS TABEL Tabela 1. Etapy procesów RVCC Pro przeprowadzanych w Centrach Nowych Możliwości. ........................................................... 105 Tabela 2. Uczestnicy i główne czynności procesu RVCC Pro .............. 114 Tabela 3. Referencyjny czas trwania czynności ................................... 119 Tabela 4. Charakterystyka programów Szybki Start............................. 129 SPIS WYKRESÓW Wykres 1. Znajomość pojęcia outplacement ..........................................71 Wykres 2. Ocena form wsparcia ważnych dla zwalnianych pracowników ........................................................................................73 Wykres 3. Osoby i instytucje potencjalnie odpowiedzialne za organizację programów outplacement – tylko opinie pozytywne ...........75 Wykres 4. Potencjalny podział kosztów realizacji programów outplacement − tylko opinie pozytywne ................................................75 Wykres 5. Ocena korzyści ze wsparcia przez firmę pracownika przed jego zwolnieniem ........................................................................78 Wykres 6. Ocena barier wdrażania outplacementu w firmie − bariery po stronie pracodawcy ...............................................................81 Wykres 7. Ocena barier wdrażania outplacementu w firmie − bariery po stronie pracowników ............................................................82 206 Spis wykresów Wykres 8. Ocena barier wdrażania outplacementu w firmie − bariery po stronie instytucji rynku pracy ............................................... 83 Wykres 9. Ocena barier wdrażania outplacementu w firmie − inne bariery .................................................................................................. 83 Wykres 10. Wykorzystanie doradztwa zawodowego i źródło skierowania do doradcy zawodowego ................................................... 86 Wykres 11. Tematyka wykorzystanych w przeszłości rodzajów doradztwa zawodowego − tylko opinie pozytywne ................................ 88 Wykres 12. Ocena przydatności tematów doradztwa zawodowego dla osób zagrożonych zwolnieniem z pracy ........................................... 89 Wykres 13. Forma wykorzystanego w przeszłości doradztwa zawodowego − tylko opinie pozytywne ................................................. 90 Wykres 14. Ocena skuteczności poszczególnych form doradztwa zawodowego dla osób zagrożonych zwolnieniem z pracy ...................... 91 Wykres 15. Wykorzystanie wsparcia psychologicznego i źródło skierowania do doradcy zawodowego ................................................... 92 Wykres 16. Tematyka wykorzystanych w przeszłości rodzajów wsparcia psychologicznego − tylko opinie pozytywne ........................... 93 Wykres 17. Ocena przydatności tematów wsparcia psychologicznego dla osób zagrożonych zwolnieniem z pracy .............. 94 Wykres 18. Udział w szkoleniach ......................................................... 97 Wykres 19. Źródło skierowania na szkolenia......................................... 98 Wykres 20. Tematyka wykorzystanych w przeszłości szkoleń i kursów − tylko opinie pozytywne.......................................................... 99 Wykres 21. Ocena przydatności tematów szkoleń i kursów dla osób zagrożonych zwolnieniem z pracy .............................................. 100 Wykres 22. Charakterystyka wykorzystanych w przeszłości szkoleń i kursów − tylko opinie pozytywne ......................................... 101 Wykres 23. Ocena skuteczności poszczególnych form szkoleń i kursów dla osób zagrożonych zwolnieniem z pracy ............................. 103 Wykres 24. Przebieg usługi udzielanej w Urzędzie Pracy. ................... 125 Wykres 25. Ocena wagi oceny kompetencji w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy .................................................................................................. 139 Wykres 26. Ocena wagi oceny wartości w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy .................................................................................................. 139 207 Spis wykresów Wykres 27. Ocena wagi oceny zainteresowań w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy ........................................................................................ 140 Wykres 28. Ocena wagi oceny zdrowia w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy .................................................................................................. 140 Wykres 29. Ocena wagi oceny hobby w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy .... 140 Wykres 30. Ocena przydatności bezpłatnych internetowych narzędzi bilansowania kompetencji pracownika .................................. 141 Wykres 31. Ocena zasadności zastosowania tych metod dla pracowników firm ............................................................................... 142 Wykres 32. Ocena wagi poczucia kontroli w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy .................................................................................................. 144 Wykres 33. Ocena wagi motywacji w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy ........ 144 Wykres 34. Ocena wagi samooceny w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy....... 145 Wykres 35. Ocena wagi przekonania o sprawczości w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy .................................................................. 145 Wykres 36. Ocena wagi warsztatów psychologicznych Trening Sterowności w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy i wagi wiary w sukces w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy .................................................................. 146 Wykres 37. Ocena przydatności bezpłatnych internetowych narzędzi wsparcia psychologicznego w wykonywanym zawodzie dla osób zwalnianych z pracy .............................................................. 147 Wykres 38. Ocena przydatności grupowych warsztatów psychologicznych Trening Sterowności w wykonywanym zawodzie dla osób zwalnianych z pracy .............................................. 147 Wykres 39. Ocena zasadności zastosowania metod Programu poczucia kontroli dla pracowników firm modernizowanych ................ 148 Wykres 40. Ocena przydatności zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu pracy ............................................................................ 151 Wykres 41. Ocena przydatności zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby mniej mobilne (na przykład osoby niepełnosprawne) ....................................................... 151 Wykres 42. Ocena przydatności zdalnej nauki nowego zawodu w poszukiwaniu nowej pracy przez osoby mniej dyspozycyjne (rodzice opiekujący się dzieckiem) ...................................................... 152 208 Spis wykresów Wykres 43. Ocena wagi zdalnego opiekuna w zdalnej nauce nowego zawodu .................................................................................. 152 Wykres 44. Ocena przydatności bezpłatnych internetowych szkoleń do nauki nowego zawodu ....................................................... 153 Wykres 45. Ocena przydatności grupowych warsztatów Reorientacja uzupełniających zdalną naukę nowego zawodu ............... 154 Wykres 46. Ocena zasadności zastosowania tych metod dla pracowników ...................................................................................... | {
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Ecological Finitude as Ontological Finitude: Radical Hope in the Anthropocene1 Fernando Flores and B. Scot Rousse Penultimate version. Please cite the published version, pp175-192 in The Task of Philosophy of in the Anthropocene, edited by Richard Polt and Jon Wittrock (Roman & Littlefield, 2018) 1. Introduction The proposal that the earth has entered a new epoch called "the Anthropocene" has touched a nerve. By focusing attention on the fundamental vulnerability of our planetary abode and the responsibility that human beings bear for failing to care properly for it, the term acquires an elevated rhetorical potency, not to mention a sense of practical urgency. The question – What is to be done? – imposes itself, albeit uncomfortably. The human organism has been able to flourish in an ecological niche whose unraveling has been vastly accelerated on account of its own activities and industries. With the gradual undoing of this hospitable ecological niche, we find ourselves participants in the long history of emergence and disappearance of entities on this planet, entities that emerge and flourish in a temporary clearing whose contingent conditions eventually revoke the vital opening. What can we do? One unsettling part of having our ecological finitude thrust upon us with the term "Anthropocene" is that, as Nietzsche said of the death of God, "we" ourselves are supposed to be the collective doer responsible here, yet this is a deed which no one individual meant to do and whose implications no one fully comprehends. For the pessimists about humanity, the implications seem rather straightforward: humanity will die. Yet, the death that we are facing cannot be assumed to be simply biological death or extinction. Indeed, even if we are not running headlong into a mass extinction and wholesale biological demise, we do seem to be facing the possibility of an ontological death. Our ecological finitude is the harbinger of our ontological finitude. The vulnerability we confront in the Anthropocene is what Jonathan Lear, in a different context, called ontological vulnerability.2 Following a certain strand of the reception of Heidegger's interpretation of death, we understand ontological finitude as the finitude of our historical world, where a world is relatively coherent and holistically organized "clearing" in which things, people, and possibilities show up, make sense, and matter.3 Worlds die too. The ways of life they enable can become impossible, 1 In preparing this text, we have benefitted from conversations and exchanges with Hubert Dreyfus, Francisco Gallegos, Richard Polt, Khang Ton, Terry Winograd, Jon Wittrock, and Lee Worden. 2 Jonathan Lear, Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), p. 50. 3 The strand of Heidegger interpretation we have in mind is rooted in the work of John Haugeland. See Haugeland, Dasein Disclosed, ed. Joseph Rouse (Cambridge: Harvard Flores and Rousse Ecological Finitude as Ontological Finitude 2 ceasing to make sense and matter. The constitutive susceptibility of all human worlds to their eventual collapse is what we mean by ontological finitude. As presumed denizens in a dawning Anthropocene we are called to assume this ontological finitude as our own. It is important to appreciate now that the very term "Anthropocene" has generated a sometimes bitter debate, as a recent backlash against certain assumptions and narratives of the "anthropocenologists" has demonstrated.4 For one thing, the claim that the activities of human beings have had a decisive and destructive impact on the earth's environment rests upon a false dichotomy between human Society/Culture and Nature/The Environment. That is, the very notion of an Anthropocene assumes that there is such a thing as the environment "out there" and that it should be left to its own affairs, as though it were a neutral, monolithic, and exogenous container for the organisms, including human beings, who happen to live in it.5 For another thing, the term "Anthropocene" etymologically lays responsibility for the shifts taking place in our climate and ecology at the feet of an abstract, unified, world-historical agent called "the Anthropos," instead of laying responsibility at the blood-, carbon-, and capital-soaked feet of a few industrialized nations.6 A rejection of the tendentious abstraction of the Anthropos and its supposed separation from Nature has generated a kind of terminological game among critical Anthropocene commentators: Take the Anthropos out of the Anthropocene. Suggested alternatives include: Capitalocene, Androcene, Thermocene, Thanatocene, Phagocene, and University Press, 2013). Lear himself mentions how much his account of ontological vulnerability was influenced by Haugeland's interpretation of Heidegger. 4 "Anthropocenologist" is a term introduced by Christophe Bonneuil and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, The Shock of the Anthropocene, trans. David Fernbach (New York: Verso, 2016). Bonneuil and Fressoz productively urge us "to learn to distrust the grand narratives that come with the Anthropocene concept" (p.49). 5 See Bonneuil and Fressoz, The Shock of the Anthropocene, Chapter 2, "Thinking with Gaia"; Jason W. Moore, Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital (New York: Verso, 2015), especially Part III, "Historical Nature and the Origins of Capital"; Matthew Lepori, "There is No Anthropocene: Climate Change, Species Talk, and Political Economy," in Telos 172 (Fall 2015): 103–24, esp. pp. 114 and 118, doi:10.3817/0915172103. See also, in the same issue, Zev Trachtenberg, "The Anthropocene, Ethics, and the Nature of Nature," Telos, 172 (Fall 2015): pp. 38–58, doi:10.3817/0915172038, and Christopher Cox, "Faulty Presuppositions and False Dichotomies: The Problematic Nature of "the Anthropocene'," Telos, 172 (Fall 2015): pp. 59–81, doi:10.3817/0915172059. Another articulate voice expressing these concerns is Kathleen Morrison, "Provincializing the Anthropocene," SEMINAR 673 (September 2015), p.76. 6 See, again, Bonneuil and Fressoz, The Shock of the Anthropocene, Chapter 4, "Who is the Anthropos?"; Moore, Capitalism in the Web of Life, Chapter 7, "Anthropocene or Capitalocene?"; Lepori, "There is No Anthropocene," p. 124. See also Eddie Yuen, "The Politics of Failure Have Failed: The Environmental Movement and Catastrophism," in Sasha Lilley et al., eds., Catastrophism: The Apocalyptic Politics of Collapse and Rebirth (Oakland: PM Press, 2012), p. 40. Flores and Rousse Ecological Finitude as Ontological Finitude 3 others.7 Granting the importance of these conflicts of interpretation, they do not productively draw us into a serious confrontation with the phenomenon of ontological vulnerability raised by the very notion of an Anthropocene, however flawed and fraught the term itself may be. This ontological vulnerability is one of the defining issues of the historical epoch we've inherited. The calling we have now to respond to the Anthropocene (however this "we" gets interpreted) is tinged by the possibilities both of overwhelming tragedy and of historical heroism. According to one sobering book among the vast proliferation of texts addressing the core of the Anthropocene, namely global climate change, we today face a crisis that is "uniquely global, uniquely long-term, uniquely irreversible, and uniquely uncertain."8 How can we begin to face up and respond to this ecological and ontological finitude? Echoing a provocative recent formulation of the issue, the question becomes: How can we learn to die?9 As we have said, this question cannot be posed in the everyday sense of the word die. An impending death does not mean simply that we are going into extinction. To say that we are dying is to say that we are heading into a future in which our current world as the scene and abode of our taken-for-granted practices, projects, and identities will collapse. This future is unimaginable from the perspective of our present. If our world is collapsing, how can we prepare a possibility for succeeding generations to emerge into a new world, a new configuration of practices, of what makes sense and matters? Our approach in this essay will be based on an ontological reinterpretation of the meaning and importance of death and finitude. In this we take up the suggestion by Jonathan Lear that, in the face of the impending collapse of one's world, a peculiar form of hope, radical hope, and a peculiar kind of imaginative excellence for new possible ways of going on are called for.10 Yet 7 On "Capitalocene," see Jason W. Moore, ed., Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism (Oakland: PM Press, 2016). On "Androcene," see Trish Glazebrook, "Gynocentric Bio-Logics: Anthropocenic Abjectification and Alternative Knowledge Traditions," Telos 177 (Winter 2016), 61-82. doi: 10.3817/1216177061. The rest of the suggested terms in our list come from Bonneuil and Fressoz, The Shock of the Anthropocene, Part Three. One need not look far for yet further alternative expressions taking the Anthropo out of the "Anthropocene." 8 Gernot Wagner and Martin L. Weitzman, Climate Shock: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), p. 8. In fact, the authors specify that climate change is "almost" unique in each of these characteristics, but add that it is "definitely unique" in combining all four. 9 With this formulation, we refer to Roy Scranton, Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2015). 10 Lear's account of radical hope is brought to bear on climate change also by Allen Thompson, "Radical Hope for Living Well in a Warmer World," Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, Vol. 23, Number 1-2 (2010), doi: 10.1007/s10806-009-9185-2, and Byron Williston, "Climate Change and Radical Hope," Ethics and the Environment, Vol. 17, No. 2, (Fall 2012), pp. 165-186. doi: 10.2979/ethicsenviro.17.2.165. These accounts pertain more to the virtueFlores and Rousse Ecological Finitude as Ontological Finitude 4 we will have to go beyond where Lear leads, for the conception of radical hope he puts forth is vacuous. According to Lear, radical hope means holding on to a "commitment ... only to the bare possibility that, from this disaster, something good will emerge," where "something good" will involve some radically re-imagined and re-oriented way for the Crow way of life to go on.11 On our way to articulating a more robust form of radical hope in the Anthropocene, we will also consider and criticize Hubert Dreyfus's response to the limitations of Lear's proposal. For Dreyfus, pre-technological marginal practices left over in our culture from past historical worlds could provide a foundation for a reconfiguration of our current world, a way of emerging revitalized from world collapse. But Dreyfus's backwards-looking orientation is one-sided: our world is also a forward-directed historical drift, with new possibilities and marginal practices emerging in the present. By becoming better attuned to the onward drift of historical emergence we can summon a more fecund radical hope that will enable us to participate with greater care in the unfolding of our ecologically and ontologically fraught historical moment. 2. Ontological Vulnerability In Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation, Jonathan Lear presents an interpretation of what he calls the "collapse," "devastation," or "breakdown" of the cultural world of the Crow Indian. The breakdown of a world is different from the breakdown of a characteristic thing or relationship that we normally find within that world. In this section, we retrace some of Lear's steps so that we can draw on his interpretation of the significance of worldcollapse when we present our interpretation of the significance of the Anthropocene. The breakdown of a world is what you can call an ontological event, an event that radically reconfigures the field or space (like the Heideggerian "disclosive space") within which our lives unfold. This is why Lear himself uses the terminology of a field of occurrences: the breakdown of a world is a breakdown of the field in which and in terms of which things happen and matter to people. In Lear's apt words, the breakdown of a world is the breakdown of "a field in which occurrences occur."12 Our susceptibility to the breakdown of our field of occurrences is what Lear calls our ontological vulnerability. Thus, although Lear's penetrating book is concerned specifically with the breakdown of the Crow Indian world, he claims to be articulating a general or structural vulnerability affecting the human condition as such: "What I am concerned with is an ontological vulnerability that affects us all insofar as we are human."13 All worlds are constitutively susceptible to such collapse. ethical implications of radical hope in the face of environmental collapse, rather than the ontological implications that concern us here. 11 Lear, Radical Hope, p. 97. 12 Ibid., p. 34. 13 Ibid., p. 50. Flores and Rousse Ecological Finitude as Ontological Finitude 5 2.1 When the Buffalo Leave Lear pursues his exploration of our ontological vulnerability by way of a reflection on some "haunting words" uttered by Plenty Coups, "the last great chief of the Crow nation."14 In retrospective conversations, Plenty Coups refused to relate any stories about events in his life or the activities of the Crow after their confinement to a reservation and the decimation of the buffalo they traditionally followed and hunted. Lear quotes Plenty Coups: I can think back and tell you much more of war and horse-stealing. But when the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground, and they could not lift them up again. After this, nothing happened.15 The last phrase – "After this, nothing happened" is what preoccupies Lear and should preoccupy us as well. This utterance gives expression to the phenomenon of ontological vulnerability that also confronts our world in the Anthropocene. To say that "nothing happened" is not to say that everyone stopped what they were doing and passively sat around; it is not to say that "nothing occurred" anymore. As Lear puts it, with the leaving of the buffalo, "What we have in this case is not an unfortunate occurrence, not even a devastating occurrence like a holocaust; it is a breakdown of the field in which occurrences occur."16 The encompassing field of intelligibility and affectivity within which and in terms of which the traditional activities got their point and mattered is what broke down. Hence, even if the bodily movements and even psychological intentions that used to constitute traditional activities took place, they did not count as the traditional activities, because they could no longer matter in the same way: the broader field of interrelated activities and significance in terms of which the bodily movements and intentional states counted as the traditional activities was no longer "there."17 Following Heidegger, Lear insists on a distinction between entities that show up and make sense in a world, and the world itself as a "space" or "field" within which entities can make sense and things can happen. Why does the absence of a particular entity within the world the buffalo in the case of the Crow Indians trigger the breakdown of the encompassing field of occurrences? The answer is that the buffalo were the ontical focal point, a locus of gathering for the whole Crow identity and the Crow world. Things mattered and made sense, counted as disaster or blessing, victory or disgrace, crucial or trivial to a Crow to the extent that they stood in some relation to activities bound up with the roaming hunt of the buffalo, including the 14 Ibid., p. 1. 15 Ibid., p.2 16 Ibid., p. 34. 17 Ibid., p. 43 and p. 49. Flores and Rousse Ecological Finitude as Ontological Finitude 6 preparations for and engaging in battle with traditional enemies (like the Sioux), and the celebration of victory or mourning of defeat. The buffalo gathered the world of the Crow; that is, the buffalo ontically founded the "worldhood" of the Crow world. For Heidegger, a world is a field constituted by the interrelations between characteristic equipment, the (or a set of) identities and roles of the people who use the equipment, and the (or a set of) shared norms, rules, and standards for the appropriate and excellent ways to use the equipment and carry out the requirements associated with the relevant identities and roles. It helps here to consider as an analogy the "world" of a cooperative game such as baseball. The world of baseball is made up of an array of equipment (bats, balls, bases, gloves, mitts, etc.), roles (pitcher, catcher, batter, umpire, audience), norms (no swearing at the catcher, no spitting at the audience), standards (the ball is to have such and such a weight), and constitutive rules (three strikes and you're out). So, it is only in the space or world of the game that some action can count as a "strike," "foul ball," or a "home run." Just standing around and swinging a stick at a ball cannot be a strike.18 Strikes take place – occur – in the world of the game. Without the world of the game being sustained, there can be no baseballoccurrences, nothing baseball-like would be able to happen. The same general structure holds true for all cultural worlds – the world of the Crow, and our own world. Ontological vulnerability is what we've called the constitutive susceptibility to collapse of any historical world. That we are intrinsically marked by such vulnerability should not come as any surprise to us. People get hints of the possibility of world collapse on a personal register when they undergo identity crises or anxiety attacks in which everything they took for granted and thought to define them now shows up as trivial and pointless. Going to any history museum confronts you with artifacts from bygone collapsed worlds, the paraphernalia of which are now but relics, lifted out of their former field of occurrences as an ontical residue of a way of being that had formerly flourished. While it may be thus lodged into our commonsense that worlds are susceptible to collapse, as we all know that languages die, we tend not to pay attention to this finitude or live in the light of its significance. Here, again, is Jonathan Lear: But a culture does not tend to train the young to endure its breakdown – and it is fairly easy to see why. A culture embodies a sense of life's possibilities, and it tries to instill that sense in the young. An outstanding young member of the culture will learn to face these possibilities well. The situation we are dealing with here, however, is the breakdown of a culture's sense of possibility itself. This inability to conceive of its own devastation will tend to be the blind spot of any culture.19 Our purpose in reviewing Lear's interpretation of the collapse of the Crow world is to suggest that, in the face of the Anthropocene, our ecological vulnerability can usher us into an 18 Here we are drawing on Haugeland, "Dasein's Disclosedness," in Dasein Disclosed. 19 Lear, Radical Hope, p. 83. Flores and Rousse Ecological Finitude as Ontological Finitude 7 appreciation our ontological vulnerability, thus shining a cold hard light on what Lear above calls "the blind spot" of our own culture: we are called to face and respond to the eventual collapse of our own world. It is in this context that Lear's notion of radical hope takes on its relevance to our current situation. Before turning to an account of radical hope, it is worth reflecting on Lear's description of the role played by the buffalo in focusing and organizing the Crow world and how this may be relevant to thinking about our own world today. What, if anything, might be our buffalo? And to what extent is the Anthropocene a threat to our buffalo and thus to the stability and viability of our world? 2.2 But What Are Our Buffalo? To answer such questions adequately and to begin to explore in more detail how the Anthropocene can be understood as a forced confrontation with the ontological vulnerability of our current world, we need first to take account of some structural differences between our current world and the Crow Indian world as presented by Jonathan Lear. The Crow world, at least as described by Lear, was a traditional society with a highly unified hierarchical social structure and comparatively circumscribed range of social roles and identities (Chief, elder, hunter, warrior, mother, etc.). Given the largely traditional structure of Crow society and its stable shared understanding of the normative criteria for what counts as an excellent way of life, it is relatively straightforward to identify the elements of their culture that focus their world and practices – roaming with and hunting the buffalo, doing battle with the traditional enemies, and so on. Because of this, Lear (and Plenty Coups) can locate in the buffalo an ontological focal power: Without the buffalo, nothing can happen. Our current world in the age of the Anthropocene (which we characterize in more detail below), on the other hand, is post-traditional and highly differentiated. Vast arrays of identities, spheres of value, and social roles are available and yet little shared understanding obtains regarding what counts as an excellent form of life and what grounds such normative claims. Furthermore, whereas the Crow world was relatively localized, our current world is increasingly globalized such that the events in one sub-world (buying a pair of blue jeans, or writing an email on a smartphone, for example) are intimately interconnected with events in another sub-world, perhaps on the other side of the globe (garment workers in Bangladesh, workers at Foxconn in China). Moreover, the sub-worlds on our globe are interconnected by an ever-growing computer network and transportation system, not to mention capitalism itself (as in our examples). As a general way of characterizing our current world, we roughly follow Heidegger's account of the "Enframing" (Ge-Stell) character of modern technology which takes our natural environment (including ourselves and each other) as a pool of natural (and human) resources, or Flores and Rousse Ecological Finitude as Ontological Finitude 8 the "standing reserve" (Bestand), on hand to be used up with maximal efficiency.20 In this world, there is no pervasively shared sense of what makes a way of life excellent, though, in a rough caricature, the dominant way of being is one in which the efficient execution of one's job, efficient satisfaction of one's desires, and efficient accumulation of material wealth count as the good life. Because of all of this, it is difficult to come up with a singular answer to the question: What is our buffalo? Is there some inner-worldly entity that serves the same ontological gathering function that the buffalo did for the Crow? It seems unlikely that there is any one thing that serves the same world-gathering function, and that holds together and focuses all of the dispersed practices comprising our world. However, the Heideggerian account of modern technology can still provide a clue. Perhaps our buffalo is the fossil fuel that we have relied upon systematically since the maturation of the industrial revolution in order to power the machines and technological devices whose sprawling pervasiveness is the characteristic mark of our world and whose unending pollution has propelled us to the threshold of the Anthropocene. Our dependence on this buffalo has now begun, in the Anthropocene, finally to undermine the continuation of the way of life in which it so prominently figures. Every year brings new devices which soon become a necessity so that we can keep up with the others striving to keep up with modern life, devices with which we can more fully be available for communication, keep track of the extensiveness of our friends and contacts, measure the rhythms of our bodies, find the most efficient route to avoid traffic, monitor the temperature of our home, and engage in various life hacks while efficiently taking advantage of the ever-expanding Internet of Things. Perhaps, pushing this line of thought further, our buffalo is not fossil fuels, since one can imagine nuclear power and so-called renewables eventually taking the place of fossil fuels. Perhaps our buffalo is a kind of entity at a higher lever of abstraction: energy itself, the portable energy we harness from the natural world in order to power the machines and devices without which our current form of life and world would be unimaginable.21 Such speculations can go on, but we do not have to conclude here what to designate as our buffalo. Whether it is our technological devices themselves or the energy with which we power our devices, or something else, the ontological significance of the Anthropocene is such that our field of occurrences – whatever its "buffalo" – is susceptible to collapse. What is to be done? 2.3 Radical Hope and the Possibility of Cultural Reconfiguration 20 Martin Heidegger, "The Question Concerning Technology," in The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, trans. William Lovitt (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1977). 21 On the relevance of the phenomenon of energy for the Anthropocene, see, in the present volume, Michael Marder, "Philosophy's Homecoming," especially §1, "Energy." Flores and Rousse Ecological Finitude as Ontological Finitude 9 In the second half of Radical Hope, Lear outlines his interpretation of the virtues that were open to the Crow in the face of the collapse of their world. According to Lear, what the Crow required was a peculiar kind of hope, radical hope, and an extraordinary excellence of the poetical imagination so that, in response to the breakdown of a world, currently unforeseen and radically new possibilities for going on might be revealed.22 Radical hope, for Lear, is a stance of a commitment to possibility. But this is a peculiar kind of commitment: it is a commitment to something completely indeterminate and currently unimaginable: "The commitment is only to the bare possibility that, from this disaster, something good will emerge: the Crow shall somehow survive."23 Lear adds later that the "aim [of radical hope] was not merely the biological survival of the individual members of the tribe - however important that was - but the future flourishing of traditional tribal values, customs, and memories in a new context."24 Such a survival is what we can call "ontological survival," the survival of the Crow way of being and a world, the continuation of the Crow field of occurrences. Radical hope is a stance of maximal openness or receptivity to radically new possibilities in a situation of heightened ontological vulnerability, a situation in which one's way of life has become impossible. Hubert Dreyfus has posed a potent skeptical challenge to Lear's interpretation of Plenty Coups' actions and radical hope.25 We will frame our appropriation of the notion of radical hope in the context of the Anthropocene as a correction of Dreyfus's alternative to Lear's view. According to Dreyfus, Lear's emphasis on the "bare possibility" of a future continuation of the world is just too empty to be of any real relevance.26 Dreyfus points out that Lear provides no concrete example or explanation of how one could "take up traditional values that have become unintelligible."27 In turn, Dreyfus offers his own Heidegger-inspired approach to the reinterpretation of traditional practices: what he calls "reconfiguration." Dreyfus contends that leftover practices from previous phases of a cultural world remain operative in the margins of a current mainstream culture. Cultural "reconfiguration" happens when these marginal practices get re-interpreted and made central again in the culture, gathered into a new configuration of significance or cultural paradigm. One of Dreyfus's favorite examples of a recently failed but still illuminating attempt at cultural reconfiguration was the Woodstock music festival of 1969.28 "Even though it failed," Dreyfus remarks, Woodstock 22 Lear, Radical Hope, p.93, p.117, and p.146. Lear also mentions courage as an important virtue for those facing world collapse. 23 Ibid., p.97. 24 Ibid., p.145. 25 Hubert Dreyfus, "Comments on Jonathan Lear's Radical Hope," Philosophical Studies 144: 63–70. DOI 10.1007/s11098-009-9367-9 26 Ibid., p. 68 27 Ibid., p. 69. 28 Ibid., p.69. For an extended discussion of this example, see Dreyfus, "Heidegger on the Connection between Nihilism, Art, Technology, and Politics," in The Cambridge Companion to Flores and Rousse Ecological Finitude as Ontological Finitude 10 "helps us understand that we must foster our receptivity and preserve the endangered species of pre-technological practices that remain in our culture, in the hope that one day they will be pulled together in a new paradigm."29 We fully agree with Dreyfus's reservation about the emptiness of Lear's notion of radical hope as well as the lack of orientation in Lear's position regarding the possibility of cultural reconfiguration. However, Dreyfus's own account of reconfiguration is overly constrained and backward-looking. Reconfiguration is a Janus-faced phenomenon. The marginal practices that provide the material and impetus for cultural reconfiguration do not come only from the marginal leftovers of the past. Dreyfus's account of reconfiguration fails properly to account for what we will call historical emergence. The emergence of new entities and the happening of unexpected events harbor ontological power that could enable a reconfiguration of a world. There is a more robust account of world reconfiguration - one that allows for but does not develop in detail the crucial role of historical emergence - sketched in Disclosing New Worlds, a book on which both Dreyfus and one of us (Fernando Flores) collaborated.30 In that work, Flores, Dreyfus, and Spinosa refer, for example, to Sherry Turkle's research into the incipient practices in the early years of the Internet to provide an example of how new marginal practices of "identity morphing" (having multiple screen identities and avatars that are different from normal everyday identities) emerged along with the personal computer and the connectivity of the Internet and began to reconfigure cultural practices around identity and relationships.31 Additionally, in the phenomenology of the historical entrepreneur, Disclosing New Worlds gives further clues to the way everyday practices get reconfigured: "genuine entrepreneurs are sensitive to historical questions, not the pragmatic ones, and ... what is interesting about their innovation is that they change the style of our practices as a whole in some domain."32 An example given in Disclosing New Worlds is the way King Gillette contributed to a change in the style of personal hygiene with his introduction of the disposable razor, a tool that is no doubt part and parcel of the overall emphasis on efficiency characteristic of our technological epoch. Yet what we are here calling "historical emergence" and "reconfiguration" need to be further developed, especially with regard to the task of responding to our ontological vulnerability as foisted upon us in the Anthropocene. We are historical beings who live in historical worlds, that is, worlds that undergo reconfigurations of their field of occurrences over time. In the history of the West, we have had a Heidegger, ed. Charles Guignon, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006). See also Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Kelly, All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age (New York: Free Press, 2011), pp. 127ff. 29 Dreyfus, "Comments on Radical Hope," p. 69. 30. Charles Spinosa, Fernando Flores, and Hubert Dreyfus, Disclosing New Worlds: Entrepreneurship, Democratic Action, and the Cultivation of Solidarity (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997). 31 Ibid., p.13. Flores and Rousse Ecological Finitude as Ontological Finitude 11 few major cultural reconfigurations, milestones along the path that Heidegger called "the history of being," such as the shift from the Homeric world to the classical Greek world of Plato, the shift brought about by Jesus, and the massive reconfiguration from the medieval to the modern world as focused in the writings of Descartes. Regardless of whether this is the real history of being, or just the history of what philosophers have said about being (as Rorty once quipped), we can say this much: our fields of occurrence are not static; they are constitutively susceptible to the ongoing drift of historical reconfiguration. Even though we cannot predict the outcome or control the overall direction of such a shift, we can learn to be actively receptive to what is gathering. Historical and ontological change is not always an event that happens to us; as the peculiarly historical entities that we are (world disclosers), we can participate in this unfolding. In order to do so, we need to cultivate our own historical receptivity, our ability to detect the ripening of newly emergent possibilities in a historical moment. We can only briefly gesture here at what it would mean to cultivate our receptivity to historical emergence. As we have briefly mentioned above, new practices, along with new entities, technologies, identities, and ultimately new understandings of what is important and possible, emerge on the margins of the present and shape our trajectory into the future. While it is no doubt true that our worlds are rooted in practices of the past (as Dreyfus emphasized), the way the past practices shape our future trajectory is always open to changes that transpire and emerge unexpectedly in the present. To see examples of this phenomenon, it helps to look to the characteristic components of the everyday network of equipment (like disposable razor blades, cell phones, or automobiles) which we use in our daily activities and which shape the habits and overall style of our being in the world. One just has to look again at the way the personal computer, and then the smartphone and mobile connectivity emerged and cascaded in recent decades, reshaping the style of our everyday practices in areas such as communication (text messaging and photo and video sharing), education, peer to peer financial transactions, food consumption (delivery services), books, streaming services for television, movies, and music, transportation services ("ride sharing" applications), and everyday getting around (the ubiquity of GPS systems). Even though many of these practices still remain largely in tune with the technological enframing way of being dominant in our times, we can nevertheless see them as emergent marginal practices that may eventually be gathered into larger-scale, yet hitherto unforeseen cultural reconfigurations that will draw us to relate differently to each other and our natural environment.33 We can anticipate already certain contours of the worlds to-come, for 32 Ibid., pp. 42-43. 33 For an account of the way technological devices and connectivity are shifting social habits, see Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (New York: Basic Books, 2012); for a less alarmist interpretation, see Danah Boyd, It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014). Another useful recent popular book in this literature dedicated to monitoring and commenting upon the shifts in our practices elicited by technological emergence is Kevin Kelly, The Flores and Rousse Ecological Finitude as Ontological Finitude 12 example, in the way national borders are losing the significance they have had for millennia in defining centers of power and identity. Internet connectivity, genetic engineering, and geoengineering all can wreak world-impacting effects that cannot be contained by national borders. What overall significance this shift will have and how will it shape a future field of occurrences cannot yet be seen. The above examples provide hints of how small-scale contingent emergences of new components in our everyday "equipmental contexture" (to use a phrase from early Heidegger) can accumulate and eventually gather into broader shifts in our world, our sense of identity (that is, of who we are and what we stand for) and field of occurrences. Think too of how electricity went from a strange, marginal curiosity manipulated by magicians to pervading almost every aspect of our lives and radically expanding our horizon of possibilities. Such reconfigurations are not limited to the kinds of backward-looking detection of marginal practices left over from previous historical worlds and pre-technological understandings of being. Nor are they limited to the heroic cultural figures like Descartes and Jesus. World reconfiguration is a skill every human being as an essentially historical being is capable of cultivating, if we develop the right sensibilities for observing and participating in the ongoing emergent transformations in our practices, attitudes, and surrounding equipmental context. In refining this ability, we amplify our receptivity to new possibilities (and threats) emerging on the present margins. Such a heightened sensibility for everyday historical emergence would provide the forward-looking complement to Dreyfus's backward-looking openness to marginal practices left over in a culture from the past, and can help provide us a more robust orientation in responding to the potential collapse of our current world. Yet there are no guarantees, and no formulae to follow in such a navigation of the drift of history.34 It is important to emphasize that such emergent shifts in our worlds happen not just on the level of things and technologies, but also in our conversations, political sensibilities, and global mood. Indeed, the ongoing discursive explosion around the Anthropocene (and climate change more generally) is an indication that a shift in global mood and openness to new possibilities is gathering. Thus, the radical hope and imagination for a future shift in our practices does not have to be a hope or imagination for the "bare" possibility that something will change; it can be a hope and imagination fueled by an active receptivity to the ways in which things and possibilities historically emerge. Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future (New York: Viking, 2016) 34 Moreover, rather than there gathering one unified world, in the wake of the age of enframing, what might emerge is a plurality of temporary local-worlds across which we will be drawn to move. For discussion about the emergence of a plurality of temporary local worlds as opposed to a unified, singular post-technological world, see Hubert L. Dreyfus and Charles Spinosa, "Highway Bridges and Feasts: Heidegger and Borgmann on How to Affirm Technology," Man and World 30:2 (1997), reprinted in Hubert L. Dreyfus, Background Practices: Essays on the Understanding of Being, ed. Mark Wrathall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). Flores and Rousse Ecological Finitude as Ontological Finitude 13 With the emergence of new marginal practices, new technologies, and new forms of art in initially circumscribed domains, world-reconfiguration transpires and can be focused and accelerated by suitably sensitive participants in our historical drift. Again, this isn't a matter of waiting for someone to become the next Jesus or Descartes. The kind of shifts we are talking about happened with Pasteur for public health, with Faraday for electricity, with D.W. Griffith for narrative cinema, with Martin Luther King, Jr. for civil rights, with Black Sabbath for heavy metal music, with Steve Jobs for mobile connectivity, and so on. And such shifts are happening today in a still more diffuse way with questions about gender and sexual orientations, as popular shows like Transparent reveal and focus-and with issues surrounding the human being's relation to the earth, as the intensifications of Anthropocene and climate change discourses reveal. 3. Historical Emergence In an earlier account of what we call "the drift of historical emergence,"35 we elaborated on the example of the emergence of practices and attitudes around vaccination and public health that transpired on the basis of Pasteur's detection and interpretation of microorganisms, but we intend for the account to be generalizable.36 What began as a marginal observation of unidentified squiggling shapes in his microscope, a microscope he was looking into in order to investigate a breakdown in the fermentation of alcoholic beverages, ended up eventually radically reconfiguring our cultural practices and understanding around health, cleanliness, and wellbeing. The whole phenomenon of "public health" as we know it today (with things like standard vaccinations) emerged in Pasteur's wake. But Pasteur should not be seen as some kind of prototypical creative genius. What Pasteur was able to do was be maximally receptive to the historical forces gathering around him, while thereby also opening a space for a whole cascade of subsequent developments in our practices around infection, contagion, and health. Microorganisms had been observed a century before under the microscope of Anton van Leeuwenhoek, but these observations did not have the same world-disclosive import as 35 The account of historical emergence that we only briefly sketch here is based on an approach we developed in a study presented in 2013 to the Chilean government. The study, Surfing Towards the Future: Chile on the 2025 Horizon, was produced by the Chilean National Council on Innovation for Competitiveness (CNIC), which was led by Fernando Flores between 2008 and 2012. The notion of a "drift" of history (as opposed to, say, a teleologically guided or a nomothetically determined process) is partially inspired by the evolutionary theory of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. See for example, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1998), Chapter 5, "The Natural Drift of Living Beings." For an account of technological drift that we have found illuminating, see W. Brian Arthur, The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves (New York: Free Press, 2009). 36 Our take on Pasteur has been influenced by Bruno Latour, The Pasteurization of France, trans. Alan Sheridan and John Law (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993). Flores and Rousse Ecological Finitude as Ontological Finitude 14 Pasteur's. This is not due not only to Pasteur's superior sensitivity to the significance of what was before him, but also due to the greater momentum picked up in the gathering of the historical moment itself by the time of Pasteur. In our terminology, the historical moment was ripe for Pasteur's observations to generate a faint glow or fulgor, a dawning of a reconfiguration in our field of occurrences. Fulgor is a word in Spanish that means "glimmer" or "faint glow." We prefer to leave the word untranslated, because we use it as a technical term to capture the moment when a new configuration of our practices begins to appear, casting an initially faint and unfocused new light on our horizon of possibilities. Thus, a fulgor is the dawning of a new reconfiguration in a clearing, in the Heideggerian sense of Lichtung (the open space or field in which occurrences occur).37 In the context of a pre-established form of life and routine of practices, new openings to the future emerge at first as a fulgor in the faint light of which new understanding and practices can further develop; these may eventually turn into the new technologies and practices of tomorrow, altering our space of possibilities. A moment of fulgor has, for the suitably receptive observer, a characteristic mood of unsettlement accompanied by a sense of promise and a feeling that what is beginning to be understood exceeds one's current ability to grasp and express it. This is often the result of observing and holding onto an anomaly.38 In this context, we use "anomaly" not in Kuhn's technical sense, but in a related sense to refer to an emergent and unexpected upsurge that has the potential to upset and reconfigure our taken-for-granted way of doing things. Pasteur was initially responding to a breakdown in the fermentation process, but his observation of strange, anomalous, microscopic, moving shapes (what we now call "bacteria") eventually produced a fulgor for him pertaining to the phenomena of infection and contagion. For this initial fulgor to emerge in the first place, a whole range of historically contingent practices, concerns, and technologies had to have already emerged so that they could contribute to and be focused in the shift about to take place. In Pasteur's case, the microscope as an item of equipment had to have already been on the scene, as did the recently emergent discipline of 37 We would like to highlight in passing here that the fulgor phenomenon, which can be elicited from a development in technology or, say, an ecological crisis, or the disappearance of buffalo, reveals the intertwinement (rather than the separation and differentiation) of the Heideggerian dimensions of being and beings (the ontological and the ontical). In this way, our account can be seen as beginning to provide a response to a worry Richard Polt has raised about Heidegger's tendency to insist on a separation between being and beings. Polt writes of a "need to challenge Heidegger's conviction that beings cannot ground be-ing [Seyn]," adding that "the attempt to find being emerging from beings is an important alternative to Heidegger's separation of be-ing (the event of emergence) from all beings." See Polt, The Emergency of Being (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 2006), pp. 245-246. A fulgor is precisely a way in which being emerges from beings. 38 For Flores's earlier account of this sense of unsettlement and how this sense of "anomaly" relates to the way Kuhn uses the term in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: Flores and Rousse Ecological Finitude as Ontological Finitude 15 chemistry, the longstanding practice of fermenting alcoholic beverages, shared public concerns with plague, concerns with improving surgical practices, concerns with livestock mortality, and growing interest in cleaning up densely packed urban areas; all of these elements and more accumulated and created the opening in which Pasteur could be receptive to the fulgor moment in which he could find a new, ultimately world-disclosive, significance in the squiggling, weird shapes underneath his microscope. Although he himself was not aware of this as such, Pasteur demonstrated the kind of "imaginative excellence" (in Lear's words) that can enable someone to contribute to the disclosure of a new world. With the discursive explosion surrounding the Anthropocene, as well as climate change more generally (for example, with Pope Francis's recent Encyclical), with fossil fuels as cheap and yet as contested as ever, with climate disaster-events such as "super storms" visiting us with greater frequency, with rising middle classes in India and China that will put exponentially greater pressures on the stability of the earth's environment, with the shifts in emergences pertaining to all of the new technologies we mentioned above, can we now detect the gathering of new historical forces, the setting of a stage for a new fulgor that may reconfigure our world? Do we have the historical sensibility to locate our new buffalo? Can we adequately expand our "imaginative excellence" as historical beings, or has our ontological vulnerability been already too drastically exposed? Again, the intuition we've explored here is that, as historical beings, we can all cultivate an imaginative sensibility to the way historical moments ripen and gather around us, not only through refocusing marginal practices left over from the past, but by focusing new marginal entities and practices that emerge in the present. Of course, we cannot expect that any shift in a sub-domain of our practices will trigger a wholesale reconfiguration of our world that will stimulate an alteration the habits and practices that have so degraded our natural environment. But we can transmit an increased general sensibility to historical emergence, the ontical cradle of being, which can feed our imagination and overall receptivity to shifts that may start out as marginal, and incrementally gather and be focused in a heretofore still unanticipated shifts in our ways of life. In this way, we can heed Heidegger's own call to prepare a "new beginning" and a "last god" to succeed our technological epoch, and we can do so by cultivating practices of actively receiving and navigating the emergence of being from things. 4. Human beings in the History of Nature Our ontological vulnerability is not something to bemoan or an ailment for which we should seek a cure; it is part and parcel of our historical way of being. The possible collapse of our world is at the same time the possibility for the emergence of a new world (or worlds), new configurations of our field of occurrences. Whether or not we succeed in heightening our sensibilities for a more active participation in the drift of historical emergence, and whether or University of Chicago Press, 1962), see the chapter on entrepreneurship in Flores et al., Disclosing New Worlds. Flores and Rousse Ecological Finitude as Ontological Finitude 16 not this is of any use in activating our imaginations for new and alternative ways of going on in a new beginning, we are now invited (if not compelled) to reinterpret ourselves as belonging to the long history of emergence and disappearance of entities and species on this planet. Let us assume this historical belonging in a mood of gratitude rather than despair (as though there is nothing for us to do about it, since global capitalism and technology are too entrenched and unhindered for us to change anything) or techno-arrogance (as though we can count on the progress of technology and geoengineering eventually to solve all problems for us once and for all). We have been able to take for granted as a stable background condition the ecological niche in which our species evolved on the planet. Yet now, the cumulative impact of our activities is beginning to undermine the very ecological conditions that enabled our lineage to emerge and proliferate in the first place. Our bubble is bursting, to use a metaphor from Peter Sloterdijk.39 It was only within a specific ecological niche that our species, like any, was able to emerge and flourish. All such ecological niches also have their vulnerability, their own buffalo, so to speak, that enable them to function as a coherent and vibrant whole. The carbon dioxide and other side effects of our ways of life are compromising the stability of our ecological niche. Whether or not we are able to develop the sensibilities for monitoring and navigating the waves of historical emergence in such a way that we can be actively receptive to what is gathering in our current historical moment, we can nevertheless be grateful at having been granted the chance to linger for a while in this contingent history of nature. Perhaps our disappearance will provide the opening for new and wondrous worlds. 39 Peter Sloterdijk, Bubbles: Spheres Volume 1: Microsphereology, trans. Wieland Hoban (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2011). | {
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Albert R. Efimov – Head of Robotics Laboratory, PJSC Sberbank; postgraduate student, Russian Academy of Sciences, [email protected] Efimov, Albert "Technological background of Individuality of Human and its Computer imitation." Artificial societies. 14.4 (2019). DOI: 10.18254/S207751800007645-8 https://artsoc.jes.su/s207751800007645-8-1/ TECHNOLOGICAL PREREQUISITES FOR INDISTINGUISHABILITY OF A PERSON AND HIS/HER COMPUTER REPLICA Introduction Some people wrongly believe that A. Turing's works that underlie all modern computer science never discussed "physical" robots. This is not so, since Turing did speak about such machines, though making a reservation that this discussion was still premature. In particular, in his 1948 report [8], he suggested that a physical intelligent machine equipped with motors, cameras and loudspeakers, when wandering through the fields of England, would present "the danger to the ordinary citizen would be serious." [8, ]. Due to this imperfection of technology in the field of knowledge that we now call robotics, the methodology that he proposed was based on human speech, or rather on text. Other natural human skills were too difficult to implement, while the exchange of cues via written messages was much more accessible for engineering implementation in Turing's time. Nevertheless, since then, the progress of computer technology has taken forms that the founder of artificial intelligence could not have foreseen. Nowadays, images of people, animals, and fictional creatures on a computer screen or in a movie are nothing new. However, the previous generation of computer graphics technology – from Disney's cartoons to high-end computer graphics of the best-equipped Hollywood studios – only imitated reality, using it as the basis for their designs. Developers of computer graphics have created a new virtual reality that is so similar to the world we observe as the best works of classical painters: it does not merely reflect the world around us but also the artist's individual view of it, and the latter affects the audience's impressions. The new generation of technologies that is emerging right now, before our eyes, is making another approach available. Computer graphics are going to become more than an alternative to the real world, or rather, they will exist as its active extension: a video or photo image of reality will be taken as the basis for new images, video or audio samples. The resulting images may have never existed in reality, yet it will look completely realistic. In this regard, it is perfectly appropriate to recall the ancient Greek story of two painters, Zeuxis and Parrhasius [3]. Zeuxis and Parrhasius were rivals, each of them willing to paint over the wall of a great temple. Quite an audience gathered, and the two rivals came forth, each of them bringing veiled paintings. Zeuxis was the first to pull back his veil, and lo, there was a bunch of grapes, so similar to real ones that birds flocked to peck at them. The audience applauded. "Now you pull the veil away!" Zeuxis said to Parrhasius. "But I can't," Parrhasius replied, "the veil is just what I have painted." And Zeuxis dropped his head. "You win!" he said. "I have deceived the eyes of the birds, but you have deceived the eyes of the painter" [3]. In our opinion, virtual reality, recreated with the maximum likelihood of computer graphics (which is an incredibly intellectual tool of an artist, who is also a specialist in computer 2 graphics), can be correlated with the skill of Zeuxis. In this case the technology of "complementing / augmentation" of reality related to processing images of real objects in artificial neural networks is associated with the skill of Parrhasius. This old tale can also provide the starting point for our further philosophical reasoning. We do not propose to compare objective reality, computer graphics, virtual reality, and augmented reality. Rather, it is a comparison of the ways in which a machine communicates with a person – how much a person can trust a machine (medium) to deliver a message to another person. Can a machine do this as efficiently as a person? We can extend the wellknown aphorism of M. McLuhan that "the medium is the message" [5] and declare that "the machine is the medium." M. McLuhan could not imagine television without humans. But now this is not only conceivable but already real. E.LENA – digital avatar, television announcer In early 2019, Sberbank introduced the first digital Russian-language television announcer E.LENA (Electronic LENA), generated as a life-like image of a television announcer. Using artificial neural networking technologies to improve images is not new: every smartphone already has several applications that modify the users' photos satisfying their vanities (removing wrinkles, blurring the background, and correcting colors) in an online mode. We already begin to perceive the surrounding reality as if it had been processed through filters of popular applications, and there already exists even a special designation (hashtag) #nofilter for the normal, clear view of objective reality. However, the complementing / reconstruction of reality is a fairly new technology: the objects presented to the user in a video sequence seem real documents, as they realistically reflect scenes or objects that are familiar to the user. At the same time, what happens to these objects has never happened in reality and cannot happen. In English, this phenomenon came to be labeled by the catchy word deepfake, and it is frequently associated with negative phenomena of socio-political life. It is difficult to say who first proposed the idea of complete digitization of an actor or television presenter. This is going to take special research into history of pop culture and science fiction. However, the idea of a thorough digitization of a professional actor was first explicitly implemented in the little known sci-fi movie The Congress (2013). For the first time, a digital replica of a television announcer was presented by the Chinese company Sogou that developed a platform solution, commissioned by the Chinese news agency Xinhua in November 2018. A little later, the Russian Sberbank independently developed and presented a similar technology in the Russian language. The Sberbank digital television announcer can fully automatically read out any text. This enables us to use this solution as a news television announcer on Sberbank corporate television. Currently, dozens of newsreels have been produced using this technology. The audience are hundreds of thousands of employees and customers of Sberbank, who have watched the news delivered by the digital television announcer through various communication channels. Further, we consider this technology in more detail. "What E.LENA has under her hair?" The voice of E.LENA is speech synthesized by artificial neural networks of deep learning. In order to create this voice, it was necessary to train neural networks using specially prepared 3 recordings of the original speaker's voice (she is a professional actress) and to develop software that allows converting arbitrary text into speech. Designers form E.LENA's facial expressions using an ensemble of artificial neural networks, pre-trained on specially prepared data: video materials and 3D scans of the prototype actress (currently E.LENA's voice samples and video images belong to different actresses). As a result of these two-stage transformations that take place without human intervention, we obtain the facial expressions and the speech of a digital television announcer. Then, using automated technological tools and components of computer vision and speech recognition systems, they apply processing, and, as a result, errors are detected and eliminated. Following this, a realistic video is ready for use. The whole complex is a holistic solution based on several independent technologies with AI components. At the moment, the service for converting text to video operates only as a trial version with the corporate television service of PJSC Sberbank. About 50 different newsreels have been produced using this program. The current implementation of E.LENA has quite a number of drawbacks: poor synchronization of lip movement and spoken text, a limited range of poses, an unnatural voice, etc. However, technology is developing rapidly, and, in the very near future, many companies and research centers will be able to develop high-end products. The current implementation of E.LENA can deceive many people and make them believe in her reality. Sberbank conducted a survey in its corporate community, which included 1.5 million users of the Odnoklassniki.ru social network, about the "nature of Elena," presenting two samples to the visitors of this group at the same time: one was the human female announcer, and the other was the digital announcer E.LENA. Even in the imperfect current implementation, over 25% of the 22 thousand survey participants made a mistake (or doubted) about determining the nature (digital or human) of the announcer. Verbal and non-verbal communication Human interaction is based on our mutual understanding of the meaning of communication, reflecting not only the intentions in specific communication as they are manifested in our speech and language but also in the context of interaction, which can be geographical, temporal, or semantic. In communication, we also take into account numerous social and cultural characteristics of interlocutors (for example, in the academic environment we tend to use expressions that are different from those suitable while shopping in the market). Generally, in order for a machine (a computer or a robot) to understand a person, it is necessary to ensure understanding of all the three aspects of meaning that we put into speech: language, context, and culture. Therefore, an approach to the study of artificial intelligence that is focused solely on processing of natural languages, seems insufficient to reveal the meaning embedded in communication. All the three modalities of revealing the meaning (language, culture, and context) are contained not only in the literal meaning of words but in implicit cultural data, which D. Everett calls "dark matter" [7]. The latter does not only consist of semantic combinations of words and phrases but also, for example, of gestures accompanying locutory actions. In his book, Mladen Dolar gives an example of how K. Stanislavsky instructed his drama students to develop fifty different ways to say the phrase, "Tomorrow night," implementing various intentions [4]. Interlocutors modify their facial expressions, gestures, and intonation 4 in accordance with the syntactic structure of the sentence and use them as explanations to specify implicit information contained in the speaker's and the listener's cultural or personal backgrounds. D. Everett rightly notes that "language never expresses everything, and culture fills these gaps" [7]. The traditional approach to study of artificial intelligence, based on the text, and in fact on "teletype" messages that came down to us from the era of analog electronics, ignores the hidden "dark matter" of communication, since the interpretation of the message (according to Everett) considers not only verbal reasoning but also the accompanying gestures and facial expressions. Digital television announcer as a tool for studying person-machine communication Since the moment A. Turing suggested replacing the question, "Can machines think?" with his imitation game, where he proposed to exchange "notes" or teletype messages in communication, AI researchers have, in fact, largely forgotten to pay attention to how messages are transmitted between the judge and the subjects through the so-called "Turing wall," which separates the participants in the imitation game. Hundreds of scientific and popular works on artificial intelligence have completely ignored the issue of "non-verbal" communication with machines. One of very few exceptions is the 1977 Soviet popular science film Who Is Behind the Wall? (1977), where the "Turing Wall" became a video wall. According to the authors of the present article, E.LENA could become a new tool for studying the problems of person-machine interaction and of artificial intelligence by extending A. Turing's method, which later became known as the Turing test. Modern progress in the field of creating "augmented reality," digital avatars, and television announcers such as E.LENA poses another important question: can a machine create the same interpretative basis of speech as a human person, using not only a certain set of words to express thoughts or intentions, but also means of non-verbal communication: facial expressions and gestures? Will a machine possess such an arsenal of tools for a communicative act as a person possesses? Or will we remove the Turing wall only to see microcircuits and batteries of a fraud machine. The technologies for creating augmented digital reality give us the opportunity to form a new imperfect special Turing test, to use the term suggested by A.Yu. Alekseev [1]. An imperfect special Turing test focuses on testing only one component of the original Turing test. In this case, the proposed special Turing test (STT) is aimed at testing the non-verbal communication capabilities of computing sofware. According to A. Alekseev, STT is described by the following components: the subject of testing, an implementation scheme, test questions and answers. In addition, A. Alekseev suggests supplementing the description of the testing itself with discussion (similar to the way A. Turing approached the analysis of objections to his original test) and a description of the sociocultural consequences. When describing the proposed special Turing test "E.LENA," we use the proposed approach. Subject of testing In fact, E.LENA is a simulation set of the virtual environment of a television studio. The function of a television studio as a mass medium is to form a specific picture of the world for its audience. The subject of testing proposed in the "E.LENA" STT is the person's ability to perceive information offered by a digital TV presenter, broadcast from a digital television studio. In fact, E.LENA (or rather the software package that creates it) converts text 5 information into an audiovisual format. According to the creators of the system, this should be similar to the format of a television news studio. In the test proposed, we determine how people perceive information delivered by digital television announcers, and whether there is a difference between a person's perception of information when it is transmitted to him by a human announcer and by a digital television announcer. Like the original Turing test, E.LENA's test leads to a binary result. If the observer's perception of the information is no worse than when viewing the news voiced by a human host, then we consider the test is passed. If the observer comprehends less of the information when the news is voiced by the robot, then the test is not passed. Further, we will refer to the specific implementation of the E.LENA test as "the experiment." Implementation environment Let us clarify the terms used in all design options of the experiment. The object of the study is an observer in the terminology of A. Turing, or judge (J), when we use A.Yu. Alekseev's term. E.LENA is a tool ("medium," in the terminology of M. McLuhan), which is used to study J's reactions to information received ("message," in M. McLuhan's terminology). E.LENA is the digital avatar, or television announcer, i.e., a software product that converts text compiled by the experimenter into a video sequence. The conversion takes place instantly (one second of video is generated in less than one second). A Judge (J) is a person who views each video sample, including E.LENA as a television announcer. The subject of testing (research) is J's reaction to E.LENA: an error in the perception of information and rejection (acceptance) of E.LENA as a television announcer (source of information). J is the main object of the experiment. The Human (H) is a person who acts as a television announcer in various versions of this experiment. The television announcer (T) is the role that H or E.LENA can fulfill. In the course of this specific experiment, the J is supposed to watch videos in which people talk about themselves or answer sets of questions. In TV commercials, a H or E.LENA (wearing similar clothes and sitting in the same studio) read out their texts, which mostly coincide in theme and style, following which J is asked to assess the skills of these announcers. If J does not distinguish E.LENA from the other presenters, we consider the test passed. Testing software This E.LENA special Turing test exists in two versions. Version 1. "Find the robot." In this version of the experiment, J sequentially watches several video fragments in which H or E.LENA can play the role of the announcer. Each video fragment lasts under 25 seconds (in the terminology of news journalism, this fragment is called "a soundbite") (School of Journalism, 2017). In accordance with the rules for formation of newsreels, the number of such sequences should not exceed four. That is why in the proposed test the number of soundbites voiced by various announcers, including E.LENA, is limited to four [2]. The background picture for all video clips remains the same. All T texts are on the same topic (culture, sports, weather, etc.). The task of J is to determine in which of the fragments E.LENA performed the role of the television speaker. The test is considered passed if the probability of determining E.LENA in all video clips does not exceed 50%. 6 Version 2. "Happiness comes when people understand you." In this version of the experiment, J watches several video clips in which a person or E.LENA can act as presenters. Each clip lasts no more than 25 seconds. A total of four video clips with various presenters are played (among which there are several human presenters and E.LENA). The background picture for all the sequences is the same. All texts of television announcers belong to the same topic (sports, culture, weather). The task of J is to determine for each of the video clips viewed, the sequence of key facts or opinions that are explicitly expressed. Examination of J is carried out right after the viewing. The test is considered passed if J's average error when answering questions after watching the video clips with human presenters is the same as when answering questions after watching E.LENA's videos. Each of the variants is carried out in series, where the roles of J are performed by different people. At least 10 episodes should be performed with each J. Discussion and possible objections The key objection that can be made against the development of the proposed STT is the following: this development does not belong in the AI field – it rather represents a new type of computer graphics. This objection mixes the technology that we use to obtain a digital avatar (in particular, a television announcer) and its general suitability for TT implementation. Imitation game players could use the image of a digital television announcer in order to more successfully deceive the J of a classic TT. On the other hand, following Everett, we admit that non-verbal communication can matter no less than understanding speech proper. And this explains the widespread use of video communication among the younger generation. As the above quotes indicate, A. Turing suggested using teletype only because in his time it was impossible to even imagine something like E.LENA. Now this has become a reality that cannot be ignored in studies of the interaction of persons and machines. Another objection may be based on the final and successful passage of the E.LENA test. We can say that in this case, the AI conducting a dialogue with J "from behind the wall," will be but a reflection, and not so much of the J, but of the image that served as the basis for E.LENA. Yet we never claimed this to be a "general" intelligence test. It just "equalizes" the non-verbal capabilities of man and of the machine. While before the arrival of E.LENA and similar systems, machines did not have the possibility of influencing human interpretation channels in full, now such possibilities can be investigated and subsequently implemented. Conclusion: the socio-cultural implications Of course, we are still very far from the far-reaching ideas of A. and B. Strugatsky that "any employee with a M.Sc. degree could create models based on his own doubles" [6]. Now the process of creating a full digital replica of a television announcer takes months of work, if we employ a solid multidisciplinary team of video processing engineers and developers. But changes are happening very fast. The experience of operating E.LENA in Sberbank shows that the profession of a television announcer may recede after several years. However, we cannot be quite sure whether a digital avatar will help people to better understand artificial intelligence. We only know for sure that this will help us to feel better about the inevitable future. 7 REFERENCES 1. Alekseyev A.Yu. Kompleksnyy test T'yuringa: filosofskometodologicheskiye i sotsio-kul'turnyye aspekty [The comprehensive Turing test: philosophical, methodological and socio-cultural aspects]. Moscow: IInteLL, 2013. (In Russian) 2. Gavrilov K. Kak delat' syuzhet novostey i stat' mediatvortsom [How to make a news story and become a media creator]. Saint Petersburg: Amfora, 2007. (In Russian) 3. Davydova L.I., Kon'kova G.I., & Chubova A.P. Antichnyye mastera. Skul'ptory i zhivopistsy [Antique masters. Sculptors and painters]. Leningrad: Iskusstvo, 1986. (In Russian) 4. Dolar M. A voice and nothing more. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. 5. McLuhan M. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. 6. Strugatsky A.N. & Strugatsky B.N. Ponedel'nik nachinayetsya v subbotu: Skazka dlya nauchnykh rabotnikov mladshego vozrasta [Monday starts on Saturday: A tale for young scientists]. Moscow: Detskaya literatura, 1965. (In Russian) 7. Everett D.L. How Language Began: The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention. New York: W. W. Norton, 2017. 8. Turing A. Intelligent Machinery (1948). In: B.J. Copeland (Ed.) The Essential Turing (pp. 395–432). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. 9. Shkola zhurnalistiki [School of Journalism] (In Russian) | {
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Teaching philosophy, l6:2, Jwne 1993 123rsophy moved to ,,center lry'' was that it absorbed 'nd" (Moral phitosophy, 8. Hartford, Connecticut tA[. NCE f Seicncc ntemotionol lhod, ond ol sciencos I nes€orch ond methods :dirciplinas , Chomistry, ciology, sues) rda keting ft, From Classroom to Boardroorn: Teacriing Fracticar Ethics cutside the Acaderny ELLEN R. KLEIN University of North Flarido Socrates had it righ.t ailarong. philosophy cannot be taught, at least not:il:il:::jJ:J;1t: +*:r'";;;l ,, nor rnerery a roo' where inand srudenr .",r" lt^:lYoen t,.bu t a prace, indero unypiui*,-Jn"r* reacher r*r1:,:;{;,f;:1,':,,'#,i+1{1trtIii.#,,.jfil*j*tr*itT? :: jff cr a s s ro o m, b u t i n n " i 0,.. #*fi J1:"ffi :,?lr,l; l1:J;:liJ: Ts"l:: Not Business as usttal Much progress has been made introdur. t h e a r t o r p h' o s o p h i z i n g ; i' ;. ;;;::1": xff ill"" j*ff : L1,,1 : i;role-playing. on"-11,srr' ii1, nr1*"""r,'*nf srop rhere? Why limit theopporrunirv for detra.re and discussion-io activirt;: ;;; de *a's of theacademy? whv nor rea". rh" ;i;iroi uno give stucrenrs a chance ro"do" ph'osophv i',the ',ur *rriJr orii*rrun.", instead of simpry form-ing debare teims -1,1::li:k+;;il, ji. cons of eurhunuriu orhabitardestruction, why not ler srudents purii"ipur, ln u.t"ui-J""x,lr_,nru,", 1'1jffiT ; : :-i:f '*"#;'J| ::Jj :n:',:kr, : r ;u "'iv, i", i* uT o,, i, u. i n t o t h e " o * *, n lty r o p a r r i c i p a r " il ; ; ;.:ffi l?";,XiJrl"ii: ; : ;, " o " ",, re-class prepartttiorc rn preparation' I appealed to the chambers of commerce of two coun_ :iliF :il I# :x ff.1:'1',:l:::*:li:',' n d a n a dj a ce ;; ;;il, i n c, u s.which ran in their bur .c,assrhep,i,i,iti,]lr,m*hli;*$i':.::"1'_,iiff ff i,'J"'#, j; to my project. x askecr ,r,r,-,i,.y p";i;"#:::1T'"rilJJ::l"jiir:Ti: assisr in the on_going operarion;f.r;;^;;;eany,s erhics commi*ee or. if @Teaching phitosoplry,1993. All rights reserved .0745_57gglg3/1d02-0123$1.00 tEss I24 ELLEN R. KLEIN the company had no ethics committee' to allow us to participate in the i""""ii;ii"n and development of o,1l'^-.,-o favorably to the appeal. Six -itii:t:llii""ff llJ'iln.";fi 'f:!iil;;;'"*i!o'lo*""wi'ih'[he head of the ethics "o-*iit"" it uLu'g"po*"' Companys (which emp r o y e d o v e r 2, 0o 0 dil;' i; " 9 0 ":' l,i X: a:: ""1 [,H,'J,'$ T I il?ff: ill[H.:"l'? J TffiHi ;T l"J :il;i""# ; ; ioo p " o pr " 1 D u r in g these meeting" t *u'";;lt" i" t"""i"tt boih companies to participate' By the time classeJ U"g^" t*t more larg" to'potutions had'signed on: a n I n te r n a t i tt u r crt J'iiiif ^'p'o J u t t i o n"C J' p u n y (wh ose I oc al p I a n t e moloved over 100 d;i;;';;i u s-uu"t"p6*"i bo-punv (rvhich empfoy.a 60 PeoPle)' In-Class PreParations Eight students signed on for the class?' I created four group^s'and paired the student' t'p *oirr'u"n'l^'nut' at'O philosophy major/non-major' so as to Hli[l;":,:g,rult?;:$:]''.:"i*ir*t:ti]'1512;";;weeksor normative ethics" j"a il"tt""ts-etttics"zf Three *:"It examininq casestudies in business "ii#;1"0,:) r,,gtri *""t, of alternating oi-site" visits with "tuSS pr"r""rr't^Jtio* uuo"t thi visits by each of the four groups' Thein-classp'";;;;;i;anddiscussiuon'*Lt"tofocusonwhatwas rearned at the ""-;;;t ;"d11n11iy: **1;;1ft[:1;;:::Ji";]":l ;:t**'":#f ;: :'1ii:1"::'l:fi ;j;,;;;' " "'u " i' r'h e cr a s s w a s "-p*"a to particioate in all discusstons' -'t^ D uring tt'"'" "'i5i"iJiJ'" "iuttt"om sessions (betwe e n'comp any vrsits), my role was ;;iil;;t;f tooeratoi' t helped maintain philosophicat rocus a'd rem,Jsiudents tl:"1::iiîb-v;v *:'l:t::lmethod or analvsisandthep;;;;useoftheoreticaiconstiuctsthatrationaldecisioni are '"u"h"d'''I-5;;;;";;J the students to question'and challenge management,'n"iJ t*"""i"ti1 !"a li t;;'nutiul ethical theories thev were attempting to apply: *t'itt ma'niui;i;; "^ eye '?n the students' goals for change, thei, pr"tu'io*' q9ti1i"". "1;:outli-â"-1',rund the psycholosical unO ""oro*]" t'u",ott p".iliut to their company"The Teacher On-Site Iviewedmyrolewhileon-siteasthatofnurturer.Iremindedthestudents prior t" "*il t"-'it" ""it that Lworked for th ''and that I was available ir tney ieeiaei -"-u. teacher, senior philosopher' person unabletobeintimidatedby*u"ug"*"n-''";;'i";""er'Ialsoinstilledin them the u"ri"r t'nl1 t]r]rlu, it "ii "o.r"uiiin uno that, in the f al analvsis' they were t"'pt'n'iUf" for their projects'13 I In addition to just b' opportunitY to cast a ( Although I never corre notes during each visit ward (usuallY at a rest' sion. I told them what about their Performan Practical accomPlishl Power ComPanY, this t the ethics committee t form and content. These changes requ committee-emPloYe' were not being rePre which the comPanY s areas of serious ethica indirectlY affected the aeenda and that certe n-ut.d. FinallY. and m determined bY the cli by the CE,O (who c' committee was imPol committee members ParentheticallY, wl demarcate ethical de responded bY claimi sions and offering cr from their colleague In the end, all men were needed and in UnderstandablY, s committees, the stuc jects and successes'. The students work gestions:1) A comPl was essentiallY a one behave in certain wi The develoPment o document and then tions were taken se ethical code. as we committee to overs participate in the to the appeal. Six i to meet with the ranys (which emiscuss my project rctors) of a Large people). During to participate. ns had signed on: ;e local plant empanv (which emroups and paired n-major, so as to 1) Four weeks of examining case- :rnating on-site11 f the four groups. )cus on what was t during the next ugh each pair of :r of the class was ren company visntain philosophi- :ritical method of rat rational decirn and chalienge cal theories they on the students' " and the psycho- :minded the stua, and that I was pher, person unI also instilled in the final analysis, FROM CLASSROOMTO BOARDROOM I25 In addition to just being there for the students, I also saw this as an opportunity to cast a critical eye on their philosophical performances. Although I never corrected the students while on-site I did take careful notes during each visitla and met with each group informally soon afterward (usualiy at a restaurant somewhere on the route home) for discussion. tr told them what I thought was good (or could have been better) about their performances. P ractical A cco mp lis hments Practical accomplishments were achieved. In the case of the Large Po,wer Company, this translated into the students convincing the head of the ethics committee that his organization must undergo changes, both in form and content. These changes required the inclusion of two additional groups to the committee**employees from sections of the company whose interests were not being represented and non-ernployees from the community which the company served. Furthermore, it was suggested that certain areas of serious ethical concern (for exampie, decisions which directly or indirectly affected the environment) be incorporated into the committee agenda and that certain questions of a purely legalistic nature be eliminated. Finally, and much to the r-lismay of the committee head, it was determined by the class that insofar as the committee was not attended by the CEO (who could override any and all decisions it made), the committee was impr:tent and mere window dressing. The students urged committee members to fight for ernpowerment. Farenthetically, when challenged by the ethics committee officer to demarcate ethical decisions from other kinds of decisions, the students responded by claiming that there was an ethical component to all decisions and offering case studies learned in the classroom and examples from their colleagues' experiences on-site to back up their position. In the end, all members of the committee concurred that these changes were needed and in the brest interest of the company" Understandabiy, since none of the other companies had existing ethics committees, the students working at those three sites had different projects and successes" The students working at the Small Power Company made two bold suggestions: 1) A complete revamping of the existing "Code of Ethics" (which was essentially a one-sided legal document in which employees promised to behave in certain ways, regardless of the eonduet of management) and,2) The development of a committee first to oversee the reworking of the documeirt and then to continue to play a role in its evolution. tsoth suggestions were taken seriously and the students were asked to develop a more ethical code, as weli as a proposal for the development of an ethics crimmittee to oversee incclrporation into company policy.ts 1.26 ELLEN R. KLErN The students working with the Large Manufacturing Company andthose working with the International chemical prodriction companystarted with existing mechanisms for employee/employer relations (for example, employee grievance committees) and attempied to expand thescope of employee representation and the types .f ;pi.r; concernswhich could be addressed. Here the students iound u g."ui "t,uuenge inconvincing management that it was not only ethicalry firpo.J.rt but also"businesswise" to allow workers to play i larg". rore in the decision-making process of the company. The success of the students working with the Internationar chemicalProduction.company wa-s marked uy-tne fact that they were asked tomoderate discussions at the company,s monthly employee/_u.rug"_"nt meetings. Management agreed t-o thir change i'prl."ou.e after it wasconvinced_that employees were more frank-and open with the students Prel!.n!t workers agreed because they felt that student involvement lentcredibility to their comments and complaints. The two sides viewed thestudents, appropriately, as impartial advocates for better relati'ns. The last pair of students (who worked with the Large t runuru"turing company) met with more difficulties than the studen-ts working at theother three sites' And, in the final analysis, their contribution to thecompany's amelioration was minimal. At'best it can be saio ttre studentsshowed management tha-t.it was unjustly elitist and that the presentcommittees were hierarchicar and tyrannicar.16 This, ho;;;;;, did notprevent the students from learning iomething. Although utiioo ott"r,when the students approached -unug"n'"nt *it' ideai for giving theworkers more freedom and autonomylhey were met with comments tothe effect that if these rights were exiended they would be abused, thestudents pressed on undaunted. By using theii philosophical toolr-offering competing scenarios, in wirich ,ilgnt, uni pri"il;;;;;ere ex_tended to the workers resulting in greater pioductiviiy unJfr-rit-ron'" progress was made. What the Students Learned Although there were days in which I spent many hours meeting cEosand plant managers for lunch and diicussing personal tensions withtop-management and students, the overall feelLg from the stuoents anothe members of the business community was positive.rt For a teacher, however' success is ultimaiely measured by studentlearning' Judging from the performances both in and out of the class-room, I believe the students did indeed learn. upon reading each stu-dent's personal testimony, I grew even more convinced. All eight students rearned the varue of philosophy, in terms of gaining a background in ethical rheoryr8 and in deveroping criti.at thinking skills.Here are a few comments which attest to tnir''on" philos;;ht major FI claimed to have discove pursuit but has real, pri business major stated, ") vocative questions that r process." Another businc in every part of the life major (a returning stud claimed to have learnec debate and analyze ever learned "to defend my b the other philosophy maj only an oxymoron, but th the hypocritical propagar socialisml"le Evd At the beginning of the ative weight as the follo, mined by the quantity an additional 20o/" of" the fin ism, creativity, and philo projects (5% each) follou students were to offer a were attempting to carry and any philosophical co ethics or business ethics I analysis. The final 60% c quality of their written w paper on any topic in bus This heavy emphasis o for it did not specify that company they worked w their papers focus on the have a successful experi, ethics. I should have real on-site experience would up with a good topic or w Further, not placing grt mistake, given the dynami< the students were so excil respective company that unimportant and the qual It would have been bett very least, insist that the p îtl:rr'lr Company and.ar _rroductlon Companyeremployer rela tions (tbr arrempred to expand ihe es ot employee concerns ).und a.greal challenge in ucaily lmportant buialso 3er role in the decision_ Inrernational Chemical Inat they were asked lo employee/managemen t r procedure after it was open with the sludents uoent involvement lent re, rwo sides viewed the I Defter relations. : I.arge Manufacturing uoents working at th! rr contribution to the ln be said the students ,and. that the present nrs, however, did not tt,nough all too often r ldeas for giving the ret with.orrn"nt, tovould be abused. the nrrosophicai tools_ . privileges were ex_ tty and profit.-some FROM CLASSROOM TO BOARDR.OOM 727 ciairned to have discovered that, "phitrosophy is not just some abstractpursuit but has real,.practicut uppiirutrrns outside the ciassroom.,, Abusi'ess rnajor stated, "I learned'irr, ,orr".t technique for asking pro-vocative quesrions that would facilitate the "c,mpanit ,;;_;r"rtioningprocess'" Anothertrus.iness major clairneel to have learned that .,ethics isin every parr of rhe .life/wort';;;;;;.e.,, And yet another businessmajor (a returning student *fro il u prrtner in.an engineering firm)clairned to have rearned "never il "Jr.p, the first uni*", question,debate and analyze everything." rne one. psychology major in the crasslearned "to defend my beriefs"wrlr*onoirtion and-confiience.,, Lastly,the other philosophy major l"rr;;;;;;; ,,the term ,business ethics, is noronly an oxymoron, but the fact that ,h" ,ot ""p, exists at all is a tribute to :::,lilffi:lltical propaganda that is the cauing eard of lrr" ,'"* u"rrgeois Evaluation of Stwdent Work 1:.'^n: beginning of the course, I announced the ctistribution of evalu_atrve weight as the.followlng: 2Q% oftire final grade was to tre creter_mined by the quantity a.na qiotiiy of. ,l;;. crassroom parricipation.ro Anadditional 20% of the final graa" tr i* J"termined by the professional-ism' creariviry, and philosoihical u.;;;" shown in rheir four in-crassprojecrs (5 % each) fo'owing "."rr oitr,"i, five on-site activities. Here thestudents were to offer a dJscription oi rf," :ompany, what plans theywere attempting to carry out inihe future, what results were actualizedand any phirosophical commentt "on.".nrng the nature of phiiosophy,ethics or business ethics that trr"y ttt"rgi-,t need further investigation oranalysis' The finar 60'h af trre rinaig.;e.was to be deterrninJo uy tr,"quality of their written w.ork_an luipro*lrnutely) ten page phitosophypaper on any topic in business ethics. ' This heavy emphasis ?1,,h" final paper. in rerrospect, was misguidedfor it did nor spe;ify that the studeni f6cus their final paper only on thecompany they worke!, wjttr The original reason for not insisting thattheir papers focus on their compa;ffi;,, allow students who did nothave a successful experience to *orr. ln'ro-" other area of businessethics' I should have realized that trr" ,u.."ru (or lack or ,u."..rr; .r unon-site experience *^r_"lo.have no t";; on ih" p.orprrt, to, comingup with a good ropic or writing u *".;;t;i"ce of philosophy.Further' not piacing greater emphasis tn tne practical projects was a il::ffi"XI;l* i:;".ics of the.ru,,. eri". theii firsr .;-si;""nerience. :"-:ry:!,:.:*r,;:j:;',:i*X#'#i"T;: j::i",;'j:'Jili,.l;;unrmportant and the quarity of work on it reflected lack of interest.2rIt would have been U"ttri to forgo ttre finuf pup". altogether, or, at thevery least, insist that the paper periain to the on-site experience an.have rurs meeting CEOs onal tensions with 11; the students and asured by stuclent q out of the class_ d:.udinC each stu_ n terms of gainina cai.thinking skiliJ pnrrosophy major L28 ELLEN R. KLEIN its weight toward the final grade drastically reduced. In either case, the remaining percentage of weight should have been distributed unequally amongst th-e projects presented in class (the first project weighing the least, etc.)22 Conclusion Conveying the richness that is philosophy is no simple mission. When the subject is practical ethics, the task becomes all the more arduous. For while the theory behind ethics may come alive in a classroom, even a seasoned pedagogue finds relating the practical application of that theory difficult using only chalk and blackboard. Perhaps the practical ethics teacher can do more justice to both students and subject by holding class in the boardroom, or wherever the praxis of ethics resides. Notes I give special thanks to the students who participated in my Business Ethics Class: Josh Buchman, Heather Donovan, Alex Heintz, George Holm, Jim Luff, Kate Pynn, Kristen Schneeloch, and Dianna Zaring. 1. what follows is a case study of my business ethics course, "Business Ethics 401," but I believe a similar format could be used for any practical ethics course. 2. Sometimes these are acted out and sometimes they are played out on a computer with the help of programs likeBRIBES, SCARCITY and TRANSPLANT: or in conjunction with videodisc technology likeTHEoRIA. For more extensive comments on the usefulness of such software see Pieter Mostert, Fokke Fernhout and rheo van willingenburg's article "computer Assisted Instruction in Ethical Decision Making," The Computers and Philosophy Newsletter,4:! + 4:2, July 1989 and The Chronicle of Higher Education,March 4, 1992,pp. A2Z-A24. 3. For an excellent account of the usefulness of this technique see Morton E. Winston's "Ethics Committee Simulations," Teaching philosophy 13:2, June, 1.990. _ 4. only businesses with more than fifty employees were approached because these are more indicative of corporate America. _ 5. I a_pologize f.or the use of cumbersome definite descriptions like .Large Power C.ompany,' but the.use of proper names would violate our (my and the students') promise of confidentiality. .6. The meetings took quite a long time and certainly tested my ability to argue with non-academic types. T.rrealize this is a small number of students and not at all indicative of the numbers usually enrolled in such courses. I do think, however, that this format, without modification, can be used with courses which enroll up to thirty students. I would recommend, though, that the teacher not attempt io work with more than six businesses in any one semester and have no more than five students working with any particular business. If the class has more than thirty students' modifications will be needed. . 8. I offered this part of the first section primarily for the non-philosophy(mostly business) majors in the class. Fortunately, thephilosophy mijors found the review helpful. The Philosophy. The format with discussion. 9. This, too, was pure) The difference between that the normative ethit ethics. (Only business el The text I used was Bow 10. In this second sectr decision-making procesr popular collection, Doni in the future that I wor School collection of case 11. "On-site" always four companies which pi 12. For some helpful Kamm's, "The Philosop mise, and Criticize," Bus Kamm's article is directr article very helpful. In a< relationship between "in philosophers in similar r philosophers sit on ethicr The Role of Philosooher tion, it seems, is viewed r more way to facilitate tI get "inside." 13. Although I truly br myself was often very dil student faltered or devel perfected the valuable te 14. It was impossible t< of course, one of the drar attend most meetings w meetings when the stude students thought it impc difficulty presenting a pa about their progress and 15. Copies of the cod students responsible for t group. Their final produ addition, the two student oflice where similar chan 16. I am speculating, t difficulty with this corpor run (the CEO was the them, and change was n< students in this group di' members. The two stude less planning and less three groups. This, of cor mismatched students. (F< feduced. In either case. the been distribu ted unequally Irrst project weighing the FROM CLASSROOMTO BOARDROOM I2g the review helpful. The text I used was James Rache rs,, The Erements of Morar if,{r;,::fl;,H: formar was that or u ,.nio. seminar,;;;iiyl;;;;;e combined 9' This, too, was ourelytheoretical work and was tackled in seminar fashion.The difference between ir,itputi oiii" iiriti".tion ""0l-r* rîi-rruii'*u, simplythat the normative ethicar di:tr;;;;;;;l;;r*"d wirh an eye roward businessethics. (only business ettrics eiampr"r ri"i" trought to beaiLn it "lrgu_"ntr.)The texr I used was Bowie and t;;k;;r;;; iness Ethics. L0' In this second section, the students were asked to actively participate in thedecision-making process. cases were e;";i*d ";;;;;;;;;:riiiloigh r ur"a upopular coilection. Donaldson and cini's, ca", s iiiti, t" it-,iril""ttrr", r ,r,intin the future that I wourd w" ;;.;iii; ;j!.rion, from the Harvard BusinessSchool collection of case studies. 11. "On-site" always refers to the time students and/or I spent at one of thefour companies which purti.ipui"O i-n ih"ffi .",. 12' For some herpfurhints on how this can be-achieved see Frances MyrnaKamm's, "The phirosopher as tn.iJ., ani-6utrroer, rro* to aouiri, co_pro_mise, and criticize"' ni1iryy 'iîFiiy""i"i't E,iii, ii"its, ieei".'o,,n."enKamm's article is directed.ar p.of;*i;;;i;lilosoph"rr, my students found thearticle verv helpfur. In additio'n, c;;t;;ffifi';tudenrs was found to enhance rherelationship be lween "insiders'ianJ ;L",rioî".i"*.v,,t "irr""in! ii'or..rronulphilosophers in simirar _ror", .unnot. 1s._"'It .'.ol.ctlons to having professionalphitosophers sit on ethics committees in o* sroit'r,;i;"th;il'a?;r.qu"n""r,The Role of phirosophets in r"ri.ym"'nil;,;; "Ethics 97,1990.) Student interven-tion, it seems, is viewed as t"* i"ii-io"ii,ig -o hostire. I think it wourd be one il:1ifiil":9 racilitate the process or enauiin! pr'in'.pr'y'""i piirilopr,"., to 1'3' Althoush I trurv berieved this, I must admit that keeping my commenrs romyself was ofien verv difficult. r rt"oi.'*..i rt staying quiet, especia'y when astudenr falrered or deveroped u p;;; &;;; However, with practice,I betterperfected the valuable tealhing i""r,"iq-u" "iri,"n.". 14 . It was impossibre to attend every on-site meering. Scheduring confricts are,or course, one of ,h" or::l::ls of taking.ph;r"i"fi,y Ei"r, i?*"r""p,r".i,,sut I didattend most meetinss whenever I thoulit it ya; rm.lolgant (for example, themeetings when the s'ludenrs -"i *iiii tr,?'cnb, ro, the first time); or when thestudents thoueht it imporrant I be there fiorlxampte *t en t-r,#'Jere havingdirricultv pres6ntine a parlicurar "i";;;;i;; ir,.y ,,r"r" i..ii"g'.ipiii.rry goodabout their ptogreri und *unt.J ,. Jr* r. *hat they rrao acc6mptistreo.; 15' Copies of the code.were distributed and *oik"o on ry utt oJ ur. rr,"students responsibte "li.rli::-.-o.rt th;;i.,;;rporated the best ideas from rhegroup' Their final prod-uct was a more eq'itable and accessible document. Inaddition, the two students responsible tor tiis company were invited to the headoffice where similar changes were being "on.ij"r"O.l6' I am specuratine. but.I think the main reason the students had so muchdifficulty with this coiobration *;; th.t .tiurin"r, was still family owned andrun (the CEO was tt " .9n of the foundeif. Corrr".uutivism is.what madethem, and chanse was no_t welcomed. guiun';th", reason was simply that the 1:1r,"lr in this-group did not *o;[;; r,rro-iiir was tord to me bv one of themembers' The two srudents, I_was told, dia n;i g"t "r""g "ii'i-n[rrlrurt"o inIess planning and ress tranas-on wo;[';hu; *u. the case with the otherthree groups' This, of co-urse, is one or tr," piiiuilr "i *v ri"J"i'gri,ip *"rr.-mismatched students. (For other plti"fi, .5..on ro group work, and ways ro r simple mission. When the all the more arduous. For ve in a classroom, even a ral application of that the_ :d. Perhaps the practical students and subject by Le praxis of ethics resides. lted in my Business Ethics rtz, George Holm, Jim Luff. ics course, ..Business Ethics any practical ethics course. s they are ptayed out on a ,RCITY and TRANSPLANT; iORIA. For more extensive reter Mostert, Fokke Fern_ ter Assisted Instruction in sophy N^ew-sletter,4:l + 4:2, v ch 4, 1.992, pp. A2Z_ A24. s technique see Morton E. ng Philosophy I3:2, June. were approached because : descriptions like ,Laree I violate our (my and tf,e tested my ability to argue rot at all indicative of the rowever, that this format nroll up to tt itty,tuO"nis. empt to work with more more than five students rore than thirty students' for the.non-philosophy )nllosophy majors found 130 ELLEN R. KLEIN avoid them, see Neil rhomason's useful and insightful article, .,Making student Groups work: To Teach is to Learn Twic e," Teachinlg philosophy l3:2,lune, lslo.; 17. I handed out a questionnaire to the students and received responses from each. A similar l,restionnaire was sent to each of the four participating businesses, to date, only one has r_eplied in writing. It said that: ..Thb major uenEfit [orparticipating in this project] was to have input from unbiased ioutsiders'involved.in resolving. several conflict of intereit [ethical?] issues in Employees'committee discussions. Although we do not intind to eitublirh an ethics committee per se, we have mechaniims in place for resolution of ethical dilemmas. Participation in yourprogramheightened our awareness and will help ensure th-at existing mechanisms will funciion effectively.... In broadening the concept of an ethics committee, we are.considering establishing a .commu"nity advisoiypanel'to utilize input from unbiased outslder within ihe community on majoi expansion and other long term decisions-your students provided names of several good candidates for such a panel." iherefore, with such little written e.vidence, I base my belief of the success of the project (from the point of view of the businesses) primarily on informal discussion throughout tt " "igt,t weeks and on the fact that all four b,usinesses have requested thit a relationihip be main_ tained with the students for as long as they are in the area and with ihe college indefinitely. 18. Most of the non-majors claimed they would have benefitted from a richer theoretical background. one business student suggested the course be expanded to two semesters, the first semester devoted entirely to theoretical and case work, the second semester entirely for application bn-site. Another student suggested that philosophy cla,sses be incorporated into the primary and secondary. educational system, s9 tlr?t both the people in busineis and fhe academy will have had some theoretical backgroundfor-facilitating ethical discussions in a practical setting. one other student suggested that t"his kind of course be incorporated in colleges and universities (Js-pecially those with business schools or majors) throughout the country. 19. It may beimportant to note that this student was simultaneously attending a social policy class taught by a Marxist (and was working with the difiicult LargE Manufacturing Company). 20. Lmention quantity.so as to discourage. absenteeism,I emphasize quality so as to discourage any student from monopolizing the discussions. 21. There were those students who chose to write their final paper on some philosophical aspect of their on-s,ite experience. The writings proouced by these individuals were a bit better. B-ut,alas,only the work of one of tie philosophy majors was a legitimate piece of philosophy, i.e., a sustained focused urgu*"nt. 22'rt (and only if) a formal presentation is being made to the company at the gld ol the project should the teacher suggest thit on-site rime bd eviluated directly. This should be "played by ear" ind determined near the end of theterm-the syllabus should be open-ended enough to allow for such occasions. Forcing on-site evaluations can only hurt the stu?ent-philosopher/businessper1o.n rgla-tio19hip that this project is intended to develop. If such an evaluation isjointly decided upon, the grade can be substitute for one of the in-class project grades. Ellen R. Klein, Philosophy, university of North Froritla,lacksonville, Florida 32216, USA The Philoso A Model for ROBERT C. SCE University of Wa Walter Maner's' rience, proved i students to enga inquiry. At the r students invites r conveniently be essay is to descri lems as I have o teaching device., several contemp, terns which are ented, and/or adr In the mid-1970 guidelines for "a small-group inqu phy," the term-lo lating and critiq precisely definec writing a summal in a nutshell.In tl process, the acco but will, on some Students are e to identify an ar and to begin fo early in the seco the instructor, t groups of 3 or 4 @Teaching Philosophy | {
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LOWER BOUNDS OF AMBIGUITY AND REDUNDANCY [Originally published in Poznań Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 4, Nos. 1-4, 1978, 37-48.] Steven James Bartlett [ home page: http://www.willamette.edu/~sbartlet ] KEYWORDS: ambiguity, redundancy, communication theory, Richard Hamming, Satosi Watanabe Abstract The elimination of ambiguity and redundancy are unquestioned goals in the exact sciences, and yet, as this paper shows, there are inescapable lower bounds that constrain our wish to eliminate them. The author discusses contributions by Richard Hamming (inventor of the Hamming code) and Satosi Watanabe (originator of the Theorems of the Ugly Duckling). Utilizing certain of their results, the author leads readers to recognize the unavoidable, central roles in effective communication, of redundancy, and of ambiguity of meaning, reference, and identification. _________________________________ The author has chosen to issue this paper as a free open access publication under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, which allows anyone to distribute this work without changes to its content, provided that both the author and the original URL from which this work was obtained are mentioned, that the contents of this work are not used for commercial purposes or profit, and that this work will not be used without the author's or his executor's permission in derivative works (i.e., you may not alter, transform, or build upon this work without such permission). The full legal statement of this license may be found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode © Steven James Bartlett, 2018 Poznarl Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities Vol. 4, nos. 1-4,1978 -* B. R. Gruner Publishing Co. Amsterdam 37 Steven Bartlett/Saint Louis LOWER BOUNDS OF AMBIGUITY AND REDUNDANCY* A significant number of approaches which dominate contemporary phi- losophical thought have received their inspiration both from comparatively recent progress in the mathematical investigation of properties of formal systems, and from success in the development of programmable algorithms capable of simulating through electronic and mechanical means problem- solving capabilities of human subjects. To what extent philosophy will profit from this formal, mechanical impetus is best left for the passage of time to disclose. In the meantime, however, it is both useful and important to under- stand some of the effects upon philosophical attitudes which appear to have resulted from this association of philosophy with a formal, machine paradigm. To a considerable degree, philosophers, in a rare display of near-unanimity, have accepted, or have believed themselves compelled to accept, or to appear to accept, prevailing values which favor precision, rigor, and methodologica! self-consciousness. The merits of clarity, of elimination of ambiguity and redundancy, and the values of sequential, systematic, and logical thinking have been extolled. It is far from my purpose in this paper to subject these values to yet another anti-technological polemic; it is probably the case that blind technology (and deaf humanism) constitutes its own most effective opposition. Instead, I hope to show that the near-universal and frequently uncritical endorsement of certain of the prevailing values recommended to philosophy by the formal, machine paradigm has come about due to a failur� of many philosophers to understand internal limitations of that paradigm. With this objective in mind, I wish to review a small number of results acquired fairly recently by a group of mathematical logicians, information theorists, and communications specialists. These results provide, I believe, an integrated, interesting, and perhaps somewhat surprising perspective on some of the values the formal, machine paradigm appears to have fostered. In the light of these results, our philosophical endorsement of those values may perhaps become less uncritical and somewhat more enlightened. To do this, as the title of this paper might now suggest, ambiguity and redundancy come to have a positive value. • Research reported here was partially supported by a grant from the Lilly Endowment. Bartlett, Steven James (1978). "Lower Bounds of Ambiguity and Redundancy." Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 4, Nos. 1-4, 1978, 37-48. 38 A111biguity As we shall see, an indefinitely large set of concepts, terms, and expressions which we ordinarily use meaningfully, and an equally large group of objects to which we wish to be able to refer, appear variously to share properties of ambiguity. The concept of ambiguity is itself no exception to these. If by 'ambiguity' we generally mean indeterminacy, what we intend is as yet un- determined: There are numerous forms of indeterminacy, and so apparently numerous forms of ambiguity. Two of these will concern us here. They are: indeterminacy of meaning or reference1 and indeterminacy of identification. Ambiguity may arise, in other words, both in connection with what something means or refers to, and in connection with that which we may seek to identify. Let us consider each in turn. Confusion arises in the first case not simply because a concept, word, or expression has multiple meanings (or referents), but because from the context of its use, it cannot be determined which of these meanings (or referents) is intended. That is to say, if a concept, word, or expression is ambiguous, then the way in which that concept, word, or expressi0n is used cannot be determined from context.2 For example, the store that displays the sign: We sell alligator shoes, may intend quite different things depending whether the store caters, for example, to pets or to humans. When the store front leaves this question undecided, ambiguity of meaning or reference is possible. Other illustrations may be found in "A man eating turtle", "I shot a rna� with a gun", and, in a more complex case, in which ambiguity arises due to a grammatical lack of punctua- tion, and lack of emphasis: "Time flies how can I they go too fast", which resolves itself into: "Time flies? How can I? They go too fast!" Granting that confusion may arise in such rather extreme cases, and in others we are likely to be familiar with in day-to-day living, it is usually, but certainly not always, useful for us to avoid and eliminate sources of confusion. If we should then be encouraged to wish to eliminate sources of confusion, and hence of ambiguity, entirely, our hasty decision would have rather re- grettable consequences. To insist strictly that ambiguity in meaning or reference is undesirable would, if carried to its logical conclusion, preclude human communication. As Russell3 observed, the only way in which language can be employed in a totally unambiguous manner would be on the condition that each word or expression of the language have a unique meaning or unique reference. In such a logically perfect language, however, communication is impossible. Since you and I are conscious of different particular experiences, perceive somewhat differently different individual things, we should, on the condition of requiring of one another logically perfect usage, be utterly incapable of communicating with one another, of exchanging observations, and of doing 39 what is commonly held to be "talking about the same thing". We should enjoy totally unambiguous, and hence totally disjunct, vocabularies. The case for totally unambiguous concepts is more difficult. Either a concept itself is essentially ambiguous, since capable of being associated with different particular objects experienced, so that one's employment of a concept leaves one's precise meaning (or reference) open to question. Or, a concept is possible in the logically perfect sense that a concept would have if the precise collection of individual objects that leads to its formulation were extentionally determined. In the first sense, the elimination of ambiguity brings with it a corresponding elimination of concepts: in the second, such concepts would not facilitate communication any more than unambiguous words or expressions would. ln short, strict elimination of ambiguity in words, expressions, or concepts will stand effectively in the way of communication. The relativity of meaning or reference of concepts, terms, or expressions to a public context that provides a basis for communication is, at the same time, a relativity which brings am- biguity with it. Communication, ambiguity, and the contextual relativity of meaning and reference are one another's next of kin. This conclusion is strengthened by attempts in the field of artificial intelli- gence to construct computers capable of translating expressions of. one natural language into synonymous expressions of another. Machine translation has run into serious difficulties. Consider this example: A translation machine is instructed to express English sentences in Russian. Now, a sentence such as, 'The box is in the pen", poses extreme difficulties for the machine. Although the machine's memory is capable of storing a set of English-Russian dictionary equivalences, it cannot make use of these until indeterminacy in the sentence's meaning is eliminated. There is, or so it is now believed, no way to reduce uncertainty of meaning without an awareness of context. If the sentence in question is uttered in a situation having to do with an infant playing on the floor near his crib and surrounded by his toys, a likely meaning can immediately be selected by a human subject: The context suggests "the box" is perhaps a toy which is located "in the [infant's] pen". Machine translation has virtually come to a ha.lt because of the serious difficulty or impossibility of constructing a set of programmable rules that would enable a computer to select appropriate meanings for words *and expressions that are ambiguous, but whose meaning is made determinate through an awareness of context. On the one hand, ambiguity is necessary if communication is to be possible, while, on the other, the presence of ambiguity constitutes a serious obstacle to the algorithmic representation of language use hoped for by the formal, machine paradigm. The recognition of the fundamental importance of ambiguity to communication was made possible by the very approach which now believes itself incapable of handling ambiguity according to a set of programmable rules.4 A very similar conclusion has been reached with regard to our second form 40 of ambiguity arising as a function of identification. Ambiguity of this type can lead to confusion when there is indeterminacy in connection with what one seeks to identify. For example, in a pattern recognition problem of any significant degree of complexity, ambiguity is present due to the exponential growth of the tree of alternative possible ways in which patterns can be re- presented in terms of the initial conditions of the problem. As I have suggested what is the case with most if not all forms of ambiguity, it is context which makes possible the identification of an appropriate meaning, reference, pattern, etc. If the well-known ambiguous figure: is found in the context of a discussion of the variety and habits of birds (rather than rabbits), the pattern recognized is readily seen to be a function of that context. For very much the same reasons that led to difficulties experienced by developers of a translation machine, the construction of a computer capable of recognizing complex patterm is seriously handicapped. A human subject, once informed about the context in which he is to solve a particular problem in pattern recognition, is frequently somehow able to "see" the pattern without going through the computer's process of first exploring all the alte�pative ways in which patterns might be represented given the initial conditions of the problem, and then of comparing these with information obtained about the context so that only promising, suitable alternatives are consid- ered. In general problem solving and specifically in pattern recognition, there is a need to be able to reduce the search maze systematically so that time can be spent exploring the most likely alternatives. It is here that human subjects rely on "insight", and where researchers in artificial intelligence run into trouble. The trouble they encounter is compounded by results reached by the well-known information theorist, Satosi Watanabe. It is true that in complex game playing involving selection of the most promising alternative strategies, computer programs cannot now identify the most promising paths. In problem solving, the initial concern is how to represent the initial conditions given by the problem in a manner which renders explicit alternative promising paths so that a decision between them is made possible: This work is assigned to the human programmer. In language translation, implicit indeterminacy of meaning and reference is resolved by an understanding of the relevance of context, but this relevance is often so tenuous as to make its determination 41 according to programmable algorithms exceedingly difficult if not impossible. Finally, pattern recognition inherits all these difficulties, and adds another: A human subject perceives patterns in terms of such general properties of similarity and typicality. It is in this connection that Watanabe5 has obtained proofs of three theorems, which he very suitably terms "Theorems of the Ugly Duckling". These theorems show that from the formal, quantitative, rule-determined * point of view, there exists no such thing as a class of similar objects in the world, because all predicates (of the same dimension) have the same importance. The three theorems demonstrate that any two objects chosen at random are equally as similar to one another as are any other two objects, and are equally dissimilar to each other as any other pair, insofar as the number of shared (or unshared) predicates is regarded as a measure of similarity (or dissimilarity)6 If we turn this conclusion around, we find that to the extent that we can and do perceive similarities and take note of dissimilarities between objects, we attach a non-uniform importance to various predicates, and that hence the way in which we can and do perceive in this fashion cannot be reduced to a formal, quantitative set of programmable rules. Of course we can instruct a computer to process or pay attention only to data of a certain form, and in so doing constrain the handling of information so as to reflect a prior judgment we have made concerning salience of information. In pattern recognition, it is just this judgment concerning salience that is in question, however. We are able to instruct a computer to detect objects or patterns it is specifically programmed to detect, but we are unable to instruct a computer to identify context-relative appropriate patterns the specific properties of which are not formally represented beforehand. Elementary pattern recognition exercises in any text treating the psychology of human perception are of just this latter variety. 7 To summarize, we have come to see ambiguity as serving, on the one hand, the interests of human communication, insofar as communication wholly free of ambiguity is impossible. On the other hand, we have recognized that the contextual relativity of meaning, reference, and identification brings with it an element of ambi�uity which appears to constitute a serious obstacle to com- plete simulation of human comprehension, pattern recognition, and general problem-solving capabilities. A total disregard of these results in favor of algorithmic standards of rigor in the admissibility of reasoning will, in the final analysis, be self-defeating. Notwithstanding this conclusion, a word of caution is in order: Ambiguity, like any fundamental concept of utility, can be misused. J'he argument developed here serves neither the interests of obscure and confused thought, nor does it suggest that such thought is basic either to effective human communication or to characteristic and at present unique human capabilities. 42 Redundancy We normally are inclined to associate lack of clarity with both ambiguity and redundancy. A message may serve or fail to serve the interests of communi- cation if it is suitably or excessively ambiguous, as we have observed. Similarly, a message which is excessively redundant in the sense of being repetitious will tend to be comparatively uninformative. As confusion due to excessive ambiguity is probably to be avoided, so redundancy in the sense of mere repetition often is unproductive. It is of course occasionally useful to encourage some degree of redundancy to insure that a message is actually communicated, and it is in this sense that teachers are familiar with the notion that repetition brings learning. But redundancy has a much more basic role than this. Let us accept a very general view of redundancy according to which whatever is not actually an essential part of a message is redundant, or else irrelevant. In this sense, re- dundancy occurs in most communication: Redundancy appears in sentences in that often whole words can be omitted without loss of meaning; it appears in written words in that, for example, vowels frequently can be omitted without loss of intelligibility: e.g., Ths sttmnt en stll b rd wth Itt! dffclty. Redundancy even appears in individual letters, e.g., ,cuunoanl;y t:xist� t:vcu m 1t:ners u1 vuc allJUaoet. The redundant element in messages, comprising what is ex- traneous to message-content, makes up much of the messages we exchange when we communicate.8 There is good reason for this. It is well known that the amount of information we can transmit depends on the amount of distortion that corrupts the in- tended message between speaker and hearer, between transmitter and receiver. There is always this possibility of distortion due to what communications experts call 'signal interference'. Usually, they are likely to consider only signal interference which occurs as a result of "noise" that distorts a signal, i.e., a message, during its transmission to a receiver. The receiver, however, whether an apparatus or a human subject, is also a potential source for message distortion. A common way in which messages come to be distorted is through the very human capacity for misunderstanding. It is here in connection with the need not only to make communication possible, but to insure that what has been understood was what was intended that redundancy has an undeniable significance. It is of course possible to communicate by means of a code or language from which all redundancy has been eliminated, leaving only a system for en- coding what is strictly essential to the content of intended messages. If one were to do this, however, it becomes extremely difficult in fact, impossible to be certain that any message received was the message intended. For if I re- ceive a message which I believe may have been distorted, either during its 43 actual transmission to me, or given ways in which I may have misunderstood it, then in order to check the accuracy of the message received, I should' need in turn to transmit a message of inquiry to the transmitter. But here, too, further message distortion may occur, and so we are left with the sceptic's uncertainty that he has ever understood what another has intended. If one agrees to grant the possibility of indeterminacy in message distortion, and wishes to employ a language purified of all redundancy, then effective com- munication will stop. It is difficult to make what I am talking about evident without a specific illustration. Whether the illustration will allay the doubts of the sceptic is debatable, since any reasoning is at least potentially fallible, and this is perhaps a world without absolute guarantees that can withstand even pathological doubt. But the illustration does, I believe, make the point I intend beyond all reasonable doubt. Suppose that we wish to communicate a message that consists, for the sake of simplicity, of four items of information. If each item of information is encoded in a binary digit (a "bit"), perhaps representing yes-no decisions to be taken by the receiver, then the message will be made up of four binary digits (representing, for example, the sequence 1001). A clock will control the time-spacing between bits. During a pulse interval, a pulse is generated if the intended message bit is a 1, while no pulse is generated when the intended bit is a 0. Noise during the transmission, or reception, of the sequence of pulses may result in distortion and, hence, in uncertainty whether the received message, representing a sequence of yes-no decisions to be taken, is correct. Perhaps the last bit in the message was received as a pulse too 'weak to be a 1, but yet insufficiently strong to qualify as a 1. Is the last bit to be interpreted as a 1 or a 0? An insightful way to encode the information so that errors resulting from signal interference can be detected and corrected, has been suggested by R. W. Hamming9 and is now useful in telemetry and communications theory. Ham- ming's idea relies upon the use of redunda"cy to check the accuracy of communi- cated messages, and for this reason furnishes an excellent illustration in the present context. The following discussion is a simplified representation of Hamming's ingenious idea. 1 0 In Figure 1, note that there are eight distinct regions. We will associate with each one the binary equivalents of the decimal numbers, 0-7. The eight numbers are: decimal number 0 I 2 binary number 000 001 010 44 3 4 5 6 7 011 100 10 1 110 Ill Region IV, the outermost region, will be called 000; III will be called 00 1; II, 010; and I, 100; the overlap regions are numbered as shown in Figure 1. The rationale for this labelling procedure will become clear shortly. IV 000 Figure I Now, by a�retment between the transmitter and receiver11 of Hamming- encoded messages, a message will consist of four bits, as already indicated, plus three bits to be called 'redundancy code bits' (reb's for short). They will occupy the following positions in a transmitted message: Message 0 0 2 3 4 5 6 7 Reb"s Figure 2 The redunda"'cy code bits are then determined by the transmitter in the following manner, in relation to his intended message: First, the binary digits representing the transmitter's intended message are inserted in the four corresponding 45 positions in Figure 1. Since the first bit of the message (a 1) occupies position number 3 in the total seven-digit message, a 1 is placed in the diagram in the region labelled with the binary equivalent of 3(011). The second bit of the message (a 0) occupies position number 5 in the seven digit message, and so is placed in region 101. The third and fourth bits making up the message are treated in the same way. The numbers enclosed in squares in Figure 1 now represent the transmitter's intended message. The redundancy code bits can now be determined using the resulting diagram. From the standpoint of each of regions 1-lfl, there are three adjacent overlap regions: For example, from the standpoint of region III, there are three adjacent overlap regions labelled 011, 101, and 111. We see that these overlap regions (there are four of them all told) contain the message bits. What is known as a "parity check" is used to determine the rcb's: The transmitter selects a binary digit as an rcb which, when added to the three message bits appearing in adjacent overlap regions, gives an even sum. From the standpoint of region III, the three message bits in adjacent overlap regions are 1, 1, and 0, which when added together themselves result in an even number: the corre- sponding rcb to be inserted in region III must therefore be a 0. (A 1 would lead to an odd sum.)_ The three rcb's to be inserted in regions III, II, and I are, then, a 0, a 0, and a 1. Since these rcb's now label regions whose decimal number equivalents are 1, 2, and 4, the three rcb's are inserted in these positions in the seven-digit message, which now looks like this: Message 0 0 0 0 2 3 4 5 6 Reb's Figure 3 ":.!f Now, let us assume that, having done this, the transmitter sends the com- plete message, but during its transmission, or reception, signal interference is responsible for a distortion in the message received. (The interference is assumed to be capable of distorting any single bit of the seven-bit pulse train received, 12 and the receiver will be informed neither whether the received pulse train is correct or incorrect, nor, of course, if it is incorrect, which bit is the incorrect one.) Suppose that the receiver receives a pulse train interpreted as: 0011000. He wishes to check the received message, which is 1000. He inserts all seven digits in appropriate positions in a blank diagram (see Figure 4), and then conducts a parity check. For each region, I, II, and III, in which a parity check obtains (the sum 46 of the bits is an even number), he will write down a 0; if a parity check fails, he w ;ites down a 1; as follows: for region: parity check: II III 1 = binary number of position of error The resulting binary number, I ll, is the binary equivalent of the decimal number 7: Hence, there is an error in position 7, and the received message �hould be changed in this position. After this correction, a parity check will yield 000, signifying the message is error-free. Figure 4 The reader may verify for himself that, no matter where an error is made in the message-bits or in the redundancy code bits the Hamming code, through its reliance on redundancy, insures that the message received is equiv- alent to the message transmitted. The moral of this rather difficult illustration is two-sided: The first side is this: As long as individuals (or machines) are capable, for whatever reasons, of misunderstanding one another, effective communication necessitates reliance on redundancy. The second side is that a redundancy-free system of communication is intrinsically vulnerable to errors which may go unde- tected and, in the extreme case, will be undetectable when the distortion of messages becomes a matter of total uncertainty. .� 47 C 011(*/usion To the extent that philosophy has been encouraged by the formal, machine paradigm to favor the values of clarity, and has been inspired to deal intolerantly with obscure and confused thinking, I believe its motivation has probably been sound and good. However, it has been thought that to the extent that one wishes to oppose obscurity and confusion, one ought thereby to oppose am- biguity and redundancy. Sometimes, this judgment will in fact be dictated, when ambiguity and redundancy become excessive. But it would be an un- fortunate mistake to suppose that a strict elimination of ambiguity and re- dundancy ought to be a sanctioned, fashionable objective, for it if were achieved, we would be incapable, on the one hand, of thought and communication, and, on the other, of determining that what we think and say makes sense, has reference, and constitutes genuine understanding. NOTES 1 The technical distinction bet\\een sense and reference. since it is itself a source of much ambiguity and difference of opinion. is not followed here. It should not be taken. howe,cr. that meaning and reference are therefore here presumed equivalent. For our purposes here. the examples provided in the text should make the discussion sufficiently clear. 2 A second source of indeterminacy, related to ambiguity, is vagueness. Vagueness is probably synon)mous with indeterminacy of application: e.g .. 'love* is a vague word. since there are doubtless cases where it is not clear whether we should withhold or apply the word. while the meaning of 'love' need not for that reason be ambiguous. I make no attempt here to discuss indeterminacy arising from vagueness. (On vagueness. see. for example. W.P. Alston. Philo.,ophr of Language, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.Y. 1964, Chapter V.} 3 13. Russell. "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism". in: (ed.) R.C. Marsh. Loyic and Kno11*ledye. George Allen and Unwin. London !956. �II. • It should be made clear to the reader that reference is of course intct\ded to limitations associated with the programming of digital computers: at present. the que>tion concerning limitations in the use of analogue devices is open. but may be ignored here since the formal. machine paradigm has so far been interpreted almost e�clusively ip the (better understood) digital sense. A review of the extensive literature which supports the conclusion described in the text would occup) us too long for purposes here. Attention can be directed to the following works which may serve as entrances to the continuing discussion of problems in this area: Y. Bar- Hillel. "The Present Status of Automatic Translation of Languages". in:(ed.) F.L. Alt. Admnces in Computers, Academic Press, New York 1964, vol. !.; H.J. Bremerrnann, "Optimization Through Evolution and Recombination", in: (ed.) M.C. Yovits, Self-Organising Systems, Perga- mon, New York 1959; A.D. de Groot, Thought and Choice in Chess, Mouton, The Hague 1965, "Perception and Memory versus Thought: Some Old Ideas and Recent Findings". in: (ed.) B. Kleinmuntz. Problem Solvi11g Research. M <!I hod. and Theory. Wiley. New York 1966: H.L.. Dreyfus. Whar Compurers Ca11'r Do: A Cririque qf' Arr{lcial Intelligence. Harper and Row, 48 ew York 1972: M. M. Eden . .. Other Pattern Recognition Problems and Some Generalization . . . in: (eds.) B. Kolers. M. Eden. Recooni:ino Pal/ems: Swdies in Livino and Automaiic Systems. MIT Press. Cambridge. Mass. 1968: A. ewell. H.A. Simon. Human Prohlem SolriniJ. Prentice Hall. cw Jer ey 1972: (eds.) K.M. Sayre. J. Crosson. The Model inq of Mind. otre Dame Uni- . . 4 Q .. ,.,.l..<f-1,� versity Press. South Bend. Ind. 1962: S. Watanabe. KnrJII'ill!J and Guessino.,.Swdy of Inference a11tl lnformlllion. John Wiley. ew York 1969: J. Weizenbaum ... Contextual Understanding in Computers . .. in: (eds.) B. Kolers. M. Eden. op. cit. 5 S. Watanabe. op. cit. 6 Russell may perhaps have foreseen the dimculties which Watanabe's result makes explicit. Russell remarked: **If it is to be unambiguous whether two appearances belong to the same thing or not, there must be only one way of grouping appearances so that the resulting things obey the laws of physics. It would be very difficult to prove that this is the case ... ** (B. Russell. Our Kn01dedoe o(the Extemal World as a Field.for Sciemiflc Method in Philosophy. George Allen and Unwin. London 1972. p. 1 15.) 7 For example. N.R. Hanson (Pal/ems o( Discovery. An Inquiry into the Concepwal Folllulwions o( Science. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge 1975) includes several such exercises. 8 See M.F. Rubinstein. Pal/ems o( Prohlem Solvin!]. Prentice Hall. New Jersey 1975. ** 2-16. 2-17. 9 R.W. Hamming. **Error Detecting and Error Correcting Codes**. Bell System Technolooical Joumal. val. 29. 1950. 10 I am indebted to Prof. Moshe F. Rubinstein. Engineering Systems Department, University of California. Los Angeles. for both the example and his suggested use of Venn diagrams in this representation. See M.F. Rubinstein. op. cit.. *2-17. 11 It is with respect to the possibility of reaching such arrangement (and knowing agreement has been reached) that the communications sceptic is likely to raise his doubt. Effective arguments against the rationality of such doubt can perhaps be developed: my intention here is not. however, to enter into an analysis of this or any other variety of scepticism. 12 The problem becomes increasingly more complex if more than a sinole error is to be detected and corrected. Continued on next page SELECTED PUBLICATIONS BY THE AUTHOR A freely downloadable collection of publications by the author, including many of the publications listed here, is available from the university research website: http://www.willamette.edu/~sbartlet. Readers of this paper, may be interested in a related monograph, which discusses Watanabe's work in greater detail: The Species Problem and its Logic: Inescapable Ambiguity and Framework-relativity. (Research monograph, 2015). Available from arXiv.org (http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.01589), in England from CogPrints (http://cogprints.org/9956/), in France from the Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe's HAL (https://hal.archivesouvertes.fr/hal-01196519), and in the U.S. from PhilSci (http://philsciarchive.pitt.edu/11655/ ). ◊ BOOKS AND MONOGRAPHS 1. A Relativistic Theory of Phenomenological Constitution: A Self-Referential, Transcendental Approach to Conceptual Pathology. (Vol. I: French; Vol. II: English. Doctoral dissertation, Université de Paris, 1970.) Available from PhilPapers: https://philpapers.org/rec/BARART-7. 2. Metalogic of Reference: A Study in the Foundations of Possibility, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, 1975. A research monograph that formulates the author's approach to epistemology through the use of self-referential argumentation and self-validating proofs. 3. Conceptual Therapy: An Introduction to Framework-relative Epistemology, Studies in Theory and Behavior, Saint Louis, 1983. An introductory text that gives students applied exercises in thinking using the author's approach to epistemology in terms of selfreferential argumentation and self-validating proofs. 4. Self-Reference: Reflections on Reflexivity, edited with Peter Suber, Martinus Nijhoff, 1987; now published by Springer Science. The first of two collections (see #4 below), consisting of invited papers by leading contemporary authors, to be published in the new area of research, the general theory of reflexivity, pioneered by the author. 5. Reflexivity: A Source Book in Self-Reference, Elsevier Science Publishers, 1992. The second collection, consisting of classical papers by leading contributors of the twentieth century, published in the new area of research, the general theory of reflexivity. 6. The Pathology of Man: A Study of Human Evil, published in 2005 by behavioral science publisher Charles C. Thomas, is the first comprehensive scholarly study of the psychology and epistemology of human aggression and destructiveness. The study includes original research by the author, such as a detailed description of the phenomenology of hatred and the psychology of human stupidity, and an extension and elaboration of the author's earlier published work dealing with the epistemology of human thought disorders (Part III). 7. Normality Does Not Equal Mental Health: The Need to Look Elsewhere for Standards of Good Psychological Health. Praeger, 2011. The first book-length scholarly critique of the widespread and unexamined presumption that psychological normality should be employed as a standard for good mental health. Contains some discussion related to framework-relativity. 8. Horizons of Possibility and Meaning: The Metalogic of Reference. Book in progress. ARTICLES 9. "Self-Reference, Phenomenology, and Philosophy of Science," Methodology and Science, Vol. 13, No. 3, 1980, 143-167. 10. "Referential Consistency as a Criterion of Meaning," Synthèse, Vol. 52, 1982, 267282. 11. "Philosophy as Conceptual Therapy," Educational Resources Information Center, National Institute of Education, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, May, 1983, Document #ED 224 402. 12. "Hoisted by Their Own Petards: Philosophical Positions that Self-Destruct," Argumentation, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1988, 69-80. 13. "Roots of Human Resistance to Animal Rights: Psychological and Conceptual Blocks," Animal Law (law review of the Northwestern School of Law, Lewis and Clark College), Vol. 8, 2002, pp. 143-76. The first comprehensive legal study of the psychological and epistemological foundations of human resistance to the compassionate treatment of animals. Contains an application of the author's selfreferential argumentation to human conceptual blocks that stand in the way of the recognition of animal rights. 14. "Roots of Human Resistance to Animal Rights: Psychological and Conceptual Blocks," electronically re-published October, 2002, by the Michigan State University's Detroit College of Law, Animal Law Web Center, and maintained on an ongoing basis. http://www.animallaw.info/articles/arussbartlett2002.htm 15. Also available in German: "Wurzeln menschlichen Widerstands gegen Tierrechte: Psychologische und konceptuelle Blockaden," German translation of the preceding paper by Gita Y. Arani-May. Electronically published on the following websites in September, 2003: http://www.tierrechts.net/Animal_Law_Roots_of_Human_Resistance_to_Animal_Rights.pdf http://www.veganswines.de/Animal_Law/ http://animallaw.info/articles/arussbartlett2002.htm 16. Also available in Portuguese: "Raízes da resistência humana aos direitos dos animais: Bloqueios psicológicos e conceituais," published in Brazilian Animal Rights Review (Revista Brasileira de Direito Animal), Vol. 2(3), July/December, 2007 [actually appeared in 2008], pp. 17-66. 17. "Paratheism: A Proof that God neither Exists nor Does Not Exist." 2016. Available from PhilPapers: https://philpapers.org/rec/BARPAP-20. | {
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TEORIE VĚDY / THEORY OF SCIENCE / XXXII / 2010 / 4 KNOWING WITH EXPERTS: CONTEXTUAL KNOWLEDGE IN AND AROUND SCIENCE Abstract: Th e original concept of epistemic dependence suggests uncritical deference to expert opinions for non-experts. In the light of recent work in science studies, however, the actual situation of epistemic dependence is seen to involve the necessary and ubiquitous need for lay evaluations of scientifi c experts. As expert knowledge means restricted cognitive access to some epistemic domain, lay evaluations of expert knowledge are rational and informed only when the criteria used by non-experts when judging experts are diff erent from the criteria used by experts when making their claims. Th e distinction between "substantial knowledge" and "contextual knowledge" allows for the laypeople to know with experts without having to know precisely what experts know. Such meta-expert evaluations are not specifi c to the public sphere outside science, nor are they limited internally to science, but they are present in a wide range of contexts in and around science. Th e paper legitimizes the concept of contextual knowledge by relating it to the relevant literature, and expounds the idea by identifying some elements of such a knowledge. Keywords: epistemic dependence; expertise; public understanding of science; social epistemology; testimony ////// studie / article ////////////////////////////////////////// Poznávat spolu s experty: kontextuální vědění ve vědě a kolem ní Abstrakt: Původní koncept epistémické závislosti podněcoval u ne-expertů nekritickou podřízenost expertním názorům. Ve světle nedávného vývoje ve zkoumání vědy se však skutečná situace epistémické závislosti jeví tak, že zahrnuje nezbytnou a všudypřítomnou potřebu pro laické hodnocení vědeckých expertů. Jelikož expertní vědění znamená omezení poznávacího přístupu k některým epistémickým doménám, laická hodnocení expertního vědění jsou racionální a informovaná pouze tehdy, když se kritéria užívaná ne-experty při posuzování expertů liší od kritérií užívaných experty pro jejich tvrzení. Rozlišení mezi „substanciálním věděním" a „kontextuálním věděním" umožňuje laikům poznávat spolu s experty bez toho, že by museli vědět přesně totéž, co oni. Taková meta- -expertní hodnocení nejsou specifi cká pro veřejnou sféru mimo vědu ani nejsou na vědu vnitřně omezená, ale vyskytují se v široké míře kontextů ve vědě a kolem ní. Tento článek legitimizuje koncept kontextuálního vědění jeho vztažením k relevantní literatuře a objasňuje tuto myšlenku pomocí identifi kace některých prvků takového vědění. Klíčová slova: epistémická závislost; expertíza; veřejné chápání vědy; sociální epistemologie; svědectví GÁBOR KUTROVÁTZ Eötvös University of Budapest, 1117 Budapest Pázmány P. s. 1/c, Hungary email / [email protected] 480 1. Epistemic dependence A central problem in recent epistemology is the problem of indirect or testimonial knowledge. Much of what we take to be known is indirect for us in the sense that it is based on our trust in other people's direct knowledge, in contrast with the idea of direct knowledge related to fi rst-person empirical evidence and its rational assessment. In the past decades, the problem has been intensely investigated in the fi eld of social epistemology, emerging from a thematic issue of the journal Synthese (October 1987) in which groundbreaking positions were outlined, e.g., by Steve Fuller1 and Alvin Goldman.2 Similar problems have been discussed in socialized versions of the philosophy of science,3 or refl ecting specifi cally to the problem of testimony,4 especially in the history of science.5 A perhaps decisive inspiration to this emerging tradition was the eloquent characterization of the fundamental epistemological problem given by John Hardwig, who coined the term epistemic dependence.6 He sets off by claiming, as an explication of a basic and common experience, that the source of a good deal (or even vast majority) of what we know is deference to epistemic authorities, and the greater the cultural complexity is, the more it is so. In the dominantly empiricist epistemological tradition, however, these elements of belief are not considered rational inasmuch as their acceptance 1 Steve FULLER, "On Regulating What Is Known: A Way to Social Epistemology." Synthese, vol. 73, no. 1, 1987, p. 145–183. Fuller is the founder of the journal Social Epistemology in 1987, and also author of the book Social Epistemology (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1988). 2 Alvin GOLDMAN, "Foundations of Social Epistemics." Synthese, vol. 73, no. 1, 1987, p. 109– 144. He was later founder of the journal Episteme: a journal of social epistemology in 2004, and author of Knowledge in a Social World (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1999) and Pathways to Knowledge: Private and Public (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2002). 3 E.g. Philip KITCHER, Th e Advancement of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1993; or Miriam SOLOMON, Social Empiricism. Cambridge: MIT Press 2001; and also feminist epistemologies such as Helen LONGINO, Science as Social Knowledge. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1990. 4 E.g. C. A. J. COADY, Testimony. Oxford University Press 1992; Martin KUSCH, Knowledge by Agreement. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2002; Jennifer LACKEY – Ernest SOSA (eds.), Th e Epistemology of Testimony. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2006. 5 E.g. Steven SHAPIN, A Social History of Truth. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1994; or see the June 2002 issue of the journal Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science. 6 John HARDWIG, "Epistemic dependence." Th e Journal of Philosophy, vol. 82, 1985, p. 335–349. Th e work was supported by the Bolyai Research Scholarship. I am grateful to Natalie Ross for her useful corrections, and to two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions. Gabor Kutrovátz 481 is not based on rational evidence (since the testimony of others does not seem to be a rational evidence). So if we want to avoid the seemingly absurd conclusion that the majority of our knowledge is irrational, proportionally to social complexity, then we are faced with a dilemma: 1. Either we have to say that "someone can know 'vicariously' – i.e., without possessing the evidence for the truth of what he knows, perhaps without even fully understanding what he knows".7 2. Or we have to accept that "the community of inquirers is the primary knower and that individual knowledge is derivative",8 and then we give up the fancy idea of intellectual autonomy (Hardwig opts for this second solution). Note that already the term "dependence" suggests a strongly asymmetrical relation between experts (people with direct knowledge) and laypeople (those with indirect knowledge only). Hardwig takes a pessimistic position regarding the possibility of laypeople's assessment of expert opinions: since laypeople are, by defi nition, those who fall back on the testimony of experts, they have hardly any means of rationally evaluating expert claims. Of course, laypeople can ponder on the reliability of certain experts, or rank the relative reliability of several experts, but it can only be rationally done by asking further experts and relying on their assessments – in which case we only lengthened our chain of epistemic dependence, instead of getting rid of it.9 So, according to Hardwig, we have to fully accept our epistemic inferiority to experts, and either rely uncritically on expert claims or, even when criticizing these claims, we have to rely uncritically on experts' replies to our critical remarks.10 In this paper I argue that laypeople's epistemic inferiority to experts is not as straightforward as portrayed by Hardwig, and that laypeople have important means of assessing expert opinions. First I turn to the relevant literature in order to identify contexts where such assessment seems not only possible but necessary, and summarize some of the solutions off ered. Th en I try to show that both the concepts of "expert" and "layperson" need to be reconsidered in the light of those essential transformations that has recently taken place, on the one hand, in the public perception of science and its social role and, on the other hand, in the philosophical, historical and sociological studies of science. Finally I off er a vague description of what 7 Ibid., p. 348. 8 Ibid., p. 349. 9 Ibid., p. 341. 10 Ibid., p. 342. Knowing with Experts: Contextual Knowledge in and Around Science 482 might be classed as elements of meta-expertise, and suggest how the concept of contextual knowledge may bridge the gap between highly specialized knowledge and complete ignorance. 2. Suspending the epistemic inferiority complex 2.1 Hardwig's ad hominems At one point even Hardwig admits that laypeople's otherwise necessary inferiority can be suspended in a certain type of situations that he calls ad hominem:11 Th e layman can assert that the expert is not a disinterested, neutral witness; that his interest in the outcome of the discussion prejudices his testimony. Or that he is not operating in good faith–that he is lying, for example, or refusing to acknowledge a mistake in his views because to do so would tend to undermine his claim to special competence. Or that he is covering for his peers or knuckling under to social pressure from others in his fi eld, etc., etc. However, before we get too optimistic and try to generalize, Hardwig warns us that these ad hominems "seem and perhaps are much more admissible, important, and damning in a layman's discussions with experts than they are in dialogues among peers", since ad hominems are easy to fi nd out in science via testing and evaluating claims.12 And apart from these rare and obvious cases, laypeople have no other choice left than blindly relying on expert testimonies. Let us have a closer look at ad hominems.13 Th e target of ad hominem arguments is not the content of claims but rather the circumstances of the interlocutor making these claims. Such an attitude is usually seen as fallacious or abusive, on the supposition that the truth of a claim has nothing to do with how, by whom, and in what circumstances the claim is made. Th is supposition, however, is far from unproblematic, but even without addressing it theoretically we may simply observe that – in some cases, like the 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid., p. 343. 13 See e.g. Douglas WALTON, Ad Hominem Arguments. Tuscaloosa – London: Th e University of Alabama Press 1998; or Frans van EEMEREN – Rob GROOTENDORST, "Th e History of the Argumentum Ad Hominem Since the Seventeenth Century." In: KRABBE, E. C. W. – DALITZ, R. J. – SMIT, P. A. (eds.), Empirical Logic and Public Debate. Amsterdam: Rodopi 1984, p. 49–68. Gabor Kutrovátz 483 ones above – ad hominems seem to give obvious and rational justifi cation for the rejection of claims. Similarly, the plausibility of some claims made by politicians, diplomats, or salesmen is clearly eff ected by the knowledge of the circumstances in which the claims were made. What is important here is that epistemic access to the context is markedly diff erent from epistemic access to the content, and this provides the layperson with at least a slight possibility of evaluating specialist claims. In order to investigate the scope of this possibility, we now turn to some solutions, suggested in the literature on scientifi c expertise, to the problem of how laypeople can evaluate expert claims. It is not only the precise suggestions themselves that are relevant here but also the situations in which, according to the authors, laypeople's assessment of expert claims seems necessary and unavoidable. 2.2 Brewer and the Juries Scott Brewer, a philosopher of law, considers the situation of court trials where non-expert judges and juries are entitled to evaluate expert testimonies, including scientifi c ones.14 In these cases simple epistemic deference is obviously out of question, so instead, Brewer lists what he identifi es as possible routes to "warranted epistemic deference", i.e. means of non-expert evaluation of expert claims. Th ese are: substantive second guessing, using general canons of rational evidentiary support, evaluating demeanor, and evaluating credentials. Substantive second guessing means that the layperson has, at least to some degree, epistemic access to the content of expert argument and she can understand and assess the evidences supporting the expert claim. Of course, as Brewer admits, such situations are rare since scientifi c arguments are usually highly technical. But the main problem here is theoretical rather than practical: the possibility of substantive second guessing blurs the distinction between experts and laypeople. Expertise, as we will see later, means restricted epistemic access, as expressed by the concept of epistemic dependence. What I suggest is that if there is second guessing in work here then it is circumstantial or contextual rather than substantive. Th e three other routes off ered by Brewer may serve as examples. 14 Scott BREWER, "Scientifi c Expert Testimony and Intellectual Due Process." Th e Yale Law Journal, vol. 107, 1998, p. 1535–1681. Knowing with Experts: Contextual Knowledge in and Around Science 484 Th e second route is using general canons of rational evidentiary support. If an expert argument is incoherent (e.g. self-contradicting) or unable to make or follow basic distinctions (in his example, between causing and not preventing) then, even for the layperson, it becomes evident that such an argument is unreliable. From the practical point of view, this possibility is available only when the argument is simple and non-technical enough for the layperson to follow, just like in the case of substantive second guessing, and it is rarely the case. But theoretically, this option is dissimilar from the previous one in that it is not the content of the argument non-experts need to have access to but rather the form, and this requires on their side skills and competences diff erent from those of the expert. Evaluating the demeanor is similar in this respect: the criteria used to evaluate demeanor are clearly diff erent from those used to evaluate the content of claims. Laypeople may try to weigh up how sincere, confi dent, unbiased, committed etc. the expert is, and this obviously infl uences to what degree non-experts tend to rely on expert claims. In traditional rhetorical terms, all this belongs to the ethos of the speaker which has been held, especially in the past century, in high suspicion because of its capacity to contribute to persuasion (of any kind) as opposed to rational conviction. Brewer shares this suspicion and emphasizes the abusive potential in demeanor oft en exploited by the American legal system where there is a market for persuasive and competent-looking expert witnesses, and he concludes that demeanor is an untrustworthy guide. But for us it suffi ces to note here that however untrustworthy it may be, in some situations demeanor may be found to be informative (rather than simply persuasive) with respect to the plausibility of expert claims, and thus it serves as a means of evaluating experts. Th e most reliable route, according to Brewer, is the evaluation of the expert's credentials, including scientifi c reputation. He adopts the credentialist position15 even while acknowledging that it is laden with serious theoretical diffi culties, such as the regress problem (ranking similar credentials requires asking additional experts), or the underdetermination problem (similar credentials underdetermine our choice between rivaling experts). In order to be able to evaluate scientifi c credentials, one needs to have some degree of familiarity with the institutional structure of science (rankings, positions, 15 Similarly e.g. to Anthony KENNY, "Th e Expert in Court." Law Quarterly Review, vol. 99, 1983, p. 197–216. Gabor Kutrovátz 485 organizations, etc.), which is another, quite specialized, type of contextual knowledge needed to assess claims made by scientifi c experts. 2.3 Goldman and rivaling experts Another feature of legal court trials, in addition to the inherent necessity of the situation to evaluate experts by non-experts, is that in the typical case laypeople are confronted with two, usually contradicting, expert testimonies. Such circumstances are not restricted to the courtroom, of course, but the signifi cance one attributes to them clearly depends on how widespread or general they are seen. Hardwig, for instance, is aware that simple epistemic deference is inapplicable in cases of divided expert opinion, but in his seminal paper he devotes only one paragraph to the problem,16 perhaps because he thinks that such cases are exceptions rather than the rule. He suggests that laypeople should refrain from forming their opinion when faced with rivaling expert claims (i.e. incompatible claims about the same issue), or if they do form an opinion they have to keep in mind that they did it on irrational grounds. So the more frequent and typical these situations are, the less usable Hardwig's solution of simple epistemic deference becomes. Alvin Goldman, a central fi gure in social epistemology, tries to identify those sources of evidence that laypeople can call upon when choosing from rivaling expert opinions–in situations where epistemic solutions of "blind reliance" break down.17 According to him, these are: argument-based evidence, agreement from other experts, appraisals by meta-experts, consideration of interests and biases, and evidence of track-records. Goldman distinguishes between two types of argumentative justifi cation. "Direct" justifi cation means that the non-expert understands the expert argument and is able to evaluate it, similarly to what Brewer means by substantive second guessing. Goldman tries to maintain the gap between experts and laypeople by saying that some expert arguments can be formulated in an exoteric language that is accessible to the layperson, and this is where direct justifi cation is possible. But when arguments are formulated in an unavoidably esoteric language, non-experts still have the possibility to give "indirect" justifi cation by evaluating what Goldman calls argumentative performance: certain features of the arguer's behavior in controversies 16 HARDWIG, "Epistemic dependence," p. 343. 17 Alvin GOLDMAN, "Experts: Which Ones Should You Trust?" Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 63, no. 1, 2001, p. 85–109. Knowing with Experts: Contextual Knowledge in and Around Science 486 (quickness of replies, handling counter-arguments, etc.) indicate the degree of competence, without requiring from the non-expert to share the competences of the expert. Additional experts can be used in two ways in Goldman's classifi cation: either by asking which of the rivaling opinions is agreed upon by a greater number of experts, or by asking meta-experts (i.e. experts evaluating other experts) for judgment on the expert making the claims. For Goldman, this type includes the credentialist solution as well, for credentials are issued by meta-experts and represent their evaluation of the expert in question. He deals with these cases simultaneously and claims that they are basically the same, since meta-experts use decision criteria that are as inaccessible to non-experts as the ones used by the subject level experts, so eventually all these cases boil down to comparing mere numbers. And that, as he argues at length, is unreliable. Similarly to Hardwig's ad hominem cases, Goldman also considers the possibility of identifying interests and biases in the arguer's position. As interests and biases are usually easier to measure than arguments or credentials, he attributes considerable signifi cance to these cases, even with the qualifi cation that far too oft en both of the rivaling experts are interested and biased to the same degree which, as in Brewer's analysis of credentials, underdetermines the decision. What Goldman sees as the most reliable source of evidence is trackrecord. He argues that even highly esoteric domains can produce exoteric results or performances (e.g. predictions) on the basis of which the nonexpert becomes able to evaluate the cognitive success of the expert. While using this criterion requires from the laypeople to pay signifi cant eff ort to examining and comparing diff erent track records, in situations where the choice between experts leads to serious consequences (e.g. a courtroom situation surely belongs here) such an eff ort seems justifi ed. 2.4 Studies of expertise and experience (SEE) Despite their diff erent answers to the question of most reliable decision criteria, Brewer and Goldman agree that sounder evaluation needs special attention, either by studying the institutional structure of science or by examining specialists' track-records. But why should laypeople take the eff ort of improving their contextual knowledge of science? If we turn from philosophical epistemology to the social studies of science and technology, we fi nd an answer at the core of the discipline: because laypeople's lives are Gabor Kutrovátz 487 embedded in a world in which both science and experts play a crucial role, but where not all experts represent science and even those who do, represent various, oft en incompatible, claims from which laypeople have to choose what to believe. Th e program called "studies of expertise and experience" (SEE) evolved in a framework shaped by these presuppositions. It was initiated by science studies guru Harry Collins and Robert Evans when they advertised and urged the "third wave" of science studies.18 Th eir initial problem is that "the speed of politics exceeds the speed of scientifi c consensus formation",19 meaning that decision making processes outside science (politics, economy, the public sphere, etc.) are usually faster than similar processes in science. Th is gives rise to what they call "the problem of legitimacy":20 how is technological decision making possible given the growing social uncertainty? Th ey claim that solutions are already achieved, or pointed to, in the fi eld of "public participation in science". However, a related but yet unsolved problem is "the problem of extension", i.e. to what degree should the public be engaged in technical decision making? Th e program of SEE is meant to provide normative answers to this question. In this framework the term "expert" has a wide range of applications, since experts are defi ned as those "who know what they are talking about",21 which is based on immersion in communicative life forms.22 Forms of expertise range from ubiquitous skills (such as native language usage) to the highest degree of scientifi c specialization, as summarized in "the periodic table of expertises".23 What is relevant here is that this table includes, in addition to types of specialist expertise, those forms of "meta-expertise" that can be used to judge and evaluate specialist expertise. 18 Harry COLLINS – Robert EVANS, "Th e Th ird Wave of Science Studies: Studies of Expertise and Experience." Social Studies of Science, vol. 32, no. 2, 2002, p. 235–296; later expanded to Harry COLLINS – Robert EVANS, Rethinking Expertise. Chicago: Th e University of Chicago Press 2007. 19 COLLINS – EVANS, Rethinking Expertise, p. 8. 20 COLLINS – EVANS, "Th e Th ird Wave of Science Studies," p. 237. 21 COLLINS – EVANS, Rethinking Expertise, p. 2. 22 Th is conception is criticized e.g. by Evan SELINGER – John MIX, "On Interactional Expertise: Pragmatic and Ontological Considerations." In: SELINGER, E. – CREASE, R. P. (eds.), Th e Philosophy of Expertise. New York: Columbia University Press 2006, p. 302–321; or in Evan SELINGER – Hubert DREYFUS – Harry COLLINS, "Interactional Expertise and Embodiment." Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol. 38, 2007, p. 722–740. 23 COLLINS – EVANS, Rethinking Expertise, p. 14. Knowing with Experts: Contextual Knowledge in and Around Science 488 As the theory distinguishes between, on the one hand, those kinds of specialist expertise that are based on esoterically available tacit knowledge and, on the other hand, those that are supported by exoteric information only, a similar distinction is introduced for meta-expertise. Th ere are metaexperts who evaluate other experts as formal equals (scientists on other scientists), or as representatives of meta-sciences (political scientists on politicians, literary critics on writers, etc.) – i.e., professionally. But apart from that, a widespread deference to experts is a basic necessity in modern societies, and laypeople are thus forced to acquire skills and "social intelligence" needed to cope in an expert culture. So non-experts are able to bring decisions regarding technical questions on non-technical grounds, either when they have personal access to part of the social relations ("local discrimination"), or when they as complete outsiders come to decisions based on their social experiences ("global discrimination"). Also in this "periodic table" one can fi nd "meta-criteria" for evaluating experts. One of these is credentials and, as opposed to Brewer, Collins and Evans fi nd this source as the least reliable of all–especially in fi elds outside science where there are no credentials at all. Th ey consider track-records to be somewhat more trustworthy, but the practical problem here is also that in many areas of expertise track-records are nonexistent. So what they fi nd most reliable is the past experience of experts, but unfortunately it is not elaborated how an expert's experience could become accessible and measurable from the non-expert perspective. However, all these meta-criteria are such that they need special focus on the layperson's side to assess, while in most cases the public would want to come to decisions based on less local details. In order to form technical judgments based on non-technical and relatively general warrants, laypeople need some kind of social intelligence to rely upon. As Collins and Evans claim: [Th e] judgment turns on whether the author of a scientifi c claim appears to have the appropriate scientifi c demeanor and/or the appropriate location within the social networks of scientists and/or not too much in the way of a political and fi nancial interest in the claim.24 Th ey illustrate the point with three examples: astrology, manned moon landings and cold fusion. In all cases they claim that people (or at least suffi ciently informed people) in Western societies have enough social skills 24 Ibid., p. 45. Gabor Kutrovátz 489 to arrive at the correct conclusion–that astrology is not a science (since astrologists are not contained by the social networks of science), that moon landings are not faked (since such a huge conspiracy is not conceivable in our societies), and that cold fusion experiments did not succeed (and do not belong to the network of science anymore). To me, however, it seems that these examples are convincing only insofar the non-experts we are talking about are really informed, which is closer to an idealistic society the actual ones I know. To sum up the main points of this section: It seems clear that despite all the possible theoretical diffi culties, laypeople can and do make evaluations of expert claims, and since laypeople are not experts in terms of their cognitive domains, these evaluations are based on criteria external to the specialist domain. Also, such external evaluations are not only frequent but generally unavoidable in a world of rivaling experts and consensus-lacking controversial issues. But while the relevant external criteria are numerous and various, the reliability of these evaluations generally depends on some degree of focus and eff ort on the layperson's side toward knowing scientists as experts. In order to give a more systematic account, the concepts of layperson and expert need to be reconsidered. 3. Expertise and the public 3.1 Experts Th e problem of experts has been present in the history of Western thought at least since Socrates of the early dialogues of Plato, who sought to fi nd what knowledge is by asking and then confronting some of the most renown experts of his day. Recently the concept has received an intensifi ed attention. "A signifi cant milestone is reached when a fi eld of scientifi c research matures to a point warranting publication of its fi rst handbook", claims the beginning sentence of the fi rst handbook of expertise25 that summarizes mainly the relevant psychological research of the past few decades in 900 dense pages. What we have discussed so far illustrates that the topic has also been addressed in philosophy,26 or in the social studies of science where the initiative 25 K. Anders ERICSSON – Neil CHARNESS – Paul J. FELTOVICH – Robert R. HOFFMAN (eds.), Th e Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2006, p. 3. 26 See e.g. Evan SELINGER – Robert CREASE (eds.), Th e Philosophy of Expertise. New York: Columbia University Press 2006. Knowing with Experts: Contextual Knowledge in and Around Science 490 paper by Collins and Evans27 has become one of the most frequent points of reference in the fi eld. Other forms of an "expertise-hype" can be seen in the theory of management, in risk assessment, in artifi cial intelligence research, in didactics, and in a number of other fi elds having to do with the concept of "expert". Of course, the wide variety of relevant disciplines breeds many diff erent concepts of expertise and poses many diff erent questions, and there is no coherent theoretical approach covering even a whole discipline, not to mention all of these together. Th is implies that an intuitive understanding of expertise is insuffi cient here and, without wanting to build or use any full-fl edged background theory, some points need to be explicated. Th e conception of expertise this paper relies on is not an essentialist one. I am not interested in what or who experts are, i.e. what it is that makes an expert an expert. Th e psychological literature examines how experts perform better than non-experts and what cognitive or other factors display the diff erence. Brewer relates the concept of expertise to the notion of understanding and describes epistemic competence,28 Goldman tries to defi ne it in "veritistic" terms and connects it to information-processing know-how,29 Collins and Evans refer to life forms and discursive communities.30 My assumptions are perhaps even less demanding and purely phenomenological (in the broadest sense): it is an elementary experience (and at the same time presupposition) of our culture that in many areas there are such people as experts to whom we turn with our problems and questions. On the other hand, nor does it seem satisfactory to suffi ce with a purely attributional conception, i.e. to say that being an expert is nothing more than being handled as an expert. Th e two minimal necessary conditions that represent the normative character of the concept are that it is experiencebased and it is epistemically restricted. Th e experience requirement is already contained by the term "expert", coming from the Latin expertus, experienced. Prima facie, someone with experience is opposed to someone with indirect (testimonial) knowledge only, or someone with no knowledge at all. But experience is also in contrast with pure factual knowledge, or fake knowledge, etc. Moreover, skills based on experience can have diff erent degrees depending on the amount and intensity of that experience, and this 27 COLLINS – EVANS, "Th e Th ird Wave of Science Studies." 28 BREWER, "Scientifi c Expert Testimony and Intellectual Due Process." 29 GOLDMAN, "Experts: Which Ones Should You Trust?" 30 COLLINS – EVANS, Rethinking Expertise. Gabor Kutrovátz 491 means that expert skills are improvable.31 Usually in organized cultures, relevant experience and resulting skills are improved by training, oft en in institutionalized forms. Th e other normative requirement on expertise is that it means restricted cognitive access to a domain. Th is assumption goes counter to the theory of Collins and Evans, since they include ubiquitous skills among forms of expertise. But such an extension of the scope seems too wide in that those situations it covers in addition are such that they lack the relation of epistemic dependence, and so are not relevant to this paper. Reading, for example, is a skill that is based on experience and training, but we would not call it expertise simply because it is practically ubiquitous–while a thousand years ago it was an important form of expertise due to its restricted availability. In this sense expertise is an important form of cultural capital,32 in case it off ers skill or knowledge that is worthy and valuable for the society.33 Th e kinds of experts we deal with are epistemic experts: laypeople depend on them for their knowledge of "how the world is" in a certain area, and not for their ability to solve practical problems. In case of epistemic expertise, a further requirement seems to be that expert knowledge should be communicable to be shared with laypeople. Of course, experts' restricted access means that only some aspects of epistemic expertise can be shared with non-experts, but the question is still open what these aspects are. In the minimal assumption, experts need to be able to answer questions belonging their fi eld of expertise, without being able or willing to share the reasons and arguments for their answers. Th is would suffi ce for simple epistemic deference, but it seems less satisfactory in case of divided expert opinion where laypeople need to choose from several expert claims. As we have seen, laypeople can still rely on a number of criteria if reasons and arguments are not given, but if it is in the expert's interest to convince her audience, it seems a better option to try to come up with cognitively accessible justifi cation. All this depends on the audience–which takes us to the concept of laypeople. 31 Expertise as a result of learning process is at the core of some conceptions such as Hubert DREYFUS – Stuart E. DREYFUS, "Peripheral Vision: Expertise in Real World Contexts." Organization Studies, vol. 26, 2005, p. 779–792. 32 Pierre BOURDIEU, "Th e Forms of Capital." In: RICHARDSON, J. G. (ed.), Handbook for Th eory and Research for the Sociology of Education. New York: Greenwood 1986, p. 241–258. 33 E.g. Steve FULLER, "Th e Constitutively Social Character of Expertise." International Journal of Expert Systems, vol. 7, no. 1, 1994, p. 51–64. Knowing with Experts: Contextual Knowledge in and Around Science 492 3.2 Laypeople Th ose who do not belong to the social networks of science are oft en referred to as "the public". In recent literature, two approaches are distinguished in the fi eld of "public understanding of science": the defi cit model and the contextual model.34 In the defi cit model the layperson is viewed as someone yet ignorant of science but capable of having their head "fi lled" with knowledge diff using from science. Such a "fi lling process" increases, fi rst, laypeople's scientifi c literacy (and their ability to solve related technical problems), second, their degree of rationality (following the rules of scientifi c method), and third, their trust in and respect for science. Th is model ruled the traditional conception of the fi eld until recently when it has been criticized and widely replaced by the contextual model. According to the latter, members of the public do not need scientifi c knowledge for solving their problems, nor do they have "empty memory slots" to receive scientifi c knowledge at all. Instead, the public's mind is fully stuff ed with intellectual strategies to cope with problems they encounter during their lives, and some of these problems are related to science. So the public turns to science actively (instead of passive reception), more precisely to scientifi c experts, with questions framed in the context of their everyday lives. Now the questions the public is interested in can rarely be answered by "ready made science" deposited in textbooks, but they belong to "science in the making".35 Instead of asking precisely how planets or pendulums move, to which there are answers that are consensual and yet mostly irrelevant to the public, they want to know e.g. what materials or activities are healthy, and these questions are (still) controversial in science. So people are faced with a plethora of diff erent and partly contradicting expert opinions, from which they have to build their system of beliefs. If the contextual model provides a correct description of the basic situation here, then the problems of epistemic dependence and non-expert evaluation of experts become vital. Such a conceptual shift in the public understanding of science is linked with recent fundamental changes in both the structure of science and the 34 E.g. Alan G. GROSS, "Th e Roles of Rhetoric in the Public Understanding of Science." Public Understanding of Science, vol. 3, 1994, p. 3–23; or Jane GREGORY – Steve MILLER, "Caught in the Crossfi re? Th e Public's Role in the Science Wars." In: LABINGER, J. A. – COLLINS, H. (eds.), Th e One Culture? A Conversation about Science. Chicago – London: University of Chicago Press 2001, p. 61–72. 35 For the diff erence, see Bruno LATOUR, Science in Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1987. Gabor Kutrovátz 493 social image of the role of science. Th ese processes are related to the concepts of post-academic science36 or mode-2 science37, both re-describing science as transforming into a market-minded social structure. More directly relevant here is the idea of "post-normal science"38, according to which decisions in the science and technology of our age are achieved under the circumstances of high risk and uncertainty. A similar idea was the initial premise of the SEE approach, i.e. the speed of decisions in science can never catch up with the speed of decisions outside science, and this always requires that the non-expert sphere should bring decisions in technical matters of scientifi c expertise. All this together is the answer to what Collins and Evans called the problem of legitimacy: why laypeople should be engaged in decision making in fi elds of expertise. In social studies of science, similar and related questions have inspired numerous practical approaches, for instance, in the fi eld of "public participation in science".39 Th e three main orientations are the following:40 1. In the theoretical approach, general consequences of the socio-cultural phenomenon of epistemic dependence are sought (e.g. social epistemology). 2. Th e political approach discusses the possibilities of improving socio-economic decision-making processes by involving experts, in a situation where the socio-economic space of science have outgrown its classical epistemic niche (e.g. post-normal science). 3. Th e activist approach addresses non-experts and aims at making the public more knowledgeable, responsible and interested with respect to scientifi c and technological processes infl uencing their everyday lives. Such a public is essentially diff erent from the servile and passive laypeople compatible with Hardwig's description. External evaluations of scientifi c issues are part and parcel of present cultures. But the contextual model also 36 E.g. John ZIMAN, "'Postacademic Science': Constructing Knowledge with Networks and Norms." Science Studies, vol. 1, 1996, p. 67–80. 37 Michael GIBBONS – Camille LIMOGES – Helga NOWOTNY – Simon SCHWARTZMAN – Peter SCOTT – Martin TROW, Th e New Production of Knowledge: Th e Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies. London: Sage 1994. 38 Silvio FUNTOWICZ – Jerome RAVETZ, "Science for the Post-Normal Age." Futures, vol. 25, 1993, no. 7, p. 735–755. 39 For a summary, see e.g. Massimiano BUCCHI – Federico NERESINI, "Science and Public Participation." In: HACKETT, E. J. et al. (eds.): Th e Handbook of Science and Technology Studies. Th ird Edition. Cambridge: MIT Press 2007, p. 449–472. 40 Based on Edward WOODHOUSE – David HESS – Steve BREYMAN – Brian MARTIN, "Science Studies and Activism: Possibilities and Problems for Reconstructivist Agendas." Social Studies of Science, vol. 32, no. 2, 2002, p. 297–319. Knowing with Experts: Contextual Knowledge in and Around Science 494 makes it clear that the non-expert's choice between expert opinions is not a matter of scientifi c knowledge (for if it was, laypeople would have to know more science than scientist themselves to make decisions about questions still controversial in science). Rather, it is a matter of external skills such as social, argumentative, and perhaps other forms of discrimination, what we call here contextual, as opposed to substantial, knowledge. 3.3 From laypeople to meta-experts Th e discussion up to now might have created an impression of a group of laypeople facing another (albeit perhaps heterogeneous) group of experts, standing on the two sides of the expert/non-expert divide. However, since expertise is domain-specifi c, all experts are laypeople at the same time in all the fi elds outside their scope of expertise. And this entails that the epistemic dependence relation holds not only between scientists and non-scientists, but also between scientists representing diff erent specializations. Th is aspect was already examined in the classical paper of Hardwig who elaborated on the consequences of the division of epistemic labor necessarily inherent in the complex and cooperative scientifi c activity of present days (he analyses a scientifi c paper with 99 authors). In social studies of science, features stemming from the "disunity of science" have also been emphatically investigated,41 and a number of concepts describing diff erent boundary phenomena have been introduced, such as boundary work,42 boundary object,43 boundary infrastructure,44 or boundary organization45 – all heavily bearing on the political context. Another related concept, "trading zone"46 41 Peter GALISON – David STUMP, Th e Disunity of Science. Stanford University Press 1996. 42 Th omas F. GIERYN, "Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists." American Sociological Review, vol. 48, 1983, p. 781–795. 43 Susan L. STAR – James R. GRIESEMER, "Institutional Ecology, 'Translations' and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–39." Social Studies of Science, vol. 19, no. 3, 1989, pp. 387–420. 44 C. BOWKER – Susan L. STAR, Sorting Th ings Out: Classifi cation and Its Consequences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1999. 45 David H. GUSTON, "Stabilising the Boundary Between U. S. Politics and Science: Th e Role of the Offi ce of Technology Transfer as a Boundary Organisation." Social Studies of Science, vol. 29, 1999, no. 1, p. 87–111. 46 Peter GALISON, Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1997. Gabor Kutrovátz 495 has been taken up by Michael Gorman47 and then by the SEE program48 to show how expertise is transformed in the dynamics of disciplinary interfaces in science. Perhaps it is worth adding that Collins started his career by studying the role of tacit knowledge in science,49 later central to his concept of expertise, which he found so much local that it is inaccessible outside a small "core-set" working strictly together. In sum, patterns of external evaluation and warranted epistemic dependence are present everywhere in and around science. Th e contextual model extends beyond its original scope (public understanding of science) toward the entire culture of expertise, including the inner workings of science. Of course, the need for external judgment can appear in several contexts and at diff erent levels, and various forms of scientifi c "meta-expertise" may be distinguished in terms of the social context and function (e.g. the "periodic table" in SEE suggests a typology of meta-expertise). Instead of trying to introduce systematic distinctions or classifi cations, some forms of scientifi c meta-expertise are listed below to represent a possible spectrum in a complex cultural space. Most generally, the informed public of present societies needs to evaluate scientifi c matters, as has been argued at length. If the term "meta-expertise" suggests that it is a kind of expertise itself then, as I claimed above, the more widespread the relevant skills are, the less we may see them as expert skills; while it seems a reasonable directive that all members of the public should benefi t from improving their skills of evaluating scientifi c claims. But even if these skills do not satisfy the restriction criterion, some skills at least satisfy the experience criterion in that the reliability of external evaluations may be increased by focused experience, e.g. acquaintance with the workings of science–remember Brewer's solution of becoming familiar with credentials and organizations, or Goldman's suggestion of studying track-records, or even the idea in SEE to study past experience. Th e point here is not the small terminological issue whether ubiquitous, or at least ideally ubiquitous, skills might be called expertise or not, but that external judgments on scientifi c 47 Michael GORMAN, "Levels of Expertise and Trading Zones." Social Studies of Science, vol. 32, no. 6, 2002, p. 933–938. 48 Harry COLLINS, Robert EVANS – Michael GORMAN, "Trading Zones and Interactional Expertise." Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol. 38, 2007, p. 657–666. 49 Harry COLLINS, "Th e TEA Set: Tacit Knowledge and Scientifi c Networks." Science Studies, vol. 4, 1974, p. 165–186; further elaborated in Harry COLLINS, Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientifi c Practice. Beverley Hills – London: Sage 1985. Knowing with Experts: Contextual Knowledge in and Around Science 496 experts are improvable, and if the improvement reaches a level of specialization then it becomes meta-expertise in a stricter sense. A need for specialized meta-expertise appears in cases where political and economic decisions concerning science are made (science policy and administration, distribution of funds and supports, R&D investments, legal regulation, etc.). In these cases those who arrive at evaluations of experts as a necessary part of their job are "laypeople" in relation to those whom they evaluate, since the former's fi eld of expertise is clearly diff erent from, and usually not even overlapping with, the latter's. Science communication is similar in this respect since e.g. compiling and editing scientifi c news or reports or expositions for the public amounts to forms of expertise that include skills of evaluating and assessing scientifi c expert claims in general, in addition to other skills that are markedly diff erent from those needed for doing science.50 Even scientists when relying on results of another fi eld use meta-level evaluations. In case the expert's own fi eld is not far from the one subject to evaluation, then "skills that have been learned in one scientifi c area" can be "indirectly applied to another", as Collins defi nes the category of "referred expertise",51 in connection with multidisciplinary project managers who have to make decisions in areas outside their original fi eld. But expert performance evaluations are more frequently made internally to fi elds of specialization, e.g. by refereeing publications and grants. An important question is whether evaluations within a specialty are fundamentally different from evaluations made by outsiders. Th ere are two reasons why I tend to deny such a fundamental diff erence (but of course not any, or even any important, diff erence). Th e fi rst is that as noted above, classical works in science studies showed that certainty and full cognitive access in science are extremely local,52 and that all claims are highly indexical and contextual53 – which casts serious doubt on the possibility of purely "internal" evaluations even between peers. Second, as Helga Nowotny argues,54 expertise is 50 For details see Massimiano BUCCHI – Brian TRENCH (eds.), Handbook of Public Communication of Science and Technology. London – New York: Routledge 2008. 51 Harry COLLINS – Gary SANDERS, "Th ey Give You the Keys and Say 'Drive It!' Managers, Referred Expertise, and Other Expertises." Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol. 38, 2007, p. 621–641. 52 See COLLINS, Changing Order; or Trevor PINCH, Confronting Nature: Th e Sociology of Solar-Neutrino Detection. Dordrecht – Boston: D. Reidel 1986. 53 Karin KNORR-CETINA, Th e Manufacture of Knowledge. Oxford: Pergamon Press 1981. 54 Helga NOWOTNY, "Democratising Expertise and Socially Robust Knowledge." Science and Public Policy vol. 30, no. 3, 2003, p. 151–156. Gabor Kutrovátz 497 "transgressive", fi rstly because it can never be reduced to purely scientifi c and technical matters, and secondly because its audiences are never solely composed of fellow-experts. To put it more simply, as scientifi c practice goes, not even the blind referee system of journals is devoid of non-technical, i.e. external, factors in evaluation. To note, another type of meta-expertise is represented by scientifi c meta-disciplines such as history of science, philosophy of science, sociology of science, etc. But while these professional meta-experts may claim to have a profound understanding of what constitutes scientifi c expertise, oft en they avoid being meta-experts in the sense used so far, i.e. in forming evaluations of expert performance. Especially in the social studies of science, the initially dominant approach was shaped by the Edinburgh School's neutral descriptivism55 and Collins' methodological relativism,56 according to which analysts of scientifi c activity should completely refrain from making evaluations in the domain of science. However, such an avoidance of normativity has been explicitly challenged by the program of SEE, at least in the sense that scientifi c meta-experts should work out those criteria which can inform warranted evaluations of expert claims. Th e followings are meant to contribute to this project. 4. Meta-expertise 4.1 Assumptions We have seen so far that the situation of epistemic dependence, as understood in the light of recent work in science studies, involves the generally widespread and unavoidable evaluation of scientifi c experts. Such situations are not specifi c to the public sphere outside science, nor are they limited internally to science, but they are present in a wide range of contexts in and around science, that is, contextually. Since expert knowledge means restricted cognitive access, evaluations always involve some amount of "contextual knowledge", and its proportion quickly increases with the distance of evaluators from the proper area of evaluated experts. Contextual knowledge makes it possible for the laypeople to know with experts without having to know precisely what experts know. 55 David BLOOR, Knowledge and Social Imagery. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1976. 56 Harry COLLINS, "What is TRASP: Th e Radical Programme as a Methodological Imperative." Philosophy of the Social Sciences, vol. 11, 1981, p. 215–224. Knowing with Experts: Contextual Knowledge in and Around Science 498 Before trying to outline the idea of contextual knowledge by giving examples of its elements, a commitment and a few assumptions need to be mentioned. Th e commitment is that the concept of meta-expertise used here has a normative character. Th e purely descriptive question of how people do evaluate each other's claims can be approached in a number of ways, e.g. by proper methods in social psychology57, or by surveying discursive metaevaluations58. On the other hand, epistemologists like Brewer and Goldman address the normative problem of how people should evaluate expert claims, i.e. how they can become rationally convinced, rather than merely persuaded. Such a conception of rationality presupposes that there are factors in selecting and evaluating epistemic experts that increase the reliability of decisions, as compared to those decisions based on more general cognitive mechanisms ignoring these factors. It also implies that it would be benefi cial for individuals in our culture, and thus for the culture in general, to increase their attention to these factors, and it would be benefi cial for relevant decision makers to make the contextual knowledge needed for judging scientifi c expert opinions more available to members of our society. While I share these authors' normative commitment, without further arguments for the reliability of choices and cultural benefi t (which seems to be an issue at least as pragmatic as theoretical), I maintain that corresponding discussions should be informed by recent focuses and fi ndings in the social studies of science, e.g. as summarized in section 3. As regards my further assumptions, the fi rst is that meta-expertise should be improvable (by experience), as already seen in connection with the general notion of expertise. Th ere may be instinctive or unrefl ected factors that play some part, and potentially a major part, in our responses to others' claims, but here only such factors will be considered that communicative agents can control and consciously cultivate. Most aspects of 57 For a summary of approaches, see Arie W. KRUGLANSKI – David SLEETH-KEPPLER, "Th e Principles of Social Judgment." In: KRUGLANSKI, A. W. – HIGGINS, E. T. (eds.), Social Psychology. Handbook of Basic Principles. 2nd edition. New York – London: Th e Guilford Press 2007, p. 116–137. For the case of epistemic authorities like experts, see Arie W. KRUGLANSKI – Amiram RAVIV – Daniel BAR-TAL – Alona RAVIV – Keren SHARVIT – Shmuel ELLIS – Ruth BAR – Antonio PIERRO – Lucia MANNETTI, "Says Who?: Epistemic Authority Eff ects in Social Judgment." In: ZANNA, M. P. (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. Vol. 37. New York: Academic Press 2005, p. 343–392. 58 I attempted to test the typologies of evaluative factors (summarized in section 2) on extensive blog discussions of a publicly relevant and controversial scientifi c matter, the H1N1 vaccine issue of 2009. See Gábor KUTROVÁTZ, "Trust in Experts: Contextual Patterns of Warranted Epistemic Dependence." Balkan Journal of Philosophy, accepted paper. Gabor Kutrovátz 499 an arguer's "demeanor" are ignored on this ground, assuming that while they have a considerable impact on the audience's attitudes, they act at an unavoidably subconscious level. In other words, meta-expertise is a result of focused learning process. Another assumption is that meta-expertise is domain-specifi c. While all communicative agents are able to make social discriminations as a result of their socialization process, ubiquitous skills are insuffi cient for attaining warranted evaluations of epistemic experts if specialized skills are also available. However, this assumption is not equivalent to the restriction condition of expertise mentioned earlier, since we do not necessarily describe meta-experts in the sense that their competence in judging scientifi c experts would make them cognitively valuable for those who epistemically depend on them for their meta-scientifi c evaluations. Th e normative commitment above requires from all laypeople that they should improve their specifi c skills of meta-expertise–while not excluding the possibility of there being others, engaged specifi cally in regular decisions about science, with higher degree of specialized meta-expertise based on more comprehensive experience. Th ere are skills that are ubiquitous and still improvable to a degree of high specialization, like language use according to the SEE program, or car driving, a pet example of expertise in Hubert Dreyfus' theory.59 All I assume here is that some relevant competences can be improved by focused experience and training. 4.2 Elements Turning now to the constituents of contextual knowledge relevant to meta- -expertise, a brief list of some elements is to follow. Th is is defi nitely not meant as a comprehensive collection of all the elements or even the types of elements, but as a slightly systematic expansion of some suggestions cited in section 2, in the light of the theoretical considerations of section 3. Th e purpose is to illustrate the kind of contextual knowledge effi cient in judging experts, and not to build a complete theory of it. Th is will already suffi ce for off ering some suggestions regarding directions of future research. Th e fi rst group of elements contains argumentative factors. Provided that arguments supporting expert opinions are given, laypeople can consider some general characteristics of these arguments. Th e claim here is that cultivated awareness of argument use and skills of argument analysis can 59 DREYFUS – DREYFUS, "Peripherial Vision." Knowing with Experts: Contextual Knowledge in and Around Science 500 increase the reliability of judgments on experts. Argument evaluation as understood here does not include Brewer's "substantive second guessing" or Goldman's "direct argument justifi cation", since these require substantial, rather than contextual, understanding of expert claims (although, as I argued above, purely substantial evaluations do not seem to exist). On the other hand, I also exclude a part of what Goldman called "dialectical performance", since the quickness and readiness of replies to objections seems to belong more to the arguer's demeanor than to the structure and strategy of argumentation, and thus fall on the side of psychological factors infl uencing mere persuasion–and while in some cases they tend to be informative indeed, oft en they are strongly misleading. But there are several contextual discursive factors more closely tied up with the epistemic virtue of arguments. For example, consistency (and also coherence) of arguments, clarity of argument structure, supporting relations between premises and conclusions, etc. Of course, the more esoteric a domain's cognitive toolkit is, the harder it is for an outsider to diff erentiate between form and content, and to detect inconsistency or circularity and similar faults–still in many cases these factors are easier to judge than the soundness of substance. A similar matter is the degree of reliability of argument forms used by the expert.60 Arguments can be weakened, albeit at the same time increased in persuasive potential, by diff erent appeals to emotions and sentiments, or by abusive applications of ad hominems, or by irrelevant or misleading appeals to authority, etc. Also, dialectical attitude (instead of dialectical performance) can be highly informative, i.e. moves and strategies in controversies, including conscious or unnoticed fallacies such as straw man, red herring, question begging, shift ing the burden of proof, and more generally, breaking implicit rules of rational discussion.61 It must be noted that all the factors mentioned above provide reasons for doubting opinions and withholding doubt, rather than enhancing agreement. Nevertheless, negative evaluation can be used in relative comparisons and thus give essential support to choices between expert claims. Moreover, 60 As argued e.g. by Douglas WALTON, Witness Testimony Evidence. Argumentation, Artifi cial Intelligence, and Law. Cambridge University Press 2008. 61 For a set of these rules, see Frans van EEMEREN – Rob GROOTENDORST, A Systematic Th eory of Argumentation: Th e Pragma-Dialectical Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2004, p. 190–196. As to how committing fallacies relates to these rules of discussion, see Frans van EEMEREN – Bart GARSSEN – Bert MEUFELS, Fallacies and Judgments of Reasonableness. Empirical Research Concerning the Pragma-Dialectical Discussion Rules. Berlin: Springer 2009. Gabor Kutrovátz 501 fallacies can also be given a more context-sensitive analysis, and seen as moves in the process of "strategic maneuvering" negotiating between the persuasiveness and reasonableness.62 Th e general point is that these competences, on the one hand, can be improved by experience and training in argumentation analysis and, on the other hand, are domain-independent and therefore diff erent from the skills specifi c to restricted fi elds of expertise. Th eir range covers any area where patterns of reasoning and rational discourse are acknowledged, including all forms of epistemic expertise. Th e other group of meta-expertise elements I consider here belong to the fi eld of "social intelligence". Some of these are naturally such that we acquire them through living in a society, e.g. the detection of interests and biases, or of some general signs of trustworthiness, but precisely because these are ubiquitous they do not need focused eff ort and training to improve, so they are not seen as meta-expertise. But there are other social factors related specifi cally to the evaluation of epistemic experts (i.e., scientifi c experts in the typical case), about which laypeople have a lot to learn and experience. Let us recall the examples given by Collins and Evans63 mentioned in section 2.4, namely that most people, relying simply on their social intelligence, are able to arrive at correct judgments on matters such as the scientifi c status of astrology, or the reality of moon-landings, or of the failure of cold fusion experiments. Why I am not convinced by these examples is that I doubt whether ubiquitous social skills are enough to set these matters right: I believe that additional social skills targeted to the epistemic culture of science are needed in these cases. Unlike other important cultural spheres like that of politics, economy, or sports, about which laypeople are more likely to make reliable social evaluations, science as a social system is hardly known by the public. Th e assumption that social intelligence can inform technical decisions does not apply to the case of scientifi c matters if laypeople have much less social intelligence regarding how science works than knowledge of actual scientifi c "truths" taught in schools. Meta-scientifi c knowledge informing meta-expert evaluations involves an understanding of the social dimension of the workings of science. For instance, in order to make the credentialist solution plausible, one needs to know about the social network of credentials, hierarchies of statuses and 62 Frans van EEMEREN (ed.), Examining Argumentation in Context. Fift een Studies on Strategic Maneuvering. Amsterdam: John Benjamins 2009. 63 COLLINS – EVANS, Rethinking Expertise, p. 45–48. Knowing with Experts: Contextual Knowledge in and Around Science 502 institutions, types and functions of qualifi cations and ranks, etc. A similar knowledge is needed to detect more subtle interests and biases. It is also useful to understand patterns of communication in science, the role of diff erent publications and citations, mechanisms of consensus formation, the nature of interdisciplinary epistemic dependence and resulting forms of cooperation, etc. Besides, transparency of sites and practices in science may also prove useful, including forms of local cooperation, the instrumental dependence of research, roles of uncertainty and skepticism, and so on. While understanding all these phenomena may seem too strong an expectation from the public, it seems likely that becoming familiar with these requires less eff ort than learning substantial claims of the diff erent sciences, partly because social structures and mechanisms are easier to understand (based on our fundamental experience with them) than abstract facts. Classical works in the social studies of science were oft en written with the explicit purpose of informing the public about how science actually works.64 While the aim was improving the public's social intelligence regarding science, and thus informing their relevant decisions, in vivo descriptions of scientifi c research oft en triggered heated attacks for opening the way to science criticism.65 However, the arguments in this paper have hopefully provided another reason why punctual and widely available descriptions of scientifi c practice are useful for present societies. 4.3 Areas While contextual knowledge about science may be essential in societies that depend in manifold ways on the sciences, it is not obvious how and why the public attention could turn to these matters. If spontaneous focus on scientifi c meta-expertise might be unrealistic to expect from the public, there are organized ways to improve cognitive attitudes toward science. 64 E.g., the Golem-series: Harry COLLINS – Trevor PINCH, Th e Golem: What You Should Know about Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1993; Harry COLLINS – Trevor PINCH, Th e Golem at Large: What You Should Know about Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998; Harry COLLINS – Trevor PINCH, Dr. Golem: How to Th ink about Medicine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2005. 65 See the "science wars", e.g. Paul GROSS – Norman LEVITT, Higher Superstition: Th e Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science. New Haven: Yale University Press 1994; or Alan D. SOKAL – Jean BRICMONT, Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science. New York: Picador USA 1998. Gabor Kutrovátz 503 I briefl y mention three areas: education, science communication, and public engagement. From the preceding arguments the claim follows that school curricula should contain, besides (and perhaps sometimes, instead of) scientifi c material, meta-scientifi c elements as well. In a world saturated with scientifi c and technological issues, relevant historical, sociological, and perhaps philosophical considerations are at least as informative about science as scientifi c facts, since they contribute to the development of competences like that of the evaluation of expert claims, as seen in the preceding section. In many countries however, science curricula in schools is overwhelmingly dominated by knowledge of science, versus knowledge about science which usually fails to appear in any systematic form. Moreover, when it appears at all, knowledge about science oft en means to cover methodological issues inherited from traditional philosophy of science, i.e. those classical topics (verifi cation and falsifi cation of theories, induction and deduction, reduction and underdetermintation) that have more to do with philosophical abstraction than with the actual workings of science as cultural practice and institution. While opinions may divide as to whether explicit meta-scientifi c knowledge of this broader type is useful to scientists, the argument here implies that such a knowledge is indispensable for everyone eff ected by but not immersed in the scientifi c practice of a restricted fi eld, including laypeople and other specialists alike. In addition to off ering meta-scientifi c knowledge, general school education should also focus on improving dialectical competences and skills of argument evaluation (critical literacy). Th is again increases the degree of reliability in decisions between expert opinions, as students gain organized experience, by practicing and studying mechanisms of rational deliberation and consensus formation, in how to participate in argumentative, instead of authoritarian, life forms. Here the departure from the classical content knowledge type of education toward experience-based training is absolutely vital. Again, there is a notable cultural invariance in the degree of focusing on "debating practices" and discursive deliberations in general school education (in many countries, frontal teaching of contential material is still overwhelmingly dominant), but increasing emphasis is given worldwide to related competences in education policies and directives. In science communication, similarly to education, sensitivity to the social context of science is desirable. Keeping an eye on the needs of the public and another on the needs of scientifi c institutions, science studies can Knowing with Experts: Contextual Knowledge in and Around Science 504 effi ciently inform diff erent ways of communicating science.66 Th is requires essential transformations e.g. in popular science writing and broadcasting. Classical works in science popularization were conceived in the framework of the defi cit model, and they typically off ered "heroic myths" of science in order to increase public respect. Compared to these, the more realistic images portrayed by recent science studies research, showing science as a human activity with all the consequences, may seem debunking or degrading. Th e increasingly explicit background question here is who should write popular science and with what purpose. Th e traditional way of scientists popularizing science is confronted with the growing need, typically claimed by science studies researchers, to improve public understanding of the social roles and capacities of science, in order to facilitate both communication and cultural and institutional support. Regarding this latter purpose, it is worth noting that, if popularizing works off er an image that is incompatible with the public's experiences with science (which are oft en related to the imperfect "human" side), they are likely to increase distrust rather than enhance trust. Another area here is the presentation of scientifi c issues in the media. Usual information-providing communication practices (newspapers, news broadcasts, internet news portals) are most oft en ignorant of the actual social dimensions of science, and they are unable to improve the public image. Frequently journalists themselves lack the necessary understanding of scientifi c research and publication, and they are rarely able to locate the proper status of what certain scientists claim, or to contextualize assertions. Th e image emerging from typical media accounts is that of the defi cit model ("science says so and therefore you should take it"), rather than giving contextual information, arguments and evidentiary support in order to enhance informed decisions in a public confronted with obvious but covert uncertainties and contradicting authoritarian claims. Increased awareness of how science is communicated in the news media is especially important since this information channel reaches a wider public than popular science. Both education and science communication are areas where contextual knowledge informing epistemic decisions could reach the public in organized forms–while it remains a question, in the light of the contextual model, how open the public can be to these sources of information. In order to increase public attention to science, the most effi cient way is to involve the public in scientifi c matters. We have already mentioned the increasing inter66 Jane GREGORY – Steve MILLER. Science in Public: Communication, Culture, and Credibility. New York – London: Plenum Trade 1998. Gabor Kutrovátz 505 est of science studies in phenomena related to the public engagement with science, and the shift from an image of autonomous science toward conceptions with political and economic focuses, but discussing the details would be beyond the scope of this paper. Th e point here is not ethical (the public should gain access to decisions infl uencing their lives) or political (related to practices of participatory democracy), but simply epistemological: the degree of contextual knowledge required to make warranted decisions about experts and matters of expertise depends on the public's interest in science, which in turn depends on their engagement with it. 5. Conclusion While the original concept of epistemic dependence seemed to suggest simple deference to, and blind trust in, expert opinions, recent research in science studies have shown that epistemic dependence is closely tied up with choices between experts and evaluations of expert claims. Our need to rely on expert specialists in many walks of life does not eliminate our cognitive autonomy–rather, it off ers meta-levels of epistemic practice. Expert claims amount to a chaotic and inconsistent sea of opinions without assessments at utilization. An essential aspect of human rationality consists of making justifi ed decisions about claims made by others, even when these others are supposedly more knowledgeable. Th e tension between the necessity of epistemic reliance on specialist claims on the one hand, and the necessity of evaluating these claims on the other, can be resolved only when the criteria used for evaluation are diff erent from the epistemic criteria used by the experts for making their claims. Th is suggests a distinction between substantial knowledge and contextual knowledge, or between knowing something simpliciter (directly) and knowing something with others (indirectly). Th e distinction does not suggest ranking in terms of importance or even reliability: the contexts of use are entirely diff erent in the two cases, as are the skills and competences the two types of knowledge require. I have tried to illustrate the idea of contextual knowledge by giving examples of the factors that can rationally inform our meta-expert evaluations. Still, the paper's interest was primarily theoretical: a re-conceptualization of the epistemological profi le of expert cultures with a high degree of specialization and cooperation. Th e major point is bringing epistemic dependence into the scope of rational cognition, so that we can know with experts without having to know what they know. Knowing with Experts: Contextual Knowledge in and Around Science | {
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Analyse & Kritik 28/2006 ( c© Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart) p. 71–82 Bernd Lahno Making Sense of Categorical Imperatives∗ Abstract: Naturalism, as Binmore understands the term, is characterized by a scientific stance on moral behavior. Binmore claims that a naturalistic account of morality necessarily goes with the conviction "that only hypothetical imperatives make any sense". In this paper it is argued that this claim is mistaken. First, as Hume's theory of promising shows, naturalism in the sense of Binmore is very well compatible with acknowledging the importance of categorical imperatives in moral practice. Moreover, second, if Binmore's own theory of moral practice and its evolution is correct, then the actual moral practice does-and in fact must-incorporate norms, which have the form of a categorical imperative. Categorical imperatives are part of social reality and, therefore, any (normative) moral theory that adequately reflects moral practice must also include categorical imperatives. 0. Introduction Ken Binmore gives an interesting account of moral action in the tradition of David Hume and the British Moralists. Starting from some simple premises about the nature of man he tells us a story of how morality may conceivably have evolved over time, and, thus, provides us with insights that contribute to a better understanding of actual moral practice. Binmore draws on Hume's concept of a moral convention explicating it in modern terms of game theory and the theory of evolution. Some of his arguments are based on speculative assumptions, such as the idea that men apply specific (Nash-, egalitarian or utilitarian) bargaining solutions to coordinate action, which might seem questionable. But I will not be concerned here with these issues. I am rather interested in the relationship between a basically explanatory theory as Binmore presents it and normative ethics proper. If Binmore's explanation of morality is correct (and I believe some such theory must be correct), does that entitle us to any normative claims about justified action? As a famous passage in the Treatise, which has become known as 'Hume's Law' (Hume 1978, 469), demonstrates, Hume was well aware of the gap between empirical or demonstrative knowledge on the one hand and normative reasoning on the other hand. And so is Ken Binmore. Of course, he would not want to ∗ I am indebted-as always-to Hartmut Kliemt. I have been discussing the principal matter with him for quite a time. He is a hard defender of the non-cognitivist creed that all justification ought to be instrumental, and, so, he is fiercely against what I am writing here. But-again, as always-what I am writing here has its ultimate roots in his fine teaching. 72 Bernd Lahno suggest applying his theory directly to justifying action. However, he obviously does believe that his theory adds something to normative moral theory. As a matter of fact, Hume was very cautious in the formulation of his verdict. He did not actually say that it is categorically impossible to proceed from an isto an ought-statement. He rather recommended being very watchful if such reasoning occurs as it is generally highly problematic and requires strong justification. Indeed, Hume and most of his followers did proceed from their explanative theory of moral action to statements about what ought to be done. At least since John L. Mackie wrote his Ethics (1977) one normative, metaethical conviction has been very common among modern non-cognitivist-or, as Binmore might classify them, 'naturalist'-moral philosophers, namely that all justification ought to be instrumental, or-as Binmore says-"that only hypothetical imperatives make any sense" (43). I will argue here that this is mistaken. Moreover, if Binmore's theory of moral action is correct then morality must encompass some categorical imperatives. The argument proceeds as follows: I will first state some very general common sense observations about practical reasoning, explanative reasoning, and the relation between the two to organize the background of the argument. A characterization of what Binmore calls "moral naturalism" (2) and of the concepts of "hypothetical" and "categorical" imperatives (3) serves to make more precise what can be meant by the statement "that only hypothetical imperatives make any sense". A short discussion of Hume's theory of promises illustrates that naturalism in Binmore's sense is consistent with a moral practice incorporating categorical imperatives (4). A simple example taken from Binmore's book then shows (5) that, as a matter of fact, categorical imperatives must be part of moral practice if morality is evolving along the lines outlined by Binmore himself. 1. Reasons-Practical and Explanative Explanation as well as justification of action both answer to questions of the same linguistic form: "Why ...?". Moreover, in a justification of an act we may refer to the same sort of states of affairs as in an explanation: "Because I am your brother you should care for my welfare", "Because you are my brother you are naturally inclined to give some weight to my welfare". Both ways to refer to a state of affairs go under the same heading of 'giving a reason'. All reasons have an evaluative or normative dimension: they justify something. But reasons given in a context of the justification of an act directly justify the act while reasons given in an explanation of an act may serve to justify the belief that the act actually is, was, or will be performed (if the reason applies). Making Sense of Categorical Imperatives 73 I will refer to a reason given to explain an act as an explanative reason1 (of action) and to a reason (maybe a reason referring to the very same state of affairs-as in the example before) given to justify an act as a normative or practical reason (of action). Since practical reasons justify acts while explanative reasons justify beliefs about action the two relate to action in different ways. An explanative reason for an action is good or valid if it does in fact justify the belief that the action is performed. A belief is justified to the extent that it must be true. Therefore, a valid explanative reason raises the probability that the act be performed, and, in fact, a sufficient explanative reason guarantees the act being performed. In contrast, a valid practical reason for an act justifies performing the act but it can never suggest on its own whether the act is being performed or not. It is logically possible that there is a valid and sufficient practical reason to perform φ without φ being performed. The corresponding statement about explanative reasons is untrue. All this is simple folk wisdom. Explanative reasons do not automatically translate into practical reasons and vice versa. Hatred may explain murder but it does not justify it. A promise to φ justifies φ-ing but there may be a perfectly valid explanation of an act φ that does not refer to a promise although the promise to φ was actually given. However, explanative reasons and practical reasons are not independent of each other. This is due to the role that practical reasons may play in action to be explained by explanative reasons. As we understand ourselves, human beings are rational animals, i.e. they act from reasons. If Eve does φ for the reason R call R Eve's motivating reason to φ. In motivating reasons practical reasons and explanative reasons meet. In deciding what to do R justifies doing φ for Eve. From the actors viewpoint R is a practical reason justifying φ. Knowing that Eve is motivated by R to do φ an outside observer can explain why Eve does φ: She does it because of R. And this explanation is perfectly correct irrespective of whether R in fact justifies φ-ing or whether the external observer believes that this is the case or not. In this respect R is an explanative reason for (Eve's) doing φ from an external viewpoint. All justification is general in much the same way as explanation is. If a reason R justifies doing φ under certain circumstances then it will also justify doing φ, ceteris paribus, at another relevantly similar occasion. So reasoning about action is subject to claims of coherence. Moreover, practical reasons may relate to each other by logical or causal dependence. If R is a reason to do φ and S entails R then S is, prima facie, also a reason to do φ. In this sense, a reason itself may be justified by its derivation from other reasons. Practical reasoning about action is not only a reflective enterprise, guided by general and, more or less, abstract principles, it is also a social enterprise. Justification of an act is primarily addressed to other people. By justifying 1 Some argue that all explanative reasons refer to causes. Following Wittgenstein others have contested this claim. In particular, it has been denied that motivating reasons used in an explanative context (see beneath) are causal in character (see Gustafson 1973 for a first overview). Nothing in my argument hinges on whether all explanation is causal or not. So I prefer to leave this intricate question open using the more general term of an explanative reason instead of causal talk. 74 Bernd Lahno an act we are making a claim that can be criticized and discussed by others, most notably those affected by the act. This presupposes that there is some shared practice of justification based on commonly shared principles of practical reasoning. As I understand it, normative moral theory, or Ethics, is concerned with a theory of practical reasoning. Its principal aim is to formulate a coherent system of normative principles to be used in justifying action. Some have claimed that Ethics should also justify its basic principles. But it is unclear what this means. To justify an action is to give a valid normative or practical reason for the action. The theory tells us by reference to its principles how to distinguish good reasons from bad ones. So one could say that the theory justifies (using) certain reasons for action. But how can it justify its own principles? Such an endeavor would either be circular or it had to be done without reference to the principles. So another theory of justification would be needed. What is this theory and how is it justified? However we proceed we seem to be condemned to rely on some principles of justification, which themselves cannot be justified again.2 Rawls (1972) has given a stylized account of the way out of the dilemma. It is possible to provide justifications without having to depend on 'skyhooks' (as Binmore might say). By the method of reflective equilibrium we may gradually approach a collection of coherent principles that optimally reflect our considered moral judgments.3 This, I believe, is the appropriate method of normative moral theory. An explanative theory of moral behavior is related to normative moral theory in this sense in at least two ways. First, as practical reasons motivate action they have to be considered in any explanation of action. An explanative theory of moral behavior will, thus, have to determine the practical reasons that motivate moral action and it will have to explain how it comes about that these very reasons are effective (but remember: explaining that people act from certain reasons does neither justify their action nor does it justify accepting these reasons). Second, the practice of justifying which is to be reflected by a coherent collection of principles in moral theory is itself part of moral action and something to be explained by an explanative moral theory. While moral theory is a (normative) theory of practical reasoning an explanative theory of moral behavior is-at least in part-about practical reasoning as a social fact. The two relate to the extent that the actual practice of moral reasoning is reflected in moral theory. 2. Naturalism Some argued that justifying the principles of normative reasoning is just a matter of empirical science because all moral principles can be reduced to statements of fact by way of translating all normative terms into equivalent ordinary descriptive terms. This is what philosophers usually call 'moral naturalism' and the 2 Cp. the concluding section in Natural Justice (200) about the impossibility of justifying the fairness principles! 3 On the concept of reflective equilibrium see Hahn 2004. Making Sense of Categorical Imperatives 75 object of Moore's famous criticism. Binmore does not seem to understand this criticism. If we have doubts whether something is being correctly identified in naturalistic terms, then, Binmore argues, this does not imply that it is impossible to identify it in naturalistic terms at all. But this is beside point. Moore does not deny that there may be a collection of ordinary descriptive terms, which is, under certain conditions, coextensive with "good" in a normative sense. His argument is not concerned with identifying what is good but with the meaning of normative concepts. If, in some context, the things that are "good" in a normative sense are those and only those things that (also) have the natural properties A1, A2, ...An, this is a contingent fact that cannot be analytically deduced from the meaning of the term "good". There is no definition of "good" in terms of natural properties A1, A2, ...An just as Smith cannot be defined as "the man in the blackraincoat" (although he may be identified in this way). But Binmore has no reason to defend moral naturalism in the sense that Moore gave to the term. As I understand Binmore he would not want to claim that normative concepts could generally be defined in terms of ordinary descriptive concepts. If he refers to himself as a "naturalist" he means something else: "In biology, a naturalist is someone who gathers facts about living creatures, and tries to organize them into a framework that avoids speculative hypotheses about supernatural or metaphysical entities. When I call myself a naturalist, my use of the term differs from this biological usage only to the extent that I focus on the moral behavior of the particular living creatures called human beings." (42) A naturalist in this sense is a person who looks at nature with the attitude of science. There can be no doubt-and I do not think that there are reasonable persons who doubt-that this is the one and only appropriate attitude in any attempt to generate relevant descriptive knowledge about the empirical world. And, of course, human beings and human behavior, in particular moral behavior, are part of this empirical world. "Justice as a Natural Phenomenon" is a proper object of science, and naturalism, as Binmore uses the term, is the only truly scientific approach. But a moral science in this sense is explanatory, it is concerned with understanding and explaining the natural, historical and social facts that found and make up moral behavior, whereas normative moral theory is concerned with basic principles of justifying action. As I have argued there is no direct route from explaining to justifying. It is, nevertheless, possible to draw some crucial conclusions from an explanation of moral behavior to the content of an adequate moral theory. David Hume's theory of knowledge by experience may serve as an illustration here. After Hume gave an explanation of how humans acquire empirical knowledge by reference to the general properties of the human mind and, in particular, to custom, he proceeded in formulating eight (normative) principles of causal reasoning (Hume 1978, 173 ff.). He did not argue that his explanative theory of empirical knowledge justifies these principles. From the particular understanding of the practice of causal reasoning that is provided by his explanative theory he just extracted the principles that guide such reasoning. 76 Bernd Lahno In the same way moral science as an explanative project can provide us with a deeper understanding of the practice of moral behavior and the practice of justifying action, which is part of it. If moral theory is the attempt to formulate a coherent system of principles, which adequately reflects this practice, then it is to be informed by moral science. In fact, I believe, that this is the central idea of all normative reasoning within the project of moral science as endorsed- and in a way started-by Hume and the British Moralists. Which normative principles adequately reflect moral action and reasoning depends on what the moral practice is actually like. Therefore, moral science does determine the object of (normative) moral theory to some extent. It sets constraints on which principles can reasonably be included in moral theory. If Binmore's commitment to naturalism is taken seriously his statement that "naturalists think that only hypothetical imperatives make any sense" (43) must be understood in this way. He cannot be making a normative or metaethical claim based on some justificatory moral theory. He is rather telling us something about moral practice, namely, that only hypothetical imperatives may play a decisive role in that practice. The consequence for moral theory is: If other than hypothetical imperatives may be derived from a collection of normative principles then that collection cannot be part of an adequate moral theory, whatever its principles may be. No categorical imperatives may be part of or implied by an adequate moral theory. 3. Categorical Imperatives An imperative is-according to Kant-the linguistic form of a "command of reason" ("Gebot der Vernunft"; Kant 1968, 41). It is a rule telling us what we ought to do. John L. Mackie gives a concise characterization of Kant's distinction between hypothetical and categorical imperatives: "'If you want X, do Y' (or 'You ought to do Y') will be a hypothetical imperative if it is based on the supposed fact that Y is, in the circumstances, the only (or the best) available means to X, that is, on a causal relation between Y and X. The reason for doing Y lies in its causal connection with the desired end, X; the oughtness is contingent upon the desire. But 'You ought to do Y' will be a categorical imperative if you ought to do Y irrespective of any such desire for any end to which Y would contribute, if the oughtness is not thus contingent upon any desire." (Mackie 1977, 27 f.) So hypothetical imperatives are conditional on certain ends in the following sense: they are addressed to individuals who actually have certain ends and they demand compliance only to the extent that the individuals do have these ends. Hypothetical imperatives may have the same linguistic form as categorical imperatives. In particular, a hypothetical imperative may not explicitly formulate the ends that it presupposes. On the other hand, a categorical imperative may be conditional in that it prescribes to do an action φ only on condition Making Sense of Categorical Imperatives 77 that certain conditions apply, and these conditions may even involve that the addressee of the imperative has certain goals. So, the distinction does not draw on whether the commitment to do what the imperative calls for is conditional or not, it rather focuses on how certain ends may function as a reason for action. A hypothetical imperative tells you that your ends provide sufficient reason to do φ because φ is the best means to realize your ends. In contrast, a categorical imperative demands doing φ,-period. φ may suit your ends, but this is not why you ought to φ. You ought to do φ because this is what the imperative says,-because φ-ing is the right thing to do if the condition of the imperative applies. 4. Promising Although Kant introduced the conceptual distinction, David Hume before him fully noticed the implications of the fact that moral imperatives might have that peculiar form that is now known as a categorical imperative. Such imperatives are characteristic of those virtues that Hume calls "artificial" (see Hume 1978, 518 f.). One of his prominent examples is the promising norm: If you promised to φ, you ought to φ. Whatever your ends are, after you gave a promise you are not free to choose the best way in achieving your ends. In fact, this seems to be the whole point of promising. If people were still free to do what they wanted after a promise was given, what would be the use of giving a promise? So, you ought to do φ, irrespective of your ends, because you promised, and because promises are to be kept. How can a promise-the utterance of some words-, Hume asks, give us a reason to act in a certain way? If there is such a reason then it will provide us with a new motive to act. But the only motive beyond those reasons that exist independently of the promise is what Hume calls a "sense of duty" (Hume 1978, 518). Now, a sense of duty presupposes that there is a duty, and, as Hume understands it, this in turn requires that some motive is effective, which is generally appreciated by individuals observing the action. However, this motive cannot be again the sense of duty as such reasoning would lead into an argumentative circle. So how is the (categorical) promising norm possible? Hume asks this question not in the manner of Kant as a matter of a priori reasoning about the transcendental prerequisites of autonomous rational action. He is asking the earthly question of how it comes about, that men are motivated in such ways, and he does it in a perfectly naturalistic way in the sense that Binmore gives to the term. His explanation of the obligation to keep promises as a social and psychological fact proceeds in two steps. Here is a brief outline of his argument:4 Step 1 : The promising norm is originally one of the principal rules of a convention that singles out an efficient equilibrium in ongoing exchange. Promising arose as part of a social practice that extends and modifies the rules of cooperative exchange between people, who have some concern for each other's 4 A detailed account of Hume's theory of promises is given in Lahno 1995. 78 Bernd Lahno welfare-as is, for instance, true within a family-, to exchange of goods and services between people with (partly) conflicting interests. A promise is used to mark an intended exchange as being subjected to the rules of this convention. In equilibrium following the rules is optimal for each participant in the practice. This applies, in particular, to the promising norm: Whoever gives a promise "... is immediately bound by his interest to execute his engagements, and must never expect to be trusted any more, if he refuse to perform what he promis'd" (Hume 1978, 522). Thus, "... interest is the first obligation to the performance of promises" (Hume 1978, 523; emphasis by Hume!). But this first obligation, which is solely based on interest and which Hume calls a "natural obligation" (see, e.g., Hume 1978, 498, 545, 551), cannot on its own establish a sense of duty, which does not necessarily coincide with the actual interests of a promisor. This leads us to Step 2 : "Afterwards a sentiment of morals concurs with interest, and becomes a new obligation upon mankind." (Hume 1978, 523, see also 533) Keeping promises is advantageous to those concerned and the common practice of promising supports the public good. As men tend to sympathize with others the consequences of action in accordance with what is promised elicit positive feelings in an observer. These feelings are transmitted onto the act: we approve of the act. The tendency of approval is further generalized as a result of the natural predispositions of men and their social conditions of life: As a result of the general properties of learning processes approbation becomes relatively independent of the actual consequences of action. A natural tendency to avoid inconsistencies in our judgments and feelings makes us strive for a general point of view that may bring about consistency both within our own judgments and feelings as well as among the judgments and feelings of our group. A natural tendency to subsume judgments under general rules complemented by the reconciling consequences of social intercourse results in the emergence of a general social standard. The whole process is the object of individual and social reflection. With the general emergence of social approval intensity and force of social sanctions are increased. Moreover, compliance with the norm becomes the object of systematic education. In the end norm compliance is detached from the direct pursuit of interest. We approve of someone keeping his promises whether we like the consequences of his action in the particular case or not. And we are equally motivated to some extent to keep our promises independently of whether this suits our actual interests or not. The norm becomes a reason on its own, which motivates us by our 'sense of duty': We keep our promises because this is what we ought to do. Note that the 'sense of duty' as derived in Hume's theory is soundly founded in the psychological and social nature of human beings. It is by no means a 'skyhook' (neither is Rawl's 'sense of justice' or his 'natural duty'; cp. 151). Making Sense of Categorical Imperatives 79 Step 2 is not just a peculiarity of social evolution. It is one important reason why the social practice can spread and endure even in larger societies, which, as Hume says, are characterized by the fact that "in our own actions we may frequently lose sight of that interest, which we have in maintaining order, and may follow a lesser and more present interest" (Hume 1978, 499). The social practice is still based on interest-compliance with the norm is by and large and in the long run an optimal strategy-but compliance cannot be maintained by individual opportunistic utility maximization alone. Although it is in their interest, people do not entirely act for their interest when they observe the norm. A different motivational mechanism ensures the advantageous equilibrium of the social practice. At least as far as the step 1 is concerned Binmore's explanation of norm compliance is closely related to Hume's. I think Hume's explanation is still a fairly good one. But whether this is so or not, the lesson to be learned here is this: There is no principal conflict between a scientific approach to morals and the acceptance of categorical imperatives. In other words: Naturalism in the sense of Binmore does not by itself imply that "only hypothetical imperatives make sense". If Binmore makes this claim as a 'naturalist' he must refer to the specific naturalist reconstruction of the evolution of morals that he gives. But, as I will argue in the next section, his approach does not allow for such a strong conclusion. Like Hume's approach it rather suggests that categorical imperatives play a decisive role in moral practices and, therefore, should also be reflected in moral theory. 5. Coordination Rules Binmore argues that morality-or, to be more precise, the fairness norm- evolved as an equilibrium selection device. Multiple equilibria constitute a principal problem for the theory of rational action. As Binmore says (68): "... attributing rationality to the players isn't enough to resolve the equilibrium selection problem".5 To illustrate the problem we may look at Binmore's example of a Stag Hunt Game: 10 the acceptance of categorical imperatives. In other words: Naturalism in the sense of Binmore does not by itself imply that "only hypothetical imperatives make sense". If Binmore makes this claim as a 'naturalist' he must refer to the specific naturalist reco struction of the evolution of morals that he gives. But, as I will argue in the next secti , his approach d es not allow for such a strong conclusion. Like Hume's approach it rather suggests that categorical imperatives play a decisive role in moral practices and, therefore, should also be reflected in moral theory. 5. Coordination Rules Binmore argues that morality – or, to be more precise, the fairness norm – evolved as an eq ilibrium selection devic . Multiple equilibria constitute a principal problem for the theory of rational action. As Binm re says (68): "... attributing rationality to the players isn't enough to resolve the equilibrium selection problem".7 To illustrate the problem we may look at Binmore's example of a Stag Hunt Game: B dove hawk dove 4 | 4 0 | 3 A hawk 3 | 0 2 | 2 Stag Hunt Game At first sight it may seem reasonable that both actors should and would choose dove in a situation like this. (dove, dove) is not only the unique efficient equilibrium it also promises the overall best result to each of the individuals8. What seems reasonable, however, is not necessarily rational in the sense of rational actor theory. To see this take a closer look at the situation from the viewpoint of a rational actor A. What A should do depends on what B is going to do. If B plays dove, dove is A's best choice, too. But if B chooses hawk, A should also choose hawk. As usual in game theory it is assumed that A is perfectly informed about the options and preferences of his partner B. Can rational A on the given information reasonably expect rational B to play dove? What reason can he have for such an expectation? As B is in the same position B will play dove if he expects A to do so. So A should have a reason to expect B to have the expectation that A will choose dove. But, again, since B is in the same position, B can have a reason for such an expectation only, if he expects A having the expectation that B chooses dove. Obviously such reasoning can go on endlessly without ever reaching solid 7 The problem has been extensively discussed by different scholars, most notably by Margaret Gilbert (1989, 1990) and Robert Sugden (1991, 1993). 8 But notice that (hawk, hawk) is the risk dominant equilibrium. 5 The problem has been extensively discussed by different scholars, most notably by Margaret Gilbert 1989; 1990 and Robert Sugden 1991; 1993. 80 Bernd Lahno At first sight it may seem reasonable that both actors should and would choose dove in a situation like this. (dove, dove) is not only the unique efficient equilibrium it also promises the overall best result to each of the individuals.6 What seems reasonable, however, is not necessarily rational in the sense of rational actor theory. To see this take a closer look at the situation from the viewpoint of a rational actor A. What A should do depends on what B is going to do. If B plays dove, dove is As best choice, too. But if B chooses hawk, A should also choose hawk. As usual in game theory it is assumed that A is perfectly informed about the options and preferences of his partner B. Can rational A on the given information reasonably expect rational B to play dove? What reason can he have for such an expectation? As B is in the same position B will play dove if he expects A to do so. So A should have a reason to expect B to have the expectation that A will choose dove. But, again, since B is in the same position, B can have a reason for such an expectation only, if he expects A having the expectation that B chooses dove. Obviously such reasoning can go on endlessly without ever reaching solid ground. There just is no independent reason for any expectation of any order available. Any solution of the problem in a population of rational actors in the sense of rational actor theory must presuppose that either one of the actors acts in some way or other for no decisive reason or that at least one of them does perform some acts on behalf of expectations that he cannot decisively substantiate. It is easy to see how a social norm solves the problem in real life circumstances. If such a norm exists people will share the conviction that playing dove is reasonable and, in fact, 'the right thing to do', i.e., they will accept the norm as a binding standard of behavior under the given circumstances. What is the character of such a norm? Can it be understood as a hypothetical imperative merely expressing that playing dove "is, in the circumstances, the only (or the best) available means to" realizing the ends of an actor as represented by his utility values? Yes, it can: If there is in fact a practice according to the norm, then an individual can use the norm as a guide in pursuing his ends. But the practice itself cannot be entirely based on the behavior of people maximizing their utility in this way. If all are exclusively motivated by their ends as given by their utility values and use the norm only as far as it is a sufficient guide to these ends then the norm ceases to be such a guide. Should I act according to the norm? I should if others comply also-then and only then the norm is an effective guide. Will others comply? Well, they are in the same position ..., so the story starts again. The norm, if generally understood as a hypothetical imperative, looses all its force. There ought to be some people who accept the norm as binding whatever their other preferences are. This is their reason to play dove. And-as the argument shows-this reason cannot be reduced to rational utility maximizing. That people act on such reasons reveals that they have a commitment to a rule of conduct that transcends pure instrumental rationality (see Sen 1976, 329). 6 But notice that (hawk, hawk) is the risk dominant equilibrium. Making Sense of Categorical Imperatives 81 To be sure, complying with the norm is de facto maximizing behavior in a society where the norm is effective,-and it must be, otherwise it would not be stable over time. But rationally maximizing utility cannot be everybody's primary reason for compliance; and so the norm cannot be understood as a pure instrumental rule that describes the optimal way to ones ends, an optimal way, which is determined independently of the norm by ones interests and the circumstances alone. It cannot be a shared conviction (it cannot be common knowledge) that interest is generally the only moment of action. If this were the case interest would disappear as a reason to abide by the norm in a bottomless pit of strategic interdependence, and, with it, the norm, if understood as a hypothetical imperative only, would become ineffective. If I am right, any social practice that resolves an equilibrium selection problem must incorporate some understanding of norms as categorical imperatives. So categorical imperatives are part of social reality and they do make sense. Were there not at least some people committed to the norm, the norm could not effectively operate as an equilibrium selection device. If moral theory is to reflect moral practice, then it seems that it must also include categorical imperatives. 6. Conclusion A scientific approach to morals does not per se exclude that categorical imperatives make sense. Quite the contrary, within an explanative theory of morality we have to concede that categorical norms-as, for instance, the promising norm- do play a significant role in moral practice. And-as Binmore's argument in fact shows-this is not just a curious coincidence of cultural evolution, it is a precondition for morality to function as an efficient coordination device. If this is so, any normative moral theory, which reflects moral practice to some extent and which makes claims on being an authoritative behavioral guide, will have to include categorical imperatives in some way or other. Binmore's claim that only hypothetical imperatives make sense is motivated by his deep skepticism about the possibility of the entire philosophical project of normative moral theory. If there is such a thing as rational justification of action then, Binmore thinks, it is to be based on knowledge about matters of fact. But then we face the problem of deducing an ought from an is. It is Binmore's conviction that hypothetical imperatives provide the only measure to bridge this gap; they tell us what to do by reference to means end relations, i.e. by reference to what is (see 43). But they don't bridge this gap. That it may seem otherwise is a consequence of the fact that we are all too ready to do φ if someone convinces us that doing φ is the best thing to do if we want to achieve our ends. We are prepared to accept a hypothetical imperative if we think it is based on a correct means end relation. But this allows only for the inference that hypothetical imperatives are easily enforced. We want to comply with hypothetical imperatives,-but shall we? The gap between is and ought is not becoming any smaller just because the resistance to the ought is. The leap 82 Bernd Lahno across the gap is to be made, but how and with what justification? We are told: "Just do it, it doesn't hurt!" That should make us watchful! I do not think that we should always do what best suits our wants. But whether this is true or not, it is a normative conviction, too, that we should comply with a hypothetical imperative. An imperative can never-in no way- be deduced (solely) from knowledge of matters of fact. Once we realize that even hypothetical imperatives do not provide a way to evade Hume's Law we may become more open to the idea that normative moral theory is a rational enterprise categorically different from natural or social science. Still, as I have argued, this enterprise is to be informed by empirical and explanative theories of morality. It is in this regard that Binmore makes an important contribution to the project. Bibliography Binmore, K. (2005), Natural Justice, Oxford-New York Gilbert, M. (1989), Rationality and Salience, in: Philosophical Studies 57, 61–77 - (1990), Rationality, Coordination, and Convention, in: Synthese 84, 1–21 Gustafson, D. (1973), A Critical Survey of the Reason vs. Causes Arguments in Recent Philosophy of Action, in: Metaphilosophy 4, 269–297 Hahn, S. (2004), Reflective Equilibrium-Method or Metaphor of Justification. Knowledge and Belief, in: P. Löffler/P. Weingartner (eds.), Glaube und Wissen, Wien, 37–41 Hume, D. (1978), A Treatise of Human Nature, Oxford Kant, I. (1968), Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, Frankfurt/M. Lahno, B. (1995), Versprechen. Überlegungen zu einer künstlichen Tugend, München Mackie, J. L. (1977), Ethics. Inventing Right and Wrong, Harmondsworth Rawls, J. (1972), A Theory of Justice, Oxford - (1951), Outline of a Decision Procedure for Ethics, in: Philosophical Review 60, 177–197, reprinted in Collected Papers 1999, 1–19 Sen, A. K. (1976), Rational Fools: A Critique of the Behavioural Foundations of Economic Theory, in: Philosophy & Public Affairs 6, 317–344 Sugden, R. (1991), Rational Choice: A Survey of Contributions from Economics and Philosophy, in: The Economic Journal 101, 751–785 - (1993), Thinking as a Team: Towards an Explanation of Nonselfish Behavior, in: Social Philosophy and Policy 120, 69– | {
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Eldar Əmirov. Kəsilməzlik ideyası riyazi-fəlsəfi invariant kimi, s. 87-100 87 УДК 101;130.1;113/119;510.2 KBT 74.262.21;74.268.7 https://doi.org/10.33864/MTFZK.2019.50 Eldar ƏMİROV (Azərbaycan) AMEA, Fəlsəfə İnstitutu Xülasə İdeyalar fəlsəfədə ən maraqlı bəhs olub. İdeyaları idrakın düyün nöqtələri hesab etmək olar. Bu məqalədə kəsilməzlik ideyasının genezisi nəzərdən keçirilir. Onun insan idrakına haradan daxil olması öyrənilir, mənşəyi haqqında mülahizələr irəli sürülür. Bir ideya-vahid kimi epistemoloji rolu təhlil olunur. Kəsilməzlik ideyasının fundamental ideya kimi Leybnis tərəfindən idrak müstəvisinə daxil edilməsi məsələsi vurğulanır və fəlsəfi əsaslandırılması təhlil olunur. Bundan sonrakı dövrlərdə, kəsilməzlik ideyasının paradiqmatik ideyaya çevrilərək bir çox fundamental elmi konsepsiyaların əsasında dayanması məqamları da diqqətə çatdırılır. Həmçinin riyaziyyatın özəyi olan və min illərdən bəri əsaslanandırıla bilməyən həqiqi ədədlərin, kəsilməzlik ideyasının köməyilə həlledici şəkildə əsaslandırılması göstərilir.Bu məqsədlə Dedekindin kəsilməzlik ideyasından necə istifadə edərək həqiqi ədədləri möhkəm təmələ oturtması məsələsi təhlil olunur. Araşdırma nəticəsində məlum olur ki, bu ideya düşüncə tarixində, fəlsəfi və riyazi düşüncədə fundamental ideyalardan biri olmaqla yanaşı bir çox konsepsiyaların təməl ideyasına çevrilmişdir. Bir çox konsepsiyalar bu ideya olmadan yarana bilməzdi. O xeyli məhsuldar və paradiqmatik ideya olmuşdur. Bütün bu nümunələr əsasında, ümumiləşdirmələr və fəlsəfi refleksiyanın köməyilə belə qənaətə gəlinir ki, kəsilməz ideyası nə sırf fəlsəfi, nə də ki, sırf riyazi ideya deyil. Bu ideya hər iki elmin qovşağında qərar tutur. Ona görə də biz bu ideyanı yeni adla, riyazi-fəlsəfi invariant adı altında xüsusi sinif kimi ayırır və təsnifatlandırırıq. Açar sözlər: kəsilməzlik, ideya-vahid, Leybnis, həqiqi ədədlər, riyazi fəlsəfi invariant, Dedekind, zaman. AMEA-nın Fəlsəfə İnstitutunun doktorantı, [email protected], https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3041-459X Kəsilməzlik ideyası riyazi-fəlsəfi invariant kimi Beynəlxalq Metafizika Mərkəzi DOI 10.33864/MTFZK. Metafizika jurnalı ISSN 2616-6879 (Print) 2019, cild 2, say 4, sıra 8 ISSN 2617-751X (Online) 88 Giriş Gerçək dünya daim axındadır. Biz onu saxlamaq iqtidarında deyilik, yalnız dərk edə bilirik. Dərk etmək üçün isə, bu əbədi axından fikri olaraq nələrisə "tutub" saxlayırıq. Öz fikri konstruksiyalarımızla gerçək dünyadan fraqmentlər ayırır və onlar üzərində refleksiya edirik. Fikri konstruksiyaları qurmaq üçün isə nə vaxtsa intuitiv olaraq qəbul etdiyimiz və ya kəşf etdiyimiz təməl prinsiplərdən istifadə edirik. Belə təməl, fundamental prinsipləri ifadə edən terminlər sabit qalsa da, onların məzmunu nəzəriyyədən-nəzəriyyə, təlimdən-təlimə, dövrdən-dövrə dəyişə, yeni formalara düşə bilir və yeni konsepsiyalar yarada bilir. Konsepsiyalar belə təməl prinsiplər ətrafında mərkəzləşməyə, "kristallaşmağa" başlayır; suya düşmüş buz parçasının kristallaşaraq genişləndiyi kimi. İdeyaları – bir cümlədən ibarət fikir kimi yox, istənilən ölçüdə genişlənə bilən ilkin bircins boş mühit kimi təsəvvür etmək olar. Belə bircins mühitin içərisini müxtəlif fikirlər toplusu, təcrübələr toplusu ilə doldurmaq olar. Bu zaman ideya ilkin sxem olmaq etibarilə – fikirlər toplusunun həm sərhəddini, həm də içərisinin dinamikasını təyin edir. Fəlsəfədə ideyaların tarixi bəhsinin müəllifi A.Lavcoy, belə orijinal ideyaların, ideya-vahidlərin (unit-ideas) həm də məhdud sayda olduğunu yazır və qeyd edir ki, fəlsəfə tarixi və insan refleksiyasının istənilən dövrü, ideyaların qarışığıdır1. Məsələn, Leybnis özünün eyniyyət qanununu şübhəsiz doğru hesab edirdi. Bu prinsip digər prinsiplərlə yanaşı onun fəlsəfi təlimində irəli sürdüyü mülahizələrinə yön vermişdir. Bu prosesləri A.Lavcoy mental vərdişlər adlandırırdı2. Belə təməl prinsiplərdən biri də kəsilməzlikdir. Kəsilməzliyin fəlsəfi əsasları Kəsilməzlik anlayışı da dünyagörüşünün fundamental prinsiplərindən biridir. Bu anlayış antik dövrdən üzü bəri bir çox konsepsiyaların təməl prinsipi olmuşdur. Kəsilməzlik ideyası haqqında fəlsəfi mülahizələr antik dövrdə, orta əsrlərdə olsa da, 1 Lovejoy O. Arthur. The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea, (p.27). 2 Yenə orada, (p.7). Eldar Əmirov. Kəsilməzlik ideyası riyazi-fəlsəfi invariant kimi, s. 87-100 89 bir düşüncə mexanizmi kimi aktuallaşması, daha tutarlı əsaslandırılması, Yeni dövrdən sonra elmi düşüncəyə daxil edilməsi Leybnisin adı ilə bağlıdır. Kant bu prinsipi təmiz zəka prinsipi adlandırır və öz təbirincə desək "dövrəyə buraxılması da Leybnisin adı ilə bağlıdır"1. Leybnis bu fəlsəfi ideya ilə riyaziyyatı sintez edərək, müasir təbiətşünaslığın güclü riyazi aparatı olan differensial-inteqral hesabını da yaratmışdır. Yuxarıda qeyd etdik ki, xeyli ideyaları insanlar intuitiv şəkildə qəbul etmişlər. Məsələn, bütöv olan, heç bir yerində sınığı, kəsiyi olmayan okean, səma qədim insanı intuitiv olaraq kəsilməzlik ideyasına gətirmişdir2. Qazanılmış belə ideya-geştaltlar düşüncə tarixinin sonrakı dövrlərində də, müxtəlif baxışlarda özünü biruzə vermişdir. Kəsilməzlik intuitiv olaraq bircins mühitə aid olur, eyni cür formalar bir-birini ardıcıl, kəsintisiz surətdə əvəz edir. Deməli, kəsilməzlik eyni cür formaların bir-birini ardıcıl izləməsidir. Bu isə bir öncəgörmə rolunu da oynayır. Çünki əgər bir mühit, bir hadisə kəsilməzdirsə, onda hal-hazırda müşahidə etdiyimiz forma deməyə əsas verir ki, növbəti addımda da eyni belə forma olacaq. Kəsilməzliklə gələcək arasındakı məntiqi əlaqəni ifadə edən bu fikri Leybnis daha geniş, metafizik olaraq belə ifadə edir: "Mənim qənaətimə görə, metafizikanın əsaslarına dayanaraq, unversumda hər şey bir-biri ilə elə bir əlaqədədir ki, indi gələcəyi rüşeym halında özündə saxlayır. Hər bir hazırkı vəziyyət, yalnız başqa bir vəziyyətin, bilavasitə ondan öncəki vəziyyətin köməyilə izah oluna bilər. Bunu inkar etmək dünyada boşluqların (hiatus) olmasını fərz etmək deməkdir"3. Başqa sözlə desək, müxtəlif cür formalar bir-birini kəsintisiz izləyə bilməz, onlar arasında keçid yalnız sıçrayışla mümkün ola bilər. Leybnis kəsilməzlik prinsipini məhək daşı hesab edir və ona tez-tez müraciət etdiyini deyir: "Mən təcrübələrdə, tədqiqatlarda bu prinsipdən tez-tez məhək daşı kimi istifadə edirəm. Hansı ki, onun sayəsində elə ilk baxışda, dərhal bir çox fikirlərin ardıcıl olmamasını, hətta detallara varmadan belə, müəyyən etmək olar"4. Lakin kəsilməzlik ideyası müasir kvant fizikası ilə nə dərəcədə uyuşur, yoxsa uyuşmur, bu artıq ayrı tədqiqat mövzusu ola bilər. Ancaq hələlik ən fundamental kateqoriyalar olan fəza və zamanın, kəsilməz olduğu düşülür və yaxud belə qəbul olunur. Ancaq onların həqiqətən də kəsilməz və diskret olması məlum deyil. "Müasir fizikanın bu sual üzə- 1 Kant I. Sochineniya v shesti toma, (p.569). 2 Bell L. John. The Continuous and the Infinitesimal in Mathematics and Philosophy, (p.13). 3 Leibniz G. V. Sochineniya v chetyrekh tomah (T.1), (p.211). 4 Yenə orada, (p.203). Beynəlxalq Metafizika Mərkəzi DOI 10.33864/MTFZK. Metafizika jurnalı ISSN 2616-6879 (Print) 2019, cild 2, say 4, sıra 8 ISSN 2617-751X (Online) 90 rindəki hökmü tam aydın deyil hələ. Əgər fəza Plank sabiti ölçüsündə və ya ondan aşağı olan m civarında diskretdirsə, onda bu hələ müşahidə olunan dünyada öz imzasını qoymayıb"1. Beləliklə, Leybnisin "təbiətdə sıçrayış yoxdur" prinsipi hələ də öz aktuallığını və dərinliyini saxlayır. Kəsilməzlik ideyası Heraktlitin, Leybnisin, Hegelin, Berqsonun, Uaythedin, təkamül təlimi, muasir avtopoezis kimi təlimlərin əsas fəlsəfi ideyasıdır. Yaxud da məkan və zaman kimi fundamental kateqoriyalar yalnız kəsilməzlik kimi düşünülə bilir. Leybnis fəza və zamanın da kəsilməzliyinin fikri olduğunu deyir və sonradan bunu Kant da qəbul edir. Kəsilməzlik paradiqmatik ideya kimi Kəsilməzlik ideyasının nə qədər dəruni, hökmran, elə yuxarıda da iqtibas gətirdiyimiz kimi, Kantın təbirincə desək, metafizik bir ideya olduğunu və bunun da nəticəsində nə qədər məhsuldar bir ideyaya çevrildiyini göstərmək üçün, ötən əsrlərdə mövcud olmuş dünyagörüşlərindən bir nümunə göstərək. Məsələn, təkamül ideyasını da özündə saxlayan XIX əsr dünyagörüşünün əsaslarını araşdıran P.Florenski yazır: "XIX əsr dünyagörüşü haqqında tərəddüd edən təsəvvürləri təsbit etmək, bu epoxanın ruhi hərəkətinin fərqli çalarlarını qısaca izah etmək, onu digər dünyagörüşlərindən fərqləndirən xarakterik cəhətləri qeyd etmək tələb olunarsa, düşünürəm ki, bunu bir söz işlətməklə etməkdən daha uğurlu bir şey yoxdur. Bu söz "kəsilməzlik"dir. Aralıq hissəni keçmədən bir qütbdən o biri qütbə keçə bilməmək ideyası"2. Sonra, o, fikrini davam etdirərək yazır ki, XIX əsr bilik sahələrinin rəngarəngliyinə baxmayaraq, onlar hamısı bir cür rəngə boyanmışdı3. Qədim tarixə malik olan bu ideyanın geniş yayılması, onun ictimai şüura gətirilməsi, sonsuz kiçilənlərin yaradıcısı olan Leybnisin adı ilə bağlıdır. Daha sonra P.Florenski, bu ideyanın geniş yayılmasının mexaniki-fiziki elmləri, biologiyada Byuffonun konsepsiyasını, Darvinin təka- 1 Franklin J. Discrete and Continuous: A Fundamental Dichotomy in Mathematics, (p.370). 2 Florenskij P.A. Vvedenie k dissertacii «Ideya preryvnosti kak element mirosozercaniya», (p.160). 3 Yenə orada, (p.160). Eldar Əmirov. Kəsilməzlik ideyası riyazi-fəlsəfi invariant kimi, s. 87-100 91 mül nəzəriyyəsini necə şərtləndirdiyini də göstərir1. Qeyd etmək lazımdır ki, nəzəri şəkildə təkamül ideyasını kəsilməzlik ideyasından, Darvindən qabaq Leybnis özü alır: "İnsanlarla heyvanlar arasında, heyvanlarla bitkilər arasında və nəhayət bitkilərlə qazıntı halında tapılanlar arasında sıx əlaqə var; qazıntı halında tapılanlar da öz növbəsində cisimlərlə sıx bağlıdır, hansı ki, onlar bizim hisslərimizə və təsəvvürlərimizə ölü kimi, formasız kimi görünür. Kəsilməzlik qanunu tələb edir ki, əgər bir varlığın əsas müəyyənliyi ikinci bir varlığın əsas müəyyənliyinə oxşardırsa, onda birincinin bütün xüsusiyyətləri ikincinin xüsusiyyətlərinə oxşamalıdır"2. Kəsilməzlik ideyası həqiqi ədədlərin əsaslandırılmasının intuitiv əsası kimi Beləliklə biz, yuxarıda kəsilməzlik ideyasının mənşəyi ilə, düşüncəyə daxil edilməsi və fəlsəfi əsaslandırılması ilə tanış olduq. İndi isə bu ideyanın riyazi müstəvidə, həqiqi ədədlərin əsaslandırılmasında necə istifadə olunmasını təhlil edəcəyik. Hamıya tanış olan ilkin, təbii ədədlər, natural ədədlərdir. Natural ədəd isə diskret təbiətlidir. Biz yalnız saya bildiyimiz obyektləri natural ədədlərlə ifadə edə bilirik. Lakin elə obyektlər var ki, onlar bu cür diskret ədədlərlə ifadə oluna bilmir. Elə ilk dəfə bu problemlə pifaqorçular qarşılaşmışdılar. Onlar ilk dəfə, tərəfləri vahid olan düzbucaqlı üçbucağın hipetonuzunun natural ədəd olmaması faktı ilə üzləşmişdilər. Bu ədəd, sonradan irrasional ədəd adlandırılacaq olan (bəzən də Pifaqor ədədi adlandırılan), idi. Bu hadisə pifaqorçuların inancının və dünyagörüşlərinin mərkəzi ideyası olan "hər şey ədəddir" tezisinə zidd gəlmiş və onu Allahların lənəti kimi qiymətləndirmişlər. Belə bir ədədin varlığı təbii olaraq hər şeyin əsasında, dünyanın əsasında natural ədədləri görən dünyagörüşünə və ümumiyyətlə, antik dünyagörüşünə yad idi. Yeni dünyagörüşü formalaşandan sonra belə ədədlər qəbul olundu və natural ədədlərə bərabərhüquqlu ədədlər oldular. O.Şpenqler bu hadisəni belə qiymətləndirirdi: "İrrasional ədədlər, yunan ruhu üçün tamamilə qəbul olunmaz oldu. Evklid deyirdi ki, onun sözünü birbaşa qəbul etmək lazımdır, - ölçülə bilməyən məsafələr arasındakı münasibətlər ədəd kimi deyil. Doğurdan da artıq irrasional ədədin oturuşmuş anlamı, ədəd və kəmiyyət ayrımındadır. Bunun da səbəbi ondadır ki, irra- 1 Yenə orada, (p.170). 2 Leibniz G.V. Sochineniya v chetyrekh tomah, (T.1), (p.213) Beynəlxalq Metafizika Mərkəzi DOI 10.33864/MTFZK. Metafizika jurnalı ISSN 2616-6879 (Print) 2019, cild 2, say 4, sıra 8 ISSN 2617-751X (Online) 92 sional ədəd, məsələn π, heç vaxt məhdud deyil və heç vaxt da məhdud məsafə ilə ifadə oluna bilmir. Buradan isə belə çıxır ki, kvadratın tərəfinin onun dioqnalı ilə ifadəsi üçün antik ədəd kifayət etmədi. Çünki, bu ədəd hisslərin sərhəddi idi, qapalı kəmiyyət idi. Ona görə də, antik dünyaduyumuna yad olan yeni ədəd ideyasına ehtiyac var idi, hansı ki, onlar bununla qarşılaşanda, sanki, onların məhvinə səbəb olacaq dəhşətli bir sirr ilə üz-üzə gəlmişdilər"1. Daha sonra O.Şpenqler tamamilə haqlı olaraq, irrasional ədədin qəbulunun sonsuzluğun qəbulu nəticəsində mümkün olduğunu deyir: "Antik ruh Pifaqorun simasında özünün apollonsayağı ədəd konsepsiyasını işlədi, oxşar olaraq, Qərbi Avropa da faustsayağı sonsuzluğa yaxınlaşma ehtiraslı ruhu ilə Dekart və onun müasirlərinin (Paskal, Ferma, Dezarq) simasında tamamilə öz dövrünə uyğun ədədləri kəşf etdilər"2. Deməli, yeni keyfiyyətli ədədləri qəbul etmək üçün yeni dünyagörüşünün də meydana gəlməsi lazım idi. Belə bir dünyagörüşü kəsilməzliyi və sonsuzluğu qəbul edən dünyagörüşü idi. Yuxarıda qeyd etdiyimiz kimi kəsilməzlik ideyası xeyli konsepsiyaların əsası olmaqla yanaşı, həm də, həqiqi ədədlərin də əsaslandırılmasının təməl ideyası oldu. Əldə olan vasitə ilə, natural ədədlərlə həqiqi ədədləri ifadə etmək mümkün olmadığından yeni vasitə lazım idi. Ancaq natural ədədlərin özlərini ərəb rəqəmləri adlanan simvollarla və mövqeli say sistemi metodu ilə rahat ifadə etmək mümkün olurdu. Ərəblərin həndəsi firuqlardan düzəltdiyi belə simvollar (1-bir bucaqlı, 2-ikibucaqlı, 3-üçbucaqlı, 4-dördbucaqlı, 5-beşbucaqlı, 6-altıbucaqlı, 7-yeddibucaqlı, 8səkkizbucaqlı, 9-doqquzbucaqlı həndəsi fiqurların şəklidir3) istisnasız olaraq bütün natural ədədləri ifadə etməyə imkan verirdi. Otuz iki hərflə bütün sözləri və fikirləri kodlaşdırdığımız kimi, doqquz simvolla da bütün natural ədədləri kodlaşdıra bilirik. Lakin həqiqi ədədləri natural ədədlər arasındakı münasibət kimi kodlaşdırmağa çalışdıqda, alınmır və elə pifaqorçuların da qarşılaşdığı ilk çətinlik bu idi. Belə olan təqdirdə və həqiqi ədədlərin varlığını qəbul etdiyimiz təqdirdə, hər bir həqiqi ədəd üçün yeni simvol qəbul edə bilmirik. Aydındır ki, bu prinsipal olaraq mümkün deyil, 1 Spengler O. Zakat Evropy: Ocherki morfologii mirovoj istorii. T.1. Obraz i dejstvitelnost, (p.101). 2 Yenə orada, (p.115). 3 Ifrah G. The Universal History of Computing: From the Abacus to the Quantum Computer, (p.356). Eldar Əmirov. Kəsilməzlik ideyası riyazi-fəlsəfi invariant kimi, s. 87-100 93 çünki sonsuz sayda ədəd üçün sonsuz sayda simvol qəbul etmək olmaz. Bu cür texniki imkanın olmaması həqiqi ədədlərin yoxluğuna dəlalət etmir və təsir də etmir. Bütün bu cür mülahizələr həqiqi ədədləri "kodlaşdırmaq" üçün yeni üsullar axtarılmasına rəvac vermişdir. Uzun tarixi dövrdə belə ədədlərdən istifadə olunmasına baxmayaraq1 fundamental əsaslandırma alman riyaziyyatçısı R.Dedekindin adı ilə bağlıdır. Beləliklə, kəsilməzlik ideyası həqiqi ədədlərin əsaslandırılmasının intuitiv əsası olur. Bütün düşüncə sahələri demək olar ki, belə intuitiv ideyalardan başlayır və sonra onun üzərində sistem qurulur. Kantın təbirincə desək: "İnsanın bütün dərki intuisiyadan başlayır, oradan anlayışlara keçir və ideyada tamamlanır"2. R.Dedekindin kəsilməzlik ideyasından istifadə edərək, həqiqi ədədləri əsaslandırması Həqiqi ədədlər rasional ədədlər və irrasional ədədlərin yığınıdır. Rasional ədədlər qədimdən məlum olduğuna görə onların mahiyyəti haqqında hər şey aydındır. Ancaq irrasional ədədlər sonradan meydan çıxır və mahiyyəti həmişə də qaranlıq qalırdı. İrrasional ədədlərin əsaslandırmasını R.Dedekind məqsəd kimi öz qarşısına qoyur. Özünün, artıq çoxdandır ki, klassik əsərə çevrilən, "Kəsilməzlik və irrasional ədədlər" əsərində bu məqsədini belə ifadə edir: "Tez-tez deyirlər ki, differensial hesabı kəsilməz kəmiyyətlərlə məşğuldur, ancaq heç bir yerdə bu kəsilməzliyin tərifi verilmir"3. Sonra rasional ədədlərlə bağlı hər şeyin aydın olduğunu qəbul edərək, onları düz xətt ilə müqayisə edir, qarşılıqlı əlaqə qurur. Çünki düz xəttin kəsilməzliyini intuitiv, həndəsi olaraq bilirik. Bu zaman məlum olur ki, düz xətt üzərində boşluqlar qalıb, rasional ədədlər bütünlüklə düz xətti doldura bilməyib4. Yəni məlum olur ki, rasional ədədlərin kifayət etmədiyi situasiyalar da var. "Biz alışmışıq ki, hesabı tətbiq oluna bilən zaman tətbiq edək, ancaq unuduruq ki, elə hallar var ki, o tətbiq 1 Məsələn, bu ədədlərdən ən qədimləri haqqında bu əsərlərə baxmaq: Zhukov A.V. Vezdesushchee chislo "pi". M., Editorial URSS, (2004), (216 s.); Mir matematiki: v 40 t. (T.5): Klaudi Alsina. Sekta chisel. Teorema Pifagora. M., De Agostini, (2014), (160 c.) və s. 2 Kant I. Kritika chistogo razuma, (p.417). 3 Dedekind R. Nepreryvnosti irracionalnoye chisla, (p.9). 4 Yenə orada, (p.18). Beynəlxalq Metafizika Mərkəzi DOI 10.33864/MTFZK. Metafizika jurnalı ISSN 2616-6879 (Print) 2019, cild 2, say 4, sıra 8 ISSN 2617-751X (Online) 94 olunmazdır"1. Məhz bu ehtiyacı ödəmək üçün yeni ədədlər irrasional ədədlər daxil edilir. R.Dedekind qeyd edir ki, "uzun müddət kəsilməzliyin nə olmasını axtardım və nəhayət tapdım. Ola bilər ki, müxtəlif insanlar bu tapıntını müxtəlif cür qiymətləndirəcək, ancaq mən hər halda düşünürəm ki, çoxları onun mahiyyətinin trivial olduğunu qəbul edəcəklər. O aşağıdakından ibarətdir: hər hansı p nöqtəsi düz xətti iki hissəyə ayırır. Bu zaman bir hissəsinin bütün nöqtələri ikinci hissənin bütün nöqtələrindən solda qalır. İndi mən kəsilməzliyin mahiyyətini tərs prinsipdə görürəm, yəni aşağıdakı kimi: Əgər düz xəttin bütün nöqtələri belə bir qayda ilə iki sinifə ayrılırsa ki, birinci sinfin bütün nöqtələri ikinci sinfin bütün nöqtələrindən solda yerləşsin, onda yalnız və yalnız yeganə bir nöqtə var ki, bu kəsilməni yaradır, düz xətti iki sinifə bölür, iki dilimə ayırır"2. Göründüyü kimi kəsilməzliyi biz fikri olaraq düz xəttə "oturduruq". Gerçəkdə, ətraf aləmdə kəsilməzliyin olub-olmaması bizə məlum deyil. A.Puankare bu barədə belə deyirdi: "Riyazi düşüncənin yeganə predmeti tam ədədlərdir. Kəsilməzlik bizə ətraf aləm tərəfindən təlqin olunub. O şübhəsiz ki, biz tərəfdən icad olunub, ancaq onu icad etməyi bizə ətraf aləm məcbur edib"3. Göründüyü kimi o, kəsilməzlik ideyasının insan icadı olduğunu söyləyir. Eyni şeyləri R.Dedekind özü də deyir: "Düz xəttin belə bir xassəsini qəbul etmək, aksiomdan başqa bir şey deyil, onun köməyilə biz düz xətt əvəzinə onun kəsilməzliyini qəbul edirik, fikri olaraq kəsilməzliyi düz xəttə yerləşdiririk. Əgər ümumiyyətlə, fəza gerçəkdən varsa, onda onun kəsilməz olması vacib deyil. Onun çoxsaylı xassələri, o kəsilən olsa da, doğru qalacaq. Əgər biz bilsəydik ki, fəza kəsilməz deyil, onda arzu olaraq bizə heç nə mane ola bilməz ki, fikri olaraq fəzanı kəsilməz edək, onun boşluqlarını dolduraq. Bu cür doldurma isə yeni nöqtələrin yaradılmasından ibarət olmalıdır."4. Elə məhz bu sonuncu fikir də Dedekind üçün fəlsəfi əsas olur. O, bu ideya vasitəsilə düz xəttin rasional ədədlərlə dolmayan, boş qalan nöqtələrini irrasional ədədlərlə doldurur; başqa sözlə desək, irrasional ədədləri yaratmış olur. Belə ki, düz xətt öz üzərində potensial şəkildə çoxlu sayda nöqtələr saxlayır. Yəni kəsilməz düz xətt üzərində, onun istənilən yerində hər hansı bir nöqtə götürmək olar. Bu da o deməkdir ki, düz xətt nöqtələrdən 1 Lebeg A. Ob izmerenii velichin, (p.21). 2 Yenə orada, (p.17). 3 Poincare Henri. The value of science, (p.285). 4 Dedekind R. Nepreryvnosti irracionalnoye chisla, (p.18). Eldar Əmirov. Kəsilməzlik ideyası riyazi-fəlsəfi invariant kimi, s. 87-100 95 öncədir. Başqa sözlə desək, düz xəttin kəsilməzliyi onun üzərində götürülə biləcək istənilən nöqtədən öncədir. Məhz bu sonuncu mülahizəyə R.Dedekindən qabaq Leybnis gəlir: "Xətt öncədir, nəinki nöqtə. Çünki tam hissədən öncədir, beləki hissə mümkünlükdür, idealdır"1. Məhz bu mülahizələrin köməyilə də həqiqi ədədlər əsaslanmış olur. Çünki həqiqi ədədlər iki – rasional və irrasional ədədlərin yığınından ibarətdir və rasional ədədlər əvvəlcədən məlum idi, problem yaradan isə tarixən irrasional ədədlər olmuşdu. R.Dedekind, yuxarıda istinad etdiyimiz, öz sitatının sonuncu cümləsinə xitabən deyir: "Artıq sonuncu sözlərlə kifayət qədər aydın görsənir ki, qırıq-qırıq olan rasional ədədlər çoxluğunu kəsilməz etmək üçün, onu hansı üsulla doldurmaq lazımdır"2. Beləliklə, R.Dedekind kəsilməzliyin köməyilə, sonradan riyaziyyatda onun adı ilə adlanacaq olan "Dedekind kəsməsi" metodunu kəşf etməklə irrasional ədədləri daxil edir: "Hər hansı rasional ədəd həqiqi ədədlər çoxluğunu iki A1 və A2 sinfinə ayırır. Bu zaman birinci sinfin bütün elementləri ikinci sinfin bütün elementlərindən kiçik olur. Asanlıqla görmək olar ki, sonsuz sayda kəsiklər var ki, heç bir rasional ədədə uyğun deyil. Bütün bu hallarda, əgər bizə bir kəsim verilibsə və bu kəsim heç bir rasional ədədin köməyilə yaradıla bilmirsə, onda biz bu kəsimlə tamamilə təyin olunan yeni irrasional ədəd yaratmış oluruq"3. Bundan sonra o, bu metodla irrasional ədədlər üzərindəki hesab əməllərini də təyin edir, onların sonsuz sayda olmasını da isbat edir. Başqa sözlə desək, düz xəttin bütünlüklə, kəsintisiz olaraq rasionallarla və irrasionallarla dolmasını isbat edir. Sonradan bu ideya da öz növbəsində "kompaktlıq" adı ilə ali riyaziyyatda təməl xassə kimi istifadə olunur. Sonsuz sayda irrasional ədədin daxil edilməsi cəsarətini, fikrimizcə, bizə Pifaqorçular verir. Onlar ilk dəfə rasional ədədlərlə ölçülə bilməyən kəmiyyətlə rastlaştmasa idilər, biz sonradan onları sonsuzluğa qədər genişləndirə bilməzdik. Çünki, riyaziyyatın canında hər şeyi sonsuzlaşdırmaq kimi bir xüsusiyyət var. Məsələn, elə natural ədədlər üçün doğru olan ən sadə bir qaydanı bir riyazi imduksiyanın köməyilə bütün sonsuz sayda natural ədədlər üçün də isbat edirik, qəbul edirik. Görkəmli riyaziyyatçılardan biri A.Kolmoqorov deyirdi ki, riyazi induksiyanı başa düşmüş adam riyaziyyatı başa düşmüşdür. 1 Majorov G.G. Teoreticheskaya filosofiya Gotfrida V. Lejbnica. (p.160). 2 Dedekind R. Nepreryvnosti irracionalnoye chisla, (p.19). 3 Yenə orada, (pp.19-21). Beynəlxalq Metafizika Mərkəzi DOI 10.33864/MTFZK. Metafizika jurnalı ISSN 2616-6879 (Print) 2019, cild 2, say 4, sıra 8 ISSN 2617-751X (Online) 96 İdeyaların zamanda səyahəti İnsan yaradıcı qüvvədir. O, hiss üzvləri vasitəsilə aldığı məlumatlar üzərində yeni konstruksiyalar – abstrakt obyektlər qurur. Biz isə bu obyektlərin reallığını axtarırıq, yəni onu da ilk başlanğıca qaytarmaq istəyirik. Bu isə mümkün deyil. Əgər onlar reallıqda olsa idi, elə hisslərlə verilmiş olardı. Yaxud da ki, başqa bir rakursdan yanaşsaq, əqli intuisiyanı da "altıncı hiss" kimi qəbul etsək, onda bu abstrakt obyekləri də real saymış olacağıq. Lakin biz həmişə çalışırıq ki, hər şeyi görək, eşidək, dadın alaq, səsin eşidək və ona toxunaq. Ancaq qəribədir ki, gözün gördüyünü qulaq görə bilmədiyi kimi, çünki o eşitmək üçündür, əqli hissin də məhsulları yerdə qalan beş hiss üçün əlçatmazdır. Başqa sözlə desək, ideyalar sanki bir "hiss", əqli hiss rolunu oynayır. Əqlin gördükləri, yəni daha dəqiq desək, dərk etmə prosesi belə ideyalarla, təməl kateqoriyalarla mümkündür. Əqlin sərhədləri bu kateqoriyaların sərhəddi qədərdir. Bir nümunə kimi kəsilməzlik ideyasında da gördük ki, ideyalar bizə təbiətdən gəlir, onları bizə təbiət təlqin edir. Yəni insan üçün ilkin metafizika elə təbiətin özüdür. İndiyə kimi mövcud olan ideyaların əksəriyyəti təbiət mənşəlidir, çünki qədim insan təbiətlə daha çox həmahəng idi, təbiəti daha çox dinləyirdi, ondan daha çox asılı idi. Məsələn, bunu Platonun simasında antik düşüncənin öz dilindən də eşitmək olar: "Bütün mühakimələrdə təbiətə müvafiq gələn başlanğıcları seçmək lazımdır"1. Göründüyü kimi insan üçün ilkin dayaq nöqtəsi, intuitiv başlanğıc kimi təbiət götürülür. Ancaq sonradan yeni-yeni nəzəriyyələr, təlimlər ortaya qoyulduqca, abstrakt ideyalar da sintez edilir. Bu ideyalar da öz növbəsində başqa nəzəriyyələr üçün ilkinlik rolu, metafizik rol oynayır. Məsələn, kompüter texnologiyaları XX əsrdə insan tərəfindən yaradılan, ixtira olunan sahədir. İnformatikaya aid olan ideyalar sonradan başqa nəzəriyyələr üçün intuitiv baza rolunu, ideya rolunu oynayır. Əgər kəsilməzlik ideyasını bizə təbiət təlqin edirdisə, kompüter proqramlarının işləməsinin əsasında duran ideyalar insan mənşəlidir, abstrakt ideyalardır. Bu nəzəriyyələr öz ideyalarının başqa sahələrə köçməsini bizə təlqin edir. Məsələn, müasir dövrdə beynin iş prinsiplərini izah etmək üçün, kompüter proqramlarının iş prinsipindən ge- 1 Mochalova I. O dvuh ontologicheskih modeljah v dialoge Platona 'Timaeus', (p.62). Eldar Əmirov. Kəsilməzlik ideyası riyazi-fəlsəfi invariant kimi, s. 87-100 97 niş istifadə olunur, bənzətmələr aparılır. Bu sonuncunu M.Haydeggerin fikri ilə belə xülasə etmək olar: "Kibernetika atom əsrinin metafizikasıdır"1. Bu yollarla idraka daxil olmuş ideyalar yuxarıda da gördüyümüz kimi, təkcə bir dəfə istifadə olunmur, təkcə bir problemin həllində istifadə olunmur, əksinə çoxlu sayda istifadə olunaraq, təkrar-təkrar, dövrdən-dövrə səyahət edir və düşüncəyə bələdçilik edir. Belə olan halda maraqlı və həm də fundamental bir aspekt üzə çıxır: ideya və zaman arasında əlaqə, qarşılıqlı münasibət. Hər iki bəhs, həm zaman mövzusu, həm də ki, ideya mövzusu düşüncə tarixində həmişə təməl mövzulardan olmuşlar. Eyni zamanda da hər ikisinə aid, həm Şərq müəllifləri, həm də Qərb müəllifləri öz görüşlərini irəli sürmüşlər. Könül Bünyadzadə hər iki tərəfi alaraq belə bir fikir irəli sürmüşdür ki, zamanla ideya arasındakı münasibət, nöqtə və an arasındakı münasibət kimidir2. Həm də "zaman ideyanın daşıyıcısıdır"3. İdeyanın bu cür zaman və məkan ölçüləri olmaması onu bəli zamana və məkana pərçimləmir və ideya dövrdən-dövrə, nəzəriyyədən-nəzəriyyəyə səyahət edə bilir. Fikrimizcə, idrak ideyaları haradan almasına baxmayaraq, onu daim aktiv saxlayır və daim onunla dialektikada olur. Nəticə Bu təhlillərin və əsaslandırmaların köməyilə belə bir nəticəyə gəldik ki, ideyalar ilkin şəkildə təbiətdən və insanın yaratdığı konsepsiyalardan görülə bilir. İdrakın qazandığı bu ideyalar "süni orqana" çevrilərək dərketmə prosesində iştirak edir və bir dərketmə alətinə çevrilir. Tədqiqata cəlb etdiyimiz kəsilməzlik ideyası da tarixən məhz belə bir dərketmə alətinə, idrakın fundamentlərindən birinə çevrilmişdir. Yalnız kəsilməzlik ideyasının digər ideyalardan fərqi onun həm fəlsəfi, həm də riyazi ideya olmasındadır. Başqa sözlə desək, hər iki düşüncə sahəsində bu ideya xeyli dərəcədə məshuldar və paradiqmatik olmuşdur. Müxtəlif kontekstlərə o qədər daxil olmuşdur ki, onun fəlsəfi, yoxsa riyazi ideya olmasına qərar vermək mümkün olmamışdır. Hətta hara qədər fəlsəfi, hara qədər riyazi ideya olması arasında sərhəd çəkmək də mümkün deyil. Ona görə də biz onu riyazi-fəlsəfi invariant adı altında təsni- 1 Yenə orada, (p.13). 2 Bünyadzadə K. Zaman haqqında düşüncələr, (p.10). 3 Yenə orada, (p.26). Beynəlxalq Metafizika Mərkəzi DOI 10.33864/MTFZK. Metafizika jurnalı ISSN 2616-6879 (Print) 2019, cild 2, say 4, sıra 8 ISSN 2617-751X (Online) 98 fatlandırıb yeni sinifə ayırırıq. Həm də bununla biz, gələcəkdə, bu sinfin yeni elementlərinin axtarılmasını problem kimi də irəli sürürük. Ədəbiyyat siyahısı 1. Bell, J. L. (2005). The Continuous and the Infinitesimal in Mathematics and Philosophy. Monza: Polimetrica. 2. Bünyadzadə, K. (2018). Zaman haqqında düşüncələr. Metafizika jurnalı, 1(1), (s.8-29). 3. Dedekind, R. (2009). Nepreryvnosti irracionalnoye chisla. Moscow: LIBROKOM. 4. Florenskij, P. (1986). Vvedenie k dissertacii 'Ideya preryvnosti kak element mirosozercaniya'. In Istoriko-matematicheskie issledovanija (Vol. 30, pp. 159-177). Moscow: Nauka. 5. Franklin, J. (2017). Discrete and Continuous: A Fundamental Dichotomy in Mathematics. Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, 7(2), 355-378. 6. Ifrah, G. (2001). The Universal History of Computing: From the Abacus to the Quantum Computer. New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc. 7. Kant, I. (1964). Sochineniya v shesti toma (Vol. 3). Moscow: Mysl. 8. Kant, I. (1994). Kritika chistogo razuma. Moscow: Mysl. 9. Lebeg, A. (1960). Ob izmerenii velichin. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe uchebno-pedagogicheskoe izdatel'stvo. 10. Leibniz, G. (1982). Sochinenija v chetyreh tomah. Moscow: Mysl. 11. Lovejoy, A. O. (2010). The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers New Brunswick. 12. Majorov, G. (1973). Teoreticheskaya filosofiya Gottfried Leibniz. Moscow: MGU. 13. Mochalova, I. (2014). O dvuh ontologicheskih modeljah v dialoge Platona 'Timaeus'. In Platonovskie issledovaniya (Vol. 1, pp. 55–78). Saint Petersburg: RGGU–RHGA. 14. Poincare, H. (2015). The value of science. Cambridge University Press. 15. Spengler, O. A. (2009). Zakat Evropy: Ocherki morfologii mirovoj istorii. Obraz i dejstvitelnost. Minsk: Popurri. Eldar Əmirov. Kəsilməzlik ideyası riyazi-fəlsəfi invariant kimi, s. 87-100 99 Eldar Amirov The Idea of Continuity as Mathematical-Philosophical Invariant (abstract) The concept of 'ideas' plays a central role in philosophy. The genesis of the idea of continuity and its essential role in intellectual history have been analyzed in this research. The main question in this research is how the idea of continuity appeared in the human cognitive system. In this context, we analyzed the epistemological function of this idea. In intellectual history, the idea of continuity was first introduced by Leibniz. After him, this idea, as a paradigm, formed a base for several fundamental scientific conceptions. This idea also allowed mathematicians to justify a nature of real numbers, which was one of the central questions and intellectual discussions in the history of mathematics. For this reason, we analyzed how Dedekind's continuity idea was used to this justification. As a result, it can be said that several fundamental conceptions in intellectual history, philosophy and mathematics cannot arise without existence of the idea of continuity. However, this idea is neither a purely philosophical nor a mathematical one. This is an interdisciplinary concept. For this reason, we call and classify it as mathematical and philosophical invariance. Keywords: continuity, unit-ideas, Leibniz, real numbers, mathematicalphilosophical invariant, Dedekind, time. Эльдар Амиров Идея непрерывности как математически-философский инвариант (резюме) Идеи как таковые всегда были наиболее притягательным предметом для дискуссий в истории философии. Идеи можно рассматривать как узлы познания. В данной статье рассматривается генезис идеи непрерывности. Предметом изучения является то, что собственно явилось импульсом ее возникновения и укоренения в человеческом сознании. Также, предметом размышления в статье является вопрос о происхождении данной идеи. Анализируется эпистемологическая роль идеи-единицы. Лейбниц подчеркивает включение идеи непрерывности в качестве фундаментальной идеи в познаваBeynəlxalq Metafizika Mərkəzi DOI 10.33864/MTFZK. Metafizika jurnalı ISSN 2616-6879 (Print) 2019, cild 2, say 4, sıra 8 ISSN 2617-751X (Online) 100 тельное измерение и анализирует данное философское обоснование. В последующие периоды также отмечалось, что идея непрерывности превратилась в парадигматическую идею, основанную на многих фундаментальных научных концепциях. Также, с помощью идеи непрерывности показано обоснование действительных чисел, которые являются ядром математики и оставались необоснованными на протяжении тысячелетий. С этой целью используется идея непрерывности Дедекинда, с помощью которой выясняется, как установить надежную основу для действительных чисел. В ходе исследования стало ясно, что эта идея, помимо того, что она стала одной из фундаментальных идей в истории мышления, прежде всего в философском и математическом мышлении, превратилась в фундаментальную идею во многих концепциях. Большинство из них не были бы возможны без этой идеи. Идея непрерывности является весьма продуктивной и парадигматической. На основе многих примеров, с помощью обобщений и философских рефлексий, можно сделать вывод, что идея непрерывности не является чисто философской или чисто математической. Эта идея находится на стыке обеих наук. Поэтому мы классифицируем эту идею как особый класс под новым именем, а именно – как математически-философский инвариант. Ключевые слова: непрерывность, идея-единица, Лейбниц, действительные числа, математически-философский инвариант, Дедекинд, время. Məqalə redaksiya daxil olmuşdur: 23.10. 2019 Təkrar işləməyə göndərilmişdir: 23.11. 2019 Çapa qəbul edilmişdir: 27.11. | {
"pile_set_name": "PhilPapers"
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L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche Nicolae Sfetcu 16.03.2020 Sfetcu, Nicolae, « L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche », SetThings (16 mars 2020), MultiMedia Publishing (ISBN : 978-606-033-348-7), DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10128.56328, URL = https://www.setthings.com/fr/e-books/lethique-desmegadonnees-big-data-en-recherche/ Email: [email protected] Cet article est sous licence Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International. Pour voir une copie de cette licence, visitez http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/. Une traduction de : Sfetcu, Nicolae, « Etica Big Data în cercetare », SetThings (6 iulie 2019), DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.27629.33761, MultiMedia Publishing (ed.), ISBN: 978-606-033-228-2, URL = https://www.setthings.com/ro/e-books/etica-big-data-in-cercetare/ Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 2 Abstract Les principaux problèmes rencontrés par les scientifiques qui travaillent avec des ensembles de données massives (mégadonnées, Big Data), en soulignant les principaux problèmes éthiques, tout en tenant compte de la législation de l'Union européenne. Après une brève Introduction au Big Data, la section Technologie présente les applications spécifiques de la recherche. Il suit une approche des principales questions philosophiques spécifiques dans Aspects philosophiques, et Aspects juridiques en soulignant les problèmes éthiques spécifiques du règlement de l'UE sur la protection des données 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation, « GDPR »). La section Problèmes éthiques détaille les problèmes spécifiques générés par le big data. Après une brève section de Recherche de big data, sont présentées les Conclusions sur l'éthique de la recherche dans l'utilisation du big data. Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 3 1. Introduction Le terme big data désigne l'extraction, la manipulation et l'analyse des ensembles de données trop volumineux pour être traités de manière routinière. Pour cette raison, des logiciels spéciaux sont utilisés et, dans de nombreux cas, des ordinateurs et du matériel informatiques dédiés. Généralement, ces données sont analysées de manière statistique. Sur la base de l'analyse des données respectives, des prédictions de certains groupes de personnes ou d'autres entités sont généralement établies, en fonction de leur comportement dans diverses situations et à l'aide des techniques analytiques avancées. Ainsi, les tendances, les besoins et les évolutions comportementales de ces entités peuvent être identifiés. Les scientifiques utilisent ces données pour la recherche en météorologie, génomique, connectomique, (Nature 2008) simulations physiques complexes, biologie, protection de l'environnement, etc. (Reichman, Jones, and Schildhauer 2011) Avec le volume croissant des données sur Internet, dans les médias sociaux, l'informatique en nuage, les appareils mobiles et les données gouvernementales, le big data constitue à la fois une menace et une opportunité pour les chercheurs de gérer et d'utiliser ces données, tout en maintenant les droits des personnes impliquées. 1.1 Définitions Les mégadonnées comprennent généralement des ensembles de données dont les dimensions dépassent la capacité logicielle et matérielle habituelle, en utilisant des données non structurées, semi-structurées et structurées, l'accent étant mis sur les données non structurées. (Dedić and Stanier 2017) La taille du big data a augmenté depuis 2012, passant de dizaines de téraoctets à de nombreux exaoctets de données. (Everts 2016) Travailler efficacement avec le big Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 4 data implique l'apprentissage des machines pour détecter les modèles, (Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier 2014) mais ces données sont souvent un sous-produit d'autres activités numériques. Selon une définition de 2018, « les mégadonnées sont des données qui nécessitent des outils informatiques parallèles pour gérer les données », ce qui constitue un tournant dans le domaine de l'informatique, qui repose sur les théories de la programmation parallèle et le manque de certitude des modèles précédents. Le big data utilise des statistiques inductives et concepts d'identification des systèmes non linéaires pour déduire des lois (régressions, relations non linéaires et effets causals) à partir de grands ensembles de données avec une faible densité d'informations afin d'obtenir des relations et des dépendances ou de prédire des résultats et des comportements. Au niveau de l'Union européenne, il n'y a pas de définition obligatoire mais, selon l'avis 3/2013 du groupe de travail européen sur la protection des données, « Le terme « mégadonnées » se rapporte à l'augmentation considérable de l'accès aux informations et de leur utilisation automatisée: il fait référence aux volumes gigantesques de données numériques contrôlées par des entreprises, des gouvernements et d'autres grandes organisations, qui sont ensuite analysés de façon approfondie en utilisant des algorithmes. Les mégadonnées peuvent servir à établir des tendances générales et des corrélations, mais leur utilisation peut également toucher directement les individus ». (European Economic and Social Committee 2017) Le problème avec cette définition est qu'elle n'envisage pas de réutiliser des données personnelles. Règlement no. 2016/679 définit les données à caractère personnel (article 4, paragraphe 1) comme « toute information se rapportant à une personne physique identifiée ou identifiable (ci-après dénommée "personne concernée"); est réputée être une "personne physique identifiable" une personne physique qui peut être identifiée, directement ou indirectement, notamment par référence à un identifiant, tel qu'un nom, un numéro d'identification, des données de localisation, un identifiant en ligne, ou à un ou plusieurs éléments spécifiques propres à son identité physique, physiologique, génétique, psychique, économique, culturelle ou sociale. » Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 5 La définition s'applique également au niveau de l'UE aux personnes non identifiées, mais qui peut être identifiée en mettant en corrélation des données anonymes avec d'autres informations supplémentaires. Les données personnelles, une fois anonymisées (ou pseudo-anonymisées), peuvent être traitées sans autorisation préalable, en tenant compte toutefois du risque de réidentification de la personne concernée. 1.2 Les dimensions du big data Les données sont partagées et stockées sur des serveurs, via l'interaction entre l'entité impliquée et le système de stockage. Dans ce contexte, les big data peuvent être classés en systèmes actifs (interaction synchrone, les données d'entité sont envoyées directement au système de stockage) et passifs (interaction asynchrone, les données sont collectées par un intermédiaire, puis introduits dans le système. De plus, les données peuvent être transmises directement consciemment ou non (si la personne dont les données sont transmises n'est pas notifiée de manière claire et en temps voulu). Les données sont ensuite traitées pour générer des statistiques. Selon la cible des analyses statistiques respectives, les dimensions des données peuvent être : a) individuelles (une seule entité est analysée); social (nous analysons des groupes d'entités distincts au sein d'une population; et hybrides (lorsqu'une entité est analysée en fonction de son appartenance à un groupe déjà défini). L'énorme production actuelle de données générées par les utilisateurs devrait augmenter de 2000% dans le monde d'ici 2020 et est souvent non structurée. (Cumbley and Church 2013) En général, le big data est caractérisé par: • Volume (quantité de données) ; • Variété (produits de différentes sources dans différents formats) ; Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 6 • Vitesse (rapidité d'analyse des données en ligne) ; • Véracité (les données sont incertaines et doivent être vérifiées) ; • Valeur (évaluée par analyse). Le volume de données produites et stockées évolue actuellement de manière exponentielle, plus de 90% d'entre elles ayant été générées au cours des quatre dernières années. (European Economic and Social Committee 2017) Les volumes importants nécessitent une analyse rapide, avec un fort impact sur la véracité. Des données incorrectes peuvent causer des problèmes lorsqu'elles sont utilisées dans le processus de décision. Un des problèmes majeurs du big data est de savoir si des données complètes sont nécessaires pour tirer certaines conclusions sur leurs propriétés, ou si un échantillon est suffisant. Big data contient dans son nom un terme lié à la taille, qui est une caractéristique importante du big data. Cependant, l'échantillonnage (statistique) permet de sélectionner des points de collecte de données corrects parmi un ensemble plus large afin d'estimer les caractéristiques de la population entière. Le big data peut être échantillonné à travers différentes catégories de données lors du processus de sélection de l'échantillon à l'aide d'algorithmes d'échantillonnage pour le big data. 2. La technologie Les données doivent être traitées avec des outils de collecte et d'analyse avancés, basés sur des algorithmes prédéterminés, afin d'obtenir des informations pertinentes. Les algorithmes doivent également prendre en compte les aspects invisibles pour les perceptions directes. En 2004, Google a publié un article sur un processus appelé MapReduce, qui propose un modèle de traitement parallèle. (Dean and Ghemawat 2004) MIKE 2.0 est également une application open source pour la gestion de l'information. (MIKE2.0 2019) Plusieurs études de Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 7 2012 ont montré que l'architecture optimale pour traiter les problèmes liés au big data repose sur plusieurs couches. Une architecture parallèle distribuée distribue les données sur plusieurs serveurs (environnements d'exécution parallèle), ce qui améliore considérablement les vitesses de traitement des données. Selon un rapport publié par le McKinsey Global Institute en 2011, les principaux composants et écosystèmes du big data sont : (Manyika et al. 2011) des techniques d'analyse des données (apprentissage automatique, traitement du langage naturel, etc.), des grandes technologies (informatique décisionnelle, informatique en nuage, bases de données) et vues (charts, graphiques, autres vues de données). Les mégadonnées fournissent des informations en temps réel ou quasi réel, évitant ainsi le temps de latence autant que possible. 2.1 Applications Les mégadonnées dans les processus gouvernementaux augmentent la rentabilité, la productivité et l'innovation. Les registres d'état civil sont une source pour le big data. Les données traitées aident dans des domaines critiques du développement, tels que les soins de santé, l'emploi, la productivité économique, la criminalité, la sécurité et la gestion des catastrophes naturelles et des ressources. (Kvochko 2012) Big data fournit également une infrastructure permettant de mettre en évidence les incertitudes, les performances et la disponibilité des composants. Les tendances et les prévisions dans l'industrie nécessitent une grande quantité de données et des outils de prévision avancés. Le big data contribue à l'amélioration des soins de santé en fournissant des médicaments personnalisés et des analyses prescriptives, des interventions cliniques avec évaluation du risque et analyse prédictive, etc. Le niveau de données générées dans les systèmes de santé est très élevé. Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 8 Cependant, la génération de « données altérées » pose un problème urgent, qui augmente avec le volume de données, d'autant plus que la plupart d'entre elles sont non structurées et difficiles à utiliser. L'utilisation du big data dans les soins de santé a généré d'importants défis éthiques, ayant des implications pour les droits individuels, la vie privée et l'autonomie, la transparence et la confiance. Dans les médias et la publicité, pour le big data sont utilisés de nombreux points d'information sur des millions de personnes pour servir ou transmettre des messages ou des contenus personnalisés. Dans le domaine de l'assurance maladie, des données sont collectées sur les « déterminants de la santé », ce qui aide à élaborer des prévisions sur les coûts de la santé et à identifier les problèmes de santé des clients. Cette utilisation est controversée, en raison de la discrimination des clients ayant des problèmes de santé. (Allen 2018) Les mégadonnées et les technologies de l'information se complètent, aidant ensemble à développer l'Internet des objets (IoT) pour interconnecter des appareils intelligents et collecter des données sensorielles utilisées dans différents domaines. En sport, le big data peut aider à améliorer l'entraînement et la compréhension des compétiteurs à l'aide de capteurs spécifiques et à prédire les performances futures des athlètes. Les capteurs attachés aux voitures de Formule 1 collectent, entre autres choses, les données de pression des pneus pour rendre la consommation de carburant plus efficace. 2.1.1 En recherche En science, les systèmes big data sont utilisés de manière intensive dans les accélérateurs de particules du CERN (150 millions de capteurs transmettent des données 40 millions fois par seconde, pour environ 600 millions de collisions par seconde, dont ils ne sont utilisés qu'après Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 9 filtrage que 0,001% du total des données obtenues), (Brumfiel 2011) dans des radiotélescopes astrophysiques construits à partir de milliers d'antennes, décodant le génome humain (au départ, cela prenait quelques années, avec le big data peut être réalisé en moins d'une journée), des études climatiques, etc. Les grandes entreprises informatiques utilisent des entrepôts de données de l'ordre de plusieurs dizaines de pétaoctets pour la recherche, les recommandations et le marchandisage. La plupart des données sont collectées par Facebook, avec plus de 2 milliards d'utilisateurs actifs mensuels, (Constine 2017) et Google, avec plus de 100 milliards de recherches par mois. (Sullivan 2015) Dans la recherche on utilise beaucoup l'interrogation cryptée et la formation de grappes dans le big data. Les pays développés investissent actuellement beaucoup dans la recherche sur le big data. Au sein de l'Union européenne, ces recherches sont incluses dans le programme Horizon 2020. (European Commission 2019) Les programmes de recherche utilisent souvent des ressources API de Google et Twitter pour accéder à leurs systèmes big data, gratuitement ou avec paiement. Les grands ensembles de données comportent des problèmes d'algorithme qui n'existaient pas auparavant et il est impératif de changer fondamentalement les méthodes de traitement. À cette fin, des ateliers spéciaux ont été créés. Ils réunissent des scientifiques, des statisticiens, des mathématiciens et des praticiens pour débattre les défis algorithmiques du big data. 3. Aspects philosophiques Le big data peut générer, par inférences, de nouvelles connaissances et perspectives. Le paradigme qui résulte de l'utilisation du big data crée de nouvelles opportunités. Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 10 L'une des principales préoccupations dans le cas du big data est que les scientifiques des données ont tendance à travailler avec des données sur des sujets qu'ils ne connaissent pas et n'ont jamais été en contact, étant éloignés du produit final de leur activité (l'application des analyses). Une étude récente (Tanner 2014) indique que cela peut être la raison d'un phénomène connu sous le nom d'aliénation numérique. Le big data a une grande influence au niveau gouvernemental, affectant positivement la société. Ces systèmes peuvent être rendus plus efficaces en appliquant des politiques de transparence et de gouvernance ouverte, telles que les données ouvertes. Après avoir développé des modèles prédictifs pour le comportement du public cible, le big data peut être utilisé pour générer des alertes précoces pour diverses situations. Il y a donc un retour positif entre la recherche et la pratique, avec des découvertes rapides tirées de la pratique. A. Richterich déclare que la popularité de la surveillance de l'activité des utilisateurs a été motivée par des affirmations selon lesquelles l'utilisation (et la collecte de données avec) ces appareils amélioreraient le bien-être, la santé et l'espérance de vie des utilisateurs, et réduiraient considérablement les coûts des soins de santé. (Richterich, 2018) Pour obtenir le consentement de l'utilisateur, de nombreuses entreprises ont offert des remises aux clients qui seraient disposés à donner accès à leurs données de surveillance. (Mearian 2015) Mais il y a aussi des préoccupations concernant l'influence de ces technologies sur la société, en particulier dans les questions liées à l'équité, la discrimination, la vie privée, l'abus de données et la sécurité. (Collins 2016) Conceptuellement, le big data doit être compris comme un terme générique désignant un ensemble de technologies émergentes. Dans leur utilisation, nous devons prendre en compte les contextes culturels, sociaux et technologiques, les réseaux, les infrastructures et les interdépendances qui peuvent avoir un sens sur le big data. Le terme « big data » fait référence Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 11 non seulement aux données en tant que telles, mais également aux pratiques, infrastructures, réseaux et politiques qui influencent leurs diverses manifestations. Comprendre les mégadonnées comme un ensemble de technologies émergentes semble être conceptuellement utile, car il comprend des développements numériques activés dans la collecte, l'analyse et l'utilisation des données. (Richterich, 2018) Dans ce contexte, Rip décrit le dilemme des développements technologiques : "Pour les technologies émergentes avec leur avenir indéterminé, il y a le défi d'articuler des valeurs et des règles appropriées qui auront du poids. Cela se produit en articulant des promesses et des visions sur les nouvelles technologies." (Rip 2013, 192) Ainsi, les technologies émergentes sont des lieux de « normativité omniprésente » caractérisés par l'articulation de promesses et de peurs, conceptualisant une telle « normativité omniprésente » comme une approche « dans l'esprit d'une éthique pragmatique, dans laquelle les positions normatives co-évoluent. » (Rip 2013) L'éthique pragmatique souligne que les nouvelles technologies se développent dans des sociétés où elles sont associées / dissociées de manière discursive par certaines normes et valeurs. Dans le même temps, le pragmatisme affirme que l'augmentation du grand nombre de données et de pratiques liées à la recherche n'est pas une simple question de supériorité technologique. Ils forment un champ de justification normative et de contestation. Les néo-pragmatiques dans l'approche de l'éthique aborde les connaissances épistémologiques à travers la falsification des connaissances (scientifiques), avec des évaluations critiques des structures du pouvoir social. Keulartz et al. ont proposé une approche pragmatique de l'éthique dans une culture technologique (Keulartz et al. 2004) "comme une alternative qui combine les forces de l'éthique appliquée et des études scientifiques et technologiques, tout en évitant les lacunes de ces domaines." (Richterich, 2018) Ainsi, l'éthique appliquée est une approche Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 12 efficace en termes de détection et d'expression des normes impliquées dans des actions (inter) sociotechniques ou résultant d'actions sociotechniques, mais elle n'a aucune possibilité de capter la normativité inhérente et l'agent des technologies. (Keulartz et al. 2004, 5) Keulartz et al. considère que le manque d'évaluations technologiques normatives peut ainsi être surmonté: "l'impasse qui a émergé de ce point de vue" (c'est-à-dire les "angles morts" de l'éthique appliquée) peut être surmontée par une réévaluation du pragmatisme. (Keulartz et al. 2004, 14) Le pragmatisme éthique peut être caractérisé par trois principes communs: l'antifondationalisme, l'anti-dualisme et l'anti-scepticisme. L'anti-fondationalisme fait référence au principe de falsifiabilité, étant donné que nous ne pouvons pas atteindre la certitude en termes de connaissances ou de valeurs ("vérité finale"), mais les connaissances, ainsi que les valeurs et les normes, changent avec le temps. Les valeurs morales ne sont pas statiques, mais peuvent être renégociées en fonction des évolutions technologiques. L'anti-dualisme implique la nécessité de s'abstenir de dichotomies prédéterminées. Parmi les dualismes critiqués par Keulartz figurent l'essence / l'apparence, la théorie / la pratique, la conscience / la réalité et les faits / la valeur. L'éthique appliquée a tendance à assumer de tels dualismes a priori, par opposition au pragmatisme, qui souligne les interrelations et les frontières floues entre ces catégories. L'anti-scepticisme est étroitement lié à la nécessité des perspectives situées et d'une normativité explicite, liées au fondement anti-cartésien du pragmatisme. Dans la recherche européenne, le pragmatisme était généralement rejeté comme "superficiel et opportuniste", étant associé à des "stéréotypes négatifs", (Joas 1993) étant accusé "d'utilitarisme et de méliorisme". (Keulartz et al. 2004, 15) À la fin des années 1990 et 2000, le pragmatisme a connu un renouveau dans la recherche européenne. (Baert and Turner 2004) Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 13 L'analyse du big data d'un point de vue éthique implique deux principaux aspects interdépendants : un aspect théorique (la description philosophique des éléments soumis au contrôle éthique) et une vision pragmatique (de l'impact sur la vie des personnes et des organisations). (European Economic and Social Committee 2017) Il y a des problèmes éthiques causés par l'intelligence artificielle, et un lien étroit entre le big data et l'intelligence artificielle et ses dérivés : apprentissage automatique, analyse sémantique, exploitation des données. Une approche éthique passe par l'agence morale avec au moins les trois conditions de causalité, de connaissance et de choix. Selon Noorman: (Noorman 2012) • Il existe des liens de causalité entre les personnes et le résultat des actions. La responsabilité de la personne découle du contrôle du résultat. • Le sujet doit être informé, y compris les conséquences possibles. • Le sujet doit donner son consentement et agir d'une certaine manière. Le professeur Floridi, dans La quatrième révolution, identifie le problème moral du big data avec la découverte d'un modèle simple : une nouvelle frontière d'innovation et de concurrence. (Floridi 2014) Un autre problème associé au big data est le risque de découvrir ces modèles, changeant ainsi les prédictions. La règle de base de l'éthique du big data est la protection de la vie privée, la liberté et la discrétion de décider de manière autonome. Il convient de noter qu'il existe une tension continue entre les besoins individuels et ceux d'une communauté. Il est possible d'identifier plusieurs problèmes éthiques liés à l'exploitation des big data (European Economic and Social Committee 2017), Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 14 • Confidentialité La limite extrême de la confidentialité est l'isolement, défini par Alan F. Westin comme "le retrait volontaire d'une personne de la société en général par des moyens physiques dans un état de solitude". Moor et Tavani ont défini un modèle de confidentialité appelé. Contrôle restreint de l'accès (RALC) qui différencie la confidentialité, la justification et la gestion de la confidentialité. • Réalité adaptée et bulles de filtrage L'application sur un serveur collecte des informations en tirant des enseignements, puis utilise ces informations pour construire un modèle de nos intérêts. Lorsqu'un système utilise ces modèles pour filtrer des informations, nous pouvons être amenés à croire que ce que nous voyons est une vue complète d'un contexte spécifique, alors qu'en fait nous sommes limités par la "compréhension" d'un algorithme qui a construit le modèle. Les effets éthiques peuvent être multiples : certaines informations peuvent être cachées, imposer des préjugés que nous ne connaissons pas, notre vision du monde peut devenir progressivement limitée, et à long terme elle pourrait générer un certain point de vue. • Gestion des données après le décès Qu'advient-il des données d'un utilisateur décédé ? Les héritiers deviennent-ils leurs propriétaires ? Les données peuvent-elles être retirées du monde numérique ? Il y a ici des problèmes juridiques et technologiques. • Biais d'algorithme L'interprétation des données implique presque toujours certains biais. De plus, il est possible qu'une erreur dans un algorithme introduise des formes de biais. Un problème éthique est notre confiance implicite dans les algorithmes, avec des risques élevés lorsque les risques ne sont pas pris en compte en raison d'erreurs de programmation ou d'exécution des algorithmes. Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 15 • Confidentialité vs accroître la puissance de l'analyse Elle se réfère à la nature émergente de l'information comme un système complexe : le résultat de données provenant de différents contextes est plus que la simple somme des parties. • Limitation de la finalité Il est très difficile, voire impossible, de limiter l'utilisation des données. La confidentialité n'est pas un bloc unique, il y a des formes subtiles de perte de la confidentialité. • Inertie du profil numérique des utilisateurs Il s'agit du sujet de la réalité personnalisée. Un modèle qui implique les intérêts d'un utilisateur est généralement basé sur le comportement passé et les informations passées. Ainsi, les algorithmes ne sont pas basés sur l'identité réelle de la personne, mais sur une version antérieure. Cela influencera le comportement réel de l'utilisateur, poussé à maintenir ses anciens intérêts et donc à ne pas pouvoir découvrir d'autres opportunités. Si l'utilisateur n'est pas conscient de ce problème, l'influence de l'inertie sera beaucoup plus importante. • Radicalisation des utilisateurs, conformisme et sectarisme les big data peuvent se forger des opinions en utilisant des algorithmes de filtrage / recommandation, des informations, des articles et des messages personnalisés et des recommandations spécifiques d'amis. Ainsi, les utilisateurs seront de plus en plus en contact avec les personnes, les opinions et les faits qui soutiendront leur position d'origine. Cette tendance est souvent cachée aux utilisateurs de systèmes basés sur le big data, avec la tendance à développer des préjugés, allant de la conformité à la radicalisation. Il est possible de postuler la formation d'une sorte de subconscient technologique ayant un impact sur le développement de la personnalité des utilisateurs, phénomène évident dans le cas des réseaux sociaux, où la distance entre le monde réel ("physique") et Internet est fortement atténuée. Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 16 • Impact sur les capacités personnelles et la liberté • Égalité des droits entre le propriétaire des données et l'opérateur de données Habituellement , la personne dont les données sont utilisées n'est pas leur propriétaire légal. Par conséquent, une condition minimale est que cette personne ait accès à ses propres données, lui permettant de les télécharger et éventuellement de les supprimer. 4 Aspects juridiques L'utilisation des mégadonnée présente des problèmes juridiques importants, notamment en termes de protection des données. Le cadre juridique existant de l'Union européenne, basé notamment sur la Directive 46/95/CE et le Règlement général sur la protection des données (RGPD en anglais : General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR) assurent une protection adéquate. Mais pour les mégadonnées, une stratégie globale et complète est nécessaire. L'évolution au fil du temps est passée du droit d'exclure les autres au droit de contrôler leurs propres données et, à l'heure actuelle, à repenser le droit à l'identité (numérique). La collecte et l'agrégation des données dans les mégadonnées ne sont pas soumises à la réglementation sur la protection des données, en raison des nouvelles perspectives sur la confidentialité, avec la possibilité de formes spécifiques de discrimination. En 2014, le rapport de Podesta concluait que « L'analyse des mégadonnées peut potentiellement occulter les mécanismes de protection des droits civiques qui existent depuis longtemps dans la façon d'utiliser les informations à caractère personnel en matière de logement, de crédit, d'emploi, de santé, d'éducation, et sur le marché ». (European Economic and Social Committee 2017) Il s'ensuit que de nouveaux moyens spécifiques de protéger les citoyens sont nécessaires, car le cadre juridique, même s'il est théoriquement applicable, ne semble pas offrir une protection adéquate et complète. Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 17 4.1 RGPD (GDPR) Le règlement de l'UE sur la protection des données 2016/679 (Règlement général sur la protection des données, « RGPD ») traite la protection des données et la vie privée des personnes dans l'Union européenne et l'Espace économique européen. Il traite spécifiquement l'exportation de données personnelles en dehors des zones de l'UE et de l'EEE. Le RGPD entend simplifier l'environnement réglementaire en unifiant la réglementation au sein de l'UE. (European Parliament 2016) Le RGPD s'applique dans deux cas au traitement des données personnelles (a) l'accès aux biens ou services aux frais des personnes dans l'UE, ou (b) le suivi de leur comportement au sein de l'UE. Ainsi, le règlement permet de l'étendre à tous les fournisseurs de services Internet, même s'ils ne sont pas établis dans l'UE. Plus généralement, le RGPD s'applique à tous les grands agrégateurs de données, quelles que soient les connexions géographiques ou physiques. Étapes du traitement des données personnelles Le traitement des données personnelles est défini par l'article 4, paragraphe 2, comme « toute opération ou tout ensemble d'opérations effectuées ou non à l'aide de procédés automatisés et appliquées à des données ou des ensembles de données à caractère personnel, telles que la collecte, l'enregistrement, l'organisation, la structuration, la conservation, l'adaptation ou la modification, l'extraction, la consultation, l'utilisation, la communication par transmission, la diffusion ou toute autre forme de mise à disposition, le rapprochement ou l'interconnexion, la limitation, l'effacement ou la destruction. » Les mégadonnées comprennent plusieurs activités de traitement des données personnelles, chacune avec ses propres règles spécifiques : 1. Collecte de données Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 18 2. Stockage des données 3. Agrégation de données 4. Analyse des données et utilisation des résultats d'analyse Principes du traitement des données Le traitement des données est basé sur les principes suivants énoncés à l'article 5 du RGPD : 1. Légalité, équité et transparence : les utilisateurs doivent être pleinement et correctement informés de la politique de confidentialité et pouvoir accéder facilement à leurs propres données. 2. Limitation de la finalité : les collecteurs de données doivent informer la personne concernée des finalités de la collecte de données, qui peuvent être traitées ultérieurement à ces seules fins. 3. Minimisation des données : seules les données personnelles pertinentes aux fins déclarées seront collectées. 4. Exactitude et mise à jour : Les données seront mises à jour et rectifiées chaque fois que cela est requis par l'objectif déclaré. Dans le cas des mégadonnées, le droit des utilisateurs d'annuler ou de supprimer des données personnelles est très important. 5. Limitation du stockage : les données ne seront stockées que pendant le traitement et ensuite détruites. La durée de stockage peut être prolongée dans la mesure où les données sont archivées pour l'intérêt public, la recherche scientifique ou historique ou à des fins statistiques. 6. Intégrité et confidentialité : l'opérateur des données garantit une sécurité adéquate des données personnelles grâce à des mesures techniques et organisationnelles. Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 19 Politique de confidentialité et transparence Dans le cas de la collecte de données afin de remplir un formulaire, le principe de minimisation des données sera respecté, seules les données pertinentes et strictement nécessaires étant demandées. Dans le cas d'une collecte automatique de données, comme les cookies, la surveillance Web ou la géolocalisation, la politique de confidentialité doit informer l'utilisateur de cet aspect. Finalités du traitement des données Des données anonymes et agrégées peuvent être traitées pour identifier le comportement de certaines catégories de consommateurs. À cette fin, l'opérateur de données procède à l'anonymisation puis les transfère à un tiers les utilisant. Confidentialité par conception et confidentialité implicite Les concepts de confidentialité par conception et confidentialité implicite n'étaient pas explicitement inclus dans les réglementations de l'UE. Mais, selon l'art. 78 du RGPD, « [a]fin d'être en mesure de démontrer qu'il respecte le présent règlement, le responsable du traitement devrait adopter des règles internes et mettre en oeuvre des mesures qui respectent, en particulier, les principes de protection des données dès la conception et de protection des données par défaut. Ces mesures pourraient consister, entre autres, à réduire à un minimum le traitement des données à caractère personnel, à pseudo-anonymiser les données à caractère personnel dès que possible, à garantir la transparence en ce qui concerne les fonctions et le traitement des données à caractère personnel, à permettre à la personne concernée de contrôler le traitement des données, à permettre au responsable du traitement de mettre en place des dispositifs de sécurité ou de les améliorer. Lors de l'élaboration, de la conception, de la sélection et de l'utilisation d'applications, de services et de produits qui reposent sur le traitement de données à caractère personnel ou traitent des données à caractère personnel pour remplir leurs fonctions, il convient d'inciter les fabricants de produits, les prestataires de services et les producteurs d'applications à prendre en compte le droit à la protection des données lors de l'élaboration et de la conception de tels produits, services et applications et, compte dûment tenu de l'état des connaissances, à s'assurer que les responsables du traitement et les sous-traitants sont en mesure de s'acquitter des obligations qui leur incombent en matière de protection des données. » (European Parliament 2016) Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 20 Le paradoxe (juridique) des mégadonnées L'utilisation des mégadonnées implique au moins un paradoxe : d'une part, les mégadonnées garantit une transparence maximale mais en même temps, il n'y a pas de transparence adéquate concernant l'utilisation des mégadonnées. La transparence est une question fondamentale car elle influence la capacité d'un utilisateur à autoriser la divulgation de ses informations. (European Economic and Social Committee 2017) 5. Problèmes éthiques L'éthique des mégadonnées implique l'adhésion aux concepts de bons et mauvais comportements concernant les données, en particulier les données personnelles. L'éthique des mégadonnées se concentre sur les collecteurs et diffuseurs des données structurés ou non structurés. L'éthique des mégadonnées est soutenue, au niveau de l'UE, par une documentation complète, qui cherche à trouver des solutions concrètes pour maximiser la valeur des mégadonnées sans sacrifier les droits humains fondamentaux. Le Contrôleur européen de la protection des données (CEPD) soutient le droit à la vie privée et le droit à la protection des données personnelles dans le respect de la dignité humaine. Selon ces documents, le conflit conceptuel entre confidentialité et mégadonnées, et entre confidentialité et innovation, doit être surmonté. Il est essentiel d'identifier les moyens d'intégrer la dimension éthique dans la conception des innovations. (European Economic and Social Committee 2017) Selon le nouveau règlement de l'UE 2016/679, les opérateurs de données doivent mettre en oeuvre les mesures et technologies de confidentialité pour améliorer la confidentialité lors de la détermination des modalités de traitement et du traitement lui-même. Grâce à l'Agence de l'Union européenne chargée de la sécurité des réseaux et de l'information (ENISA), de nombreuses Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 21 stratégies de confidentialité ont été identifiées par leur conception (minimisation des données, masquage des données personnelles et leurs interconnexions, traitement séparé des données personnelles, choix du plus haut niveau d'agrégation, transparence, surveillance, politique de confidentialité, problèmes juridiques). Un moyen de base pour une coexistence pacifique entre l'exploitation des mégadonnées et la protection des données est le contrôle par l'utilisateur des données personnelles, ce qui conduit à la transparence et à la confiance entre les utilisateurs et les fournisseurs de services numériques. Comme indiqué dans l'analyse d'impact du RGPD, « L'instauration d'un climat de confiance dans l'environnement en ligne est essentielle au développement économique. En effet, s'ils n'ont pas totalement confiance, les consommateurs hésiteront à faire des achats en ligne et à recourir à de nouveaux services, y compris aux services administratifs en ligne. Si ce manque de confiance n'est pas résolu, il continuera de ralentir l'innovation dans l'utilisation des nouvelles technologies, d'entraver la croissance économique et de priver le secteur public des avantages potentiels de la numérisation de ses services. » Dans le cas des mégadonnées, les modèles de consentement traditionnels sont insuffisants et obsolètes. « Le consentement doit être assez détaillé pour couvrir l'ensemble des traitements et des finalités du traitement et la réutilisation des données à caractère personnel. » (European Economic and Social Committee 2017) Un problème particulier est la portabilité des données, soutenue au niveau de l'UE par le CEPD dans l'avis 7/2015, (MORO 2016) où il est nécessaire de garantir le droit des citoyens d'accéder et de corriger les données personnelles grâce à un contrôle étendu. La portabilité des données peut aider à accroître la sensibilisation et le contrôle des consommateurs en transférant des services en ligne. CEPD estime que les données à caractère personnel devraient être traitées ainsi que d'autres ressources importantes, telles que le pétrole, où les échanges ont lieu entre les parties également informés (symétrie de l'information). En fait, le marché des informations personnelles a un Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 22 caractère d'asymétrie d'information, n'étant ni transparent ni équitable, les clients ne sont pas rémunérés pour les informations personnelles qu'ils fournissent. Ainsi, la portabilité des données favoriserait un environnement plus compétitif entre les bénéficiaires de ces données, les utilisateurs pouvant choisir à qui ils donnent les données personnelles. Une autre approche implique le magasin des données personnelles, avec la possibilité pour l'utilisateur d'accorder ou de retirer le consentement pour ses données personnelles. (MORO 2016) (DG Connect 2015) Le magasin des données personnelles implique un « concept, un cadre et une architecture de mise en oeuvre qui fait passer l'acquisition et le contrôle des données d'un modèle de données distribué à un modèle centré sur l'utilisateur. » (European Economic and Social Committee 2017) La portabilité des données pourrait garantir cela. Le CEPD soutient la promotion des bénéficiaires responsables et la réduction de la bureaucratie dans la protection des données, grâce à des codes de conduite, des audits, des certifications et une nouvelle génération de clauses contractuelles et de règles d'entreprise obligatoires. La responsabilité des bénéficiaires des mégadonnées implique la mise en place de politiques internes et de systèmes de contrôle conformes à la législation en vigueur, à travers des solutions intelligentes et dynamiques qui garantissent le respect des principes fondamentaux (minimisation des données, limitation des finalités, qualité des données, traitement correct et transparent des données, conception, limitation du stockage, intégrité et confidentialité). L'éthique des données est basée sur les principes suivants: propriété (les individus sont propriétaires de leurs données), transparence des transactions (les utilisateurs doivent avoir un accès transparent à la conception de l'algorithme), consentement (l'utilisateur doit être informé et consentir expressément à l'utilisation des données personnelles), confidentialité (la confidentialité de l'utilisateur doit être protégée), financière (l'utilisateur doit connaître les transactions financières Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 23 résultant de l'utilisation de ses données personnelles) et l'ouverture (les ensembles de données agrégées doivent être librement disponibles). L'éthique dans la recherche Le terme étude des données critiques implique que les chercheurs étudient les mégadonnées d'un point de vue critique. L'étude des données dans ce contexte implique, en plus de leur analyse, l'intégration des données dans les pratiques (connaissances), les institutions et systèmes politiques et économiques, à travers l'interaction complexe entre les données et les entités qui les produisent, les détiennent et les utilisent. Un rapport de l'OCDE (2013) souligne que, contrairement aux normes éthiques appliquées aux données de recherche communes, dans le cas des mégadonnées : (OECD 2013) • La collecte des données n'a pas fait l'objet d'un processus officiel d'examen éthique. • Les règles éthiques communes ne seront pas mises en oeuvre dans le cas des mégadonnées. • L'utilisation des données de recherche peut différer de l'objectif initial. • Les données ne sont plus conservées sous forme d'ensembles discrets. La relation entre ceux qui fournissent les données et ceux qui les utilisent est souvent indirecte et variable. Un rapport plus récent de l'OCDE (2016) soutient que cette relation est plus faible ou inexistante, les mégadonnées limitant les capacités habituelles. (OECD 2016) Le magasin des données est important pour l'intégrité de la recherche. Les données doivent avoir une « provenance » claire, avec des sources et un traitement connu et identifié. De nombreuses données qui ne sont pas spécifiquement collectées pour la recherche ont des normes différentes dans la recherche de données. Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 24 Pour certaines données, souvent avec de valeur commerciale (par exemple, les données collectées sur Twitter), leur reproduction est soumise à des restrictions légales. (UK Data Service 2017) Les magasins de données doivent respecter des normes de transparence et de reproductibilité. Prise de conscience La prise de conscience du type de données fournies lors d'une inscription en ligne (pour la création d'un compte ou d'un abonnement, par exemple) est un fait rare, d'autant plus qu'il existe la possibilité d'utiliser une identité numérique existante (profil Facebook par exemple) au lieu d'une liste séparée pour un accès plus rapide. De telles situations créent une opacité concernant les données partagées entre le fournisseur d'identité et le service utilisé. (European Economic and Social Committee 2017) Consentement Afin d'utiliser les données personnelles d'une personne, son consentement informé et explicite est requis concernant qui, quand, comment et dans quel but elles sont utilisées. Lorsque les données doivent être partagées, ces utilisations doivent être portées à la connaissance de la personne. Il devrait toujours être possible de retirer son consentement pour une utilisation future. Dans l'analyse des mégadonnées, très peu de choses peuvent être connues sur les utilisations futures prévues des données, ainsi que sur les avantages et les risques impliqués. Ici, il existe des procédures de consentement « large » et « générique » pour partager des données génomiques, par exemple, et à des fins différentes. Même lorsqu'il est fait correctement, il existe des défis pratiques spécifiques : obtenir un consentement éclairé peut être impossible ou très Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 25 coûteux, et la validité du consentement est contestée lorsque l'accord est nécessaire pour accéder à un service. Contrôle Dans le monde d'aujourd'hui, les données personnelles peuvent être échangées comme n'importe quelle devise dans la mise en oeuvre des mégadonnées. Il y a différentes opinions sur la mesure dans laquelle cette situation est éthique, y compris sur qui participer au profit obtenu de ces transactions. Dans le modèle d'échange des données personnelles, la transmission des données personnelles est un cadre qui donne aux gens la possibilité de contrôler leur identité numérique et de créer des accords de partage des données granulaires. L'idée des données ouvertes, centrée sur l'argument selon lequel les données devraient être disponibles gratuitement, est en train d'émerger. La volonté de partager des données varie selon la personne. Dans le cas des enfants, les parents ou tuteurs ont la responsabilité de leurs données, qui ne peuvent pas être échangées contre des avantages financiers. Au niveau national, un gouvernement est souverain sur les données générées et collectées. Le 26 octobre 2001, la Loi patriotique est entrée en vigueur aux États-Unis, et le 25 mai 2018, le Règlement Général de la Protection des Données 2016/679 (RGPD) au niveau de l'Union européenne, pour les questions liées à la protection des données personnelles. Dans les mégadonnées, la relation homme-données est asymétrique, basée sur le contrôle des données. Le « droit à l'oubli », adopté au niveau de l'UE, est l'un des éléments fondamentaux du contrôle d'un individu sur ses données personnelles. Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 26 Transparence Les algorithmes utilisés dans les mégadonnées peuvent conduire à des biais qui affectent systématiquement les droits de l'individu. Par conséquent, la conception de l'algorithme doit être transparente et inclusive. La gouvernance anticipative implique une analyse prédictive basée sur les mégadonnées pour évaluer les comportements potentiels, avec des implications éthiques qui peuvent encourager les préjugés et la discrimination. Une personne qui accepte l'inclusion de ses données personnelles dans les mégadonnées a le droit de savoir pourquoi les données sont collectées, comment elles seront utilisées, combien de temps elles seront stockées et comment elles pourront être modifiées. Confiance La confiance dans les systèmes des mégadonnées est liée à l'interdépendance avec la confidentialité et la sensibilisation. Jusqu'à présent, la confiance a été considérée d'un point de vue strictement technologique. On espère que des architectures matérielles et logicielles seront développées qui pourraient accroître la confiance entre les êtres humains et les objets, et donc une plus grande acceptation de l'utilisation des données personnelles. Propriété Une question fondamentale dans l'éthique de la recherche sur les mégadonnées est de savoir à qui appartiennent les données ? Cela implique le sujet des droits et obligations de propriété. En droit européen, le RGPD indique que les gens détiennent leurs propres données personnelles. La somme des données personnelles d'un individu forme une identité numérique. La protection des droits moraux (le droit d'être identifié comme source de données et de les contrôler) d'un individu repose sur l'opinion que les données personnelles sont une expression Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 27 directe de sa personnalité et ne peuvent être transférées qu'à une autre personne, éventuellement, par succession au décès de l'individu. La propriété implique l'exclusivité, c'est-à-dire la restriction implicite d'autrui concernant l'accès à la propriété. Une propriété efficace des données personnelles implique la portabilité, la possibilité d'utiliser des alternatives sans perdre de données. La normalisation aiderait également à nettoyer les données personnelles. En fait, à l'heure actuelle, les données sont détenues par le propriétaire des capteurs, celui qui effectue l'enregistrement ou l'entité propriétaire du capteur. Dans l'UE, la possibilité que les données des citoyens de l'UE soient stockées en dehors de ce que l'on appelle l'« Euro cloud » a été progressivement réduite, mais le problème des données déjà stockées et traitées ailleurs n'a pas été résolu et « ne résout pas le dilemme éthique de la façon dont la propriété des données est définie philosophiquement, avant de passer à une approche plus juridique et politique. » (European Economic and Social Committee 2017) Surveillance et sécurité De plus en plus de sources de données sont disponibles à l'aide de technologies avancées telles que la vidéosurveillance, le GPS, les appareils mobiles, les cartes de crédit, les distributeurs automatiques de billets. De plus, la surveillance active est une méthode de collecte de données, mais en même temps limitant les libertés des citoyens. Une telle surveillance permanente détermine l'augmentation du stress des personnes et crée leur tendance à se comporter d'une certaine manière conforme aux normes attendues. Identité numérique L'identité numérique a l'avantage d'un accès rapide au contenu en ligne et aux services associés. L'utilisation de l'identité numérique a le potentiel de générer une discrimination fondée Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 28 sur la représentation d'une personne en fonction de ses données en ligne, qui peut souvent ne pas correspondre à la situation réelle, dans un processus appelé « dictature des données » dans lequel « nous ne sommes plus jugés sur la base d'actions mais sur la base de ce qui indique toutes les données nous concernant comme nos actions probables », (Norwegian Data Protection Authority 2013) l'interaction personnelle n'est pas placée dans un plan secondaire. Réalité ajustée Toute interaction que nous avons avec Internet implique la possibilité de stocker nos données personnelles. Le traitement et l'analyse de ces données déterminent les résultats personnalisés qui apparaissent ultérieurement sur Internet, à travers les résultats de nos recherches, l'affichage des produits dans les boutiques en ligne, l'affichage des publicités, etc. Cela génère une version plus étroite et plus personnalisée de l'expérience en ligne précédente d'un utilisateur (ce que l'on appelle le « ballon filtre ». (Pariser 2011) Un avantage est que l'utilisateur trouvera rapidement ce qu'il recherche habituellement, mais l'exclusion de certains aspects, perspectives et idées peut conduire à une restriction de la créativité et au développement d'une attitude tolérante par isolement politique et social des autres aspects, par le manque de vues pluralistes. (Crawford, Gray, and Miltner 2014) De-anonymisation La désidentification implique la suppression ou la dissimulation d'éléments qui pourraient immédiatement identifier une personne ou une organisation. La législation de différents pays sur la protection des données définit différents traitements pour les données identifiables. L'identifiabilité est de plus en plus considérée comme un continuum et non comme un aspect binaire. Les risques de divulgation augmentent simultanément avec le nombre de variables, les sources de données et la puissance de l'analyse des données. Les risques de divulgation peuvent Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 29 être atténués mais non éliminés. La désidentification reste un outil essentiel pour garantir une utilisation sûre des données. (UK Data Service 2017) Des informations parfaitement anonymes prises séparément peuvent être combinées avec d'autres données pour identifier de manière unique une personne avec différents degrés de certitude. Le profilage peut devenir un outil puissant, suscitant des inquiétudes quant à la mesure dans laquelle l'intrusion dans la vie d'un individu est autorisée, la possibilité d'assurer la sécurité et la supervision. Inégalité numérique Les avantages d'une grande taille de données sont évidents, mais certains pensent également que l'accumulation de données à grande échelle présente des risques spécifiques. De ce fait, peu d'entités ont accès, via l'infrastructure et les compétences, aux systèmes des mégadonnées. Dans ce contexte, les coûts et les compétences nécessaires à l'accès conduisent à des inégalités numériques spécifiques traitées par l'éthique. Confidentialité Dans les transactions de données, il est très important de garantir la confidentialité : « Nul ne sera l'objet d'immixtions arbitraires dans sa vie privée, sa famille, son domicile ou sa correspondance, ni d'atteintes à son honneur et à sa réputation. Chacun a droit à la protection de la loi contre de telles ingérences ou attaques. » Déclaration des Droits de l'homme des Nations Unies, Article 12. Dans de nombreux pays, la surveillance publique des données par le gouvernement pour observer les citoyens nécessite une autorisation explicite par le biais d'un processus judiciaire approprié. La confidentialité ne consiste pas à garder des secrets, mais à choisir, à respecter les droits de l'homme et la liberté. Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 30 Souvent, la confidentialité est considérée à tort comme un choix binaire entre l'isolement et le progrès scientifique. La protection de l'identité dans les données est technologiquement possible, par exemple en utilisant un cryptage homomorphe et une conception algorithmique. La confidentialité en tant que limitation de l'utilisation des données peut également être considérée comme contraire à l'éthique, (Kostkova et al. 2016) en particulier dans les soins de santé, mais il convient de garder à l'esprit qu'il est possible d'extraire la valeur des données sans compromettre la confidentialité. La confidentialité est reconnue comme un droit de l'homme par de nombreuses réglementations nationales et internationales. La confidentialité dans la recherche est obtenue grâce à une combinaison d'approches : limiter les données collectées, les anonymiser ; et réglementer l'accès aux données. Dans le cas de la recherche des mégadonnées, des problèmes spécifiques se posent : l'ambiguïté entre les termes « vie privée » et « confidentialité »; la déclaration des espaces sociaux publics ou privés; l'ignorance des risques de confidentialité par les utilisateurs; la distinction floue entre les utilisations publiques et privées. Il existe actuellement des différends quant à savoir si la science des données doit être classée comme une recherche sur des sujets humains, et donc non soumis aux règles habituelles de confidentialité. 6. Recherche des mégadonnées A travers les nouveaux concepts de « dommages algorithmiques », « analyse prédictive », etc., les algorithmes actuellement utilisés dans les opérations avec les mégadonnées dépassent la vision traditionnelle de la confidentialité. Selon le Conseil national pour la science et la technologie des États-Unis, « Les « algorithmes analytiques » sont des algorithmes de priorisation, de classification, de filtrage et de prédiction. Leur utilisation peut créer des problèmes de confidentialité lorsque les informations utilisées par les algorithmes sont inadéquates ou inexactes, lorsque des décisions incorrectes se produisent, lorsqu'il n'existe aucun moyen d'appel raisonnable, Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 31 lorsque l'autonomie d'un individu est directement liée au résultat algorithmique ou lors de l'utilisation d'algorithmes prédictifs encourage d'autres atteintes à la vie privée. » (NSTC (National Science and Technology Council) 2016, 18) La recherche sur les mégadonnées est ce que l'éthicien James Moor qualifierait de « marché conceptuel » en raison de « l'incapacité de conceptualiser correctement les valeurs éthiques et les dilemmes du jeu dans un nouveau contexte technologique ». (Buchanan and Zimmer 2018) Dans cette situation, la confidentialité est assurée par une combinaison de différentes tactiques et pratiques (environnements contrôlés ou anonymes, limitation des informations personnelles, anonymisation des données, restrictions d'accès, sécurité des données, etc.). En général, tous les concepts associés deviennent confus dans le cas des mégadonnées. Ainsi, les publications sociales sont considérées comme publiques sur les réseaux sociaux en cas de paramétrage approprié. Mais les réseaux sociaux sont des environnements complexes d'interactions sociotechniques où les utilisateurs ne comprennent pas toujours la fonctionnalité des paramètres et des conditions d'utilisation. Ainsi, il existe une incertitude quant aux intentions et aux attentes des utilisateurs, et ces lacunes conceptuelles dans le contexte de la recherche sur les mégadonnées conduisent à des incertitudes quant à la nécessité d'un consentement informé. Conclusions Les études de données critiques dans les mégadonnées reflètent des pratiques, cultures, politiques et économies spécifiques. (Dalton, Taylor, and Thatcher 2016) Les problèmes peuvent aller de l'intimité et de l'autonomie des individus à l'éthique de la science des données et des changements institutionnels dus à la recherche sur les mégadonnées. Il s'ensuit la nécessité d'analyser les pratiques des mégadonnées conscientes des relations de pouvoir, des préjugés et des inégalités. Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 32 Une définition qui limiterait la recherche critique au domaine de la théorie normative et critique serait contre-productive. Les principes communs des études de données critiques mettent en évidence les interdépendances entre les technologies émergentes et les acteurs (humains) dans des sociétés de plus en plus présentées. Les mégadonnées sont également le produit des conditions sociotechniques contemporaines, car elles produisent de telles conditions. (Richterich, 2018) Le domaine des études scientifiques et technologiques (EST) a une relation assez ambiguë avec les évaluations normatives de la technologie. Dans EST, certaines composantes sont davantage concernées par les approches descriptives que normatives. Contrairement à l'idéal d'EST commun d'un relativisme « sans valeur », (Pels 1996, 277) Pels appelle à la reconnaissance de la « troisièmes positions » dans les évaluations de la production de connaissances scientifiques qui « [...] ne sont pas en dehors du domaine de controverse étudié, mais y sont inclus et impliqués. ... Ils ne sont ni exempts de valeur ni manquants, mais sont localisés partiellement et engagés au sens politique et du savoir. » Un problème majeur dans les mégadonnées est que les micro-processus empiriques qui sous-tendent l'apparence de leurs caractéristiques de réseau typiques ne sont pas bien connus. (Snijders, Matzat, and Reips 2012) Les mégadonnées devraient toujours être contextualisées dans leurs contextes sociaux, économiques et politiques. (Graham 2012) Les défenseurs de la vie privée sont préoccupés par la menace à la vie privée en raison de l'augmentation du volume de stockage et de l'intégration des informations personnellement identifiables. À cet égard, il existe différentes recommandations politiques pour respecter la pratique et la vie privée. (Ohm 2012) L'utilisation abusive des mégadonnées par les médias, les Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 33 entreprises et même le gouvernement, a entraîné une perte de confiance dans les institutions sociales. Afin de protéger les libertés individuelles, Nayef Al-Rodhan estime qu'un nouveau type de contrat social est nécessaire, avec une surveillance et une réglementation plus stricte des mégadonnées. (Al-Rodhan 2018) Les expériences scientifiques ont tendance à analyser les données à l'aide de clusters spécialisées et d'ordinateurs hautes performances plutôt que dans le cloud, ce qui différencie culturellement et technologiquement le reste de la société. L'utilisation des mégadonnées, en raison de la manipulation de grandes quantités de données, a conduit à négliger les principes de la science, tels que le choix d'échantillons représentatifs, provoquant des biais dans l'analyse des résultats. Cette analyse est souvent superficielle par rapport à l'analyse d'ensembles de données plus petits. (Piatetsky 2014) Certaines sources de données, comme Twitter, ne sont pas représentatives de la population totale. Ioannidis a fait valoir qu'en utilisant les mégadonnées, « la plupart des résultats de recherche publiés sont faux » (Ioannidis 2005) car la probabilité qu'un résultat « significatif » soit faux augmente rapidement avec le volume de données, mais seuls les résultats positifs sont publiés. En utilisant les mégadonnées, UK Data Service met en évidence plusieurs problèmes éthiques spécifiques : (UK Data Service 2017) • Des alternatives au consentement individuel informé, telles que le « consentement social », sont apparues et sont plus permissives. • La nécessité de respecter la source des données et, en général, « l'intégrité contextuelle » dans le cas de la réutilisation des données a augmenté. • L'éthique de la recherche est principalement basée sur l'idée que l'entité recherchée est une personne individuelle, il serait donc possible de se désidentifier pour la protection. Dans le Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 34 cas de la prise en compte d'un groupe dans son ensemble, la protection sociale diminue. Dans ce cas, il a été proposé que les données soient considérées comme des « avantages publics » ou « d'intérêt public », mais cela ne résout pas la responsabilité des utilisateurs des données. Matthew Zook et al. propose « dix règles simples » pour l'utilisation du Big Data dans la recherche. (Zook et al. 2017) Les cinq premières règles concernent la façon de réduire les risques de damage résultant des pratiques de recherche, et les autres règles se réfèrent aux meilleures pratiques. 1. Les données sont humaines et peuvent nuire : la plupart des données représentent ou influencent les gens. Commencez avec l'hypothèse que les données sont personnelles (jusqu'à preuve du contraire) et guidez votre analyse sur cette base. 2. La confidentialité est plus qu'une valeur binaire : la confidentialité dépend de la nature des données, du contexte dans lequel elles ont été créées et obtenues, ainsi que des attentes et des normes des personnes concernées. Il s'étend aux groupes. Contextualisez les données pour anticiper les atteintes à la confidentialité et minimiser les dommages. 3. Éviter de réidentifier vos données : Souvent, les données anonymes ne réussissent pas. Les données considérées comme anonymes sont combinées avec d'autres variables pouvant conduire à une nouvelle identification. Identifier les vecteurs possibles de réidentification et les minimiser dans les résultats publiés. 4. Pratiquer l'échange éthique de données : Pour certains projets, tels que la génétique, le partage de données est une nécessité sociale, mais le consentement éclairé et le droit de rétractation restent valables. Partagez les données conformément aux protocoles de Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 35 recherche, mais prenez en compte les dommages potentiels générés par les données collectées de manière informelle. 5. Tenir compte des forces et des limites de vos données : plus grand ne signifie pas automatiquement meilleur : les ensembles de données doivent être ancrés dans leur contexte, y compris en tenant compte des conflits d'intérêts. Dans l'acquisition de données, il est important de comprendre la source des données et de se conformer à la réglementation. Dans des environnements mal réglementés, des règles éthiques peuvent être utilisées. Les chercheurs doivent être sensibles aux multiples significations potentielles des données. Documentez l'origine et l'évolution des données. 6. Débattre des choix éthiques difficiles : le manque de solutions et de protocoles clairs doit être évité. Ces débats peuvent produire des évaluations par les pairs très utiles. Les services de consultation peuvent être utilisés dans le domaine de l'éthique de la recherche dans les universités. Impliquez vos collègues et étudiants dans une pratique éthique pour une recherche des mégadonnées à grande échelle. 7. Élaborer un code de conduite pour votre organisation, communauté de recherche ou industrie : la « fausse éthique », ainsi que la falsification de données ou de résultats, sont inacceptables. Il est nécessaire d'élaborer des codes de conduite qui peuvent fournir des orientations dans l'évaluation mutuelle des publications et dans l'examen des financements. Établir des codes de conduite éthique appropriés, avec des représentants des communautés affectées. 8. Concevoir vos données et vos systèmes d'audit : l'audit fournit un mécanisme de vérification du travail, améliorant la compréhension et la reproductibilité. Planifier et lancer des audits des pratiques des mégadonnées. Nicolae Sfetcu : L'éthique des mégadonnées (Big Data) en recherche 36 9. Impliquez-vous avec des conséquences moindres dans les pratiques et l'analyse des données : il est important pour les chercheurs de penser au-delà des valeurs traditionnelles. Les fournisseurs peuvent être tenus de stocker dans le cloud et les centres de traitement des données peuvent passer à des sources d'énergie durables et renouvelables. La réalisation de recherches à grande échelle a des effets au niveau de la société. 10. Sacher quand enfreindre ces règles : vous devez savoir à quoi vous attendre lorsque vous vous éloignez de ces règles, par exemple en cas de catastrophe naturelle ou d'urgence. La recherche responsable des mégadonnées dépend de plusieurs listes de contrôle. Quelles que soient les normes éthiques ou juridiques, les scientifiques doivent être rigoureux dans l'utilisation des techniques et des méthodologies, et très prudents dans les questions éthiques. L'idée que « les données sont déjà publiques » (Zimmer 2016) est une simplification injustifiée. Les données ne sont pas abstraites, ce sont en fait de vraies personnes. La recherche responsable sur les mégadonnées ne vise pas à restreindre la recherche, mais à assurer la confiance, l'équité et à maximiser les aspects positifs tout en réduisant les dommages. 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Thought by Description michael mckinsey Wayne State University It seems perfectly obvious that we all very frequently have thoughts that are directed upon or are about particular objects in the external world, including other persons as well as a vast number of types of ordinary physical thing. But the problem of what makes our thoughts and other cognitive attitudes about particular objects is extremely difficult. The problem received much attention from many skilled philosophers from the 1960s until the mid-1980s. But since then, the problem has received scant attention, even though I think no general consensus had been achieved regarding the form that a correct solution should take.1 I would like to return to this problem here. My aim in this paper will be the limited one of motivating and defending my view that there are thoughts about objects that are based on description, where an object is thought about in such cases simply by virtue of the object's unique satisfaction of the description in question. There are of course other ways in which thoughts can be about objects. One can have thoughts about objects of which one is directly aware, including oneself and one's own mental acts, states, and experiences. And one can have thoughts about objects on the basis of one's perception of the objects in sense experience. In such cases, in my view, one need not possess any descriptive information that is true of the objects thought about, in 1 To be sure, there has been much valuable work during this period on both the semantics of singular terms and the nature of thought contents and their ascription, including for example the work by Neale (1990), Richard (1990), Recanati (1993) and Soames (2002). But none of this work specifically addresses the problem of what makes thoughts about objects. And when the topic has been mentioned at all, the tendency has been to just assume that some sort of unexplained causal relation will solve the problem. (See for instance Recanati 1993, p. 112.) But this tendency represents no real advance beyond the original suggestions of a causal theory of mental reference by such philosophers as Kaplan (1969), Donnellan (1970, 1977) and Evans (1973). I will discuss causal views below in section 2. THOUGHT BY DESCRIPTION 83 Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. LXXVIII No. 1, January 2009 2009 International Phenomenological Society Philosophy and Phenomenological Research order to think about them. But in situations in which a person is neither directly nor perceptually aware of an object, the person's thought is about that object, at least typically, and perhaps always, because the object uniquely satisfies the description or descriptions on which the thinker's mental act of reference is based. My conception of the way that mental reference is determined by description is to be understood on analogy with the semantic phenomenon of reference-fixing by description, which was first clearly explained by Kripke (1972). This feature of my view serves to distinguish it from another, earlier form of description theory that I will call 'the Fregean view.' The primary difference between the two views concerns the logical form of the propositional contents of thoughts about objects. On the Fregean view, these contents are purely descriptive in nature, being of the form 'The F is G.' On my view, by contrast, the contents of thoughts about objects are always Russellian singular propositions which have the objects thought about as constituents. Below I will explain and argue for my description theory of mental reference. I will also defend my theory against the most serious objection it faces, an objection that was raised by Donnellan (1977). 1. The Fregean View In the 1960s, the problem of what makes thoughts and other cognitive attitudes about objects began to receive close attention, due largely to the seminal work of W. V. Quine on the de re ⁄de dicto distinction, especially in his 1956 paper ''Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes.'' In that paper, Quine emphasized a distinction that holds between two kinds of belief ascriptions that contain singular terms like definite descriptions: (1) Ralph believes that the man in the brown hat is a spy. (2) Ralph believes of (or about) the man in the brown hat that he is a spy.2 Quine calls ascriptions like (1) 'notional.' They are also commonly called 'de dicto' since they explicitly ascribe a specific propositional content (a dictum) to Ralph's beliefs. By contrast, Quine calls ascriptions like (2) 'relational.' Such ascriptions are also called 'de re,' because they ascribe a mental relation between the believer and the object (or res) that his or her belief is about. 2 The distinction between (1) and (2) corresponds to the distinction which Russell (1905) had made between secondary and primary occurrences of definite descriptions. 84 MICHAEL MCKINSEY Given Quine's way of explaining the de re ⁄de dicto distinction, it is plausible to suppose that de dicto ascriptions fully characterize beliefs and other attitudes in terms of their (whole) propositional contents, while de re ascriptions only partially characterize a belief as being about a given object (the man in the brown hat, say) and as having a given predicative content (being a spy, say). This led many philosophers to infer that de re ascriptions could be defined in terms of de dicto ascriptions, and thus to believe that we could account for what makes thoughts about objects (what makes de re ascriptions true) by appealing in part to the thoughts' having certain kinds of propositional contents (appealing to what makes de dicto ascriptions true). This way of looking at the de re ⁄de dicto distinction led to a number of attempts to give what I will call 'Fregean' accounts of what makes thoughts about objects. Such accounts were defended by many prominent philosophers from the 1950s into the 1970s, including Kaplan (1969), Sellars (1969), Sosa (1970), Chisholm (1976b) and Castañeda (1967, 1972). Even Quine himself had assumed something like a Fregean view in his (1956), where he said that a de dicto ascription like (1) logically implies a de re ascription like (2) by a form of exportation (p. 188). These Fregean accounts held that thoughts are either always or often about particular objects by virtue of the thoughts' involving Fregean descriptive senses, modes of presentation, or individual concepts which are satisfied by the objects in question. There perhaps was no general agreement as to whether Fregean senses are always of the descriptive sort expressed by definite descriptions. After all, it surely seems that a first person thought about oneself need not be based on any description. (See Sosa 1969, p. 69.) So perhaps one's first person thoughts about oneself are via special Fregean non-descriptive self-concepts. (See for instance Chisholm 1976a, Chapter One.) But there was general agreement among many of the defenders of the Fregean view that having a thought involving a descriptive sense was at least sufficient for the thought's being of or about the object that uniquely satisfies the sense.3 So I will take the Fregean view to be commit-ted at a minimum to the following principle: The Liberal Theory of Aboutness (LTA) Necessarily, for any person x, object y, and property G, if there is a property F such that (i) y = the F, (ii) x believes that the F is G, and (iii) the proposition that the F is G entails that the F exists, then x believes of or about y that y is G. 3 With Kaplan (1969) being a notable exception. See below. THOUGHT BY DESCRIPTION 85 I have stated (LTA) in terms of belief, but defenders of the Fregean view would have endorsed a similar principle for all other cognitive attitudes, including thought, knowledge, intention, and desire. I call this principle the 'Liberal Theory of Aboutness,' since the principle makes it relatively easy to have beliefs that are about objects. (Chisholm (1976b) similarly called such views 'latitudinarian.') Though it was widely endorsed, a serious defect was found in the Fregean view at about the same time as it was first proposed. Sleigh (1967, p. 28) gave the following counterexample, which applies to (LTA).4 Suppose that Tom knows that there are spies, and also knows that in any non-empty set of human beings, one is older than any other. Using a modicum of logic, Tom then deduces from what he knows that the oldest spy is a spy. So we have (3) Tom knows that the oldest spy is a spy. But since knowledge that p implies that p is true, it also follows from (3) that (4) The oldest spy exists. And then, by the principle for knowledge analogous to (LTA) it follows that (5) There is someone y, namely the oldest spy, such that Tom knows of y that y is a spy. But it certainly seems absurd to suppose that Tom could come to have knowledge regarding some particular person to the effect that that person is a spy, merely by knowing that one among the spies is oldest. Thus Sleigh provided a powerful counterexample to the principle for knowledge analogous to (LTA). Of course a similar counterexample 4 Sleigh actually directed his counterexample against Quine's assumption that a certain principle of ''exportation,'' which in effect is the principle (LTA), is valid. (Quine 1956, p. 188.) Sleigh gave credit to Hintikka (1962, pp. 141–44) for the type of example he used. But Hintikka had used his similar example to argue for a quite different conclusion, and in fact Sleigh later showed (1968, pp. 396–98) that Hintikka's argument is unsound (as Sosa 1969, p. 68 also showed). Somewhat later, both Kaplan (1969, p. 220) and Sosa (1969, p. 71) gave counterexamples to Quine's principle of exportation that were substantially the same as Sleigh's example. (Though Sosa's counterexample was directed against Sellars's (1969) version of the Fregean view.) Quine quickly capitulated, agreeing (after input from Kripke) that Sleigh had shown that his principle of exportation is false (Quine 1969, pp. 337–38, 341–42). In fairness to Quine, we should note (as Quine did, 1969, p. 341) that he ''luckily made no use'' of his principle of exportation in his (1956). 86 MICHAEL MCKINSEY applies to (LTA) itself, merely by replacing 'knows' by 'believes' in (3)- (5). Thus the Fregean view certainly seems false. But what exactly is the defect in the Fregean view that allows it to fall prey to counter-examples like Sleigh's? Another example similar to Sleigh's may help to answer this question. Suppose that in 2003, before the candidates for the 2004 U.S. presidential election have been chosen, Jones becomes convinced that due to the clearly demonstrated incompetence of the Republican Bush administration, the winner of the 2004 election will be the Democratic candidate, whoever that may turn out to be. Thus we have (6) Jones believes that the winner of the 2004 election will be the Democratic candidate. Since of course Bush will in fact be the winner of the election, it follows from (6) by (LTA) that (7) Jones believes of Bush that he will be the Democratic candidate But (7) of course seems quite false, since Jones already knows of Bush that he is a Republican, and so he surely would have no belief of the sort that (7) ascribes to him. The moral of both this and Sleigh's example would seem to be that de dicto ascriptions like (3) and (6) do not ascribe cognitive states that are about the referents (if any) of the imbedded small-scope descriptions. The explanation of this fact would in turn seem to be provided by Russell's theory of descriptions, on which the propositional contents expressed by descriptive sentences like those imbedded in (3) and (6) are general, quantified propositions that are not themselves about any particular objects. (See for instance Russell 1905.)5 Russell himself seems to have held that that in order to have a thought that is really about an object, one's thought must have a content that is expressible by use of what Russell called a 'logically proper name,' or by what I shall call a 'genuine term.' (See for instance Russell 1912, p. 53.) A genuine term is a singular term whose sole semantic contribution to the propositions expressed by sentences containing the term is simply the term's referent. A sentence containing a genuine term thus expresses a proposition that is a function of the term's referent, if it has one. Or as Russell put it, the proposition will have the term's referent 'as a constituent.' Propositions of this sort are commonly called 'singular propositions.' 5 For a persuasive and thorough defense of Russell's theory, see Neale 1990. THOUGHT BY DESCRIPTION 87 From a Russellian perspective, the Fregean view's mistake is simply a mistake about logical form.6 To have a thought about a particular object, it is not sufficient for the thought's content to be a general proposition expressed by use of a definite description that is uniquely satisfied by the object. Rather the thought's content must be a singular proposition that itself is about the object in question. This is the diagnosis of the Fregean view's mistake that I endorse. 2. The Causal Theory However, there has been another competing diagnosis which has held center-stage since the problem with the Fregean view was first discovered. This competing diagnosis is based on another natural reaction to Sleigh's counterexample, which is to infer that, in order to have thoughts that are really about a given object x, one must bear a ''closer'' or ''stronger'' relation to x than is provided merely by thinking something of the form 'The F is G' where x happens to be the F. This was Kaplan's reaction in his 1969 paper ''Quantifying In,'' where he proposed substantially the same counterexample to (LTA) as Sleigh had given (Kaplan 1969, p. 220). Kaplan expressed this reaction by suggesting that, in addition to having a descriptively ''vivid'' mode of referring that denotes a given object of belief, the believer must in some sense also be en rapport with the object in question. And in order for a person to be sufficiently en rapport with an object to have beliefs about it, he said, the person must have a mode of referring to that object that is somehow genetically, or causally, based on the object itself (1969, pp. 225–27).7 Kaplan's causal requirement was subsequently endorsed and developed by such philosophers as Evans (1973), Devitt (1974, 1981), Donnellan (1977), Boör and Lycan (1986) and McKay (1984, 1994). The idea is, I believe, still widely endorsed today. (See for instance Perry 2001, pp. 50–52.) However, after over three decades, Kaplan's idea has failed to bear fruit. No clear, specific account or explanation of the alleged relevant causal relation has ever been stated or suggested. In fact, the idea itself is not just obscure but is also implausible in various ways. First, it cannot be a requirement that is demanded by our concept of having an object in mind, or of having a thought that is about an object, that the object be causally related to the thought. For instance, as Kim (1977, p. 618) pointed out, it makes little sense to suppose that when we think 6 For a clear and compelling expression of the Russellian perspective, see Boör and Lycan 1986, p. 125. 7 In a footnote (note 24, p. 241), Kaplan credits the insights of Saul Kripke and Charles Chastain for his emphasis on genetic factors. 88 MICHAEL MCKINSEY about objects of direct awareness or acquaintance, such as ourselves or our own mental states, acts, or experiences, our thoughts are about these objects by virtue of some causal relation between our thoughts and these objects of which we are directly aware. Also, as Kim points out, it does not violate our concept of mental aboutness to suppose that we can have thoughts about abstract objects such as numbers, sets, properties, relations, and word-types. But again, these are not things to which our thoughts could bear any causal relations.8 Thus a causal relation can only be a necessary condition of mental reference to objects other than objects of acquaintance and abstract objects. But even if the causal view is restricted to thoughts about physical objects in the external world, the view is too strong. As Sosa (1970) pointed out shortly after Kaplan first made his suggestion, if the causal requirement were correct, then no one could ever have beliefs, or be in any other mental states, that are about objects that do not yet exist, but will exist in the future. Yet surely this consequence conflicts with common sense. As Sosa says: ''Can't it be true that there is to be a meeting that I believe will be fruitless? Can't there be a house which, even when the plans were being drawn, I hoped would please us? And so on.'' (1970, p. 889.) There are also cases where it is clear that a person has a thought about a presently existing object, even though the object has no role in the genesis of the thought. For instance, Blackburn (1984, p. 339) gave the following nice example of this: . . . suppose the wife learns that the husband often takes out and adores a handkerchief with traces of the mistress upon it. So she buys a new one, identical except for the marks and substitutes it. She says as she gloatingly learns of his strangled gasp of surprise when he took it out: 'He expected it to have lipstick marks on it!' She attributes an expectation to the husband relating him de re to the substitute handkerchief. But this had no causal influence on the husband's expectation at all. Cases of this sort, as well as others,9 make it clear, I think, that there is no type of object such that it is a necessary condition of our having thoughts about objects of that type that the objects must bear some special sort of causal relation to the thoughts in question. Now there could be another, weaker, sort of causal view of thought about objects on which some particular sort of causal relation, while 8 I raised a similar difficulty for Devitt's (1981) causal theory of having an object in mind in my (1983), p. 113. 9 See McKinsey 1976a, pp. 129–30. THOUGHT BY DESCRIPTION 89 not a necessary condition of mental reference, at least provides one way, among others, of thinking about physical objects. One obvious candidate for such a causal relation is the particular sort that is involved in perception, and I would not deny that in such cases, causation plays a role in determining mental reference. But most causal theorists have also believed that even thoughts about objects of which the thinker is not perceptually aware are often determined to be about those objects by virtue of some special causal relation. So again, perhaps such a causal relation could provide one way (among others) of thinking about objects of which the thinker is neither directly nor perceptually aware. But in the absence of any clear account, or really any account at all, of such a causal relation, it is difficult to evaluate this suggestion.10 Some philosophers may have been persuaded that at least there must be some such causal relation that can determine mental reference, by Donnellan's (1970) and Kripke's (1972) arguments to the effect that speakers can use proper names to refer to objects that uniquely satisfy none of the descriptions that speakers associate with the names. (See for instance Kripke's famous Gödel ⁄Schmidt case, 1972, p. 294.) Since it seems in such cases that the speakers would be expressing thoughts about the names' referents, even though these referents are not determined by description, it might also seem likely that some causal relation is determining what the thoughts are about. However, I showed in earlier work that these arguments of Donnellan and Kripke simply fail to show that the referents of the names in their cases would uniquely satisfy none of the relevant associated descriptions. (See McKinsey, 1976a, 1978a, 1978b, 1981, and 1984. See also Boör 1972, Loar 1976, and Schiffer 1977.) So there really seems to be no motivation even for the weak view that some sort of causal relation provides at least one way of thinking about objects of which the speaker is neither directly nor perceptually aware.11 10 The above paragraph was written in response to a good question asked by Daniel Yeakel. 11 Another initially plausible suggestion as to why in Sleigh's and other similar cases the thinker's possession of information that the F exists is insufficient to provide the ability to think about the F, is that in all these cases, the thinker fails to know who the F is (when the F is a person), or fails to know what the F is (when the F is a non-person). (Hintikka 1962 made this suggestion.) However, the apparent fact, persuasively pointed out by (Boör and Lycan 1975), that knowing-who is purpose relative makes this condition unsuitable as a necessary condition for having thoughts about objects. For it seems clear that one's having a thought about an object is not purpose-relative at all. 90 MICHAEL MCKINSEY 3. Reference-Fixing by Description Given the falsity of the Fregean view, and given the fact that no causal relation provides a relevant necessary condition for having thoughts about objects, my view has been that the minimal condition that needs to be added to the fact that an agent assumes correctly that just one object is F, in order to guarantee that the agent has a thought or other cognitive attitude that is about the F, is the condition that the agent's thought or other attitude must involve a mental act of reference that is based on the agent's (true) assumption that there is just one F. (See McKinsey 1986, 1994.) My explanation of the nature of this kind of mental act is in turn based on an important semantic idea that was first adequately described by Kripke (1972). This is the idea that a proper name or other type of genuine term can have its referent fixed, or determined, by a given definite description, without making the relevant term synonymous with the description.12 Kripke gave several nice examples of reference-fixing by description, but one of the best is that of the planet Neptune, whose existence was discovered solely on the basis of mathematical calculations that in turn were based on observed perturbations in the orbit of Uranus (Kripke 1972, p. 347, n. 33). One of Neptune's discoverers was the French astronomer Leverrier,13 who might well have given the planet the name 'Neptune' by means of description, as follows: (8) Let 'Neptune' refer to an object x (at any possible world w) if and only if x = the planet that causes Y-perturbations in the orbit of Uranus (in the actual world). As the parenthetical remarks indicate, Kripke suggested that Leverrier might have introduced 'Neptune' as a ''rigid designator'' that refers to the same object at every possible world, where this object is to be the planet that causes Y-perturbations in Uranus' orbit in this world 12 Jeshion (2002) has recently defended the idea that reference-fixing by description can provide the basis for de re thoughts. While I find Jeshion's view congenial in many respects, her view, unlike mine, requires the use of names in thought to explain how de re thoughts can be based on description. Jeshion's view also implies that once a (mental) name's reference is fixed by description, a thought involving that name can be about an object which the thinker can no longer correctly describe. I disagree with this aspect of Jeshion's view, though the issue is difficult. Jeshion's idea of mental names whose reference can be fixed by either ostension or description is quite similar to Pollock's concept of a ''de re representation.'' See Pollock 1980 and 1982, Chapter III. 13 The other was the British astronomer John Couch Adams in 1845, slightly before Leverrier's discovery in 1846. Using information from Leverrier, Neptune was first observed by telescope later in 1846. (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, 1999.) THOUGHT BY DESCRIPTION 91 (the actual world). Being a rigid designator, 'Neptune' would thus not be synonymous with the description that fixes its referent, since that description is not a rigid designator. Given that 'Neptune' is rigid, even the following sentence would express only a contingent truth:14 (9) Neptune causes Y-perturbations in the orbit of Uranus. My own view is that (9) and other sentences containing 'Neptune' would express singular propositions about Neptune. Thus, even though 'Neptune' is introduced by means of description, it is not a description itself; rather it is a genuine term whose sole function is to introduce its referent (the planet) into propositions expressed by use of sentences containing the name. Thus the descriptive content used to fix the name's referent does not ''get into'' the propositions expressed by use of the name. While Kripke's examples convinced many that reference-fixing of names by description is certainly possible, most were also convinced by Kripke's and Donnellan's arguments that in general, names' referents are not determined or fixed by description (Donnellan 1970, Kripke 1972). As a result, I think, the idea of reference-fixing by description was not considered to be of much importance in the philosophy of language. But as I mentioned above, I showed that Kripke's and Donnellan's arguments failed to establish that name's referents are typically not determined by description. I have also defended semantic theories of names, indexical pronouns, and natural kind terms on which the semantic referents of these terms are invariably fixed or determined by description, and these theories fit all the existing linguistic and intuitive data. (See McKinsey 1978a, 1978b, 1984, 1987 and forthcoming.) So in my view, reference-fixing by description is a widespread and fundamental semantic mechanism. 4. Mental Anaphora and Its Implications One of the most important applications of the idea of referencefixing by description is its use in explaining how an analogous phenomenon can occur at the level of thought. I call this phenomenon mental anaphora (McKinsey 1986). Consider the following cognitive ascription: 14 Kripke also claimed that, given the introduction of 'Neptune' via (8), (9) would be knowable a priori even though it is contingent. Donnellan (1977) persuasively criticized Kripke's striking claim. I agree with Donnellan that the proposition expressed by (9) cannot be known a priori, but for reasons different from his. 92 MICHAEL MCKINSEY (10) Oscar wishes he had caught the fish that got away. It's clear that on one of its readings, (10) can be true even though no fish actually got away from Oscar (he had a branch or old boot on the end of his line). It's also clear that on this same reading, the wish ascribed to Oscar by (10) would be consistent. To capture this reading, I've proposed that we follow a suggestion made by Geach (1967) for understanding similar cases, and write the relevant reading as follows: (11) Oscar assumes that just one fish got away, and Oscar wishes it had been the case that he caught it (that very fish). According to my earlier arguments, the second occurrence of the pronoun 'it' in (11) is neither a bound variable nor going proxy for a description. Rather, the best hypothesis is that 'it' is functioning here as what Evans (1977) called an 'E-type' pronoun, a rigid genuine term whose referent is fixed by the description recoverable from its quantifier antecedent. Now suppose that just one fish did get away from Oscar at t, and call it 'Bubbles.' Since the truth of the singular proposition that Oscar catches Bubbles at t would make Oscar's wish come true (at some other possible world), and since the words 'he caught it' in (11) express this proposition, this singular proposition would be the content of the wish ascribed by (11). But then, it surely seems that Oscar's wish would really be about Bubbles. But this wish would be about Bubbles merely because Bubbles in fact uniquely satisfies the descriptive assumption on which the mental act involved in Oscar's wish is based. Thus the existence of mental anaphora shows that thoughts can be about objects, merely by involving mental acts whose referents are fixed by descriptive assumptions that the objects uniquely satisfy. Since there are forms of mental anaphora analogous to (11) involving every type of cognitive attitude, it follows that cognitive attitudes of every type can be about objects merely by virtue of those objects' unique satisfaction of certain descriptions. The existence of mental anaphora provides strong, positive evidence for a quite liberal view regarding the aboutness of thoughts, a view which we might call the 'Reference-Fixing Theory of Aboutness.' Letting 'C' stand in for any cognitive attitude verb, the various principles that are instances of this theory would all be wriiten as follows: THOUGHT BY DESCRIPTION 93 The Reference-Fixing Theory of Aboutness (RFA) Necessarily, for any person x, object y, and property G, if there is a property F such that (i) y = the F, and (ii) x assumes that there is just one F, and x Cs that it (that very F) is G, then x Cs of or about y that y is G. Of course, I am assuming here that clause (ii) is an instance of mental anaphora, so that the pronoun 'it' is an E-type pronoun. Note that while (RFA) is a liberal view, it conforms to to the requirement suggested by the Russellian diagnosis of the Fregean view's mistake. For cognitive states that are about objects because they fit the model provided by (RFA) must all have singular propositions about those objects as their contents. 5. Donnellan's Objection In the 1970s, one of the very few philosophers who emphasized the importance of reference-fixing by description, and who as a result endorsed a liberal view of thought about objects, was Kaplan (1977, 1978). In doing so, Kaplan was explicitly taking back his earlier view of ''Quantifying In'' (1969), on which thought about an object required the thinker to be en rapport with the object. In that paper, Kaplan had remarked (pp. 228–29): . . . I am unwilling to adopt any theory of proper names which permits me to perform a dubbing in absentia, as by solemnly declaring ''I hereby dub the first child to be born in the twenty-second century 'Newman 1','' and thus grant myself standing to have beliefs about that as yet unborn child. But later, as he reports in his paper ''Dthat'' (1978), Kaplan had become convinced (perhaps by Kripke's examples?) that a name's reference can be fixed by any description, so that bearing a cognitive attitude toward a singular proposition does not require ''that the person be en rapport with the subject of the proposition'' (p. 397). Thus simply by assertively uttering a sentence like (12) Newman 1 will be bald, Kaplan had come to believe, he ''can assert of the first child to be born in the twenty-first century that he will be bald . . .'' (p. 397; his italics). 94 MICHAEL MCKINSEY I of course believe that Kaplan was absolutely right to change his mind.15 But Donnellan immediately (1977) launched a persuasive counterattack on Kaplan's new liberal view, contending forcefully that one could not have knowledge or beliefs of the first child to be born in the 21st century, merely by virtue of having dubbed the child 'Newman 1.' Donnellan imagines that the dubbing is performed (say, in 1975), and that eventually the first child of the 21st century is born and baptised 'John.' Donnellan then remarks (p. 20): Now it seems to me that it would be outrageous to say that some twenty-five years or so before his birth, we knew that John would be the first child born in the 21st century. Suppose one of us, living to a ripe old age, were to meet John after he has grown up a bit. Would it be true to say to John, ''I call you 'Newman 1' and Newman 1, I knew some twenty-five years or so before your birth that you would be the first child born in the 21st century''? Donnellan is claiming here that it would be just obviously false to say, for instance, (13) In 1975, David knew of Newman 1 that he would be the first child born in the 21st century. Now everyone can agree that (13) certainly seems false. But I want to argue that (13) at least could be true (in the circumstances). 15 Kaplan has more recently clarified his position. See his ''Afterthoughts'' (1989), p. 605 and note 95, pp. 605–606. Here it is clear that Kaplan still believes that one can fix the reference of a term purely by description, and as a result one can then assert singular propositions and can be in de dicto cognitive attitudes toward those singular propositions. But now Kaplan holds that having a de dicto belief, say, whose content is a singular proposition about an object is not sufficient for having a de re belief that is about that object. I of course believe that Kaplan was wrong about this, but the issues are difficult, and I can't do justice to them here. One very counterintuitive feature of Kaplan's new view is that quantifications into de dicto contexts are no longer to be understood as equivalent to, nor sufficient for, any de re ascription. For example (i) ($x) (x = Ortcutt & Ralph believes that x is a spy) must now be counted as insufficient to imply (ii) ($) (x = Ortcutt & Ralph believes of x that x is a spy). But it just seems obvious to me that (i) and (ii) are logically equivalent. I would myself in fact define both 'believes-of' constructions like (ii), as well as 'believes to be' constructions, by use of quantification into de dicto contexts. (See McKinsey 1998, pp. 6–7.) Another problem for Kaplan's new view is that he apparently must assume that the de dicto belief operator used in sentences like (i) must have a different sense than the belief operator has in de re constructions like (ii). But I have argued elsewhere (1998) that it is both implausible and unnecessary to hold that 'believes' is ambiguous in this way. THOUGHT BY DESCRIPTION 95 But before considering (13) in detail, it will help to first consider a slightly different sort of case, namely, that of 'Neptune' and Leverrier. It is interesting that Donnellan says of this case exactly what he says about the 'Newman 1' case. He imagines that the Neptunians see and hear Leverrier perform his act of dubbing, and they know that their planet is the cause of the perturbations in the orbit of Uranus. Donnellan then says, ''Would they be justified in concluding that the Earthling has learned or come to know that their planet is the cause? It seems to me that the answer is obviously that they would not'' (p. 21). Here, Donnellan is claiming that it would be just obviously false for someone to say (14) At t, Leverrier knows of Neptune that it is the planet that causes Y-perturbations in the orbit of Uranus. (Where t is the time at which Leverrier dubs the planet 'Neptune.') But is (14) really false? I think that on the contrary, it is fairly easy to see that (14) is in fact true, and that in the circumstances described, Donnellan's intuition that (14) would be false is due solely to the fact that saying (14) would conversationally implicate in Grice's sense various falsehoods that (14) itself does not logically imply. (See Grice 1961, 1975, 1989.) At the time of dubbing, all Leverrier had done so far is to discover that a unique planet causes Y-perturbations in the orbit of Uranus, and he had decided to call that planet 'Neptune.' At this point, it would certainly sound odd to say (14). It would sound even odder to say, as Donnellan imagines, that Leverrier has learned, or come to know, of Neptune that it is the cause of the relevant perturbations. But the oddity of these ways of speaking is due solely to the fact that they conversationally implicate the falsehood that, prior to the planet's discovery, Leverrier already had some other way or ways of independently identifying Neptune. But as Grice pointed out (1989, p. 44), conversational implicatures can always be consistently cancelled. Thus it seems clear that Leverrier would have spoken the truth, had he said right after the dubbing: (15) I now do know of Neptune that it is the planet that causes Y-perturbations in the orbit of Uranus, but in fact that is all I know about Neptune so far, and the only way I have of identifying Neptune is that it is the planet that causes Y-perturbations in the orbit of Uranus. 96 MICHAEL MCKINSEY Since (15) is obviously true, and (15) entails (14), (14) is also true, contrary to Donnellan's claim. Notice that very shortly later, but before Neptune is observed through a telescope, Leverrier might learn or come to know of Neptune (through additional calculations, say) that it orbits the sun at such-and-such a mean distance, that it is the third largest in mass of the planets, and so on. At this point it seems perfectly natural to say that Leverrier knows these things of Neptune. But this further knowledge is really just additional information of the same type as the information that Leverrier had at the outset. This shows that there is only a difference of degree between the later knowledge of Neptune and the knowledge that Leverrier had at the outset. So again, it's clear that Leverrier was in a position at the outset to have knowledge of Neptune.16 The situation regarding Newman 1 is slightly more complicated. In the Leverrier case it is entirely natural to suppose that Leverrier would have introduced a name to refer to his newly discovered planet. But by contrast, it is exceedingly unnatural to suppose that David (or anyone else) would ever introduce a name for the first child to be born in the 21st century. The difference is that Leverrier had every reason to expect that large amounts of new information about the newly discovered planet would shortly and constantly be forthcoming, so that a name would be useful, even necessary, to assert and communicate singular propositions about the planet, and to allow for the effective organization of this information around the object of which the information is true. But in the Newman 1 case, by contrast, there is absolutely no purpose that is served (except perhaps to ''confound the sceptics''17) by introducing a name for Newman 1, since there is no reason at all to expect any additional information to be forthcoming about the name's referent, and so there is no reason to want to organize this information centered on the referent and no reason to be interested in asserting, communicating, knowing, believing, or thinking of singular propositions about the object in question. 16 My use of a pragmatic Gricean strategy to defend (RFA) owes much to Sosa's (1970) use of a similar strategy to defend the Fregean view against Sleigh-type counterexamples. In a recent illuminating discussion of Donnellan's argument, Jeshion (2001) has contended, as I just did, that it's possible to give a good explanation of Donnellan's intuitions that is nevertheless consistent with Leverrier's having de re thoughts about Neptune. But Jeshion's explanation is significantly different from mine, and does not appeal to Gricean implicature. 17 As Kaplan puts it (1977, p.560, note 76). In this note, Kaplan is making a similar point to the one I am making here. THOUGHT BY DESCRIPTION 97 With this in mind, let us again consider the possibility that (13) In 1975, David knew of Newman 1 that he would be the first child born in the 21st century. In the absence of any stage-setting, (13) seems false because normally it would be false. For normally, no one would ever introduce a name for Newman 1, and certainly, no one would ever bother to get themselves into the mental states that are required for (13) to be true. So to evaluate my view that (13) could be true in the imagined circumstances, we have to imagine that various quite abnormal things are also true in the imagined circumstances. First, we have to suppose that, while this is highly improbable, it really is true that in 1975, for reasons that are hard to explain, David actually often did assertively and with knowledge utter the sentence (16) Newman 1 will be the first child born in the 21st century. Using mental anaphora, we could describe David's odd state of mind when he utters (16) as being something like this: (17) In 1975, David knew that just one child would be born first in the 21st century, and David was then disposed to knowingly judge that he or she (that very child) would be the first child born in the 21st century. By my principle (RFA) plus (17), it follows that (13) is true in the circumstances. But now, is it still obvious that (13) is false? I don't think so. By describing the circumstances carefully and making clear just how odd and abnormal the situation really is, we have managed to cancel most of the implicatures that a normal use of (13) would have, but which in this case are all false. Thus it is clear that, contrary to what (13) implicates, all David knows of Newman 1 is that he will be the child born first in the 21st century, and it is also clear that David has no other independent way of identifying Newman 1. Moreover, the assumption (17) makes clear that while neither having nor expecting any store of additional information that would give him practical reason to have singular thoughts about Newman 1, David has nevertheless (perhaps madly) gone on to have such thoughts anyway. So I think that these considerations show that (13) at least could be true in the imagined circumstances, and of course this is all that my Reference-Fixing Theory (RFA) implies. Notice that the difference 98 MICHAEL MCKINSEY between the descriptive knowledge at the basis of (15) in the Leverrier case and the descriptive knowledge at the basis of (13) in the Newman 1 case, is clearly a difference of degree, not of kind. Thus there can be no principled reason to agree that (15) is true in the Leverrier case, as it obviously is, while rejecting (13) as false in the Newman 1 case. I suggest that we should think of cases like that of Newman 1 as limiting cases of having descriptive information that can serve as the basis of thought about and reference to external objects. It's true that we would in fact never use such limited information as the basis of thought or reference (except perhaps in a philosophical example). But as Kaplan pointed out, the fact that we would never use descriptive information of this kind in this way, does not show that we could not do so, if we wished (1977, p. 560, n. 76). 6. Conclusion In this paper, I have tried to motivate and defend my view that our thoughts about ordinary objects in the external world are frequently based solely on descriptive assumptions. Since my view requires that the propositional contents of thoughts about objects must be singular propositions, the view avoids the counterexamples which refute the Fregean view. It is commonly assumed that, like the Fregean view, my form of description theory also makes it too easy to have thoughts about particular objects. However, I have argued that proposals of stronger conditions, such as the bearing of a causal relation, yield false views precisely because they are too strong. I gave a positive argument for my view by providing linguistic evidence for the existence of mental anaphora, a phenomenon that both illustrates and supports my Reference-Fixing Theory (RFA). Finally, I defended my view against Donnellan's objection by using a Gricean strategy, on which the intuitions of Donnellan and others concerning limiting cases like those of Neptune and Newman 1, are based on false but cancellable conversational implicatures.18 References Blackburn, Simon, 1984, Spreading the Word (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 18 For their helpful questions and discussion, I am grateful to the students in my graduate seminar in philosophy of language (Winter Term, 2005), especially Michael Gavin, Mark Reynolds, and Daniel Yeakel. An earlier draft of this paper was presented to the Universities of Waterloo, Western Ontario, Stockholm, and Latvia. I am grateful to the audiences on those occasions for useful discussions, especially to Dan Blair, Daniel Cohnitz, Tim Kenyon, Jurgis Skilters, and Chris Viger. THOUGHT BY DESCRIPTION 99 Boör, Steven E., 1972, ''Reference and Identifying Descriptions.'' The Philosophical Review 81: 208–228. Boör, Steven E. and Lycan, William G., 1975, ''Knowing Who.'' Philosophical Studies 28: 299–344. -- and --, 1986, Knowing Who (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press). Castañeda, Hector-Neri, 1967, ''Indicators and Quasi-Indicators.'' American Philosophical Quarterly 4: 85–100. --, 1972, ''Thinking and the Structure of the World.'' Critica 6: 43– 86. Chisholm, Roderick, 1976a, Person and Object (LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court). --, 1976b, ''Knowledge and Belief: 'De Dicto' and 'De Re'.'' Philosophical Studies 29: 1–20. Devitt, Michael, 1974, ''Singular Terms.'' Journal of Philosophy 71: 183–205. --, 1981, Designation (New York: Columbia University Press). Donnellan, Keith S., 1970, ''Proper Names and Identifying Descriptions.'' Synthese 21: 335–358. --, 1977, ''The Contingent A Priori and Rigid Designators.'' Midwest Studies in Philosophy 2: 12–27. Evans, Gareth., 1973, ''The Causal Theory of Names.'' Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 47: 187–208. Evans, Gareth, 1977, ''Pronouns, Quantifiers, and Relative Clauses (I).'' Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7: 467–536. Geach, P.T., 1967, ''Intentional Identity.'' Journal of Philosophy 64: 627–632. Grice, Paul, 1961, ''The Causal Theory of Perception.'' Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 35. --, 1975, ''Logic and Conversation,'' Syntax and Semantics 3, P. Cole and J. Morgan, eds. In Grice 1989, pp. 22–40. Grice, Paul, 1989, Studies in the Way of Words (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press). Hintikka, Jaakko, 1962, Knowledge and Belief (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press). Jeshion, Robin, 2001, ''Donnellan on Neptune.'' Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63: 111–135. --, 2002, ''Acquaintanceless De Re Belief,'' in Meaning and Truth: Investigations in Philosophical Semantics, J. Campbell, M. O'Rourke and D. Shier, eds (New York: Seven Bridges Press): 53–78. Kaplan, David, 1969, ''Quantifying In,'' in Words and Objections: Essays on the Work of W.V. Quine, D. Davidson and J. Hintikka, eds (Dordrecht: D. Reidel): 206–242. 100 MICHAEL MCKINSEY --, 1977, ''Demonstratives,'' in Themes from Kaplan, J. Almog, J. Perry and H. Wettstein, eds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989): 481–563. --, 1978, ''Dthat,'' in Contemporary Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language, P. French, T. Uehling and H. Wettstein, eds. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1979): 383–400. --, 1989, ''Afterthoughts,'' in Themes from Kaplan, J. Almog, J. Perry and H. Wettstein, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989): 565–614. Kim, Jaegwon, 1977, ''Perception and Reference without Causality.'' Journal of Philosophy 74: 606–620. Kripke, Saul, 1972, ''Naming and Necessity,'' in D. Davidson and G. Harman (eds.), Semantics of Natural Language (Dordrecht: D. Reidel), 253–355. Loar, Brian, 1976. ''The Semantics of Singular Terms.'' Philosophical Studies 30: 353–377. McKay, Thomas, 1984. ''Actions and De Re Beliefs.'' Canadian Journal of Philosophy 14: 631–35. --, 1994, ''Names, Causal Chains, and De Re Beliefs.'' Philosophical Perspectives 8, Logic and Language: 291–302. McKinsey, Michael, 1976a, The Reference of Proper Names (Ph.D. Dissertation, Indiana University). --, 1976b, ''Divided Reference in Causal Theories of Names.'' Philosophical Studies 30: 235–242. --, 1978a, ''Names and Intentionality.'' The Philosophical Review 87: 171–200. --, 1978b, ''Kripke's Objections to Description Theories of Names.'' Canadian Journal of Philosophy 8: 485–497. --, 1981, ''Causes and Intentions: A Reply.'' The Philosophical Review 90: 408–423. --, 1983, ''Review of Michael Devitt, Designation.'' Canadian Philosophical Reviews 3: 112–116. --, 1984, ''Causality and the Paradox of Names.'' Midwest Studies in Philo-sophy 9: 491–515. --, 1986, ''Mental Anaphora.'' Synthese 66: 159–175. --, 1987, ''Apriorism in the Philosophy of Language.'' Philosophical Studies 52: 1–32. --, 1994, ''Individuating Beliefs,'' Philosophical Perspectives 8, Philosophy of Logic and Language: 303–330. --, 1998, ''The Grammar of Belief,'' Thought, Language, and Ontology, Essays in Memory of Hector-Neri Castañeda, ed. by W. Rapaport and F. Orilia (Kluwer): 3–24. --, 1999, ''The Semantics of Belief Ascriptions.'' Nous 33: 519–557. THOUGHT BY DESCRIPTION 101 --, forthcoming, ''Understanding Proper Names.'' Neale, Stephen, 1990, Descriptions (Cambridge, Mass.: the MIT Press). Perry, John, 2001, Knowledge, Possibility, and Consciousness (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press). Pollock, John L., 1980, ''Thinking about an Object.'' Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5: 487–499. --, 1982, Language and Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Quine, W.V., 1956, ''Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes,'' in The Ways of Paradox by W.V. Quine (New York: Random House, 1966): 183–194. --, 1960, Word and Object (Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press). --, 1969, ''Replies,'' in Words and Objections: Essays on the Work of W.V. Quine, D. Davidson and J. Hintikka, eds. (Dordrecht: D. Reidel): 292–352. Recanati, François, 1993, Direct Reference (Oxford: Blackwell). Richard, Mark, 1990, Propositional Attitudes (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.) Russell, Betrand, 1905, ''On Denoting.'' Mind 14: 41–56. Russell, Bertrand, 1912, The Problems of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). Salmon, Nathan, 1986, Frege's Puzzle (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press). Schiffer, Stephen, 1977, ''Naming and Knowing.'' Midwest Studies in Philosophy 2: 28–41. Sellars, Wilfrid, 1969, ''Some Problems about Belief,'' in Words and Objections: Essays on the Work of W.V. Quine, D. Davidson and J. Hintikka, eds. (Dordrecht: D. Reidel): 186–205. Sleigh, Robert C., Jr, 1967, ''On Quantifying Into Epistemic Contexts.'' Nous 1: 23–31. --, 1969, ''On a Proposed System of Epistemic Logic.'' Nous 2: 391– 398. Soames, Scott, 2002, Beyond Rigidity (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Sosa, Ernest, 1969, ''Quantifiers, Beliefs, and Sellars,'' in Philosophical Logic, J. Davis, D. Hockney and W. Wilson, eds. (Dordrecht: D. Reidel). --, 1970, ''Propositional Attitudes de Dicto and de Re.'' Journal of Philosophy 67: 883–896. 102 MICHAEL MCKINSEY | {
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Postgraduate Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 7, No. 2, August 2010 Special issue on Aesthetics and Popular Culture COLLINGWOOD ON ART, CRAFT AND ALL THAT JAZZ ADAM WILLS UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK R. G. Collingwood is best known within the philosophy of art for his development of the so-called expressionist theory. Briefly stated, this theory regards expression as a necessary condition for the production of any artwork, where expression is conceived as a process whereby the artist transforms inchoate thoughts and feelings into some clarified form within a given artistic medium. My intention is not to examine the conception of expression itself, but instead, turn to Collingwood's earlier distinction between art and craft. Here I am particularly interested in Aaron Ridley's analysis which maintains that, despite a strong distinction between art and craft, Collingwood's account is flexible enough to accommodate a notion of technique relevant to artistic production, where such technique is itself craft-like in character.1 Though I agree with Ridley's conclusion, I think there is room to better spell out the role of technique on Collingwood's account. I shall do this by examining the experience of artistic practice in the cases of jazz performance and electronic music composition. The aim of this paper is to show that Collingwood's account looks eminently applicable to these instances of art within popular culture, but more importantly that these cases point us to an enrichment of Collingwood's account which better accommodates a notion of technique. 1 It is here also helpful to note that understanding technique as 'craft-like' in character is faithful to its etymological root which is presumably from the Greek technê, generally translated as 'skill' or 'craft'. ADAM WILLS 39 I. SETTING UP THE PROBLEM In his Principles of Art, Collingwood makes a distinction between art and craft in order to reject an instrumental view of artworks, one in which the artistic process is entirely conceived as a means of achieving an independently specifiable end (the artwork). On Collingwood's view a work of craft is always completely explicable in terms of some preconceived end before its execution, yet this is not the case with works of art: art-proper is not to be equated with craft. Instead Collingwood presents the thesis that (a) art involves expression, with the qualification that (b) expression "is an activity to which there can be no technique".2 On the other hand, he maintains that (c) technical skill is "something used in the service of art"3 (albeit with a stress that such skill should not be 'identified with art'). Taken together, these claims generate an apparent contradiction: technique is employed in the service of art which is essentially characterised by an activity that cannot employ technique. While some early commentators suggested that Collingwood's art-craft distinction commits us to denying (c), i.e., artworks can never involve technique (where technique is here conceived in terms of a means-end structure),4 Aaron Ridley helpfully rebuts this charge by claiming that Collingwood is... committed only to a negative claim: that an artist's technique, insofar as it is understood instrumentally (in terms of means and ends etc.), is not the essence of his art. He is not committed to the silly claim that technique is irrelevant to the production of works of art.5 Instead, Ridley suggests that the art-craft distinction is between 'various aspects' that an object may have, hence there is no contradiction in claiming that the production of an artwork involves technique. He bolsters his case by discussing Collingwood's remarks on representational art, in which the motive to represent is regarded as instrumental in character, where "what makes [the object] a representation is one thing, what makes it a work of art is another."6 2 Collingwood (1938), p.111. 3 Ibid, p.27. 4 Cf. Mounce (1991), p.11 where he claims that "having specified that the means-end relation is characteristic of a craft... [Collingwood] is forced to deny all trace of it in art." 5 Ridley (1998), p.14. 6 Collingwood (1938), p.43. ADAM WILLS 40 While Ridley helpfully points us towards a reading of Collingwood which accommodates technique, his distinction between the artand craft-aspects of an object reveals a new problem. Insofar as technique is thought of as instrumental, the problem can be made clearer by asking whether we are to ignore those instrumental features pertaining to technique when considering the object qua artwork? Though Ridley's solution allows that technique might be a necessary condition for artproduction, it seemingly fails to specify exactly what 'service' to art technique might perform; worse still, Ridley's rigid demarcation of aspects of an object might be construed as rendering technique impotent to provide any such service to art. I shall suggest that a more fruitful development of Ridley's analysis is to refine the conception of technique on offer, where we hope to elucidate the 'service' technique provides to art. II. THE PUZZLING RELATION BETWEEN TECHNIQUE AND ART At the outset, it should be pointed out that the puzzling relation between technique and art is not new. Indeed, in The Critique of the Power of Judgment Kant framed this very problem in his discussion of genius, itself designed to resolve a tension generated from his positive account of fine art involving the intentional production of beautiful artefacts, and his claim that beauty is not a concept.7 The tension arises in Kant's case because he stipulates that technique (i.e., intentional production) be employed in artistic production, yet also demands that a concept of 'what is to be produced' be provided which, given his claim about beauty, seems to debar technique from producing anything beautiful. Though the credence of this puzzling relation between art and technique can be traced to Kant, there are recent discussions of the relation between art and technique more pertinent to our project. For example, R. Keith Sawyer discusses the artist's creative process while connecting the idea of problem-finding versus problemsolving to Collingwood's account. Here he understands "the creative process [as] a constant balance between finding a problem and solving that problem."8 In particular, Sawyer uses the example of a five-hour improvisation by Picasso captured on film in which we see the artist work through a range of ideas, each painted over the last, only to finish by declaring he will have to discard the canvas. Sawyer remarks that "the 7 Kant (1790). 8 Sawyer (2000), p.159. ADAM WILLS 41 time was not wasted – [Picasso] has discovered some new ideas, ideas that have emerged from his interaction with the canvas, ideas that he can use in his next painting."9 Interestingly, Sawyer's notion of 'problem-finding' seemingly captures some distinctive intermediary process between the artist's initial confrontation with the canvas and the process of arriving at some choate artistic product, i.e., expressionproper pace Collingwood. Though the relation to technique is not explicit, we can query this relation by asking whether such a process of 'problem-finding' is amenable to instrumental characterisation. Paisley Livingston also points us toward the relation between art and technique in his discussion of Henri Poincaré's view of the creative process, and the relation between inspiration and constraints. Livingston attributes Poincaré the view that "creative achievements are often the product of different sorts of interacting psychological processes."10 He makes further use of this model by identifying one of these processes as a prior commitment to a scheme of constraints which "orients the creative process by establishing formal as well as substantive, or content-related parameters, and corresponding normative expectations and conditions."11 My understanding of the driving intuition behind such an account is that constraint functions as a catalyst for creative action, where, without it, our endeavours would be too 'open-ended'. The discussion is related to technique insofar as the purposeful intentions involved in laying out such constraints are often thought of as instrumental, where one might describe their end precisely in terms of the catalytic function they have upon the creative process. Although neither Sawyer nor Livingston discuss expression, they may be understood as regarding some kind of creative process as a necessary condition to artproduction. Given also that, in both cases, we have queried the role of technique with respect to such creative processes, both discussions may prove useful 'food for thought' in refining the conception of technique on the Collingwood/Ridley account. Having said this, it is not clear how we are to integrate such ideas of 'problemfinding' or 'constraint' with this account. We turn to this challenge in the next section. 9 Ibid, p.150. 10 Livingston (2009), p.131. 11 Ibid, p.138. ADAM WILLS 42 III. TECHNIQUE: THE CASE OF JAZZ In order to develop a Collingwoodian account, we must accommodate its central thesis, namely that 'art is expression'. Collingwood describes this in terms of expressing emotion, where he claims this emotion is not pre-conceived before expression, but is rather dependent upon that expression to come into existence.12 His further claim is that expression results in 'a certain thing' as opposed to description, for instance, which results in "a thing of a certain kind."13 Ridley describes the latter claim here as a corollary to the first, and posits these claims as explanations for two intuitions concerning expression in artworks: that the medium of expression is inseparable from what is expressed, and that expression is always unique.14 The artcraft distinction makes sense in this light since works of craft are not unique, they are 'things of a certain kind', and thus different from artworks which are unique. Ridley helpfully relates this discussion to accounts of purposive action.15 He identifies a standard model of purposive action as one in which the purpose it serves can be specified independently of the action itself, where we note that this model describes what Collingwood calls craft. However, the production of art, on Collingwood's account, involves another kind of purposive action in which the purpose cannot be independently specified. If this were not so then the clarified emotion could be specified independently of the act of expression, which contradicts the claim concerning expression's dependence upon the medium; we also note that this grounds our understanding of Collingwood's claim that expression is 'something to which there can be no technique'. This is the key idea to hold sight of when extending the Collingwood/Ridley account: art must involve an expressive-purposive action which can never be reduced to some instrumental-purposive action (or set of such actions). Yet if this is so, how can there be an important connection between technique, itself instrumental or craft-like in character, and art? Let us begin the proposal with an example. From what has already been said we can see that Collingwood's account prevents a model of artistic expression in which the agent fully preconceives the result before realising it. An excellent example to support his case is that of musical improvisation which, by definition, can never be fully preconceived. We shall first focus on the example of improvisation in jazz, in 12 Collingwood (1938), p.111. 13 Ibid, p.114. 14 Ridley (1998), pp.28-9. 15 Ibid, pp.32-3. ADAM WILLS 43 particular based on the model of a jazz standard. These standards are often presented in sheet music form with fairly minimal content, consisting of a chord progression and a melody. Such a framework can form the basis of improvisation when the performer spontaneously plays melodies built on the chord progressions laid out in the standard. The improvisation itself is by no means pre-determined by the standard, a fact that is evident to anyone who has heard two radically different performances based on the same standard. Indeed, the jazz standard is designed to facilitate the individuality and uniqueness of such improvisational performances. The example is interesting since the jazz standard serves as a catalyst for a paradigmatic case of artistic expression, i.e., musical improvisation, yet at the same time is itself a 'thing of a certain kind' (which gives it a craft-like complexion). The question is whether the Collingwood/Ridley account can help us understand how musical expression is here linked to the function of the jazz standard. On the Collingwood/Ridley account, technique is broadly construed as some kind of instrumental purposive action (i.e., action with a means-ends structure). We shall here propose to refine this conception by characterising technique as a competence involving medium oriented structures. The example of the jazz standard is supposed to exemplify the notion of a structure here insofar as it points to a framework in which the player can improvise, yet in no way determinately specifies the nature of the expression itself. Moreover, it is plausible that we have the accommodation of expression as an instrumental end in mind here, since the structure helpfully 'constrains' the domain in which expression is generated, rather than preconceiving it. By medium orientation, I mean to emphasise that the kind of structures in question are necessarily born out of a relationship with the medium of expression itself, where this relationship is logically prior to the formation of the structures themselves. By competence, I mean to stress a connection with the instrumental purposive actions pertaining to craft. In particular, the competence in question can be discussed in means-ends terms which are dictated to it by the pre-conceived structure to which it is coupled. Put another way, the competence seems to involve some theoretical knowledge which goes hand-in-hand with the structure. In the case of the jazz standard, for example, one may purposively select which scales to improvise upon with 'the accommodation of expression' as an end in mind, where this selection involves a judgment based on some knowledge of music theory. This notion of competence is somewhat clarified by intuitive appeal to the qualitative difference ADAM WILLS 44 between 'reading' a chord sequence in a jazz standard, which involves an almost mechanical improvisation that leans heavily on theoretical devices, and 'feeling' the chord sequence while improvising upon it, which involves jettisoning the theoretical scaffolding in the former case. We might be tempted to call the latter notion of feeling competence, yet this looks more like what Collingwood calls expression. In contrast, I want to emphasise the prior more technically constrained approach to the medium as that which constitutes competence. The intuition is helpful here because it indicates that reading and feeling should not be pulled apart, but merely seen as ends of a sliding scale. The discussion above might link up with the notions of 'working out ideas' and 'constraints' presented earlier since, on this model of technique, the constraints are equated with the medium oriented structures, while the working out of ideas is based, initially at least, on what we might call competence. Moreover, the use of this model, as I understand it, is that is starts to describe the way we begin to go about artistic expression, and how something like technique might become the facilitator of this phenomena. We must now ask whether our refined notion of technique is compatible with the Collingwood/Ridley account. We identified the key claim of this account in terms of the irreducibility of those purposive actions distinctive of art to those constitutive of craft; part of the reasoning being that any such reduction would involve a relapse into the so-called technical theory of art. With respect to our refined notion of technique, the claim that technique has some catalytic function upon expression need not itself imply that art is reducible to technique. Indeed, the analogy to a positive catalyst in a chemical reaction is helpful since this merely facilitates the reaction in question, and remains independent of the reactants and products involved in such a reaction. In the same way, technique is never here regarded as constitutive of expression, but is nevertheless substantively connected to it. Thus the characterisation of technique given is seemingly compatible with the Collingwood/Ridley position. We must further ask whether this conception of technique elucidates the 'service' technique supposedly provides to art. In response, the proposed conception at least makes the broad strokes of this service a little clearer: technique is involved in providing some context conducive to expression. However, there may be a point of objection here. We recall that the proposal was initially arrived at by critiquing Ridley's position on the grounds that Ridley failed to ADAM WILLS 45 do justice to a substantive connection between art and technique; a connection implied by Collingwood's own admission that technique provides some 'service' to art. What is really at stake, therefore, is understanding how technique has some positive function on the process of expression. However, merely claiming that technique has some catalytic function upon expression seems only to shift the burden of explanation; we must now explain how this catalytic function works. Admittedly then, in the face of the sceptic, we have merely refined the Collingwood/Ridley position to the extent that it looks 'more plausible' to posit a substantive relation between art and technique, without giving proper indication as to how art and technique are meaningfully connected. I will begin to take up this challenge in the next section. IV. DISCOVERY: THE CASE OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC PRODUCTION Our question is this: how can the kind of competence discussed in relation to technique turn into something like expression-proper? With respect to the intuitive difference between 'reading' and 'feeling' canvassed earlier, the question can be put by asking how such a transition from reading to feeling is possible. Here I suggest that an illuminating approach to understanding this issue is to focus on a more complex notion of 'working out ideas' in the medium which may exceed mere competence, and start to involve something like genuine expression. To provide a speculative sketch for such a notion I shall consider the more contemporary example of electronic music composition, in particular with a focus of the popular genre known as 'electronica'. I should begin by explaining why I think the case of electronic music composition is particularly apt for our purposes. Firstly, such composition involves an overtly technical medium where, unlike the case of jazz, the range of possible technical interactions with the medium is greatly multiplied, giving the practitioner little hope of achieving anything without a fairly robust technical knowledge. Secondly, it is a particularly labour intensive medium to work with, where the final product is generated from a vast number of small additions, erasures and alterations. Moreover, the third key point is that such small interactions with the medium can often be described as 'pre-conceived'. For example, one such interaction might be application of a filter to cut out unwanted frequencies when adding a new audible element to the work-in-progress, where this looks like the kind of purposive action relevant to craft and not art in Collingwood's view. Indeed, engagement with the medium looks so ADAM WILLS 46 technical that one may question its viability (in Collingwoodian terms) for the expression of emotion in general. In spite of this worry, the last few decades have seen a great many innovative artists working in this medium whose artistic-products surely have expressive merit.16 Our question then becomes: how might this be possible on the basis of what prima facie looks like a craft on Collingwoodian terms? One kind of answer turns on the notion of 'discovery' within the technical space, or medium-oriented-structure as we previously labelled it, which is akin to the notion of improvisation that constituted genuine expression in the case of jazz. In particular, though the individual routine-like interactions with the work may be instrumental, there can often arise various unanticipated results, or 'discoveries', from such repeated interaction with the medium. From the point of view of the maker, these discoveries show up as kinds of micro-breakthrough in the medium, where they take on such a character precisely because they exceed the scope of what was considered possible within the technical structure. In particular, some of these microbreakthroughs might be conceived as microcosms of expression-proper, which serve to guide our future engagement with the medium. Though this sketch clearly needs to be worked out in more detail, it at least highlights how technique and expression might be meaningfully linked on an expressionist account such as Collingwood's; namely, in such a way that expression emerges against the background of instrumentally understood structures which might, in turn, be further developed on the basis of unanticipated discoveries constitutive of expression within the medium. One challenging question for this development of the proposal, however, is exactly how those expressions constituted by certain microbreakthroughs in the medium can guide future engagement with that medium? Clearly such a guiding process cannot itself be instrumentally understood, else we are in danger once again of relapse into the technical theory of art. This also raises a broader question: how can expression, which is paradigmatic of purposive action without a means-ends structure, serve as norm to guide technique, which is paradigmatic of 16 Though I take this 'expressive merit' as an assumption for the purposes of this paper, some pertinent examples to substantiate this claim (in the opinion of the author) might be: 'Dayvan Cowboy' by Boards Of Canada; 'Tea Leaf Dancers' by Flying Lotus; 'My Angel Rocks Back And Forth' by Fourtet; 'Toys' by Amon Tobin; 'Iambic 5 Poetry' by Squarepusher; 'Air Song' by Solar Fields; 'Kong' by Bonobo; and 'Childhood Montage (Title Sequence)' by BT. There are of course many more. (All the examples given here were available to listen to online at http://www.youtube.com at the time of writing.) ADAM WILLS 47 action with a means-ends structure? Answering this question will move us to a better understanding of how art and technique might be substantively linked. Admittedly more needs to be done in assessing whether the notion of 'discovery' canvassed here is compatible with the notion of expression on a Collingwood/Ridley account; without such an assessment we may have reservations about positing the ideas developed in this section as a refinement of that account. On the other hand, given that the notion of discovery–which was constitutive of the beginnings of expression–necessarily exceeds the medium-oriented structures pertaining to technique, we may still maintain that expression is irreducible to technique, which makes the proposal prima facie compatible with the Collingwood/Ridley view. Supposing that such a compatibility can be justified, then the example of music production casts the nature of technique's service to art in a clearer light: technique, and the medium-oriented structures associated with technique, provide a certain field of operation in which the practitioner instrumentally acts upon the medium, out of which (and perhaps only out of which) genuine expression may emerge. V. CONCLUSION I have hoped to demonstrate that the basic conception of technique sketched above is broadly compatible with the Collingwood/Ridley account, and that it overcomes the danger of rendering technique impotent to provide any service to art on such an account. Indeed, the rumination on practice within music production seems to indicate that technique supplies a vital service in providing the context out of which certain 'expressive' discoveries within the medium can be made; where, more precisely, this context is equated with some technically construed field in which the artist can operate, against which the discoveries show up as unanticipated results. This view is a development of the proposal related to the jazz standard, which pointed more generally to the idea that technique involves some context which facilitates expression itself. Although our project was to connect instrumentally conceived features of artistic production–i.e., those involving technique–to artistic expression itself, it was of course crucial that we avoided the claim that technique is a sufficient condition to artistic-production (which involves genuine expression); else we relapse into the socalled technical theory of art which is incompatible with the Collingwood/Ridley position. However, as I understand it, the Collingwood/Ridley account is perfectly compatible with the claim that technique is a necessary condition to the artwork, ADAM WILLS 48 making it in principle amenable to our proposed refinement of the conception of technique. If this proposal downplayed Ridley's demarcation of technique into the socalled craft-aspect of the object, it hopefully developed his key observation that Collingwood's account is rich enough to accommodate technique. Indeed, the proposal here suggests that, far from debarring technique, Collingwood's account is fruitfully approached via the concept of technique, which may provide a route to better understanding his notion of expression itself. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Adam Wills is studying for an MPhil at the University of Warwick where his research interests include philosophy of art within the analytic and continental traditions, phenomenology, logic and the philosophy of mathematics. His chief interests within the philosophy of art involve examining the role of the artist, and artistic practice in more detail, with the aim to assess how such examination has a bearing on broader debate within this area. ADAM WILLS 49 REFERENCES COLLINGWOOD, R. (1938). The Principles of Art. (Oxford: Oxford University Press). KANT, I. (1790). The Critique of the Power of Judgement. Trans. P. Guyer, and E. Matthews. (2000). (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). LIVINGSTON, P. (2009). 'Poicaré's Delicate Sieve: On Creativity and Constraints in the Arts', in M. Krausz, D. Dutton and K. Bardsley (eds.) The Idea of Creativity (Leiden: Brill Academic): pp.129-146. MOUNCE, H. (1991). 'Art and Craft', British Journal of Aesthetics 31(3): 230-240. RIDLEY, A. 1998. R. G. Collingwood. (London: Routledge). SAWYER, R. (2000). 'Improvisation and the Creative Process: Dewey, Collingwood, and the Aesthetics of Spontaneity', The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58(2): 149-161. | {
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STUDIA HUMANISTYCZNE AGH Tom 17/1 • 2018 http://dx.doi.org/10.7494/human.2018.17.1.7 Paweł Jakub Zięba* Uniwersytet Jagielloński ALTERNATYWIZM, DYSJUNKTYWIZM I PLURALIZM DOŚWIADCZENIOWY Twierdzenie znane obecnie jako „alternatywizm" jest zazwyczaj interpretowane w kategoriach alternatywy rozłącznej. Jednakże można je również wyjaśnić przez pryzmat dysjunkcji. Celem artykułu jest pokazanie, że ta druga interpretacja jest trafniejsza. Po pierwsze, w bardziej precyzyjny sposób oddaje ona sedno alternatywizmu. Po drugie, zmniejsza ona ciężar metafizyczny tego twierdzenia, czyniąc je w ten sposób bardziej wiarygodnym. Słowa kluczowe: alternatywizm, doświadczenie zmysłowe, percepcja, halucynacja Niniejszy artykuł dotyczy logicznej struktury tkwiącej u podstaw twierdzenia, które we współczesnej anglojęzycznej literaturze filozoficznej funkcjonuje pod nazwą disjunctivism. Twierdzenie to wyraża się zazwyczaj w kategoriach alternatywy rozłącznej (zob. np. Martin 2009: 96), aczkolwiek można je rozumieć także w kategoriach dysjunkcji. Moim celem jest pokazanie, że pierwsza z wymienionych interpretacji ma pewne problematyczne implikacje, których prawdziwość nie jest koniecznym warunkiem prawdziwości rzeczonego twierdzenia. Dlatego uważam, że twierdzenie to należy rozumieć na drugi z wymienionych sposobów. Niniejszy artykuł nie powinien być traktowany jako głos w jakimś sporze terminologicznym, nawet jeśli jego konkluzja może stanowić podstawę dla zmian o takim charakterze. Pytanie badawcze, na które staram się poniżej odpowiedzieć, jest następujące: która z wymienionych eksplikacji omawianego twierdzenia czyni je bardziej wiarygodnym? W moim przekonaniu druga interpretacja jest lepsza, ponieważ nakłada ona na omawiane twierdzenie mniejsze zobowiązania metafizyczne. Aby uniknąć nieporozumień terminologicznych, będę się posługiwał symbolem (D) na określenie twierdzenia, które w anglojęzycznej literaturze filozoficznej funkcjonuje pod nazwą disjunctivism. Artykuł składa się z pięciu rozdziałów. W pierwszym omawiam dominującą w literaturze interpretację (D) w kategoriach alternatywy rozłącznej. Równocześnie pokazuję, że twierdzenie to nie ma nic istotnie wspólnego z tym funktorem logicznym. W drugim argumentuję, że interpretacja (D) z wykorzystaniem alternatywy rozłącznej obarcza to twierdzenie problematycznymi implikacjami, których prawdziwość nie jest koniecznym warunkiem * Adres do korespondencji: Paweł Zięba, Instytut Filozofii, Wydział Filozoficzny, Uniwersytet Jagielloński, ul. Grodzka 52, 31-055 Kraków; e-mail: [email protected]. 8 PAWEŁ JAKUB ZIęBA prawdziwości (D). W trzecim przedstawiam własną interpretację (D) przez pryzmat dysjunkcji. Takie rozumienie (D) pozwala uniknąć owych kłopotliwych konsekwencji. Rozdział czwarty zawiera odpowiedzi na kilka potencjalnych zarzutów i wątpliwości, jakie może wywołać moja argumentacja. W ostatnim rozdziale krótko podsumowuję swoje rozważania. I W świetle pierwszej z dwóch wymienionych na wstępie interpretacji (D) to twierdzenie nakazujące analizowanie każdego doświadczenia zmysłowego przez pryzmat alternatywy rozłącznej: podmiot S ma doświadczenie zmysłowe własności F wtedy i tylko wtedy, gdy S percypuje F lub S ma halucynację F (zob. np. Fish 2010: 88). Taka alternatywa może oczywiście sprawiać wrażenie trywialnej. Nie jest jednak trywialna, ponieważ dla zwolennika (D) percepcja i halucynacja to dwa fundamentalnie różne rodzaje stanów mentalnych. Jeżeli jakiś stan mentalny jest percepcją, to nie mógłby być halucynacją, i odwrotnie: jeżeli jakiś stan mentalny jest halucynacją, to nie mógłby być percepcją. Teza o tej fundamentalnej różnicy bierze się stąd, że (D) zakłada realizm naiwny, zgodnie z którym to, jakiego rodzaju jest dane doświadczenie, zależy nie od tego, jak to doświadczenie jawi się z perspektywy pierwszoosobowej, ale od tego, jaki jest przedmiot tego doświadczenia (piszę o tym szerzej w dalszej części artykułu). W związku z tym (D) przeciwstawia się tym teoriom percepcji, wedle których percepcja i halucynacja to stany mentalne tego samego rodzaju, a różnica pomiędzy nimi wynika wyłącznie ze sposobu, w jaki zostały one wywołane. Alternatywa, o której mowa powyżej, jest generalizacją alternatywy zaproponowanej przez Johna Hintona, który wprawdzie zapisywał ją nieco prościej: (AB), ale używał jej w ściśle określonym, węższym sensie. (A) oznacza tak zwane proste widzenie (plain seeing), czyli paradygmatyczny przypadek percepcji wzrokowej, w którym: (i) obiekt X jest widziany przez podmiot; (ii) podmiotowi tegoż widzenia wydaje się, że widzi obiekt X, ale (iii) podmiot nie musi być przekonany, że widzi obiekt X (Hinton 2009a: 18–19) (na przykład podmiot widzi błysk światła, widzi go jako błysk światła, a równocześnie może, ale nie musi być przekonany, że widzi błysk światła); z kolei (B) to iluzja bądź halucynacja właśnie tak pojętego prostego widzenia1. Paul Snowdon słusznie zwrócił uwagę, że takie rozumienie członów alternatywy wyklucza pewne rodzaje iluzji. W efekcie hintonowskie (AB) nie obejmuje swoim zasięgiem wszystkich doświadczeń zmysłowych (Snowdon 2008: 41–43). Według Hintona, (AB) podpowiada nam, czego nie dotyczą zdania zdające sprawę z doświadczeń wzrokowych. Zgodnie z (AB), jeżeli ktoś mówi: „widzę błysk światła", to jego wypowiedź jest równoważna z następującą alternatywą: „albo widzę błysk światła (A), 1 Zdania zwolenników (D) w kwestii statusu iluzji są podzielone. Jedni klasyfikują ją wspólnie z percepcją i przeciwstawiają halucynacji, drudzy klasyfikują ją wspólnie z halucynacją i przeciwstawiają percepcji. Hinton należy do tej drugiej grupy (Byrne i Logue 2008: 60–61; Hinton 2009a: 24). 9 Alternatywizm, dysjunktywizm i pluralizm doświadczeniowy albo doznaję iluzji bądź halucynacji, że widzę błysk światła (B)" (Hinton 2009b: 1, 6). Jednakże sedno hintonowskiego sformułowania (D) polega na czymś innym. Jeżeli poprawne jest interpretowanie omawianych raportów przez pryzmat alternatywy rozłącznej (AB), to nie może być poprawne uznawanie ich za raporty z bycia w stanie (Q), który to stan miałby z definicji zachodzić zarówno w przypadku (A), jak i w przypadku (B) (Hinton 2009b: 4, por. 2009a: 25–28). Przez (Q) należy rozumieć wspólny czynnik dla percepcji i halucynacji, niegdyś nazywany daną zmysłową, obecnie określany jako treść propozycjonalna doświadczenia bądź charakter fenomenalny doświadczenia (w zależności od tego, którą inkarnację intencjonalizmu preferujemy), krótko mówiąc: byt pośredniczący pomiędzy podmiotem a przedmiotem percepcji2. Wbrew pozorom istotą (D) w jego hintonowskim wydaniu nie jest analizowanie doświadczeń zmysłowych przez pryzmat alternatywy rozłącznej, lecz negacja tezy, że raporty z doświadczeń wzrokowych dotyczą (Q). Funktor alternatywy rozłącznej służy tu jedynie do pokazania, że raporty z percepcji i halucynacji nie mogą dotyczyć tego samego zjawiska, ponieważ doświadczenia te fundamentalnie się różnią i nie ma takiego typu stanu mentalnego (Q), który występowałby zarówno w przypadku percepcji, jak i w przypadku halucynacji (por. Snowdon 1980–1981: 186). Jeśli powyższa interpretacja argumentów Hintona jest trafna, żadnego zdziwienia nie powinny budzić następujące słowa Snowdona: Teza znana jako disjunctivism jest w ścisłym sensie negacją twierdzenia o wspólnym elemencie wzrokowym. W związku z tym wyraża ona myśl, że doświadczenie w prawdziwie percepcyjnym przypadku ma inną naturę niż doświadczenie w przypadku niebędącym percepcją. [Teza ta] nie wyczerpuje się jednak w prostej negacji wspólnej natury, ale obejmuje także charakterystykę różnicy pomiędzy przypadkiem percepcyjnym a niepercepcyjnym, wyrażoną w kategoriach różnych części składowych, które są w tych doświadczeniach zawarte. Doświadczenie w przypadku percepcyjnym obejmuje swoim zasięgiem postrzegany zewnętrzny przedmiot, co nie ma miejsca w przypadku doświadczeń innego typu. [...] Jest zatem perfekcyjnie możliwe, jak sądzę, aby wyrazić ową tezę bez posługiwania się terminem „lub" [...] Podstawowa teza nie ma nic istotnie wspólnego z alternatywą. Co więcej, można powiedzieć, że jest coś mylącego w nazwie, pod którą doktryna ta jest znana (Snowdon 2005: 136–137). 2 Przedstawione tu odczytanie Hintonowskiej wersji (D) jest skrócone i uproszczone ze względu na brak miejsca. Jest ono również podatne na krytykę ze względu na niejasny styl argumentacji Hintona. Mimo to, nie jest ono niespójne ze znacznie bardziej wnikliwą analizą przedstawioną przez Snowdona (Snowdon 2008: 51–52): „Rozważania Hintona są niezmiernie bogate i ostrożne, jednakże wydaje mi się, że w jego głównym argumencie [...] można wyróżnić trzy przesłanki. (1) P–I D nie są R-raportami [...]. Będąc alternatywami, stwierdzają zaledwie, że jedno albo drugie zdarzenie zachodzi. [...] (2): jeśli istnieje jakikolwiek powód, aby uważać jakieś zdanie za R-raport, to musi być możliwe pokazanie, że [zdanie to] nie jest równoważne z P-I D. (3) Nie jest możliwe pokazanie, dla jakiegokolwiek kandydata, który jest bliski spełnienia warunków do bycia R-raportem, że nie jest on równoważny z P-I D. Wniosek jest taki, że nie mamy powodu aby sądzić, że istnieją jakieś R-raporty. [...] P–I D nie są R-raportami i jeśli nie da się wykazać, że dany raport nie jest mniej lub bardziej równoważny z P–I D, to nie można takiego raportu uznać za R-raport", gdzie „P-I D" oznacza (AB), a „R-raport" oznacza raport z (Q). Hinton argumentuje, że nie ma czegoś takiego jak raporty z (Q). Innymi słowy, żaden raport z pojętego po Hintonowsku widzenia nie dotyczy postulowanych przez realizm pośredni bytów pośredniczących pomiędzy podmiotem a przedmiotem takiego doświadczenia. 10 PAWEŁ JAKUB ZIęBA Zgodnie z powyższymi ustaleniami, (D) jest negatywną odpowiedzią na pytanie o to, czy ogólny termin „doświadczenie zmysłowe" odnosi się do jednego rodzaju stanów mentalnych. Dlatego Snowdon proponuje określać (D) jako „dualizm doświadczeniowy" i przeciwstawiać go „monizmowi doświadczeniowemu" (Snowdon 2008: 37). Ta druga nazwa obejmuje swoim zasięgiem wszystkie te teorie percepcji, które na rzeczone pytanie odpowiadają twierdząco. Przytoczone powyżej sformułowanie (D) w wydaniu Snowdona zakłada realizm naiwny, o którym wspominałem na początku tego rozdziału. Jednakże realizm naiwny może być rozumiany na co najmniej dwa różne sposoby: (RN1) percypowany przedmiot współkonstytuuje doświadczenie percepcyjne, przynajmniej częściowo determinując jego charakter fenomenalny; (RN2) będące udziałem podmiotu S doświadczenie E przedmiotu O jest percepcją wtedy i tylko wtedy, gdy E włącza S w taką relację z O, która pozwala S na formułowanie prawdziwych myśli demonstratywnych o treści „to jest O" (przy założeniu, że S posiada odpowiednie uposażenie pojęciowe). Zgodnie z tym, co piszą Alex Byrne i Heather Logue oraz Snowdon, (D) zakłada (RN1), natomiast różni się od (RN2). Zdaniem Snowdona nie jest też tak, że (D) implikuje (RN2), ani tak, że (RN2) implikuje (D) (Byrne i Logue 2008: 79–80; Snowdon 2005: 138–139). Susanna Siegel odróżnia „radykalne" i „standardowe" wersje (RN1), te pierwsze przypisując zwolennikom „czystego" (D), zaś te drugie wiążąc z umiarkowanym (D). Różnica pomiędzy obydwiema wersjami dotyczy tego, czy percepcyjna relacja łączy podmiot wyłącznie z obiektem („radykalny" (RN1)), czy też z zestawem, na który składają się obiekt i wiązka własności („standardowy" (RN1)) (Siegel 2010: 65–68). „Radykalny" realista naiwny i zarazem entuzjasta „czystego" (D) uważa, że natura percepcyjnej relacji ma charakter konstytuujący. Dla niego percepcja to zdarzenie obejmujące swym zasięgiem zarówno podmiot, jak i przedmiot doświadczenia zmysłowego. „Standardowy" realista naiwny optuje za przyczynowym rozumieniem percepcyjnej relacji, przy czym zachodzenie takiej relacji jest według niego warunkiem koniecznym wystąpienia percepcji. Snowdon uważa, że w istocie (D) zawiera się pierwsze z wymienionych tu rozumień percepcyjnej relacji (Snowdon 2008: 39–40). W jego opinii „czyste" (D) jest antytezą przyczynowej teorii percepcji. Mimo to obydwie grupy, tzn. „radykalni" i „standardowi" realiści naiwni, zgadzają się co do tego, że rodzaje doświadczeń należy wyodrębniać ze względu na przedmioty tych doświadczeń, a nie ze względu na to, jak te doświadczenia jawią się subiektywnie. Dlatego i jedni, i drudzy są zwolennikami (D). Są dualistami doświadczeniowymi, ponieważ uważają, że percepcja i halucynacja to dwa fundamentalnie różne rodzaje doświadczeń zmysłowych. II Snowdon ma rację, że spójnik alternatywy rozłącznej nie należy do istoty (D). Można jednak powątpiewać, czy aby na pewno używanie nazwy „alternatywizm" w odniesieniu do (D) jest mylące. Każdy, kto zapozna się z najprostszą choćby definicją (D), bez problemu pojmie, w jakim sensie twierdzenie to można określić mianem „alternatywizm". Charakteryzowanie dualizmu doświadczeniowego przy użyciu alternatywy rozłącznej jest przecież 11 Alternatywizm, dysjunktywizm i pluralizm doświadczeniowy bardzo intuicyjne: skoro istnieją dwa rodzaje doświadczeń zmysłowych, to dla dowolnego doświadczenia zmysłowego E, albo jest tak, że E jest jednego rodzaju, albo jest tak, że E jest drugiego rodzaju. Tertium non datur, chciałoby się powiedzieć. Problem w tym, że nie można tak powiedzieć. Tertium datur. Wspólnym mianownikiem dla różnych wersji (D) jest branie pod uwagę dwóch subiektywnie nieodróżnialnych zdarzeń i postulowanie zachodzenia różnicy pomiędzy nimi3. Metafizyczne wersje (D) postulują zachodzenie różnicy w wewnętrznych naturach subiektywnie (fenomenalnie) nieodróżnialnych percepcji i halucynacji (Snowdon 2005: 136–137). Epistemologiczne wersje (D) postulują różnicę w epistemicznych statusach przekonań opartych na takich właśnie parach doświadczeń (McDowell 1998: 386, 2013: 262; Pritchard 2012: 13). W obydwu sytuacjach brany jest pod uwagę paradygmatyczny przypadek percepcji (hintonowskie proste widzenie) oraz doświadczenie, które jest halucynacją subiektywnie nieodróżnialną od takiego właśnie paradygmatycznego przypadku. W rachubę nie są brane takie halucynacje, które są odróżnialne od percepcji. Zwolennik (D) może oczywiście rozszerzyć zakres swoich rozważań na wszystkie doświadczenia zmysłowe, ale nie musi tego robić. Może, ale nie musi generalizować hintonowskiego (AB). Czy powstrzymanie się od takiej generalizacji daje mu jednak gwarancję, że trzeciej możliwości nie ma? Alternatywa rozłączna jest fałszywa w dwóch przypadkach: (1) gdy więcej niż jeden z jej członów jest prawdziwy oraz (2) gdy żaden z jej członów nie jest prawdziwy. Wynika stąd, że jeśli (D) można poprawnie wyrazić, używając alternatywy rozłącznej, to znaczy, że twierdzenie to jest zobowiązane do tego, że każdy z elementów analizowanej przez (D) dziedziny należy do jednego i tylko jednego z dwóch zbiorów będących członami rzeczonej alternatywy. Zatem prawdziwość (D) wymaga nieobecności w analizowanej dziedzinie takich elementów, które nie należą do żadnego z tych zbiorów. Jeżeli udałoby się wskazać takie elementy, okazałoby się, że alternatywa jest fałszywa (ergo (D) jest fałszywe). Zatem uznanie (D) za postulat analizowania pewnej dziedziny przez pryzmat alternatywy rozłącznej nakłada na (D) zobowiązanie do klasyfikacji elementów tej dziedziny. Jednym z formalnych warunków poprawności klasyfikacji jest jej pełność: każdy element dzielonej całości musi być elementem jednego z członów podziału. Jeśli w dziedzinie znajdą się elementy nienależące do żadnego z członów podziału, klasyfikacja jest niepoprawna (Jadacki 2002: 218–219). W związku z powyższym hintonowska wersja alternatywy (AB) jest fałszywa wtedy, gdy (i) (A) oraz (B) zdają sprawę z (Q) lub gdy (ii) jest możliwe wystąpienie jakiegoś zdarzenia (E), które jest subiektywnie nieodróżnialne od (A), ale nie należy ani do (A), ani do (B). Z kolei alternatywa zgeneralizowana jest fałszywa wtedy, gdy (iii) percepcje, iluzje i halucynacje należą do tego samego fundamentalnego rodzaju lub wtedy, gdy (iv) istnieją takie doświadczenia zmysłowe (E), które nie są ani percepcjami, ani iluzjami, ani halucynacjami. Wymienione alternatywy różnią się co do zakresu dziedziny, której dotyczą. Alternatywa hintonowska obejmuje doświadczenia subiektywnie nieodróżnialne od percepcji zmysłowej, zaś alternatywa zgeneralizowana obejmuje wszystkie doświadczenia zmysłowe. Nie ulega wątpliwości, że (D) jest zobowiązane do negacji (i) albo (iii) (w zależności od tego, czy rozumiemy (D) przez pryzmat alternatywy hintonowskiej, czy też w kategoriach 3 Piszę o tym szerzej w innym artykule (Zięba 2016). 12 PAWEŁ JAKUB ZIęBA alternatywy zgeneralizowanej). Ale czy (D) jest zobowiązane do negacji (ii) albo (iv)? Jeżeli alternatywa rozłączna trafnie wyraża (D), to znaczy, że (D) jest zobowiązane także do negacji (ii) lub (iv). Jest to zobowiązanie kłopotliwe, zważywszy na to, iż kandydatów na (E) jest całkiem sporo. Zanim wymienię przykłady kandydatów na (E), muszę przypomnieć, że u podstaw (D) leży (RN1), zgodnie z którym rodzaje doświadczeń należy wyodrębniać z uwagi na ich przedmioty. Zwolennicy (RN1) uważają, że percepcja zmysłowa, rozumiana jako udane wejście w kontakt poznawczy ze światem za pośrednictwem zmysłów, jest bezpośrednią relacją podmiotu z istniejącym niezależnie od niego obiektem fizycznym (zob. np. Brewer 2011: xi-xii). Halucynacje, nawet jeśli mogą być subiektywnie nieodróżnialne od tak pojętej percepcji, różnią się od niej radykalnie właśnie z uwagi na swój przedmiot. Dokładnie tę różnicę wyraża (D). Zwolennicy (D) charakteryzują halucynacje na rozmaite sposoby. Niektórzy twierdzą, że halucynacje w ogóle nie mają przedmiotów (zob. np. Thau 2004: 247–251). Inni uważają, że podczas halucynacji doświadczamy powszechników (zob. np. Dretske 2000: 163). W świetle powyższych ustaleń zwolennik (D) nie może uznać za percepcję doświadczenia przedmiotu, który istnieje zależnie od podmiotu albo który nie jest obiektem fizycznym. Zatem kandydatem na (E) będzie każde takie doświadczenie zmysłowe, którego przedmiot ma naturę inną niż natura przedmiotu percepcji i (ewentualnego) przedmiotu halucynacji. Taką charakterystykę spełniają doświadczenia zmysłowe przedmiotów niefizycznych oraz doświadczenia zmysłowe przedmiotów istniejących zależnie od podmiotu. Krytyk natychmiast zaprotestuje, że tylko przedmiot fizyczny może być przedmiotem doświadczenia zmysłowego. Wszak nawet wspomniane wyżej zmysłowe doświadczenia powszechników mogą być uznane za redukowalne do takich lub innych aktywności mózgu. Zgadzam się, że hipoteza o zmysłowym doświadczeniu obiektów niefizycznych jest mało wiarygodna. Twierdzę natomiast, że (i) nie jest logicznie niemożliwa i (ii) aby ją sfalsyfikować, nie wystarczy pokazać, że (D) jest prawdziwe. Innymi słowy, uważam że (D) nie implikuje, że takie doświadczenia są niemożliwe. Oto kilka potencjalnych kandydatów na doświadczenia typu (E): (i) doświadczenia zmysłowe „obiektów religijnych", rozumianych tutaj jako obiekty niefizyczne (np. bogowie, duchy, anioły itp.), (ii) doświadczenia zmysłowe „obiektów estetycznych", rozumianych tutaj jako obiekty niefizyczne (albo fizyczne, ale istniejące zależnie od podmiotu) doświadczane w wyniku prawidłowo przeprowadzonej konfrontacji z fizycznym dziełem sztuki (np. doświadczenie bohatera literackiego w wyniku prawidłowo odbytej interakcji z książką fabularną), (iii) projekcje, czyli „doświadczenia doświadczeń" innych osób, które wywołujemy w sobie, starając się poczuć tak, jak czuje się ktoś inny. Podane typy doświadczeń są kandydatami na (E), ponieważ są to (1) doświadczenia zmysłowe, które (2) w świetle (RN1) nie są ani percepcjami, ani iluzjami, ani halucynacjami (włączają podmiot w relację z przedmiotem, którym jednak nie jest ani obiekt fizyczny typowy dla zwykłych przypadków percepcji zmysłowej, ani domniemany przedmiot halucynacji), a ponadto (3) do pomyślenia są egzemplifikacje tych typów subiektywnie nieodróżnialne od standardowej percepcji zmysłowej (włączającej podmiot w relację z obiektem fizycznym). 13 Alternatywizm, dysjunktywizm i pluralizm doświadczeniowy Jeżeli jest logicznie możliwe, że którykolwiek z wymienionych tu typów doświadczeń ma egzemplifikacje, to (D) pojęte przez pryzmat alternatywy rozłącznej jest fałszywe. Zapewne można by wymienić jeszcze kilku potencjalnych kandydatów na (E), ale przykłady przytoczone do tej pory w zupełności wystarczają do postawienia tezy, że interpretacja (D) oparta na alternatywie rozłącznej nie odzwierciedla w sposób adekwatny zobowiązań, jakie niesie ze sobą akceptacja (D). Hintonowskie (D) interpretowane w kategoriach alternatywy rozłącznej jest zobowiązane do tezy, że żadne doświadczenie z grupy (E) nie jest subiektywnie nieodróżnialne od zwykłej percepcji zmysłowej. Zgeneralizowane (D) rozumiane przez pryzmat alternatywy rozłącznej jest zobowiązane do tezy, że doświadczenia religijne, estetyczne i projekcyjne, a także każdy inny rodzaj doświadczeń będący potencjalnym kandydatem na (E) albo nie jest doświadczeniem zmysłowym, albo jest rodzajem iluzji, albo rodzajem halucynacji, albo należy do tego samego fundamentalnego rodzaju doświadczeń, co percepcje zwykłych obiektów fizycznych. Żadna z wymienionych opcji nie wydaje się łatwa do obrony. Poza tym nie wiemy, ile dokładnie jest tych opcji, gdyż pod (E) kryje się alternatywa rozłączna o nieznanej nam liczbie członów. Liczba tych członów może się zmieniać w czasie, ponieważ w wyniku ewolucji naszego gatunku niektóre rodzaje doświadczeń zmysłowych mogą zanikać, a na ich miejscu mogą pojawiać się nowe. Dlaczego zwolennik (D) nie może uznać doświadczeń typu (E) za elementy pierwszego członu alternatywy (czyli za przykłady percepcji zmysłowej)? Ponieważ przypłaciłby to rozmyciem przyjętego przez siebie kryterium identyfikacji rodzajów doświadczeń zmysłowych. Przypominam, że składową metafizycznego (D) jest (RN1), zgodnie z którym percepcja zmysłowa to takie doświadczenie zmysłowe, którego charakter fenomenalny jest współkonstytuowany przez własności obiektu fizycznego istniejącego niezależnie od postrzegającego podmiotu. Otóż przedmiot wymienionego wyżej doświadczenia estetycznego istnieje zależnie od podmiotu. Z kolei przedmiot wymienionego wyżej doświadczenia religijnego nie jest obiektem fizycznym. W takim razie doświadczenia takich przedmiotów nie spełniają kryterium bycia percepcją na gruncie (RN1). Czy w takim razie należy uznać takie doświadczenia za iluzje albo halucynacje? Podobne problemy wystąpią w przypadku innych doświadczeń z grupy (E). Jeżeli ktoś akceptuje leżącą u podstaw (RN1) zasadę, w myśl której natura doświadczenia zmysłowego jest determinowana przez naturę doświadczanego przedmiotu, to musi się liczyć z możliwością, że zmysłowe doświadczenia przedmiotów o diametralnie różnych naturach same także będą krańcowo odmienne. Ponadto, nawet jeśli negację istnienia doświadczeń typu (E) udałoby się solidnie uzasadnić, nie zmieni to faktu, że owa negacja nijak się ma do podstawowego celu zwolenników (D), jakim jest negacja tej lub innej formy monizmu doświadczeniowego. W poprzednich rozdziałach pokazałem, że (D) dotyczy tego, czym doświadczenie zmysłowe nie jest. Twierdzenie to nie dotyczy natury doświadczeń religijnych, estetycznych czy projekcyjnych. W związku z tym (D) nie powinno być formułowane w sposób, który zobowiązuje zwolennika (D) do jakiegokolwiek poglądu w ich sprawie. Akceptacja (D) nie niesie ze sobą zobowiązania do klasyfikacji doświadczeń zmysłowych. Wątpliwości Snowdona są zatem jak najbardziej uzasadnione. Interpretacja (D) przez pryzmat alternatywy rozłącznej zniekształca ideę zawartą w tym twierdzeniu, obarczając ją problematycznymi implikacjami dotyczącymi doświadczeń typu (E). 14 PAWEŁ JAKUB ZIęBA III Uważam, że funktorem logicznym, który znacznie trafniej oddaje myśl zawartą w (D), jest dysjunkcja. Aby się o tym przekonać, wystarczy porównać tabele prawdziwościowe dla alternatywy rozłącznej i dysjunkcji (tab. 1 i 2). Tabela 1. Alternatywa rozłączna Tabela 2. Dysjunkcja A B AB A B A | B 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 Spójnik dysjunkcji, nazywany też niekiedy „funktorem Sheffera", oznacza relację niewspółzachodzenia (por. Bremer 2006: 119). Hintonowska wersja (D) rozumiana w kategoriach dysjunkcji oznacza, że nie jest tak, że jedno i to samo zdarzenie mogłoby być i percepcją, i subiektywnie od niej nieodróżnialną halucynacją bądź iluzją. Z kolei zgeneralizowana wersja (D) będzie się przedstawiać następująco: nie jest tak, że jedno i to samo doświadczenie zmysłowe mogłoby być i percepcją, i iluzją, i halucynacją. Fraza „mogłoby być" wyraża tutaj konsekwencję monizmu doświadczeniowego, zgodnie z którą doświadczenie jakościowo identyczne z percepcją mogłoby wystąpić w sytuacji, gdy doświadczany przedmiot nie jest obecny. Istota (D) polega na odrzuceniu tej konsekwencji. (D) jest negacją monizmu doświadczeniowego. Epistemologiczna wersja (D) ma analogiczną strukturę logiczną: nie jest tak, że jedno i to samo uzasadnienie epistemiczne mogłoby przysługiwać i mojemu przekonaniu opartemu na percepcji zmysłowej, i korespondującemu z nim przekonaniu mojego kontrfaktycznego odpowiednika, który jest mózgiem w naczyniu (por. Putnam 1998). Uzasadnienia naszych przekonań się różnią, ponieważ uzasadnienie mojego przekonania jest ugruntowane w faktach zachodzących niezależnie ode mnie, czego nie można powiedzieć o uzasadnieniu przekonania mojego nieszczęsnego odpowiednika4. Skądinąd fascynujące pytanie o status epistemiczny przekonań opartych na doświadczeniach religijnych czy estetycznych pozostaje tutaj kwestią nierozstrzygniętą. Dysjunkcja jest równoważna z negacją koniunkcji. Jaka koniunkcja jest negowana przez (D)? Poprzedni akapit pokazuje, że (D) jest negacją koniunkcji dwóch różnych rodzajów doświadczeń. Monista doświadczeniowy uważa, że rodzaje doświadczeń należy wyodrębniać ze względu na to, jak doświadczenia jawią się subiektywnie. Ponieważ percepcje, 4 W odróżnieniu od eksternalizmu epistemicznego, epistemologiczne (D) uznaje czynniki determinujące uzasadnienie epistemiczne za w pełni dostępne dla podmiotu (por. McDowell 2010: 247; Millar 2010: 139; Pritchard 2012: 13). 15 Alternatywizm, dysjunktywizm i pluralizm doświadczeniowy iluzje i halucynacje mogą jawić się subiektywnie jako takie same, to znaczy, że należą do tego samego rodzaju doświadczeń. Tak wyodrębniony rodzaj doświadczeń jest dla monisty najbardziej fundamentalnym rodzajem doświadczeń. W jego ramach monista wyróżnia trzy mniej fundamentalne rodzaje doświadczeń: percepcje, iluzje i halucynacje. Zwolennik (D) zaprzecza, jakoby koniunkcja rodzaju doświadczeń „percepcje" z rodzajem doświadczeń „halucynacje" dawała bardziej fundamentalny rodzaj „doświadczenia zmysłowe", ponieważ rodzaj „percepcje" nie tylko fundamentalnie różni się od rodzaju „halucynacje", ale też jest bardziej fundamentalny niż rodzaj „halucynacje". Z faktu, że niektóre spośród egzemplifikacji tych rodzajów są subiektywnie nieodróżnialne, nie wynika ani to, że mają one jakościowo identyczną wewnętrzną naturę, ani to, że należą do tego samego fundamentalnego rodzaju. Monizm doświadczeniowy bywa określany mianem koniunktywizmu, ponieważ na jego gruncie percepcja to koniunkcja internalistycznie rozumianego stanu mentalnego z odpowiednio zdefiniowanym łańcuchem przyczynowym, który ten stan mentalny wywołał (zob. Conduct 2010: 202; Johnston 2004: 114–115). Należy zwrócić uwagę, że to nie do tej koniunkcji odnosi się sformułowana powyżej dysjunkcja, tak jak nie do niej odnosiły się rozważane wcześniej wersje alternatywy rozłącznej. Członami dysjunkcji, o której tu mowa, są rodzaje doświadczeń, a nie doświadczenie i poprzedzający je łańcuch przyczynowy. Dysjunkcja znacznie trafniej od alternatywy rozłącznej wyraża myśl, którą można określić jako rdzeń (D): (A) i (B) to fundamentalnie różne rodzaje doświadczeń. Nie ma takiego X, które mogłoby być i (A), i (B). Nawet jeśli podmiot S może mieć (A) i (B) równocześnie5, to jeszcze nie znaczy, że jest takie X, które mogłoby być i (A), i (B). Szczególnie ważną cechą dysjunkcji jest to, że zachowuje ona prawdziwość nawet wtedy, gdy obydwa jej człony są fałszywe. Nawet jeśli w interesującej nas dziedzinie jest jakiś Y, który nie jest ani (A), ani (B), to nie podważa to tezy (D), w myśl której (A) i (B) są fundamentalnie różne. Istnienie Y nie ma znaczenia dla różnicy pomiędzy (A) i (B). Dysjunkcja nie zobowiązuje zwolennika (D) do klasyfikacji, a jedynie do typologii doświadczeń zmysłowych. Typologia polega na wyodrębnieniu z danej dziedziny co najmniej dwóch podzbiorów (typów). Każdy typ grupuje elementy dziedziny podobne pod istotnym względem do jednego wyróżnionego elementu tegoż typu, zwanego „modelem" (Jadacki 2002: 222–223). Co warte podkreślenia, formalna poprawność typologii nie wymaga spełnienia warunku pełności (podana przez nią lista typów nie musi wyczerpywać wszystkich elementów dziedziny) ani warunku nasycenia (niektóre typy mogą być zbiorami pustymi) (Jadacki 2002: 226). (D) można zatem rozumieć jako propozycję typologii doświadczeń zmysłowych, która zakłada istnienie co najmniej dwóch typów doświadczeń zmysłowych: percepcji i halucynacji (w zależności od konkretnej wersji (D), iluzje będą podtypem percepcji lub podtypem halucynacji). Oczywiście to tylko przykład; zwolennicy (D) mogą tę typologię konstruować na rozmaite sposoby. (D) zakłada typologię doświadczeń, ponieważ neguje monizm doświadczeniowy. Tym samym (D) jest zobowiązane do tezy, że istnieje więcej niż jeden rodzaj doświadczeń (a nie 5 Z taką sytuacją mielibyśmy do czynienia w przypadku tzw. częściowych halucynacji (np. ktoś widzi podłogę i równocześnie doświadcza halucynacji różowego szczura biegającego po tejże podłodze) (zob. MacPherson 2014: 8). 16 PAWEŁ JAKUB ZIęBA do tezy, że istnieją dwa i tylko dwa takie rodzaje, co oznaczałoby zobowiązanie do klasyfikacji). W związku z tym (D) można zasadnie nazwać „pluralizmem doświadczeniowym". Przejmuję ten termin od Kalderona, ale rozumiem go inaczej niż on, ponieważ tenże filozof łączy go z rozumieniem (D) przez pryzmat alternatywy rozłącznej (szerzej na ten temat w następnym rozdziale). Wszystkie te ustalenia prowadzą do wniosku, że interpretacja (D) z wykorzystaniem dysjunkcji bardziej precyzyjnie oddaje sens tego twierdzenia. IV Przeciwnik przedstawionej wyżej argumentacji może jej zarzucić przeinaczanie cudzych poglądów. Skoro odwołanie do alternatywy rozłącznej znalazło się w powszechnie stosowanej nazwie (D) (ang. disjunctivism, czyli w dosłownym tłumaczeniu: alternatywizm), to nie można zarzucić wszystkim uczestnikom debaty, że „nie wiedzą, o czym mówią". Ewentualna słuszność tego zarzutu nakazywałaby uznać, że broniona przeze mnie eksplikacja (D) z wykorzystaniem dysjunkcji to propozycja przeformułowania (D), albo stanowisko konkurencyjne wobec (D). Jednakże postulat interpretowania (D) w kategoriach dysjunkcji nie opiera się na modyfikacji tego, co posługujący się nią filozofowie mają przez nią na myśli, lecz na zwróceniu uwagi na to, czego nie mają oni przez nią na myśli. Jeżeli nie mają oni tych kwestii na myśli, to nic dziwnego, że o nich nie piszą. Skoro na przykład (D) nie dotyczy natury doświadczeń religijnych, to nic dziwnego, że uczestnicy debaty na temat (D) nic na ich temat w kontekście tej debaty nie napisali. Skoro (D) nie zakłada klasyfikacji doświadczeń zmysłowych, to nie powinno dziwić, że w debacie o (D) problem ten się nie pojawia. Moim celem jest uwidocznienie tego, co zwolennicy (D) zwyczajnie przeoczyli. Wątpliwości może budzić także przeciwstawianie sobie alternatywy rozłącznej i dysjunkcji. Posługując się dysjunkcją, można bowiem zapisać wszystkie pozostałe funktory logiczne, w tym także alternatywę rozłączną (Preston, brak daty). Ktoś mógłby zatem zapytać, co właściwie zmienia zastąpienie alternatywy rozłącznej dysjunkcją. Jednakże prosta dysjunkcja (A|B) nie jest równoważna z alternatywą rozłączną zapisaną przy użyciu funktora dysjunkcji: (((A|(B|B))|(A|(B|B)))|((A|(B|B))|(A|(B|B))))|((((A|A)|B)|((A|A)|B))|(((A|A)|B)|((A|A)|B))) W mojej opinii najpoważniejszy zarzut polegałby na zwróceniu uwagi, że hintonowskie (AB) można zmodyfikować tak, aby (B) oznaczało nie „halucynacje i iluzje subiektywnie nieodróżnialne od (A)", lecz „doświadczenia zmysłowe subiektywnie nieodróżnialne od (A), lecz niebędące (A)". Przy takim zapisie każdy możliwy kandydat na (E) subiektywnie nieodróżnialne od (A) będzie należał do (B). Wówczas (AB) będzie podziałem dychotomicznym, 17 Alternatywizm, dysjunktywizm i pluralizm doświadczeniowy który dzieli wyznaczoną dziedzinę na dwa wykluczające się zbiory. W takim razie (D) będzie dzielić doświadczenia subiektywnie nieodróżnialne od percepcji na percepcje i niepercepcje. Takie rozumienie (D) wydaje się przyjmować Kalderon, który określa to twierdzenie mianem „pluralizmu doświadczeniowego", równocześnie jednak umieszczając u jego podstaw alternatywę rozłączną (Kalderon, manuskrypt: 15). Po pierwsze, uzyskana w ten sposób klasyfikacja jest skrajnie nienaturalna, ponieważ elementy członu (B) nie mają żadnej swoistości poza niebyciem percepcjami (por. Jadacki 2002: 218–219). Po drugie, nie wiadomo, do którego z członów podziału należą te doświadczenia z grupy (E), które są subiektywnie nieodróżnialne od percepcji. W powieści Josepha Hellera pt. Paragraf 22 znajdziemy fragment opisujący sytuację, w której główny bohater widzi, że wskutek odniesionych ran wnętrzności jego kolegi wydostają się na zewnątrz ciała6. Lektura tego wstrząsającego fragmentu może wywołać w czytelniku doświadczenie owych wnętrzności subiektywnie nieodróżnialne od zwykłej percepcji wzrokowej. Czy doświadczenie to powinniśmy zaliczyć do (A), razem z percepcjami zwyczajnych przedmiotów fizycznych, czy też do (B), wspólnie z halucynacjami wywołanymi ciężką gorączką? Pierwsza opcja wydaje się niewybieralna: nawet doświadczenie niezwykle sugestywnie opisanych wnętrzności nie jest tym samym, co doświadczenie mąk prawdziwego kolegi w realnym świecie. Jednakże druga opcja także jest problematyczna, ponieważ grupuje ona doświadczenia przynajmniej potencjalnie posiadające przedmioty wspólnie z tymi, które tych przedmiotów nie mają na pewno. Będzie to złamanie zasady mówiącej, że rodzaje doświadczeń należy wyodrębniać ze względu na ich przedmioty. Klasyfikacja dzieląca dziedzinę na zbiór doświadczeń posiadających przedmioty (wyznacznik bycia percepcją na gruncie (D)) oraz zbiór doświadczeń niebędących percepcjami (ale mogących mieć przedmioty) nie spełnia kryterium homogeniczności, zgodnie z którym człony podziału należy wyodrębniać ze względu na to samo kryterium (Jadacki 2002: 218–219). Doprecyzowanie alternatywy ograniczające zawartość członu (A) do zmysłowych doświadczeń obiektów fizycznych niewiele tu pomoże, ponieważ w kolejce do rozpatrzenia czekają: doświadczenie Chrystusa oraz Mojżesz i jego „krzew gorejący". Moja odpowiedź na ten zarzut sprowadza się zatem do stwierdzenia, że ostry podział na percepcje i niepercepcje nie uwzględnia doświadczeń bardziej nietypowych, które nie pasują do żadnego ze zbiorów stanowiących człony podziału. Możliwości wystąpienia takich nietypowych doświadczeń nie musi zaprzeczać nawet ten zwolennik (D), którego zdaniem halucynacje w ogóle nie zasługują na miano doświadczeń (Thau 2004). 6 „Yossarian jednym ruchem rozpiął zatrzaski kamizelki Snowdena i usłyszał swój własny dziki wrzask, kiedy wnętrzności Snowdena wypłynęły na podłogę oślizgłą masą i płynęły nadal. Odłamek długości może trzech cali trafił go od drugiej strony tuż pod ramieniem, przeszedł na wylot i wyciągnął za sobą różnokolorowe wnętrzności przez gigantyczną dziurę w klatce piersiowej, którą wyrwał wychodząc. Yossarian wrzasnął po raz drugi przycisnąwszy obie ręce do oczu. Z przerażenia szczękał zębami. Zmusił się, żeby spojrzeć. Jak z rogu obfitości, pomyślał gorzko na widok wątroby, płuc, nerek, żeber, żołądka i kawałków duszonych pomidorów, które Snowden jadł tego dnia na obiad. Yossarian nie cierpiał duszonych pomidorów" (Heller 1994: 461). 18 PAWEŁ JAKUB ZIęBA V Istotą twierdzenia znanego w anglojęzycznej literaturze filozoficznej pod nazwą disjunctivism jest uznanie, że „percepcje" i „halucynacje" to dwa fundamentalnie różne rodzaje zdarzeń. Rodzaj „percepcje" jest bardziej fundamentalny niż „doświadczenia zmysłowe", ponieważ ten pierwszy jest prototypem dla tego drugiego. Niektórzy zwolennicy omawianego twierdzenia dodadzą, że rodzaj „percepcje" jest też bardziej fundamentalny niż „halucynacje", ponieważ ten drugi można wyodrębnić jedynie przez odwołanie do tego pierwszego. Niezależnie od tej kwestii, istnienie innych rodzajów doświadczeń poza percepcjami, iluzjami i halucynacjami jest dla sympatyków omawianej tezy sprawą otwartą, ponieważ postulowanie zachodzenia fundamentalnej różnicy pomiędzy percepcjami a halucynacjami nie jest równoważne z postulowaniem klasyfikacji doświadczeń zmysłowych. Myśliciele głoszący zachodzenie takiej różnicy są zobowiązani jedynie do typologii doświadczeń zmysłowych. Można wskazać wiele ontologii, które są fałszywe na gruncie (D) pojętego przez pryzmat alternatywy rozłącznej, a prawdziwe na gruncie (D) rozumianego w kategoriach dysjunkcji. Tymczasem metafizyczna wersja twierdzenia znanego jako disjunctivism odrzuca tylko jedną, ściśle określoną ontologię: tę, która zakłada, że percepcja i halucynacja to stany mentalne tego samego fundamentalnego rodzaju. Disjunctivism nie wyszczególnia kompletnej listy potencjalnych przedmiotów doświadczenia. Stwierdza jedynie, że typy doświadczeń należy wyodrębniać ze względu na ich przedmioty, a nie na to, jak te doświadczenia jawią się subiektywnie. Stąd właśnie wynika postulat fundamentalnej różnicy pomiędzy percepcją a halucynacją; wszak doświadczenia te różnią się właśnie z uwagi na swoje przedmioty. Natomiast z samej tej różnicy nie można wywnioskować jakiejkolwiek odpowiedzi na pytanie, czy w dziedzinie doświadczeń zmysłowych są jakieś inne doświadczenia poza percepcjami i halucynacjami. Dlatego (D) to dysjunktywizm, a nie alternatywizm; dlatego (D) to pluralizm doświadczeniowy, a nie dualizm doświadczeniowy. BIBLIOGRAFIA Bremer, Józef. 2006. Wprowadzenie do logiki, Kraków: WAM. Brewer, Bill. 2011. Perception and its Objects, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. Byrne, Alex i Logue, Heather. 2008. Either/Or, w: Adrian Haddock i Fiona MacPherson (red.), Disjunctivism: Perception, Action, Knowledge, Oxford University Press, s. 57–94. Conduct, Matthew. 2010. Naїve Realism and Extreme Disjunctivism, „Philosophical Explorations", 13, 3: 201–221. Dretske, Fred. 2000. The Mind's Awareness of Itself, w: Perception, Knowledge and Belief. Selected Essays, Cambridge University Press, s. 158–177. Fish, William. 2010. Philosophy of Perception. A Contemporary Introduction, Routledge. Heller, Joseph. 1994. Paragraf 22, tłum. Lech Jęczmyk, Warszawa: Świat Książki. Hinton, John. 2009a. Selections from Experiences, w: Alex Byrne i Heather Logue (red.), Disjunctivism: Contemporary Readings, Cambridge: MIT Press, s. 13–32. Hinton, John. 2009b. Visual Experiences, w: Alex Byrne i Heather Logue (red.), Disjunctivism: Contemporary Readings, Cambridge: MIT Press, s. 1–11. Alternatywizm, dysjunktywizm i pluralizm doświadczeniowy Jadacki, Jacek. 2002. Spór o granice języka. Elementy semiotyki logicznej i metodologii, wydanie 2 popr., Warszawa: Semper. Johnston, Mark. 2004. The Obscure Object of Hallucination, „Philosophical Studies", 120, 1/3: 113–183. Kalderon, Mark. Experiential Pluralism and the Power of Perception, [manuskrypt], http:// philpapers.org/archive/KALEPA-2.pdf [19.09.2017] . MacPherson, Fiona. 2014. The Philosophy and Psychology of Hallucination: An Introduction, w: Fiona MacPherson i Dimitris Platchias (red.), Hallucination. Philosophy and Psychology, Cambridge, London: MIT Press, s. 1–38. Martin, Michael G.F. 2009. The Reality of Appearances, w: Alex Byrne i Heather Logue (red.), Disjunctivism: Contemporary Readings, Cambridge: MIT Press, s. 91–116. McDowell, John. 1998. Criteria, Defeasibility and Knowledge, w: Meaning, Knowledge and Reality, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, s. 369–394. McDowell, John. 2010. Tyler Burge on disjunctivism, „Philosophical Explorations", 13, 3: 243–255. McDowell, John. 2013. Tyler Burge on disjunctivism (II), „Philosophical Explorations", 16(3): 259–279. Millar, Alan. 2010. Knowledge and Recognition, w: Duncan Pritchard, Alan Millar i Adrian Haddock (red.), The Nature and Value of Knowledge. Three Investigations, Oxford University Press, s. 91–188. Preston, Aaron. Brak daty. Analytic Philosophy, w: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu/analytic/ [19.09.2017]. Pritchard, Duncan. 2012. Epistemological Disjunctivism, Oxford University Press. Putnam, Hilary. 1998. Mózgi w naczyniu, w: tenże, Wiele twarzy realizmu i inne eseje, tłum. Adam Grobler, Warszawa: PWN, s. 295–324. Siegel, Susanna. 2010. The Contents of Visual Experience, New York: Oxford University Press. Snowdon, Paul. 2005. The Formulation of Disjunctivism: A Response to Fish, „Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society", 105: 129–141. Snowdon, Paul. 2008. Hinton and the Origins of Disjunctivism, w: Adrian Haddock i Fiona MacPherson (red.), Disjunctivism: Perception, Action, Knowledge, Oxford University Press, s. 35–56. Snowdon, Paul. 1980–1981. Perception, Vision, and Causation, „Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society", 81: 175–192. Thau, Michael. 2004. What is Disjunctivism?, „Philosophical Studies", 120, 1/3: 193–253. Zięba, Paweł Jakub. 2016. Dysjunktywizm i natura percepcyjnej relacji, „Analiza i Egzystencja", 35: 87–111. DISJUNCTIVISM, ALTERNATIVE-DENIALISM, AND EXPERIENTIAL PLURALISM The claim currently known as "disjunctivism" is usually interpreted in terms of exclusive disjunction. However, it can be also explicated through the lens of alternative denial. The aim of this paper is to show that the latter interpretation is more accurate. Firstly, it reflects the core of disjunctivism more precisely. Secondly, it reduces metaphysical weight of the claim, thereby making it more plausible. Keywords: disjunctivism, sense experience, perception, hallucination | {
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13 Silence and Salience On Being Judgmental Neal A. Tognazzini Begin with a familiar maxim: just because you think something doesn't mean you should say it. Failure to adhere to this maxim often constitutes tactlessness and can cause offense, even if you have good reason to think what you think, and indeed, even if what you think is true. Speaking your mind may even, in certain circumstances, be not just imprudent but a moral mistake. To take a much-discussed recent example: there may be certain facts about you that make it morally inappropriate for you to call someone out for a misdeed even if you have good reason to believe they have done it, and indeed, even if they have done it. If, for example, you are yourself guilty of the same (or a similar) transgression, then to call someone else out while ignoring one's own wrongdoing would seem to involve making a groundless exception for oneself: the Kantian hallmark of moral impropriety. Even if hypocritical blame isn't a moral mistake, though, there certainly seems to be something "off" about it. At the very least, the person being blamed seems entitled to raise a distinctive sort of objection, often voiced as a question: "Who are you to blame me for this?" The implication is that even if your blame doesn't involve a factual mistake, in any case it involves some sort of mistake. If you're no better than I am on this issue, best to keep silent. Identifying this mistake, and making sense of it, is the project of several recent writers who are interested, broadly speaking, in the standing to blame.1 This is not my topic, but it is related, and in any case it is helpful to point out that the best accounts of what goes wrong in cases of standingless blame (like our hypocrite) apply most naturally to blame that has been voiced or otherwise explicitly addressed to the wrongdoer. Since being the target of expressed blame is such a common and uncomfortable feature of our lives, it is certainly worth getting clear about. But unexpressed, or private, blame also seems potentially problematic, though making sense of the mistake seems a bit trickier (since its target may be unaware of being targeted). Whether someone might lack the Silence and Salience 257 standing even to feel blame is a question even more intimately related to my topic, though my interest is not restricted to the mental state of blame in particular. What I'm interested in exploring is not the maxim with which we began, but a closely related and more controversial one, namely: just because something's true doesn't mean you should think it. Cases of standingless unexpressed blame – if such cases exist – would be examples of this maxim at work, but I'm inclined to think there are other examples as well. The one I'd like to explore here is the case of the judgmental person. My questions: what exactly is it to be judgmental, and why is it bad? My suggestion: the judgmental person thinks things that, even if true, they shouldn't be thinking. 2 Let's start with a case and a theory. First, the case: a young married couple moves into their first house and begins the familiar fight against entropy known as home ownership. They manage to keep their house and property in adequate shape, certainly nothing that's going to get them featured in a home and gardening magazine, but at the same time nothing that will get them in trouble with the city or even their neighborhood association. The yard, in particular, is kept mown but not treated or watered, with the result that it goes partially brown in the summertime, and its spring growth ebbs and flows with the life cycles of the various lawn-like substances (grass, weeds, flowers) that constitute the yard. This doesn't bother the couple in the slightest – in fact, they rather like the natural look – but the couple's parents feel differently (pick a set of parents, it doesn't matter which). In their view every yard should have sod (or at least look that way) and it really ought never to appear brown, even in the summer. Of course, they tolerate the suboptimal yard owned by their children and hardly ever say anything about it, except perhaps the occasional passive-aggressive remark, which everyone knows is a parent's prerogative in any case. Still, every time they visit the house they are struck with wonder at how anyone can look at the state of the yard and not put re-landscaping toward the top of the to-do list. It's a good question – one to which we will return – why paradigm cases of judgmentalism so often involve parents and children, but for now let's simply accept that this is indeed a paradigm case of judgmentalism. What exactly is it about these yard-based judgments that makes them different from, say, the judgment that the house is made of red bricks? Why does making the latter judgment not count as being judgmental, whereas making the former judgments does? And what exactly is wrong with making those judgments? (Or are we wrong in the first place to suppose that judgmentalism is about what judgments one makes?) 258 Neal A. Tognazzini Now, the theory. Not my theory: Gary Watson's. Watson has suggested that judgmentalism is a second-order vice: a vice "pertaining to how we respond to the moral shortcomings of ourselves and others" (Watson 2013: 283). In Watson's view, judgmentalism manifests in two fundamentally connected ways: as interpretive ungenerosity, on the one hand, and as being too unaccepting of faults, on the other. At bottom, both are about unacceptance leading to interpersonal distance or hostility, and it is this that makes being at the receiving end of judgmental remarks so painful. In light of this account, Watson advocates acceptance as the non-judgmental ideal. Let me say a bit more about each manifestation and about how they are connected. Consider interpretive ungenerosity first. The thought here is that many cases of judgmentalism involve overlaying a particular interpretation onto the words or actions of another when there is another, more generous, interpretation that is equally consistent with the evidence. Consider an example that Watson invokes, namely the hurt and anger that Beethoven expressed in the Heiligenstadt Testament, after his hearing had begun to fail him and yet he felt obligated to keep it a secret: "Oh you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you" (Swafford 2014: 302). The interpretively ungenerous person is disposed to jump to unflattering conclusions or perhaps simply fails to see that less damning conclusions are available. Of course, not every false interpretation is necessarily ungenerous – perhaps in the case of Beethoven the men in question were being as generous as the evidence allowed – but what Watson seems to be suggesting here is that one way to fight against becoming a judgmental person is to cultivate an active imagination that allows you to avoid adopting the theory of least resistance and applying it wholesale to your understanding of the person. As Watson says, "the interpretively generous person will be more hesitant to epitomize" another person in the terms of even a generally accurate interpretation (Watson 2013: 291). On Watson's account, the second way judgmentalism manifests is through being too unaccepting of the faults of others – or, perhaps better, being too unaccepting of the perceived faults of others. In many of our relationships we adopt implicit standards, or expectations, that need to be met in order for us to be on "fully good terms" with the person (Watson 2013: 293), and while this is mostly unproblematic, the vice of judgmentalism shows itself when we adopt standards that are unreasonable or too exacting. As an example, Watson offers the pacifist father who uses his daughter's decision to join the military as a reason to cease communicating with her. The question of military service may be a deeply important, morally weighty issue for both of them, but we view the father as judgmental to the extent that we think him unreasonable for letting that issue be the litmus test for being on good terms with his Silence and Salience 259 daughter. (As Watson points out, claims that someone is being judgmental will often be controversial in a way that mirrors controversy about moral questions more generally.) The problem here isn't that the father overlays onto his daughter's decision an uncharitable interpretation, but rather that he lets that decision completely color his vision of her character. His judgment that she is doing something morally objectionable may even be correct, but it's the way that judgment about her decision leads him to a judgment about her that makes his reaction a vice. I said earlier that for Watson, these two manifestations of judgmentalism are connected. The connection is that when an ungenerous interpretation counts as judgmental, it is because the interpretation "serves as a prelude to and a pretext for a dismissal or rejection" of the person whose actions are being interpreted. The interpretation is "in effect [a] brief for nonacceptance, for a stance of rejection if not hostility, or at least for maintaining the distance of superiority" (Watson 2013: 291). So at its heart non-judgmentalism is about acceptance; it's about the demands we place on our relationships with others and about how we evaluate whether the other person has met those demands (Watson 2013: 294). With Watson's account in hand, return now to the case of the parents and their yardwork-eschewing children. It's easy to see this as a case of being interpretively ungenerous: the parents view the state of the yard as resulting perhaps from laziness on the part of their children, when in reality the children just prize a more "natural" aesthetic or perhaps think that using sprinklers is a waste of water or perhaps just don't have the time to worry about their yard since they have a newborn baby in the house. A differently kempt yard certainly isn't sufficient evidence of a negligent homeowner and even more certainly isn't sufficient evidence of any sort of character flaw. It's perhaps more difficult to see how the case might be embellished to fit with the idea that judgmentalism involves non-acceptance – how the parents could think that their relationship with their children is somehow on less than fully good terms because of their yard – but it helps to recall Watson's remark that non-acceptance might manifest as "maintaining the distance of superiority." The passive-aggressive remarks ("Oh did you want me to put out the sprinkler this morning?" "No, mom, we don't own sprinklers, remember?") are hurtful precisely because they imply a judgment of inferiority. And to the extent that this causes alienation or emotional distance, it seems as though the parents have not fully accepted the perceived faults of their children. Summarizing his account, Watson says that "we should locate the primary vice of judgmentalism in the faulty ways in which one's judgment conditions one's relations with others" (Watson 2013: 287), where the judgment in question is a sweeping overall assessment of the person on the basis of a perceived (perhaps ungenerously interpreted) fault, what 260 Neal A. Tognazzini Watson calls a "verdictive" judgment (292). This account strikes me as illuminating, helpful, and compelling. 3 Still, Watson's account doesn't seem quite right, and reflecting a bit further on the case of the parents can help us to see why. Watson's claim is that judgmentalism involves noticing an alleged fault about someone and then holding that fault against them. Judgmental people are alienated or at an emotional distance from those they judge, on Watson's account, because that alienation is simply part of what it is to be judgmental. While I don't deny that alienation is often a consequence of judgmentalism, I'm skeptical that it is required. What if, instead of thinking themselves superior to their children in the arena of homeownership, the parents and the children managed to remain on fully good terms with each other? Even if the parents don't hold the state of the yard against their children in any verdictive way, wouldn't they still count as judgmental simply by virtue of always noticing the state of the yard, as though it were something worthy of notice? Watson does draw a distinction between someone who is merely hypercritical and someone who is judgmental. In his view, since criticism may originate from a place of love, and need not imply that the criticizer views the relationship as in any way impaired, the hypercritical parent need not count as judgmental. But it strikes me as a false dichotomy to claim that either criticism comes from a place of love or else it is used as the basis for distancing oneself from the person being criticized. It seems as though there is a variation on the case of the parents and children according to which the parents' judgments neither originate from a place of love, nor are used as a basis for dismissal or distance. What strikes me as judgmental in this case isn't that the alleged fault is noticed and then held against the children. The mere fact that it is noticed seems to be enough. 4 To see the point more clearly, let's talk for a minute about pudding. In a wonderful scene in Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, the Cratchit family is just sitting down for their Christmas feast, the one time each year that the family "splurges," though their poverty would make their splurge meal look rather more like a snack to Ebeneezer Scrooge (and, let's face it, to most of us). There's nothing but effusive praise for the meal all around, and dessert is the pièce de résistance: Oh, a wonderful pudding. Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her Silence and Salience 261 mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing. Dickens 2004: 103 Anyone at that table would have been able to report on what was not said, but only the omniscient narrator of the story can also inform us about what was not thought. And in this scene, the Cratchits don't just fail to say that the pudding is small, they also fail even to think it. To say or think such a thing would have been heresy. Why heresy? Well, if orthodoxy is a set of beliefs or attitudes prescribed to the members of a group, then a member of that group is heretical when they hold (or espouse) a belief or attitude that is "out of bounds." The Cratchit family is such a group, and it would be inconsistent with full membership in that group to show oneself ungrateful for rare treats like Christmas pudding. And notably, what would count as ungrateful isn't just complaining about the size of the pudding; it's even thinking that the pudding is small. In other words: being a member of the Cratchit family involves a certain orientation, or frame of mind, that draws one's attention toward, and away from, certain aspects of the world. Watson uses the term "fault-finders" for those who are "inordinately preoccupied with the putative misdeeds of others" (Watson 2013: 291), and he suggests that fault-finding has its source in fault-tracking. The problem with fault-tracking, Watson suggests, is that it is often in the service of forming a verdictive judgment – the sort of judgment that may, if the circumstances are right, constitute an expression of judgmentalism. I agree that fault-tracking is problematic because it is often a prelude to a verdictive judgment, but it seems to me that sometimes, regardless of the overall verdict, merely tracking a fault is problematic on its own. This, I suggest, is what gives the pudding scene its warm glow: the Cratchits don't simply refuse to come to a verdictive judgment about their parents' ability to provide; they aren't even tracking the alleged fault that could lead to such a judgment. In other words, not only are the Cratchits obeying the maxim not to say everything they think; they are also obeying the maxim not to think everything that's true. And as I suggested at the outset, it's this maxim that takes us to the heart of a more complete account of judgmentalism. 5 I suggested previously that being a member of the Cratchit family involves an orientation, and I suspect that's generally true for relationships. But what exactly is an orientation? I'm not entirely sure, but I will try to say 262 Neal A. Tognazzini a few helpful things. At the most basic (and yet metaphorical) level, an orientation is something like a way of seeing the world, a lens through which you see things. And that lens, that orientation, makes certain aspects of your environment salient while at the same time forcing other aspects of your environment to go silent. Consider, for example, Wittgenstein's response, at Philosophical Investigations II.iv, to the problem of other minds: "My attitude toward him is an attitude toward a soul. I am not of the opinion that he has a soul" (Wittgenstein 1953: 152). One way to understand this cryptic remark is as expressing the view that there's a difference between the beliefs we form, on the one hand, and the background framework we (already) occupy when we form beliefs, on the other. Anti-solipsism is not a proposition to marshal reasons in favor or against; it is part of the framework, the lens through which we experience the world. When I'm thinking of orientations, I have something like this in mind. Less cryptic is the broadly perceptual theory of emotions favored by Robert C. Roberts (2003), according to which they are concern-based construals. When you fear the spider, for example, you are experiencing an amalgam of a perception-like state (a construal that the spider is dangerous) and a desire-like state (a concern not to be harmed). Notably, the notion of a construal is subjective, in the sense that you and I might construe the very same object in radically different ways without either construal having to be incorrect. Like a duck-rabbit, the world often admits of more than one Gestalt. Also, although Roberts thinks that emotions are associated with characteristic judgments, they are not identical to any judgment. As many of us know well, fear of something may persist despite a wholehearted judgment that the thing feared is not dangerous, and a natural way to make sense of this is to conceptualize emotions as construals, ways the world seems, even if we know that's not the way the world is. Again, when I think of the praiseworthy Cratchit orientation, I have something like this in mind. Helen Longino (1979) points out that what aspects of our environment we are inclined to count as evidence – and what theories they count in favor of – depends crucially on the paradigms we bring to an investigation. She points out, for example, that if we are working within a geocentric paradigm, the datum that night follows day with predictable regularity will count as evidence for the conclusion that the sun circles the Earth at a regular rate. But if we are working within a heliocentric paradigm, the very same datum will count in favor of the conclusion that the Earth circles the sun at a regular rate (Longino 1979: 42). And of course it's only if we already have some conception of celestial bodies at all that we will be inclined even to count the regularity of the night/ day pattern as evidence for anything at all. Longino is making a point about how evidence is treated in scientific inquiry, but the general point holds true further afield. Background frameworks and implicit general Silence and Salience 263 understandings are what guide our eye toward certain aspects of our experience and away from others. What I want to suggest is that our interpersonal relationships work in a similar way: our orientation toward others guides our eye toward some aspects of them and away from others. What I'm driving at is similar to ideas found in Margaret Olivia Little's (1995) work on caring and Troy Jollimore's (2011) work on love. In developing an account of the epistemic significance of emotions, Little makes the point that what we see reveals how we care. She says: What one is attentive to reflects one's interests, desires, in brief, what one cares about. [. . .] More generally put, if one cares about something, one is prepared to respond on its behalf, and preparedness to respond is intimately linked with awareness of opportunities to do so. Little 1995: 122 Jollimore makes a similar point in developing his perceptual model of love. Here's the way he puts it: Personal relationships [. . .] form part of the background against which practical reasoning, including the perception of one's reasons, takes place; what counts as a reason is determined largely by the relationships and value commitments one brings to the situation. Jollimore 2011: 115 Instead of focusing on the salience of certain reasons to believe a scientific theory about the solar system, Little and Jollimore are pointing out that one's background framework (one's emotions, one's standing relationships) can make salient certain practical reasons as well. And it's not just that you wouldn't have noticed that you had those reasons for action without the relevant background; rather, it's that, without the relevant background, certain facts wouldn't even have counted as reasons for action at all. Both of those things – counting and noticing – are relevant to the point I want to make about the Cratchit family. Whereas the size of the pudding may count as a reason for you and I to complain or feel disappointed (which is part of what gives our view on that scene its poignancy), it certainly doesn't count in that way for members of the Cratchit family. And because it doesn't, they don't even notice the size. It's not that they notice it and yet manage to avoid being disappointed; it's that the size is not even on their radar to begin with. I have a suspicion that many aspects of our interpersonal relationships can be understood as a type of orientation: not just love (as Jollimore argues) but also blame and forgiveness, perhaps even faith. But that's a project for another time. For now I hope these remarks have made 264 Neal A. Tognazzini tolerably clear what I have in mind when I speak of an orientation. I now want to take this idea back to our discussion of judgmentalism. 6 Recall that according to Watson, a judgmental person is one who is disposed to draw alienating verdictive judgments about others, where those judgments are the result either of unreasonable demands placed on the terms of a relationship or else of unreasonable assessments of whether the others have met those demands. My case of the parents and their yard-neglecting children was meant to suggest that there is a strand of judgmentalism not captured by Watson's account – in particular, the sort of judgmentalism that consists of taking certain facts about others to be a relevant basis on which to form judgments at all, even of the non-verdictive variety. In fact, I wanted to suggest something even a bit stronger than that, namely that judgmentalism might manifest as the mere noticing of certain facts about others, regardless of their perceived relevance to judgment-making. With the notion of an orientation in hand, we can now accommodate these suggestions: to be judgmental is to make judgments (where this can include explicitly forming beliefs or perhaps just patterns of noticing) whose presence is (or whose consequences are) inconsistent with the orientation that constitutes the type of relationship in question, whether or not those judgments are alienating or verdictive. Judgmentalism, then, stems ultimately from disorientation. I don't mean to suggest, though, that judgmental people are always disoriented through their own culpable ignorance or incompetence. An orientation is a relation, which means that there are two ways to be (or become) disoriented: you may have gotten yourself lost through your own movements, or you might have become lost due to the movements of the world around you. Relationships are dynamic things, and I suspect that many examples of judgmentalism are simply instances where someone has failed to keep up with the dynamism, perhaps even failed to realize that things have changed. This, I think, is why the most ready-to-hand examples of judgmentalism are examples involving parents and children, as mine was. (Watson gives four examples in his paper; three involve parenthood and the fourth involves an implicit age gap.) As children grow, the nature of the parent/ child relationship changes (should change, anyway) radically, and it can be hard for parents to keep up. It's hard to think of a compelling case of parental judgmentalism when the child is a newborn baby, for example. Why is that? One reason is that judgmentalism most often manifests itself in judgments about how one lives one's life, and babies aren't really "living a life" in the relevant sense. But arguably, it is also because the nature of the parent/child relationship, especially in the early stages, involves an Silence and Salience 265 orientation where every fact about the child, no matter how "personal," is fair game for the parental eye to notice and take into consideration. This all-encompassing orientation, in fact, is part of what allows parents to be good parents. But this all-encompassing orientation very often overstays its welcome as children grow and begin making their own decisions about how to live their lives. When children are young, there's nothing judgmental about a parent noticing a messy room and encouraging their child to clean it. But I hope messy rooms are something that I stop even thinking about once my daughter reaches adulthood. It's not just that her room becomes her business in a way it didn't used to be, so that I should keep my mouth shut; it's also that, in a manner of speaking, I should keep my eyes shut. Of course there is a worry that by adopting an orientation that dampens my awareness of certain facts, I'll perhaps miss important indications that not all is well with a friend or a child. That messy room, after all, might be a sign of trouble. And of course it is important to be attuned to what counts as "business as usual" for a friend, but this idea of attunement also seems to be a matter of background understanding and not something that necessarily crosses one's conscious radar, unless something is "off." It's not as though I need to pay attention to the state of my friend's room whenever I'm there: even off-radar facts can rise to consciousness when they present a breakdown in background understanding. On the other hand, it may just be that this is one more item to put on the list of vulnerabilities that we are susceptible to as a result of being involved in intimate relationships.2 Deep trust in the faithfulness of one's spouse doesn't just involve refraining from always asking them what they are up to when they are out with friends; it also involves not even considering the possibility that they might be up to no good. (Unless and until one is forced to consider that possibility by something out of the ordinary.) That opens one up to being seriously hurt, true, but it's hard to see why that should be a reason to look for a different account of trust. 7 I turn, finally, to the question of what exactly is wrong with judgmentalism. On Watson's account, judgmentalism is a second-order vice: to be judgmental is to be disposed to respond in faulty ways to the perceived faults of others. On my expanded version of the Watsonian account, too, judgmentalism is a vice, it's just that it can also manifest by being disposed even to perceive the faults of others, or to perceive them as faults. But I'm not sure that calling it a vice exhausts what's ethically problematic about being judgmental. In particular, a judgmental person hasn't just failed to live up to certain ethical ideals; they have also often wronged the person 266 Neal A. Tognazzini about whom they are making their judgments. And it's not clear that a mere vice can constitute a directed wrong. Of course, Watson does say that a judgmental disposition will tend to lead to alienation and estrangement, and these ways of holding something against someone can easily fit the mold of directed wrongs, especially when they are due to placing unreasonable standards on acceptance. But I have maintained that someone can be judgmental even without their judgments leading to alienation and estrangement, so how can I make sense of the apparent directedness of the wrong involved in being judgmental? Angela Smith (2011) draws a distinction (the formulation of which she attributes to Laurence BonJour) between "merely behavioral friendship," on the one hand, and "attitudinal friendship," on the other. Whereas the former merely has the outward trappings of friendship, the latter involves, in addition, "the presence of attitudes of sincere care and concern" (Smith 2011: 251). In Smith's view, true friendship is attitudinal: The relation of being a friend, I would contend, is a relation with certain normative demands, expectations, and responsibilities built into it. These demands, expectations, and responsibilities pertain not only to one's outward behavior, but to one's attitudes, as well. We reasonably expect our friends to have attitudes of care and concern for us, to respect us, to take pleasure in our accomplishments and feel sadness in our losses. Indeed, when we speak of the "duties of friendship," we have in mind this whole complex of behavioral and attitudinal demands and responsibilities. Smith 2011: 251 But how exactly can the failure to have certain attitudes constitute a failure of an obligation that we owe to our friends? Set aside the question of whether we have the right sort of control over our attitudes for them to be the proper target of responsibility attributions (though see Smith (2005) to clear up any misconceptions on this score). The question now is how the failure to have a certain attitude (or the having of a certain attitude) can count as a directed wrong. Smith argues that adopting a contractualist moral framework can help to make sense of this. On a contractualist framework, moral principles are principles that no one could reasonably reject being bound by. So the question would be whether anyone could reasonably reject a principle requiring friends or intimates to have certain attitudes toward each other in addition to treating each other well. Plausibly, the answer is no, in which case you could manage to wrong a friend even if you don't treat them badly, but merely fail to have attitudes that are required by the relationship in question (or, I suppose, have attitudes that are inconsistent with the relationship in question). Of course, the contractualist Silence and Salience 267 framework is controversial, but it does provide a nice framework with which to make sense of the claim that to be judgmental is not just to exhibit a vice but also sometimes a way of wronging the person you are judging.3 8 One efficient way to come across as condescending is to take up what P. F. Strawson calls "the objective attitude" toward one of your friends or loved ones. This is a stance – or, perhaps, an orientation – from within which you view another person as an object "to be managed or handled or cured or trained" rather than taken seriously as a person.4 The objective attitude isn't a bad thing in itself: as Strawson points out, it's often exactly what's called for in clinical contexts, or as an emotional escape from "the strains of involvement." But to treat your spouse's anger as, say, being fully explained by their hunger instead of by their justifiable objection to being mistreated, is to use the objective stance as a pedestal on which to stand in superiority. In a way, I think that a judgmental person is often guilty of a similar offense. When we are fully immersed in a relationship – "involved," as Strawson would put it – we are inside of a framework, operating within an orientation that screens off certain facts about the other person. But those facts become salient as we detach, as we begin to use a more objective eye to look upon the other person, and take the measure of their idiosyncrasies. In the right context – say, the clinical context – taking such measurements need not amount to being judgmental. You are meeting with the therapist precisely so that they can take the measurements and help you make sense of them. But the people in our lives we view as judgmental deserve the label in part because they are not our therapists; they are our friends, parents, loved ones. And in the context of those intimate relationships, being treated like a patient is bound to hurt our feelings. This idea – that being judgmental involves inappropriate detachment and measurement-taking – provides another explanation of how someone might unwittingly, almost innocently, become judgmental. (The first explanation, offered, was that parents have a hard time keeping up with the way their relationship with their children changes as their children grow.) In brief, the idea is that judgmentalism is one of the hazards of striving for an authentic existence. To see what I have in mind, consider a distinction offered by Heidegger which is similar to Strawson's. Heidegger distinguishes between a stance we take up toward other people (what he calls "Being-with") and a stance we take up toward objects (whether those objects are approached as "ready-to-hand" tools or as "present-at-hand" items fit for scientific inquiry). For Heidegger, this way of encountering other people is built into the framework, into our very nature as the sorts of beings we are, 268 Neal A. Tognazzini and it's what dissolves the alleged problem of other minds (Heidegger 1927: 153–163). (Recall from earlier Wittgenstein's remark in response to the problem of other minds: "My attitude toward him is an attitude toward a soul.") But on Heidegger's view, this deep fact about us – that we are "always already" oriented toward other people as people – also brings along with it the threat of inauthenticity, the threat that this involved stance toward other people will leave us with no one in particular to be (we end up being absorbed into what Heidegger calls "the they," the crowd). So how to avoid absorption and inauthenticity? For Heidegger, the answer is to become keenly aware of one's own mortality, but that's not exactly a cheery solution, so here's an easier way out: remind yourself of all the ways that you differ from others, mark contrasts, develop a sense of your own inner identity over against the identities of others. Discover who you truly are, as they say. Well and good, except that the project of finding contrasts with others requires taking notice of and measuring the qualities of others, so that you can use those measurements to carve out a distinctive place that's all yours. Thus embarking on the project of becoming a self of one's own – an authentic individual – seems to require a measure of detachment and so brings in its wake the risk of judgmentalism. It's a dilemma I'm not entirely sure we can escape.5 Notes 1. For details, see Tognazzini/Coates (2018, especially section 2.3). 2. On this theme, see Cocking/Kennett (2000). 3. On the question of how beliefs can wrong people, see also Basu (2019). 4. Strawson (1962), as reprinted in Watson (2003: 79). 5. For helpful comments on this project, thanks very much D. Justin Coates and Sebastian Schmidt. I presented an early draft of these ideas at the University of Puget Sound, so I'd also like to express my gratitude to the philosophers and students there, especially Sara Protasi. Finally, thanks to the editors of this volume for inviting me to contribute. Bibliography Basu, Rima (2019): "The Wrongs of Racist Beliefs", Philosophical Studies 176, 2497–2515. Cocking, Dean/Kennett, Jeanette (2000): "Friendship and Moral Danger", The Journal of Philosophy 97, 278–296. Dickens, Charles (2004): The Annotated Christmas Carol, ed. by Hearn, New York: W. W. Norton & Co, Inc. Heidegger, Martin (1927): Being and Time, transl. by Macquarrie/Robinson, New York: Harper & Row 2008. Jollimore, Troy (2011): Love's Vision, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Little, Margaret O. (1995): "Seeing and Caring: The Role of Affect in Feminist Moral Epistemology", Hypatia 10, 117–137. Silence and Salience 269 Longino, Helen (1979): "Evidence and Hypothesis: An Analysis of Evidential Relations", Philosophy of Science 46, 35–56. Roberts, Robert C. (2003): Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, Angela (2005): "Responsibility for Attitudes", Ethics 115, 236–271. Smith, Angela (2011): "Guilty Thoughts", in: Morality and the Emotions, ed. by Bagnoli, New York: Oxford University Press, 235–256. Strawson, Peter F. (1962): "Freedom and Resentment", Proceedings of the British Academy 48, 1–25. Swafford, Jan (2014): Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Tognazzini, Neal A./Coates, D. Justin (2018): "Blame", in: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), ed. by Zalta, URL = https://plato. stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/blame/. Watson, Gary (ed.) (2003): Free Will, 2nd ed., New York: Oxford University Press. Watson, Gary (2013): "Standing in Judgment", in: Blame: Its Nature and Norms, ed. by Coates/Tognazzini, New York: Oxford University Press, 282–301. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953): Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Blackwell 2001. | {
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Scientific Imperialism; edited by Uskali Mäki, Adrian Walsh and Manuela Fernández Pinto Format: Royal (156 × 234mm); Style: A; Font: Bembo; Dir: P:/Frontlist Production Teams/eProduction/Live Projects/9781138059344/ dtp/9781138059344_text.3d; 11 Scientific imperialism and explanatory appeals to evolution in the social sciences Stephen M. Downes Introduction In this chapter I focus on what the charge of scientific imperialism amounts to and whether the charge is (always) appropriate in the case of the relation between evolutionary biology and the social and behavioral sciences. I will then briefly introduce two very different examples of this relationship: evolutionary psychology and evolutionary linguistics. Here I hope to support the claim that relations between evolution and the study of human behavior are not all created equal. Next I move to a discussion of scientific imperialism and the way in which the concept has been proposed, developed and defended. Here I focus on John Dupré's account of scientific imperialism, as this account was developed to critically assess evolutionary psychology (along with economics). I go on to propose an empirically based approach to scientific change that I hope can help in identifying the strengths and limitations of appeals to scientific imperialism. Here I will draw on an analogy between the ways in which empirical approaches to scientific change helped refine the notion of scientific revolutions and the ways in which related empirical approaches may help refine our notion of scientific imperialism. My interest in scientific imperialism stems from claims like this made by John Dupré: "Evolutionary psychology can be seen as a failed imperialist adventure from evolutionary biology" (Dupré 2001, 16). I have critically appraised evolutionary psychology from a number of different perspectives (see e.g. Downes 2015), and when I first encountered Dupré's charge of imperialism I assumed that he was invoking an independent critical perspective on evolutionary psychology. Here I will reassess this initial assumption. There are several issues that are relevant to this reassessment. First, evolutionary psychology is a quite distinct "adventure" from evolutionary biology. There are other applications of aspects of biological theory in the social and behavioral sciences that raise very few eyebrows and do not seem to warrant the charge of imperialism, where "imperialism" is understood as a pejorative term. Second, there are many critics of evolutionary psychology who criticize it on the grounds that its proponents do not pay enough attention to evolutionary biology and many base their critical attacks on evolutionary psychology in evolutionary theory. Third, the very Scientific Imperialism; edited by Uskali Mäki, Adrian Walsh and Manuela Fernández Pinto Format: Royal (156 × 234mm); Style: A; Font: Bembo; Dir: P:/Frontlist Production Teams/eProduction/Live Projects/9781138059344/ dtp/9781138059344_text.3d; notion of scientific imperialism has undergone some serious critical appraisal. There are many promising analyses of scientific imperialism but there are still plenty of issues unresolved (many of these issues are confronted in other chapters in this volume). For example, if scientific imperialism is used in a pejorative sense, is the charge an epistemic one or a moral one? Further, when we discuss change in science in terms of scientific imperialism, are we discussing an issue internal or external to science? This latter issue invokes discussion of another political metaphor in philosophy of science, Thomas Kuhn's scientific revolutions (Kuhn 1962). I propose that discussion of the metaphor of scientific imperialism in relation to empirical work on scientific change can be as productive as discussion of Kuhn's famous metaphor of revolutions in relation to relevant empirical work. Finally, I touch on the broader connections between empirical work, in the sociology of science, for example, and the epistemic appraisal of scientific work. Can we say that a given piece of scientific work is bad on the basis of an assessment of the institutional practices scientists engage in without any detailed examination of the relevant hypotheses and the testing of those hypotheses? Is it possible to completely distinguish the assessment of institutional practice from epistemic appraisal? 1 Evolution and the social sciences In the conclusion of The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin says: "In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history" (see e.g. Downes 2015). Darwin went on to write the Descent of Man and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, delivering on his promise rather than waiting for researchers in a distant future. Now, almost every avenue of social and behavioral science has an evolutionary branch or shows the influence of some kind of evolutionary thinking. Evolutionary anthropology is a well-established part of anthropology with several in field journals and one or two entire departments dedicated only to this mode of anthropological research. In cognitive psychology, a large percentage of hypotheses are accompanied by some evolutionary speculation, such as to postulate that the psychological mechanism of interest is part of the evolutionarily older part of the brain. Dual process theory in cognitive psychology is presented against the background of loosely evolutionary considerations. In the last ten years, consumer studies researchers have proposed a reworking of their field that draws upon evolutionary ideas. The kind of evolutionary thinking invoked in the wide range of social sciences varies greatly. Also the ways in which the relevant evolutionary thinking is brought into the different social sciences varies greatly, as does the source of the relevant evolutionary thought. This variation should be of great interest to all of us interested in scientific imperialism and especially those of us who aim Scientific imperialism in the social sciences 225 Scientific Imperialism; edited by Uskali Mäki, Adrian Walsh and Manuela Fernández Pinto Format: Royal (156 × 234mm); Style: A; Font: Bembo; Dir: P:/Frontlist Production Teams/eProduction/Live Projects/9781138059344/ dtp/9781138059344_text.3d; to understand the introduction of evolutionary ideas into the social sciences as a case of scientific imperialism. I only lay out two brief examples of evolutionary social sciences here, but I hope that the contrast between the two adequately illustrates these points. I will briefly discuss the well-known field of evolutionary psychology and then turn to a likely less familiar sub-discipline of the larger field of evolutionary linguistics. 2 Evolutionary psychology Evolutionary psychology was proposed and defended by a number of different researchers in the late 1980s. Proponents of evolutionary psychology included anthropologists and psychologists along with human sociobiologists and others who studied human behavior. Some key experiments were championed by evolutionary psychologists as providing strong support for evolutionary hypotheses about the way the human mind works and leading thinkers in the field produced theoretical papers, and subsequently books, to lay out the key theoretical tenets and methodologies of the new field. Examples of this early experimental work include David Buss (1989) on mate selection, Leda Cosmides (1989) on cheater detection and Devendra Singh (1993) on women's waist/hip ratio preferences in men. Theoretical work included John Tooby and Cosmides's (1992) long position paper on evolutionary psychology, which they shortened into the still highly cited and much more accessible primer on Evolutionary Psychology (1997), and papers by Buss. Buss also wrote the first evolutionary psychology textbook (1999) and edited The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2005). Evolutionary psychology has always been highly visible, thanks in large part to the success of popular works championing the field. Robert Wright's The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology (1994) and Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works (1997) are hugely popular works. Each author provides nice, accessible introductions to evolutionary psychology and also vehemently attacks all work on the social and behavioral sciences that does not appeal to evolution or, worse still, that is in direct opposition to evolutionary approaches. There are many other popular evolutionary psychology books and several of these are highly controversial and provocative. Books such as Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer's A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion (2000) and Buss's The Murderer Next Door: Why The Mind is Designed to Kill (2005) proved incredibly controversial and are lightning rods for much of the backlash against evolutionary psychology. Taking a look at Buss's (1995) theoretical paper and Clark Barrett's (2015) recent book helps us understand what evolutionary psychologists proposed at the outset and reveals the central tenets of the now somewhat more mature field. Buss challenges his colleagues in psychology, saying: "Psychological science is currently in conceptual disarray, characterized by unconnected minitheories and isolated empirical findings. [...] Evolutionary psychology provides 226 Stephen M. Downes Scientific Imperialism; edited by Uskali Mäki, Adrian Walsh and Manuela Fernández Pinto Format: Royal (156 × 234mm); Style: A; Font: Bembo; Dir: P:/Frontlist Production Teams/eProduction/Live Projects/9781138059344/ dtp/9781138059344_text.3d; the conceptual tools for emerging from this fragmented state" (Buss 1995, 1). The relevant conceptual tools include treating the human mind as a collection of adaptations that were selected to solve the various adaptive problems our ancestors faced. Understanding organs as adaptations is a key component of evolutionary biology. Darwin countered design theorists such as Paley by defending the view that an organ as complex as the human eye could arise as the result of gradual modification, guided by selection, over huge stretches of time. Adapting Darwin, evolutionary psychologists propose that we understand the mind as a collection of highly adapted mental organs and we account for the existence of these mental organs by appealing to adaptation or natural selection. Evolutionary psychologists argue that this account of the human mind better explains the results of experiments on human preferences and on human reasoning. Singh's work on waist/hip ratio preferences in men involves first showing a convergence on a particular preferred waist/hip ratio and then explaining this convergence by appealing to an evolved mental mechanism that helps men achieve success in mate selection (see e.g. Singh 1993). Buss provides this assessment of the promise of evolutionary psychology: From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, many traditional disciplinary boundaries are not merely arbitrary but are misleading and detrimental to progress. They imply boundaries that cleave mechanisms in arbitrary and unnatural ways. Studying human psychology via adaptive problems and their solutions provides a natural means of "cleaving nature at its joints" and hence crossing current disciplinary boundaries. (Buss 1995, 1) Assessing the current state of play in evolutionary psychology 20 years after Buss's paper, Barrett says: "Unfortunately, the rise of evolutionary psychology has led to rampant generation of evolution-flavored hypotheses throughout the social sciences, not all of which pass basic tests of evolutionary plausibility" (Barrett 2015, 12). Barrett claims: "When done properly, evolutionary psychology is just evolutionary biology applied to the mind" (ibid., 12). Barrett's aim is to realign evolutionary psychology with evolutionary thinking in general. He argues that "not all evolutionary hypotheses are created equal, and that careful thinking about how evolution actually works [...] can get you a long way" (ibid., 12), and aims to provide "an evolutionary psychology grounded as rigorously as possible in the logic of biology – the logic of evolution – and no other" (ibid., 12). Barrett is convinced that "the fact that human minds are products of evolution is something that we can be as sure of as any other fact in biology" (ibid., 12). Echoing Buss, Barrett claims that evolutionary models are far preferable "than the currently rather impoverished set of models in psychology" (ibid., 12). Evolutionary psychologists claim to offer their colleagues in psychology and other social sciences a stronger explanatory repertoire that can account for a wide range of phenomena. Scientific imperialism in the social sciences 227 Scientific Imperialism; edited by Uskali Mäki, Adrian Walsh and Manuela Fernández Pinto Format: Royal (156 × 234mm); Style: A; Font: Bembo; Dir: P:/Frontlist Production Teams/eProduction/Live Projects/9781138059344/ dtp/9781138059344_text.3d; 3 Evolutionary linguistics I now turn to a contrasting example of work in the social sciences influenced by evolution: Russell Gray and his colleagues'work on human migration in the Pacific (Gray et al. 2009; Gray and Jordan 2000). In the 1990s there were two main hypotheses about the original human settlement of the Micronesian and Polynesian Pacific islands and neighboring areas. One hypothesis is that this settlement process was quite rapid. This is referred to as the "express train" hypothesis. The other hypothesis is of a slower and less direct migration pattern with looping and backtracking, sometimes referred to as the "entangled bank" model. Linguists have observed that the inhabitants of the Pacific all share related languages. Gray proposed that quantitative phylogenetic techniques could be applied to the analysis of languages and tree structures relating relevant languages could be proposed and tested. In phylogenetics, trees are produced to assess hypotheses about relations between segments of DNA. Gray observes that languages have a syntactic structure that is amenable to similar analysis. Gray notes that despite the parallels between biological and linguistic evolution, before him, no linguists had appealed to the "quantitative phylogenetic methods that have revolutionized evolutionary biology in the last 20 years" (Gray and Jordan 2000, 1052; Gray et al. 2009). Gray and his colleagues produced several trees and assessed the best trees for the language data sets using statistical methods from quantitative phylogenetics. In their first work of this kind, they found that the topology of their language tree "was highly compatible with the express train model" (Gray and Jordan 2000, 1052). In more recent work, they developed language trees that were compatible with the "pause-pulse" model of human settlement as opposed to its main competitor, the "slow-boat diffusion" model. Gray and his colleagues exploit the similarity between lexical items and sections of DNA and use the techniques from evolutionary biology used to discover relations between sections of DNA. At this stage of the work, there are no grand claims about the applicability of evolution to all of linguistics or other areas of social science. Rather, Gray and his colleagues have introduced a technique from evolutionary biology into one area of work in linguistics and the study of early human migration. There is potential for the application of phylogenetic analysis to other aspects of human cultural evolution, and Fiona Jordan (see e.g. Jordan 2013) has made some cautious forays into this area. 4 Scientific imperialism I now turn to scientific imperialism. Recall that my interest in scientific imperialism was sparked by Dupré's claim that "[e]volutionary psychology can be seen as a failed imperialist adventure from evolutionary biology" (Dupré 2001, 16). My focus therefore will be on Dupré's notion of scientific imperialism. My understanding of Dupré's notion of scientific imperialism has been greatly helped by work by Steve Clarke and Adrian Walsh (2009, 2013), and Uskali Mäki (2009, 2013), and their influence will be seen in what follows here. 228 Stephen M. Downes Scientific Imperialism; edited by Uskali Mäki, Adrian Walsh and Manuela Fernández Pinto Format: Royal (156 × 234mm); Style: A; Font: Bembo; Dir: P:/Frontlist Production Teams/eProduction/Live Projects/9781138059344/ dtp/9781138059344_text.3d; Dupré says that scientific imperialism is "the tendency for a successful scientific idea to be applied far beyond its original home, and generally with decreasing success the more its application is expanded" (Dupré 2001, 16). I agree with Clarke and Walsh (2009) that Dupré uses imperialism in a pejorative sense and also agree with them that this is clearly a political metaphor used in the service of understanding science. The most familiar political metaphor in the philosophy of science is Kuhn's (1962) scientific revolution. I return to scientific revolutions below. Clarke and Walsh (2009) emphasize the normative dimension of Dupré's scientific imperialism. They express this normative dimension as follows: "In the human sciences, scientific imperialism raises an additional concern, which is that important human values could fail to be expressed, and we might become the sorts of people that, on reflection, we would not wish to have become" (Clarke and Walsh 2009, 205). I agree that Dupré is concerned that scientizing the study of human behavior can lead to a lack of appreciation for values but I also think that there is a strongly epistemic normative component to Dupré's charge of scientific imperialism. He thinks that scientific imperialism produces bad science not just science that leads us to devalue ourselves. Mäki asks an important question in this context too: is evolutionary psychology bad science independent of any considerations about scientific imperialism (Mäki 2013, 238)? Dupré certainly has argued on independent grounds that evolutionary psychology is bad science but I take him also to be arguing that it is bad science because of its imperialism. Let us look at Dupré's version of scientific imperialism in a little more detail to see if this holds up. Dupré says "imperialistic economics is a deliberate attempt to import the perspective of economics into many diverse facets of human behavior" (Dupré 2001, 16). I think he would be happy with the following reworking of this claim: imperialistic evolutionary psychology is a deliberate attempt to import the perspective of evolutionary biology into many diverse facets of human behavior. According to Dupré, the problem here is that the imperialist imposes a general structural, or scientific theoretical, perspective irrespective of the nuances of context. He goes on to spell this out by discussing structure. The idea is that if you take yourself to have an account of the underlying structure of something, say human beings, you apply that structural account whenever you come across a human being. Dupré says that taking note of the relevant context will undermine such structural accounts and they will be "doomed to failure" (ibid., 16). The positive side to Dupré's proposal is pluralism, which he contrasts with imperialism. He says that we cannot properly understand any central features of human life from "any unique and homogeneous perspective" and "[t]he moral of pluralism, therefore, is not to point to better ways of doing science [...] but to show the limits of science, at least in its application to the complexities of human life" (ibid., 17). Dupré admits that what he takes to be a problem with imperialist ventures in science is for others a mark of their success and what makes them attractive to their adherents. For example, he thinks that what attracts people to evolutionary psychology is its "claims to breadth of application" (ibid., 81). He also says that "[o]bvious rewards and attractions Scientific imperialism in the social sciences 229 Scientific Imperialism; edited by Uskali Mäki, Adrian Walsh and Manuela Fernández Pinto Format: Royal (156 × 234mm); Style: A; Font: Bembo; Dir: P:/Frontlist Production Teams/eProduction/Live Projects/9781138059344/ dtp/9781138059344_text.3d; accrue to the pursuit of scientific ideas with the greatest claims to generality of application" (ibid., 84). Dupré is not just concerned with generality understood in terms of the wide scope of application of the imperialist science but also in the sense that imperialist sciences stay above the level of what matters empirically. Evolutionary psychologists' "most imperialistic moments," he says, "are also the moments at which they are most inclined to substitute purely formal demonstrations of possibility for the hard work of demonstrating actuality" (ibid., 138). Perhaps the following characterization, which I have adapted from Mäki's analysis of imperialist economics, best captures Dupré's scientific imperialism: Evolutionary psychology is an example of scientific imperialism as it is the result of scientific expansionism of evolutionary biology. Evolutionary psychology locates new types of explanandum phenomena in psychology and other social sciences, and evolutionary psychology presents itself hegemonically as being in possession of superior theories and methods, thereby excluding rival theories and approaches from consideration. (adapted from Mäki 2009, 374) Further, Dupré takes the newly imported theories to be mistaken in various ways and hence detrimental to psychology and other social sciences. This assessment is made on independent grounds from the attribution of imperialism but bringing mistaken theories to bear renders the imperialism more pernicious. Dupré presents what I take to be a somewhat different view of scientific imperialism from the one outlined above when he says the following: "whether it is from commendable epistemological enthusiasm, or from the desire to become rich and famous through writing best selling books, the tendency to exaggerate the scope of the theory with which one is professionally engaged is a familiar aspect of scientific life. I referred to this phenomenon above as scientific imperialism" (Dupré 2001, 82, emphasis added). This seems to be a distinct notion from the one we have been focusing on so far. Clearly this notion is related but it pertains to popularizers of imperialistic science rather than practitioners. He gives examples: "physicists envisage final theories of everything, and not surprisingly these turn out to be physical theories" and "Darwinians, or their camp-followers, make almost equally ambitious claims. Recall the remark from Dennett [...] 'Darwin's dangerous idea is reductionism incarnate, promising to unite and explain almost everything in one magnificent vision'" (ibid., 82). I agree that popularizers of various sciences tend to exaggerate their scope of application but I take the charge of scientific imperialism to be part of an epistemic criticism of the relevant science rather than part of a critical appraisal of popular science writing. It is certainly annoying when popular science writers exaggerate and misrepresent the claims of the scientists they promote but the relevant scientists are not directly responsible for these exaggerated claims. There are many popular works that focus on sciences that promote easily digestible and widely applicable general ideas and so the 230 Stephen M. Downes Scientific Imperialism; edited by Uskali Mäki, Adrian Walsh and Manuela Fernández Pinto Format: Royal (156 × 234mm); Style: A; Font: Bembo; Dir: P:/Frontlist Production Teams/eProduction/Live Projects/9781138059344/ dtp/9781138059344_text.3d; approach to science may influence its broad appeal. It should be noted, though, that there are also bestsellers, for example, Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time (1988), whose content is completely obscure to most lay readers and yet sales indicate that this work has wide appeal. A detailed sociological examination of evolutionary psychology will doubtless reveal various connections between popular works on progress in the field and actual practice in the lab. For now, though, I want to focus just on Dupré's narrower version of scientific imperialism, characterized in Mäki's terms. 5 Empirical challenges for claims of imperialism Kuhn (1962) characterizes scientific change in terms of scientific revolutions. We all grasp the outlines of Kuhn's view. A period of normal science guided by a paradigm starts to break down and a period of revolutionary science takes over. Many philosophers of science argue that Kuhn's approach to scientific change is irrationalist or arational, but many in history and sociology of science are not as worried about this issue and focus more on the facts on the ground in times of scientific change. The issues here are the extent to which Kuhn's characterization fits with the way in which actual theory change occurs in science or the way in which theory change has occurred in specific instances in the history of science. Mäki asks "what does it take to empirically identify instances of scientific imperialism?" (Mäki 2013, 338). As he points out, though, there are currently a number of different notions of scientific imperialism. Rather than trying to identify instances of scientific imperialism empirically, I propose comparing particular versions of scientific imperialism to the relevant empirical facts in their specific domain of application. I focus on some of Dupré's claims about evolutionary psychology as an imperialist venture and contrast them with some empirical observations about the field. First, I briefly outline an analogous move directed at Kuhn. One question about scientific change is how the new theory/paradigm/ research program, etc. can take hold when the folks who held the old view are still around. Kuhn held that Planck's principle was explanatorily relevant here. Planck said that new theories do not come to the fore because opponents to the theory come to accept it, but rather the opponents die off. A related idea of Planck's, popular among many scientists and historians and philosophers of science, is that younger scientists take up newer ideas more readily. David Hull and his collaborators (Hull et al. 1978) point out that these claims are open to empirical test, as the birth and death records of scientists throughout history are readily available. Hull also points out that it is more difficult to assess when scientists come to adopt "various positions on scientific issues," but not impossible. Hull focuses on the incredibly rapid adoption of Darwin's ideas in Britain shortly after the publication of The Origin of Species. In a mere ten years after the publication of The Origin of Species, Darwin's ideas had become dominant. Not all relevant scientists accepted Darwin's ideas after ten years, but Hull's finding is that "age explains less than 10 percent of the variation in Scientific imperialism in the social sciences 231 Scientific Imperialism; edited by Uskali Mäki, Adrian Walsh and Manuela Fernández Pinto Format: Royal (156 × 234mm); Style: A; Font: Bembo; Dir: P:/Frontlist Production Teams/eProduction/Live Projects/9781138059344/ dtp/9781138059344_text.3d; acceptance" (ibid., 202). The Darwinian revolution may have come about due to extra-scientific factors but Hull reveals that the age of scientists was not one of the most important factors. Dupré makes a number of claims about the imperialism of evolutionary psychology that are open to empirical investigation. One is that evolutionary psychology is an "imperialist adventure from evolutionary biology" (Dupré 2001, 16). Evolutionary psychologists certainly couch their claims in evolutionary language but the most consistent criticism of evolutionary psychology since its inception is one or other version of the claim that evolutionary psychologists do not have the biology right. A related criticism is that evolutionary psychologists do not carry out experiments that confront evolutionary hypotheses. Evolutionary biologists have been some of the harshest critics of evolutionary psychology. John Maynard Smith claimed that evolutionary psychologists had not produced any models that were ready for appropriate testing. Richard Lewontin has argued that evolutionary psychologists employ an impoverished notion of adaption, and Jerry Coyne (see e.g. Coyne 2009) attacks evolutionary psychology on a number of evolutionary grounds. Clark Barrett's (2015) recent assessment of evolutionary psychology includes voicing concerns over how far from evolutionary theory his evolutionary psychology colleagues have strayed. Perhaps evolutionary psychology is an imperialist venture but it is a homegrown one. The appropriate political metaphor here is perhaps a coup, a movement cooked up by insiders using what they take to be the conceptual tools of a field that they admire. If the empire is not backing your adventure, it is perhaps not an imperialist adventure. As we have seen, Dupré sees a connection between ideas with general applicability and imperialist moves in science. He also says "[o]bvious rewards and attractions accrue to the pursuit of scientific ideas with the greatest claims to generality of application" (Dupré 2001, 84). This sounds right, but like Planck's claims about science, it is also amenable to empirical investigation. One way in which we can measure both the rewards an idea accrues and its attractiveness is via citation analysis. If we assume for now that this is a reasonable measure, let us use it to test Dupré's claim. Recent research on the most-cited work of all time reveals a rather surprising result with respect to the generality of scientific work (Van Noorden et al. 2014). The most-cited paper of all time is a paper describing an assay for determining the amount of protein in a solution. No groundbreaking theoretical papers in any field, such as theoretical work leading to Nobel Prizes, come anywhere close to the top 100 most-cited papers. The top 100 papers are overwhelmingly those characterizing biological techniques (see Figure 11.1, for more data such as this). Certainly some of this work has led to Nobel Prizes but none of this work is paradigmatically general. The work certainly has wide applicability in experimental contexts and is tremendously useful but it is not work of the scope of the General Theory of Relativity. Citation analysis is only one way to measure the success and attractiveness of scientific ideas but if we use citations as an index of success, generality is not the route to success in science. It should be noted that 232 Stephen M. Downes Scientific Imperialism; edited by Uskali Mäki, Adrian Walsh and Manuela Fernández Pinto Format: Royal (156 × 234mm); Style: A; Font: Bembo; Dir: P:/Frontlist Production Teams/eProduction/Live Projects/9781138059344/ dtp/9781138059344_text.3d; citation analysis does not provide clear access to epistemic success. For example, increased citation count could simply mean increased popularity. However, there are good reasons to believe that scientific works are cited, for the most part, for their scientific content. This indicates that we should have some confidence in the conclusion here that generality is not a sure route to success in science. Figure 11.1 Scientific imperialism in the social sciences 233 Scientific Imperialism; edited by Uskali Mäki, Adrian Walsh and Manuela Fernández Pinto Format: Royal (156 × 234mm); Style: A; Font: Bembo; Dir: P:/Frontlist Production Teams/eProduction/Live Projects/9781138059344/ dtp/9781138059344_text.3d; I have no doubt that various non-epistemic factors play an important role in sustaining evolutionary psychology but I am skeptical that evolutionary psychology is sustained by evolutionary biologists and I am also skeptical that it is successful because its ideas have general applicability. It may be true that evolutionary psychology has popular appeal because it appears to be based in evolutionary biology and, when sloganized, its central ideas seem widely applicable. As I mentioned above, though, I think that the popular uptake of a given scientific field is neither a measure of its success nor a mark of the extent to which it is imperialist. 6 Conclusion If the evidence supports my claim that evolutionary psychology is not supported by evolutionary biology and is therefore not best understood as an "adventure from evolutionary biology," perhaps that component can be dropped from our characterization of Dupré's scientific imperialism. Recall, I borrowed from Mäki to give this characterization: "Evolutionary psychology is an example of scientific imperialism as it is the result of scientific expansionism of evolutionary biology. Evolutionary psychology locates new types of explanandum phenomena in psychology and other social sciences, and evolutionary psychology presents itself hegemonically as being in possession of superior theories and methods, thereby excluding rival theories and approaches from consideration" (adapted from Mäki 2009, 374). Here is a characterization without the clause about expansionism from evolutionary biology: "Evolutionary psychology is an example of scientific imperialism as it locates new types of explanandum phenomena in psychology and other social sciences, and evolutionary psychology presents itself hegemonically as being in possession of superior theories and methods, thereby excluding rival theories and approaches from consideration." This perhaps better captures the activity of evolutionary psychologists on the ground, but without the expansionist component, does this adequately capture scientific imperialism? Is a hegemonic approach coupled with a broadening of the scope of application and excluding rival theories sufficient for imperialism? Evolutionary psychology is clearly a very different endeavor from the type of evolutionary linguistics I introduced earlier. Evolutionary psychologists are very confrontational in their approach to their fellow social scientists and much of their work has a triumphal air to it. Even Barrett, who is relatively moderate in his approach, champions evolutionary psychology over the "impoverished set of models in psychology" (Barrett 2015, 12). I am not sure if refining our notion of scientific imperialism will help us better understand a field like evolutionary psychology. Perhaps other related political metaphors are more appropriate in this context. I do think that careful empirical analysis of evolutionary psychology, such as citation analysis, may reveal more about the dynamics of the field and help us understand its success in the face of apparently cogent and damaging criticism of its central ideas. In contrast, evolutionary linguistics appears not to be a candidate for scientific imperialism in Dupré's 234 Stephen M. Downes Scientific Imperialism; edited by Uskali Mäki, Adrian Walsh and Manuela Fernández Pinto Format: Royal (156 × 234mm); Style: A; Font: Bembo; Dir: P:/Frontlist Production Teams/eProduction/Live Projects/9781138059344/ dtp/9781138059344_text.3d; terms. The evolutionary linguists considered above do not present their approach in order to exclude rivals, and display none of the hegemonic tendencies Dupré sees in evolutionary psychology. The case of evolutionary linguistics does reveal problems for Dupré, as if scientific imperialism in this domain simply consisted in transporting evolutionary views into social science, then it too would be imperialist. To rule out evolutionary linguistics as a case of imperialism requires stressing the clause about excluding rival theories and approaches. 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forthcoming in Lütge C, Rusch H & Uhl M (eds.), Experimental Ethics. Palgrave Macmillan Trolleys and Double Effect in Experimental Ethics Ezio Di Nucci (Universität Duisburg-Essen, [email protected]) Abstract I analyse the relationship between the Doctrine of Double Effect and the Trolley Problem: the former offers a solution for the latter only on the premise that killing the one in Bystander at the Switch is permissible. Here I offer both empirical and theoretical arguments against the permissibility of killing the one: firstly, I present data from my own empirical studies according to which the intuition that killing the one is permissible is neither widespread nor stable; secondly, I defend a normative principle according to which killing the one in Bystander at the Switch is not permissible. In conclusion, there just is no trolley problem. 1. Trolleys and Double Effect In one of analytic philosophy's infamous thought‐experiments, a runaway trolley is about to kill five workmen who cannot move off the tracks quickly enough; their only chance is for a bystander to flip a switch to divert the trolley onto a side‐track, where one workman would be killed. In a parallel scenario, the bystander's only chance to save the five is to push a fat man off a bridge onto the tracks: that will stop the trolley but the fat man will die. Why is it permissible for the bystander to divert the trolley onto the one workman by pressing the switch while it is not permissible for the bystander to stop the trolley by pushing the fat man off the bridge? This is the so‐called Trolley Problem, resulting from Judith Jarvis Thomson's (1976 & 1985) adaptation of an example from Philippa Foot (1967). If it is permissible to intervene in the so‐called Bystander at the Switch scenario while it is not permissible to intervene in the so‐called Fat Man scenario, then the Trolley Problem arises and we must explain the moral difference between these two cases. And if the results of Marc Hauser's Moral Sense Test are to be believed, then according to public opinion it is indeed permissible to intervene in the former case (around 90% of respondents to the Moral Sense Test thought as much – Hauser 2006: 139) while it is not permissible to intervene in the latter case (only around 10% of respondents thought it permissible to intervene). The Doctrine of Double Effect is a normative principle according to which in pursuing the good it is sometimes morally permissible to bring about some evil as a side-effect or merely foreseen consequence: the same evil would not be morally justified as an intended means or end. i The Doctrine of Double Effect, it could be argued, offers a possible answer to the Trolley Problem, because it can be deployed to argue that the difference in moral permissibility results from the one being killed as a means to saving the five in Fat Man; while in Bystander at the Switch the killing of the one is a mere side-effect of saving the five. In this respect, as long as the Trolley Problem remains 'unsolved' it offers dialectical support to the Doctrine of Double Effect. So the connection between the Doctrine of Double Effect and the 2 Trolley Problem is dialectically very simple: the Trolley Problem counts as an argument in favour of the Doctrine in so far as it remains an unresolved problem and in so far as the Doctrine offers a possible solution to this unresolved problem. The relationship between the Doctrine of Double Effect and the Trolley Problem can be then summarized as follows: (1) The Doctrine of Double Effect offers a solution to the Trolley Problem; (2) The two scenarios which constitute the Trolley Problem illustrate the distinction between 'means' and 'side-effects' which, according to the Doctrine of Double Effect, is morally relevant; (3) Widespread moral intuitions about the Trolley Problem suggest that, just as the Doctrine of Double Effect says, the distinction between 'means' and 'side-effects' is indeed morally relevant. The philosophical debate on the Doctrine of Double Effect faces a continuing stall: on the one hand the Doctrine has – intuitively much to be said in its favour, but on the other hand it cannot be coherently formulated and applied (as I have argued at length in my book Ethics Without Intention). How are we then to overcome this philosophical stall, which often leads to endorsement of the Doctrine notwithstanding its 'problems of application' (as Thomas Nagel put it)?ii I think that it isn't enough to criticise the Doctrine of Double Effect; we must, in the spirit of Philippa Foot, also offer an alternative explanation of the cases, such as the Trolley Problem, which motivate it.iii To this end here I defend both empirically and theoretically a recent argument for the claim that there is no trolley problem because even in Bystander at the Switch it is not permissible to intervene: on the empirical side of things, I present data showing that the intuition that intervening in Bystander at the Switch is permissible is neither stable nor widespread and that it is subject to some classic order effects. And on the theoretical side I defend the normative claim that intervening is not permissible. 2. The empirical argument against the permissibility of killing the one There are two obvious ways to go about the Trolley Problem: one can either explain the moral difference between the two scenarios, or one can deny that there is such a difference, by either denying that it is permissible to kill the one workman in Bystander at the Switch or by denying that it is not permissible to kill the fat man in the other scenario. Interestingly, Thomson (2008) herself has recently argued that there is no Trolley Problem by denying that it is permissible to intervene in Bystander at the Switch. Thomson's argument moves from a variant in which you also have the chance to divert the trolley onto yourself (you are on a third track and you can't move off it quickly enough). If you would not be willing to divert the trolley onto yourself – sacrificing your own life to save the five – then it would be preposterous to sacrifice someone else: it is just not fair. Someone who would not sacrifice herself in this new scenario ought not to sacrifice someone else in the original Bystander at the Switch; or so Thomson argues: "Since he wouldn't himself pay the cost of his good deed if he could pay it, there is no way in which he can 3 decently regard himself as entitled to make someone else pay it" (2008: 366). Here folk intuitions aren't clear-cut: 43% would still kill the one; 38% would commit self-sacrifice; and 19% would not act, letting the trolley kill the five (Huebner & Hauser 2011). If these numbers are to be believed, they can be used against Thomson's argument, since more than 40% would still kill the one; but also in favour of it, since almost 40% would commit self-sacrifice; and, perhaps more importantly, the majority (almost 60%) would now not kill the one, while in the traditional Bystander at the Switch it was only around 10%.iv But there is another respect in which the numbers are not decisive: Thomson's argument is about the effect of this new three-way scenario on the traditional two-way Bystander at the Switch. And these numbers are silent on that – what should then be tested is how folk intuitions would respond to the traditional scenario after having been subjected to the new three-way scenario: if the 9 to 1 proportion would even out somewhat, that would speak in favour of Thomson's argument. Experiments that I conducted suggested just that: participants who were not previously familiar with any of the trolley scenarios were presented first with Thomson's new three-way scenario and then with the traditional Bystander at the Switch. Answers to Bystander at the Switch were radically different from the 9 to 1 proportion identified by Hauser, so much so that the majority (61,34%) opted to let the five workmen die. For details on my studies please see Di Nucci (2013a): here I will just graphically sum up the results and then discuss them. Figure 1: The Trolley Trilemma So it seems that the apparently overwhelming intuition that intervening in Bystander is permissible disappears when subjects are presented with Bystander only after they have been asked about Thomson's new scenario. Indeed, after having considered a scenario in 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% self-sacrifice trilemma first dilemma first other trilemma first flip no flip 4 which they could also sacrifice themselves, a majority of subjects appear to think that intervening in Bystander is not permissible. As anticipated above, these results support Thomson's claim that her new scenario has a bearing on the permissibility of intervening in Bystander: we can suppose that subjects who have just been asked about the self -sacrifice scenario may overwhelmingly opt to let the five die in Bystander at the Switch because they now recognise that they may not do to the one what they would not do to themselves. It may be objected that these results do not support Thomson's new argument; they rather just show that the relevant moral intuitions are very unstable. This is after all the conclusion Swain et al. (2008) drew following their own experimental philosophy studies where the order in which the cases were presented affected results (see also, for other examples of this sort of effect, Petrinovich & O'Neill 1996; Sinnott-Armstrong 2008; Wiegmann et al. 2010). I think that the dialectic of Thomson's argument is such that our results do support it, because her argument is about the effect of the new case on the old one; but even if you disagree, then our results would show, in line with Swain et al. (2008), that the Bystander intuition is unstable and that it depends on the order of presentation so heavily that it disappears (less than 40% have it) when Bystander is first introduced after Thomson's new self-sacrifice case. Even if Hauser's data is reliable, then, the numbers are not decisive one way or another for Thomson's argument, because they can be interpreted both in favour of Thomson's argument and against it, and because the more relevant questions have not been asked – when the right questions are asked, then, as our numbers above show, intuitions seem to support Thomson's argument.v 3. The theoretical argument against the permissibility of killing the one The empirical challenges against Thomson fail then; but there has also been a theoretical critique of Thomson's new argument. According to Thomson, her new case brings out the principle that "A must not kill B to save five if he can instead kill himself to save the five" (2008: 365). William J. FitzPatrick has recently argued (2009) against this principle by suggesting that the values of equality and fairness that Thomson's argument appeals to can be captured by a weaker principle that does not support Thomson's conclusion. According to FitzPatrick, we need not accept, with Thomson, that "A's respecting B as a moral equal requires that A not sacrifice B (without B's consent) for end E unless A would be willing to sacrifice himself for E if he could do so instead" (2009: 639). Moral equality may be satisfied by appeal to the weaker principle according to which "A's respecting B as a moral equal requires that A not sacrifice B for end E unless A recognizes B's equal right to sacrifice A for E if their positions were reversed" (639). On the former principle, I may not sacrifice the bystander if I would not be willing to sacrifice myself; but on the latter principle I may, as long as I recognise the bystander's right to sacrifice me if our positions were reversed. On this latter understanding, then, fairness would not support Thomson's argument that it is not permissible to intervene in Bystander at the Switch. It may be argued that employing FitzPatrick's latter principle in the debate on the Trolley Problem is methodologically suspect because it introduces 'rights': what's at stake are exactly the sort of fundamental principles that may be deployed to justify rights, rather than the other way around. But there is a bigger worry with FitzPatrick's alternative principle: the problem is that this is no principle to capture fairness or, as FitzPatrick puts it, "respecting others as moral equals" (2009: 639). His principle amounts to the Law of the Jungle: it just 5 says that whoever happens to find herself at the switch may take advantage of this (lucky or otherwise) circumstance and kill the other. It doesn't have anything to do with fairness or equality; it is sheer power and privilege. The point is not whether this perspective is defensible; it is just that, even if it is, this is not the point of view of fairness or 'respecting others as moral equals'. Here the dialectic of the argument is important: FitzPatrick doesn't argue for his alternative principle on the grounds that Thomson's own principle is flawed, but only on the grounds that his own less demanding principle also accounts for fairness and 'respecting others as moral equals'. That is why what is crucial is whether his principle does indeed account for fairness and 'respecting others as moral equals' rather than whether it is, in absolute terms, defensible. This alternative principle does not support FitzPatrick's argument. What about the principle's intrinsic value, so to speak? In some particular set of circumstances, I may kill you only if I recognise your equal right to kill me if our positions were reversed. What may my recognition of your equal right to kill me amount to? Maybe if you were at the switch and diverted the trolley towards me, my recognition of your equal right to kill me means that I may not, as I die, swear at you; or that, as the trolley approaches, I should quickly try to write a note saying that I don't blame you. But wouldn't that problematically amount to consent? This would be problematic because the question is whether I may divert the trolley onto your track irrespective of your consent. But I think it is both complicated and uncharitable to test the principle's intrinsic value on the Trolley Problem. What about its more general application? The idea that I recognise your right to kill me if our positions were reserved must mean, for example, that if our positions were reserved, and you were threatening to kill me, I should not defend myself or try to stop you, because I recognise your right to kill me, after all. And this isn't just weird, it is also against the spirit of the principle itself: if whoever gets to the switch first may kill the other, then you would expect that we are allowed to take advantage of our privileged positions; but then why should I let you kill me? In short, the principle bears contradicting responses: it asks us on the one hand to recognise the other's right to kill us, and on the other hand it justifies this right with the other's privileged position. The principle is too Machiavellian to count as a principle of fairness or 'respecting others as moral equals', but it isn't Machiavellian enough to function as a workable and coherent moral or political principle. Therefore it works neither against Thomson's argument nor generally.vi All in all, its absurdity as a principle of fairness explains why the principle yields the "surprising" and "paradoxical" (FitzPatrick's (2009: 640) own words) conclusion that it is permissible to divert the trolley onto another even if we are able but unwilling to divert it onto ourselves instead. FitzPatrick's objection to Thomson does not work, then. But that, clearly, does not mean that Thomson's argument goes through. Specifically, FitzPatrick challenges also another aspect of Thomson's argument, where she argues that even those who would divert the trolley onto themselves in the three-way scenario, sacrificing their own lives, are not allowed to divert the trolley onto the one workman in the traditional Bystander at the Switch. Thomson claims that this sort of altruism is not "morally attractive" (2008: 366), and that anyway the bystander may not suppose that the workman is similarly altruistic. As we have seen, almost 40% of respondents to the Moral Sense Test declare that they would commit self-sacrifice in the three-way scenario; that's why this part of Thomson's 6 argument is important. If Thomson's argument would apply only to those who would not be willing to commit self-sacrifice, and if the numbers are to be taken seriously, then that would be a problem for her general conclusion that intervening in Bystander at the Switch is not permissible: indeed, that conclusion could not be generalized to a large part of the population.vii That is why this second part of Thomson's argument in which she argues that even those supposed altruists may not intervene in Bystander at the Switch also matters. FitzPatrick challenges this part of Thomson's argument by arguing that her appeal to the notion of consent "beg[s] the interesting questions... Those who believe that it is generally permissible to turn the trolley obviously think that this is a special case where consent isn't necessary. So Thomson's quick appeal to consent won't gain any traction with those who don't already share her view." (2009: 642). Thomson writes that "the altruistic bystander is not entitled to assume that the one workman is equally altruistic, and would therefore consent to the bystander's choosing option (ii). Altruism is by hypothesis not morally required of us. Suppose, then, that the bystander knows that the one workman would not consent, and indeed is not morally required to consent, to his choosing option (ii)"viii (2008: 367). Here FitzPatrick is right to point out that appealing to consent is problematic because the whole point of the Trolley Problem is the intuition that killing the one workman may be permissible even against his consent – but FitzPatrick is wrong to think that consent is what the argument actually relies on. In criticizing the sort of altruism that may motivate the bystander to turn the trolley towards herself in the three-way scenario, Thomson argues that dying for the sake of five strangers is not morally valuable. Thomson says that "I would certainly not feel proud of my children if I learned that they value their own lives as little as that man values his" (2008: 367). It is this claim, which she cashes out in terms of altruism by devising her new three-way scenario, which is doing the philosophical work for Thomson: it is because dying for the sake of five strangers is not morally valuable that even the bystander that would sacrifice herself may not sacrifice someone else. Consent doesn't actually matter, as shown by the counterfactual that if dying for the sake of five strangers were morally valuable, then the bystander may turn the trolley against the one workman irrespective of the workman's consent. In defusing FitzPatrick's challenge, then, we have uncovered the deep structure of Thomson's argumentix: it is not about consent, but rather about the moral value of dying for strangers. Let me just say that here it will not do to object that in the traditional Bystander at the Switch both the one and the five are strangers for the bystander: that is addressed by Thomson's new scenario, which supposedly shows that the bystander may not sacrifice the one if she is not willing to sacrifice herself. This is just a point about fairness and treating others as moral equals, which we have here defended from FitzPatrick's weaker principle. But it is when Thomson addresses those who would be willing to sacrifice themselves that her stronger normative claim emerges: dying for the sake of strangers is not morally valuable. Since it is not morally valuable, those who wish to do it will have to appeal to individual liberty to justify it; but liberty will only justify self-sacrifice, and not sacrificing others. That is then why even those who would, in the three-way scenario, sacrifice themselves, may not sacrifice the one workman in the traditional Bystander at the Switch. 7 I have not only rebutted FitzPatrick's critique; I have also made explicit the crucial normative premise upon which Thomson's new argument is built: that it is not morally valuable to die for the sake of strangers. We see now that the real novelty in Thomson's new discussion of the Trolley Problem is not just the new three-way scenario involving self-sacrifice and its implications for the traditional scenario; Thomson has shown that we must defend the value of dying for the sake of strangers in order for the Trolley Problem to even arise. And because there is no moral value in dying for strangers, then there is no Trolley Problem. Here it is neither possible nor necessary to deal in depth with this sort of radical altruism: it is enough to have shown that the very existence of the Trolley Problem depends on taking a particular position on this radical altruism (and anyway, how many people do you know, for example, who have committed suicide so that their organs may be deployed to save the life of five strangers?x). It may be objected that Thomson's dissolution of the Trolley Problem crucially depends on the characters involved being strangers. But, the objection goes, we can reformulate the Trolley Problem without this requirement, so that Thomson's argument would fail to dissolve this new version of the Trolley Problem because it could no longer rely on the point about dying for the sake of strangers. Let us then look at a variant on the Trolley Problem which includes the kind of features that, according to Thomson, may make self-sacrifice morally valuable: "They're my children," "They're my friends," "They stand for things that matter to me," "They're young, whereas I haven't much longer to live," "I've committed myself to doing what I can for them": these and their ilk would make sacrificing one's life to save five morally intelligible. Consider, by contrast, the man who learns that five strangers will live if and only if they get the organs they need, and that his are the only ones that are available in time, and who therefore straightway volunteers. No reputable surgeon would perform the operation, and no hospital would allow it to be performed under its auspices. I would certainly not feel proud of my children if I learned that they value their own lives as little as that man values his (2008: 366-67). Let us then take it that the five stuck on the main track are volunteers who have been trying to reach an isolated village in desperate need of water after an earthquake. And let us further suppose that the bystander knows the good work that the five have been doing through the years; the bystander thinks that the five are virtuous examples who must continue to provide an inspiration to society. The bystander concludes that, were she stuck on a third track towards which she could divert the runway trolley, she would sacrifice herself for the sake of the five. In order to maintain the symmetry of the original Trolley Problem, let us suppose that the one was also on her way to help the same isolated village, and that the bystander considers the one a virtuous example who must continue to provide an inspiration to society too. Is it now permissible for the bystander to sacrifice the one in order to save the five? I see two problems here: firstly, once we have described the victims as exceptionally virtuous so as to provide an argument for self-sacrifice which the traditional Trolley Problem lacks, then the bystander may reasonably assume that the one would consent to being sacrificed; and on the other hand if the bystander were to think that the one would not consent, then she may no longer regard it as exceptionally virtuous – so that the symmetry with the traditional 8 Trolley Problem would be lost one way or the other. The second problem is with Fat Man: apart from the plausibility of a very fat man taking part to a rescue operation, in this version of the Trolley Problem it is no longer clear that it would be clearly impermissible to shove the fat man off the bridge – indeed, for the considerations above, it may have to be supposed that the fat man would himself jump; and that if he didn't (jump or just give his consent to being pushed, as he might be too fat to climb the railing himself), the symmetry would no longer hold. Here it may be objected that it is only by modelling the new variant on "They stand for things that matter to me" (2008: 366) that we run into problems; other variants will work better. Let us try: "They're my children" (ibid.) will not do because, if all six have to be my children, then I can't compare myself to the one, which has a different relation to the five than I do. And in general we would be contaminating the Trolley Problem with parental and fraternal commitments and responsibility which would make the problem non-basic in a way so as to radically change its role in normative ethics. These two kinds of considerations also apply, respectively, to "They're young, whereas I haven't much longer to live" (ibid.) and "I've committed myself to doing what I can for them" (ibid.): the former because the symmetry between my relation to the five and the one's relation to the five would be altered; the latter because of the special responsibilities with which we would alter the Trolley Problem. Finally, "They're my friends" (ibid.) will also not do because of reasonable assumptions about consent in both Bystander and Fat Man. What this suggests is that it is constitutive of the Trolley Problem that it features strangers; but, as Thomson argues, since it features strangers the Trolley Problem is not a problem because it is not permissible to kill the one in Bystander at the Switch. Summing up, I have argued that criticising the Doctrine of Double Effect will, alone, not do. We must also offer an alternative explanation for the cases, such as the Trolley Problem, that the Doctrine can deal with. On these grounds I have defended a proposed dissolution of the Trolley Problem. It may be objected that the Doctrine may still be preferred to Thomson's dissolution on the grounds that the former but not the latter explains the Trolley Problem by accounting for lay intuitions that Bystander is permissible but Fat Man is not permissible; the latter challenges lay intuitions by arguing that Bystander is not actually permissible. So only the Doctrine really does justice to lay intuitions; my proposed alternative does not. And on this ground one may still hang on to double effect. It is true that the conclusion of Thomson's new argument, which I have here defended, is that Bystander is not permissible; while empirical evidence suggests that the people (as Steinbeck would have said) think that Bystander is permissible. But the relationship between Thomson's new argument and intuitions which I have suggested here is different: my own experimental data suggest that the Bystander intuition is not basic in the way in which it has until now been suggested to be. When subjects answer the self-sacrifice scenario before they answer the Bystander scenario, then they no longer report the intuition that Bystander is permissible. So my proposal is not at a disadvantage against double effect on the grounds that the Doctrine does justice to wide-spread moral intuitions while my proposal does not: I have done justice to intuitions too by deploying Thomson's new argument to demonstrate that people don't really have the intuition that Bystander is permissible.xi 9 References Boyle, J.M. (1980), Toward Understanding the Principle of Double Effect. Ethics 90 (4): 527538. Foot, P. (1967), The problem of abortion and the doctrine of the double effect. Oxford Review 5: 5–15. Di Nucci, E. (2008), Mind Out of Action. VDM Verlag. Di Nucci, E. (2009), 'Simply, false', Analysis 69/1: 69-78. Di Nucci, E. (2010), Rational constraints and the Simple View. Analysis 70 (3): 481-486. Di Nucci, E. (2011), Automatic Actions: Challenging Causalism. Rationality Markets and Morals 2 (1): 179-200. Di Nucci, E. (2013a), Self-Sacrifice and the Trolley Problem. Philosophical Psychology 26: 662-672. Di Nucci, E. (2013b), Mindlessness. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Di Nucci, E. (2013c), 'Embryo Loss and Double Effect', Journal of Medical Ethics 39 (8): 537540. Di Nucci, E. (2013d), 'Double Effect and Terror Bombing', in Hoeltje M. Spitzley T. & Spohn W. (eds.), Was dürfen wir glauben? Was sollen wir tun? Sektionsbeiträge des achten internationalen Kongresses der Gesellschaft für Analytische Philosophie e.V. DuEPublico. Di Nucci, E. (2014), Ethics Without Intention. London: Bloomsbury. FitzPatrick, W.J. (2009), Thomson's turnabout on the trolley. Analysis 69 (4): 636-43. Hauser, M. (2006), Moral Minds. New York: HarperCollins. Huebner, B. & Hauser, M. (2011), Moral judgments about altruistic self-sacrifice: When philosophical and folk intuitions clash. Philosophical Psychology 24 (1): 73-94. Mangan, J.T. (1949), An Historical Analysis of the Principle of Double Effect. Theological Studies 10: 41-61. Nagel, T. (1986), The View from Nowhere. Oxford University Press. Petrinovich, L., and O'Neill, P., (1996), Influence of wording and framing effects on moral intuitions. Ethology and Sociobiology 17: 145-171. Sinnott-Armstrong, W. (2008), Framing Moral Intuitions in W. Sinnott –Armstrong (Ed.) Moral Psychology, Volume 2: The Cognitive Science of Morality, (pp. 47-76). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Swain, S., Alexander, J. and Weinberg, J. (2008), The Instability of Philosophical Intuitions: Running Hot and Cold on Truetemp. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 76: 138155. Thomson, J.J. (1976), Killing, letting die, and the trolley problem. The Monist 59: 204–17. Thomson, J.J. (1985), The trolley problem. The Yale Law Journal 94: 1395–415. Thomson, J.J. (2008), Turning the trolley. Philosophy and Public Affairs 36: 359–74. Wiegmann, A., Okan, Y., Nagel, J. (2010), Order Effects in Moral judgment. Philosophical Psychology 25: 813-836. Woodward, PA. (2001) (ed.), The doctrine of double effect. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. i Here are some representative definitions of the Doctrine of Double Effect (for more on the Doctrine please see Di Nucci 2014): McIntyre in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "sometimes it is permissible to bring about as a merely foreseen side effect a harmful event that it would be impermissible to bring about intentionally" (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/); 10 Woodward in the Introduction to his standard anthology on double effect: "intentional production of evil... and foreseen but unintentional production of evil" (2001: 2); Aquinas, which is often credited with the first explicit version of double effect: "Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is intended, while the other is beside the intention" (Summa II-II, 64, 7); Gury: "It is licit to posit a cause which is either good or indifferent from which there follows a twofold effect, one good, there other evil, if a proportionately grave reason is present, and if the end of the agent is honourable – that is, if he does not intend the evil effect" (Boyle's translation 1980: 528); Mangan: „A person may licitly perform an action that he foresees will produce a good and a bad effect provided that four conditions are verified at one and the same time: 1) that the action in itself from its very object be good or at least indifferent; 2) that the good effect and not the evil effect be intended; 3) that the good effect be not produced by means of the evil effect; 4) that there be a proportionately grave reason for permitting the evil effect" (1949: 43). ii "I believe that the traditional principle of double effect, despite problems of application, provides a rough guide to the extension and character of deontological constraints, and that even after the volumes that have been written on the subject in recent years, this remains the right point of convergence for efforts to capture our intuitions" (Nagel 1986: 179). iii Foot originally suggested that we explain the trolley case in terms of the difference between positive and negative duties (1967); her proposal was refuted by Thomson (1976 & 1985), which in doing so introduced the Trolley Problem as we know it today. Please see my book Ethics Without Intention for details on the history of this debate (Di Nucci 2014). iv Another consideration that is particularly relevant to this new case given that it involves self-sacrifice is the gap between the reports and what respondents would actually do were they really in such a situation. v My argument about the data has been admittedly quite quick here; please see Di Nucci 2013a & 2014 for more details. vi I don't suppose that FitzPatrick ever meant it as a full-blown general principle, because, understood as not only necessary but also sufficient, it justifies, amongst others, psychopaths, mass-murderers, and in general most if not all of the major wrong-doers of this world. vii This should not be overstated as Thomson's general conclusion that intervening in Bystander at the Switch is not permissible clearly clashes with general intuition, as 90% of respondents disagree with Thomson. But fortunately we haven't yet reached a point where these kinds of surveys alone are sufficient to refute normative claims. viii Option (ii) is diverting the trolley towards the one workman. ix Here I leave unanswered the question of which interpretation is actually closer to Thomson's original: it may be that my interpretation is preferable, and then what I offer here is a defence of Thomson. Or it may be that FitzPatrick's interpretation is closer to the original, and then what I offer here is my own argument, based on one by Thomson (and there is certainly something to say in favour of FitzPatrick's interpretation, as Thomson, after having considered the value of dying for strangers, writes "Perhaps you disagree. I therefore do not rely on that idea" (2008: 367), and goes on to talk about consent). I think this is just a question of copyright: nothing in the content of my argument hangs on whether it is more appropriately attributed to Thomson or myself. x No one else will save those on waiting lists: "In the U.S. alone, 83,000 people wait on the official kidney-transplant list. But just 16,500 people received a kidney transplant in 2008, while almost 5,000 died waiting for one" (WSJ 8.1.10). xi Here I could not get into much detail about the Doctrine of Double Effect. Those who are interested in what I have to say about the ethical and action-theoretical issues surrounding the Doctrine may look at: Di Nucci 2008, Di Nucci 2009, Di Nucci 2010, Di Nucci 2011, Di Nucci 2013a, Di Nucci 2013b, Di Nucci 2013c, Di Nucci 2013d, and Di Nucci 2014. | {
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PB January 2013 Philosophy of Peace Ed. Amulya Ranjan Mohapatra Readworthy Publications, B–65, Mansa Ram Park, Near Nawada Metro Station, New Delhi 110 059. Website: www.readworthypub.com. 2011. 124 pp. ` 495. Humankind in the twenty-first century has everything but peace. Technology has enlarged and enriched our material life and has also intensified the turmoil in our minds. Humans have learnt to travel in outer space, though life in peace on earth is a terrible problem. The book under review, which is a compilation of articles of Vedanta Kesari from 1986 to 2007, published from Ramakrishna Math, Chennai, seeks to address this problem. Twelve thought-provoking and scholarly articles from renowned and erudite authors have been included in this book. The authors are Swamis Sridharananda, Ananyananda, Bhavyananda, Prabuddhananda, Mridananda, Tripurananda, and Jitatmananda, Dr Karan Singh, Dr Sampooran Singh, A R Mohapatra, R R Divakar, and Justice A N Ray. The subject of peace is dealt with by them from different perspectives: individual, family, social, national, and international spheres. All of them voice the same opinion, that peace can be attained only if we turn our gaze inwards and develop faith in the ultimate guiding principle of the universe. The gist of the ideas presented is as follows: A mind at peace is in an intense state of awareness. This awareness is beyond the state of knowledge, memory, or experience. The actions resulting from such a state of awareness will impart peace. The key to world peace is an awareness to be perceived at all moments, that all life is indivisible. World peace implies a holistic vision for the solutions of social, economic, environmental, and REVIEWS For review in PRAbuddhA bhARAtA, publishers need to send two copies of their latest publications political problems. At the individual level cultivation of dispassion and discernment helps in maintaining peace of mind. Identification with the body-mind complex and the ego causes turmoil in the mind. By freeing oneself from the egoistic feeling of 'I and mine' one attains peace. Vedanta teaches that each of us has an unchanging core. Somehow one has to turn within to this core, which is free from all turmoil, and become established in it. There must be constant, conscious, and deliberate efforts to detach ourselves from the 'winds and tempests' and remain in our own centre. An ethical and moral life coupled with sadhanas like prayer, meditation, worship, kirtan, japa, and seva helps in this inward journey. This returning to the zone of calmness is the secret of peace and well-being. Unflinching faith in God is one of the best means for attaining peace. Philosophy and law should join hands to establish international laws, which would bring about a peaceful coexistence of all nations, politically, economically, and socially. The book offers not only different perspectives of the philosophy of peace but it serves as a guide to show the methods towards realizing peace. It makes for informative and inspiring reading. The price is quite high but the production is excellent. Dr Chetana Mandavia Professor of Plant Physiology, Junagadh Agricultural University Introduction to Hindu Dharma Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Swamigal; ed. Michael Oren Fitzgerald Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 41 U A Bungalow Road, Jawahar Nagar, Delhi 110 007. Website: www.mldb .com. 2010. xxi + 145 pp. ` 695. PB January 2013164 Prabuddha Bharata182 hen were we separate? We are always together.' When the great saint Ramana Maharshi says this about Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Swamigal, one gets an idea of the latter's greatness. One of the great Hindu religious leaders of the last century, the swami's pure life and depth of scholarship was his greatest message to humankind. The 68th pontiff of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham, Kanchipuram, the swami lived a century dedicated to the preservation and propagation of Hindu ideals and practices. The present book is a painstaking labour of love displaying a selection of the swami's discourses in Tamil, which have been translated into English, edited, and topically arranged. The editor deserves special commendation for this marvellous work which has been culled from a transcript of more than 6,500 pages. The basic precepts and practices of Hinduism are outlined in the book. Beginning with the concept of religion in general, the swami takes us through the principles of the Vedas. He explains the system of varnashrama, caste, and its place in modern society. He also explains the basics of nyaya, logic, and elaborates on the importance of the Puranas. Rituals form an integral part of Hinduism, but many modern Hindus are sceptical about their relevance. The swami explains the rationale behind these rituals and classifies them according to the different ashramas, stages of life. Karma as a means to attain peaceful meditation is insightfully described. The swami beautifully relates common ideas of goodness to the concept of dharma. Besides, he dilates on the role of the state in upholding religion. Many miscellaneous utterances of the swami have been given at the end of the book, enhancing the presentation. Elaborate notes, a glossary, and an index make for a comfortable reading. An Indian edition of the original American book, this volume has an elegant layout design. It is also a pictorial biography, as different phases of the swami's life have been captured in high quality photographs. There is a scholarly introduction by Arvind Sharma of McGill University. This book is a treasure for students of Hinduism and admirers of the swami. Swami Narasimhananda Advaita Ashrama, Kolkata Man in Search of Immortality: Testimonials from the Hindu Scriptures Swami Nikhilananda Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore, Chennai 600 004. Website: www.chennaimath.org. 2009. viii + 152 pp. ` 35. he human quest, in order to conquer death, has led to the development of religion, philosophy, humanities, and also science. Death humbles humanity and mocks at all its illusions of power. Everything crumbles before this inevitability. This quest taken up by great sages and saints finally led to the discovery of the true human nature as being beyond the body and the mind. The renowned author traces the concept of immortality in various religions and gives numerous testimonials from the Hindu scriptures. In five articles Swami Nikhilananda shows the eternal nature of the soul, its three states, and the real nature of Being. Lucidly written, the book brings modern motifs to elucidate traditional beliefs. An appendix of quotations from the Bhagavadgita and Upanishads and an index adds to its value. The book helps one assert that death is but a phase in the jiva's path and that one becomes immortal by ultimately knowing the Atman. An Indian imprint of the original American edition, this slim volume is helpful to all spiritual seekers and students of Indian philosophy. Swami Narasimhananda Advaita Ashrama, Kolkata Alasinga Perumal: An Illustrious Disciple of Swami Vivekananda Swami Sunirmalananda Ramakrishna Math. 2012. 342 pp. 75. here are many types of perfections, but Swami Vivekananda is a rare form of an allround perfection. Swamiji is also a prototype of a perfect human. A self-effacing and dedicated servitor who identifies with such a spiritual colossus is also rare. This was Alasinga Perumal, the brightest star among the super disciples and devotees of W' T T | {
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Sense and Meaning João Branquinho Universidade de Lisboa [email protected] Consider the following familiar and seemingly cogent anti-Fregean argument.1 Take a pair of strict synonyms in English, such as (presumably) 'ketchup' and 'catsup'. As these terms have the same meaning in all respects, it seems indubitable that they have the same propositional value or semantic content with respect to every possible context of use. Now consider a speaker, Sasha, whose mother tongue is not English and who learns the meanings of 'ketchup' and 'catsup' by means of ostensive definitions in the following way, not being told at the outset that they are straightforward synonyms. Sasha acquires the words by reading the labels on the bottles in which ketchup (or catsup) is served during meals. It happens that the same condiment is regularly served to him in bottles labelled 'catsup' at breakfast, when it is eaten with eggs and hash browns, and in bottles labelled 'ketchup' at lunch, when it is eaten with hamburgers. And such a situation induces Sasha to think that he is consuming a different condiment in each case (though one which is similar in taste, colour and consistency). Therefore, whereas 'Ketchup is ketchup' is uninformative to Sasha, 'Ketchup is catsup' would be quite informative to him: his knowledge would be substantially extended if he came to know that the condiment is one and the same in both cases. Hence, by the sort of strategy labelled by Nathan Salmon "the generalized Frege's Puzzle",2 one would come to the conclusion that the information value of 'ketchup' 1 See Salmon 1990, 220-3. 2 See Salmon 1986, 73. (whatever it is) differs from the information value of 'catsup' (whatever it is), which clearly contradicts the obvious principle that synonymy preserves information value. In this paper I discuss three possible rejoinders to the above sort of anti-Fregean argument. I retain the third one as the most promising. To begin with, an indirect counter-argument could be adduced to the effect that the argument in turn contradicts the following equally obvious principle:3 (E) Necessarily, if a speaker x understands two expressions E and E' in a language L, and E and E' are (strict) synonyms in L, then x knows that E and E' are synonyms in L. Principle (E) seems to be quite plausible: having grasped the meanings of E and E', and given that E and E' have the same meaning, one is bound to be aware of this fact. And such a principle is of course violated in the anti-Fregean argument. On the one hand, Sasha is credited with an understanding of the words 'ketchup' and 'catsup' (he is supposed to have learnt the meanings of the words). On the other, the words in question are taken to be strict synonyms in English. Yet, Sasha does not know that they are synonyms. Therefore, one should apparently conclude that either principle (E) is false or the Millian argument is wrong. Nonetheless, it should be noted that principle (E) is not unchallengeable. Consider the following parallel principle: (E*) Necessarily, if a speaker x understands two expressions E and E' in a language L, and E and E' are not (strict) synonyms in L, then x knows that they are not synonyms in L. Now (E*) turns out to be false. For instance, competent speakers of English will claim that words such as 'stop' and 'finish', or 'accident' and 'mistake', are synonymous, until they are 3 This principle is subscribed to by Michael Dummett; see e.g. Dummett 1981, 323-4. presented with examples which make clear the non-synonymy of the words as those speakers themselves use them. And such a sort of result about (E*) might be exploited to cast some doubt upon (E). Thus, concerning a synonymous pair E and E', it might be claimed that a speaker who understands both E and E' might be inclined to count them as synonymous, but withhold belief in synonymy because her experience of counterexamples to (E*) makes her suspect that she is wrong. Of course, this could hardly be taken as evidence that principle (E) is false. And if the above sort of dilemma were inescapable one would be naturally inclined to take the latter horn of it; indeed, principle (E) is intuitively compelling and should not be given up on that basis. However, as we shall see, there is just no need to argue from the truth of principle (E) to the unsoundness of the anti-Fregean argument, and hence our dilemma turns out to be clearly escapable. I would regard the foregoing reflection about principle (E*) as at least showing that the indirect counter-argument from principle (E) is not as persuasive as one might think, in the sense that the intuitive strength of (E) may be after all insufficient to yield a convincing refutation of the Millian argument. A second sort of reply to the anti-Fregean argument, which in a way complements the one just outlined, consists in what we might call the objection from partial (or imperfect) understanding. It might be argued that the 'ketchup'/'catsup' story does not satisfy a requirement which turns out to be crucial to Frege's original argument about informativeness. The requirement in question is that the speaker fully understand both sentences S and S' and therefore the singular terms out of which these sentences are composed (where S' results from S by replacing at least one occurrence of a singular term t in S with a co-referential singular term t'). And it is alleged that it is doubtful whether the anti-Fregean argument meets this kind of demand since, on the one hand, Sasha is not a native or fully competent speaker of English, and, on the other, his peculiar way of learning the use of the words 'ketchup' and 'catsup' might be regarded as revealing that he has only a partial (or imperfect) grasp of the meanings of these words; and a full mastery is indeed required in the Fregean argument. Now I have doubts about the effectiveness of such a line of attack. Indeed, it seems to be vulnerable to the following sort of intuitively powerful objection. Suppose that Sasha had learned the meaning of 'ketchup' in the peculiar way described before, but without the word 'catsup' coming into the story. This would normally be quite adequate for understanding. On the other hand, also learning something about 'catsup' should not undermine that. Hence, one may say that Sasha understands 'ketchup'; and, by a parallel argument, one would say that he also understands 'catsup'. Of course, there is no reason to think that such an objection would be decisive; maybe some reasonable reply could be framed against it. And one might even be inclined to think that the issue whether or not a speaker like Sasha should be credited with an adequate understanding of the words 'ketchup' and 'catsup', is a moot issue; or that it is unlikely that anything like an appeal to our ordinary intuitions about understanding would enable us to settle the dispute. Anyway, I guess that we are at least entitled to conclude that, given its relative weakness and lack of intuitive support, the objection from partial understanding is far from representing a good move against the Millian argument. Finally, let me sketch a third sort of argumentative strategy one might pursue in dealing with the 'ketchup'/'catsup' story and similar cases from a Fregean perspective. Let us begin by taking for granted the premiss about understanding employed in the Millian argument. And let us recall that the argument is intended as a reductio, the allegedly absurd conclusion of which is the following claim: (*) 'ketchup' and 'catsup' have different propositional values (with respect to Sasha's story); Incidentally, some Millian theorists (especially Salmon) would take the reductio hypothesis to be the claim that 'Ketchup is catsup' is genuinely informative to Sasha. And the crucial premisses in the argument are these: (@) If expressions E and E' are synonymous (in a language L) then E and E' have the same propositional value (with respect to every possible context of use). ($) 'Ketchup' and 'catsup' are synonymous (in English). (*) is deemed implausible because, given ($), it comes out as inconsistent with (@), and (@) and ($) are both supposed to be obviously true. Now a Fregean reply could proceed in either of the following two directions. On the one hand, one could just reject premiss ($), while keeping (@) and endorsing (*). As a result, (*) could no longer be taken as a reductio of anything at all. But how could ($) be reasonably challenged? Well, one might begin by maintaining that the notion of synonymy has no clear application to the case of proper names; indeed, ordinary proper names have no linguistic meanings, in the sense that definitional clauses like those one may find in a dictionary are not, in general, available for them. Then one might claim that words like 'ketchup' and 'catsup' may be thought of as having a semantic status which is very similar to that of proper names: they are names of substances or names of kinds of stuff. One could then apparently conclude that, strictly speaking, words of that sort have no linguistic meanings either; hence, the notion of synonymy has no straightforward application to them. However, I do not think that such an approach is convincing. First, and less important, it turns out that some authorized English dictionaries4 actually count the words 'ketchup' and 'catsup' as being strict synonyms, the latter being - 4 E.g. Collins English Dictionary and The Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary. along with 'catchup' just a spelling variant of the former (a variant used mainly in the U.S.A.). Second, and more important, even if one happens to be reluctant to apply the notion of synonymy to names of artificial kinds, it turns out that an argument can be mounted which parallels the 'ketchup'/'catsup' argument and yet involves only colour words; and the objection from the inapplicability of the notion of synonymy would hardly make sense with respect to colour words. Thus, in Portuguese there are two different words for red, viz. 'vermelho' and 'encarnado', which have literally the same meaning (at least as these words are presently used); I am pretty sure that every native (or fully competent) speaker of Portuguese would promptly acknowledge such words as being strictly synonymous. Now suppose that Ronald, a monolingual speaker of English, is taught Portuguese by the direct method and learns 'vermelho' and 'encarnado' under the following sort of circumstances. First, he learns the meaning of 'vermelho' by being presented with samples of a particular shade of red. Then he comes to learn 'encarnado' by being presented with samples of what is in fact the very same shade of red. It just happens that, on the later occasion, Ronald does not remember the particular shade of red he saw when he learned 'vermelho'; so, when he acquires the word 'encarnado', he does not even entertain the question whether 'vermelho' holds of the samples then seen. Let us agree that one is entitled by ordinary standards to credit Ronald with an adequate understanding of the Portuguese predicates 'vermelho' and 'encarnado'. Then it would be possible to draw from the above case conclusions which parallel those drawn from the 'ketchup'/'catsup' story, a significant difference between the two arguments being that in the 'vermelho'/'encarnado' argument the premiss about synonymy seems to be incontrovertible. In particular, it would not be difficult to imagine a set of circumstances under which the Portuguese sentence 'Vermelho é (is) encarnado' (as uttered on the later occasion) would carry non-trivial or informative information to Ronald (whereas 'Vermelho é (is) vermelho' would be clearly uninformative to him). The objection might be raised that as soon as Ronald considered the matter, he would realize that the words in question are synonymous. Yet, a possible reply might be given as follows: Ronald may realize that 'vermelho' and 'encarnado' have similar meanings, but feel unable to rule out the possibility that he will one day see a shade that will strike him as vermelho, but not as encarnado. Alternatively, and this is the kind of move I would be inclined to favour, one could just reject premiss (@), while accepting premiss ($) and fully endorsing claim (*). Again, it would follow that (*) could no longer be taken as a reductio of anything at all. But how could one reasonably reject (@)? Well, it turns out that from a Fregean standpoint, a standpoint in which information values are (at least partially) senses or modes of presentation, claim (@) is by no means compulsory. Indeed, it seems to me that a Fregean theorist might, plausibly and fruitfully, hold the view that sameness of linguistic meaning does not entail sameness of sense. Notice that the connection holding between the notions of linguistic meaning and Fregean sense is a very loose one, at least according to the general conception of sense with which some Fregean theorists are willing to work. The linguistic meaning conventionally correlated with a given singular term, e.g. an indexical expression, is certainly an objective feature of the term; it is something which remains necessarily constant across speakers and across occasions of use. By contrast, the Fregean senses associated with singular terms are, in many cases, non-conventional and subjective; it is always possible for singular modes of presentation to vary from speaker to speaker and/or from occasions of use to occasion of use. Thus, different speakers may be in a position to attach distinct particular senses to a given singular term token t (at a given time), or to tokens t and t' of the same type (at the same or at different times), even when t and t' are co-referential with respect to given contexts of use; i.e., they may entertain different particular ways of thinking of the object referred to. And the same speaker may be in a position to attach distinct particular senses to singular term tokens t and t' of the same type (at different times), even when t and t' are co-referential in given contexts of use; i.e., she may entertain on distinct occasions different particular ways of thinking of the object referred to. However, in all such cases, it seems obvious that the linguistic meaning of the singular term tokens which is conferred upon them by the types of which they are tokens is necessarily the same. On the other hand, for any tokens t and t' of different types which are co-referential with respect to contexts c and c', it is obviously not the case that if t and t' express the same particular sense in c and c' relative to a given speaker, then t and t' are synonymous (or belong to synonymous types); according to some neo-Fregean accounts, certain uses of indexicals such as 'here' and 'there', or demonstratives such as 'this' and 'that', illustrate this point. Moreover, one may even introduce cases in which singular term tokens t and t' which are co-referential (in given contexts of use) and which belong to different but synonymous types are nevertheless to be seen, at least in the light of certain brands of Fregeanism, as having different senses with respect to a given subject. Thus, one may safely assume that the expression-types 'yesterday' and 'the day (just) before today' have exactly the same linguistic meaning (dictionaries usually give the latter as the meaning of the former). But consider tokens of such types as uttered by a speaker, say Jones, under the following sort of circumstances. At 11:58 pm on a day d Jones asserts 'Yesterday was mild', having thus a belief about d-1; and one hour later, looking at his watch, he comes to assert 'The day before today was not mild', apparently having thus a belief about d. Yet, Jones happens to be unaware that Summer Time ends precisely at midnight on d and that then clocks go back one hour, so that the time of his later assertion is in fact 11:58 pm on d and the associated (putative) belief a belief about d-1. Now if one thinks of the modes of presentation correlated with temporal indexicals as consisting in, or as being determined by, ways of tracking a time or re-identifying it throughout a period of time, then it will not be the case that Jones entertains on both occasions (or, rather, at what is conventionally the same time) the same singular sense.5 The preceding considerations motivate a picture of the relationship between linguistic meaning and information value on which there is a considerable gap between the two notions and on which claim (@) is not, in general, true. Claim (@) is simply taken for granted in the anti-Fregean argument; and this is so because, considered in its application to ordinary proper names and to names of (natural or artificial) kinds, it comes out as trivially true under a strict Millian account. In effect, the object or the kind referred to by any syntactically simple singular term of the above sort (in a given context) is regarded on such a view as playing a double semantic role: it is (or at least it determines) the linguistic meaning of the term; and it is also the propositional value assigned to the term (in the context). But it seems to be somehow unfair to invoke this doctrine as a means of validating claim (@) in the course of assessing an argument whose aim is to show that such a doctrine is wrong. And once one drops the Millian conception of the information values of simple sentences as being singular propositions, which are by definition psychologically insensitive, in favour of a conception of such information values as being Fregean thoughts, which are by definition psychologically sensitive, claim (@) ceases to be compelling. 5 This is a very rough description of the case under consideration. I examine the notion of indexical sense in my Oxford D. Phil. Thesis Direct Reference, Cognitive Significance and Fregean Sense. I am therefore prepared to endorse the claim that, in general, it is possible for expressions which are strict synonymous (in a given language) to have different senses in a speaker's idiolect. Concerning the 'ketchup'/'catsup' story, I would say that Sasha employs different ways of thinking of the same condiment, the 'ketchup'-way of thinking and the 'catsup'-way of thinking. He is obviously not aware that he is being presented with a single kind of stuff at breakfast and at lunch; no wonder then that the thought that ketchup is catsup is informative to him. Given their analogy with ordinary proper names, names of natural or artificial kinds are to use Evans's terminology6 information-invoking singular terms. Accordingly, one could sketchily represent Sasha's distinct modes of presentation of ketchup as consisting in different chains of information, or in separate mental files titled 'ketchup' and 'catsup', formed on the basis of his disparate cognitive encounters with the condiment at breakfast and at lunch. And a parallel treatment might be provided to the 'vermelho'/'encarnado' case, the difference being that even a Millian theorist would acknowledge that colour predicates are to be assigned something very akin to Fregean senses as their propositional values in possible contexts of use. Indeed, on Salmon's theory of predicative reference, in contradistinction to the case of syntactically simple singular terms, syntactically simple predicates are thought of as having two sorts of semantic value: their information values, which are taken to be certain intensional entities like n-ary attributes; and their references, which are taken to be certain extensional entities like functions from n-tuples of objects to truth-values. But Salmon would presumably treat synonymous predicates like 'vermelho' and 'encarnado' as invariably contributing one and the same unary attribute to the information contents of sentences in which they might occur. And this would not enable us to accommodate possible differences in cognitive significance which, pace Salmon, we wish to take as basic data in need of explanation, 6 See Evans 1982, 384-5. such as the potential difference in informative value relative to Ronald and to his story between a thought expressed with the help of 'vermelho' and a thought expressed with the help of 'encarnado'. Thus, I would say that Ronald employs in thought different ways of thinking of redness; or, if one prefers, he employs different ways of thinking of that function or Fregean concept which yields, for any red surface as argument, the True as value. And Ronald's case seems to motivate a De Re view of the kind of senses expressed by colour terms, i.e. a view on which such senses are to be seen as being (partially) dependent upon certain perceptual relations holding between a thinker and colour samples in her environment; in effect, it is the presence of this sort of non-conceptual factors which ultimately explains why redness is presented to Ronald under distinct modes of presentation. A consequence of the above way of countering the anti-Fregean argument is that principle (E) should be, after all, given up. We are committed to the result that e.g., though 'vermelho' and 'encarnado' are synonyms (in Portuguese), Ronald does not know that they are synonyms. If Ronald knew this then he would know that 'vermelho' and 'encarnado' are co-extensional predicates and thus that one and the same colour is presented to him on both occasions; but then a sentence such as 'Vermelho é encarnado' would not express a thought which would be informative to him. Therefore, since we take as intuitively sound the claim about informativeness, and since we take the objection from imperfect understanding as intuitively dubious, we are forced to reject principle (E). Now I think that there is nothing essentially wrong in pursuing this train of thought. Underlying principle (E) is a certain form of cartesianism about meaning, in the sense that our knowledge about sameness of meaning is taken to be infallible. But one may have good reasons, in this and in other areas of philosophical inquiry, to be suspicious about such cartesian principles; it is very likely that linguistic meaning is not as transparent as it is claimed, and that even fully competent and reflective speakers may be mistaken about synonymy. References Dummett, Michael 1981. The Interpretation of Frege's Philosophy, London, Duckworth. Evans, Gareth 1982. The Varieties of Reference, edited by John McDowell, Oxford, Clarendon Press and New York, Oxford University Press. Richard, Mark 1990. Propositional Attitudes. An Essay on Thoughts and How We Ascribe Them. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Salmon, Nathan 1986. Frege's Puzzle, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, The MIT Press, Bradford Books. Salmon, Nathan 1990. 'A Millian Heir Rejects the Wages of Sinn' in C.A. Anderson and J. Owens (eds), Propositional Attitudes: The Role of Content in Logic, Language and Mind, Stanford, CSLI. Schiffer, Stephen 2003. The Things We Mean. Oxford, Clarendon Press. Soames, Scott 2005. Reference and Description. The Case against Two-Dimensionalism. Princeton, Princeton University Press. | {
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ANTIQVORVM PHILOSOPHIA an international journal 5 * 2011 PISA * ROMA FABRIZIO SERRA EDITORE MMXII Direzione Prof. Giuseppe Cambiano Scuola Normale Superiore, Piazza dei Cavalieri 7, i 56126 Pisa * Autorizzazione del Tribunale di Pisa n. 41 del 21/12/2007 Direttore responsabile: Fabrizio Serra * Sono rigorosamente vietati la riproduzione, la traduzione, l'adattamento, anche parziale o per estratti, per qualsiasi uso e con qualsiasi mezzo effettuati, compresi la copia fotostatica, il microfilm, la memorizzazione elettronica, ecc., senza la preventiva autorizzazione scritta della Fabrizio Serra editore®, Pisa * Roma. Ogni abuso sarà perseguito a norma di legge. * Proprietà riservata * All rights reserved © Copyright 2012 by Fabrizio Serra editore®, Pisa * Roma. Fabrizio Serra editore incorporates the Imprints Accademia editoriale, Edizioni dell'Ateneo, Fabrizio Serra editore, Giardini editori e stampatori in Pisa, Gruppo editoriale internazionale and Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali. www.libraweb.net Stampato in Italia * Printed in Italy issn 1973-5030 issn elettronico 1974-4501 Amministrazione e abbonamenti Fabrizio Serra editore® Casella postale n. 1, succursale n. 8, i 56123 Pisa, tel. +39 050 542332, fax +39 050 574888, [email protected] I prezzi ufficiali di abbonamento cartaceo e/o Online sono consultabili presso il sito Internet della casa editrice www.libraweb.net Print and/or Online official subscription rates are available at Publisher's web-site www.libraweb.net I pagamenti possono essere effettuati tramite versamento su c.c.p. n. 17154550 o tramite carta di credito (American Express, CartaSi, Eurocard, Mastercard, Visa) * Uffici di Pisa: Via Santa Bibbiana 28, i 56127 Pisa, [email protected] Uffici di Roma: Via Carlo Emanuele I 48, i 00185 Roma, [email protected] SOMMARIO la percezione Jane Geaney, Self as container? Metaphors we lose by in understanding early chinese texts 11 Pierre-Marie Morel, Perception et divination chez Aristote. Images oniriques et moteurs éloignés 31 Luciana Repici, La sensazione in Lucrezio 51 Teun Tieleman, Galen on perception 83 Giuseppe Cambiano, Speusippo e la percezione scientifica 99 Anne Clavel, La perception peut-elle échapper au concept? La contribution jaina au débat indien 119 discussioni e ricerche Phillip Sidney Horky, On the phylogenetics of wisdom: A response to Alexis Pinchard, Les langues de sagesse dans la Grèce et l'Inde anciennes 149 Marco Sgarbi, Metaphysica § 7. 1072 b 10-13 165 Norme redazionali della Casa editrice 177 SELF AS CONTAINER? METAPHORS WE LOSE BY IN UNDERSTANDING EARLY CHINESE TEXTS Jane Geaney s part of a trend in modern cognitive science, cognitive linguist, George Lakoff, and philosopher, Mark Johnson claim to provide a biologically-based account of subsymbolic meaningful experiences. They argue that human beings understand objects by extrapolating from their sensory motor activities and primary perceptions. Lakoff and Johnson's writings have generated a good deal of interest among scholars of Early China because they maintain that «our common embodiment allows for common stable truths».1 Among the many grounds on which Lakoff and Johnson's theories have been criticized, this essay focuses in particular on problems related to their schema of Self as Container. Lakoff and Johnson contend that there are no pure experiences outside of culture, while nevertheless arguing that the experience of being a closed-off container is «direct». «The concepts object, substance and container emerge directly», they write. «We experience ourselves as entities, separate from the rest of the world – as containers with an inside and an outside».2 By «emerge directly», they do not mean emerging free of culture, but rather that some experiences within culture, specifically physical experiences, are more directly given than others. My study explores the pitfalls of presuming the «direct» experience of containment makes good sense of texts from Early China (ca. 500-100 b.c.e).3 Descriptions of sensory processes in classical and non-canonical early Chinese texts do not lend themselves to being interpreted through Lakoff and Johnson's container model. If the body is a container in their sense, the sensory faculties would have to connect the self, which they understand as an internally contained substance, to a world that is clearly delineated as outside and other. But this does not match the portrait of sensory experience in early Chinese texts and it does not account for one of their most interesting features: the absence of fear of massive sensory deception.4 Jane Geaney, University of Richmond, 28 Westhampton Way, Richmond, va 23173, [email protected] I wish to extend my appreciation for the detailed feedback on this essay from Dan Robins and Chris Fraser, which led to many improvements. Thanks also to Steve Coutinho for helpful comments on the first section. 1 Lakoff, Johnson 1999, p. 6. In the discipline of Sinology, Sarah Allan's Ways of Water: Sprouts of Virtue builds on some of Lakoff and Johnson's ideas, but Edward Slingerland promotes their work much more strongly by arguing that their model «provides us with a bridge into the experiences of "the other"». Allan 1997, Slingerland 2003, p. 273. Other applications of Lakoff and Johnson's work in the field include Yu 2009, pp. 63-80; Chong 2006, pp. 370391; and Middendorf 2009, pp. 63-80. 2 Lakoff, Johnson 1981, p. 58. 3 In some cases it is difficult to assign precise dates to texts or their layers of accretion, but sources for my analysis are passages in early Chinese texts predominantly dating from the fourth century b.c.e. to the first century b.c.e. My numbering for chapters and sections of Chinese texts is from the chant (Chinese Ancient Texts) Database at the Chinese University of Hong Kong www.chant.org. 4 Martin Svensson Ekström argues to the contrary that there was a «debate on illusion» in Early China, which he believes set the context for early Han poetics (206 b.c.e 8 c.e). According to Svensson Ekström, the existence A This essay is divided in two parts, the first of which explains why early Chinese texts should not be understood as positing a self enclosed inside a container.1 Rather than a container enclosing a static core-self, the body is an «interface» that is put in motion and affected by other things.2 The second portion of the essay shows what this affectable interface-model of the human subject entails for the nature of perceptual error in early Chinese texts. Body Concepts There are multiple reasons to doubt Lakoff and Johnson's claim to have discerned common human embodiment from metaphors. Determining which physical experience grounds a particular metaphor might be entirely impossible.3 Furthermore, especially when interpreting other cultures, it also seems there is no way to decide which metaphors actually have the fundamental role of structuring thinking, which is Lakoff and Johnson's definition of «conceptual metaphor». Also, differences in cultures affect what people take to be their more physical experiences. Indeed, the concept of «physical» itself differs by culture.4 Lakoff and Johnson's method aims to access direct experiences by selecting them out from more culturally inflected experiences. In their view, such experiences include things like light/dark, warm/cold, up/down, and in/out, and even male/female.5 But, as the inclusion of male/female in this list might signal, the 12 jane geaney of duplicates and doppelgangers caused immense anxiety in Early China, ultimately producing a «philosophy of illusion». Svensson Ekström maintains that the fear of deception can be traced to instability at the sensory level. Svensson Ekström 2002, pp. 251-289. 1 Scholarship on Early China has generally converged on the view that the conception of the person is «relational». The application of the term «self» to early Chinese texts is controversial, because of potential associations with egoism, inwardness, privacy, and detachment. Those who use the term usually agree that the «self» in early Chinese texts lacks those features and it was conceived as something of an achievement, produced through cultivation. See for example, Berkson 2005, pp. 293-331; Shun 2004, pp. 183-199; Tu 1994, pp. 177-186; Ames 1994, pp. 187212; Ames 1993, pp. 157-177; Spellman 1987 pp. 372-39; and Fingarette 1979, pp. 129-140. In keeping with this relational view of the person, scholars of early Chinese medicine also argue for an understanding of the body that is not substance-based. As Hidemi Ishida writes, «Beings are not solid material entities but are highly differential configurations of energy». Ishida 1989, p. 67. But some recent scholarship has challenged the status quo in this regard. For instance, Slingerland's application of Lakoff and Johnson's theory interprets early Chinese texts in terms of their container model of self. On the one hand, to his credit, Slingerland seems to understand the definition of a container more loosely than Lakoff and Johnson, insofar as he takes any reference to a person having an inside as a sign of such a metaphor. However, Slingerland ends up producing the same stark boundary between the inside and outside by combining Lakoff and Johnson's container model with their model of the «essential self». By «essence», Lakoff and Johnson mean the «collection of properties» that makes something what it is, which they associate with conceptualizing in terms of containers. Thus, combining containers with essences, Slingerland claims that body metaphors in early Chinese texts express an experience of having an essence hidden on the inside, in contrast to an outer container surface that «does not fit» the essence. Slingerland 2003, pp. 34-35; Lakoff, Johnson 1999, pp. 282, 347. For more on Slingerland's use of «essence», see below. 2 This description of the body as an interface affected by things is borrowed from Bruno Latour's discussion of the difficulty of talking about the body. Following Latour, this use of «interface» is not a programming metaphor for connections between contained systems, but rather a way of talking about the body as sensitive to being moved by other things. In his terms, an «interface» is a «dynamic trajectory». Latour 2004, pp. 205-229. 3 For instance, critics have objected to Lakoff and Johnson's claim that metaphors for «argument» derive from the physical experience of war, both because the experience of argument is no less physical than the experience of war, and because war is a culturally constructed experience that is rather remote from many people's experience. See Holland 1982, pp. 287-297 and Ronald R. Butters 1981, pp. 108-117. 4 As Dorothy Holland notes, this makes Lakoff and Johnson's «experiential» philosophy sound subjectivist». Holland 1982, p. 292. 5 Lakoff, Johnson 1981, p. 57. project of standing within one's culture while attempting to determine which parts of one's experience are less cultural is fraught with interpretive risks.1 Thus, scholars have objected to Lakoff and Johnson's universalizing claims on the grounds of its insensitivity not only to cultural difference, but to class, gender, and disability.2 Of particular importance for applying Lakoff and Johnson's ideas to early Chinese texts is their view that direct experience provides a concept of self as a container, which in their terms means something that is distinctly set off from the rest of the world. They view containers as the appropriate metaphor to express sharply defined categorizing, or what they call «essence prototypes», which they distinguish from categorizing in terms of degrees. They contrast containers to «graded structures of categories» and «the fuzziness of category boundaries».3 They write, «When we conceptualize categories [as essence prototypes], we often envision them using a spatial metaphor, as if they were containers, with an interior, an exterior, and a boundary». Thus, in their opinion, when we conceptualize in terms of essences, we think of our directly given experiences of containment. Furthermore, by restricting their use of «container» to mean the kinds of things that do not have fuzzy or graded boundaries, they suggest that the reverse is also true. This is evident in their examples of things that do not qualify as containers, which include forests, clearings, clouds, and «fenced in territory». These things apparently do not count as containers because they do not have firm borders or because there is too much similarity between the inside and the surface.4 In other words, just as Lakoff and Johnson claim that the experience of being a container grounds metaphors of essences, so too they describe a notion of essence that sheds light on what they mean by container. Their view is that people experience themselves as containers in the sense of having boundaries distinct enough to give rise to a prototype of a concept of essence. Hence, when Lakoff and Johnson identify container metaphors, they are not merely contending that we experience ourselves in terms of inside/outside contrasts. They are specifically arguing that we experience our insides and outsides as sharply bounded, with different essence prototypes inside and out. To count as a container, our boundmetaphors in understanding early chinese texts 13 1 Sexual identity formations that do not conform to an exclusively male/female binary are present in a number of cultures, most famously the hijra of India. The notion of «misassigned sex» in treatments of hermaphrodites and trans-gendered people also complicates any notion that these distinctions reflect a pre-cultural side of the spectrum. Nor has sex assignment been any clearer in the past. Commenting on an intricate second century method for discerning someone's sex, Thomas Laqueur notes, «'Two sexes' refers not to the clear and distinct kind of being we might mean when we speak of opposite sexes, but rather to delicate, difficult-to-read shadings of one sex». Laqueur 1990, p. 52. 2 See especially Christine Battersby's interesting critique of their container model of self, in which she points out a series of potential reasons why she does not recognize herself as a container. Among the possible reasons for her «failure» of recognition, Battersby considers that it is because, «the primary model of the self is based on that of an individual who does not have to think of himself each month as potentially evolving into two individuals; and also because women are accustomed to seeing 'humanity' and 'persons' described in ways that both include and exclude women». Building on the work of other theorists, Battersby speculates that the way white middle-class women constrain their own physical movements seems to create space-containers around them precisely because they do not experience their bodies as containers. She also explores the possibility that alternative models in twentieth century sciences, already hinted at in the works of certain philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche and Henri Bergson, might render outdated a model of self based on «solidity, space as a container, and the mechanics of solids». Battersby 1999, pp. 352, 349. Scholars of Disability Studies also criticize Lakoff and Johnson's inattention to their experiences of embodiment. For example, see Vidali 2010, pp. 33-54. 3 Lakoff, Johnson 1999, p. 20. 4 They treat a clearing in the woods as a difficult case to classify, since in addition to claiming that we «impose this orientation» on it, they also admit that it «has something that we can perceive as a natural boundary – the fuzzy area where the trees more or less stop and the clearing more or less begins». Lakoff, Johnson 1981, p. 29. aries must not be experienced as degrees of difference from that which is not us. To be containers, the boundaries of bodies must be stable and our essential self firmly contained within them, regardless of what goes in or out. As Johnson puts it, «We are intimately aware of our bodies as three-dimensional containers into which we put certain things (food, water, air) and out of which other things emerge (food and water waste, air, blood, etc.)».1 Furthermore, according to Lakoff and Johnson, we often project that container-like experience onto other things. They write, «We also experience things external to us as entities – often also as containers with insides and outsides. We experience ourselves as being made up of substances – e.g. flesh and bone – and external objects as being made up of various kinds of substances – wood, stone, metal, etc».2 Thus, Lakoff and Johnson do not stop at making the plausible claim that embodiment structures how people perceive themselves and other things. As their container metaphor indicates, they also contend that it does so through spatialized experiences of radical discontinuity. Before addressing the implications of applying Lakoff and Johnson's ideas to texts from Early China, it is necessary to briefly sketch the available evidence about sense perception in various extant texts dating to this period. The texts contain relatively few extended discussions of sensory processes, but the discussions that do occur show that the senses are understood to «discriminate» or make distinctions between things.3 What they discriminate is often not «objects», in the sense of medium-sized dry goods. Instead, the things they discriminate usually seem to be a spectrum of different options, such as «the five colors», «five sounds», or opposing poles, such as black versus white or sweet versus salty, sour, and bitter.4 As the opposing poles imply, there is nothing neutral about sense processes. The question of whether the senses are «objective» is not even raised. Sensing is embedded in a world of desirable and undesirable things, hence it is motivated by desires and aversions. Moreover, the desires and aversions seem to belong to each of the senses themselves, rather than just to the heart (xin 心), the sense faculty that both reasons and emotes. The heart's connections to the senses are somewhat obscure. It is included in lists of the senses, which suggests that it too is a sense.5 In some of these cases, the senses are referred to collectively as the «five officials», while at other times the senses are called the «four officials». But the heart is also said to be the «ruler» of the other sense officials. Aside from the heart, the eyes and ears are the 14 jane geaney 1 Johnson 1987, p. 21. 2 According to Lakoff and Johnson, «We project our own in-out orientation onto other physical objects that are bounded by surfaces. Thus we also view them as containers with an inside and an outside». Lakoff, Johnson 1981, pp. 29, 58. 3 In terms of texts from Early China, «sense perception» is something of a misnomer. The sense operations are best understood on the model of «aspect perception». See Geaney 2002, pp. 32-35 and Fraser 2011, p. 4. 4 The rhetoric of discriminating between opposites, which is not limited to the senses, helps reveal not only this emphasis on discrimination but also some assumptions about the nature of the world. The Hanfeizi explains things in the world in terms of contrasting patterns. 凡理者,方圓、短長、麤靡、堅脆之分也。 Patterns are divisions of square/round, short/long, coarse/fine, strong/brittle. Hán Feizĭ 20 «Jíe Lăo». Roger Ames makes a similar observation about the constitution of things in early Chinese texts. The things in the world exist on a continuum of degrees. Ames 1993, p. 160. 5 In addition to the regular inclusion of eyes, ears, and mouth, lists of the senses often mention the nose, the body, and/or the heart. most often mentioned senses. Sensory processes, like vision and hearing, include only the heart, the senses, and the things that are sensed (colors, sounds, etc.). That is, sensory discrimination involves no intermediaries such as «data» or «impressions».1 In sum, the act of sensing involves desires and aversions, and nothing mediates the senses' interaction with whatever is sensed. In the context of these overall conceptions of the body's senses in texts from Early China, perhaps the metaphors of «residence» in early Chinese texts are the best evidence for Lakoff and Johnson's body-as-container experience. There is a famous metaphor of the senses as gates in the Lăozĭ: Dào Dé Jing, a collection of aphorisms, parts of which were widely recognized by the third century b.c.e. It says, «Block the holes and close the doors and to the end of your life you will not labor».2 The commentary on the passage in the Hán Feizĭ, a compilation of essays from the third century b.c.e, asserts that the eyes and ears are the doors and windows of spirits.3 These images imply a model of the body as a living space of some sort, in which reside various spirit-like entities. We might think of them as «ghosts and spirits» for convenience.4 The nature and identity of these residents is not well specified in texts from Early China, thus they might be interpreted as being different in kind from their «housing» or the outside world.5 To someone looking for container metaphors, this idea of spirits residing inside bodyhouses might mistakenly evoke a static container model in which a person is composed of a spirit/self, on the one hand, and on the other a very different sort of thing, the body-container in which it resides and through which it is kept apart from other things. metaphors in understanding early chinese texts 15 1 This direct contact between the senses and what they sense helps explain the absence of wholesale sensory doubt discussed below. 2 Lăozĭ 52. This seems to have been enacted in the treatment of corpses. Chap. 19 of the Xúnzĭ, a compilation from the third century b.c.e., prescribes stuffing the corpse's holes – the ears, mouth, and eyes. 3 Hán Feizĭ 20 «Jíe Lăo». 4 For residence metaphors of this sort, see especially Guănzĭ 16.1 «Nèiyè» 49 and Xúnzĭ 17 «Tian Lún». When I say the «body» is referred to as a residence for some ethereal things, I mean the term used for body/person (shen 身) and the term for form/body (xíng 形). The differences are difficult to capture with one word. In addition to «body», shen is used to mean «person», and «personal», in the sense of desires for one's own profit and comfort, for example, as opposed to fame or wide-spread respect. Unlike shen, the term xíng 形 is not used to mean «person». But xíng can be used for the form of anything, and it often indicates the part of a thing that visibly occupies space. That is, although it is true that sounds are sometimes described as having «form», xíng is distinctly visual when it is used in contrasts between sound and sight. In another common juxtaposition involving xíng, the earth's production of human xíng also contrasts with the sky's production of the human jing精 (concentrated energy). «Residing» does not seem to be used in relation to zhuàng 狀, a term for the body's visual form that occurs in the passage from the Lüshi Chunqiu (third century b.c.e), discussed below, where a ghost imitates (rather than resides in) a person's zhuàng, resulting in misleading resemblance. 5 A number of ethereal entities like «ghosts», «spirits», and «souls», fall in the category of «residing». These entities are hard to pin down, because ideas about them varied by time and region. Moreover, as Roel Sterckx notes, «The classical Chinese perception of the world did not insist on clear categorical or ontological boundaries between animals, human beings, and other creatures such as ghosts and spirits». Sterckx 2002, p. 5. Although definitions are difficult, insofar as «ghosts» (guĭ鬼) and «spirits» (shén 神) are distinguished in early Chinese texts, the «spirits» usually refer to spirits of the gods, while «ghosts» refer to spirits of dead humans. Poo 2004, p. 176. In addition, early Chinese texts speak of souls of the living, the pò 魄 and the hún 魂. For a good summary of the topic, see Yu 1987, pp. 363-395. Ghosts and spirits are said to have neither form nor voice. In the context of discussing drawing, the Hán Feizĭ comments that they lack a visible form, while later texts, the Báihŭtong and the Huáinánzĭ, observe that ghosts have neither visible form (xíng 形) nor sound/voice (sheng 聲). Nevertheless, they are also described as wearing clothes, riding chariots, being exorcised, vomiting, and even getting killed. But if these windows-and-doors metaphors are to be reconciled with the frequent references to fluid traffic through the body, then this residence would have to feature various degrees of interiority and little sense of containment, not to mention multiple inhabitants. Of course, there is no reason to assume that a culture's body metaphors must be consistent with one another. But there is also no reason to interpret one bodymetaphor in isolation from the culture's other metaphors, philosophical ideas, and medical conceptions about physicality. This is particularly problematic when granting a metaphor the status of «conceptual metaphor» – that is, a metaphor that structures thought. Early Chinese texts do often describe ghosts and spirits as residing in bodies, but generally the body does not seem to manage to contain them, any more than it restrains other things flowing in and out of it. The residence is temporary. And the spirits' locations in the body are specified in ways that hint at complex spatial arrangements rather than a single conclusive inner/outer boundary. The body is not a well-sealed house. It might just as well be a territory with series of significant sites bounded by intermittent walls and gates.1 The body consists of not just one, but many places of storage, including, for example, five repositories as well as six storehouses.2 The ghosts and spirits that visit its sites do not function as an individual core-self. Again, there is no reason to assume consistency in ideas across texts or even within a single text, but the range of ideas about spiritual residence in bodies does not lend itself to a model like spirit-self occupying a closed body-container. According to the Zuŏ zhuán, a narrative history from the fourth century b.c.e., the body-souls (pò魄) are the first changes to develop when a person is born.3 Once a person is dead, some of the souls leave that body and might become «loose demons» (yínlì淫厲), who «linger near» or «lean on» the living.4 The departure of souls portends death, but it is possible for souls to leave without the person immediately dying.5 Moreover, other spiritual entities also intrude or arrive from the outside. This is evident from a comment in the Zhuangzĭ (a text traditionally attributed to Zhuang Zhou of the fourth century b.c.e, which also contains later materials) that if you clear the channels of the eyes and ears and expel knowledge from the heart, the ghosts and spirits (guĭshén) will come to dwell.6 Moreover, these are only some of many entities that are said to enter in and move throughout various residences inside the body. The dào itself arrives. So do things like breath/energy (qì 氣), concentrated energy (jing精), divine energy (língqì 靈氣), and power/virtue (dé 德).7 Indeed, the movement in and out is inevitable because inner qi is not of a different nature than the qi of heaven and earth. Because references to residence «inside» often mean specific locations within parts of the body, and because the traffic in and out is rather heavy, the comings and goings of all these spirit-like entities indicate fluidity that is not characteristic of a fixed container enclosing a core self. 16 jane geaney 1 The sense of the body as a «territory defined by gates and boundaries» is what develops in later Chinese medicine. Lo 2000, p. 17. 2 See Lüshi Chunqiu 20.5 «Dà Yù». Even the heart itself is a storehouse for other hearts. Guănzĭ 16 8.3 «Nèiyè». 3 At some later point, pò come to be understood as yín-souls residing in the lungs, in contrast to yáng-souls residing in blood. 4 This is especially true if a person dies violently. Zuŏ zhuán 10 «Zhao Gong» b10.7.9. 5 In the instance referred to in Zuŏ zhuán 7 «Xuan Gong» b7.15.7, it is the body-souls that are no longer present. 6 Zhuangzi 4 «Rén Jian Shì». Ishida argues that in early Chinese texts the spirit (which he takes to be the mind) can leave a person, as a result of which other being's spirits can take its place. Ishida 1989, pp. 66-68. 7 See for example, Zhuangzĭ 4 «Rén Jian Shì» and 5 «Dé Chong Fú»; Guănzĭ «Xin Shù Xià» 13.2, and «Nèiyè» 16.1.; and Hán Feizĭ 20 «Jíe Lăo». While in Lakoff and Johnson's container model the surface is distinct from its content and constitutes a single, firm inside/outside boundary, in these early Chinese conceptions, the surface is an indefinite boundary that is so linked to external things that it actually transforms in response to them. Liquid metaphors, such as letting loose, leaking, and flowing, describe movement in and out of the body.1 Unlike the container walls of Lakoff and Johnson's metaphor, no clear line between the human subject and the world precludes this leakage. One liquid image in the Zhuangzĭ describes how external things construct the boundaries of the body. The Zhuangzĭ compares the human body to water that is bounded by other things that permeate it. Typically mocking conventional morality, in this passage the Zhuangzĭ 's stock character, 'Kŏngzĭ' (Confucius) defends the form (xíng形) of a «loathsome person» (èrén 惡人) person. Kŏngzĭ contends that ordinary people, whose «power» (dé 德) is not very compelling, have bodies like level water.2 But this man is different because his inner power is whole, which prompts external things to constantly disturb his body by not letting it alone. Young men, young women, and even mating animals will not go away and let the man be. Their attachment prevents his power from being able to structure his form to look like those of others. The passage explains that the materials are all there, but his power does not shape his form. It elaborates on this by saying that power's not shaping one's form is a result of things not leaving it (or him) alone.3 Thus, it is because the power inside the ugly man is so attractive that it does not manage to form standard boundaries as the surface his body. In this claim, what might look like a split between inner and outer is actually a direct result of their connection. That is, the wholeness of the internal power, in combination with its openness to external influence, is what produces a non-standard surface.4 If the strong inner power were not exposed to the outside, the attraction of young men, women, and mating animals would not result in distorting its surface. Although the passage depicts the body as liquid, this is not an image of water contained in an impermeable tub.5 As moving water, his body's surface is a site where inner and outer are roughly forged. By implication, when read for its insight about conceptions of ordinary bodies, the passage suggests that, generally, less potent powers inside the body produce a more regular bodily surface. Thus, whether deformed or standard, the body's inside, far from being radically detached from the outside, engages the outside in a tug of war that actually forms the shape of the surface. metaphors in understanding early chinese texts 17 1 For a more detailed discussion of loose bodily boundaries in texts from Early China, see Geaney 2004, pp. 113-142. 2 The Zhuangzĭ says, «Being level is the fullness of stopped water. It can function as a standard. If it is preserved from within, then the outside (surface) will be undisturbed». Zhuangzĭ 5 «Dé Chong Fú». 3 In A. C. Graham's translation, «That the power fails to shape the body is because other things are unable to keep their distance from it». (Dé bù xíng zhĕ, wù bù nĕng lĭ yĕ. 德不形者,物不能離也。). We know the power is within here because the explanation mentions that the water should be «preserved from within» (nèibăo 內保). Graham 1986, p. 81. 4 Romain Graziani reads the passage as postulating a «radical and almost necessary split between external form and inner qualities of grace and power». But the important thing to note is that this split results precisely from the strong connection between the inner and outer realms. Graziani 2009, p. 510. 5 As Roger Ames points out, the early Chinese terms for body are different in this respect from the term «body» in English, which has etymological connections to Old High German «tub» and «vat». Ames 1993, pp. 164-165. What we should notice about water as an image for bodies in texts from Early China is the possibility that it can penetrate almost anything and thereby change shape. This fits well with the conceptions of «things» (shí 實) in early Chinese texts. The Xúnzĭ 22 «Zhèngmíng» explains the nature of things in terms the space that they fill, not in terms of filling of containers. The same is true of the «Mohist Canons», Chapters 40-45 of the Mòzĭ. As A. C. Graham points out, they conceive of things as fillings of space. Graham 1978, p. 202. Things departing from inside the body modify its boundaries, just as pressures from the outside do. We can see this in an excavated text from the third century b.c.e that tells the story of a man named Dan 丹, who died and was resurrected.1 The story asserts that Dan did die, but it does not mention exactly what constituted his being dead or being returned to life. Since it hints that his body tissue had not putrefied after three years, it seems likely that being dead in this context means that Dan's souls, or at least some of them, had departed, which was part of the conception of death.2 Having endured three years of being dead, Dan's body was in an interesting state. On the one hand, the story mentions that he stood on his tomb for three days before leaving town. But on the other hand, it also notes that, four years after his resurrection, in addition to finally being able to hear animal sounds and eat like a human again, he had sparse eyebrows, an inky tone, and useless limbs. This somewhat contradictory information about Dan's ability to use his limbs is perhaps meant to emphasize the length of time it took for his resurrected body to return to normal functioning. On Lakoff and Johnson's container model, one might expect one of two possible physical effects of the souls' departure from a body. If the body were a container, being isolatable from its content to begin with, it might be expected to rot without its life-giving essence; hence on those grounds one might anticipate that Dan's body would have thoroughly decayed after three years of its souls' absence. Alternatively, as in some cultures' resurrection narratives, one might predict that the return of life-giving content of the container would cause the container's recovery to the condition it was in prior to the spirits' departure. But upon Dan's resurrection, when his souls presumably returned, his body had neither decomposed (aside from the discolored skin and eyebrow loss) nor resumed its normal form. This shows that the souls' presence is important to the operations of the body, not just in the sense of contributing to keeping it alive. If we set aside the static substance model of bodies as spatial containers, we can see how the souls' departure alters the body's boundaries by changing its operations. Because the body is a dynamic pattern of flow, the souls' departure necessarily changes the boundaries of Dan's body by halting its movements. With the souls' return, Dan's body gradually reacquires the ability to hear and eat, if not walk. This points to his relearning to be affected by his environment – its sounds, its tastes, and perhaps eventually its spatial configurations. This gradual relearning to be moved in response to things amounts to Dan's acquiring new bodily boundaries. Insofar as the body is a trajectory of flow, he is, in effect, reacquiring a body. Thus, we see in Dan's story that the departure and subsequent return of internal things affects the (fluid) body's boundaries. Furthermore, while attempts to close off the body's gaps might evoke a fixed container with small openings, when the holes are virtually everywhere, the resemblance to a container ceases. Far from being a closed system that only occasionally ingests and expels things, bodies in early Chinese texts are like a constant interface. Any firm sense of interiority is an achievement, not a given. Moreover, if the point was to create an im18 jane geaney 1 The story, found in an excavated tomb in Fàngmătan in 1986, is translated and explained by Donald Harper. Having perpetrated a crime, Dan subsequently killed himself. But someone in the spirit world agreed that it was not his time to die, so a white dog released him from his tomb. Harper 1994, pp. 13-28. 2 The departure of Dan's souls is not spelled out in the story, and as a result Poo considers the possibility that they might not even have left. But if all the souls were present, it is hard to see why Dan would have been thought of as dead at all because his body had also not decomposed. Poo 2004, p. 178. permeable container, the sensory holes could only be the most blatant targets of such efforts because the entire skin, which is understood as «skin patterns», is also considered open to contact. Thus, a passage in the Mèngzĭ, the collected sayings of «Mencius» of the fourth century b.c.e, seems to express anxiety about exposure to someone's bare chest (Mèngzĭ 5B1). It is inevitable that wind and «airs» penetrate not only the ears and nose, but also the skin. Before we impose a container-metaphor where it makes little sense, it is better to understand the goal in blocking the holes of the body as aimed at mastery of an entire mobile interface, rather than sealing off already well-walled container.1 An impenetrable seal would be difficult because, «Humans are water», according to the Guănzĭ.2 Moreover, mastery of the body cannot have as its aim the preservation of an already existent inner self, because the permeability of the borders means that the interiority is always in the process of being recreated.3 Furthermore, in many cases, the inside is described as positively influenced by contact with the environment. Texts that discuss cultivation of the body/self assert that, while in residence, such entities can assist the heart's functioning.4 Music entering the ears transforms one's moral character. Excavated medical texts and sexual manuals promote the idea that good health actually depends on «embodying movements of the external world».5 Even if we view these bodies in terms of substances rather than interfaces, they have the permeability of a sponge or cheese cloth. In early Chinese texts the surface of the body reveals the interior in ways that are not possible for the kind of container-body proposed by Lakoff and Johnson. To those who are attuned to it, the spontaneity of the surface's response – whether automatic or learned through practice – makes the body and face reliable guides. The pupil of the eye is like a mirror of the person (Mèngzĭ 4A15), and one's bearing and complexion can reveal a «completed» heart (Guănzĭ 16 «Nèiyè» 10.2). This spontaneous expressivity accounts for Kŏngzĭ's claim that the difficulty in serving one's parents is a matter of maintaining the right countenance. According to Kŏngzĭ, there is much to be gained from being aware of other people's expressions: observing the look on a gentleman's face is one of the most important elements of assisting a gentleman. Moreover, an inapprometaphors in understanding early chinese texts 19 1 Perhaps its use of the graph feng 封, «seal», prompts Slingerland to read the story about Liezi at the end of Chapter Seven of the Zhuangzĭ as promoting an «air-tight seal between inner and outer». (Slingerland 2003, 190) Aside from this being an unlikely interpretation, as Shigehisa Kuriyama argues, mastery of the body was an issue of fullness, not air-tight sealing. The boundary between inner and outer was the thin membrane of skin and pores. These could be «closely knit», but more effective protection came from fullness within, so that there would be no space for invading things to occupy. The discussion of the fullness of water in Zhuangzĭ 5 «Dé Chong Fú» is illustrative in that regard. (See n. 32). Kuriyama 1999, pp. 259, 268. 2 Guănzĭ 14.1 «Shuĭ Dì» 39. The Guănzĭ is a compilation of writings from the fifth to first century b.c.e. This assertion occurs in a description of gestation that implies that body/form (xing形) consists of energy and water. 人,水也。男女精氣合,而水流形。 Humans are water. Male and female concentrated energies unite, and water flows into a form. This is followed by the claim that water congeals to make humans. As in the Zhuangzĭ's metaphor of the body as water, there is nothing here to suggest this water is contained in an impermeable tub. 3 As Angela Zito notes, «What we interpret in philosophical texts as the privileging of interiority, an inner self, can be better understood as valuable proof of boundary creation and control. Thus the 'centering' action of the self through the body paradoxically takes place at its edges, on its surfaces and through its senses, which act as gates to the outside world». Zito 1994, p. 117. 4 «When thinking cannot get through [understand], the ghosts and spirits manage it». Guănzĭ 13.2 «Xin Shù Xià» and 16.1 «Nèi Yè». 5 Lo 2007, p. 405. priate look can cause significant harm, because even a moment's failure to maintain a reverent appearance produces a bad influence on others.1 This expressivity of the body's surface is not limited to momentary responses. It extends to more constant bodily patterns. The frequent references in early Chinese texts to reading a person's character on the basis of his/her physiognomy suggests confidence in interpreting more lasting physical features than just fleeting expressions. While the Xúnzĭ and the Zhuangzĭ mock the practice, their very attention to it confirms its popularity. However exaggerated at the popular level, it is rooted in early Chinese medical authority. Experts in medicine took seriously the idea that the body's insides produce lasting surface effects. For this reason, diagnoses described in second century b.c.e. excavated medical texts do not need to penetrate below the skin. The physicians determine a person's condition by interpreting signs on the body's surface, such as quality of its perspiration and the nature of its abscesses.2 Thus, not only the surfaces' spontaneous changes, but even its more constant aspects are continuous with, and therefore reveal, the body's insides. The contrast of inside/outside might seem like a division that does not accommodate degrees, but early Chinese medical texts imply that there are degrees and layers of physical interiority. Whereas Lakoff and Johnson's container model stresses the importance of a difference in kind marked by one definitive inner/outer split, early Chinese medical texts stress something else. The more dominant pair is yĭn/yáng, in which inner/outer is subsumed. Yĭn and yáng contrast areas of the body like the underarms as yĭn (soft, dark, and lower), with other areas that are yáng (hard, light, and upper) like limbs. As has been often observed, a yĭn/yáng division is always contextualized relative to what is being divided. Similarly, the inner/outer division also appears to be relative when used to diagnose illness. Early Chinese physicians take note of internal layers, because merely being «inside» is not enough to make an illness serious. Instead, illnesses are threatening according to their level of depth. In fact, there is no reason to presume that the inner/outer division of the body is any different from the typical distinctions that establish other boundaries of things, including near/far, above/below, short/long, big/small, soft/brittle, light/heavy, and light/dark. All of these are matters of degrees. Thus, instead of a single distinct boundary of inside/outside, early Chinese medical texts interpret the surface in terms of its connections with many layers of malleable boundaries. This sketch of concepts and metaphors of the body in Early Chinese texts challenges the impulse to mine them for container-metaphors of the sort that Lakoff and Johnson describe. Unless one determines in advance that one will encounter evidence of a self bounded within firm walls, that model of the self is not likely to appear. Certain things do reside within the body or within specific parts of it, but they are not of a different kind from the things that are outside the body. They also travel in and out, sometimes constituting the inside and sometimes the outside. The body is a multilayered malleable construction whose surface is both porous and in process. It is not a static container that has contact with its environment through the senses. Rather it is its continually formed and reformed boundaries. 20 jane geaney 1 Lĭ jì 19 «Yuè jì». 2 Lo 2000, pp. 38, 42. Sensory Reliability Although the body's shifting surface boundaries are layered upon more internal boundaries that affect, and are revealed by, the surface, this does not mean early Chinese texts presuppose that those surfaces are easy to interpret. For the ordinary observer, a potentially insincere face is not necessarily a reliable indication of the insides. In fact, not only in terms of bodies, but also with regard to most things, early Chinese texts exhibit a great deal of concern about being misled. With vehemence, they vilify things that approximate other things. It might even be the case that the texts express an unusual amount of worries about not being able to tell things apart.1 This problem of deceptive resemblance is important because it gets at the heart of the drawbacks of applying container metaphors of self to texts from Early China. If we assume with Lakoff and Johnson that people in Early China experienced themselves as enclosed inside containers and that they projected these conceptions onto things in the world, it is hard to imagine how the self would avoid feeling radically separate from other things. Adding the idea of «bodies as containers» to a world full of deceptive resemblances is fertile ground for fears that we are not in touch with the world. In a world full of deceptive resemblances, if our walled-off «selves» have only our senses to connect to other things, which we also project to be containers like ourselves, then severe mistrust of sensory knowledge is a likely result. But despite the serious concerns in early Chinese texts about deceptive resemblances, they express little doubt about the capacities of the senses. They present the senses as generally dependable even in discussions of sensory error. Such discussions make it clear that the senses are trustworthy. So what accounts for a situation in which resemblances are deceptive, but the senses are reliable? The anxiety about distinguishing between deceptively similar things is well represented by the short chapter on «Doubting Resemblances» in the Lüshi Chunqiu, an encyclopedic compilation probably dating from the third century b.c.e. The chapter contends that resemblance (sì 似) between things is the greatest cause of confusion and error.2 The usage of sì in early Chinese texts is by no means restricted to contexts of unreliability, but «Mistrusting Resemblances» focuses on resemblances that cause doubt.3 In addition to relatively trivial examples of mistaken resemblance – such as weapons that resemble famous swords, rocks that approximate jade, and scholars whose broad learning and clever talk resembles intelligence – the chapter conveys the full seriousness of the danger of sì through two stories about catastrophes that result from things being too similar.4 In a «cry-wolf» story, a genuine bandit invasion is taken for a false alarm as a result of previous similar alarms staged to amuse a spoiled concubine. The outcome is the destruction of an entire dynasty. In the other story, a ghost manages to trick a man into slaying his son by disguising himself as the man's son. The story goes like this: metaphors in understanding early chinese texts 21 1 Martin Svensson Ekström draws attention to this idea. He argues that fear of deception features vividly in early Chinese texts. Svensson Ekström 2002, pp. 251-289. 2 My discussion focuses on sì 似. For a study that focuses on the graph xiàng 象, see Xu 2004, pp. 514-532. 3 One example of the positive use of sì 似 is Mèngzĭ 6a7, where humans resemble one another because we share the sense preferences of the sages. 4 The term sì 似 is not used exclusively in the context of one particular sense function. For example, it describes the way drums sound like thunder, as well as the way visual appearance leads to mistaken identity. North of Liáng was the district of Lìqiu, where there was a strange ghost who was skilled at imitating (xiào 效) the visual forms (zhuàng 狀) of a person's children and brothers.1 Once, when a man of the town was returning home drunk after visiting the marketplace, the ghost of Lìqiu imitated his son's form and then, blocking his way, treated the man poorly. The man returned home, and when he had sobered up, he upbraided his son, saying, "I am your father. Who would have thought you did not love me? When I was drunk you treated me poorly on the road. Why?" His son cried and knocked his head against the ground, saying "That did not happen. At the time I was taking care of my duties in the eastern part of town. You can ask others." The father believed him. "Aha! It must have been that strange ghost that I have heard about." He decided that the next day he would once again go drinking in the marketplace, in hopes of encountering the ghost and stabbing it to death. At dawn he went to the marketplace and got drunk. His genuine (zhen 貞) son, fearful that his father would be unable to return home, went to help him. When the man saw his genuine son, he drew out his sword and stabbed him. The man's knowledge (zhì 智) was confused by the ghost's resemblance (sì) to his son, and hence he killed his genuine son.2 Those who are confused by ministers and thereby lose genuine ministers have knowledge like this man from Lìqiu.3 The idea that malevolent ghosts have the ability to imitate the forms of loved ones is a compelling example of the threat of misleading resemblances. One can see how such stories express the Lüshi Chunqiu's fear that resemblance is the greatest obstacle to knowledge. While the Lüshi Chunqiu chapter on resemblance barely elaborates on its contention, other early Chinese texts shed more light on such worries about resemblance. The crux of the problem seems to be that some things threaten others by being too similar, as in the example of purple detracting from red.4 The Lúnyŭ, a collection of sayings of and about Confucius, initiates this claim without reference to the graph sì 似, but the Mèngzĭ develops it using «sì». Juxtaposing purple to red, the Lunyu implies that purple somehow steals from it: Kŏngzĭ said, "I hate purple's taking away from red. I hate the sound of Zhèng's making chaos of elegant music. I hate persuasiveness' overturning states and families." Lúnyŭ 17/18. 22 jane geaney 1 The use of the term zhuàng狀 covers multiple visible aspects of a person. It can include face, body, and complexion. Like the graph xíng 形 (form), in some cases it is contrasted with a person's voice. 2 Translating this term zhì 智 here is difficult. «Wisdom» sounds too Orientalist in the context of a Chinese story. «Intelligence» might seem too static. «Knowledge» suggests collected information, whereas knowledge in the context of Early Chinese texts is a skill in making good discriminatory judgments in response to things. 3 John Knoblock and Jeffrey Reigel's translation, slightly modified. Knoblock, Reigel 2000, p. 574. 4 It is possible that some particular circumstance caused purple to be fashionable enough in Early China to attract criticism, but what emerges from the texts is not a specific circumstance so much a sense of disrupted orthodoxy. Like many other things in early Chinese texts, color has norms. The texts presume a categorization of colors totaling five: red, yellow, white, black and blue. The numbering is in keeping with many other sets of fives, including those that specifically apply to the senses, for example, five tastes, five sounds, and sometimes five senses themselves. The texts seem to exhibit a common concern when they mention things that threaten to disrupt these sensory norms. For instance, the disparagement of purple often arises in tandem with complaints about the music of Zhèng. Focusing on the five-fold framework, scholars have argued that the music of Zhèng might have employed a scale exceeding the recognized five tones or might have departed from the usual variety of rhythms. Traditional commentaries often argue that the same kind of thinking applies to color and accounts for the criticism of purple. Because purple is not recognized among the official five colors and yet similar to one of them, the use of purple undermines color orthodoxy. Regarding the music of Zhèng, see DeWoskin 1982, p. 45 and Picken 1977, p. 107. Mèngzĭ 7B37 expands on this vitriol, introducing the term sì in specifying the danger of resemblance. It contends that enmity characterizes the relation between things that resemble one another, in its criticism of «honest villagers».1 It offers this more elaborate form of the statement attributed to Kŏngzĭ. Kŏngzĭ said, "I hate things that resemble (sì) but are not (fei 非) [sì ér fei zhĕ]. I hate weeds for fear they make chaos of rice. I hate eloquence for fear it makes chaos of righteousness. I hate persuasiveness for fear it makes chaos of trustworthiness. I hate the sounds of Zhèng for fear they make chaos of music. I hate purple for fear it makes chaos of red. I hate the 'honest villagers' for fear they make chaos of virtue/power (dé)." Mèngzĭ 7B37 Kŏngzĭ's rhetoric here might seem disproportionate to the threat involved, but perhaps it is because these problems get at the root of more significant dangers. Things that are too similar are enemies of one another because the inability to distinguish between things produces confusion and contributes to deception. To understand the criticism of resemblance in Mèngzĭ 7B37, it is important to note that the passage, like many early Chinese texts, speaks of colors as if they are things, not just surfaces of things. Some of the passage's examples of things that Kŏngzĭ hates are easily assimilated into a «container with misleading surface» model, but the example of color defies being understood in that way, hence it indicates how the rest should be read. Weeds and rice, eloquence and righteousness, etc. are sets of things whose boundaries overlap. This is what disturbs Kŏngzĭ. His hatred of purple does not derive from seeing purple as a surface that hides an unseen essence, as we might expect if we interpret the passage as criticizing things that are mere semblance.2 That might be a likely interpretation if we were persuaded by Lakoff and Johnson's claim that we project our «in-out orientation» onto things that are bounded by surfaces.3 But instead, since purple in metaphors in understanding early chinese texts 23 1 There is little consensus about «honest villagers» (xiangyuán 鄉原), the target of this criticism. In keeping with the pattern here, it is likely they are very close to virtuous, but in some way not as virtuous as others, and therefore they cause confusion by being too similar. For an extended discussion of this term in the Lúnyŭ and the Mèngzĭ, see the discussion initiated by Steve Angle: What's Wrong with those «Pesky Village Worthies»? «Warp, Weft, and Way», Wordpress.com, 9 Nov. 2009. Scholarship that focuses on «honest villagers» to the exclusion of the other items on the list misses the point. See, for example, Lee Yearley's interpretation of «honest villagers». Yearley treats the passage as attacking «semblances» of virtue. By «semblance», he means something that is not «real» and yet also not deliberately deceptive (which he calls «counterfeit»). Yearley adds that semblances of virtue are «apparently or partially good». This encourages interpreting the passage as criticizing «appearance», as long as the appearance in question is not intentionally deceptive. But if we apply that to color, which is also included in the Mèngzĭ 7b37 list, the results are two implausible readings of the passage's view of the relation between purple and red. First, red is real and purple only looks real. Or second, red is real and purple has some, but not all, of the elements that would make it real, like red is. Yearley 1990, pp. 19-20, 67. 2 Translations and commentaries on early Chinese texts do render a number of terms as «essence», but to different effect. In the case of Roger Ames translating jing 精 as essence, he means for it to be understood as «concentrated form», as in vanilla essence. By contrast, Slingerland translates qíng 情 as «essence» (and jing as «quintessence»), with something very different in mind. Following A.C. Graham's weakly justified claim that the «Neo-Mohist Canons» invented the use of qíng 情 as a technical term used to mean what makes a thing what it is, Slingerland interprets references to qíng 情 in early Chinese texts as meaning that sort of essence. This frees him up to find «internal essences» inside containers even in texts where, he admits, the «container language of inner/outer...is almost completely absent». Slingerland 2003, pp. 33-34, 105; Ames 1993, p. 167. 3 Although Lakoff and Johnson do not pursue the color-related implications of their claim that human beings project their in-out orientations onto things, they describe color as dubious on other grounds. They write, «We see color, and yet it is false...cognitive science tells us that colors do not exist in the external world. Given the these passages functions as a thing rather than a surface of a thing, the type of deception that purple poses here is a different problem entirely. The worry is that its resemblance to another color makes it difficult for Kŏngzĭ to distinguish them. The senses' limitations are not at fault. The blurred boundaries of the two things are to blame. Hence Kŏngzĭ's criticism of resemblance does not propose that the senses merely provide knowledge of appearance. Unfortunately, various translations of the Mèngzĭ passage into English have contributed to misreading the passage this way.1 The issue becomes clearer once we change our interpretive framework by substituting purity/impurity for reality/appearance.2 But first, we must look closely at the wording of the passage. It is problematic to translate Kŏngzĭ's statement (sì ér fei zhĕ) as saying that he hates things that are specious. To be specious is to have the look of being genuine, while being false. Here, that cannot be the case. Although it is possible to say of some instance of red that it is «genuinely red», it makes little sense to assess the color red in general as either «genuine» or «false». Moreover, it is important that, when translating sì as «resemblance», the term should not be understood to mean mere «semblance» or mere «seeming» – rhetoric that is coated with doubts about sensory reliability, especially when used in the context of color. The Mèngzĭ's example of color is useful in drawing out the inappropriateness of that reading. The passage does not say, in effect, «It looks like purple looks like red». It says, «Purple looks like red». The assertion does not express doubt about the eyes' capacity to see purple. Nor does purple's appearance hide anything that determines whether it really looks like red. Since purple in this context is something that is seen, without being the surface of something else, the point here is not just that purple seems like red, it is like red. Specifically, in being like red and yet not red, purple comes very close to blurring the boundary of red. If we were to think of this as a «problem of illusion», that might evoke a thing whose surface is counterfeit and belies its essential nature – the sort of problem that results from not being in touch with the world.3 By contrast, we should think of this as a «problem of resemblance», which implies that two (or more) things are similar to the detriment of one. Indeed, it is important to notice that the passage implies that red is more prized than purple. Hence, a better translation would convey that Kŏngzĭ hates things that closely resemble something valorized but are not that thing. Thus, the object of Kŏngzĭ's hatred is not «seeming» or «appearances». The resemblances he despises are those whose blurred boundaries make it difficult for him to distinguish things he wants to keep pure from those he does not value. This is what the phrasing of sì ér fei zhĕ emphasizes. First, it does not say he hates «sì». This is because «sì» is not always used to mean misleading resemblances. Second, more technically, the emphasis of the phrase should not be read 24 jane geaney world, our bodies and brains have evolved to create color». Thus, they dismiss the ordinary use of the senses as false, if not «subjective». For them, what is not false is the physiological eye (the retina and its neural circuitry) that interacts with wavelengths and lighting in seeing color. Lakoff, Johnson 1999, pp. 23-25. 1 James Legge translates the term as «semblances». Legge 1895; 1970. D. C. Lau uses «specious». Lau 1970. Bryan Van Norden chooses «seems». Van Norden 2008. 2 Chris Fraser's study of sensory error argues that, in the absence of a representational view of mind, early Chinese texts do not posit a gap between reality and appearance. Fraser 2011. 3 Fraser remarks that, in the discussions of sensory error in early Chinese texts, «Even in the case of perceptual error due to illusion, the agent is not regarded as misled by appearances or sense impressions that misrepresent reality. Rather, the agent is seen as in touch with the world and usually right about something, namely that whatever feature prompted the erroneous discrimination is indeed similar, at least partially, to a paradigm of the kind of thing the agent took it to be». Fraser 2011, p. 26. as saying he hates things that falsely seem like something without actually being that thing. Instead, «sì ér fei» should be understood as saying that he hates something's close resemblance (sì) to something else that it is not ( fei). Other aspects of the passage reinforce that Kŏngzĭ's complaints are best understood in a framework of purity/impurity. Everything he hates involves two things whose boundaries threaten to be indistinguishable: weeds and rice, eloquence and righteousness, persuasiveness and trustworthiness, music of Zhèng and music, purple and red, «honest villagers» and virtue.1 Moreover, both the Lúnyŭ passage and the Mèngzĭ passage are quite clear about the hatred being directed at what the one thing does to the other, or perhaps, what the one thing does to the ability to distinguish it from the other. The threat to the ability to distinguish is also evident in the rhetoric of Mèngzĭ's assertion that honest villagers are the «enemy» of virtue. As this enmity implies, Kŏngzĭ sees purple as being in active opposition to red. To facilitate distinguishing very similar things, he views close boundaries as opposing one another. Therefore, resemblance is a problem not because the senses fail to get past appearances, but because boundaries overlap. Like these doubts about resemblance in general, discussions of sensory doubts in the Xúnzĭ also do not challenge the reliability of the senses.2 In the «Zhèngmíng» chapter, the Xúnzĭ implies that the senses cope with doubtful resemblances (yísì疑似) on a routine basis. It says that when things are of the same kind and circumstance, the senses have some sort of similar reaction that permits them to successfully compare doubtful resemblances.3 The same confident attitude characterizes the Xúnzĭ 's «Dispelling Obstacles» chapter, which addresses a broad range of what it calls «doubtful observations of things»: taking a stone for a tiger; a tree for a man; a ditch for a drain; a city gate for a door; one thing as two; noise as silence; oxen for sheep; and trees for chopsticks. In each case, the text mentions the cause of the misjudgment: darkness, in the case of the tiger and the man; alcohol, in the case of the drain and the door; pressure, in the case of the eyes and ears; distance, for the sheep; and height, for the chopsticks. A man who takes his shadow for a ghost is first introduced as foolish and prone to fright. Reiterating the point, the text notes that, as a rule, «being startled or confused» is a likely cause for thinking one sees ghosts.4 Thus we are assured that the senses do not misfire for no reason. The chapter lays the blame for such sensory error on factors other than the senses.5 It stresses that it is ill-advised to formulate decisions in the context of darkness, alcohol, pressure, and other influences. Hence while acknowledging that perceptual mistakes are likely to occur in those contexts, it reserves criticism for the decision to form metaphors in understanding early chinese texts 25 1 See above for the interpretation of «honest villagers». 2 For longer discussions of sensory error in early Chinese texts, see Geaney 2002, pp. 39-46 and Fraser 2011. 3 The line employs obscure language that might be technical. The senses have a similar «intended-thing» (yìwù 意物) in response to things of similar kinds. This then permits the possibility of shared naming conventions. 凡同類同情者,其天官之意物也同。 Regarding things of the same kind and circumstance, their heavenly officers' intended-thing is the same. Xúnzĭ 22 «Zhèngmíng». 4 The Xúnzĭ, unlike the Lüshi Chunqiu, treats the existence of ghosts as implausible. 5 Some causes of perceptual error from the Xunzi and the Lushi Chunqiu include being confined, being fixated, being mentally unsettled by desires and aversions, being incompetent, being in confused circumstances (influenced by things), and being short on functional proficiency. Chris Fraser emphasizes that perceptual error generally results from attending to some features of circumstances and not others. Fraser 2011. judgments in those compromised circumstances. The passage makes it clear that, as long as the heart is aware of ever-changing environmental influences and conscious of when to form judgments, sensory error cannot become serious. Whereas a reality/appearance split implies something inherently false about what the senses perceive, the Xúnzĭ argues that sensory error is trivial and usually avoidable. The fear of deception in the Lüshi Chunqiu is stronger than in the Xúnzĭ, but the Lüshi Chunqiu seems to agree that the problem of resemblance becomes pronounced only when people foolishly ignore confusing circumstances influencing their senses. The tragic Lüshi Chunqiu ghost-story might inspire fear that forces beyond one's control create deceptions beyond one's skills in discernment, but that passage also implies that the consequences of the perceptual error could have been drastically reduced. It is true that the ghost was adept at imitating people's relatives, so the man's senses could not distinguish the ghost from his son. But readers might be expected to consider the possibility that the ghost deliberately targets this man because he is lacking in «knowledge».1 The story certainly draws attention this flaw. On the one hand, it describes the man's son, who performs his daily duties and looks after his drunken father. On the other, we have the patriarch who spends his days drinking in town. The father's idea of a good plan to defeat the ghost is to stab it while he is drunk. He starts drinking at dawn on the day of his second ghostly encounter. Even after he is aware that the ghost and his son are difficult to tell apart, he still makes the decision to act on the certainty that the person who looks like his son is definitely the ghost. Readers faced with the prospect of clever ghosts imitating their loved ones might find comfort in the man's incompetent judgments. Indeed, there are many reassuring suggestions that a more careful person could avoid this man's fate. The story promotes good judgment through hard work, duty, sobriety, and restraint. These virtues promise to serve as protection against the threat of misleading resemblances. Whatever anxieties the story may initially conjure, on further inspection, any doubts about whether one can trust resemblances only seem to apply to such feckless and unobservant people as this drunken patriarch. The Lüshi Chunqiu even proposes a method for avoiding sensory doubt – attentive knowledge of the environment. While the Xúnzĭ advocates not making hasty decisions when something is influencing the senses, the Lüshi Chunqiu is more proactive. It instructs its readers to familiarize themselves with their environment or rely on those who do. Its entire discussion of doubtful resemblance culminates with the advice to emulate the great sages of the past who sought input from ordinary shepherds and fishers whose territory they entered. As the passage points out, such local knowledge is valuable because it comes from intimate care and attention (shĕn審). The passage adds an analogy to a mother discerning the difference between her twins. It notes that a mother knows how to identify her twins and has a constant and regular knowledge of them.2 Thus, the presumed persistent awareness of a mother's perception of her children epitomizes reliable sensory knowledge. Like the local shepherds and fishers' knowledge of their land, the mother's ability to distinguish her twins results from prolonged intimate contact. That contact with her children, who perhaps not incidentally were once literally part of 26 jane geaney 1 Regarding the term being translated as «knowledge», see above. 2 The line reads: 夫人子之相似者,其母常識之,知之審也。 «As for twins, their mother constantly is aware of them, which is knowing carefully». her, allows her to perceive finer distinctions between them than others can.1 This suggests that, drunken patriarchs notwithstanding, we need only consider maternal dedication to realize that there is nothing preventing us from recognizing our kin, even when ghosts impersonate our loved ones. Hence, blurred boundaries do place special demands on sensory knowledge, but not the kind of insuperable challenges that would result if combined with the container-self model. In a world where boundaries are so close that they produce deceptive resemblances, closeness simultaneously provides reassurance: constant intimate contact increases the reliability of knowledge. Intimate contact is possible because human subjects and the world interpenetrate and affect each other. No self is confined inside container walls. Drunken confusion and irresponsibility might get in the way of paying attention, but there are no walls obstructing close familiarity. According to this chapter, to cope with fears of being misled by resemblances, one need only cultivate regular attentive knowledge of one's environment. The idea of knowing how to distinguish blurred boundaries provides an alternative way of explaining what could otherwise seem like reality/appearance contrasts in which a person's countenance or manner is misleading.2 For instance, there is a story in the Zhuangzĭ that repeatedly touches on the issue of possible incongruity between a person's insides and outsides. In a conversation between the stock characters 'Kŏngzĭ' the sage and 'Yán Huí' his follower, Yán Huí proposes two schemes for assisting a ruler: bending his outsides while straightening his insides, or presenting himself as empty and unified. Kŏngzĭ rejects both. He doubts that Yán Huí is up to the challenge of acting empty and unified, which, he says, would entail maintaining a composed facial expression. By contrast, Kŏngzĭ predicts that the ruler actually could successfully present himself as outwardly agreeable while inwardly not. By implication, Kŏngzĭ seems to mean that someone with enough power to rule a state could manage a feat like that, at least in front of a novice like Yán Huí. To someone working from a container-self model, these metaphors might evoke a core-self inside a container whose outside is mere deceptive appearance. But it is noteworthy that Kŏngzĭ describes facial control as involving types of energy that are by no means empty semblance. The reason Kŏngzĭ maintains that an ordinary person like Yán Huí would not be able to do it is that he presumes successfully manipulating one's facial expression requires mastery of one's yín and yáng energies, a process that produces the body's surface. Indeed, we get the impression that even the ruler would not be able to compose his face well enough to deceive Kŏngzĭ, if he knew him. Thus, most of the time, people's expressions are so closely linked to the complex movements of their interiors that they cannot successfully deceive an astute observer.3 Inside and outside interpenetrate and most people cannot control them well enough to close off the connection and create a sufficiently deceptive surface. The passage's emphasis on discerning the inside on the basis of the outside presupposes that the external surface is less valuable than the interior in this context. But it does not presume that the outside is so completely unconnected to the inside as to be false appearmetaphors in understanding early chinese texts 27 1 The choice of a mother as an exemplar of knowledge makes an interesting contrast to a model of a self that is enclosed inside a container. As Christine Battersby points out, pregnancy is precisely the kind of boundary-blurring experience that challenges any sense of a unitary self bounded by the container of the body. Battersby 1999. See above. 2 For a different reading, see Slingerland 2003, pp. 187-188. 3 Shigehisa Kuriyama's argument about Confucius is broadly applicable here. He notes that, for Confucius, instances of feigned expressions are simply warnings of the need for careful observation, not signs that the face cannot be trusted. Kuriyama 1995, p. 217. ance. Yán Huí compares inside/outside to heaven/earth – a comparison that must be understood according to the worldview of early Chinese texts. Inside and outside, like heaven and earth, differ by degrees. Heaven is not especially «real», and earth, while less valuable in certain contexts, is not inherently «false» or «appearance-based».1 Thus, when a countenance misleads people, it is not because surfaces in general are false. It is because the usually blurred boundaries between inside and outside have been temporarily separated well enough to fool those people. The interior is still evident to a close observer because the surface is still a product of mobilized inner energies. Lakoff and Johnson's embodied realism aims to remove the gap between subjective and objective by situating experience in bodies. But their presumed common embodiment, like their container-self metaphor, closes off potential for otherness. The sensory processes in early Chinese texts resist being read through Lakoff and Johnson's container model of the self. The body does not consist of walls that are discontinuous with the things in the world or with a core-self that is contained within it. In early Chinese texts, nothing is well bounded, which means the distinctions between the human subject and other things are matters of degrees and always in the process of changing. The desire for clear-cut boundaries that occurs in discussions about the color purple applies as much to the construction the human subject as it does to things. The container metaphor is not appropriate because in early Chinese texts, if there is an experience of containment at all, it has been sought after. It is not a preexisting state or a common embodiment. The internal and external interaction between entities occurs between things of similar sorts that constantly form and reform the subject. This flux is potentially chaotic, but reliable knowledge is possible through attunement to one's surroundings, which amounts to perfecting the senses. Attunement is the way to sense shifting flowing boundaries and thereby achieve more reliable knowledge. If one is attuned, then even in the worst situations – when malicious ghosts disguise themselves as relatives – resemblances will not deceive. This confidence is possible because the potential deceptiveness of resemblance has nothing to do with gaps between the interiors and exteriors of containers. Rather, the reason resemblance can be misleading is that nothing is well bounded, including the things being sensed and the subject who is sensing. Hence, the senses are reliable as long as the knower is not distracted by the traffic moving in and out of the porous membrane and shifting boundaries of the subject. Bibliography Allan Sarah, Ways of Water: Sprouts of Virtue, Albany (ny), suny Press, 1997. Angle Steve, What's Wrong with those «Pesky Village Worthies»? «Warp, Weft, and Way», Wordpress.com 9, Nov. 2009. Web. 30 April. 2011. Ames Roger T., The Focus-Field Self in Classical Confucianism, Self as Person, in Asian Theory and Practice, Eds. Roger T. Ames, Wimal Dissanayake, Thomas P. Kasulis, Albany (ny), suny Press, 1994, pp. 187-212. -, The Meaning of Body in Classical Chinese Philosophy in Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice, Eds. Thomas P. Kasulis, Roger T. Ames and Wimal Dissanayake, Albany (ny), suny Press, 1993, pp. 157-177. Battersby Christine, Her Body/Her Boundaries, in Feminist Theory and the Body, Eds. Janet Price and Margrit Schildrick, New York, Routledge, 1999, pp. 341-358. 28 jane geaney 1 In other words, inner/outer is a polarity, not a dualism marked by radically difference. Ames 1993, pp. 158-163. Berkson Mark A., Conceptions of Self/No-Self and Modes of Connection, «Journal of Religious Ethics», 33 (2005), pp. 293-331. Butters Ronald R., Do Conceptual Metaphors Really Exist? «secol (South Eastern Conference on Linguistics) Bulletin», 5 (1981), pp. 108-117. Chong Kim Chong, Zhuangzi and the Nature of Metaphor, «Philosophy East and West», 56 (2006), pp. 370-391. DeWoskin Kenneth J., A Song for One or Two: Music and the Concept of Art in Early China, Ann Arbor, Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1982. Fingarette Herbert, Finding the Self in the Analects, «Philosophy East and West», 29 (1979), pp. 129-140. Fraser Chris, Knowledge and Error in Early Chinese Thought, «Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy», 9 (2011), pp. 1-39. Geaney Jane, On the Epistemology of the Senses in Early Chinese Thought, Honolulu, University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. -, Guarding Moral Boundaries: Shame in Early Confucianism, «Philosophy East and West», 54 (2004), pp. 113-142. Graham Angus C., Chuang-tzu: The Inner Chapters, Boston, Unwin Publications, 1986. -, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, Hong Kong, Chinese University Press, 1978. Graziani Romain, The Subject and the Sovereign, in Early Chinese Religion Part One: Shang through Han (1250-220 ad), Eds. John Lagerway and Marc Kalinowski, Boston, Brill, 2009, pp. 459-518. Harper Donald, Resurrection in Warring States Popular Religion, «Taoist Resources», 5 (1994), pp. 13-28. Holland Dorothy, Conventional Metaphors in Human Thought and Language, «Reviews in Anthropology», 9.3 (1982), pp. 287-297. Ishida Hidemi, Body and Mind: The Chinese Perspective, in Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques, Ed. Livia Kohn, Ann Arbor, Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan, 1989, pp. 41-71. Johnson Mark, The Body in the Mind, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1987. Knoblock John, Reigel Jeffrey, The Annals of Lu Buwei: A Complete Translation and Study, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2000. Kuriyama Shigehisa, Expressiveness of the Body, New York, Zone Books, 1999. -, Visual Knowledge in Classical Chinese Medicine, in Knowledge and the Scholarly Medical Traditions, Ed. Don Bates, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 205-234. Lakoff George, Johnson Mark, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought, New York, Basic Books, 1999. -, Metaphors We Live By, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1980. Laqueur Thomas, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, Cambridge (ma), Harvard University Press, 1990. Latour Bruno, How to Talk about the Body? The Normative Dimension of Science Studies, «Body and Society», 10 (2004), pp. 205-229. Lau D. C., Mencius, New York, Penguin Books, 1970. Legge James, The Works of Mencius, New York, Dover, 1970 (1895 reprint). Lo Vivienne, Crossing the Neiguan内関 'Inner Pass': A Nei/wai 'Inner/Outer' Distinction in Early Chinese Medicine, «East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine», 17 (2000), pp. 16-65. -, Imagining Practice: Sense and Sensuality in Early Chinese Medical Illustration, in Graphics and Text in the Production of Technical Knowledge in China: The Warp and the Weft, Eds. Francesca Bray, Vera Dorofeeva-Lichtmann and George Metailie, Boston, Brill, 2007, pp. 379-424. Middendorf Ulrike, What's in a Container? Metonymic and Metaphoric Investigations into the Early Chinese Concept of the Heart (Xin): A Case Study on Asymmetry in Linguistic Conceptualization, in Que peut la métaphore?: Histoire, savoir et poétique, Eds. Sylvain David, Janusz Przychodzen and François-Emmanuël Boucher, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2009, pp. 63-80. metaphors in understanding early chinese texts 29 Picken Laurence, The Shapes of the Shi Jing Song Text and Their Musical Implications, «Musica Asiatica», 1 (1977), pp. 85-109. Poo Mu-chow, The Concept of Ghost in Ancient Chinese Religion, in Religion and Chinese Society. vol. 1: Ancient and Medieval China, Ed. John Lagerway, Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004, pp. 173-191. Shun Kwong-loi, Conceptions of the Person in Early Confucian Thought in Confucian Ethics: A Comparative Study of Self, Autonomy, and Community, Eds. Kwong-loi Shun and David Wong, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 183-199. Slingerland Edward, Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003. Spellman James D., Three Models of Self Integration (Tzu-te) in Early China, «Philosophy East and West», 37 (1987), pp. 372-391. Sterckx, Roel, Animal and Daemon in Early China, Albany (ny), suny Press, 2002. Svensson Ekström Martin, Illusion, Lie, and Metaphor: The Paradox of Divergence in Early Chinese Poetics, «Poetics Today», 23 (2002), pp. 251-289. Tu Wei-ming, Embodying the Universe: A Note on Confucian Self-Realization, in Self as Person in Asian Theory and Practice, Eds. Roger T. Ames, Wimal Dissanayake and Thomas P. Kasulis, Albany (ny), suny Press, 1994, pp. 177-186. Van Norden Bryan, Mengzi: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries, Indianapolis (in), Hackett, 2008. Vidali Amy, Seeing What We Know: Disability and Theories of Metaphor, «Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies», 4 (2010), pp. 33-54. Xu Weihe, The Confucian Politics of Appearance and its Impact on Chinese Humor, «Philosophy East and West», 54 (2004), pp. 514-532. Yearley Lee, Mencius and Aquinas: Theories of Virtue and Conceptions of Courage, Albany (ny), suny 1990. Yu Ning, The Chinese Heart in a Cognitive Perspective: Culture, Body, and Language: Applications of Cognitive Linguistics, Boston (ma), Mouton de Gruyter, 2009. Yu Ying-shi, «O Soul, Come Back!». A Study in the Changing Conceptions of the Soul and Afterlife in Pre-Buddhist China, «Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies», 47 (1987), pp. 363-395. Zito Angela, Silk and Skin: Significant Boundaries, in Body, Subject & Power in China, Eds. Angela Zito and Tani E. Barlow, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1994, pp. 103-130. 30 jane geaney composto in carattere dante monotype dalla fabrizio serra editore, pisa * roma. stampato e rilegato nella tipografia di agnano, agnano pisano (pisa) . * Gennaio 2012 (cz 2 * fg 21) | {
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META: Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and Practical Philosophy – III (2) / 2011 450 META: RESEARCH IN HERMENEUTICS, PHENOMENOLOGY, AND PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY VOL. III, NO. 2 / DECEMBER 2011: 450-460, ISSN 2067-3655, www.metajournal.org A Sketch of Deleuze's Hermeneutical Spin Emilian Mărgărit Al. I. Cuza University of Iași Abstract The aim of this article is to sketch the procedural nature of the modus in which Deleuze reads the other philosophers. The hermeneutical problem indicated by the indecision to consider his books on different authors as an authorized interpretation or as fantasist utilization may be scattered if we understand his hermeneutical attempts both as interpretation and construction (concept or problem). In addition, this indecision affects the guild of Deleuzian exegetes in respect to the directory idea (prime author) which could point out the general strategy of his philosophy. Keywords: interpretation, construction, problematic, Deleuze, Hume, Nietzsche, Kant, Bergson I believe it is relevant to describe Deleuze's 'interpretive method' in a plural manifestation form because its denomination in singular ought to include a complex web of positions regarding the problems arising from the preparation, conduct and waging of a 'guerilla war' within and with philosophy. This is the reason why I have selected Hume, Nietzsche, Kant and Bergson from his works (written in his early period), the elements that enable the realization of a sketch of his 'method'. How can one explain Gilles Deleuze's philosophical initiative? How can it be explained taking into account the polymorphous nature resulting from its ambiguous relation with the 'academia'? Will we find an answer in case we discover what his philosophy aims to overcome, accomplish, oppose, or, to put it Emilian Mărgărit / A Sketch of Deleuze's Hermeneutical Spin 451 more simply, in case we discover who or what does he write against? If we analyze procedurally the implications of Deleuze's philosophy, we can state in principle that: a) his philosophy is not an unknown fruit (as one could think taking into account the famous exotic titles, especially in the English speaking regions, that announce an exegesis on Deleuze) that emerged accidentally from the old tree of Western philosophy and that b) his genuine concepts are also pro/ble/gram/matic reactions to the above mentioned tradition. Vincent Descombes, one of the authors who attempted to outline the complex situation of the '60s atmosphere in France, exemplifies the subjectivity as main thread. It is a main thread to the extent that subjectivity faced a dual attack: a) against the idealist premises of phenomenology in search of a 'genuine' cogito, thus maintaining the subject as a principle, and b) against dialectics seen as pivoting around 'a higher concept of identity' (Descombes 1980, 76). We may relate Deleuze to these combatant attitudes if we widen the meaning presupposed by subjectivity and the horizon of its justifiability, if we take into account the 'flank' it opens up in relation to: "(...) the critique or deconstruction of interiority, of self-presence, of consciousness, of mastery, of the individual or collective property of an essence. Critique or deconstruction of the firmness of a seat (hypokeimenon, substantia, subjectum) and the certitude of an authority and a value (the individual, a people, the state, history, work)." (Nancy 1991, 4) However, from this perspective only, we observe a purely reactive reactionary presence in Deleuzes's case. Does his philosophy coagulates only and to the extent that it is a choleric reaction to the classical themes of philosophy, just like the light of a bulb only draws out and gathers the insects wandering in the dark? It is not by chance (but not undisputable) that the exegesis in the field suggests as direction vectors of Deleuze's philosophy authors that he approached. In this sense, Bergson, Nietzsche and Spinoza are linked in various ways in order to explain the Deleuzian project. Here are some examples taken from the literature in the field to support this argument. META: Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and Practical Philosophy – III (2) / 2011 452 For instance, Badiou believes that Bergson is the true inspiration of Deleuze's thinking (the idealism of his philosophy) (Badiou 1999, 39); in the same spirit, Keith Ansell Pearson believes that Deleuze's ontology owes everything to Bergson and that the reading of Spinoza bears a Bergsonian influence (Pearson 1999, 12). According to Constantin V. Boundas, the transcendental empiricism of Deleuze is Bergson-inspired (Boundas 2006, 11). Michael Hardt divided Deleuze's philosophy into a Bergson-inspired ontology, an ethics supported by Nietzsche's philosophy and a 'politics' supported by a collective model of Spinoza-inspired ethical practice. According to Hardt, the Deleuzian reading of Spinoza has Bergsonian and Nietzschean characteristics, and the successive reading of these authors ensured Deleuze with the anti-Hegelian project of his philosophy (Hardt 1993, X–XII). Todd May states that there is a 'holy Trinity' of Deleuze's philosophy where: Spinoza is the Son, Bergson is the Father and Nietzsche is the Holy Spirit. In the same line, at the 'individual all-round' section, Spinoza and Bergson make up Deleuze's ontology with the immanence and duration concepts. Also, Nietzsche holds the affirmative flag of a subversive ethics (May 2005, 25–27). In contrast (as an exotic contrasting example), Manuel Delanda relates his philosophy to the scientific discourse because he takes Deleuze as a procesualist thinker (Delanda 2002, 14–16). We might think that the reason why the authors wooed by Deleuze are suggested as directions of his thinking consists in the fact that each of them is a counterpoint to the mainstream philosophy: Spinoza to the rationalists and theology; Nietzsche to the philosophy at large, it seems, seen as Platonic metaphysics; Bergson to Kant, Hegel or, generally speaking, to the way philosophical problems are constructed. In the scenarios described by the above mentioned writers, Deleuze appears to suggest himself as a spearhead for an already existing aggressive direction. However, it is imperative that we do not forget that Deleuze's way of reading singles out an author and somehow takes him outside an official tradition. Can it be stated that Deleuze has 'built' himself a tradition or is it possible that the selection of authors, the electivity lying at the basis of their exotic Emilian Mărgărit / A Sketch of Deleuze's Hermeneutical Spin 453 cohabitation within a 'tradition' is proof of a taste for 'scandal' in philosophy? I suggest that we discover the method of the Deleuzian reading by following the course of his first books and especially his very first book on Hume's philosophy, which is unjustly absent from the exegesis on the matter. (a) Although it is not the main object of his first work, Deleuze puts into question the way one can tell which manner of reading is better than another. In Deleuze's view, to position oneself to a text is to detect the problem that makes up the foundation and the structure of a theory, that is to understand and question not the solution to a problem but the very interrogation that rephrases a certain type of experience, presupposing other connections, other differentiation relations, a new way of forcing things out, etc. (a surprisingly recurring theme forty years later in What is philosophy?). Therefore, to criticize is to detect a 'force deficit', a too mainstream way of thematizing the basic data of an experience, the insufficiency of a differentiation, the commonplaceness of a comment in relation to the experience of a problem through an author. "To put something in question means subordinating and subjecting things to the question, intending, through this constrained and forced subsumption, that they reveal an essence or a nature. To criticize the question means showing under what conditions the question is possible and correctly raised; in other words, how things would not be what they are were the question different from the one formulated." (Deleuze 1991, 106) This is the reason why the Deleuzian transcription of the problematics of Hume's empiricism starts with the interrogation of the nature of subjectivity: is it not that the subject constitutes itself within the given? And the condition of possibility, the playground of this interrogation is given by the phrase 'relations are external to ideas' (Deleuze 1991, 24, 119). The Deleuzian empiricism takes on a type of reading that engages the history of philosophy through the problematics that break up the continuous aspect of its history; this reading frames an author with a constant view to the position of a precise problem – such as that of the subject – and to the presentation of the conditions of this problem. Thus, it is understood that to Deleuze the fidelity of a META: Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and Practical Philosophy – III (2) / 2011 454 reading per se limits itself to the maintaining of the problematic field, where the problematic field is the univocal relation described (rhizomatically) as the coupling of the problem to its emergence conditions. Therefore, the relation between Hume, his work and Deleuze's position towards it focus on the same fact when the consistency of the reading is in view and not so much its justness. The psychological or social factors can be conceived of as color enhancers of the problematics, that is they express the set of motivations and do not induce the degree of truth nor the degree of falseness of the question. 'Hume' is simply the nominal owner of a problematic field. In a pragmatist way similar to a certain point with Richard Rorty, Deleuze can tell us that the importance of an author disappears or holds depending on the problematics that can recreate him (Alliez 2004, 33). However, the generally defining aspect of the Deleuzian reading strategy is the fact that to interpret is to simultaneously construct, and the two generate the true unity of a creation if, of course, the creation makes current a certain problematics. "(...) to see the history of philosophy as a sort of buggery or (it comes to the same thing) immaculate conception. I saw myself as taking an author from behind and giving him a child that would be his own offspring, yet monstrous. It was really important for it to be his own child, because the author had to actually say all I had him saying. But the child was bound to be monstrous too, because it resulted from all sorts of shifting, slipping, dislocations, and hidden emissions that I really enjoyed." (Deleuze 1995, 6) In other words, the Deleuzian reading way must be simultaneously understood as interpretation and construction of concept – a procreating 'sodomizing' as Deleuze himself calls it. A procedural division of this hermeneutic couple distinguishes on the one hand, in the case of the work on Hume, constructivism1 as an immanent manner of restitution of the conceptual stake of an author, emphasizing the play of the structural elements, and on the other hand, an assembly and deconstruction strategy regarding mainly authors and their 'isms', concepts, distinctions pertaining to the official history of philosophy and that may be included generically under the label interpretation. Interpretation plays a minimal role in the assembly of the contrast elements (for instance, Hume – Bergson, Nietzsche – Freud), but a decisive one Emilian Mărgărit / A Sketch of Deleuze's Hermeneutical Spin 455 when the problematics in question has a certain shape and conflicting determination in connection to a tradition or an eventauthor (Kant in this case). To be more precise, in the book in question, Deleuze inaugurates the relation Hume – Kant on the subject issue. This relation does not presuppose the reiteration of the historical sequence Hume – Kant in order to discover the difficulties that the former could not overcome in connection with the latter, nor to evaluate the epistemological solfeggio sung by Kant in order to dissipate the atonal skepticism of Hume. In the case of the problematics assumed by Deleuze, the reiteration of this sequence is decisive for the way in which, starting from Hume's philosophy, a theory of subjectivity can be grounded in its practical origins, as well as, of course, its conflicting relation with the Kantian transcendental theory. Formally, the two movements that describe the physics of the Deleusian problematic moves in the case of Hume's philosophy can be extended by suggesting generically and unitarily a new way of working in philosophy, and particularly in the case of each book (Nietzsche, Bergson, Kant, Proust, Sacher-Masoch): a) an immanent reading that goes through and connects the basic data of a certain problematics; b) a critical, sometimes de/reconstructive review or infusion of certain concepts, distinctions, major philosophical theses. (b) Deleuze's book on Nietzsche's philosophy is multiply relevant. Its importance can be biographically determined2; it is also decisively relevant to the first hand exegesis on Nietzsche. And not least, at the conceptual level, disregarding the other two relevant points, there is a problematics determined by the certification of a 'radical empiricism' and a 'nihilist dialectics'. We can configure and procedurally separate the construction and interpretation elements in order to detect the relation Deleuze – Nietzsche in his aggressive trial against philosophy the same way we described Deleuze's reading on Hume. "The philosophical learning of an author is not assessed by numbers of quotations, nor by the always fanciful and conjectural check lists of libraries, but by the apologetic or polemical directions of his work itself. We will misunderstand the whole of Nietzsche's work if we do not see "against whom" its principle concepts are directed. Hegelian META: Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and Practical Philosophy – III (2) / 2011 456 themes are present in this work as the enemy against which it fights." (Deleuze 2002, 162) Let us imagine Deleuze's book like a battlefield within philosophy; his strategy must be deduced from the concrete movement of concepts, in connection with the enemy he encircles or carefully studies. The movements per se of a concept depending on its operative enemy, the encirclement, the jumble, the constant fight are the signs of what we called constructivism. The strategy of scrapping, assembly, local coherence and interdependence inferred from these movements bears the generic title of interpretation.3 (c) Deleuze's work on Kant is a source of perplexity for the readers accustomed to his 'hallucinative' reading method. There is no 'problematic staging', no confronted positions, and no discussion about a possible lack: one is simply confronting some subtle notes depicting the cobweb of Kantian critical philosophy, put down with the thoroughness of an inquirer. In this sense, one of Deleuze's commentators has a synthetic view on the hermeneutical scenarios displayed by Deleuze in his books, drawing them closer to the detective novel build-up manner: "Philosophy is a detective story to the extent that we start not from the knowledge or assumptions, but from the clues, disparate elements, combined later in a virtual world whose only consistency is the internal consistency of a possible model." (Antonioli 1999, 15) In comparison to the method I suggest, consisting in the definition of the Deleuzian reading strategy simultaneously as concept interpretation and construction, the narrative premise risks engaging and wasting the Deleuzian philosophy between the folds of an excessive and dominant pragmatist hermeneutics. The investigation of the inquirer assembles the clues in a montage and, secondly, in a coherent virtual scenario through the network of signs intersection and sending. The fact that the montage does not represent the 'in-self' of an author does not reduce the Deleuzian procedure to a merely narrative method. Moreover, the montage procedure is energized by a collage method4 that settles in conceptual constructions the clues of a level, placing it into the multiple and transversal network of the other levels that make up the work of an author; this takes place in various opposition or Emilian Mărgărit / A Sketch of Deleuze's Hermeneutical Spin 457 alliance scenarios, within an unconventional or elective history of philosophy (Hume deconstructs the transcendental unity of the subject, Nietzsche completes the Kantian critique, Hume's link to Nietzsche concerning the exteriority of relations, the manner in which something can be thought, etc.). What is more, the authors who have a stand at the level of the various problematic representations are distributed differently5 (the Hume in his first book is different from the Hume in Difference and Repetition), in main or secondary roles (Bergson in Difference and Repetition in relation to Logic of Sense), a neuter tone (the book on Kant) or a negative tone (Kant as an example of the dogmatic image of thinking). This is why, for Deleuze, the plan and the problematics of every authors, the produced oppositions or alliances are unique. The Deleuzian investigation may suppose both an interpretation and construction procedure and a neuter action of 'parceling out' and deconstruction, as can be seen in his reading of Kant.6 (d) The situation is completely different in his work on Bergson's philosophy. Perhaps that is the reason behind the title of this work – Bergsonism. "The notion of difference promises to throw light on the philosophy of Bergson, and inversely, Bergsonism promises to make an inestimable contribution to a philosophy of difference." (Deleuze 2004, 32) The strategy of this work can be, in turn, traced back to the Deleuzian interpretation and construction method, only that, in this case, Deleuze focuses on the problematic lines emerging from what is to become a Bergsonian 'tradition'. Concepts as 'multiplicity', 'virtuality' are to be thrown upon the swarming relentless world and recovered as evanescent nets of experience (that condition no more than that are conditioning in contrast with the a priori schemes) making visible par example the concrete cadence of time as the books on Cinema have showed. This is the sense in which, and as a consequence of which I can understand the Bergsonian ubiquity in the explanatory positions of many Deleuzian themes. In conclusion the hermeneutical spin proper to Deleuze's own way of making philosophy is not based on a vulgar or savage utilization of texts, concepts, distinction aiming to reach by all means a postmodern relativistic view on whatever is looking at. On the contrary we are dealing with a very 'serious' (as Foucault has labeled him) undertake in philosophy constructing within META: Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and Practical Philosophy – III (2) / 2011 458 philosophy with the reach material of tradition the virtual structure of what it is that make as to do what we do 'now'. NOTES 1 This term is coined as a terminal overview in the first section of What is Philosophy? on the manner in which philosophy makes shifts in the problematic jumps taken from an author to another (subject of Descartes and the subject of Spinoza or Kant for example). Furthermore if What is philosophy? is leveraged by a personal investigation of Deleuze regarding his one way of making philosophy, then the sketch of the hermeneutical spin we are trying to draw could be justified by the mega-theme of philosophy as such put in to act in this final book. Guattari is not excluded although the book mention is co-written, just an-present in respect to the lines that are 'fished' from the creative pool of Deleuze first period that stretches from the book on Hume till the Logic of sense. 2 "It was Nietzsche, who I read only later, who extricated me from all this. Because you just can't deal with him in the same sort of way. He gets up to all sorts of things behind your back." (Deleuze 1995, 6) This phrase of Deleuze bears special awakeners because it is hard to understand why Nietzsche is put in the 'later' list of authors 'dwelt' with since his book on Nietzsche is his second official book. We can understand this sentence if we presume that he wrote the other books (or some of them, Bergsonism for example) before that of Nietzsche and the order of publishing is just unimportant irrelevant or that is affirming the difficulties encompassed by his 'strategy' (that we are trying to sketch) and that the resistance of Nietzsche has made his 'capture apparatus' a more sophisticated, evolved philosophical parasite in the body of philosophy. 3 In the book dedicated to Nietzsche's philosophy we pursue the structural sphere of constructivism in respect to the concepts of force, will to power and the element that is correlated with them – quality. The non-philosophical embodiments present in those concepts (biology, thermo-dynamics) due to Nietzsche one strategy is re-dimensioned by Deleuze in the struggle against Hegelianism. Deleuze is shadowing Nietzsche's philosophy in the light of Salomon Maimon's project that is mainly constructed in regard to Kant's transcendental philosophy, thus we have a Nietzsche that passes (in the figural and literal sense) over Hegel to restate the stakes of post-Kantianism's and in an opening way to solve them. The sphere of interpretation is basically that with which Deleuze is in the first sits of Nietzsche exegesis, a systematic approach of Nietzsche's philosophy (a coherent explication of the relation between force and will to power with all its implications). 4 We must not forget that Deleuze is assembling various facts from let's simply say non-philosophical domains as literature, art, biology etc. as support for a philosophical thesis (the virtual for example). 5 Zourabichvili speaks of an "unconventional usage of indirect speech" in Deleuze's book on other authors (Zourabichvili 2004, 14). I would say that Deleuze relates only to what can his procedure retain and not "the story" itself of an author; electivity holds similar to the manner we chose our friends, basically Emilian Mărgărit / A Sketch of Deleuze's Hermeneutical Spin 459 regarding personal traits and pure resonance. "Whether they're real or imaginary, animate or inanimate, you have to form your mediators. It's a series. If you're not in some series, even a completely imaginary one, you're lost. I need my mediators to express myself, and they'd never express themselves without me: you're always working in a group, even when you seem to be on your own." (Deleuze 1995, 125) The cause of this rhetorical 'echoes' through others is based first of all on a common cause (critique of transcendence, or ego for example) and in relation to our sketch by the very own procedure of Deleuze 'method' of philosophizing. 6 "My book on Kant's different; I like it, I did it as a book about an enemy that tries to show how his system works, its various cogs the tribunal of Reason, the legitimate exercise of the faculties (our subjection to these made all the more hypocritical by our being characterized as legislators)." (Deleuze 1995, 6) Perhaps this is why in What is Philosophy? Deleuze will present a graphic sketch of how the subject circumscribed to the rigors of Kantian works. (Deleuze and Guattari 1994, 56). REFERENCES Alliez, Éric. 2004. The Signature of the World, or, What Is Deleuze and Guattari's Philosophy? Translated by Eliot Ross Albert and Albersto Toscano. London: Continuum. Antonioli, Manola. 1999. Deleuze et l'Histoire de la Philosophie. Paris: Éditions Kimé. Badiou, Alain. 1999. Deleuze. The Clamor of Being. Translated by Louise Burchill. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Boundas, Constantin V. 2006. "What Difference does Deleuze's Difference make?". In Deleuze and Philosophy, edited by Constantin V. Boundas, 3-31. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Delanda, Manuel. 2002. Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy. London: Continuum. Deleuze, Gilles. 1991. Empiricism and Subjectivity. An Essay on Hume's Theory of Human Nature. Translated by Constantin V. Boundas. New York: Columbia University Press. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. 1994. What is Philosophy? Translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell. New York: Columbia University Press. Deleuze, Gilles. 1995. Negotiations 1972-1990. Translated by Martin Joughin. New York: Columbia University Press. META: Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and Practical Philosophy – III (2) / 2011 460 Deleuze, Gilles. 2002. Nietzsche and Philosophy. Translated by Hugh Tomlinson. London: Continuum. Deleuze, Gilles. 2004. "Bergson's Conception of Difference." In Desert Islands and Other Texts 1953-1974, edited by David Lapoujade, translated by Michael Taomina, 32-52. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e). Descombes, Vincent. 1980. Modern French Philosophy. Translated by L. Scott-Fox and J. M. Harding. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hardt, Michael. 1993. Gilles Deleuze: An Apprenticeship in Philosophy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. May, Todd. 2005. Gilles Deleuze. An Introduction. New York: Cambridge University Press. Nancy, Jean-Luc. 1991. "Introduction." In Who Comes After the Subject?, edited by Eduardo Cadava, Peter Connor, Jean-Luc Nancy, 1-9. New York: Routledge. Pearson, Keith Ansell. 1999. Germinal Life: The Difference and Repetition of Deleuze. London: Routledge. Zourabichvili, François. 2004. "Deleuze. Une philosophie de l'événement." In La philosophie de Deleuze, edited by François Zourabichvili, Anne Sauvagnargues, Paola Marrati, 1-117. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Emilian Mărgărit has a PhD on the problem of empiricism and immanence in Deleuze ("Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University of Iasi, Romania). His fields of interest are Early Modern philosophy, contemporary French philosophy, the concepts of nation and minorities. Address: Emilian MĂRGĂRIT Al.I. Cuza University of Iasi Department of Philosophy Bd. Carol I, 11 700506 Iasi, Romania E-mail: [email protected] | {
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Draft chapter for inclusion in The Bloomsbury Companion to the Philosophy of Psychiatry. Eds. Robyn Bluhm and Serife Tekin. Forthcoming 2018. Please quote from published version. Anthony Vincent Fernandez Merleau-Ponty and the Foundations of Psychopathology Maurice Merleau-Ponty was a 20th-century French philosopher who worked at the intersection of phenomenology and existentialism. Phenomenology, founded by Edmund Husserl and further developed by his students, including Martin Heidegger, is the study of human experience and existence. Traditionally, it describes the essential structures of consciousness-i.e., those features that hold for any experiencing human subject-including selfhood, intersubjectivity, affectivity, and temporality. Existentialism, in contrast with phenomenology, is not a systematic research program. Its themes originate in the 19th-century work of Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, though "existentialism" was not used as a philosophical label until Gabriel Marcel applied it to the work of Jean-Paul Sartre in the 1940s (Fulton 1999, 12–13). Like phenomenology, existentialism is the study of the nature of human existence and with how we experience a meaningful world. But existentialists are primarily concerned with human processes of self-creation-such as how we become who we are, or transform our identity-rather than with the unchanging essence of human being. In this respect, existentialists typically study contingent, rather than necessary, features of human existence. In integrating these two apparently opposing lines of thought, Merleau-Ponty belongs in the company of other French phenomenologists, including Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, who were inspired by Heidegger's application of phenomenology to the study of existential themes, such as death and authenticity. These philosophers continued phenomenology's inquiry into the structures of experience, but turned their attention toward contingent and particular structures, rather than just necessary and universal ones. This 2 existential turn in phenomenology is perhaps best expressed by Sartre's famous line: "existence precedes essence" (Sartre [1945] 2007, 20). According to Sartre, the central feature of human existence is that we are free to decide who we are-we are radically free. I might see myself as a waiter, a mechanic, or a professor but, in truth, I am none of these. I am, first and foremost, the power of freely willing myself to become who I wish to be. (In an interview, Beauvoir claimed that Sartre even believed seasickness was the product of weak will; with enough willpower, anyone could overcome his seasickness [Simons 1992, 30]). Merleau-Ponty, a friend and colleague of Sartre and Beauvoir, also made human contingency central to his philosophical project-for him existence also precedes essence. But Merleau-Ponty was more concerned with how our natural and cultural circumstances shape us, than with how we freely shape ourselves.i To this end, he was especially interested in psychopathological conditions, from psychoanalytic neuroses to neurological disorders. Merleau-Ponty's studies of psychopathology are often read as nothing more than instrumental examples in his studies of perception, including in his major work, Phenomenology of Perception; by examining how some aspect of perceptual experience goes awry (for instance, in schizophrenic hallucinations), we can gain insight into aspects of normal perception that we might have otherwise overlooked. This interpretation is not without merit (Merleau-Ponty does employ psychopathological examples instrumentally), but it would be inaccurate to characterize his interest in psychopathology as merely instrumental. Merleau-Ponty was interested in the psychopathological forms of human experience and existence because he aimed to construct a phenomenological program that adequately accommodated these conditions. There are, of course, many phenomenologists who devoted themselves to the study of psychopathological conditions. Karl Jaspers first established psychopathology as an 3 interdisciplinary program employing the tools of natural science alongside philosophical phenomenology. In General Psychopathology, he draws a distinction between "explanation" and "understanding," arguing that scientists can explain the causes of disorder, but only phenomenologists can understand the experience of disorder (Jaspers [1913] 1997). Only through the integration of natural science and phenomenology can we give an adequate account of mental disorders. Numerous phenomenological psychopathologists followed this line of thinking, including Ludwig Binswanger, Medard Boss, Frantz Fanon, Kimura Bin, Eugene Minkowski, Erwin Straus, and Hubertus Tellenbach. They developed novel accounts of mental disorders, including schizophrenia, melancholia, and various neuroses. With such a rich tradition of phenomenological psychopathology, why should we devote ourselves to the study of MerleauPonty's approach? Merleau-Ponty's approach is distinctive because he seriously engages with the philosophical foundations of his own work. Most other phenomenological psychopathologists either took phenomenology's ability to illuminate psychopathological experience for granted, or they integrated phenomenological and empirical approaches without considering the philosophical implications of these integrations.ii This is why we must turn to Merleau-Ponty, who explicitly developed metaphysical and methodological foundations for phenomenological psychopathology. In this chapter, I outline some distinctive elements of Merleau-Ponty's metaphysics and method, and show how his work can provide a foundation for contemporary phenomenological studies of mental disorder. In section 1, I argue that Merleau-Ponty developed a new metaphysics that accommodates psychopathology by challenging the traditional distinction between transcendental and empirical phenomenology. In section 2, I argue that Merleau-Ponty modified 4 the core of the phenomenological method-i.e., the reduction, or epoché-in order to critically engage with the human sciences. Each section is composed of three subsections: the first provides an account of Husserl's phenomenology, and shows how it falls short of what we require for the study of psychopathology; the second describes Merleau-Ponty's novel phenomenological approach; and the third provides examples of contemporary applications of Merleau-Ponty's approach to psychopathology. 1 Metaphysics It has been argued that Merleau-Ponty began his philosophical career as a phenomenologist, but by the end he had become a metaphysician-that is, a philosopher whose primary concern is with the nature of being, or reality. Merleau-Ponty certainly devoted himself to metaphysical questions in his later works, but he was concerned with metaphysics from the start. In this section, I outline Merleau-Ponty's early phenomenological metaphysics, and show how he developed it with the aim of doing justice to psychopathological forms of human experience and existence. 1.1 Husserl's Transcendental Idealism Before jumping into Merleau-Ponty's metaphysics, it will be helpful to outline the metaphysical position that he aims to overcome. Rather than criticizing a single philosopher, Merleau-Ponty criticizes a philosophical position called transcendental idealism. This metaphysical stance originated in Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason ([1781] 1999), and had a major influence on the course of 19thand 20th-century philosophy. While transcendental idealism takes various forms, we can focus on two elements that concern Merleau-Ponty specifically: First, it posits that the human subject constitutes or discloses a lived, orderly, and meaningful world-or makes the experiential world present-through some operation of the mind; second, it posits that 5 the structures of human subjectivity that constitute the world of experience are essential, unchanging, or innate mental structures-they are necessary conditions for the possibility of knowledge and experience. Husserl, insofar as he aimed to uncover the essential structures of consciousness and the necessary conditions for the possibility of experience, espoused a metaphysics of transcendental idealism. In this respect, phenomenology was originally conceived as an eidetic science-a philosophical investigation into the eidos, or essence, of human experience and existence. This approach is best exemplified in Ideas I (Husserl [1913] 2014), the first major work in which Husserl established phenomenology as a transcendental project inspired by the Kantian tradition. In this early work, Husserl was not concerned with human contingency, variability, or particularity. Instead, he concerned himself with necessity, invariance, and universality. But soon his phenomenology became "genetic phenomenology," a concrete investigation into the genesis-i.e., the origins and development-of human experience. This new phenomenology emphasized how our body and history shape how we experience and understand our environment. Developing phenomenology in this direction, Husserl explored physical disabilities, such as blindness and deafness, as well as cultural differences. He admits, for example, that some cultural groups have a cyclical-rather than linear-conception of time, and therefore experience the flow of time differently (Husserl [1935] 2008). But these studies introduced confusion into his philosophical project: How can we articulate the essential, invariant structure of experience if this structure differs across cultures, and for people with certain physical disabilities? This seems a contradiction. He resolved this concern in his final book, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (Husserl [1954] 1970), by arguing that there are both essential, unchanging structures of experience, and 6 historically contingent structures. Necessary structures are "transcendental"; contingent structures are "empirical." Furthermore-and this is the key point in resolving the contradiction-the empirical structures are founded upon the transcendental structures. That is to say, despite our differences, there are basic structures of experience that we all share. If, for example, you and I grew up in different linguistic communities, then I will perceive certain symbols etched on paper as meaningful words, but you will perceive them as meaningless symbols (if you perceive them as symbols at all). You, on the other hand, will experience other kinds of symbols as meaningful words, while I will experience them as just meaningless symbols. Yet, in spite of this difference, we both have the capacity to acquire written language, that is, to experience symbols etched on paper as conveying multifaceted and complex meanings. In other words, while the linguistic structure of our experience differs empirically-perhaps I understand English and you understand Mandarin-we both have the same transcendental conditions that allow us to acquire and employ written language. In the same spirit, we could resolve the apparent conflict between different cultures' experiences of the passage of time by suggesting that empirically different conceptions (e.g., of time as linear or as circular), are founded upon, or made possible by, the same transcendental structure of temporality. This two-level approach seems to accommodate human difference, thereby allowing phenomenologists to investigate diverse forms of human life. But Husserl was not convinced that his solution could accommodate more profound changes in experience, such as the experience of the infant, or of the person with a severe mental disorder (Husserl [1954] 1970, 187–88). These conditions might involve alterations of the most fundamental structures of experience. The infant, for example, lacks the capacity for written language-not because she has not learned one, but because she currently lacks the cognitive conditions for learning a written language in 7 the first place (Heinämaa 2014). If these alterations occur not only in the course of normal development, but also in psychopathological conditions in adulthood, then this might undermine Husserl's claim that there are universal structures of experience shared by all human beings. 1.2 Merleau-Ponty's Metaphysics Husserl does not resolve this tension in his own work, but he sets it out as a problem for future phenomenologists. Luckily, his challenge was not ignored. Merleau-Ponty was one of the first philosophers to acquaint himself with Husserl's late work and unpublished manuscripts, and took up Husserl's above-mentioned challenge. He resolved to develop a new metaphysics that accommodated the diversity of human life, including psychopathology. In Merleau-Ponty's most famous work, Phenomenology of Perception ([1945] 2012), he introduces the case of Johann Schneider, a German World War I veteran who suffered a brain injury and whose condition was studied extensively by the psychologist Adhemar Gelb and the neurologist Kurt Goldstein. Schneider's condition involves a fundamental disturbance in his bodily motility. Schneider is unable to perform "abstract" movements with his eyes closed-that is, movements that take place in an imagined or merely possible situation, rather than the actual, concrete situation. Such actions might include anything from moving a limb up and down upon command to performing in a theatrical production to illustrating how objects move in an objective coordinate system. Yet, in spite of Schneider's inability to perform these movements, he can easily perform "concrete" movements-that is, movements that take place within his actual, or concrete, situation. While Schneider cannot move his arm up and down upon command, he can easily reach into his back pocket, remove his handkerchief, and blow his nose (Merleau-Ponty [1945] 2012, 105–12). 8 Merleau-Ponty argues that Schneider's behavior reveals a fundamental disturbance in how he experiences space. And this disturbance is the product of Schneider having lost the function of "projection," or of "conjuring up" meaningful situations ([1945] 2012, 115). Maintaining his habitual world of everyday engagements, he nevertheless cannot project other kinds of space, such as the objective space of a coordinate system, or the imagined space required for playing or acting. Schneider's loss of the capacity for "projection" reveals two ways that human beings engage with a meaningful world. As Merleau-Ponty argues, in much of our everyday life, we function within the concrete situation of our environment. When I enter the classroom, there is already a network of meaningful relations among myself, my students, the tables and chairs, and the whiteboard. I do not need to actively create this situation. It simply presents itself to me. But we also find occasion to play and act, to speculate, to theorize. And when we perform these activities, we do so within a situation that we ourselves project, or conjure up. Moreover, we do not convince ourselves that this new situation is real. Rather, we move within this situation precisely as fictional, or as imaginary: when I perform Shakespeare's Hamlet, I do not take myself to be the real Hamlet; I experience my performance as a performance. Likewise, if my friend and I watched The Changing of the Guard in London and I imitate the guard's march, I do not take myself to be the guard; we both experience my behavior precisely as an act of imitation, or play, that only makes sense within the particular imaginative context that we have projected for ourselves. Schneider, and those with similar conditions, cannot have this kind of experience. They can no longer project new situations around themselves. As Merleau-Ponty says, "The world no longer exists for these patients except as a ready-made or fixed world, whereas the normal person's projects polarize the world, causing a thousand signs to appear there" ([1945] 2012, 115). Schneider cannot even have political or 9 religious opinions-these domains do not reside in his concrete situation, and he cannot produce them himself. Schneider's condition and Merleau-Ponty's analysis have received considerable attention (Dreyfus 2007; Matherne 2014; Romdenh-Romluc 2007). But much of this literature ignores how Merleau-Ponty used this case study as a catalyst and justification for his metaphysical project. Merleau-Ponty suggests that the transcendental idealist-including the Husserlian phenomenologist-could not account for Schneider's condition by appealing to the loss of projection. This is because for the transcendental idealist, "[o]ne thing alone is comprehensible, namely, the pure essence of consciousness" (Merleau-Ponty [1945] 2012, 127). The transcendental idealist posits an essential, invariant structure of consciousness, and therefore cannot appeal to changes in this structure when trying to make sense of the condition. In light of this metaphysical commitment, he is left with two equally implausible options when presented with the mentally ill person: this person either fails to count as an experiencing subject, or he is deceiving himself-"Behind his delusions, obsessions, and lies, the madman knows that he is delirious, that he makes himself obsessive, that he lies, and ultimately that he is not mad, he just thinks he is" (Merleau-Ponty [1945] 2012, 127). A metaphysics of transcendental idealism leaves no room for severe psychopathology because it posits in advance a universal structure of consciousness manifested by all human beings; one either manifests this universal structure, or one is not an experiencing subject at all. In light of this shortcoming, Merleau-Ponty requires a new metaphysics that does justice to the possibility and diversity of mental illness (Fernandez 2015). This project of devising a post-transcendental metaphysics occupied Merleau-Ponty up to his final, unfinished work, The Visible and the Invisible ([1964] 1968). However, he set up the problem and provided an initial 10 sketch of his metaphysical solution in Phenomenology of Perception. He set himself the task of finding "the means of linking the origin and the essence of the disorder," or of establishing "a concrete essence or a structure of the illness that expresses both its generality and its particularity" ([1945] 2012, 127). In other words, rather than seek the essence of consciousness as such, he seeks the general structure of each kind of consciousness, while also keeping sight of those features that are distinctive of each particular case. In so doing, he must acknowledge the generality of the illness (i.e., those features shared by everyone with this kind of condition), and the particularity of the illness (i.e., those features that are distinctive of the individual's condition). For example, in a study of schizophrenia, the Merleau-Pontyan phenomenologist should articulate general features of schizophrenia (e.g., the general structure of hallucinations), while also attending to its distinctive manifestation in the subject in question (e.g., the particular objects that this subject hallucinates). To develop this new phenomenological metaphysics, Merleau-Ponty aims to establish "a relationship that would be neither the reduction of the form to the content, nor the subsumption of the content under an autonomous form" ([1945] 2012, 128). In other words, we cannot appeal to an autonomous, transcendental structure of experience that determines the content of experience in advance. This wouldn't leave any room for contingent experiences, or the accidents of human life, to alter the fundamental structure of experience-as they do in some cases of psychopathology. According to Merleau-Ponty, we can only resolve this problem if we admit an alternative metaphysical relation between the form and content of experience, one in which "[f]orm absorbs content to the point that content ultimately appears as a mere mode of form" ([1945] 2012, 128). He suggests, initially, that this will be a dialectical relationship between form and matter in which the two sides intertwine and mutually shape each other. But 11 this, he admits, is a poor characterization. It assumes that form and content are two independent phenomena that might come into contact. But, in actuality, each is an abstraction from the real phenomenon of "human existence," which he redefines as "the perpetual taking up of fact and chance by a reason that neither exists in advance of this taking up, nor without it" ([1945] 2012, 129). Merleau-Ponty's approach seems promising, but it's difficult to decipher-in part because he embraces contradictory formulations and paradoxical language. We can clarify his approach by drawing a parallel with Gestalt psychology, which had a major influence on his thinking. The Gestalt psychologists argued that our experience is self-organizing. I do not impose a form on the contents of my experience. Rather, the contents of experience form themselves into a self-organized, meaningful whole. It is always this whole that I am presented with, which is not simply a sum of distinct parts. Merleau-Ponty, inspired by this psychological insight, transformed it into a metaphysical insight about human existence itself. Human existence does not have some necessary form that is simply filled in by contingent content. Rather, what we call the "form" or "structure" of human existence is a description of the holistic organization that my experience and existence assume. Because this form is not independent or autonomous, it can be fundamentally reshaped by the content of life-experiences. Human existence is always shaped by its natural and cultural circumstances. This is not to say that the subject is passively constituted by her environment. She also constitutes the sense and meaning of her environment in turn. Merleau-Ponty's point is to highlight that there is no autonomous, unchanging form of human existence that underlies our particularities and differences. Insofar as we are subject to the circumstances of life, we are radically contingent beings.iii 12 In this formulation of human existence we find the metaphysical possibility of mental illness, or of the disordered subject. According to Merleau-Ponty, it is because our subjectivity is embedded in a material body and a concrete environment that we can become ill in the first place. 1.3 Metaphysics: Contemporary Applications Of course, our goal is not simply to understand Merleau-Ponty's new metaphysics-our goal is to apply it. But how does one "apply" a metaphysics? Metaphysics seems the most abstract of philosophical inquiries, concerned with the nature of reality, not the practical study of mental disorders. Yet, the metaphysical system that we subscribe to always comes with a host of assumptions about our subject matter: What we choose to study, how we approach our objects of investigation, and how we interpret our findings are determined by our metaphysical presuppositions. As Merleau-Ponty points out, if a psychologist subscribes to transcendental idealism then he cannot take the possibility of mental disorder seriously. Rather than explain it, he explains it away; it has no place within his metaphysical system. A phenomenologist who takes up Merleau-Ponty's metaphysics will interpret her subject matter differently; she will open herself to possibilities that might be neglected by a more traditional phenomenological metaphysics because she will not presume the necessity or invariance of any particular structure of subjectivity. We already found an example of this in Merleau-Ponty's study of Schneider, where he argues that Schneider's condition is best understood not as the projection of a distressing situation (as we find in neuroses), but as the loss of the capacity to project such a situation in the first place. This possibility, he suggests, is not open to the transcendental idealist because it conflicts with whatone might take to be the pure essence of consciousness. It would have to be dismissed as a metaphysical impossibility. The 13 transcendental idealist, confining himself to those accounts that make sense within his metaphysical framework, is left with a much smaller range of possible alterations to appeal to. How does this model play out in contemporary phenomenological psychopathology? Many contemporary phenomenologists still subscribe to some form of transcendental idealism, insofar as they take on some of the metaphysical commitments of Husserl or early Heidegger. Even in contemporary studies of psychopathology, phenomenology is often characterized as the study of essential structures of consciousness, which seems to draw an in-principle distinction between those structures of consciousness that can change, and those that cannot. We can illustrate how these metaphysical presuppositions play out in two examples: affectivity in major depressive disorder (MDD) and selfhood in schizophrenia. Phenomenologists often rely on first-person reports, whether from qualitative studies, memoirs, or face-to-face conversations. The phenomenologist examines these first-person reports, and then articulates how the structures of experience must have altered such that the world would be experienced in the way the subject describes it. In the case of MDD, many people report changes in their moods and emotions. As a result, phenomenologists (and psychiatrists) often characterize depression as a distinctive mood, or way of being affectively attuned to the world-e.g., profound sadness, grief, guilt, or despair. Many of these phenomenologists also work within an early Heideggerian framework, which, like the Husserlian framework, assumes a level of essential, invariant structures of human experience. Heidegger, for instance, argues that affective attunement is essential to human existence, and that human beings are therefore always attuned to their world through some mood or other; it is impossible to be without a mood (Heidegger [1927] 1962, 172–79). However, many people describe their depression as a loss of moods and emotions in general, rather than as a certain 14 kind of mood, or even as a loss of particular moods, such as happiness or joy (Fernandez 2014). In his memoir, The Noonday Demon, Andrew Solomon describes this experience: The first thing that goes is happiness. You cannot gain pleasure from anything. That's famously the cardinal symptom of major depression. But soon other emotions follow happiness into oblivion: sadness as you know it, the sadness that seemed to have led you here; your sense of humor; your belief in and capacity for love. Your mind is leached until you seem dim-witted even to yourself [...] You lose the ability to trust anyone, to be touched, to grieve. Eventually, you are simply absent from yourself. (Solomon 2001, 19) Reports like this-where one cannot feel sadness, cannot even grieve-pervade the literature on depression. Yet, in both the phenomenological and the psychiatric literature, these reports are often not explained; they are explained away. The reported loss of feeling is redescribed as a particular kind of feeling (e.g., a feeling of not feeling). At least in the phenomenologist's case, this tendency to redescribe a loss of feeling as a kind of feeling falls in line with Husserl's and Heidegger's metaphysical presuppositions. There are certain structures of experience that we presume to be essential. If we know in advance that they cannot be lost, then we need not consider such a possibility. A similar debate plays out in the phenomenological literature on selfhood in schizophrenia and other disorders. Husserlian phenomenologists are generally committed to the claim that some sense of selfhood, at least in the minimal sense of "for-me-ness," always accompanies experience. This aspect of minimal selfhood is part of the essence of experience; it would be impossible to have an experience without it. But, as Dan Zahavi points out, some philosophers argue that psychopathology provides an objection to this account (Zahavi Forthcoming). They argue that some experiences, such as thought-insertion and severe depersonalization-both symptoms of schizophrenia-are characterized by an experience without a basic sense of for-me-ness, or sense of mineness. Zahavi argues, in contrast, that if we adequately clarify our various notions of selfhood, we will find that even in these 15 psychopathological cases a sense of for-me-ness is retained, necessarily entailing that some sense of self and self-awareness remains intact. There is, however, an important point to consider in Zahavi's approach. While he might begin his investigations within a Husserlian framework, he remains open to the possibility of deep contingencies and alterations in the structure of experience. He does not simply assume that we retain a minimal sense of self even in cases of thought-insertion and severe depersonalization. He carefully considers the evidence and provides arguments for his position. This, in the end, is not so different from Merleau-Ponty's approach to the study of psychopathology. While Merleau-Ponty would likely admit more contingency in the structure of experience than would a Husserlian phenomenologist, he sometimes makes essentialist claims about experience, and seems willing to defend them-e.g., that the perception of a figure is possible only if the figure is presented upon a background.iv By providing these examples, I am not arguing that it is necessarily incorrect to characterize the affective dimension of depression as a kind of mood, or to characterize experiences of thought-insertion and severe depersonalization as retaining a basic sense of selfhood. Rather, I want to illustrate how our metaphysical commitments predetermine how we interpret our evidence-what we dismiss, what we take seriously, what we feel justified in redescribing, and so on. This holds for evidence beyond self-reports, but contemporary phenomenological psychopathologists often rely on self-reports as a major source of evidence, so it is worthwhile to think about how we engage-and how we should engage-with such evidence. Merleau-Ponty's metaphysical commitments-in contrast with Husserl's and the early Heidegger's-allow more leeway in how we interpret our case studies. And Merleau-Ponty 16 developed this metaphysical stance precisely because he was unsatisfied with classical phenomenology's inability to do justice to the phenomena. For Merleau-Ponty, we always need some metaphysical system to ground and guide our investigations. But this metaphysical system is only as good as the results it produces. As soon as it forces us to make absurd claims, to dismiss evidence, or to devise unjustified interpretations of the phenomena, it is the metaphysical system-and not the phenomenon itself-that we must dispense with. 2 Method Despite differences among phenomenologists concerning the right metaphysical foundations for understanding human existence, there are broad methodological commitments that all phenomenologists share. One of these is the methodological commitment to critically evaluating and suspending our presuppositions and prejudices. If we do not critically evaluate our presuppositions, then we risk describing our phenomenon of investigation not as it is, but as we already believe it to be. Rather than accurately describing what Husserl calls "the matters themselves," we might simply reiterate the current cultural or scientific conception of our subject matter. But while all phenomenologists agree that we should maintain a critical attitude toward our prejudices, they do not agree on how we should evaluate and suspend these prejudices. They employ different methods of evaluation and suspension, and they express varying degrees of optimism about how successful these methods can be.v 2.1 Husserl's Reduction In Husserl's case, the central element of his method is the phenomenological reduction. Depending on how we interpret it, there are either multiple reductions-the transcendental, the eidetic, and so on-or multiple stages of the reduction. Which interpretation we adopt here is not 17 especially important, but our focus will be on the epoché, which we might characterize as either the first reduction, or the first stage of the reduction, depending on the interpretation we employ. Husserl borrowed the term "epoché" from the Greek skeptics, who argued that we should suspend judgment on any matter until we have considered all of the evidence. But for Husserl, the epoché isn't so much a suspension of explicit judgments as it is a suspension of our tacit beliefs about the world and our experience of it. Moreover, Husserl's epoché is first and foremost a change in attitude-a shift from the natural attitude to the phenomenological attitude. The natural attitude is the attitude of everyday life in which we take our experience of the world for granted; we do not reflect on how the world is presented to us through experience. This everyday attitude is problematic for the phenomenologist because she aims to articulate how we experience the world, and how our subjectivity plays a role in its presentation. She therefore shifts herself into a phenomenological attitude, focusing on how we experience, rather than what we experience. As Robert Sokolowski puts it, in the epoché "[w]e look at what we normally look through" (Sokolowski 2000, 50). This shift into the phenomenological attitude requires that we suspend, or bracket, our host of presuppositions and prejudices about the world. For example, in order to attend to how an object of experience is presented to me-say, my coffee mug-I have to suspend my beliefs that the mug is already there, existing independent of me, taking up physical space, available to others, and so on. As a phenomenologist, I ask how the coffee mug presents itself to me as existing independent of me, as taking up physical space, as available to others, and so on. When producing these descriptions I cannot presume, for instance, that the world is already populated by physical objects and that my perceptual capacities merely present me with appearances of these physical objects. Even if this were an accurate natural-scientific account of perception, it is 18 not the kind of account the phenomenologist is after. It fails to describe how these objects are presented to me in the first place. While Husserl remained committed to the importance of the epoché, his method evolved over his philosophical career. When his interest shifted from the necessary and universal structures of experience to the contingent and culturally relative, he developed new methods to accommodate his new subject matter. In his studies of the cultural constitution of experience, Husserl realized that our cultural prejudices shape our experience to such a profound degree that we cannot simply suspend these prejudices in one fell swoop. They are ingrained in us, shaping not just our beliefs about what we experience, but even how we experience. Therefore, when we try to enter the phenomenological attitude via the epoché, we often retain prejudices that we didn't even know we had. This poses a problem for the phenomenologist, who wants to return to "the matters themselves." If our presuppositions about our subject matter are so ingrained that we cannot bracket them through the epoché-i.e., through a shift in attitude-then how can we continue to do phenomenology? If we are incapable of extricating ourselves from our own prejudices, then we are condemned to describe what we already believe to be the case, and nothing more. In light of this problem, Husserl takes a methodological turn, although his goal remains the same. Rather than bracket his presuppositions through a change in attitude, he brackets his prejudices by actively seeking them out and analyzing them. Only through this process can he loosen his presuppositions to such a degree that he might attend to the matters themselves. Some scholars argue that Husserl's late works usher in a different kind of epoché, what David Carr calls the "historical reduction" (2009). This new epoché aims at the same ends-the loosening and suspending of prejudices-but employs the means of historical inquiry. If we want 19 to understand our current prejudices and how they shape our experience, we need to discover the origins of these prejudices and find where they sedimented into our cultural lifeworld-i.e., the meaningful world of everyday life. To take one example, consider Husserl's historical inquiry into Galileo's "mathematization of nature" (Husserl [1954] 1970). He argues that Galileo's major contribution to scientific thought was not his discovery of basic principles of the physical universe, but his reconceptualization of nature as objective. He claims that prior to this reconceptualization, we experienced the natural world as shared, as available to others in the way it is available to us. But we did not experience it as objective, in the sense of some independent reality existing behind the merely subjective appearances presented in our experience. It was Galileo's novel conception of nature, he argues, that sedimented into our lifeworld-at least the European lifeworld-and became the normal way of experiencing our environment. According to Husserl, Galileo initiated a worldview in which we discount our everyday experiences in favor of the insights of a particular cultural practice-the practice of natural science. While many celebrate this worldview, Husserl laments the fact that this Galilean insight covered over the richness of everyday experience. It is this experience that phenomenologists aim to describe, but that a natural-scientific worldview ignores. In order to get back to this experience, he argues, we must discover the prejudices that have reshaped our experience, and only then can we suspend them and return to "the matters themselves." It is this new method, I argue, that inspires Merleau-Ponty's approach to psychopathological experience and subjectivity. 2.2 Merleau-Ponty's Incomplete Reduction Merleau-Ponty famously said, "The most important lesson about the reduction is the impossibility of the complete reduction" ([1945] 2012, lxxvii). This is not a dismissal of Husserl's reduction. Merleau-Ponty does not believe the reduction is impossible, only that its 20 completion is impossible. And this falls in line with Husserl's late approach, which requires that we remain open to the possibility of being misled by presuppositions and prejudices that we didn't know we had.vi This is because we cannot fully extract ourselves from our embodied, historical context: This is why Husserl always wonders anew about the possibility of the reduction. If we were absolute spirit, the reduction would not be problematic. But since, on the contrary, we are in and toward the world, and since even our reflections take place in the temporal flow that they are attempting to capture... there is no thought that encompasses all of our thought. Or again, as the unpublished materials say, the philosopher is a perpetual beginner. This means that he accepts nothing as established from what men or scientists believe they know. (Merleau-Ponty [1945] 2012, lxxvii–lxxviii) We must subject both our everyday and scientific beliefs to critical scrutiny. And, whenever we are able, we must hold these beliefs in abeyance until we consider all of the available evidence and properly attend to our phenomenon of investigation. But what does this have to do with psychopathology? When Husserl developed his historical epoché, he was concerned with how geometry and post-Galilean physics altered the lifeworld of scientists, as well as the lifeworld of everyday people. He was interested in how scientific advancements prompted us to reconceive the natural world as objective and, as a result, doubt our own experiences insofar as we conceive of them as subjective. Merleau-Ponty carries on this tradition, but with an eye toward the prejudices of the contemporary cognitive sciences, including psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience. We find one of the best examples of this approach in Merleau-Ponty's introduction to Phenomenology of Perception, entitled, "Classical Prejudices and the Return to Phenomena." Here, he undermines the prejudices and presuppositions that we might have about our subject matter-in this case, perception-in order to get at the "phenomena," or what Husserl would call "the matters themselves." But Merleau-Ponty does not ask us to slip into a phenomenological 21 attitude in which our "classical prejudices" fall away, leaving us with the untainted phenomena. Rather, he undermines prejudice by confronting it head on. He carefully analyzes standard concepts-including "sensation, "association," "memory," "attention," and "judgment"-to show how our typical understanding of these concepts misleads us, causing us to misconstrue the nature of perception. In his study of "sensation," for example, he shows that the three competing theories-sensation as (1) impression, (2) quality, and (3) immediate consequence of a stimulation-actually share a problematic presupposition. They presume that perception is built up of little bits of sense data that the subject conglomerates into a holistic experience (even if they disagree on the nature of this sense data and how the subject conglomerates them). The trouble with these views is that they explain the act of perceiving by appealing to objects of perception; they neglect the how in favor of the what. In short, they beg the question-they do not tell us how we experience objects as objects because they presume the existence of experiential objects (i.e., bits of sense data) in their explanations. As Merleau-Ponty says, "[w]e thought we knew what sensing, seeing, and hearing are, but now these words pose problems. We are led back to the very experiences that these words designate in order to define them anew" ([1945] 2012, 10). What Merleau-Ponty provides us with in his introduction is not a new theory of perception, but a Socratic inquiry that makes manifest just how little we know about perception. Only by engaging in this negative inquiry, and discovering what we do not know, can we put ourselves in a position to develop a new and better theory of perception. This process, of course, can never be completed. There will always be more presuppositions and prejudices that we have missed. And we are therefore left with Merleau-Ponty's incomplete reduction. 2.3 Method: Contemporary Applications 22 The application of method-unlike the application of metaphysics-is fairly straightforward: in order to apply a Merleau-Pontyan reduction to the domain of psychopathology, we should critically evaluate the basic concepts and presuppositions that ground this field of inquiry. If we fail to do this, we risk obscuring the psychopathological phenomena by describing what we already believe to be the case. To illustrate this, we can consider examples of depression and bipoloar disorder. As Giovanni Stanghellini (2004) points out, recent editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) insufficiently describe mental disorders and fail to clearly delineate their boundaries. Consider one of the central diagnostic criteria for MDD: depressed mood. Is a depressed mood a kind of mood, or a loss of feeling? Is it qualitatively different from a normal, healthy mood, or is it simply a matter of degree? Is it a pathological form of sadness, or is it different from sadness? None of these questions are answered-or even addressed-by contemporary diagnostic classifications. This is not because the answers are exceedingly difficult to come by, but because it is presumed that we all know what we mean by "depressed mood." We do not even realize it is a question that needs asking. But as phenomenologists have shown, when it comes to our own experience we know considerably less than we think. A similar problem plays out in the psychiatric literature on bipolar disorder. The term "bipolar" suggests that the condition not only includes two distinct states-depression and mania-but that these states are polar opposites. This feature of the condition is contained in its label, and the term therefore predisposes us to think about the condition as a movement between these two poles. But if we look to the history of the concept of bipolar disorder, we find that the bipolar model-which succeeded the concepts of "manic-depressive insanity" and "manic23 depressive reaction"-was just one of three competing models. Other researchers put forward the "triangular model" and the "continuum model." On the triangular model, there are three distinct states-depression, mania, and euthymia (i.e., a healthy, positive mood)-that are related like points on a triangle. This means that one can move from one state to any other without passing through the third state. One advantage of this model is that is allows us to explain mixed states- i.e., states in which symptoms of depression and mania manifest simultaneously-as a shift from depression to mania, or from mania to depression, that does not pass through euthymia. On the continuum model, the two poles are actually euthymia and mania, with depression in the middle. In this case, depression and mania are not conceived of as opposites, and mixed states are unsurprising because any move between euthymia and mania must pass through a state of depression. Importantly, there does not seem to be much evidence that supports the bipolar model over the other two models. For one reason or another the bipolar model caught on and is now the established label for this condition. In forgetting the history of this concept, it is all too easy to begin our investigations from the assumption that depression and mania are, in fact, polar opposites, and this can problematically predetermine how we describe the experiences of depression and mania (Fernandez 2016a). Leaving aside the philosophical inquiry into "the matters themselves," why should psychiatrists and those living with mental disorders be concerned about undefined or poorly defined diagnostic criteria? If psychiatrists already have a basic sense of what they mean by "depressed mood," isn't that enough for clinical practice? One problem is that there is no reason to think that psychiatrists agree on their definitions of diagnostic criteria. If this is the case, then they certainly do not agree on how and when to apply these criteria. Perhaps one psychiatrist believes that depressed mood is like severe sadness, another thinks it is a deep sense of guilt, and 24 yet another thinks it is a loss of feeling. These psychiatrists will hardly be able to agree on who should be diagnosed with MDD, which kinds of interventions should be made for which individuals, and when to deem someone cured, or healthy. And this is only in the domain of clinical practice. If we delve into psychiatric research we will find a host of new problems, such as disagreements in selecting who should be included in a study, or in how to assess the efficacy of an intervention. But this risks confusing two important issues. Some of these problems might be overcome by stipulating clear definitions of each diagnostic criterion, and therefore clear definitions of each category of disorder. This would at least produce agreement among psychiatrists-they will diagnose the same patients in the same way, establishing what psychiatrists call "reliability." However, phenomenologists should not be satisfied with clearly stipulated definitions. They should strive for definitions that get at the heart of the matter, clearly articulating the nature and boundaries of the condition in question. They should want their definitions and descriptions of disorders to be "valid."vii When it comes to "depressed mood" or "bipolar disorder," the phenomenologist should not want the psychiatric community to simply put forward a definition. Rather, we should carefully attend to the experience that we are trying to point to with each criterion, discover whether it is in fact a unitary phenomenon (or perhaps diverse phenomena clumped under a common label), and articulate its essential features. Only by proceeding in this fashion can we ever hope to fully understand the psychopathological condition in question. To enact Merleau-Ponty's reduction, or epoché, phenomenologists need to attend to the concepts used in contemporary psychiatric research and practice, as well as in everyday discourse, and unearth what we are trying to refer to with these terms. In many cases, we might 25 discover that those who employ the term do not have a good sense of its meaning or its referent. Such an inquiry does not reveal the nature of the phenomenon in question, but it at least reveals how little we know, and thereby puts us in a better position to explore and articulate our phenomenon of interest. Only after interrogating our basic concepts will we be in a position to bracket out our presuppositions, and proceed in our phenomenological investigations of the psychopathological condition itself.viii 3. Conclusion The application of phenomenology to the study of mental disorders is by no means new, having been established at least as early as Jaspers' General Psychopathology (Jaspers [1913] 1997). It is, however, undergoing resurgence today, especially in the philosophical and psychiatric literature on schizophrenia, depression, and various neurological disorders. But much of this work, both historical and contemporary, applies classical phenomenological concepts-such as selfhood, affectivity, and temporality-without critically engaging the phenomenon of mental disorder itself. There is a general assumption that insofar as phenomenology inquires into human experience, it is equipped to investigate any human experience. As I have shown, however, the traditional Husserlian approach is not well equipped for the study of dramatic shifts from normal to pathological experience. Husserl's metaphysics presumes an essential structure of experience that is not susceptible to alteration. And his early version of the epoché overestimates our ability to suspend our presuppositions and prejudices (although his later method moves in the right direction). Merleau-Ponty, by contrast, offers a phenomenological approach that takes psychopathology seriously. He devises a new metaphysics that allows for contingency in the most fundamental structures of experience and existence. And his method acknowledges our human limitations, such as our inability to fully extricate ourselves from long-held beliefs. He 26 therefore recommends critical engagement with contemporary scientific concepts; only by discovering their shortcomings can we put them out of play and return to the phenomenon anew. Through his commitment to accommodating the contingencies of human life, Merleau-Ponty- more than any other phenomenologist-provides the metaphysical and methodological foundations for the contemporary study of psychopathology. Acknowledgments: I would like to thank Robin Muller, Brad Peters, Gina Zavota, and the participants in the May 29th, 2017 Science and Technology Studies Working Group at University of King's College, Halifax, for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter. I would also like to thank the Killam Trusts for funding this project. 27 References Carr, David. 2009. Phenomenology and the Problem of History: A Study of Husserl's Transcendental Philosophy. 2nd revised edition. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Dreyfus, Hubert L. 2007. "Reply to Romdenh-Romluc." In Reading Merleau-Ponty: On Phenomenology of Perception, edited by Thomas Baldwin, 59–69. London: Routledge. Fernandez, Anthony Vincent. 2014. "Depression as Existential Feeling or De-Situatedness? Distinguishing Structure from Mode in Psychopathology." Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 13 (4): 595–612. ---. 2015. "Contaminating the Transcendental: Toward a Phenomenological Naturalism." Journal of Speculative Philosophy 29 (3): 291–301. ---. 2016a. "Language, Prejudice, and the Aims of Hermeneutic Phenomenology: Terminological Reflections on "Mania"." Journal of Psychopathology 22 (1): 21–29. ---. 2016b. "The Subject Matter of Phenomenological Research: Existentials, Modes, and Prejudices." Synthese. doi:10.1007/s11229-016-1106-0. Fulton, Ann. 1999. Apostles of Sartre: Existentialism in America, 1945-1963. Northwestern University Press. Gardner, Sebastian. 2015. "Merleau-Ponty's Transcendental Theory of Perception." In The Transcendental Turn, edited by Sebastian Gardner and Matthew Grist, 294–323. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hass, Marjorie, and Lawrence Hass. 2000. "Merleau-Ponty and the Origin of Geometry." In Chiasms: Merleau-Ponty's Notion of Flesh, edited by Fred Evans and Leonard Lawlor, 177–88. Albany: State University of New York Press. Heidegger, Martin. (1927) 1962. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics. Heinämaa, Sara. 2014. "The Animal and the Infant: From Embodiment and Empathy to Generativity." In Phenomenology and the Transcendental, edited by Sara Heinämaa, Mirja Hartimo, and Timo Miettinen, 129–46. New York: Routledge. Husserl, Edmund. (1954) 1970. The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy. Translated by David Carr. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. ---. (1935) 2008. "Edmund Husserl's Letter to Lucien Lévy-Bruhl." Translated by Lukas Steinacher and Dermot Moran. The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy 8: 349–54. ---. (1913) 2014. Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy: First Book: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology. Translated by Daniel O. Dahlstrom. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Jaspers, Karl. (1913) 1997. General Psychopathology. Translated by J. Hoenig and Marian W. Hamilton. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Kant, Immanuel. (1781) 1999. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Matherne, Samantha. 2014. "The Kantian Roots of Merleau-Ponty's Account of Pathology." British Journal for the History of Philosophy 22 (1): 124–149. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (1964) 1968. The Visible and the Invisible: Followed by Working Notes. Northwestern University Press. 28 ---. (1945) 2012. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Donald Landes. New York, NY: Routledge. Romdenh-Romluc, Komarine. 2007. "Merlea-Ponty and the Power to Reckon with the Possible." In Reading Merleau-Ponty: On the Phenomenology of Perception, edited by Thomas Baldwin, 44–58. London: Routledge. Sartre, Jean-Paul. (1945) 2007. Existentialism Is a Humanism. Yale University Press. Simons, Margaret A. 1992. "Two Interviews with Simone de Beauvoir." In Revaluing French Feminism: Critical Essays on Difference, Agency, and Culture, edited by Nancy Fraser and Sandra Lee Bartky, 25–41. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Sokolowski, Robert. 2000. Introduction to Phenomenology. New York: Cambridge University Press. Solomon, Andrew. 2001. The Noonday Demon. London: Vintage. Stanghellini, Giovanni. 2004. Disembodied Spirits and Deanimated Bodies: The Psychopathology of Common Sense. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tabb, Kathryn. 2015. "Psychiatric Progress and the Assumption of Diagnostic Discrimination." Philosophy of Science 82 (5): 1047–58. Wilkerson, William. 2010. "Time and Ambiguity: Reassessing Merleau-Ponty on Sartrean Freedom." Journal of the History of Philosophy 48 (2): 207–234. Zahavi, Dan. Forthcoming. "Consciousness and (Minimal) Selfhood: Getting Clear on for-MeNess and Mineness." In Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Consciousness, edited by Uriah Kriegel. i This contrast between Sartre and Merleau-Ponty is a matter of emphasis, rather than a strict divide between their interests and concerns. Moreover, it relies on a caricature of Sartre's thought-albeit one that Merleau-Ponty himself perpetuated in some of his work. For a careful account of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty's debate over the nature of freedom-and Beauvoir's mediation-see Wilkerson (2010). ii There are, of course, some exceptions. Binswanger and Boss, for instance, seriously considered the relation between their phenomenological approaches and biomedical models of psychopathology. Merleau-Ponty even drew on certain elements of Binswanger's metaphysics, but I cannot go into this here. iii There are a host of problems that arise from Merleau-Ponty's radical contingency, but I cannot address them here. Perhaps the most important is the difficulty of reconciling radical contingency with Husserl's critiques of psychologism and historicism-i.e., the philosophical claim that mathematics and logic are relative to the structure of the human mind, or two particular cultural configurations, and are therefore only true for us. Husserl's transcendental ego was meant to address this problem by establishing essential structures of experience. But Merleau-Ponty's embrace of the radically contingent subject seems to dispense with this solution to psychologism. For an account of how Merleau-Ponty reconciles his account of human subjectivity with the possibility of mathematical truths, see Hass and Hass (2000). iv Some interpreters grant considerably more weight to Merleau-Ponty's apparently essentialist claims, and have used these claims to argue that Merleau-Ponty is himself a transcendental philosopher. For an example of this position, see Sebastian Gardner (2015). 29 v For accounts of the various roles that prejudices play in phenomenological research, see Fernandez (2016a, 2016b). vi This general stance seems to be shared by most post-Husserlian phenomenologists, including the hermeneutic phenomenologists, such as Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer, and the existential phenomenologists. vii The psychiatric concept of "validity" is notoriously difficult to define, and there is not a currently agreed upon definition (see Tabb 2015). viii In this respect, the above characterization of applied metaphysics might be interpreted as one segment of applied method. That is, insofar as phenomenologists are methodologically committed to critically evaluating and suspending their full range of presuppositions and prejudices, they are necessarily committed to critically evaluating and suspending their metaphysical prejudices (e.g., the prejudices of transcendental idealism). Nevertheless, because of the all-encompassing nature of metaphysical presuppositions, I find it helpful to discuss these presuppositions independently. | {
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Mary's Powers of Imagination Amy Kind Claremont McKenna College [email protected] To be published in Sam Coleman, ed., Cambridge Classic Arguments series volume on the Knowledge Argument In contemporary discussions of philosophy of mind, Frank Jackson's story of Mary is a familiar one (Jackson 1982, 1986). Though Mary has spent her entire life locked inside a black and white room and has never seen color, she has nonetheless mastered color science. When she is released from her room and sees a ripe tomato for the first time, it seems that she learns something – that she comes to know what seeing red is like. But if Mary did not know all there was to know about color while in the room, and thus if there are facts over and above the physical facts about color, then physicalism is threatened. The standard physicalist responses to this argument, typically referred to as the knowledge argument, are also by now familiar. While some deny that Mary learns anything at all about color and color experiences upon her release from the room – how could she, given that she already has all the physical information there is to have about color and color experiences? – others acknowledge the power of the intuition that Mary has an "Aha!" moment when she exists the room and are slightly more concessionary. Such concessionary responses typically grant that Mary learns something upon her release but deny that this threatens physicalism. Rather, her learning should be understood to consist in the acquisition of abilities, or in her newfound acquaintance with color, or in her apprehension of an old fact under a new guise. In this paper I want to focus on the first of these more concessionary responses – what's now generally known as the ability hypothesis. As originally proposed by Laurence Nemirow, the ability hypothesis claims that what Mary gains when she leaves the room is the ability to imagine seeing red (1980, 1990). A subsequent modification by David Lewis (1983, 1988) gives us what is now considered to be the standard version of the view: What Mary gains when she leaves the room is a cluster of abilities including not only the ability to imagine seeing red but also the abilities to recognize and recall seeing red. For proponents of the ability hypothesis, knowing what an experience is like is not propositional in nature but rather consists in the possession of the relevant ability or abilities. Criticism of the ability hypothesis has tended to focus on this last claim, and considerable attention has been devoted to the question of whether the possession of such abilities are either necessary or sufficient for knowledge of what an experience is like.1 To my mind, however, this critical strategy grants too much. Focusing specifically on imaginative ability, I argue that Mary does not gain this ability when she leaves the room for she already had the ability to imagine red while she was inside it. Moreover, despite what some have thought, the ability hypothesis cannot be easily rescued by recasting it in terms of a more restrictive imaginative ability. My purpose here is not to take sides in the debate about physicalism, i.e., my criticism of the ability hypothesis is not offered in an attempt to defend the anti-physicalist conclusion of the knowledge argument. Rather, my purpose is to redeem the imagination from the misleading picture of it that discussion of the knowledge argument has fostered. I. What Can Mary Imagine? David Hume famously said that nowhere are we more free than in the imagination, and the human capacity for imagination is typically taken to be almost without limit. We readily imagine all sorts of variations on things that we've encountered – from talking mice and golden geese to flying carpets and magic beans. And we also readily imagine all sorts of things that we've never actually encountered and that we don't even believe to exist, from ghosts and goblins to light sabers and time machines. Insofar as our imaginative capacities are in any way limited, those limits stem solely from the limits of possibility. On this point we might again look to Hume and, in particular, to what he referred to as "an established maxim in metaphysics," namely, that "that nothing we imagine is absolutely impossible." (1739/1985, I.ii.2) Since what we imagine contains within it "the idea of possible existence," we are unable to imagine impossible entities like round squares.2 The uses to which we put our imagination also seem to be almost without limit.3 We engage in imaginative exercises for purposes both playful and serious – in our engagement with fiction and games of pretense on the one hand, and in our decision-making and future planning on the other. In the more fanciful contexts, we tend to let our imagination run wild; in the more serious ones, we tend to rein it in. Sometimes our imagining is spontaneous, while sometimes it's deliberate. Sometimes our imagining is effortless, while sometimes it's hard work. 1 See, e.g., Conee 1994, Alter 1998. Nida-Rümelin 2009 provides a useful summary of criticisms in this vein. 2 That imagination has even this limit is sometimes disputed. To give just one example, Tamar Gendler's story of the Tower of Goldbach may suggest a way to imagine that 7 + 5 does not equal 12 (Gendler 2000). See also Kung 2016 and Tidman 1994. 3 For a survey of some of the many uses of imagination see Kind 2016a, 7-10. See also Colin McGinn's argument that "imagination is a faculty that runs through the most diverse of mental phenomena" and that humans should be understood as Homo imaginans (2004, 5). Surprisingly, many of these basic and uncontroversial claims about imagination seem to have been forgotten in philosophical discussion of Mary, and in particular, in philosophical discussion of the ability hypothesis. In arguing that Mary gains the ability to imagine the experience of seeing red when she leaves the room, proponents of the ability hypothesis presuppose that Mary lacked the ability to imagine the experience of seeing red while she was in her black-and-white room. Even opponents of the ability hypothesis tend to accept that Mary gains the ability to imagine the experience of seeing red when she leaves the room; what they question is whether this ability-gain adequately accounts for Mary's newfound knowledge of what seeing red is like. It is also generally assumed that there is nothing that Mary can do, while in the room, to gain the ability to imagine the experience of seeing red. 4 No matter what she does, and no matter how hard she tries, she will be unable to engage in this kind of imaginative exercise. What happened to the almost limitless human capacity for imagination? We see a similar phenomenon – a phenomenon in which basic and uncontroversial claims about the imagination seem to have been forgotten – in connection with a different familiar example employed against physicalism: Thomas Nagel's bat. In developing his case that we can't know what it's like to be a bat, Nagel explicitly argues that our imagination will be no help. Bats navigate the world through echolocation, and they thus have perceptual experiences that are completely different in subjective character from any of the perceptual experiences that we have. For Nagel, the fact that echolocation is closed off to us experientially means that it is also closed off to us imaginatively: Our own experience provides the basic material for our imagination, whose range is therefore limited. It will not help to try to imagine that one has webbing on one's arms, which enables one to fly around at dusk and dawn catching insects in one's mouth; that one has very poor vision, and perceives the surrounding world by a system of reflected high-frequency sound signals; and that one spends the day hanging upside down by one's feet in an attic. In so far as I can imagine this (which is not very far), it tells me only what it would be like for me to behave as a bat behaves. But that is not the question. I want to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat. Yet if I try to imagine this, I am restricted to the resources of my own mind, and those resources are inadequate to the task. I cannot perform it either by imagining additions to my present experience, or by imagining segments gradually subtracted from it, or by imagining some combination of additions, subtractions, and modifications. (Nagel 1974, 439) These claims – that pre-release Mary can't imagine the experience of seeing red, that humans can't imagine the bat's experience of echolocation – have become deeply entrenched 4 Though the agreement on this point is widespread it is not without exception. I discuss a couple of philosophers who take an alternative view of Mary's powers of imagination in Section II below. in philosophical discussion. In fact, these claims are so entrenched that, having pointed out how they conflict with our ordinary picture of the imagination, I fear that some readers might be more inclined to give up this picture than to give up the claims themselves. Insofar as there is any such inclination, it may help to be reminded of the sorts of imaginative exercises that are commonplace in everyday life. As young children, we imagine ourselves to be all sorts of creatures big and small. Our arms become a crocodile's jaw, an elephant's trunk, a bird's wings. We imagine flying over the playground, or burrowing underground, or slithering through the grass. We imagine rocketing to the moon, meeting space aliens on Mars, or travelling through wormholes to distant galaxies. And our imaginings don't stop as we become older. Whether we're imagining winning the Superbowl or an Oscar, becoming President of the United States or being nominated for the Supreme Court, the joy of impending parenthood or the unpleasantness of impending chemotherapy, we continue to stretch our imaginative capacities to all sorts of events and scenarios that lie far beyond anything we've actually experienced. Granted, we do sometimes say things that seem to suggest limitations on our imaginations beyond mere possibility. In everyday life it's not at all uncommon to hear someone start a sentence with, "I can't imagine..." Sometimes these claims are made when we're confronted with news of tragedy. When we read about a violent crime or a natural disaster, we might profess ourselves unable to imagine the trauma of the survivors, the courage of the victims, or the grief of their families. "I can't imagine how frightened they must have been," we might say when we hear about the children who hid under their desks during a school shooting. When thinking about the parents whose children were killed, we might profess ourselves unable to imagine what they're going through. But what do these claims of unimaginability really mean? Often, it seems that they are simply an expression of our own shock and horror – a way of saying that things are unbearably awful – rather than actual claims about the imagination. Insofar as they are claims about imagination, they will likely be claims not about what we can't do but about what we don't want to do. A refusal to imaginatively engage with these situations might help us to keep some of the horror at bay. There's one other possibility about how to interpret such claims, however, and it's one that will bring us back to Mary. When certain events and experiences are very foreign from our own, or when they strike us as inexplicable in some key way, we might be inclined to deny that we can imagine them because we don't think we can imagine them correctly. There are two ways to understand this suggestion. On the first way, ordinary claims of the form "I can't imagine such-and-such" are shorthand for claims of the form "I'm doing a bad job imagining such-and-such." In this case, they're not really about what we can or cannot imagine but about what we can or cannot imagine well. On the second way of understanding this suggestion, however, such reports are not mere shorthand for claims about correct imaginings but rather follow from them. When we find ourselves unable to imagine something well, when we lack confidence that our imagining gets it right, that would mean that we're not really imagining it at all. This analysis would explain why we might think Mary, who has never had any color experiences whatsoever, lacks the ability to imagine red while in her black and white room. No matter how gifted an imaginer Mary is, it seems pretty implausible – at least upon first thought, though we'll return to this question below – that prior to her release she's able to imagine the experience of seeing red correctly. So if imagining an experience requires imagining an experience correctly, then pre-release Mary would lack the ability to imagine the experience of seeing red after all. What can be said in favor of this analysis, i.e., in favor of the claim that a failure to imagine well amounts to a failure to imagine. Here we might compare a related ability, that of memory. Suppose I try to remember how I felt when I got a particular piece of unexpected news. If I now claim to remember being relieved but at the time I was not relieved but disappointed, then my claim is false. Misremembering – or at least radical misremembering – is not really remembering at all; it is at best seeming to remember. So perhaps imagining works like remembering, where misimagining – or at least radical misimagining – is not really imagining at all. Unfortunately, this line of defense proves quickly to be a dead end. On our ordinary picture of imagining, imagining is not like remembering. Though an act is disqualified as remembering in virtue of embodying mistakes (or at least radical mistakes), an act is not disqualified as imagining in virtue of embodying mistakes. In some instances of imagining, of course, the notion of mistake has no purchase. What would it mean for a child to be mistaken when imagining a scary monster or a fairy godmother? But even when we can relevantly talk about mistakes in imaginings – in cases, for example, where we're trying to get things right – the mistakes do not cause the kind of problems for imagining as they do for remembering. A newborn baby might have considerably more hair than his mother imagined. The collector's edition Millennium Falcon replica bought on eBay might be considerably smaller than the purchaser imagined. The newly painted living room might be considerably darker than the homeowner imagined. Yet all of these mistaken imaginings are still imaginings. So if mistakes do not keep an imagining from being an imagining, then the fact that Mary's imagining of the experience of seeing red will almost surely contain mistakes does not give us grounds to deny that Mary has the ability to imagine this experience. But perhaps there is a related move in the vicinity that's more promising. Though the mistakes do not keep her act from being an imagining, perhaps they keep it from being an imagining of the experience of seeing red. Though Mary is trying to imagine the experience of seeing red, and though she takes herself to be imagining seeing red, she's really only imagined some shade of gray. Here too, however, the line of thought is problematic and, again, the problem becomes obvious when we reflect on ordinary imaginings and the way we think about them. The fact that her infant has more hair than the new mother imagined does not mean that during the nine months of her pregnancy she'd been failing to imagine him. "You're not at all like I imagined," she might coo at him – but not: "Wow, I was imagining some different baby altogether." In general, the fact that an imagining mischaracterizes its target does not mean that it misses its target altogether.5 In fact, as philosophers working on imagination have long recognized, the connection between an imagining and its target is an especially tight one. Consider the following passage from Jean-Paul Sartre: [T]he imaged cube is given immediately for what it is. When I say 'the object I perceive' is a cube, I make a hypothesis that the later course of my perceptions may oblige me to abandon. When I say 'the object of which I have an image at this moment is a cube' , I make here a judgement of obviousness: it is absolutely certain that the object of my image is a cube. (Sartre 1940/2010, 9) As Sartre here suggests, and in line with a general consensus in philosophical discussion of imagination, imaginers enjoy a certain epistemic privilege with respect to their imaginings: they cannot be mistaken about what they are imagining. One way to explain this privilege is in terms of the intentions with which we undertake an imaginative project; as Colin McGinn notes, "the identity of my imagined object is fixed by my imaginative intentions, to which I have special access." In an imagining, the imaginative object is "given, not inferred. I know that my image is of my mother because I intended it to be; I don't have to consult the appearance of the person in the image and then infer that I must have formed an image of my mother." (McGinn 2004, 5) Indeed, this is one of the many aspects of imagining that differentiates it from perceiving. Though sheer force of will cannot enable me to perceive something, it can enable me to imagine something. As Nagel notes in the passage quoted earlier, the resources of our own minds are limited, and so we don't have much to go on when we set ourselves the project of imagining what it's like to be a bat. And he is also right that there is an important sense in which our imaginative efforts in this regard will be a failure, namely, that they will fail to teach us what we want to know – they will not teach us what it's like to be a bat. But this instructive failure does not in itself mean that we lack the ability to imagine what it's like to be a bat. And likewise for Mary. Pre-release, Mary's imaginings will not teach her what it is like to see red. But that does 5 For more on the difference between imaginings that miss their targets and imaginings that mischaracterize their targets, see Kind 2016b. not mean that she lacks the ability to imagine the experience of seeing red while she is in her black-and-white room. The upshot for the ability hypothesis should be clear: in its traditional form, at least, the hypothesis is false. Mary does not gain the ability to imagine the experience of red when she leaves the room, for this is an ability that she already has inside the room. But here it would be natural to think that the foregoing discussion has revealed a solution to the problem in the course of revealing the problem itself. Having alerted us to the importance of distinguishing the ability of imagining from the ability of imagining correctly, the discussion suggests that we re-formulate the ability hypothesis in terms of the latter ability rather than the former. On this suggestion, then, what Mary gains when she leaves the room is not the ability to imagine the experience of seeing red but rather the ability to imagine this experience correctly. In the remainder of this paper, I turn to an evaluation of this suggestion. My discussion proceeds in two stages. First, in Section II, I'll consider some particular attempts to revise the ability hypothesis to take account of the distinction between imagining and imagining correctly. As we'll see, however, such revision proves to be more difficult than one might think. Thus, in Section III, I'll turn more directly to the notion of imagining correctly. What does it mean to imagine correctly, and what are Mary's powers in this regard? Ultimately, our discussion will suggest that the ability hypothesis fares no better by employing the notion of correct imagining than it does by employing the notion of imagining. II. Recasting the Ability Hypothesis As we've seen, the standard version of the ability hypothesis in play in philosophical discussion proposes that Mary gains three abilities upon her release: the ability to imagine, to recognize, and to remember the experience of seeing red. This is how the view is typically presented in encyclopedia articles and other overviews (see, e.g., Nida-Rümelin 2009; Stoljar and Nagasawa 2004), and it's also how Jackson himself has presented matters after abandoning his defense of the knowledge argument and announcing his allegiance to the ability hypothesis instead (Jackson 2004, 439).6 As we've also seen, casting the ability hypothesis in these terms is problematic, since there's good reason to think that Mary already has the ability to imagine the experience of seeing red while she's inside the room. Though this problem is not widely recognized, there have been a few instances – I'll here mention three in particular – in which philosophers writing on the knowledge argument have explicitly attempted to avoid this problem by invoking a distinction between the ability to imagine and the ability to imagine 6 Though Jackson has now adopted the ability hypothesis, his main reasons for repudiating the knowledge argument stem from considerations about representationalism. correctly.7 Though all three of these philosophers agree that the ability hypothesis will only be plausible if it is cast in terms of the ability to imagine correctly, they differ in how to spell out the notion of correctness. For D.H. Mellor, who takes up the issue in his "Nothing Like Experience" (1993), imagining something correctly entails being able to recognize it.8 Like the proponents of the ability hypothesis, Mellor is concerned to give an analysis of our knowledge of what experience is like, but unlike such proponents, he is not concerned to defend physicalism. As Mellor argues, an imagining cannot constitute knowledge of what an experience is like if that experience is imagined incorrectly: "For we can imagine experiences wrongly, and then we do not know what they are like. Someone who imagines sugar to taste like salt, for example, does not know what sugar tastes like." Thus, he argues, "To know what experiences of a certain kind are like I must, when I imagine them, imagine them correctly, i.e., in a way that makes me recognise them when I have them. (Mellor 1993, 4-5) Paul Noordhof (2003) agrees with Mellor that incorrect imagining cannot constitute knowledge of what an experience is like, but he offers a slightly different analysis of what it is to imagine an experience correctly. For Noordhof, what matters is not that I be able to recognize the experience but that I be able to identify it (Noordhof 2003, 23). Recognition, Noordhof worries, seems to imply previous cognition: "I can only recognize things if I have come across them, a picture of them, or a description of them, some time before." In his view, this threatens to make the ability hypothesis trivial: Rather than offering us some insight into why experience of a certain sort is necessary for knowledge of what such an experience is like, such an analysis simply presupposes what it sets out to explain. He thus prefers to cash out correct imagining in terms of identification, which carries no implication of previous cognition.9 In a more recent discussion, Bence Nanay raises a problem that would seem to apply to both of these formulations. At least some people who become blind late in life claim that they can still imagine the experience of seeing red, and presumably they can do so correctly (for discussion, see Sacks 2003). But since such an individual no longer has recognitional capabilities with respect to this experience – "they are most certainly incapable of recognizing red, given that they are blind" (Nanay 2009, 704) – it would be a mistake to cash out correct imagining in terms of recognition. A similar point seems to apply to identification. The accounts of correct imagination offered by Mellor and Noordhof are thus problematic, and 7 It's perhaps not surprising that two of the philosophers to notice this problem – Paul Noordhof and Bence Nanay – have published extensively on imagination. 8 Though Mellor mentions the Mary case, he is primarily concerned with Nagel's discussion of what it's like to be a bat. 9 Insofar as Mellor takes recognition to imply only lack of surprise and not previous cognition, Noordhof's account might not be a dramatic departure from Mellor's – as Noordhof himself admits. See Noordhof 2003 fn5. correspondingly, so too are their versions of the ability hypothesis in which these accounts are embedded. In an attempt to rectify this problem, Nanay offers an alternate understanding of what it means to have the ability to imagine an experience E correctly: one has this ability when one can imagine the experience "in such a way that would enable one to distinguish imagining experience E from imagining or having any other experience." (Nanay 2009, 705). Since blind imaginers remain capable of distinguishing their imaginings from one another, Nanay's account allows that such imaginers can imagine color experiences correctly and thus protects itself from the objection that he posed to the kind of account offered by Mellor and Noordhof. But in doing so, Nanay opens himself up to a different objection. To see this, it will help to look at how his analysis of correct imagining gets incorporated into his new version of the ability hypothesis. Like the original ability hypothesis, Nanay's revised version aims to provide an explanation of knowing what an experience is like: Knowing what it is like to experience E is having the ability to distinguish imagining or having experience E from imagining or having any other experience. Nanay's account is disjunctive in nature, and it's precisely this feature that protects him against what might otherwise seem to be objections or counterexamples. On his view, each of the abilities mentioned is individually sufficient for knowing what an experience is like but they are not individually necessary; rather, what's necessary for an individual to know what experience E is like is that she have at least one of the two abilities. Thus, the fact that an individual may lack one of these abilities while still having knowledge of what an experience is like will not count against Nanay's version of the ability hypothesis. My worry about the account, however, stems from a slightly different direction. Surprisingly, perhaps, my worry about the account does not concerns its adequacy. For our purposes here, I'm happy to accept for the sake of argument that Nanay has proposed a version of the ability hypothesis that offers an adequate account of knowledge of what an experience is like. To my mind, however, it would be a mistake to treat this version of the ability hypothesis as one which assigns any real importance to imaginative ability. As I read the account above, not only does it shift away from the ability to imagine but it also shifts away from the ability to imagine correctly. What's central to Nanay's ability hypothesis are not imaginative abilities but rather discriminative abilities. Granted, Nanay takes himself to be invoking these discriminative abilities in an effort to explain what correct imagining is. But while an ability to discriminate might be essential for one's knowledge of what an experience is like, it's hard to see why it should be essential for the correctness of an imagining. What makes an imagining correct or not has to do with how well it matches its target. And just as a drawing might correctly capture its target without enabling someone who sees it from distinguishing that target from all other possible targets, so too an imagining might correctly capture its target without enabling an imaginer to distinguish that target from all other possible targets. It may help to consider things this way. As stated, Nanay's version of the ability hypothesis doesn't require anything about Mary's imaginative abilities to change when she exits the room. She might be producing exactly the same imaginings once she exits the room that she was producing while she was inside the room. What's changed once she leaves the room is that she is now able to distinguish this imagining from all other imaginings and experiences; that's what her knowledge of what it's like consists in. At this point, it might seem that things have somehow gone astray. One of the key intuitions motivating the ability hypothesis seemed to have to do with imaginative ability. It seemed plausible that we could explain Mary's newfound knowledge of what the experience of seeing red is like at least partially in terms of an imaginative gain. But we've now ended up with a version of the ability hypothesis that – perhaps inadvertently – requires us to jettison that intuition. (Indeed, though I've been assuming for the sake of argument that such a version of the ability hypothesis might well be an adequate account of knowledge of what an experience is like, once we realize how far we've shifted away from the original ability hypothesis, this assumption now starts to seem questionable. ) So where do we go from here? III. What Can Mary Imagine Correctly? As we saw in Section I, the ability hypothesis cannot be specified in terms of the ability to imagine the experience of seeing red, because on any plausible understanding of that ability, Mary already has it inside the room. In uncovering this problem, however, our discussion led to what looked like a promising alternative: Instead of relying on the ability to imagine, the ability hypothesis might instead rely on the ability to imagine correctly. Indeed, as we saw in Section II, this alternative has been pursued by several proponents of the ability hypothesis. Now that we have explored their proposals, however, it has seemed that the alternative has failed to live up to its promise. In particular, it proved difficult to flesh out the notion of correct imagining in such a way as to save the ability hypothesis. As a result, it appears that we've ended up with a version of the ability hypothesis that, rather than developing the notion of correct imagining, instead seems to abandon it altogether. These difficulties notwithstanding, one might still have the sense that there is something importantly right about explicating the ability hypothesis in terms of correct imagining. Perhaps the problem with the previous proposals was not the notion itself but rather the specific ways of fleshing it out. If this is the case, then we might be better served simply by relying on an intuitive understanding of it. Might such a version of the ability hypothesis work? Can such an intuitive understanding do the philosophical work that's needed? It's these questions that will motivate the discussion of this section. Rather than addressing them directly, however, I propose to come at them somewhat sideways. Just as we've previously explored the question of what pre-release Mary can imagine, here I want to explore the question of what pre-release Mary can imagine correctly. To start, it will be helpful to recall a basic point about imagination that we encountered in Section I: Human imaginers typically imagine all sorts of things that lie beyond anything we've actually experienced, in some cases far beyond anything we've actually experienced. Let's call these distant imaginings. Of course, whether an imagining counts as distant or not will vary from imaginer to imaginer. For those of us with normal color vision who haven't been locked in a black-and-white room all our lives, imagining the experience of seeing red would not be a distant imagining at all. It would be more distant for someone with red-green color blindness, and yet even more distant for Mary. As this suggests, not only is the matter of distance relative to the experience one has, but it is also a matter of degree. Distant imaginings lie on a continuum – what I'll call the distance continuum – from the not so distant to the very, very distant. Consider the fact that trained musicians can look at an unfamiliar music score and imagine correctly the experience of hearing the piece played, or that trained chefs can look at an unfamiliar recipe and imagine correctly the experience of tasting the cooked dish. Though these acts might naturally be characterized as distant imaginings – after all, the musician has never before heard this composition and the chef has never before tasted this dish – there's also a sense in which they're not very distant. As Lewis notes in discussing sightreading, "new music isn't altogether new – the big new experience is a rearrangement of lots of little old experiences," and presumably the same holds true for new dishes (501 in Lycan). In his view, our capacity for correct imagining gives out when an experience is "new enough." As he admits, the question of when an experience is new enough – or, to put it in my terms, when an experience is sufficiently distant – is a very hard one to answer. That said, almost everyone seems to agree that whatever the answer, that however we draw the line between experiences that are not too distant to be imagined correctly and experiences that are, the experience of seeing red is for Mary on the far side of the line. Note here that that I said almost everyone. There are two notable exceptions. In discussing the knowledge argument, Daniel Dennett has consistently denied that Mary learns anything at all when she leaves the room (see, e.g., Dennett 1991, 398ff). Given her knowledge of a completed color science, there is no "aha" moment when she sees a ripe tomato for the first time. If we tried to trick her by showing her a blue tomato, she would not be fooled. Though Dennett's original responses to the knowledge argument do not directly address the issue of Mary's imaginative capacities, his staunch insistence that Mary already knows what the experience of seeing red is like while she's inside the room suggests that he would also insist she has the ability to imagine the experience of seeing red correctly while she is still inside the room. In a recent paper, he has been more explicit on this point: We are told that Mary in her cell can't imagine what it's like to experience red, try as she might. But suppose she doesn't accept this limitation and does try her best, cogitating for hours on end, and one day she tells us she just got lucky and succeeded. "Hey," she says, "I was just daydreaming, and I stumbled across what it's like to see red, and, of course, once I noticed what I was doing I tested my imagination against everything I knew, and I confirmed that I had, indeed, imagined what it's like to see red!" (Dennett 2007, 23) As Dennett notes, if we subsequently tested her by showing her various color samples and she passed the test, why wouldn't we conclude that she could correctly imagine the experience of red while she was inside the room? Paul Churchland has long pushed a similar line. On his view, pre-release Mary has the ability not only to imagine having the experience of red but also the ability to imagine it correctly. Like Dennett, Churchland stresses just how much Mary knows. Given this knowledge, Mary may begin to reconceptualize her inner life: So she does not identify her visual sensations crudely as "a sensation-of-black", "a sensation-of-grey", or "a sensation-of-white"; rather she identifies them more revealingly as various spiking frequencies in the nth layer of the occipital cortex (or whatever). If Mary has the relevant neuroscientific concepts for the sensational states at issue (viz., sensations-of-red), but has never yet been in those states, she may well be able to imagine being in the relevant cortical state, and imagine it with substantial success, even in advance of receiving external stimuli that would actually produce it. (Churchland 1985, 25-6) For our purposes here, there are two ways we might take these remarks. On the one hand, Churchland might be granting that the experience of red is, for Mary, a very distant one but trying to show that even this very distant experience can still be correctly imagined. On the other hand, Churchland might be denying that the experience of seeing red is as distant for Mary as we might have thought. To my mind, Churchland is most plausibly read as offering this second kind of proposal. It's not that we were wrong about where to draw the line between experiences that are not too distant to be imagined correctly and experiences that are, it's that we were wrong about where color experiences lie for Mary on the distance continuum. Recall again the sightreading example from above, i.e., that trained musicians can sightread scores they've never heard before. Extending this kind of example, Churchland notes that musicians with sufficient training can identify the individual notes of a chord they're hearing for the first time, and conversely, can auditorily imagine an unfamiliar chord from the specification of the notes. Such imaginative feats are possible in virtue of the fact that chords are structured sets of elements, i.e., in virtue of the fact that even new and unfamiliar musical experiences of chords are not that distant. If color sensations are likewise structured, then new and unfamiliar color experiences would be considerably less distant than we'd initially thought. Though color experiences seem to us to be undifferentiated wholes, the same holds true – at least initially – for chord experiences. So, asks Churchland, "Why should it be unthinkable that sensations of color possess a comparable internal structure, unnoticed so far, but awaiting our determined and informed introspection?" (1985, 26-7), i.e., the sort of informed introspective abilities that one might develop were one to master completed neuroscience. It might help to cast the basic issue here in terms of scaffolding. One reason that color experience seems to be so distant for Mary is that there seems to be no way to get to them from the kinds of experiences she has. If color experience is structured, however – and in particular, if it has some kind of phenomenal structure – then that structure could provide a way for Mary to scaffold out from the experiences she has to those that she hasn't. Moreover, this scaffolding would provide Mary not only a way to imagine the unfamiliar experiences but a way to imagine them correctly. More generally, scaffolding also provides us with a useful way to think about the distance continuum. Churchland's point in raising these considerations is slightly different from ours. Rather than putting them forth to criticize the ability hypothesis, he means to be criticizing the knowledge argument more directly. As a result, he doesn't intend the story he's spun about Mary to show that she actually has the ability to correctly imagine the experience of red while inside the room; rather, the considerations he offers are designed to show simply that it's not unthinkable that she has this ability, that her having this skill is not "beyond all possibility" (Churchland 1985, 26). But regardless of whether such considerations are enough to defuse the knowledge argument – a question that it would take us too far afield to settle – it's clear that such considerations are not quite enough for our purposes here. Our interest is in determining what Mary can and can't imagine correctly, in how to draw the line between imaginings that are not too distant to be imagined correctly and those that are. Though it would probably have been too much to expect that we'd be able be provided with decisive answers to these questions, we might reasonably have hoped for a slightly stronger case one way or the other. So can we do any better? Here I think we are helped by reflecting upon other cases of relatively distant experiences where correct imagining seems to be within our grasp. To take just one example, consider Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. The story is set in motion when Christopher, the 15-year narrator of the novel, decides to investigate the murder of his neighbor's dog. But Christopher is no ordinary teenager. He's mathematically gifted and has highly developed powers of visual thinking but is socially awkward – physically lashing out at others when he becomes uncomfortable. He hates the colors brown and yellow, refuses to tell jokes or use metaphors, and hides in small spaces when he's frightened. Though Haddon never explicitly uses the terms "autism" or "Asperger's Syndrome" in the course of the book, and deliberately so, Christopher's behavioral difficulties suggest that he lies somewhere on the autistic spectrum.10 Haddon, who does not have autism, has been widely praised for his ability to get inside the mind of someone with this condition. The book has been described as a "triumph of empathy," as brimming with "with imagination, empathy, and vision," and as "flawlessly imagined and deeply affecting."11 The experience of having autism differs from person to person, but Haddon seems to have successfully imagined what it's like to be one such person. (And, moreover, he seems to have enabled his readers to imagine it as well.) Though this imagining is less distant than imagining what it's like to be a bat, say, for people who do not have autism it is still a case of relatively distant imagining. A different example takes us even closer to the bat case. Though Nagel claims we cannot know what it is like to be a bat, animal scientist Temple Grandin claims that she can adopt a "cow's eye view" of a situation and thereby, in at least a limited sense, know what it is like to be a cow. Like Christopher, the fictional narrator of Haddon's novel, Grandin has autism. Also like Christopher, Grandin describes herself as a visual thinker, and she credits her visual thinking with enabling her "to build entire systems" in her imagination. Her visual thinking is also what enables her to take up a cow's perspective: When I put myself in a cow's place, I really have to be that cow and not a person in cow costume. I use my visual thinking skills to simulate what an animal would see and hear in a given situation. I place myself inside its body and imagine what it experiences. It is the ultimate virtual reality system. (2006, 168) 10 The term "Asperger's" was used on the book's cover, and both terms appear in various promotional materials for the book that have been put out by the publisher. Haddon discusses his own reluctance to use these terms and his views about how best to describe Christopher at http://www.markhaddon.com/aspergers-and-autism. 11 The first quotation is from a review in The New Yorker, the second is an endorsement by author Myla Goldberg that's printed on the back cover of the book, and the third quotation is from a review in Time Out New York. All quotations can be found in the editorial reviews included on the Amazon page for the book, http://www.amazon.com/Curious-Incident-Dog-Night-Time/dp/1400032717?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc. Throughout her career, Grandin has revolutionized the handling of livestock with her innovative equipment designs. Facilities using the equipment that she's designed report that the animals are considerably more comfortable, cooperative, and calm than they were previously. Her tremendous success suggests not only that has Grandin managed to imagine what it is like to be a cow but that she has managed to do so with at least some degree of correctness. Reflection on examples such as these helps to shed further light on Mary's powers of imagination. To my mind, these sorts of examples continue the work begun by Churchland's considerations of eroding a knee-jerk skepticism that Mary could imagine color experiences correctly. Granted, such considerations do not go so far as to show definitively that Mary does have the ability to imagine correctly the experience of seeing red inside the room. After all, the examples that we've considered seem to involve experiences that are plausibly less distant for the imaginer than color experiences are for Mary. But even though there still seems reason to doubt that pre-release Mary can correctly imagine color experiences, there is an important moral to be drawn from the examples just considered. In particular, they seem to pose something of a dilemma for a proponent of the ability hypothesis who wants to employ the notion of correct imagining. If Haddon can correctly imagine what's it like to be autistic, and Grandin can correctly imagine what it's like to be a cow, then that means that many experiences that are fairly far along the distance spectrum can be correctly imagined. In utilizing the notion of correct imagining, then, the proponent of the ability hypothesis has to walk a very careful tightrope. Too restrictive an interpretation of the notion of correct imagining – that is, one that makes correct imagining very hard to achieve – runs the risk of ruling out these cases. But too permissive an interpretation of the notion of correct imagining – that is, one that makes correct imagining very easy to achieve – runs the risk of ruling in Mary. Of course, one might try to achieve the appropriate balance by connecting correct imagining to knowledge of what it's like, e.g., an imagining is correct if and only if it coheres with the imaginer's knowledge of what an experience is like. But this kind of analysis deprives the notion of correct imagining of any usefulness in a version of the ability hypothesis. One can't usefully invoke the notion of correct imagining in one's analysis of what knowledge of an experience when one has relied on knowledge of what an experience is like to distinguish between correct and incorrect imagining. Thus, it starts to look like there is very little room to flesh out the notion of correct imagining in a non-question begging way such that it allows for imaginings like Haddon's and Grandin's to be correct without also allowing imaginings like Mary's to be correct. Faced with this problem, one might be tempted to deny that the imaginings by Haddon and Grandin are really correct after all. But such a denial is not likely to help a proponent of the ability hypothesis who wants to employ correct imagining. This notion, remember, is meant to go along with knowledge of what an experience is like. Such knowledge is meant to consist, at least in part, in this imaginative ability. But once we adopt a very restrictive conception of correct imagining, a conception that makes correct imagining out of reach not just for prerelease Mary with respect to color experience and us with respect to bats but for all sorts of other experiences as well, this imaginative ability starts to seem disconnected with – and even more restrictive than – knowledge of what an experience is like. Ultimately, it looks increasingly unlikely that the notion of correct imagining will be able to bear the philosophical weight that proponents of the ability hypothesis want to place on it. We might put this point in terms of a dilemma for the proponent of the ability hypothesis – or at least for such a proponent who wants to invoke imaginative abilities. If the ability hypothesis is explicated in terms of a restrictive notion of correct imagining, then though it will turn out to be true that pre-release Mary can't correctly imagine red, we will also have to deny that Haddon can correctly imagine what it's like to be autistic or that Grandin can correctly imagine what it's like to be a cow. And this seems like the wrong result. Moreover, since it seems plausible that Haddon (and his readers) do have at least some knowledge or what being autistic is like, and likewise for Grandin with respect to the cow's experience, we'd also end up with cases where it looks like someone can know what an experience is like despite being unable to imagine it correctly. On the other hand, if the proponent of the ability hypothesis tries to avoid this problem by employing a weaker notion of correct imagining, then it looks like pre-release Mary's imaginings of color experiences will end up counting as cases of correct imagining. In short, either the ability hypothesis gets the intended result about Mary but relies upon an implausibly strict account of correct imagining, or it relies on a more plausible analysis of correct imagining but doesn't get the intended result about Mary.12 IV. Concluding Remarks The argument of this paper poses a problem for the ability hypothesis. But it's important to be clear about the force of the considerations I've raised. In particular, nothing that I've said here shows that no version of the ability hypothesis might be usefully employed to defend physicalism from the knowledge argument. What I have shown, however, is that any such version of the ability hypothesis will have to be developed without reliance on imaginative abilities. In a sense, however, this paper hasn't really been about the ability hypothesis at all – or at least, not just about it. Rather, the true motivation of this paper has been to rescue imagination from some misunderstandings that have arisen in the context of the knowledge 12 Thanks to Sam Coleman for suggesting the dilemma formulation. argument. Insofar as the discussion of this argument – and, in particular, discussion of the ability hypothesis – has promoted the impression that Mary inside the room cannot exercise her powers of imagination, that she can't imagine color experience, it has promoted (even if inadvertently so) a misleading picture of imagination, a picture that paints imagination as considerably more limited than it in fact is. Moreover, insofar as the discussion has conflated the ability to imagine with the ability to imagine correctly, this misleading picture of imagination and its limits has been exacerbated. There's an even deeper respect in which discussion of the knowledge argument has had pernicious consequences for our understanding of imagination. The issue that I have in mind was hinted at in the discussion of scaffolding above. In brief, the assumption that underlies the ability hypothesis is that knowledge of what an experience is like consists in an imaginative ability. When Mary comes to see red for the first time, she thereby comes to know what the experience of seeing red is like, and what this means is that she can now imagine things that she couldn't before. Her having the imaginative ability is simply part and parcel of her having knowledge of what the experience is like; that's what such knowledge is. But I'm inclined to think that this way of thinking of the relationship between our imaginative abilities and our knowledge gets things importantly wrong.13 On this conception of imagination, we can't learn from our imagination. Imagining – or even correct imagining – doesn't provide us with new knowledge, or new understanding. How could it? After all, it's what that understanding consists in. And in fact, we have such understanding even if we've never exercised our imagination. In this way, discussion of the knowledge argument threatens to obscure the epistemic relevance of imagining.14 It threatens to obscures the sense in which our imaginings can teach us things that we didn't already know. Given the importance of imagination in everyday life, and given the widespread reliance on imagination in various philosophical contexts, this misrepresentation of the epistemic utility of imagination is one that is well worth avoiding.15 References Alter, Torin. 1998. "A Limited Defense of the Knowledge Argument." Philosophical Studies 90: 35-56. Alter, Torin. 2001. "Know-How, Ability, and the Ability Hypothesis." Theoria 67: 229-239. 13 For related worries about the ability hypothesis, see Coleman 2009. 14 I defend the epistemic relevance of the imagination in Kind 2016c and Kind forthcoming. 15 I am grateful to Torin Alter, Sam Coleman, and Frank Menetrez for helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper. Churchland, Paul. 1985. "Reduction, Qualia, and the Direct Introspection of Brain States." Journal of Philosophy 82: 8-28. Coleman, Sam. 2009. "Why the Ability Hypothesis Is Best Forgotten." Journal of Consciousness Studies 16 : 74-97. Conee, Earl. 1994. "Phenomenal Knowledge." Australasian Journal of Philosophy 72: 136-150. Dennett, Daniel. 2007. "What RoboMary Knows." In Torin Alter and Sven Walter, eds., Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge, 15-31. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dennett, Daniel. 1991. Consciousness Explained. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Gendler, Tamar Szabó. 2000. "The Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance." Journal of Philosophy 97 (2):55-81. Grandin, Temple. 2006. Thinking in Pictures: My Life With Autism, second edition. New York: Vintage Books. Hume, David. 1739/1985. A Treatise of Human Nature. Edited by P.H. Nidditch. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jackson, Frank. 1982. "Epiphenomenal Qualia." 1982. Philosophical Quarterly 34: 147-152. Jackson, Frank. 1986. "What Mary Didn't Know." Journal of Philosophy 83: 291-295. Jackson, Frank. 2004. "Mind and Illusion." In Peter Ludlow, Yujin Nagasawa, and Daniel Stoljar, eds., There's Something About Mary, 421-442. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Kind, Amy. 2016a. "Introduction: Exploring Imagination." In Amy Kind, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Imagination, 1-11. London: Routledge. Kind, Amy. 2016b. "The Snowman's Imagination." American Philosophical Quarterly 53: 341348. Kind, Amy. 2016c. "Imagining Under Constraints." In Amy Kind and Peter Kung, eds., Knowledge Through Imagination, 145-159. Oxford University Press. Kind, Amy. Forthcoming. "How Imagination Gives Rise to Knowledge," in Fabian Dorsch and Fiona Macpherson, eds., Perceptual Memory and Perceptual Imagination. Oxford University Press. Kung, Peter. 2016. "You Really Do Imagine It: Against Error Theories of Imagination." Noûs 50: 90-120. Lewis, David. 1983. "Postscript to 'Mad Pain and Martian Pain'." In his Philosophical Papers, Vol. 1., 130-132. New York: Oxford University Press. Lewis, David. 1988. "What Experience Teaches." Proceedings of the Russellian Society 13: 2957. McGinn, Colin. 2004. Mindsight: Image, Dream, Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Mellor, D.H. 1992/1993. "Nothing Like Experience." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 93:1-16.j nnn Nagel, Thomas. 1974. "What Is it Like To Be a Bat?" Philosophical Review 83: 435-450. Nanay, Bence. 2009. "Imagining, Recognizing and Discriminating: Reconsidering the Ability Hypothesis." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 89: 699-717. Nemirow, Laurence. 1980. Review of Mortal Questions, by Thomas Nagel. The Philosophical Review 89: 473-477. Nemirow, Laurence. 1990. "Physicalism and the Cognitive Role of Acquaintance." In William Lycan, ed., Mind and Cognition: A Reader, 490-499. Oxford: Blackwell. Nida-Rümelin, Martine. 2009. "Qualia: The Knowledge Argument." In Edward N. Zalta, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/qualia-knowledge/ Noordhof, Paul. 2003. "Something Like Ability." Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81: 21-40. Sacks, Oliver. 2003. "The Mind's Eye: What the Blind See." The New Yorker. July 28, 48-59. Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1940/2010. The Imaginary. Translated by Jonathan Webber. London: Routledge. Tidman, Paul. 1994. "Conceivability as a Test for Possibility." American Philosophical Quarterly 31: 297-309. | {
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Common Sense and Ordinary Language: Wittgenstein and Austin Krista Lawlor (penultimate draft 1.16.20 Forthcoming in The Cambridge Companion to Common Sense Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 2020) Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) and J.L. Austin (1911-60) expend tremendous intellectual energy to defuse skeptical problems. What relation do we find in their work between 'ordinary language' methods and the defense of common sense? Thinking through this question encourages fresh appreciation of Wittgenstein's and Austin's remarkable efforts on behalf of common sense against skeptical challenges. 1. Wittgenstein, Austin: Metaphilosophy and Ordinary Language Is Wittgenstein an 'ordinary language philosopher'? The question is vexed.1 The difficulty of interpreting Wittgenstein's texts is widely recognized, but the difficulty of classification owes as much to the 'ordinary language philosophy' side of the equation. What exactly is 'ordinary language philosophy'? There is no simple answer. Rather than argue about the meaning of the term – not a very interesting or useful project here – I'll take Austin as a paradigm 'ordinary language philosopher': his brief methodological remarks are the touchstone for other philosophers working in the same vein. Because Austin's methods are rooted in a metaphilosophical outlook, it is illuminating to start by comparing Austin and Wittgenstein's attitudes toward philosophy and its problems, liabilities and prospects. When we make this comparison, we find Wittgenstein and Austin share many elements of their metaphilosophical outlook, and consequently they offer strikingly similar approaches to some perennial problems of philosophy. The plan for the paper: We'll start with Wittgenstein's metaphilosophy, and then compare it to Austin's (sections [2-3]). Next we'll consider Austin's methods, and see how they are rooted in his metaphilosophy. (section [4]) We'll then briefly consider 1 Avramides, "Wittgenstein and Ordinary Language Philosophy." 2 Austin and Wittgenstein's responses to the philosophical 'problem of other minds' and, at somewhat greater length, their responses to the skeptical 'problem of the external world.' (sections [5-6]) With a perspective on metaphilosophical commitments, we'll better appreciate the role of ordinary language philosophy in defending common sense, as each of Austin and Wittgenstein defends it. 2. Wittgenstein and Austin: Metaphilosophy Wittgenstein and Austin share important views about philosophical problems and how to approach them. They have their differences, too, at least on some interpretations, in their views about the final aim of philosophy. Paul Horwich articulates Wittgenstein's metaphilosophy this way: To a very first approximation, [Wittgenstein] came to think that the paradigm philosophical problems have the form: How could there be such a thing as X? –where X is some perfectly familiar, ordinarily unproblematic phenomenon, but where a priori considerations have been advanced whose import is that, despite appearances, X is in fact impossible.... However, according to Wittgenstein, philosophy is incapable of establishing such dramatic results: the arguments must somehow be wrong, and their initial plausibility must derive from some language-based confusion in our thinking about them. Consequently, our job is not to find out whether the phenomenon in question is possible, or to try to prove that it really is or really is not, or to discern, in light of the paradoxical considerations, what its true nature must be, but rather to remove the confusion that is responsible for the misguided philosophical argument. When this has been done, we will not be left with any positive theory or 3 new understanding. The net result will be simply that we have cured ourselves of a particular tendency to get mixed up. 2 As Horwich notes, it's not that Wittgenstein thinks commonsense opinion is sacrosanct and never needs revision.3 Wittgenstein's point is rather the defectiveness of philosophical methods that yield such skeptical results as that there is no such thing free and blameworthy action, knowledge of other minds or of the world around us, no such thing as time, causation, or meaning. The philosopher's job is not to prove that the target phenomena (free will, other minds, the external world, meaning, time) really do exist, but to unravel the skeptical philosopher's arguments. This will not involve more argument, or a 'positive theory or new understanding'; nor will it involve brute insistence that these things do exist, and that we know as much (pace G.E. Moore – see section 6 below); rather it will involve discerning the picture or model that underlies the skeptical argument. Such misleading pictures or models arise from the philosopher's misapprehension of our language: Our investigation is therefore a grammatical one. Such an investigation sheds light on our problems by clearing misunderstandings away. Misunderstandings concerning the use of words, caused, among other things, by certain analogies between the forms of expression in different regions of language. (PI 90) A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably. (PI 115) The philosopher should dissolve skeptical problems by showing how alternative models make sense of our ordinary ways of talking or thinking about the target phenomena. Then we will see the optional character of skeptical reasoning. Austin's metaphilosophy shares a great deal with Wittgenstein's. While Austin gives no connected statement of what is wrong with traditional philosophy, he gives the 2 Horwich, Wittgenstein's Metaphilosophy, 4–6. Throughout this section, I draw on Horwich's characterization. For another take on Wittgenstein's metaphilosophy see Fogelin, Taking Wittgenstein at His Word: A Textual Study. 3 Baker, "Wittgenstein on Metaphysical/Everyday Use," 301. 4 gist: philosophers are prone to over-simplifying – they're too ready to generalize from small samples or to force questionable dichotomies. For example: My general opinion about this [Sense Data] doctrine is that it is a typically scholastic view, attributable, first, to an obsession with a few particular words, the uses of which are over-simplified, not really understood or carefully studied or correctly described; and second, to an obsession with a few (and nearly always the same) half-studied 'facts'. (I say 'scholastic', but I might just as well have said 'philosophical'; over-simplification, schematization, and constant obsessive repetition of the same small range of jejune 'examples' are not only not peculiar to this case, but far too common to be dismissed as an occasional weakness of philosophers.) The fact is, as I shall try to make clear, that our ordinary words are much subtler in their uses, and mark many more distinctions, than philosophers have realized; and that the facts of perception, as discovered by, for instance, psychologists but also as noted by common mortals, are much more diverse and complicated than has been allowed for. It is essential, here as elsewhere, to abandon old habits of Gleichschaltung, the deeply ingrained worship of tidylooking dichotomies.4 Like Wittgenstein, Austin holds that tendencies to oversimplify and dichotomize lead philosophers to ill-posed questions and pseudo-problems. Austin agrees that the traditional philosopher's methods are scientistic, in seeking to construct generalizations that will explain the complexity of observed phenomena in simple terms and that will deny our pre-theoretic opinions, while stubbornly ignoring recalcitrant data. Targeting logical positivist A.J. Ayer he writes: For consider some questions about 'real' colour. Here there are many cases of a kind which Ayer, generalizing on the basis of one example, takes no account of.5 Like Wittgenstein, Austin holds that philosophical problems are often generated by the philosopher's tendency to be misled by superficial features of our language. For instance, 4 Sense and Sensibilia p.3. (see also p. 82). 5 Austin, Sense and Sensibilia, 82. 5 Austin's take on the 'problem of freedom' is that philosophers are misled by their own special use of 'free': While it has been the tradition to present this [i.e. 'free'] as the 'positive' term requiring elucidation, there is little doubt that to say we acted 'freely' (in the philosopher's use, which is only faintly related to the everyday use) is to say only that we acted not unfreely, in one or another of the many heterogeneous ways of so acting (under duress, or what not).6 The philosopher's use of 'free' adds nothing to the characterization of an act beyond more specific ordinary characterizations. We do better as philosophers, Austin argues, to focus instead on the specific ordinary characterizations that do tell us something about our actions: ... we [philosophers] become obsessed with 'freedom' when discussing conduct. So long as we think that what has always and alone to be decided is whether a certain action was done freely or was not, we get nowhere; but so soon as we turn instead to the numerous other adverbs used in the same connexion ('accidentally', 'unwillingly', 'inadvertently', &c), things become easier, and we come to see that no concluding inference of the form 'Ergo, it was done freely (or not freely)' is required.7 Wittgenstein and Austin see traditional philosophy as rife with oversimplification that ignores recalcitrant facts, rife with disputes over ever-ramifying alternative theories that traditional philosophers have no rational criteria for preferring. ('Why should we prefer the positivist's language of 'sense data' at all?' Austin asks – knowing that no answer is forthcoming.) 3. Wittgenstein and Austin on constructive philosophy Wittgenstein holds that philosophers should not persist in their traditional projects of attempting theoretical reductions of phenomena or resolving problems through positive 6 Philosophical Papers, p.128 (my emphasis). 7 Ibid p.98. 6 explanatory claims. Instead philosophy should be 'therapeutic' and seek to dissolve the pseudo-problems and ill-posed questions by showing them for what they are: These are, of course, not empirical problems; they are solved, rather, by looking into the workings of our language, and in such a way as to make us recognize those workings; in despite of an urge to misunderstand them. The problems are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have already known. Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. (PI 109) After philosophers have completed their therapeutic work, what is left is a clearer view of our ordinary practices just as they were, and an appreciation of the fact that our language is fine as it is, as are our pre-theoretic opinions: Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it. . . . It leaves everything as it is' (PI 124) Interpreters disagree about whether Wittgenstein holds that philosophy properly ends with the resolution of philosophical problems. Some argue that Wittgenstein would prohibit all further philosophical theorizing, beyond the work it takes to dissolve traditional philosophical problems. Others argue that Wittgenstein's metaphilosophical stance only prohibits scientistic theorizing.8 Recently, interpreters of Austin have questioned the extent to which Austin shares Wittgenstein's views about philosophy properly ending with the resolution of philosophical problems. As some read him, Austin shares with Wittgenstein the view that the final goal of philosophy is therapeutic.9 Others read Austin as holding that philosophy goes beyond the dissolution of traditional philosophical problems, and instead read him 8 See Horwich ibid, p.66 note 30. 9 Fischer, "Austin on Sense-Data: Ordinary Language Analysis as 'Therapy.'" 7 as both demonstrating the form that a new philosophy should take10 and constructing some semantic tools to serve philosophers in this new work.11 A strong case can be made that Austin believes the philosopher's job extends beyond the dissolution of pseudo-problems. Readers of Sense and Sensibilia will find Austin patiently dismantling sense data theory and sounding a therapeutic tone about its task: 'unpicking, one by one, a mass of seductive (mainly verbal) fallacies, of exposing a wide variety of concealed motive – an operation which leaves us, in a sense, just where we began.'12 But readers will also find Austin calling on philosophers to take ordinary epistemic commitments more seriously. As we have seen, Austin holds that 'common mortals' are already quite good at noticing 'the facts of perception.' Common or folk epistemology takes in the diversity and complexity of our epistemic access to the world around us, marking important distinctions (for example between looking and seeming a certain way). The job of philosophers is to attend to our ordinary epistemic commitments as they inquire into perception. Similarly, readers of 'A Plea for Excuses' find not only the dissolution of the problem of freedom, which hinges on the problematic 'philosophical' use of the word 'free', but also a call to philosophers to work out a total account of action, and to investigate the relation of freedom and responsibility. And readers of 'Other Minds' find not only the dissolution of the problem of other minds, but also a call to philosophers to theorize about the nature of knowledge: in this text, Austin offers the first articulation of a relevant alternatives account of knowledge, an interesting position on the incorrigibility of perceptual knowledge, and an argument against knowledge as a mental state. On Austin's view, the work of philosophers does not end when we have a clearer view of our ordinary practices. We look into the workings of our language not only to 10 Gustafsson and Sorli, The Philosophy of J. L. Austin; Garvey, J. L. Austin on Language; Tsohatzidis, Interpreting J. L. Austin: Critical Essays. 11 Travis, Occasion-Sensitivity; Lawlor, "Austin on Perception, Knowledge and Meaning." 12 Sense and Sensibilia, p.5. 8 resolve philosophical problems, but also to investigate and theorize about the worldly phenomena of interest to us. Austin's 'ordinary language' methods are made to serve philosophers in their constructive tasks. 4. Ordinary language methods What are Austin's methods? A familiar picture of Austin at work has him at his Saturday morning meetings with other Oxford philosophers, consulting the dictionary, and putting friends on the spot with tough questions (e.g. asking for the difference between playing golf correctly and playing it properly). He displays extraordinary attention to nuances of meaning, revealed in brilliantly imagined situations. What is the point of all this attention to 'what we should say, when'? Obviously, it's aimed at revealing subtle distinctions in the meanings of ordinary terms. Seeing only this much, some dismiss his work. C.D. Broad writes: To imagine that a careful study of the usages, the implications, the suggestions, and the nuances of the ordinary speech of contemporary Englishmen could be a substitute for, or a valuable contribution towards, the solution of the philosophical problems of sense-perception, seems to me one of the strangest delusions which has ever flourished in academic circles.13 A more synoptic and generous understanding sees Austin methodically dissolving traditional skeptical problems and assembling positive theories of important human phenomena. H.P. Grice, a sometime proponent of ordinary language philosophy, offers one such understanding, suggesting that Austin's methods are made for the purpose of unlocking the storehouse of commonsense belief, through conceptual analysis.14 First we botanize our language, surveying all the cases in which it is appropriate to deploy or withhold an expression; then we venture a general characterization of the types of case in 13 Broad, 'Philosophy and 'Common-Sense', cited in Pomeroy, Ralph, "Moore as an OrdinaryLanguage Philosopher." 14 Grice, Studies in the Way of Words, 171 ff. 9 which it is appropriate to apply a given expression and test it; this characterization is the foundation of an analysis of the concept expressed by the target expression.15 Grice sees one immediate challenge for the ordinary language philosopher. While most anyone might be brought to admit that we need to start philosophical inquiry with ordinary language, or admit that specialized inquiry in philosophy and other sciences starts with problems and questions stated in ordinary terms, the question is, why should specialized forms of inquiry continue to respect ordinary language? In answer, Grice starts by observing that, while Austin shares with Moore the idea that common sense belief is valuable, Austin was more circumspect than Moore about the truth-value of particular claims made by particular individuals. Moore's personal belief 'Here is a hand' has no special epistemic status for being 'commonsensical.' Rather Austin holds that the 'common man' is an impersonal figure – one who embodies competent use of a shared public language, and who consequently deserves the philosopher's attention. Language encodes knowledge the human species has acquired over many trials: ...our common stock of words embodies all the distinctions men have found worth drawing, and the connexions they have found worth marking, in the lifetimes of many generations: these surely are likely to be more numerous, more sound, since they have stood up to the long test of the survival of the fittest, and more subtle, at least in all ordinary and reasonably practical matters, than any that you or I are likely to think up in our arm-chairs of an afternoon – the most favoured alternative method.16 Grice suggests Austin's position is similar to Aristotle's: the answer to the question why pay continued respect to ordinary language, is that epistemic progress is secured by a dialectical process. Dialectic is a progressive scrutiny of 'the ideas of the Many' with the 15 Studies, pp. 174, 376 16 Philosophical Papers, 130. See also Sense and Sensibilia, 63. 10 aim of discerning 'the ideas of the Wise', where progress is ensured only so long as inquiry keeps in touch with what is said by the Wise, and before them, by the Many.17 While Grice here offers an important defense of Austin's methods, he is incorrect that Austin aims for analyses of concepts.18 What we aim for, Austin says, is to get clearer about what we mean by our talk so as to get clearer about phenomena: When we examine what we should say when, what words we should use in what situations, we are looking again not merely at words (or 'meanings', whatever they may be) but also at the realities we use the words to talk about: we are using a sharpened awareness of words to sharpen our perception of, though not as the final arbiter of, the phenomena. For this reason I think it might be better to use, for this way of doing philosophy, some less misleading name than those given above – for instance, 'linguistic phenomenology', only that is rather a mouthful.19 Consequently, Austin acknowledges that there are limits to the use of his method: Using, then, such a method, it is plainly preferable to investigate a field where ordinary language is rich and subtle, as it is in the pressingly practical matter of Excuses, but certainly is not in the matter, say, of Time. At the same time we should prefer a field which is not too much trodden into bogs or tracks by traditional philosophy, for in that case even 'ordinary' language will often have become infected with the jargon of extinct theories, and our own prejudices too, as the upholders or imbibers of theoretical views, will be too readily, and often insensibly, engaged.20 Moreover, Austin emphasizes that we must recognize that language and concepts grow; sometimes our theoretical purposes require innovation: ... in the course of stressing that we must pay attention to the facts of actual language, what we can and cannot say, and precisely why, another and converse 17 Grice, Studies 379. 18 Austin, Philosophical Papers, 8. 19 Philosophical Papers, 130 (my emphasis). 20 Ibid. 130. 11 point takes shape. Although it will not do to force actual language to accord with some preconceived model: it equally will not do, having discovered the facts about 'ordinary usage' to rest content with that, as though there were nothing more to be discussed and discovered. There may be plenty that might happen and does happen which would need new and better language to describe it in.21 Since words only get their sense in the circumstances in which they are used, we need to pay attention to a wide range of circumstances for subtle differences in usage. More, we need to go beyond ordinary usage and consult other sources that draw helpful distinctions about our target phenomena – Austin identifies two such sources: the law and psychology.22 Finally, philosophers also need to be quite clear about the way common commitments are expressed in natural language. This is just to say, philosophers need an account of natural language semantics. While Grice seems to think that we can limn the use of an expression and discover its application conditions, Austin insists that expressions apply or fail to apply to given cases only in given circumstances. 'Plea for Excuses' is quite clear about this; there we also find Austin motivating the choice of 'situation semantics' as the best approach to natural language semantics.23 That the truth or falsity of what we say does not depend on sentence meaning alone, but is determined by sentence meaning in circumstances, is the heart of Austin's 'situation semantics.'24 In sum, for Austin, philosophy doesn't end with dissolving pseudo-problems. Austin would have philosophers go beyond the dissolution of traditional philosophical problems and investigate the phenomena; the investigation begins by examining our commonsense philosophical commitments. The picture Austin has is that ordinary people are already philosophers, asking and answering interesting philosophical questions, for instance about the possibility of knowing the world through the senses, or about when to 21 Ibid., 37. See also Austin, Sense and Sensibilia, 63. 22 Ibid. 134. 23 For dissenting views about whether Austin aims to develop an account of the semantics of natural language see Baz, When Words Are Called For: A Defense of Ordinary Language Philosophy; Crary, "The Happy Truth: J. L. Austin's How to Do Things with Words." 24 Recanati, Literal Meaning. Travis, Occasion-Sensitivity. Longworth, "John Langshaw Austin." Austin works out his semantic proposal in more detail in his paper 'Truth.' Philosophical Papers, 85-102. 12 take someone's word and when not, or about the relation between free action and responsibility. Over time, our language comes to encode important facts about such topics. Philosophers have a role in making our ordinary theoretical commitments on such matters explicit, and rationally reconstructing these commitments. To uncover these commitments, philosophers must attend to the ways ordinary people talk, and bear in mind the ways ordinary language can be deceptive.25 For these reasons, they need a theory of natural language meaning. 5. The problem of other minds When we compare Wittgenstein and Austin on the problem of other minds, we see their metaphilosophy in action, with some interesting differences in their use of ordinary language tools. The problem of other minds starts with a seeming asymmetry between the way one knows one's own mind and the way one knows another person's mind. One knows one's own experiences immediately, without inference. One needn't observe one's own pain behavior to know one is in pain. But one doesn't know what another person experiences immediately; one has to see what state they're in, what impacts the world has on them, and perhaps ask them about what they're feeling, in order to gain knowledge. What explains this asymmetry in ways of knowing? A tempting answer: mental states or experiences, such as pain, are private, occurring in a 'private arena' the 'Cartesian Theater', with only one person in the audience, ever. This picture or model explains the epistemic asymmetry we noted, but it also leads to puzzles and problems. If in fact your experiences are events hidden from me, how do I come to know what you experience? Your report 'I see red' could be about experiences others would call 'green' – how could we rule this out? Your report could even be systematically not about experiences at all: you might be a zombie – and again how could we rule this out? 25 Austin, Philosophical Papers, 40–42. 13 Very roughly, Wittgenstein's resolution of the problem centers on this diagnosis: The mistake we fall into is to exaggerate the parallel between two kinds of language game – expressions of experiences ('I am in pain') and observation reports ('that is red'). We tend to extrapolate from the grammatical likeness here, and consequently add to Cartesian Theatre image the idea that 'I am in pain' is a report, or a description of a thing one is observing. And what a curious thing it must be then – something such that when one observes it, one's relation to it is immediate and provides one absolute certainty about its qualities. Once these thoughts settle, says Wittgenstein, we are firmly in the grip of the problem of other minds. Wittgenstein suggests that the problem dissolves when we question the picture that guides our thinking. That picture rests on tendencies we have to exaggerate the likeness of distinct language games. Wittgenstein's prescription is for us to drop the picture of the Cartesian Theater, by reminding ourselves of other compelling facts – such as facts about the differences between the language games of making observation reports and giving expression to experiences. We learn how to make the observation report, 'that is red,' as children, when our adult teachers can see what we see. In contrast, we learn to say, 'I am in pain' as an alternative to whimpering or crying: ... words are connected with the primitive, the natural, expressions of the sensation and used in their place. A child has hurt himself and he cries; and then adults talk to him and teach him exclamations and, later, sentences. They teach the child new pain behaviour. (PI 244) Once we let go the Cartesian Theater picture, and remind ourselves of such facts, we can imagine alternative accounts of the phenomena with which we started: one needn't observe one's own pain behavior in order to produce more of the same, saying 'I am in pain.' And when we see another shrieking and writhing, we do not need to make an inference from a connection we know best in our own case, but instead we might immediately form a belief that the other person is in pain. An innate tendency to be moved by seeing another person in pain to the conviction that they are in pain would just as well explain all the phenomena (including the asymmetry phenomena, as well as the 14 fact that our beliefs about others pains sometimes enjoy just as much certainty as beliefs in our own).26 Compare Austin's approach to the problem. In his symposium contribution 'Other Minds,' Austin begins with a discussion of knowledge, doubt, relevant alternatives, and fallibilism. Throughout, he is on the lookout for the philosopher's typical missteps: 'If we say that I only get at the symptoms of his anger, that carries an important implication. But is this the way we do talk?'27 Only in the last few pages does Austin turn to the problem of other minds, and he targets how the problem arises. He suggests that what starts as a question about believing a person's testimony becomes an altogether different question in the skeptic's hands. We start with a question, 'Why believe a person when they speak (about their mental states)?' There are answers that we can give to this question [why believe the man?], which is here to be taken in the general sense of 'Why believe him ever?' not simply as 'Why believe him this time?'28 And to such questions, Austin remarks, there will be straight-faced answers: We may say that the man's statements on matters other than his own feelings have constantly been before us in the past, and have be regularly verified by our own observations... But Austin notes These answers are, however, dangerous and unhelpful. They are so obvious that they please nobody: while on the other hand they encourage the questioner to push his question to 'profounder' depths, encouraging us, in turn, to exaggerate these answers until they become distortions. The question, pushed further, becomes a challenge to the very possibility of 'believing another man', in its ordinarily accepted sense, at all. What 26 Horwich (ibid. p.189) 27 Philosophical Papers, p.75. 28 Ibid. p.82 15 'justification' is there for supposing that there is another mind communicating with you at all? How can you know what it would be like for another mind to feel anything, and so how can you understand it? Our initial general question becomes a skeptical challenge: What 'justification' is there for supposing that others have minds at all? Austin replies: This however, is distortion. It seems, rather, that believing in other person, in authority and testimony, is an essential part of the act of communicating, an act which we all constantly perform. It is as much an irreducible part of our experience as, say, giving promises, or playing competitive games, or even sensing coloured patches. We can state certain advantages of such performances, and we can elaborate rules of a kind for their 'rational' conduct (as the Law Courts and historians and psychologists work out the rules for accepting testimony.) But there is no 'justification' for our doing them as such.29 Two ideas are suggested here: first, there is the idea, familiar to us from Wittgenstein, that justification comes to an end, and beyond justified beliefs lies a realm of action which is itself not subject to assessment in terms of justification. Some beliefs (believing another person) form an essential part of the actions 'we all constantly perform' and as such are not up for assessment in terms of justification. There are no reasoned grounds that make for the 'justification' for believing another about what they experience. We do not, and cannot, justify our doing so, but neither can we justify with reasoned grounds our practices of communicating, our playing competitive games, or using our senses to perceive the environment around us. Nonetheless, we can take responsibility for what we believe, in accord with our understanding of the rational conduct of such activities. (There are answers to the question 'Why believe him ever?') Austin's dissolution of the problem of other minds has striking similarities with Wittgenstein's, for instance, in his rejection of 'profounder' questions that encourage us to answers that distort the facts as we ordinarily see them. Perhaps surprisingly, Austin does not go in for lengthy analysis of ordinary talk of experiences, pains and toothaches, 29 Ibid. p.83. 16 on his way to a dissolution of the problem, as we might expect from an ordinary language philosopher, but instead he appeals to the idea that some practices are simply part of our lives. Austin here sounds more like Wittgenstein in those parts of his work where he emphasizes the practices that underwrite our language. On the other hand, Wittgenstein's own approach to the problem of other minds sounds more like that of a paradigm ordinary language philosopher, resting as it does on careful attention to features of our experience-talk and observation-talk. 6. 'Our knowledge of the external world' How do we know about the world around us? Idealists doubt that there are objects independent of our minds, and skeptics, while accepting that there may be such objects, doubt that there is any knowledge to be had about them. In both Austin's and Wittgenstein's writings we find the strands of several compelling responses to the problem of our knowledge of the external world. (Wittgenstein tackles this problem in late notes collected as On Certainty; Austin's approach must be extracted from his work on knowledge in 'Other Minds,' and Sense and Sensibilia.) To bring focus to our discussion, it's helpful to contrast Austin and Wittgenstein as against G.E. Moore on the problem of the external world. G.E. Moore strikes back at skeptical and idealist doubts by affirming what he takes to be common sense. In 'Defence of Common Sense' published in 1925, Moore gives a 'list of truisms' he knows to be true: There exists at present a living human body, which is my body. This body was born at a certain time in the past, and has existed continuously ever since, though not without undergoing changes; it was, for instance, much smaller when it was born, and for some time afterwards, than it is now. Ever since it was born, it has been either in contact with or not far from the surface of the earth; and, at every moment since it was born, there have also existed many other things, having 17 shape and size in three dimensions (in the same familiar sense in which it has), from which it has been at various distances ... 30 Moorean certainties have several interesting features: they are universally accepted (The 'beliefs of Common Sense' Moore says, are those 'commonly entertained by mankind',31 and cannot be denied without some kind of inconsistency. Wittgenstein alternatively suggests that to deny them would seem mad.); they cannot be proved but are known with certainty. (Wittgenstein alternatively suggests that knowledge and certainty are different things, although at some places he suggests knowledge and certainty have similar features.32) The Moorean certainty 'Here is a hand' becomes a central premise in Moore's later argument in 'Proof of an External World' published in 1939; in this argument, he goes one better and attempts to refute idealism by formulating a proof of the existence of objects to be met with in space – that is, of a world external to our minds. His proof begins with a demonstration, in which Moore holds up his hands and makes a gesture with one: 1. Here is one hand then Moore repeats the gesture with his other hand: 2. Here is another hand And he concludes: 3. Two human hands exist. Since human hands are objects to be met with in space, or 'external objects' it follows from the fact that two such objects exist that 4. External objects exist. 30 Moore, "A Defence of Common Sense." Moore's identification of truisms of common sense echoes Thomas Reid, whom he admired. Jensen, "Reid and Wittgenstein on Philosophy and Language." 31 Ibid. 43. 32 Wittgenstein, On Certainty, [308, 8, 357,386, 415]. White, "Common Sense: Moore and Wittgenstein," 314–18. 18 Moore anticipates resistance to his proof and seeks to preempt it, noting that the premises are known to be true (although he cannot prove them in turn), the conclusion follows, and that we often accept such proofs.33 If someone were asked to prove there were three typographic errors on a page, he could point them out one by one and thereby prove the claim. Moore's work captured Wittgenstein's attention, and it occupied him both in his Philosophical Investigations and at great length in the notes he made shortly before his death, later published as On Certainty.34 Austin's attitude toward Moore's defense of our knowledge of the external world is harder to trace, but clearly he worked within a discussion whose terms were set by Moore. Moore's Proof fails, Wittgenstein is sure. But he is equally sure that following on from Moore's attempt, we can diagnose what goes wrong in skeptic's thinking. Beyond this point, there is dispute about his aims in On Certainty. As we have seen, some hold that Wittgenstein's metaphilosophical stance restricts the aims of philosophy to 'therapy' or dissolving problems. Consequently, any positive theorizing about the nature of knowledge in On Certainty is felt by some to be a lamentable departure from his metaphilosophical commitments.35 Others find many resources within the pages of On Certainty for thinking afresh about knowledge, with several suggestive lines of response to skepticism, provoked by Moore's attempt. Crispin Wright explores one such line, very roughly summarized this way: Moore's proof fails because whatever evidence Moore uses to support premise (1) only supports it if the conclusion (4) is already reasonably believed: an experience as of a hand before one supports the belief that here is a hand, but only 'conditional on the prior reasonableness of accepting' the conclusion.36 Without reasonably accepting the conclusion, the experience as of a hand is consistent with any number of alternatives to (1), such as that one is dreaming a hand or 33 Moore, "Proof of an External World." 34 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations. PI §§ 324-26 and §§466-86. My exposition here owes much to Child, Wittgenstein. 35 Fogelin, "Wittgenstein's Critique of Philosophy." 36 Wright, "Facts and Certainty," 58. What we have here is a failure of closure of evidential support, as Wright notes on p.59. 19 seeing an illusion of a hand. For this reason, Moore's proof begs the question and cannot be dialectically effective against the skeptic.37 Moreover, we see how difficult the skeptical challenge really is – without support for (4) of the kind Moore tries to give, we're left to wonder how experiences count in favor of ordinary beliefs. In the end, then, Moore's proof has the effect of putting a fine point on skeptical argument – how after all do we know premises such as (1)?38 One might turn the tables on the skeptic here, Wright suggests, if we follow a suggestion in On Certainty and defend the conclusion (4) by other means. Then we'll be in a position to say how our perceptual experiences support ordinary beliefs of the sort that are Moore's premises. One possibility is to hold that propositions such as (4) are not fact-stating propositions at all. Then 'where non-fact-stating 'propositions' are concerned, the lack of evidential warrant for accepting them need be no criticism of our doing so.'39 Another possibility, which Wright pursues in subsequent work,40 is instead to hold that while (4) may have truth conditions, and so be apt for fact-stating, our epistemic relation to (4) is not that of knowing or being justified in believing it; rather, we are entitled to accept it, because it is necessary for inquiry. Entitlement is 'a kind of rational warrant' not dependent on evidence.41 Here Wright follows suggestions in On Certainty in such passages as these: 341. ...the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn. 342. That is to say, it belongs to the logic of our scientific investigations that certain things are indeed not doubted. 37 Pryor, "What's Wrong with Moore's Argument?" 38 Wright, "Scepticism, Certainty, Moore and Wittgenstein," 79–80. 39 Wright, "Facts and Certainty," 79–80. 40 Wright, "On Epistemic Entitlement (II): Welfare State Epistemology." 41 Wright, "Warrant for Nothing (and Foundations for Free)?," 167. 20 343. But it isn't that the situation is like this: We just can't investigate everything, and for that reason we are forced to rest content with assumption. If I want the door to turn, the hinges must stay put. The idea is that (4) is a 'hinge proposition'; we cannot aspire to investigate it, but rather are entitled to accept it as a requirement of inquiry. Wright's explorations here have generated a line of research known as 'hinge epistemology.'42 A difficult question for hinge epistemology is why it marks any advance in the defense of common sense – why is it better than skepticism?43 If we allow that hinge propositions are not knowable or justifiably believed, then isn't that simply to concede victory to the skeptic? Michael Williams suggests a different reading of Wittgenstein's dissolution of Cartesian Skepticism.44 Williams observes that the hinge epistemologist offers us a 'framework reading' of On Certainty: the simple answer to the problem of the external world is that skeptical doubt is illegitimate, in transgressing one or another rule of our ordinary epistemic practices. But Williams notes that while the framework reading gives a direct answer to skeptic, Wittgenstein is not content to leave things there; true to his metaphilosophy, he also wants a diagnosis of why the skeptic succumbs to the illusion of doubt. Williams reads Wittgenstein as devoting the first 65 sections of On Certainty to wrestling with this question. Then, finally, it is in §90 that we find Wittgenstein's ultimate diagnosis: 90. 'I know' has a primitive meaning similar to and related to 'I see' ('wissen', 'videre'). And 'I knew he was in the room, but he wasn't in the room' is like 'I saw him in the room, but he wasn't there'. 'I know' is meant to express a relation, not between me and the sense of a proposition (like 'I believe') but between me and a fact. So that the fact is taken into my consciousness. (Here is the reason why one wants to say that nothing that goes on in the outer world is really known, but 42 Coliva and Moyal-Sharrock, Hinge Epistemology. 43 Hinge epistemologists are quite aware of this problem. Wright, "Warrant for Nothing (and Foundations for Free)?," 203 ff. 44 Williams, "Wittgenstein's Refutation of Idealism." 21 only what happens in the domain of what are called sense-data.) This would give us a picture of knowing as the perception of an outer event through visual rays which project it as it is into the eye and the consciousness. Only then the question at once arises whether one can be certain of the projection. And this picture does indeed show how our imagination presents knowledge, but not what lies at the bottom of this presentation. The reason the skeptic thinks that 'there are physical objects' is a hypothesis is because the skeptic is in the grip of a picture: a 'picture of knowing as the perception of an outer event through visual rays which project it as it is into the eye and the consciousness.' What creates this picture is in the first place our commitment to the idea that knowledge is a factive mental state. While the factivity of knowledge is innocent enough, the idea that knowledge is a mental state is dangerous. When we accept it, we face the question, how can my consciousness stand in a relation to a fact? And then the following answer tempts us: the fact in question must be a sense-datum. This answer encapsulates the picture of knowing as 'projection into the eye of consciousness,' and it sets us off on a skeptical path. We find it natural to accept the picture of knowing as apprehending sense data, from which we only infer the existence of physical objects. On Williams's reading, we find Wittgenstein's metaphilosophy at the forefront of his response to skepticism: the so-called problem of the external world rests on an illusion – the illusion of the intelligibility of skeptical doubt – which is removed once we see the optionality of the picture that helped to sustain the illusion. Austin, like Wittgenstein, offers us a variety of tantalizing responses to the skeptic. One Austinian response directly targets the philosophers' tendency to overgeneralize and dichotomize: for instance, sense data theorists collapse the various objects of perception into a single category, 'material objects', as opposed to 'sense data', and allege that statements about the such objects must in general rest epistemically on statements about sense data. Austin questions such dichotomies, and he rejects the idea that statements as types fall into epistemologically interesting dependence relations.45 45 Sense and Sensibilia, 111ff. 22 A different line of response in 'Other Minds' focuses on the ordinary rules for using the term 'I doubt' – an approach very similar to Wittgenstein's. Here Austin might be read as offering the simple framework answer canvassed above: namely, the skeptic has broken the rules of doubting, as revealed by attention to our ordinary linguistic practices. Our practices with 'doubt' and 'know' follow particular rules, and the skeptic flouts them, leaving us to wonder at the intelligibility of Cartesian doubts. Yet another direct anti-skeptical position can also be found in Austin's 'Other Minds.' Here Austin spends a lot of energy on what knowledge is, and his ruminations give birth to the Relevant Alternatives Theory of knowledge. A simple Relevant Alternatives response to Cartesian skepticism targets hyperbolic skeptical hypotheses as simply not relevant.46 Still further development of Austin's response to contemporary formulations of the skeptical problem make use of Austinian views about semantics of knowledge ascription.47 Finally, Austin also suggests a still more aggressively anti-skeptical answer: not only can we have ordinary knowledge, and ignore skeptical hypotheses as irrelevant, we can actually know the hyperbolic skeptical hypotheses are false.48 That is to say, we can know that we are not globally deceived, Brains-in-Vat's, or dreaming everything. This interpretation puts Austin in company with Moore, defending our ordinary usage as a direct guide to what is knowable. 7. Conclusion Austin and Wittgenstein make mighty efforts to find a way out of the maze of traditional philosophical problems, and they consistently attend to ordinary usage as a guide. As we have seen, their similar methods and metaphilosophical inclinations are consistent with an array of approaches to particular skeptical problems. 46 Kaplan, "To What Must an Epistemology Be True?" 47 Lawlor, Krista, Assurance: An Austinian View of Knowledge and Knowledge Claims; "Austin on Perception, Knowledge and Meaning"; "Ordinary Language Philosophy Needs Situation Semantics (or, Why Grice Needs Austin)." 48 Leite, "Austin, Dreams, and Scepticism." 23 Wittgenstein and Austin may differ over the aim of philosophical inquiry – whether the aim is seeing that ordinary language is fine as it is, or whether it is to further our philosophical understanding of human social, ethical and epistemic life. For Austin, anyway, clearly ordinary language isn't always fine as it is – the philosopher will find it in need of some clarification, some 'tidying up', and even revision, when the aim of understanding the phenomena requires it. Contrary to many critics, for Austin understanding ordinary language is not an endpoint, but a starting point in our understanding of phenomena. In contrast, at least sometimes, Wittgenstein suggests that ordinary language is fine as it is, and that our goal as philosophers is to show how this is so. As we have seen, some hold a strict line here and say that that Wittgenstein's metaphilosophical stance restricts the aims of philosophy to dissolving philosophical problems, while others suggest that Wittgenstein's metaphilosophical prohibition on theory only extends to scientistic theorizing. Setting aside this thorny debate, it may safely be said that for both Austin and Wittgenstein, ordinary language methods play a central role in both the dissolution of problems and in disciplining philosophical work. Ordinary language methods are crucial for the defense of common sense. 24 References Austin, J. L. Philosophical Papers. Edited by J.O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock. Oxford: Clarendon Press Oxford, 1961. ---. Sense and Sensibilia. Edited by G. J. Warnock. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, USA, 1962. Avramides, Anita. "Wittgenstein and Ordinary Language Philosophy." In A Companion to Wittgenstein, edited by Hans-Johann Glock and John Hyman. John Wiley and Sons, 2017. Baker, Gordon. "Wittgenstein on Metaphysical/Everyday Use." The Philosophical Quarterly 52, no. 208 (2002): 289–302. Baz, Avner. When Words Are Called For: A Defense of Ordinary Language Philosophy. Harvard University Press, 2012. Child, William. Wittgenstein. Routledge, 2002. Coliva, Annalisa, and Danièle Moyal-Sharrock. Hinge Epistemology. Brill, 2016. Crary, Alice. "The Happy Truth: J. L. Austin's How to Do Things with Words." Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 45, no. 1 (2002): 59 – 80. Fischer, Eugen. "Austin on Sense-Data: Ordinary Language Analysis as 'Therapy.'" Grazer Philosophische Studien 70 (2005). Fogelin, Robert J. Taking Wittgenstein at His Word: A Textual Study. Princeton University Press, 2009. ---. "Wittgenstein's Critique of Philosophy." In The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein, edited by Hans D. Sluga and David G. Stern, 34--58. Cambridge University Press, 1996. Garvey, Brian. J. L. Austin on Language. Palgrave-Macmillan, 2014. Grice, Paul. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. Gustafsson, Martin, and Richard Sorli, eds. The Philosophy of J. L. Austin. Oxford University Press, USA, 2011. Horwich, Paul. Wittgenstein's Metaphilosophy. Oxford University Press, 2011. Jensen, Henning. "Reid and Wittgenstein on Philosophy and Language." Philosophical Studies 36, no. 4 (1979): 359–76. Kaplan, Mark. "To What Must an Epistemology Be True?" Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61, no. 2 (September 2000): 279–304. Lawlor, Krista. Assurance: An Austinian View of Knowledge and Knowledge Claims. Oxford University Press, 2013. Lawlor, Krista. "Austin on Perception, Knowledge and Meaning." In Interpreting Austin: Critical Essarys, edited by Savas Tsohatzidis. Cambridge University Press, forthcoming. ---. "Ordinary Language Philosophy Needs Situation Semantics (or, Why Grice Needs Austin)." In Context, Truth and Objectivity: Essays on Radical Contextualism, edited by Eduardo Marchesan and David Zapero. Routledge, forthcoming. Leite, Adam. "Austin, Dreams, and Scepticism." In The Philosophy of J.L. Austin, 78– 113. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. 25 Longworth, Guy. "John Langshaw Austin." In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed February 1, 2016. <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/austin-jl/>. Moore, G. E. "A Defence of Common Sense." In Philosophical Papers, 32–59. Allen and Unwin, 1959. Moore, George Edward. "Proof of an External World." Proceedings of the British Academy 25, no. 5 (1939): 273--300. Pomeroy, Ralph. "Moore as an Ordinary-Language Philosopher." Metaphilosophy 5, no. 2 (1974): 76–105. Pryor, James. "What's Wrong with Moore's Argument?" Philosophical Issues 14, no. Epistemology (2004): 349–78. Recanati. Literal Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Travis, Charles. Occasion-Sensitivity: Selected Essays. Oxford University Press, USA, 2008. Tsohatzidis, Savas L. Interpreting J. L. Austin: Critical Essays. Cambridge University Press, 2018. White, Alan. "Common Sense: Moore and Wittgenstein." Revue Internationale de Philosophie 40, no. 158 (1986): 313–30. Williams, Michael. "Wittgenstein's Refutation of Idealism." In WIttgenstein and Scepticism, edited by Denis McManus. Routledge, 2004. Wittgenstein. On Certainty. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969. ---. Philosophical Investigations. New York: Macmillan Company, 1953. Wright, Crispin. "Facts and Certainty." Proceedings of the British Academy 71 (1985): 429–72. ---. "On Epistemic Entitlement (II): Welfare State Epistemology." In Scepticism and Perceptual Justification, edited by Dylan Dodd and Elia Zardini, 211–47. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. ---. "Scepticism, Certainty, Moore and Wittgenstein." In Wittgenstein's Lasting Significance. London: Routledge, 2004. ---. "Warrant for Nothing (and Foundations for Free)?" Aristotelian Society Supplement, 2004, 167–210. | {
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Title: What Constitutes a Formal Analogy? Authors: Kenneth Olson and Gilbert Plumer Response to this paper by: Marcello Guarini © 2001 Kenneth Olson and Gilbert Plumer To the ancient Greeks, analogia meant proportion, that is, an equality of the form A:B = C:D between ratios. Our word 'analogy' retains the sense of an equivalence between relations and not just between objects. For example, the planetary model of the atom was based on the idea that the relation of electrons to the nucleus was similar to that of planets to the sun. To distinguish this sense from looser ones, we will use the term 'formal analogy', by which we mean to suggest an equivalence of form construed as the arrangement of parts. Our practical interest in this question of what constitutes a formal analogy is based on a desire to have more analogical material on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). This examination is used as an aid in making admission decisions in almost all English-speaking law schools in North America. There is ample justification for having analogical material in standardized tests of reasoning and reading skills, and perhaps especially in those that figure in law school admission since drawing inferences from the comparison of cases belongs to much of the practice of law. It has been argued that "analogical reasoning lies at the heart of legal thinking" (Sunstein 1996, 99; for more discussion, see Plumer 2000, 4-7). It has even been argued that "analogy presents the isomorphism which makes the application of our logic possible" (Sacksteder 1979, 32), where this isomorphism is between, roughly, the logical form and its material content or realization (31). If this is right, it would appear that any assessment of reasoning ability should incorporate significant assessment of analogical thinking. On the LSAT, in the mostly informal logic sections called "Logical Reasoning," analogical arguments already do appear, and steps are being taken to increase their frequency. The typical general format is for the credited response of the question to be, for example, a conclusion, assumption, or analysis of a traditional argument from analogy. There is also a format that attempts to assess perception of refutation by logical analogy. In another format the task is to recognize the technique, structure, or reasoning pattern exhibited in different arguments, or the principles applied in different arguments or states of affairs, and compare them, evaluating which are most similar (e.g., 'Of the following, which one best illustrates the principle that the passage illustrates?', or 'The pattern of [flawed] reasoning in the argument above is most similar to that in which one of the following?'). Relatively infrequently, in "Reading Comprehension" sections analogical material appears as well, such as with the recent question "Which one of the following is most closely analogous to the process of classification in insurance, as it is discussed in the passage?" But is there room for more analogical material on the LSAT, perhaps of a different kind? At least two major standardized tests for North American graduate school admission-the LSAT and the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE)-use a question type called "Analytical Reasoning" (AR). In AR a small system of objects and relations is described along with a set of constraints on that system. Usually, the information given is partial. Then a set of test questions ask what could or must be the case-by strict deduction-given the constraints or conditions and the limited information (see Example 1 below). This format would appear to be fertile ground for test questions that hinge on a formal analogy between two such systems of objects and 1 What Constitutes A Formal Analogy? 2 relations. If so, two important advantages should be gained. First, the questions should be more defensible (as clearly having one and only one correct answer) than questions that hinge on looser conceptions of analogy. Second, AR sets are often called "Logic Games" by examinees and derided as irrelevant to law school or graduate school. Having formal analogy questions in AR should help to make AR sets less artificial in appearance. Consider the following, relatively simple, AR passage-what is called a "stimulus"-and a sample traditional question from the set, which was on the GRE (ETS 1996, 128): Example 1 The manager of a commercial printing firm is scheduling exactly six jobs-P, Q, S, T, W, and X-for a particular week, Monday through Saturday. Each job can be completed in one full day, and exactly one job will be scheduled for each day. The jobs must be scheduled according to the following conditions: P must be printed sometime before S is printed. T must be printed on the day immediately before or the day immediately after the day on which X is printed. W must be printed on Thursday. Any of the following could be printed on Saturday EXCEPT (A) P (B) Q (C) S (D) T (E) X (The credited response is (A).) Simplifying further, consider just what might be called the scenario, that is, the part in the stimulus before the sentence that introduces the "conditions" (what is called the "bridge" sentence, i.e., "The jobs must be scheduled according to the following conditions"). What would be a reasonable representation of the abstract structure of this scenario? One requirement would seem to be that basic set-theoretic relations be preserved. In this scenario there are six jobs and six days. Moreover, each job is scheduled for a different day. So the scenario gives us two six-element sets and stipulates a one-to-one map of one set onto the other. It is assumed that there will be a definite schedule, to which the map will correspond, but this map is underdetermined by the conditions. Prior to the conditions, there are no constraints on this map; we have no other information that determines what the particular map will be. Hence, the abstract space of possibilities determined by the scenario consists of 6! = 6x5x4x3x2x1 = 720 maps. The days of the week have a standard ordering that the further conditions make use of. Hence, the second set must have a simple order-that is, a binary relation that is irreflexive, asymmetrical, transitive, and connected-defined on it. This requirement by itself does not affect the number of maps. (But the further conditions stated in terms of the ordering relation successively eliminate whole sets of them. For example, the What Constitutes A Formal Analogy? 3 condition that P be printed before S cuts the set in half by eliminating the 360 maps that assign S to an earlier day than P.) Alternatively, the abstract structure of the scenario could be described as consisting of 720 functions, for each of which the domain is six objects and the range six locations, such that the operation of the function puts the objects in a simple ordering relation. One can see that this could be the abstract structure of any number of scenarios. For instance, Example 2 Exactly six different products are to be placed in the display window of a vending machine. The products are to be placed in six compartments that are arranged in a row from left to right, exactly one product to each compartment. This could be the credited response in a formal analogy AR test question that asks, with respect to the scenario in Example 1, "Which one of the following scenarios exemplifies the abstract structure of objects and relations exemplified by the scenario above?" It must be admitted that with schematic examples like these much of the work of discovering analogies has already been done. We have two simple models, each consisting of a set of elements with one or more properties or relations defined on it. To be precise, each model comprises a set of 12 elements, two properties (subsets), and a binary relation. This analysis into objects and relations is strongly suggested by the wording of the scenario. In the real world we typically have to abstract from a wealth of irrelevant detail in order to get at an underlying similarity of form, which may have significance only for the purpose at hand. The question above essentially asks for an isomorphism between models, that is, a one-one map of the first set of objects onto the second that preserves properties and relations. Isomorphic models are completely equivalent at a certain level of abstraction. A closer approximation to the real world problem would ask for a homomorphism, a map that preserves properties and relations but is not necessarily one-one or onto. We could modify the problem above by adding a second row of six products to the vending machine. The jobs could then be mapped into the products in a way that preserves properties and relations in two different ways, but the map would not be onto. Familiar puzzles like finding all of the triangles in a complex figure can sometimes be construed as finding all homomorphisms from a given triangle into the figure. A homomorphism of A into B is sometimes suggestively called an "A-shaped figure in B." But that description has to be taken with a grain of salt, not only because A and B may not possess shape in any literal sense, but because in some cases a homomorphism can send all of the points of A to a single point of B. It depends on the structure that is to be preserved. But everyday analogies do sometimes involve this kind of loss of detail, as when we see an animal in a constellation. It is easy to imagine modifying our original problem to accommodate this feature. A further level of realism would be reached by asking for a homomorphism from a part of A into B. To be sure, with each of these modifications, the risk of unintended analogies increases and our conception of analogy becomes looser, thereby defeating our ultimate purpose. It is for this reason that we generally confine ourselves to scenarios that have isomorphic models, thereby foregoing some realism. It would be wrong to suppose that because isomorphism is logically more complex than homomorphism, it must also take more effort to recognize. The contrary would appear to be the case. An isomorphism always has an inverse that enables us to move back and forth between the two systems as if we are dealing with the same thing under two different names, which at a What Constitutes A Formal Analogy? 4 certain level of abstraction we are. However, there are ways to keep the task from becoming potentially too simple, and some of these ways will be explored below. The idea that formal analogy rests on isomorphism has appeared in studies of reasoning by structural analogy. Such reasoning contrasts sharply with loose arguments from analogy (or what Sacksteder calls 'qualitative analogy'-1974, 240), as they are commonly understood, whose conclusions can be uncertain in the extreme, and whose usual textbook analysis is: a and b share properties F, G, H. . .; a has the further property K; so b has K too (e.g., Copi 1978, 380). In what Anderson calls 'conclusive analogical arguments' (1969), on the other hand, inferences are drawn that "follow apodictically" (Weitzenfeld 1984, 139; cf. Anderson, 55). Anderson discusses the fairly widely known analogy between electrical switching circuits and the propositional calculus. Within certain limitations, "for every well-formed function of the propositional calculus there is a corresponding circuit (and vice versa) in a corresponding state." The reasoning takes the form of an "analogical extension of either representation into an area already covered by the other" (50). Weitzenfeld sees formal analogical reasoning as drawing inferences based on "a genuine isomorphism" between two "structures," where a structure "consists of a set of elements and a set of relations defined on those elements." (A structure is thus what we called a 'model' above. Strictly speaking, a model is a structure regarded as satisfying some set of sentences. As discussed below, we prefer to use 'model' instead of 'structure' because, for the purposes of this paper, we want to be able to use 'structure' for something two systems of objects can share, not for the systems themselves.) Weitzenfeld thinks of the objects as organized into sets he calls "variables." For example, the set of players on a team constitutes a variable, as does the set of positions to be played (139). Isomorphism is defined, as above, as "a mapping of the elements of one structure onto the elements of another such that all of the relations are preserved." With this mapping, every element and relation in one structure "is assigned a counterpart in the other" (140; for similar analyses, see Sacksteder 1974, esp. 241; Weingartner 1979). Weitzenfeld distinguishes two kinds of formal analogues, "homeomorphs" and "paramorphs," where for the former the variables in the cases are the same and, strictly speaking, "there is a single determining structure," for example, "in the analogy between two games of chess." Paramorphs, on the other hand, have genuinely distinct variables and distinct (although isomorphic) structures (143). This differs from the approach to analogy that we are inclined to take only in that, first, we do not think that homeomorphs should count as analogues since it seems basic to the concept of analogy that different kinds of things are compared. Second, we see going to a higher level of abstraction as more useful. So for the scenarios in Examples 1 and 2, instead of casting these, as Weitzenfeld would, as exhibiting two structures, the one involving the relation of temporal succession between jobs on days of the week, and the other as involving a linear left-right relation between products in compartments, we see the two examples exhibiting a single structure of objects and locations in a simple ordering relation, even though different kinds of things are compared. What allows this ascent to greater abstraction, from the point of view of Weitzenfeld's analysis, is the isomorphism between the two structures, which is a systematic way in which they are the same. 'Structure' is used, in both ordinary and technical contexts, in these two ways, for the thing that has a certain form, and for the form itself. Hence, at one time we speak of a building as an "imposing structure" and at another we say that two buildings have the same structure. The settheoretic notion of a relational structure employed by Weitzenfeld conforms to the former usage. What Constitutes A Formal Analogy? 5 We have found it convenient to emphasize the latter usage, which has affinities with Mac Lane's in his discussion of "Structure in Mathematics" (1996). For instance, one mathematical structure, a "metric space," is exhibited by 1-, 2-, and 3-dimensional Euclidean spaces, as well as by time: A metric space M is a set together with a 'distance' function d which assigns to any two points s and t of M a non-negative real number d(s,t). . .[such that] d(s,t) = 0 if and only if s = t; d(s,t) = d(t,s) for all s and t, and, for any three points r, s, and t, d(r,t) # d(r,s) + d(s,t). [175] While isomorphism is a structural notion, systems or objects having the same structure in Mac Lane's sense need not be isomorphic to each other. A structure is given by a set of axioms, such as the axioms for a metric space or for an algebraic group; it is what all models of the set have in common, in the case of algebraic groups, the group structure. But, of course, algebraic groups differ widely from one another. Like metric spaces, some are finite, while some are infinite, and they are certainly not all isomorphic to each other. (Mac Lane asks the interesting questions: "What is it about the nature of the world which makes it possible for the same simple structural form to have so many and such varied realizations?. . .why are groups, spaces and rings present in so many widely different realizations?" (183).) On our view, an analogy can be drawn between objects of different kinds whenever they have any structure in common. But for purposes of testing the ability to draw formal analogies, we confine our attention here to isomorphic cases, for reasons adumbrated above. What could be a noncredited response in the formal analogy AR test question that we are constructing, when the scenario in Example 1 is the stimulus and Example 2 is the credited response? One possibility is this (adapted from the GRE, ETS 1996, 261): Example 3 The members of the Public Service Commission and the members of the Rent Control Commission are to be selected from exactly six qualified candidates: U, V, W, X, Y, and Z. Each commission is to have exactly three members. The abstract structure of this response differs from that of the stimulus and credited response essentially in that there is no one-to-one mapping of objects to locations in a simple ordering relation. The scenario requires more than one object (candidate) be assigned to each location (commission), and it allows that some of the objects might not be assigned at all and some might be assigned to both locations. The number of possible assignments to each commission is 6x5x4 = 120, and so the total number of possible assignments is 120x120 = 14400, much more than the 720 of the preceding problem, which itself shows that the abstract structure is different on at least some level. In a major research project that attempts the automated generation of the 'logical skeletons' of traditional AR sets with questions, and attempts to calculate predictions of question difficulty (for any specific scenario or verbal 'clothing' for the 'skeleton'), the researchers see the feature of whether or not "more than one X element may be mapped into one Y slot" as the fundamental difference between two kinds of AR sets: "Assign" and "Order" sets, respectively (Brandon, et al. 2000, 5; the researchers employ model-theoretic semantics to determine the 'logical skeletons'). What Constitutes A Formal Analogy? 6 As alluded to earlier, a potential problem with the formal analogy AR test question that we are constructing is that the structure might possibly be too simple and transparent, and hence the question too easy for the advanced undergraduate target population (if it were just easy, that would be all right, since there is a need for easy items too). One possible solution to this is to base a question on a more complex stimulus (from the February 1990 LSAT): Example 4 Burroughs and Yoder are the opposing litigants in a case that will be decided in a judicial system that has five levels of courts-local, township, county, state, and federal-in order of increasing authority. Each court has three justices, all of whom vote on each case that comes before their court. In each court above the local level, at least one justice votes in favor of the litigant who won in the preceding court. The system operates in accordance with the following principles: The litigants must begin at the local level; they cannot skip levels; and they can use only one court at each level. At each level a litigant wins if and only if at least two of the three justices vote in the litigant's favor. At each level, only the litigant who loses can appeal the decision. A litigant cannot appeal after losing at two consecutive levels. 1990 Law School Admission Council. However, here the scenario is probably too intricate to base a formal analogy question on it; relative to traditional AR questions, the question would be disproportionately, hence overly, long. But a formal analogy question could be based on a smaller part of the stimulus, viz., one of the conditions: Example 5 Which one of the following principles exemplifies the abstract structure of objects and relations conveyed by the principle above that the litigants must begin at the local level; they cannot skip levels; and they can use only one court at each level? (A) A request for a computer upgrade must specify just one model; employees cannot request a model that is not in stock; and they can request a computer upgrade only in their first year of employment. (B) Employees can request a computer upgrade if they do so in the first year of employment or if they are requesting the next higher model; each request must specify just one model. (C) Employees must complete their first year of employment before requesting a computer upgrade; they can request only one computer upgrade each year; and requests must be made in the first quarter of each year. (D) Employees who start out with the lowest-grade computer model can upgrade only to the next highest model, and they have the opportunity to do so only once each year. What Constitutes A Formal Analogy? 7 (E) Computer upgrades are given just once a year; upgrades are allowed only to the next highest model; and employees must start out with the lowest-grade model. [We are grateful to Victoria Tredinnick, who wrote the original draft of this example.] Here the intended correct response is (E). Adapting Weitzenfeld's "counterpart" method, we have: Original Counterpart objects litigants employees relation 'uses' 'uses' (in a different sense?) objects/location courts, each at a level computer models, each for a year relation (simple ordering) increasing authority temporal succession Notice that even though the stimulus specifies how many litigants there are in the case, as well as how many courts/levels there are, the principle itself leaves this open, as do the responses in the question. There is a sense in which distinct models can be equivalent, though not qua models. For example, the same arrangement of objects from left to right can be represented using either a simple ordering relation, or a mathematical successor operation, or a betweenness relation plus an assignment of one object as 'first'. The resulting models are not isomorphic, because they contain relations with different formal properties (e.g., how many 'places' the relations are). We could imagine test items that would attempt to assess the ability to perceive this kind of equivalence between structures, with a question stem on the order of 'Which one of the following conditions gives the same arrangement of objects as the condition above that. . .?' A related possibility is to test for the ability to perceive disanalogies as follows. Suppose we are given two (sets of) conditions of the sort that appear in AR stimuli and we are asked for a further condition that, if added to the second condition, would force the second situation to be disanalogous to the first. Example 6 Consider two situations, one for which 1 holds and another for which 2 holds: 1) Each of the five cars in the lot is of a different color. 2) Each of the five members of the team has a different father. Suppose Brian and Cathy are team members. Which one of the following conditions, if added to 2, would force the second situation to have a significantly different abstract structure than that of the first? (A) Brian's father is younger than Cathy's father. (B) Cathy is a better player than Brian. (C) Brian's father is the brother of Cathy's father. (D) Brian is Cathy's father. What Constitutes A Formal Analogy? 8 (E) Brian's mother is also Cathy's mother. The intended correct response is (D). Almost all of the six or so people we informally tried this question out on eventually gave the correct answer. When asked to explain their answer, at least two of them replied "A car can't be a color," which is a correct and pithy explanation. One advantage of this kind of item is that it does not rely on a privileged analysis of the situations into objects and relations. We are free to regard having a different color than and having a different father from as binary relations. Alternatively, imagine that several colors, say, white, brown, and green, and an equal number of fathers, say, Mr. White, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Green, have been named, and construe being green and having Mr. Green as a father as properties. A third possibility is to treat having as color and having as a father as binary relations between cars and colors and team members and fathers. What we cannot do is construe a car as a color, given what we know about cars and colors, although we can construe a team member as a father. A second advantage of this kind of item is that it is difficult, since it requires one to make a distinction between those additional facts that are compatible with a structural similarity between two situations and those that are not. References Anderson, R. O. 1969. "Conclusive Analogical Argument," Revue Internationale De Philosophie 23: 4457. Brandon, P., et al. 2000. Development of Algorithms for Generating Analytical Reasoning Problems, Report 8, for Educational Testing Service (ETS). University of Plymouth: PEP Research and Consultancy Limited. Copi, I. M. 1978. Introduction to Logic, 5th Edition. New York: Macmillan. ETS. 1996. GRE Big Book. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. Mac Lane, S. 1996. "Structure in Mathematics," Philosophia Mathematica (3) 4: 174-183. Plumer. G. 2000. A Review of the LSAT Using Literature on Legal Reasoning (Computerized Testing Report 97-08). Newtown, PA: Law School Admission Council. Sacksteder, W. 1974. "The Logic of Analogy," Philosophy & Rhetoric 7: 234-252. Sacksteder, W. 1979. "Analogy: Justification for Logic," Philosophy & Rhetoric 12: 21-40. Sunstein, C. R. 1996. Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict. New York: Oxford University Press. Weingartner, W. 1979. "Analogy among Systems," Dilectica 33: 355-378. Weitzenfeld, J. S. 1984. "Valid Reasoning by Analogy," Philosophy of Science 51: 137-149. | {
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False Vacuum: Early Universe Cosmology and the Development of Inflation Chris Smeenk University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Philosophy, 321 Dodd Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095, U.S.A.; [email protected] Inflationary cosmology has been widely hailed as the most important new idea in cosmology since Gamow's pioneering work on nucleosynthesis, or perhaps even since the heady early days of relativistic cosmology in the 1920s. Popular accounts typically attribute the invention of inflation to Alan Guth, whose seminal paper (Guth 1981) created a great deal of excitement and launched a research program. These accounts typically present Guth and a small band of American particle physicists as venturing into untouched territory. More careful accounts (such as Guth's memoir, Guth 1997) acknowledge that inflation's central idea, namely that the early universe passed through a brief phase of exponential expansion, did not originate with Guth. Reading this earlier research merely as an awkward anticipation of inflation seriously distorts the motivations for these earlier proposals, and also neglects the wide variety of motivations for such speculative research. Below I will describe several proposals that the early universe passed through a de Sitter phase, highlighting the different tools and methodologies used in the study of the early universe. The early universe was the focus of active research for over a decade before Guth and other American particle physicists arrived on the scene in the late 1970s. The discovery of the background radiation in 1965 brought cosmology to the front page of the New York Times and to the attention of a number of physicists. In his influential popular book The First Three Minutes, Steven Weinberg characterized the effect of the discovery as follows: [Prior to discovery of the background radiation]...it was extraordinarily difficult for physicists to take seriously any theory of the early universe. ... The most important thing accomplished by the ultimate discovery of the 3◦K radiation background in 1965 was to force us all to take seriously the idea that there was an early universe. (Weinberg 1977, 131–132) Taking the early universe seriously led to efforts to extend the well understood "standard model" of cosmology developed in the 1960s, accepted by a majority of mainstream cosmologists and presented in textbooks such as Peebles (1971); Weinberg (1972), to ever earlier times. According to the standard model, the large scale structure of the universe and its evolution over time are aptly described by the simple 224 C. Smeenk Friedmann–Lemaıtre–Robertson–Walker (FLRW) models. Extrapolating these models backwards leads to a hot, primeval "fireball," the furnace that produced both the background radiation and characteristic abundances of the light elements. Finally, the theory included the general idea that large scale structure, such as galaxies and clusters of galaxies, formed via gravitational clumping. But the standard model was not without its blemishes. In particular, it was well known that extrapolating the FLRW models led to arbitrarily high energies and a singularity as t → 0. The paper proceeds as follows. The first section below focuses on efforts by a number of Soviet cosmologists to eliminate the initial singularity. Their abhorrence of the singularity was strong enough to motivate a speculative modification of the FLRW models, namely patching on a de Sitter solution in place of the initial singularity. Gliner and Sakharov arrived at the idea by considering "vacuum-like" states of matter, whereas Starobinsky found that de Sitter space is a solution to Einstein's field equations (EFE) modified to incorporate quantum corrections. These proposals highlight two problems facing any modification of the early universe's evolution: what drives a change in the expansion rate near the singularity, and how does an early de Sitter phase lead into the standard big bang model? Section 2 turns to the influx of ideas into early universe cosmology from particle physics, focusing in particular on symmetry breaking. A group of physicists in Brussels proposed that the "creation event" could be understood as a symmetry breaking phase transition that sparked the formation of a de Sitter-like bubble, which eventually slowed to FLRW expansion. The more mainstream application of symmetry breaking to cosmology focused on the consequences of symmetry breaking phase transitions. Early results indicated a stark conflict with cosmological theory and observation. Despite this inauspicious beginning, within a few years early universe phase transitions appeared to be a panacea for the perceived ills of standard cosmology rather than a source of wildly inaccurate predictions. 13.1 Eliminating the Singularity Cosmologists have speculated about the nature of the enigmatic "initial state" since the early days of relativistic cosmology. Research by Richard Tolman, Georges Lemaıtre and others in the 1930s established the existence of an initial singularity in the FLRW models, but this was typically taken to represent a limitation of the models rather than a feature of the early universe. Debates about exactly how to define a "singularity" continue to the present, but in early work singularities were usually identified by divergences in physical quantities (such as the gravitational field or curvature invariants).1 Tolman argued that the presence of a singular state reflects a breakdown of the various idealizations of the FLRW models (Tolman 1934, 438 ff.). But by the mid-1960s cosmologists could not easily dismiss singularities as a consequence of unphysical idealizations. New mathematical techniques developed primarily by Roger Penrose, Stephen Hawking, and Robert Geroch made it possible to prove the celebrated "singularity theorems." These theorems established that singularities, signalled by the presence of incomplete geodesics,2 are a generic feature of solutions to the field equations of general relativity that: satisfy global causality constraints (ruling out 13 Early Universe Cosmology and the Development of Inflation 225 pathologies such as closed time-like curves), contain matter fields satisfying one of the energy conditions, and possess a point or a surface such that light cones start converging towards the past. The precise characterization of these assumptions differed for various singularity theorems proved throughout the 1960s, but in general these assumptions seemed physically well motivated (see, e.g., Hawking and Ellis 1968). Thus these powerful theorems dashed the hope that a singularity could be avoided in "more realistic" cosmological models. The prominent Princeton relativist John Wheeler described the prediction of singularities as the "greatest crisis in physics of all time" (Misner et al. 1973, 1196– 1198). Confronted with this crisis many of Wheeler's contemporaries took evasive maneuvers. A number of prominent Soviet physicists (including Lev Landau, Evgeny Lifshitz, Isaak Khalatnikov, and several collaborators) analyzed the (allegedly) general form of cosmological solutions to Einstein's field equations (EFE) in the neighborhood of the singularity, with the hope of showing that the singular solutions depend upon a specialized choice of initial conditions.3 Although this group (eventually) accepted the results of the singularity theorems, there were other ways of evading an initial singularity. Approaching the initial singularity (or singularities produced in gravitational collapse) leads to arbitrarily high energies, and theorists expected the as yet undiscovered theory of quantum gravity to come into play as energies approached the Planck scale, undercutting the applicability of the theorems.4 But there was another obvious escape route: deny one of the assumptions. Another line of research made denial of the energy conditions more appealing: the "vacuum" in modern field theory turned out to be anything but a simple "empty" state, and in particular a vacuum state violated the energy conditions. Several Soviet cosmologists, who apparently abhorred the singularity more than the vacuum, proposed that an early vacuum-like state would lead to a de Sitter bubble rather than a singularity. 13.1.1 Λ in the USSR Two Soviet physicists independently suggested that densities reached near the big bang would lead to an effective equation of state similar to a relativistic vacuum: Andrei Sakharov, the famed father of the Soviet H-bomb and dissident, considered the possibility briefly in a study of galaxy formation (Sakharov 1966), and a young physicist at the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute in Leningrad, Erast Gliner, noted that a vacuum-like state would counter gravitational collapse (Gliner 1966). Four further papers over the next decade developed cosmological models on this shaky foundation (Gliner 1970; Sakharov 1970; Gliner and Dymnikova 1975; Gurevich 1975), in the process elaborating on several of the advantages and difficulties of an early de Sitter phase. Gliner's paper took as its starting point an idea that has been rediscovered repeatedly: a non-zero cosmological constant may represent the gravitational effect of vacuum energy.5 Einstein modified the original field equations of general relativity by including a term to vouchsafe cherished Machian intuitions (Einstein 1917), but later thought it marred general relativity's beauty. Even for those who didn't share Einstein's aesthetic sensibility, observational constraints provided ample evidence that 226 C. Smeenk must be very close to zero. Yet, as Gliner (1966) and others noted, could be treated as a component of the stress-energy tensor, Tab = −ρV gab (where "V" denotes vacuum); a Tab with this form is the only stress energy tensor compatible with the requirement that the vacuum state is locally Poincaré invariant.6 The stress-energy tensor for a perfect fluid is given by Tab = (ρ + p)uaub + pgab, (13.1) where ua represents the normed velocity of the perfect fluid, ρ is the energy density and p is pressure. The vacuum corresponds to an ideal fluid with energy density ρV ( = c28πG ) and pressure given by pV = −ρV ; this violates the strong energy condition, often characterized as a prerequisite for any "physically reasonable" classical field.7 Yakov Zel'dovich, whom Gliner thanked for critical comments, soon published more sophisticated studies of the cosmological constant and its connection with vacuum energy density in particle physics (Zel'dovich 1967, 1968). The main thrust of Gliner's paper was to establish that a vacuum stress-energy tensor should not be immediately ruled out as "unphysical," whereas Zel'dovich (1968) proposed a direct link between and the zero-point energy of quantum fields. The novelty of Gliner's paper lies in the conjecture that high density matter somehow makes a transition into a vacuum-like state. Gliner motivated this idea with a stability argument (cf. Gliner 1970), starting from the observation that matter obeying an ordinary equation of state is unstable under gravitational collapse. For normal matter and radiation, the energy density ρ increases without bound during gravitational collapse and as one approaches the initial singularity in the FLRW models.8 However, Gliner recognized that the energy density remains constant in a cosmological model with a vacuum as the only source. The solution of the field equations in this case is de Sitter space, characterized by exponential expansion a(t) ∝ eχ t , where (χ)2 = (8π/3)ρV and the scale factor a(t) represents the changing distance between fundamental observers. During this rapid expansion the vacuum energy density remains constant, but the energy density of other types of matter is rapidly diluted. Thus extended expansion should eventually lead to vacuum domination as the energy density of normal matter becomes negligible in comparison to vacuum energy density.9 It is not clear whether Gliner recognized this point. But he did argue that if matter undergoes a transition to a vacuum state during gravitational collapse, the result of the collapse would be a de Sitter "bubble" rather than a singularity. This proposal avoids the conclusion of the Hawking–Penrose theorems by violating the assumption that matter obeys the strong energy condition. In effect, Gliner prefered a hypothetical new state of matter violating the strong energy condition to a singularity, although he provides only extremely weak plausibility arguments suggesting that "vacuum matter" is compatible with contemporary particle physics.10 By contrast with Gliner's outright stipulation, Sakharov (1966) hoped to derive general constraints on the equation of state at high densities by calculating the initial peturbations produced at high densities and then comparing the evolution of these perturbations to astronomical observations. Sakharov argued that at very high densities (on the order of 2.4 × 1098 baryons per cm3!) gravitational interactions would need to 13 Early Universe Cosmology and the Development of Inflation 227 be taken into account in the equation of state. Although he admitted that theory was too shaky to calculate the equation of state in such situations, he classified four different types of qualitative behavior of the energy density as a function of baryon number (Sakharov 1966, 74–76). This list of four included an equation of state with p = −ρ, and Sakharov noted that feeding this into FLRW dynamics yields exponential expansion. But the constraints Sakharov derived from the evolution of initial perturbations appeared to rule this out as a viable equation of state. In a 1970 preprint (Sakharov 1970), Sakharov again considered an equation of state ρ = −p, this time as one of the seven variants of his speculative "multi-sheet" cosmological model.11 This stipulation was not bolstered with new arguments (Sakharov cited Gliner), but as we will see shortly Sakharov discovered an important consequence of an early vacuum state. Three later papers developed Gliner's suggestion and hinted at fruitful connections with other problems in cosmology. Gliner and his collaborator, Irina Dymnikova, then a student at the Ioffe Institute, proposed a cosmological model based on the decay of an initial vacuum state into an FLRW model, and one of Gliner's senior colleagues at the Institute, L. E. Gurevich, pursued a similar idea. According to the Gliner and Dynmikova's model, an initial fluctuation in the vacuum leads to a closed, expanding universe. The size of the initial fluctuation is fixed by the assumption that ȧ = 0 at the start of expansion. The vacuum cannot immediately decay into radiation. This would require joining the initial fluctuation to a radiation-dominated FLRW model, but as a consequence of the assumption this model would collapse rather than expand-the closed FLRW universe satisfies ȧ = 0 only at maximum expansion.12 Gliner and Dymnikova (1975) stipulated that the effective equation of state undergoes a gradual transition from a vacuum state to that of normal matter.13 The scale factor and the mass of the universe both grow by an incredible factor during this transitional phase, as Gliner and Dymnikova (1975) noted; however, there is no discussion of whether this is a desirable feature of the model. This proposal replaces the singularity with a carefully chosen equation of state, but Gliner and Dymnikova (1975) give no physical motivation guiding these choices. Instead, details of the transition are set by matching observational constraints. As a result of this phenomenological approach, Gliner and Dymnikova (1975) failed to recognize one of the characteristic features of a de Sitter-like phase. In particular, the following equation relates parameters of the transition (the initial and final energy densities, ρ0 and ρ1, and the "rate" set by the constant α ) to present values of the matter and radiation density (ρp, ρr p):14 √ ρ1 ρr p exp ( 2(ρ0 − ρ1) 3γρ1(1 − α) ) = ρ0 ρp ( 1 − 3H 2 8πGρp )−1 . (13.2) This equation indicates how the length of the transitional phase effects the resulting FLRW model: for a "long" transitional phase, ρ1 is small, and the left-hand side of the equation is exponentially large. This forces the term in parentheses on the right-hand side to be exponentially small, so that H2 approaches 8πGρp3 , the Hubble constant for a flat FLRW model. Four years later, Guth would label his discovery of this feature a "Spectacular Realization," but Gliner and Dymnikova (1975) took no notice of it. 228 C. Smeenk t= t0 t= td t=0 Fig. 13.1. This conformal diagram illustrates the horizon problem in the FLRW models. The singularity at t = 0 is stretched to a line. The lack of overlap in the past light cones at points on the surface t = td (both within the horizon of an observer at t = t0) indicates that no causal signal could reach both points from a common source. Gurevich and Sakharov both had a clearer vision of the possible cosmological implications of Gliner's idea than Gliner himself. Gurevich (1975) noted that an initial vacuum dominated phase would provide the "cause of cosmological expansion." Gurevich clearly preferred an explanation of expansion that did not depend on the details of an initial "shock" or "explosion," echoing a concern first voiced in the 1930s by the likes of Sir Arthur Eddington and Willem de Sitter.15 Gurevich aimed to replace various features of the initial conditions - including the initial value of the curvature, the "seed fluctuations" needed to form galaxies, and the amount of entropy per baryon - with an account of the formation and merger of vacuum-dominated bubbles in the early universe. The replacement was at this stage (as Gurevich admitted) only a "qualitative picture of phenomena" (Gurevich 1975, 69), but the goal itself was clearly articulated. Gurevich failed to recognize, however, the implications of a vacuum-dominated phase for a problem he emphasized as a major issue in cosmology: Misner's horizon problem (Misner 1969). Horizons in relativistic cosmology mark off the region of space-time from which light signals can reach a given observer. The "particle horizon" measures the maximum distance from which light signals could be received by an observer at t0 as the time of emission of the signal approaches the initial singularity:16 dph = lim t→0 a(t0) ∫ t0 t dt a(t) . (13.3) This integral converges for a(t) ∝ tn with n < 1 (satisfied for matteror radiationdominated FLRW models), leading to a finite horizon distance. A quick calculation shows that regions emitting the background radiation at nearly the same temperature lie outside each other's particle horizons. The horizon problem refers to the difficulty in accounting for this observed uniformity given the common assumption that the universe began in a "chaotic" initial state (see Figure 13.1). Misner (1969) suggested that more realistic models of the approach to the singularity would include "mixmaster oscillations," effectively altering the horizons to allow spacetime enough for causal interactions, but by 1975 a number of Gurevich's comrades (along with British cosmologists and Misner himself) had put the idea to rest (see, e.g., Criss et al. 1975, 13 Early Universe Cosmology and the Development of Inflation 229 for a post mortem). But mixmaster oscillations were unnecessary to solve the horizon problem; as Sakharov recognized, an odd equation of state would suffice:17 If the equation of state is ρ ≈ S2/3 [where S is baryon number density; this is equivalent to p = −ρ3 ], then a ≈ t and the Lagrangian radius of the horizon is ∫ t1 t0 dt a → ∞ as t0 → 0, (13.4) i.e., the horizon problem is resolved without recourse to anisotropic models. To my knowledge this is the earliest "solution" of the horizon problem along these lines. (It is a solution only in the sense that altering the horizon structure makes causal interactions possible, but it does not specify an interaction that actually smooths out chaotic initial conditions.) Sakharov's colleagues at the Institute of Applied Mathematics in Moscow, notably including Igor Novikov and Zel'dovich, were probably aware of this result. But it appeared buried in the Appendix of a preprint that was only widely available following the publication of the Collected Works in 1982. 13.1.2 Starobinsky's model During a research year in Cambridge in 1978–79, Zel'dovich's protegé Alexei Starobinsky developed an account of the early universe based on including quantum corrections to the stress-energy tensor in EFE. Starobinsky clearly shared Gliner and Dymnikova's willingness to replace the initial singularity with an early de Sitter phase. But there the similarity with Gliner and Dymnikova's work ends. Unlike their sterile phenomenological approach, Starobinsky's model drew on a rich source of ideas: recent results in semi-classical quantum gravity. Throughout the 1970s Starobinsky was one of the main players in Zel'dovich's active team of astrophysicists at the Institute of Applied Mathematics, focusing primarily on semi-classical quantum gravity. Starobinsky brought considerable mathematical sophistication to bear on Zel'dovich's insightful ideas, including the study of particle production in strong gravitational fields and the radiation emitted by spinning black holes (a precursor of the Hawking effect). The relationship between the energy conditions and quantum effects was a recurring theme in this research. In response to an alleged "no go theorem" due to Hawking, Zel'dovich and Pitaevsky (1971) showed that during particle creation the effective Tab violates the dominant energy condition.18 Energy conditions might be violated as a consequence of effects like particle creation, but Starobinsky was unwilling to introduce new fields solely to violate the energy conditions. Shortly before developing his own model, Starobinsky criticized Parker and Fulling's (1973) proposal that a coherent scalar field would violate the strong energy condition and lead to a "bounce" rather than a singularity, pointedly concluding that "there is no reason to believe that at ultrahigh temperatures the main contribution to the energy density of matter will come from a coherent scalar field" (Starobinsky 1978, 84).19 230 C. Smeenk Starobinsky's (1979, 1980) model accomplished the same result without introducing fundamental scalar fields. By incorporating quantum effects Starobinsky found a class of cosmological solutions that begin with a de Sitter phase, evolve through an oscillatory phase, and eventually make a transition into an FLRW expanding model. In the semi-classical approach, the classical stress-energy tensor is replaced with its quantum counterpart, the renormalized stress-energy tensor 〈Tab〉, but the metric is not upgraded. Calculating 〈Tab〉 for quantum fields is a tricky business due to divergences, but several different methods were developed to handle this calculation in the 1970s. Starobinsky's starting point was the one-loop correction to 〈Tab〉 for massless, conformally invariant, non-interacting fields. Classically the trace for such fields vanishes, but due to regularization of divergences 〈Tab〉 includes the so-called "trace anomaly."20 Taking this anomaly into account, Starobinsky derived an analog of the Friedman equations and found a set of solutions to these equations.21 This establishes the existence (but not uniqueness) of a solution that begins in an unstable de Sitter state before decaying into an oscillatory solution. Using earlier results regarding gravitational pair production, Starobinsky argued that the oscillatory behavior of the scale factor produces massive scalar particles ("scalarons"). Finally, the matter and energy densities needed for the onset of the standard big bang cosmology were supposedly produced via the subsequent decay of these scalarons. In the course of describing this model, Starobinsky mentioned an observational constraint that simplifies the calculations considerably (Starobinsky 1980, 101): If we want our solution to match the parameters of the real Universe, then [the de Sitter stage] should be long enough: Ht0 >> 1, where t0 is the moment of transition to a Friedmann stage. This enables us to neglect spatial curvature terms ... when investigating the transition region. The published version of a paper delivered in 1981 at the Moscow Seminar on Quantum Gravity (Starobinsky 1984) repeated a portion of this earlier paper with a page of new material added.22 This added material explains that an extended de Sitter phase drives the universe very close to a "flat" FLRW model, with negligible spatial curvature. But Starobinsky did not present this aspect of the model as an important advantage: he commented that an extended de Sitter phase is necessary simply to insure compatibility with observations, and he did not further comment on whether an extended de Sitter phase is a natural or desirable feature of his model. Starobinsky's approach requires choosing the de Sitter solution, with no aim of showing that it is a "natural" state; as Starobinsky put it (Starobinsky 1980, 100), "This scenario of the beginning of the Universe is the extreme opposite of Misner's initial 'chaos'." In particular, his model takes the maximally symmetric solution of the semi-classical EFE as the starting point of cosmological evolution, rather than an arbitrary initial state as Misner had suggested.23 In this assumption he was not alone: several other papers from the Moscow conference similarly postulate that the universe began in a de Sitter state (see, e.g., Grib et al. 1984; Lapchinksy et al. 1984). Starobinsky's model led to two innovative ideas that held out some hope of observationally testing speculations about the early universe. The first of these was Starobinsky's prediction that an early de Sitter phase would leave an observational 13 Early Universe Cosmology and the Development of Inflation 231 signature in the form of gravitational waves. Starobinsky (1979) calculated the spectrum of long-wavelength gravitational waves, and argued that in the frequency range of 10−3 − 10−5 Hz an early de Sitter phase would produce gravitational waves with an amplitude not far beyond the limits of contemporary technology. Zel'dovich was thrilled at the prospect (Zel'dovich 1981, 228): "For this it would be worth living 20 or 30 years more!" Mukhanov and Chibisov (1981) introduced a second idea that would carry over to later early universe models: they argued that zero-point fluctuations in an initial vacuum state would be amplified during the expansion phase, leading to density perturbations with appropriate properties to seed galaxy formation. Both of these ideas would prove crucial in later attempts to identify a unique observational footprint of an early de Sitter-like phase. Starobinsky's proposal created a stir in the Russian cosmological community: it was widely discussed at the Moscow Seminar on Quantum Gravity 1981, and Zel'dovich - undoubtedly the dominant figure in Soviet cosmology, both in terms of his astounding physical insight and his institutional role as the hard-driving leader of the Moscow astrophysicists - clearly regarded the idea as a major advance. Zel'dovich (1981) reviewed the situation with his typical clarity. One of the appealing features of Starobinsky's model, according to Zel'dovich, was that it provided an answer to embarassing questions for the big bang model, "What is the beginning? What was there before the expansion began [...]?" In Starobinsky's model the "initial state" was replaced by a de Sitter solution, continued to t → −∞. But Zel'dovich noted two other important advantages of Starobinsky's model. First, it would solve the horizon problem (Zel'dovich 1981, 229):24 An important detail of the new conception is the circumstance that the de Sitter law of expansion solves the problem of causality in its stride. Any two points or particles (at present widely separated) were, in the distant de Sitter past, at a very small, exponentially small distance. They could be causally connected in the past, and this makes it possible, at least in principle, to explain the homogeneity of the Universe on large scales. Second, perturbations produced in the transition to an FLRW model might produce gravitational waves as well as the density perturbations needed to seed galaxy formation. But Zel'dovich also emphasized the speculative nature of this proposal, concluding optimistically that "there is no danger of unemployment for theoreticians occupied with astronomical problems" (Zel'dovich 1981, 229). 13.1.3 Common Problems These proposals illustrate common problems faced by speculative theories of the early universe's evolution. First, what is the physical source of an early vacuum-like state? Second, how could an early de Sitter-like phase make a transition into FLRW expansion, during which the vacuum is converted to the incredibly high matter and radiation densities required by the hot big bang model? Gliner's outright stipulations leave little room to refine or enrich the proposal by incorporating believable physics. The contrast with Starobinsky's model is stark: in 1980, Starobinsky's model appeared to be on the 232 C. Smeenk verge of being developed systematically into a detailed model of the early universe based on speculative but actively studied aspects of semi-classical quantum gravity. As we will see in the next section, cosmologists would instead develop a detailed model of an early de Sitter phase based on a rich new idea from particle physics: symmetry breaking phase transitions. 13.2 Symmetries and Phase Transitions This section focuses primarily on the study of early universe phase transitions, but this line of research was just one of many threads tying together cosmology and particle physics. In the 1970s the particle physics community began to study several different aspects of the "poor man's accelerator," as Zel'dovich called the early universe. Following the consolidation of the Standard Model of particle physics in the mid 1970s, nearly every bit of data from accelerator experiments had fallen in line. The drive to understand physics beyond the Standard Model led to exorbitantly high energies: the relevant energy scales for Georgi and Glashow's SU (5) GUT proposed in 1974 was 1015 GeV , far beyond what would ever be accessible to earth-bound accelerators. Any sense that cosmology was too data-starved to compete with the precise science of accelerator physics was dispelled by a trio of young researchers well-versed in cosmology and particle physics. In 1977 Gary Steigman, David Schramm, and Jim Gunn argued that the number of lepton types had to be less than 5 for particle physics to be consistent with accounts of nucleosynthesis (Steigman et al. 1977). Unlike earlier cases of interaction between particle physics and cosmology, the three answered a fundamental problem in particle physics on the basis of cosmological constraints. In a time of decreasing support for ever-larger accelerators, the price tag of the poor man's accelerator must have been appealing; and Steigman, Schramm, and Gunn showed that even this bargain accelerator could be used to address fundamental issues. The first intensive study of GUTs applied to the early universe focused on "baryogenesis." For a given GUT, one can directly calculate an observable feature of the early universe - the baryon-to-photon ratio usually denoted η - and in 1978 Motohiko Yoshimura argued that an SU(5) GUT predicted a value of η compatible with observations. Yoshimura (1978) kicked off a cottage industry focused on developing an account of baryogenesis similar in its quantitative detail to the account of light element nucleosynthesis. The account of baryogenesis has been widely hailed as one of the "greatest triumphs" of particle cosmology (Kolb and Turner 1990, 158).25 Below I will focus on another aspect of GUTs in cosmology, the study of symmetry breaking and restoration in the early universe. 13.2.1 Symmetries: broken and restored The understanding of symmetries in quantum field theory (QFT) changed dramatically in the 1960s due to the realization that field theories may exhibit spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB). A typical one-line characterization of SSB is that "the laws of nature may possess symmetries which are not manifest to us because the vacuum 13 Early Universe Cosmology and the Development of Inflation 233 state is not invariant under them" (Coleman 1985, 116). Symmetry breaking in this loose sense is all too familiar in physics: solutions to a set of differential equations almost never share the full symmetries of the equations. The novel features of symmetry breaking in QFT arise as a result of a mismatch between symmetries of the Lagrangian and symmetries which can be implemented as unitary transformations on the Hilbert space of states H. Roughly, systems for which a particular symmetry of the Lagrangian cannot be unitarily implemented on H exhibit SSB. This failure has several consequences: observables acquire non-invariant vacuum expectation values, and there is no longer a unique vacuum state. Physicists first studied symmetry breaking in detail in condensed matter systems displaying these features, but Yoichiro Nambu and others applied these ideas to problems in field theory starting in the early 1960s (see Brown and Cao 1991, Pickering 1984 for historical studies). The introduction of SSB led to a revival of interest in gauge theories of the weak and strong interactions. Yang–Mills style gauge theories seemed to require massless gauge bosons (like the photon), in stark conflict with the short range of the weak and strong interactions. Adding mass terms for the gauge bosons directly to the Lagrangian would break its gauge invariance and, according to the conventional wisdom, render the theory unrenormalizable.26 SSB garnered a great deal of attention in the early 1960s, but a general theorem due to Jeffrey Goldstone seemed to doom symmetry breaking in particle physics barely after its inception: SSB implies the existence of spin-zero massless bosons (Goldstone 1961; Goldstone et al. 1962).27 Experiments ruled out such "Goldstone bosons," and there seemed to be no way to modify the particle interpretation of the theory to "hide" the Goldstone bosons along the lines of the Gupta–Bleuler formalism in QED.28 Goldstone et al. (1962) concluded by reviewing the dim prospects for SSB; Weinberg added an epigraph from King Lear - "Nothing will come of nothing: speak again" - to indicate his dismay, which was (fortunately?) removed by the editors of The Physical Review (Weinberg 1980, 516). But there was a loophole: Goldstone's theorem does not apply to either discrete or local gauge symmetries.29 Philip W. Anderson was the first to suggest that breaking a gauge symmetry might cure the difficulties with Yang–Mills theory (by giving the gauge bosons mass) without producing Goldstone bosons. Anderson noted that this case may resemble condensed matter systems exhibiting SSB, in that the Goldstone bosons "become tangled up with Yang–Mills gauge bosons, and, thus, do not in any true sense really have zero mass" (Anderson 1963, 422; cf. Anderson 1958). He speculated that this "tangling" between Goldstone and gauge bosons could be exploited to introduce a massive gauge boson, but he supported these provocative remarks with neither a field theoretic model nor an explicit discussion of the gauge theory loophole in Goldstone's theorem. Within a year of Anderson's suggestive paper, Brout, Englert, Guralnik, Kibble and Higgs all presented field theoretic models in which gauge bosons acquire mass by "tangling" with Goldstone bosons (Englert and Brout 1964; Guralnik et al. 1964; Higgs 1964). In the clear model presented by Peter Higgs, the massless Goldstone modes disappear from the physical particle spectrum, but in their ghostly gauge-dependent presence the vector bosons acquire mass.30 Higgs began by coupling the simple scalar field of the Goldstone model with the electromagnetic interaction. Take a model in234 C. Smeenk corporating a two component complex scalar field, such that φ = 1√ 2 (φ1 − iφ2) with an effective potential V (φ) = 1 2 λ2|φ|4 − 1 2 μ2|φ|2. (13.5) The effective potential includes all the terms in the Lagrangian other than the kinetic terms, and it represents the potential energy density of the quantum fields.31 At first glance the second term appears to have the wrong sign; with the usual + sign, V (φ) has a unique global minimum at φ = 0. The "incorrect" sign leads to degeneracy of the vacuum state; with a − sign, V (φ) has minima at φ0 = μλ . Including the electromagnetic interaction leads to the following Lagrangian: L = (Dμφ)†(Dμφ)− V (φ)− 1 4 FμνF μν, (13.6) where Fμν = ∂μAν − ∂ν Aμ, and D is the covariant derivative operator defined as Dμ = ∂μ + ieAμ. Rewriting the effective potential V (φ) by expanding the field φ around the "true vacuum" φ0 shows that the φ1 field acquires a mass term whereas φ2 is the massless "Goldstone boson." Higgs realized that a clever choice of gauge can be used to "kill" the latter component, which then appears not as a massless boson but instead as the longitudinal polarization state of a massive vector boson. The Lagrangian is invariant under the following gauge transformations: φ(x) → e−iθ(x)φ(x), (13.7) Aμ → Aμ + 1 m ∂μθ(x), (13.8) where m is a constant. The "Higgs mechanism" involves choosing a value of θ(x) to cancel the imaginary part of φ. This choice of θ(x) also effects the vector potential, leading to the following Lagrangian: L = (∂μφ)(∂μφ)+ m2φ2 AμAμ − V (φ)− 1 4 FμνF μν. (13.9) The vector field Aμ has acquired a mass term (the second term), as has the "Higgs boson" (although it is buried in the expression for V (φ)), and the dreaded "Goldstone boson" has disappeared from the Lagrangian. The Higgs mechanism could be used to fix and combine two appealing ideas, ridding both Yang–Mills style gauge theories and SSB of unwanted massless particles. Several theorists hoped that the trail blazed by Higgs et al. would lead to a gauge theory of the strong and weak interactions.32 Three years after Higgs' paper, Weinberg incorporated the Higgs mechanism in a unified theory of the electromagnetic and weak interactions (Weinberg 1967), and a similar theory was introduced independently by Abdus Salam. These theories faced a roadblock, however: although several theorists suspected that such theories are renormalizable, they were not able to produce convincing arguments to that effect (Weinberg 1980, 518). Without a proof of renormalizability or direct experimental support the Salam–Weinberg idea drew little attention.33 13 Early Universe Cosmology and the Development of Inflation 235 Although theories with unbroken gauge symmetries were known to be renormalizable term-by-term in perturbation theory, it was not clear whether SSB would spoil renormalizability. Progress in the understanding of renormalization (due in large part to the Nobel Prize winning efforts of the Dutch physicists Gerard 't Hooft and Martinus Veltman) revealed that the renormalizability of a theory is actually unaffected by the occurrence of SSB. In his 1973 Erice lectures, Sidney Coleman advertised this as the main selling point of SSB (Coleman 1985, 139). Testing the Higgs mechanism required a venture into uncharted territory. Although accelerator experiments carried out throughout the 1970s probed various aspects of the electroweak theory (see, e.g., Pickering 1984), they did little to constrain or elucidate the Higgs mechanism itself. Physicists continue to complain three decades later that the Higgs mechanism remains "essentially untested" (Veltman 2000, 348). Although the Higgs mechanism was the simplest way to reconcile a fundamentally symmetric Lagrangian with phenomenology, physicists actively explored alternatives such as "dynamical" symmetry breaking.34 Indeed, treating the fundamentally symmetric Lagrangian as a formal artifact rather than imbuing it with physical significance was a live option. However, several physicists independently recognized that treating the Higgs mechanism as a description of a physical transition that occurred in the early universe, rather than as a bit of formal legerdemain, has profound consequences for cosmology. Weinberg emphasized at the outset that this line of research "may provide some sort of answer to the question" of "whether a spontaneously broken gauge symmetry should be regarded as a true symmetry" (Weinberg 1974b, 274). In the condensed matter systems that originally inspired the concept of symmetry breaking, a variety of conditions (such as high temperature or large currents) lead to restoration of the broken symmetry. Based on a heuristic analogy with superconductivity and superfluidity, David Kirzhnits and his student Andrei Linde, both at the Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow, argued that the vacuum expectation value φ0 in a field theory with SSB varies with temperature according to φ20(T ) = φ20(T = 0) − cλT 2, where c and λ are non-zero constants (Kirzhnits 1972; Kirzhnits and Linde 1972). Symmetry restoration occurs above the critical temperature Tc, defined by φ20(Tc) = 0 (for T > Tc, φ0(T ) becomes imaginary). In the Weinberg model φ0(0) ≈ G1/2 (G is the weak interaction coupling constant), and (assuming that cλ ≈ 1) Kirzhnits and Linde estimated that symmetry restoration occurs above Tc ≈ G−1/2 ≈ 103 GeV . They concluded that the early universe underwent a transition from an initially symmetric state to the current broken symmetry state at the critical temperature, which corresponds to approximately 10−12 seconds after the big bang in the standard hot big bang model. Within two years Kirzhnits and Linde and a group of Cambridge (Massachusetts) theorists had developed more rigorous methods based on finite-temperature field theory to replace this heuristic argument.35 Finite-temperature field theory includes interactions between quantum fields and a background thermal heat bath at a temperature T .36 These more detailed calculations showed that, roughly speaking, symmetry restoration occurs as a consequence of the temperature dependence of quantum corrections to the effective potential. The full effective potential includes a zero-temperature term along with a temperature-dependent term, V (φ, T ). Symmetry breaking occurs 236 C. Smeenk φ0 T1 effV ( ,T)φ T2 T3 φ Fig. 13.2. This figure illustrates the temperature dependence of the effective potential of the Higgs field Vef f (φ, T ) in the Weinberg–Salam model. T2 is the critical temperature (approximately 1014 GeV), and T3 > T2 > T1. in a theory with V (φ) = 12λ2|φ|4 + 12μ2|φ|2, for example, if V (φ, T ) includes a mass correction that changes the sign of the second term above a critical temperature. Whether symmetry restoration occurs depends upon the nature of V (φ, T ) and the zero temperature effective potential in a particular model.37 In the Weinberg–Salam model (with suitable choices for coupling constants), the global minimum at φ = 0 for temperatures above the critical temperatures develops into a local minimum with the true global minimum displaced to φ0 (see Figure 13.2 for an example). Determining the nature and consequences of such phase transitions drew an increasing number of particle physicists into the study of early universe cosmology throughout the 1970s, as we will see in Section 2.3. But before continuing with the discussion of this line of research, I will briefly turn to more speculative uses of SSB in cosmology. 13.2.2 Conformal Symmetry Breaking By the late 1970s symmetry breaking was an essential piece in the field theorists' technical repertoire, and its successful use in electroweak unification and the development of the Standard Model encouraged more speculative variations on the theme. The "Brussels Consortium" (as I will call Robert Brout, François Englert, and their various collaborators) described the origin of the universe as SSB of conformal symmetry, but this imaginative line of research led to an increasingly rococo mess rather than a well constrained model. At roughly the same time, Anthony Zee developed an account of gravitational symmetry breaking motivated by the desire to formulate a "unified" gravitational theory with no dimensional constants other than the mass term of a fundamental scalar field. Like their countryman Lemaıtre decades earlier, the Brussels Consortium focused on a quantum description of the "creation" event itself. Brout et al. (1978) aimed to replace "the 'big bang' hypothesis of creation-more a confession of desperation 13 Early Universe Cosmology and the Development of Inflation 237 and bewilderment than the outcome of logical argumentation" with an account of the "spontaneous creation of all matter and radiation in the universe. [...] The big bang is replaced by the fireball, a rational object subject to theoretical analysis" (Brout et al. 1978, 78). As with Tyron's (1973) earlier proposal, this account of spontaneous creation did not violate conservation of energy. Their theoretical analysis builds on an alleged "deep analogy" between relativistic cosmology and conformally invariant QFT, which in practice involves two fundamental assumptions.38 First, the Consortium assumes that the universe must be described by a conformally flat cosmological model, which implies that the metric for any cosmological model is related to Minkowksi space-time by gab = φ2(xi )ηab, where ηab is the Minkowski metric.39 The conformal factor φ(xi ) is treated as a massless scalar field conformally coupled to gravitation. Second, a fluctuation of φ(xi ), which breaks the conformal symmetry of the pristine initial state (constant φ(xi ) in a background Minkowski space-time), bears the blame for the creation of the universe. The devil is in providing the details regarding the outcome of the "rational fireball" triggered by such a modest spark. The Consortium's original script runs as follows: the fluctuation initially produces a de Sitter-like bubble, with the expansion driven by an effective equation of state with negative pressure. This equation of state is due to particle creation via a "cooperative process": the initial fluctuation in φ(xi ) perturbs the gravitational field; variations in the gravitational field produce massive scalar particles; the particles create fluctuations in the gravitational field; and so on. Eventually the cooperation ends, and the primeval particles decay into matter and radiation as the universe slows from its de Sitter phase into FLRW expansion. Although the details of these processes are meant to follow from the fundamental assumptions, a number of auxiliary conditions are needed to insure that the story culminates with something like our observed universe. The evolution of the Consortium's program belies the malleability of the underlying physics: Brout et al. replace the earlier idea regarding "cooperative processes" with the suggestion that particle production is a result of a "phase transition in which the 'edge of the universe' is the boundary wall between two phases" (Brout et al. 1980, 110). Despite these difficulties, the Consortium often attributed a great deal of importance to their "solution" of the "causality problem." The basis for this solution was buried in an Appendix of Brout et al. (1978), but mentioned more prominently in later papers, including the title of Brout et al. (1979) - "The Causal Universe." Brout et al. (1978) note that in their model the integral in equation (13.3) diverges. There are no horizons. But there is also no pressing horizon problem in Misner's sense: conformal symmetry is stipulated at the outset, so there is simply no need to explain the early universe's uniformity via causal interactions. However, the absence of horizons is still taken to solve the "causality problem," in the sense that the universe and all its contents can ultimately be traced back to a simple single cause, the initial fluctuation of φ(xi ). Whatever the appeal of this solution, the Consortium ultimately failed to develop a believable model that realized their programmatic aims. However, the Princeton theorist J. Richard Gott III developed a variation of the Consortium's idea that would eventually lead to the development of "open inflation" models (Gott 1982). 238 C. Smeenk Anthony Zee also solved the horizon problem with a variation on the theme of SSB. Zee (1979, 1980) proposed that incorporating symmetry breaking into gravitational theory (by coupling gravitation to a scalar field) leads to replacing the gravitational constant G with (εφ2v) −1, where ε is a coupling constant and φv is the vacuum expectation value of the scalar field.40 If the potential (and the minima) of this field varies with temperature, then the gravitational "constant" varies as well. Zee (1980) argues that φ2 ≈ T 2 at high temperatures, so that G ∝ 1/T 2. This alters the FLRW dynamics so that a(t) ∝ t ; and it will come as no suprise that the integral in equation (13.3) diverges as a result. According to Guth's recollections (Guth 1997, 180–81), a lunchtime discussion of Zee's paper in the SLAC cafeteria led him to consider the implications of his own ideas for horizons. 13.2.3 Phase Transitions The study of early universe phase transitions held out the promise of deriving stringent observational constraints from the cosmological setting for aspects of particle physics far beyond the reach of accelerators. Throughout the 1970s physicists studied three different types of consequences of symmetry breaking phase transitions: (1) effects due to the different nature of the fundamental forces prior to the phase transition, (2) defect formation during the phase transition, (3) effects of the phase transition on cosmological evolution. As we will see below, initial results ran the gamut from disastrous conflict with observational constraints to a failure to find any detectable imprint. The first type of effect drew relatively little attention. Kirzhnits (1972); Kirzhnits and Linde (1972) briefly mentioned the possible consequences of long-range repulsive forces in the early universe. Prior to the electroweak phase transition any "weak charge" imbalance would result in long-range repulsive forces, and according to Kirzhnits and Linde such forces would render both a closed, positive curvature model and an isotropic, homogeneous model "impossible" (Kirzhnits and Linde 1972, 474).41 By way of contrast, a group of CERN theorists suggested that interactions at the GUT scale would help to smooth the early universe. Ellis et al. (1980) consider the possibility that a "grand unified viscosity" would effectively insure isotropization prior to a symmetry breaking phase transition; they conclude that although these interactions damp some modes of an initial perturbation spectrum, they will not smooth a general anisotropic cosmological model. The study of defect formation in the early universe was a much more fruitful line of research. An early study of CP-symmetry breaking (Zel'dovich et al. 1975) showed that the resulting inhomogeneity (with energy density concentrated in domain walls) would be far too large to fit observational constraints.42 But Zel'dovich et al. (1975) also calculated the equation of state for this "cellular medium" (averaged over a volume containing both domain walls and the empty cells), and remarked that evolution dominated by matter in this state might solve the horizon problem.43 The authors did not highlight this point (it was not mentioned in the introduction, abstract, or conclusion); their main interest was to establish that cosmology rules out discrete symmetry breaking, in itself a remarkable constraint on particle physics. 13 Early Universe Cosmology and the Development of Inflation 239 Later work on the formation of defects in theories with SSB of local gauge symmetries also ran afoul of observational constraints. Tom Kibble, an Indian-born British physicist at Imperial College, established a particularly important result (Kibble 1976): defect formation depends on the topological structure of the vacuum solutions to a particular field theory, and is thus relatively independent of the details of the phase transition. Roughly, defects result from the initial domain structure of the Higgs field, which Kibble argued should be uncorrelated at distances larger than the particle horizon at the time of the phase transition. This complicated domain structure disappears if the Higgs field in different regions becomes "aligned," but in some cases no continuous evolution of the field can eliminate all nonuniformities; topological defects are the resulting persistent structures. Kibble (1976) noted that point-like defects (called monopoles and previously studied by 't Hooft 1974; Polyakov 1974) might form, but thought that they would "not be significant on a cosmic scale." However, given the absence of any natural annihilation mechanism, Zel'dovich and Khlopov (1978); Preskill (1979); Einhorn et al. (1980) established a dramatic conflict between predicted monopole abundance and observations: in Preskill's calculation, monopoles alone would contribute a mass density 1014 times greater than the total estimated mass density!44 The resolution of this dramatic conflict would ultimately come from considerations of the third type of effect. Linde, Veltman and Joseph Dreitlein at the University of Colorado independently realized that a non-zero V (φ) would couple to gravity as an effective term.45 Linde (1974) argued that although earlier particle physics theories "yielded no information" on the value of (following Zel'dovich, he held that is fixed only up to an arbitrary constant), theories incorporating SSB predicted a tremendous shift – 49 orders of magnitude – in V (φ) at the critical temperature Tc.46 However, this dramatic change in the cosmological "constant" would apparently have little impact on the evolution of the universe (Linde 1974, 183):47 To be sure, almost the entire change [of] occurs near Tc = 1015 −1016 deg. In this region, the vacuum energy density is lower than the energy density of matter and radiation, and therefore the temperature dependence of does not exert a decisive influence on the initial stage of the evolution of the universe. Linde implicitly assumed that the phase transition was second-order, characterized by a transition directly from one state to another with no intermediate stage of "mixed" phases.48 Unlike Linde, Veltman (1974) regarded the idea that an arbitrary constant could be added to the vacuum energy density to yield a current value of ≈ 0 as "ad hoc" and "not very satisfactory." Veltman took the "violent" disagreement with observational constraints on and the value calculated using the electroweak theory as one more indicator that the Higgs mechanism is "a cumbersome and not very appealing burden" (Veltman 1974, 1).49 Dreitlein (1974) explored one escape route: an incredibly small Higgs mass, on the order of 2.4 × 10−27 MeV , would lead to an effective close enough to 0. Veltman (1975) countered that such a light Higgs particle would mediate long-range interactions that should have already been detected. In sum, these results were thoroughly discouraging: Veltman had highlighted a discrepancy between calculations of the vacuum energy in field theory and cosmological constraints that would come to be called the "cosmological constant problem" (see 240 C. Smeenk Rugh and Zinkernagel 2002). Even for those willing to set aside this issue and focus only on the shift in vacuum energy, there appeared to be "no way cosmologically to discriminate among theories in which the symmetry is spontaneously broken, dynamically broken, or formally identical and unbroken" (to quote Bludman and Ruderman 1977, 255). By the end of the 1970s several physicists had discovered that this conclusion does not hold if the Higgs field became trapped in a "false vacuum" state (with V (φ) = 0). Demosthenes Kazanas, an astrophysicist working at Goddard Space Flight Center, clearly presented the effect of persistent vacuum energy (Kazanas 1980): the usual FLRW dynamics is replaced with a phase of exponential expansion. He also clearly stated an advantage of incoroporating such a phase (L62): Such an exponential expansion law occurring in the very early universe can actually allow the size of the causally connected regions to be many orders of magnitude larger than the presently observed part of the universe, thus potentially accounting for its observed isotropy. But it was not clear how to avoid an undesirable consequence of a first-order phase transition, namely the production of large inhomogeneities due to the formation of "bubbles" of the new "true" vacuum phase immersed in the old phase. Linde and Chibisov (Linde 1979, 433–34) explored the possibility of combining Zel'dovich's "cold universe" idea with a first-order phase transition, but they did not see a way to avoid excessive inhomogeneity.50 During a stay at NORDITA in Copenhagen, the Japanese astrophysicist Katsuhiko Sato studied first-order phase transitions in considerable detail, focusing on the consequences of a stage of exponential expansion driven by a false vacuum state. Sato (1981) derived constraints on various parameters, such as the rate of bubble formation and coupling constants.51 Although Sato appears to have been optimistic that these constraints could be met, a slightly later collaborative paper with the University of Michigan theorist Martin Einhorn (Einhorn and Sato 1981) ended on a skeptical note (401):52 We have seen that most of the difficulties with the long, drawn-out phase transition discussed in Section V stems [sic] from the exponential expansion of the universe. This was due to the large cosmological constant. If a theory could be developed in which the vacuum did not gravitate, i.e., a theory of gravity which accounts for the vanishing cosmological constant term in a natural way, then the discussion would be drastically changed. Although scenarios have been developed in which the effect of the cosmological constant term remains small for all times, we would speculate that the problem here is less the choice of GUT but rather reconciling gravity with quantum field theory. To avoid the unpalatable consequences of a first order phase transition Einhorn and Sato were willing to abandon the starting point of this entire line of thought.53 By the time these papers appeared in print, the young American physicist Alan Guth had presented an argument that an "inflationary" stage is a desirable consequence of an early universe phase transition, rather than a source of difficulties. After 13 Early Universe Cosmology and the Development of Inflation 241 persistent lobbying from his friend and collaborator Henry Tye, Guth undertook serious study of GUTs in the summer of 1979, focused on production of monopoles in the early universe (Guth 1997, chapter 9). Tye and Guth discovered that a first-order transition could alleviate the monopole problem: within each bubble produced in a first-order transition, the Higgs field is uniform. Monopoles would only be produced at the boundaries between the bubbles as a consequence of bubble wall collisions. Thus the abundance of monopoles ultimately depends upon the nucleation rate of the bubbles. Guth and Tye (1980) argued that reasonable models of the phase transition have a low nucleation rate, leading to a tolerably low production of monopoles. Einhorn and Sato (1981) highlighted various difficulties with this proposal, commenting that "although it is possible to meet the necessary requirements, it is unclear whether this scenario is natural in the sense that it may require fortuitious relationships between the magnitude of the gauge coupling and the parameters of the Higgs potential" (Einhorn and Sato 1981, 385) and noting the difficulties associated with a phase of exponential expansion. Shortly after Guth and Tye (1980) was submitted, Guth independently discovered that the equation of state for the Higgs field trapped in a "false vacuum" state drives exponential expansion. In short order, he discovered several appealing features of what he called, alluding to economic worries at the end of Carter's presidency, an "inflationary universe." 13.2.4 Guth's "Spectacular Realization" Guth modestly concluded as follows (Guth 1981, 354): In conclusion, the inflationary scenario seems like a natural and simple way to eliminate both the horizon and flatness problems. I am publishing this paper in the hope that it will highlight the existence of these problems and encourage others to find some way to avoid the undesirable features of the inflationary scenario. To say that Guth's paper (and the series of lectures he gave before and after it appeared) achieved these goals would be a dramatic understatement. This success stemmed not from fundamentally new physics, but from the clear presentation of a rationale for pursuing the idea of inflation. Even those who had been aware of the work discussed above, such as Martin Rees, have commented that they only understood it in light of Guth's paper.54 Guth's paper significantly upped the explanatory ante for early universe cosmology: he showed that several apparently independent features of the universe could be traced to a common source, an early stage of inflationary expansion. This effectively set a new standard for theory choice in early universe cosmology. The situation resembles several other historical episodes in which a significant success set new standards. Einstein's accurate prediction of the anomaly in Mercury's perihelion motion raised the bar for gravitational theories: although the perihelion motion was not regarded as a decisive check prior to his prediction, it subsequently served as a litmus test for competing theories of gravitation. Similarly, following Guth's paper the ability to solve these problems served as an entrance requirement. 242 C. Smeenk To my knowledge Guth was the first to explicitly recognize the connection between an inflationary stage and a puzzling balance between the initial expansion rate and energy density. Guth's work notebook dated Dec. 7, 1979 begins with the following statement highlighted in a double box: "SPECTACULAR REALIZATION: This kind of supercooling can explain why the universe today is so incredibly flat-and therefore resolve the fine-tuning paradox pointed out by Bob Dicke." 55 Dicke's paradox highlights an odd feature of the density paramter . Using the Friedmann equation, we can write as follows:56 := 8πG 3H2 ρ = ( 1 − 3k 8πGρ )−1 . (13.10) During expansion ρ scales as ∝ a−3 for normal matter and ∝ a−4 for radiation. Thus, if the value of initially differs from 1, it evolves rapidly away from 1; the value = 1 is an unstable fixed point under dynamical evolution. For the observed universe to be anywhere close to = 1 (as it appears to be), the early universe must have been incredibly close to the "flat" FLRW model ( = 1, k = 0). Guth discovered that during exponential expansion is driven rapidly towards 1; ρ is a constant for a false vacuum state, so approaches 1 as a−2 during inflation. If the universe expands by a factor Z ≥ 1029, where Z =: eχt and t is the duration of the inflationary stage, then 0 = 1 to extremely high precision, for nearly any pre-inflationary "initial value" of . Unlike the horizon problem, the flatness problem was not widely acknowledged as a legitimate problem prior to Guth's paper. In an appendix added to "convince some skeptics," Guth comments that (Guth 1981, 355): In the end, I must admit that questions of plausibility are not logically determinable and depend somewhat on intuition. Thus I am sure that some physicists will remain convinced that there really is no flatness problem. However, I am also sure that many physicists agree with me that the flatness of the universe is a peculiar situation which at some point will admit a physical explanation. Whether or not this argument swayed many physicists, several of the interviewees in Lightman and Brawer (1990) made remarks similar to Misner's (Lightman and Brawer 1990, 240): I didn't come on board thinking that paradox [Dicke's flatness paradox] was serious until the inflationary models came out. [...] The key point for me was that inflation offers an explanation. Even if it's not the right explanation, it shows that finding an explanation is a proper challenge to physics. The existence of a proposed solution to the flatness problem lent it an air of legitimacy; the universe's flatness had been previously regarded as puzzling (Dicke and Peebles 1979), but following Guth's paper it was widely interpreted as a telling sign of an early inflationary stage. Several proposals discussed above implied that horizons would disappear, as the horizon distance in equation (13.3) diverges. A transient inflationary phase increases 13 Early Universe Cosmology and the Development of Inflation 243 the horizon distance by a factor of Z ; for Z > 5 × 1027 the "horizon problem disappears" in the sense that the horizon length at the time of the emission of the background radiation approaches the current visual horizon. Particle horizons don't disappear, but they are stretched enough to encompass the visible universe. Guth stressed the striking difference between initial conditions needed in the inflationary universe and the standard cosmology (Guth 1981, 347): for the standard cosmology, "the initial universe is assumed to be homogeneous, yet it consists of at least ≈ 1083 separate regions which are causally disconnected." For an inflationary period with sufficiently large Z , a single homogeneous pre-inflationary patch of sub-horizon scale expands to encompass the observed universe. Despite these successes, Guth's original proposal did not solve the transition problem. As Einhorn and Sato (1981) had argued, bubbles of new phase formed during the phase transition do not percolate, i.e., they do not join together to form large regions of the same phase. The energy released in the course of the phase transition is concentrated in the bubble walls, leading to an energy density far too high near the bubble walls and far too low in the interior. Frequent bubble collisions would be needed to smooth out the distribution of energy so that it is compatible with the smooth beginning of an FLRW model.57 The phase transition never ends, in the sense that large volumes of space remain "stuck" in the old phase, with vast differences in the energy density between these regions and the bubble walls. In summary, a first-order phase transition appropriate for inflation also produces a universe marred by the massive inhomogeneities due to the formation of bubbles, rather than the smooth early universe required by observations. The solution to the transition problem led to difficulties with Guth's original identification of the Higgs field of an SU (5) GUT as the source of an inflationary stage. Briefly, Albrecht and Steinhardt (1982); Linde (1982) both developed models of the phase transition based on a Coleman–Weinberg effective potential for the Higgs field. In these new models the inflationary expansion persists long enough that the initial bubble is much, much larger than the observed universe; within this single bubble the matter and radiation density needed for the big bang model is generated via decay of the Higgs field. Within a year theorists had turned to implementing Chibisov's (1981) idea that small fluctuations stretched during inflation would serve as the seeds for galaxy formation. The intense work on structure formation during the Nuffield workshop, a conference held in Cambridge from June 21–July 9, 1982, led to the "death and transfiguration" of inflation (from the title of the conference review in Nature, Barrow and Turner 1982). Inflation "died" since detailed calculations of the density perturbations produced during an inflationary era indicated that an SU (5)Higgs field could not drive inflation, as originally thought. The "transfiguration" of the field involved a significant shift in methodology: the focus shifted to implementing inflation successfully rather than treating it as a consequence of independently motivated particle physics. In his recollections of the Nuffield conference, Guth wrote: [A] key conclusion of the Nuffield calculations is that the field which drives inflation cannot be the same field that is responsible for symmetry breaking. For the density perturbations to be small, the underlying particle theory must 244 C. Smeenk contain a new field, now often called the inflaton field [...], which resembles the Higgs field except that its energy density diagram is much flatter. (Guth 1997, 233–34) The "inflaton" may resemble the Higgs, but the rules of the game have changed: it is a new fundamental field distinct from any scalar field appearing in particle physics. The explosion of research interest in inflationary cosmology in the early 1980s attests to its appeal. Inflation allowed theorists to replace several independent features of the initial conditions - overall uniformity, flatness, lack of monopoles and other relics, and the presence of small scale fluctuations - with a theoretical entity they knew how to handle: the effective potential of a fundamental scalar field.58 The discussion of earlier proposals highlights an important advantage of inflation: the Higgs mechanism is a central component of the Weinberg–Salam model and of GUTs, which provided a rich source of ideas for further refinements of inflation. Starobinsky drew on the more esoteric subject of quantum corrections to the stress-energy tensor in semiclassical quantum gravity, and the other proposals discussed above required a number of bald stipulations. Inflation still has not solved the source problem, in the sense that there is still no canonical identification of the "inflaton" field with a particular scalar field. The fertile link with particle physics has instead produced an embarassment of riches: inflation has been implemented in a wide variety of models, to such an extent that cosmologists have sometimes complained of the difficulty in coining a name for a new model. In closing, I should emphasize an important difference between inflation and other cases of "upping the explanatory ante." Prior to Einstein's work, astronomers agreed that there was a discrepancy between the observed perihelion motion of Mercury and Newtonian calculations, although this was not seen as a telling failure of Newtonian theory. By way of contrast, several critics of inflation have not been convinced that inflation has cured genuine explanatory deficiencies of the standard big bang model.59 Intellectual descendants of Ludwig Boltzmann such as Roger Penrose (see, in particular Penrose 1979, 1989) expect the universe to be in an initially "improbable" state, which is ultimately responsible for the second law of thermodynamics and the arrow of time. Special initial conditions play the crucial role of insuring that the observed universe has an arrow of time; they are not something to be avoided by introducing new dynamics that "washes away" the dependence on an initial state. Two of the proposals above also did not take this approach to "erasing" the singularity: Starobinsky accepted that his proposal would require stipulating that the early universe began in an early de Sitter state, and the Brussels Consortium aimed to develop an account of the creation event itself. In developing theories of the early universe, the methodological strategy exemplified by inflation was by no means mandatory. 13.3 Conclusions In the epilogue of their recent textbook, Kolb and Turner (1990) contrast the adventurous attitude of their contemporaries with those of earlier cosmologists, commenting that (Kolb and Turner 1990, 498): 13 Early Universe Cosmology and the Development of Inflation 245 Whatever future cosmologists write about cosmology in the decades following the discovery of the CMBR, we can be certain they will not criticize contemporary cosmologists for failure to take their theoretical ideas - and sometimes wild speculations - seriously enough. Following a story of speculative theories regarding the universe at t ≈ 10−35 s after the big bang, it is easy to agree with their assessment. As I have described above, various problems and opportunities led cosmologists to develop theories of the early universe. The incredible extrapolations to the early universe allowed theorists to grapple with issues that have no bearing on more directly accessible phenomena, including the creation of particles in strong gravitational fields and the predictions of symmetry restoration at incredibly high temperatures. Many theoretical roads led to the consideration of an early de Sitter phase, and all faced the difficulties of identifying a believable physical source driving the de Sitter expansion and accounting for the transition to customary big bang expansion. Guth's seminal work on inflation did not introduce new physics, and did not solve these problems, but it did provide a rationale that has done much to underwrite the adventurous optimism characterizing the field. Acknowledgments I would like to thank John Earman, Al Janis, Michel Janssen, David Kaiser, John Norton, and Laura Ruetsche, for helping in various ways to make this a better paper. 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Soviet Physics JETP 40, 1–5. Zel'dovich, Yakov B. and Pitaevsky, Lev P. (1971). On the possibility of the creation of particles by a classical gravitational field. Communications in Mathematical Physics 23, 185–188. Notes 1A singularity cannot be straightforwardly defined as "the points at which some physical quantities diverge," since the metric field itself diverges; given the usual assumption that this field is defined and differentiable everywhere on the space-time manifold, these points are ex hypothesi not in space-time. The subtleties involved in giving a precise definition were more important for disentangling horizons and coordinate effects from genuine singularities in the Schwarzschild and de Sitter solutions; to my knowledge there were no published debates about whether there is a genuine initial singularity in the FLRW models. See Eisenstaedt (1989); Earman (1999) for historical discussions of the Schwarzschild singularity and the singularity theorems (respectively), and Wald (1984); Earman (1995) for more recent treatments of the intricate conceptual and mathematical issues involved. 2An incomplete geodesic is inextendible in at least one direction, but does not reach all values of its affine parameter; even though it does not have an endpoint it "runs out" within finite affine length. Loosely speaking, one can think of an incomplete geodesic as corresponding to "missing points" in a manifold; unfortunately, this idea can be made precise for a Riemannian metric but not for a pseudo-Riemannian metric like that used in general relativity. 3More precisely, this research program aimed to show that the general solution describes a "bounce"-the matter reaches a maximum density, but then expands rather than continuing to collapse-and that the bounce fails to occur only for specialized initial conditions. This program resulted in detailed studies of the evolution of anisotropic, homogeneous vacuum solutions in the neighborhood of the initial singularity (see Belinskii et al. 1974, and references therein). 4Cosmological models that reached a finite limiting temperature at early times were explored during this time (see, e.g. Hagedorn 1970), but were never widely accepted. 5Lemaıtre (1934) appears to have been the first to clearly state this idea in print. See Earman (2001) for an account of's checkered history, and Rugh and Zinkernagel (2002) for a detailed discussion of the relation between and vacuum energy density in QFT. 6Gliner noted that he is only concerned with local Poincaré invariance, but does not recognize the difficulties in extending Poincaré invariance to general relativity. As 252 C. Smeenk a result, in general the "vacuum" cannot be uniquely specified by requiring that it is a Poincaré invariant state. I thank John Earman for emphasizing this point to me (cf. Earman 2001, 208–209). 7The strong energy condition requires that there are not tensions larger than or equal to the (positive) energy density; more formally, for any time-like vector v, Tabvavb ≥ 12 T aa . In particular, for a diagonalized Tab with principal pressures pi , this condition requires that ρ +∑3i=1 pi ≥ 0 and ρ + pi ≥ 0(i = 1, 2, 3), clearly violated by the vacuum state. 8Turning this rough claim into a general theorem requires the machinery used by Penrose and Hawking. Gliner refers to Hawking's work in Gliner (1970), but his argument does not take such finer points into account. 9This was formulated more clearly as a "cosmic no hair theorem" by Gibbons and Hawking (1977) and in subsequent work. "No hair" alludes to corresponding results in black hole physics, which show that regardless of all the "hairy" complexities of a collapsing star, the end state can be described as simply as a bald head. 10Gliner was not alone in this preference; several other papers in the early 1970s discussed violations of the strong energy condition as a way of avoiding the singularity, as we will see in the next section. 11Briefly, Sakharov's multi-sheet model is a cyclic model based on Novikov's suggestion that a true singularity could be avoided in gravitational collapse, allowing continuation of the metric through a stage of contraction to re-expansion. I have been unable to find any discussions of the impact of Sakharov's imaginative work in cosmology or its relation to other lines of research he pursued, especially the attempt to derive gravitational theory as an induced effect of quantum fluctuations, but this is surely a topic worthy of further research. 12This point is clearly emphasized by Lindley (1985); although it appears plausible that this line of reasoning motivated Gliner and Dymnikova (1975), they introduce the "gradual transition" without explanation or elaboration. 13An alert reader may have noticed the tension between this assumption and vacuum dominance mentioned in the last paragraph: the proposed equation of state rather unnaturally guarantees the opposite of vacuum dominance, namely that the vacuum is diluted and the density of normal matter and radiation increases in the course of the transition. 14Gliner and Dymnikova (1975) derive this equation by solving for the evolution of the scale factor from the transitional phase to the FLRW phase, with matching conditions at the boundary; see Lindley (1985) for a clearer discussion. The constant 0 < α < 1 fixes the rate at which the initial vacuum energy decays into energy density of normal matter and radiation. H is the (poorly named) Hubble "constant," defined by H := 1a dadt . 15Eddington (1933, 37) and de Sitter (1931, 9-10) both argued that a non-zero was needed for a satisfactory explanation of expansion, despite the fact that the FLRW 13 Early Universe Cosmology and the Development of Inflation 253 models with = 0 describe expanding models; I thank John Earman for bringing these passages to my attention. 16Rindler's classic paper introduced and defined various horizons (Rindler 1956); for a recent discussion see Ellis and Rothman (1993). Here I am following the conventional choice to define horizon distance in terms of the time when the signal is received rather than the time of emission (as signalled by the a(t0) term). 17Sakahrov's equation of state is not that for a vacuum dominated state, although it is easy to see that the integral diverges for p = −ρ as well. 18Hawking's (1970) theorem showed that a vacuum spacetime would remain empty provided that the dominant energy condition holds. The dominant energy condition requires that the energy density is positive and that the pressure is always less than the energy density; formally, for any timelike vector v, Tabvavb ≥ 0 and Tabva is a spacelike vector. 19Bekenstein (1975) also discussed the possibility that scalar fields would allow one to avoid the singularity. Starobinsky's (1978) main criticism is that Parker and Fulling dramatically overestimate the probability that their model will reach a "bounce" stage, even granted that the appropriate scalar field exists: they estimate a probability of .5, whereas Starobinsky finds 10−43! 20The expression for the trace anomaly was derived before Starobinsky's work; in addition, it was realized that de Sitter space is a solution of the semi-classical EFE incorporating this anomaly (see, e.g. Birrell and Davies 1982). Starobinsky was the first to consider the implications of these results for early universe cosmology. 21In the course of this calculation Starobinsky assumed that initially the quantum fields are all in a vacuum state. In addition, the expression for the one-loop correction includes constants determined by the spins of the quantum fields included in 〈Tab〉, and these constants must satisfy a number of constraints for the solutions to hold. Finally, Starobinsky argued that if the model includes a large number of gravitationally coupled quantum fields, the quantum corrections of the gravitational field itself will be negligible in comparison. 22This extended discussion was clearly motivated by Guth's (1981) discussion of the "flatness problem" (which Starobinsky duly cited), but Starobinsky notably did not endorse Guth's emphasis on the methodological importance of the flatness problem. 23Misner (1968) advocated an approach to cosmology that focused on "predicting" various features of the observed universe, in the sense of finding features insensitive to the choice of initial conditions. 24Zel'dovich's review does not include any references. He had already discussed the horizon problem in a different context (Zel'dovich et al. 1975), see section 2.3 below. 25However, this is more a triumph of approach than actual implementation; a decade after this assessment an account of baryogenesis consistent with all the constraints has yet to be developed. 254 C. Smeenk 26Very roughly, in a renormalizable theory such as QED divergent quantities can be "absorbed" by rescaling a finite number of parameters occuring in the Lagrangian (such as particle masses and coupling constants); these techniques did not carry over to massive Yang–Mills theories (see, e.g., §10.3 of Cao 1997 for an overview). 27The three "proofs" of Goldstone's theorem given in Goldstone et al. (1962) hold rigorously for classical but not quantum fields; see, e.g., Guralnik et al. (1968) for a detailed discussion of the subtleties involved. 28Quantizing the electromagnetic field in Lortenz gauge leads to photons with four different polarization states: two transverse, one longitudinal, and one "time-like" (or "scalar"). In the Gupta–Bleuler formalism, the contributions of the longitudinal and time-like polarizations states cancel as a result of the Lorentz condition ∂μAμ = 0, leaving only the two transverse states as true "physical" states. See, e.g., Ryder (1996), section 4.4 for a brief description of the Gupta-Bleuler formalism. 29Goldstone's theorem held for Lagrangians invariant under the action of a continuous, "global" gauge transformation of the fields, but not for "local" symmetries or discrete symmetries (such as parity). As Chris Martin has pointed out to me, the terms "local" and "global" suggest a misleading connection with space-time: global gauge groups are finite dimensional Lie groups (such that a specific element of the group can be specified by a finite number of parameters), whereas local gauge groups are infinite dimensional Lie groups whose elements are specified via a finite number of functions. 30This discussion of the Higgs mechanism is by necessity brief; for a clear textbook treatment see, for example, Aitchison (1982). 31See, e.g., Coleman (1985, chapter 5) for a concise introduction to the effective potential and arguments that it represents the expectation value of the energy density for a given state. 32Englert and Brout (1964) explicitly mentioned the possibility: "The importance of this problem [whether gauge mesons can acquire mass] resides in the possibility that strong-interaction physics originates from massive gauge fields related to a system of conserved currents." The other papers introducing the Higgs mechanism are more directly concerned with exploiting the loophole in Goldstone's theorem. 33The number of citations of Weinberg (1967) jumped from 1 in 1970 to 64 in 1972, following 't Hooft and Veltman's proof of renormalizability (Pickering 1984, 172). 34In dynamical symmetry breaking, bound states of fermionic fields play the role of Higgs field; see the various papers collected in Farhi and Jackiw (1982) for an overview of this research, which was pursued actively throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. 35The Cambridge theorists, including Claude Bernard, Sidney Coleman, Barry Harrington, and Steven Weinberg at Harvard, and Louise Dolan and Roman Jackiw at MIT, seem to have worked fairly closely on this research, based on the acknowledgements and references to personal communication in their papers (Weinberg 1974b; 13 Early Universe Cosmology and the Development of Inflation 255 Dolan and Jackiw 1974; Bernard 1974). See Linde (1979) for a review of this literature. 36Conventional QFT treats interactions between fields in otherwise empty space, neglecting possible effects of interactions with a background heat bath. Finite temperature field theory was developed in the 1950s in the study of many-body systems in condensed matter physics. 37Weinberg (1974a) gives examples of models with no symmetry restoration and even low-temperature symmetry restoration; symmetry restoration can also be induced by large external fields or high current densities. See Linde (1979) for further discussion and references. 38In general relativity a conformal transformation is a map: gab → 2gab where is a smooth, non-zero real function. A field theory is conformally invariant if φ′ = sφ is a solution to the field equations with the metric 2gab whenever φ is a solution with the original metric, for a given number s (called the conformal weight) (see, e.g., Wald 1984, Appendix D). A field theory is said to be "conformally coupled" if additional terms are introduced to insure conformal invariance; the conformally coupled Klein–Gordon equation, for example, includes a term, 16 R, absent from the "minimally coupled" equation obtained by replacing normal derivatives with covariant derivatives. 39I call this an assumption since I cannot understand the argument in favor of it, which invokes Birkhoff's theorem along with the conformal flatness of the FLRW models (see Brout et al. 1978, 78–79). 40Zee (1982) described the rationale for this approach in greater detail. The program (partially based on Sakharov's conception of "induced gravity") aimed to formulate a renormalizable, conformally invariant theory in which the gravitational constant is fixed by vacuum fluctuations of the quantum fields. 41Kirzhnits and Linde defer the detailed argument for this conclusion to a later paper, which apparently did not appear; in any case it is not clear to me that long range repulsive forces are necessarily incompatible with either a closed or uniform model. 42"C" denotes charge conjugation, a transformation implemented by replacing field operators for a given particle with those for its anti-particle; "P" stands for the parity transformation, which (roughly speaking) maps fields into their mirror image. 43They comment that "Owing to the peculiar expansion law during the initial (domain) stage it is quite possible that Xc >> X p [Xc is the causal horizon, X p is the particle horizon]." The averaged equation of state for the domain stage is p = − 23ρ, leading to a(t) ∝ t2 during the "cellular medium"-dominated stage of evolution. 44Zel'dovich and Khlopov (1978) calculated the abundance of the lighter monopoles produced in electroweak symmetry breaking, with mass on the order of 104 GeV , whereas Preskill (1979) calculated the abundance of monopoles (with mass on the order of 1016 GeV ) produced during GUT-scale symmetry breaking. 256 C. Smeenk 45The stress energy tensor for a scalar field is given by Tab = ∇aφ∇bφ − 1 2 gabg cd∇c∇dφ − gabV (φ); if the derivative terms are negligible, Tab ≈ −V (φ)gab. 46Linde estimated that before SSB the vacuum energy density should be 1021g/cm3, compared to a cosmological upper bound on the total mass density of 10−28g/cm3. In an interview with the author, Linde noted that the title of this paper was mistranslated in the English edition (see the bibliography); the correct title is "Is the Cosmological Constant a Constant?" 47The radiation density ρrad ∝ T 4, which dominates over the vacuum energy density for T > Tc; Bludman and Ruderman (1977); Kolb and Wolfram (1980) bolstered Linde's conclusion with more detailed arguments. 48This assumption was not unwarranted: Weinberg (1974a) concluded that the electroweak phase transition appeared to be second order since the free energy and other thermodynamic variables were continuous (a defining characteristic of a second-order transition). 49Veltman described the idea of "cancellation" of a large vacuum energy density as follows: "If we assume that, before symmetry breaking, space-time is approximately euclidean, then after symmetry breaking ... a curvature of finite but outrageous proportions result [sic]. The reason that no logical difficulty arises is that one can assume that space-time was outrageously "counter curved" before symmetry breaking occurred. And by accident both effects compensate so precisely as to give the very euclidean universe as observed in nature." 50In a 1987 interview he commented that "we understood that the universe could exponentially expand, and bubbles would collide, and we saw that it would lead to great inhomogeneities in the universe. As a result, we thought these ideas were bad so there was no reason to publish such garbage" (Lightman and Brawer 1990, 485–86). 51Sato apparently hoped that an early phase transition would effectively separate regions of matter and anti-matter, so that observations establishing baryon asymmetry could be reconciled with a baryon-symmetric initial state; he also mentions the possibility that small inhomogeneities could seed galaxy formation. 52The original draft of this paper was completed in July 1980, revised in November of 1980 partially in response to comments from Guth and his collaborator, Erick Weinberg. Einhorn and Guth met and discussed phase transitions in November of 1979, but judging from Guth's comments in Guth (1997, 180), Einhorn and Sato hit upon the idea of false-vacuum driven exponential expansion independently. 53Einhorn and Sato were not alone in making this suggestion; a year earlier, the Harvard astrophysicist Bill Press had proposed an account of structure formation in which vacuum energy does not couple to gravity. In Press's (1980) scenario, inhomogeneities in the vacuum are converted into fluctuations in the energy density of matter and radiation. This "conversion" only works if the vacuum does not itself gravitate; Press noted the speculative nature of this suggestion, but argued that the other possibility - an incredibly precise cancellation of vacuum energy density - is equally unappealing. 13 Early Universe Cosmology and the Development of Inflation 257 54Rees attended talks about the early universe by both Starobinsky and Englert before 1981, but by his own account he did not see the appeal of these ideas until he had read Guth's paper (Lightman and Brawer 1990, 161). 55See Guth (1997), chapter 10 for a detailed account (quotation on 179). Guth attended a lecture by Princeton's Bob Dicke, in which he mentioned the flatness problem, on Nov. 13, 1978. 56The density parameter is defined as the ratio of the observed density to the critical density, namely the value such that k = 0 in the Friedmann equation. The Friedmann equation is given by: H2 = 8πG3 ρ − ka2(t) , where k = 0 for a flat model, k > 0 for a closed model, and k < 0 for an open model. 57Guth and Weinberg (1983) later showed that for a wide range of parameters the bubbles do not percolate, and they also do not collide quickly enough to thermalize. 58Michel Janssen has recently argued that "common origin inferences" (COIs) play a central role in scientific methodology (Janssen 2002). These inferences license a preference for a theory that traces several apparent coincidences to a common origin. Guth's case for inflation is a particularly clear example of this style of reasoning. I have benefitted from extensive discussions with Janssen regarding whether the case for inflation should be treated as another "COI" story, but I do not have space to explore the issue further here. 59For a detailed discussion of the demand for explanatory adequacy see Earman (1995), and for a critical overview of inflationary cosmology see Earman and Mosterin (1999). | {
"pile_set_name": "PhilPapers"
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~ 26 ~ WWJMRD 2015; 2(10): 26-34 www.wwjmrd.com Impact Factor MJIF: 4.25 e-ISSN: 2454-6615 Samy S. Abu Naser Faculty of Engineering & Information Technology, AlAzhar University, Gaza, Palestine Ihab S. Zaqout Faculty of Engineering & Information Technology, AlAzhar University, Gaza, Palestine Correspondence: Samy S. Abu Naser Faculty of Engineering & Information Technology, AlAzhar University, Gaza, Palestine Knowledge-based systems that determine the appropriate students major: In the faculty of engineering and information technology Samy S. Abu Naser, Ihab S. Zaqout Abstract In this paper a Knowledge-Based System (KBS) for determining the appropriate students major according to his/her preferences for sophomore student enrolled in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology in Al-Azhar University of Gaza was developed and tested. A set of predefined criterions that is taken into consideration before a sophomore student can select a major is outlined. Such criterion as high school score, score of subject such as Math I, Math II, Electrical Circuit I, and Electronics I taken during the student freshman year, number of credits passed, student cumulative grade point average of freshman year, among others, were then used as input data to KBS. KBS was designed and developed using Simpler Level Five (SL5) Object expert system language. KBS was tested on three generation of sophomore students from the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology of the Al-Azhar University, Gaza. The results of the evaluation show that the KBS is able to correctly determine the appropriate students major without errors. Keywords: Knowledge-based system, Students major, KBS, University, SL5 Object Introduction The staffs of the faculty of Engineering and Information technology in Al-Azhar University of Gaza spend two to three weeks collecting data from the registrar office and students major preferences. After the collection of data is completed, they all saved in an excel sheet. Then, the group of staff dedicated to determine student majors takes a number of hours trying to figure out the appropriate student major taking into consideration student's preferences and the faculty criterion for each major. The main objective of the KBS is to determine the appropriate students major minimizing the time spent by the dedicated group while identifying the appropriate student major in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology in Al-Azhar University. In Al-Azhar University, students get admitted to the different majors in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology after they successfully passed the scientific branch of the high school with at least 75%, students are required to study their freshman year without getting a major yet. Once the student finished the freshman year, he or she can major in Computer and Communication Engineering, Mechatronics Engineering, Software Engineering, Medical Devices Engineering, Renewable Energy Engineering, Computer Science, or Information Systems. A student can major in one of the 7 majors if he/she satisfies specific requirements such as High school score, number of credits finished, pass some subjects in the freshman year, such as Math, Electrical Circuits, and Electronics for Computer and Communication Engineering, Mechatronics Engineering, Medical Devices Engineering, Renewable Energy Engineering. Other courses such as Introduction to Computing and Computer Programming I are used for Software Engineering, Computer Science, and Information Systems. Knowledge-Based System Definition A computer application that performs tasks that would otherwise be performed by a human expert [1, 2]. For example, there are KBS that can diagnose human illnesses, diagnoses cars problems, make financial forecasts, and schedule routes for delivery vehicles [12]. Some KBS are designed to take the place of human experts, while others are designed to aid them. World Wide Journal of Multidiscip linary Research and Development ~ 27 ~ World Wide Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development KBS are part of a general category of computer applications known as artificial intelligence [17]. To design a KBS, one needs a knowledge engineer, an individual who studies how human experts make decisions and translates the rules into terms that a computer can understand. Knowledge-based system is a synonym for Expert Systems and Rule Based Systems. However, knowledge is the sort of information that people use to solve problems. Advantages of KBS KBS have the following advantages over human experts: The knowledge is permanent The knowledge is easily replicated The knowledge is represented explicitly, and can be evaluated The system is consistent whereas human practitioners have bad days, computers don't. Once built, running costs are low Knowledge-based system Architecture A knowledge based system generally follows the architecture in fig. 1; this is the architecture of typical KBS. The working memory stores facts about the world; it is also sometimes called the "fact base". The knowledge base stores the system's rules. The rules, objects, and the initial facts form KBS "program". The inference engine is the "black box" that performs reasoning over the facts and rules; the left hand side of fig. 1 is called the "Rule Engine". Inside the rule engine, the pattern matcher selects rules that are applicable given the facts in the fact base, and activates these rules that is, places them on the agenda. Then the execution engine fires the rules on the agenda in a particular order. The agenda can also be called the "conflict set", since all the rules on the agenda are applicable now, and are therefore in conflict; then the algorithm by which the execution engine decides on an order in which to fire the rules is called "conflict resolution". Fig. 1: The architecture of a typical knowledge based system SL5 Object language SL5 Object, Simpler Level 5 Object Expert System Language is a rule-based language for specifying expert systems. Architecturally, SL5 Object is a production system executing a rule based program; thus, the SL5 Object language is a declarative (rather than imperative) language. The SL5 Object engine is implemented in Delphi Embarcadero RAD Studio XE6 [17]. Literature Review There are many knowledge based systems that were designed to diagnose diseases[7-27], and a few expert system that advise student in selecting appropriate major[36]. But there is no specialized expert system for determining the appropriate student major based on his/her freshman year and his/her requested majors. Author in [3] used Artificial Neural Networks and expert systems to obtain knowledge for the learner model in the Linear Programming Intelligent Tutoring System to be able to determine the academic performance level of the learners. The authors in [4] presented the design and development of an expert system that aimed to improve the method of selecting the best suitable faculty/major for student planning to be enrolled in Al-Azhar University. The basic idea of their approach was designing a model for testing and measuring the student capabilities like intelligence, understanding, comprehension, mathematical concepts and others, and applying the module results to a rule-based expert system to determine the compatibility of those capabilities with the available faculties/majors in Al-Azhar University. The result was shown as a list of suggested faculties/majors that are most suitable with the student capabilities and abilities. The author in [5] described an Internet-based expert system which provides advice to high school students or college freshmen who are seeking assistance in selecting a potential major. It emulates a professional academic advisor. The ondemand, approximately 15-min consultation gathers information from the student on his or her grades, degree of enjoyment of traditional courses, standardized test scores, interests, and aptitudes. It assesses student qualifications for a variety of majors. The expert system recommends six majors from among 60 widely diverse majors for the students to consider and produces a report that fully describes the students' responses in such a way that the output can be used by a human advisor. Authors in [6] proposed an expert system-SAES which aims to provide intelligent advice to the student as to which major he/she should opt. SAES acquires knowledge of academic performances as well as explicit and implicit interests of the candidate. Knowledge representation in SAES is done by the use of a combination of case based and rule based reasoning. SAES draws inferences on the basis of acquired knowledge and also takes into account the degree of dilemma faced by the candidate and the time he/she takes to decide the interest areas. SAES then recommends the most suitable majors for each candidate, which are further classified as strong, mild and weak on the basis of calculated relative probabilities of success. Methodology KBS requires the students' data and faculty criterion data to be stored in MS access data base. Student data The Student data is collected from student record in registration office and the student himself/herself (student major requests 1, 2, and 3). Then the student data is stored in MS access table to be ready for the KBS to read. The student data include: 1. High School score, 2. Results in Math I in the student freshman year, 3. Results in Math II in the student freshman year, 4. Results in Electrical Circuits in the student freshman year, 5. Results in Electronics I in the student freshman year, ~ 28 ~ World Wide Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development 6. Number of credits passed in the student freshman year, 7. CGPA of the freshman year, 8. Results in Introduction to Computing in the student freshman year, 9. Results in Computer Programming I in the student freshman year, 10. Student major request 1 11. Student major request 2 12. Student major request 3 Faculty criterion for each major The criterion for each major as specified by the faculty of Engineering and Information technology are stored in another MS access table to be ready for the KBS to read. The Faculty criterions are: 1. Minimum High School score for each major, 2. Minimum Average of (Math I, Math II, Electrical Circuits, Electronics I) 3. Minimum of Number of credits passed in the student freshman year, 4. Minimum CGPA of the freshman year for each major, 5. Minimum Average of (Introduction to Computing, Computer Programming I) 6. Minimum Number of credits passed in the student freshman year, Process to determine the appropriate major KBS is designed and developed using SL5 Object which supports the use of MS access data base. KBS opens and read the faculty criterion from criterion table and the students' data from student table (See Fig. 1). For each student in the student table, the KBS follow these steps: 1. Read one student record 2. Calculate the average score of the four subjects (Math I *4 + Math II *4 + Electrical Circuits *3+ Electronics I*3)/14 3. Calculate the average score of the two subjects (Introduction to Computing + Computer Programming I)/2 4. Check if student data satisfy the requirement of the first major that was requested: if yes, store the major in the data base directly; otherwise check if the student data satisfy the requirement of the third major that was requested: if yes, store the major in the data base directly; otherwise store in the data base "None of the majors requested is fulfilled". 5. Read next student record Fig. 2: Opening Session of KBS system At the end of KBS session, KBS display a summary of how many students in each major and closes the MS access data base as in Figure 3. Fig. 3: Summery of KBS system ~ 29 ~ World Wide Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development Evaluation of the KBS The KBS system was tested using the student data and faculty requirements of the previous three years (2013, 2014, and 2015). The faculty requirement is different for every year depending on the number of new enrolled student every year. The results of testing of batch of students in each year were excellent when compared with the manual method used in all three years. Conclusion A Knowledge-Based System was designed and developed for determining the appropriate sophomore students major. KBS determine the major to students enrolled in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology in AlAzhar University of Gaza. A set of predefined criterions by the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology is taken into consideration before a sophomore student can select a major. These criterions include high school score, score of subject such as Math I, Math II, Electrical Circuit I, and Electronics I taken during the student freshman year, number of credits passed, student cumulative grade point average of freshman year. KBS was implemented using SL5 Object expert system language. KBS was tested on three generation of sophomore students from the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology of the Al-Azhar University. The evaluation shows that the KBS is able to correctly determine the appropriate students major without problems. Source code of KBS written in SL5 Object Expert System Language CLASS db1 INHERIT msaccess WITH sn NUMERIC WITH r1 STRING WITH r2 STRING WITH r3 STRING WITH sno STRING WITH sname STRING WITH calc1 NUMERIC WITH calc2 NUMERIC WITH electricity NUMERIC WITH electronic NUMERIC WITH icomp NUMERIC WITH prog NUMERIC WITH twajihi NUMERIC WITH pcredit NUMERIC WITH gpa NUMERIC WITH major STRING WITH subj4 NUMERIC WITH subj2 NUMERIC CLASS db2 INHERIT msaccess WITH sn NUMERIC WITH me1 NUMERIC WITH me2 NUMERIC WITH cce1 NUMERIC WITH cce2 NUMERIC WITH mde1 NUMERIC WITH mde1 NUMERIC WITH re1 NUMERIC WITH re2 NUMERIC WITH se1 NUMERIC WITH se2 NUMERIC WITH cs1 NUMERIC WITH cs2 NUMERIC WITH is1 NUMERIC WITH is2 NUMERIC INSTANCE mstable1 ISA db1 WITH access IS write WITH action IS open WITH eof := FALSE WITH index file := " " WITH file name := "majoring.mdb" WITH table name := "table1" WITH active := TRUE INSTANCE mstable2 ISA db2 WITH access IS read WITH action IS open WITH eof := FALSE WITH file name := "majoring.mdb" WITH table name := "table2" WITH active := TRUE ATTRIBUTE start SIMPLE ATTRIBUTE X NUMERIC ATTRIBUTE r1 NUMERIC ATTRIBUTE r2 NUMERIC ATTRIBUTE r3 NUMERIC ATTRIBUTE me NUMERIC ATTRIBUTE cce NUMERIC ATTRIBUTE re NUMERIC ATTRIBUTE mde NUMERIC ATTRIBUTE se NUMERIC ATTRIBUTE cs NUMERIC ATTRIBUTE is NUMERIC ATTRIBUTE subj4 NUMERIC ATTRIBUTE subj2 NUMERIC ATTRIBUTE num of me NUMERIC INIT 0 ATTRIBUTE num of cce NUMERIC INIT 0 ATTRIBUTE num of re NUMERIC INIT 0 ATTRIBUTE num of mde NUMERIC INIT 0 ATTRIBUTE num of se NUMERIC INIT 0 ATTRIBUTE num of cs NUMERIC INIT 0 ATTRIBUTE num of is NUMERIC INIT 0 ATTRIBUTE num of none NUMERIC INIT 0 ATTRIBUTE calc stats NUMERIC INIT 0 INSTANCE the domain ISA domain WITH start := TRUE WITH X := 0 WITH r1 := 0 WITH r2 := 0 WITH r3 := 0 WITH me := 0 WITH cce := 0 WITH re := 0 WITH mde := 0 WITH se := 0 WITH cs := 0 WITH is := 0 WITH subj4 := 0 WITH subj2 := 0 INSTANCE the application ISA application WITH title display := introduction ~ 30 ~ World Wide Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development WITH conclusion display := Conc WITH exit := FALSE WITH refraction := FALSE INSTANCE introduction ISA display WITH wait := TRUE WITH delay changes := FALSE WITH items [1 ] := textbox 1 INSTANCE textbox 1 ISA textbox WITH location := 10,10,800,350 WITH pen color := 0,0,0 WITH fill color := 100,200,100 WITH justify IS left WITH font := "Arial" WITH font style IS bold WITH font size := 14 WITH text :=" Intelligent system for majoring students Written By Samy Abu Naser This Expert System determine the best major for the students according to rules of the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology. The majors include: Computer Science, Information Systems, Computer System Engineering, Computer Communication Engineering, Mechatroics Engineering, Medical Devices Engineering, Renewable Energy Engineering This expert systems read the students data from MS Access Database and fill the Major field in the database" INSTANCE Conc ISA display WITH wait := TRUE WITH delay changes := FALSE WITH items [1] := title textbox WITH items [2 ] := result textbox INSTANCE title textbox ISA textbox WITH location := 20,10,800,70 WITH pen color := 0,0,0 WITH fill color := 200,200,100 WITH justify IS center WITH font := "Arial" WITH font style IS bold WITH font size := 14 WITH text := " The Conclusion of the Intelligent system for majoring students" INSTANCE result textbox ISA textbox WITH location := 20,90,800,300 WITH pen color := 0,0,0 WITH fill color := 170,170,170 WITH justify IS left WITH font := "Arial" WITH font size := 14 WITH text :=" --===--" RULE r1 IF start THEN action OF mstable1 IS top AND action OF mstable2 IS top AND start := FALSE AND subj4 := ((mstable1.calc1 * 4) + (mstable1.calc2 * 4) + (mstable1.electricity * 3) + (mstable1.electronic * 3)) / 14 AND subj2 := (mstable1.icomp + mstable1.prog ) / 2 RULE r2 IF me = 0 AND mstable1.gpa >= mstable2.me1 AND mstable1.pcredit >= 24 AND subj4 >= mstable2.me2 THEN me := 3 RULE r3 IF cce = 0 AND mstable1.gpa >= mstable2.cce1 AND mstable1.pcredit >= 24 AND subj4 >= mstable2.cce2 THEN cce := 3 RULE r4 IF mde = 0 AND mstable1.gpa >= mstable2.mde1 AND mstable1.pcredit >= 24 AND subj4 >= mstable2.mde2 THEN mde:=3 RULE r5 IF re = 0 AND mstable1.gpa >= mstable2.re1 AND mstable1.pcredit >= 24 AND subj4 >= mstable2.re2 THEN re:=3 RULE r6 IF se = 0 AND mstable1.gpa >= mstable2.se1 AND mstable1.pcredit >= 24 AND subj2 >= mstable2.se2 THEN se := 3 RULE r7 IF cs = 0 AND mstable1.gpa >= mstable2.cs1 AND mstable1.pcredit >= 24 AND subj2 >= mstable2.cs2 THEN cs := 3 RULE r8 IF is = 0 AND mstable1.gpa >= mstable2.is1 AND mstable1.pcredit >= 24 AND subj2 >= mstable2.is2 THEN is := 3 RULE r9 IF mstable1.r1 = "ME" AND me = 3 THEN r1 := 1 AND me := 2 ~ 31 ~ World Wide Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development RULE r10 IF mstable1.r1 = "CCE" AND cce = 3 THEN r1 := 1 AND cce := 2 RULE r11 IF mstable1.r1 = "MDE" AND mde = 3 THEN r1 := 1 AND mde := 2 RULE r12 IF mstable1.r1 = "RE" AND re = 3 THEN r1 := 1 AND re := 2 RULE r13 IF mstable1.r1 = "SE" AND se = 3 THEN r1 := 1 AND se := 2 RULE r14 IF mstable1.r1 = "CS" AND cs = 3 THEN r1 := 1 AND cs := 2 RULE r15 IF mstable1.r1 = "IS" AND is = 3 THEN r1 := 1 AND is := 2 RULE r16 IF mstable1.r2 = "ME" AND me >= 2 THEN r2 := 1 AND me := 1 RULE r17 IF mstable1.r2 = "CCE" AND cce >= 2 THEN r2 := 1 AND cce := 1 RULE r18 IF mstable1.r2 = "MDE" AND mde >= 2 THEN r2 := 1 AND mde := 1 RULE r19 IF mstable1.r2 = "RE" AND re >= 2 THEN r2 := 1 AND re := 1 RULE r20 IF mstable1.r2 = "SE" AND se >= 2 THEN r2 := 1 AND se := 1 RULE r21 IF mstable1.r2 = "CS" AND cs >= 2 THEN r2 := 1 AND cs := 1 RULE r22 IF mstable1.r2 = "IS" AND is >= 2 THEN r2 := 1 AND is := 1 RULE r23 IF mstable1.r3 = "ME" AND me >= 1 THEN r3 := 1 AND me := -1 RULE r24 IF mstable1.r3 = "CCE" AND cce >= 1 THEN r3 := 1 AND cce := -1 RULE r25 IF mstable1.r3 = "MDE" AND mde >= 1 THEN r3 := 1 AND mde := -1 RULE r26 IF mstable1.r3 = "RE" AND re >= 1 THEN r3 := 1 AND re := -1 RULE r27 IF mstable1.r3 = "SE" AND se >= 1 THEN r3 := 1 AND se := -1 RULE r28 IF mstable1.r3 = "CS" AND cs >= 1 THEN r3 := 1 AND cs := -1 RULE r29 IF mstable1.r3 = "IS" AND is >= 1 THEN r3 := 1 AND is := -1 RULE r30 IF r1 =1 AND calc stats = 0 THEN mstable1.major := mstable1.r1 AND mstable1.subj4 := subj4 AND mstable1.subj2 := subj2 AND action OF mstable1 IS update record AND action OF mstable1 IS advance AND subj4 := ((mstable1.calc1 * 4) + (mstable1.calc2 * 4) + (mstable1.electricity * 3) + (mstable1.electronic * 3)) / 14 ~ 32 ~ World Wide Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development AND subj2 := (mstable1.icomp + mstable1.prog ) / 2 AND r1 := 0 AND r2 := 0 AND r3 := 0 AND me := 0 AND cce := 0 AND mde := 0 AND re := 0 AND se := 0 AND cs := 0 AND is := 0 AND X := 0 RULE r31 IF r1 = 0 AND r2 = 1 AND calc stats = 0 THEN mstable1.major := mstable1.r2 AND mstable1.subj4 := subj4 AND mstable1.subj2 := subj2 AND action OF mstable1 IS update record AND action OF mstable1 IS advance AND subj4 := ((mstable1.calc1 * 4) + (mstable1.calc2 * 4) + (mstable1.electricity * 3) + (mstable1.electronic * 3)) / 14 AND subj2 := (mstable1.icomp + mstable1.prog ) / 2 AND r1 := 0 AND r2 := 0 AND r3 := 0 AND me := 0 AND cce := 0 AND mde := 0 AND re := 0 AND se := 0 AND cs := 0 AND is := 0 AND X := 0 RULE r32 IF r1 = 0 AND r2 = 0 AND r3 = 1 AND calc stats = 0 THEN mstable1.major := mstable1.r3 AND mstable1.subj4 := subj4 AND mstable1.subj2 := subj2 AND action OF mstable1 IS update record AND action OF mstable1 IS advance AND subj4 := ((mstable1.calc1 * 4) + (mstable1.calc2 * 4) + (mstable1.electricity * 3) + (mstable1.electronic * 3)) / 14 AND subj2 := (mstable1.icomp + mstable1.prog ) / 2 AND r1 := 0 AND r2 := 0 AND r3 := 0 AND me := 0 AND cce := 0 AND mde := 0 AND re := 0 AND se := 0 AND cs := 0 AND is := 0 AND X := 0 RULE r33 IF eof OF mstable1 AND calc stats = 0 THEN calc stats := 1 AND action OF mstable1 IS top RULE r34 IF calc stats = 1 AND mstable1.major = "ME" THEN num of me := num of me + 1 AND action OF mstable1 IS advance RULE r35 IF calc stats = 1 AND mstable1.major = "MDE" THEN num of mde := num of mde + 1 AND action OF mstable1 IS advance RULE r36 IF calc stats = 1 AND mstable1.major = "CCE" THEN num of cce := num of cce + 1 AND action OF mstable1 IS advance RULE r37 IF calc stats = 1 AND mstable1.major = "RE" THEN num of re := num of re + 1 AND action OF mstable1 IS advance RULE r38 IF calc stats = 1 AND mstable1.major = "SE" THEN num of se := num of se + 1 AND action OF mstable1 IS advance RULE r39 IF calc stats = 1 AND mstable1.major = "CS" THEN num of cs := num of cs + 1 AND action OF mstable1 IS advance RULE r40 IF calc stats = 1 AND mstable1.major = "IS" THEN num of is := num of is + 1 AND action OF mstable1 IS advance RULE r41 IF calc stats = 1 AND mstable1.major = "none" THEN num of none := num of none + 1 AND action OF mstable1 IS advance RULE r42 IF calc stats = 1 AND eof OF mstable1 THEN text OF result textbox := "ME =" + num of me + "\n"+ "CCE=" + num of cce +"\n"+ "MDE=" + num of mde + "\n"+"RE=" + num of re + "\n"+"SE=" + num of se +"\n"+"CS="+ num of cs +"\n" +"IS=" + num of is +"\n"+"None="+ num of none AND exit OF the application := TRUE RULE r43 IF r1 = 0 AND r2 = 0 AND r3 = 0 ~ 33 ~ World Wide Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development AND calc stats = 0 AND NOT eof OF mstable1 THEN mstable1.major := "none" AND mstable1.subj4 := subj4 AND mstable1.subj2 := subj2 AND action OF mstable1 IS update record AND action OF mstable1 IS advance AND subj4 := ((mstable1.calc1 * 4) + (mstable1.calc2 * 4) + (mstable1.electricity * 3) + (mstable1.electronic * 3)) / 14 AND subj2 := (mstable1.icomp + mstable1.prog ) / 2 AND me := 0 AND cce := 0 AND mde := 0 AND re := 0 AND se := 0 AND cs := 0 AND is := 0 END References 1. Naser, S.S.A. and Ola, A.Z.A., An Expert System For Diagnosing Eye Diseases Using Clips. Journal of Theoretical & Applied Information Technology, 4(10) (2008). 2. Abu-Naser, S.S., El-Hissi, H., Abu-Rass, M. and ElKhozondar, N., An expert system for endocrine diagnosis and treatments using JESS. Journal of Artificial Intelligence, 3(4) (2010) 239-251. 3. S. Abu Naser, "Predicting Learners Performance Using Artificial Neural Networks In Linear Programming Intelligent Tutoring Systems", IJAIA, 3(2) (2012). 4. S. Abu Naser, M. Baraka and A. Baraka, "A Proposed Expert System For Guiding Freshman Students In Selecting A Major In Al-Azhar University", Gaza, Journal of Theoretical and Applied Information Technology, 4(9) (2008). 5. Grupe, Fritz H. "An Internet-based expert system for selecting an academic major: www. MyMajors. com." The Internet and higher education 5(4) (2002) 333-344. 6. Deorah, Sourabh, Srivatsan Sridharan, and Shivani Goel. "SAES-expert system for advising academic major." Advance Computing Conference (IACC), 2010 IEEE 2nd International. IEEE, 2010. 7. Naser, S.A., Zaqout, I., Ghosh, M.A., Atallah, R. and Alajrami, E., Predicting Student Performance Using Artificial Neural Network: in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology. International Journal of Hybrid Information Technology, 8(2) (2015) 221-228. 8. Naser, S.A., Al-Dahdooh, R., Mushtaha, A. and ElNaffar, M., Knowledge Management in ESMDA: Expert System for Medical Diagnostic Assistance. AIML Journal. 10(1) (2010) 31-40. 9. Naser S.S.A. and Mahdi, A.O., A Proposed Expert System For Foot Diseases Diagnosis. American Journal of Innovative Research and Applied Sciences. 2(4) (2016) 155-168. 10. Naser S.A. and Aead A.M.,. Variable Floor for Swimming Pool Using an Expert System Preparation of Papers for International Journal of. International Journal of Modern Engineering Research (IJMER). 3(6) (2013) 3751-3755 11. Naser, S.S.A. and Hamed, M.A., An Expert System for Mouth Problems in Infants and Children. Journal of Multidisciplinary Engineering Science Studies (JMESS). 2(4) (2016) 468-476. 12. Naser, S.S.A. and Al-Nakhal, M.A., A Ruled Based System for Ear Problem Diagnosis and Treatment. World Wide Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development,2(4). (2016) 25-31. 13. Naser, S.S.A. and AlDahdooh, R.M., Lower Back Pain Expert System Diagnosis And Treatment. Journal of Multidisciplinary Engineering Science Studies (JMESS), 2(4) (2016) 441-446 14. Naser, S.S.A. and Alhabbash, M.I., Male Infertility Expert System Diagnoses And Treatment. American Journal of Innovative Research and Applied Sciences. 2(4) (2016). 15. Naser, S S.A. and ALmursheidi, S.H., A Knowledge Based System for Neck Pain Diagnosis. World Wide Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development (WWJMRD), 2(4) (2016) 12-18. 16. Naser, S.S.A. and Hasanein, H.A.A., Ear Diseases Diagnosis Expert System Using SL5 Object. World Wide Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development, 2(4) (2016) 41-47. 17. Naser, S.S.A., Sl5 Object: Simpler Level 5 Object Expert System Language. International Journal of Soft Computing, Mathematics and Control (IJSCMC), 4(4) (2015) 25-37. 18. Abu Naser, S. , Kashkash K., and Fayyad M. Developing an Expert System for Plant Disease Diagnosis, Journal of Theoretical and Applied Information Technology. 1(2) (2008) 78-85. Available: http://scialert.net/abstract/?doi=jai.2008.78.85 19. Azaab, S., Abu Naser, S. and Sulisel, O., A proposed expert system for selecting exploratory factor analysis procedures. Journal of the college of education, 4(2) (2000) 9-26. 20. Naser S.S.A., NA Alaa, A Proposed Expert System for Skin Diseases Diagnosis. Journal of Applied Sciences Research 4 (12) (2008) 1682-1693 21. Naser S.S.A., BG Bastami, A Proposed Rule Based System for Breasts Cancer Diagnosis. World Wide Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development 2 (5) (2016) 27-33. 22. Naser S.S.A., Mohammed Zakaria Shaath. Expert system urination problems diagnosis, World Wide Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development. 2(5) (2016) 9-19. 23. Naser S.S.A., Hilles M.M., An expert system for shoulder problems using CLIPS, World Wide Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development 2 (5) (2016) 1-8. 24. Abunaser S., A methodology for expert systems testing and debugging, North Dakota State University, USA, 1993. 25. Abu Naser S. S., Al-Hanjori M. M., An expert system for men genital problems diagnosis and treatment. International Journal of Medicine Research,1(2) (2016) 83-86. 26. Abu Naser S.S.,Alawar M.W., An expert system for feeding problems in infants and children. International Journal of Medicine Research. 1(2) ~ 34 ~ World Wide Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development (2016) 79-82. 27. Abu Naser S.S., El-Najjar A. A., An expert system for nausea and vomiting problems in infants and children, International Journal of Medicine Research. 1(2) (2016) 114-117. | {
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Reply to Ori Beck The Rationality of Perception thesis is that both perceptual experiences and the processes by which they arise can be rational or irrational. A prime example of a process that can modulate the rational status of the mental states they produce is inference. If perceptual experiences can arise from inference of this kind, then the Rationality of Perception is true. Beck takes for granted that a subject's perceptual experience could result from an inference only if the subject herself did not perform the inference. ("I plausibly cannot draw these experience-producing inferences. Only my subpersonal subsystems can (perhaps) draw them.") His assumption is the negation of a thesis that entails the Rationality of Perception. None of Beck's observations speak to whether his assumption is correct. Many different phenomena are labeled by the term of 'inference', and only some of them redound well or badly on the rational standing of subjects who perform the inferences. Why think that perceptual experiences could in principle be conclusions of inferences that redound on the subjects' rational standing? At a minimum, what's needed to answer this question is an account of why nothing in the nature of either inference or experience precludes the possibility that experiences can be conclusions of inferences. My paper makes the case that nothing in the nature of experience precludes this possibility. To show that nothing in the nature of inference precludes it, either, it's useful to focus on inferences to belief that do not include conscious deliberation. In taking for granted that experiences couldn't possibly result from inferences, perhaps Beck is assuming that inference always arises from conscious deliberation, and fixating on the fact that we can't explicitly deliberate our way to perceptual experience. I agree that we can't, but not every inference takes that form. In fact, few inferences do. If Vivek forms the belief that the clerk at the Post Office is kind, just from observing her brief interactions with the person ahead of him in line (and without his visual experience presenting him with the property kindness), he need not be able to specify the reasons why he concludes that the clerk as kind. He may never have been able to specify any such reasons. It is enough for inference simply to respond to information (or misinformation) one has in the distinctively inferential way. Vivek ends up with the belief that the clerk is kind and that his audience likes him via processes that feel passive to him (or that don't feel like anything at all), but are in fact inferences that he performed. From the case of memory color, we know that perceptual experiences can in principle (and perhaps in fact) result from stored generalizations, such as that banana-shaped-and-textured things are yellow, that combine with incoming information about a scene. Nothing in the nature of inference precludes analyzing such processes in terms of inference that redound 2 well or badly on the subject. And analyzing them that way can explain why the epistemic power of experiences is sometimes reduced by their relationship with the psychological precursors that influence them. 3 Reply to Raja Rosenhagen Rosenhagen asks whether there could be a world Z in which "hijacking is a ubiquitous phenomenon". Since experiences are hijacked in having a specific content, a first way for hijacking to be ubiquitous is for every experience to be hijacked with respect to some of its contents. A second way for it to be ubiquitous is for there to be a class of experiences, such as color experiences, such that all experiences in that class are hijacked. I'll interpret Rosenhagen's scenario in this second way. Here is an illustration. In the Z-world, things are colored in much the same ways they're colored here. The sky is blue, strawberries are red, and so on. Perceivers native to the Z-world (Zperceivers) have perceptual experiences that attribute colors to things. And their color experiences often correspond to the true colors of things. Despite often being accurate, Z-perceivers' color experiences are hijacked because they are primarily explained by background beliefs, and not by the impact on the perceivers's minds by the colors of things. Z-perceivers believe that the colors things have reflect God's outlook on those things. This theory began as willful deception by people who wanted to rule the Z-world in its early days, and thought the populace would be more governable if they believed in such an omnipresent God. The theory was culturally transmitted in a way that preserved its ill-foundedness.1 Z-perceivers are highly opinionated about what God's outlook is. According to Zperceivers, tables are brown when and because God feels neutrally about them, strawberries are red because God thinks they should be noticed, the sky is blue because God thinks it should recede, bananas are yellow because God thinks they will illuminate things, and so on. Z-perceivers have beliefs like these: "God thinks strawberries are meant to be noticed" and "God thinks the daytime sky is meant to recede". These beliefs, in turn, have come to play a role in generating their color experiences. They believe that God thinks strawberries are meant to be noticed, and things meant to be noticed tend to be red. Due to these beliefs, when they see strawberries, they end up with color experiences that present those strawberries as red. The pale green parts of unripe strawberries look redder to the Z-perceivers than the pale parts of unripe blueberries, even when those parts are the same shade of pale green. Rosenhagen's three questions about "ubiquitous hijacking" can be applied to the Zworld. His first two questions are, first, whether ubiquitous hijacking is coherent, and second, whether the ability of experiences to provide justification depends on the scope of perceptual hijacking. Granting for the sake of argument that a single color experience E would be epistemically weakened by being hijacked by 1 On the difference between well-founded and ill-founded cultural transmission, see The Rationality of Perception, chapter 10. 4 someone's beliefs about God, would the fact that such influences on color experiences in general are pervasive make any difference to the E's epistemic powers? On the face of it, there is no reason why the epistemic downgrade of E would disappear, just because other color experiences are perceptually hijacked in the same way. Once it's granted that the experience is downgraded by virtue of its relationship to the beliefs about God and color, the facts about whether other color experiences stand in similar relations to similar beliefs seem irrelevant. If color experiences in the Z-world in general are downgraded by their relationship to the beliefs that subjects of those experiences have about God and color, then the Z-world is a skeptical scenario in which color experiences do not provide justification for the corresponding beliefs about the colors of things. Unlike skeptical scenarios in which experiences are influenced by a force outside the subject's mind, such as an evil demon, in the Z-world, the crucial influences come from inside the subject's mind. Since the factor responsible for the epistemic downgrade comes from the perceiver's own outlook, it could in principle be removed by adjusting that outlook. For instance in the Z-world, if the perceivers gave up their ill-founded beliefs, then the crucial factor leading to perceptual hijacking would be gone. Rosenhagen's third question, when applied to the Z-world, concerns the epistemic role of hijacked experiences in revising these beliefs. Perhaps Rosenhagen has in mind a scenario like this: the offending beliefs about color could be rationally revised, only by relying on color experience. But if the color experiences are precluded from supporting rational revision, then Z-perceivers would face an epistemic start-up problem. They could not rationally revise their color beliefs in a way that would end the hijacking, because that revision would have to depend on hijacked experience. Perhaps Rosenhagen is worried that revising the offending beliefs would replace one set of irrational beliefs with another. Ubiquitous hijacking is a skeptical scenario where the skepticism can come to an end if the perceiver's outlook is appropriately adjusted. Rosenhagen gives no reasons to think that this start-up problem would necessarily stymie the evolution away from ubiquitous hijacking. Z-perceivers could rationally shed the offending beliefs by gaining evidence against the existence of the Z-world God, and this change of belief wouldn't rationally rely on color experiences. Or they could be subject to collective permanent amnesia about God, and thereby cease to have the offending beliefs. There may be other skeptical scenarios stemming from the configuration of perceivers' own minds that those perceivers can't evolve out of. But if there are, that predicament would stem from specific circumstances of hijacking, not from ubiquitous hijacking itself. 5 Reply to Declan Smithies Let p be the proposition that there's mustard in the fridge. In Smithies's scenario, the perceiver has reason to believe that he has reason to believe p. The ground for the higher-order reason is the perceiver's belief that conditions are normal. This higher-order reason is at least partly misleading, because the experience is hijacked, and thereby does not contribute to his reason to believe p, and so conditions are not normal. Smithies's perceiver also has reason to believe (2). Claim (2) entails ~p, and I'll assume with Smithies that the testimony supporting (2) also supports believing ~p. Smithies argues that when combined, the two pressures he describes makes it rational to infer the conjunction of (1) and (2). He then argues that since believing this conjunction could never be reasonable, the prediction that it is reasonable is absurd. He blames the absurd prediction on the thesis that experiences can lose epistemic power from perceptual hijacking. The conjunction of (1) and (2) is a form of (4): p but it is reasonable to believe ~p. Smithies argues that instances of (4) are always unreasonable, but this claim seems to have counterexamples. If you believe p but acknowledge reason to believe otherwise, as people sometimes do in philosophical discussion, then an instance of (4) could be reasonable to believe. Conjunctions of form (4) differ from standard Moorean conjunctions, whose problematic nature arises from the first-personal nature of belief and assertion. Even granting Smithies's assumption that it's not rational to infer conjunction (3) from its conjuncts, nothing in Smithies's scenario predicts that the inference would be reasonable to draw. Several factors could make the inference unreasonable, consistently with Smithies's scenario. First, supposing that my belief that conditions are normal gave me reason to believe (1), absent testimony supporting ~p, why think that it would continue to do so, once I received such testimony? Perhaps the testimony gives me reason to think that conditions aren't normal after all. Smithies may be imagining a case in which, absent perceptual hijacking, we'd favor experience over testimony. If we'd favor experience over testimony absent hijacking, on this view, then it could be reasonable to do the same, even with hijacking, purely on the strength of the belief that conditions are normal. The trouble is, as he sees it, that the rational force of testimony is not at all weakened, either by the belief that conditions are normal, or by the higher-order belief in (1) that Smithies says it supports. This brings us to the second factor that could make the inference unreasonable. Smithies assumes that the pressures from (1) and (2) do not weaken each other. He assumes that they are mutually normatively insulated. If they are not so insulated, 6 then either pressure could weaken the other, and that would make it unreasonable to draw the inference in their conjunction. Here's how. According to some philosophers, even when it is misleading, higher-order reason that you have reason for p exerts some normative pressure to believe p. This view is analogous to the idea that evidence of evidence is evidence. When this view is applies to Smithies's scenario, the higher-order reason for (1) is also (backdoor, non-perceptual) reason for p. On this view, the higher-order reason and the testimony in Smithies's scenario exert conflicting normative pressures, in either of two forms (or both). In the first form, the testimony pressures the perceiver to believe ~p, so when combined with the higher-order reason, the perceiver is simultaneously pressured to believe p and to believe ~p, which someone could do only on pain of irrationality. In the second form, testimony pressures the perceiver not to believe p, so when combined with the higher-order reason, the perceiver is simultaneously pressured to believing p and not believing p, which is logically impossible. If you have reason to believe that p, but also have reason to believe ~p, you don't thereby have grounds to infer (p&~p). From the fact that absent reason to believe ~p, you have reason to believe p, it doesn't follow that given reason to believe ~p, your reason to believe p survives. In Smithies's scenario, by giving the perceiver reason to believe p, the higher-order reason also gives him reason to back off from ~p. He thereby ends up with reason not to infer the conjunction. He'd have reason to infer the conjunction, only if the opposing normative pressures were mutually normatively insulated. It's this insulation thesis that's responsible for predicting that it's rational to believe a supposedly problematic conjunction. The conjunction won't be rational to infer if at least one of the opposing normative pressures is weakened by the other. The culprit is the insulation assumption, not the thesis that perceptual hijacking weakens the epistemic power of experience. That thesis does not entail the insulation assumption. 7 Reply to Mazviita Chirimuuta In two ways, the Rationality of Perception thesis is discontinuous with the inferentialist tradition that Chirimuuta identifies. First, it does not entail the empirical hypothesis that perceptual experiences are actually formed by inference. It says they could be so formed. By contrast, the inferentialist tradition consists of theories about the nature of perceptual processing, often focusing on localized processes, such as calculating shape from shading, distance from visual angle, or edges from light contrasts. Second, my thesis concerns the kind of inference that redounds on the perceiver's rational standing, whereas much of the inferentialist tradition has no theoretical need to distinguish between that kind of inference and other kinds. Given these differences, my position is not a platitude for the inferentialist tradition. Even if inferences culminating in perception used the same cognitive mechanisms as those used in epistemically appraisable inferences between non-perceptual states, it wouldn't follow that the inferences to perception redound on the subject's rationality. It's not in general true that sameness of cognitive mechanism entails sameness of normative status.2 Perceptual hijacking is defined in terms of failing to give perceptual inputs proper weight and giving too much weight to prior outlooks. Chirimuuta highlights three cases she calls describes as hijacking that nonetheless redound well on the perceiver, by the lights of her Basic Bayesian approach. In her first case, Vivek's belief that people like him is properly reflected in his perceptual experience because the faces in the audience were poorly lit. Chirimuuta is assuming that if the faces are poorly lit, then it is reasonable to rely more heavily on the prior assumptions about what they look like. But given this assumption, this situation is not a case of hijacking. In perceptual hijacking, prior outlooks are given too much weight, whereas in this example, by Chirimuuta's lights, they're given proper weight. In Chirimuuta's second case, Vivek's prior belief is initially unwarranted, but this status is insufficient for producing an irrational perceptual experience. Being unwarranted doesn't make a prior any less fit to determine the content of experience, according to Chirimuuta's Basic Bayesian approach, because what matters is whether the prior is updated in response to new evidence. But it's natural 2 For instance, if episodic memory of crossing a finish line used the same cognitive mechanisms as my imagining crossing the finish line, my memory can justify my belief that I crossed the finish line whereas my merely imagining it cannot. 8 to assume that Vivek's belief got be unwarranted in the first place because he was insensitive to evidence that supported a more measured view. His kind of belief is not an arbitrary start-up assumption of a learning system. It's the product of responses to his environment. In addition, if we accepted Chirimuuta's description of the case, then as before it wouldn't be perceptual hijacking (and therefore it wouldn't be rational hijacking), since the prior belief can properly determine the content of experience. The substantive issue Chirimuuta raises is whether the outputs of inference in her second case redound well or badly on Vivek, when his prior belief is unwarranted. Chirimuuta's verdict that the perceptual output redounds well on him is counterintuitive. Suppose I consider you incompetent at something that matters to us both because I haven't got a close look at what you can do, and I unjustifiedly assumed your were incompetent before I could observe your actions. The fact that I will update my belief over the long run may vindicate my practices of belief adjustment, but does not stop my belief as it stands from being unjustified. Chirimuuta's Basic Bayesian theory of rationality may be more plausible for belief dynamics over the long run than it is for local transition to belief or perception. Chirimuuta's third case draws on the idea that if Vivek's belief's impact on perception keeps his performance anxiety in check, then it is Bayes-rational because it facilitates his goal of performing by sustaining his self-conception. Assimilating this kind of prudential consideration to epistemic appropriateness blurs the distinction between epistemic and practical rationality, and that conflation has implausible consequences. If it will facilitate my sense of superiority to you to perceive you as dangerous, that does not make my prior belief that you are dangerous epistemically rational, even if believing that facilitates my goals. Some philosophers try to assimilate epistemic rationality to practical rationality, but they acknowledge that they have a lot of explaining to do (Rinard 2017). Chirimuuta recommends Basic Bayesian as more nuanced account of perceptual hijacking. But the Basic Bayesian notion is less nuanced than standard epistemologies that distinguish between epistemic and practical reasons for belief, and between the epistemic status of beliefs at a time and the epistemic status of cognitive dispositions to adjust beliefs. Reply to Alison Springle I pointed to beliefs that are unadjustable by deliberation to support my claim that adjustability by deliberation is not necessary for being rationally evaluable. I concluded that the fact that perceptual experiences are so unadjustable doesn't preclude them from being rationally evaluable. Springle claims that my route to this conclusion entails that "perceptual experiences will win the status of possessing epistemic charge at the cost of being systematically irrational". Here she seems to reason as follows. If unadjustability by deliberation makes a belief irrational, then unadjustability by deliberation of experiences would 9 make them irrational. I reject this reasoning. It assumes that beliefs and experiences are similar with respect to all the factors that can explain why they might be unadjustable by deliberation. Nothing in the reasoning forces that assumption. And it seems false. Springle objects to my appeal to pathological beliefs as examples of rationally evaluable states that are also unadjustable by deliberation. What makes those states beliefs, she thinks (assuming that the delusional states in question really are beliefs), is that they belong to a class of states that are adjustable by deliberation when they're not pathological. "[W]ere [the delusional beliefs] non-deviant they would be so adjustable", she writes. But how would this show that these beliefs aren't both rationally evaluable and unadjustable by deliberation? Springle seems to grant that delusional beliefs have both features. And that is all that matters, if we want to know whether rational adjustability is necessary for belief. Springle suggests that what makes beliefs beliefs is that they are normally adjustable by deliberation. A related idea is that what makes beliefs rationally evaluable is that they are normally so adjustable. Applying this idea to delusional beliefs, the result is that those beliefs are rationally evaluable only because normal beliefs are deliberatively adjustable. At this point two questions arise. First, (i) is this hypothesis about the ground of rational appraisability of belief correct? Second, (ii) if it is correct about belief, must an analogous hypothesis be correct about perceptual experience as well? If so, then perceptual experiences would have to follow the same pattern: they'd have to be rationally evaluable only if normally they are so adjustable. And if they were unadjustable by deliberation, that could only be because they are pathological. Regarding (i), examples abound of normal beliefs that are not adjustable by deliberation, due to the limited capacities of the believers, such as a young child who concludes from the fact that their coat is being removed from the hook that their babysitter is going to bring them to the playground. Cooperation with a caretaker's gentle urgings is as close to deliberation as young reasoners come. This observation is a reason to think that the hypothesis is incorrect. In reply, someone might propose that what makes this belief rationally appraisable is that other normal beliefs are adjustable by deliberation. But why are those other beliefs the ones whose status as adjustability or unadjustable makes it the case that any belief is rationally appraisable? A more plausible idea is that the child's beliefs are rationally appraisable because the child is rationally appraisable. But that more plausible idea does not justify including beliefs among the rationally appraisable states while excluding perceptual experiences. I've argued against the hypothesis that beliefs are rationally evaluable only because normal beliefs are adjustable by deliberation. This brings us to question (ii): even if the hypothesis were correct, would an analogous hypothesis about perceptual 10 experience have to be correct as well? There's reason to think not. Rational appraisability need not have a single ground. It might be surprising if the ground of rational appraisablity for beliefs and experiences were completely disjoint. But a belief's property of being adjustable by deliberation might bring with it other properties that are shared by experience, such as belonging to an overall outlook of the subject and belonging to a rationally appraisable subject, where those properties help explain what makes a state rationally appraisable. | {
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International Journal of Language and Linguistics 2015; 3(6-1): 24-30 Published online January 27, 2015 (http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/ijll) doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.s.2015030601.14 ISSN: 2330-0205 (Print); ISSN: 2330-0221 (Online) Fixing the content created in the act of knowing Jesus Martinez del Castillo Department of Philology, Faculty of Business Studies and Tourism, Universidad de Almería, Almería, Spain Email address: [email protected], [email protected] To cite this article: Jesus Martinez del Castillo. Fixing the Content Created in the Act of Knowing. International Journal of Language and Linguistics. Special Issue: Linguistics of Saying. Vol. 3, No. 6-1, 2015, pp. 24-30. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.s.2015030601.14 Abstract: The human subject in as much as he knows transforms the sensitive and concrete (the thing perceived) into abstract (an image of the thing perceived), the abstract into an idea (imaginative representation of the thing abstracted), and ideas into contents of conscience (meanings). The last step in the creation of meanings, something being executed in the speech act, consists in fixing the construct mentally created thus making it objectified meanings in the conscience of speakers. The interchange amongst the different steps in the creation of meaning manifests lógos, the state lived by speakers in their interior when speaking, created and developed in words and because of words. Keywords: Human Subject, Speaking, Saying and Knowing, Meaning, Thought, Logos, Human Knowledge, Sensation, Intellect, Imagination 1. Introduction The act of knowing aims at transforming the initial intuition held by the speaking subject into contents of his conscience. Contents of conscience will eventually be changed into an act of saying and saying into words of a language. Because of this, words in themselves are virtual. They do not mean real things but classes of potential things, that is, categories. The purpose of language is re-structuring the things surrounding the speaking subject thus making them real. Once the classes of things are created it is necessary to fix them and orientate them to things in the world, thus making them words of a particular language and becoming the representation of real things. 2. Giving the Construct a Name Under this heading I understand the intellective operation of giving a name to the mental construct created so far in the act of knowing, saying and speaking. The name to be given can be a word or an expression belonging to a particular language (historical expression), of any grammatical and lexical category, or a word or expression invented by the cognizant subject. Anyway, since language is directed to the You and the name invented is created with the means of expression or a particular language, the name is historical, that is, common and participated. We should understand "a name invented" as a combination entirely new or a new combination formed with traditional procedures or means of expression1. So far the construct created was first conceived of as a sensation (aísthesis2 or intuition3), then the cognizant subject selected something out of it, gave it reality thus delimiting it in some way. With this the construct was made a semantic object. Then the cognizant subject created a class or an essence and applied it to the construct created; then the construct was related in some way to meanings existing either in the individual knowledge of the subject or in the language4. The result is that with both the creation of a class or essence and relation, the cognizant subject has an essence to apply it to the semantic object previously created. Now the first task to do is giving the construct made so far a name. The intellective operation of giving the construct a name has a double function: on the one hand -and this one is the most important- the name given to the construct is used by the cognizant subject to keep it in his conscience, and on the other, it is used by the cognizant subject to offer it to the other speakers. Because of the first function, the cognizant construct 1 Metaphor is a completely new intellective combination, both in its meaning and in the means used. 2 Aristotle, De Anima III, 1, 425a,14, apud Ortega y Gasset 1992a, p. 128. 3 Coseriu 1986a, pp. 27-28. 4 This is usually considered as experience by cognitivists. From my point of view this name is inadequate. Experience denotes sensitive knowledge. Human knowledge is just creation made on the transformation of the sensitive come to humans through their senses. International Journal of Language and Linguistics 2015; 3(6-1): 24-30 25 becomes a means to for the subject to liberate himself from the sensitive he feels himself enchained to5, the circumstance he is in6. A Man, "being in the world", committing himself to "the things constituting the universe"7, is not pleased with merely living the things in his circumstance; he will rebel against them fabricating mental constructs with the pretension of dominating them although it is only in his imagination. A human being relates to his circumstance thus transforming it in his imagination. As a cognizant subject he knows with imagining things in his interior thus constituting knowledge, to be kept in his conscience for further use. The way to keep those things imagined is by giving the things conceived of names, that is, signaling them with labels in order to identify them in subsequent occasions. With this at the same time the cognizant subject creates his conscience, his autonomy and freedom. A human subject in this way creates his knowledge now to use it later on, in a dialectics of knowing now and using the things known later on lasting all his life long. With this technique he human subject creates his own means of defense in the world, his conscience, his intelligence, the means valid in his fight against the circumstance. Because of the second function, offering the thing created and named, the cognizant construct is made common and participated and thus social, since it is offered to others who will try to understand it. The cognizant construct once it is given a name and offered to other speakers, will be accepted or rejected. The act of knowing, saying and speaking thus is made into a means of interchange between the I and the You, thus making themselves historical. A human subject, "being-together-with another one"8, performs himself as a historical subject, a subject who creates his historicity in dialogue, διἀλογος9, thus manifesting himself to the other speakers in the act of apprehending, knowing and saying of real things10. A human subject with the operation of giving 5 As a matter of fact, the subject is connected to the sensitive he lives in. With the act of knowing the human subject imagines he liberates himself from the sensitive thus creating a new connection to it, a mental connection (cf. Ortega y Gasset, 1992a, p. 131. 6 Ortega y Gasset 1994, 190. 7 "A Man suffers from something, that is, being [...], existing out of its thought, in a metaphysical exile out of himself, delivered to the essential foreigner which is the Universe. A Man is not res cogitans, but res dramatica. He does not exist because he thinks, but the other way round, he thinks because he exists (Ortega y Gasset, 1987, p. 61) (my translation). This is so because "a Man exists out of himself, in the other things [...]. Living is existing out of oneself, being outdoors, thrown out of oneself, delivered to the sensitive. A Man is essentially a foreigner, emigrated, exiled" (Ortega y Gasset, 1999, p. 66) (my translation). 8 Cf. Coseriu, 1988, p. 43). 9 "Saying, lógos, is nothing but the particular reaction of an individual life. Because of this, in strict terms, there is no argumentation but the one of a subject to another one. [...] Saying, lógos, is extremely real, extremely human conversation, diálogos-διάλογος-, argumentum hominis ad hominen. Dialogue is lógos from the point of view of the other, the one next to us" (Ortega y Gasset, 1987, p. 16) (my translation). 10 "The human conscience is always a historical conscience and for a human conscience the basic way of manifesting itself is the 'particular language', speaking just like others, that is, as it has been spoken, in accordance with the tradition. In other words: speaking is always speaking a language (not merely making something exterior) because it is speaking and understanding, expressing the construct a name transforms his relating to the world into an act of saying thus manifesting himself to the others as a subject who creates his means of defense, his ideas, his world, his historicity11. In this sense the intellective operation of giving the construct a name is the one having to do with what it is and makes a human being human, an individual subject going beyond himself by means of his activity of knowing. On the other hand, the act of knowing made into something to be offered to the others, the act of saying, is the motivation for the human subject to manifest himself. A human being when he says something defines himself and constitutes himself in the guarantee of the thing said, because saying is the manifestation of oneself, a living action12. Giving the construct a name, then, makes the individual into social and historical. The act of knowing and saying is the manifestation of an absolute and creative subject on the one hand and on the other a historical and social subject. This has to do with the central problem in linguistics, namely, to explain how some arbitrary sounds without any connection with the things in the world relate with meanings, that is, the connection existing between contents of conscience and the things designate13. A particular linguistic expression reveals the creative spirit of a cognizant, saying and speaking subject and at the same time evinces the common means of expression he uses in order to conceive of and explain the reality he apprehends. The final expression, lógos apophantikós, reveals the original intuition of the speaker and the means he used to create his expressions, his lógos. In the creation of lógos the means used play a decisive role. Lógos is the manifestation of the things conceived of determined with the means used to conceive them of. Lógos thus is a state lived by the cognizant subject, something different from thought and language. Thought is logos in as much as it is performed in words of a language. Giving the construct a name is a free intellective operation. The cognizant subject selects the words he uses within a wider or narrower range of possibilities. For Coseriu, the historical language, in particular the level he calls the norm of the language, constitutes a series of historical performances offered to the speaker14. The system of the language, on the contrary, is a system of possibilities15. The language already performed and constituted in a technique in the tradition of speaking (the norm of the language) in this way is a factor something in order to let others understand, that is, because the essence of language is given in dialogue" (Eugenio Coseriu, 1988. p. 71) (my translation). 11 "The particular language is the common ground of linguistic historicity of speakers and anything said, it is said in a language, which to a certain extent, manifests itself in the thing said" (Coseriu, 1982, p. 308) (my translation). 12 Cf. Ortega y Gasset, 1992a, p. 253. 13 "The central fact in linguistic activity [...] consists in the eminently spiritual faculty of establishing a functional nexus between signifier and the thing signified" (Coseriu, 1986, pp. 58-59) (my translation). 14 Cf. Coseriu, 1988, p. 197. 15 Cf. "thanks to the system, a system of possibilities, a language is not only what has already been said with its technique, but also what can be said with the same technique: it is not only 'past' and 'present', but it has also a future dimension" (Coseriu, 1986b, p. 326) (my translation). 26 Jesús Martínez del Castillo: Fixing the Content Created in the Act of Knowing conditioning the speech and the thought of speakers, not as something concrete but as a set of forms, contents, rules, procedures, attitudes and beliefs in force in the speech community in which the cognizant subject performs himself, thus contributing to the definition and enlargement of his language as an agent of that degree of historicity. And this was the problem dealt with by Whorf, a problem he tried to solve with what he called the relativity principle: We are thus introduced to a new principle of relativity, which holds that all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in some way be calibrated16. The problem is not about physical evidence, because physical evidence involves the prior solution to the problem: Whorf gave for granted that all "observers" know that physical evidence in the same way. It is not reality the thing existing prior to the apprehension by the cognizant subject, but it is the cognizant subject the one who creates reality. Those "observers" do not observe reality, but create it laboriously and precariously. For Whorf, the problem was in particular languages not in the act of knowing, something implicit in language17: Users of markedly different grammars are pointed by their grammars toward different types of observations and different evaluations of externally similar acts of observation, and hence are not equivalent as observers but must arrive at somewhat different views of the world18. Languages are nothing but historical objects created by speakers. They do not have concrete existence. Languages exist in the minds of speakers as formal and semantic mode of speaking19, that is, a model existing in their conscience. Speakers try to reproduce the modes of knowing, saying and speaking but in a creative manner. The problem of the relation language and thought consists in explaining the connection with some arbitrary signs and thought. A human subject speaks because he knows, and because he knows he re-structures the things surrounding him, that is, he has something to say, and because he knows and says, he speaks. He creates his saying using traditional and historical forms not only for saying and thus speaking but for knowing as well. And this constitutes the double reality of the cognizant, saying and speaking subject. A human being is an absolute, creative and free subject but at the same time is a historical and contingent subject, a subject living and participating in a speech community. The problem consists in delimiting how far those forms are traditional and how far they are creative and individual. Or in other words: it is about determining what extent the thought of an individual subject is individual or historical, or what extent the individual subject uses models in 16 Whorf, 1956, p. 214. 17 Some linguists, especially those whose native language does not distinguish the reality involved in the word 'language' (language, a language) will accept this fact as if it was reality itself. Something is the reality of language and something else the reality denoted in a word of a particular language. 18 Whorf, 1956, p. 221. 19 Coseriu, 1985, p. 48. force in his tradition or creates them. But Whorf, even when he does not give the exact solution to the problem, can see the elements constituting it. It is language that determines lógos, not grammars, as he said. Lógos is previous to thought. Giving the construct a name is the foundational problem in linguistics in a double sense: it is the expression of the act of knowing, on the one hand and on the other, it is the revelation of the historical reality in which the cognizant, saying and speaking subject performs himself. The cognizant subject defines himself before the thing said thus making himself into a creative subject, someone in fight against his circumstance. In this sense linguistics must explain the connection existing in the things being said, lektón20, and the very act of knowing. Giving the construct a name is the revelation of the historical reality the cognizant, saying and speaking subject performs. This reality makes linguistics have the assignment of explaining the connection of the creative subject and his work, a necessarily historical connection. Both aspects constitute lógos apophantikós, the revelation of the cognizant reality and the historical reality thus prompting the saying subject to say something. The so-called problem of arbitrariness of signs is nothing but the formulation of the problem of knowledge in linguistic terms. Words mean because they are accepted by the speakers of a speech community, that is, they mean κατἀ συνθἠκην or secundum placitum, ad placitum, that is, they are unmotivated and mean because the speech community considers them in the way stated 21 . Eventually language exists as the creation meanings22, not to reflect reality, a mere circumstance affecting language. The solution to this problem is to be given at the historical level. We speak and conceive of reality as it is spoken and conceived of in a particular speech community. The individual subject creates his forms of conceiving of reality, saying and speaking in accordance with models of knowing, saying and speaking in force in his historicity, that is, in his speech community or particular language 23 . From this perspective, the cognizant, saying and speaking subject reveals himself as the heir of a tradition in the way of knowing, thinking, saying and speaking. Since language is transcendent, that is, it aims at achieving something and since the speaking subject is together-with-the other speakers, words are purposefully and historically motivated. A cognizant subject in order to give a name to his cognizant constructs, that is, in order to create his contents of conscience, turns his eyes to the traditional and historical because of three reasons: 20 In lógos you can see the following aspects, lógos, the state lived by the speaking, saying and knowing subject in his interior; lektón, the things that can be said; lógos semantikós, logos inter-individual and common, and lógos apophantikós, lógos determined by the concepts of existence/non-existence and truth/non-truth. Both logos semantikós and logos apophantikós can be executed at the thee levels of linguistic determination (cf. Martínez del Castillo, 2009). 21 Cf. Coseriu, 1977, pp. 3-61. 22 Coseriu, 1985, p. 46. 23 Cf. Coseriu, 1992, 254-255. International Journal of Language and Linguistics 2015; 3(6-1): 24-30 27 Because he is creator of his historicity for others24 Because he is absolute, that is, creator of his forms of knowing and speaking in accordance with prior models25 And because he creates his own tradition in knowing, saying and speaking26. A human being whenever he apprehends and knows something he assimilates what he has known and keeps it in his conscience for subsequent use and manipulation as contents of conscience. In this way the thing learnt and repeated thousands of times after, is eventually constituted in the individual way of apprehending things, thus forming his individual tradition. Since this way of apprehending things is completely or partially historical, the thought of the individual subject reflects the historical reality in which a particular subject performs himself as a human. Giving the construct a name in the act of knowing has two main effects: on the one side it means the transformation of the nature of the construct being made, and on the other, it makes the cognizant construct objective. The cognizant construct, aísthesis, initially with a sensitive nature, then made abstract, virtual and objective, now with giving it a name is made into something capable of being stored in the conscience of individuals, not sensitively but in an abstract, mental way. If the cognizant subject, as it was explained in another article, is cold, he feels something unfavorable and when he keeps it in his conscience he will associate that sensitive feeling to something abstract invented by him. Because of this the thing he keeps in his conscience is something mental, something delimited and made contents of his conscience. But the cognizant construct the subject keeps in his conscience, by the mere fact of being kept in his conscience through giving it a name and earlier since it had been selected and delimited, has many other cognizant shades of meaning with it created on the spot when all these intellective operations are applied to. A cognizant construct by the mere fact of being selected, delimited, assigned to a class or essence and given a name acquires with it what we can conceptually call its contraries. So if I keep in my conscience a sensation of cold or hunger I keep its contraries with it. The reason for this is that I have delimited the sensation of cold or hunger with the only means I have to delimit something sensitively, by imagining that the sensation affecting me does not exist. That is, I am cold or hungry and wish I were not cold or hungry. With this the sensitive construct, which was formerly something sensitive and thus something formless, is made into something abstract and definite, an idea, a semantic construct thus constituting the conscience of the subject creating it. In this way it will be used to offer it to others, an idea bearing in itself its own delimitation and many more shades of meaning 24 For Coseriu, "a speaker is the creator of language 'for other speakers'", (1988, p. 57). 25 Cf. Coseriu, 1988, p. 71. 26 Some authors in accordance with the proposal by Bernhard Bloch accept the name "idiolect" for the language of the individual. A language is a language at least for two subjects (cf. Coseriu, 1992, p. 54) (my translation). associated with it, no longer a sensation. The fact that some cognizant constructs are made into semantic constructs can be verified in the vocabulary of a historical language. In this way we can see that some facts appear in contraries but they are not perfect contraries. We usually say that young opposes old, that is, they keep a relationship of signification at both ends of a polar relationship thus establishing an antonymic relationships of signification. This explanation from the intellective point of view cannot be true. These contraries are not perfect but elaborations placed at both ends of an invented linear relationship of signification apart from the fact of something being young or old. Young does not oppose old but both words constitute two coinages to a certain extent opposing each other. Young opposes non-young and old, non-old. Between young and old there are many relationships of signification, sometimes lexicalized in a particular language, and sometimes non-lexicalized. Hence that sometimes lexicographers speak of empty categories or holes in the vocabulary. Young bears with it shades of meaning lacking in old and the other way round. Young, for example, is only to be applied of 'person' or 'living' but old is to be applied of both 'living' and 'and non-living'. In this way, the cognizant construct when it is selected, delimited, assigned to an essence and given a name is made into a semantic construct, an idea representing a series of shades of meaning, in which the most important and fundamental is the first sensation having given birth to knowledge. And with this, once again, we eventually came to the most fundamental problem in linguistics: the problem of the value of signs. Linguistic signs do not constitute real things, nor does the initial sensation having prompted them to be. Every one of them is but a set of sensations and additions to these sensations thus making the language a-temporal, a-circumstantial and virtual, something very different from the thing designate. On the other hand, the cognizant construct which started as something formless, without any delimitation at all, something the reality of which was merely something affecting the cognizant subject, is now conceived of as something separated from the cognizant subject. At the beginning it was merely felt, now it is conceived of as something existing in itself and apart from the subject creating it and conceiving of it. The cognizant construct, starting with the initial intuition or aísthesis, sensitive, individual and previously unknown, is made into an objective construct, an idea, a word, a semantic construct to be used by its creator, the cognizant saying and speaking subject, as a reference for further uses in his relation to the world, that is, reality. This construct is no longer sensitive but abstract and "essential", that is, virtual, a construct with no sensitive performance in the world constituting the circumstance in accordance with it was created, but something the cognizant subject tries to perform in the world. In this way the cognizant subject separates himself from the thing known thus making it real. The cognizant subject separates the cold or hunger he feels from his own self. Now the cognizant subject is ready to 28 Jesús Martínez del Castillo: Fixing the Content Created in the Act of Knowing consider himself as someone affected by cold or hunger, two things that now, by virtue of the intellective operations in the act of knowing especially through giving the construct a name, can coexist in his mind as different and with no connection with each other, although it is difficult for him to get rid of that thing called cold or hunger. But we have to say that these two things are not two but four: The cognizant subject or the "I", The object known (hunger or cold), The reality the cognizant subject designates with the object known (the reality of being cold or feeling hunger), The reality with which the cognizant subject designates the object known or the world (that is, language). Giving the construct a name as a consequence is necessarily historical, either in its totality, in its forms and extent, or in its purposes since the semantic construct is directed to others. In this sense, the particular language or the tradition in knowing, saying and speaking is always present in the thought of the cognizant subject. This historical condition of thinking and saying is something we can clearly verify comparing languages. For example, the reality denoted with the English word wall encompasses the reality of the set of Spanish words, pared, muro, muralla, tapia, and tabique. Every one of these five Spanish words denotes a different reality, they all relating to the English word wall27. 3. Determination The last intellective operation in the act of speaking, saying and knowing is determination. It consists in orientating the construct created to the real. So far we have said that the cognizant construct is made by selecting something out of the thing we apprehend, delimiting it in some way, attributing it reality thus making it a semantic object, creating a class or essence in order to attribute it to the semantic construct created so far, relating to other things already known28, and giving it a name to keep it in our conscience and offer it to the other speakers. The construct created, transformed from the sensitive into abstract thus making it objective, virtual and social is now a semantic construct designating not things in the world but essences. Thanks to these essences, made social because they are common and participated in the speech community, speakers can understand one another. Thanks to this as well the linguistic expression is ambiguous: one thing is the thing said, something else is the thing meant, and something else the thing understood. If the act of apprehending and conceiving of things on the one hand, and understanding on the other, is individual by definition, the interchange between the speaker and the listener is possible but with the limitation said: we speak in essences and apply the essences created to the things we apprehend. What we 27 You can see other examples in Martínez del Castillo, 2004, pp. 140-142. 28 The first four intellective operations constituted the process of abstraction in the creation of meanings. apprehend on the one hand, the thing we say of on the other, and the things we refer to on the other, constitute objects with different nature incompatible with each other. As a consequence, any act of knowing and understanding is creative because, first, essences do not exist, we have invented them; second, what we understand constitutes something different with different nature as the essences; and third, we apply the essences to the formless continuum of what we apprehend, the sensitive. We have to tackle with two things, the essences (concepts or categories) on the one hand and on the other the continuum of reality. The essences, concepts or categories are abstract, what we perceive is concrete and formless. In this the mystery of knowing lies: in transforming what we perceive, the sensitive and concrete, into abstract and then make it real. The speaker or the cognizant, saying and speaking subject creates essences to be interpreted by the listener. The speaker starts with a sensation (an initial intuition or aísthesis) to create contents of conscience through historical means in force in the historical speech community. The listener, on the contrary, starts with the historical means as his initial apprehension of the thing said, and then he interprets it thus creating an aísthesis of his own mentally and eventually contents of conscience. They constitute two different processes, both aiming at the same purpose, the contents of conscience aiming at the real and interpreting the means of expression in terms of the real. The means of connection between the speaker and the listener is abstract, virtual and essential, the thing to be virtually applied to many possible items or objects created or to be created, something impossible to be identified with anything real. In this sense speech is good for anything. It is potential and virtual and can be applied of real things29. Thinking in this way reveals as something different from speaking and different from saying. Thinking creates objects in the world conceived of as instruments to manipulate the things constituting the circumstance the cognizant, saying and speaking subject is in, but these instruments are not real. The essences of thought are good within a particular order or cosmos, a world not just the world constituting the circumstance the subject is in but a fantastic world. The problem arises then when the cognizant subject tries to say something, that is, when he wants to go out of his mental world and needs to get into contact with the things constituting his circumstance, the "other thing"30, thus rearranging it. The cognizant subject needs orientating his mental constructs to the things in the world to make them real. In order to achieve this he uses a series of intellective and cognizant operations manifesting themselves very clearly in a particular language to be grouped under the heading of determination. 29 Speaking, the same as with saying, is language and language is a-circumstantial (cf. Coseriu.1982, p. 290). 30 A human being is nothing but the "active coexistence of me or I with the circumstance or world [...]. I call this co-existing 'my life' [...]. It is me who exists [...] but this (my) existing and thus, I, consists in coexisting with the other, with the world" (Ortega y Gasset, 1992b, pp. 46-47) (my translation). International Journal of Language and Linguistics 2015; 3(6-1): 24-30 29 In particular languages there exist the so-called determiners, linguistic elements with the function of "determining". But these are not the only elements being used to perform this function. As a matter of fact there are some languages with no determiners but the function of determination is performed as well through gestures, context and other procedures. The cognizant, saying and speaking subject performs the speech act with all its being. Human subjects can manage to use all types of means, either linguistic or non-linguistic, to express his meaningful intentional purpose. The final step in the execution or their meaningful intentional purpose is orientating his constructs to things in the world, thus making them real. Determination is a system of intellective operations performed by the saying subject just because he has something to say. He says because he is able to know and compromise before the things constituting the circumstance he is in. In this way the subject at the same time manifests himself. Determination is the series of intellective operations necessary to know and say something. If there is something said, then there must be determination. Saying is nothing but revealing the interior state the subject lives and wants to reveal to other speakers. What happens in his interior is something mental, abstract, known only by its author. When he tries to say what he lives in words he must orientate it to the real. His interior state reveals the re-structuring he has made on things thus defending that re-structuring made and constituting himself in the guarantee of it. In this sense the individual cognizant, saying and speaking subject compromises. The saying subject creates things, puts an order on them, systematizes and establishes an order on them. This action would be impossible if the subject did not put aside the essences he has created and made them things in the world of the real. Determination in this way is mental and intellective. Without it there would not exist the interchange between the I and the You, that is, there would not exist the speech act, that is, language and even the human subject. In a world of knowledge without determination a man would not be a "being in the world", a "being there"31, "someone in his circumstance"32. As I said above, determination consists in orientating the essences created to things in the world thus creating reality and the real. If at the beginning we created constructs with no reference to the things in the world, that is, we created something mental with no concrete existence nor any possibility of having existence, now when we determine those mental constructs we create reality, that is, things just as they are in the real world. With this, that is, with determination human thought changes. Up to the intellective operations of creation of a class or an essence and relation (the process of abstraction in the creation of meanings), human knowledge and thus human thought is a process of creation ex nihilo, purposefully determined, with no external causes. From determination, since the essences once given a name are 31 Cf. Heidegger, 2002, p. 62. 32 Cf. Ortega y Gasset, 1992b, pp. 46-47. determined, human knowledge and thought starts with a new process in which the things created are considered to exist in themselves not in the mind but in the world made into reality because of determination. This tree is no longer a possible member of the class "tree" but the magnolia I can see from my window, a tree with particular individual characteristics or an essence, something I must verify if I want to know of it. It is not a class or a member of a class but the tree I can see, the tree I apprehend with my senses. There may be many other magnolias but they do not constitute the object of my knowledge and my thought. It is a singular individual item of magnolia, a real one since I can verify it and apprehend through my senses. Since we started with selection, abstraction consisted in extracting something out of the sensitive and concrete thus creating out of it. But from determination on, the human subject looks for characteristics in the objects created made into real, thus starting with a new process of abstraction, the one consisting in creating new essences and immediately verifying if they are given in the real objects created. As a result, we can see entities in real things, different and independent from the subject who created them, that is, we can see them as "things". From this moment on, the cognizant subject "lets things speak to him"33 thus creating language, a linguistic world and a type of knowledge he will consider as something "objective". And from this moment on, the cognizant subject can use analogy34 thus creating synthetic a priori statements35 to interpret real things. Language as cognizant activity36 is born in the very act of knowing by the human subject, in the very foundation for a human being to be human, a human being able to ask for being and interpret it37. It is important to realize the name of this intellective operation, determination and determining. Determination and determining is nothing but considering something in terms of something else, that is, orientating something towards something. That is, the classes or essences are to be interpreted in terms of something contrary to the nature of essences, the concrete or experience. Human knowledge thus is unique. It puts together the contraries in one act. It is the act of making reality present38. 4. Conclusion Human knowledge, thus, is the synthesis of sensation and 33 Cf. Heidegger, 1970, p. 14. 34 For Ortega y Gasset, analogy, the foundation in the mode of thinking introduced by Descartes, considering things not as things but as correlates, constitutes the base in the interest for science and a procedure unavoidable in human knowledge (cf. 1992a, pp. 148 & ff.). 35 Statements formed out of sensation (experience) and intellect (reason) through imagination (something invented by the speaker) based on analogy, cf. Kant, 2004, pp. 7-52. 36 Cf. Eugenio Coseriu, 1985, p. 42 37 Cf. Eugenio Coseriu, 1985, p. 33. 38 "Language, cognizant activity, is the union of reason and thing [ ... ] , ν ὀ η σ ι ς τ ὦ ν ἀ δ ι ε ρ ὲ τ ὦ ν , apprehensio indivisibilium" (Coseriu, 1985, p. 55) (my translation). 30 Jesús Martínez del Castillo: Fixing the Content Created in the Act of Knowing intellect. It starts with sensation (intuition, aísthesis) and ends in experience (verification of the objects previously created by means of imagination), that is, sensation. In between the beginning and end it is intellect, what the human subject adds on his part. So human knowledge is made up of that peculiar way of approaching reality consisting in the use of synthetic a priori statements, in which sensation, imagination, intellect and language are involved. References [1] Coseriu, «L' arbitraire du signe», in Tradición y novedad en la ciencia del lenguaje: estudios de historia de la lingüística, Madrid: Gredos, 1977 [1971]. [2] Coseriu, E., Principios de semántica estructural, Madrid: Gredos, 1981 (1977). [3] Coseriu, E., Teoría del lenguaje y lingüística general: cinco estudios, Madrid, Editorial Gredos, 1982 [1962]. [4] Coseriu, E. El hombre y su lenguaje, estudios de teoría y metodología lingüística, Madrid: Gredos, 1985 [1977]. [5] Coseriu, E. Introducción a la lingüística, Madrid: Gredos, 1986a [1951]. [6] Coseriu, E. Lecciones de lingüística general, Madrid: Gredos, 1986b [1973]. [7] Coseriu, E., Gramática, semántica, universales. Estudios de gramática funcional, Madrid: Gredos, 1987 [1978]. [8] Coseriu, E., Sincronía, diacronía, e historia: el problema del cambio lingüístico, Madrid: Gredos, 1988 [1957]. [9] Coseriu, E., Competencia lingüística: elementos de la teoría del hablar, Madrid, Editorial Gredos, 1992 [1988]. [10] Coseriu, E. y Ó. Loureda: Lenguaje y discurso, Pamplona, Eunsa, 2006. [11] Coseriu, E. Lingüística del texto. Introducción a la hermenéutica del sentido, Arco/Libros, 2007. [12] Di Cesare, D., Wilhelm von Humboldt y el estudio filosófico de las lenguas, trad. Ana Agud, Anthropos, 1999. [13] Heidegger, Martin, Carta sobre el humanismo, Madrid: Destino, 1970. [14] Heidegger, Martin, El ser y el tiempo, RBA Editores, 2002 [1944]. [15] Humboldt, W., «Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwickelung des Menschengesschlechts» trad. Ana Agud: Sobre la diversidad de la estructura del lenguaje humano y su influencia sobre el desarrollo espiritual de la humanidad, Madrid, Anthropos y Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, (1990) [1836]. [16] Kant, Immanuel, Crítica de la razón pura, RBA, 2004. [17] Luque Durán, Juan de Dios, Aspectos universales y particulares del léxico de las lenguas del mundo. Granada: Granada Lingvistica, 2001. [18] Martínez del Castillo, Jesús, La intelección, el significado, los adjetivos, Universidad de Almería, 1999. [19] Martínez del Castillo, Jesús, Significado y conocimiento: la estructura de significación de los adjetivos subjetivos, Granada: Granada Lingvistica, Serie άρχή και λόγος, 2002. [20] Martínez del Castillo, Jesús, La lingüística del decir. El logos semántico y el logos apofántico, Granada: Granada Lingvistica, Serie άρχή και λόγος, 2004. [21] Martínez del Castillo, Jesús, «Hablar, decir y conocer: el acto lingüístico», Oralia, 11 (2008): 375-97. [22] Martínez del Castillo, Jesús: «El logos semántico y el logos apofántico» Enérgeia I, Online-Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenchaft, Sprachphilosophie und Sprachwissenschaftsgeschichte. 2009: 50-80. [23] Martínez del Castillo, Jesús: Las relaciones lenguaje-pensamiento o el problema del logos, Madrid: Bilbioteca Nueva, 2010. [24] Martínez del Castillo, Jesús, Sobre las categorias, Buenos Aires, Deauno.com, 2011. [25] Martínez del Castillo, Jesús, ed. Eugenio Coseriu (1921-2002) en los comienzos del siglo XXI, 2 vols. in Analecta Malacitana, Anejos/86, 2012. [26] Martínez del Castillo, Jesús: Psicología, lenguaje y libertad, in Analecta Malacitana, Anejos/89, Universidad de Málaga, 2012. [27] Martínez del Castillo, Jesús: Modes of Thinking, Language and Linguistics, in Analecta Malacitana, Anejos/94, 2013, Universidad de Málaga. [28] Ortega y Gasset, José, El tema de nuestro tiempo, Alianza Editorial, 1987 [1981]. [29] Ortega y Gasset, José, ¿Qué es filosofía?, Alianza Editorial, 1994 [1957]. [30] Ortega y Gasset, José, Unas lecciones de metafísica, Alianza Editorial, 1999 [1966]. [31] Ortega y Gasset, José, La idea de principio en Leibniz, Alianza Editorial, 1992a [1958]. [32] Ortega y Gasset, José, ¿Qué es conocimiento?, Alianza Editorial, 1992b [1984]. [33] Ortega y Gasset, José, Sobre la razón histórica, Alianza Editorial, 1996 [1979]. [34] Ortega y Gasset, José, «El decir de la gente: la lengua. Hacia una nueva lingüística» in El hombre y la gente, Alianza Editorial, 2001 [1957]. [35] Ortega y Gasset, José, «El decir de la gente: las 'opiniones públicas', las 'vigencias sociales'". El poder público» in El hombre y la gente, Alianza Editorial, 2001 [1957]. [36] Ortega y Gasset, José, "En torno al coloquio de Darmstadt", in Meditación de la técnica y otros ensayos de ciencia y filosofía, 2002 [1982]: 192-233. [37] Ortega y Gasset, José, "Apuntes para un comentario al banquete de Platón", Obras completas, IX, Taurus, 2009: 729-758. [38] Edward Sapir, El lenguaje, introducción al estudio del habla, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, [39] Whorf, Benjamin Lee, Language, Thought and Reality, J. B. Carrol, (ed.) Cambridge, Mass, The MIT Press. | {
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ANALISIS HASIL STUDI NASIONAL DAN INTERNASIONAL Dr. Amin Suyito (34 pgs.) Program Studi: Pend. Matematika S2 BAHAN AJAR PERKULIAHAN Universitas Negeri Semarang Semarang, 22 Februari 2020 i BAHAN AJAR PERKULIAHAN (untuk digunakan dalam perkuliahan Blended Learning) B A H A N A J A R Program Studi: Pend. Matematika S2 Program Pascasarjana Universitas Negeri Semarang Tahun 2020 ANALISIS HASIL STUDI NASIONAL DAN INTERNASIONAL (Bidang Pendidikan Matematika) Oleh: Dr. Amin Suyitno, M.Pd ii VERIFIKASI BAHAN AJAR Pada hari ini Senin, tanggal duapuluh dua bulan Februari. tahun Duaribu Duapuluh, Bahan Ajar Mata Kuliah "ANALISIS HASIL STUDI NASIONAL DAN INTERNASIONAL (Bidang Pendidikan Matematika)", Program Studi Pendidikan Matematika S2, Program Pascasarjana UNNES telah diverifikasi oleh Koordinator Program Studi Pendidikan Matematika S2. Semarang, 22 Februari 2020 Koord. Prodi Pend. Matematika S2 Prof. Dr. Kartono, M.Si. NIP. 195602221980031002 iii PRAKATA Mata kuliah "ANALISIS HASIL STUDI NASIONAL DAN INTERNASIONAL (Bidang Pendidikan Matematika)" ini lebih dimaksudkan agar para mahasiswa Program Studi Pendidikan Matematika S2 melalui mata kuliah ini diharapkan dapat menjelaskan definisi tentang setiap Hasil Studi di bidang Pendidikan Matematika yang temuantemuan atau artikel/buku terkini, terkait dengan kompetensi-kompetensi dasar atau pendekatan pembelajaran terkini yang berkembang secara Nasional dan Internasional, dapat menyusun Indikator-indikatornya, dapat menyusun Instrumen untuk menumbuhkannya, dan memiliki kemungkinan untuk mampu menerapkannya dalam suatu praktik pembelajaran di kelas atau dalam suatu penelitian di bidang pendidikan matematika. Materi Produk Hasil Studi Nasional dan Internasional terkait dengan kompetensikompetensi dasar atau pendekatan pembelajaran terkini yang berkembang secara Nasional dan Internasional, antara lain: 1) Mathematical Thinking (Berpikir Matematis). 2) Mathematical Reasoning (Penalaran Matematis). 3) Mathematical Creativity (Kreativitas Matematis). 4) Critical Thinking in Mathematics (Berpikir Kritis dalam Matematika). 5) Collaborative Learning in Mathematics (Pembelajaran Kolaboratif dalam Matematika). 6) Mathematical Communication (Komunikasi Matematis). 7) Mathematical Disposition. 8) Mathematical Representation. 9) Mathematica Connection. 10) Ethnomathematics as a Learning Approach. 11) Problem Solving (Polya and Non Polya). 12) Algebraic Thinking. 13) Geometric Reasoning. 14) Analogy Reasoning. 15) Probabilistic Thinking. 16) Open Ended Problems dan Pembelajaran HOTS. 17) Pengantar Kompetensi Non-kognitf: Adaptability, Curiosity, and Grit. 18) Literasi Matematis (Mathematical Literacy). Teknik Mengajar: 1) Pertemuan Pertama: Dosen menyampaikan paparan tentang Kontrak Kuliah, sistem perkuliahan, sistem penilaian, dan kiat-kiat mendapatkan Referensi Penunjang Materi perkuliahan. 2) Pertemuan kedua, dosen memberikan penugasan kelompok, dan setiap kelompok dapat memilh salah satu materi di atas untuk dibuat artikel 5 – 6 halaman yang akan dipresentasikan di depan kelas. 3) Dosen memberikan contoh makalah dan mempresentasikan salah satu Materi Produk Hasil Studi Nasional dan Internasional, misalnya tentang Mathematical Creativity, Ethnomathematics, atau yang lain. 4) Pertemuan ketiga, dst setiap Kelompok Mahasiswa melaksanakan presentasi di kelas. iv Akhirnya, semoga Bahan Ajar ini memiliki manfaat sesuai dengan tujuan dibuatnya Bahan Ajar tertulis ini. Diharapkan, Bahan Ajar ini dapat dikembangkan dengan tambahan materi kajian dari para mahasiswa. Semarang, 22 Februari 2020 Dosen Pengampu, Dr. Amin Suyito, M.Pd Email: [email protected] v DAFTAR ISI Halaman Judul ............................................................................................. i VERIFIKASI BAHAN AJAR .................................................................... ii PRAKATA ................................................................................................... iii DAFTAR ISI................................................................................................ v I. KOMPETENSI 4C MEMASUKI ABAD 21 ............................... 1 II. KOMPETENSI NON-KOGNITIF ............................................. 4 III. ETNOMATEMATIKA SEBAGAI PENDEKATAN .................. 9 IV. SOAL HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILL (HOTS).............. 25 1 BAB I KOMPETENSI 4C MEMASUKI ABAD 21 1.1 Arti 4C sebagai Kompetensi Abad 21 Direktorat Jenderal Guru dan Tenaga Kependidikan (Ditjen GTK), Kementerian Pendidikan dan Budaya (Kemendikbud) menyebut terdapat empat kompetensi yang harus ditanamkan kepada siswa di abad ke-21. Hal ini diperkuat oleh Sipayung, DH. et al. (2018) bahwa empat kompetensi yang perlu dimiliki siswa dalam menghadapi tantangan era millenium yang pertama ialah mampu Critical Thinking atau berpikir kritis. Kedua, collaboration adalah kerjasama dalam hal networking (jaringan). Ketiga, communication yakni mampu mendorong para siswa untuk lebih menguasai pada perkembangan teknologi. Di mana saat ini eranya komunikasi lewat media sosial. Yang terakhir adalah Creativity. Siswa harus memiliki kreativitas yang tinggi dalam menjalani kehidupan dalam abad 21. 1.2 Kompetensi Komunikasi Kompetensi communication atau komunikasi adalah sebuah kemampuan dalam kegiatan mentransfer sebuah informasi baik secara lisan maupun tulisan. Namun, tidak semua orang mampu melakukan komunikasi dengan baik. Terkadang ada orang yang mampu menyampaikan semua informasi secara lisan tetapi tidak secara tulisan ataupun sebaliknya. Manusia merupakan mahluk sosial yang selalu berinteraksi dengan sesamanya. Oleh karena itu, komunikasi merupakan salah satu hal yang terpenting dalam peradaban manusia. Tujuan utama komunikasi adalah mengirimkan pesan melalui media yang dipilih agar dapat dimengerti oleh penerima pesan. Komunikasi efektif tejadi apabila sesuatu pesan yang diberitahukan komunikator dapat diterima dengan baik atau sama oleh komunikan, sehingga tidak terjadi salah persepsi. Komunikasi antar manusia terjalin secara efektif dibutuhkan teknik berkomunikasi yang tepat. Teknik komunikasi adalah suatu cara yang digunakan dalam menyampaikan informasi dari komunikator ke komunikan dengan media tertentu. Dengan adanya teknik ini diharapkan setiap orang dapat secara efektif melakukan komunikasi satu sama lain dan secara tepat menggunakannya. 2 Menurut Lomibao, Luna & Namoco (2016), ada faktor-faktor lain yang dapat mempengaruhi kemampuan mahasiswa dalam mengomunikasikan pekerjaan matematikanya (mathematical communication). Faktor-faktor lain tersebut adalah: kecemasan mahasiswa, kurangnya pengetahuan/konsep yang sedang ditulis/dipresentasikan, dan mahasiswa yang bersangkutan kurang bisa menghubungkan antara gambar/ilustrasi dengan uraiannya. 1.3 Kompetensi Kolaborasi Collaboration atau kolaborasi adalah kemampuan berkolaborasi adalah kemampuan untuk melakukan kerja sama, saling bersinergi, beradaptasi dalam berbagai peran, dan tanggungjawab. Menurut Le, H et a. (2018), kolaborasi juga memiliki arti mampu menjalankan tanggung jawab pribadi dan fleksibitas secara pribadi, pada tempat kerja, dan hubungan masyarakat. Mampu menetapkan dan mencapai standar dan tujuan yang tinggi untuk diri sendiri dan orang lain. 1.4 Kompetensi berpikir kritis Fonseca & Arezes (2017) menyatakan bahwa kompetensi critical thinking atau berpikir kritis adalah kemampuan untuk memahami sebuah masalah yang rumit, mengkoneksikan informasi satu dengan informasi lain, sehingga akhirnya muncul berbagai perspektif, dan menemukan solusi dari suatu permasalahan. Critical Thinking dimaknai juga kemampuan menalar, memahami dan membuat pilihan yang rumit; memahami interkoneksi antara sistem, menyusun, mengungkapkan, menganalisis, dan menyelesaikan masalah. 1.5 Kompetensi Creativity Kompetensi creativity atau kreativitas adalah kemampuan untuk mengembangkan, melaksanakan, dan menyampaikan gagasan-gagasan baru kepada yang lain; bersikap terbuka dan responsif terhadap perspektif baru dan berbeda. Kreativitas juga didefinisikan sebagai kemampuan seseorang dalam menciptakan penggabungan baru. Vuong & Napier (2014) menulis bahwa kreativitas akan sangat tergantung kepada pemikiran kreatif seseorang, yakni proses akal budi seseorang dalam menciptakan gagasan baru. Kreativitas yang bisa menghasilkan penemuanpenemuan baru (dan biasanya bernilai secara ekonomis) sering disebut sebagai inovasi. 3 El-Sahili (2015) menulis bahwa kreativitas matematis dapat didefinisikan sebagai kemampuan untuk menghasilkan karya orisinal yang lengkap, menghasilkan wawasan-wawasan baru atau jawaban-jawaban baru yang berbeda, dan memungkinkan adanya cara-cara. Jadi, kreativitas matematis merupakan tindakan berpikir yang dapat menghasilkan gagasan kreatif, cara berpikir yang baru, dan bersifat asli di bidang matematika. Kreativitas ini menunjuk pada kemampuan berpikir yang lebih satu langkah ke depan dan merupakan produk ide seseorang. DAFTAR PUSTAKA El-Sahili, A et al. 2015. Mathematical Creativity: The U nexpected Links. The Mathematics Enthusiast: Vol. 12(1), Article 32, 417-464. Fonseca, L & Arezes, S. 2017. A Didactic Proposal to Develop Critical Thinking in Mathematics: The Case of Tomás. Journal of the European Teacher Education Network. Vol. 12, 37-48. Le, H et al. 2018. Collaborative learning practices: teacher and student perceived obstacles to effective student collaboration. Cambridge Journal of Education, Vol. 48(1), 103-122. Lomibao, L & Namoco. 2016. The Influence of Mathematical Communication on Students‟ Mathematics Performance and Anxiety. American Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 4(5), 378-382. Sipayung, DH. et al. 2018. Collaborative Inquiry For 4C Skills. 3rd Annual International Seminar on Transformative Education and Educational Leadership (AISTEEL 2018), Vol. 200, 440-445. Vuong, Q. H., & Napier, N. K. 2014. Making creativity: the value of multiple filters in the innovation process. International Journal of Transitions and Innovation Systems, Vol .3(4), 294-327. | {
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Journal of Analytic Theology, Vol. 6, August 2018 10.12978/jat.2018-6.091407090401a © 2018 Joseph Jedweb • © 2018 Journal of Analytic Theology Timothy Pawl. In Defense of Conciliar Christology. Oxford, Oxford University Press: 2016. xiv + 251 pp. $110.00 (hbk). Joseph Jedwab Kutztown University of Pennsylvania Timothy Pawl's book is worthy of public celebration. It is a fine example of analytic theology: historically informed, philosophically rigorous, and theologically faithful. The book has three parts. First, there is a presentation of the doctrine of the Incarnation, some key definitions, and the minimal metaphysics needed to understand the doctrine (chs. 1-3). Second, there is a discussion of the fundamental problem of apparently inconsistent predications of Christ along with some fifteen proposed solutions (chs. 4-7). Third, there is a discussion of two rather more metaphysical problems: one concerning Christ's immutability, impassibility, and atemporality; the other concerning number-troubles such as whether it could be that one person has two natures, intellects, and wills (chs. 8-9). All this with a Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur. What more, I ask, could you want in a monograph? One word of warning though: those who don't know their elementary propositional logic will find some parts hard going. Though comprehensive, even having a section, albeit rather brief, on dialetheism (the view that some contradictions are true) as an unsatisfactory solution to the fundamental problem (see 84-5), the book omits altogether any relativeidentity approach as a solution. This is a rare oversight on Pawl's part and I wish to spend some time convincing folk of this. I shall first consider some problems that Pawl's key definitions raise and then consider his own proposed solution to the fundamental problem. In each case, I hint at how a relative-identity approach has something to say here. Some Problems with Definitions Conciliar Christology, the conjunction of claims about Christ in the first seven ecumenical councils, implies that, in Christ, only one person has only two natures. Distinguish abstract from concrete natures. Any abstract nature is a feature. Any concrete nature is an individual. Pawl defines 'abstract nature' and 'concrete nature': Abstract Nature x is an abstract nature of some type, y, if and only if x is a property or complex of properties the instantiation of which by a thing is necessary and sufficient for that thing's being (a) y (35). Review of In Defense of Conciliar Christology Joseph Jedweb 744 Concrete Nature x is a concrete nature of some type, y, if and only if x is an individual instance of y, and y is an infima species [i.e. a lowest level type] (36). Divinity and humanity are abstract natures. Our interest, however, more concerns concrete natures. Christ has only two concrete natures: the divine nature (DN) and a human nature (CHN). Moreover, DN is a divine concrete nature because it is of the type, divinity, which is an infima species. And CHN is a human concrete nature because it is of the type, humanity, which is an infima species. Pawl also defines 'supposit' and 'person': Supposit (Hypostasis) X is a supposit (hypostasis) if and only if x is a complete being, incommunicable by identity, not apt to inhere in anything, and not sustained by anything (32). Person X is a person if and only if x is a supposit with a rational nature (32). The divine persons are supposits. DN, however, is a non-supposit because it is communicable by identity: each divine person has it. And CHN is a non-supposit because Christ sustains it (in the way that occurs when Christ assumes it). So, there are three supposits in the Trinity, but only one supposit in Christ. As we already saw, there are at least two concrete natures in Christ. Are there more, though, on Pawl's own definition of 'concrete nature'? Each divine person is an individual instance of the type, divinity, which is an infima species. Clearly, each divine person is an individual and is of the type, divinity. How then could only DN be an individual instance of the type, divinity? What would it be about DN that makes it alone such an instance? And what would it be about each divine person that makes it fail to be such an instance? After all, the word 'instance' just means example. And each divine person is an example of the type, divinity. If Pawl is using the word 'instance' in some alternative technical sense here, he should tell us what that sense is. So, absent qualification, on Pawl's definition, each divine person is a concrete nature- indeed, a divine concrete nature. Moreover, each divine person is, but DN is not, incommunicable by identity. So, DN is not identical to any divine person. So, counting by identity, there are four divine concrete natures in the Trinity: the divine persons and DN, and there are two divine concrete natures in Christ: Christ and DN. Christ is also an individual instance of the type, humanity, which is an infima species. Again, clearly, Christ is an individual and is of the type, humanity. And Christ is an example of the type, humanity. How then could, in Christ, only CHN be an individual instance of the type, humanity? CHN is something like a compound of a human body and soul, with an intellect andwill-roughly, something intrinsically just like a complete human person. If CHN counts as an individual instance of the type, humanity, which it does, then how could Christ fail to be such an instance? So, on Pawl's definition, Christ is a concrete nature-indeed, not only a divine but also a human concrete nature. Moreover, CHN is, but Christ is not, assumed by Christ. So, Review of In Defense of Conciliar Christology Joseph Jedweb 745 Christ is not identical to CHN. So, counting by identity, there are two human concrete natures in Christ: Christ and CHN. And, so, all in all, counting by identity, there are three concrete natures in Christ: Christ, DN, and CHN. This seems, though, the wrong result. It seems rather that, according to Conciliar Christology, there are only two concrete natures in Christ: one divine and the other human. Pawl, following medieval tradition, carefully crafts the definition of 'supposit' so that neither DN nor CHN counts as a person. Perhaps then he should also carefully craft the definition of 'concrete nature' so that no divine person counts as a concrete nature. We could define 'concrete nature' as individual instance that is not a supposit. Or if every concrete nature is such that more than one divine person could have that nature at once, we could, rather elegantly, define 'concrete nature' as individual instance that is shareable by more than one person. One problemwith this is that Pawl welcomes the idea that we mere unassumed humans are both persons and concrete natures (see 65-7). If, though, we are persons but no concrete nature is a person, then we are not both persons and concrete natures. But why be so very crafty? Why not just allow that each concrete nature in Christ is a person? After all, one of the first to provide classic definitions of Christological terms is Boethius, who defines 'person' as individual substance of a rational nature, and 'substance' as what can act or be acted upon.1 And, on Boethius' definitions, each concrete nature counts as a substance and person. Each counts as a substance because it acts. The Exposition of Faith from the Third Council of Constantinople (680-681 AD) says, "the difference of the natures being made known in the same one subsistence in that each nature wills and performs the things that are proper to it in a communicationwith the other".2 What wills and performs things acts. So if each nature wills and performs things, it acts. And each counts as a person because it is rational-having an intellect and will. Of course, if we count by identity and if, following Boethius' definitions, each of Christ, DN, and CHN is a person, but if they are not identical to each other, then there are three persons in Christ, which is definitely the wrong result. But why must we count by identity? Here's an alternative. Each of the Father, Son, and Spirit is a person and a concrete nature; they are the same concrete nature, but different persons, and so, there are only three persons in the Trinity. And each of the Son and the human being Jesus of Nazareth is a person and a concrete nature; they are the same person, but different concrete natures, and so, there is only one person in Christ.3 On this alternative, we count not by (classical) identity, but by some other relative-identity relation: same person and same concrete-nature. This alternative implies that such relative-identity relations aren't reducible to (classical) identity: that, where 'F' stands for a sortal count noun, it could be, for some x and y, x is the same F as y but x is not identical to y. I'm not saying that this works. All I'm saying is that it's at least worthy of consideration. 1 Boethius, "Contra Eutychen," in The Theological Tractates, trans. H.F. Stewart, E.K. Rand, and S.J. Tester (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 79, 81, 85. 2 Norman Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Vol.1 (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990), 129. 3 See Peter van Inwagen, God, Knowledge, & Mystery (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), chs. 8-9. Review of In Defense of Conciliar Christology Joseph Jedweb 746 The Fundamental Problem The following claims seem inconsistent: anything divine is impassible, anything human is passible, and Christ is divine and human. Pawl cogently argues that, even according to Conciliar Christology, there are such pairs of apparently inconsistent predicates F and G such that (i) at the same time, (ii) in the same way, (iii) F is apt of anything divine, and (iv) G is apt of anything human (see chs. 4-7). Pawl allows that two versions of the reduplicative strategymight solve the problem, though at the cost of making the predicates or their copulas express relations to natures (ch. 6). Pawl's own proposal (ch. 7) doesn't carry this cost. He presents initial and revised truthconditions for the predicates 'passible' and 'impassible': Initial Truth Conditions Passible: s is passible just in case it is possible that at least one other thing causally affect s. Impassible: s is impassible just in case it is not the case that it is possible that at least one other thing causally affect s (154). Revised Truth Conditions Passible: s is passible just in case s has a concrete nature that it is possible for some other thing to causally affect. Impassible: s is impassible just in case s has a concrete nature that it is impossible for some other thing to causally affect (159). The pattern of how to provide initial and revised truth-conditions for other problematic pairs of predicates should be clear enough from this one example. On the initial truth-conditions, it couldn't be something is both passible and impassible. On the revised truth-conditions, though, it could be that something is both, and the council fathers might well have intended the predicates to have the revised rather than initial truth-conditions. But even so, there's a closely related problem. Set aside this whole business of predicates, what they mean, and who intends what they mean. Consider only the revised truth-conditions themselves. DN satisfies the conditions for being causally unaffectable by another and CHN satisfies the conditions for being causally affectable by another. Because of this, Christ satisfies the conditions for having a concrete nature (i.e. DN) that is causally unaffectable by another and having a concrete nature (i.e. CHN) that is causally affectable by another. But now consider only the following conditions: that it is possible for some other thing to causally affect it, and that it is impossible for some other thing to causally affect it.We can't verywell deny that there are such conditions. After all, they are part of the revised truth-conditions themselves. And if they aren't so part, then, in the revised truth-conditions, what exactly are the conditions we are saying some concrete nature that s has satisfies? So, we can still Review of In Defense of Conciliar Christology Joseph Jedweb 747 ask: granted all this, what conditions does Christ himself satisfy? Is he causally affectable by another or not? He can't be both. But he must be one or the other. If it is possible that he is so affected, then, in every possible world wherein he exists, it is possible he is so affected. So, if Christ is causally affectable by another, he is essentially so. And, presumably, every other divine person is too. Likewise, if it's impossible that he is so affected, then, in every possible world wherein he exists, it is impossible he is so affected. So, if Christ is causally unaffectable by another, he is essentially so. And, presumably, every other divine person is too. So which? It's not like we have no intuitions about these conditions. Classical theistic intuitions say that anything divine, being a perfect being, is causally unaffectable by another and essentially so. Ordinary intuitions say that anything human that has a human body and soul is causally affectable and essentially so. All this is to say that, even granting all that Pawl says about his own proposed solution to the fundamental problem, something very much like the original problem still stands. One version of a relative-identity approach, however, might solve this related problem.4 Strictly speaking, nothing is both divine and human for the reasons the fundamental problem indicates. The Son is divine, and the human being Jesus of Nazareth is human. The Son is the same person as Jesus, but the Son is not the same being as Jesus. Moreover, since the Son is the same person as Jesus, and since the Son, being divine, is impassible, Jesus can say truly, using the pronoun 'I', 'I am impassible' and you can say truly of Jesus, using the pronoun 'he', 'he is impassible'. Conversely, since the Son is the same person as Jesus, and since Jesus, being human, is passible, the Son can say truly, using the pronoun 'I', 'I am passible' and you can say truly of the Son, using the pronoun 'he', 'he is passible. Finally, to say Christ is F is to say the person who is the same person as the Son and Jesus is F. On this reading, it is true to say Christ is passible and it is true to say Christ is impassible. And if, by saying Christ is passible and impassible, onemeans to assert the conjunction 'Christ is passible and Christ is impassible', then that is true. If, though, by saying Christ is passible and impassible, one means to assert of something the conjunctive predicate 'is passible and impassible', then that is false. Again, I'm not saying that this works. All I'm saying is that it's at least worthy of consideration. We have looked at two problems: the first is about some problems that Pawl's key definitions raise; the second is about his own proposed solution to the fundamental problem. In each case, I have hinted at how a relative-identity approach to the doctrine of the Incarnation might solve them. The approach itself is worthy of consideration, which Pawl's book altogether omits. Perhaps, in the promised and much-anticipated companion volume, which defends Extended Conciliar Christology, Pawl will see fit not just to consider the relative-identity approach, but even set it alongside alternative proposals that he contends succeed, even if at a cost.5 4 See van Inwagen, God, Knowledge, & Mystery, ch. 9. 5 I am grateful to Tim Pawl for comments on a previous draft. | {
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ar X iv :1 70 3. 06 10 9v 1 [ st at .O T ] 1 6 M ar 2 01 7 Generalised Reichenbachian Common Cause Systems Claudio Mazzola School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry The University of Queensland Forgan Smith Building (1), St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia [email protected] 1 Introduction Chancy coincidences happen everyday, but sometimes coincidences are just too striking, or too improbable, not to reveal the presence of some coordinating process. To wit, if all the electrical appliances in a building were to shut down at exactly the same time, it would not be unreasonable to search for a breakdown in their common power supply. Similarly, if the price of petrol were to simultaneously rise in all oil importing countries, it would be a fair bet that exporters had concertedly decided to reduce extraction. The principle of the common cause is the inferential rule governing instances of this kind: informally stated, it asserts that improbable coincidences are to be put down to the action of a common cause. Reichenbach [15] was the first to provide the principle of the common cause with a matematical characterisation. His treatment relied on three major ingredients: first, he represented improbable coincidences as positive probabilistic correlations between random events; second, he demanded that common causes should increase the probability of their effects; and third, he further required that conditioning on the presence, or on the absence, of a common cause should make its effects probabilistically independent from one another. Reichnenbach's treatment, however, was overly restrictive, as it rested on a too narrow conception of improbable coincidences, and on a correspondingly narrow understanding on the explanatory function of common causes. In [11], I accordingly proposed an improved interpretation of the principle, along with a suitably revided probabilistic model for common causes, which generalises Reichenbach's original formulation in two respects. On the one hand, it represents improbable coincidences not as positive correlations, but rather as positive differences between the correlation actually exhibited by a speficied pair of events, and the correlation that they should exhibit according to historical data, background beliefs, or established theory. On the other hand, and correspondingly, it demands that conditioning on the presence or on the absence of a common causes should restore the expected correlation between its effects. Reichenbach's understanding of the principle is demonstrably a special case of this interpretation, applying when the expected correlation between the events of interest is null. Nevertheless, there is one respect in which the probabilistic model proposed in [11] is still not general enough. Like Reichenbach's original account, in fact, it depicts the action of a single common cause, and it is accordingly inadequate to capture 1 instances whereby two coordinated effects are brought about by a system of distinct common causes. The aim of this paper is precisely to further expand the model in this direction. To this end, two avenues for the generalisation of the model will be explored, each based on a different probabilistic characterisation for systems of common causes. The article will be structured in three main sections. Firstly, in §2 the extended interpretation of the principle elaborated in [11] will be briefly outlined, and given formal treatment. Next, in §3 said interpretation will be incorporated into Hofer-Szabó and Rédei's Reichenbachian Common Cause Systems model [7]. Finally, in §4 the extended version of the principle will be integrated with my own revisitation of Reichenbachian Common Cause Systems [10]. 2 Generalised conjunctive common causes Reichenbach originally applied the principle of the common cause to pairs of positively correlated, albeit causally unrelated, events. Before introducing his probabilistic model for common causes, a definition of probabilistic correlation is thus needed: Definition 1. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B,C ∈ Ω such that p (C) 6= 0, we define: Corr (A,B |C ) := p (A ∧B |C )− p (A |C ) p (B |C ) . (1) Moreover, Corr (A,B) := Corr (A,B |∪Xi∈ΩXi ) . (2) The expression Corr (A,B |C ) denotes the correlation of events A and B conditional on event C. The expression Corr (A,B), instead, denotes the absolute correlation or unconditional correlation of events A and B. Two events are said to be positively (negatively) correlated (conditional on another event) if their correlation (conditional on said event) is greater (smaller) than zero; by the same token, they are said to be uncorrelated or probabilistically independent (conditional on another event) if their correlation (conditional on that event) is equal to zero. The existence of a positive correlation between two events is often an indication that one of them is a cause of the other. However, this is not invariably the case: as is well known, correlation does not imply causation. Reichenbach's interpretation of the common cause principle could indeed be seen as an attempt to preserve a one-one correspondence between probabilistic correlation and causal dependence [9]: in his account, acquiring information about the occurrence of a common cause should dissolve, as it were, any positive correlation between causally unrelated events. Reichenbach gave formal shape to this intuition by demanding that conditioning on the presence of a common cause, or on its absence, should make its effects probabilistically independent. The result was a probabilistic model for common causes known as conjunctive fork. With only a slight terminological modification and few minor notational variants, we can introduce his model as follows: Definition 2. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any three distinct A,B,C ∈ Ω, the event C is a conjunctive common cause for Corr (A,B) 2 if and only if: p (C) 6= 0 (3) p ( C ) 6= 0 (4) Corr (A,B |C ) = 0 (5) Corr ( A,B ∣ ∣C ) = 0 (6) p (A |C )− p ( A ∣ ∣C ) > 0 (7) p (B |C )− p ( B ∣ ∣C ) > 0. (8) Conjunctive common causes, as just defined, are intended to explain the occurrence of non-causal positive correlations in two ways. On the one hand they increase the joint probability of their effects, consequently favouring their correlation, as established by the following proposition: Proposition 1. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any three distinct A,B,C ∈ Ω, if C is a conjunctive common cause for Corr (A,B), then: Corr (A,B) > 0. (9) On the other hand, conditions (5)-(6) demand that the correlation between the effects of a conjunctive common cause should disappear when conditioning on the occurrence, or on the absence, of said cause: in jargon, we say that the common cause screens-off the two effects from one another. This is meant to indicate that the positive correlation between the two effects is purely epiphenomenal, being a mere by-product of the underlying action of the common cause. Reichebach's conjunctive common cause model has exerted considerable influence in both probabilistic causal modelling and the philosophy of science. To mention but few of its contributions to the latter field, it anticipated the probabilistic causality program [6, 21, 2, 18, 5], fostered the development of probabilistic accounts of scientific explanation [16, 22], and inspired causal interpretations of Bell's no-go theorem in quantum physics [24]. Simultaneously, the Bayesian Networks movement in probabilistic causal modelling incorporated and generalised the screening-off constraints (5)-(6) in the guise of the so-called Causal Markov Condition, according to which any two variables that are not related as cause and effect must be probabilisitically independent conditional on the set of their direct causes [13, 14, 19]. Nonetheless, the conjunctive common cause model relies on a demonstrably restrictive understanding of the principle of the common cause, and on a correspondingly narrow conception of the explanatory function performed by common causes. To fully appreciate this, it will be instructive to start by taking a deeper look at the very thing the principle of the common cause is intended to apply to: improbable coincidences. Reichenbach, as we saw, understood improbable coincidences as positive correlations between causally unrelated events. Positively correlated events tend to be coinstantiated, so it is clear why positive correlations can be used to give coincidences a probabilistic representation. The problem is: in what sense, then, can coincidences between causally unrelated events be deemed improbable? The underlying presupposition is that in general causally unrelated events tend to be uncorrelated, so in general positive correlations between such events are not 3 to be expected. Reichenbach, in other words, applied the principle of the common cause to pairs of events that happen to be positively correlated, even though we would expect them to be not. To be even more explicit: he applied the principle to cases where the observed value of the correlation between two events is strictly higher than its expected value, which is zero. Once the principle is presented in this way, however, it becomes apparent that there is no reason not to demand that it should equally apply to all cases in which two events are more strongly correlated than expected, whatever the value of their expected correlation. The extended principle of the common cause is specifically tailored to meet this demand. Compressed in one sentence, it claims that the role of common causes is to explain statistically significant deviations between the estimated value of a correlation and its expected value, by conditionally restoring the latter. To illustrate, let us consider an economic example. Let us imagine that an econometric analysis revealed a strong positive correlation between holding a postgraduate degree and earning a higher-than-average income. This positive correlation, in and of itself, would not be surprising, as it would be consistent with both common sense and microeconomic theory: people who study more are likely to earn higher wages, owing to the comparatively scarce supply and higher productivity of skilled labour. But suppose that, in the case at hand, the estimated correlation were remarkably strong: strong enough to be significantly dissimilar from the average correlation reported by other similar studies. Then, excluding any mistakes in the analysis, it would be natural for one to wonder if there were anything about the selected sample, which could bring about said discrepancy. The extended principle of common cause urges that the explanation should be sought in the presence of some unacknowledged common cause. To wit, we may imagine that the econometric analysis in our example were conducted in relatively wealthy subpopulation. People coming from wealthy families are more likely to undergo additional years of study, since they can more easily afford the opportunity costs this involves; moreover, they are more likely to earn their degrees from renouned but expensive academic institutions, whose graduates have a higher chance to be hired in high-earning appointments. By simultaneously increasing the probability of holding a postgraduate degree and the probability of earning a higher-than-average income, family wealth would consequently increase their joint probability, and explain their stronger-than-usual correlation. Remarkably, in this case it would be unreasonable to require that the correlation between holding a postgraduate degree and of earning a higher-than-average income should disappear conditional on family wealth: after all, as we already noticed, some positive correlation between wage and qualification is to be expected. Rather, conditioning on the common cause should restore the expected correlation between the two events, consequently eliminating the apparent disagreement between the econometric analysis and the preceding studies. To provide the extended principle of the common cause with some formal bite, let us first define: Definition 3. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B ∈ Ω, the deviation of Corr (A,B) is the quantity δ (A,B) := Corr (A,B)− Corre (A,B) , (10) where Corre (A,B) denotes the expected correlation between A and B. 4 Notice that the notions of deviation and expectation, as they are understood here, are not necessarily restricted to the corresponding statistical concepts: in particular, the expected correlation between two values may be determined by non-statistical means, e.g. on the basis of logical or mathematical rules, or simply on the basis of entrenched prior beliefs. On this basis, we can now define: Definition 4. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any three distinct A,B,C ∈ Ω, the event C is a generalised common cause for δ (A,B) if and only if: p (C) 6= 0 (11) p ( C ) 6= 0 (12) Corr (A,B |C ) = Corre (A,B) (13) Corr ( A,B ∣ ∣C ) = Corre (A,B) (14) p (A |C )− p ( A ∣ ∣C ) > 0 (15) p (B |C )− p ( B ∣ ∣C ) > 0. (16) Just like conjunctive common causes do for positive correlations, generalised common causes explain positive deviations in two ways. On the one hand, (13)-(14) demand that conditioning on the presence of a common cause, or on its absence, should restore the expected correlation between its effects. On the other hand, generalised common causes increase the unconditional correlation between their effects, consequently generating the observed discrepancy between the estimated value of said correlation and its expected value: Proposition 2. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any three distinct A,B,C ∈ Ω, if C is a generalised common cause for δ (A,B) then δ (A,B) > 0. (17) Quite evidently, conjunctive common causes can be thought of generalised common causes whose effects are expected to be uncorrelated. Nonetheless, the generalised common cause model is demonstrably immune from some of the most common objections to the standard interpretation of the common cause principle. For one thing, it has been objected that the screening-off conditions (5)-(6) are too restrictive, either because they are only satisfied by deterministic common causes [23, 4], or because they exclusively apply when the effects of a common cause are independently produced [17, 3]. This objection is easily met by the generalised common cause model, which drops (5)-(6) in favour of the more general constraints (13)-(14). For another thing, it has been contended that non-causal positive correlations that result from logical, mathematical, semantic, or nomic relations do not generally admit of a conjunctive common cause [1, 25]. The existence of similar correlations is clearly detrimental to the common undertanding of the principle of the common cause, but it is perfectly consistent with its extended version. The reason is that, according to the extended principle, similar correlations simply do not call for a common cause explanation: by hypothesis, they are determined by logical, mathematical, semantic, or physical laws, so they must be expected, and as such they fall outside its proper domain of application. They are, 5 accordingly, no counterexample to it. The following sections will be dedicated to further enrich the generalised common cause model, so as to cover systems of multiple common causes. 3 Generalised HR-Reichenbachian Common Cause Systems The first attempt to extend the conjunctive common cause model to comprise systems of multiple common causes was made by Hofer-Szabó and Rédei in [7], who proposed, to this end, the following definition: Definition 5. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B ∈ Ω, a Reichenbachian Common Cause System (HR-RCCS) of size n ≥ 2 for Corr (A,B) is a partition {Ci} n i=1 of Ω such that: p (Ci) 6= 0 (i = 1, ..., n) (18) Corr (A,B |Ci ) = 0 (i = 1, ..., n) (19) [ p (A |Ci )− p (A |Cj ) ][ p (B |Ci )− p (B |Cj ) ] > 0 (1, ..., n = i 6= j = 1, ..., n). (20) Hofer-Szabó and Rédei refer to Reichenbachian Common Cause Systems using the acronym RCCS. The acronym HR-RCCS is here employed to distinguish their model from the one utilized in the next section. The notion of a HR-RCCS is meant to generalise the notion of a conjunctive common cause in two respects. On the one hand, Hofer-Szabó and Rédei demonstrate that only positively correlated pairs admit of a HR-RCCS. On the other hand, conditions (18), (19) and (20) are intended to generalise, respectively, conditions (3)-(12), (5)–(6), and (7)–(8) from Definition 2. Specifically, (19) demands that each element of a HR-RCCS screen-off its common effects from one another. This means that HR-RCCSs increase the correlation between otherwise uncorrelated pairs, emulating as a consequence the explanatory function of conjunctive common causes. Modifying the above definition in accordance with the extended interpretation of common cause principle only requires replacing the screening-off condition (19) with a suitably generalised variant of (13)-(14). Let us accordingly define: Definition 6. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B ∈ Ω, a Generalised Reichenbachian Common Cause System (GHR-RCCS) of size n ≥ 2 for δ (A,B) is a partition {Ci} n i=1 of Ω such that: p (Ci) 6= 0 (i = 1, ..., n) (21) Corr (A,B |Ci ) = Corre (A,B) (i = 1, ..., n) (22) [ p (A |Ci )− p (A |Cj ) ][ p (B |Ci )− p (B |Cj ) ] > 0 (1, ..., n = i 6= j = 1, ..., n). (23) This definition generalises at once Definition 4 and Definition 5: it extends the former by admitting systems of any number of common causes; it extends the latter by requiring that every common cause in a system should restore the expected correlation between its two effects whatever its value. 6 Not surprisingly, every GHR-RCCS increases the correlation between its effects, consequently emulating the explanatory function of generalised common causes. Proposition 3. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B ∈ Ω and any {Ci}i∈I ⊆ Ω, if {Ci}i∈I is a GHR-RCCS of size n ≥ 2 for δ (A,B), then (17) obtains. To show this, let us first prove the following lemma: Lemma 1. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. Let A,B ∈ Ω and let {Ci}i∈I be a partition of Ω satisfying conditions (21)-(22). Then: δ (A,B) = 1 2 ∑ i,j∈I p (Ci) p (Cj) [p (A |Ci )− p (A |Cj )][p (B |Ci )− p (B |Cj )]. (24) Proof. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. Let A,B ∈ Ω and let {Ci}i∈I be a partition of Ω satisfying (21). From the theorem of total probability it follows that: Corr (A,B) = 1 2 n ∑ i,j=1 p (Ci) p (Cj) [ p (A |Ci )− p (A |Cj ) ][ p (B |Ci )− p (B |Cj ) ] + 1 2 [ n ∑ i=1 p (Ci)Corr (A,B |Ci ) + n ∑ j=1 p (Cj)Corr (A,B |Cj ) ] . (25) On the other hand, by hypothesis {Ci}i∈I is a partition of the given probability space, which implies that: n ∑ i=1 p (Ci) = 1. (26) Further assuming (22) will therefore produce the following equality: Corr (A,B)− Corre (A,B) = 1 2 n ∑ i,j=1 p (Ci) p (Cj) [p (A |Ci )− p (A |Cj )][p (B |Ci )− p (B |Cj )], (27) which in the light of (10) is but a different formulation of (24). Demonstrating Proposition 5 on this basis would be straightforward, so we are omitting the details of the proof. One interesting thing to notice about this demonstration, however, is that setting Corre (A,B) = 0 in (27) would reduce it to the equation employed by Hofer-Szabó and Rédei to demonstrate that HRRCCSs produce positive correlations. This fact, in itself, is further confirmation of the adequacy of GHR-RCCSs as a generalisation of HR-RCCSs. 7 3.1 Existence of GHR-RCCSs Hofer-Szabó and Rédei [8] argue that a HR-RCCS of arbitrary finite size exists for every positively correlated pair of events, in some suitable extension of the original probability space. The discussion to follow will be dedicated to establish a similar result for GHR-RCCSs. Remarkably, it will turn out that not all positive deviations admit of a GHR-RCCS. Hofer-Szabó and Rédei's proof proceeds by noticing that, in general, set {Ci} n i=1 is a HR-RCCS of size n ≥ 2 for Corr (A,B) in probability space (Ω, p) if and only if the values of p (A |C1 ), ...., p (A |Cn ), p (B |C1 ), ...., p (B |Cn ), and p (C1), ...., p (Cn) satisfy some specified constraints. They call any set {ai, bi, ci} n i=1 of 3n numbers satisfying said constraints admissible for Corr (A,B) and demonstrate that, for any two positively correlated events A and B and any n ≥ 2, a set of n admissible numbers for Corr (A,B) can be found. On this basis, they finally show how an extension of the given probability space can always be constructed, in which some partition {Ci} n i=1 exists such that n ≥ 2 and the values of p (A |C1 ), ...., p (A |Cn ), p (B |C1 ), ...., p (B |Cn ), and p (C1), ...., p (Cn) are admissible for Corr (A,B), thereby etablishing the existence of a HR-RCCS of size n for Corr (A,B) in that space. The following proof will follow the broad logical structure of Hofer-Szabó and Rédei's argumentation. Our first step will consist in identifying the necessary and sufficient conditions that must be satisfied by the values of p (A |C1 ), ...., p (A |Cn ), p (B |C1 ), ...., p (B |Cn ), p (A ∧B |C1 ), ...., p (A ∧B |Cn ), and p (C1), ...., p (Cn) to make {Ci} n i=1 a GHR-RCCS of size n ≥ 2 for δ (A,B). This, however, will be done in two stages, as some of the conditions that we are going to single out will be shared by the model to be developed in §4. Let us begin by isolating these. Definition 7. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B ∈ Ω satisfying (17) and any n ≥ 2, the set {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 of real numbers is called quasi-admissible* for δ (A,B) if and only if the following conditions hold: n ∑ i=1 aici = p (A) (28) n ∑ i=1 bici = p (B) (29) n ∑ i=1 ci = 1 (30) di − aibi = Corre (A,B) (i = 1, ..., n) (31) 0 < ai, bi, di < 1 (i = 1, ..., n) (32) 0 < ci < 1 (i = 1, ..., n). (33) The attentive reader will have noticed that, for each n ≥ 2, quasi-admissible sets include 4n numbers, whereas admissible sets, as defined by Hofer-Szabó and Rédei, include only 3n numbers. Moreover, while (28)-(30) and (32)-(33) are either identical to or straightforward generalizations of some of Hofer-Szabó 8 and Rédei's original conditions for admissible numbers, constraint (30) is not. Similar changes are needed to avoid a logical mistake in their original proof, along the lines illustrated in more detail in [12]. To complete this part of the proof, we need to supplement quasi-admissible sets with one more condition: Definition 8. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B ∈ Ω and any n ≥ 2, a set {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 of real numbers is called HR-admissible for δ (A,B) if and only if it is quasi-admissible for δ (A,B) and it further satisfies [ai − aj ][bi − bj] > 0 (1, ..., n = i 6= j = 1, ..., n). (34) The adequacy of the above definition is testified by the following lemma, whose proof is straightforward and which can consequently be omitted: Lemma 2. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B ∈ Ω and any {Ci} n i=1 ⊆ Ω where n ≥ 2, the set {Ci} n i=1 is a GHR-RCCS of size n for δ (A,B) if and only if there exists a set {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 of HR-admissible numbers for δ (A,B) such that p (Ci) = ci (i = 1, ..., n) (35) p (A |Ci ) = ai (i = 1, ..., n) (36) p (B |Ci ) = bi (i = 1, ..., n) (37) p (A ∧B |Ci ) = di (i = 1, ..., n). (38) The next step in our proof will be to establish the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of HR-admissible numbers for δ (A,B). To this purpose, however, we shall need the following lemma: Lemma 3. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. Moreover, let A,B ∈ Ω and let {Ci} n i=1 ⊆ Ω with n ≥ 2. Then, any set {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 of real numbers satisfying identities (35)-(38) is quasi-admissible for δ (A,B) if and only if it further satisfies (32)-(33) as well as an = a− n−1 ∑ k=1 ckak 1− n−1 ∑ k=1 ck (39) bn = b− n−1 ∑ k=1 ckbk 1− n−1 ∑ k=1 ck (40) cn = 1− n−1 ∑ k=1 ck (41) 9 dn = ε+ [ a− n−1 ∑ k=1 akck ][ b− n−1 ∑ k=1 bkck ] [ 1− n−1 ∑ k=1 ck ]2 (42) dk = ε+ akbk (k = 1, ..., n− 1), (43) where a = p (A) (44) b = p (B) (45) ε = Corre (A,B) . (46) Proof. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. Moreover, let A,B ∈ Ω satisfy (17) and let the set {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 of n ≥ 2 real numbes satisfy conditions (35)-(38) and (32)-(33). Finally, let (44)-(46) be in place. Given the aforesaid hypothesis, (28)-(30) can be directly obtained from (39)-(41) thanks to the theorem of total probability, and vice-versa. Therefore, we only need to show that (31) obtains if and only if (42)-(43) do. To this purpose, let us first observe that, as a further consequence of the theorem of total probability, the following equality holds: dn = [dn − anbn] + [ a− n−1 ∑ k=i akck ] [ b− n−1 ∑ k=1 b− bk ] [ 1− n−1 ∑ k=1 ck ]2 . (47) Thanks to (47) it is then immediate to verify that (42)-(43) are simultaneously satisfied if (31) is. Conversely, let us suppose that (42)-(43) are the case. Then (42) and (47) will jointly imply that dn − anbn = ε, (48) which, together with (43), straighforwardly implies (31), as required. Endowed with the above result, we are now in a position to determine the necessary conditions so that, in general, HR-admissible numbers {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 could exist for δ (A,B) and n ≥ 2. Quite interestingly: Lemma 4. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B ∈ Ω, no HR-admissible numbers exist for δ (A,B) if Corre (A,B) + p (A) p (B) ≤ 0. (49) Proof. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p, and let A,B ∈ Ω be arbitrarily chosen. Lemma 4 will be established by contraposition, so let 10 us assume that, for some n ≥ 2, a set {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 of HR-admissible numbers does exist for δ (A,B). Moreover, let us assume identities (44)-(46). To prove our lemma, two preliminary steps will be required. First, we shall prove that some aj , bk ∈ {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 exist such that a− aj > 0 (50) b− bk > 0. (51) Next, on that basis, we shall demonstrate that at least some such aj , ak ∈ {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 exist, for which j = k. To estabish the first claim, let us begin by noticing that, as a plain consequence of (28)-(29) and (30): 0 = a− a = n ∑ i=1 aci − n ∑ i=1 aici = n ∑ i=1 ci(a− ai) (52) 0 = b− b = n ∑ i=1 bci − n ∑ i=1 bici = n ∑ i=1 ci(b − bi). (53) On the other hand, (33) demands that ci > 0 for all i = 1, ..., n, while (34) implies that aj = a and bk = b can be satisfied by at most one term aj and one term bk for j, k = 1, ..., n ≥ 2. The above equalities therefore imply that a− ai be positive for some values of i and negative for others, while similarly b− bi be positive for some values of i and negative for others. This is enough to prove (50) and (51), as desired. To prove our second auxiliary result, let us first relabel all numbers in {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 so that a1 < ... < ak < a ≤ ak+1 < ... < an. (54) This in turn implies that ai − aj < 0 i = 1, ..., k; j = k + 1, ..., n. (55) Now, let us proceed by reductio, and let us assume that bi − b > 0 i = 1, ..., k. (56) Then, according to the result previously established, some bj ∈ {bi} n i=k+1 ⊂ {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 should exist such that b− bj > 0. (57) However, in that case bi − bj > 0 i = 1, ..., k (58) 11 would ensue. Together with (55), this would imply [ai − aj ][bi − bj] < 0 i = 1, ..., k (59) consequently contradicting (34). By reductio, this shows that (50)-(51) must be satisfied for some aj , bk ∈ {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 where j = k. Let us now come to the main part of our proof. Thanks to the results so established, we can now safely claim that, for any set {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 of HR-admissible numbers, some ai, bi ∈ {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 are always to be found such that ab− aibi > 0. (60) Together with (31), this implies that ab+ ε > aibi + ε = di > 0, (61) contradicting (49). By contraposition, this means that whenever (49) is satisfied, no set {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 of real numbers can satify (31) given the other conditions for a HR-admissible set for δ (A,B). Hence, no HR-admissible set can exist for δ (A,B). Let us now move to the sufficient condition for the existence of HR-admissible numbers {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 for δ (A,B) and n ≥ 2. Remarkably, this turns out to be the same as the necessary condition: Lemma 5. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B ∈ Ω satisfying (17), a set {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 of HR-admissible numbers for δ (A,B) exists for each n ≥ 2 if Corre (A,B) + p (A) p (B) > 0. (62) Proof. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. Moreover, let A,B ∈ Ω satisfy (17) and (62). To start with, let us observe that (43) is in fact a system of n− 1 equations, namely one for each value of i = 1, ..., n−1. Therefore, (39)-(43) jointly comprise a system of 4+(n−1) = n+3 equations in 4n variables. This means that each HR-admissible set for δ (A,B) is determined by a set of 4n − (n + 3) = 3n − 3 parameters, for every n ≥ 2. To establish the existence of such set, we accordingly need to prove that such parameters exist. To this purpose, let numbers a, b and ε be understood as per (44)-(46). Proof will proceed by induction on the cardinality of n. Let us begin by assuming n = 2 as our inductive basis. This has the effect of transforming (39)-(43), 12 respectively, into: a2 = a− c1a1 1− c1 (63) b2 = b− c1b1 1− c1 (64) c2 = 1− c1 (65) d2 = ε+ [a− a1c1][b− b1c1] [1− c1]2 (66) d1 − a1b1 = ε. (67) Since a, b and ε are known by hypothesis, choosing numbers c1, a1 and b1 will therefore suffice to fix the values of all 4n = 8 variables in the system. Let us accordingly constrain c1 so that: ci → 0. (68) Owing to this, (63)-(66) immediately produce a2 → a (69) b2 → b (70) c2 → 1 (71) d2 → ε+ ab, (72) while on the other hand (17) directly requires that 1 > a, b > 0, (73) as it would be easy to verify. Taken together, this ensures that 1 > a2, b2 > 0 (74) 1 > c1, c2 > 0, (75) while (62) and (17) imply that 1 > d2 > 0. (76) To determine the remaining numbers, we further need to set a1 and b1. In this case, our choice will depend 13 on the value of ε, as follows: ε ≥ 0 a > a1 > 0 b > b1 > 0 (77) ε < 0 1 > a1 > 0 1 > b1 > 0 (78) Either option is allowed by (73), and either will ensure that 1 > di > 0, (79) as it would be straightforward to check with the aid of (43), (17) and (62). Thanks to Lemma (3), this is enough to establish that some set {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 of quasi-admissible numbers exist for δ (A,B) if n = 2. To further show that such set is HR-admissible for δ (A,B), we only need to observe that (34) can be obtained from both (77) and (78), owing to (28)-(30). Let us now assume, as our inductive hypothesis, that some set {ai, bi, ci, di} m i=1 be HR-admissible for δ (A,B), where n = m > 2. To prove that a HR-admissible set for δ (A,B) also exists if n = m+1, let us consider the set {aj , bj, cj , am−1, bm−1} m−2 j=1 ⊂ {ai, bi, ci, di} m i=1 , and let us choose numbers a′m, b ′ m, c ′ m−1, c ′ m such that: aj > a ′ m > 0 (j = 1, ...,m− 1) (80) bj > b ′ m > 0 (j = 1, ...,m− 1) (81) cm, cm−1 > c ′ m−1 > 0 (82) 1 > c′m > 0. (83) Given (39)-(43), the set {aj , bj, cj , am−1, bm−1} m−2 j=1 ∪ { a′m, b ′ m, c ′ m−1, c ′ m } of 3(m− 1) + 3 = 3(m+ 1)− 3 = 3n− 3 parameters will then suffice to determine 4(m+ 1) numbers: { aj , bj, cj , dj , am−1, bm−1, c ′ m−1, dm−1, a ′ m, b ′ m, c ′ m, d ′ m, am+1, bm+1, cm+1, dm+1 }m−2 j=1 . Because numbers { aj , bj, cj , dj , am−1, bm−1, c ′ m−1, dm−1, a ′ m, b ′ m, c ′ m, }m−1 j=1 satisfy conditions (31)-(33) and (34) by hypothesis, all we need to show is that said constraints be also satisfied by the remaining numbers {d′m, am+1, bm+1, cm+1, dm+1}. To this purpose, let us first notice that (32) must be true of d ′ m by virtue 14 of (31) and (80)-(81). Next, thanks to (39)-(42), it will be sufficient to suppose that a′m → 0 (84) b′m → 0 (85) c′m → cm−1 − c ′ m−1 (86) to obtain am+1 → am (87) bm+1 → bm (88) cm+1 → cm (89) dm+1 → dm (90) which we already know, by our inductive hypothesis, to satisfy (31)-(33). Moreover, (80) and (81), along with the inductive assumption whereby [am − ai][bm − bi] > 0 (i = 1, ...,m− 1), (91) ensures that [am+1 − ai][bm+1 − bi] > 0 (i = 1, ...,m), (92) which together with our inductive hypothesis suffices to establish (34). Due to Lemma 3 and Definition 8, the set of 4(m + 1) numbers so determined is therefore HR-admissible for δ (A,B). Lemma 5 is thus demonstrated by induction. Before getting to the end of our existential proof, we need one more definition: Definition 9. Let (Ω, p) and (Ω′, p′) be classical probability spaces with σ-algebras of random events Ω and Ω′ and with probability measures p and p′, respectively. Then (Ω′, p′) is called an extension of (Ω, p) if and only if there exists an injective lattice homomorphism h : Ω → Ω′, preserving complementation, such that p′ (h(X)) = p (X) for all X ∈ Ω. (93) The results of our demonstration can thus be crystallized into the following proposition: Proposition 4. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B ∈ Ω satisfying (17) and any n ≥ 2, an extension (Ω′, p′) of (Ω, p) including a GHR-RCCS of size n for δ (A,B) exists if and only if A and B satisfy (62). Proof. The only-if clause immediately follows from Lemma 2 and Lemma 4. Proof of the if-clause, instead, is structurally similar to Step 2 of Hofer-Szabó and Rédei's proof for the existence of HR-RCCSs of 15 arbitrary finite size in [8], although Hofer-Szabó and Rédei's conditions (60)-(63) will have to be replaced by: r1i = cidi p (A ∧B) (94) r2i = ciai − cidi p ( A ∧B ) (95) r3i = cibi − cidi p ( A ∧B ) (96) r4i = ci − ciai − cibi + cidi p ( A ∧B ) , (97) which, owing to (31), actually reduce to the aforesaid conditions for ε = 0. 4 Generalised Reichenbachian Common Cause Systems Revisited There are two aspects in which HR-RCCSs may not be considered fully satisfactory generalisations of conjunctive common causes. The first aspect is that they can admit of elements that are probabilistically independent of one or both events from the corresponding correlated pair. This is at odds with the intuition that positive causes should ceteris paribus increase the probability of their effects, and that negative causes should ceteris paribus decrease their probability. The second aspect is that they rule out the possibility that two distinct causes could equally alter the probability of one, or both, of their effects. On the face of it, there is simply no reason why a systems of common causes should be so constrained. To overcome these limitations, in [10] I proposed a revisitation of HR-RCCSs, along the following lines: Definition 10. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B ∈ Ω, a Reichenbachian Common Cause System* (M-RCCS) of size n ≥ 2 for Corr (A,B) is a partition {Ci} n i=1 of Ω such that: p (Ci) 6= 0 (i = 1, ..., n) (98) Corr (A,B |Ci ) = 0 (i = 1, ..., n) (99) [ p (A |Ci )− p (A) ][ p (B |Ci )− p (B) ] > 0 (i = 1, ..., n). (100) Whether M-RCCSs are really to be preferred to HR-RCCSs is controversial [20]. However, this is no place to settle that issue. Rather, in this section we shall limit ourselves to offer an alternative extension of the generalised common cause model, by taking M-RCCSs as a basis. Let us accordingly define: Definition 11. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B ∈ Ω, a Generalised Reichenbachian Common Cause System* (GM-RCCS) of size n ≥ 2 for Corr (A,B) is a partition {Ci} n i=1 of Ω such that: p (Ci) 6= 0 (i = 1, ..., n) (101) Corr (A,B |Ci ) = Corre (A,B) (i = 1, ..., n) (102) [ p (A |Ci )− p (A) ][ p (B |Ci )− p (B) ] > 0 (i = 1, ..., n). (103) 16 Just as with GHR-RCCSs, it can be shown that GM-RCCSs invariably produce a positive deviation between the observed correlation of their effects and their expected correlation. To this end, let us first introduce the following lemma: Lemma 6. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. Let A,B ∈ Ω and let {Ci}i∈I be a partition of Ω satisfying conditions (101)-(102). Then: δ (A,B) = ∑ i∈I p (Ci) [p (A |Ci )− p (A)][p (B |Ci )− p (B)]. (104) Proof. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. Let A,B ∈ Ω and let {Ci}i∈I be a partition of Ω for which (101) holds. The theorem of total probability thereby implies that Corr (A,B) = n ∑ i=1 p (Ci) [p (A |Ci )− p (A)][p (B |Ci )− p (A)] + n ∑ i=1 p (Ci)Corr (A,B |Ci ). (105) Let us now suppose that (102) be satisfied, too. Then, owing to the fact that n ∑ i=1 p (Ci) = 1, (106) few elementary calculations would transform the above equality into: Corr (A,B)− Corre (A,B) = n ∑ i=1 p (Ci) [p (A |Ci )− p (A)][p (B |Ci )− p (A)], (107) which according to (10) is just a restatement of (104). Based on the above lemma, it would then be easy to demonstrate the following proposition: Proposition 5. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B ∈ Ω and any {Ci}i∈I ⊆ Ω, if {Ci}i∈I is a GM-RCCS of size n ≥ 2 for δ (A,B), then (17) obtains. GM-RCCSs accordingly perform a similar explanatory function as GHR-RCCSs. Quite interestingly, moreover, for every two events A and B in a classical probability space such that δ (A,B) > 0 and every n ≥ 2, a GM-RCCSs of size n for δ (A,B) exists in some extension of the given probability space if and only if a GHR-RCCS does. Demonstrating this will be our next objective. 4.1 Existence of GM-RCCSs The existential proof we shall elaborate in this section will follow the broad lines of the one developed in §3.1. Just as with GHR-RCCSs, we shall first determine the necessary and sufficient conditions the values of p (A |C1 ), ...., p (A |Cn ), p (B |C1 ), ...., p (B |Cn ), p (A ∧B |C1 ), ...., p (A ∧B |Cn ), and p (C1), ...., p (Cn) ought to satisfy so that {Ci} n i=1 be a GM-RCCS of size n ≥ 2 for δ (A,B). Subsequently, we 17 shall determine the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of such numbers, and on that basis we shall finally establish the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of an extension of the given probability space, where a GM-RCCS of size n for δ (A,B) could be found. Quite evidently, GM-RCCSs differ from GHR-RCCSs only in that they substitute condition (23) with (103). Consequently, in order to complete the first step of our proof, we only need to replace Definition 8 with the following one: Definition 12. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B ∈ Ω and any n ≥ 2, a set {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 of real numbers is called M-admissible for δ (A,B) if and only if it is quasi-admissible for δ (A,B) and it further satisfies [ai − p (A)][bi − p (B)] > 0 (i = 1, ..., n). (108) Just as before, the adequacy of the above definition is easily established: Lemma 7. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B ∈ Ω and any {Ci} n i=1 ⊆ Ω where n ≥ 2, the set {Ci} n i=1 is a GM-RCCS of size n for δ (A,B) if and only if there exists a set {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 of M-admissible numbers for δ (A,B) for which identities (35)-(38) are true. M-admissible numbers are quasi-admissible by definition. This fact allows us to build on our previous discussion, to easily prove the following result: Lemma 8. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B ∈ Ω, no M-admissible numbers exist for δ (A,B) if Corre (A,B) + p (A) p (B) ≤ 0. (49) Proof. Lemma 8 is demonstrated in a similar way as Lemma 4. Let us accordingly (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p, let A,B ∈ Ω be arbitrarily chosen so as to satisfy (17), and let us further assume that for some n ≥ 2, a set {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 of Madmissible numbers exists for δ (A,B). Moreover, let identities (35)-(38) and(44)-(46) be in place. Showing that some ai, bi ∈ {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 exist satisfying a− ai > 0 (109) b− bi > 0 (110) in this case would only require some elementary calculations, as the above inequality directly follow from (108) along with (28) and (29). The remainder of the proof would then proceed in exactly the same way as the analogous proof for Lemma 4. Condition (62) is thus necessary for the existence of M-admissible numbers for δ (A,B), for any two events A and B satisfying (17) and any n ≥ 2. Moreover, as with GHR-RCCSs, it is also sufficient: 18 Lemma 9. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B ∈ Ω satisfying (17), a set {ai, bi, ci, di} n i=1 of M-admissible numbers for δ (A,B) exists for each n ≥ 2 if Corre (A,B) + p (A) p (B) > 0. (62) Proof. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. Moreover, let A,B ∈ Ω satisfy (17) and (62). Proof will proceed by induction on n. Let n = 2 accordingly be our inductive basis. Because for n = 2 conditions (34) and (108) become equivalent, this case was actually covered in the inductive proof for Lemma 5. Next, as our inductive hypothesis, let n = m and let {ai, bi, ci, di} m i=1 be M-admissible for δ (A,B). On this basis, let us now proceed to the last step of our inductive proof, and let n = m+ (r − 1), where r ≥ 2. Let us first choose some ck ∈ {ai, bi, ci, di} m i=1. Then, (30) and (33) ensure that it is possible to find a set { c j k }r j=1 of r ≥ 2 identical real numbers, lying inside the interval (0, 1), such that r ∑ j=1 c j k = r ∑ j=1 ck r = ck. (111) Furthermore, it is trivially possible to find three sets { a j k }r j=1 , { b j k }r j=1 and { d j k }r j=1 of r ≥ 2 identical real numbers satisfying a j k = ak j = 1, ..., r (112) b j k = bk j = 1, ..., r (113) d j k = dk j = 1, ..., r. (114) Given (44)-(45), our inductive hypothesis then implies: a = m ∑ i=1 aici = m ∑ k 6=i=1 aici + akck = m ∑ k 6=i=1 aici + ak ck r r = m ∑ k 6=i=1 aici + r ∑ j=1 a j kc j k = m+r ∑ k 6=i=1 aici (115) b = m ∑ i=1 bici = m ∑ k 6=i=1 bici + bkck = m ∑ k 6=i=1 bici + bk ck r r = m ∑ k 6=i=1 bici + r ∑ j=1 b j kc j k = m+r ∑ k 6=i=1 bici (116) 1 = m ∑ i=1 ci = m ∑ k 6=i=1 ci + ck = m ∑ k 6=i=1 ci + r ∑ j=1 c j k = m+r ∑ k 6=i=1 ci (117) ε = dk − akbk = d j k − a j kb j k j = 1, ..., r. (118) This guarantees that the set {ai, bi, ci, di} m k 6=i=1 ∪ {aj , bj , cj, dj} r j=1 of 4(m+ r − 1) numbers so obtained satisfies (28)-(31). Furthermore, (32)-(33) and (108) are clearly satisfied owing to our inductive hypothesis and to the way numbers {aj , bj , cj, dj} r j=1 were chosen. This is enough to prove that {ai, bi, ci, di} m k 6=i=1 ∪ {aj , bj, cj , dj} r j=1 is M-admissible for δ (A,B), therefore concluding our inductive proof. 19 Our existential proof is now virtually complete. Let us just add one final touch: Proposition 6. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B ∈ Ω satisfying (17) and any n ≥ 2, an extension (Ω′, p′) of (Ω, p) including a GM-RCCS of size n for δ (A,B) exists if and only if A and B satisfy (62). Proof. Proof is in all similar to the proof for Proposition 4, mutatis mutandis. Two final remarks may be added at this at this point. First, Proposition 4 and Proposition 6 both rectify the results announced in [11], where it was implicitly assumed that expected correlations be greater than or equal to zero, leading to the erroneous claim that a generalised common cause should exist, in some extension of the initial probability space, for every positive deviation. Second, GHR-RCCSs and GMRCCSs for a given deviation may not coexist in the same probability space. Neverthless, Proposition 4 and 6 jointly guarantee the following result: Proposition 7. Let (Ω, p) be a classical probability space with σ-algebra of random events Ω and probability measure p. For any A,B ∈ Ω satisfying (17), an extension (Ω′, p′) of (Ω, p) including a GHR-RCCS of size n ≥ 2 for δ (A,B) exists if and only if there is some extension (Ω′′, p′′) of (Ω, p) including a GM-RCCS of size m ≥ 2 for δ (A,B). This means that, irrespective of the different probabilistric properties of GHR-RCCSs and GM-RCCSs, neither model can explain more or different deviations than the other. The two models are thus to be assessed based not on what they can explain, but how. The question as to whether M-RCCSs should be preferred to HR-RCCSs, therefore, is carried over to their generalised counterparts. 4.2 Conclusion The principle of the common cause decrees that improbable coincidences be put down to the action of some common cause. The standard interpretation of the principle takes this as a requirement that positive correlations between causally unrelated events be removed by conditioning on some conjunctive common cause. The interpretation here promoted, and encapsulated in the extended principle of the common cause, urges by contrast that common causes be called for in order to explain positive deviations between the estimated correlation of two events and their expected correlation. This paper has outlined two distinct probabilistic models for systems of common causes that incorporate the extended intepretation of the principle. GHR-RCCSs have been elaborated by combining the generalised common cause model with HR-RCCSs. GM-RCCSs, instead, have been obtained by integrating generalised common causes with M-RCCSs. The necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of finite systems of either kind have been determined. Our demonstration led to the unexpected result that some extension of the given classical probability space can be found including a GHR-RCCS of arbitrary finite size for some specified positive deviation, if and only if a similar exstension can be found including a GM-RCCS of finite size for the same deviation. Even more interestingly, in either case the existence of such space is guaranteed if and only if the sum of the expected correlation of the pair of events under consideration and the product of their probabilities is greater than zero. The mathematical reason for this limitation is clear: only under said constraint, in fact, 20 can HR-admissible numbers and M-admissible numbers for a positive deviation exist. The philosophical interpretation of this result, instead, is an open question. References [1] Arntzenius, F. (1992). The Common Cause Principle. PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers : 227-237. [2] Cartwright, N. (1979). Causal Laws and Effective Strategies Noûs 13: 419-437. [3] Cartwright, N. (1988). How to Tell a Common Cause: Generalizations of the Common Cause Criterion. In J. H. Fetzer, editor, Probability and Causality: 181-188. Dordrecht: Reidel. [4] Cartwright, N. (1999) Causal Diversity and the Markov Condition. Synthese 121: 3-27. [5] Eells, E. (1991). Probabilistic Causality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [6] Good I. J. (1961). A Causal Calculus I. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 11: 305-318. [7] Hofer-Szabó, G. and M. Rédei (2004). Reichenbachian Common Cause Systems. International Journal of Theoretical Physics 43: 1819-1826. [8] Hofer-Szabó, G. and M. Rédei (2006). Reichenbachian Common Cause Systems of Arbitrary Finite Size Exist. Foundations of Physics 36: 745-756. [9] Hofer-Szabó, G., M. Rédei and L. E. Szabó (2013). The Principle of the Common Cause. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. [10] Mazzola, C. (2012). Reichenbachian Common Cause Systems Revisited. Foundations of Physics 42: 512-523. [11] Mazzola, C. (2013). Correlations, Deviations and Expectations: The Extended Principle of the Common Cause. Synthese 190: 2853-2866. [12] Mazzola, C. and P. Evans (2017). Do Reichenbachian Common Cause Systems of Arbitrary Finite Size Exist? arXiv:1703.00352 [stato.OT; sc.AI; physics.hist-ph] [13] Pearl, J. (1988). Probabilistic Reasoning in Intelligent Systems. San Mateo: Morgan Kauffman. [14] Pearl, J. (2000). Causality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [15] Reichenbach, H. (1956) The Direction of Time. Berkeley: University of California Press. [16] Salmon, W. C. (1971). Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press. [17] Salmon, W. C. (1984). Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. [18] Skyrms, B. (1980). Causal Necessity. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 21 [19] Spirtes, P., C. Glymour and R. Scheines (2001). Causation, Prediction, and Search, 2nd ed. Cambridge and London: MIT Press. [20] Stergiou, C. (2015). Explaning Correlations by Partitions. Foundations of Physics 45: 1599-1612. [21] Suppes, P. (1970). A Probabilistic Theory of Causality. Amsterdam: North-Holland. [22] Suppes, P. and M. Zaniotti (1981). When Are Probabilistic Explanations Possible? Synthese 48: 191-199. [23] van Fraassen, B. (1980). The Scientific Image. Oxford: Clarendon Press. [24] van Fraassen, B. (1991). Quantum Mechanics: An Empiricist View. Oxford: Clarendon Press. [25] Williamson, J. (2005). Bayesian Nets and Causality. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. | {
"pile_set_name": "PhilPapers"
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www.argument-journal.eu Published online: 21.12.2015 * This paper is a part of a bigger project Is mind in the head? Two philosophies of mind and two conceptions of immortality in Franz Brentano founded by The National Science Center in Kraków, Poland (the postdoctoral internship no. DEC-2013/08/S/HS1/00184/2). The author is grateful to Arkadiusz Chrudzimski and Barry Smith for their comments on the draft of this paper. ** Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy, University of Szczecin, Poland. E -mail: [email protected]. ArgUmENT Vol. 5 (1/2015) pp. 35–50 e -ISSN 2084 –1043 ISSN 2083 –6635 Franz Kafka's story The metamorphosis in the light of the theory of intentional object in Franz Brentano and Anton Marty* Sonia KAmIŃSKA** ABSTrACT How does it feel to be a worm? No doubt, it feels Kafkaesque. The metamorphosis (1915) is a story of an ordinary man, gregor Samsa, who wakes up one morning as an ungeheures Ungeziefer or 'giant vermin'. Is this only a bodily change, or has his mind been transformed as well? And how do the people around him cope with this transformation? In this paper, I am going to examine these issues by using tools from Franz Brentano's (1838 –1917) and Anton marty's (1847 –1914) philosophy of mind and language. rumour has it that Kafka's stories were not only products of his own troubled soul, but were also profoundly influenced by the work of these two philosophers. In my paper, I will cover the following issues: the influence of Franz Brentano on Anton marty and a fortiori on Franz Kafka (1883 –1924), who was marty's student in Prague (and in this way, saying something about the School of Brentano); Brentano's and marty's theory of correct and incorrect emotions, and its traces in Kafka's The metamorphosis; marty's philosophy of language and communication as reflected in Kafka's writings; and Brentano's reism in comparison to Kafka's nominalism, on the basis of roberto Calasso's interpretation of Kafka. KEYWOrDS intentionality; theory of emotion; correct emotion; philosophy of mind; philosophy of language; school of Brentano; intersection between literature and philosophy; body; soul 36 Sonia KAMIŃSKA OUTLINE I shall start with a short exposition: presenting the setting, the characters, their back stories and how they all 'met'. Franz Brentano and Anton marty knew each other very well from Würzburg, where marty was Brentano's student; marty and Kafka met in person during the latter's lectures in Prague; Kafka and Brentano on the other hand never actually met. How, then, can we call the writer a 'Brentanist'? This question will be answered in the first part: Introduction. The school of Brentano? I shall then move into four sections where I will be concerned with specific philosophical issues that arise from reading Kafka's The metamorphosis (Kafka, 1996)1. I will be concentrating on The metamorphosis in particular as I believe it supplies us with the proper imagery to both find Brentanian and martian traces in Kafka, and to show how their ideas could have influenced not only philosophers and psychologists but also writers, and thus find their way to the world of the twentieth century cultural topoi. my paper will consist of the following sections: 1) B r ent ano v i a ma r t y. Wha t Ka fk a l e a rned du r ing mar t y 's l e c tu r e s. This section will cover the following issues: the three classes of mental phenomena according to Brentano and marty, the new definition of psychology as the science of mental phenomena, the intentional in -existence of an object in a mental act, and the paradox of introspection. 2) B r ent ano and mar t y on ( i n ) co r r e c t emot ion s. This part will be devoted to the 'official Brentano' and his theory of evident judgment and emotion (from The origin of the knowledge of right and wrong), the 'not -so -official Brentano' (from the unpublished Logic lectures) as well as marty and the truth -makers, Wertverhalte and two classes of beings in his ontology.2 I will use these tools to depict the transformation not only of gregor Samsa but of the whole family, and the complex relations between them. 3) mar t y : l ang uage and commun ic a t ion . Here, I will concentrate on the pragmatic and teleological aspect of marty's philosophy of language and the communication breakdown of the Samsas. 4) B r ent ano 's r e i sm and Ka fk a 's a l l e g ed nomina l i sm . In the final section I will show how the nominalism ascribed to Kafka by roberto Calasso in his K (Calasso, 2011) can be interpreted in light of Brentano's reism. 1 Die Verwandlung [The metamorphosis] was first published in 1915. 2 I borrow the terms 'official' and 'not official Brentano', as well as 'parsimonious and baroque ontology' from Arkadiusz Chrudzimski (2009). Franz Kafka's story The metamorphosis in the light... 37 INTrODUCTION. THE SCHOOL OF BrENTANO? In the vast body of literature on Franz Brentano the term 'school of Brentano' is frequently banded about. This is, however, a somewhat misleading term as although Brentano led an intellectually active life in Vienna, he never managed to found any kind of official school. In actual fact, he was asked to leave the university and become a Privatdozent. I would therefore say that the 'school of Brentano' falls into the scope of Irrealia, to use marty's terminology: it is neither real nor nonexistent. The story behind the 'non -existence' of the school in question is well known (Smith, 1997; Simons' Introduction in: Brentano, 1995) but, nevertheless, I shall rephrase it and enrich it with some conclusions I have drawn from my own research on Brentano's Aristotelian writings and Husserl's student memories.3 Brentano was a professor in Vienna between the years 1874 and 1880 (starting with the first edition of Psychology from an empirical standpoint). Previous to that however, he had been living in Würzburg, working as both a professor and a Catholic priest (1864 –1873). In the early 1870s, he had engaged in a fierce debate with the Church concerning the infallibility of the Pope (which he had been explicitly against) and - as a consequence - he left both the priesthood and his professorship. He subsequently moved to Vienna, where he continued his career as a layman (although not formally resigning from priesthood until 1879). In 1880 he decided to marry Ida Lieben and this in turn forced him to leave his professorship for the second time as former priests were banned from marrying in Austria at that time (Kamińska, 2014). He therefore remained a Privatdozent in Vienna until 1895, a position which made him feel both unhappy and marginalized as he was not allowed to supervise any doctoral or habilitation theses. Nevertheless, he did not resign from teaching as he would regularly invite his students to semi -official gatherings at his home organized with the assistance of his wife, Husserl being one of his frequent and most welcome visitors. meanwhile in Vienna, the university chair was taken up by moritz Schlick and the Vienna Circle was founded: the most famous school in Viennese history (Smith, 1994: 20). His students however were able to obtain posts in universities elsewhere in Austria, and to propagate Brentanian philosophy to the extent that it acquired the status of 3 Aristotelica: Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles ([On the several senses of being in Aristotle], 1862), Die Psychologie des Aristoteles, insbesondere seine Lehre vom nous poietikos ([The psychology of Aristotle], 1867), Über den Creatianismus des Aristoteles ([On Aristotle's creationism], 1882), Aristoteles' Lehre vom Ursprung des menschlichen Geistes ([Aristotle's theory of the origin of human soul/intellect],1911), Aristoteles und seine Weltanschauung ([Aristotle and his world view], 1911). There is also a rather considerable Nachlass: Über Aristoteles ([On Aristotle], 1986) plus numerous manuscripts, and Husserl's memoirs (Husserl, 1919). 38 Sonia KAMIŃSKA a semi -official philosophy of the Empire. Brentano's students included, beside marty and Ehrenfels, also Freud, Thomas masaryk (subsequently founder and first president of the erstwhile Czechoslovak republic), meinong, Husserl, Stumpf and Twardowski. The most orthodox Brentanists congregated around marty in Prague, whose circle included also other former students of Brentano, such as Oskar Kraus and Alfred Kastil. The Prague Brentanists took up the task of developing and disseminating Brentano's doctrines with an almost religious fervour. A group of them met regularly in the Café Louvre (now a sex shop4) on the Ferdinandstrasse, for 'training' in Brentanian modes of thought and of philosophical discussion and argument. Hugo Bergmann, Emil Utitz and Oskar Pollak, three close schoolfriends of Kafka, were all initiated into this circle, and Bergmann, in his turn, seems to have recruited Kafka himself. There is evidence testifying to the fact that, at least between the years 1903 and 1906, Kafka frequently attended meetings of what was called the 'inner circle of Brentanists' (Smith, 1997: 85). Ironically, Brentano's misfortune proved to be a blessing for the European philosophy. If things had turned out differently, his teachings would not have had such a wide -ranging audience (see the graz School, the Lvov -Warsaw School, the Prague School and even the munich phenomenologists) and Brentanism would not have become the 'semi -official philosophy of the Empire', as Smith accurately calls it. There is also one more line of explanation of the aforementioned 'non - -existence', taken from Husserl's memoirs (Husserl, 1919). According to Husserl, Brentano never saw himself as having set up any kind of school (not only in the institutional sense, but - more importantly to him - in the intellectual sense), as there was not one student with whom he felt entirely satisfied - a rather surprising statement given the distinguished and devoted nature of his students. He was - as Husserl puts it - easily offended whenever they would steer away from his original views (indeed, not doing this must have been hard not only in terms of their personal development but also due to Brentano's rather frequent changes of mind). Dale Jacquette (2006) stresses this feature of his character when referring to how much Husserl hurt his master. In march 1917, when Brentano was dying in Zurich, he felt he was somehow 'childless', with no proper heir to his thought. This must have been largely due to how he understood the relationship between master and student as for Brentano, a genuine emotional commitment together with an intellectual congeniality were required. He strongly believed that he had been chosen as Aristotle's heir and he claimed to be one of his three most faithful students and his third son, along with Eudemus and Theophrastus. What I wish to emphasize by all of this is that - according to Brentano - personal acquaintance was not a necessary premise for any potential heir. At least, it was not as 4 Barry Smith wrote this paper in 1997. As far as I am concerned, now (at least from 2012) there is a music shop. Franz Kafka's story The metamorphosis in the light... 39 important as the other features listed above. And thus I believe that from the two famous Brentanists who never met their teacher - namely Heidegger and Kafka - Brentano would have chosen Kafka as his pupil, even though it was Heidegger who explicitly considered himself Brentano's heir. In actual fact, I think Heidegger would have deeply offended Brentano - or even have committed patricide! - least of all by his rejection of intentionality. Why would he choose Kafka? We will see below. The case with marty is, no doubt, much easier: Brentano and marty were friends for life and exchanged thousands of letters. marty is known as the most orthodox student of Brentano and for a good reason. SECTION 1 I shall concentrate here on Brentano's early immanence intentionality / intentional in -existence thesis. This thesis argues that the intended objects of our thoughts belong to their respective mental acts, they are cont a ined within them. They are i n the acts of thought. Let us take a look at two quotations, one from Dale Jacquette (2006) and one from Kevin mulligan (2006). The first one describes the nature of the intentional object, and the second one can be used to illustrate what Peter Simons calls Brentano's 'methodological phenomenalism'. The sense of 'in' in Brentano's phrase 'intentional' in -existence is thus locative rather than negative. It specifies where the intended object of a thought is to be located, rather than qualifies it negatively as nonexistent (Jacquette, 2006: 102). External perception does not give us the right to assume that physical phenomena exist (mulligan, 2006: 71). These statements outline the main issues of this section. I shall thus look at two important questions that where the subject of marty's Prague lectures, Grundfragen der deskripitiven Psychologie, attended by Kafka from 1902: (a) the distinction between physical and mental phenomena and (b) inner perception and outer perception. marty, in his early work, was an adherent of the immanentist thesis, i.e. he believed that every phenomenon of human mind had an object, and intentionally referred to it. Let me begin by muddying the waters a little. max Brod (1884 –1968), Kafka's friend, biographer and self -appointed editor, dismissed the idea that Kafka was inspired by philosophy at all. He claimed that 'Kafka spoke in images, because he thought in images' (Smith, 1997: 83). Surprisingly, this can actually be seen as good news. After all this 'thinking in images' is not entirely divorced from the theory of intentional objects, is it? I also believe it can be 40 Sonia KAMIŃSKA reconciled with Klaus Wagenbach's opinion that psychology and ethics were very important for Kafka's intellectual and literary formation (Smith, 1997). It also reminds me of Wagenbach's saying that Kafka - as a child - loved going to the cinema (Wagenbach, 2002). I will mention this again in Section 4. Ad (A) Brentano opens PES by distinguishing between physical and mental phenomena. The latter display the feature of intentionality (although the word 'intentionality' is never explicitly used by Brentano). And it is this feature which fundamentally characterizes all mental phenomena as we learn from the famous 'intentionality quote' which also enumerates their three classes: Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, relation to a content, direction toward an object (which is not to be understood here as a reality), or immanent objectivity. Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself, although they do not all do so in the same way. In presentation something is presented, in judgment something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on (Brentano, 1995: 68). Jacquette makes an interesting observation here: 'He not only identifies intentionality as the distinctive mark of the mental, but makes intentionality the foundation for an empirical scientific philosophy of mind that surpasses anything that had previously been contemplated' (Jacquette, 2006: 100). Thus psychology is, in fact, the basis for philosophy. I would therefore like to take a look at Tim Crane's remark that Brentano changed the definition of psychology into the 'science of mental phenomena' as opposed the more etymologically correct 'science of the soul' (Crane, 2006). It is the second part of this observation that is interesting since what is etymologically correct usually depicts the way we commonly think more adequately. I am aware it may appear somewhat banal to state this but if psychology is commonly understood to refer purely to the soul, it takes a radical change of mind to break away from this idea and to come to terms with the soul's removal (and therefore speak of mental phenomena instead). Likewise Crane also states: 'Brentano talks approvingly of Lange's idea of "psychology without a soul". What he has in mind here is that psychology can proceed while being indifferent on the question of whether there is a soul: for "whether or not there are souls, there are mental phenomena" ' (Crane, 2006: 28). It is thus high time to present the first similarity between Brentano, marty and Kafka. The soul - or rather what used to be the soul in the older paradigm - is usually identified not only with the substantial self in Aristotelian Franz Kafka's story The metamorphosis in the light... 41 or Christian/Aristotelian sense, but with our self. We tend to think that we are our souls (no matter what the term designates or whether we are religiously inclined). And it is exactly this problem that kept Kafka awake at night: we do not know ourselves (our 'self '). We only live through the mental phenomena as they appear - although he probably would not have phrased it in such philosophical jargon. And these phenomena are all we have. For Kafka the self is an enigma. And thus Kafka, in his Diaries, provides a perfect definition of the former self reformulated in what I call the non -substratum view on the soul: 'I am nothing but literature and c an and want to be nothing else'.5 By claiming that mental phenomena are all we have/are, Kafka becomes a partisan of the intentional in -existence thesis. During one of marty's lectures he became acquainted with this new definition of psychology and it must have appealed to him as it accurately illustrated his own intuitions. Interestingly, when Calasso writes about The trial and Joseph K's famous plea to the Court, he stresses that this plea is motivated by a peculiar illusion that literature can somehow fill the gaps in our self -awareness. maybe, thanks to literature, we can know ourselves better. To translate it into Brentano - marty terms: we cannot know the self, but somehow we can know the particular mental phenomena. In this case, as in many other cases, Joseph K. is Kafka's obvious porte - -parole. Kafka was writing incessantly, night after night, to understand himself and all he achieved can be summarized in the above statement that he was nothing but literature. Calasso concludes that this aforementioned illusion is - needless to say - childish (Calasso, 2011: 191). However, I wish to stress that Kafka not only says that he c annot be anything else, but that he also does not want to be. This may not be very optimistic, I admit, but at least it reveals an acceptance of one's paradoxical fate. Ad (b) What does this mean that we do not know ourselves? This question becomes even more puzzling if we realize the consequences of the early Brentano - marty claim that the objects of inner perception exist necessarily (in the sense that we are sure that they exist when they are obtained and not that they somehow exist in and of themselves), whereas the outside world is, at most, probable ('methodological phenomenalism'). Shouldn't our internal world be therefore more familiar to us? The answer is a firm no, because there is no such thing as proper introspection. Smith quotes Kafka: 'The introspection, understood as observing one's mental states, is like a dog trying to catch its 5 In the published parts of PES Brentano resigns from the time -honored account of the soul as a substratum for mental phenomena. From now on the mental phenomena have no underlying substratum. They form a chain/bundle. 42 Sonia KAMIŃSKA tail' (Smith, 1997: 91). I think of this as a sort of freeze -frame as it brings to mind the possibility of pausing in the middle of a film whenever we wish to take a closer look at something that would otherwise be happening too quickly for us to perceive. This freeze -frame is impossible with regards to our mental lives. I cannot stop laughing at a joke to watch myself laughing at it. I cannot hang my despair on a coat rack like a coat if I want to have a look at it or put it on later (if I were a masochist for wanting to relive it, that is). I can only live through these mental states, nothing more. Brentano's inner perception must be clearly distinguished from introspection. But then also we are awa r e of what 'is taking place in our mind; we are conscious - obliquely, as it were - of the judgment itself, a certain psychical phenomenon. Similarly, in seeing directly before us the pattern itself, we are conscious, obliquely, of our seeing of the pattern. And it is this oblique consciousness, present in all mental experiences whatsoever, which is what Brentano means by inner perception' (Smith, 1997: 92). Inner perception is not inner observation, for the latter modifies where it does not destroy its object, says Brentano in 1874. He seems never to have changed his mind on this point (mulligan, 2006: 73 –74). All this shows, in my opinion, why gregor Samsa did not just f e e l like a worm, he simply wa s a worm. In other words: the worm was his primary object of perception, immanent in his mental act. If he were to engage in the proper observation and watch the beetle under the microscope, he would be in the same position as a human scientist and this would no doubt alter - if not destroy - the scrutinized object. The very first words of The metamorphosis are as follows: As gregor Samsa awoke from unsettling dreams one morning, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin. He lay on his hard armorlike back and when he raised his head a little he saw his vaulted black belly divided into sections by stiff arches from whose height the coverlet had already slipped and was about to slide off completely. His many legs, which were pathetically thin compared to the rest of his bulk, flickered helplessly before his eyes (Kafka, 1996: 7). It may seem as if I were merely repeating Smith's thesis about gregor's condition but this is not entirely the case. I wholeheartedly accept the view that gregor in fact was a worm and not that he had a bad day and only felt like one. Nevertheless, I differ regarding the justification of this thesis and especially in regards to the interpretation of The metamorphosis' opening lines. Smith says that the outer world has changed for gregor: 'the external world which is normally taken for granted there has been substituted a quite different world, having peculiar qualities' (Smith, 1997: 91). I, on the other hand, Franz Kafka's story The metamorphosis in the light... 43 think that the world has remained exactly the same and all the family members do their best to preserve it. gregor even tries to go to work despite the fact that he cannot get out of bed. This is because it is gregor, not the world, that has changed. I agree with Smith that he is separated by the impossibility of communication, but he is not 'in the position of dispassionate observer' as Smith puts it. On the contrary, I think he is anything but a dispassionate observer (see Section 3). He is indeed a lone observer but he is well aware that he is the main protagonist of the drama and that he is the focal point of this world (even though his role consists in being neglected and humiliated). He is, in fact, very passionate: he wants to communicate and he wants to go back to his world which he sees and misses but cannot enter (given that he is both unable and not allowed). Even the description of the room I will present below shows that the world has not altered. And, interestingly, it is Smith who quotes Kafka's diary entry saying that his knowledge of his room is bigger than his knowledge of himself and that the inner world can only be lived, but not described. The room, on the other hand, can be described (independently of whether the Simonsian 'methodological phenomenalism' is in force or not; we can describe what we see before us). I will therefore use the description of gregor's room as an argument against Smith and thus reinforce my claim that the world has not changed, and gregor has: both as the intentional object for himself and for the family. gregor's bedroom is an essential motif in The metamorphosis. Actually, for gregor, the boundaries of his room are the boundaries of his world. As soon as gregor learns how to use the multitude of his furry legs, he starts strolling around his room and he strolls incessantly for weeks. 'He especially liked hanging from the ceiling; it was entirely different from lying on the floor' - Kafka comments, not without a touch of irony (Kafka, 1996: 29). However, such an exact topography would be impossible with regard to oneself, not to mention one's 'self '. The reader easily notices that gregor's room is depicted in more detail than gregor's internal world. There is the window with its windowpanes overlooking the hospital on Charlotte Street; the sofa he hides under, the coverlet that (at least partially) covers his body whenever he lies on or under the sofa; the door with its lock and its key (the symbolic border of two separate worlds); the carpet used to scratch and clean his back; the heavy, almost immovable bureau; the chair (which his sister manipulates according to gregor's needs - or rather what she understands his needs to be at the very beginning), as well as two absolutely crucial items, gregor's raison d'étre: the desk and the picture of a lady in furs on the wall. The desk is an indispensable item in all Kafka's works6: the father has a desk and the head clerk has one from which he reigns over the world - to mention but a few. This indispensability 6 See The trial, The castle, The judgment. 44 Sonia KAMIŃSKA is most fully demonstrated when grete and their mother remove the furniture from gregor's room. They do it, allegedly, to give him some more free space to stroll, but later on they turn the room into no more than a lumber room. And this is how they stab him in the back for the first time. SECTION 2 Let me now get to the analysis of some of the emotional issues present in The metamorphosis using the tools prepared by marty and Brentano. These issues will concern not only gregor, but also the other actors of the drama, i.e. die Familie Samsa and gregor's younger sister grete in particular. In 1874 he [Brentano - S.K.] thought not only that whenever a psychological phenomenon occurs a judging and so a presenting occurs, but also that an emotion must occur (mulligan, 2006: 72). So, let us first have a look at the presentations and then see what follows. Looking at him, gregor's parents do not see their son - they see a giant worm with furry legs and an armor -like trunk. marty claimed that we tend to instinctively think that what we perceive exists, exactly like children do.7 It takes higher cognitive activities to separate the intuitive faith and really analyze the particular case: 'rather sensing is an act which contains two mutually inseparable parts, the intuition of the physical phenomenon and assertoric acceptance thereof '. Let me supplement this with a quotation from Arkadiusz Chrudzimski: The mental acts from which the concepts of existence and non -existence are distilled are acceptances and rejections which are evident, and as such, as Brentano puts this, are 'intrinsically characterised as right'. According to Brentano 'to exist' thus means roughly 'to be an object of a possible right acceptance' and 'not to exist' means correlatively 'to be an object of a possible right rejection' [...]. marty also accepts this analysis (Chrudzimski, 2013: 15). The parents judge correctly that what they see is a worm and, consequently, when an emotion in relation to it occurs, then it is the emotion of hate. The reverse is also true: gregor has a presentation of his parents and correctly judges that what he sees are his parents. He too has a Gemütsbewegung, only in his case this is a phenomenon of love - his love for them being unconditional (which I will expand on below). In both cases the emotions are correct. I do not wish to say that hatred itself is correct (at this point it would be better to 7 This is taken from mulligan (2006), from an 1895 lecture by marty quoted by Kraus: Towards a phenomenognosy of time consciousness. Franz Kafka's story The metamorphosis in the light... 45 steer away from objective values) but that the emotions occur as a consequence of the presentations and judgments, so their emotional correctness is 'forced' by the correctness of the judgment i.e. a worm is something worth hating. OTHEr ONTOLOgICAL mODELS From mulligan (2006: 72 –74) we learned what Brentano thought in 1874: that the object of presentation, judgment and emotion is the same thing - only the cognitive/mental modi alter. But we must also remember that he changed his mind many times, as well as of the fact that marty was not always 'faithful' to his master. I shall thus consider some of the other ontological variants and see whether my study of the Samsas can work according to these different ontological models as well. I believe that my interpretation so far works in a similar way to Brentano's early notion of 'parsimonious ontology' as Chrudzimski puts it, as well as in his later, less official, and more robust view of accepting transcendent entities which is closer to marty's conviction that there must be something in the world (i.e. a truth -maker for emotions = Wertverhalt) that makes a thing - to use Chrudzimski's words again - easier or harder to love or hate and that evidence is not sufficient to constitute a correct judgment or - for that matter - emotion. If we steer away from early Brentano's immanentism and move to marty's ontology consisting of real (Realia) and non real entities (Irrealia), then we will see that gregor (even as a vermin) falls into the first category. We should treat him as a substance in the good old Aristotelian sense, as he can introduce causal change in the real world, he came into being at particular moment in time and he will definitely pass away at another (the three conditions of being a substance are thus fulfilled). This is, at least, what I consider to be the case. However, if someone wanted to treat gregor more like a propositional content (that is: to rate him among the existent but not real beings [Irrealia]), then my interpretation would hold as well. Non -real things aren't in any sense weaker for marty, but they cannot be engaged in any causal nexus in any proper sense. Instead, they supervene the causality of real entities. Nevertheless, even as a non real being, gregor can still be an intentional object about which one can make judgments that will, in turn, induce a Wertverhalt, i.e. a truth -maker for emotions. The difference lies in the fact that marty claimed there were some objective values in the world. Let me quote Chrudzimski again: 'The official Brentano insisted on the objective soundness of ethics and introduced emotional evidence as a primitive concept. marty introduced mind independent states of values in the role of truth -makers for our emotions' (Chrudzimski, 2009: 183). To The metamorphosis, the seed -bed of the whole tragedy, I dare say, is due to a lack of communication between the family members. They see nothing 46 Sonia KAMIŃSKA else but this giant worm and (wrongly) assume that the worm does not understand them. I will say more on communication below. Now, let us take a look at gregor's younger sister, whose attitude demonstrates significant differences when compared with that of her parents (who are rather consistent in their negative view which has a lot to do with reducing gregor to the role he plays in the family (see below); one can say that the mother is 'half -way' between her former motherly feelings and the overwhelming emotion of revulsion, but she soon sides with her husband). The parents reject gregor as a person and an equal member of their family on the basis of seeing a worm, accepting there being a worm (correct existential judgment) and hating it. grete, on the other hand, has a Vorstellung of a worm, but she judges differently. She rejects the impression, so to speak, because what she wants to see is her beloved brother gregor. And thus she has the Gemüts- bewegung of love toward him, despite the fact that what she perceives is, in fact, a worm. If we stick to the view that an emotion is inherited and that it is a natural product of the presentation and judgment, then her love will be incorrect. She thus engages in the higher cognitive activity as suggested by marty. The Gemütsbewegung is thus not directed towards the object of her actual perception but rather towards what she wishes to see, i.e. to another object introduced by her mental apparatus. She also thinks that he cannot understand her, but she engages in activities that are meant to make his life easier or at least bearable. She feeds him and compassionately comments on how much he ate and why, and she even tries to adjust the food to his needs (which amounts to giving him the leftovers). She cleans his room regularly, sets the chair by the window to let him enjoy the view and turns the blind eye whenever she thinks he does not want to be seen. As time passes however, grete becomes much more similar to her parents in her demeanor (the turning point is the re -arrangement of the room and the 'poster -incident' when gregor climbs onto the wall to rescue the picture of the lady in furs with his own body and thus scares her mother which, in turn, causes grete to lose her temper) and her case becomes philosophically clearer (and thus harder for gregor). As time goes on, what she sees is a worm and nothing/nobody else (she even starts to refer to gregor as 'it') and upon this a feeling of hatred toward it/him supervenes. We must bear in mind that the intentionality of emotions is 'inherited from that of their bases, presentations and, in some cases judgments' (mulligan, 2006: 81). Brentano later changed his mind on the inheritance of emotions, but giving an adequate account of it would surpass the limits of this paper. For now let us say that the following implication is in force: presentation → judgment → emotion. To make a long story short: if grete perceives a furry vermin and she has a correct existential judgment 'a furry vermin exists', then her hatred is correct and her love was incorrect. Franz Kafka's story The metamorphosis in the light... 47 THE OrIgIN OF THE KNOWLEDgE OF rIgHT AND WrONg - A DIgrESSION There is one more highly interesting issue in Brentano, rooted in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, i.e. loving/hating somebody/something for the sake of this person/thing, or for the sake of someone/something else. No doubt his parents loved gregor (before the vermin -phase) purely for the function he played in their lives (as the family bread -winner and thus a means to and end) and not him himself. gregor, by contrast, loved them unconditionally. Towards the end of the novella, we see that grete goes the same way as her parents. Let us take a careful look at the final scene in The metamorphosis which is the most terrifying of all: It occurred almost simultaneously to both Herr and Frau Samsa, while they were conversing and looking at their increasingly vivacious daughter, that despite the recent sorrows that had paled her cheeks, she had blossomed into a pretty and voluptuous young woman. growing quieter and almost unconsciously communicating through exchanged glances, they thought it was time to find her a good husband. And it was like a confirmation of their new dreams and good intentions that at their journey's end their daughter jumped to her feet and stretched her young body (Kafka, 1996: 51–52). Perhaps this is supposed to be a 'punishment' for the reification she exercised on her brother? After her own metamorphosis (I strongly believe that this title does not refer only to gregor, because they are all transformed during the narrative) she becomes the cruelest of them all and it is her who suggests getting rid of 'it'. If they loved gregor's function or, if love is too strong of a word here, if they had a positive Gemütsbewegung toward the bread -winner, they must have judged that there existed a bread -winner as the primary object of their perception, which finally brings us to the root of the matter, i.e. the presentation (a backwards analysis). This therefore invites us to probe deeper into the question as to how they perceived him in the first place, before he turned into vermin? Did they perceive Gregor = Gregor (in Kripke -style) or perhaps Gregor = bread -winner (in russell -style)?8 SECTION 3 Here I shall try to read The metamorphosis in light of marty's philosophy of language and especially in relation to its pragmatic aspect and teleology. The 8 What I have in mind here is Saul Kripke's rigid designator and Bertrand russell's theory of description. 48 Sonia KAMIŃSKA essence of it is the purposeful manifestation of inner life via conventional signs. And this is exactly what is beyond gregor's reach, as he does not possess the ability to speak, not having proper mouth (or teeth for that matter!). One could argue that this falls outside the scope of marty's philosophy of language as this is an issue of phonology which he was not concerned with at all. However, it is these physical hindrances which prevent gregor from acting according to societal convention. He is like a prisoner in his own head, surrounded by myriads of mental acts he cannot verbalize. 'Apparently his words were no longer understandable even though they were clear enough to him, clearer than before' (Kafka, 1996: 15). He thus has no access to human conventional signs and we are left wondering what it would be like if he encountered another worm of his kind. For the rest of the Samsas, communication is impossible as they wrongly assume that gregor does not understand them. Even if communication were possible however, I feel they would be unlikely to want to talk to him - but this is a different story altogether. They are therefore unable (and unwilling) to fulfill the condition of successful communication, namely: that the speech has to influence the mental life of the interlocutor. They somehow influence it, however, by talking behind his back and assuming he does not understand, though this is largely unconsciously done. grete addresses him only once, when she is very angry, but this is rather an expression of her emotional state than an appeal to him directly. According to marty, a sentence is meaningful if, and only if, it is understood. And again, we have an absurd situation here: their utterances are understood even though they are unaware of it and gregor's trials of communication are thwarted at the very beginning, as the sounds he makes are those of an animal. gregor suffers his greatest defeat when he tries explicitly to engage in communication with them. He tries to approach his sister while she is playing the violin to the three lodgers who cannot appreciate it. 'And is he a beast if music moves him so?' - gregor asks himself. It is also interesting to note that he was not very fond of music before he turned into a worm. The real communication breakdown comes when gregor is brutally driven to his room after which he realizes he 'has to go'. We are left unsure as to whether he has heard grete's remark that if it were gregor, and not a furry beast, then he would definitely have gone some time ago, or not. Nevertheless, gregor decides it is time to die. When it is over the father exclaims 'Thank god' and they all write letters to their bosses asking for a day off to go for a walk and celebrate their release. They even feel offended when the charwoman comes to tell them that gregor's remains have been taken care of: she has swept him up, opened the window and let his soul go. It is peculiar to note that she maintains this tradition as if she believed that he still had a soul... Franz Kafka's story The metamorphosis in the light... 49 SECTION 4 After the immAnenzkrise - the nominAlist interpretAtion of kAfkA This communication breakdown brings us to the final section that covers the nomen omen nominalist interpretation of The metamorphosis. When Brentano rejected Irrealia he used, so to speak, Ockham's razor to deal with his baroque ontology. He even said - in a letter to marty (1905) - that he had always (!) believed that what was represented by mental states were in fact the real beings, the Aristotelian substances. In his book K, Calasso argues that Ockham's razor was Kafka's favorite tool. He writes that Kafka always picked only the necessary objects from the surrounding world and referred to them precisely and literally (Calasso, 2011: 9). This is how, according to Calasso, Kafka should be read: literally. To translate it to Brentano's and marty's philosophical language: all he provided were the presentations or the pictures (bringing us back to Brod's thesis that Kafka spoke in images and to Wagenbach's 'cinema anecdote'). If all we get from Kafka are images of the meticulously chosen objects (however, I would be careful with calling him a nominalist or a reist, because the pictures obviously suggest conceptualism), i.e. the presentations, then the judgment and the emotion fall upon the shoulders of the reader, i.e. they are not 'inherited' from the presentations. On one hand this gives the reader more freedom of interpretation but, on the other, it makes his work much harder to understand. CONCLUSION As a reader, I am personally more inclined towards the interpretation from the sections 1 –3 which only goes to show how complicated it is to give and an exhaustive account of this work. Kafka is, indeed, indefinable and thus the desired philosophical interpretation becomes something of a wild goose chase. Needless to say, his literature (or rather he a s the literature) can be compared with many other currents of thought from that time, existentialist philosophy being the first to spring to mind. As I stated above, Kafka was a member not only of the Brentano Circle but attended other meetings in search of his entel- echia. One of the most important of these meetings took place in Café Arco, situated near the famous Café Louvre where the Brentanists would congregate. If we want to call him a Brentanist (which I hope to have proved plausible), we must bear in mind that of all the possible 'labels' we can ascribe to Kafka, this is but one of many. What Kafka undoubtedly shares with Brentano, however, is a common feature of intellectual reception. Everybody has 'his or her Kafka' just as everybody 50 Sonia KAMIŃSKA has 'his or her Brentano' (marty, as an 'orthodox Brentanist', seems easier to grasp - maybe the ongoing research on marty's work will help to 'emancipate' him). Besides simply saying what it was about Kafka, therefore, that has made him susceptible to so many varying interpretations, it is worth showing what it was about Brentano that allowed him to influence almost every intellectual current of fin du siècle Europe. BIBLIOgrAPHY Brentano, F. (1995). Psychology from an empirical standpoint. (A. C. rancurello, D. B. Terrell, & L. L. mcAlister, Trans., P. Simons, Introd.). London: routledge. Calasso, r. (2011). K. (S. Kasprzysiak, Trans.). Warszawa: Czuły Barbarzyńca Press. Chrudzimski, A. (2009). Brentano, marty, and meinong on emotions and values. In: B. Centi & W. Huemer (Eds.). Values and ontology: Problems and perspectives (pp. 171 –189). Frankfurt: Ontos -Verlag. Chrudzimski, A. (2013). marty on truth -making. In: L. Cesalli & J. Friedrich (Eds.). An- ton Marty and Karl Bühler. Between mind and language (pp. 201 –234). Basel: Schwabe Verlag (I quote the penultimate version retrieved from: https://szczecin.academia.edu/ ArkadiuszChrudzimski, p. 15). Crane, T. (2006). Brentano's concept of intentional inexistence. In: m. Textor (Ed.). The Aus- trian contribution to philosophy (pp. 20 –35). London: routledge. Husserl, E. (1919). Erinnerungen and Franz Brentanano. In: O. Kraus (Ed.). Franz Brentano. Zur Kenntnis seines Lebens und seiner Lehre. Mit Beiträgen von Karl Stumpf und Edmund Husserl (pp. 87 –149). munich: O. Beck Jacquette, D. (2006). Brentano's concept of intentionality. In: D. Jacquette (Ed.). The Cam- bridge companion to Brentano (pp. 98 –130). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kafka, F. (1996). The metamorphosis and other stories. (D. Freed, Trans.). New York: Barnes & Noble Classics. Kamińska, S. (2014). Franz Brentano and his competing world views. A philosopher's choice between science and religion. Studia Religiologica, 47(4), 285 –294. mulligan, K. (2006). Brentano on the mind. In: D. Jacquette (Ed.). The Cambridge companion to Brentano (pp. 66 –97). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, B. (1994). Austrian philosophy: The legacy of Franz Brentano. Chicago –La Salle: Open Court Publishing Company. Smith, B. (1997). Brentano and Kafka. Axiomathes, 8, 83 –104. Wagenbach, K. (2002). Prague and citizen Kafka. In: J. Insua (Ed.). The city of K. Franz Kafka and Prague (pp. 144 –149). Barcelona: Copa management. | {
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To appear in Ethics and International Affairs, 25, 2011, pp. 1-15. What Is Special about Human Rights?∗ Christian Barry and Nicholas Southwood Human rights occupy a privileged position within contemporary politics. They are widely taken to constitute perhaps the most fundamental standards for evaluating the conduct of states with respect to persons residing within their borders. They are enshrined in numerous international documents, national constitutions, and treaties; and those that have been incorporated into international law are monitored and enforced by numerous international and regional institutional bodies. Human rights have been invoked to justify popular revolt, secession, large-scale political reform, as well as forms of international action ranging from the imposition of conditions on foreign assistance and loans to economic sanctions (as in South Africa and Burma) and military intervention (as in Kosovo and East Timor). Michael Ignatieff has gone so far as to claim that human rights have become "the major article of faith of a secular culture that fears it believes in nothing else,"1 and one might add that this is true of many non-secular cultures, too. Yet despite the widespread influence of human rights discourse, it remains unclear precisely what human rights are. The problem is not simply that there is a lack of clarity about the content and grounds of human rights claims-what particular human rights there are, and why we have the particular human rights we do. Rather, it is that the very idea or concept of a human right remains obscure. It is far from ∗ Review essay of James Griffin, On Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) and Charles Beitz, The Idea of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). All in-text references are to these works. 1 Michael Ignatieff, "Human Rights: The Midlife Crisis", New York Review of Books 46 (May 20, 1999), pp. 58–62 at p. 58. obvious, in other words, what we are even saying when we say that there is a "human right" to education and health, for example, or a "human right" not to be tortured or made to engage in forced labor. Part of what we are saying, of course, is that there is a right-specifically, a claim-right-to these things.2 It is part of the concept of a claim-right that such rights impose duties on others; and this distinguishes human rights from aspirations, goals, and many other values.3 But what kinds of claims are human rights claims, and what sorts of duties do they impose? Clearly, they are not simply legal claims and duties- say, claims and duties that are enshrined within international law-for we may intelligibly ask of anything that is called a human right within international law whether it is a genuine human right.4 Rather, they are moral claims and duties. But this cannot be the whole story either. For not all moral rights are human rights. Most of us think that there is a moral right that promisers keep promises they have made to us. But no one seriously thinks that promisees have a "human right" to have promises kept, or that breaking a promise-even a very important promise on which much depends-involves a human rights violation. What is needed, then, is an account of human rights that can illuminate what is special about them. Two important recent books by distinguished human rights theorists attempt to answer this challenge. James Griffin argues that human rights are moral rights whose protection is required to preserve our "capacity to choose and 2 For a clear analysis of the concept of rights, see Leif Wenar, "The Nature of Rights" Philosophy & Public Affairs 33, pp. 223–252 3 As emphasized in Joel Feinberg, "The Nature and Value of Rights", Journal of Value Inquiry 4 (1970), pp. 243–257. 4 To deny that human rights are not legal rights is not to deny that there are legal human rights, that is, genuine human rights that have been institutionalized within international law, and that such rights are extremely important. But the concept of a human right is not that of a legal right. Indeed, the claim that there is a human right to some object-education, freedom from torture or racial discrimination, and so on-does not even entail that there should be a legal right to it. In some contexts it may be counterproductive to the fulfillment of some human rights that legal rights be created to protect them. pursue our conception of a worthwhile life" (p. 45). Charles Beitz argues that human rights are moral rights that play a certain kind of role within an emerging global practice. While both Griffin's "personhood account" and Beitz's "practice-based account" of human rights contain important insights, we shall argue that neither is entirely satisfactory. We conclude with a suggestion for what a more adequate account might look like. THE PERSONHOOD ACCOUNT Griffin's aim is to develop an account of the concept of a human right that remedies the "damaging indeterminateness of sense" that has plagued it since its inception (p. 93).5 Griffin starts by noting two elements of human rights that are traceable back to the Enlightenment ( p. 2). The first is the idea of rights that we have "simply in virtue of being human" (p. 13). The second is the idea of rights that are needed to protect the "dignity of the human person." Griffin takes these elements as starting points for the idea of human rights, but deems them to be insufficient. The first leaves open the question of what it is about our humanity that is supposed to be important (p. 15). The second is problematic because the concept of the dignity of the human person is arguably even less clear than that of a human right (p. 5) Griffin tries to remedy these deficiencies by offering an account of human rights that is based on a particular interpretation of the idea of the dignity of the human person, one that captures what is distinctive about our humanity and why it deserves protection. The key is that human rights are moral rights that are necessary 5 He writes elsewhere that the term human right "is nearly criterionless" (Griffin, p. 13). to protect what Griffin calls our normative agency. By this he means the distinctive human capacity to form and pursue a conception of a worthwhile life. He writes: We human beings have a conception of ourselves and of our past and future. We reflect and assess. We form pictures of what a good life would be-often, it is true, only on a small scale, but occasionally also on a large scale. And we try to realize these pictures. This is what we mean by a distinctively human existence-distinctive so far as we know (p. 32). Three things are required in order for our existence as normative agents to be sustained. First, we must have autonomy (pp. 33 and 149–58). To be autonomous is "to choose one's own path through life-that is, not be dominated or controlled by someone or something else" (p. 33). One must be able to make up one's own mind, and thereby "exercise one's capacity to distinguish true values from false, good reasons from bad" (p. 150). Second, one must have liberty (pp. 159–75). That is, "others must also not forcibly stop one from pursuing what one sees as a worthwhile life" (p. 37). Our normative agency consists "not only in deciding for oneself what is worth doing, but also in doing it." We lack liberty insofar as others interfere with our "carrying out our decisions" (pp. 150–1). Finally, we must have a certain "minimum provision" of welfare (pp. 33 and 176–87). This involves having sufficient education, information, resources, and capabilities in order for one's choices to be "real" (p. 33). According to Griffin, human rights are moral rights that serve to protect these three aspects of our normative agency. Within the category of human rights, there is an important distinction between those that are truly universal and those that only arise given certain social conditions. Truly universal human rights are those that are required in order to protect our normative agency under (more or less) any conceivable social conditions. For example, the human right not to be tortured seems to fall into this category since it is plausibly required in order to protect our autonomy and liberty whether we inhabit a modern state or a state of nature. Others-such as the right to freedom of the press and the right to democratic government-may be necessary to protect normative agency only under certain circumstances (pp. 50 and 251–254). It is not impossible to imagine circumstances under which our normative agency could be protected without such rights. Griffin refers to the considerations that, when conjoined with the values of personhood, yield a list of genuine human rights in any particular context as "practicalities" (p. 37). Griffin's personhood account offers a straightforward answer to the question of what is special or distinctive about human rights. Human rights are special inasmuch as they protect and preserve our normative agency. They are "protections not of the fully flourishing life but only of the more austere life of a normative agent" (pp. 37 and 53). Many moral rights that protect important interests are not required in order to protect our normative agency. It hardly threatens one's status as a normative agent to have someone break a promise she has made to us, or to have a romantic partner treat one in a cold or indifferent manner. Normative agency seems to be the crucial thing that distinguishes us from other animals. We are, as Griffin puts it, "self deciders," and this "is part of the dignity of human standing" (pp. 150 and 32). As such, normative agency is something that is of particular value to us as persons, irrespective of our particular conceptions of worthwhile living. This helps to explain why human rights have been thought to be universal and why they have been thought to generate such stringent and far-reaching duties. Griffin's account also yields plausible substantive results across a wide range of cases. Some of the richest parts of the book are those in which Griffin considers whether particular human rights are genuine by exploring whether they can be derived from his trio of highest-level human rights conjoined with practicalities (chapters 1114). For example, he argues that the right to health is a plausible human right, but only so long as its scope is restricted to protect those aspects of our health that are crucial to our lives as normative agents (p. 101). We do not have a human right, however, to the "highest attainable level" of human health, as asserted in Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and in the constitution of the World Health Organization. Griffin also provides an account of welfare rights that avoids the stark minimalism of libertarianism without succumbing to the temptation to call all valuable social goals human rights. On the personhood account, we have a human right to the provision of goods necessary for our lives as normative agents, but not a human right to anything like the level of material well-being that is characteristic of most developed societies (pp. 181–5). This is not to say that such an elevated standard of living is not required as a matter of justice, or that we do not have some other moral claim to it, but only that we have no human right to it. As Griffin notes, there are many values other than human rights, and it is a mistake to try to turn everything that is of value into a human right (pp. 41–3). Despite its appeal, the personhood account is vulnerable to serious objections. We shall mention two. The first is that it is unclear that the personhood account can account for the full range of human rights. Consider, for example, rights against racial discrimination. It is not obvious that a system of racial discrimination or apartheid does anything to undermine normative agency.6 To be sure, such discrimination will often significantly restrict the options of people belonging to certain groups and undermine their ability to achieve their goals. But Griffin is quite explicit that this is 6 See also the discussion in Allan Buchanan "The Egalitarianism of Human Rights," Ethics 120 (2010), pp. 679-710, at p. 696. not enough in order for there to be a human rights violation. He writes, "Human rights, I propose, are rights to what allows one merely to act as a normative agent, not as a normative agent, as Raz would have it, with 'a good chance ... of achieving one's goals.'"7 Griffin might defend the personhood account against this criticism in either of two ways. First, he could claim that social arrangements allowing racial discrimination would be unfair or unjust, but deny that they constitute human rights violations in particular. This first strategy seems plainly unsatisfactory. Targeting social arrangements that have involved discrimination, and the norms they support, has been a fundamental aim of the human rights movement.8 It should count heavily against any account of human rights if it cannot make room for anti-discrimination rights. For this reason Griffin seems to favor adopting a second strategy-to try to show that his view can accommodate anti-discrimination rights after all. Responding to a version of this criticism formulated by Allen Buchanan, he writes: When are cases of discrimination also violations of human rights? Clearly much discrimination on the basis of gender is. If a society permits men to vote but not women, then women are being denied their equal rights. A person is a bearer of human rights, I say, in virtue of being a normative agent, and women are equal to men in normative agency. And the various races of human being are also equal in that respect. Much racial discrimination is also a violation of human rights.9 7 Griffin, "Human Rights: Questions of Aim and Approach," Ethics 120 (2010), pp. 741–760, at p747. See also Griffin, p. 53. 8 See, for example, Roland Burke, Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.), Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010), and Paul Gordon Lauren, Visions Seen: The Evolution of International Human Rights, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003) 9 Griffin, "Human Rights: Questions of Aim and Approach," p. 753. Griffin is surely right that discrimination involves a highly objectionable form of unequal treatment. But the question is why such unequal treatment should be thought to undermine our normative agency. Griffin's answer is that various kinds of discrimination are likely to undermine our normative agency "because of their potentially destructive effect on an agent's self-image" (p. 42). As an empirical claim, however, this seems questionable. The effects upon the self-image of the members of particular groups of discriminatory social arrangements will seldom be so great as to call into question their status as normative agents. More importantly, this seems to be an awfully flimsy basis upon which to claim that discrimination involves a violation of one's human rights. Imagine, for example, that the members of a particular group who are discriminated against happen to have an especially robust self-image-perhaps precisely because they have already suffered centuries of discrimination-such that they are able to maintain their positive self-image in the face of such arrangements. Surely, the admirable fortitude of such individuals should do nothing to undermine our sense that they are the victims of human rights abuses. The other problem with the personhood account is that it fails to account for what we might call the political aspect of human rights. A number of theorists, including Beitz, have noted that talk of "human rights" only seems appropriate insofar as something like a state is somehow involved. Consider, for example, the right not to be tortured. To speak of a "human right" not to be tortured only seems to be apt if the right is correlated with a duty on the part of some organized political authority to take steps to protect members of society from torture. Thus, for a person's human right not to be tortured to be violated, it is not enough that the person is tortured-say, by a sadistic kidnapper acting on his own behalf. Rather, something like a state, or those acting on behalf of the state, must have engaged in or facilitated torture, or else failed to take appropriate steps to ensure that the torture did not take place, or that the torturer was brought to justice.10 The problem for the personhood view should be clear. It seems that torture is equally destructive of our normative agency no matter who carries it out. Indeed, suppose that we are in a state of nature in which there are no agents claiming political authority whatsoever. This seems to make no difference to the destructive effect on our normative agency. The personhood account therefore seems to lack the resources for making sense of the distinctively political nature of human rights, that is, the way in which human rights are constitutively tied to, and dependent upon, political entities of a certain kind.11 Let us now consider a very different account of human rights in which politics takes centre-stage. THE PRACTICE-BASED ACCOUNT Whereas Griffin tries to understand human rights in terms of the role they play in protecting our normative agency, Beitz takes as his starting point the emerging global practice of human rights. According to Beitz, the practice of human rights plays a fundamental role in determining the concept of a human right. We must, Beitz writes "tr[y] to grasp the concept of a human right by understanding the role this concept plays within the practice" (p. 8). Beitz describes the "global practice" of human rights as follows: 10 On this point see Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002), pp. 63–64. 11 See also Beitz, p. 65–6 and also John Tasioulas, "Taking Rights Out of Human Rights", Ethics 120 (2010) pp. 647–78 at 669–72. As a first approximation, we might say that it consists of a set of norms for the regulation of the behavior of states together with a set of modes or strategies of action for which violations of the norms may count as reasons. The practice exists within a global discursive community whose members recognize the practice's norms as reason-giving and use them in deliberating and arguing about how to act (p. 8). Beitz claims that the practice began to take on something like its modern form in the aftermath of the Second World War, when the world's powers came together to enumerate a set of binding rules, framed in the language of human rights, concerning the responsibilities of states and the global community. A crucial step in this process was the adoption in 1948 of the non-binding Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). This was followed by the ratification of a number of binding international treaties that served to interpret and supplement the rights adumbrated in the UDHR;12 and the creation of a number of international and regional institutional bodies whose role is to hold states accountable for failures to abide by these treaties.13 The practice was further solidified and refined by individual states taking a wide variety of practical steps to help ensure compliance with human rights norms both within their own borders (creating domestic legislation, modifying their constitutions, adopting particular public policies and institutional arrangements) and outside their borders (employing financial or trade incentives, diplomacy, economic sanctions, and military force). This practice has also been shaped by numerous nongovernmental 12 Among the most important treaties are: the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (1948); the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (both adopted in 1966); the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (1969); the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (1981); and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1990). There have also been a number of important binding regional treaties adopted in Europe, Africa, and the Americas. 13 See James Nickel, "Human Rights," Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, available at plato.stanford.edu/entries/human-rights (accessed February 15, 2011) for a very useful account of the main human rights instruments and institutions. organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Oxfam, whose activities have included drawing attention to human rights abuses, mobilizing public support, and lobbying national governments to engage in reforms that would better realize human rights. How is the practice supposed to help determine the concept of a human right? The key, according to Beitz, is that "questions about the nature and content of human rights [are understood] to refer to objects of the sort called "human rights" in international practice" (p. 102). To be an object of the sort called a "human right" within the practice is to play a certain "functional role" (pp. 103, 136). According to Beitz, the practice of human rights is distinctive, not simply on account of the content of human rights norms but because of the shared understanding of the aims and purposes that human rights standards are supposed to serve (p. 103). Implicit within this shared understanding is a certain conception of the functional role that human rights are supposed to play within global political life (p. 8). This functional role can be understood, Beitz claims, by attending "to the practical inferences that would be drawn by competent participants in the practice from what they regard as valid claims of human rights" (p. 102). The functional role is then taken to be fundamental in fixing the concept of a human right. As he puts it, "we take the functional role of human rights in international discourse and practice as basic: it constrains our conception of human rights from the outset" (p. 103). What is the character of this functional role? According to Beitz, it has three aspects. First, human rights "protect urgent individual interests against certain predictable dangers ("standard threats") to which they are vulnerable under typical circumstances of life in a modern world order composed of states." Second, they "apply in the first instances to the political institutions of states." Third, they "are matters of international concern. A government's failure to carry out its first-level responsibilities with respect to human rights may be a reason for action for appropriately placed and capable "second-level" agents outside the state" (p. 109). According to Beitz, then, human rights are just those rights that are well-suited to fulfilling these three aspects of the functional role of the things called "human rights" within the global practice of human rights. There is no presumption that all (or only) the things that happen to be called "human rights" within the practice satisfy this criterion. Something might be called a human right within the practice and yet be poorly suited for these roles-in which assertions of such rights would be misguided. And there may be human rights that are not yet recognized within existing practice. The practice is "essential to the nature of human rights" (pp. 103–4), but does not determine infallibly what human rights there are. Like Griffin's personhood account, Beitz's practice-based account offers a clear and in many ways compelling answer to the question of what makes human rights special. They are special, first, because they necessarily and primarily involve states as the duty-bearers (pp. 113–15). This aspect of human rights serves to distinguish them from certain other moral rights, such as the moral right not to be tortured, which may be violated irrespective of whether or not a state is involved (or whether or not states even exist). Second, human rights are special inasmuch as they are matters of international concern.14 Beitz does not claim that human rights entail that other states have a duty to interfere when the rights are not respected. But he does hold that they have a reason to do so. This reason may be outweighed by other considerations, but under certain circumstances it may be decisive (pp. 115–17). 14 See also John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999); Joseph Raz, "Human Rights without Foundations," University of Oxford Faculty of Legal Studies Research Paper Series 14/2007, p. 9; and Andrea Sangiovanni, "Justice and the Priority of Politics to Morality," Journal of Political Philosophy 16 (2008), pp. 137–64, at p. 154. Moreover, other states and members of the international community are permitted to "hold states accountable" for human rights violations and to "assist an individual state to satisfy human rights standards in cases in which the state itself lacks the capacity to do so"( p. 109). This feature of human rights makes them different in an important way from other moral rights, including rights that generate duties that apply principally to one's own state. Suppose that one has a moral right not to be taxed beyond a certain threshold. One could argue that this cannot plausibly be thought of as a human right, since raising taxes beyond the threshold is not a matter of international concern. Other states would not have a reason to interfere with such a fiscally over-demanding state. The practice-based account also appears to avoid the problems with Griffin's personhood account. It is better able to account for certain problematic rights, such as rights against discrimination. Surely being discriminated against in various ways could be sufficiently serious so as to entail a duty on the part of the state to avoid discrimination and a reason for other states to take steps to ensure that it did so. It can also make sense of the political aspect of human rights, since it is states that are taken to be the primary bearers of the duties entailed by claims about human rights. The practice-based account is, however, problematic in other respects. One problem is that tying the concept of a human right so closely to the emerging practice has a number of highly implausible substantive implications. Suppose, for example, that a nuclear war or some other calamitous event were to result in the destruction of the system of sovereign nation-states. Or suppose that a single superpower state were to overthrow the other states and forcibly annex their territory. Since the functional role of objects of the kind called "human rights" within our current practice makes essential reference to a plurality of nation-states, it would follow that there are no human rights in such a world.15 For in such a world none of the things that we would think of as human rights are able to fulfill the relevant functional role. Now suppose, however, that the absence of (a plurality of) states encourages acts of genocide and wrongful killings on the part of those trying to ascend to a position of power. Surely, such acts would constitute human rights violations. Indeed, one of the many reasons we have to prevent such a situation is precisely because it would likely be disastrous with respect to human rights fulfillment. Or consider the possibility of radical change to the practice of human rights itself. Take a real-world example that Beitz discusses at some length-the propensity of the practice of human rights to curtail state aggression and facilitate peace among the world's states. Beitz notes that there is some evidence to think that this was at least a subsidiary aim of the drafters of the UDHR. He also notes that to say that this is true of the existing practice is implausible, since "the empirical premise required for the argument that encouraging respect for human rights promotes international peace is notably insecure" (p. 132). But we can easily imagine that the future could take a different turn, such that the UDHR and subsequent treaties, while couched in the language of human rights, come to be seen and interpreted as molded in the service of curtailing state aggression and facilitating peace among the world's states. Presumably, the list of individual rights that would serve the function of curtailing state aggression and facilitating peace would look very different from what we would take to be a plausible list of human rights today. For example, it is not unlikely that rights to political participation or against discrimination on the basis of race and gender might be left off such a list. In affording the practice the kind of privileged 15 See also John Tasioulas, "Are Human Rights Essentially Triggers for Intervention?" Philosophy Compass, 4 (2009), pp. 938-50; and Laura Valentini, "Human Rights: A Freedom-Centered View" (unpublished ms). role in determining the concept of a human right, it seems that the practice-based account makes us, in some measure, hostage to historical fortune.16 There is also a second, more general problem with the practice-based account, namely, that it obscures the crucial distinction between human rights and the form in which they should be institutionalized. Beitz is surely correct that it is vitally important to pay attention to various kinds of contingent facts about the global order-the existence of territorially defined states, the absence of world government, and so on-when considering how to institutionalize human rights. Moreover, it seems important to pay attention to facts about the way human rights are currently institutionalized. After all, the fact that we have a global practice of human rights is a historically unprecedented and remarkable achievement; and it would be irresponsible to put it unnecessarily at risk. But none of this entails that we should jettison the idea that human rights are prior to and independent of the way in which they ought to be institutionalized in current global practice. One way to bring that out is to think about the origin of the practice of human rights. What were the prime instigators supposed to be doing? The natural thing to say, of course, is that they were trying to institutionalize pre-existing human rights (see also Griffin, p. 204). Of course, they doubtless had conflicting views about the content, grounds, and other aspects of human rights. But surely there was something that they were trying to institutionalize. They were trying to institutionalize human rights, and they were trying to do so in an appropriate way. But if the practice-based account is right, then there was nothing to institutionalize, 16 Could Beitz escape this implication by rigidifying to the current practice within the actual world? This seems difficult to reconcile with his acceptance of the fact that the functional role of human rights evolves. He accepts the implication that the concept of a human right has changed as a result of changes in the shared understanding of the aims and purposes of human rights norms. appropriately or inappropriately. For there was no practice, and therefore no objects of the kind called "human rights" within the practice.17 There are, to be sure, familiar social practices that are not dependent on norms that are prior to and independent of their proper institutionalization-indeed, for which the idea of the proper institutionalization of such norms makes little sense. For example, consider certain conventional social practices, such as the norms associated with dress and communal dining. Roughly, what it is to be a norm of this kind is for enough individuals to behave in a certain way, to regard behaving in that way in a certain positive light, and to take the fact that others generally behave in that way and regard behaving in that way in a positive light to be a reason to act in that way.18 This seems correct, for example, of the conventional norm among Oxford dons that one must pass the Port to the left. But the practice of human rights does not seem to be like this at all. It does not seem accidental or arbitrary that the UDHR happens to contain the particular rights it does, that the main treaties contain the particular rights they do, that states have written into their constitutions the particular rights they have. The point is that the practice seems to be crucially dependent upon a notion of human rights that is prior to and independent of their proper institutionalization. In tying the concept of a human right so closely to the function that the things called "human rights" within the practice are supposed to be playing within global politics, Beitz's practice-based account obscures this point and gives a distorted account, both of human rights themselves and of the practice of human rights. 17 As Beitz puts it, "[t]here is no assumption of a prior or independent layer of fundamental rights whose nature and content can be discovered independently of a consideration of the place of human rights in the international realm and its normative discourse and then used to interpret and criticize international doctrine"(p. 102). 18 See Nicholas Southwood, "The Authority of Social Norms," in New Waves in Meta-Ethics, ed. Michael Brady (Palgrave MacMillan, 2010), pp. 234-48' and "The Moral/Conventional Distinction", Mind (forthcoming). TOWARDS A STRUCTURAL PLURALIST ACCOUNT We have examined two influential recent accounts of human rights and argued that neither offers a wholly satisfactory answer to the question of what is special about human rights. This raises the question: What would a more adequate account of human rights look like? First, like Griffin's account (and unlike Beitz's), it will be practiceindependent and substantive. It will be practice-independent inasmuch as it conceives of human rights as moral rights that are prior to and independent of their institutionalization within global practice. It will be substantive inasmuch as it conceives of human rights as moral rights that serve the role of protecting certain core interests that we all share to an adequate degree. Second, unlike Griffin's account, it will be pluralist. That is to say that it will conceive of human rights as moral rights that serve to protect a broader range of human interests than merely an interest in being able to maintain and manifest our normative agency.19 Exactly which interests belong on the list is a difficult matter, but it should be rich enough to account for paradigmatic human rights such as those against racial and sexual discrimination. To this end, Martha Nussbaum suggests that we should include an interest in what she calls "affiliation," which involves being "treated as a dignified being whose worth is equal to that of others."20 James Nickel, another pluralist, posits an interest in avoiding "severely unfair treatment" as a ground 19 Pluralist accounts of human rights have been offered by, e.g., Martha Nussbaum, "Human Rights and Human Capabilities," Harvard Human Rights Journal, 20 (2007), pp.2-24, and Sex and Social Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); James Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights (2nd edition) (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007); and John Tasioulas, "Human Rights, Universality, and the Values of Personhood: Retracing Griffin's Footsteps," European Journal of Philosophy 10 (2002), pp. 79-100. 20 See Nussbaum, "Human Rights and Human Capabilities"and Sex and Social Justice, pp. 41-44. of human rights.21 And John Tasioulas talks of an interest in what he calls "living harmoniously with others," which might also play this role.22 At the same time, of course, the list should be restricted to our most urgent interests that will be relevant, so as not to invite profligacy in human rights claims. Third, like Beitz's account (and unlike Griffin's), the account should be political in the sense that it will conceive of human rights as having distinctively "political" kinds of agents as the primary duties-bearers, coupled with a prima facie right on the part of other well-placed agents (be they political agents, individuals, or whatever) to intervene insofar as these duties are not being met. This does not mean that the primary duty-bearers must be states, as suggested by Beitz, Rawls, and others. Rather, the primary duty-bearers must have certain more general features that we would recognize as distinctively political: they must claim for themselves a certain kind of authority, they must wield power and have the capacity to coerce those over whom they exercise authority on a large scale, and so on. In our world, the duty bearers of human rights are often states and agents of the state, but we can imagine other kinds of entities having such characteristics. Let us call this the "structural pluralist" account of human rights. According to the structural pluralist account, human rights are moral rights that protect certain urgent human interests and that are directed in the first instance to authoritative institutions and those agents that carry out official roles within them. What is special about human rights is that they are moral rights that combine these structural and substantive properties. A structural pluralist account of human rights appears to combine the strengths of the personhood and the practice-based accounts while avoiding their weaknesses. 21 Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights, p. 62. 22 Tasioulas, "Human Rights, Universality, and the Values of Personhood," p. 88. We saw that the personhood account encountered difficulties both in accounting for the full range of human rights and in explaining the sense in which human rights are political. A structuralist pluralist account of human rights deals with the first problem by expanding the list of fundamental interests beyond a narrow concern with our normative agency. And it deals with the second problem by conceiving of human rights as having a distinctively political structure. The problem with the practice-based account is that it ties human rights too closely to contingent features of the actual world and that it elides the important distinction between human rights and their proper institutionalization. The structural pluralist account avoids the first problem by conceiving of the political character of human rights more broadly than the practice-based account. It therefore need not say that a world without states is necessarily a world without human rights. (To be sure, it does say that a world without political entities of any kind is a world without human rights, but this seems to be the intuitively correct result.) This account avoids the second problem by holding that the practice of human rights is irrelevant to what a human right is. It therefore allows us to maintain a strict distinction between human rights and their appropriate institutionalization within global practice. What we have offered here is only a very cursory sketch. Much more would have to be done in order to assess the viability of the structural pluralist account, and of course there are different ways in which it could be specified. For example, Thomas Pogge has offered a kind of structural-pluralist account in our sense, but we need not follow him in claiming that human rights are claims on the design of social institutions. Pogge's view has the deeply counterintuitive implication that if a person is tortured by a "rogue" government official in a society that generally is very effective at preventing torture, then that persons human rights are not violated, even though their moral rights are.23 In our view, we should instead conceive of human rights as claims directed in the first instance against agents of a certain kind-those holding political authority of some sort-that they conduct themselves in certain ways. Such an account, we believe, offers the best hope of explaining what is special about human rights. 23 Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights, p. 65. | {
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Subsets and Splits